The Undergrad

by Mela NoLeuca

CHAPTER SIX

  Robyn's POV

  Look, I know that maybe it's mean to look at other's failures to make you feel better. But I just couldn't help it.

  Hey, I may not have my license yet but at least I graduated. I couldn't help but grin as I sat next to this Gold guy, trying to comfort him as best as my nursing ways could. It must be hard to almost have your dream job slip right past your fingers.

  We were on a curb by some street named Nathan Road where a busy bizarre was having its usual day in front of us. Tall buildings stood around like a massive fortress as thousands of business people waltzed in and out of them.

  I've never been in these parts of the nation before.

  "You know, I was actually the best in my league,"

  I nodded quietly as he began. He surely has narcissism. He soon went through a roller coaster of emotions like a girl at the peak of her PMS, he was angry at our abductors, then he was crying--okay maybe he didn't but he almost did for sure--because of some school he didn't graduate from and then he was laughing because his job fired him.

  Well that made sense. I kind of felt bad for him. I tried to tell him to let it out but he just gave an awkward stern look. I wasn't much of a drinker but it might help this guy somehow. He needed to loosen up a bit more.

  "Wanna go get drunk?" okay maybe that didn't make my intentions sound the way I wanted it to be.

  "No thanks," he sighed, "I can't get drunk anyway. Come on, they're coming."

  I hurried after him. I wanted to know what he meant by that but what seemed like a more important question to ask was: "Who is?"

  "The Cleaners,"

  I laughed as we entered the heavy throng of businessmen. "What are they gonna do? Soap us to death?"

  "Well maybe not soap us, more of like gun and or knife us to death. Depends on how creative they are to get rid of us"

  Whoa! What a horrible way to get fired. I kept pestering him to tell me why his company had to go kill him off when he hadn't even graduated yet? I know that didn't make sense but I asked it anyway. Maybe his answers will make some sense out of it.

  Instead, he just kept quiet and grabbed a few more wallets right in front of me.

  Damn, this guy's so evil! No wonder his Karma is so horrible! Maybe if he weren’t like this then none of this would happen. What had I done wrong to get into this mess?

  I'm probably several days missing already. Isn't anyone looking for me? Shouldn't my parents have already gone sick worrying over their only child?

  We walked into a tiny cafe that faintly reminded me of Starbucks. I was too famished to even care which cafe we went to. Gold headed for the counter to get us something to eat. I trudged towards an armchair sighing as I sank into its comfort.

  My feet were killing me! Thank goodness he got me sneakers instead of listening to me when I said I wanted those killer red stilettos. I started when he tossed me a tiny brown paper bag and walked right through the exit.

  Was he seriously trying to leave me alone? Was he actually ditching me? Using all my willpower, I pulled myself up and ran after him ignoring the way my feet complained in agony.

  "Stop trying to leave me!" I squealed. I cleared my throat when he looked down at me, drowning me in with those scary chocolate eyes.

  I realized that I only reached up to his shoulders. Either I was really small or this guy is too dang tall!

  "We need to find a place to stay," he said. His quick hands got him aviator shades and a black hobo bag for me as we passed by an industrious looking lady busy typing into her blackberry.

  "We need to blend in," he reminded me as he wore his shades.

  How does he even do that? How can he work for an elite something company if here he is living life like a crook. I shook away my thoughts and slung the bag on my shoulder guiltily as I bit into a chicken wrap he bought for me with his stolen money.

  It wasn't long enough before he led us straight into an average looking part of the city. Less cars, less people, less noise. It felt like hours before we arrived and my feet hurt so much I couldn't feel them anymore. Note so self: sneakers are not comfortable when they are one size bigger.

  At least I had my delicious chicken wrap to comfort me.

  "This will do," he said, snatching the last bite of my wrap and shooting the cardboard holder smoothly into a trash can along the sidewalk.

  "What the hell Gold!" I slapped his arm as hard as I could, "Do you know how evil it is to eat someone else’s last bite? The last bite is always the best! And you just… you just stole it from me!"

  Did he just roll his eyes at me? Oh seriously! Oh no, he is not walking out on me again! He strode right into a building with flashy lights that I did not bother reading, I ran after him.

  We walked into a cabin-like foyer and straight into a wooden counter where a seedy looking man began talking to Gold. Whew! It smelled like stanky sweat balls in here!

   If only his legs weren't that long then maybe I'd have an easier time catching up. When I did, he already handed down a few bills and got a key, the man I mentioned earlier began leading us somewhere. Gold slung his heavy arm on my shoulder and it all happened too fast for me to comprehend.

