The Assistant

Date: April 8th, 2001

Time: 11:52:15

“Mark, the phone is ringing. Mark… MARK THE PHONE! God, can’t you do anything right?!”

Shelly grabbed the phone, which was difficult to do among the hoards of piling papers on her desk.

“Hello? Yes, this is she. No. No, please do not make that trade. No. No, no, no. Seriously, Brad. That’s… wait I thought… Oh god, I am going to murder him. Thanks for nothing, Brad. Good-day.”

She slammed the receiver back into its holder, her hands shaking. Sweat beads were now sprouting on her upper lip, a quality she thought unattractive of herself when she was stressed.

“Mark’s on a potty break, sweetie. Don’t get those lacy panties in a twist.” A passerby co-worker commented as he reviewed a recent fax he had grabbed from the machine. “Maybe if you had an appealing environment to work in, he wouldn’t be hitting on Katie at reception all the time.” He looked at her with a grin and raised eyebrows. “Take a break, Shelly, and grab some lunch.”

“Got it, Steve.” God save me from these over sized, under-qualified gorillas.

Shelly had meant to clean her office this week. Or this month. To be honest, she had never been highly organized, but this seemed to be a theme with every other executive in the tower. When she had started working at the World Trade Center five years ago, the piles of paper and managers yelling across the halls had been a bit intimidating. Now, if she squinted hard, she could ignore all the paper and see most of the blue sky out of the exceptionally large window facing the south side of the city.

Steve turned a corner to where Shelly was out of sight, and she made a face at his backside. It was stressful being the only woman in the Trading department, but this was her life. It was the only thing she had known, breathed, slept and god knows what else in the last few years.

Her nervousness today and overall demeanor was coming from fear of the corporate cloud, soon to be arriving in the conference center across the hall later today. She had to prove her worth and the last time she had a review, it did not go well. She had made some decisions that were… unpopular to her managers. Certain trades that she viewed as ethical and socially responsible, did not maximize the profits of the shareholders. Apparently, this was a problem, and the companies with ethically questionable assets were “the preferred method of income of this branch, knowing the history and qualified professionalism” … which was crap.

Mark’s face appeared above a pile of paper.

“You called?”

Shelly sighed. “Yes, I did. That was Brad, and he mentioned that we were now entertaining the idea of buying something called bit gold?” She paused. “On your recommendation.”

Mark froze and his eyes grew wide. “I didn’t think he would take my advice, Shelly. Remember me? Mark, no trading experience except for the one thousand dollars of my mom’s retirement money I lost…I should have led with that when I talked to him, I’m so sorry.” He rushed out of the office as Shelly stood up from her desk, flustered and too exhausted to reprimand her subordinate. She was not sure where his crazy ideas came from some days, but the main reason she hired him was because he was the only person in this office who respected her. He would be a fantastic assistant, if only he spent more time at his desk.

She walked out of her office, and looked at the now terrified employee sitting in his cubical scrambling for Brad’s phone number in his small black notebook he was constantly writing notes in. Shelly walked over as he was in mid conversation with Brad.

“Brad, don’t make that investment. I don’t know what I’m doing, so please just…” Shelly pushed down the receiver button of his phone and waited for the now confused Mark to understand why he had just been disconnected. She removed her hand and crossed her arms in front of her. She was calm when she spoke to him.

“Mark, its okay. Brad is just some marketing monkey playing his lot in finance, he’ll figure out soon enough that what you mentioned is a long shot.” She laughed. “I mean, if what you mentioned the other day about, what did you call it…?

“Cryptocurrencies.” He said dejectedly.

Her laughter howled in the lunchtime quiet of the office. “Exactly. I mean, I’m sorry, but you’ve only been in this office for what? Eight months? And you think that the world is going to get into cryptocurrencies? What a treat, Mark. I needed the laugh.”

“It could work, Shelly. I’ve been talking with some guys, and it really seems like this could take off. Look,” he opened his notebook to a page with what seemed to her like doodles. Except in math. Wait no, not math.

“Are those…”

“Algorithms, yeah. I thought that if the basis of a decentralized currency was hidden in a bunch of algorithms-”

“Wait, this currency is supposed to be decentralized? Why in the world would you do that for? Then there is no basis for what the value is determined by…” Shelly stared at Mark and then around the office. Most people had left for lunch, but there were still other assistants roaming around and she was not sure if anyone was listening.

“Mark, we’ll talk about this later. Maybe. Actually, don’t count on it, I’m not sure I can waste my time on this ridiculousness.” She straightened out her blazer, and hustled back into her office, closing the door behind her.

