Intoxicating steps

And if not for the word ‘boss’ sipping out of the female’s lips, he was surely to have given up by now and dropped all effort to make her sign up with him. “The fun part is downstairs mostly, so let’s head there then, Rina.” he stood up from his chair and headed towards the lower floor, making sure the woman would keep up with his pace. “All the computers in the labs… in the building actually, are with Gigabyte motherboards and AMD processors, I am telling you since I have no plan to re-assemble a machine for you to see.” He turned his head back to look at the female and gave her a smile. “But you are free to test the performance.” He looked ahead again, making sure he won’t trip over his own two feet. Even if he knew the building pretty well by now, it was not once or twice that he tripped. “Most of the output devices are Samsung’s, but you can guess out why I suppose. The lab computers are also dual-booted. Windows and Linux. Well, for now I have placed Ubuntu as the distro for the other laboratories, since it is mostly known, but personally my computer is with Arch. It is due to personal preference, after all.” Once before one of the labs, Damian pulled the door open for the female and gestured with his hand for her to go in first. “You are free to look around and ask whatever you are interested about.”

After going down a couple of stairs, they came to a door that looked decent. Rina walked inside and her eyes widened instantly, the sight in front of her was worth admiration to say the least. At least it did not look like an amateur who collected all computers he thought would work and dumped them in a room. She walked around, not to inspect the hardware he picked nor to confirm the duality of operation systems, she was getting a feel of what working in this place would feel like. She turned to face him, arms crossed in a defensive mode, but smiling nonetheless. “What are you aiming for?” She paused then added. “With all this.” She was talking business now, Damian could consider that a success for him.

Damian let out a sigh and reached to ruffle at his already messed up hair. Sure, the building looked rundown, but that didn’t mean it really was like it. He spent an insane amount of money to just keep the rundown exterior, but fix the building so it would be workable. The rooms were heated, isolated, the labs were soundproof and even if there were no cameras observing the labs themselves, there were tons of cameras around, so no one could get in or out of them unnoticed. “Prove them.” He spoke out, reaching to take his phone out and started fumbling with its options. “The building is well equipped, that I can prove pretty easily. For instance, this room…” he made a small pause as he tapped twice with his finger on his phone’s screen. “like all the other rooms in the building, except my lab, has hologram screen projector.” His eyes looked over at the female and a confident smirk stretched over the male’s lips. Soon the panels of the attached ceiling moved and a glass screen fell down, a bluish light lit right towards it and the image of his lab downstairs was visible. “I made it for when I would need to screen announcements. It’s Japanese technology, still not widely spread. But it’s cool, isn’t it?” he asked her, then again swiped with his finger over the screen of his phone and the displayed image changed to one of the offices upstairs, to the gym salon, to the cafeteria, then back to his lab. “There are a lot of things hidden like this, I don’t plan to tell you each and every one of them, now that would be stupid of me, especially since I am planning on realizing a grand scale project, so it’s only normal that I would want to hide the company.” he lied with no remorse, or without even wavering. He was hiding the company because of his own supercomputer hidden in the basement, and because he yearned to upgrade it, and thanks to the project he had at mind, that would be possible. “Personal file project. The government has a lot of data on us, and there is something similar in every aspect. Healthcare, welfare, education, bank accounts, pension funds, personal data information, like where you live, your birth parents, the hospital you were born. There is data like that scattered all over, and you can access it whenever, but it takes time. I want to gather it all in one place and make it easy to be accessed. I still need to make a few meetings and talk a few old men into it, but this is what I want to partake in. I can’t afford just being obvious about it.” The hacker tapped his phone against his leg, letting silence settle in for a bit, then used it to get the glass screen back. “Obliviate is supported by a certain anonymous sponsor, so there is also the fact that we have vast resources. The building looks rundown, but it does not need to stay like it if the employees-to-be don’t like it and want to remodel it.” He shrugged his shoulders again, nonchalantly, something that made him look relaxed and uncaring. He looked as if he didn’t mind if the woman just stood up and left and never came back, but truth be told he needed someone like her, someone with her vision and her abilities. “Do I need more to impress you, cause I can keep going, but I would also feel like you are just playing me around. If by this point you are still stubborn to say no, then… well I would hate to admit I was wrong, but both of us are busy, so why waste more time? So? Which is it: yes or no?”

