Am I an Intern? [Closed/Irina]

[Raphael Laurent]

Raphael pulled his normal car up into a parking lot at the Uzaki Enterprises building, looking up at the building in front of him. There was an odd feeling that it had changed, as he did so. It no longer seemed to loom over him with the mystery stripped away from it, and his conversation with Kazura that day had made him… Well, it had eased a bit of tension in his mind. He’d begun even to entertain the idea that, so long as he didn’t have to work with a shinigami often, if at all, then he might be able to work at the Enterprises. He stopped the thought, though. He had to concern himself with someone like Shizuka and remember to never reveal anything about Ms. Taka; she’d helped him more than he could admit and any possibility of betraying what she was, was out of the question.

 

He got out of his car, pulling his jacket a bit tighter around himself. Dressed in his usual blue jacket, red plan t-shirt and jeans, he began to realize that he was very bad at dressing for a business. Regardless, he headed into the building, carrying a duffel bag of his normal stuff: personal laptop, external hard drive, and two flashdrives. Donny had always said that he carried too much storage with him, but Raph didn’t agree. To him there was no such thing as too much storage.

 

As always, he tried to remain as inconspicuous as possible which wasn’t hard given how plain he looked and how much he tried to blend into the crowd. The duffel bag was the only problem when it came to not standing out, as it was a bit large, but he was pretty sure that no one had really been paying attention to him. He planned on doing the same thing that he almost always did: head straight to the computer room and later to that room Kazura had brought him to the first day. If he had to say what he was…well, he was an intern albeit doing a bit more than what he would think a normal intern would be. Regardless, he just had to get to computer room and drop his stuff off. He’d run the usual network systems check, make sure that the computer’s for the building were working as they should be, and then later he’d probably head to the training facility. It was good to get to learn more, but he was nowhere near done. Thankfully most people ignored him, and he hoped it would continue as he got into the elevator.

[Irina Davayte]

Blue Screen of Death. That wasn't how she'd wanted to start her morning. Irina wasn't a computer expert, but she was an engineer, so she followed the usual steps she'd take to try to fix a computer issue. She turned it off and back on again, and tried to restart it in safe mode. Instead, it just froze. Great. Sure, it was an old computer, but when upgraded machines were ordered for her floor, Irina had declined. She knew her computer. She knew where to find everything, and it always behaved, and she was determined that it would keep doing so, even if it was seven or eight years old. She hadn't allowed the system to update for a couple of years, for fear that the old machine wouldn't be able to handle the new updates. She had been irritated enough by her iPhone deciding that it was simply too old to live under similar circumstances, and wasn't about to let that incident repeat itself.

As far as she knew, she remained the only employee in the Spiritual Department who worked with computers. If she brought it to them, the regular IT guys for UE would have access to her files on tracking Hollow activity. Naturally, the files were encrypted when she saved them to the Cloud, but she kept some things saved right in the computer's memory, including virtual Post-Its that said "Keep an eye out on 8th street. More Hollow activity lately." and "Call Yuri later. Too many ghosts on the East side of town." Thus, she determined that she would either have to just throw it away, or talk Kazura into fixing it. Kazura, she figured, would just tell her to order a new computer. A new one, she would argue, would not be the same. All the buttons get moved around when they do those pointless updates.

She decided to make this Lunchtime Irina's problem; she would just work in a quiet computer lab for now. Alarmingly, when she arrived, she found a large, mostly full duffle bag. Had security checked this thing? If she had learned anything from traveling in airports, abandoned bags were not to be trusted. Instead of calling security, for some reason, she began sorting through it. A laptop, what appeared to be a hard drive, and a couple of flash drives. It was probably fine, but was there any chance there could be explosives hidden in there? She knew the people in the IT department would never leave their stuff around like this. So, she pulled out her cellphone to call her favorite security guard, Hank.

