^^ Gregor's Work Screen ^^

--- Gregor ---

I woke up slowly, feeling the Dawn, and cracked my neck, sitting up and shedding people. Tina and Tara grumbled at me, and cuddled back into each other, and I stood, carefully stepping around them, and climbed the stairs into my cabin.

I changed swiftly into business clothes, and then gathered as many Portfolios as I could into my bag.

A satchel was tossed onto my bed. "Use that..." Indra murmured sleepily, and then wandered into the bathroom.

I set all of the portfolios, all 93, into the satchel, and my new computer, and then hummed, slipping the giant hunks of Heart-Oak and Silver out of the bag, setting them on the pile of wood, so Indra would see them when he exited the bathroom.

I stepped out, locking the door, and into the elevator. It moved slowly, but I didn't hate that. The faster modes turned my stomach a bit, like I was falling.

The streets were still relatively busy, but nothing like the day before, which confirmed my theory of the city never truly stopping function. My walking around at night would go largely unnoticed, then.

The door to the Troll Market opened silently this time, and I stepped in, then blinked as my eyes adjusted to the dark. The door for the other side of the bridge was directly in front of me, so I stepped through it, then closed it, waited a few seconds, and opened it again, finding the same door as yesterday.

I smiled at the easy process, and walked out, down the street, as the door dissolved from the wall.

The security guard was different, this time. I handed him my ID, and he sighed, nodding. "Pulling a few overtime hours, Mr. Wrothchild?"

"Actually, I have a bet I have to win, so yes." I chuckled.

He nodded. "Well, its none of my business, but steer clear of Ms. Wong, today. She's in a mood for some reason."

I sighed. "She's who I'm here to see... wish me luck?" I grinned sheepishly.

He snorted. "You'll need more protection than luck, but sure, pal. Good luck."

I grabbed my bag and ID, and stepped into the elevator, which moved very quickly. I would have to just take the stairs tomorrow, and the rest of the days I was here.

Lilly was pacing her office, and when she saw me, she crooked a finger swiftly, and sat down heavily at her desk.

I opened her door, and stepped in, closing it. "Hello, Lillian?" I hesitantly greeted her.

"You're late."

I looked at the clock. "It's 5:32... I think I'm doing rather well, huh?" I said dryly.

She sighed. "Anyway, let's discuss this. I'm on three hours of sleep, and very irritable, so just take what I say with a grain of salt."

"Salt?" I asked for clarification.

"What? Oh, uh... damn, I don't know the Russian equivalent. I'm going to be sarcastic, so don't react to anything I say until you're sure I said what I meant, and not just a nasty comment, which you should ignore." She grumbled.

I nodded. "Alright. I have all the files, here, and I was hoping you'd do them on my laptop? It's Air-Gapped, so there's no malicious code in it. Just to be safe."

She nodded. "Well done. Keep it that way, huh? So here's my thought. We'll run all these through, but not monetize any of them right away, then choose the ones you want monetized. After that, whatever's left will be yours to work with, privately."

I nodded. "Alright. Well, there's 93 files, so..." I set seven on the desk, and my computer.

She inserted a blank thumb drive into her computer, then downloaded a copy of her software, and booted it up on my computer, through the thumb drive, therefore leaving the computer hard-drive still empty, beyond the automatic access logs.

She sighed and began inputting the names and numbers, and then set that Seven aside. "Next?"

---

She set the last folder aside, and nodded. "Alright, now let's see what we're working with..." she opened a different program, and started inputting codes. About fifteen in, she whistled softly. "This is going to be very interesting..."

I looked at the screen, and hummed when I saw the stocks being evaluated. Certain companies weren't around anymore, because they'd been liquidated and merged, which meant these folders actually held shares of major corporations, and massive amounts of commodities in various countries.

She input them all, and then evaluated them monetarily, and leaned back at the numbers. "Wow."

"I only need $8 Million, right now, so monetize all the commodities, how much does that come to?" I asked.

She input the request, and frowned. "$4.2M."

