Cristal - Novella (5 page)

Harry had made sure all the hiring paperwork
was taken care of. He even found an apartment for her to live in
and paid one year of the lease up front. She was so thrilled to be
one of the few gamers to have the opportunity to meet the famous
Harry Doubt that she had heard so much about in the discussion
forums.

His father, Aaron Doub, professor of
theoretical physics at Global Nation University of New York, was
pretty famous too. He was intelligent and entertaining without even
trying to be. People paid big dollars to watch him guest speak at
conferences. He introduced himself as a “futurist” and a “mad
scientist.” His quirky habits were his signature. He continually
pushed his black, horn-rimmed glasses up on the bridge of his
beak-like nose, and waved his hands around excitedly, explaining a
breakthrough in something unheard of, like worm holes. He wore a
T-shirt that said, “I’m from 2025.” His presentations were captured
on thousands of YouTube videos, which Truth Seekers shared on
discussion forums. Too bad he died so suddenly. Harry must have
been so devastated to lose such an ingenious father.

After working for eight months at GN, Joanna
barely saw the twenty-two-year-old genius. The only time Harry
spoke to her directly was when he wanted to ask her something about
a GN work-related matter. It was always Cristal who met with Harry
to brainstorm ideas after work. Sometimes Gabriel, codename
Graphix
, Harry’s buddy and one of the top Truth Seekers,
would be invited on those overnight mission-planning sessions. For
some reason, Joanna was always kept out of the loop.

Not this time. Harry personally invited her
for this mission. And knowing that it could help solve the mystery
around the disappearance of her father made it even more
attractive.

When she stepped into the shop, she did a
quick sweep of the store. Like in the game, she always made a point
to check her surroundings.

There were two customers waiting in line at
the counter. Joanna looked to the back. There was an old man
sitting and reading the paper. There were two teen girls eating.
She could see Harry sitting at a table, working on his laptop with
his head leaning forward. He wore a brown sport jacket, white
T-shirt, and jeans. Nothing seemed suspicious.

Joanna straightened her skirt and walked up to
Harry’s table.

Be normal. He’s like any other guy. Just go up to
him and say, “Harry, I won’t let you down on this mission.”
She
shook her head.
No, that sounds dumb. Say, “It’s going to be fun
to be doing a real mission with you, Harry.”

By the time she arrived at his table, all
she could blurt out was, “Harry, I’m here.”

Without looking up, Harry motioned for her
to sit down across from him.

“Great, glad you’re here. Cristal and Kerim
will join us on video chat. We all need to discuss our next
mission.”

What?
She could feel the blood in her temples
pulse.

“Oh? Okay…” she managed to say as she sat
down.

She stared at Harry’s face while her heart
pounded in her chest.
Could he hear the beats like tom-tom drums
on her ribs? This is strike one.
I deserve to be the mission
lead. I have more influence points, power, and assets in the online
game than Ms. Cristal Know-it-all.

“Joanna. Will you be able to decrypt the
file I sent to you?”

She smirked to acknowledge him, but Harry
didn’t stop staring at the screen.

“Never mind, Cristal just sent me a text.
She already decrypted it. She will brief us soon with what she’s
uncovered.”

She knew she was the best programmer in
Harry’s team, albeit, Harry often touted Cristal as being the
other.
Working with Cristal will be interesting.

Zero:
“Shadow is on his way to bring
you to Graphix. Saw your text about Shadow. Sorry but you are going
to work with him whether you like it or not. I won’t change the
mission instructions.”

Cristal looked down at her watch. She had been
standing outside the Global Nation’s building for thirty minutes.
What was taking Kerim so long?

She started to text Kerim to find out his
ETA when she heard an engine roar from a distance. Kerim, aka
Shadow
, dressed in a leather jacket and black jeans was
riding into the Global Nation’s parking lot on his black and yellow
Ducati.

He decelerated until he came up to the
entrance, stopping in front of her. He removed his black helmet to
reveal thick dark wavy hair, slicked back against his head. He
pushed his sunglasses on top of his head, his grey steel eyes
shining against the sunlight.