She took a breath. And then another. Was this just another stupid con, or was what Mark said making some sense? First things first, prepare for the dreaded meeting. Then she could play with the idea that this nobody sitting outside may have just had the best idea in the twenty-first century. Granted this century had just begun, but what an idea it could be.

Leaning against the door, she thought to herself now how do I get that notebook…

Time: 21:10:52

Shelly was still at the office. It was dark, even the cleaner that came through had left and surprisingly not done a great job. She made a note to let the office manager know to source out a new cleaning company. It would be the last task she would do in this office.

Her assessment had gone worse than the previous one did. She was being transferred, effective immediately. In her mind, it was a blessing as she knew she was not being recognized for her true and more ethical trading talents. As of tomorrow, her personal belongings contained in the corporate paid studio apartment would be shipped off to Chicago.

So many thoughts were going through her head as she stared across her desk, now clean because of all the work that had been delegated to different office executives. She ran her fingers over the scratched surface, years of use did not fair well on the material. They certainly did not make things to last anymore.

At least the company had done her the decency of finding a suitable transfer more to her taste. She had talked with the top executive, Angela, at the meeting via the conference phone call. She was a sweet lady, sharp and like-minded to Shelly. She talked about Corporate Social responsibility traits of certain Exchange Trade Funds that were doing great, and the Corporate Office Coordinator sitting across from Shelly laughed.

Bill was a jackass. The kind of man who thought women couldn't develop skills past a kitchen stove.

Steve also had his moments, but at least he made a point of telling Bill, “Let’s just let these women talk, Bill. Clearly they know something we do not.” He was being sarcastic, Shelly thought, but the way he ushered all the men out of the office with a sharp whistle, she thought she saw a hint of… respect? For her? Very weird indeed.

She was going to have to rifle through her assistant’s desk. On a corporate level it felt justified, but personally it turned her stomach. She was better than this. She thought she might talk to Mark and they could go through it together, but then… something told her that it would be better this way. She had worked hard for where she was, and even though she was entering a new position, probably the best fit she will ever get, this was hers. Mark was a smart kid. He would have a thousand ideas by the time she had sold this one.

The ladies had chatted after the men had vacated the room. Shelly was offered a pay bump and extra vacation days if she could list the top 10 stocks on the market that met the requirements for being environmentally radical, CEO’s that made the Fortune 500 list as a respected progressive employer, and lastly, and hysterically…

“Can you define Corporate Social Responsibility?”

Shelly giggled “Can I? I hope so. Let’s see, it should be a self-regulation of a business to be accountable for their actions to their stakeholders.”

“Good! You are now smarter than all of the men that just walked out of your conference room.” Angela was a gem. But back to reality.

On a whole different level, the notebook.

She rose from her seat, leaning over her desk, the nausea rising to her throat.

Calm down, it’s a simple book. You can do this.

She walked around her desk, out her office door, turned left and reached for the first drawer of Mark’s desk. She knelt on the ground and searched through it, trying to be careful not to move too many things. It was filled with sticky notes, highlighters, pens, a coin jar but no notebook.

Where are you? All I can see is stupid sticky’s, and… oh that’s interesting.

The bottom of the drawer lifted in sync as she lifted the coin jar. It was a false bottom!

Yes! You little secret keeper. What an absolute smartie pants.

Trying not to spill the entire contents of his drawer, Shelly balanced the false bottom as she lifted everything out of the drawer by the jar and placed it without catastrophe on the ground beside her. She peered into the small drawer space. It was dark, but she was sure of what she saw. Pulling it out, she examined it, and slipped it into her suit pant pocket.

She could smell the day’s odour of her armpit as she wiped her sweat moustache. Again, she carefully lifted the false bottom, this time to put it back. She was just lifting the jar and the false bottom when she heard voices.

Gosh Darn-it! No, no, no. Please God not over here. Go away!

The voices only got louder, and as she quickly tried to put the drawer back the pens fell sideways and spilled on the ground.

“Did you hear something?”

She stopped moving. That was Steve’s voice. She really did not want to be found up in the tower… after she had just been transferred from this office… and told she was supposed to be gone by 5pm. The only reason she was not escorted out was because she was the only woman to ever had made it into this branch and they really did not take her seriously. This would not bode well for her if she got caught.

“Is someone here?” Steve’s voice echoed in the quiet halls. “Man, I really thought I heard someone. I’m going to check the bull-pen and see if a certain someone is working overtime.” Shelly heard the other voice say something, but she could not recognize it. She was quiet and still, the only noise was just her breath in the hallway. She assumed the ‘secret someone’ was a newbie trying to impress their boss with some progress.

