Cracked Sources – B02E01

“Good
morning, Sir!”

The greeting
echoed all through the large conference hall. Andrew was still getting used to being the only center of attention
– After years of careful planning and pretense, his well coveted desire was fulfilled.
But even after two weeks of living the dream, he still felt the same kind of emptiness
he had become accustomed to, the one he grew up trying to escape. – He
desperately needed something to fill that void. “The programme Sir,”
the reminder from Mr. Dimeji was what
he needed to return to the reality of the present.

Two weeks had
passed since the well-publicized case involving the firm and Crescent Housing Estate, not much had
changed since those defining moments: Mark
was still in police custody awaiting the full push of his case to trial and
Akin had become a pest in the Law
community desperately searching for a loophole in the Judge’s verdict that’ll
allow him gain access back to his firm, amongst other things of which Andrew on
the Throne as C.E.O. of Akin Chambers was paramount.

“Proceed.” Andrew finally
gave the long awaited command. The Head of programme, Mr. Badmus was the first to speak. Badmus was a nervous wreck,
which was made obvious from the ear-sore errors he consistently gave at almost
every sentence he made on the podium. Everyone could tell something wasn’t
right as he kept jerking, trying to balance his weight and fears from one foot
to the other, creating a looped show of professional shame before his
colleagues who already had their own personal issues of contempt for the new
C.E.O. to deal with. Andrew laughed. He found the dance-like movements funny, contrary
to the popular opinion in the conference hall, which caused further strain
between his relationship and the rest of the angered Directors present at this
meeting. But he didn’t care, he was having the time of his life watching Badmus
repeatedly make a fool of himself, something he rarely ever got to see these
days.

Patricia watched with rapt
attention as the collected bead of sweat at the edge of Badmus’ forehead drop,
she could tell the man was under huge stress,

“Stress induced stress,” she
said, to the earshot of the few beside her.

As she stood to
walk towards his position she threw a glance Andrew’s way; she could see he was
still having the time of his life, something she also felt he didn’t get much
of lately, it pained her to be the one to end his fun. It was her duty to
protect him at all times just as she had been doing all along; now she was
officially his Personal Assistant all
potential threats to her boss would be eliminated before they became actual
threats – That was what she was going to do here and now.

Patrick could also tell
something was seriously wrong. Even though he didn’t know Badmus well enough as
they weren’t on a first name basis due to the large gap in their office
functions, he did know from their previous interaction that the young man was
an articulate fellow, calculative and impressionable. He wondered where the
ugly façade they all were witnessing was from.

“You look very tensed, Badmus.” Patrick called his attention to his heavily soaked shirt even though
the air conditioning system was at work. The call to order sent him further into
destabilization than he previously was.

“I can’t do this,”
Badmus finally cried out in surrender. He paced back and forth his position
before finally racing for the exit. Patricia caught up with him, standing
before him, blocking his exit. She leisurely played the game of left and right
with him till he gave up, causing him to freaked out even more. He started
walking backwards to the podium. He was visibly shaken and had swollen eyes. The
other occupants of the hall who had been slow to anger, suddenly realized there
was more to this than mere anxiety. A few who had extra sensitive imaginations,
thought him on a suicide mission: perhaps he was strapped with a bomb. Most began
saying silent prayers.

Andrew could now
tell that Badmus’ acts had gone beyond parlor theatrics he initially thought them
to be. He sat upright on his throne,
and observed properly how tensed the man was – His swollen face transferred
from one cheek to the other. Andrew turned his head towards Patricia and asked using
body language, “What’s wrong with
him?” Patricia took a quick glance at Badmus – His head was buried
down staring at his own feet as though psychically counting the toes hidden
underneath his pair of shoes.

Patricia
announced, “He’s in bed with our
enemy.”

Badmus looked up
– his eyes automatically locked to her lips as she spoke his truth. His brain
processed too much information at the same time,

“How did she find out? What would Andrew do to me? What would
Akin himself do to me?”

His eyes locked
to Andrew’s also, they were without the joy they held moments ago.

Andrew thought of
the best way to handle this matter. This was an in-house assailant, the second
in two weeks, Akin was indeed proving himself more resilient than he ever gave
him credit for. It took the wisdom of Mr. Sanni that they publicly disgrace the
last snitch to serve as a public deterrent to other staffs who toyed with the
idea of betraying the firm. But now, Andrew was confused on what to do. He
wondered aloud, “How best do we
punish an emerging Director for his betrayal?” He arose and started to
walk towards Badmus who already had the bomb of God’s wrath about to go off in
him, thinking about the many ways both parties would deal with him for failing
them.

Three hefty men
from the firm’s security arrived the hall on Patricia’s request.

‘It always has to start with the firm’s security,’ Badmus thought. He walked continued to walk backwards, slowly, through
the open door of the unfamiliar terrain of the balcony of this particular hall
– Conference Hall 38 – he made
continuous gestures of apologies to Andrew to stop on his bold and fast-encroaching
steps. Andrew paid him no attention and continued; though he didn’t know what
he’d do when he finally caught up with Badmus, he had to keep up appearance and
appear intimidating as deterrence to others. He silently hoped the security men
came in faster than he had to throw the young man through the balcony, just as
his mind was telling him to do.

