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.Hack//New Testament - Chapter 27

Published at 15th of March 2020 10:23:16 AM


Chapter 27

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CHAPTER 27

The man, Harold Hoerwick, came to San Diego in August 2006.

 

Her work took a long time thanks to taking a nap for about three hours.

She was surprised by the computer screen and suddenly realized what she had done when she saw the clock on the desk. The hands were pointing at 8:05AM.

Nika got up from her seat and went to her boss, Kirsh.

“Mr. Kirsch.”

“Hey, Nika.”

Kirsch raised his gray-haired head and looked at her, his eyes wide in surprise.

“What is it? What’s wrong? You’re wearing the same clothes from yesterday.”

Sub-leader MacGiven, sitting opposite, spoke as though rebuking them.

“Kirsh, your statement falls under sexual harassment clauses. You should be careful.”

“Hey, that’s too forward. There’s another way to say it, isn’t there?“

“Sexual discrimination.”

“No.”

“Gender discrimination.”

“That’s not it.”

“Politically incorrect.”

“Yeah, that’s it.”

Kirsh nodded with a tinge of melancholy.

“Political correctness. I heard that phrase in the news recently. Isn’t it an expression suitable for the 21st century? When I first started working, there were no such crazy words.”

“That was thirty years ago, Kirsh.”

“Oh, really? I had no idea.”

“You learn new things every day. And you’ve been alive a long time.”

“You’re quite the intellectual, Mag. I enjoy these chats.”

“I’m going to get something to eat.”

Nika interrupted their conversation.

She couldn’t keep up with the strange tension between two middle-aged people who stay up all night.

“Sounds good. The ancient Romans are talking too. Nika, have a good breakfast.”

“I’m going to buy some donuts, anyone want some?“

Nika raised her voiced a little and looked around at the men in the area as she spoke.

A few waved their hands, a few shook their heads, and the rest concentrated on the monitor and did not respond. This was typical.

Kirsch spoke as he picked a cigarette from a Pall Mall box and held it to his mouth.

“Don’t go catching strange men off the street.”

“I know. This company has enough strange guys as it is.”

Kirsh grinned and waved his hand as if to say ‘go’.

Nika left the room and went downstairs using the elevator.

The company she was working for was located in the southeastern part of Karlsbad. Of the ten floors in the old, well-maintained building, the entire fifth floor had been rented out.

The company just launched a new subsidiary independently in the spring of that year, but its relationship with its headquarters had been good and the customer transfer had been completed amicably.

Fortunately, there was a lot of work.

For the past few days, all employees were working from morning until late, sometimes all night.

Nika was working as a systems engineer. When she had been a high school student, she applied for a sweepstakes, which led her to come in and out of the headquarters.

That’s why she had been hired by the company as soon as she graduated from college last year.

It was a great start for a first step, and she was hoping to be able to get a high salary.

Everything was here. Hopes and dreams, good and evil, beauty and ugliness.

Black humor that flew around on the spot, strange phrases unique to system engineers, and exchanges that would make a feminist faint.

Although it was not a suitable environment for everyone, Nika loved her current workplace and the industry. There was a very simple and powerful idea to be found there.

That is, those who can build the right program are absolutely right. Before the unwritten law, neither man nor woman, age, race, thought, or religion mean anything.

Here the programmer is the rule.

 

Outside the light was dim and the outlines of people were still sparse.

She crossed the main street facing the company and headed for her favorite donut shop.

Every chain store on this street offered donuts as hard as rubber, but only this privately owned shop offered soft donuts. The cinnamon sugar donut was especially exquisite. She liked to sip coffee and bite into a donut while reading articles in the San Diego Union Tribune. A moment of relaxation.

However, Nika’s hopes were not fulfilled.

There was an uproar in the store that was unusual for the early morning.

Two men were quarrelling across the counter.

