Ninja Girl

“This is it,” Nick told Anya when he reached the door for the third floor. Though going down the stairs was significantly easier than going up them, Nick still was unable to keep a faster pace than Anya. This time, however, once she had caught up with him she had decided to keep pace with him rather than hurrying on ahead.

“Finally,” she stated flatly.

“Tell me about it,” Nick mumbled under his breath. He pushed open the door and peeked through like he had on the previous floor.

There wasn’t much to see from this perspective. The door led out into a hallway. To his right he could see a stairway that curved around and down to the second floor. He realized it had to be the one he had seen from outside. Before him was a thin strip of hallway ending in a half wall made of glass looking down onto the second floor. He pushed the door open a little further and stepped out into the hallway. On his left the hallway carried on down to what looked like some offices.

“Guess that’s where we need to go,” he said, pointing with his free hand.

“Good,” Anya said, stepping around him. “Let’s go.”

Together they hurried down the hallway and into the office area. On their left, adjacent to the stairs they had just come down, was a glass wall dividing off a large room of offices and some cubicles. To their right stretched the wall with the elevators, and it wrapped around left to a door. Besides this door was a plaque that read “Information Technologies.”

Anya stopped and adjusted her suit and the strap for the laptop bag. “Are you absolutely sure this is going to work?” she asked.

“God no,” Nick replied without thinking. He noticed Anya glaring at him and decided to not leave it at that. “What? You wanted certainty? The best I can give you is hope.”

Something escaped Anya’s throat that sounded suspiciously like a growl. “Is the laptop at least going to work?”

“I certainly hope so,” said Nick. “While you were shopping I was able to find a program that continuously opens a random number of new windows whenever you try to close a window. I made all those windows be ads. Some I copied from the internet, others I made up. There’s a specific command set to close the program, and of course if they know what they’re doing they can probably figure out what’s going on pretty easily. My hope is the ads will make them so uncomfortable they’ll not even try to fix the computer and just rush to get you a replacement. That’s when I need you to delay them the most, so I can run in there, create the user account, and get out.”

“You ‘hope’?” Anya echoed.

Nick shrugged. “What do you want from me? I’m not actually gonna infect my own computer, and you wouldn’t let me steal another one, so this is what I got.”

“I wish you had told me this earlier.”

“Look, it’s like I said before, it’s worth trying. Really, it’s the best we got. Unless top-level hacking is included in your ninja training…?” Nick gave her a moment to respond, but she only let out a sigh of annoyance. “Didn’t think so. So why not give this a shot?”

“Fine,” Anya replied dismissively and started toward the door.

“You know…” Nick started, but then shook his head. “Nah, forget it.”

“What?”

“Well…” Nick looked around, and then closed the distance between them. “There is something you could try to increase the chances of success.”

“And that is?”

“You could flirt with them.”

Anya barely reacted. “Don’t make me hurt you,” she said and started walking again.

“I’m serious,” Nick insisted, stepping in front of her to block her path. “Look, behind that door,” he continued, motioning with his thumb toward the wall behind him, “is a pale, lonely, out of shape I.T. guy. You think I’m awkward around you? He’s probably gonna be, like, ten times as awkward around you. You walk in there, oozing of sexy, batting your eyelids and flashing him a great big smile? Yeah, he’s gonna melt. He’ll be putty in your hands. I mean it.”

Anya’s eyes were narrowing dangerously. “You want me… to seduce him?”

Nick held up his hands. “Woah, now, I wouldn’t go that far. I’m not saying you should sleep with him or anything. I’m just saying, crank up the charm and you’ll guarantee success. Flirt with him a little. Just act… the opposite of how you would act towards me.”

“I do not… ‘flirt.’”

“Trust me. Do the flirty thing.”

Anya sighed with annoyance. “Fine. But if you’re wrong about this, I will hurt you.”

“It will work. I promise.” Anya rolled her eyes but she turned and pushed past Nick. “Oh, and Anya,” he said just before she opened the door. She turned to look at him and waited for him to continue. “Smile,” he said, drawing a smile across his face with his fingers.

Her only response was to scowl. Then she pushed the door open and went through.

Nick hurried over and set a pen in the doorjamb to keep it from closing all the way. Satisfied, he leaned against the wall next to the door, doing his best to look casual. He then cocked his head to the side and tried to listen.

“Uh… can I help you?”

Anya had made it two steps into the room and froze.

The I.T. person was a woman.

She was short, with rather unruly brownish-blonde hair tied back into an equally unruly pony tail. She wore blue, thick rimmed glasses, and a plain pink top with a large ruffle design coming down from the neck.

Anya hesitated, but so briefly it was almost unnoticeable. Suddenly her face lit up with a warm smile and she stepped over to the woman’s desk. She put her hands on the desk and leaned in towards her. “Hi-ee,” she said in her best sing-song voice. “My name’s Rachel, the new hire in accounting. So nice to meet you!” She reached out with one hand.