Badmus looked
over Andrew’s shoulder and saw the three hefty men approaching him. He had
accepted his fate and had come to terms with surrendering. Andrew held his hand
and said something audible only to both of them, and left him almost
immediately. Badmus clenched his eyes, they allowed the hoarded tears flow
freely from both sides. The security officers stood at the entrance to the
balcony, one on the center to the passage way and the other two on both sides
of the door’s frame, Andrew began to walk inside to allow them do their job.
The officer in the middle suddenly dashed towards Badmus, almost hitting Andrew
to the floor, with his right hand stretched. Andrew felt a sharp pain on his
left shoulder because of the force of impact. He turned to understand the
reason for their collision – he couldn’t see Badmus anymore.

Calls for Jesus to intervene filled the conference
hall like the typical Nigerians most of the Directors were. Andrew wanted to
observe properly what had happened through the railings but the other two
officers wouldn’t let him risk his life by further standing on the unstable
balcony.

***

“Hey beautiful!”

Anna slowly
flayed her silky hair backward, she had missed his voice and times like this
when he addressed her as a stranger she strangely felt turned on. She gently
trickled her left hand up the heavily paned glass while she used her right to
hold on to the telephone lest she wasted her fifteen minutes on mere body
language like they did the last time. Mark matched his right hand to her
waiting left, he could mentally feel the warmth of her hand through the glass pane,
just as he remembered them from their time at that uncompleted floor in the
firm – That was one of the best days of his life because it gave him his best
sex till date; something he didn’t get a lot of. He had lost hope in her coming
to see him today: it was almost past visiting hours, but she always proved to
be resourceful when necessary, one of the reasons he had been toying with the
idea of putting a necessary tiny cuff on her needy finger once he got out of
here, she was the only woman to have ever made him feel the need to do so.

“Five minutes more,”
The warden on duty called out to all the visitors using the service at the
eleventh hour, the reminder always did more harm than good to Anna because it
was always a reminder that the time of their lives wasn’t theirs to control any
more than they could unless a miracle happened.

“Anna.” Mark called her
name. The soothing feel of his bass voice sent chill down her spine – she loved
to hear him speak, and found him extremely sexy and irresistible bars as long. Her
resilience to love him despite his predicament caused him to constantly review
what life truly meant and what was truly worth dying for in this world.

“Anna.” He called again,
this time gentler. He had her attention this time, she wanted to listen to him
now, every moment with him needed to count till they had full control over
their lives again. The line went dead. “Time
up!” The warden called again.
“Take more cash,” Anna pleaded, tears about to stroll down her
cheeks. But even the corrupt wardens had some sort of personal codes of conduct
to adhere to, else there’d be total anarchy. Her time was indeed up.

Anna watched as
her man and other inmates were lined up in an orderly fashion before being
matched back into their dormitories. Silent ‘I
love you’ were exchanged. Till he was out of view, Anna held back her
tears. So also Mark whose voice was so laden with emotions, he couldn’t respond
questions his dorm-mate had for him.

***

Andrew stretched
his hand to locate his phone which provided the only lightening in the room
because of its beeping, it was his Mother –  evident from the app that announced a caller’s
name. He couldn’t miss her call even if he wanted to.

“Mother.” He called out
with questionable joy.

She loved the sound
of her title from his lips; thankfully Andrew had mastered the art of
pronouncing it delicately just as she wanted, but that wasn’t enough to spare
him from her vex. He apologized for the break in their chain of communication
over the past two weeks, and blamed the many dramas on his side it. He used the
opportunity to intimate her on the big event of the day – Badmu’ deaths. She
wasn’t really concerned, his death did not serve nor deter their purpose as she
reminded him, and urged that he remain focus on the bigger picture.

Andrew knew
better than to start or sustain any form of argument with his mother (easily
called Mother); same reason he didn’t try to resist her when she insisted on
bringing him chocolates from Atlanta upon her arrival. He understood her well
to a reasonable extent, and bid her a safe flight before putting an end to
their conversation. He then sat upright and pulled the phone away from his ear
to observe how long their call took, the backlight from the classy device shone
on his bare chest, he momentarily observed his chest hair were overdue for a shave
– He rarely let them attain their present level of growth before he became The
CEO – How little things lose their meaning when one attains a bigger position –
 He said to console himself. He turned on
the room lightening from the switch fitted at his bedside.

“Who was that?” The voice was
soft, and drew Andrew back to reality. He suddenly remembered he came home with
a woman last night. He looked up the wall-clock and observed it was the early
hours of the morning. He turned to her and pulled her closer to him – his
sexual prowess was always one of the things he could count on to never
disappoint him. He strolled down his index and middle right fingers to her
honey pot, but they were cut off midway to their destination of flowers by the
flower girl: she threatened to leave. According to her, Andrew never told her personal
things; all he did was make her listen to how awesome he was and how much money
he had. Andrew laughed, and spoke, “That
was Cruella.” She couldn’t understand what he meant. Imagine her
surprise when she realized Cruella was Andrew’s birth mother.

Andrew on the
other hand kept staring at her as she desperately tried to process the
information he had given her. He wondered how a girl as dull as this could have
a honey-pot so enticing that it held him spell bound for the past week. The
world was indeed full of mysteries, and Andrew had met one in Susan’s sexual
prowess. If Susan ever thought herself too important and her honey-pot
irresistible, then he would be forced to let her understand that nobody was
truly indispensable, especially when such a person had dealings with him.