[Raphael Laurent]

Raph headed back towards the computer lab where he’d set up shop, with a few spare parts in his hands. He’d heard that there were still some computers that needed fixed and the regular IT seemed to have their hands full from when he’d walked in. He’d just go ahead and help them out since Kaz hadn’t said he needed anything from Raph so far. Yet since he’d begun, well, volunteering at Uzaki Enterprises, he’d realized that there were two faces to the company: the real world one and the spiritual world one. The side of the company that the public saw most often was the living world side, but others covered the spirit side. He wondered how often, if ever, the two sides interacted…

The parts in his hands were enough to cover probably two, maybe three of the computers. He’d start with that, for now, and then if he had some more time before he needed to train then he’d go get some more parts. He saw the number of tickets that were in the regular IT’s list. That must’ve been hard for them and so he’d decided to at least help out as much as he could. The computer lab he had been setting up in would be more than good enough. He might even try to work on at least one with soul command, if he could. He still wanted to practice with more minute instruments while using the power of soul command.

When he opened the door, however, he saw that there was a woman on her phone standing over his bag, with most of his personal effects appearing to have been rifled through. Letting out a rather quiet sigh, he walked into the room allowing the door to close behind him and put most of the parts on a nearby table.

“Excuse me, miss, it’s not very nice to go through someone’s stuff without asking.” He stretched a bit and looked over first the parts and tools he’d brought and then at his own bag. Realizing that he shouldn’t have left his bag out, he made a mental note to not be so careless in the future. Looking over at the woman, he wondered who in the world she was calling. His first guess was security and his second guess was Kazura. “Sorry about that, though. I left my bag out without thinking. I’m Raphael. Is there something that I can help you with?”

[Irina Davayte]

Before she called Hank, a nondescript guy walked in and claimed the duffle. Probably safe to assume it wasn't rigged with some kind of bomb that would go off, then, Irina figured. She put her phone in her pocket and stepped back from his stuff. Since he apologized for leaving the bag out, she bit her tongue and didn't scold Raph for scolding her. She didn't know this guy, and noted his lack of an ID badge. Maybe he was some kind of contractor. Instead of texting Hank and asking him to check the visitors log for contractors today, she'd just ask him. "Oh, I'm good. I'm Irina," she indicated her ID (which read "Irina Davayte, materials science/engineering, statistical analysis and data reconfiguration" with her department names in tiny fonts) by tugging on the badge reel. "What is it you're doing here today?" It wasn't that she liked to be suspicious of people, but honestly, security was not Kazura's strong point, and she figured it couldn't help to check.

[Raphael Laurent]

She gave her name as Irina and showed off her ID badge, and Raphael couldn’t help but sigh inwardly. Yeah, that was the one thing that he kept trying to tell Kaz about, but he supposed that since no one had really been triple checking him about it, that it was fine. Buuut that’s what he got for assuming. What exactly was he supposed to tell her? Well, the truth would’ve been great but how many people would just accept that Kazura had allowed him inside after he’d basically tried to hack them, steal company secrets that could’ve caused a potential panic, not that he would’ve revealed such information.

“Uhm, well… I’m fixing the computers.” He chuckled a bit and scratched the back of his neck. What kinda answer did she want, he wondered. “I’m, uh… How’s the best way to describe it…?” He scratched his chin, watching her, hoping that she wasn’t going to lose her patience and call security or something like that. That was the last thing that he wanted right now, to be entirely honest. It was the last thing that he needed too. “I guess you could say that I’m working as…something of an intern, at the moment; helping out with info tech, networking and cyber security… As well as learning about…some other things.”

[Irina Davayte]

To be fair, the uncomfortable man's holey story sounded exactly like something Kazura would allow. Her energy sense was not keen enough to determine whether Raph had any kind of spiritual energy, but based on the awkward mention of "some other things", she guessed it was quite possible that he was some kind of Quincy or Fullbringer Kazura had found. She'd give him the benefit of the doubt, but also verify. "Ah, sounds like one of Mr. Uzaki's hires. Did he bring you in and just skip over HR? Honestly, Kazura is my best friend, and I have so much respect for him, but he's not always one for following protocol. Let me check with him real quick and see if he wants me to get you sorted with security. Are you a contractor, or are you working here?" She guessed from the phrase "something of an intern" that this wasn't the most official position. She texted Kazura "Hey, there's this guy named Raphael in jeans messing with computers...Do you know this guy?" If he replied affirmatively, Irina would take Raph to the laminator and request the information from his driver's license to make him either a staff or contractor ID. Unfortunately, Kazura was going through a weird time, and was not the easiest to get a hold of these days. If she didn't hear from him, Irina would stay put and keep talking to Raph where they were.