"Okay, that's what I was supposed to get, now let's see about quickly selling, and buying, to double that money." I moved my chair next to her, and started typing.

I began moving purgeable assets into a disposable folder, then the important ones, the shares, into zipped folders, admin password protected, (Password: Nælokipsë), to stop any accidents before they happened.

Then I began selling the purgeable assets, watching the market fluctuate for the perfect time for each asset to sell.

At some point, Lilly left, and returned with hot coffee, which I chugged, then returned to work. She left again, what felt like a few minutes later, and returned with food, in the form of two sandwiches, filled with Italian sausage and marinara sauce.

I scarfed it down and continued the work, already at $6.5M.

She placed all the folders back into my satchel, and started taking notes on something on her computer.

I grinned, and continued, taking a few risky sells that paid off half the time, dropping me down to $7.4M, but then driving me up to $9.2M. The door opened, and I continued, undeterred, driving for at least an even $10M.

I accidentally went over, to $11.3M, and grinned wider, deciding to continue until my deadline, at Noon.

It was suddenly 11:55, however, when I looked down, and I hummed in surprise. "I guess I got caught up in the action... ah well. So Ms. Wong, how's $12.6 Million sound?" I turned, and found myself face-to-face with the Alexia woman.

I yelped, and moved away, ending up on the floor.

She blinked, surprised. "Oh! Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you."

I cleared my throat and stood. "I'm sorry as well, one should never scream when he sees a woman. Terribly rude."

She chuckled. "You're right, I suppose. Now what's this about 12.6 Million Dollars? Our deficit? Less than I thought..."

I shook my head. "No. My profits. $8M of which is the company's now, to stabilize our economic problem." I explained.

Lilly turned my laptop to face her, and nodded, typing. "Very well done, Greg-... ahem, Mr. Wrothchild. I'll transfer the $8M to a company account, and the rest to yours, as well as these stocks you've gathered so quickly." She explained, then gave me the computer back. "Keep that thumbdrive, though. It'll be useful, to be able to make your computer useless without it."

I nodded, then shut down the computer, ejecting the thumb-drive, and sticking it in my pocket. "I appreciate the help."

"Absolutely... and I appreciate you helping this company... very interesting... no matter how much you want this job, $8M is a lot of money to just throw away..." she frowned.

I shrugged. "It's just money. So long as I have enough to support my family, I don't really need much."

She chuckled again. "Yeah, I figured you'd say something like that. Well, that is done and over... now let's get lunch, hmm?"

I nodded. "Food sounds good. I didn't realize six hours had gone past, you know?"

I looked at the Alexia woman as we left, and raised an eyebrow. "Are you coming?" I asked.

She blinked. "Oh, no, I-Uhm..."

"You and Lilly don't get along. I know. Come on. I'm buying, but you have to point me towards a good place to eat. I'm new in town, remember?" I said sarcastically.

She laughed softly, and nodded. "Sure. There's a good food truck that comes around now to our building, sells hot burrito's and Taco's."

I hummed. "Yes, my sister brought us those yesterday... I do not like much these black Beans..."

She frowned. "You mean 'I don't much like', but okay. They have other stuff."

"Ah, alright. Lilly?" I asked her.

She sighed. "Alright, whatever. Good thing it wasn't a Date, Gregor, or I'd be pissed you're inviting another woman, and especially one I disapprove of."

"Ah well. And we would never Date, so that's fine."

She raised both eyebrows. "Ouch. Why not?"

"Because I'm afraid of women I don't know, personally. Socially it's fine, but personally? No." I shrugged.

She chuckled. "Awwwe, poor Gregor!" She pinched my cheek, laughing.

I grumbled at her, and stepped into the elevator. "Whatever. Once I get used to you, I'm fine, it's just not good for first impressions to run away from people." I sighed.

She scoffed. "Nooooo, really?"

"Don't get sassy with me, young lady, I have three younger sisters." I snapped back.

