Settling in for work, Dahlia had just turned on her computer when she felt a tap on her shoulder.
She pulled down her earphones and looked at the man behind her with a sorry expression.
"I'm so sorry for disturbing you, Dahlia." He apologized, placing his laptop in front of her, "I don't know what happened, but this code I've been working on for a week suddenly changed to another language. Please save me."
Glancing at the code, she bit down on her lower lip and pointed at a corner of his screen.
"It's Dutch. Over here… you must've inputted this in a rush and didn't cross-check it. So when you ran the code, the command changed into wanting it in another language."
"Really?" Confused, he glanced down at it.
Bending over, he sat on the floor and typed in a command to return it to English, pressing it hesitantly.
A second later, the code returned to English line by line.
"Hah! Dahlia… you are such a genius!" he exclaimed happily before he could stop himself.
Without looking up, he suddenly asked, "Hey, how is it possible you speak and read five languages in addition to English?"
She blinked.
The Warren family…
After being locked up for nine months by them without a way to contact the outside world or even a television to watch, she had to find a way to pass the time.
Thankfully, the entire house had a habit of hoarding books in her room. So when she saw several books teaching different languages, she read them—repeatedly.
"I've been in…"
Her attention was promptly drawn to the door when a group of people walked in, the familiar face of their supervisor leading them.
Immediately, several people looked over.
"They came with a box. Who're they firing now?"
"I wonder what they did."
"Losing a job here… I feel bad for whoever it is."
Raising his head, the man beside her saw the group and shook his head pitifully at whoever it was getting booted.
"Dahlia, you must be quite relieved knowing they won't be be coming for you with that dread of a box."
No sooner had the words left his mouth did the group stop before them.
"Dahlia Warren, you've been fired with immediate effect. We've brought a box for you to pack your things in."
The entire office fell silent.
After a while, they turned to each other in disbelief.
"F-fired? Dahlia?"
"If Dahlia can get fired, then what's to say about the rest of us?"
"Tch! I always knew she wasn't as good as you people gave her credit for. The company must've realized this too."
As her colleagues murmured amongst themselves, the group pushed past them and began packing up Dahlia's things.
At this, the man on the floor frowned and hurriedly got up to grab one of the boxes, gritting his teeth.
"What do you mean fired? She's the best analyst our team has ever had, do you not know that? This is obviously some kind of mistake!"
The supervisor placed a hand akimbo on his waist and hissed.
"The order came directly from above. Whatever complaint you have toward this should be penned down and sent to the administration!"
"Now, I'm going to give you one minute to get out of their way, or there'll be another box here in a few minutes to pack up your own stuff."
No matter how much he cared for Dahlia, at the thought of losing his job too, he went quiet and shamefully moved to the side, watching as they packed up everything and handed over her termination letter.
The supervisor wasn't a big fan of Dahlia, so it didn't surprise anyone he was spearheading this operation.
Despite how good she was, he simply hated the star of the team was an autistic woman.
All these while he couldn't fire her on his own, so he had done nothing but live with the 'shame' until now.
As the group left, Dahlia took the envelope handed to her stiffly and opened it, calmly assessing the situation.
The men just now hadn't been exactly hostile, and had packed everything she owned into the boxes.
Then they handed her a termination letter.
So she was being fired. But for what reason?
Taking out the letter inside, her eyes instantly dimmed at the generic content.
She had a hard time comprehending things like sarcasm, humor, and irony, but she immediately understood the words on this paper were nonsense.
"Dahlia, you did nothing wrong, so you should sue! Sue them for unlawful termination!" The man beside her probed.
"Give it up, Douglas. She knows what she did. I mean, why else would she be so calm over losing her job?" Someone scoffed.
Douglas Wright scowled at the person. "Shut up!"
"Don't worry about it, Douglas. I'll be fine." Dahlia simply patted his shoulder, stacked the boxes, and carried them out.
At the parking lot, inside a blue Bentley, Malachi Archer connected his phone to the car to answer a call.
"Grandfather, you're not hearing me. She is a genius, but we have plenty of those who work for us. We don't need her."
Almost immediately, a voice cussed loudly from the speakers, "Listen to me carefully, you brat! You've already gotten half of the board to lodge complaints against you in just a few hours, so I'd advise you to tread carefully."
"I want her back and working in the company again before the end of the week or risk the board taking a vote to impeach you as president!"
As the call disconnected, Malachi disconnected his phone and alighted from his car, but stopped at the familiar sight of a blonde-haired woman walking down to a Range Rover.
He looked down at her.
This woman who tossed a cheque at him?
What a relief he still had that insulting paper of a cheque!
Strutting toward her, he held her car door down and took out the cheque, waving it in her face.
"This, really? What do you take me for?"
Dahlia paused and raised her eyes toward the voice.
At the sight of the arrogant face with spiky hair she had met earlier, she groaned.
"What is this? Was the money not enough that you had to follow me all the way here?"