[Kazura Uzaki]

Kazura rolled over in bed to find a text from Irina. Not out of the place, though it was a bit early for that... Oh, he was pretty late getting to the office today. He'd actually gotten a little sleep and it had snowballed into a late morning. Oh well. He groggily checked the screen and let his eyes adjust. Raphael had run into Irina and as usual she was making sure everything was on the up and up. Raph's cool. New "special" recruit. IT specialist. Don't bother him too much about that ancient computer of yours." Not wanting to put the word fullbringer in a text, he figured Irina would get the message, then rolled over and fell back asleep.

Felt good for once.

[Raphael Laurent]

Raph stood there a moment awkwardly, not entirely sure how to answer Irina’s question. She seemed like a bit of a stickler for rules and, unfortunately, how Raph had been recruited had technically been…well, illegal. He didn’t exactly want to say that he’d snuck in while delivering a package to hack the mainframe only to be caught. Not only did he not want to mention it because it was illegal, but the other reason was because he didn’t want to seem like an idiot for being caught while performing such an activity.

“I suppose that you could say that, though I can’t really speak as to the protocol for the company…” He nodded when she spoke about getting in touch with Kazura, and thought on how to answer her next question. “I’m…going to guess that I’m working here, in the loosest sense of the word. Kazura was kind of teaching me a bit more about the world as well as allow me access to the facilities within the building. To repay him, I kind of…well just started working with the computers, trying to lower the amount of trouble tickets open.” He pulled his laptop out of the duffle bag and sat it on a nearby table. “Was there something that you needed, though? Something I can help you with?”

[Irina Davayte]

She rolled her eyes at Kazura's text. "Ancient"? Hey computer was from 2012; that was hardly "ancient". "It is ancient, for a computer," she knew Kazura would counter, should she try to have this conversation. Instead, she just replied Got it, thanks! then returned her attention to Raph. "Oh, I'm good. Just working in here today because my computer is being cantankerous. It's fine though." She added the last part quickly because she really didn't want another person involved, telling her to throw it away and start over.

"Well, let's go get you sorted out on the paperwork side. We'll hit Hank in security first. Did Kazura put you on the payroll? We need to do that, too. I mean, if your want to work off the clock, I'll leave that up to you, but let's at least get that filed." If Raph followed, Irina would print him an ID tag that read "Raphael Laurent, IT", then hand it over to Hank. "Hi, Hank," she greeted the middle-aged man brightly.
"Can you please program this for opening the front and side doors?" Hank obliged, and Irina handed the tag back to Raphael. "That will work as a key fob is you're around after hours. Helps keep track of who is in the building, I guess," Irina explained to Raph as an aside.

Next she'd go to HR for payroll. Irina requested a new hire packet from the receptionist. Under position, she wrote "IT". She hesitated when she got to "Department", and wrote "Statistical Analysis and Data Reconfiguration". She was the only person in that department. It wasn't why it was named that way, but Irina had found that it was an effective name for a spiritual department because when she told people that was her job, they didn't ask any more questions. She'd hand the rest of the packet to Raphael to complete.

"I want to introduce you to Benji, too. Benji is the head of IT. It sounds like you aren't really working under Benji, but let's at least make sure he knows who are are. He will think it's super weird if you run around fixing computers otherwise." The IT department was one for below where Irina worked. "Hi, Benji! This is Raphael. Kazura hired him for 'special projects', so his hours won't count against your department, but I wanted to introduce you since he will be around working on the computers."

That seemed about all for the tour, and Irina would head back where they started. "I think that's everything. Nice to meet you, by the way. How did you say you met Kazura?"

[Raphael Laurent]

Raph watched her, anxiety slowly lessening as she seemed to be a little less on edge about him being in the computer room, though at the mention of her computer not working he was a little confused. He tilted his head in confusion. Yet before he could even suggest her allowing him to take a look at it, she immediately talked about getting any kind of paperwork out of the way. At her next question of the payroll, Raphael shook his head, about to say that he had not yet been put even onto the payroll, but she seemed to continue about it not being any skin off her nose if he worked off the clock. Or maybe it wasn’t as much of a concern as other things.

