Once outside, Annella wondered about what she could do to work her case. She somehow had to obtain the list of all the students and staff registered at the university. She slowly strolls towards the secretariat, looking around, pretending to be lost. An well-dressed lady in her late fifties is at the desk of the office, typing away on her computer. Anella opens her mind.

          Checks for lunch here, broken vending machine that needs to be fixed. Oh! I need to get this document to the director too. I musn't forget.

          Annela walks straight ahead of herself, following the Est stone wall of the interior court surrounded by four others, with doors giving to hallways or offices.

          I'll do it right now, she hears the secretary think to herself. The woman, Mrs. Comroe lives a plain life, she loves her working environment, has a perfectly organized schedule, three yoga lessons a week, visit of her grandchildren every two weeks, same old routine she wouldn't trade anything for.

          Annela analyzes her surroundings for any other soul, but finds none. The place is deserted, everyone occupying the amphitheaters listening to their class. As soon as she turns her back to the Anella, she bounces on her feet jogging to the older woman's desk. She left her session opened on her computer and leaves anyone the access to the college's files. Annela snorts at the simplicity of it all. She finds effortlessly the lists of workers and students and decides to send them to herself by e-mail, not having a USB key on herself. The process is going to be slow. She keeps an eye outside the office for the return of Mrs. Comroe as the copies of the files load.

          The files are loaded on the e-mail and just need to be sent. She clicks the send button on the device dating from antiquity. The loading bar slowly evolves towards the right.

          The young woman reprimands a gasp as she sees Mrs. Comroe walk through a door, one hand holding a filled cup of coffee, forcing her to walk slower facing the effort not spill the burning liquid on the flawless floor. The dark eyes of the girl dart from the woman to the loading bar and back again. She bends down to hide herself from the field of vision of the secretary.

          Come onnn... Annela mentally urges. The gears of her mind spin at the speed of lightning, trying to make up a cover story to justify her position to the human lady. Her eyes fall on the pair of sunglasses she is holding in her left hand and a lightbulb lights up over her brain. The e-mail finally sends itself and she closes the online window. The concentrated eyes of Mrs. Comroe lift up from her cup of coffee and squints her eyes at the scene she blurrily sees through the window of her office. Someone is standing beside her desk.

          She hurries her pace, sliding on the glasses hanging from a pearl necklace onto her small red nose. She opens the door to see a pretty young lady bending down to pick up broken sunglasses on the floor.

          "Oh dear!" she empathetically expresses, completely losing all her initial suspicion.

          "No worries," Annela reassures, heart beating madly despite her usual coldblood. "My clumsy hands usually drop things."

          The woman gives out a greasy laugh.

          "Oh I relate very well to this situation."

          Annela halfheartedly chuckles along. She really liked those sunglasses. She finishes picking up the broken pieces and throws them in the bin next to frame of the door.

          "How may I help you?" Mrs. Comroe queries.

          "Um..." the girl hums, desperately trying to find something plausible to say.

          The pressure rises as the light brown eyes of the secretary stare at the girl. The darker pair of eyes looked outside the window and made Annela remember the weather outside.

          "I was just wondering if there was a fountain here, it's awfully hot," she calmly states, despite her want to blurt out the perfect answer she proudly found.

          "Oh but of course!" the older lady nicely smiles, brushing her majestic pepper and salt colored hair with her hand. "It really is burning hot outside for a beginning of September," she loquaciously chats. "There is a fountain near the toilets of the first floor, right there" she directs, pointing in a direction. "Or we also have a vending machine in near the professors' lounge over there," she offers, pointing in a different direction. "Oh but it's broken!" she reminds herself. "I just remembered..."

          Annela follows with her eyes to finger of the lady, praying for her to stop talking, for she couldn't care less of what she was saying.

          "Thank you very much, I'll just go to the fountain, sorry for the bother," she apologizes, taking a step out the room.

          "Not at all," the other woman sympathizes. "Have a good afternoon."

          Her attention falls back on the screen and Annela starts walking towards the exit of the school, not worrying about the gullible secretary. She hurries over to her car parked on the parking under the burning sun. Her hand hastily switches on the air conditionner and she follows the GPS back to her apartment.

          She hangs her keys at their usual spot and takes her shoes off to lay them on the shoe stand beside her door. After serving herself a drink of cold fruit juice, she goes in the only other room that she uses as her bedroom where a simple mattress lays on the ground, and a black curtain hides a closet in which hang a few clothes on hangers. She lifts up the top of her laptop and connects herself online to access her e-mails. She copies the names and classifies them in alphabetical order with an algorithm. She highlights all and unhighlights the ones she is sure don't belong to the list of suspects anymore. 

         Only three are surely humans, out of around two thousand people. Mrs. Comroe the secretary, Mrs. Dunn the chief of the kitchens, and Felix White. She walks around her apartment holding her portable computer and flops onto the couch. A calamitous ratio. 

          I really need to focus, and find a way to make this work out. And fast. She reminds and presses herself. Annela hears indistinct noises outside her front door. Before she has time to open her mind to find out who is responsible, she physically hears metal pieces clinking against the lock of her door. She doesn't need another moment to understand that someone is trying to break in her house. She rapidly stands up, closing her computer containing valuable information and slides it in a drawer underneath her television. She turns around the next second to find three men in her living room. Amongst them, in the middle, stands Officer Tim Bailey, a malicious smile greeting the young woman.

          "I took your advice to bring two men with me," he announces.