Alexander was abruptly woken up by the loud alarm. He looked at a time with hatred.
It was Thursday, and like any other Thursday, his alarm sounded at exactly 5am.
He got up with a sigh, feeling his body aching from sleeping on the sofa. As every day, he promised himself that tonight he will make his way to the bed. He stretched himself with a yawn and went to grab his gym kit.
He picked up all of the documents and packed them back in the briefcase.
At 6am he was taking the lift up to the first floor of the grey building where there was company's gym. At this time, it was more than likely empty, giving him the very much so desirable peace. He liked his alone time more so than anything else.
He hid his briefcase in a locker and did his morning exercise routine, designed by his assigned trainer, Adam.
By 7am he was back in the lift, showered and in a new set of clothes he had neatly prepared in his briefcase. He was going to the eleventh floor of the building where his department was.
As he exited the lift, he could go either left or right. The corridor run around in a rectangle and back the other side.
If you took the left, you'd pass by the staff kitchen and small storage room with unusable IT equipment, then you'd be in the open space office. The open space office had 8 desks spaced out into two rows, of which five were occupied by his colleagues, lots of IT tech by the wall and boxes upon boxes of papers, which may or may not be files that should have been archived.
If you continue walking, you'd find yourself in the corridor parallel to this one.
On the left is a small blind corridor with toilets, further down the main corridor is his office, right next to Tracy's office, Bilodeau's secretary.
On the right, opposite to Tracy's office, was Bilodeau's office. Right at the end of the corridor were two interrogation rooms.
The corridor run further, turning left again.
On the side of the interrogation rooms, was large conference and a meeting room.
And then, on the right wall, was the largest room around - temporary archives. They file their cases there, current and past. After they expire they are moved to the third floor of the building where the bigger archives were.
If you continued around one more corner you'd be back in the corridor with the lift and staircase.
Alex would usually turn to his right, as to avoid his less experienced colleagues in the open space office. Not that he disliked them, but they were always a little too keen on a small talk that he detested. Never mind that he found few of them particularly immature and irritating. He still trusted their abilities, even if they didn't match up to him. That's why he was a team lead. If they had a co-joined case, he'd act almost like a team captain. Obviously, it didn't mean much. He still had to listen to Bilodeau's orders.
Alex walked in the opposite direction to the open office. He walked past meeting room, interrogation rooms and archives, and past Tracy's and Bilodeau's offices, and then entered his own little office. It wasn't big, but it was private and kept him out of the way of his colleagues.
His office had a bookcase which had some loose paper on it instead of the actual books, a dead plant, a desk with a typical cheap swivel chair, an outdated computer, a digital clock, a desk lamp, a foldable chair in the corner, and a two-seater blue sofa.
The walls were painted in this weird greyish-beige shade that made the room look even smaller and more miserable.
Alex sat down and turned the computer on. He took out every bit of paper out of his briefcase and started spreading it across the desk. He was trying to find any links between the text, and once again he read through every line of it trying to spot anything that stood out. The problem he found with this particular case was that it was completely defragmented. Few bits of information that did exist were unreliable or contradictory to everything else.
Around noon, Alex shifted uncomfortably. His body was aching from sitting in a bad position. After some careful consideration he decided to get some lunch and a coffee to make him last till the end of the day. He knew that he was going to work past the usual office hours as he had more than enough to do.
As he walked out of his office, he heard some noise coming form the open office. He was a little curious about the excited conversations, but he decided to try and avoid it by walking to the lift in the opposite direction. His luck must've already run out. "Hey, Alex!" His colleague stopped him in the corridor. Alex looked up at a man close to him in age. He hoped to escape the small talk, but he just walked into the most talkative person in the department.
"Afternoon, Ben." Alex uttered unenthusiastically.
"Did you hear the news?!" Ben almost exclaimed.
"What news?"
"There's someone new joining our department. We were just told that they're arriving later today."
"That's rather unexpected." Alex said more earnestly. It was extraordinarily rare to get anyone into 'Specials'. The department was the most specialist, although it mostly consisted of younger employees who were trained since they turned 18. They were trained specifically for it. They were the brightest and fittest candidates, and even then they were trained for years before joining the department. Alex was 25 and he was the youngest of the team, but definitely most experienced. He had a natural talent that was rare for it.
"Anyways, come by later to say hi to them." Ben smiled as he walked away.
As Alex returned from the canteen with a box of soggy salad for which he had to queue for 10 minutes, the excitement in the open office down the corridor seemed to grow. He hesitated for a moment, wondering whether he shouldn't make an effort to meet his new colleague, but he decided to wait to meet them when the team calms down.