As she took off out the door, Raphael followed her, only a tad confused at what had just happened. She really did seem to be a bit of a stickler for the rules, but that was fine. It was good to have something like that, especially after how he’d originally been brought into the fold. He thought it was odd that there’d never been a specific interview or anything like that. She printed off an ID tag for him and handed it over to a middle aged man that must’ve been the head of security. After a few quick clicks and the sound of an annoyed machine, she handed him back the ID. He looked down at it and saw it said “Raphael Laurent, IT”. He shrugged and quickly stuffed it into his pocket. He’d find a better place for it later. That would apparently be an easy way into the building, something like that would be useful. And he blushed a bit at the mention of keeping track of who was in the building. Oh, that would need to be looked back over…

Following her, they next stopped at HR and she procured a bunch of papers from a woman behind the counter. After filling out a bit of it, she handed it over to him, obviously for him to complete the rest, and he began to write as they walked, still only a little bewildered at what was going on. He was finally introduced to Benji, a man that he’d seen staring at him in confusion when he’d walked in and grabbed parts. As she explained what Raph was the man nodded, as if that explained everything. Well, he supposed that would have to suffice, since it was Kazura. That was probably the reason why no more questions had been asked. That or the “special projects” aspect; he wasn’t sure which.

As they walked back to where the whole thing had begun, she finally circled back around to the question that he’d been dreading: How had he met Kazura. “Oh, that’s a fascinating and hilarious story…” He’d honestly been hoping to avoid it, but in an instance like this it was better to tell the truth than a lie, even a lie by omission. “A friend had told me something about UE awhile back and, being curious, I wanted to confirm. Unfortunately, information I wanted isn’t something you print in a pamphlet of the company and so I snuck in while delivering some packages and started to hack the mainframe. Kazura caught me, counter hacked my comp and we spoke for a while. Then, after agreeing to learning more, he took me to a structure what I assume was further down and taught me a bit. Though I never agreed to necessarily joining the company, I decided that doing something like this was the least I could do to repay him.” He chuckled a bit awkwardly. “Like I said, a fascinating and hilarious story.”

[Irina Davayte]

Irina noted Raphael's look at the ID badge and his stuffing it into his pocket. "You'll want to clip that on your shirt or your belt loop or something. We're supposed to keep them visible. No one's going to stalk you or anything though. And the fob part is a passive-style RFId, so I couldn't use that to find out where you are even if I wanted to... It just opens doors. And the door keeps track of whose fob opened it."

The wheels in Irina's head turned rapidly as Raph explained how he came to be at UE. "Ah great, did I accidentally just hire this guy without his consent? Was I not supposed to do that? I thought Kazura already hired him. Eh, it's fine. Kazura said he's cool. Although to be fair, that's that guy who hired Kitai, so... Well, at least we have a copy of his driver's license now, so we know who to blame if something goes wrong, I guess. Or did I even get a copy of that? Wait does this mean I'm in charge of this guy now? I did put him down as part of my department. I'm not really sure I want to keep an eye anyone; I'm enough of a handful for myself."

Honestly, she was less concerned about how Raph had come to be there, compared to whether she personally had followed the protocol. Plus, if he was someone who was going to break in and mess with stuff anyway, it would be easier to keep an eye on him from the inside. It wasn't like they couldn't change the locks if it turned out he was crazy. Irina liked that it seemed like even if Raphael wasn't going to do everything by the book, at least he'd be honest about it.

"Ah, sorry, I guess I misunderstood. I thought you were already working here and we just needed to catch up on the paperwork. I mean, you don't have to work here. I wasn't trying to force you. Happy to have you here if you want, though." With that, Irina would give Raph a smile and turn to get back to work.

[Raphael Laurent]

Raphael entered the room not too far behind her, hoping to get some work done on the computers he’d brought in and maybe even Irina’s, if she’d let him. Realistically, he wasn’t sure how she would react, but it was better than he’d been expecting. He’d been waiting on a tirade of how dare he and how could he and how could Kazura have blah blah blah. Instead she was being civil and…understanding, in a way. But what really unnerved him was how she was acting, apologizing for basically putting him on the payroll herself. She’d all but hired him on the spot, despite the fact that he’d more or less agreed to helping Kazura out with his network and computers.

