The Insider

Chapter 8

"Just trust me on this, OK?" A man whispers forcefully on his phone. "Just keep on running the codes and you'll unlock the data eventually."

"We've paid good money for this," the person on the other line responded. "I was expecting that once we bought it we'll immediately be able to get what we want.

"My bosses are getting antsy about this project," the person on the other line responded.

"Well my bosses are getting antsy, too," the man said as he quickly walked through the darkened halls of the Lindbergh building.

"You're about to beat them to selling this technology and this will surely take the company down, so you can imagine that they'll do everything to protect it," he continued as he boarded the elevator and pressed the key to the Engineering wing.

"But you never told us anything about this risk!" The other person shouted.

"We already leaked information that we got this technology on hand and a lot of people are already buying our stocks. They're selling like hot cakes!", he continued, his emotions obviously escalating with his voice. "But if this all goes south, I don't want to be someone to go down with it, so you better give me the goddamned access to these goddamned files!"

"OK. OK," the man said, trying to placate the other. "You don't need to shout a lot about it," he said.

"I'm already on the matter as we speak. I'll grant you access sooner rather than later," the man spoke calmly as he switched on one of the office computers. "Just you wait, OK?"

"I've already been waiting," the man from the other side said impatiently. "I really can't afford to wait anymore."

"Well, EMC's waited long enough, what's wrong with waiting a little more?" The man said, clicking the end call button.

He then placed his phone gently on top of the desk that he's working on. Inching his hands into his pockets, he reached for the data cable that he placed therein earlier this day.

He crouched to connect his phone to the desktop's CPU under the office table.

"Shit," he let out a curse as he noticed that the USB ports in front of it have been removed. "Fucking IT people!" he said as he heaved to rotate the CPU to gain access to its back, which he knows still has USB ports. He felt for the familiar rectangular slots as he traced the CPU's back in the dark. After a few seconds, he unplugged the mouse's cable in irritation to plug in his data cable.

Slapping dust off of his hands and knees, he then rose to seat himself in the familiar swivel chair and watched as the devices synced for about half a minute until it was finished.

Browsing for the desired files, he clicked on folders upon folders, opening each one before he found those that he was looking for.

"Bingo," he said as he clicked the command to transfer the files to his mobile device.

* * *

When Miranda reported to the office the next day, she noticed something different with her cubicle. Frowning, she wondered why all of the shoes which she kept under her desk was pushed to one side.

Like most girls, Miranda is a shoe fiend. In the few weeks that she's worked at Lindbergh, she already managed to bring in about six pairs of shoes to the office. She found it absolutely necessary, in order to keep functioning for the rest of the day, that she change from her high heels to her flats while she was not showing her feet to anybody.

Apart from that, she sometimes head straight to the gym from the office, hence the need to keep her gym shoes handy. In all other cases, she finds justification in the fact that a girl simply couldn't have enough shoes to fit her varying wardrobe which she of course changes daily.

When she turned on her computer, she found the screen pointer non-responsive. She moved the mouse around and around, even banging it slightly, but to no effect. She then lifted it up and found the red light which indicated that it's functioning to be off.

She then looked below her desk to try to check the problem and then found the mouse cable to be unplugged. That's odd, she thought. Maybe the cleaning lady was rather energetic in cleaning her desk this morning.

She then reached in to plug the mouse back in but she couldn't manage to, making her get down on her knees and crawl over under her desk to turn the CPU.

It was in this position, with her ass up in the air, that Lawrence managed to walk into her.

He walked in, coming from his personal restroom, and saw something that he couldn't help but look into.

Miranda's cubicle was closed off only on two sides, to her right and to her back, isolating her from the rest of the office. It was open on the front, giving the boss an easy view to her, as well as to the left, giving her access to the restroom dedicated for her and Lawrence's personal use.

So when Miranda was busy crawling under her desk, Lawrence had a pretty nice view of her behind when he came in.

He muttered a low curse and bit his lips as he was rewarded with a view of her white, dainty underwear which was peeking through the slit of her hitched up pencil skirt.

Lawrence felt something tighten beneath his pants as he noticed the trace of her mound, exposed further as she spread her knees farther apart to steady her balance while she reached for something farther behind her desk.

"Ehem," Lawrence cleared his throat.

The sound startled Miranda, making her hit the bottom of her table as she suddenly moved to stand up from the floor.

"Aw," she said, rubbing her head as she rose up slowly.

"What are you doing down there?" Lawrence asked.

"Hi Sir," Miranda greeted. "I was just plugging my mouse back in. I think the cleaning lady managed to pull it out while she was doing her rounds this morning," she explained, still squinting her eyes due to the sudden brightness of the morning sun compared to the darkness under her desk.

"What's the problem between you and mouses, Miranda?" Lawrence asked, thinking about the mouse incident a few nights before.

"Mice, Sir," Miranda quipped.

"What?" Lawrence asked, confused.

"It's mice, Sir. The plural of 'mouse' is 'mice'. You said 'mouses'," she explained.

Lawrence smiled at her, "Grammar Nazi."

She smile back at him, raised one of her brows, as if daring him to tell her she's wrong.

Gaining no further response but an eye contact that she dare not break, she callenged him for a smart remark, "Well?"

"Oh, do shut up," he said with a smile. "Are you hurt?" he then asked, sounding worried.

"Sir?" It was now Miranda's turn to be confused.

"Your head, is it hurt?" he asked again as he closed the distance between them with two steps.

He grabbed Miranda's hand which was rubbing her head then inspected the part of her head that she hit on her desk.

He was a good head taller than her so when he looked down on her, Miranda's face was so near his chest, his wide chest, with all the light dusting of tiny hairs that are peeking through his collar.

She can lean her head on it if she wants to. How great would that feel, she thought.

He rubbed the top of her head, blew some air to it, then to her surprise kissed it.

Her eyes widened and she swallowed hard.

"My mom used to do that when I was younger," he said with a whisper that only she can hear. "She said it will make the pain go away."

He stepped back and placed his hands in his pockets.

"Don't go crawling around under tables again, Miranda," he reminded. He then turned around to walk into his office. Before he left her alone however, he stopped on his track, turned his head slightly and told her, "I don't ever want to see you hurt yourself again."