The Annex

by Jesse S. Greever

  The Annex

  By Jesse S. Greever

  Copyright 2010 by Jesse S. Greever

  Cover Copyright 2010 by Dara England and Untreed Reads Publishing

  The author is hereby established as the sole holder of the copyright. Either the publisher (Untreed Reads) or author may enforce copyrights to the fullest extent.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold, reproduced or transmitted by any means in any form or given away to other people without specific permission from the author and/or publisher. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to the living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  Also by Jesse S. Greever and Untreed Reads Publishing

  5

  A Summer Wedding

  Una boda de verano

  http://www.untreedreads.com

  The Annex

  By Jesse S. Greever

  1.

  “Psst. Curt.” I was using my whisper-shout voice.

  “Yeah?”

  “You’re looking awfully fidgety over there. You’re not thinking about going out there, are you?”

  “Think I might have a go at it.”

  I pressed my left foot down against the aged carpet to pivot myself in my black faux-leather office chair. It made a protesting squeal under my weight as I turned to face Curt. “You don’t think he’s serious, do you? I mean, tennis balls? Someone could actually get hurt. Or even worse, embarrassed.”

  “I don’t know. But I’ve got to take a leak so bad my eyes are floating. I don’t see that I have much of a choice anymore.” His eyes widened as an impish grin curled up the corners of his mouth. “Unless you have an empty water bottle over there I could use.”

  “Um, yeah. You’re gonna have to go for it.”

  Curt sighed. “That’s what I thought.”

  An idea blossomed in my head. “Hey, I got some old computer boxes over in the corner. You want to fashion some sort of protective gear out of that?” I smirked mischievously, and motioned my head back towards the stack of large boxes haphazardly stacked in the corner.

  “Surely it won’t come to that.” A Wikipedia article dedicated to signs and symptoms of a man who had waited too long to relieve himself would probably show a picture of Curt’s face at that moment under the heading “Things to watch out for.”

  Curt rose slowly to his feet. He managed a fretful half-smile. “If I don’t make it back, make sure and tell my kids that daddy loves them very much, but I had no choice.” The smile morphed fluidly into a grimace.

  He shuffled slowly towards the only door that led into the hallway. He peered out the door as stealthily as possible, paused, and looked back at me. He balled his hand into a fist and raising it above his head in a sort of quasi-revolutionary pose. He mouthed the words “remember me.”

  And then he was gone.

  Not two seconds passed before a strange, hollow popping sound pierced the silence of the small supplemental office building, known only as “The Annex.” It was followed shortly by two or three more sharp reports, each a little louder and more explosive than before. The final blow had a muffled tone to it, and at that point, I knew that Curt was down. As if to confirm my unspoken suspicion, Curt wailed from down the hall in a mixture of pain, surprise and what sounded unmistakably like relief.

  “You have got to be kidding me!”

  Silence.

  The stillness was immediately shattered by a round of raucous laughter from the other end of the hall. Unable to further suppress my curiosity, I sprang from my chair and sidled along the wall up to the doorway. “Curt, you okay out there?”

  “Man down!”

  “Really? Do you need me to come help you the rest of the way to the bathroom?”

  Silence again. Then, sheepishly, Curt replied, “Not so much anymore.”

  If ever chagrin was evident in Curt’s voice, it was right at that very moment. Deep down, I could feel a flutter of compassion for him, but in the end, my amusement won out over any sympathy I might have felt as I belted staccato notes of laughter.

  Much to my relief, Curt began to join in a few seconds later.

  * * *

  Earlier that morning, as Curt and I were sitting down to our desks, we were greeted with photocopies of a handwritten note, titled “The Rules of the Game.”

  My dear colleagues,

  Working with you has been a tremendous pleasure. Nevertheless, I have decided to declare war on each of you. It has come to my attention that the heat pump air conditioning unit in my office is not operating at full capacity, and I am prepared to battle all of you to the death for an office that has a fully functional air conditioner. Please do not think that I have lost any respect for you. I haven’t. It is simply a matter of survival. In your top desk drawer, you will find an unopened canister of tennis balls. These tennis balls are yours. Your office is considered neutral territory. If at any point, you decide to venture beyond the confines of your office into the hallway or common area, you are no longer in neutral territory and are subject to ambush. Tennis balls will be hurled at you with the intent of hitting you. If you are hit by ME, your name will be placed into a drawing at the end of the day. However, after that point, if you then are able to hit me, should I actually decide to come out of my office, your name will be withdrawn from the pool of names. If your name is drawn out at the end of the day, defined as 5:01 PM, I will move into your office effective tomorrow. I apologize sincerely, but this is what must be done.

  Yours, Jerry

  With the slightest hesitation, Curt and I both looked in our top desk drawers, and as the note had correctly described, an unopened canister of tennis balls lay on the bottom of the drawer with a red bow neatly attached to the top. A bright pink sticky note was also attached that read “War is Hell…so is an office with poor air conditioning.”

  We hadn’t been certain if anyone was taking Jerry seriously, but the hallway and common area had seemed extremely quiet that morning. Not until Curt was forced to venture out to satisfy his urgent physiological need did we receive an authentic confirmation that the war was indeed real. And the first casualty had been a messy one.