“In a way, I technically was working here, I just never got onto any payroll or anything like that officially. After Kazura showed me the downstairs room, I guess I just kinda took over the computer lab and started working on things. I’m not really bothered about it, to be honest. Beats delivering packages all day.” He chuckled a bit and turned back to the parts, and picked up the first CPU that he’d be messing with. “So what do you do for Uzaki Enterprises? Is your job more front facing or are you part of the back end team?” He unscrewed the back of the computer as he spoke, only halfway prying out the motherboard. He clicked his tongue and pulled one out of the pile, before pushing it into the cpu and moving onto a fan. “Annnd how do you tell the aware employees from the unaware ones? Just so I don’t go talking about something that’s being kept more under wraps or that would freak them out…” He frowned a bit, put in a new fan and put the other one on the same table and slapped a sticky note that said “clean” on it and set it aside. “Oh, and I could take a look at your pc, if you want. Make sure it’s all good and save the information for you.”

[Irina Davayte]

Irina was glad to hear that Raphael already considered himself to be working at UE. "Ah well that's good. I'm glad we got you straightened out with the paperwork part though, with labor laws and whatever. When I was growing up, my grandfather had a mechanic shop, and taught me that all the books should be kept carefully. It came in handy when he got audited. Mr. Uzaki is...a little more of a free spirit. At least on the spiritual side of the company." Irina put on her reading glasses and logged into a computer. She assumed front and back team were Raph's euphemisms for that and the "regular" part of UE. "I'm kind of doing a couple of things here. Since I'm studying materials science, I work in the materials and engineering lab once a week. I get to use those hours as an internship with my Master's program. The data tracking part is 'back of the house'. I noticed a couple of years ago that even though Kazura had a system for collecting data on unusual reiatsu signatures locally, nothing was really happening to look at that data long-term. So that's what I work with on Tuesdays and Thursdays." She tilted her monitor towards Raphael to show him her current spreadsheet.

"Oh, and that reminds me: you can go pick up your Omni-Tool whenever. All of the spiritual employees get one. Looks like a Smartwatch. Sends you alerts if there are Hollows nearby. Pretty sure it does other things too, but I mostly use it as a screwdriver." She adjusted the conditional formatting for some cells to change color if the reiatsu signature met a slightly lower threshold. "As far as telling the aware employees from the other ones... There are only like ten of us, so when in doubt, it's pretty safe to assume people are 'regular'. My personal goal is to not say anything that would get me on the news. Or, you know, committed to an institution. There's a list of spiritual people in the filing cabinet, I guess, if you want to check that out. Amare, Luca, and Leon are relatively new, young guys. They seem cool. I haven't seen Vesta, Jak, or Takara in a while. I think a couple of them might have moved away? I don't know. Not everyone is in the building all of the time. Then there was some guy who was supposed to be a security expert? Not sure what his name is." Wow, she thought as she ticked the roster off in her mind. She really needed to get to know these people better.

Irina tried not to get her hopes up when Raphael offered to check out her computer. "I mean, it's kind of old, and I think I've angered it by not allowing it to do any updates for a couple of years. I don't like it when they move stuff around on the display. But if you wouldn't mind looking at it, that would be great! I'll try not to be too bummed out if it can't be saved." She'd remove her glasses and take Raph to her PC, which was located in her office, which was actually a mid-sized closet with a window. "I used to have a cubicle with the accounting department, but then people wondered what I was doing and why I didn't work with them, so now I live here."

[Raphael Laurent]

Raph picked up some of his tools and began to take apart one of the computers while Irina spoke. Despite the misgivings that he felt for Uzaki Enterprises beforehand, having Irina talk to him made him feel actually pretty good. It was something that he hadn’t experienced for a little while. As much as he’d enjoyed talking with Taka, he hadn’t heard from her in a while, and he couldn’t wait on her forever, much as he’d have liked to. Realistically, he’d had no problem not being on the payroll, but if it saved the company on labor laws, well Raph had no problems.

