The ceiling is painted with blinding white color, surrounded by walls of green, much like the corridor of The Resting Place. You can also see rows of chairs, neatly put together this morning by the cleaning staff. The engineer that works in this facility starts to pour in exactly at 10 o'clock for a brief that's being done by the head of the facility. I sat here since some minutes ago, on the second to front row, alongside my wife which they told me to also bring. Right now I'm wearing the same thing as every engineer present in the room. A white robe with blue accent around the cuffs. It's meant to be the color that represents the purity of knowledge and mana.

The last one to come inside of the room is a young magician. A youthful man wearing glasses, wearing a different robe than all of us. It is black, silky, and has a very authoritative aura around it. I can see some of us nodding in respect as that young gun walks on to the stage. He grabs a microphone, tap it once, then twice, to get the attention of the room.

Young Manly Voice

Good morning ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for being here for our little meeting before we start our day. The weather is good outside, the sun is shining brightly, no rain in sight, and it appears that we've got ourselves some new faces joining us today. For some of you who don't know who I am, let me briefly introduce myself.

My name is Primo, the President of J-MEF. I am in charge of this facility and its day to day operation. If there's a situation which might need a further or urgent assistance, you're more than welcome to contact me at my office or through our intranet. Oh yeah, the intranet, your supervisor will give you a tour through everything that we do here.

Thank you, for all of you who chooses to work here at J-MEF. I hope that the environment around here will be enough to make you feel at home.

Now, let us start the daily meeting.

Let us start with an update from the first team. Team One, let's start with the situation for the renewal project...

As I sit down and take in one every five sentences this man spoke, my mind starts to wander around the room. I starts to think about the corporate culture that this company is adopting, which is mirrored from the one that I have seen in The Republic. From what I have read, most company outside the country seems to lean into the classic black company, as they call it. Long hour of work with not a lot of time to pursue yourself as a human being, just treated as a cattle of men with the ability to read, but not think.

J-MEF on the other hand looks a lot more humane. The engineer that I've seen walking around the facility looks fresh as if its their first time working here. Not a lot of people have bags under their eye, and they're still free enough to populate the park that we saw yesterday. Except for one person in the room.

She's sitting at the back of the room, alone with her eyes down. This woman seems to be in her own world, playing with equations that I could barely see from where I'm sitting. It looks complicated and took the whole page. To an untrained eye, one might think that she's just scribbling and filling the paper with ink.

Parmadita realizes what I'm doing and pinches the side of my legs. Her eyes says exactly what a woman would say in case of a situation in which they're made jealous. I could almost hear the sound of her saying "look forward", even though not a word comes out of her mouth.

Now I'm not one to be cheating here, we're newlyweds after all. That would be very shallow of me. But my guts say that that woman will be a significant character sooner rather than later. Can't help my own curiosity on who she really is.

Young Manly Voice

...that's all. Thank you for your attendance at this daily meeting, let's resume our routine. Also, for all of the new recruits here, please regroup with your respective team leader for your orientation. I wish you all to have a good day.

The people around me stands up from their seats and starts to search for their team leader. Some of them seems to have gathered around in a circle and chat a bit before going out of the room. Most of them also has a piece of folder on their hands. A pink folder with a name on top of it, and it looks like I should've got one too.

As I try to get out of my chair to ask whether I should get my own folder or not, Parmadita tugs on my robe and speaks to me with a very small voice.

Parmadita

I am going out with the ladies, they said that they're going to a restaurant near here. I will see what I can get about their husbands. Also, I trust your judgement Lukman. Remember not to cheat on your new wife, alright?

Lukman

What the hell do you mean by that?

Parmadita

I saw you looking intensely at that lady at the back there.

Lukman

You do realize that she's very suspicious right?

Parmadita

In my school we call them nerds, Lukman. Anyway I have to go. Look behind you, someone is here to see you.

I turn around to see nothing behind me. But I could feel a presence of a person here. I look down and there it is, a short-statured person with a pink folder in his hand. This man is non other than the person that was on stage, Primo.

Primo

Hello there, mister Lukman was it?

Lukman

Yes that's me, sir.

Primo

Well let me cut to the chase. I'm here to give you this folder that should've been in your hand by now. I'm sorry, I guess someone is late on their assignment, particularly about giving you the proper document to start your orientation. This folder should contain everything that you need to know about this facility, an overview perhaps would be better to describe it.