“Hey Mark, you are plastered buddy, this way. Come on, stand up straight. No, straight man. Oh, no-”

There was a bunch of noise and the sound of… water rushing?

Oh, the water station. My drunk assistant has pushed over the water station… Mark! Move, move, move.

Shelly rushed to pick up the pens, and she put the bottom back how she thought she found it. She quickly, but silently crawled back to her office and like deja-vu, closed the office door behind her. She took a breath, and then another.

In the dark of her office, she could hear the two figures approach. Her heart came out of her chest when she felt the door slam against her back. It sounded like someone on the other side had fallen against the door.

“Really man, you need to pace yourself.” It sounded like Steve was laughing right behind her. She could hear the struggle Mark was having in his drunken state as the fumbling on the door continued. She tiptoed away from the door to her desk and hid underneath. She was not sure if this would help her, but at least the side facing the door was covered. It could have been better… if she only locked the door.

She uttered a swear under her breath, not that anyone could probably hear her.

The door creaked open. They must have turned on a light because she could see the carpet light up and all the dirt left over from the cleaners visit. Seriously, these people can’t clean anything!

“So, this is Shelly’s office, eh? I think I’ll miss that broad.”

“Really? She’s mean man.” That was Mark stumbling over his words.

I’m only mean because you’re a dumbass. Don’t be a dumbass and I won’t be mean.

“Mark, you’re just mad that she didn’t like your crippled thing-”

“Cryptocurrency! Geez, Steve its not a hard concept. I need to get home, my mom will be worried.”

“Gotcha, I’ll call your mommy Markie. Is she seeing anyone, because your mom is-”

“Dude! Do not even, ugh! You are disgusting. Steve, I’m going to vomit. Steve!”

There was a slam of the door, light no longer in the room and the sound of two bulls crashing about the hallway. She waited until she heard the bathroom door across the bull-pin to make her move.

Her time was now, if she wanted to get out. She gathered her briefcase, shoving away the remaining belongings she knew would eventually get to Chicago. Hand on the door handle, she softly turned the knob and peered cautiously outside. It was eerily silent.

She got out and closed the door as quietly as she could. She looked one last time towards the bathroom.

She ran. She didn’t care if they could hear her footsteps, they wouldn’t find her anyways. She debated taking the elevator but it was going to take too long so the stairs it was.

The funny thing about the towers was the stair and elevator patterns. She had taken a look at the floor plans and emergency exits this afternoon before deciding she was going to do this whole hijacking action plan. She was going to go down 3 sets of stairs to the Skylobby on 78th floor, which would take her the express elevator to go straight to the bottom of the South Tower. This way there would be no run in with anyone in Zone 3 of the tower.

She ran like a bat out of hell down the stairs with no issues. She ran track in school, not having a career in thievery in mind, however she felt all the adrenaline like she did when she won at the track meets.

Feeling slightly out of breath, she slowed down and paced herself on the last 10 steps down. She got to the last step, and a door that she guessed was 3 flights above her opened and a voice yelled, “Incoming!”

There was a rustling of papers from up the stairs as well as some shouting. Mark’s black book fell to the ground open to the page she had been shown today with the algorithms. She paused only seconds to weigh her options, reached the bottom of the steps and grabbed it. She was making a calculated risk, but in the event her drunk counterparts made it down the stairs in one piece, she assumed she still had the advantage.

She swiped her key card on the door and it flashed red. Her stomach dropped. She rubbed it on her pant leg and tried again. Red again. The men above were starting to descend to her level.

She was done for. She was going to get in so much trouble, with the offices, with Mark. He was going to tell on her, and she was going to be done for with whatever she had grabbed from his desk that was obviously so private and maybe illegal. She had not considered that before she made her move to steal this clearly special book from her subordinate’s office.

One more time, maybe they haven’t actually deactivated my card.

She swiped it one more time.

Red. Again.

She felt the bile in her throat, just as the foot steps rounded on the last floor. Shelly was panicking hard, her lips drenched with mustache sweat. Desperate, she shook the handle of the door and then realized her stupidity as the door opened.

Of course. It’s an emergency door. They are always open.

With the door open, she booked it across the floor. The Skylobby echoed with her feet pounding on the carpet, the empty dark space suffocating the low lighting around the elevator she had her eye on.

Her chest was tight. Blood pumped through her ears. The elevator was just within reach. Just a few more feet…

“HEY, WOMAN! WHERE THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU’RE GOING!”

