The heroine die in the end

     In someplace in a typical metropolis,

     in a typical office building.

     In a typical, fourteen floor,

     In a typical software company office,

     There´s once an atypical woman, playing a videogame

during the working hour.

     “Macleod! What you think you are doing?”

Shizuka, a young woman complained outraged.

     “I can’t talk right now. I am in the

middle of a raid and you can’t pause a disgraced MMORPG.”

     “Macleod, you can’t play games in the office.

What about your work?”

     “Are you in a hurry? Keep walking! I

finished in five minutes.”

     “Them you pretend you are working like

everybody else. If the boss sees you playing she’s going to think that we all

play too. Do it at home.”

     “My computer can’t run this game. And why

they put those powerful graphic cards just to road programs that a 1980s

computer can run?”

     “Why you don't buy a new computer to play

at home?”

     “I am saving money for the future, ‘A

prevented woman is worth two.’ I already used too much money to buy a limited

edition of a garage kit from my favorite anime.”

     “What’s a garage kit?”

     “A figure that you mount and paint by

yourself.” She showed a picture of her phone.

     “Those are beautiful.” Shizuka was

surprised. “You really made them?”

     “Oh yeah!” She said with all the pride of

the world.

     “How much you charge each one?”

     “No, no, no! They aren´t to sell”

     Zhang Li pulled her chair to get close.

“What you did now Ginger? I’m just doing a worksheet and my machine is working

like crazy.”

     “I connected all the graphic cardboards in

net to power my game Zhang Li.” She gave a smug smile. “Look those graphics.”

     “Seriously?” Shizuka tapped on her

keyboard to check the speed. “There´s something you don´t know how to do

Macleod?”

     “Vitamin D.”

     “Playing games again?” Zhang sighed

looking at her screen.

     “Oxi! Okay, Okay! We killed the boss.” She

started to disconnect some cables.

     “What are you doing now?”

     “Turning off my portable HD. Someone can

erase my save if I left in the Office.” She put in her purse and took a metal

case from her bag.

     “What is this thing now?”

     “My portable videogame?”

     “Video… Play in your phone like everybody

else, Dammit.”

     “Oxalá! I, play on my phone.” She put her

videogame back in the bag and got her smartphone.

     “You still will make me need an analyst

Ginger.” Zhang Li pulled her chair back in her place.

     “Oxi! Zhang Li is too stressed.”

     “She has a point, Macleod.” Shizuka

sighed. “You should give time to those games and cartoons and get out more to

know people. You need to ook with someone.”

     “Okay! Hey Ha-joon!” She called a

colleague at another desk.

     “What you want Highlander?” He answered

looking at his monitor.

     “Let’s go out after work to change some

kisses?”

     “I have a girlfriend Highlander.”

     “See?” She raised her eyebrows. “All the

good look ones already have owners.”

     “You should be less pick, Macleod. What

you don’t try something with one of your friends from the games? Charles could

be a good match.”

     “Charles only has eyes to loli Asian

girls. Yoo-joon, doesn’t like 3d human girls, and computer-generated either,

only 2D girls in anime style. Yamada doesn’t talk with girls, he only talks

with me by text messages. If I talk with him he could die.” She gave a serious

stare.

     “Where the heck you find those guys?”

     “Playing MMO, anime conventions, and stuff

like that.”

     “Ask Julio out. He's a Latin-American

lover, goes out with everybody.”

     “Oxi! Two Latin-Americans together? That´s

so cliché. I expected more from you.”

     “You are a Latin-American? I thought you

are a Scottish.” Zhang Li widen her eyes in surprise.

     “Because of the Macleod right?” She

winked.

     “And because you are a green-eyed, pale

red-hair, without visible eyebrows.” Zang Li crossed her arms. “I thought you

were a scotch.”

     “I am a descendant! There are a lot of

Irish and Scotch people who went to Brazil.”

     “You are a Brazilian?” Zang Li looked her

head to toe. “You ruined my idea of Red-hairs being hot, and now Brazilians.”

     “Yeah, I do that.” She giggled. “I am the

living proof that the stereotypes of the attractive red hair and or Brazilian

is inaccurate, but the creepy ginger right on the spot.”

     “You are not ugly Ginger! You are normal.”

     “Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder.

I don´t fit my stands.”

     “Until I meet you, I had this silly idea

that all Brazilians were mixed.” Shizuka giggled covering her mouth.

     “Don´t apply to everybody, but I am. My

parents are hot, sweet and brown like a good cup of late.”

