The Frills of Sanity

The Journey Towards The Future!

It was almost 2 PM in the afternoon. Hope had always thought of the moment where she will have to take the matters in her hands, deciding about her life and wondering if she is hot to trot. Now that Mrs. Holmes will no longer be around, it was hard for Hope to make a decision.

She flipped open her cell and searched for the number of the Orphanage. But then she stared at it for a while and closed it.

'I can't bother Mrs. Holmes every now and then. Let it be the matter of joining CRIB or the matter of shadow stalker, I will figure them out by myself.'

She thought for a while about it and nodded her head in negation. She settled on her sofa chair and dabbed her lower lip several times. 

Though she had decided to figure out her thoughts about joining CRIB, all the time she had was spent in useless thinking of 'what's and 'if's. Today would be the first day where she would make an important decision without any help or any nudge of piles of suggestions.

Choosing between the two was very difficult. On one hand, she had an option of searching the decent job and run the rest of the days. She already had her recommendations and credits from The Princeton University. 'A simple one! The life, then, would be very easy.', thought Hope.

But on the other hand, Hope also wanted to discover what job has exactly been offered to her at CRIB. She was wondering what job she could do for an institution like CRIB and was really hoping that Mr. Maldonado never comes. To top it up, she finally had found one and only chance of re-establishing a connection to her lost parents. 

Time never stops for anyone. Neither it considers anyone's expectations. It has its own pace and motion which is unstoppable and beyond human's understanding.

The time flew by very quickly and there arrived Mr. Maldonado at Hope's door. Hope was willing to say 'NO' at the very instance and shut the door. But she could not resist the idea of exploring the intelligence agency like CRIB from inside.

'Not everybody gets a chance to have a look inside it. Why not have a little tour? Who knows, I might find more about mum and father.', thought Hope.

Mr. Maldonado asked Hope in an Anglo-American heavy accent, in a very official and very dramatically manner, "Miss, do you agree that you have accepted our offer? In such case you must know that you will never be able to live the same life again."

Hope could not resist her laughter and giggled a little. This was like the guy had come out of some high-tech detective movie. When she looked up at Mr. Maldonado, his blank straight face made her laugh further more.

After all that, Hope made her straight  face and in the exact accent she said, "I have not made up my mind yet. But I would like to know about your institution and my probable job profile. I also would like to have a word with Mrs. Green."

"No Miss. We do not welcome people for a tour in our organization. This is unacceptable." Mr. Maldonado almost barked.

"Then, my answer is NO, sire." Hope was actually having fun no matter how hard she tried not to mess around. All she wanted was the moment to be over for lifetime.

In a moment of disbelief and a butchering glare of his narrowed eyes, Mr. Maldonado was in his car, conversing with Mrs. Green on his phone.

"Ann, she says she wants to know her job profile before joining. I have told her that we can't jeopardize the smooth functioning of our organization for her-"

"Bring her here, Malcolm. You know the risk. She was already being stalked, as per our recent report. It is time. Show her everything you can. At the end, she will be on our side."

"Ann, do you have any idea about what you just have said? We can deal with this in many other ways as well. She is still a risk. Other members will not be happy if we bring her in!"

"Just do it as I said. Show her our departments and bring her to me. I will personally talk to her. This should be it for now, Malcolm."

Agent Maldonado stormed down the phone. He shook his head in negation and stepped out of his car. He reached up to Hope and forwarded the invitation received from Mrs. Green. Hope was very happy that she could go visit the organization, meet Mrs. Green and come back home with a NO to CRIB.

"I will be ready in ten minutes. Make yourself comfortable." She glanced one last time at Agent Maldonado and climbed up the staircase. She hurried to her bedroom and opened the closet. She chose her emerald green sheath dress, with hairs done in a twisty high bun. She wore her thin golden chain and simple emerald green earrings. A little pink-gloss, Golden plated wrist watch, black nude pumps with the emerald green Fold-Over clutch and Hope was ready to move towards CRIB.

Soon, she was in a car at the back seat with Mr. Maldonado in front seat next to the driver. All the way to the CRIB, she had no idea about what she will do once she knows everything about the institute's insight. Still, she had a feeling that she is going to learn something...something about her origins.... something about her parents. With this thought, she recalled what she had heard many-a-times from many people, about her parents.

'Were they really drug dealers? Were they abandoned from the CRIB? Does it means that one of the CRIB mission could be to kill them-burn them to ashes. What are the chances of they being alive?' With this thought, her eyes filled with tears and once again she tried shaking off the memories of the accident and her parents' so called death.

The rushing wind and the noise of trees made her feel like Christmas. The day was getting longer. Hope could not wait to see everything she could to gather the information about her past. She could dig into the computers of the Agency and learn about her origins. For her, it seemed like the Destiny was giving her the opportunity to do the exact same!

A/N:- How do you like the chapter? Too small? I am sorry! Just thought of giving you guys with something more. Back to the chapter, what do you think? Will she find out something about her past? About her parents?

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