The both of them headed to take the next flight to London. It wasn't much of a problem, considering Nick had the merit of being related to the corporation, which gained them with first class access. With her changed name on her passport, which was actually the family name of her mother's side, Ella made it safely out of the checking counter. She knew it would come handy later, and had asked Mike find her a contact to help her in changing the name. Nick was worried when the counter asked about their passports; in the midst of taking precautions, he had completely forgotten about the passport issue, until he reached the airport. Just as he was wondering to call some credits in, to help Ella; he was surprised to see her check herself in on her own. Ella kept a composed face in front of him and walked ahead, knowing what was he thinking. He hurried over to her and she explained how she got in through that.
"I didn't know you had contacts even after you left", he said surprised and awed by her.
"I won't survive, if I don't have resources to fight", came her simple reply. Ella told Nick about her mother being staying at her family's place, when he asked about her mother's whereabouts. Moments like these made Ella feel safe around Nick; as she knew she could count on him to be with her. Ella was resting on the seat; around no time sleep came to her. Nick didn't disturb her, and followed suit.
Her sleep was interrupted, during a turbulence, when she found that she was sleeping on Nick's chest, with his hand around her waist. She didn't realize herself to be shifting in her sleep towards him. Embarrassed, she tried to get out from his hold; the moment she was pulling his arm away from her waist; he suddenly tightened his hold around her, making her gasp, when her hand touched his shoulder in the process. It just worsened their position. A flight attendant passed by them and all Ella could do was shrink away from the sight of others. Nick was fast asleep with his hand around her, one more pull and she would end up sitting on his lap.
Ella called him, "Nick?" He didn't respond. She called louder, he just stirred a bit and went back to sleep again. She sighed and tried again to move away from his hold, but he clutched her like his dear life depended upon it. She shook him up now. Nick opened his eyes drowsily, only to find her face close to his. "Am I still dreaming?", he asked to himself. "No. You are crushing me." He understood and let go of her slowly. Ella sat back in her seat and put the armrest between them, for assurance that she didn't hop on to him again.
While he was clutching her, he had managed to hold her from her waist to the lower part of her breasts. That made her more awkward. She had hoped no one to come upon the scene, but an old lady got up from the seat in the front, maybe to go to the washroom, only to witness them in such a position. Ella cleared her throat and tried to make a conversation with Nick, seeing that he was awake now. When she recollected his words, she felt more aware of the fact that he was dreaming about her! She then drank some water from the bottle provided in order to cool herself down and continued, "How was your day yesterday? We didn't get to talk about it." While saying that Ella looked at the window to find out it was dawn now. She waited for him to answer and turned to look at him.
"Wasn't much. It was weird; the app accessed the cameras of the user who had downloaded it, without anyone's notice. Sid told me that his phone's camera gives out a small red light when recorded. He caught it happening a couple of times without him doing anything to put the recording on, after which he deleted the app when it started draining his phone's battery rapidly on such automatic usage."
Ella was thinking about this strange feature of the app, which was made for social interactions, rather it seemed to be spying on the surroundings. "It's strange!", Nick said exactly what was going through his mind. He continued, "For something like that to happen, the app would store a lot of data around the world. Obviously, not everyone is aware of this, but the recordings never get stored in the user's phone. It is sent back to the developers' database." Ella nodded slowly, listening at the information. She said, "Such a database to hold so many recordings, it would need a very large data set. And currently only two companies are capable of doing that. Akihiko Co. and Motowid Technologies." Ella knew about it as she had studied about them, during her peak years of training. She would study them with Roy's assistance. He had always made sure she learnt all the words, as it was the initial step in competition. Akihiko was a Japanese firm, with advanced technological backing. The advanced tech could be the reason for them to be able to cover up this much amount of video tapes around the world. But it wasn't much of a possibility, as the Kings' have never fared well with the company. They would always be competing each other.
Which left Motowid Technologies. It was a possibility that this electronic making company could work with Kings', which meant that they should enter into a contract for that. And she had not heard anything about the contract being made between the two. Additionally, the contract would mean a new decision to be executed, which shouldn't be possible considering the legacy. Now only she is the sole person to agree to such decisions to be executed.
Her mind was working out all the possibilities about all the events happening, which shouldn't happen legally. Unless... it was done in secrecy. But why record everything around them. With the way people carry their phones with them, it need not have to be handled properly, to get a proper video shot about the surroundings. Was there perhaps, any other company in the market which is working with the Kings'?
She was thinking about it with her fingers involuntarily brushing her chin, her elbow resting on the armrest. Nick was observing her and couldn't help but be very happy around her, especially when she agreed to give him a chance. If he could he would be the happiest on this planet, except he can't do that now, not until Roy Knight is out of their way completely. The more he thought about the guy, the more he would get angry at him to do something like that to her. When he was back in London after his first interaction with Ella, he had avoided Roy and his parties, which he used to attend for the fun of it. Now he didn't trust himself to stay composed around that guy. Just a spark would be required for him to start a war against him.
He glanced at her and was thankful of one thing from him- Ella. He was fortunate to have come across her. Why didn't he bother to know her earlier? But he was glad now. Very. The both would be starting their life, away from all these. That thought excited and calmed Nick in a beautiful way. One thing was clear, that their fates would change from this day onward.