She laughed loudly, surprising Alexia. "Oh don't flatter yourself, love. That's nothing. I'm the eldest of Twelve! And you've met my mother, so you can guess that I did most of the work."

I tsk'ed. "Twelve, huh? I guess your bloodline is very proliferous, but mine... one every four years, like clockwork. And none of our mothers stuck around. You'd don't know 'difficult' until you try to teach a baby Ogre how to eat with a fork."

Alexia blinked. "Ogres? But they're-... oh. I thought you were just a very large human."

"Nope. I am the eldest pureblood of the Atkin Line. The Great and Mighty Ogre King. As if there's any kingdom, or even citizens left." I grumbled.

We exited the elevator, and got through security, then walked towards the smells of food, to the South.

"Still, five siblings... all from different mothers or no, your family was proliferous as well, huh? Can I ask why your mothers didn't stay around?" Lilly asked, and stopped next to a line of people in front of the truck.

"My mother, my father's wife, died in childbirth, and despite what my father said about the others, I never met them, so I don't really know. He told me once, while we were fighting in Sweden, that he had chosen them because they had strong bloodlines. That's it. I wouldn't stick around either, honestly, if all someone wanted was to get me pregnant for selfish reasons, and not to have children for the love of them, but to create warriors in his image." I shrugged.

"And Karma gave him Daughters, huh? Sounds good to me." Alexia shrugged.

"My siblings are every bit the warrior that I am, though, so I suppose his blood was stronger than Fate anyway." I chuckled.

The line moved forward, and Lilly quickly ordered six of the 'taco's', with extra meat, then went to pay, but I simply reached over her easily, and handed the man in the window my gold card, the only one with money on it, currently.

He scanned it, then handed it back. "And here is your food, sir, have a nice day." He said cheerfully.

I nodded and tucked the card into my pocket, then looked at them. "So what are you eating?" I grinned at my joke.

Alexia chuckled, whilst Lilly simply snitched two of the Taco's. I handed Alexia hers, and then hummed at the hard wedge-shaped pastry that smelled of corn flour and vegetable oil, and held beef, cheese, lettuce, and tomatoes.

"All the food groups!" I chuckled, and took a bite.

I wasn't sure I liked the texture of the shell, but the taste was superb, that much I could give it. I was usually very picky when it came to human food, or anything that wasn't meat, but the vegetables and meat worked well together.

We sat down at a nearby table, with metal chairs, and I quickly scarfed both taco's down, the  nodded. "A nice snack... do they have them without the hard shells?"

"We have soft Taco's?" The guy answered, leaning his cheek on his hand.

"Huh?" I looked at him curiously.

He shrugged slowly, then set a white pastry on the counter. "Same ingredients, but the shell isn't fried, it's left soft." He explained.

I grinned. "I'll take a dozen!" I set my card on the counter, and snatched the pastry, eating it in three quick bites, and sitting back down.

"Yeah, you look like you need a lot of food, man. Kinda skinny, for a guy your height." He nodded, swiping the card, then disappeared, returning with a basket filled with the food.

I grinned and ripped into them, moaning with satisfaction when all twelve were inside my stomach, which was comfortably filled, for now.

Lilly laughed loudly, covering her mouth to hide the massive incredulous smile on her lips. "You're very funny, Gregor. Very amusing."

I bowed sarcastically. "I'll be here all week, darling Lilly,"

She smiled. "And you've got a sense of sarcasm to boot!"

"Sarcasm? Whatever could you mean?" I sat down on a bench, and stretched my legs out, where they actually reached the curb of the little inlet, three feet away.

Lilly sat down next to me, and kicked her feet up onto my thighs. "On a more serious note... if all you want is to provide for your family, you've got more than enough to provide for them for the rest of their lives."

I hummed. "Well, that's good. But I'm an Ogre, Lilly. Enough is never enough, when it comes to money. You should've seen how hard it was to pay someone in Troll gold last night! I nearly tore the poor bastards head off, and it wasn't even my gold!"

