by C. J.
“Well I was going to tell you because it’s kinda cool, but then I thought you might lose your phone on purpose just so you could find it. Just go to lost/stolen phone heading and enter your phone number. Your password is the usual.”
“Oh gimme some credit, I wouldn’t do that. Well, not too many times. How many times did you lose yours? And how do you know my password?”
“Four. The last time someone was just about to pick it up, so I thought I should conclude the testing process. Your password is “the usual.” Type it all in a row no spaces.”
“Good idea. Okay cool, it accepted it. I’m ready to ring, how about you?”
“Ready, ring.”
Both froze in anticipation of the ringtones.
“How long does it take?” whispered Danny.
“I don’t know. It always took me awhile to find the phone. Probably a little longer than a Words with Friends response, but I’m just guessing.”
Danny tilted his head and raised his hand, “Wait I hear something.” God, what is that? It’s ear bleeding hideous.”
“It’s, it’s. I forgot what ring back I chose for you. It’s your phone.” Kevin was laughing so hard he couldn’t speak. “BBBBiiiiieebb,” he finally managed.
“Bib what’s a bibe?”
“Justin Bieber,” gasped Kevin.
“You really are the biggest asshole on the planet.”
“I couldn’t resist.”
“Hey, why is it fading? Thank God, but it seems to be moving away. Why is my phone moving away?”
“It sounded like it was coming from the bank of elevators or maybe the stairs. I didn’t hear the noise of the elevator doors, so it must’ve taken the stairs.”
“Will you stop making it sound like my phone grew legs and it decided to go for a stroll. How did it suddenly start moving?”
“Suzanne. Fuck.” They both moaned in unison.
Suzanne had propped the lobby stairs door open to better hear any activity in the lobby. From the second floor landing, she could hear what sounded like a three-ring circus being set up by drunken clowns. “God, those idiots are about as stealthy as water buffalo.”
Just then the phone began emanating a horrible sound. She frantically tried to answer it to get it to stop or dismiss the call, but realized it wasn’t a call it was a remote locator tone. The high pitched wailing voice wouldn’t stop. Luckily there was a fire escape near the landing, and the phone immediately became a clay target in Suzanne’s sights. One last wail came from the phone, and then, BAM! No more screeching.
“Thank God for that. That would be the ultimate torture. I wonder if our boys in the CIA have thought of Bieber torture. That’s probably too extreme for even them,” Suzanne muttered. Hearing more commotion from downstairs, she walked down to the lobby level and pointed her AR toward the open lobby door.
“Well, if the phone and Suzanne are headed upwards, maybe we can head outside through the front lobby doors. We can grab the Tweedles and be on our way,” Danny said as he started running for the security office. Kevin, however, still wanted his phone and was loitering next to the shelf of potted plants alongside the security desk, wondering why his phone’s alert hadn’t gone off when “STOLEN!” suddenly erupted near his head. Kevin jerked back from the potted plants slipped on the mixture of hand sanitizer and spent shells and promptly fell to the floor.
Suzanne heard “STOLEN” echo through the lobby, and thinking one of the idiots was coming toward the door, shot off a round through the open door that traveled across the lobby and lodged into the information security desk closest to the exit doors. She realized her mistake almost immediately and stopped firing. “Idiot, the only thing you’ve hit so far is a phone, and now a phone alert is giving you the jitters.”
The Tweedles had ventured out of the security office just as Danny ran up to the door to tell them it was time to vacate the building. Danny heard “STOLEN,” turned to see where it had come from, and saw Kevin fall at just about the same moment Suzanne fired the AR round through the lobby stairs door. “Kevin!” Danny shouted as he grabbed Mitchell’s .45 and ran toward the stairwell.
Kevin crawled out from behind the desk and saw Danny running by with Mitchell’s .45.
“Oh, this can’t end well,” sighed Kevin and started after Danny.
“Danny, where are you going? This isn’t like playing Call of Duty; you don’t know what you are doing.”
