Chapter 79 - Meeting Monsters Inc

A.d.u.l.ts are monsters. Or at least most of them were. Scarlet had always believed it to be true until she entered the Wilde family. Her parents were examples of monsters as well and it didn't come to much surprise that their assigned manager was one too. She hid her claws well and decorated her malice with ambition. Unfortunately, that wasn't enough to fool the young writer. Larissa Lawrence might be a great actress but Scarlet was a better one. She'd spent her whole life observing people enough to know when people are not being honest.

"Oh, you poor thing," the admin manager cooed with a falsely sympathetic voice that made the hair on Jasper's arms stand. The creepy lady had red fluffy hair that reminded Alex of cotton candy but for some reason, the manager just wore too much red. Her tight pencil skirt was bright red. Her lacy blouse was thankfully white. However, her lipstick and glasses were also red, not to get started with her manicured nails which were also red. If Alex took notice of her shoes, she would hardly be surprised at Larissa's choice of colour either. No wonder everyone knew who she was. It was a little hard to notice someone who wore this colour coordination on a daily basis.

Scarlet didn't know what to think when Larissa looked at her. For a moment she felt like a mouse being eyed by a playful cat. That cat decided that it wasn't time to kill her just yet so they were pardoned for being a good half an hour late. Then again, it wasn't the right time to relax.

"I see. Normally the HR would have given you a tour of the company to introduce you to the various departments. However, seeing as nobody is available today, I will give you a simple tour of our admin department where you will find yourself being more familiar with." Jasper followed behind Larissa cautiously with Alex helping Scarlet along.

The manager didn't seem to notice the struggles Scarlet had keeping up with her pace. In fact, her sharp click-clacking of heels made all the curious workers duck their heads down when Larissa passed them by.

The one thing that caught Scarlet's attention was how the big pearl necklace didn't fit with the manager's sense of fashion. Larissa looked like the strictly no-nonsense kind of lady who wouldn't hesitate to put anyone out of their job if she thinks they were slacking. In fact, the glances that other employees gave them made the young writer sure of her guess. Larissa was a total bitch.

Alex was thankful that the plan Jasper and Scarlet cooked up worked. By introducing herself with her last name, the manager did a complete change in attitude. This was in no way lying low at all but it did well to iron out misunderstandings. Using the Wilde name, it would be a lot easier to gain access to information that they sorely required. Right now, they had to understand the company structure and the internal situation before figuring out what camps and factions there were.

Jasper did his best to remain a supporting character in the background. With his bangs covering his eyes, many people wouldn't hesitate to label him as a creepy or gloomy kid going through a phase of life. This way, Alex would easily become the centre of attention. Scarlet had a cast on her leg and that was sure to garner sympathy from the people who had good hearts.

The logic for their plan was relatively simple. Scarlet's role was to identify the people whom they could consider a good camp. Anyone who could offer a genuine hand to someone else who was in need despite their workload would be considered a good samaritans. Alex's role was to distract people and make them reveal their true intentions. Those with greed and ulterior motive will be easily identified when they heard the Wilde name. Jasper's role was to watch out for the girls while they placed themselves out there as bait while finding out more about the internal situation. Mr Wilde would surely have enemies from places that he couldn't see and Jasper was determined to make use of this opportunity to make the CEO owe him one.

"This is the filing archive where you will spend most of your time helping the girls to find doc.u.ments and sort them out. We're currently in the process of migrating everything into the digital system so I expect you to be scanning them according to the year. As youngsters, you'd be better with technology so I won't go into details of the backup process. If there are any queries please call the IT helpdesk, the phone list is provided for with a folder that comes with your timesheet. You can look for any of the girls in the admin department to help you sign off for the day. Anna!"

The pitter-patter of someone running was heard. A young girl with round glasses came skidding to a halt and apologising. Scarlet didn't think that the Chinese girl was any older than twenty from how she looked. It didn't help that she was only half a head taller than Alex and Larissa gave her a cold stare before ignoring her.

