Rough Rough Draft: Chapter 2 Raven

Chapter 2

Kate sighed and set her keys on the table in the hall after entering her house. The house was clean, no one except Kate lived there to make it a mess, and despite Kate being a teenager she liked to keep it in order.
Katelynn Marie Leigh Crossland was her full name, but she was called other names as well, Kate, Raven, and Marileigh (Mare-ill-ay). But more commonly Kate, or Raven, although those that called her one did not know the other. Her friends and teachers know her as Kate, and her coworkers know her as Raven. The exception to that was her father, her mother being deceased.
Raven had become a media frenzy, the few snapshots a lucky photographer had managed to get of her taking a brooch from a celebrity had been plastered all over the news. Her father did not think it was wise for her to take on any big jobs until her publicity died down, so he had her doing what she considered mediocre jobs; like teaching adolescent kids things that they paid no attention to, and instead focused on gaping at Raven as though she was teaching the lesson while doing a handstand. To Kate it was worse than the frenzy because she couldn’t exactly run away from all the open mouthed people. Her recent fame in the public eye was only part of the reason for the admirers at the company. She was the youngest high ranked person at the company, she had done jobs since she was 9, and to top it off her father was the boss of the company.
Being the boss her father never really lived with Kate, instead he lived in some secret place, unknown to even Kate. So, Kate lived alone. Her father sent her money for her completed jobs (which was quite a bit), and he his assistants pay for the bills, so Kate was very well off.
Back when Kate’s mom had been alive she had redecorated the house constantly, till she came to the look it was now: colorful and comfortable. Kate’s room was the only one with a white trim. The rest of the house was all a dark wood trim. The hallway was a dark shiny yellow; it was very short and had two entryways to other rooms. At the end of the hallway was a dark mahogany staircase. The floor was all a shiny varnished wood matching the trim. The left entryway led to a dark red dining room with mahogany wood matching the trim. Despite the room having dark colors it didn’t darken the appearance, the red countered the darkness of the wood, despite being a dark shade of red. A shiny polished oak dining table was in the room with a china cabinet on one side and an empty liquor cabinet on the other. The liquor cabinet held liquor in it, but if anyone underage opened it, the alcohol would be pushed back into a separate compartment.
The whole house contained regular looking furniture and devices, but were actually technologically altered at The Company’s technology department. All of it was top of the line and the newest editions. The dining room table actually led to an underground passage with a Tran like vehicle to get to The Company’s headquarters. The legs on the table extended rising to the ceiling glass walls raised, enclosing the table like a glass elevator. Which it was a lot like, because once it was all assembled it was able to lower into the floor to the passage.
Various normal house furniture’s or utilities had ulterior uses. The toaster for instance was rooted to its place on the kitchen counter, connected to it by a complicated mailing system that sent letters. Kate remembered one time she had to convince Cammi she had letters in her toaster because when she tossed them on the counter they fell in the toaster.
“Lucky my mom didn’t see it, fire hazard, it’d be another reason for her to be enraged with your father,” Cammi had muttered under her breath.
The kitchen was an olive green color with matching green tiling on the counters. There was an island in the center of the kitchen which held the oven as well as the stove. In the stainless steel fridge Kate had very healthy foods, with the exception of a jug of soda for when her friend came over. Kate’s father had his assistants keep stock of what food Kate had, so her performance would not be lacking.
Opposite the dining room, the right doorway of the hallway, led to the living room, which was a chocolate brown color. The furniture was all in coordinating accent colors. A recently bought plasma wide screen plasma television was on the right wall. A painting of a beautiful beach hung on the center wall; it was the only unfitting item in the room. The whole downstairs was in earth tones. A sliding glass door on the left wall of the living room led to the porch which led to the somewhat spacious backyard, which also held a bonfire pit.
The whole house looked as though it contained a loving and caring family, when actuality only one teenage girl lived in it. The thought of how misleading looks were made Kate smirk, no one would guess from this house she lived by herself, and no one would think someone as ordinary as Kate could be Raven.
Kate grabbed a bottle of iced tea from the fridge and had crossed the thresh hold towards the stairs when there was a knock at the door. She went over to the door and opened it.
Jack was standing there.
“Hey,” Kate said and motioned him through the doorway. Jack stepped through the doorway and Kate closed the door.
“So what’s up?” she asked him.
“Mom sent me over to ask you if you want to come over for dinner. And when I say she told me to ask you I mean she said to force you over with any means necessary,” He joked, Kate laughed and agreed to go.
It wasn’t such an unusual request, Mrs. Andrews (Jack and Cammi’s mom) was like the mother Kate didn’t have, and treated her like she would Cammi or Jack.
Mrs. Andrews and Kate’s mom shared the same recovery room, at a hospital, after having given birth. They became best friends, bonding over mother hood, and remained such until Kate’s mother’s untimely death. Since then Mrs. Andrews seemed to feel it was her duty to make sure Kate was taken care of, even having offered to let Kate live with them. But Kate had to refuse the offer since her life as Raven intruded too much to allow her to even consider doing something like that.
“So what is your mom making for dinner?” Kate asked, downing the last of her ice tea.
