Untimely

- VIII -

The neighborhood around him was barely unrecognizable, and Five was starting to have second thoughts about leaving Mara behind.

The streets seemed livelier and less raunchy. Buildings were never in a drab color, and majority of them looked more modernistic. Flower bushes grew in front of shops and apartment complex as trees lined the streets. The abundance of streetlights and ecological structure didn't go unnoticed as well, and he could hear laughter almost every minute and saw groups of people just having a good time.

It was too pleasant, and Five was bothered by it. He knew no real world is ever free from chaos, it doesn't matter how good it looks. Nothing comes without a price, and you can't really gain anything from a clean slate. Grit and blood is what makes a world go round after all.

"A bunch of pompous pricks that's what they are."

Five shoved his hands into his pockets as he continued to look at his surroundings. The early afternoon sun beat down harshly on his head, and he had to squint to really take a good look at things.

He passed by a newspaper stand and his eyes caught on a cover of a magazine. The cover had a picture of the establishment with the blue Genesis logo hanging on the side of the building by the roof.

DIWA: How Genesis Telecoms Rose to the Top.

Five took the magazine and held it up to his field of vision. His eyes narrowed at the structure standing within the cover, and looked back at what's in front of him. In the distance, he could see a building that matched perfectly.

"Bingo."

He returned the magazine to its place in the stall and began to sprint towards the complex. 

To anyone else, he had probably looked like a student missing his backpack and running late to school. No one would have expected that he was really on his way to find some dirt on the world's largest network provider.

Five did eventually reach the building after a good amount of time and immediately saw the array of security that lined the entrance. But he wasn't too fazed by it. He trailed the wall and when he figured he far enough, he simply warped in.

He was quickly met an crowded parking lot. A single tree poked out from the sea of vehicles, and Five quickly made his way towards it as if it was a beacon.

From where he stood behind the large tree, he could only see a handful of people coming in and out from the gate and no guards standing by the glass doors. He could walk in no problem, assuming that the lobby wasn't crowded and the workers would be too busy to notice him.

Five decided to take that chance.

He walked coolly through the door. Though the lobby was actually more open and crowded than he had hoped, the employees were in fact too involved in their work to see the only boy in a stark blue uniform in the area.

The interior itself did not disappoint. What you see from the outside is what you would expect in the inside.

The walls were a pristine white with hints of nature here and there, decorating the lobby and giving it a bit more life. Heavy duty glass and wires comprised the elevator near him and a spiral staircase connected the many floors starting from the second floor.

The opening between the floors was built in a shape that almost looked like coral sponge from below. Hanging from the high ceiling, a series of metal objects that hung from the ceiling winked back at him, and as Five looked closer, he realized that they were metal birds that seemed to flutter in the air.

Five was almost impressed. It was just a shame that he was probably not leaving the area without destroying a few things along the way.

Searching for his next move, he looked around, but there was nothing else aside from the ID gate. Five walked behind a group of workers going through it as to not to be seen by the reception desk.