All set

Charlotte arrived at the house she was paying a room for when it was close to 9.

Dordives had asked her account number before she parted from her place, and just now she had texted Charlotte that the transfer was successfully done. Now that Charlotte didn't have that pressing feeling of not having enough to do her research, she could focus her mind on doing her own things.

"But first, I need to make it work."

At the begining, she had thought about making her own AI to help her make some cash and some other stuff. The law, however, banned the usage of personal AI, even more to make them work directly work while making money, such as with stocks.

Their reasoning was that those who didn't know how to manage it would get left out and without a chance to be in the great stages of the world. Or something like that, Charlotte didn't understand it well enough, so she didn't pay attention to this kind of thing.

Now that she wanted to make it, she needed it to be foolproof. She had to make an AI so good it had to be regarded as human by the monitoring AIs of the governments, so she wouldn't garner unnecessary attention. And now she was going to start constructing it from what she learned today. For that, she had to forgo the time of computing her materials as she needed her laptop to do it.

When it was getting close to 12, she finished the first part, which was the AI working on a stock market. Now she needed to make it more human-like, a job that took her that wasted completely her night, the sun was foreshadowing his rise, it was around four in the morning.

"I can sleep for an hour at best… And I was thinking of doing things more slowly… Heh." Charlotte said once she saw the time, she was so immersed on it that she didn't notice the time it took her to complete it.

She needed her desktop to have a connection to her laptop so it could access the net, after making the connection, she let it conduct some test runs as she went to have a light sleep so she could cope with today's labor.

"Miss Charlotte, are you okay?"

Asked the normal looking teammate of hers, this was the 3rd cup of coffee she had drunk in two hours since arriving. Parker Bacher was of average height, roughly of 1.78 m, he was wearing a white shirt and jeans.

After Friday's showy argument between her and Laurent, everyone had stopped trying to woo Charlotte. She was fiercer than what she showed, and they all wanted to keep their dignity in a safe place. Specially with such a tired look, having bags under her eyes. Every person knew that the temperament was narrowly linked with how much rest one had had the night before!

"I'm fine, just doing what I was asked for."

She had finished her part of the day roughly 20 minutes after starting. And at that moment she was just looking at what the other teams were doing through a network she had just devised.

When she got to the meeting hall, the first thing she did was telling Laurent her parting time and the days she would work as well as the time of the day she was giving him the results, leaving no room for any kind contact during the day. Everyone had heard her telling him it with a domineering tone, so no one dared to bother her. The first one to interrupt the silence was Parker after watching her go get herself another cup of the acclaimed drink.

Ugh, when can I go home… Such a waste of time…

When it was close to noon, she was getting pretty bored, having finished all she had to do and looking at all the other teams on the city, she could already see how they were all faring.

Her team was just a little behind investigating the connection points, in consideration to the one who was first. In the overall spectrum they were just average, not so behind and not so ahead.

In regards to the direction the teams were taking, she was pretty happy, because no one appeared to have grasped the way she did the hacking. If they had, there would be a team which was going way too fast in comparison to the others, which wasn't the case.

Hmm? Now that I think about it, he truly left me to do the least… So if I were to finish it faster, that wouldn't be a problem, uhu.

After thinking about it, she closed up all the unrelated things, got up from her seat and went to Laurent's side with the company's laptop in her hand.

"Hey, look, I finished today's tasks. Can I leave now?"

"Huh..?"

Laurent replied absentmindedly, he couldn't process it fast enough for it to not be shown in his face. Getting annoyed at his lack of response, Charlotte opened her mouth once again.

"I finished what you told me to do for today, so I'm giving it so you can check it over, say it all is okay and leave, okay?" she finished with apparent irritation in her face.

"Eh, yes, gimme a second here. I'll finish something real quick."

Being replied in a positive way, she rested herself in the wall behind Laurent. While waiting, she saw what he was doing and frowned.

Why are you doing it so slow! Just type faster! It's not that complicated to see that it's, no, don't do that… Why! No, delete that! Ehh, yes, no… What am I seeing…

She was getting annoyed at how poorly he was doing, without even realizing she was also part of the problem. He was getting too intimidated by having her stay behind him! He felt she was a superior criticizing everything he did, and that was making him make more and more mistakes!

He finished after 20 minutes, she was dumbfounded at how long it took.

"Ok, let me check it." He said as he stretched his hand.

She reacted two seconds later after hearing him cough.

"Yes, here's it."

As he started reviewing her work, he talked to her.

"Now, if you finished today's portion, you can start doing the other parts I gave you this morning, it'll be better as you'll have free time when Thursday comes."

"Eh?"

Not understanding his meaning, she couldn't help but make a sound.

"What. You don't want to work more just because you did it a little faster? Heh, that's not how it's done, you know."

Really, that's why noobies are so hard to deal with. He thought.

"No, that's not it, I mean, I did everything you gave me this morning."

"Please, don' joke with it, it's way too much…"

He stopped talking as he was looking through her work. She had indeed looked through every point she was in charge of, doing her assigned work for the week and way too organized at that, albeit there being less than what was expected.

"Hou, impressive, really!" Emotion could be felt in his voice. "I don't understand how exactly you did it so fast, but it's magnificent. But I don't get something, there are some files you didn't take into account."

