Doubt (4 page)

“IS HE SERIOUS?” Joanna asked herself, running her hand through her long, straight, black hair. This was the fourth quality assurance project assigned to her. What an insult to her programming expertise. She wasn’t the top gamer in Truth Seekers for nothing.

She drummed her peach
-colored manicured nails on the armrest of her office chair.

Instead of working, she was entertaining herself by playing the Truth Seekers
’ alternate reality game. The fun part was doing it with no one noticing. It wasn’t hard to do, since she was the newest kid on the block. Her cubicle was the size of a postage stamp stuck way back in the dungeons of the office, far away into the corner next to the archive cabinets. The nearest cubicle to her was ten feet away, so she had all the privacy she needed to play her games. Out of all the games she played, Truth Seekers was the most breathless and demanding, just like the programmer genius who developed it. And like in any game, she wanted the top prize, so she had no doubt that Harry was hers to attain.

The game
’s private message box bounced in the corner of the monitor demanding her attention.

Joanna
’s eyes sparked with excitement.

Zero:
Onyx, let’s meet at the coffee shop across the street in ten minutes. Mist hacked into the database and found some information that might help both Graphix and you find out what happened in the disappearance of your family members. You can work to decode all the encrypted data. But we can talk more when we see each other.

Without hesitation, Joanna logged out of her computer, grabbed her purse and ran out the back door.
She ran across the street, the spiked heels of her black boots tapping the cement. She could see Harry sitting by the window table of the coffee shop. Finally, here was her chance to work alone with Harry on a real Truth Seekers’ mission.

Harry Doubt, the icon of alternate reality game creators was a private guy. Gamers could only play by his personal invitation.
Joanna, who had been playing obsessively on Truth Seekers every night, took the job at Global Nation at the GN University campus in New York City when Harry sent out the following message via the Truth Seekers’ private message system:

“
Looking for a real Truth Seekers’ mission? Only inviting 5 of the top gamers here. You’ll get to work closely with me on missions which are yet to be disclosed.”

Joanna didn
’t think twice. She was twenty-four years old and had just graduated from the Emery College’s Game Art and Design Program in San José, California. She was itching to do something fun. She bought a one-way ticket to New York City.

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?

S
he 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, h
e 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, s
he 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.

For the past year, ever since he got her the job at Global Nation, Harry had been acting strange. Okay, stranger than usual. Come on, who could blame him for being different? The guy had the IQ of Einstein for crying out loud. In her books, Harry’s intense and introverted behavior was what made him intriguing. And sure, his idea of taking the Truth Seeker game offline seemed crazy at the time. When he said that the mission was to help her find her missing father, she was all in. After that, there was no looking back.

Their first mission together was to track
other gamers who also lost a loved one. Remarkably they found a dozen of them, more than what she had anticipated. Harry was able to tie GN with the disappearances of a few of them including her father. She and the other recruits were working together to gather intel from the GN databases to uncover their missing loved ones’ locations.

“
Gabriel, we all are here to help each other. Let us in.”

He
gave her a glazed look. Great, looks like he’s going to be a pain about it. She stepped closer, letting her eyes meet his stare.

With an authoritative tone, she said,
“You know I am the only one who can decode all that encrypted data. Harry told me specifically to bring Kerim. Do you want to find your dad or not?”

Gabriel’s pressed his lips together for a second before shrugging his shoulders.

“Okay, whatever, come in,” he said, stepping back.

Kerim walked past both of them
, headed straight to the living room, and plopped down on the black leather couch, placing his helmet beside him. Cristal gave Gabriel a weak smile. She found a spot at the opposite end of the couch, physically distancing herself from Kerim.

“
Hey, Gabe, do you have any coffee? I’ve got a terrible migraine,” Kerim said.

Gabriel
’s mouth dropped, as if to say something to Kerim before turning to Cristal.

“
Would you like coffee too?” he asked.

“
Sure, thanks,” she said.

Gabriel half-smiled at her, then disappeared into the kitchen
, which was really part of the living/dining room, separated only by a 1970s’ style orange beaded curtain. Gabriel always said the 70s were the coolest time in human history. She and Harry used to rag on him when he would bring out his round table and play his vinyl records of the 70s classic disco hits.

“
Okay, so now what?” Kerim asked.

She needed to get set up and entertaining Kerim wasn’t part of the agenda.
The coffee table was cluttered with gaming magazines, pop cans, chocolate bar wrappers, and a tissue box. She piled the magazines together and pushed them off to the side, giving her space to put down her laptop.