4 Crisis

A gentle tap on his shoulder suddenly pulled Elliot out of his trance as he heard a flat voice calling out to him, "Mr. Kai are you alright?"

"Y.. Yes. Please call me Kai." Elliot instantly stuttered, a little embarrassed. "I am sorry for worrying you. I was just too nervous I guess." his ears turned slightly pink as he muttered.

"It's okay. I thought I scared you. Do you need me to brief you once again?" Rain tried to be gentle, but her voice came out monotonous, nonetheless.

"No. It's okay. I heard everything that you said." He lied. 

"Okay then, Go and find Max. He will explain everything to you in detail. He will be your mentor during your period here. Feel free to come to me or Andrea if you need us for anything. Make good of your opportunity and gain as much experience as you can. Hope you have a great time here. Good luck" saying this Rain dismissed the man instantly returning back to her work.

Elliot turned around in a daze and began heading towards the door. But before he reached the door, he stumbled and his body hit the book shelf placed beside the door. Although the book shelf wasn't that huge but it still had some thick files which held some of the important records and documents of their office as Andrea was scared of security breach and preferred physical documents over e-files and hence they were placed in her office.

The collision caused all those heavy files to rain down on Elliot.

Elliot was dazed to begin with and this sudden collision caused him to further lose his focus and he was unable to move in time. Knowing that he messed up and seeing all those files leaving their places in shelf and following gravity along with the shelf itself, Elliot shut his eyes and waited for those documents to assault him. But the rain he was expecting didn't happen even after a few seconds and he opened one of his eyes in confusion.

To his surprise, he saw Rain putting back the last document on the shelf. He was utterly confused. 'Wasn't she already sitting behind the desk right now? How the hell did she appear beside me now? And how the hell did she manage to stop all those documents from falling over? There's no way a normal human can move this fast.' 

"Be careful, Kai. I get it that you are nervous but it's not good to lose your focus on the first day of your internship. You could've been hurt just now. Luckily I was standing nearby you and only a couple of files fell down. Else, you would have to make a trip to the hospital on your first day here." Rain said with her usual poker face and flat voice.

Elliot was even more perplexed by Rain's words as he couldn't believe what was true. At last, he decided to trust what Rain said as he was in a dazed state just now could have been mistaken about what he witnessed. Moreover, Rain couldn't be lying with those beautiful eyes of hers, could she? And also it was not humanely possible to stop the entire book shelf from falling along with all these documents, specially if one was seated at Rain's chair behind the desk.  'I mean how fast a human could get?' Elliot thought as decided to believe Rain's words and blamed his dazed state for his confusion.

Elliot then left the room with his heart pounding against his chest. It took a while for him to calm down and as soon as he did, his eyes narrowed as he remembered something. He took out his phone and looked at it for a while. As if not understanding, he tapped on that page again and again. His brows furrowed more, and he had a confused expression on his face.

A tap on his shoulder put a stop on his train of his thoughts as he quickly put his phone away and turned back, startled. A man with a sharp features and neatly trimmed stubble greeted his sight.

"You are not supposed to zone out on the first day of your work. It leaves a bad impression on your colleagues." Before Elliot could say anything in his plea, the man continued "Save your justification, there is no time to waste on baseless talks. There is a lot of work to do before this week ends and we could use an extra brain and a couple of hands. Now follow me and I will tell you about your  work for today. By the way, I am Max, your mentor.  So, don't let my reputation down and work hard. Now, follow me." Saying this the man quickly made his way to his workstation followed by a flabbergasted Elliot.

The day came to an end with Elliot running between the desks and printing the asked documents. 

After leaving the work, Elliot inconspicuously headed towards a deserted ally, and quickly boarded  a black Audi parked there. As soon as his back hit the back of car seat, he picked up a small bottle and gulped down a whole bottle of water. It was a tiring day for him. He took a deep breath to calm his hitched breath "The information you gave me is incomplete. There is no record about the person called Erena even though she held such an important position as second secretory of team leader as well as share the cabin with second most important person in team one," an eerily calm voice echoed in the car as the face and voice of the person was devoid of any emotions which made him even more scary which was a polar opposite to his friendly nature in the company today.

"I am sorry sir. It was only a year ago that she joined the company. I too came to know about it today. Since we had to be away for a year for our last mission, I made the report before heading out for the mission. Since Vision rarely accept new members for the core teams of the company, especially after that incident three years ago, I got carefree and did not double check the authenticity of my report  which led to this blunder.  I am ready to accept any punishment." the person behind the wheels apologized in the emotionless but sincere tone. 

"There is no time to punish you now. Time is of importance, and we must find about that person before the annual meeting at the end of next month, which means we have less than forty days to complete our quest. The future of The Apexi Corporation now lies in our hands and I will not tolerate any error in our plans. Especially now, when we are this close in deciding it's fate." the same emotionless voice echoed again.

Elliot then left the car and headed to his 'new' apartment which he rented specially for this 'internship'. After all, he was supposed to be a regular college going student from a typical middle-class family according to the resume that he submitted at the company. He had specially rented a place in the area where most of the people in the company resided so that he could form bonds with them and gather useful information from them. He was thoroughly prepared for this mission of his.

The days passed with Elliot adapting to his 'new office' while keeping his eyes on the possible threats to the company. The little incident from the Andrea's office on the first day of his office was long been pushed to the back of his mind by him.

Although he had forgotten about that incident, out of the many people he was keeping his eyes on, Rain was one of them even though she was not on his suspect list. In fact, she topped the chart when it came to garnering Elliot's attention. Even Elliot was unable to explain this sudden behaviour of his. He wanted to and he forced himself to stay away from her but would always find his eyes following her automatically whenever she was around him. He was confused as hell at the sudden absurdity of his behaviour but nonetheless decided to ignore this fact as he had more important things to focus on.

A few days later, one phone call early in the morning put the entire team one on frenzy. One of the new products of the company that they were responsible for had some issues and the shop owners in the entire city were complaining about it. It was a crucial time for them, and the success of this product was very important for them as well as the company. Otherwise, it would cost them a lot and would have bad impact in their year-end meeting.

The phones were ringing continuously while a part of the team tried to reassure them tirelessly. But the calls were still not stopping. After the continuous brainstorming by the entire team for half a day, they came to a solution and the matter was solved by the end of the day. They could finally rest after tirelessly working for fourteen hours. 

But one thing was clear. It was a premediated endeavor of someone to tarnish their company's reputation and to sabotage it. Andrea was aware of such tactics use by their rival companies which she faced years in the past and gave them the taste of their own medicine. So, she decided to investigate the matter and teach their rival a lesson this time as well.

But unknown to them, their rival this time was not their regular rival, but someone with greater motive than just sabotaging the company's name. Otherwise, how could a small problem in the settings of the product which could be solved by a phone call to customer care was escalated to this extent that almost crumbled the company's reputation in a day. Their enemy was someone powerful this time.