The summer vacation was almost over. Emma was increasingly busy with her computer science learning and her tutoring work. She had become skilled enough to create several simple programs and was now slowly learning deeper about hacking. Emma would spend so much time to learn, and she worked with her laptop for almost 15 hours a day.She also began researching a lot about s.p.a.ceLab and looking for as much information as possible that could be useful for her goals going forward in finding ways to contact AWA or go to the moon as part of the engineering team from s.p.a.ceLab.
The information she found that afternoon made her very excited. Ren Hanenberg, a physics genius who led the s.p.a.ce exploration division at s.p.a.ceLab, turned out to be one of the keynote speakers at the cybersecurity conference panel discussion she would be attending.
"This is my lucky day," Emma muttered to herself as she looked at the headline of a big article on the s.p.a.ceLab blog page.
[Ren Hanenberg, s.p.a.ceLab"s s.p.a.ce Exploration Director, would be presenting a keynote speech in the second session of the Asian Cybersecurity Conference on August 18, 2056 in Esplanade Singapore. He will be talking about cybersecurity threats on s.p.a.ce exploration projects and how to mitigate them.]
Emma and Haoran had discussed that they needed to infiltrate s.p.a.ceLab in one way or another. In order not to attract suspicion, they couldn"t rely solely on Haoran"s position as the son of one of the investors.
They also had to get Emma to study astrophysics. Once she was ready, she needed to apply to work at s.p.a.ceLab and look for opportunities to partic.i.p.ate in the s.p.a.ce program. She must find ways to go to the moon and find the capsule left by her parents.
Emma would get the opportunity more easily if she managed to gain access to one of the s.p.a.ceLab"s high-ranking officials. That"s why Emma couldn"t wait to see Ren Hanenberg immediately and try to make a connection with him. She just needed to meet him.. the rest, she would use her mind telemancy to get the man to help her.
[Hi, Emma ... do you want me to pick you up or should we meet at the event directly? I"ve got the tickets with me.] Allan asked her via text the day before the conference.
Emma was busy checking her five students" mock exam results at Haoran"s home. They would be taking the summer cla.s.s final exam the week after, and the result would determine their final ranking in school, whether they could move to cla.s.s A or not.
The girl furrowed her brows when she read Allan"s text. She remembered meeting Allan just a few hours ago in the Programming cla.s.s. She wondered why the young man was sitting beside her for hours but didn"t say anything about the tickets.
Her question was immediately answered because Allan hurriedly added in the next SMS:
[Sorry, I forgot to give you the ticket. I"ve been so busy preparing for my college and my mind was all over the place.]
Actually, Allan did not forget to give Emma the ticket. He deliberately kept them with him so that he could find an excuse to offer to pick up Emma at her house, and they could come together to the event.
Unfortunately, his hope didn"t come true because Emma only replied briefly:
[Let"s meet at the venue.]
The girl refocused her attention on the results of her student"s mock tests, did not think about Allan at all.
"I think your test results have mostly improved a lot compared to before. Now we can only wait for your final test score so we can see whether you can move to a Cla.s.s A, or B, or maybe C," the girl said, raising her face.
The five boys exchanged glances and sighed. Emma"s words sounded ambiguous, and they became uncertain whether they could indeed enter cla.s.s A or not. Only Haoran seemed relaxed. He was confident that he could move to cla.s.s A and stay with Emma in the same cla.s.s.
***
Emma got off the bus in front of the Esplanade International Convention Center. She immediately walked into hall number 5 that looked festive and decorated with a variety of banners and large posters about the conference she was attending. She saw Allan waiting for her at the entrance. When he noticed her presence, the young man immediately waved and approached Emma.
"Have you been waiting long?" Emma asked politely.
Allan shook his head. "No. I just got here. Let"s go in."
The two then walked side by side and to their seats at the very front. As it turned out, Allan managed to get VIP tickets for them, so the two of them could sit very close to the speakers, and most prominent figures in the cybersecurity industry.
"Hey ... I heard that Ren Hanenberg became one of the speakers in the panel session," Emma said after sitting in her chair. "Why wasn"t this announced before? I just read it while reading the s.p.a.ceLab website."
"Oh ... he is a special speaker, and he is uber busy. The committee did not dare to announce his appearance before he really could confirm it, and sometimes they could only do it at the last minute. That was why you only see him added a few days ago," Allan explained. "Why? Are you a fan?"
"Uhm .. I"m just interested in s.p.a.ceLab. I know he"s an important person there," Emma answered.
"Oh, right... I just remembered. You are interested in studying Astrophysics, right? Then, you must be very happy to meet him. He is a famous professor in your field of interest. Right now, he is no longer teaching because he is so busy at s.p.a.ceLab, but he still occasionally giving guest lectures at MIT and EIT," Allan said excitedly. He felt very happy because their visit to this conference brought many benefits to Emma.
"I didn"t find out that far," Emma admitted. She became increasingly interested. "I just read his name a few days ago and knew he would come here. What kind of person is he? Surely he must be very smart ..."
"He is a genius, just like you. But if you prefer a normal school, he used his intelligence to enter school early. He already held two master"s degrees and one Ph.D. by the time he was 20 years old. Crazy indeed! After that, he taught at university while being a researcher, before finally s.p.a.ceLab s.n.a.t.c.hed him by giving him an offer he couldn"t refuse as the head of their s.p.a.ce exploration division. Now he already became one of its directors at the age of 25 years old."
"What? He is only 25??" Even the genius Emma did not think there was such an accomplished human being as Ren Hanenberg. She did not search for details out about the man she wanted to meet, thinking he was just a typical old and smart scientist.
Emma did not expect Ren Hanenberg to be this young! Her curiosity piqued when she heard Allan talk about the man. Emma then opened her cellphone and did a search for Professor Ren Hanenberg"s name to find his pictures.
The girl was stunned when she finally saw the face of a handsome young man on her screen. The man seemed to always wear a formal dark outfit. He had an imposing look with his intelligent brilliant brown eyes, that were really light in color, almost like honey. Unfortunately, his handsome face was never smiling in any of the pictures that Emma found.
His expression was always either serious, sour, or sometimes even a little arrogant. However, Emma could not dislike his profile. The man actually reminded her a lot of herself, before she met Haoran. She was also this serious and seemed unapproachable.
"Do you want to meet him?" Allan asked her suddenly. "My father is a director at Lee Industries, one of the s.p.a.ceLab investors. I can use my father"s name to talk to Ren Hanenberg. Having someone like him as your connection will be good for your college application."
"Can you really take me to meet him?" Emma asked with gleaming eyes. "Actually, my goal is to work at s.p.a.ceLab. I would be very happy if I could get an interns.h.i.+p opportunity there someday."
Allan puffed out his chest a little when he heard her request. He felt proud because he had a connection that could be useful for Emma, namely his own father. He nodded happily. "Of course. I will invite you to meet with him at the luncheon. We better wait to talk to him after his session so later you can have something to talk to him about. You can discuss his presentation."
"Ah, you"re right... That"s a good idea," Emma said happily.
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From the Author:
I had a hard time writing this chapter because Ren Hanenberg is a really special character for me. His backstory is intense and powerful. He is an important figure in my other novel, "The Alchemists". I actually write the whole latest volume solely because of him. ...I will not go into much detail about him in Finding Stardust though, because this is not his story, but Emma"s. I only show him here because they share the same universe....Anyway, if you haven"t read "The Alchemists" already, go give it a read (while waiting for more chapters in Finding Stardust). I believe you would love it too if you loved this book. Ren will appear in Volume 4 of the book.