     “Really?” Zangi Li raised her eyebrows.

“You shouldn’t be a bit more naturally tanned?”

     “Unfortunately, that´s not the way biology

works baby.” Macleod made a twisted face. “A couple of dark-skinned with a pale

skinned can have a kid that will be like just one of them, a little tanned, or

like me, two mixed two brownish parents can have a daughter that looks like one

of the grandparents that come from Glasgow.”

     “New thing that I learned today.” Zang Li

tapped her keyboard. “Finally! My computer is back to normal. Thank you,

Ginger.”

     “So…” Shizuka put her hands on her legs.

“And about Julio?”

     “No way. I heard him calling me a dragon.”

     “And what the problem?” Zhang Li asked

coming back to work.

     “You saw dragons in American cartoon, my

dearie? In Brazil dragon is how we call a fat woman without boobs.” She pointed

at herself.

     “Julio is from Porto Rico, and maybe he

was talking with the Southeast Asian meaning. To us, a dragon lady is strong,

deceitful, domineering, or mysterious.”

     “You think so?” She put down her portable

videogame.

     “Yes. You are all those things; strong,

deceitful, domineering, or mysterious.”

     “Wait! You called me deceitful?”

     Ha-joom interrupted them, calling the

attention of everybody in the Office. “Hey, guys, you all know that the

lunchroom it´s in reforms, we need someone to buy our lunches. Let’s choose on

the hat again.”

     “Ah, the hat.” Macleod pointed with two

fingers. “Is going to be me, I know my luck.”

     Shizuka smiled. “Don’t say that Macleod.

You are too pessimistic.”

     She picked a paper from the baseball hat.

”See? I told you.”

     “Okay, guys!” Ha-joom said out loud.

“Highlander and Julio are getting our lunches today.”

     Whit all the bad will of the world

Margarida Menezes Macleod got the requests and went to the elevator. There she

saw a plaque. “In maintenance, use the stairs. Are you disgraced kidding me?

This is the fourteen floors.”

     After an exhaustive walk down the stairs,

when they reached the inferior floor, they saw a technician going out the

elevator.

     “You are taking out the plaque?” The man

got the plaque that was written: “Broken elevator. Use the stairs.”

     “I already fixed.” He said. “You can get

the elevator now.”

     “Caramba!” She rubbed her face.

     Julio put his hand on her shoulder with a

smile. “look at the bright side Mamacita, we made a good exercise.” Julio

winked at her with thumbs up. “Is good for the hearth.”

     Angry and suet she went to the local café

with her requests. “Sorry, we don’t have latte today.” The attendant said with

a weak smile.

     “Without Latte are you guys without milk?”

     “No. We are without coffee.” She answered

in a condescending tone.

     “Without Coffee? This is a cafeteria,

'café' is written right in the window outside. How you don’t have coffee?”

     “After the lunchroom in the Akaitech

building went into reform we had an increase in the clients.”

     “Give-me hot cocoa instead.”

     “We don’t have more chocolate.”

     “…”

     Julio laughed. “It's not your day

Highlander.”

     “What the name I call?” The clerk asked.

     “Call Margarida.”

     They went to wait outside.

     “Your name is Margarida mamacita?”

     “What you think it was?”

     “Ginger Macleod.” He said. “Everybody

calls you Ginger, Macleod, or Highlander.”

     “No. My name is Margarida Menezes

Macleod.”

     “Like the Highlander, that's a rare name.”

     “Not in the U.K. When I went to visit my

scot relatives, I went to the last RPG convention in Edinburg, half of the

people was with a name tag Macleod and the other half named Smith.”

     “You are not a scotch?”

     “No. My Father´s family comes from

Scotland, however, I am a mixed Brazilian.”

     “You are one of a kind.”

     “I know. I am a left-handed head hair.”

She answered with a snarky smile.

     “Why people call head hair Ginger? Is it

because of gingerbread?”

     “Call me gingerbread again and I will want

to call you an ambulance. You notice that ginger is the n-word rearranged?”

     “It’s true.” He laughed. “You are funny

Macleod.”

     “Are you kidding me?” She looked at an

advertisement on a bus stop near a closed signal with a gorgeous woman wearing

a straw hat and a white dress, licking a Popsicle on a beach in Rio de Janeiro with Christ the Redeemer statue in the background. “All that to sell coconut popsicles?”

     Julio laughed. “People use sexiness to

sell everything those days.”

