Just Roommates - Chapter Three

Leah

… Upon reaching my destination, just as the elevator's doors opened, I was befuddled by the sight in front of me. A man, a very handsome man, standing regally outside the elevator, together with some IT staff.

“Oh! Isn't it Leah? We are about coming down your floor,” one of the IT staff said. I could barely hear what he was saying, I was just busy in my bubbles swooning at the handsome man.

“This is Peter O'Brien, the CEO of Cybernetics,” the IT staff continued trying to do some introductions.

“He'll be in charge of investigating and bringing out solutions to the cyber-attack,” he said. The name do sound familiar, but I can't actually remember where I heard it.

Even though the guy from the IT department was doing the introductions, I could barely make out what was happening around me, until when someone taps on the shoulder.

“Earth to Leah!” He said, it was the same guy that was making the introductions.

“Oh! Sorry, I zoned out,” I said, a bit embarrassed. I mentally smacked my brain off my reverie.

“Hi! I'm Leah Henderson f-from the third floor,” I said breathlessly extending my hand. Damn it! Upon everything I could say, how embarrassing could it get?

Caught staring, stammering and now breathing like someone that ran a marathon. It would be more embarrassing if he rejected my gesture.

“Nice to meet you Leah,” he said with a smile, I smiled back.

“Let's get over with these introductions and get to work!” He declared, already tired of it.

We rode down the elevator to the third floor. While going down, I was busy stealing glances of Mr. O'Brien. The name still sounds familiar, isn't it the same as Anna's stepbrother's? I would have to ask her later about that.

The interior of the elevator is made up of golden-tinted reflective glass, that why I was able to steal glances. Though there are three other people apart from Mr. O'Brien and me, two from the IT department, the other of whom must be with Mr. O'Brien.

Just as I was lifting my head to take another glance, our gaze met through the glass interior.

I was dumbfounded at first, but when he smiled a knowing-smile, I became embarrassed and my face got red and flustered, I felt like boring a hole somewhere in the elevator to hide myself.

I turned my face to the side to avoid looking ahead and having another eye contact. My face actually looked red from what I can see in the wall of the elevator. The ride on the elevator felt like hours, but it was just a few seconds less than a minute.


Peter

Two months after my breakup, Anna contacted me to make an offer, a temporary house and a change of environment to nursery my scarred heart. This of course would help a lot even though I was busy with work, I readily accept the offer.

The house is a bungalow, with a joint ownership between her and Leah. She'd told me that she'd arranged everything with Leah, nothing to worry about.

Speaking of Leah, the last we see was six (6) years ago, though I've seen her about five (5) times within those years. They were brief without her knowing, she was always busy with work or something, which I wouldn't spoil.

I was scheduled for arrival by the end of this month, but there's an urgent matter that arises with a graphical design company that both Anna and Leah work for, Centurion Graphics. It was hit by a ransomware, so I was here two weeks earlier.

I stood outside the door to my designated house, I pressed the doorbell for the second time without getting any response.

Though I was informed on where to find the spare key in case no one is around. But I rang the doorbell for a third time, since I can't reach Leah on her phone, as she's the only one currently living in the house.

I decided to look for the spare key and gain access into the house. “Miss Henderson, are you home?” I called out as I entered the house, but got no response. “Miss Henderson?!” I tried calling out again before heading straight up to my designated room, Anna's room.

Based on Anna's description, it should be the master bedroom among the three bedrooms bungalow. It is located on the left side of the hallway, opposing the other two bedrooms.

I got in and dropped my luggage on the bed before taking a quick tour around the house.

The master bedroom has an en-suite bathroom, a closet and a queen-size bed. The decor of the room is minimalistic, painted in a blush of pink and white angular accents.

The other two are the same in style, except for a golden hue in place of pink. One was used by Leah, the other as an art studio, they shared a common bathroom in a Jack-and-Jill style, where the bathroom could be accessed from both rooms, through opposite doors connected to each room.

The one used by Leah has a double bed in place of a queen size bed, both have their closets. But the art studio's is used as a storage unit for art supplies.

The house is painted in the same style entirely as the bedrooms I toured earlier, but the kitchen and the dinning area are in green hue and the living room is blue. The kitchen has two doors, one connected to the dinning area, the other to the living room. In short, the bungalow is average with necessary equipment, and it's livable.

I return to my room to freshen up, I sighted my luggage still where I left them on the bed, I'll arrange my stuff later when I get back from Centurion.

After refreshing, I decided to get dressed. I picked up a pair of black pants, an off-white dress shirt and a black suit. I added a pair of black shoes and a blue tie, with a white pattern of the word, “Cybernetics” written diagonally from bottom to top in a bold sans-serif font, a gift from my best friend Patrick, the CTO of Cybernetics.

I dressed up, then pick up my phone and call Patrick, he told me that he's already waiting outside the building, I packed up some necessities in my backpack and sling it in my left arm and headed out.

Patrick was leaning by the passenger's side of my car, casually chewing what appears to be a chewing gum. “Sup bro!” I greeted.

“Yeah, sup!”

“You up to the challenge?” I asked while unlocking the doors, though not doubting his capabilities.

“I was never born ready!” He replied enthusiastically as we both got in, I started the car engine and pulled the car out of the driveway and headed for Centurion Graphics.

Once we arrive at the company, we headed straight to the reception area. We informed the person in charge of our purpose, a young woman probably in her late twenties.

She made a call to inform her superiors, she told us to wait for a few minutes. While we waited, we discussed what type of ransomware the company was facing and how we are to overcome it.

Three minutes later, two men came down to meet us. They introduce themselves as Maxwell Reeds and Imran Khan.

The former is the CTO, a bulky figure with reddish-brown hair. The latter is the Cyber-security & Network Manager, a gruff man with a short raven hair.

The second guy begins to explain in detail as we walk towards the elevator, he continues while we waited for it to come down and while we were in it all the way to the IT department.

As he was explaining how everything happened through Leah's phone while we arrive at the IT department, he passes the device to me, which I gave Patrick for safe keeping. We connected on devices their network to inspect the nature of the ransomware.

We found it to be a hybrid of midnight shades variant and oculus variant. This is going to be a tough nut! Midnight shades are resilient, very hard to deal with. While oculus are sneaky bastards, very hard to detect. But it's going to be real fun cracking them up!

We decided to head to Leah's floor for more inspections. While he was explaining about her predicaments, I had several flipping thoughts about her, how she might currently look.

Just as we started walking towards the elevator, it chimes and opened. And in it was Leah standing there with a confused or befuddled expression on her face. “Speaking of the devil,” I whispered to myself.

She hadn't changed much from the last time I saw her, she was still standing at the door of the elevator staring at me. Did she recognize me? I bet not.

The last time we met, I was still keeping a long hair and just a patch of beard on my chin, and wasn't as built as now. Well, maybe she would if she concentrated more on my eyes, but she's doing the opposite.