First job

"No wonder it took this long…" Charlotte said as she looked at the size of the folder she got of her little scheme. It was still dark outside, being only 3 or so in the morning

"It's a miracle it even downloaded in one day… This house has indeed a pretty good internet, heheh." She scratched her nose feeling a little guilty of using the connection of the house just like that without asking.

"I should apologize if the subject comes alive… Welp, It won't matter if I'm gone before that." She was truly amazed at the size of it, her computer was almost full, only having the folder she downloaded the day before.

"It's almost a wooping tera! Now… How am I going to organize it so it'll be workable." She started having a headache as she thought of the possible solution.

To work with a file of such magnitude, she needed a pretty good computer or it'll take too long to even read it, not to mention working with it at an optimum level.

"I really need money to buy something bigger and more potent, I hope someone hires me soon… It is truly the nightmare of the poor trying to do something without funds…" Now she was laughing at herself, considering even asking Dordives a place to stay and money to throw away.

"Well, right now I can't do shit. Better get it going with what I have."

And so, Charlotte started to see each file and trying to filter it.

--

*Bzzz bzzz

Looking at her phone, she realized it was already pretty late, right now it was getting close to noon and her stomach was protesting the lack of nutrients it have received for the last two days.

"Unkown number… Who might it be?" Not caring for it, she left it ringing until it went still, only to start ringing again.

"Hmp this lady is quite busy now, who is it?" She answered a little indignant for being interrupted in her oh so important self proclaimed work.

"Yes? I believe this is Miss Charlotte, right? I'm calling from Treller Corporation, my name is Dunn Frousher, I believe you remember me?"

"…" Not quite remembering him immediately, she stayed silent for some seconds until she made the connection to the last interview she had.

"Oh! Yes! I remember, excuse me, I was not expecting an answer, not to mention a call so soon from you." She said as she apologized for her previous rude behavior. Being the little anxious social outcast she was, she tried hard to be as formal as she could.

"Don't worry about it, So, can I ask you to be present in the office at around 3 p.m?" He said while ignoring her ramblings.

"Yes! Of course, I'll be there… So uh about the wages and shifts and it all?"

"We'll be discussing it during the meeting at 3. Please remember, it's important so be at time or we won't be calling you again." He said a little too forcefully for Charlotte to comprehend.

"Ok… I'll be there." She repeated herself, not sure if it was alright to do so.

"Until then, Miss Charlotte." He said and hanged up without waiting for her response.

It wasn't until a minute latter that she realized she had another interview right that afternoon.

"Oh, I'll be damned! I need to cancel it or I'll be losing this job!" She said as she hurried through her mail in search of the phone number of the company she had scheduled this afternoon's interview. After finding it, she hurried it on her phone and pressed the dial button on screen.

Tuu~Tuu~

"Come on~ c'mon~!"

As she waited impatiently for the call to be answered, her stomach was getting more desperate with its rumblings, which made her more desperate to get it done with.

"Hello-"

"Yes! This is Charlotte, I'm call-"

"Welcome to GameWorld Industry, if you're calling for~"

As she heard it continue talking without stopping at her ramblings, she realized it was only an answering machine and it had no way to answer directly at her questions.

At her impatience, she tried to do it as fast as she could, but alas, it was for nothing as she was had to do the same process three times before she was connected to the right person. Having calmed a little bit, she started to speak more slowly than before.

"Hello, this is Charlotte speaking, I was calling because…"

…

After having canceled the interview, she finished the call after some questionnaire she wasn't sure was of any importance.

"Fuuu~ breath in, breath out." She started to breath so she could do things slowly and without any handicaps.

"Remember, Charl, the best thing is to be patient, you won't get far if you rush it." Having calmed down, she started to consider what she ought to do, but her stomach had other plans for her

*Rumble~

"Right, food. Now." She said as she put some clothes on herself and went to the house's kitchen to make something so she won't faint while going to the company. Afterwards, she went and readied herself so she won't be a spectacle again, having learned of Ellen's way of fashion to a stable and lasting work.

--

Charlotte arrived at Treller devs.' floor just ten before 3 in the afternoon . Walking to the receptionist, she was told that they were having an open talk in the building's hall about recruiting a large batch of people. Not understanding why they're doing an open talk, she went to the hall that was in the third floor.

"He could've told me it was in the third floor… I should have just went there instead of going to their floor without having wasted time…" She mumbled about it as she had run almost all the time just to get in time.

"Well, whatever, I hope they don't ask us to bring our own laptops here."

When she arrived to the hall, she noticed there were more people than she expected, around 100 individuals were talking and whispering. Almost all of them had a grave expression, speculating about what they were going to do while talking about the events in the past two days.

