Beautiful Paroxysm

Chapter#01

He was standing beside the window, surrounded by untidy documents and strong scent of paper and vanilla. Looking down at the crowd of students, he found that he didn't really miss his student life that much. It had been almost 7 years since he got his master and very rarely did he visited the university after graduating. Usually it was to give lectures on insistence of his professors which was why he was there today as well.

The door opened behind him and he turned to face the German old man passing 65 years this year. He had tall, lean and used to box in his college days. Even now, it seemed like he had kept some kind of exercise in his routine. He smiled when he saw him standing there and came forward to shake his hand and pat his shoulder heavily.

"How are you, Chris? You look old." Professor Adler grinned as he took a seat, putting his bag down on the table.

"You look older, professor." Chris replied with an easy smile, also taking a seat.

"I hope you have not been waiting long, I got ambushed by students due to their final projects."

"Not at all."

"I'll come straight to the point then, I need you to substitute for me."

Chris kept his expressions easy as he smiled at his professor and raised his eyebrow.

"Elaborate." He softly said.

Professor Adler face lost the smile as he turned sober and leaned forward, his hands tightly clutched as he slowly spoke, "I need to go back to Germany due to some personal business.....Taylor left a child at her mother's place. I want you to take my Tuesday classes starting next semester. It's second semester class and won't require much work. I have found others to fill in for rest of my classes."

Chris smiled and straighten his back as he said, "What do I get in return?"

Professor Adler laughed suddenly and replied, "I knew you would never do anything for free you foxy weasel. Unfortunately I don't have anything this time. Just take it for compensating me for rejecting Taylor."

"I own you no compensation for that. I told you she is not a good woman, if as a father you refuse to believe that then I won't argue." Christ bluntly said.

"There you go again, saying such harsh words with that charming smile of yours. Anyway, I'll think of something but right now I am desperate."

Chris stared at his professor for few seconds and then slowly nodded his head. Though he didn't believe he owned him anything, he did know how to show gratitude for all the years he was under him.

"There is another thing..." Professor Adler hesitated.

Chris stayed silent, patiently waiting and seeing as he wasn't running out the door professor continued, "You would have to take the scholarship student under you."

Chris eyes darken for just a flash before he was smiling again as he said, "Professor..."

"I know, Chris and trust me I tried to hand the student to someone else but you know that scholarship students are only allowed to part time with professors of their own department. She's a final year student who is taking that course with second semester. I could easily refuse her but....the girl really needs the money."

Hearing that it was a girl made Chris mood turned darker. He had few encounters with female students of this university and he wasn't comfortable in them and now there would be a girl hanging around his neck. Even if she was supposed to help him, he wasn't looking forward to it.

"I know what your thought are but she is a good child. Trust me, you won't even know when she is around." Professor Adler assured him but before he could say something else there was knock on the door.

"It must be her." He said before loudly saying 'come in'.

Chris didn't bother to turn but she felt the child walk towards them very quietly. When she stood beside his seat, a very soft scent of something sweet hit his nose. It was so faint and he found that it was like it was simply existing to make it easier to breathe. But he kept his eyes forward looking out from the window behind Professor's desk.

"Maya, take a seat." Professor Adler quickly said.

"It's okay, professor. I have to get to the class in 5 minutes. Do you have some work for me?" Her quiet but clear voice reached him.

"I told you about the arrangement for next semester, right? This is the professor who will be subbing for me. Christian Bane, meet Maya Vice."

It was then Chris turned her eyes to look at her. The first thing he notice was the mass of curled grey hair on her head. Looking down he found her ice blue eyes starting at him with polite gaze.

"It's nice to meet you, sir." She said.

He was thankful she didn't wanted to shake his hand because he was simply unwilling to touch someone he didn't know. He pulled on his easy smile and nodded at her. He noted that her expressions remain unchanged, uninterested.

"It's nice to meet you as well." He slowly said.

"I'll forward you his number and give you his. You might need to come by early from the ten day vacation to help him out a bit. Is that okay?" Professor asked her to which she simply nodded.

"No run off to your class. I'll email you your duties later."

"Okay, professor. I hope you have a safe flight." With that she once nodded politely at him and then left as quietly as she had arrived.

Chris once again raised an eyebrow at his professor who simply shrugged, "She have talent to make people talk. Before I knew it, I was telling her everything."

Chris laughed and stood up, buttoning his suit jacket back. He shook hands with the old man and said, "I'll keep in contact."

"You should, especially with Maya. Don't scare her away the child."

"We'll see." Chris smiled his charming smiled and walked out.

When he reached his office, Evan and Julia both were waiting impatiently in his office. They smiled in relief when they saw him and Evan started talking, "We got a reply back from Arcade Limited, they scheduled a meeting for 14th of next month. Also Cane called, VoiceOver. In filled a lawsuit against us for breaking the terms of contract and breaching their company's privacy. Your meeting for today have been moved to an hour later. Also, the bug which breached our firewalls came forward. It was from one of our networks."

Chris nodded, put on his glasses and started going through the files Julia handed him slowly. Signing his name on the first document he slowly said, "Select a team of no more than 5 people for Arcade Limited. Tell them to meet me tomorrow with their ideas. I need a whole new firewall designed for them. Warn the PR team in case we receive any heat and talk over with Cane to see if we can manage to shut VoiceOver. In without taking it all to court. No, make sure it doesn't reach court. Get me the highlight about the bug, email me the lists of suspects and run another background check on everyone. Also, clear my Tuesdays from next week. I will be busy."

"The whole day? Whatever to you need the whole day off for?" Julia demanded.

"That is my own personal business and step on it."