Before she could say anything, he waved for her to
climb onto his bike and handed her an extra helmet.
Really? He
wants me to ride that thing?
She paused for a moment before
placing the helmet on. Kerim motioned with his head for her to
climb on.
Is he serious? Does he think I’m one of his fan
girls?

“Come on, get on,” he said. “Harry wants us
to video chat in 15 minutes.”

She paused for a second, and climbed on the
back of the bike.

“Hold tight, Cristal,” he called back to her
as he started the engine.

Mmm, I love his sexy accent.

She glanced around wondering if one of her co-workers
had seen them. There was no one in hearing distance who could have
said that. Weird.

She shut her eyes as the motorcycle started moving.
The vibration of the engine made her insides churn.
Cristal leaned closer to Kerim as he made a sharp turn. She
tried to keep a quarter inch distance between them but was failing
miserably at it. The bike sped through the streets, but she dared
not open her eyes. Her heart was pounding hard; her knees felt
weak, and her head was spinning inside the heaviness of the helmet.
If I’d known he was going to pick me up on a motorcycle, I could
have taken a cab,
she thought to herself.

Cristal had never felt comfortable in
enclosed places, partly due to her fears of being caught off guard
by an asthma attack. As a child, her father had not wanted her to
rely on a puffer. Instead, he had trained her to control her
breathing when she felt an oncoming attack. Unfortunately, this was
hard to do now with a helmet strapped to her head.

After what felt like a short but just as
dizzying roller-coaster ride, she noticed that the engine had
stopped and cautiously opened her eyes. She took in her
surroundings and realized that they were parked in front of
Gabriel’s apartment building.

She let go of Kerim as he climbed off his bike. He
removed his helmet and offered his hand to her. She tried to tell
him that she didn’t need any help but she swayed off balance, her
legs betraying how dizzy and nauseous she felt.

Kerim grabbed her by the waist with one arm. She felt
her stomach squirm.

Get this helmet off. I can’t breathe!

As if hearing her thoughts, Kerim reached
over with his other hand, unsnapped the strap under her chin,
gently removed the helmet and set it on the seat. The cool air
caressed her cheeks. She took deep breaths, drinking in the oxygen.
Part of her realized that Kerim’s other arm was still wrapped tight
around her waist. She wanted to gain her composure but with trying
to get the air back into her lungs, all she could do was look up at
him.

This close, she was able to see that his skin was a
smooth olive color; his nose perfectly straight and Romanesque, and
his grin was mischievous but playful.

With the little energy she could muster, she managed
to pull his arm off her waist and firmly pushed him aside. He
stepped back, letting her pass. Yes, he was extremely attractive
but that was a superficial asset. And yet, she always seemed to be
drawn to the
Christian Bale
or
Johnny Depp
rebellious
type of guys. Just like her chocolate ice cream addiction, she knew
she had to stay away from bad boys, even if they were delicious
desserts.

She felt herself blush and hoped Kerim hadn’t
noticed.

She turned toward the entrance of the
building and marched straight up to the buzzer, leaving Kerim
standing by his motorcycle. She paused for a moment her head still
dazed from the ride. Finally, she managed to enter Gabriel’s buzzer
code. The sound of the ring tone rang out. After several rings,
Gabriel’s voice echoed out from the speaker.

“Who is it?”

“Open the door. It’s Cristal.”

“Sure. C’mon in.”

A loud “beep beep beep” sound came from the
speaker. She started to pull the glass door open but Kerim who had
come up beside her was now reaching his arm out to hold it
open.

Okay, so he’s a gentleman but it doesn’t
mean I’m going to fall for that.

She walked inside trying to focus on the
mission at hand. Kerim followed several steps behind her. Not
interested in small talk, she headed straight to the elevator
bay.

The building was built in the 1940s; the
lighting was poor, the walls were covered with fake orange suede
flower wallpaper, which may have been installed in the 70s, and the
carpet, once a bright red, was now a greyish brown. It wasn’t the
aesthetics of the interior that made her stomach queasy. It was the
strange feeling of someone or something watching her every time she
was in the building.

