Chapter Six: Face to Face
1060 Words
Tuesday brought a shift in the rhythm.
The corridors of Sapphire Systems still hummed with silence, but today, the air pressed differently. Not heavier just more aware. Freen felt it behind the glass walls, under the LED lighting, like the building had begun to learn her steps.
She wore her own blazer this time. Deep gray, tailored sharp. The kind of fabric that made her feel held together, even when her chest vibrated with nerves. Her stylus slid into her sleeve as she walked in.
No messages in her inbox.
No checklist from HR.
Just a simple, verbal instruction at the front desk:
“Report to the executive wing. Second floor. Briefing room six.”
No explanation.
No emotion.
Her heart thudded once.
Freen took the stairs slowly. Kept her posture upright, professional. She didn’t let her hand tremble as she passed the steel-etched nameplates of top-level executives. At the end of the hall, one door stood slightly ajar. No label. No receptionist. Just quiet.
She knocked once.
“Come in,” a voice said smooth, exact. A woman used to being obeyed.
Freen stepped inside.
Becky didn’t look up immediately. She sat at a long, minimalist desk with a tablet in one hand, scanning what looked like system diagnostics. Her movements were practiced, efficient, surgical.
Freen stood still. No chair was offered. She didn’t ask.
Finally, Becky set the tablet down and folded her hands neatly.
“We’ve added you to the software migration proposal,” she said. “You’ll audit backend integration logs and report inconsistencies.”
Freen blinked. “That wasn’t in the intern scope.”
“It is now,” Becky replied flatly. “You flagged a systemic stall in Phase Two. I want to see if that was a fluke, or if you can repeat the result.”
Her tone wasn’t rude. It wasn’t anything. Just fact.
There was no smile. No encouragement. No "can you handle it?"
Freen nodded. “Understood.”
“Details are on the shared drive. Don’t ask HR. Ask yourself. Deadline is Thursday morning.”
Becky returned her gaze to the screen.
Freen took her cue and left.
But her pulse—her pulse was loud.
That night, Nam called during dinner. Slurping loudly on instant noodles.
“She spoke to you?” she asked, half choking.
“In person,” Freen said, pressing her shoulder against the wall. “She gave me a task.”
“That’s fast. Most interns don’t even meet her until they’ve cried in the breakroom at least twice.”
“I don’t think she likes me.”
“She doesn’t like anyone,” Nam said. “But you survived eye contact. That’s a Sapphire Systems milestone.”
“It wasn’t eye contact,” Freen muttered. “It was more like... data verification.”
Nam cackled. “Still counts.”
Freen didn’t laugh. But she didn’t hang up, either.
Wednesday. 7:50 a.m.
Freen sat at her desk with both monitors humming. A fresh coffee sat untouched at her elbow. She was buried in system logs. Lines of error messages blinked like static in her brain API misfires, legacy code tangles, failed encryption timestamps, and skipped protocol triggers.
She chewed the inside of her cheek.
The infrastructure at Sapphire was brilliant on the surface. But underneath, it was held together by old habits. Nobody had questioned the scaffolding in years.
Freen did.
By midday, she’d traced two internal loops that created false success reports in client modules. One failure dominoed into a billing delay. Nobody had caught it at least, not in the logs.
Her tablet buzzed.
CEO OFFICE: Scheduled review tomorrow. 9:30 a.m. sharp.
Becky had booked her.
Freen didn’t move. She stared at the timestamp like it might rearrange itself. But it didn’t.
9:27 a.m. the next morning.
Freen stood outside Becky’s door again. This time, she didn’t knock.
She entered quietly, tablet in hand.
Becky was already seated.
“Show me,” she said, gesturing once without lifting her eyes.
Freen stepped forward and laid the tablet down like a puzzle piece. “Integration errors. Mostly legacy protocols that weren’t adapted to last year’s migration. Half the stalls occurred outside the documented windows.”
Becky’s eyes flicked across the screen, fast, absorbing. Her face didn’t move, but something in her posture shifted slightly.
“You tracked the origin?” she asked.
“Yes. Through the ghost log. I flagged the markers in red.”
Becky tapped twice. “Your logic is sound.”
She didn’t say good.
She said sound.
“I’ve added your file to the client review prep,” Becky continued. “You won’t be present. But your notes will be.”
Freen nodded once.
“You corrected something my team missed,” Becky said, tone still unreadable. “That’s not impressive. It’s expected.”
Freen didn’t flinch. “Understood.”
Becky’s gaze lingered for one second longer than necessary.
Then, she turned back to her screen.
Freen left without looking back.
Heng passed her desk an hour later, quietly dropping a hot cup of coffee.
“She said your logic was sound,” he said.
Freen raised an eyebrow. “Does that mean something?”
Heng nodded solemnly. “It means you made a c***k in the glass.”
Freen tilted her head. “It didn’t feel like a crack.”
“That’s because Becky doesn’t reward. She records. She tracks patterns. If she called your work sound, it means she’s watching.”
“She didn’t even look at me.”
“Exactly. She’s not watching your face. She’s watching your process.”
Freen stared down at the cup. Her reflection wavered inside it.
“I think she’s waiting for me to mess up.”
“Or,” Heng said softly, “she’s testing how long you last before you rise.”
That evening, Becky stood in the executive lounge, the city painting streaks of silver and smoke across the window. Her tablet blinked softly in her hand notifications lined up like soldiers. HR updates, compliance logs, calendar shifts.
She didn’t open any of them.
Not yet.
Instead, her thumb tapped once.
Intern Evaluation Tracker – Freen S.
A clean file.
She read it in silence.
Then added a note at the bottom:
Observant. Structured. Unpolished. No clear weakness, yet.
She closed the screen.
But not the thought.
- Writer
