Egress Point

Chapter 1

It was Friday night and Arebecca was not feeling very Friday night at all. Just ten more pages then she could hit send, get paid, and enjoy the weekend. She tucked a long black curl behind her ear and focused on the latest compound German monstrosity to block her path.

Her phone buzzed on the table next to her and its screen lit up. Another message. She kept her hands firmly on the keyboard and forced herself to ignore the phone. Concentration locked at the bottom of the page; she read and reread the German word. Filling almost an entire line, the horde of letters possibly meant 'multiple factors of biometric authentication'. Did that make sense with the rest of the paragraph? Whether it did or not, she wasn't going to waste more time checking. She typed her translation, highlighted it orange for uncertainty, and moved on.

Working late into the evening was not what she'd signed up for when she'd taken the job three weeks earlier. The first week's work had taken her a grand total of nine hours, and she'd felt like dancing when the money hit her account. The honeymoon was over. This latest technical specification was 800 pages of solid text and it switched from French to German two thirds of the way through. Since arriving in her inbox on Monday it had taken up more than 50 hours of hard work. And she wasn't done yet. She scrolled to the next page and swore at the screen in Italian. Nine pages left.

She was lucky to even have a job at all. The advert had asked for native fluency in written and spoken French, German, Russian and standard Chinese. Arebecca had listed those languages among a dozen more on her application. And that wasn't an exaggeration, unlike the rest of the half-truths that had won her the job. At 17 years old, unqualified and inexperienced, she was not a decent prospect for employment of any kind. At least, that's what close to a hundred applications without response had proven to her. But, to Arebecca's surprise, Hangers End Consulting Ltd had offered her a position as a technical linguist on a weekly contract.

Her phone buzzed again. This time she couldn't help but glance down. A message from Sabby. Probably checking to see why she wasn't out partying like usual. She pushed the phone behind her laptop. As much as she didn't want to admit it, work was now her priority. Fun could happen once she was paid. And the pay was good. Maybe even good enough to get that new pair of Louboutins she'd seen in Knightsbridge. The ones Sabby had actually gasped at when they'd passed the shop window. Enough about shoes! She dragged her mind back to the screen, and the top of page 781; more technical German words awaited.

It was after eleven when she finally finished. She found the original email from her manager and opened a reply. Without bothering to write any kind of greeting or explanation, she attached her translation and hit send. The last few pages hadn't be her finest, but what did the company expect her to do with reports riddled with so much jargon?

She got up from the dining table and stretched her arms out wide. She'd hardly moved in the last five hours and her back and neck were aching. The phone buzzed again. The felt around behind the laptop and checked the screen--Sabby again. This time Arebecca answered.

"Hi Sabrina," she said. There was loud music in the background. Something with a heavy dance beat.

"Ari! Darling! Finally! Where are you?" Sabby shouted. "Everyone's asking after you. It's just not like you to miss out on bubbles and dancing. Hang on, don't answer, I'll get somewhere quieter."

Arebecca waited for the loud music to fade before giving her answer.

"Sorry, I've been working. But I'll be out tomorrow. Promise." She didn't feel like having a long conversation with an already tipsy Sabby.

"Oh Ari, you said this would be our summer of fun. Or our fun summer of partying, or something fun, anyway that's what you said. You're doing more work now than you did all year. And you don't need to worry about the money, not when I'm around." There was a slight echo to Sabby's voice, then Arebecca heard running water. A nightclub toilet, probably. "Take a cab over and I'll pay for it when you get here. And it's not just me that wants to see you, those French boys from that house party are here."

"It's not about the money," Arebecca lied. "I'm just too tired. You have fun with the boys and I'll meet up tomorrow. Love you."

Without waiting for a reply, Arebecca hung up and tossed the phone down on the sofa behind her. It was all about the money. Sabby was a good friend, and rich enough to bankroll their evening activities, but even Sabby wouldn't stretch to funding Arebecca's clothing needs. Plus, Arebecca didn't want to have to admit defeat to her father. A few hours working on boring documents was far better than spending the whole summer cramming for a degree course she wasn't interested in.

Her father wanted her to go to university. And that meant her stepmother did as well. And her stepmother was very good at making things happen. She had lined Arebecca up to spend the summer months being privately tutored by some boring academic. After that she would be packed off to a certain college in Oxford to study PPE. The certain college would accept her because her stepmother donated a very large amount of money to the college fund. But only if she completed the tuition and took an admission test. Apparently it was a fantastic opportunity, a wonderful chance for Arebecca to get ahead in life. She was only seventeen, and in four years she would leave university with the finest education in the world.

Arebecca didn't want to spend four years in a dusty Oxford college. And she told her father she wasn't interested in PPE or doing what he wanted. She'd spent the last 14 years following him around the world, forced into new schools in new countries. She wanted some time off. From now on she would get to choose what to do, and where to do it.

So after she'd finished the final exams for her international baccalaureate diploma he'd cut her allowance down to practically zero. He'd even stopped the expense account at the hotel where she lived, so she couldn't use room service for meals. She'd been reduced to living on sandwiches from Pret and handouts from Sabby for the last two months. At least he hadn't made her give up the suite and fly home. Wherever home currently was.

Her phone buzzed again. She ignored it, and a message appeared on her laptop.Not Sabby again thank goodness. It was an email from her manager. A payslip. She pulled the laptop off the table and sat down on the sofa with it on her lap. She opened the email and skimmed straight to the amount. Just over two thousand pounds had been deposited in her account. Her heart quickened and she broke into a wide smile -- easily enough for the shoes. There might even be enough for a new bag as well. Well worth missing the party for.

There was another part to the email which distracted her from daydreaming about the shoes. It seemed her employer wanted to have a meeting, in person. So far the work was all remote. After a brief telephone interview, they had started sending her documents via email which she translated and sent back. No commute, no office, no face to face. Now she had a request to meet her manager, a man called Nick Thomas, on Monday lunchtime in a cafe not far from her hotel.

She sent a quick reply accepting the meeting request and wondered what it meant. Did they want her to start a longer contract? She wasn't sure she liked the idea of that, and wasn't sure she even could; as a 17 year old part time work was all she was legally allowed to do. The extra hours she'd spent this week were not recorded officially. Perhaps they wanted to thank her personally for the hard work she'd put in on the translations. Maybe it was a pay rise!

She left the laptop on the sofa and scooped up her phone on the way through to the bedroom. There were many different thoughts in Arebecca's head as she drifted off to sleep that night. But they were mostly about walking around in a brand new pair of glossy French designer heels.