“Uh, hi, Rachel, I’m Sandy,” the I.T. woman said, awkwardly taking Anya’s hand and shaking it.

“Sandy, it is so nice to meet you.” Sandy tried to pull her hand back but Anya clamped on, even put her other hand on top of Sandy’s. “I was so hoping you could help me.”

“Um, sure,” Sandy replied, her face contorted in a look of sheer confusion.

“Great!” Anya finally let go of Sandy’s hand and retrieved the laptop from her bag. “You see, I’m such an idiot when it comes to computers. They’re just so confusing, don’t you agree? No, of course you don’t agree. That’s why you’re in I.T. Duh.”

From outside the room, Nick blinked in surprise. They say “duh,” in Japan? He thought to himself.

“Um… we don’t usually… work on personal devices,” Sandy was saying.

Anya pouted her lips. “Really?” She leaned down very close to the other woman as she set the laptop down on her desk. “You don’t think you could even just… take a look?” She pulled up the top of the laptop and cocked her head questioningly at Sandy.

Sandy swallowed and adjusted her glasses. “Well, I, uh, I mean, I suppose.”

“If it makes you feel any better, I really, really need it for my job.”

“Right, well, we’ll want to make sure you have a good laptop then.” Now that it was open, the screen had come on and immediately Sandy started seeing exactly what Nick had said she would: a bunch of windows showing ads. She started clicking away, trying to close out of them, but the more she closed, the more new windows would come open. Her eyebrows slowly raised higher and higher on her forehead the more ads showed up, and all the more as some of those ads became increasingly inappropriate.

“Oh!” She blurted, after one particularly vulgar ad suddenly popped up. Before she even realized she was doing it she had closed the laptop.

“Um, you were the last person to use this laptop?” She asked tentatively.

“Yes. Why?” Anya replied innocently.

“No reason. No reason.”

“Is it that bad?”

“Bad?” Sandy echoed, hardly able to help herself. “It’s so far gone, it’s practically a zombie.”

Nick excitedly pumped his arm at his side in a gesture of triumph, then quickly resumed his casual stance and glanced around to make sure nobody had noticed.

“If your laptop was an animal,” Sandy continued, “I would recommend you take it to the vet and put it to sleep.”

“Oh no!” Anya said, bringing her hands up to her chest in alarm. “So what do you recommend I do?”

“Get a new laptop,” Sandy replied bluntly.

“I can’t use this one?”

“If you have to use this one, and I mean absolutely, positively have to, then I would recommend completely wiping it and starting over again.”

“How long would that take?”

“Probably at least take all night.”

“But I can’t do that. I have so much work to do! And my boss is expecting me to turn in this huge report by the morning. I really, really need a laptop.”

“Well, I… I suppose… we could… lend you one? Just for tonight.”

“Could you? That would mean so much to me.” Anya practically purred the word “so,” leaning in as she did and placing her hand on Sandy’s once again.

The blonde woman practically jumped out of her skin. She stood up so suddenly she knocked her chair over backwards and it clattered loudly to the floor behind her.

“I, um, yes, we can… we can do that. Excuse me.” She turned and picked the chair back up and set it back in front of her computer. “I’ll just need to run into the back here real quick and get one set up for you.”

“Great!” Do you mind if I come with you?”

“Oh. No, I guess that’s… fine.”

Nick waited outside the room until he heard the “click” of a door closing. He hurried inside but immediately was forced to stop again. The outer area had been bright, well lit by artificial lighting as well as the light pouring in from outside through large windows. In contrast, the I.T. room seemed almost pitch black. The room had no windows, and barely even had any ceiling lights. There were some tall standing lamps around Sandy’s desk, making it look a bit like an island of light in a sea of darkness.

Once his eyes adjusted, he moved over to the desk. A smile lit up his face. Despite the unexpected complication, Anya had done her job well. Sandy had left in such a rush that she had left her computer open and available. Not only that, but the account management program he was familiar with was exactly the one they used, and she even already had it open and pulled up.

Nick sat down in her chair and started working. It barely took more than a couple minutes before he had a new account activated and had given it all the permissions he could find to give. He quickly closed out of everything he had done and did his best to make everything look like it had before he got there. He then slipped out of the room again to wait for Anya.

Back in the main area, he paced back and forth nervously. Every now and then he stopped, remembering he was supposed to be looking inconspicuous, and looked around to check if anyone seemed to be taking an interest in him. Almost no one could see him in the corridor where he was waiting, but it didn’t matter either way. Nobody seemed to have the slightest bit of interest in him or what he was doing.

After what seemed like an eternity, Anya finally stepped out of the I.T. room. She stopped just outside the door, letting it close behind her, and took a deep, steadying breath. She noticed Nick and her eyes hardened into daggers.