  "Oh ew!" I retched, ducking out of his hold. He ignored me and grabbed my elbow; I was comically leaning away from him in a feeble attempt to free myself. This man is so full of himself!

  "I see you nailed a feisty one," the man chuckled maliciously as he peeked at us.

  He had one lazy eye, an ugly oversized nose, yellow mangled teeth and a shiny bald head. He was lean and tall and reminded me of a perverted scarecrow.

  Gold chuckled, "yep, she'd always like to play it like this, right, sweetheart?" he grounded out with difficulty.

  I cringed. Oh hell no, I am not playing along—his smile tightened. Sighing in defeat, he'd better have a good reason why I shouldn’t try and murder him in his sleep tonight (even if we both know that it’s very impossible). I gave in just this once pretending to be his rebellious girlfriend as we walked down a rickety looking narrow hall with an ugly faded red carpet and scary blinking lights. We reached a door with a missing number, so instead of your usual three-digit number it ended up looking like a 'blank 09.'

  Our room was just as ugly and smelly as the lobby. An old queen sized bed was placed on the left facing an old fashioned TV on the opposite wall. Straight ahead was a big cabinet where ajar to that was a door that led to the toilet. And the walls? Yup, just don’t ask. I wouldn’t like to describe it either.

  I walked in. Clutching my bag against my chest keeping my back turned to Gold and the scary receptionist. When the door closed, he removed his jacket, threw it on the bed and headed straight to the toilet without saying a word.

  Oh no. I hope he's not going to rape me. But, I guess I wouldn't mind having one night with him on the bed if you know what I mean. Come on. He's drop dead gorgeous and has the body and height of a model! I'd be lying if I said that I wouldn't want to have him. Oh don't judge me!

  Sure he has a horrible attitude and is horribly insensitive but--what was that sound? It sounded like a machine. I looked to the bathroom door and saw a sliver of light flash momentarily. Was I seeing things?

  It was quiet again. Should I go check if he's fine? But what if he suddenly comes bursting through the door asking what the heck I'm doing?

  "Gold?"

  Nothing. He said nothing. Maybe I should let it pass, I mean who knows, he might just be taking a dump and a shower afterwards.

  I busied myself by trying to operate the ancient-looking TV but had nothing else on except static to watch. I shut it off in defeat and removed my trench coat; wow this place is getting stuffy. And the stuffier it got the stinkier it was. There was an air conditioner but it wasn’t working, it only spat dust all over me and then groaned dangerously before I shut it off. I spat out all the dust from my mouth and looked at myself. Ew. Never mind.

  A few minutes came and went and there was still no sound of a flush. I cautiously walked to
the bathroom door and knocked hesitantly. I needed to shower off all the dirt and grime caked to my skin, thanks to the 'awesome' air conditioner.

  "Gold? I uh... Want to use the shower."

  I knocked once more, and then tried jiggling the knob. The door opened. I swallowed and quickly shut it tight. God that was so stupid! What if he was getting dressed, what do I do then? On second thought maybe I wanted to see him getting dressed.

  I was looking forward to find him toweling himself off after a shower or better yet find him in the middle of one. That would be so sexy!

  But instead, I saw a dirty toilet to the left and a bronze showerhead in front of it. At the wall I'm facing was a rusty sink with a small mirror blurred from all the dust and dirt.

  "Gold?" I asked again. "Oh my God, where are you?"

  He left me alone in this room all by myself! What am I supposed to do now? Am I supposed to wait for him or did he leave me here to wait for the men coming after him and say... And say what?

  I don't know what to say! Maybe the bag he gave me had instructions telling me what to do. This all might all be part of the plan. I fished in the hobo bag; there I found another wallet, some papers, a makeup kit (yay!) and a gun. A gun? That lady was carrying a gun? Anyway, this was all the proof I needed to be convinced.

  I grabbed the papers but it only had graphs and a bunch of other boring stuff I couldn't understand. Whatever, I am not reading this. At least I could finally put something on my face and look gorgeous now. I grabbed the kit and Gold's jacket then headed back to the bathroom. I wiped the mirror clean, particularly rubbing one spot in the middle that I couldn't get rid off.

  God, this is getting annoying. Why won't it come off? It’s just as stubborn as Gold—

  Something clicked. I pulled back, all of the sudden the mirror flashed white blinding me for a second. Ow! I couldn't see! I stumbled back against the wall shielding my eyes. Oh my God! Did I walk in on a blinding minefield or something? I heard something similar to an alien hovercraft before I heard something that said:

  "Access Denied,"

  What? I pried my eyes open, blinking hard to make that annoying green sheet evacuate from my vision. Its like what you normally see after you've been flashed with a camera light only it was bigger, so yes. I'm suffering temporary blindness:

  "Access Denied,"

  There it goes again. It had a British accent of a woman but was clearly a machine. When I could see a little bit better again, there was something on the mirror with big fat words that said: Access Denied.