She laughed. "Yeah, I can see that. That's why your kind likes to turn into Dragons, right? Hoarding gold and gems?"

I nodded. "Yes, that's true. As a Full-Blooded Ogre, I'm the only one who has it in any crippling levels, though my siblings have an unhealthy amount of greed, attached to their own things... my eldest little sibling is obsessed with old music from the 50's-80's. Vinyls and such."

She blinked. "Oh! I suppose everyone has their own idea of value."

"Indeed-, wait... that's." I looked around, sniffing, and realized I smelled something that reminded me of my father. I stood up suddenly, knocking my chair out of the way to give myself room to defend myself, and a small man walked past me slowly.

He gazed at me, then snorted and started walking away. "Freak." He threw over his shoulder.

Lilly raised an eyebrow. "You alright?"

"I smelled my father on that man... it is not a pleasant smell..." I frowned, and righted my chair slowly.

"What... exactly... does your father smell like?" Alexia asked hesitantly.

"The spoiled blood-marsh of a week-old battlefield. The belches of carrion crows who have engorged themselves, and feasted upon the rancid flesh of the long-dead and slow-dying. The unconsecrated ashes of the hundreds of bodies which continuously burn in the sun. The sun-baked, rotten, maggot-infested flesh of those not even the Crows will eat, and the ants leave for defecation vats and nurseries for their larva. Wroth Atkinson, Demon-Bane, the Father of the Last Generation of the Atkinson Royal line, smells like Death." I explained as eloquently as I could in this language.

She turned a bit green, and covered her mouth. "Excuse me!" She ran away, and entered an alley.

I heard her retching, and turned to Lilly, who looked not much better. "What? Was her food spoiled?"

Lilly shivered. "You're very... descriptive."

"Thank you. I was worried I mispronounced some of the words. Your grammar rules are very different from mine, as well." I nodded.

She took a very small sip of water. "I was not complimenting you."

"Hmm?" I cocked my head.

"We are eating. Please, next time, just say that it's a bit too graphic for us to hear." She shivered again.

I hummed softly. "I see, you have weak stomachs. You shouldn't have asked, then. My reaction should've told you it shocked even me."

She nodded. "Next time, I will remember that. Any theories as to why he smelled like your father?"

"He recently murdered someone, and spent a long time around the body. The scent is ground into his pores. He is leaving a trail as we speak... but he is human, and therefore he is not our responsibility." I sighed.

She blinked slowly. "Oh!... well, I'll send an anonymous tip, then, for the police to search his place."

I blinked. "That will work? The police can simply go into someone's home?"

"No, they have to have legal reasons." She shook her head.

"Good..." I grumbled, and then stood. "Now we need to get back to the office. Work to be done."

She nodded and collected Alexia, who looked slightly queasy, but otherwise healthy.

---

I looked around in the little office I had been granted, and nodded. "Sufficient. Efficient. Spacious. I approve."

Lilly nodded. "It's nice. Very empty, but that's normal. You can see the street from this side." She pressed a hand to a window, and the tint disappeared, showing me the street.

I noticed a computer on the desk. "This controls the screens?" I asked, waking it up.

She nodded again. "Yes."

I accessed the walls with her instruction, and changed the tint setting to a picture, a stock photo of the Vasyugan, my first home. I always felt best when I saw those old, icy swamps.

I smiled and sat in my new chair. "That's better." I nodded.

Lilly smiled and plugged my thumb-drive into the new computer, booting up all the software. "Alright, then that's all I can do! Hope you settle in okay, come to me with any questions, alright?"

I nodded. "I will. I appreciate your kindness, Lillian Wong."

She grinned. "It's just 'Ms. Wong', here at work."

I nodded again. "Of course." She smiled and left, and I got to work with the rest of the stocks and shares I now owned, settling them into easily accessible, but detailed, folders, and making sure each one was properly claimed.

I sent the money I had left over back into the market, and started working again, but slower than before, waiting for bigger profits, instead of snatching at minute differences.

I enjoyed this work immensely, and so I again quickly lost track of time.