The place was managed in secrecy and the job title she was offered meant there were more going on than she was told, which she totally understood. She was still an outsider. “Do you think I would believe pictures I’ve seen on a screen? Don’t you plan to take me and show me at least one of your prized preparations in this place so I could believe you?” She answered his irking question, raising a brow at him defiantly. She had nothing to lose if she worked there and she had nothing to lose if she left, but she needed to see for herself the scale of preparations. All she has been shown could be fabricated for all she could know. “So boss?” She tilted her head to the side and awaited his response.

“Anyway…” he trailed off, stepping a side and pulling a chair so he could sit before the female. One of his legs crossed over the other, and his hand took position over his ankle, that was on top of his knee. “You said you are not impressed so far. Let’s impress you, shall we? I will answer every of your questions.”

“Sell me your project.” She stated clearly, leaving him to register her words as she leaned against the table behind her and crossed her arms. “The place is a run down, you claim it’s equipped, but there is no evidence to that, and you have yet to explain the purpose of the whole establishment other than the vague vision and mission statement you’ve sent to me.” If the point of choosing an abandoned location is to hide the corporation then there was more layers to unveil about this place and its goals, that much she had concluded already. If it wasn’t for the fact she knew the man in front of her, she would’ve most likely declined the invitation and job offer. “I don’t care about your words, prove them. Show me.”  

For the first part of the day Damian had some work out of the building of OBLIVIATE, so for a change the male was nowhere to be found in the premises of the company grounds. But even if he was not around, as soon as he stepped past the main gates he knew there was someone else in the building, and he also had a hunch who it may be. Instead of taking straight to his lab, like he usually did, he walked up the stairs to the second floor and started taking a walk down the hallway, until he met the first half open door. “I knew it!” He cheered for himself in pure English and stopped himself right at the entrance, pushing the door fully open. “Good evening!“ he cheered, placing his hands in the pockets of his pants. If anyone would take a quick glance at him, they wouldn’t be able to tell he was the so-called CEO of the company they got to work in. He had a loose knitted black sweater, that seemed as if it was two sizes bigger than what the male needed, black coated skinny jeans and black and white high-tops. His earrings were also something one could not simply avoid with their matte black color. Plus the chain attached to his jeans and a few bracelets on both his hands, one of which being the cable-braided bracelet he always wore, that was the only thing bringing in some color to Damian’s attire, aside the blue lenses that colored his eyes. “My apologies I could not be around earlier, I had a few meetings I had to attend to, and… well there is no one else I could have asked. I hope you don’t mind that I sent the instructions over e-mail–” the male suddenly clapped his hands and walked to the female inside of the office, outstretching his hand towards her. “I’m sorry, I always forget the most important part. I am Damian Jones, you should be Rina, am I wrong? It’s nice to meet you. You could say I am your boss, but if anything I would be happy if you could speak comfortably with me.”

After waiting in the office she was asked to head to for a considerable period of time, a man dressed in an attire unsuitable to a business environment, but befitting of the rundown building appeared in front of her and it took her more than she anticipated to recognize him. Damian, the guy whose brother she got to meet thanks to a special friend of her, Hyosung. She placed down the technical magazine she was looking at while waiting and smiled at him. “You would only be my boss if I accepted working here and so far your company has not impressed me.” She paused to allow her words the effect they deserved. “Aren’t you taking a big risk by inviting someone as important as me to your playground?” The same words could be taken to heart as an offence, but Rina’s tone and smile made it sound playful. “Rina Park, nice to meet you.” She said as she extended her hand.

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VOGUE INDIA - GOLDEN GIRL

There were debts to be payed after all, and only one person came to Hyosung’s mind that could help her.

It’s two minutes long, but please watch till the end for an awesome unexpected twist.

Please make sure to reblog this post before the end of next Sunday (12/21, 11:59 PM KST) if you don’t want to be out of an apartment by the end of the week.