The room was in semi-darkness. The entire window opening from the ceiling to the floor was covered with thick curtains, between which only a narrow ray of sunlight penetrated. The bluish flickering light of the monitor fell on a crumpled blanket with a pattern of intertwined purple leaves. A woman's figure was visible beneath it, and a hand with a large orange bead on its wrist was sticking out lifelessly to the side.
Somewhere under the spread-out sofa, a smartphone began to play mournfully. Her hand trembled and tried to find him. After nothing came of it, Anna's disheveled head popped out from under the blanket. She leaned over the couch, fumbled under it for a while, and finally took out her mobile phone and turned off the annoying alarm clock. She lay down a little longer with her arms outstretched and her eyes closed, and then slowly got up, pulled up her wide blue striped panties that had slipped off her buttocks overnight and trudged into the bathroom.
— What a sight,— Anna stated, looking at herself in the mirror. Her hair, dyed a trendy mint shade, was tangled like an old washcloth. Her sleepy eyes, with blood vessels bursting in the whites, were framed by flushed, inflamed eyelids. And under them were dark underglazes, characteristic of a person with chronic sleep disorders.
— Rima, wake up! Anna said loudly, squeezing the paste onto her toothbrush.
The first to recognize the voice of the hostess, the smartphone left on the couch came to life. Then the application started on the computer, and after a couple of seconds, a woman's face was projected onto the wall from the projector that turned on.
— Good morning, Anna. How did you sleep?
— As usual… Alone,— the girl muttered, spitting water.— News?
— "More than five hundred unmanned trucks of a new model have been released onto the streets of the city"; "The billion-dollar delivery of goods by drone has taken place", "The network community notes the frequent cases of elevator failures. The developers of GA promise to figure it out"...
— Boring… Enough. What's in the mail?
— One letter,— the woman's face on the wall disappeared again, and the mail application window opened instead.
— Read it,— Anna ordered, soaping her face diligently.
— Dear Anna, we are pleased to inform you that you have successfully completed our competitive task. If you are still interested in working for GlobalAutomatics, we will be glad to see you at our head office tomorrow at 10:00 to discuss the terms of further cooperation. Sincerely, HR Department of G.A.
— When did the letter arrive? — the girl asked without hiding her excitement.
— Yesterday at 17:55.
— And... why are you telling me this now?
— At 01:24, when you came home, there was a command…
— What the hell kind of command?!
Instead of answering, the computer turned on a replay of the recording, in which Anna's drunken voice screamed hysterically: "Shut up, bitch! Sleep, fuck!"
Anna rubbed her temples irritably with her fingers, trying to figure something out. It turned out badly, because the girl's head was splitting from the terrible pain.
— What time is it?
—The current time is 9:38 a.m.,— Rima replied coolly.
— Fuck well done! Anna blurted out and ran around the room, tripping over surrounding objects and getting tangled in her clothes, trying to pull them on.
In just three minutes, Anna was ready for a business interview. Hastily combed menthol hair gathered in a fluffy ponytail. Short denim shorts with fringes at the bottom, which were perfectly worn on the bottom, perfectly matched them in color. A black T-shirt with the word "Slayer" on it and an open-necked red plaid shirt completed the fashionable bow, breaking all the norms of any conceivable dress code. A minute later, the girl was already running down the stairs with a ringing stomp, and a minute later she was briskly rolling along the asphalt path on her electric bike.
— Rima, am I in time?
— Estimated time of arrival is 10:08 a.m.,— the assistant replied.
— This is bad....
— I note that only 10% of the battery charge remains. At this speed, it won't be enough for the return trip.
— I don't give a damn... there's no way back,— Anna replied decisively and accelerated even faster.