Hearing Kevin behind him, Danny attempted to put on the brakes, but he was already through the threshold of the doorway. He tried to make a quick U-turn and duck at the same time but only succeeded in sliding on his butt. The hand sanitizer had managed to get all over his clothing, and there was enough on his pants to help his distance. He was able to slide into the landing and head down the stairwell.
Suzanne heard the commotion coming and was aiming for her target’s head. She wasn’t prepared for a Danny sized missile sliding through the doorway on his butt shooting wildly. Bullets bounced off the handrails and walls until Danny hit the stairs. Feeling the need to hang onto something, he grabbed for the rail. Suzanne hit the ground and retreated briefly into the second-floor hall until the shots diminished and then stopped. She crept forward on her belly toward the railing, and looked down into the stairwell to see Danny’s head disappear down toward the lower level as, Kevin ran toward him. Suzanne felt the time had come to finish them off, and sprinted down the stairs with her bag of goodies strapped to her back. She slammed the stairway door shut and blocked it with a wedge of wood she kept in her duffel bag just for that purpose seconds before the Tweedles arrived at the door armed to the teeth.
Kevin now asked Danny, “Where are we going?”
“I don’t know. I thought that bitch had shot you, and I really didn’t have a plan. We can hide in the NMR room.”
“OK, but we will have to lose the gun and everything else. Hey, crazy legs is absolutely loaded down with.”
“Yes, I know this should be fun.”
They both high fived each other and with an excessive amount of noise, ran into the NMR room and hid behind the washing machine.
“Where are you going to go, boys?” Suzanne crooned. “You’ve cornered yourselves. You two never were the brightest bulbs, but out of this entire building, this is the room you decide to hide in and in the corner. What a couple of weenies.”
As she was giving this motivational speech, she maneuvered closer and closer to her prey but all of a sudden she felt a sudden jerk by her weapon toward the NMR.
“What the hell..?”
She managed to finish this sentence just as her rifle attached itself to the body of the NMR. She could’ve let go at this point, but no fucking machine was going to take her favorite rifle. She took two steps forward and was immediately whirled around and pulled back toward the NMR by her backpack, which unfortunately for her was chock full of metal. Suzanne believed in heavy duty rather than plastic. She struggled and only succeeded in dropping the pack onto her wrists and hands, so now she couldn’t undo the pack from her body. To make matters worse, she was wearing her steel tipped combat style boots.
“Hi, Suzie. If you get bored, you may want to peruse the posters on the wall. You obviously didn’t bother to before now,” intoned Kevin.
“Tah-tah, for now, Suz,” Danny sang in his friendliest of voices.
“Posters? Why would I want to read any fucking posters, you shits?”
On the wall, conveniently in front of Suzanne for her reading pleasure, was a large poster with orange and red lettering and a cartoon character shaped like a beaker with an unhappy face and the words,
“Magnet Field.”
Suzanne read further, out loud: “No moveable metal objects allowed within 3 meters of the instrument. Now you tell me. ‘May permanently damage watches, calculators, and some credit cards.’ Oh no you mean my watch may not tell the correct Greenwich Mean Time? I think that’s the least of my fucking problems. Oh shit, should’ve read this first. ‘Magnet Quenchi
ng, Cryogenic Failure- Helium and Nitrogen gases may involve risk of asphyxiation in confined space.’ I wonder if the magnet quenches if, say, there is a nearby explosion. Fuck, fuck fuck!” screamed Suzanne as she attempted to move her arms and legs and was only able to make slow, turtle like movements except for her head, which repeatedly banged against the NMR.
“Too bad, about Suzanne. I really liked her cookies,” Danny said to Kevin as they wandered through their lab on their way out to the stairway.
“What do you mean by her cookies? Her cookies. Or her cookies?
“Don’t be such an ass. Her cookies.”
“Okay then.”
“Um, Kevin, what are these gray blobs doing scattered around the lab?”
“What blobs? Uh, those aren’t blobs. That’s C4! Let’s get the hell outta here and tell Roger and Mitchell.”
“See Four? See four of what?”
“Never mind, let’s move!”
