Cliks and claks resound throughout the room as I continue to tap away at my keyboard. It was the only sound in my otherwise silent apartment room and I was focusing almost entirely on the screen in front of me so I didn't really care about anything else anyway.
In front of me on said screen was a rundown of my company's finances from my trusty personal assistant. Sales figures, the value of our shares, markets we currently have a hold on and markets we're looking to expand into. All of those stats were arrayed out in front of me in an organised fashion.
Well it was organised to me at least. I imagine anyone else looking at it would just see a string of numbers in different coloured boxes on a screen. Since I didn't actually denote what is what with words but used colours just in case our communications were intercepted.
Well being who I am I highly doubt anyone would be capable of cracking my encryption but it's a just in case sort of thing. One of the boxes however didn't contain numbers or sales graphs or even maps of economic dominance.
This box just contained a paragraph of words. This would be the report from my assistant. She gives me updates all the time and is a pretty diligent girl at heart so I always make sure to read the reports she sends me even if they are usually just personal notes or something.
Like she once bragged about how she'd caught an assassin after her life and decided to torture the guy to death for disrespecting us both with how unskilled he was. She's one heck of a personal assistant. Oh and did I mention she's a psychopath.
Who I'm mentioning things to in my internal monologue I have absolutely zero idea but I have a habit of thinking nonsense from time to time. One of my best projects came from a nonsense thought I had once about wanting to be immortal as a child.
Speaking of. I swivel around in my chair and feel the warm humid air brush against my face as my vision blurs with motion before my hands find purchase on a different part of my desk and stop my momentum dead in my tracks.
I then look at a completely different screen projected into the air. This one is displaying a secret project of mine. The one I mentioned a moment ago. It's almost done today. Welllll, it's still got some bugs to kink out. Some realllly important ones. But…
It's almost done and could theoretically be put into practice with a few more little touches. Not that I'd actually go through with that. I don't like having unfinished projects out there and if I ended up activating it before it was done it would kill my inventors soul.
Well that's depressing. Oh my room please calm me down. Tell you what in front of me is a desk. That's all I can really say about it. What? How do you describe an average looking desk? I mean it's a sort of dark blue I guess? It's got a few marks from where the wood's been sanded down or something and I never bother to clean it so I guess it's got a bunch of dust and stains on it.
That's about all I can say about the desk though. The stuff that's on it is what interests me really. Mice, keyboards, mousepads, wifi routers and a whole bunch of other similar stuff like extended USB ports and stuff. Oh and I'm totalllllyyy not describing the top of the desk so I can ignore the jumbled mess of cables at the bottom of the desk. What cables?
The displays I'm looking at by the way are holographic. Who uses real monitors these days? Only the old fogies and the eccentric weirdos who like to role play and stuff. All the holographic projections of screens come out of a single metal bar.
Well I say metal but it just looks that way really. I don't actually know what it's made out of but anyone and everyone has one of these things. They're like personal tablets or something but with adjustable screen size and the bluetooth capabilities of a hooker.
All of the screens, 5 in total by the way, are coming from this one little bar and are projected in completely different directions. Cool right? I'm such a good multitasker I can have 5 screens at once. What you thought I was talking about the tablet? It's cool sure but everyone has one. Things that everyone has don't stay cool for very long.
By the way the desk itself is actually surrounding me a bit like one of those baby plate things you get on chairs for infants. Like, it's a semi-circle around me and the screens are in different directions. Honestly I had it built like this so I can feel cool swinging around in my swivel chair.
Speaking of I'm sitting on a top of the line chair that I totally didn't take some of my company's funds to buy. It's totally worth it ok? I use it for work so I can write it off as a business expense on my taxes. Not that I actually pay my taxes with my own name but that's besides the point.
What the taxes thing sounded important? Nah I'm just a cool mastermind in the shadows of a company I helped build from the ground up. Of course I've never actually been there. Shut up I'm not a shut-in! I mean I am but I totally prefer the monicker agoraphobe. It makes it sound like I have a reason for shutting myself in my room and I'm not just sulking.
Anyway that's enough of my nonsense. Any more of this and I'm totally going to get stuck in a loop of my own thoughts. So without further dos. I spin myself around once and crack my fingers over my keyboard. Man having a swivel chair is so fun.
Having taken care of my mood I once again look at the figures from my company. Basically I deal in anything gadget related. I don't have a monopoly on that obviously and most of the military contracts go to Flux instead of me but I get everyone else and that's more than enough to keep me afloat.
I also have a small arms business on the side but shhhhh… You didn't hear anything. Anyway. Looking at the company's numbers is pretty routine by this point. Blah, blah, blah. We're making loads of money and Emily's killed one of our competitors with their own weapons blah, blah oh! Suddenly I spot something on Emily's personal report that makes me interested.
Not the part about her having killed one of our competitors. That's par for the course at this point. The interesting part is that apparently someone tried to hack our systems to get at confidential company intel. They got nothing of course. I mean I designed the firewalls myself. If there's a better hacker out there than me I haven't met them.
I hear a gruff and intimidating voice rumble out of my throat. "No Sophie. You must not be arrogant. Arrogance is the key to destruction. Having it inserted into your mind means you're one step closer to annihilation." the voice is rough and intimidating buuuuut…
In reality it sounds like a daughter trying to mimic her father's method of speech. I'm not actually doing that obviously, old man clearly didn't care about me, but it still sucks my impressions are so bad. I mean can a 19 year old girl who only ever speaks to two people and herself really be any good at imitating gruff military men?
