But the police won't take the report. They need to see proof. But how? The calls I got didn't even get registered into my log. Everything is untraceable. The police even warned us not to waste their time.
Yuna finally understands that Mei did go to the police, only that no one would take her report. No one would take her seriously. If someone had killed her sister like that, she isn't going to let that someone get away so easily. Yuna flips for the previous page.
Mon, 3rd Nov 11:52 p.m.
Something creepy happened today. It started with someone sending me a picture message. A little later my phone rang and before I could pick up, the call gets put on loud speaker by itself. This old woman's voice said, "Follow my instructions and it will be over in a few days.” But the call is not registered in my phone's log. I'm worried that if I told John, he'd be thinking that I'm seeing a ghost or something.
Yuna flips the page back to see what happens before that.
Sun, Nov 2nd 9:34 p.m.
A wonderful day indeed. John gave me pleasant surprise. First, jogging at the lake, then brunch at my fav dim-sum restaurant. Best of all he got tickets to the premier of my most anticipated movie Going Bonkers! We had a splendid time and ended it all with lip smacking delicious prawn noodles. I am the happiest woman on earth.
Yuna stops flipping the page. The blackmailing started on Nov 3rd. She needs to find out who did it and a lot of information is on Mei's phone. Yuna dashes out her room leaving the diary closed on her bed. She rushes out into the living room to find John still remaining morbid on the sofa.
"Ahem... I need to borrow Mei's phone," Yuna clears her throat before saying loudly enough to direct John's attention to what she is saying.
John turns his head slowly to throw a confused glance at Yuna as though wondering why she is talking to him before answering, "Take it. She usually keeps it on the dressing table."
John turns his head back to staring at space leaving Yuna to go to the master bedroom and fetch the phone by herself. But that's fine; she knows the house better than he does. She grew up here having a whole life of happy memories that turned into painful scars within these walls.
The door is left wide opened and the first thing Yuna notices as she approaches the master bedroom is the familiar blue phone on the dresser facing the wide open door. Yuna hurries into the room, sweeps the phone off the dresser and darts back into her room.
Locking the door and closing the curtains, Yuna sits onto her bed and turns the phone on. The dark screen glows to life and prompts for a password. Yuna punches in 1829 without hesitation. Her sister always forgot her passwords. So they came up with combinations for all her accounts that both of them would remember - this particular one is the combination of their birthdays; Mei was born on the 18th while Yuna is on the 29th.
The screen changes to display the home screen. Immediately, Yuna's throat chokes with heaviness as she looks at the wallpaper. It's the picture they had taken together on the day Yuna bought Mei the phone. Yuna takes several deep breaths to block the surging urge to cry as she blinks off the tears that are welling up in her eyes. She has something far more important to do than crying. The truth behind Mei's death needs to be discovered.
Yuna taps on the picture gallery icon and searches for the picture message but there's none. She is not aware that Ada has remotely wiped the phone clean.
Yuna starts to wonder if Mei had deleted it? Then Yuna searches for the video Mei mentioned and that too is missing. Questions start to flood her head. Could someone hav removed them before she laid hands on it? But the only one to have access to her phone is John. Should she approach John about this? What if John is involved? If he is involved then his motive is clear - He could have been after the fortune Mei had inherited from their parents. The lure of over eight million ringgit worth of properties alone can corrupt the integrity to one's personal values, turning John into a crook. No one can know for sure.
With nothing on the phone, the Thai woman in the diary remains the only lead to the truth. She flips back to the entry about the Thai woman. She needs to find her - at Shark Palace.
Chapter 7
India: Friday, 14th November 2:26 p.mm
With her gray racer back tank top drenched in sweat, Ada continues to run on the treadmill. Two minutes more and she will set a new record for herself -two hours of non-stop running at a forty five degrees tilt.
Her leech maintains on her wrist, silent as things proceed smoothly on her lifegrid. The treadmill slows down gradually before coming to a complete halt as the two minutes count down reaches zero. Ada steps off the treadmill with her hands holding onto the hand support of the machine, letting her body accustom to the wobbly shift from running to stationary.
Later, with her hands on the waist of her striking orange running shorts, she takes slow, deep breaths of sweat-filled air to calm her heartbeat. Finally she reaches for the white towel draped on one of the hand bars and starts wiping away the sweat off her forehead and from under her loosely twirled bun. She then wipes the towel back to the front of her neck and chest.
She walks away from the many lines of treadmills that occupies only a sixth of the gym area and strolls for the refreshment zone. After the painful exercise regime her legs have gone through, she now feels light as a bird. The aching of her muscles as she walks is the prize, reminding her she has achieved much more than the last run. Like the saying goes - no pain, no gain.