She turned as she reached the button. It was Mark on his knees at the emergency door. The man was so drunk he was almost green, but she could see his face from across the dimly lit room. He was seething, his red anger so contrary to the drunk sickness he was feeling.

He knew. He knew what she was doing. But he couldn’t do anything about it.

Rookie mistake.

Ding. Floor 78.

Home free. The elevator doors closed almost as fast as they had opened. As she had been evaluating Mark’s nauseous state, her quick fingers had found the right buttons to navigate her to safe ground.

The last sliver of door closed. She heard Steve collect Mark, his loud voice conveying that he did not believe the drunk spouting off about his crazy boss escaping in the elevator.

Time: 00:05:36

The book was still open on her kitchen table, the same page that had slapped the floor of the tower stairs. She recognized more of the gibberish then she thought she would, the common algorithms were used in a lot of the processes of the company she worked for. Her studying tonight would pay off, she was going to catch the red-eye and be out before reaching to her buyer contact. This was exactly the kind of career outing she was looking for. She would make a least a million with this, her negotiating skill set was a little rusty but she could still beat out any man in their Contracts department.

What a little black beauty, Mark. You definitely know your stuff.

The most impressive part of this entire operation was what she had stolen from his false bottom drawer: the flash drive.

Date: September 11th, 2001

Time: 09:02:24

The news was blowing up. Literally.

Shelly was seated in her new office in Chicago, this time in a clean and organized office. Her assistant Tina was brilliant. She even came in to give her a heads up on the news affecting the World Trade Centre, their finance headquarters. She had half a cup of coffee in her hands when she walked into the main conference room. It took a moment for her to understand what was going on. When she realized what she was witnessing she couldn’t breathe.

Planes in so many pieces, buildings on fire, and papers everywhere. Someone had flown a passenger plane into the North Tower. Their world was ending, and there was nothing that anyone could do to stop it.

As the newscasters chatted, she saw a slight explosion on the other tower, and everyone gasped.

It was unbelievable. She looked at where the explosion was and swore under her breath. That was their floor. Shelly’s spine went cold staring blankly at the footage.

She was relived at her own fate. Having had a transfer only five months prior to this madness.

All those poor souls. Mark, Steve, Angela. There’s no way they could avoid being right in the middle of the madness.

They all watched for another 20 minutes, hoping that people were getting out, that the fire departments could help all the people out of the building. Her mind kept pulling back to when she was racing down the stairwell. Would those be blocked by the plane? Would there be any survivors from the 81st floor? Any floor above that?

It was so quiet in the room, the only noise being the display showing New York and the city they loved under attack. That is what the president has said. It was a terrorist attack. Whatever that meant, she wasn’t sure. She didn’t like the fact that he was so calm, made it seem like he was so unhuman. She was becoming so unattached as she watched people from other floors jump. They were taking their life in their hands, but their way. It was terrorizing.

Then it fell.

The entire south tower in all its glory. Everything she had ever touched, copied, printed; the people she had talked to, water coolers she had walked by, were hurdling to the ground so fast.

The dust cloud was so large, covered everything.

She knew they were dead. And she was benefiting from that death.

Suddenly feeling ill, Shelly took to the hallway away from preying eyes, closed the door, and promptly vomited. It was all too much for her mind to comprehend. She stumbled to her office, landing on her chair in a sloppy mess.

She thought back to her last encounter with the assumed dead. As she had previously suspected, Mark had sobered up the next morning and found out exactly what she had done. He was gaining a legal case against her. Neither her nor Mark had told human resources just yet, but she had got one very sinister phone call.

It had been a late night in August, warm and breezy. Her date for the night had been sweet, not too sweet, but she was starting to feel something with them. They were both laughing on the couch in her upstate townhouse and sharing a night cap when Marks name pulled up on her phone.

“Excuse me a moment, it’s just work.”

“Babe, has anyone ever told you that you work too much?” Taylor’s tone was playful, their smile noting it was more of a joke but still very true. Getting up and walking out of the room, she answered back as she pressed the call button.

“Yes, I promise five-minute rule, no more. Hello?”

“…”

“Hello, Mark?” She entered her kitchen and reached for the scotch. She was shaking, the conversation she had dreaded for months was here.

“Shelly, you cow. Where the hell is my stuff?”

“It’s fine Mark, I’ve actually really enjoyed getting into it considering the writing is atrocious.”

