Sharon didn't bother to reply; instead, she just giggled before giving him the cold shoulder. They became quiet as the night went on, retreating to their own parts of the apartment. The day became even quieter, and then finally a gentle voice broke the silence. "Good night, Abbey," Sharon said before dozing off to sleep.
Early the next day, Abbey was already up before the rooster could crow. He quickly left the apartment and made his way home. Within fifteen minutes, he was already at home, preparing for the day's work. Abbey worked as a security analyst at a mall in the center of town. Before long, he was finished and preparing to leave his small apartment when he heard a knock on the door.
"Who could that be?" he thought to himself. "It's better not be Sharon," he pondered. "Besides, how could she know where I live? Or did she follow me home?" he thought. Nevertheless, he still had to know who was knocking. He peered through the security hole at the door and saw a familiar face. He took a deep breath of relief before opening the door. "Hello, Kelvin, what brings you here so early in the morning? Wait, don't tell me, did your girlfriend lock you out of the house?" he joked.
"Laugh all you want," Kelvin replied. "But this is serious. I couldn't get hold of you all weekend. I thought something bad must have happened. But here you are, looking very good. Why didn't you answer your calls?"
"Something came up and I left my phone behind," Abbey explained. "That's why I couldn't answer any of your calls. But that is a story for another day. By the way, you came all the way to check on me instead of going straight to the office?" she asked, curious.
"Yes," replied Kelvin. "I was worried about you. And since you don't have many friends, I thought I should check up on you."
"How considerate of you," teased Abbey. "I didn't know you cared so much about me."
Kelvin didn't say much after that, he just kept looking at his watch. Abbey understood what he was doing, so she quickly grabbed some of her personal belongings and said to Kelvin, "Hurry up, you don't want us to be late."
Kelvin looked at Abbey with surprise on his face before saying, "You're the one causing us to be late."
They both laughed before Kelvin patted Abbey on the back, indicating it was time to go.
Meanwhile, back at Sharon's apartment, she woke up to find Abbey already gone. She felt disappointed and disgusted at the same time.
"He didn't even have the heart to say goodbye to me personally," she murmured to herself. "He just woke up and left like I didn't even exist in his life. Coward!"
For some reason, she couldn't explain why she was mad at him for leaving and at the same time mad at herself for not doing enough to earn his like.
She tried to persuade herself that the formal was the reason she was angry and not the latter. However, she still had an itching feeling that she was genuinely interested in that fool. Nevertheless, she maintained her focus to complete her chores. After breakfast, her phone began to ring. At first, she wanted to ignore it but the phone kept ringing. Feeling frustrated, she decided to answer it. Immediately, she yelled out, "Yes, what is it?" But the caller was patient enough to answer her. "It's me, Sharon. Why are you angrily yelling at me?"
Sharon felt awkward hearing what the caller had just said. She immediately composed herself and apologized. "I'm sorry, I didn't know it was you," she said.
"Who had gotten you so upset early this morning?" the caller enquired. Sharon paused for a moment, caught between a rock and a hard place. She murmured to herself a bit before saying, "It's nothing." The caller then proceeded to explain, "The reason I called you this early is to find out about the solution you talked about."
Sharon couldn't explain herself, but she could only say, "Don't worry, I have it under control. I have already made contact. I just need to persuade him for his help now. I just need more time."
The caller replied, "I'm sorry to inform you, we are running out of time. If the solution isn't provided today, there is nothing we can do." The caller trailed off, and Sharon could hear the sorrowful tone in the background. She was almost in tears.
"Don't worry, we have waited this long. We can wait a little bit longer," Sharon replied. "I have to go now, I don't want to be late." With that, she ended the call.
Back at the mall, Kelvin and Abbey had just arrived at the office. Looking around, Kelvin remarked, "Mondays are always busy. We just need to do our best to make things easier and work as smoothly as possible." Abbey let out a sarcastic laugh. "When have things ever worked the way we planned? I'm sure some crazy dude will come and change things again in no time." They both laughed simultaneously before letting out a sigh.
When Abbey got into the office, he received a call from his supervisor, Hans Miller. He quickly got up and went straight to his office. "Good morning, boss," he greeted. "Please come in. I have something for you to do today," replied Hans. Abbey was taken aback by his words but decided to follow suit.
Hans looked around before saying, "Shut the door. Let's talk in private." Abbey was genuinely curious now. Had his boss ever been this serious before? Hans had always been a friendly person, so seeing him act this way could only mean one thing - someone was in trouble.
Hans pointed at a particular security feed. "Someone has deliberately sabotaged it. We need to get to the bottom of it," he said. Abbey was surprised when he looked at the unit. The whole security feed had been altered, as if someone deliberately wanted to send wrong information.
Sensing Hans's nervousness, Abbey quickly reassured him, "I will take a look at it right now and see what the problem is." Hans quickly replied, "You have to do it discreetly. Remember, we have an important guest coming today."
Abbey had completely forgotten about the event today. He shrugged his shoulders and replied, "I will get on it right away."
Before long, Abbey had reached the east end of the mall where he had traced the problem. He sighed to himself, thinking, "Just as I suspected, someone has deliberately tampered with the feeds. If I didn't know better, I'd suspect the person doesn't want to be seen on camera. That's why he or she altered them."
"Who would do such a thing?" Abbey pondered to himself. "And why would they want to do it, knowing that we would easily find out?"
As he thought about these things, Abbey took out his device to fix the problem. Thirty minutes later, after connecting the last pairs of surface feeds, everything seemed to be back to normal. He immediately radioed ahead to Hans for confirmation and received it a second later. Hans seemed very pleased with Abbey and kept thanking him. But just as he was about to leave, Abbey remembered something and quickly added, "Boss, check the whole network again. I have a feeling someone is trying to get our attention."
Hans was initially skeptical, but he decided to check the whole security feed and network just to be sure. To his surprise, he found something strange. He immediately informed Abbey, saying, "It seems that the north feed has just been tampered with. Your hunch was right, someone is playing a sick joke on us."
"From the way these feeds were disabled, I can tell this person is trying to get our attention," Abbey suggested to Hans. "I'll head over to the north end to check on the feeds."
Abbey quickly rushed over to the north end within two minutes. It was a good thing that he was in shape, otherwise he would be cursing and swearing at whoever was responsible for this. Before long, Abbey spotted the problem and quickly brought out his device to fix it. He radioed Hans and asked for confirmation once it was fixed. Not long after, he received the confirmation he needed. "Good job, my boy," Hans remarked. Abbey didn't bother to reply; he was still puzzled by a mysterious question: who was behind this deliberate attack?
After looking around, he realized he was very close to the exit sign of the building. His thoughts were racing as he pondered these things in his head. "If I didn't know any better, I would think this person wanted me to be here," he spoke out loud to himself while staring at the exit sign just ahead.
Just as he was finishing these thoughts, a voice spoke to him from behind. "You have to come with me now," the voice said urgently.