Into The Unknown

Chapter 02

Sneaking in Mayor’s house is the one thing I can do with so much perfection despite the tight security and CCTV cameras that I can be entitled to as the greatest ninja. I learned this sneaking game from the best, A.J and Mariah, at different times and different places and under different circumstances.

First things first, I need to wait for two more minutes before Vincent leaves for taking a checking round around the building. Vincent is the main guard and he’s such a sweet person as he never tries to engage in conversation with anyone, he’s all strict to professionalism.

After exactly two minutes, he flies off to take the round. I’ve exactly fifty-seven seconds before another guard arrives here. Waiting for eleven seconds before Vincent completely disappears from my view, I jumped off the wall and made my way to the second base that is a hidden window under bushes and veils. I’m going eight seconds early, I’ve improved. Two seconds more till the CCTV turns to face left... and there’s my cue, I knock for two dashes two dots on the window, Morse code for Z that Mariah gave me as a secret code for announcing my arrival. Mariah opened the window welcoming me in her Essence of life.

“Welcome home Ze”, she says with a gleam.

Essence of life is the room Mariah requested to be constructed underground as her personal library and theater. The room is huge and separated in two by the brick Berlin wall. East Berlin is the library area and West Berlin is the theater room. No book can make past to West Berlin and no DVD can make past to East Berlin, she likes things to be in order. Essence of life has fingerprint access of mine and Mariah and this room is off-limits for everyone except me. Sometimes she allows her maid to clean this room under her supervision and sometimes Zain barges in through the hidden window. This room gives aesthetic pleasure and its sole existence is for the escape of Mariah from her life, physically and emotionally.

“Here is everything you need to know about him”, Mariah said handing me her iPad. The page of the biography of Siddharth Roy, the guy who was interested in tying knots with Mariah, was popped open. Ok, so he made the software that Mayor's want to invest in, the guy is a philanthropic, 25, interests are reading books and traveling. I kept on reading that four pages long biography of this Sid guy that Mariah made personally on account of her freedom.

“No marriage but somehow convince him to choose us as his investors”, Mariah asked. Being her is easy, all I need to do is be laid back, sweet, gullible and kids loving. She’s the complete opposite of what is me.

“You can do that too. Even better than me”, I say scanning through her library.

Girl in Room 105, Half girlfriend, Wuthering Heights, Moby Dick, Alice in Wonderland, Pride and Prejudice, Paper Towns, To kill a Mocking Bird, The Great Gatsby, Heartsick, The Hating Games, It Ends With Us, Turtles All The Way Down, and infinite books are arranged on the shelves and the books that couldn’t make it to the shelves are piled up beside her bean bag. What’s the fun of reading? It’s like you are spending your time scanning through pages trying to find the content and insight while you should be going out drinking booze to ooze out.

“I like to pay you”, she says and sits in her bean bag.

She expects me to be her for some trivial things that even she can do. The first favor she asked from me was attending her school function, I was 15 then. The last favor she’s asking me is to break her marriage. Either she’s stupid or she’s really lazy to make me do things which she could do and save her money. Once she asked me to attend her birthday for her. From going on vacation with her parents to attending charity events, I’d experienced a taste of her life, and it’s good. That’s somewhat the kind of life I want to build for myself, the filthy rich part but not the famous part, I want my life to be low-key.