by mike Evans
“Well, just a word to the wise, gentleman. I heard Kyle is on the warpath about team members not turning in completed coversheets. Might want to see about that before your meetings this afternoon.”
Brad delivered the warning with his trademark toothy grin, and slunk off to spread his cheer elsewhere.
“Shit,” Harvey intoned, his voice back to conversational. “I can’t believe what the brass finds to bitch about. I better get on that.”
Garrett nodded silently in agreement, thinking about the state of his own coversheets. Jesus. For a green workplace, they sure generated a lot of meaningless paper. The coversheets were a perfect example. Every order, and every service call, was logged in electronically at the point they were completed, and yet the powers-that-be demanded the paper copies. Three pages of mostly meaningless checkboxes and too small memo lines needed to be completed to exact specifications.
That didn’t sound like a lot, but they demanded coversheets for each step of a transaction. Fix a printer interface, then do a coversheet. Install updated software package for a system, then do a coversheet.
Garrett, like most normal people, did the work in sequence as the customer requested it, and filled in the paperwork later. Except for when he got sidetracked driving to the next appointment, and forgot about it until he was unwinding at the hotel that night. Then he tried to play catchup while prepping for the next day’s round of meetings. Thus, he found himself speeding through the coversheets before going to sleep. Or not. Now, that might not be the best use of his time.
“Yeah, me too,” Garrett mumbled, and dug out the rubber-banded file of incomplete coversheets stuffed in his messenger bag. Well, at least the time would go by faster, he thought morosely.
“Hey, what’cha up to?”
This time, Garrett couldn’t hide his reaction to the voice., A faint smile curved his lips as he looked up to regard the speaker. All thoughts of incomplete coversheets and idiotic management action plans went out the window.
Traci Bingham was good at her job. She was about middle of the pack in sales but pushing Garrett for service savvy when it came to fixing software and hardware problems. She was also a little hottie in Paul Garrett’s unbiased opinion, and he cherished each opportunity he had to exchange a few words with her.
Dressed up for the performance meeting today in a knee length green skirt and a white lacey top, Traci looked delicious. Usually one for more drab, utilitarian apparel, this sudden change caught Garrett a little off guard. The smile, though, was the same.
“Just trying to do the last minute prep work before the lions run loose in the cube farm,” Garrett managed to quip, but his rising voice betrayed his surprise. Traci was always a pretty girl, with bright green eyes and a pixie cut blonde hair style that suited her sharpish features, but her nerdish tendencies and self-conscious attitude made her more approachable than most women Garrett knew.
Her light laugh was the same, however, and made Garrett think of bells. Well, since his own private nickname for Traci was Tinkerbell, he guessed that was appropriate.
“Yes,” Traci agreed with a sigh. “I’m a little worried about today. I heard Robbie Beamon got laid off this morning. That’s just terrible. Now he’s stuck waiting in the Number Two conference room until security can send somebody up to escort him off the premises. This just sucks.”
“Yeah, it does,” Garrett muttered. He was wondering if they were just waiting for his meeting so the guard wouldn’t have to make two trips.
“I can’t believe they just have him sitting there. Like he’s a threat or something. Robbie is too upset to do anything, and I’m sure he just wants to get home to Lydia and the baby.”
Garrett nodded along to that sentiment before responding.
“You know how they are. Anybody getting the boot also gets an escort off premises. They are concerned for our workplace security, and all that.”
Which was a big deal these days. Workplace violence was at an all-time high, Garret knew. Disgruntled employees and former employees were in the news every week, and the attacks just seemed to get worse. Just last week, a laid off mail room clerk at a giant law firm in San Francisco stormed his former office, taking out the partners and selected coworkers in an orgy of violence that left fifteen dead and dozens more wounded.
That attack just triggered another round of demands for gun control, and a call for taking the guns out of the hands of the mentally ill. Of course, no one wanted to define what ‘mentally ill’ would actually mean, except one unfortunate spokesperson for a gun control advocacy group who was recorded as saying, “anyone who wants to own a firearm should be considered mentally ill.”