CHAPTER TEN
MAGGIE WAS ALTERNATING between giggling at the sight of pompous Jaquess sliding to the floor and fuming about Danny who should have been there to stop her barrage of insults as she walked to her car. It’s really all Danny’s fault. I wonder what the blowback on this little event will be. Oh well it’s Friday, maybe it will all be forgotten over the weekend. Oh crap, the biochemistry exams, they are still in my desk.
Maggie spun around and headed to her office around the back way to avoid any witnesses to her latest little explosion. As she entered her office, mentally rehearsing a speech about all the freedoms we so enjoy here in these great United States, one being free speech, she spotted a rail-thin figure lurking behind her desk. As a big believer that the best defense is a strong offense, Maggie ran toward the crouching figure, shouting, “What the hell do you think you’re doing in my office?”
The individual squawked a few times, staggered and then fell backward onto Maggie’s office chair. If the chair hadn’t been right behind this person, they would’ve crashed to the floor. Maggie prodded this strange person with her foot, and when there was no response except for a small whimper, turned on her desk lamp.
“Trainwreck! Damn it you scared the hell out of me. What are you doing in my office?”
“101 notes, lost. Do you have the book, with quiz answers? Please.”
Maggie was used to Trainwreck’s abbreviated speech when he was around her. She sighed, deeply counted to ten, counted to ten again and pulled her desk drawer out with such force that the contents jumped up and out of the drawer. Tranwrach attempted to help Maggie pick up the papers and assorted office supplies, but Maggie pushed him aside, causing him to land in a heap on the floor. Maggie found the answer key he needed and handed it to him. While on the floor, Tranwrach saw that Maggie never seemed to lose things like he did and had all the answer sheets for all the classes in order, as well as a healthy supply of office supplies including folders and binders. He spied some colorful graphs on some paperwork that had slithered under Maggie’s desk and became transfixed by them, but was soon being shooed out of her office.
After Maggie had ejected Tranwrach from her office, she locked it and attempted to sneak out to her car without running into one of her colleagues. Just when she thought she was in the clear, a huffing Dennis Raymond, head of the chemistry department, accosted her.
“Maggie, Maggie, Maggie,” he puffed.
“What, what, what?” Maggie answered somewhat snottily.
“Have you checked the news? Have you called Danny or Kevin or have they called you?”
A cold rock of fear dropped into Maggie’s stomach. The anger she felt toward Danny immediately turned into panic. “What do you mean? What’s happening?”
She nearly tore Dennis’s phone out of his hand as he turned it toward her to show her the news. The front of the Lexi Corp. building, was on the screen, and the scroll at the bottom read that at least one gunman was inside Lexi Corp. with an unknown number of hostages and there was a heavy police presence at this time.
Maggie ran toward her Jeep with Dennis’s phone in her hand with Dennis shouting behind her, “I don’t think they’ll let you near there. Hey, wait, my phone!”
As Maggie drove past Dennis, his phone came flying out the driver’s side window and a faint “Sorry!” followed.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
ROGER AND MITCHELL were still upstairs in the lobby trying not to get shot by the ever-increasing presence of law enforcement drawn to the building by the gunfire and flashbangs. Mitchell had first spotted a sniper across the street behind a cement directory board and told Roger, “Hey we don’t have to call the police, they are already here,” waving toward the cement directory board through the glass windows of Lexi Corp. Unfortunately for Mitchell, all the sniper saw through his monocular was an individual with what appeared to be every form of weapon devised by man strapped to his body waving his arms around.
“Command from Charlie Unit 123, have eyes on one target. One heavily armed target, most likely wearing body armor. Suggest to other units to confine fire to above and below torso.”
“Message received Charlie 123. Do you see any other activity?”
“Charlie 123. Yes, there appears to be a second subject, unknown if hostile or hostage. Wait. The second subject is with the armed target; he is also armed, and pulled the first subject away from view.”
At that moment Roger had not quite a light bulb moment, but more of a night light moment. He realized that Mitchell waving his arms around while armed like Rambo might not be such a good idea and pulled Mitchell away from the lobby windows.
“What are you doing Roger, I’m trying to get their attention?” wailed Mitchell and started to head back to the windows.