One of them was the owner of the shop. The other looked like a tourist. He looked to be in his mid-thirties. He wore a frayed suit, along with a shaggy hairstyle, and stubble on his face. He didn’t appear to belong to this neighborhood.

“Nein, I’m not avoiding paying. You’re mistaken,” the guest said in English with a strong German accent. “Here’s the money. I didn’t exchange currencies. I’m sorry.”

“I told you, I can’t accept Euros,” the owner, Johannes, said with a frown. “If you don’t have dollars, I have no choice but to call the police.”

“I’’ll go exchange the money right now.”

“I can’t let you go without paying…”

“Please don’t call the police. I have to get to a meeting. I will be late. I have a meeting at CyberConnect.”

The man said desperately in English with some difficulty.

Nika, who had entered the store and thought about whether she should wait for the dispute to end or leave and put up with a rubbery donut instead, was surprised by the man’s words.

She remembered that the president had spoken to Kirsh two days ago about an in-person interview at ALTIMIT.

According to the president, the man who appeared without an appointment had a demo game to show. The president immediately realized that it was a “great product” and “would absolutely make money”, so the president invited the man to CyberConnect to give a presentation again.

It was a basic MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) that he came to sell. In a time when people around the world were starving for entertainment, along came the massively multiplayer online role-playing game. Yeah, hey, what’s a massively multiplayer online role playing game? It’s a big deal, isn’t it? If you port it to ALTIMIT OS, they’ll jump with joy like a frog with a fishing fly stuck to its nose. Okay, Kirsh, the presentation is simple. Don’t let this pass you by. We’ll make the first massively multiplayer online role playing game since Pluto’s Kiss. It has an awesome system.

Former programmers and self-made presidents rarely give such praise.

This left an impression on Nika who, though it had nothing to do with her HR work, managed to remember the person’s name and the photo of his face on his resume.

She called out to him at once.

“Harold… was it?”

The man looked back and met Nika’s eyes.

Nika thought he was younger than he looked. He was a little over thirty.

Johannes softened his expression after seeing his regular customer Nika.

“Nika, is this an acquaintance of yours?”

“Yes. How much is it? It’s on me.”

The man tried to say something to Nika, but she waved her hand.

“Don’t worry about it. Harold Hoerwick, correct?”

“Ja, that’s right. And you are…”

“I’m an employee of CyberConnect. Oh, one second. Johannes, please give me a cinnamon sugar donut to go.”

Nika turned to Harold after paying the bill and receiving a donut in a bag.

“I just came to buy breakfast.”

She spoke as though justifying herself, but there was no need to do so.

“It’s just across the road there. I’ll lead the way.”

“I arrived too early. I hope that isn’t a problem,” Harold said.

“That’s quite alright,” Nika said with a smile.

“With us there is no longer the concept of being early or late.”

When she returned to the company with Harold, Kirsh stared at them in amazement.

“Hey, it was a joke,” he said as he moved the cigarette from one corner of his mouth to the other.

“Our Nika really caught herself a man”

Nika looked at her boss with a reproving glance.

“Mr. Kirsch.”

“You’re right, that was not politically correct.”

“I present to you Mr. Harold Hoerwick.”

Kirsh stood up quickly.

“Sorry for my rudeness. I am Chief Programmer Kirsh. Welcome to CyberConnect.”

He stretched out his hand and the two shook hands.

“The President will be coming soon. Nika, please take Harold to the reception room.”

After leading Harold through to the reception room, Nika poured some coffee into her cup. 

“Please take a seat.”

“Umm, thanks for paying for me. I will definitely pay you back.”

“No need to worry about that. Just focus on your presentation now.”

She was about to leave the room, but Harold called out to her.

“Um, excuse me.”

“Yes?”

Harold looked like a kitten separated from its mother. Nika looked as though she was about to burst out laughing.

“Please tell me your name. You haven’t told me yet.”

“It’s Veronica, but everyone calls me Nika,” Nika said. “Veronica Bain.”





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