Loving Luc Read online

  I walked down to the train station, I had decided not to ride my vespa today since I wanted to refresh myself a little. I had a few of my old college books with me along with a few of my old notebooks. I paid my toll and walked up to the platform, waiting for the train to pull into this stop. I pulled out one of my old notebooks from my messenger bag and started reading. I was completely engrossed when the train pulled in, dropping the book to my side I walked in and took a seat close to the door before placing the book back in to my lap. I felt my phone vibrate and looked down to see that it was Sophia texting me.

  Hey j ust wanted to wish you luck on your first day. I’m sooooo excited for you! I smiled down at my phone, I could just see her clapping her hands in excitement. I’d known Sophia since elementary when she sat next to me at lunch and announced that we were going to be bff’s. I’d been a shy kid and kept to myself, so I had ignored her at first, rightly thinking that she was crazy. She wouldn’t let up on me though and here we are who knows how many slumber parties and middle of the grocery store dances later.

  Thanks I’m super excited too I texted back I can’t believe how it all happened. I’m still waiting for the other shoe to drop!

  As long as it drops along with the pants and shirt too sent with a smirking emoji

  Lol what are you talking about I was confused, I loved Sophia but sometimes the connections she made between things was baffling.

  You know what I’m talking about! This she sent with an emoji rolling its eyes That Jason Momoa look alike! If things are dropping it might as well be the good stuff!

  I covered my mouth with my hand to muffle my laughter. This chick was crazy, but a good crazy the kind that will show up with a shovel, gloves and a book on forensics if I ever needed it. Still though she was reading too much into my meetings with Luc.

  I probably won’t even see him again I wrote back he does have a company to run you know. Besides what would I even do with him?

  Honey if you have to ask that you haven’t been getting out enough! I laughed out loud when she sent me that with a eggplant and tongue emoji. I quieted quickly though when I noticed a fellow commuter giving me the stink eye. My stop was coming up soon, so I gathered my things together I prepared to get off at the next stop. How are things back home? Everything ok there?

  Yeah pretty much the same old goings ons.I mean it’s been some odd things that have the old biddies gossiping but I figured it’s just some kids playing around. I’ll be glad when I can take a vacation though!

  When are you coming for a visit? I texted her back as I walked off the train and headed out of the station. Sophia had stayed home to take over the town’s corner mart when her father fell ill. Thankfully he recovered but had turned over the store to her and retired. I knew sometimes she wanted to leave and come to the city. Her grandfather had opened the store though and I knew she didn’t want to let her dad down. Family tradition and all that. I tried to help her get away sometimes by convincing her to come out and visit me.

  Not sure maybe in a couple months. There’s been some strange things going on around here. Want to make sure everything won’t burn down while I’m gone.

  My brows furrowed, she hadn’t mentioned this before. I started to question her, curious as to what she was talking about but when I looked up Autonomous was looming right in front of me. I was out of time to question her. I took a deep breath, feeling the nerves start up in my stomach as I began to climb the stairs in front of the building. I had been here countless times before but this time felt different, new and I was a little nervous. I paused for a moment when I got in front of the doors of the building and sent her a quick talk to you later and put my phone in my pocket. I opened the door and walked up to the reception desk, seeing my friend jenny beaming at me from her desk.

  “Good Morning” I greeted Jenny with a smile. “ I’m here for the internship” She smiled back at me and said “ Of course, I heard about that! Congratulations Arianna I was so excited when I saw they had chosen you! I know you will do a wonderful job! There waiting for you just go ahead and take the elevator to the 6th floor and I’ll let Mr. Clark know your coming”

  “Thanks Jenny. Hey since I’m here now maybe we can catch lunch one day?” I said as I turned towards the elevator.

  She nodded and said “Yeah that’ll be great!”

  I smiled at her again before walking down the hall to the elevator. There were plenty of people down here in the lobby, some waiting on the elevator others hurrying to the coffee shop. When the elevator came, I got on with the others waiting for it and the doors closed. I took a moment to breathe in deeply and mentally prepare myself. Alright you can do this I thought to myself you’re going to march right in there and show them that you are the right choice for this internship. I nodded my head firmly as the elevator opened and I stepped out into a long corridor. There was a set of double doors to across and to the left of me. The surrounding walls had large windows set up at the top and I could see equipment from where I stood. I walked up to the double doors and the plaque next to it read Research & Development Lab 1.

  I opened the door and stepped into a large open space with a bank of windows on the far wall that let in a lot of natural light. On the left side were computer terminals set up in an octagon shape with a few people seated at them. In the middle of the room I could see groups of people at different work tables that appeared to hold several devices, prototypes I assumed. I felt a flash of excitement at the realization that I was actually here, that this was actually happening. I couldn’t stop the grin from spreading across my face and resisted the urge to do a happy dance.

  I finished looking around the room and saw that on the right side were a few doors which seemed to be the supervisor’s offices. Directly next to the door I had came through was a row of lockers, and beside those stood a desk with a security guard seated behind it. There was also a middle aged man dressed in slacks with a button down shirt tucked in at the waist standing there.