"This is Anna. She has been working here for a while now, if you have any questions please feel free to ask her. Anna, I will be leaving our interns to you. Please bear in mind that they're very young and be patient with them. I will be checking on the progress periodically."

Anna bowed as Larissa walked out and Alex let out a sigh of relief. Being in the admin manager's presence was nerve-wracking. Jasper didn't miss out on that look of fear on Anna's face as Larissa passed by her. There were a lot of things going on in the undercurrent and he was curious. Anna didn't seem to have been working in the company for very long but she was already part of the system. Surely there was something more to just the power of a mere admin manager that made everyone fearful.

"Hello, I'm Anna and I will be working with the three of you very closely. You're all a little young to be working as interns but I guess if the HR made special exceptions that means you must all be very capable. Don't be afraid to ask if you don't know anything, I'm not very familiar with the things around here but I will do my best to help!"

Scarlet smiled and decided that she liked Anna. Alex grinned cheerfully and introduced them to the office girl. Jasper was silent throughout and left the talking to the girls while he looked around. The archive was a good place to start. There were doc.u.ments from finance to logistics. Just about everything they needed to find out about the company was here. The budding entrepreneur doubted that there will be classified information sitting around but this was a good enough start. many things were discovered hidden at the basic level. A messy operation system meant that there were loopholes. Jasper just needed time to discover what they were to dig into the root of the problem that Mr Wilde was having difficulties with.

"Oh, I see that you're in a cast. How about we take it easy today? This is our company's general organisational chart as well as SOP's for the administrative department. There's a lot of reading to do but it will be easier for all of you to plan the sorting out of files and scanning. Currently, Dave, the IT guy is setting up the accounts for all three of you. Once you have your accounts, you can access the intranet and start working on transferring the data from hardcopy to the system."

Alex and Scarlet gladly took Anna's suggestion but Jasper decided to find out a little more. The girl was surprised when Jasper asked to know where some of the rooms were in the company like the restroom and the pantry. She took a look at the girls and hummed.

"I guess reading can wait. I could give you a brief tour of the first level but a grand tour of the building might have to wait until your friend recovers. Normal offices only have one level of office or a rented unit but because the Wilde Group is massive, the entire building is an office and there are some floors staff like me are restricted from accessing."

Alex was surprised. "We can't access every floor? How will we know where we can and cannot go?"

Anna then showed them her access pass. "Dave is also preparing this at the moment. You cannot access the lifts or the building without them so please do not forget them! For this week, I will be escorting you to where you need to be."

Alex paled. "Does that mean we would need to trouble you if we need to go to the washroom?"

Anna laughed at Alex's genuine concern and smiled. "No, the washroom is available for anyone. However, the photocopier and printers are locked so you would need the card access to do any real work."

Nodding in unison, the children begin to ask Anna more detailed questions ranging from how they would know if they could use the pantry or even meeting rooms they could borrow if they needed space to do file sorting. Anna answered every question to the best of her abilities, extremely pleased with the enthusiasm. Initially, she wasn't sure about having very young children become interns even if it was a request by their parents who were working in the company. The company wasn't a daycare centre after all.

However, seeing their earnest attitude towards work put all the worries the office girl had to rest. If these kids were as promising as they appeared, the admin team would finally be able to get the help they required. The turnover rate of employees in the admin team was too high and not even Anna knew what she was meant to do. Every day was another day of fighting fires and figuring out how to do their job in the middle of all the office politics. Luckily for the children, they were not restricted by the corporate regulations and unspoken rules due to the high tension within the powerful individuals and factions.

Scarlet was slightly unnerved by how Anna was looking at them. It was as if the office girl was worshipping them as her saviour for some odd reason and the young writer didn't like it. Alex was completely oblivious to it and Jasper raised a brow behind his bangs. Things were worse than he thought and it was only the first hour.

Just how many monsters were in the Wilde Group? At this rate, they would be renamed into Monsters Inc.