“Honestly, I don’t have a problem with him being a little less…hands on when it comes to the spiritual side of the company. Long as there’s detailed notes and analysis on the information then it’s more than fine.” He chuckled just a little bit. Materials science? That sounded fascinating. He looked at the monitor as she tilted the monitor turned towards him. “What’s going on with it? Are you measuring average energy level over time? Or is it measuring higher than normal strength over days?”

He looked at her a bit quizzically. “Omni-Tool? Sounds like something from a videogame. And to make matters worse, it looks like a smartwatch?” He started chuckling when she mentioned that she usually used it for a screwdriver. “I’m almost disappointed that it wasn’t called a Sonic Screwdriver.” He reached in and detached the processor from the computer and pulled it out. The fact that it sent alerts for hollow activity was certainly something that piqued Raphael’s interest. “That’s a pretty nifty invention. I tend to just get caught up in such an attack, to be honest…”

When she told him about the employees that were spiritually aware and that most of them actually weren’t, Raph felt himself deflate a little. Though at least one of the names was known to him. “I think I know one of those names: Luca. He’s always acting like he’s cool and like he’s a big hero. I think he needs to do a little bit of growing up, but otherwise he’s got a good heart.” Raph chuckled and started to plug new wires into the new cpu.

Giving a bit of a chuckle, Raph picked up his duffle bag, with all its stuff. He wanted to make sure that he had everything that he needed, though based on what she was telling him, he wasn’t exactly confident with what he was gonna be working with. When he arrived it was worse than he thought. She was in a fairly small office with a window and her computer… Ugh. The thing was old. As far as computers went it was ancient, but he was fairly sure that he could fix it up.

“Ok, so this thing is old. Now, for the good news: I can fix it.” He began pulling out his laptop. “Oh, wow. You used to have a cubicle in accounting? That’s just nuts, given what you do…” He set up his computer and pulled out a small cable, plugging his computer into hers, and beginning to access its OS with a virtual machine program on his laptop. “This’ll take a little bit to boot up. So why are you using a computer so old, anyways? I’m pretty sure that Kaz coulda gotten you a new one.”

[Irina Davayte]

Irina perked up when Raph asked about her data. Literally, she thought, nobody had ever asked her about it. Naturally, she let Kazura know when she noticed anything off, but he didn't really check in to see what she was doing. "The second one. Higher than normal strength over days. But honestly, usually if anything too alarming is going on, we usually hear about it one way or another. Something crazy on the news, or Kazura hears from his contact with the local police. Still, I've caught a few incidents we were able to follow up on."

"You should definitely call it that," she laughed in response to Raph's Sonic Screwdriver comment.
She nodded understandingly in response to his statement that he tended to get involved with Hollows less intentionally. She wondered if Raph might be interested in getting in the rotation to help out when they got the alerts about unusual activity. Lately, especially since Luke and Markus left, it was pretty much her and Kazura taking turns responding to such incidences. It would be nice to have some backup people again. She certainly wouldn't throw that idea out quite yet. "Yeah, I met Luca a couple of times. Not quite sure about that guy. But I found out he's an actual teenager, so I'm trying to have some extra patience there."

Raph agreed: her computer was old. "Yeah, working around the accounting department was a little weird. I don't think Kazura had ever had a spiritual employee ask for a desk before. I guess most people are a little bit more nomadic with the building. The accounting people didn't really ask too many questions. I don't think they were too bummed to see me go though. For some reason, they keep the office thermostat up like a sauna. Drove me crazy. I kept trying to turn it down, but they would glare at me and out on sweaters." To be fair, Irina preferred the room to be no warmer than a brisk 15 degrees Celsius.

Ah, she was going to have to explain her personality quirk that had led to using a nearly decade-old computer. "Well, that's the one I started out when I got here about five years ago. It wasn't crazy old then. But then the rest of the floor got new computers probably a year or so after that, and I didn't really want one. I don't like figuring out a new operating system." She was not about to admit that she was still using Excel 2007. It wasn't that she didn't think she could figure it out, but she didn't feel like it. Why were they always moving buttons around? Figuring out where they moved superscripts every time they updated things just felt like a waste of time. She admitted "I could definitely have Benji order a new computer for me. He's got it on record that I was due for one four years ago."

"So are you from around here? It seems like everyone I'm meeting lately isn't." Irina asked, remembering to try to be friendly.