The presentation.

THIRD PERSON POV

Roy watched Zoey as she walked her head hung down. He was aware she admitted failure to him and that she had probably not done the work but he wanted to see how smart she was. This was a test that he had decided might change her future in the company.

Zoey nervously walked to the front of the room holding her bag so tightly. She avoided eye contact with everyone and she just hoped she could just die.

At this point, Roy wanted to kill her indirectly. What was he thinking asking her to present work he was aware she had not done? She told him yesterday she failed, so why was he doing this? It was just that she could not say she had not done it in front of all the important people that she could feel their eyes on her.

She removed her laptop and put it on the table then, when she switched it on, the battery low alert appeared on her screen and the next thing, the laptop shut down and she gasped panicking.

"No...no...no...please this can't be happening." she mumbled to herself watching the screen turn black."Oh my God," she mumbled again her heartbeats accelerating fast.

What was she going to do now? She did not carry a charger and how did she forget to charge her laptop? This was so embarrassing and she could feel beads of sweat start to form all over her body.

This was not happening. Not now when she was in front of these important people. What were they going to think about her? She did not want to be the employee from R Tech Corp who couldn't get her presentation right. She would be the gossip of the company and these people's company and it would be very negative.

She knew she had never presented any sort of work in front of anyone but this being her first time, she wanted to kill it even though she was nervous and all.

She somehow wanted to impress Roy since he gave her a chance and however much she hated he did it out of nowhere, she wanted to do a good job since she was already in front of everyone. She wanted to show him she deserved to be in his company and prove him wrong.

Now she was not going to prove anything to Roy because she was failing, without even trying. This was so annoying she could feel her eyes well up with tears. She wanted to cry.

"Are you going to present the work or not?" she heard Roy's voice but she didn't bother to look at him. She didn't want to show him she was so helpless or that was about to cry and her body was trembling because she couldn't present anything. What would she present when she did not have the project needed to be presented? The laptop was dead, she really was helpless.

Roy slightly furrowed his eyebrows looking at Zoey. He could see the sweat running down her face and how her body trembled. What was wrong with her? He wondered.

He couldn't understand why she was acting like this. What was so hard about speaking or looking at people? Was she telling the truth and she was shy around new people?

Or didn't she decode the codes? He knew she said she failed but he didn't think she was the person to give up that easily. She was just in a hurry yesterday and she felt the need to admit failure just so she could leave. That did not mean she couldn't do it. He was sure after she left, she would complete decoding. He didn't think she was the type to leave work incomplete.

He expected her to have completed the work, that's why she told her to present the work. Did he make a wrong judgement of her character? But then when it came to her, he always ended up making the wrong judgement. She was just so unpredictable.

Marcus bent down to whisper something to Roy."Boss, the investors are murmuring, what should we do?" he asked because there were low murmurs.

"Go and tell her to start presenting and if she can't, I am going to fire her," he said. He just hoped that threatening her with losing her job was good enough to get her to work and stop being anxious. He wanted to believe so badly that she did the work even if he knew asking her to present the work was a risk he took because he had faith in her. She better do this right. Roy thought looking at Zoey.

Marcus walked to where Zoey stood. The first thing he noticed was her black screen. He looked at her and seeing how badly she was trembling, he sighed. He felt bad for her. His boss was after her neck and she kept messing up. He couldn't imagine how Roy was angry at her right now. He had an expressionless face but he knew, behind that mask, was a very furious person. 

"Zoey, you need to pull yourself together. You are about to build a bad name for our company and that's very severe because our boss is going to fire you."Marcus delivered Roy's message using his own words.

Zoey looked at Marcus who was smiling at her but she could see it was a forced smile."My laptop shut down due to a battery low and I don't have a charger." she explained her lips trembling.

"That's easy, you should have just said that to these people. Now they are wondering what is wrong with you." Marcus said taking a relaxed breath. He had thought it was a much bigger issue.

Zoey too took a deep breath to calm down." I just panicked okay. Who wouldn't in their first time standing in front of these many people and then their laptop decides to disappoint?"Zoey asked in a whisper.

Marcus smiled this time genuinely, and then he checked out Zoey's laptop model." Introduce yourself and explain what happened, I'll get you a charger." he said looking at everyone but seeing the disappointed faces, he looked at Zoey."And try to be confident. This might be your first time doing this but these people don't care. Just look up and stand straight and speak confidently, redeem yourself, everyone already has lost faith in you for wasting their time." he spoke the harsh truth then he left.

Zoey understood what Marcus just said and she was determined to try and gain the favour of everyone but to do that, she needed to pull herself together first.

She took a deep breath and then she stood straight and looked up, just like Marcus told her." Good morning everyone, my name is Zoey and I am from the Computer Science Department. I will be presenting the codes of the project to you and show you step-by-step how to decode them." she paused to swallow her saliva and relax a bit more. She was still trembling.

She was looking up but she was sure her eyes were not seeing anyone. She couldn't maintain eye contact with anyone else she was going to start getting more nervous so she just looked at the wall past the faces to look like she was looking at them.

"I am very sorry for the delay, I just found out that I forgot to charge my laptop and it has just shut down but don't worry, that problem will be solved soon. Just give it a few minutes till I fix it. I apologize again for the inconvenience, please be patient with me a little longer, thank you." she said with a slightly trembling voice.

Instead of people taking it positively and waiting, they started yelling at her. One person said," You have been wasting our time and that's all you have to say? You are so unqualified it's embarrassing for such a big company."

Another one yelled."Just say you don't know what you are doing instead of wasting your and our time." That opened doors for others to speak their opinions and now everyone was shouting at Zoey.

Zoey started panicking again feeling like she could explode. With everyone yelling and saying all sorts of spiteful words to her, she was almost breaking down. Those sounds were like those in her head most of the time, and they always made her want to give up every time. 

"Everyone quiet."A roar that overpowered the other voices sounded in the room. It was Roy." She told us to wait and that's what we are going to do, if you feel like you can't do that, get out." he ordered glaring at everyone.

Now the room was so quiet and everyone's heads hung down. Seems like Roy had the final voice. Nobody left and instead, they sat down silently.