  Yes, indeed. The game was afoot.

  2.

  Gordman, Crucks and Associates was an accounting firm that had gained national acclaim a few years earlier when it had been assigned the task of auditing a very large utilities corporation suspected of defrauding shareholders by “massaging” information about quarterly earnings. We had been on the front lines of the latest round of corporate scandal crackdowns, and as a medium-sized accounting firm, we realized that this task had the potential of bringing us at least fleeting adoration in the always-fascinating accounting world. We carried out our audits with the fierce precision of a team of snipers, combing every ledger and spreadsheet with a keen eye for the discrepancies that would spell out the alleged fraud. And, when it was all over, with little more than a whimper, the leviathan utilities company was thrown into limbo as all of the top executives were arrested.

  In retrospect, it wasn’t the greatest feeling to hurl a company of 15,000 employees into the unknown, and we fully realized that by turning in our findings to the authorities that we might be plunging a lion’s share of those employees into the unemployment lines. But, justice had to be served, and we served it up with all the bravado that an up-and-coming accounting firm could muster. Within weeks, our executives were on the covers of Business
Week, Newsweek, and Time. We had hit the “big time.” We were positioned to emerge as a fresh face in the world of the great accounting giants like Price Waterhouse Coopers and Ernst & Young. We felt like David after he had slain Goliath. The only difference was that when the real David toppled the real Goliath, the real Goliath was dead. The utilities company that we had “slain” was full of thousands of innocent employees, some with nothing in this world but the income from their job to provide for their families. It was a decidedly unsavory situation.

  It pushed far beyond unsavory a few months later, when a fire was reported at our company’s office building. A young man broke into the building and set fire to the second floor office area before being overtaken by smoke. Fortunately for him, he had been pulled out of the fire by rescue workers and rushed to the hospital. Unfortunately for him, when he was released from the hospital, he was summarily arrested for arson. It took less than twenty-four hours for the news agencies to latch onto the story about our arsonist, and they had had a field day with the fact that he was a former middle-manager for the company that we had destroyed just months before. He was a single father and had apparently been thrust towards the cusp of bankruptcy as the family’s sole breadwinner.

  While the court of public opinion was ready to acquit him on sympathy alone, the judicial system had not been so kind. He was imprisoned for no less than six years.

  Meanwhile, Gordman, Crucks and Associates had been left with a conundrum. The second floor office area normally housed thirteen accountants and numerous administrative assistants. While all of the assistants and a few of the accountants had been temporarily relocated throughout the rest of the building, it became clear that at least six accountants, including myself, were without “homes.” The executives arrived at a temporary solution in the form of a decrepit office building thirteen blocks south of the main office, inconveniently located just a few blocks from the steel mills.

  The insurance company that was handling the claim for our company hired a firm to “technologically rehabilitate” the temporary building with phone lines and high-speed Internet access. A cleaning crew the size of a Third World nation’s army attempted to transform the building from “totally unacceptable” to “marginally presentable.”

  On February 15, 2010, those of us who had been displaced were asked to report to our new digs.

  * * *

  “We outta get hazard pay for this.”

  We all looked at Asher Stritch. What little remained of his pure silver coif had been manhandled by the strong breeze that slipped down South Main Street. As we entered the building, the strands of hair that had escaped the strangle-hold of his Vitalis hair tonic were stretching skyward. He furrowed his brow, making the already well-defined wrinkles on his forehead positively cavernous.

  The floors were lined with dingy yellow linoleum (we all secretly hoped that yellow was its original color). The walls were splashed with a fresh coat of institutional gray paint. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead in a cacophony of electrical discharge.

  “So do we draw straws or what?” Jerry Carlton stepped out and faced us all as he spoke.

  “Why would we need to draw straws?” I chimed in.

  Jerry flashed me a wry smile. “Man, are you sure you got a degree in accounting? Look around you. Six people, five offices.”

  Asher spoke up. “Well, I think the most logical first step would be to ask for volunteers to share an office.” Asher was always the steady voice of reason. He was one of those E. F. Hutton types who commanded attention when he spoke. “Are there two of you that wouldn’t mind sharing an office? I would volunteer, but I’m much too selfish. And I’m almost eighty, and by virtue of my longevity on this earth, it has been decided by God in His Heaven that I will get the largest office, whichever one that may be.”

  I turned my head to look at Curt Brunen, who was standing just a few feet to my left. Our eyes met and we tacitly agreed that since the two of us had been friends for quite some time, we would share the office. He motioned for me to go ahead and announce our magnanimity to the rest of the group. “Well, since none of you are gracious enough to offer, Curt and I will volunteer to share an office. But, with all due respect to you, Asher, I think that Curt and I should have the largest office to share, and Asher can have the next largest office. It’s only fair, I think.”

  Curt nodded. “Nice touch.”

  Asher conceded. “Fair enough. So I will get the largest remaining office, and you guys will share one. First problem of the day solved! Whew, that really took it out of me. Anyone ready for a coffee break?” He strode toward the common area in the center of the building, but halted abruptly as if struck.