“Like San Francisco,” Garrett tacked on at the end.
“Bull,” Traci fumed. “That was completely different. And look how the vultures jumped on that bandwagon. They want to ban all firearms in San Francisco over it. Like they haven’t basically done that already. And they are ignoring the fact that most of the deaths and injuries came from that homemade bomb the guy cooked up in his kitchen. What, are they going to ban dish washing detergent next?”
Garrett was surprised at the anger and candor in her voice. They were friends in a fashion, but their constant travel schedule left little time to do more that exchange pleasantries in passing, though Garrett often fantasized about doing more. Like asking her out for dinner, or something crazy like that.
“Well, we don’t have to worry about something like that happening here,” Garrett managed to say, feeling ready to say just about anything to continue their conversation. “The building security we have in this place is unreal.”
Traci seemed to realize where she was at that point, where her true feelings were showing, and a lovely scarlet blush spread slowly across her fine pale features.
“Yeah, it is really secure. Sorry, I gotta go.”
Garrett was desperate to find something else to say, and some way to extend the conversation. Figuring he was going to get fired today anyway, he decided to overlook the company’s anti-sexual harassment policies and override his own good sense when he spoke next.
“Well, before you go, I just wanted to say you look really nice today. That skirt is pretty, and it matches your eyes.”
Traci’s blush seemed to deepen at that point and she ducked her head before spinning on one moderately high heel and rapidly walking away.
“Good job, Romeo,” came from the unseen cubicle next door and Garrett realized Harvey had heard the whole conversation.
“Oh, bite me, Harvey. At least I’ve seen a real live woman nekkid,” Garrett growled, and his country accent just seemed to pop out.
“Oh, you wound me, Gar. And those women on screen are real and live when the video was shot, you know. That totally counts.”
“Harvey, sometimes I just don’t know what to think about you. I really don’t.”
Garrett tried for playful, but the sick weight in his stomach simply left his words sounding flat. Well, what the hell, he thought. Not like I’m going to be here much longer anyway.
Chapter Two
Lunch time came and went, with Garrett eating a serving of microwaved lasagna he’d made the day before. Since his fall from grace, Garrett learned to live frugally and found he actually enjoyed cooking and baking. Harvey and a couple of other guys urged him to go out with them for lunch at one of the local chain restaurants they frequented, but Garrett really wasn’t in the mood. Seeing Traci turned out to be the sole bright spot in his day so far. And the quarterly flogging still loomed for this afternoon.
So far, none of the morning victims seemed happy with the outcome of their meeting, except Brad, of course. Garrett felt a sense of dread creep over him as the minutes ticked by. Two o’clock and then I can start cleaning out my desk, Garrett figured. At least he was no longer watching the clock that closely as he frantically worked to finish and update the coversheets and then copy the results. On an honest-to-God copy machine. Instead of scan and file or just working up a simple o
nscreen document form, Garrett still goggled at a supposed tech company that still insisted on handwritten reports. Horse and buggy days, he thought once again.
“Yo, Gar,” Harvey called out.Garrett heard the telltale squeak and whine as his heavy-set coworker collapsed into the office chair next door.
“Yo, Harv,” he replied absently, his head still bent over the next-to-last coversheet from the incomplete pile.
“Man, that was freaking insane, bro,” Harvey intoned in a near frenzy before stopping, but Garrett, so close to finishing his last minute project, barely noticed. At first. Eventually, Garrett became aware of the rapid clicking on the keyboard next door and realized something unexpected was going on with his friend.
“What happened? Your waitress at Twin Peaks have a wardrobe malfunction again?” Garrett finally asked after the silence stretched on for an uncomfortably long time. “You know Stovall will kill you if you unload boob shots onto the internet from this system? They log that key counter and your cookies instantly, and you can’t delete it later.”