As Ada reaches the line of shiny, chrome colored dispensing machines, she grabs a tall paper cup from the side of the machine and fills it up with a clear isotonic drink. She drinks up, ignoring the whispers and skeptical glares thrown at her by the other occupants. People in the Hive are extremely envious and over competitive. How much they'd give to see Ada fall as she has been nicknamed the most outstanding ghost for the past four years.
Ada decides she'll forgo the sauna to avoid her sly counterparts this time and heads out the gym. She is near the exit when someone taps her on the shoulder from behind. Stunned at who it might be, Ada immediately turns to look and finds a handsome smile dawning over the oblong face of a tall Korean guy with straight bushy eyebrows and soulful oriental eyes. He hand-combs his wispy black hair back into place.
Ada smiles back in relief. It is Zero, her only friend in the Hive. They came into the Hive riding the same sub six years ago. She leads the way out of the gym into a world of entertainment and relaxation. This is Level 02, where all lives in the Hive come out for balance away from their dark and demanding jobs.
Sectioned into leisure, dining, recreational and relaxation, each section has its own design theme. This level houses a gym, bars, restaurants, coffee shops, hair saloons, a cinema, boutiques, massage parlors and anything else that would equip a full-fledge first class shopping mall. Best of all, everything is paid for.
In the Hive, virtual units are your currency. By scanning the chip embedded inside one’s palm on a pebble like scanner, the system automatically deducts his available units for a purchase. Units, not linked to one's wages are complimentary and proportionate to one's service in the Hive. The higher you rank, the more units are provided to you everyday. Unused units cannot be accumulated or brought forward, creating a caste system that clearly distinguishes individuals by their spending power. Ada and Zero belong in the second highest caste, just below the highest caste of administrative officers.
"Heard you're back on track," Zero smiles following Ada out into the center court of Level 02 where a ten feet wide tubular greenhouse encloses a tiny tropical forest. It is the only place that reminds the people in the Hive of the world out there, keeping their sanity intact.
"Yeah," Ada smirks at him, stopping to admire the yellow canary flying from tree branch to tree branch - what a precious sight indeed.
"Knew you'll be okay in no time," he says proudly, as though he was talking about his own little girl.
"The whole Hive knows huh?" she sighs.
"Mm-hmm," Zero nods.
"They
must be disappointed," Ada laughs.
"I bet they are," Zero agrees, referring to the other ghosts who would so love to see her fail.
Ada's outperforming them for the past few years has put a stake at most of the other ghosts' career, putting them on immense pressure.
"What do you wanna eat? My treat," Ada says to Zero as she leads the way into the rock themed dining section.
Soft classical music greets them as they enter within the sandy, beige walls that glimmered with tiny granite and mineral stones both jagged and sharp but beautiful at the same time. The restaurants are nestled within caves that lined both sides of the winding man-made rock tunnel.
Ada and Zero treads their sneakers over the floor of multicolored pebbles carefully tiled to create a swirling pattern. Hanging over their heads, down from the tall rock ceiling are stalactites illuminated by warm, orange spot lights.
"I'm thinking sushi," Zero says, neither of them admiring the beauty of the place anymore.
"Sure," she says and they walk towards the third restaurant on their right. On the top of the entrance is a wooden signage that read ZEN DORI.
The waitress leaves them alone after seating them down at a small square glass table with beige wooden legs and matching wooden chairs. Ada waves her palm over the pebble like scanner attached near the edge of the table and this scanner immediately detects the flat microchip half the size of a grain of uncooked rice implanted just underneath the skin of her palm. Every member of the Hive has this microchip implanted as a payment gateway, to open doors and access different zones and have their movements in the Hive tracked.
As the scanner loads her available units for the day, the glass table top turns into a display panel, displaying two digital menus to them - one facing Ada and the other facing Zero. The menus are generated based on Ada's available daily units. Therefore, a different menu is generated for everyone who patrons the same restaurant based on their purchasing power.
They choose the food they want by simply using the table top as a touchscreen.
"So, anything exciting in programming?" Ada asks after they complete their ordering.
"Chasing bugs," Zero jokes, raising one eyebrow.
"Sometimes I get tired," Ada sighs. It's been a lonely six years in the Hive and Zero is the only one she can trust and open up to.
"Tired as in muscle tired, or tired as in brain tired?" Zero asks. He might be a computer genius but when it comes to human communications, he is more of a boy in a man's head - simple, direct, fun and even naive at times.
"Soul tired," Ada replies, rolling her eyes as she let's out a giggle. His boyish manner always makes her feel relaxed.
"That is deep. Not sure if I understand," Zero replies honestly.
"It means sometimes I wonder if we will ever get to lead normal lives again," she explains, lowering her voice as she sees the waitress approaching with their drinks.
"Beats me, haven't given leaving much thought. But if you decide to leave one day I'll be following," Zero says matter-of-factly.
