“There, I found your precious diamonds now where’s my stuff?!” Claudette struck her keyboard.
“How do we retrieve them?” He asked gently…
He didn’t say much but he sent chills down your spine with a simple glance. Claudette paused.
“TBMs, we can build them on site, less evasive than explosives.” Claudette matched his tone, suddenly aware of herself.
“And how do we get there…” he seemed hesitant to ask. What he meant was, who’d fund the crew, walking wasn’t an option not to the heart of the rainforest…
“I could place a call for a fleet of road worthy Range Rovers to get us there, but it will cost us a cut of the spoils.” I asserted.
“That’s fine.” He relented. “Gather the men, we leave at noonday.”
“Please, mind my pussy!” I yelled. He blushed.
“Sorry?”
“Mittens, she’s been scratchy all day, wouldn’t want you to get hurt.” I uttered with such solemnity his slight smile turned into concern.
“Oh, of course. Mittens is a cute name!” He gathered himself back up again, wiping the slight tear out of his eyes.
“What’s so funny?” I asked.
“Erm…something that happened the other day. So, how did you find yourself broken down by the roadside, are you quite okay?”
As the light dimmed slightly east, I looked up to see my knight in shining armor. It was him. Finally!
“I’m so sorry, I must sound rude or something, it’s just that mittens was quite wet and I didn’t want her scratching you to hell” He cracked again.
“I’m sorry, is something funny?” I turned to look.
“Erm, no. I just love cats.”
“Oh, okay!” I smiled. “I’m Cece or Coco if you prefer” my car revved, making the right sound this time.
“It was nice meeting you Cece, I’m Louis.
“Would you like to save your work?”
I literally have one job today, press save.
Bonnie was clear about what I needed to do. I don’t know, maybe she felt sorry for me or something. She even went as far as getting her assistant to print out a few command prompts for my Mac Book. She said I was the most incredible editor she’d ever met, but when it came to computers I was a fish out of water.
Send. There, it was done! Phew! That wasn’t so hard. This article was make or break for my career, I had to get it just right.
“Let’s do Lunch Laurel, I desperately need your voice on Tom’s cover piece”
Bonnie encouraged. “1:30 at Le Chez?”
“Great!” I clapped, excited.
As the afternoon drew to a close, our work was thoroughly set. I could see the glimmer in Bonnie’s eyes as she submitted our final draft, this was it.
“That’s it!” She resounded. “I’m putting your name down as Lead Editor, no way I’m letting you go unnoticed. Did you send your application through to HR on time.
“Yep!” I buzzed, so did my pocket. “Excuse me for a second…hello?”
“Hi Laurel, hope I’m not interrupting anything? I just want to call you in person to ask that you send another copy of your application, looks like you filled out the form but forgot to attach your cover letter, could you send it in the next hour?”
“Excuse me sir, phones aren’t allowed in here, do you mind taking that outside before…”
“What is that God awful sound?!” Bonnie yelled.
I somehow set off the alarms on the premises. My futile attempts to apologize got me thrown off the site.
“We were leaving anyway… “ Bonnie blushed.
“Are you okay?” She pressed. You seemed dazzled.
I was.
“I think I need a drink.” I sunk into the car seat, starring blankly across the horizon.
“Damn GPS took us on the wrong route, what address did you enter?” I felt my stomach turn…
“Address?” Puzzled. “I…”
“Oh, never mind, we’ll stop by the square, can you make your way home from there?”
“Erm…” I pulled back a bit, leaning against the Lambo a bit too hard so as to open the door mid drive, rear ending the next driver in an emergency stop.
Bonnie was now fuming. I grabbed a paper bag and started to hurl. This was now the worst best day of my career. Luckily the AA was on site within minutes, Bonnie swept me a glance, bewildered.
“Did you break a mirror on your way out or something?” She smiled.
I was ready to go home and try again tomorrow.
“Commander, coms are down and we can’t set off without the team. What do we do?”
A still cold breeze stopped me in my tracks, I turn to Giles as a tear slid down my cheek, leaving a mark. Giles grabbed his handkerchief, hastily wiping my face, alerted.
“Sir?” He probed.
“Gather the troops Giles, we’re going on a rescue mission.” I relented. The probability of ever seeing them again was slowly dropping. I was shaken, we were in the depth of it. My leadership was taking a beating, but I trusted the others, we had made it through a range of rigorous simulation modules and survival skills training. Surely we were ready…?
“We need to use the internal GPS configuration to guide us back to the mainland, do we have a signal?” I pressed
“Negative!” Giles announced, “…the best I can do is a make shift compass, it’s getting late, if we follow the North Star we could get there on a cargo load.”
“Sounds promising Giles, prepare the troops, we’ll head for the mainland!” I asserted. Filled with a sudden surge of confidence.
