Chapter Four: The Mission

Chapter Four: The Mission.

Angelina finally woke up with a groan of annoyance at a quarter after six in the morning. She had originally set her alarm at five am so she could have ample time to perfect her disguise just as Luca taught her but she kept snoozing it until she finally got up after the fifth ring.

It has been a week since the interview at M.J Tech and just the previous day, she had received a call from Mr. Bentley, who sounded robotic as he conveyed the message of her employment and immediate assumption of duty. At that time, she was at the coffee shop where she works during the day time so she quickly called Alicia, her best friend and roommate, to take over her position as the barista just as previously planned.

However, despite Alicia's advice, Angelina refused to resign from her night time jobs as well. She knew that if things go according to plan, her job at M.J Tech would just be temporary and to achieve her mission in life, she needs money. Therefore, she wasn't ready to give up any means of income, no matter how little it was. And last night, she had been on shift from seven pm to ten pm in one working place before rushing to the other where she had an eleven pm to two am. That's why she woke up feeling all groggy and tired as she didn't get to sleep as much as she needed to.

In her groggy, zombie-like state, she headed to their shared sitting room-cum-kitchen and prepared some coffee. Two cups later, she felt alive and refreshed again and so she tiptoed to the bathroom, careful not to wake Alicia who was still soundly sleeping on their twin bed.

Their small, dilapidated but very tidy apartment consisted of just a single bedroom, a bathroom and a sitting room-cum-kitchen. Despite how small, dingy and inconvenient the apartment is and it being located in a very remote part of town, it was like a safe haven to its occupants. As two homeless girls who have lived most of their lives in the streets, without the protection of the four walls of a home, that apartment was a huge upgrade!

As soon as she took a quick shower, Angelina donned her masculine-figure jacket, dressed in one of the many male formal wears Jeremy bought for her before standing in front of the mirror and while following Luca's instructions which was recorded on her phone, made up her face nearly as perfect as he did. 

As she rubbed a nude lip balm on her naturally rosy lips to make it less feminine, out of the blue, she suddenly felt a heavy blow against her back. And as she let out an impulsive yelp, she heard Alicia's outraged and sleepy voice shouting,

     "You pervert! How dare you barge into a ladies' bedroom?! Who…who are you and how did you get in here?"

Rubbing her sore back, Angelina turned to face her friend-cum-assailant while blurting out in her natural, feminine voice,

    "What the hell, Ally! What's wrong with you?"

Hearing the familiar voice, Alicia's mouth opened widely in shock as she looked at the person in front of her from head to toe.

    "Angie, is that really you?!"

Instead of being offended, Angelina grinned exultantly. Since her best friend, the person who knows her better than anyone else couldn't recognize her at first glance, it means she did a good job recreating Luca's magic!

So adopting a cool dude's swagger, Angelina extended her hand towards Alicia and in a perfect imitation of masculine voice, she responded.

    "No, I'm Marcus Reed. Nice to meet you, pretty lady."

Seeing Angelina's wink after she finished speaking, Alicia chuckled as she threw away the shoe she used to hit Angelina before engulfing her best friend into a tight hug.

   "Oh, Angie, you're such a professional actress! I told you that you should have gone for acting rather than software engineering! Look at you, you make such a cool, handsome dude!"

   "Are you hitting on me, pretty lady? I guess I could do you, you're not bad yourself. How about going on a date tonight? Just you and I on a romantic, candlelight dinner…"

Going with the flow, Alicia giggled flirtatiously before linking her arms with Angelina who led her out to the sitting room like a gentleman leading a lady. However, as her eyes fell on the clock on the wall, Angelina's eyes doubled in size and all thoughts of acts flew out of her head.

    "O.M.G Ally! I'm going to be late on my very first day at work! Mr. Gallagher is going to either fire me or freeze me into ice with those frosty, glacial eyes of his and after that if I don't end up melting into a puddle, then Jeremy is definitely going to kill me for ruining his plan! Oh my God! I have to rush…I…"

    "Relax, Angie! You're not late at all. It's just ten minutes after seven and you were told to report at nine am, right? And it's not as if you have to catch a bus or anything, Jeremy has already provided a scooter for you. So, what's the rush for?"

   "I know all that, it's just that I intend to arrive before Mr. Gallagher. You know that I told you he regretted employing me immediately after doing so. I saw the instant regret in his eyes that day so I don't want to give him any reason to find fault in me or worse, fire me!"

With that, she hurriedly grabbed her keys from the coffee table and rushed out of the apartment after declining Alicia's offer of making breakfast for her.