  “Sweet fancy Moses!”

  We rushed to his side, afraid something might be terribly wrong, but when we rounded the corner, we all realized the cause for Asher’s alarm.

  “Why, I haven’t seen one of those in years.” Asher’s mouth stood agape at the sight of the water cooler. We had heard from other accountants at conventions that they were becoming quite the novelty at the more “fashionable” accounting firms. This water cooler, however, was not for show or fashion. A small note attached to the cooler indicated that the building water was not fit for human consumption, due to some kind of lead in the old plumbing.

  Asher spun on his heels. “Did we get demoted? Is this some sort of subtle message that we should start looking for other jobs?”

  “Yeah, Ash, didn’t you know? This is all a ploy to finally get you to retire and we’re all in on it. The execs figured it was the only way, since you don’t seem to take their hints very well.” I gave a wry smile as the rest of the group exploded into laughter. Asher joined in. He was as quick as any twenty-two-year-old college grad, with a razor sharp wit to boot.

  Later that day, after we managed to semi-settle into our new offices, we all met out at the common area, which we had already dubbed “The Lounge.” We sat at the table, exchanging stories about our first jobs and the worst places we had ever worked. Finally, Brian Sloan stood up in front of us all.

  “Okay, for our first order of business, I suggest we officially name this office complex ‘The Annex.’ Everyone okay with that?” No objections were brought to the floor. “Very well, motion carried. Okay, now a quick survey. Show of hands: Who here does forty hours of work in a week?”

  The abrupt change in tempo and subject gave us pause. We looked at each other, somewhat perplexed by the question. We were all salaried employees, but we also were required to punch in on a computerized clock system in order to ensure that we were present in the office for the obligatory forty-hour work week. The firm relied so heavily on that system that they had a temporary clocking system, The TimeKeeper Remote Series 690, installed in our temporary location. It was somehow connected via Internet to the main TimeKeeper server at the downtown office.

  Jerry Carlton raised his hand to speak. “Um, we all do Brian. Kind of hard to get around that system they have. In at eight, out at five, with an hour for lunch. Why? What have you been doing? Is there something we should know about you?”

  “Let me rephrase gentlemen. Listen, I know that we are all in attendance at work eight hours a day, five days a week. But I had this economics professor one time that said if you give a worker forty hours of work to do in a week, he will do it in forty hours. But if you give him twenty hours of work to do in a week, he will still do it in forty hours. Do you catch my drift? So let me ask again. How many of you actually do forty hours of real work in a week? Or more to the point, how many of you actually do forty hours worth of work in week?”

  We all looked around the table. Not a single hand was raised.

  “Uh-huh. Just as I suspected. Okay, new question: If you were given proper motivation, how quickly could you completely your normal weekly tasks?”

  “I don’t know. What kind of motivation did you have in mind there, chief?” Jerry had the unfortunate and unflappable ability to make every statement sound somewhat inappr
opriately suggestive. We all groaned. “What? What did I say?”

  I piped up, “I don’t know. I guess I could probably finish everything in about eighteen hours, maybe.”

  Jerry peered at me with a glint of competitiveness in his eyes. “Fifteen.”

  Curt joined the fray. “Twelve.”

  Brian looked around the table. “Anyone else? I’m on board with around twelve to fourteen hours.”

  “Oh, I didn’t realize we were allowed to quote a margin of error in our calculation.” Curt’s comment drew mild chortles from the rest of us.

  Roman Whinston, normally the quiet and brooding type, pushed his glasses up above the ridge on his nose, and managed a moderately wide grin. “Eight hours.”

  Realizing I had been outdone, I requested to revise my estimate.

  “Too late, man. You already put in your two—” Brian was interrupted by Asher.

  “Three hours.” An unmistakable air of pride punctuated his words.

  “Holy crap, Ash. Seriously?” Jerry stood with his hands on the table, leaning towards Asher.

  “Yeah, the managers don’t give me much to do anymore. They don’t think I've got much going on upstairs, and I don’t do a whole lot to disabuse them of that notion. I’ve been working for fifty-six years, and I’m pretty sure that this is the break I’ve been waiting for my whole life. You see, that’s why my computer screen didn’t face the door in my office downtown. I play Internet Hearts at least four hours every day.”

  We sat in stunned silence.

  A few moments passed before Jerry finally spoke up. “Well, then I bow to the master.” He twirled his finger from his forehead in a show of pseudo-fealty.

  Roman looked up. “Okay, so what’s your point Brian? You got us all to admit that we are officially lazy. Now what?”

  Brian’s light brown eyes lit up. “No, see, that’s not my point at all. Don’t you get it? We’ve been given an opportunity, at least temporarily, to actually enjoy our time at work. The upper management can’t be here to oversee what we are doing, so they installed that clock thing.” He gestured at the TimeKeeper positioned on the north wall of The Lounge. “So, we still have to punch in and punch out. But, who says that we have to work the entire time that we’re here? I figure, we get our work done from about 8:00 to 10:00, then we attend to more enjoyable activities the rest of the day.”