Garrett knew that for a fact. He’d checked, and found their internal security system to be top notch, and lightyears ahead of the crap the company was urging them to peddle. Not that Garrett had any nefarious plans to download Spanish donkey porn or plan a Superman Three computer banking heist, but he was curious by nature. Well, he did want to drop that Spanish donkey porn bomb on Kyle or Brad, but couldn’t figure out how to carry it off without leaving any fingerprints on the system. Yet.
“No, man, nothing like that,” Harvey finally replied. Garrett couldn’t remember his question, so distracted as he was by the fantasy of some digital retribution.
“What?”
“Dude,” Harvey said, stretching out the word into at least four syllables. “Lunch was okay, but no nip slips. No, the crazy was in the lobby downstairs. And I’m telling you, that stuff was grade-A cray-cray for shizzle.”
Garrett caught something in Harvey’s voice. A hitch, almost like a sob, and despite the pathetic effort to sound like Snoop Dog, Harvey was rattled by something. Garrett could tell. It was really his only superpower. Telling when his friends were about to lose their shit, that is.
“You alright, dog?” Garrett asked carefully, choosing to play along with his hefty, pasty white friend’s mode of conversation. Garrett was flexible that way, too, though he usually tried to avoid slang and nonsense sayings since he rightly assumed they made him sound unintelligent when talking to customers. So, no Kanye quotes.
Harvey’s response surprised Garrett with its honesty.
“I…I don’t know, Paul,” Harvey said softly. “I’ve never…never seen anything like it. They were just there, pushing into the lobby. Grabbing at people and growling and shit. Snapping their teeth and acting all aggressive. Like a bunch of rabid dogs.”
Harvey stopped right there, and Garrett heard the hiss-puff as the other man took a hit off his inhaler. Asthma, Garrett knew. The guy really was a freaking stereotype, Garrett thought once again, but the idea was quickly banished as he absorbed his friend’s words.
“What the heck? Are you sure it wasn’t some kind of political protest or something? “Down with the Police” or “Up with Criminal Mischief”? You know how it is so hard to tell sometimes in this town.”
As intended, Garrett heard a brief titter of amusement from the other side of the barrier before the other man answered. This time, his words sounded stronger as he continued to speak.
“No, man. I wish. Remember those anti-Trump protesters, the ladies who were going topless to bring attention to the man’s attitudes towards women? This wasn’t anything like that. These folks, the protesters or whatever, they looked sick. And some of them were bloody, too. Looked more like soccer hooligans in Manchester that our usual class of sign waver.”
“And they made it into the lobby?” Garrett asked, still a bit skeptical and now more than a little nervous. What use was a high tech security system if the nuts could still get inside?
“Oh, heck yeah. They got in, and jumped some people, too. You know Marla, Mr. Stovall’s secretary? She got a bad scratch on her arm, and Jim Bucknell, over in accounting? He looks like he got it even worse. Looks like a bad cut or something on his side. Like somebody stabbed him with a broken beer bottle. The paramedics are supposed to come take a look at him in a little bit.”
That struck Paul like a kick to the seat of the pants. What the hell?
“Ah, Harvey, what do you mean? That makes no sense. The paramedics should have been there to see him in a few minutes. You don’t wait for the paramedics. Or if you have to, that means you should haul your ass to the Emergency Room. And call your lawyer.”
Harvey sighed, and Garrett finally gave up and rose from his seat. Walking around the shoulder high partition, he came up behind the rotund little man as he was still downloading what looked like another video from his smartphone.
“Ah, Paul, I waited awhile with the security personnel while they patched up Jim. I was in the Boy Scouts as a kid and I had some first aid training back then.” Harvey explained, somewhat sheepishly, and quickly continued. “Not much, and I didn’t get to do anything today, but they were just so busy I thought I might be able to help. Since I was just sitting there with Jim, I ended up shooting some video, too.”
Garrett listened, and felt a bit of pride in his coworker for being willing to step up and help. Even if it turned out it wasn’t needed. Not many folks like that left in this country, he thought sadly.