     “Fair skin my but. I bet that anyone will

prefer a girl with a honey bronzed skin like that, than my white face.”

     “Your face is more to pink and red,

Highlander,” Julio said. “If you could join your freckles you will be darker

than her.”

     “Good one Julio.”

     “No serious. I never saw anybody what so

many freckles as you.”

     “Oxi! You never will go out with a girl

like me, right?”

     “Where you get this idea. I would love to

brag to my friends that I go out with authentic red hair.”

     “You do not think I am fat, without

boobs?”

     “You never went to America? By American

standards you are skinny, and by the standards from here your boobs are great.”

     “That sounds like a proposition.”

     “If you want.”

     “Deal. Next Friday?”

     “Next Friday, put on your agenda.”

     Margarida got her phone and started to

tip. “So… I me not a dragon lady.”

     “Of course you are. Strong, deceitful, and

mysterious.”

     “Oxi! Are you calling me deceitful too?”

     A voice called from the cafe: “Margarida!”

     “They are calling us.” Julio entered the

café. “You can be grumpy, but is a good soul.”

     “Nobody told you? We gingers do not have

souls.”

     The signal opened and the high school girl

run to cross the street but a trunk in high speed was coming towards her from

the hill. A stereotypic nerdy otaku saw and rapidly pushed the girl and fall to

his knees.

     With all her speed, Margarida ran to the

rescue. She holds the guy, and pulled him out of the way of the trunk, only

hitting her foot.

     “My… You save me.” The schoolgirl helped

him to get up.

     “And you save me. Miss, thank you very

much.”

     With a cocky attitude, Margarida Menezes

Macleod hops showing her muscles. “Seems that all the exercise I did for me

cosplay presentations pay off at the end.”

     “Are you fine lady?”

     “It broke the heel of my shoe.”

     “Miss! Lookout, the trunk is coming back!”

     “Ah, Darn…” Maybe because of her training

in fake martial arts while watching action animes, or the rush of adrenaline

because of the fear, Margaret shows an unusual physical skill and pushed the

two from the way of the trunk. "Hurry inside the building."

     "Macleod!" Julio yelled and

waved from the other side of the street. Without thinking clearly, she runs

towards him instead of following the crowd to the nearby build. To make things

worst she lost her balance without one heel and the Trunk made a turn blocking

her way.

     Julio pointed at a nearby walkway from

inside the café. "Macleod the walkway." Whit the rush she ran faster

than she ever did in her life. Her body reached the limits in the middle of the

stairs. Her lungs started to weaken and a strong pain appeared in her spleen.

     "Give me a break!" The trunk

entered the walkway, climbing the stairs forcing the handrails broking the

rearview releasing millions of sparkles. She was in the limits of her strength

and the walkway was wide enough to the Trunk gain speed after reach the top of

the stairs. A train was coming under the passage giving her a crazy idea.

     "I always wanted to do that."

Margaret prepared to jump, but the train was too fast and she was too high. The

trunk reached the passage and started to accelerate like crazy, she even could

see the plate: “TRUNK-KUN 4-3” there´s no reason to wait and she jump, like in

the movies.

     Unfortunately, the land at the top of the

train wasn´t like in the movies. The momentum took her down violently, and she

painfully bruised her knees, her hand, and elbow almost rolling from the train.

     "Three broken fingernails and my luck

shoes lost." Laid down on the top of the train, she started to feel the

physical effects of her stunt. Her whole body started to hurt, her heart was

beating like crazy, the palm of her hands, knees, and elbows are bleeding,.

"Tomorrow I start with the exercises."

     Macleod stays at the top of the train for

two stations, seemed that nobody noticed. She also lost her phone and couldn´t

call for help. Luckily there´s a hospital nearby the next station.

     Awkwardly she tried to get out of the

train and the few people in the station run to help her. She explained to the

officials what happened, so they called the police, and put her on a stretcher,

and took her to the hospital, pretty much on the other side of the street.

     In front of the hospital, they put her in

a proper transport gurney from the hospital where she exchanged a few words

with a police officer and a doctor. "You don´t look too bad, but we are

going to take an x-ray to be sure."

     It was just a brief moment that all people

around were a few feet from her when the small garden exploded revealing the

bashed Trunk coming from the street at high speed. Everybody ran away, except

Margaret that didn´t have enough reflexes or strength to jump from the gurney.

The trunk used the small garden as a ramp and jump in the air right in her

direction.

     "What a fuuuuu...."

***Download NovelToon to enjoy a better reading experience!***