****

Logan Enterprises is a prestigious company owned by the Logans and has been the number one tech company in the United kingdom for generations. That was not until out of the blue, a new tech company emerged and within the span of a few years, surpassed even the generations-old, world-renowned Logan Enterprises. And that company is none other than M.J Tech, the company built from scratch by the mysterious, enigmatic young man, Maxwell Jay Gallagher.

That didn't sit well with the current CEO of Logan Enterprises, Jeremy Logan, who had just taken over from his ailing and aged grandfather. He just couldn't accept the fact that for decades, their family business had been the best, only for everything to change just after he took over the reins. He was at the helm of affairs to make the company prosper, not decline. 

Therefore, he started digging deep into the matter, employing the aid of spies and private investigators to find out the secret behind M.J Tech's overnight success. At the end of the day, what he discovered was that the founder of M.J Tech was a very meticulous person who works only with well-prepared plans. He runs his immensely successful company with carefully structured technological data that only he understands.

After thinking deeply and wisely over the matter, Jeremy decided that the only way to beat M.J Tech is to steal their business ideas— to hire an espionage agent to do the job. An espionage agent who's very, very intelligent and a professional who really knows his/her onions on software engineering, most especially a Java developer who's very good at testing codes, decoding and suchlike.

 Not only that, the person has to be hardworking, highly-spirited and charming so he can warm his way into gaining the aloof and icy Mr. Gallagher's trust. And thinking as deeply as he could, only one person came to his mind that befits that description—---Angelina McQueen.

Indeed, Angelina was exactly the kind of person he needed but there's one hitch----she's a woman and it's a widely known fact that for reasons best known by him, Mr. Gallagher never employs women in his company. But Jeremy was determined and there was nothing that could stop him from achieving his goal. 

Thus, he had summoned Angelina and her friend Alicia all the way from America and for the past months, trained her on the industrial espionage mission he had in mind. At first Angelina was reluctant but after hearing the huge amount of money he promised to pay her after the successful completion of their mission, she agreed. After all, she also had a mission of her own which needed lots of funds which she had no access to.

Never knowing who her biological parents were, young Angelina had been transferred from one abusive and neglectful foster home to another until she ran away from the last one at the age of ten. Since then, she had lived in the slums with other homeless ragamuffins like her, picking pockets, raiding supermarkets and begging, just for survival until the day Jeremy rescued her and changed her life for the better.

She was nearly thirteen at that time when as usual, she sneakily stole the wallet of a random passer-by. Later, she discovered that apart from wads of cash, there were many important documents indicating that she robbed a foreigner. With the address on his documents, she traced him and she went there with the intention of dropping the documents in front of his apartment, only to be caught red-handed by him.

After questioning her, Jeremy was charmed by her bubbly personality. He took pity on her situation and so, he followed all due processes necessary to adopt her and enrolled her into a high school. Also, when she graduated years later, he didn't abandon her even though he was back in the UK at that time. He sponsored her through college when she got into Princeton.

 However, as soon as she was old enough to be employed, Angelina did odd jobs during her free time to pay her other bills and to get a roof over her head. Living in the streets as a young and very attractive teenager was her most horrible experience in life as she became the prey of many lustful rogues. That was when she learnt the art of disguising herself as a boy, which worked only temporarily as there were many hooligans who were gay.  

With the little money they made from their odd jobs, Angelina and Alicia rented a rundown apartment in an old and dilapidated building in the ghetto area. It was dirty with a leaking roof but at least while there, they were safe from the predatory, lustful vultures. It was in this condition that she completed her studies and began job hunting. She had even done a few interviews and was waiting for their responses when Jeremy summoned her.

Right from childhood, Angelina's number one goal and mission in life is to improve the lives of the homeless orphans wandering around in the streets like she did in the past. She has always been very passionate about the welfare of the unfortunate kids and with the little she has been making from her jobs, she has enrolled at least five young kids into school. Also, she tries her best to buy foodstuffs once in a while and take them to the slums where many homeless kids reside. 

Her dream is to one day build numerous shelter homes in different countries where homeless people would be adequately catered for, with their feeding, education and medical needs all taken care of. So, when Jeremy came to her with his plan and promised to pay her a staggering amount of money, she was really tempted. If she could get that money and combine it with the salary the company pays her, she will surely get enough to build a shelter home. At least one is better than none!

 However, Angelina refused to leave without Alicia and so he had to make the necessary arrangements for the both of them to move to London. And now, both girls are in London and Angelina has managed to accomplish the first step on their mission. Now what remains is to charm Mr. Gallagher and warm her way into gaining his trust. 

Can she really do that or will he be the one to end up freezing her into ice? Only time will tell…