“Maybe we can look at the video after my evaluation is done. And yours, too, of course. But are you saying the paramedics and ambulance were delayed? That seems weird.”
“Paul, have you looked out the window this afternoon?” Harvey asked, his voice a mixture of challenge and exasperation. “Turned on the local news feed? Or checked Facebook?”
Garrett shook his head.
“I really needed to get these coversheets done. But I’m surprised I didn’t hear anything when you and those two made it back from lunch. At least, Marla’s bitching, anyway.”
Harvey managed a strangled laugh at that. Marla was a chunky, horse faced woman in her mid- forties who stank like an ashtray from her chain smoking habit and allegedly possessed the libido of an over-friendly rabbit. Fond of low cut blouses that showed off her massive chest, and perky nipples, Marla also wore skirts so short anyone else would have gotten a stern talking to from Human Resources. She also had a voice like nails on a chalkboard and topped her unappealing ensemble with a privileged attitude that would make the average princess blush. In other words, a perfect match for Kyle Stovall.
“No,” Harvey replied with a snort, “Brad and Kyle have her recovering in Kyle’s back office. Resting on his couch, I heard.”
“Yeah,” Garrett deadpanned softly, “I’m sure that’s her first time riding that leather beast, right?”
Harvey chortled a bit before continuing, his voice now more serious. “Jim’s in Conference Room A, though, with the a few others. Most just have scratches or bumps, but not Jim. He’s pretty bad off, but you still haven’t heard what I’ve been saying. Go look out the window and tell me how the ambulance is supposed to get here.”
Sighing, Garrett turned away from his next door buddy and strode over to the nearest set of floor to ceiling blinds. They were the kind with the wide fake wood slats and the six-foot plastic pole attached to open the shades. The company policy manual dictated the window coverings to be closed at all times. No doubt to discourage workers from being distracted by a view of the outside world.
Moving in what he considered a stealthy fashion, Garrett approached the corner windows that were shielded from view by a large fake plant gathering dust. Ignoring the opening mechanism, the tall and slightly gangly office worker simply lifted one of the plastic blinds instead and snuck a peek outside. Glancing down to the streets below, he felt the air suddenly hiss out from between his teeth.
Downtown boasted a series of four wide, one way streets tha
t was supposed to help alleviate traffic congestion but instead simply served to confuse the out-of-towners and frustrate the locals in equal doses. The company made a big deal of graciously provided free parking for the employees at a garage across the way. With the city constantly fiddling with repairing, resurfacing or restriping the downtown thoroughfares, the gesture seemed like a real bonus by the company.
Sounded great on paper, but reality was a different story altogether. Most of the slots were unassigned, except of course for the management team, and numbered about half what they should have been. Once the lot filled up by seven a.m., everybody else was on their own. Garrett, for instance, parked at the surface lot down the street and coughed up fifteen bucks for the privilege.
So, traffic snarls were nothing unusual for the downtown area. Except what Garrett saw this time was no simple slow drift of vehicles below. As far as he could see from his eighth floor vantage point, this was a huge freaking mess of gridlocked and stalled cars and trucks. Nothing was moving and, though he could hear engine noise right through the glass, or at least sense the vibration, he saw no cars actually moving. What he saw were people in the streets. Some looked to be simply milling around in clumps, but others seemed to be headed somewhere with a purpose. And some just appeared to be running.
“Whoa, Nellie,” Garrett muttered to himself, “that doesn’t look good at all.”
“Hey, Harvey,” he said over his shoulder as he turned, “do you think…”
Paul Garrett wasn’t really that big. Three inches over six foot and weighing in at slightly over two hundred pounds. He wasn’t going to be mistaken for a pro football player anytime soon. But, compared to someone five foot even and barely ninety pounds there was a huge disparity in sheer size.
Someone like Traci Bingham, head down and hurrying around the corner, who plowed into Garrett at a decent clip and started to bounce off like a billiard ball. Fortunately for Traci, Garrett still had fast reflexes and managed to get hands on both her shoulders before the small woman cannoned off into a wall.