He said as he signaled for her to take a look at his screen. In there he showed her the files she had missed.

Well, obviously, those aren't the files I designed… Oh, I'll be damned.

"Oh, sorry, I guess I was too tired…"

Way to get busted huh!?

"Hahaha, yes, I can see you're tired but please, keep in mind we need to do an excellent job!"

He answered while smiling warmly at her.

He had noticed she had circles under her eyes, he suspected she was fooling around all weekend, partying or something like that. But now he thought differently, he believed she had done some research during her free time at home, maybe atoning for her attitude last Friday!

Really, you're not so bad after all! He thought with glee.

… Don't hope so much from me, please… Charlotte thought while smiling wryly internally, she could see thourgh his thoughts!

"Well, as I can see you did an excellent job today, I guess you can leave now, but finish it all tomorrow." Taking his eyes off her, he looked at the other three. "You guys, aren't you ashamed? Someone who doesn't even have a degree finished a task way faster than you all! Please show some enthusiasm and give your everything right here!"

He said encouragely to the others, as well as to himself.

"Now that I take look, it's time to lunch, let's get something to eat and continue after that. Miss Char- er Eschete, are you eating with us?"

"No thanks, I'll get something at my place." She answered from her lieu of work, where she was getting everything packed.

…

"Why was she so distant today?"

"Yeah, apart from Laurent, we didn't get into a fight with her… Heck, she wasn't that mad at him but still felt so very distant."

As the guys were discussing about her temperament, Laurent said to them.

"Fools, she did her all work throughout weekend, and you hadn't even finished today's part."

"How do you know she worked all weekend, we didn't see each other!"

"Why do you think she was able to finish all this today? She obviously did her research yesterday, I can bet whatever amount you want that's the reason she had bags today." And he would lost it all.

"Ohh! So that's why!"

"Impressive…"

"She must've been mad at you guys because you didn't do anything at all the entire time… Heck, she was a little angry at me too, even after what I said last Friday, I didn't work at all hahaha."

They then decided to go get something to eat and stay until late so they could catch up with Charlotte's work.

*****

When she arrived to her home, she made herself some light meal and went to see how her AI was doing, as it didn't require the files she got from the super-computer, she left it on all day after hiding everything so uncalled fools wouldn't casually discover it. It was better to always be cautious, after all.

After doing some small corrections and improvements, she let her AI work in a stock's market simulation she constructed from one she found in the net. After seeing it was doing nicelly she was left without anything to do.

Uhm, I didn't get anyone's contact… Tomorrow will be another day.

Resting her body in her bed, she started to wonder what she was going to do once her first machine was ready. She wasn't sure what it would be capable of and what implications it would bring to the world, but at the very least, it would bring another technological revolution.

Letting her mind wander, she slowly fell asleep.

She opened her eyes when it was close to 9 in the evening.

"I fell asleep uh, more tired than I thought…"

Getting a huge urge from her body, she went to grab herself something to eat, all while grumbling at how tired she felt.

Eating some soft bread, she started looking to the other materials her desktop had thrown. Almost all were hard to get or expensive to do a preliminary run. If anything, she would have to make it all work in her first try. And so, she started to make the necessary steps so nothing could go wrong.

*****

Next day, in the room that Laurent's family bureau had lent them, they were all working diligently, Charlotte had finished the other things that she had left the day before, and now continued to do her preparations.

At noon, she told Laurent that she was going home asking if she could take the laptop so if anything happened, she could help from there. She finally asked his contact number.

Seeing that she was done with was he had requested of her, he had no problems, if only, it would be a shame not having her around. Even if she was a little moody, she was still a woman and being so small, she inspired everyone the urge to protect her.

"Ok, if anything happens and it can't be done from your place, you need to come immediately. We'll finish what's left and I want you to come thursday to conclude our findings and make a report to the company."

"Okay, bye~"

Charlotte said while waving her hand and smiling, leaving everyone astonished as this was the first time they had seen her smile. It urged them to do their best so on thursday they could see it again. Meanwhile, in her mind.

I can finally be away from this decrepit place!

She was jumping in glee.

****

At her home, Charlotte started to see how every other team was doing from her borrowed laptop.

Finishing it in a short amount of time, she then started to see in what other cities this kind of thing was happening.

From what she knew, every major city of the world that had Necox servers where affected and needed a local team to find all the required information so this would not happen again.

Alas, she could improve her hacking methods seeing how this went while being part of the company. And next time she would try to not be so catchy.

"In Gercia there are only three cities that were affected… The capital, Gercy, the western's biggest city that I live in, Monnimoyas, and Atives… Hmm~ they are all going in the same way as the operations in Monnimoyas, so there's nothing new… Should I look at some other countries?"

*Ping!

"Oh! It has finished!"

Skipping to her desktop, she was finally ready to make some money. Though she wanted to make more blueprints so she could have more options to choose from, she still needed the money to obtain the materials, she also had already 4 sets of blueprints with the materials they needed.

"Go!"

She shouted as she let all her borrowed money into the AI she had just finished, being in the verge of bankruptcy again. With a tear in her eyes, she smiled at her future.

*Knock knock

"Miss Charlotte, please be quieter as it's already late."

"Uh oh, sorry."