  “Good Morning” He greeted waving me over “ I’m Andrew Clark one of the supervisors. Are you the intern?”

  “Yes my name is Arianna Nyx” I said stepping up to the desk and shaking his hand.

  “Pleasure to meet you. This is Frank, the security guard for this research lab.” the guard nodded at me “Every morning when you come in, place your belongings into one of the lockers, also be sure to sign in. This is so we have a record of who used what locker when.It’s also another way to keep track of who is in the lab”

  “Ok” I said taking off my messenger bag and moving over to the lockers. Reading the label printed on each door told me the locks were the kind that were single use. You would have to set your own passkey that would be erased after the door was left open for more than 5 minutes. I set my bag inside and programmed the lock. Turning back to the desk, I quickly wrote my name, date and locker number down.

  Following behind Andrew as he walked towards one of the offices, I saw the lines of coding one of the programmers were working with at the terminal. I could feel my inner geek jumping up and down in excitement, this was the real deal! Of course we worked with coding in school and did practise scenarios,but that was in a controlled environment. To be able to get my hands on a actual product, to solve a real problem… I couldn’t wait.

  In the office he motioned for me to sit in one of the chairs in front of his desk and took a seat opposite me. He handed me a stack of papers and a pen saying “ I’ll need you to look these over and sign them. Those are the standard new employee paperwork including a nondisclosure agreement. I know you’ve done this already at Totality but we need to have a set here for us.”

  I nodded and looked over the papers quickly before signing in the highlighted areas. I handed them back and he placed them into a folder. Picking up a second set of papers he said “This is the non disclosure agreement. Basically stating you can’t discuss anything you see here in the lab with outside sources or we will prosecute to the full extent of the law.”


  I was expecting something like that so I signed those to and gave them back. He looked them over quickly and placed them in the same folder.He turned back to me and folded his hands on the desk. “ So we looked over your school record and at the classes you were enrolled in and how well you were doing in them. It seems you are especially good with coding and fixing any trouble areas in applications.”

  I nodded in response, I had received top scores in my coding classes and did seem to be able to pinpoint and then fix the problems an application may be having.

  “In that case during this internship, at least for the first half that’s what you will be doing. I’ll have you work with our coders to add in the new commands and to also help us with a couple problem areas that we have.” He stood up and motioned me towards the door saying “Come on, I’ll get you programmed into the time clock and introduce you to everyone. We’re a small team in this lab, so this will be who you see every day.”

  He led me over to a monitor set up on the wall beside the main door. There he programmed me into the system by my fingerprint, explaining I was to clock in and out for every shift and my lunch hour using this. Surprised to see that I would be using a time clock here I asked him why I would need to do this step.

  He raised his eyebrows at me “ Well you want to get paid right? Well this is how we will be doing it.”

  Stunned I looked at him in confusion “ I thought this was an unpaid internship?” seemed like Mia had pull a fast one on me, I had skimmed the papers she gave me but alot of it was legal jargon and I had skipped through most of it. This was a great surprise though and I was doubly grateful for this as well.

  “Of course, it’s written into your contract didn’t you see it?” he asked pausing beside the office door and glancing at me. From the look on my face I guess he could see that no, I hadn’t seen it and had no idea what he was talking about. “ Ok so you;ve basically been given a bit of a raise since now that you will be helping in research and development, this position pays before. This is effective immediately , so congrats” I had been wondering what I would do know with school and the internship taking up so much of my time. To say I was ecstatic was a huge understatement, I’d heard through the grapevine that the techs received almost double what I did so that meant I would no longer need the second job. I resisted the urge to do a happy dance as we exited the office. We walked towards the middle of the room and paused by one of the work tables.

  “Attention everyone” he called out and waited until they had turned towards us “ I would like to introduce Arianna Nyx, she will be our intern for the next 3 months. She will primarily be working here in this lab helping us with our programming and trial runs. Don’t go too easy on her, she’s first in her class” I slid him a sideways look and said under my breath “ That was two years ago you know” He smiled “You’re not likely to forget” Gesturing to a young woman in a pair of jeans, boots and a tshirt he said “ The is Yvette, shadow her for today while I get your credentials and login set up for the terminals”

  Yvette smiled at me and gestured over to one of the computers “Good to meet you. Come on over here and I’ll show you what we’ve been working on” Waving goodbye to Andrew, I followed her over to her terminal. She pulled another chair over and gesturing for me to sit she sat in the other seat. “ Ok so a quick rundown on what we are working on. We already have the base design and the programming completed for our new tablet The Assist. It would primarily be more for like sales people or construction managers. It’s made of tough scratch resistant materials, has some of the fastest processing speeds that we offer, has an integrated conference mode and comes equipped with everything a on the go business person needs.”

  I nodded sounds like something I could use. My current tablet I used to download assignments was old and beat up from having been dropped dozens of times. “ Sounds good, so what else is needing to be done on it?”

