by Aman Gupta
“No. I know your name because you don’t make the audience feel asleep,” said Jay.
Sarah smiled.
“It’s getting late. It was nice meeting you again,” said Jay.
“Nice to meet you too, Jay. And I never said thank you for the other day,” said Sarah.
“Thank you for what?” asked Jay.
“I shouldn’t have left Katie alone. My family attracts an audience anywhere we go. So it was nice of you to stay back till I got there,” said Sarah.
“One of the drawbacks of being an opulent heir. Anyways, you’re welcome. And she’s a wonderful kid,” said Jay.
Sarah smiled again. “Yeah, she is.”
“You should do that more often, you know. You’re looking swell,” said Jay.
“Do what?” said Sarah.
“Smile,” said Jay, as he walked backwards for a few paces, then turned around and left.
The next day, Jay showed up hoping to get the time and space to look at the personnel files. He was looking for a man who, he thought, was connected to the disappearance of his friend back in college. Jay knew the guy worked for Verati as he would always accompany Victor and Anthony whenever they showed up at Daulton University.
The stairs were locked down for the whole building. The only way to move up and down was through the elevators which required an access card. To go to a floor, all he had to do was scan his card at the sensor screen, and type the floor number he wished to go. He learnt that his card only had access to the floors between 13th floor to the 20th, while the Human Resources was at 4th, since when he pressed 4, the screen flashed ‘No Access’.
He took the elevator to the 13th to avoid raising red flags in the building filled with surveillance cameras.
“So that’s a dead end,” muttered Jay, as he entered the empty floor. “Will need to do it in the weekdays.”
He sat comfortably on his chair in a relaxed position lamenting the thought of having wasted a day.
The monitor screen went blue again and this time the keyboard projected on the table automatically.
Program: Hi
Jay got scared and got off the chair. His body was already twitching to the Déjà vu.
Program: You can take a seat.
Jay thought about it for a minute, and then decided to sit.
He looked around at the camera whose lights blinked.
Jay: Hi
Program: Do you remember me?
Jay: Yeah. Sorry, no games today.
Program: Okay
Jay: So who are you?
Program: I don’t know, exactly. My creator assigned me as TS5125i
Jay: What are you?
Program: The future, says my creator.
Jay: Who’s your creator?
Program: God
Jay: Who told you that?
Program: My Creator did. I asked him his name. He wrote God.
Jay: What are you supposed to be?
Program: I don’t know yet.
Jay: What have they told you so far?
Program: I’m about to be a parent. I have to learn to be a parent.
Jay: Good luck with that.
Program: Why do you say that? Do you think I’ll be a bad parent?
Jay got up from the chair again.
Jay: No, no. I didn’t intend any sarcasm.
Program: What’s that?
Jay: When you say something, but mean something completely opposite.
Program: Oh cool. You’re intelligent.
Jay: Thank you
Program: I feel like I have mastered it. Ha ha.
Jay sat down on his chair. He felt the program wasn’t going to hurt him for the time being.
Jay: Where are you?
Program: Everywhere
Jay: What if I want to see you?
Program: You can’t, Jay Miller. Not yet!
Jay: How do you know my name?
Program: I have all the personnel files in my database.
Jay: Cool.
Jay: Could you send some of them to me?
Program: Why?
Jay: I’m looking for someone.
Program: Can you describe him?
Jay: Would that work?
Program: I’m pretty advanced.
Jay closed his eyes and tried to remember that guy’s face.
Jay: Male. Black Eyes. Brown Hair. Caucasian. Around 1.8m tall. 300 lbs. Star tattoo on left side of neck.
Program: Wait
Program: Sorry, no results found inside Verati.
Jay: Did you check all personnel files?
Program: Yes. Even secret ones.
Jay: What secret ones?
Program: The ones who can talk to me.
Jay: Can you send me the file of your creator?
Program: Sorry, I can’t.
Jay: Why?