“Oh, nothing much, just chicken parmesan…” Jack said with a wave of his hand and a smile on his face.
“Just chicken parmesan?” Kate asked, lightly hitting Jack’s arm. Chicken parmesan was Kate’s favorite food, so Jack always acted like it was no big deal, and Kate always acted shocked he thought it was no big deal.
“Oh! Do you still have my chem. book? I need to study for the quiz tomorrow,” Jack told her.
“Yeah I have it up in my room,” Kate said leading the way up the stairs.
There were four rooms upstairs. The hallway had the same dark wood as the stairs and downstairs, but it leads off to light wood in the rooms upstairs. The first room upstairs was a computer room, with 3 computers, each having their own unique purpose. The second room was the bathroom, which was dressed in ocean colors. The third was Kate’s room; and the last one was Kate’s father’s unused, yet locked, room.
“I need to go to the bathroom I’ll be right back,” Jack said and edged his way to the bathroom.
Kate continued to her room, reaching the only white door in the hallway. The upstairs rooms had lighter wood flooring, but Kate’s was the only one with white flooring. There was a thud on the floor and a cat came around the corner of the bed.
At least it was the shape of the cat It looked like a sleek metal cat, robot.
“Why don’t you have fur on?! Jack is here and I almost brought him in my room!” Kate seethed through gritted teeth. Seeing a robot cat would be cool to some people; but what it did next topped that, it sprouted hair. Kate, who was used to it, rather wished the cat had not appeared at all. All over the robot cat’s body were tiny holes. Billions of holes, which the hair sprouted from.
“I am sorry you’re incapable of being cautious when you know that you have secrets that would be bad to expose,” the cat said.
“Hisame, you’re the one that had no fur on!” Kate fumed.
Hisame (He-Sah-May) is the name of the robot cat that briefed Kate for missions, as well as doing other things too. Hisame was developed in Japan by special engineers, employed by Kate’s father, that also were responsible for creating equipment as well.
“Your father left a message while you were gone,” Hisame said while licking her white fur. The people who created her gave her many different adaptations; she could talk through a special speaker on her body (so her mouth didn’t actually move), she was also able to reason, she appeared to have feelings and a personality (although Kate didn’t feel it was a particularly nice one), and yet she still had cat like characteristics.
“Play the message,” Kate said, looking under her bed for Jack’s chemistry book.
“Kate, it’s your father, I have a request for you,” Kate’s head perked up, leading her to bump her head on the beds metal frame. Kate sat up and rubbed her head. Maybe he was going to let her work again?
“A family friend told me that their relative had requested you to be her turner, but you declined. Now I would not be asking you to do this unless I thought she had great potential…” A knock on Kate’s door made her jump, she rushed to the door.
“Kate are you ok? What’s that voice?” Jack asked from the other side of the door.
“Nothing it’s the TV, uh listen I don’t think I can come over for dinner, my room’s a mess and I need to finish my reading list,”
“Uh, ok…Did you find my chem. book?”
“Yeah, yeah I found it, hang on,” Kate said while holding her hand over Hisame’s speaker.
“Turner, so please contact my secretary,” Kate’s hand had slipped off the speaker in her struggle to hold Hisame and find Jack’s book.
“Was that your dad’s voice?” Jack asked. Jack and Cammi knew what Kate’s father sounded like because of a video they had found at their house of their first birthday, which Kate’s father had actually attended. The message was over so Kate dropped Hisame and crawled over to her bed, where she finally spotted the book.
“No um it’s just the TV, sounded like him though didn’t it? Here’s your book!” Kate said and thrust the book out the door. Jack took it from her hand, and Kate almost closed the door but Hisame skirted out.
“Hisame!” Kate hissed. Kate slipped out her room into the hall with Jack and Hisame.
“Hisame I haven’t seen you in a while,” Jack said as she rubbed against his leg, mewing gleefully.
“Yeah well lately she’s just been feeding her fat face,” Kate said spitefully, which made Hisame hiss.
“Sometimes I wonder why you have Hisame, it seems like you don’t really like her,” Jack said as he bent to stroke Hisame.
“Well, she was a gift from my father, so I can’t get rid of her,” Kate shrugged. Hisame purred as Jack stroked her chin.
“No matter how much I’d like to,” Kate muttered.
“I have to get going, so call me later and tell me how those books were. I didn’t read them either so you can tell me what they’re all about,” Jack laughed as he went down the stairs.
“Very funny!” Kate yelled after him.
“I know!” Jack called back, the sound of the front door slam told Kate he was gone. Kate looked with vehemence at Hisame, who was sitting was sitting watching Kate.
“You little…” Kate glared and ran after Hisame, who bolted downstairs.
Kate chased Hisame into the living room, but she was going to fast and slipped on a throw carpet. Kate fell on top of Hisame.
“Gotcha!” Kate said, holding the struggling Hisame upside down. Hisame paused and then responded by kicking Kate repeatedly with her back feet. Kate, stunned, sat there instead of following Hisame.