“It might not be such a good idea to stick your head out there looking like that,”
explained Roger.
Mitchell twirled around and looked down at himself. “Looking like what?”
“Look at me. If you were on the SWAT team and saw me in an office building waving my arms around, what would you do?”
Mitchell looked at Roger for a moment, taking in the AR hanging from his shoulder, the shotgun slung over his back, the .40 cal. Glock in his bulletproof vest, and the extra rounds of assorted ammo wrapped around his waist like a belt. Not to mention the other three other guns in various calibers strapped to his legs and in a shoulder holster. Mitchell was confident Roger had knives of multiple sizes tucked into his boots and belt as well.
“I would think that is one fucking awesome dude, man” Mitchell said and stuck out his hand for Roger to high five him.
“Think again,” Roger said. Seeing the expression on Mitchell’s face, put his hand on his shoulder and said, “Now think harder. A man heavily armed in a cosmetics company. Good guy or a bad guy?”
Mitchell paused with his hand still in the air, high fiveless, and thought. He kept thinking of himself as a SWAT team member and drifted off until Roger smacked his hand.
“Damn it, Mitchell, I know you can do this.”
Mitchell once again looked at Roger and suddenly saw him as he was a heavily armed man. An incredibly heavily armed man, almost to the point of overkill. But no, he could see a use for everything Roger was carrying. One could never be too careful, Mitchell nearly drifted off again but caught himself. “Damn, I would cap your ass in a second. Wow, I could’ve been shot, and I’m one of the good guys.”
“Hey speaking of good guys, where are Danny and Kevin?” asked Roger.
“Last I saw of them, they were headed downstairs with Suzanne.”
“Crap on a stick, we have to help them out and somehow let the police know we are the good guys,” Mitchell said as he started for the stairs.
“STOLEN”
“What the hell was that?” Mitchell asked, turning toward the sound and simultaneously firing his shotgun. He had forgotten he was using deer slug rounds and when he fired he had not tucked the butt end of his Mossberg 590 into his shoulder and nearly tore his shoulder off when he pressed th
e trigger. Luckily the only thing he hit was the up button on the elevator next to the potted plant, which gave a sickly ding and was heard no more. The round must’ve struck something vital, or the doors had more common sense than the living organisms on the ground level and stayed firmly shut.
“It’s one of the guys’ phones, Mitchell. Stop firing.”
Roger dug around the potted plant, came up with Kevin’s phone and waved it over his head like a winning lottery ticket.
“Got it, and it has three signal bars” sang Roger rocking back and forth on his heels.
“Hurry up and dial. We have to find the guys.” As Mitchell said this, he heard not so stealthy footsteps coming up the stairway.
A shotgun and two Glocks were aimed at the doorway as the footsteps approached.
“Hey it sounds like two sets of footsteps. I bet it's Danny and Kevin,” said Mitchell lowering his weapons.
“Or it could be Suzanne chasing either Danny or Kevin, or Danny or Kevin chasing Suzanne, or possibly a third or fourth unknown person or persons yet not identified,” countered Roger.
“Ah, or...” Mitchell was unable to finish his next scintillating thought for Danny and Kevin appeared at the doorway, panting and just in time to see Mitchell and Roger pointing their respective weapons at each other while involved in an in-depth discussion.
“Why are you guys pointing guns at each other? Danny asked .
Kevin put up his hand in a crossing guard fashion in front of Danny. “Don’t get them started. We need their, umm expertise downstairs. Kevin turned to the guards.
“Mitchel, Roger what do you know about C-4? Wait. I don’t want to know all you know about C-4. We just need to know if you can recognize it and remove it safely.”
At this question, Mitchell and Roger lit up like six-year-olds coming downstairs on Christmas morning and seeing new bikes and a mountain of toys. However, in this case, it was a mountain of C-4.
“Yes, certainly we can. It’s usually off-white similar in appearance to modeling clay and can be used in a brick-like form or molded into different shapes. The tricky part is that it can be stuffed into cracks and other small spaces and can be overlooked if one isn’t careful,” answered Roger.