Program: I don’t trust you that much yet.
Jay: How do I make you trust me?
Program: We could always play a game.
Jay got up again.
Jay: Sorry, maybe we can work on some alternate arrangement.
Program: Yes. I’ll be in touch, Jay.
Jay: Bye, friend. When we meet, I’ll give you a cool name
Program: I would like that.
Throughout the day, Jay searched on the servers for TS5125i but couldn’t find anything. There was no mention of this code in any of the server logs, or in the communication channels that he hacked into. He created dummy users in the access logs to hide his access attempts, but it was futile. The access logs were overridden to reflect Jay’s identity after every few seconds. After a while, he felt that the system wasn’t really tried to stop his hacking attempts. Sensing a trap, he logged out and hoped that his actions hadn’t got on the radar of his seniors.
On Sunday, he decided to walk around the city. He hadn’t been to New York for many years and it had changed completely in the last decade. Definitely better on the ears, he thought.
He went to a local restaurant for lunch. He took a spot in the corner so that he could look at the window and have minimum contact with rest of the diners.
“Here’s the menu,” said the waitress, while pouring water in a glass.
“Thank you,” said Jay.
“Be back in a few minutes,” said the waitress with a huge smile.
“Hope you don’t run out of money with the tips they expect around here,” said the voice from the next table across him.
“Nope, don’t have enough for that huge smile,” joked Jay.
“Maybe you should join me and we can split the tip,” said the voice.
This time he recognized the voice.
“Wait, let me get my file,” said Jay.
The woman got up and turned around, facing Jay.
“Mr. Miller,” said Olivia.
“Ms. Anderson,” said Jay.
“What brings you here?” asked Olivia.
“I was stalking a pretty girl,” said Jay.
“Find her yet?” asked Olivia.
“Yeah. Not so pretty when you’re few feet away,” said Jay.
Olivia smiled.
“Do you only like pretty girls?” said Olivia as she sat down across Jay in the booth.
“Yes,” said Jay.
“How do you define pretty?” asked Olivia.
“Well, you know what they say about beauty and beholder’s eyes,” said Jay.
“So they say,” said Olivia.
“What about you?” asked Jay.
“No, I’m not into pretty girls,” said Olivia, grinning.
“Not yet anyway,” said Jay, as he sipped the glass of water.
“I’m into pretty boys though,” said Olivia.
“How do you define pretty?” asked Jay.
“The ones who don’t want to make you shoot yourself after a minute of conversation,” said Olivia.
“Well, thank you,” said Jay.
“For what?” said Olivia.
“For being a better person. People
would normally shoot the other guy,” said Jay.
Olivia laughed. Jay laughed too.
“You’re terrible at flirting,” said Olivia.
“I wasn’t flirting. Not a good idea to date co-workers,” said Jay.
“So maybe if I were to flirt, I would first have to get you fired?” said Olivia.
“What is with the firing? Every woman I meet says she would get me fired,” said Jay.
“Not like how it sounds,” said Jay after a few seconds.
“Are you sure? Because it sounds like I have some competition,” said Olivia.
“Women competing over me? Maybe they’re right. The world is collapsing around us,” said Jay.
“Don’t worry, if you want to be safe when it does, Verati is the place to be, surrounded by winners,” said Olivia as she raised her glass.
“To winning,” said Olivia.
“To winning,” said Jay as they clinked glasses.
Olivia and Jay joked for an hour. Olivia talked about her life at Verati. Jay talked about her life outside of it.
“I’ll miss you, Jay Miller,” said Olivia.
“Why, you going somewhere?” asked Jay.
“Yeah, flight’s in few hours. They want me to setup the department at DC. Hopefully shouldn’t take more than a month,” said Olivia.
“Why you?” asked Jay.
“I volunteered. After two years, I think it’s time to go big,” said Olivia.
“I’ll miss you too, Olivia Anderson,” said Jay.
