Chapter 226 - Life in New York

Half an hour later, the four of them enjoyed their dinner and talked about their respective activities. Today, Aleksis and Lauriel took a walk to Central Park and fed the swans in the lake, chased rabbits and then returned to read books and play Go.

Caspar and Finland were very happy to see Lauriel's sparkling face as he watched Aleksis tell her parents of today's adventures. They really hoped that Lauriel's sadness could be overcome by Aleksis's presence by his side.

At 9pm Caspar, Finland, and Aleksis took their leave to return to their mansion.

Soon after he waved goodbye to Aleksis, who walked away with her parents, Lauriel's face turned gloomy again.

The sadness he experienced was so severe and deep. He didn't know if he would ever be happy again.

***

For the following two days, Finland was still in training and followed Ruth working in her office. However, on the third day, she was assigned the task of managing several projects involving Indonesia.

There were several wind turbine projects and a startup that involved micro-mobility projects in Southeast Asia, starting from Indonesia. Finland had to examine the data related to the industry and the market situation in Indonesia before the company could agree to invest in the startup.

For several days she was absorbed in research. She read various references and contacted many people. She especially liked this job because of the environmentally friendly aspects in it.

Since a few years ago, Indonesia had ramped up massive infrastructure development and as a result now the lives of people in urban areas had become very mobile. Many big cities in Indonesia were able to enjoy a more orderly and organized method of mass transportation. People also no longer relied on private vehicles for mobility.

The startup named Trengginas focused its business on providing e-bikes and e-scooters in urban areas for urban residents who wanted to travel close distances, without having to walk to the nearest bus stops or MRT stations. That way they need not to walk far and could save time.

By using the application, they could find an e-bike or e-scooter closest to where they were located and activate it for use at a certain time. They could use the vehicle to go wherever they wanted to go and park them at the places provided. Users would be billed according to how long they use the vehicles.

This concept was similar to the concept of a shared economy car rental such as Socar or Turo, where customers could rent cars through the application and search for vehicles closest to their location.

The difference was that Trengginas focused on environmentally friendly industries, so they chose to operate an e-bike and e-scooter fleet which could be charged with electricity and thus save energy.

It was also better for nature than businesses like Grab, Uber, and Gojek, whose business caused more cars and motorbikes to fill the streets. They were a big contributor in the increase of pollution levels and the greenhouse effect.

The drawback was that Trengginas would require huge investment funds to provide their own fleet, in contrast to Grab and Gojek who did not need to invest in a fleet of vehicles because they partner with drivers had to provide their own vehicles.

In addition, they also had to make a subscription application software, an additional software to control and track their bicycles and scooters, as well as maintenance of the front-end and back-end. That was why Trengginas submitted proposals to several investment giants to notice their business.

Some startups from Southeast Asia succeeded because of their breakthrough a few years ago and became unicorns* even decacorns*, such as Grab, Gojek, Traveloka, Tokopedia, etc. They were able to grow big because of the support of investment funds from giant investment companies.

Finland certainly hoped that the results of her research could help Caspar's investment subsidiaries make the right decision, which was whether they should invest in Trengginas or not. If she misjudged and they missed the opportunity to take part now, they would would surely swallow the bitter pill if one day Trengginas became successful with the support of another investment company.

"Finland..." Ruth suddenly came and disrupted her concentration, "You were summoned to the 35th floor."

Ruth's face looked very jealous.

"Me? Why?" Finland knew that the highest floor in the building was where Caspar's office was located, along with his top directors. During her several days in the company, she never had the opportunity to go to that floor because her position in the company's food chain was almost at the bottom.

"I heard that Mr. Schneider received a number of documents in Indonesian language and they requested someone who understood Indonesian to translate the documents for him... He said it was urgent."

Ruth seemed to wish that she understood Indonesian so that she was the one asked to go up there.

Finland laughed to herself. She knew that this was Caspar's trick to meet up with her.

These past few days they were only able to meet each other during lunch and that one hour in the lounge when Finland worked on her reports or did her research.

As usual, they would sit together in the cabana and chat if Caspar wasn't taking a nap. Apparently, today he couldn't wait to meet Finland early and concocted an excuse that he needed someone who spoke Indonesian to help translate important documents.

"Oh... okay. I'll go up soon." Finland cleared her laptop and headed out of the office to the elevator. Ben was waiting for her in front of the elevator with an access card to the 35th floor. He bowed slightly with a faint smile and welcomed Finland.

"Hello, Ben. You don't need to pick me up..." said Finland. "I can go up myself."

"Uhm... you can't, madam. Every employee only has access according to their position. Currently you can only access floors 20 to 25, and floor 30. For the other floors you need special permission or an invitation," Ben explained. Only now Finland understood. Ah... no wonder Ben was sent down to pick her up.

"Master thinks if you hold a special access card, people would get suspicious." Ben continued, "So I was sent here to pick you up."

Finland nodded.

"Thank you. I am sorry to trouble you then. By the way, what is he doing now? There aren't really any documents to translate, are there?" Finland asked with a suspicious face.

Ben just smiled.