Also, have you met your team leader?

Lukman

No, I haven't sir.

Primo

Well you should not need to wait that much longer. Look behind you.

I feel like people likes to spawn behind me for some reason. I turn around and quickly realize that she is the person that I was looking at before. She has the same height as me and her eyes is looking straight into mine. I felt like my eyeballs is being grabbed by her gaze, as if she's willing to give her all for my attention.

She open the conversation with a quite and fragile voice. I can feel her hesitation and anxiousness from the tone alone. At this point Primo and I are waiting for her first word to come out.

Team Leader

We...

Welcome to...

My team...

A pitiful smile could be seen from my peripheral vision, coming from Primo that's standing beside me. She holds her own folder tight, the one that's similar to mine, but with her own name written on it. But I don't think that's really her name. I mean, it's a number after all.

Primo

Shall I introduce you to Miss One, your team leader working under the Research and Development department of J-MEF. From now on, she is in charge of your daily tasks. Any questions?

Lukman

I do hav-

Primo

Great! No more question from you. Then I shall be on my way to the meeting that I must attend post-haste, good luck Lukman.

He nod his head in approval. He pats me in the back and goes away with his own business. Now it is just me and her. Not even Parmadita is here with me, she's now outside of the room with all of the housewives, probably discussing something important, as most housewives usually do.

I open up the folder and briefly skims over the material inside. It is the usual corporate flyer. The first page is showing us a couple of scientist posing with their tools on their hand. Which is weird, considering most of the time we are hands free and might use computers once in a while to search up magic scripts solutions. The next page shows me the layout of the facility. Shaded with a green color are rooms that I'm allowed to be in. Alternatively, the red shaded areas are obviously buildings and sub-facility that needs special permission to enter. Basically these are the things that I have read on the mission briefing.

Several seconds have passed since I opened up this folder. Miss One is anxiously waiting for me to initiate another conversation. I guess I need to be the one that steps up and open up myself. This is not a normal situation, is it?

Lukman

Miss One?

I look Miss One up, from below her gaze that's not on my eyes anymore.

Miss One

Yes, ok...

Let me give you a tour of...

This facility. I hope you're okay with me.

Lukman

Of course Miss, why would you think otherwise?

We starts the day off by going out of the auditorium.

After a quite and awkward and speechless ten minutes of walk from the auditorium, we arrives at a building that's still under construction. The entrance of the building is a glass automatic door that's powered by electricity. It seems like the electrical system of this building isn't fully supported yet, so the automatic door is not working properly yet. There are at least five strong looking men with blocks and woods on their back, going in and out of the building. From the outside, it's clear that the building is at the final phase of construction, yet I don't see any sign of what this building suppose to be. The only indication of the name of the building is a piece of paper taped on to the wall located outside of the door. The paper is filled with this big capital words written with a very dark ink. It's read, "Research and Development: 3". Sound like there's at least two other building for the Research and Development department.

Miss One goes inside without caring about the workers that's hammering down the essentials to the ground, wall, and ceiling. I follow her from behind with a nervous feeling that I can't get rid off.

She goes up a narrow set of stairs that's going up and around a pole, like the one you see on the side of a building. When I look up, the stair seems to go forever, going above and beyond the black void, caused by a lack of sunlight going through. I could hear her breath getting heavier as the increase of elevation seems to affect the amount of usable air that we could breathe in.

We finally arrive at a white door that looks newly painted, complete with a lack of finish by the maker which reveal the roughness of the material to the user. She opens the door and welcomes me to a room that she seems to be proud of. The light is not turned on yet, so the only light that helps my sight is coming from the blinds that's leaking sunlight inside. Within the bleak atmosphere that's filling the room, I can't believe that there could be someone so pure and proud, working inside of it.

Miss One

Welcome to m-m-my office.

I hope I enjoy your sta-

I mean I hope you enjoy your stay. Please take a seat.

I politely nod and search for a vacant desk.

They're all vacant.

Is this really how I will start working here? In front of a dusty desk and an unstable looking leader?

Author's Note (click me!)

Another release from me!

I hope I could spend a lot more time on this project, but I sometimes need to halt it because I'm creating WriterHeaven right now. Wish me luck.