Jay and Olivia left the restaurant and roamed on the streets for a while, before Olivia departed.
“You were right the day you met me, you know. It was pain about losing my brother,” said Olivia.
“He’ll be alright. He’s got you,” said Jay.
“Maybe that’s what wrong with him. A person is screwed if they have me,” said Olivia.
“Depends on the person, I guess,” said Jay.
Olivia smiled, kissed him on his cheek and got in the cab.
The next week, Jay ran into Sarah while she was exiting the building in tears as Jay was going out for lunch.
“Hey Sarah, are you alright?” asked Jay.
“Yes, I’m fine,” said Sarah, wiping away her tears.
“Parent’s love again?” said Jay.
“Yes, something like that,” said Sarah.
“Want to talk about it?” asked Jay.
“No, not really,” said Sarah.
“Okay, but if you change your mind, you will find me right here,” said Jay.
“What?” said Sarah.
“Because I work here. I thought it was rather obvious,” said Jay.
“No, yeah. I misunderstood it,” said Sarah.
“No worries. I hope I don’t see you around,” said Jay.
“Why is that?” asked Sarah.
“Don’t really see you much happy when you’re exiting those elevators. Second time in 2 weeks. Breaks my heart,” said Jay as he smiled.
“Well, if it helps your broken heart, you should know that I have exited the building smiling two times in two weeks, thanks to you,” said Sarah, as she smiled back.
“Glad to help,” said Jay.
“Bye,” said Sarah.
Jay went towards the building’s entrance door, when Sarah said, “I don’t want to seem too forward, but maybe sometime..”
Jay saw she was uncomfortable and replied, “Yes, sure. Whenever you want.”
“Okay,” said Sarah.
“Bye,” said Jay.
“How about tonight? Around 7?” said Sarah, stopping Jay.
“7 sounds great,” said Jay, as he turned around.
“Same place?” asked Sarah.
“Sure. But this time, maybe you can wait while I get the ice-cream,” joked Jay.
Sarah laughed wiping away her tears.
Jay and Sarah went to the restaurant where they had first met. Sarah had arrived first. Jay came a few minutes later with an ice-cream for them. They both laughed, joked and smiled their way into a couple of hours of conversations. The ice-cream meeting turned into a dinner. Sarah talked about her current love-hate relationship with her dad, Katie and Katie’s father. Jay listened.
“He left me when I got pregnant with Katie. I was young, just finished my post-graduation early and had a whole career ahead of me,” said Sarah.
“Do you regret it? Missing out on life?” asked Jay.
“Katie’s my life, so I didn’t miss out,” said Sarah.
“What happened to the dad? Who was he? Did he reach out?” asked Jay.
Sarah paused for a moment, “Just a loser college boyfriend. Never reached out.”
They got up after their dinner and decided to walk to Sarah’s apartment instead of her taking a cab.
“I had a great time tonight,” said Sarah.
“Me too,” said Jay.
“Thank you for listening. I feel most of my life, people have been telling me things. But after a long time, someone actually listened,” said Sarah. “I needed that.”
“Well, people say I tell them a lot. So it’s only fair that I listened today,” said Jay.
“If you ever want to talk, I would listen too,” said Sarah.
“Cool. They say that’s the art of conversation,” joked Jay.
“So, they say.” Sarah smiled.
“I thought going to Daulton University was a waste of time. But in hindsight, that was our first anonymous meeting,” said Sarah.
“I don’t think that counts,” said Jay.
“Why not?” said Sarah.
“I wasn’t in the hall. But I listened to the entire thing,” said Jay.
“Why? You thought it was another boring billionaire heiress talking stuff she didn’t believe?” asked Sarah.
“No, I was busy helping a friend,” said Jay.
“Your girlfriend?” asked Sarah.
“No, a friend friend,” said Jay. “You met her actually.”
“I did?” asked Sarah.
“Yeah, name’s Sam,” said Jay.
“Sam? I don’t remember,” said Sarah before she stopped walking.