He hurried over to her and threw her a thumbs up. “Done!” He said, excitedly. “We’re good. Unless they discover the account I added. Which they won’t. I mean, I don’t think they will. That was hot, by the way. The thing you did. With the lady. You’re hot. I mean, the thing you did-”

“I could kill you,” Anya growled quietly, menacingly, cutting Nick off mid-sentence.

The words and attitude froze him in place. He had been expecting excitement from her, at best, or her typically stony stoicism at worst, but the anger was something entirely new to him. Even a few minutes earlier in the stairwell, when she had thought he was working for Ryerson she had not seemed this angry. “What?” he squeaked. “Why?”

“Did you know she was going to be a female?”

Nick’s eyes went wide as the realization set in on him. “What? No! How could I have known? Once we found out it was a lady I figured you’d switch tactics. I didn’t know you’d just barrel right through with it.”

She jabbed a finger at his chest. “’Trust me,’ you said.” She deepened her voice and added a snotty, sarcastic tone to it in imitation of him. “Those were your words. ‘Trust me. This will work. I promise. Do the flirty thing.’ I trusted you!”

“Well it did work!” Nick protested.

“I can still kill you,” she said. She moved her hands closer to his neck as if she were seriously contemplating it. Then with an angry grunt she threw them down and stomped off past him.

Nick hurried after her. “Look, I’m sorry? Okay? I’m sorry. You’re right. It’s not funny.” Despite himself, and the fear for his life, he chuckled a little. “Okay, well, maybe it’s a little funny.”

She spun on him. “Do you have any idea how many ways I can kill you right now? I’m running through them in my mind. I just need to decide on which one I’ll enjoy the most. I’m thinking something involving dismemberment. And emasculation.”

Nick’s smile evaporated. He nodded his head slowly, as if it was not even within his control anymore. “Okay. You’re right. I’m sorry. I swear, I would never have done that to you on purpose. I made an ass out of myself by assuming that there was no way a lady could be working in I.T. That’s on me. I’m really, truly sorry, okay?

“But hey, look at it this way. You probably made that lady feel really good about herself.” Her eyes narrowed suspiciously at him. He raised his hands up before himself in surrender. “No, I’m serious. She probably feels pretty good about herself now. I mean, not saying you’re into ladies or she’s into ladies or anything like that. I’m just saying, you know, no matter how she feels about another lady hitting on her, she would probably be at least a little bit flattered that one as attractive as you was doing it.”

“I did not hit her,” Anya protested.

“What? No. Not hit, hit on. It’s different. I meant, you know, flirt with. Try to seduce. When you did that, it probably made her day. And she probably doesn’t get that feeling very often. I mean, why would she? She works in a dark room like that in an evil place like this in a notoriously thankless job to begin with. She probably needed that in her life. So you made her feel good about herself, we got the job done, and we didn’t even kill anybody. That’s all gotta count for something, right? We did good. We did good things. We’re putting your life back together, we’re putting my life back together, and we’re sticking it to Ryerson, all without killing anybody. Some good karma there to balance out all the bad karma from all your ninja assassinations you’ve been doing or whatever. Just like we talked about. That’s how it works, right? Yin and yang, yeah?”

Anya turned away from him, crossing her arms and assuming her typical annoyed stance. “I don’t think you really understand all that I’ve done in my life.”

“Yeah, maybe not,” Nick agreed. “But surely there has to be more to balancing out bad karma than just NOT killing people.”

She rolled her eyes, and since she was turned away from him rolled her head as well so he could know what she was doing, but this time she didn’t argue.

“What about this?” She asked, turning back around and holding up the laptop she had just received from Sandy.

“Uh, what about it?”

“Can this get us what we need?”

“I dunno. Let me see.” Nick took the laptop from her and opened it. It came up to a login screen. He tried the new login he had just created, but nothing happened. He frowned. “I don’t suppose they gave you a login for it?”

“No. They told me my regular login would work. I figured it would be best not to tell them I didn’t know what that was.”

“Great,” muttered Nick. “Well, it’s not letting me in with the account I just created.”

Anya sighed in annoyance. “So all this work may have been for nothing?”

“Not necessarily,” Nick whined. “This laptop might just not be connected to the network. It should still work on a regular computer.”

“Can we test it?” Anya looked around. “It looks like there’s a few empty cubicles over there,” Anya said, motioning to the office area across from the I.T. room.

“Might raise a lot of eyebrows if you just strolled in there and started using a computer. Although,” Nick checked his watch, “it is almost lunch. Everyone will be streaming out of here pretty soon if you want to wait for that.”

Anya mulled that over, but ended up shaking her head. “It’s too risky. The longer we stay in the building, the more questions we’ll raise. We don’t want to run into too many people. It has already been too many. I think we need to get out and wait for the building to close, like we originally planned.”

“Great!” Nick said, enthusiastic once again. “So, you hungry? I’m hungry. We should get some food. You hungry?” She shot him a disbelieving glance. “What?” He asked innocently. “We got time, right?”