As if sensing her unease, Kerim reached out
and touched her arm. She glared at him and brushed his hand away
from her.
You hardly know me Mr. Ilgaz. Don't even pretend you
understand what I'm feeling.

The elevator finally arrived, creaking and
squeaking as the door opened. She stepped in quickly and pressed
the button. Kerim walked in and stood beside her. His gaze was
unmistakably all on her.  She fidgeted with the strap on her
backpack.

Don't get distracted. Good-looking guys
think that they can melt a girl's heart just by throwing her a
little attention. You've been burned before.

Her thoughts brought flashbacks of her final
year at Global Nation University. She had just finished tutoring
Mikael, her infatuation at the time, for their final exam. During
the tutoring session, he surprised her by asking her out for
dinner. Of course when she told Harry about her big date, he had
made a sarcastic remark saying that Mikael was a dumb shmuck only
out for one thing. She remembered telling Harry to butt out of her
love life in not so many words. Harry couldn’t understand her then
and certainly didn’t understand her now. Unfortunately, the date
ended up being a disaster just as Harry had predicted. Mikael
did
only want one thing.

After a breathtaking kiss and some fondling
under her shirt, Mikael whispered in her ear, “Hey, could you write
my final term paper after this?”

And that was the end of her twenty-minute
relationship with hunky Mikael.

Kerim chuckled quietly to himself, jolting
Cristal back to the present.

She raised an eyebrow and shot him a
glare.

“What’s so funny?”

He looked down at his boots, obviously
struggling to keep from breaking into uncontrollable laughter.

“Nothing. I was just thinking of a girl I
once knew,” he managed to choke out between laughs.

The elevator lurched to a stop, the doors
sliding open. Cristal took the opportunity to exit first and keep
her distance from him. Okay so maybe he wasn’t laughing at her. But
it reminded her of how awful she felt when kids taunted and laughed
at her in grade school. Even after all these years, she still felt
awkward and different. No matter how sophisticated she had become,
she knew she was still a geek through and through. She preferred a
good book to a night out clubbing. She liked hacking into secure
networks just for the fun of it. She never understood why girls her
age enjoyed shopping and hanging out at the mall. All these things
meant that she didn't have many girl friends to hang out with. This
was who she was and no amount of de-nerdifying her was going to
change anything.

Kerim followed Cristal a few steps behind as
they walked down the dark hallway. She could hear his soft chuckles
and the crackle of old incandescent bulbs hanging from the ceiling,
the only other sound accompanying their footsteps. Even though he
irritated her, she felt a sense of calm knowing he was
there. He felt like someone familiar to her. And it didn’t
hurt to have someone around because this place definitely gave her
the creeps.

Finally, they reached Gabriel’s apartment
door. She glanced up at Kerim briefly before knocking. He winked
back at her.

The door squeaked and she turned towards it.
It opened a crack, before swinging wide open. An unshaven Gabriel,
his dreadlocks tied up in a short ponytail, greeted her. He had his
usual goofy grin on his face, but she could see that his dark brown
eyes were reddened, probably from hours spent on the computer.
Dressed in a worn grey bathrobe, T-shirt, and jogging pants, he
looked like he must have been playing another “all-nighter.”

Cristal opened her mouth to speak at the
exact moment when Kerim, standing behind her, coughed loudly.
Gabriel’s eyes widened, his smile quickly disintegrating into a
grim line. He looked past her shoulder towards Kerim.

“Who the hell are you?” he demanded. He was
always protective of her. He too had lost his father a few years
back.

“Kerim Ilgaz,” Kerim replied calmly. “Harry
recruited me to the Truth Seekers last week.”

Gabriel narrowed his eyes. He didn’t seem so
easily convinced. “Harry never told me about you. And he never said
you’d be coming.”

Cristal was stumped. Why didn’t Harry tell
Gabriel about Kerim? He was always careful about who he recruited.
Gabriel was Harry’s closest friend and most trusted Truth Seeker.
He never kept Gabriel in the dark. Until now.