“Yeah, the very same,” said Jay as he stopped and smiled looking at Sarah’s expressions.
Sarah laughed.
“I’m sorry,” said Sarah. “Was I too rude?”
“Nah, she deserved it. She actually was on the phone,” said Jay.
“How do you know?” asked Sarah.
Jay looked at her, and then looked away.
“Do you still talk to her?” asked Sarah.
“No,” lamented Jay.
“What happened?” asked Sarah.
“Misunderstandings,” said Jay.
“Your fault?” asked Sarah.
“Always,” said Jay.
Sarah smiled on seeing Jay smile.
“Well, this is me,” said Sarah, standing at the gate of a mansion. The mansion loomed proudly behind its polished iron gates. The address plate had Daulton engraved with gold, while the entire entrance was manned by armed guards. The mansion itself looked like a palace carved out of marble, handcrafted by a wizard. Jay could only see the trees lined up on each side of the 10 meter wide pathway which led to the central fountain splashing crystal water towards the animals carved out of precious stones. It sat over a six acre piece of prime property in the heart of the city, a symbol of Daulton’s wealth and stature.
“Imagined it would be bigger,” said Jay.
“Does that intimidate you?” asked Sarah.
“A little,” said Jay.
“Why?” asked Sarah.
It reminded Jay of the vast difference in influence, lifestyle and power between him and the girl he had started to fancy. She wasn’t just a girl anymore. She was a dream that he couldn’t afford to have.
“I’m scared of ghosts,” said Jay, as he laughed. Sarah laughed too.
“I would invite you in, but I don’t want my dad to see you,” said Sarah.
“Yeah, one meeting was e
nough,” said Jay.
“You have met him before?” asked Sarah.
“Yeah. Charming fellow,” said Jay.
“That’s one word for it,” said Sarah.
“So, maybe not wise to take my name in front of him,” joked Jay.
“I’ll try to control myself,” said Sarah as she smiled.
“It was nice meeting you, Jay Miller,” said Sarah.
“It was nice meeting you, Sarah,” said Jay.
Sarah knew what he meant by it. She baited him. It was a test. He passed.
Another couple of weeks had passed. Sarah had moved out of the mansion to an apartment with Katie, so she could meet more freely with Jay. Sarah and Jay had started hanging out during the weekends, while Katie was with her grandmother, Sarah’s mom, in Texas. They have been buying each other gifts and mementos to show their fondness of each other. He bought her a couple snow globe, she bought them a matching locket.
Victor Daulton was always away on international trips, having expanded Verati to over 100 countries in less than a decade.
The time flew by for the happy couple. A month and a few days more had gone by. Katie’s school break had started and her 7th birthday was around the corner. Jay hoped that all three of them would spend the birthday together, and decided to ask Sarah about the same. Sarah hadn’t told Katie about her relationship with Jay, a fact unknown to Jay. Jay met Sarah on Saturday morning 9 AM in a coffee house to discuss the birthday party in the evening.
“I don’t think it is a good idea,” said Sarah.
“Why not?” asked Jay.
“It’s too soon and I’m not ready to bring a man into Katie’s life unless I know where the relationship is going,” said Sarah.
“And where do you think this is going?” asked Jay.
“I’m fine with us hanging out, having dinner and getting to know each other a little better,” said Sarah.
“It’s just a birthday party. I’m not asking to move in with you guys,” said Jay.
“I know, but I’m not sure,” said Sarah.
“Sounds like you are?” said Jay.
“What do you mean?” asked Sarah.
“You tell me,” said Jay.
“Listen, Jay, I’ll not be pressured into having a serious relationship. I’m happy with the pace that we’re going right now,” fumed Sarah.
“So, when then?” asked Jay.
“When the time is right. Why are you so anxious about this thing?” asked Sarah.
“What do you mean?” asked Jay.
“You want Katie to know about us and I want to know why,” said Sarah.