“God, I’m going to kill you. I’m going to put my hands around your fat neck and squeeze the goddamn life out of you. I need that flash drive, and if you won’t hand it over, I will ruin your life. I will pile on lawsuits you will never get out of. I’ll tell everyone you touch babies, and that the reason you left was because you assaulted me. I’ll tell the courts about your affair with our CEO-“

“You’re the one who screwed him you rat!” She was angry, the scotch going down hard as she swallowed.

He laughed, throaty and full of hate, “You bet I did. But everything will point to you my dear. Just you wait.”

The phone was off the hook now, the buzz in her ear becoming annoying. She didn’t realize how tight her shoulders were until she felt Taylor’s fingers gently caress her back.

“Love, are you okay?”

“No, that was a brutal phone beating from a previous subordinate.” She smiled at Taylor, the lines on their face were so delicate smiling back at her.

“Well forget about them. Let’s focus on something more…positive, tonight.”

The thought passed and she was back in her office, the papers, the planes, and everything else in her world that was falling apart.

It was over. She was sure no one was going to follow-up on his lawsuit. She looked around and scrambled to find her phone as a set of contracts fell in the way.

“Tina! Where the heck is my phone? Tina!?”

“Boss?” Tina’s small head popped pass the door, “what’s up?”

“Get me Charles on the phone, we are going forward with Project Blockchain.”

Tina looked confused, and nervous. She creeped up to Shelly’s desk with caution. “Shelly, with everything going on-”

“Don’t do this to me, get him on the phone. Also, tell him Kent is no longer outing his Superman persona.” The scramble for items

“What are you talking about? Boss, you’re stressed, and we are all traumatized by those stupid terrorists ruining our country. Don’t you think it would be better if-”

“Tina, if I have to tell you again, you’re fired.”

“Yes Ma’am”, she ran out quick probably the first time crying. Shelly only felt a little sorry, her assistant needed the push today.

She’ll thank me later. Distract her from this terrible day.

So, what exactly was she doing in this horrible moment in history? She was initiating her first mining process with the algorithms set up from Mark’s notebook and then the flash drive. She already had contacted someone to walk her team through the process, which was so brilliantly laid out.

She was still very invovled with CSR stocks and the environmental crisis surrounding their job, but she knew she was going to blow all kinds of personal and corporate profit margins by focusing on this project.

She logged on the encrypted folder on her computer and scanned the files. Thousands of thousands of untouched algorithms. She had been working on the solving software for the last five months, right under the noses of her superiors. She had essentially digitized her entire position, so she barely worked at all. It was a step in the right direction, but she knew that technology itselt would put her out of work sooner or later.

She was watching the mouse on the screen do her work for the day, when the door burst open.

“The bastard’s dead! He jumped the stupid little man.” A man, who Shelly only knew as Lord Drunkard around the office, was panting and yelling too loudly in her small office.

“Who jumped?”

“The senior manager of Fuji Bank. Right before it fell, he jumped right out of the window. That’s a long was to fall, man.” The man was obviously drunk, the nickname made perfect sense.

“Who’s the senior manager?” She didn’t want this lump in her office. She had better things to do, like work on her project.

“Mark something or other, lady you know him, he used to work in your old office. Oops,” A smelly liquid appeared under her keyboard.

Her anger for the clown in front of her increased tenfold and she walked to the entrance of her office. “Get out!”

“Sorry lady,” he stumbled out, “just thought you’d want to know.”

So, he wasn’t just assumed dead. He was dead. The relief came fast, and she let out the sob she had been holding in since the night she ran out of the South Tower. She let her head rest on her door as the tears streamed down her face. She watched the fuzzy office workers through the water in her eyes.

Tina was on the phone, relaying the directions Shelly gave her. Other people were crying at their desks, the one couple who usually couldn’t keep their hands off each other, were talking in hushed voices. Some people had left, probably to comfort their families or potentially to also throw themselves off a building.

This changes everything. For the best.

She inhaled a breath in… and out… and in… and out.

We will do this, and it will be a great thing that Americans did for our world.

Tina came up to her, no more nervousness to be seen. “Hey Boss, Project Blockchain is a go. They anticipate finding the first few coins in the next few weeks, the instructions in the book gave them the headstart they needed.”

“Good job Tina, you let me know when they do and there will be a raise in it for you.”

Her assistant walked off smiling, and Shelly smiled. Even if it was the smallest great thing in the worst day in American history, it would be great. They were doing a favor for all Americans, to build wealth and stability. To create the greate American dream as well as being part of the better picture for the world. She sent a prayer to those struggling in the tower and over Mark’s soul. He would need it in Hell.