Ben popped by his office not much later, asking him to release some files to him. Alex had higher security clearance than the rest of the team so his team often asked him to grant them permission to access specific files they needed for their cases. Alex didn't really mind it. It was one of his additional responsibilities as a team lead and pretty much the only reason why he was entitled to his own office.
"So, the new team member is here." Ben said with a smile after getting his access granted.
"That's good. We've been overloaded for long enough." Alex mumbled as his eyes were fixated on his computer screen.
"It's a girl." Ben said as if he was trying to spark Alex's interest.
"Ah, good." Alexander was still disinterested in the conversation.
"She's had some record breaking academy results." Ben continued, ignoring Alex's hints to leave him alone.
"That's good."
"And she's so pretty!" Ben added again. "Like, really really pretty. She's stunning. And between us, she's super hot."
Alex cringed at his colleagues comment. It was indeed rare for anyone new to join the team, and even rarer for women to join. At the moment, there was only Grace who was mostly responsible for tech and communications. He purposely omitted Tracy who wasn't involved within the team beside trotting around Bilodeau and getting his schedule freed for his golfing Thursday afternoons.
"Okay, Ben." Alex was still hoping for the man to leave him alone.
"Really? Nothing?"
"I have a girlfriend. I am not interested in any other women." Alex cut him off shortly.
"Well, I get that. But it is the first time we had a new team member in almost two years. Remember to say hi to her." Ben walked out of Alex's office with a defeated sigh.
Alex sighed with relief, keen to return to his work. As the evening came and the office quietened down, and the lights were turned off within most of the areas, he remembered that he still didn't have his dinner so he lazily got up and walked downstairs. The canteen was already closed so his only option was the vending machine.
With a frown he got himself a chocolate bar, packet of crisps, and a cup of a coffee that was probably made from nothing better than toilet water.
As soon as he could, he hid back in his office.
After dinner he closed the folder with case #713 and started packing for the evening, planning to return to it once he gets home.
He walked out holding the folder in his hand, still reading through one of the documents from the file. He read it five times already but he hoped that maybe he missed something.
He was glad to see that there was no one in the corridor and the noise from the open space quieted down. His colleagues probably went home by now.
As he walked towards the corner, a girl walked right into him. It was unexpected enough for them to collide and him dropping the folder on to the floor.
The girl jumped away straight away whilst Alex stood frozen.
"Sorry, I hope I didn't break anything." The girl started to pick up all of the documents that spread across the floor. Alex was quick to gaze over her as she was bending over. She had long black curly hair flowing down her back. She stood up passing him the documents. As she straightened out Alex noticed her face. She had bright blue eyes and was quite pale. Her smile rested on her face so naturally, but her eyes didn't seem to match that emotion. Alex felt uneasy. Something felt off but he couldn't place it - again. The eyes looking at him right now were different to the ones a day previous but yet, the feeling was the same. "I don't think I've seen quite a file like that." She remarked looking at Alexander. This snapped him back and he quickly put the paper back in its folder.
"It's classified." He said abruptly.
"Don't worry. I didn't see much." She smiled reassuringly. "I'm not going to tell anyone either."
"It was you bumping into me, if anything you'd be the one to blame if the information was spread." He said grumpily.
"Maybe, but do you have any evidence that it was me who bumped into you?" She smirked. "There's no cctv monitoring of this corner, neither of the cameras in this hall can reach this far. So it'd be my word against yours."
"Checking cctv monitoring radius looks suspicious."
"I thought this was all part of the training? You know, being fully aware of your surroundings?" Girl tilted her head to the side with a smirk.
"But breaking into security room is definitely not something we condone." Alex furrowed his brows as he watched the girl. He didn't see her before, he was sure of that. Yet, she seemed familiar. Too familiar.
"Why would you think that I broke into the security room?"
"How do you know the radius of the cameras?" Alex was genuinely intrigued.
"I didn't have to break into the security room to know that. I recognised the brand name of the cameras and I am aware of their specs."
"That's an odd detail to look at." Alexander furrowed his brows even more. He was used to paying attention to the cctv in every room he entered, but none of his colleagues were as careful as he was. And definitely in their building. It was their safe haven of sorts. It was the only place many of them relaxed enough to not keep looking over heir shoulders continuously.
"I thought vigilance was part of our job description."
"Vigilance or paranoia?"
"Not much difference." She smiled again. "Next time try to be more careful and not walk into me." She said teasingly and winking before she walked past him.
Alexander was still surprised by the encounter and automatically turned around to watch her receding figure. She wore black leather jacket, black jeans, and black boots.
Once she disappeared into the open office, Alex realised that he stared behind her. He shook his head as if he tried to shake off that feeling.
He walked out of the building but he still couldn't stop thinking about the cheek of the woman he just met. He smiled subconsciously.