The people who had developed Hisame also had named her. Kate looked up the name a short while after receiving her, thinking it probably had a meaning to it. The name actually meant “frowning women” and was the name of someone with a lousy attitude. The Hisa-me were a group of female demons said to inhabit the world of the deceased. Kate understood why they had named her that not long after getting her.
Kate wasn’t about to ask Hisame for the message from her father again, so instead she stomped back upstairs to her room.
Kate’s room was an odd shape, instead of being square or rectangle it was more of an oval. Her room was the only one with white wood trim and flooring. The walls were wide pink striped of two different shades. The bed frame, dresser, and vanity, as well as the closet doors, were also white. The comforters and some of the pillows on Kate’s bed were pinks that corresponded with the colors on the wall. Because of the oval shape of her room, the windows were placed at a circular angle, creating a window seat; a pink seat cushion was placed there, making it a very comfortable spot. Kate would often sit there on a rainy day reading a book, which was one of Kate’s favorite things to do. If Kate’s schedule was devoid of activities Kate would sit someplace and read for hours on end. Reading was a way for Kate to just escape reality and delve into the life and adventure of someone else.
Kate walked over to her dresser which had a beige jewelry box on it. She pulled out the bottom drawer and stuck her hand in the open slot. A light flashed inside and she removed her hand. As she did, a smaller box came out as well. Another one of the inventions that was more than it looked to be, it was a hand scanner that analyzed the finger prints and design of the hand. Inside the box were two pieces of jewelry, a dragon fly necklace, and the raven charm from years ago.
The dragonfly was silver with a hollow center as the body. The necklace had belonged to Kate’s mom and Kate had received it after she had passed away.
She took the necklace and stood in front of the mirror on her vanity. Lifting a had, she felt along the side of the mirror till a tangible slot appeared. She inserted the necklace in that slot and the mirror lit up, blue, like a computer screen.
“Name?” an automated female voice asked.
“Raven” Kate said concisely. A minute passed and then the voice said, “Voice match up correct, Security number?”
“139053600” Kate said. It wasn’t her social security number, but the number that kept her in the records at the company. Another minute passed.
“Security number, correct; hand and pupil analysis?” the blue screen turned green and into a grid. Kate placed her hand on the grid, and her eye up close to a smaller scanner. Both flashed light, the one on her eye rather blinding.
“Welcome, Raven” The digital voice said, the screen turned blue again along with several icons.
The icons were a mailbox, a news icon, and an icon with the words “sketch pad”. The mailbox held video or written messages, and could send them as well. The news icon reported any news in the company, like new weapons, upgrades, achievements, and other news related to the company. The sketch pad icon was very important to Raven, and any other pintel. The sketch pad put updates of any available jobs. There were levels of difficulty from the range 1-5, 1 being easiest and 5 being hardest. According to the ability of the pintel, certain level jobs would appear. Raven was a level 5 ranked pintel and could do any mission on the sketch pad, but an unspoken rule was that higher ranked pintels would not take the lower level jobs. There was in actuality a level 6 but Raven couldn’t even measure up to it, yet. There was according to records one person ranked at level 6, but who it was, was a mystery.
At that moment the sketch pad was faded; meaning she couldn’t do jobs, her father’s orders.
The mirror was a touch screen, so Kate touched the mail box, which expanded and said “one new message”. She opened the message up and her father’s voice filled the room.
“A family friend told me that their relative requested you to be her turner, but you declined. Now I would not be asking this if I did not believe she had great potential, I want you to be her turner. I am not giving you a choice in this matter, and to reward you, you will be allowed to receive jobs once again. Contact my secretary after you receive this message. That is all”.
Kate pulled the necklace out of the slot and threw it on the dresser. She moved mechanically to the bed and flopped onto her back. She reached for a pillow and covered her face, and screamed.
Screaming into a pillow was Kate’s method of relieving stress. Once she stopped screaming, due to lack of oxygen, she lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling. The ceiling had a unique swirling pattern to it, like waves in an ocean. Kate imagined that the waves were her thoughts, washing over her in a tidal wave of emotion.
After a few minutes Hisame came in the room and jumped on the bed. She lay next to Kate and said nothing. They both stayed like that, not moving or talking.
“You listened to the message didn’t you?” Hisame broke the silence.
“Yes”
“You haven’t called back have you?”
“No” Kate answered without emotion.
“Look at this as an opportunity; you can prove yourself to be capable of anything they throw at you; you can show them that you are the best person they have,” Hisame looked Kate in the eyes. Even though Hisame generally seemed mean and sarcastic she was considerate and caring. Sometimes Kate was able to see that side of her and that’s when Kate knew she cared.
“I don’t care what they think of me, I’m mad that they’re deciding things for me. As though I were a child…” Kate told her.
“Then do it for yourself, be her turner so you can do jobs again, but realize that sulking does make you look like a child”, with that Hisame leapt off the bed and walked out the room.
Hisame wasn’t all bad and comforted Kate when she was down, and gave her advice. But she didn’t hesitate to show Kate when she was wrong.
. . .
“Looks like you changed your mind” the girl with the spiral said smugly.
“Yea like I had a choice…” Raven muttered.
“So what are you going to call me?”
“Can’t that wait a while?” Raven sighed, bored.