"Have you not even once regretted coming down here?" she asks, narrowing her eyes doubtfully.
"Honestly, no. You know I'm an orphan right? Got no family to regret leaving behind," he answers, raising his hands in surrender motion.
"What about friends?" she asks.
"Not many," he replies.
"I'm sure you had girlfriends," Ada teases.
"A couple, but I didn't like playing 'servant to princess'," Zero answers.
"What about things you loved to do?" she continues to say.
"I like to sleep," he answers.
"You're a loner," Ada concludes.
"Before I met you, yes. But now, we're like the binary system. You and me, zero and one," Zero says and he means it. Like how Zero is Ada's only friend in the Hive, Ada is also Zero's only real friend. He couldn't bring himself to trust anyone else too. They just somehow clicked together so well but it isn't anything romantic, just pure friendship. From day one they stepped into the Hive, they've been warned that like working bees, their jobs are to maintain the Hive's operation and any romantic relationships between members of the Hive are strictly forbidden.
"Your metaphors suck," Ada laughs as the waitress comes with a glass platter of the freshest sashimi served on ice chips.
Lowering the platter onto the table, the waitress proceeds to grind fresh wasabi before them using a little porcelain dish with a thorny, gritted surface somewhat resembling a cat's tongue.
"I'm all you've got down here so you better start being nice to me," Zero teases Ada, nodding a thank you to the waitress.
"Please," Ada grunts, reaching her fingers for the tiny soy sauce bottle.
"Do you know that the green paste we eat back home are all fake flour paste mixed with cheap wasabi flavoring?" Zero suddenly says diverting from their original conversation.
"Stop talking like you're from Japan," Ada says.
"If I was pretending to be from Japan I wouldn't be talking to you in English, would I?" Zero says.
"Okay, back to what I was saying, sometimes I feel tired of staying here," Ada goes back to saying.
"Unlike me, you have no choice," Zero says with empathy as his stare softens.
"I will stay here for as long as it takes to keep my brother alive," she says, her voice and face turning solemn.
"A toast to your brother," Zero proposes with his small cup of warm sake, trying to lift her mood.
"A toast to my brother," Ada takes a deep breath and toasts as she forces a grin over her face.
Zero looks at her, his heart fills with empathy. He knows deep down inside Ada is not evil or rotten like a lot of the people in the Hive. She was a victim of circumstances. Unlike him, her brother's costly medical expenses are the reason she has to live the life of the Hive. It was sacrificing her life for his. Zero on the other hand was looking for 'excitement' in his career, not knowing what he was in for.
They are eating halfway when her leech lets out a gentle vibration and the surface lit up. A message displays on the surface.
Sub-randomer 2 engaged.
Ada smiles with satisfaction.
"You seem happy," Zero comments.
"Yeah, I'd be happier if my brother is awake and healthy again and I can finally leave this place," Ada says as she dips a piece of salmon sashimi into the wasabi tainted soy sauce before bringing it to her mouth.
"Actually there's one question on my mind about leaving. Have you noticed that there are no older people on our teams?" Zero asks.
Ada gives it a short thought and shrugs. "How long has the Hive been in operation?" Ada answers with a question.
"Fifteen years or more I think," Zero replies.
"That's right. Fifteen years only. So how old do you expect the people here to be?" Ada challenges.
"Look, you and I have been here for six years and we're like total seniors. Someone's gotta have been here before us. But who were they? Where did they go?" Zero asks.
"Maybe they got sick of the Hive and left," Ada suggests.
"Maybe, maybe not," Zero shrugs his shoulders.
"What are you trying to say?" Ada asks.
"My gut tells me there might be some conspiracy going on," Zero whispers.
"You're part of one. Tell me about it," Ada grunts.
"Tell me, have you even seen someone leave the Hive, like officially resign? Most of them just disappear the next day. Someone happily moves in to replace them and nobody ever questions where they go," Zero adds.
"Well, if there is a conspiracy, I'd rather keep my nose out of it," Ada comments.
"You just said you wanted to leave one day. Better give my theory some thought," Zero continues, "I don't wanna see you disappear."
"Thought you'll be disappearing with me?" Ada teases.
"I won't. I'll be the hero who saves you," Zero says proudly.
Chapter 8
Canada: Friday, 14th November 4:12 a.m.
Richard Byrd, senior manager of t
he sales and marketing department for Gros Biotechnology has just touched down in the Vancouver airport. Tired but ecstatic from his trip back from Taiwan, he has just landed his first CAD$ 1 million contract with Asia's leading cosmetic giant XiXu. If things progress smoothly, he might be able to secure future contracts worth CAD$5 million a year, his biggest sale in his sales performance history. But instead of Gros Biotechnology, the contract manufacturing is signed to Melid Biotechs; a garage company he had set up under the name of his wife two years ago.
Randomers Page 5
