Chapter 40: A new day with all the butterflies
40 A new day with all the butterflies
Akira woke up earlier than usual that morning. It was her first day of the internship at Delphi and she couldn't keep calm. Her heart was fluttering with anticipation as she was going to take her first step towards setting her career but most importantly deep down she was excited because she will be getting a chance to meet Raymond and probably a chance to work with him.
After having a bath and breakfast Akira opened her laptop and googled his name - Raymond Walker. She started checking everything about him, starting from his LinkedIn profile to Delphi's official webpage. She was literally stalking him checking every possible information. Her curiosity was at its peak and she wanted to know more about this mystery man who always deserted her without saying a word.
She wore the dress gifted by Vikram and happily took a swirl in front of the mirror. She immediately picked up her phone and took a snap of herself and sent to Vikram with a caption -
"How do I look?"
Even though Vikram was in a high profile client meeting he opened her text and replied,
"Mighty fine", with loads of smileys.
Akira saw Vikram's reply and grinned like a high-school girl. She did her hair into a nice pony-tail and did a little bit of makeup too as she wanted to look all professional and decked-up today. Even Mike who always woke up late got up early to wish her sister. He had prepared a mixture of yogurt and sugar for her which was considered as a good luck food.
When Mike offered the yogurt mixture to her, Akira was touched,
"You still remembered Mom's good luck food?", she asked with a surprised tone.
"Mom would have made it for you. So you better eat it all up ", said Mike and pushed a big spoon of yogurt into her mouth.
Akira realized that her little baby brother had matured into a grown-up boy who was considerate and kind-hearted. Her heart was filled with warm emotions. She smiled looking at him and ruffled his hair. Once she was done eating she gave him a tight hug and left for her office.
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"Hi all, Can I get a little bit of your attention guys? Simon, can you take those earphones out? Kirk, I am over here", Chloe was shouting at the top of her lungs.
"Hi everyone this is Akira here. She is starting from today at Delphi as an intern for the next five months. So be nice to her as she is young and new. Ok guys?", said Chloe and smiled at Akira.
"This is the graphics team Akira, and you will be sitting over there. Your system is also ready. In the afternoon you will have a meeting with your mentor who will guide you through this creative process. Till then you can socialize with your team-mates and chill for a while", Chloe said and left the graphics bay.
Akira gave out a nervous wave at her team and introduced herself,
"Hi, guys. I am Akira Payton and I will be completing my graphics design masters this year. I hope to learn a lot from you all".
She scanned the area and was disappointed not to find a single girl in the team.
"Yeah its an all guy team if that's what you are thinking about", said Simon and buzzed in. He was one of the Lead Graphic designer of the team.
"No no nothing like that, I was just checking the ambiance", said Akira trying to dodge the question thrown towards her.
"Ambience? Really? You are really bad at lying aren't you?", chuckled Simon. He then came towards her and introduced himself.
"Hi I am Simon, I am a Lead Graphic Designer here and this is my team", Simon said and pointed towards the direction where his team members were sitting. Kirk, who worked in Simon's team came forward and greeted her and said,
"I am Kirk, a Junior Designer here. If you have any questions starting from the best coffee machine location to how to fix the printer, then don't call me, call Simon. He is the eyes and ears of Delphi", Kirk said and elbowed Simon who was busy checking her out.
"Oh that's nice will keep that in mind", said Akira.
"Are you my mentor?", asked Akira and looked at Simon.
"No no I am not, so there is no need to be scared of me", Simon said and asked her to settle at her seat. He went with her till her seat and asked her to configure 'Office Communicator'. Then he added himself to her communicator chat list and said -
"Ping me if you need anything", and continued scanning her top to bottom. She was indeed a pretty girl and in his head, he had already started dreams of dating her. He wanted to know if she was single and available, but since it was her first day he didn't want to scare her out. Once she was all settled at her seat he left with a victorious smile on his face.
After Simon returned to his seat, Kirk chuckled and said in a hush-hush tone, "Jeez get a grip, Simon. I guess you are just seconds away from drooling". Simon took a stack of printouts and hit Kirk with it.
Akira then started checking her emails. She had a meeting invite from Chloe for introduction with her mentor post lunch but there was no detail about who her mentor was. Then she read the emails related to Basic work ethics, HR policies, and benefits. She was eager to start working and to learn something but it looked like she had to wait till 2 pm when her meeting was supposed to happen. After going through all the formalities mail, she started doodling out of boredom.
A few minutes later she saw everyone from Graphics team getting up and leaving. It looked like they were all leaving for some team meeting. She sighed seeing them all abandoning her and thought to herself,
"Looks like I am gonna be the fetch me coffee, get me the printouts sort of intern here. Uggghhhh".
But before she could actually scream out of disappointment, she heard someone calling her name.
"Akira"
"Akira, Do you want to join the War Room with us?", Simon asked.
"War Room? What's that?", asked Akira with a surprise on her face.
"Oh, my bad, its just a normal meeting room but only design meetings are held here. Usually, the meetings are super long and intense as it involves discussions about the game design starting from characters, weapons, point system, guild design etc. So these meetings are quite stressful. And to top it up our Big Boss also attends it making it even more stressful. So hurry up, you don't want to be late when he attending the meeting", explained Simon making the War room sound like Voldemort's abode.
But Akira was unaffected. She didn't hear anything after 'Big boss is attending the meeting'. She picked up her notebook and pen and started following Simon.
The butterflies in her stomach started fluttering again.