  She typed in a few keystrokes and pointed towards the screen “ Well the main thing that sets this tablet apart is its ability to render a holographic display. Being able to render images of work projects will come in handy for construction sites,real estate agents,you name it. We do have a few bugs with the display we have been trying to work out though.”

  I held up a hand and said “Wait you said a holographic display? That is awesome! I had no idea something like that was in the works.”

  She grinned at me “ I know right! It’s pretty exciting, some of the prototypes are already in use with the government but we need something a little different for the general public. Since you did exceptionally well with embedded systems design, you’ll be assisting me with that.”

  I nodded “Sounds great” I looked up as the door opened and glanced casually towards it. I raised my eyebrows in surprise as I saw Luc step into the room. Well I thought wryly glad I didn’t bet Sophia.

  “Good morning everyone” Luc said standing in the middle of the room. He scanned the room as we all murmured back hellos. His eyes paused on me and he started in my direction. Turning around in my seat to face him, I watched his approach. His bodied moved like a well oiled machine, a predator in full control of every movement, sure in his position in the order of things.

  He came to a stop in front of me “Good morning Arianna, Yvette. How are things going for your first day?” Yvette smiled at him looking a little star struck and mumbled a hello. I mentally rolled my eyes, he was hot sure but I wasn’t going to lose my head over any man. With that mental check I firmly told my ovaries to calm down.

  “Hey Luc it’s going great. Yvette was just giving me a run down on the tablet.”

  “ Good good. What do you think so far?”

  “Well it’s certainly an ambitious project” I said cautiously.

  He cocked his head at me, “Now don’t be shy, do you think it’s feasible?”

  Well since he asked “ I think it’s possible but trying to merge Selkrian tech with ours or bring ours up to where yours is at would be a huge undertaking.”

  “We’ve been influencing and enhancing human technology for years” he challenged

  “True and yet we’re still not on par with Selkrians” I raised an eyebrow at him

  “Because you’re not ready for full disclosure yet. Look at what happened when we revealed ourselves”

  I inclined my head “ True enough but how can a child learn to walk if the parent keeps sitting him down?” crap! This was my boss! What was I thinking arguing with him like that in front of everyone? I could only hope he didn’t become angry and kick me out on my first day.

  His eyes sparkled and I grinned at him in relief as he murmured “Well said” We looked around though when we noticed how quiet it had gotten. Everyone had stopped what they were doing and was staring at us.

  I looked over at Yvette and saw she was staring at me open mouthed. Clearing my throat I looked back at Luc and said “ So. Lovely weather we’re having”

  Luc started laughing and I joined in, soon everyone was laughing with us. He winked before turning and heading towards the door, saying over his shoulder “I’ll be seeing you later” The door closed behind him and everyone turned to me. Smiling a little I shrugged and turned back to the monitor “ Why don’t you show me those problem areas”. Yvette started and said “ Uh..yeah ok right here” she typed in a command and a new screen came up.

  I looked over the screen but noticed the she was just sitting there quiet, I glanced her way and noticed that she was looking at me from out the corner of her eye. “What?” I said self consciously wondering if I had something on my face.

  She shook her head at me “I’ve never seen anyone talk to Mr. Kapena like that. I’ve actually never seen him really chat with one of us either. Do you know him?”

  “No I was working as a courier at Totality but I’ve only seen him a couple times before now. Besides he was just probably checking up on me because of the internship.”

  She glanced at me again before shaking her head and turning bac
k to the screen.

  I sat outside on lunch break later that day, using one of the picnic tables that was situated under the trees at the back of the building. Yvette had shown me all that they were working on and had let me use her credentials so that I could get my feet a little wet. She had coached me as she watched me work, but otherwise just watched as I set about writing a sequence of coding into one of the applications. I hadn’t realized how much i had missed doing this until I started back. I pulled out my phone and sent a quick message to Mia. Don’t take this the wrong way but I think I love you

  She must have been on a lunch break as well because she texted me back quickly. Of course you do, I mean I am pretty awesome.

  I laughed and shook my head she was too hilarious, yea yea yea. But seriously thank you so much for giving me this opportunity. I won’t let you down. I sincerely meant that, she had went out on a limb to give me this chance and I was determined to do my very best at this.

  I have complete faith in you Arianna. Your gonna kick butt and take names!!! But not literally and I didn’t tell you that cause you know…..hr and liability blah blah

  I laughed again and set my phone down. I hoped Kale was ready because his girl was anything but boring. I finished the last bite of my sandwich and gathered up my trash. Standing I went to throw it in the trash bin, when I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket. Taking it out I answered without looking, figuring it was Mia calling me to give me some sort of pep talk.

  “Hello?’

  “Hello, My name is Ms. Metayer, this call is concerning a debt and all information collected will be concerning this debt. I’m calling from the collections department at general hospital, is this Arianna Nyx?” The caller’s voice was authoritative and slightly husky.