34
Camila bowed to the Minister as well then led Stanley out of the room and back into the small waiting room outside of the main hall. She turned Stanley to face her and gave him a slight smile as she held his eyes with hers. “Did you fall or was dropping to your knees and pressing your face to the ground done for effect?”
His face burned with embarrassment. “I was so bloody flustered I lost my balance,” he said quietly.
“Well it was brilliant and shut down the man’s opponents completely. He’s gained a tremendous amount of status from that one act,” she said equally quiet.
He looked at her. “Why aren’t we leaving? Aren’t we done?”
“Minister Imamura’s wife will pick us up and take us to his estate. We are having dinner with them tonight and will fly home afterwards. They want to thank us properly,” she replied.
Another young man approached them with their luggage and gestured for them to follow him. They did and made their way to an underground parking lot where the man held open the back door of a black limousine. Camila entered first then Stanley and they took the rear bench. Facing them on the rear facing bench was Yuko’s mother, the woman who Stanley met in Sandy’s apartment. Their luggage went into the trunk.
When the door closed, the car began to move.
“You have done my husband a tremendous honor. Not only have you spared him the embarrassment of publicly losing the engagement, you have grandly demonstrated how much you respect him. It was… beyond expectation and his detractors and opponents have been greatly disadvantaged today. Thank you!” she said earnestly.
Stanley didn’t know what to say so he just nodded to her with a humble smile. Then he remembered something. “The wedding present! The furniture. I was going to send it back so you could get the refund but I don’t know what shop Yuko got it from.”
“Please keep the gift as thanks for your efforts today!” the woman said.
Stanley looked at the woman in surprise. “Oh! Thank you!”
She dipped her head to accept his thanks. “My name is Harumi. My spirited but undisciplined daughter Yuko has been sent to our country estate to contemplate her errors of judgement.” She frowned unhappily then made some subtle gestures with her hands. The space within the back of the car suddenly went silent and he felt a strange muffling sensation. Harumi continued now that they had privacy. “Her use of her powers within the home of a Human is most concerning. She will need to go before a disciplinary committee to address this crime. I am just thankful you were able to counteract the spell before she completed it. I did not have time to ask you that night how you did it so this is still a mystery to me!”
“I- I just grabbed her hands when I saw she was moving them and felt the energy building. I’ve never felt anything like that before and I don’t know anything about spells,” Stanley admitted.
Camila gasped and Harumi’s eyes went wide as she looked at him in shock. When she finally got her voice back she leaned forward. “You grabbed her hands? With your own?”
He nodded as he looked at her in worry. “Was that a bad thing to do?”
Both Camila and Harumi nodded.
“Would you grab a pot of boiling water by the sides of the pot?” Camila asked him.
He gave her an exasperated scowl and Camila closed her eyes as she nodded. Of course, he didn’t know.
“How does he not know these things and how was he not injured?” Harumi asked Camila pointedly.
“Unfortunately, this isn’t something we’re able to discuss,” Camila said.
“Not able or not willing?” Harumi pressed.
Camila paused. “For the safety of everyone involved it’s both,” she finally responded.
Harumi didn’t look satisfied by that answer but seeing Camila’s discomfort she wouldn’t push any further.
They drove on in silence for a while. They found themselves in a very posh, gated neighborhood and pulled up a long driveway to a lovely single story sprawling house. Harumi exited first and they followed her out. Harumi explained their bags would remain in the trunk until they left unless they needed them. They shook their heads and followed the woman into the home where they dropped their shoes at the door. They walked further into the building.
Stanley’s eyes were wide with delight. The rich, gleaming woods and paper dividers with their palette of earth tones were artistically illuminated by subtle and pleasing lighting. Combined with the minimal clutter the space soothed his soul. “Your home is so beautiful!” he sighed and Harumi smiled and nodded to him in thanks.
She led them to a small patio overlooking a koi pond and a small garden. They took seats and relaxed as servants brought them tea.
“My husband will be home soon though he may take some time to accept the apologies of his opposition.” She turned her head as the door chimed. “Ah! That must be our other daughter Jun. She is two years younger than Yuko. Unlike her sister, Jun remained in Japan and attends university here in Tokyo,” Harumi said as a petite, young woman approached them. She nodded to her mother then to Camila and Stanley.
Harumi began the introductions. “Jun, this is Camila Villamor and-”
“Stanley-san,” Jun finished for her, looking him boldly in the eye.
He blinked and tilted his head slightly as he returned her appraising look. She was a little taller than Yuko for being younger than her sister and her silky black hair only reached her shoulders. She was very slim and pretty though she tried to hide that behind black rimmed glasses which didn’t appear to have prescription lenses. She also didn’t smile but kept her expression very neutral. She was dressed in casual clothes, a printed t-shirt with some broken English slogan on it, deep blue stretchy pants and black slippers.
“My sister spoke of you to me,” she said but Stanley wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. Sensing his hesitation, she continued. “Yuko has always been… too quick to act without thinking. I am sorry if she has caused you trouble.”
“Uh, thank you,” Stanley replied, feeling a little relieved.
“Jun is studying Computer Science,” Harumi said proudly.
Stanley’s eyes widened happily. “That was my area too!” he said.
Jun looked at Stanley closely. “Yuko did not tell me what you do.”Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org exclusive © material.
“I’m CIO at Ms. Villamor’s investment house in Manhattan,” he explained.
Jun looked over at Camila who nodded in response to her doubtful expression.
“You are a very young CIO,” Jun remarked to him.
“Yeah, I get that a lot,” Stanley sighed.
“Do you know anything about network security?” Jun asked. “I have an assignment due this week and something is not working. Could you take a look at the network I have configured?”
“Dear, Mr. Garin has traveled a long way to endure a very trying ordeal. Perhaps this is not-” Harumi began.
“I don’t mind at all! It will take my mind off of it!” Stanley said as he climbed to his feet. He looked to Camila who just smiled and waved.
“When your father returns, we will be having dinner so you have until then,” Harumi stated and her daughter nodded as she turned and led the way to her room. Stanley followed.
He admired the beautiful woodwork along the way and smiled at Jun when she opened the sliding door to her room. He went inside and grinned when he saw the workstation she had with the server rack next to it. The equipment was current and power protected. He looked back at her and nodded indicating he was impressed. She gave him a slight smile in return then walked over to the main terminal to log in.
Once she was in she looked back at Stanley. He stepped next to her and she began to explain the issue she was having. She brought up the firewall rules on the screen to show him the rules she’d put in place. He didn’t see anything wrong per se but it wasn’t how he would have written the rules. He kept that to himself.
“I think we should run a benchmark on the network. Then some diagnostic routines to ensure the equipment isn’t where the fault lies.
“This is all new equipment. It has been inspected by my professor. There will be no hardware faults,” she insisted.
“Your professors don’t add faults to the equipment to increase the difficulty of debugging issues?” he asked.
She gave him a shocked and outraged expression.
“I’ll take that as a no. Humor me. Let’s run the benchmark,” he said.
She didn’t look pleased as she obviously thought this was a waste of the limited time she had his help. He set up the test and ran it on each computer on her small network. Then they reviewed the results.
Stanley frowned. They weren’t seeing the performance he was expecting from the router. “May I run a diagnostic routine on the router?” he asked. She nodded with a look of concern.
He set up the test and ran it against each port. One of the ports on the router was running at half duplex. “Port 7. What’s it connected to?” he asked.
“The firewall,” she responded.
“Do you have a free port on the router?” he asked.
“There are two.”
“Switch the cable on port 7 to one of the free ports,” he suggested.
She raised her eyebrows in question but moved the cable.