"Uh, what happened recently?" As she was unaware of what important matter they were talking about, she found a seat at the back row of the hall and sat there, patiently waiting for the talk to start.

After waiting for 5 minutes, Dunn Frousher entered the room and went to the podium.

"Ahem." Coughing, he spoke to the mic, waiting to the audience to quieten down. Once it was completely silent, he started to talk.

"Hello everybody. I'm glad you all could come here so fast in such short notice. As you all probably know, Treller devs. Is a subsidiary of Necox Incorporation."

Uh? Really...? Charlotte thought, as she didn't know, she stared blankly at Dunn.

"Now, with what happened yesterday, Necox has asked all their branches and subsidiaries to do a collaborative search and identification of the reasoning, circumstances and culprit of the problem experienced. You are all here because we believe you are worth of-"

"Wasn't it an update that went wrong?"

Someone asked, interrupting Dunn in his speech, he frowned and said gravely.

"Please refrain from asking anything until I'm done with our current schedule. As for that question, I'd say no, it was an attack from an unidentified source. Though I'm not that sure of it, it was all I was briefed about."

As he finished saying this, people started to whisper.

"Be quiet, please. Now, you are all individuals who we have a good impression of, and because of that we asked you to come today to create multiples teams to search for an answer to this attack. As well as improve the security of the network so this won't happen again…"

As he continued talking about the reasons and what not, Charlotte was panicking inside.

I'm going to work so that I can find myself!? I'm going to improve their system?! Nono, ehh but I need this job, I still need to do it, I need it, but I don't want to give myself away… What to do what to do~!

"You'll be work with us for a minimum of two weeks, and an indefinite amount of time at the longest. Finally, we'll work in teams of 5, totaling 20 teams. Today and tomorrow we need you to be here so we can discuss how we'll develop as a group. Later you can discuss how each team is going to proceed. But we need a weekly report of your findings and your methods. That's all."

When he finished his speech, he hurried out of the room, possibly going to work with something related. One staff member who was at the side, went to the podium and took the mic.

"Ok, ladies and gentlemen, we'll give each of you a contract. Please sign it. In it is everything you just heard, little regulations of the company as well as points of interest, so read it. In half an hour we'll be starting." He started distributing the contracts to the people seated in the front row and another one Charlotte didn't notice started from the back.

When she received the contract, she read it superficially, only caring about the wages and the time required daily for this job.

"Hmm, not so bad, not so good either… But it says that with meritorious deeds we can get a rise after the second week. I'll guess it's fine."

After half an hour, everyone who signed the contract stayed in the hall, with only 4 people going away. With reasons such as it being too cheap or a waste of time.

"Desperate people don't have the choice to speak, hum." Charlotte said as she derided herself. Watching them part with envious eyes.

"OK! Now we'll start with it, you'll be assigned according to this chart, choose between yourselves who's going to do what. For starters, every big city in the world that has a branch or subsidiary of Necox is doing this same thing. The reason being, at the moment of the hacking yesterday, the information gained went to all servers connected to the network and from there, to other points in the net. Our work is to identify which points were right in the city, and what was done there."

After finishing the explanation, Dunn started distributing papers where it was marked all the points in the city, around 10 thousand in total. Each team was to do an exhaustive search on around 500 points, and then identify the structure and subsequent destination of the information. After finishing all the setup, it was around 6 in the afternoon.

"We want everybody to be here tomorrow at 7 in the morning to finish the initial analysis. You can bring your own terminal or computer, or we can lend you one, please tell the staff before leaving today if that's the case. Goodbye."

Oh, I need this. Charlotte thought as she went to the staff, reason being, her pc was full of the information they were looking for! And the other one was too big and had not operating system to compatibly work with others…

"I can finally go home…" Charlotte was mentally exhausted. And it was not because it was hard, but because she had to maintain her expression at everything that was happening. Almost all of the guesses the group had made about it had been wrong! Only one thing was 100% right, and was the name of the first extension she made, the .notdanger file!

Taking the metro so she could arrive faster at her home, she thought about what she was to do about this work. She surely needed this job, but she wanted more than anything else her freedom to do what she pleased! And being in the team looking for her could be potentially dangerous, not to mention, any misgiven word she spoke could expose her, and she was prone to speak aloud with herself.

"I need to stop talking with me… Umu." She pouted as she realized she just talked aloud. Not noticing the gazes she garnered because of it.

Wait! I can lead the team! Yes! If I can think of things before and convince them of a good enough reasoning, I can make the group go astray and keep myself safely! And with it I can also get paid. Perfect!

She started smiling as she realized what she needed to do now.

When she got to her home, she went straight to the kitchen to make some food, she was going to prepare the possible routes the investigation could take, and what were her options and explanations to guide it. It was going to be a long night, again without much sleep.