Chapter 10: Strut like her life depended on it

Walking into the company like she owned the damn place, she headed straight past reception to the executive elevators. The petite woman was now struggling to keep pace with her. She planned on ditching the woman as soon as she could, but it didn't look like she could make her escape just yet.

"Are you sure we can take the executive elevator? Did you get special permission?"

She was baffled. 'What executive elevator, an elevator was an elevator and was going to take her to the top floor where she could cause a scene.'

"Feel free to stay here if you don't want to come".

"Oh no no no!this is amazing, I love the privilege. Did you get the code?!"

She thought for a second about what the woman was saying. Time to test another of her theories. If this was her dream then there could only be one code she could use to unlock anything. If this was potentially something else, then she could try the universal reset code she got a while ago from a security company on one of her hacking exploits. She was planning at the time to mess with that old man in her company and trap him in the elevator for a couple of hours. 'Alas that didn't happen, but would this work now?'

She got into the elevator and the screen instantly popped up.

"Please scan your badge and input the 4 digit access code". She did as the elevator screen instructed, she scanned her badge and her face appeared on the screen. Next she put in her favourite number combination. It spelled ICEY and she somehow just loved it. It didn't work. Frowning she put in the all access code she knew. It worked.

"What floor please" the screen showed now. Her companion was in awe of her.

She pressed on 52, the top floor and waited for the elevator to start moving.

"OMG I cant believe it!! Oooh I know I shouldn't but really I want to so badly!! Please take me with you every morning! This is such an experience!!" the chatty woman was now almost bouncing in her excitement.

She thought about the woman next to her, and suddenly a tinge of sadness entered her heart, why was this woman so happy at such a simple thing. What was this division in a company. She was disappointed, maybe this was a nightmare, a subtle, sad and class divisive nightmare.

"No Shengli, I can't do that." The sadness in the woman's eyes was evident.

"I know I'm sorry, I shouldn't have assumed".

"No, I mean I can't do that because I don't plan on sticking around here for too long, but you're more than welcomed to use the code, its 4656, knock yourself out."

She did not expect sharing this to elicit such a happy reaction from the woman. Shengli instantly hugged her and almost started crying. 'What in the world was going on?!'

"Oooh my friend! I'm so grateful! You were weird this morning, but I knew you wouldn't forget about me when you moved up."

This was really turning into a tv trashy drama, being happy at taking the executive elevator, how ridiculous was that. Even if this was a dream, she was getting annoyed. Who condones such behaviour in a modern company. 'Ooh she'll include that in her angry rant to break the dream world.'

The elevator door dinged and opened at the 52nd floor. Now was the time.

She walked out strutting everything she had. This was channeling Victor time! She would pull out all the stops and cause a ruckus.

Just as she was about to burst through the big wooden doors at the end of the corridor (she assumed that's where the big shot CEO's office was) she heard a shrill voice and heard footsteps and panting behind her. She stopped and turned around, looking over her cheap sunglasses at whoever made the noise. Raven was working hard to give this woman 'the look'. It was the ' you dare interrupt me from my own show?!' look, Victor always gave whenever he was getting ready to turn into a typical 'Karen' and demand for the manager. She giggled on the inside; if he only knew how much she was channelling him today, he'd be proud.

"Where do you think you're going dressed like that?! This is a place of business, how dare you ?!"

She continued looking at the woman making those noises with an unaffected look on her face. When she noticed the woman was not making a move to actually stop her, she turned and sped up her pace, ready to burst through those doors. This was her chance to break through.

The petite woman she met in the morning was looking at her in awe, clearly this was unexpected behaviour.

"Stop right there, you can't…" the woman didn't finish her sentence as she pushed through the doors and walked it.