K7 entered the IT room but wasn't surprised when no one turned towards him. The IT room was the busiest department in the company.
He walked round the room till he got to the table of I8, the supervisor. "Good evening, RQ sent me over to get an agent permission slip."
I8 stared at him piercingly with her beautiful sky blue eyes that were hidden behind a pair of glasses but were more deadly than snake venom. As fearless as he was, he used to get intimidated by them.
"For what?" A smooth silky voice purred and K7 could feel goosebumps on his skin. He could never understand how such a sweet soothing voice could come out from one of the most cold-blooded women he knew.
"I need permission to get into the national database." K7 replied confidently because experience with I8 had let him know she feeds off a person's fear and uncertainty.
She lifted her eyebrows. "RQ sent you here? Straight?" She asked.
"Yes, she did."
I8 hit her knuckles against the table and thought for a while. "I cannot release an agent permission slip to you for it would be a wastage of time, effort and paper. Dante wouldn't have given you permission to give open details so an agent permission slip from you would be vague and I won't license anything vague."
K7 couldn't protest because she was right. He had known that he was making a futile journey but really didn't want to go back into the office.
"Go to I6, she's our new recruit and she will fix you up. I'm a bit busy." I8 said as she dismissed him and he cleverly turned around even though he had no idea how he was supposed to locate her.
On turning around he observed that every cubicle was labeled with numbers and he traced out each number until he got to serial number 6. He noticed two different cubicles with the code number 6; one was 006 while the other was just 6. He reckoned it would be the one with 6 so he moved towards the cubicle and saw a young lady seated behind it. "I6?" He asked and she raised up her head. She had the most lovely violet doe eyes.
"Yes." She responded with a soft voice.
"I need permission to use the national database, I8 told me to come over here." He said and she nodded then began to type on her keyboard. He could barely see her hands as she typed with a very fast speed. In less than five minutes she was done with what she was typing then she picked out a phone from under her locker and made a call.
"Hello, did you see what I sent to you?...Okay, thank you."
When she was done with the call, she turned towards him and then told him to come over to her side so he walked towards her. "Please place your left fingers on the scanner." She ordered softly and said a 'thank you' as he complied.
When the device had scanned and retrieved his fingerprints, she told him to return to his former position so he rounded the cubicle to stand in front of her once more. He watched as she typed some other things and was engrossed in her work. He felt like she seemed familiar to him but couldn't pen where he could have met her or why the manner in which she worked reminded him so much of someone. He himself was a new recruit and he was sure he hadn't met her during his service period.
The more he watched her work, the more her image was overlapping the image of someone else and as she stood up to print out and walked towards him with the packaged brown document with a pink slip attached to its front, he could see the face overlapping hers; it was S2. They walked and worked in the same way. If not for the age difference between them then he'd call her S2's twin sister.
"Thank you." He said as he collected it from her and moved towards the exit. Just as he was about to exit the room, he felt someone coming after him so he waited and turned around and there she was at his back.
"I forgot to tell you. Give the document to RQ, she'll know what to do then come back here. I have one more thing to give you before I lead you to the private room where we access the database." She said and he nodded then finally stepped out.
K7 moved towards RQ and she raised her eyes to stare at him. " Done yet?"
K7 didn't reply but gave her the document instead. She removed the slip then opened the file and flipped through the papers in it. She scanned through them real quick and typed something on her desktop.
When she got to a particular page, she paused a bit then turned to look at him. "It wasn't I8 that answered you was it?" She asked him.
"She referred me to I6. Is there anything wrong?" He responded and got confused when he saw her secret smile.
"No, there's no problem. It's really detailed and isn't I8's style of writing or detailing so I was curious." She replied just before neatly tearing out a part of the file and writing on its back.
She scanned all the papers and continued working on the computer for a while. K7 was very confused, he never thought that it would be this stressful and bothersome to get permission to access the national database. The procedures he had to go through were quite a lot.
"Here, take this back to her." He heard after a while and he felt like there had never been any sweeter words told to him in a while. He felt relief for some reasons. He muttered a 'thank you' and marched back into the IT room to meet I6.
I6 was seated in her cubicle looking like she had been waiting for him. He moved towards her and placed the slip on her table. She looked through it then brought out another one. She wrote some things on it and passed it to him. He was already worried that he had to do something else when he heard her voice. "This is your username and password. Please follow me. I'll take you to the private room now."