  "Cool," I muttered, inching closer as I tried to figure out how that happened.

  "Access Granted,"

  My whole world spun after that. I was thrown to the floor. I know it didn't make sense but that was what happened. I fell hard on my tailbone; I cringed and held my breath. Good heavens if I lost my ability to walk at such a delicate time as this--wow!

  Who knew behind this bathroom there would be so much space? Well it wasn't really as big as the foyer of this inn but it was surely as big as our dingy smelly room and the nightmarish of a toilet combined.

  It was so cool! Everything in here was like a secret agent mini office with all those hi-tech monitors and wide keyboard you'd normally see in movies! On my right was a shelf full of firearms of different sizes and vests and stuff. Next to that was a clean, smart bed in dark blue linens to match the theme color of this room. At a corner right next to the hi-tech part of the room was a small, cylindrical closet. I peeked in and it was a shower with a foldable toilet seat. Yes. Just a seat.

  I don't want to think why it was designed like this. But whoever designed this place is so minimalist! Everything here was way neater than my place!

  "Don't touch anything,"

  I jumped and turned finally noticing Gold sitting in those cliché black leather office seats typing things into his keyboard. I watched by his side and saw all those codes in one screen and another was like a map full of red dots as if marking some places. There was about five monitors in total; two big ones on top and three in the bottom.

  There were so many things I wanted to ask him right now such as: why did you leave me? Why didn't you tell me about this? What is this place? What are you doing? What was with the sleazy act a while ago? And all those other things anyone would love to ask.

  But as usual, he just kept quiet. I guess that was because he had headphones over his ears. Was he even listening to me? I sighed and headed to his bed. At least this place was air conditioned.

  "Looking on the brighter side of your new hellish life, your company spared you this." I muttered before plopping on the bed with a sigh.

  "They don't know this place,"

  Before I could ask why, he already began explaining that whenever they were given their day offs back in the Academy some good friend of his named Craw would bring them here and they fixed up this place. Apparently, he had a few more of these 'Personal Head Quarters,' scattered throughout the nation. And the company never knew.

  That was pretty cool actually. Usually in my day offs I would just hang out at my boyfriend's place and watch him play Counter Strike and War of the Lords, or whatever, all day. Everyone always knew. When we broke up, thank goodness I discovered wattpad, otherwise I had no idea what else I'd do other than mope. Which is, of course, so totally not me. I don’t mope and cry all day wishing that my horrible life would end right now. Except for that one day. Whatever. You don’t have to know that. 

  From what I understood from Gold, he was basically kicked off from school, laid off from work which is basically where he was studying and now those people are trying to get him—kill him actually—and I'm still not sure what the reason is behind that. Let's not also forget to add in the fact that their enemy, Portley and his men, are also after him because of what he had running in his veins. But basically, I did get the vague hints that this guy and everyone else I met unpleasantly since my nursing exam, is part of some secret organization.

  "So what's the plan?" I emphasized imaginary apostrophes in midair. Inwardly I was getting quite nervous. All this might sound cool to you, but it really isn’t when it’s your life at stake.

  "Well that's easy," answered Ethan, entirely engrossed in whatever work he was doing. "There are three things we need to do: Kill Portley, destroy the Rubrix and then Graduate,"

  "But I thought you're kicked out?" I sat up; I did not like his plan. When he didn't answer I pushed on the fact that he was alone with just a few guns and probably limited ammo up against some big mafia company with hundreds of men. I added that his company might probably not help him at all; they might even kill him and me for all we knew.

  He stopped typing for a while the moment one screen was blinking green. He leaned back on his chair, "Robyn."

  "Gold," I mimicked his sudden change of tone.

  "How much do you know about guns?" He asked.

  "Not much," I shrugged coolly. But what I really meant was: Nothing of course, why'd you ask?

  "Hm," was all he said as he stood from his seat and walked to his shelves of firearms. "Did you ever consider signing up as an army nurse?"

  "Uh... No? Why?"

  "Let me try to convince you," and for the first time I saw him smile.  I'm not quite sure myself if I should be happy or skeptic about it, but you know what? My life right now would actually make a very good story in Wattpad.

  Yep.

   It might even end up in the cinemas.