"Stop making excuses young lady! You are perfectly capable. You must simply put in the effort!" Another gruff voice attempts to come out of my mouth and fails. It does actually sound cool and motivating in my head so why does what sound like squeaky attempts at changing a tire come out of my mouth.
Oh right what was I doing again? I think to myself before remembering the part of the report that actually interests me and suddenly becoming less distracted. So Emily, my assistant's name by the way, put the IP of the person who attacked us in the report. I suppose I could fight fire with fire.
Just as I'm readying myself to crack my fingers, again, I suddenly hear a soothing and robotic voice resound throughout the room. I know it's an unhealthy habit. "Master. You have a guest. Do you wish to de-activate Mainframe mode and welcome them or shall I lock them out. Identified guest as: Amelie sister." Frame's voice reverberates throughout my entire apartment.
It's not that big though so it's not difficult for me to set up. Frame is my AI partner that I built to manage my house and do all the tedious stuff like sorting clothes, making sure I go to bed on time and other such nonsense. She can even cook simple stuff, even without a body, and since I don't eat anything other than simple stuff she's good enough for me.
She's not actually sentient though… yet. I mean I really want to try and make the world's first sentient AI buuuut it's a lot harder than you would think. Anyway guest right. "Who was it again." I mumble to myself and having heard my mumblings Frame was quick to respond repeating what she said earlier.
"Identified guest as: Amelie sister" Once I hear that I jump. Well my frail little body doesn't have much muscle so it just amounts to like moving a few inches off my chair before falling backwards and back into it. I'm not weak naturally by the way. It's not the genes fault. Probably…
"Oh sis huh? De-activate Mainframe mode and let her in." I say with a little excitement in my voice. I don't remember how long it's been since I last saw sis. Not because it's been a long time or anything though that might have happened. It's more that time means nothing to me. I mean, I lose track of it so often that I specifically programmed Frame to help me get sleep at the right time and know the date.
It could have been years or days since I last saw her and it wouldn't make a difference to me. Apparently I have an elf's sense of time despite being 100% human. Well even elves aren't this bad though.
Anyway while I was thinking that the room went through a drastic change. All my screens turned off except one. That one was just playing music and had some inoffensive programming stuff on another tab. I mean I could do that in my sleep but people don't know that and best to keep it that way.
Also the desk shrank in on itself. Well more like folded. The desk that once spanned all around me now took up only the corner of the room looking kinda small and pitiful. It almost resembled a hedgehog or badger curling up for the winter.
Also the colour scheme of the room changed. I mean that literally. I always have a certain lighting when I'm doing Mainframe stuff so the room is blue and it feels real atmospheric. Like you know the reflection you get in those dark viewing rooms in aquariums. It kinda looks like that but deliberately and alllll the time.
Now though it suddenly switched completely. Settling for a warmer colour scheme of relaxing a relaxing orange with a few browns in the mix. I tried to make it resemble the most average sun colour scheme or something like that but... Oh right the door also changed not that it really mattered or anyone but me could see it.
I constantly have a personal shield around my door as a safety measure when I'm in Mainframe mode. It means that no-one's getting in without my say so and if they got in anyway they'd have to attract a good amount of attention by firing off specific weaponry.
Anyway that personal shield goes down in 'normal' mode. The door itself looks exactly the same though. I guess in my little sweep of the room earlier I didn't pay much attention to anything other than my desk huh? Well I don't really pay attention to much else but there is other stuff in the room obviously.
Like the multiple light bulbs that just retracted into the ceiling that give the room it's blue vibe. The tracks in the ceiling marked by countless consequences of this very action. The blue light covered by a far more bright and vibrant orange.
Also there's the door and ummm…. Ok that's it. I didn't decorate my room or anything. There are a few cups of junk food around my desk and the area near it. Plus there's a bin in the corner that's almost overflowing. I should actually get Frame to empty that when Amelie leaves.
Other than that though there's not much else to say about my room. The floor has a carpet but it's just so average and boring I don't want to mention anything about it and the walls are all reinforced stone like most houses these days. I mean there are piles of dust from my usual living. There's also a good amount of mould as if reminding me of the fact the room is almost constantly a space without ventilation at a ridiculous temperature.
Anyway the door. There's no handle or anything. No need for one after all. The tracks on the ground show that it's perfectly capable of opening itself. Though they're rusted over. Despite this the tracks look brand new. The rust is simply the result of time claiming another victim rather than the doors and tracks colliding.
Anyway the creak of the rusted tracks sounds through the room as Frame lets my visitor enter. The door/doors creakily spread themselves open like curtains after a very long night. I've always wondered that actually. Does it count as A DOOR or TWO DOORS when it's one door that sort of stretches out two metal 'doors' to close itself?
In the perfectly framed scene of outside is.. I have no idea. MY EYES! "That hurts like a mo-" before I can spew profanities the doors close themselves and I get my vision back. Oh thank you Frame you're a lifesaver.
While I'm deifying my own creation I realise that I should probably not cower from the light like the vampire I'm totally not and greet my guest. "Yo Mels! I can't actually see sh*t right now but welcome to my humble abode." I say while looking in the direction of what I think is a slowly focusing view of Amelie.