by Mariah Lynde
What struck me most about all of that came in the realization that not one person in this room had congregated or even seemed to be slightly interested in their work mates. If anything, they all seemed oblivious to one another.
I found myself watching the whole scene like some surreal movie moment. Of course, each observation only served to kick start my internal geek as I tried to think of an appropriate phrase to describe just what I was witnessing. Seeing how people turned away from one another to have hushed conversations, or bent over their desks as if they were hoarding some treasure, I could only think that the words I’d have chosen to introduce someone to this place would be all Obi-wan like. Peering over the misfits of our department, myself included, I could just imagine the line spoken being, ‘You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.’
Much like MosEisley, this place was where the action actually took place. If you wanted a way to absolutely make things work, it was here you could find an option. However, each one came at some kind of cost.
Shaking my head at the errant thought, I saw my floor manager, Mr. Shapiro, eyeing me from the doorway of his office. I knew for a fact that the man despised me for throwing him under the bus a few weeks back, and the last thing I wanted was to give him another reason to give me the boot.
Quickly dismissing any thought about a snack of crunchy, salty goodness, I made my way back over to my cubicle. Flopping down into my chair with a huff, I grabbed my headset and put it on once more before slumping down in my chair. This time, my eyes were wide open as my head tilted back towards the ceiling.
Not surprisingly, I sat staring at the ceiling directly above my head. While it may not have bothered anyone else, I found myself deeply troubled as I noticed that one certain tile had not yet been replaced. Less than a month ago I had reported to maintenance that a slowly spreading, yellow stain colored one edge of this particular tile directly above my desk. While I’m not a true hypochondriac, I am also not a person known to drag my heels on eliminating what could possibly be a danger to my person.
Considering my anti-social, anti-people policy, I am also kind of a big conspiracy theorist. Sure, I knew that half the time most of those theories were half-assed and untrue, but my brain only seemed to be happy when it was concocting some strange and elaborate series of events. Today, the working theory happened to be Mr. Shapiro working in conjunction with maintenance to orchestrate my demise. Death by asbestos ceiling tile; I had to give them credit, it was an almost perfect crime.
Just as I considered writing up some kind of death note warning people that I had been murdered, the phone on my desk rang.
You know what they say, when it rains…
“Hello, this is Angel Warren of the IT department, Extension Number Four-Two-One. How may I help you?” God, no matter how many times you said that in a day, each time you could feel a little bit more of your soul dying.
“Mrs. Warren, this is Cal Mitty on Floor Thirty-Two, and I seem to be having problems with my wireless connection.” The voice on the other end belonged to someone I know I’d never spoken to before.
“If you’ll give me just a moment, Mr. Mitty, I will pull up all the information we have on your floor.” Straightening in my seat, I moved to scooch forward towards my desk to pull up the active logs on the computer. For a moment, I found myself dumbfounded by the lack of calls to the department from Mr. Mitty’s office. He must have been new, because God help me, most of the execs called three or four times a week.
“Thank you.” His disjointed voice on the other end of the line told me all I needed to know. He had already dismissed me from his thoughts, waiting only for me to fix the problem so he could hang up and move onto more important things.
That made my blood boil. This day had been a series of frustrating, chaotic, and rather shitty events that had lost me my lunch break. Add to that the high call volume of the day and a bunch of people acting like pompous, entitled asses from the upper floors, this man’s dismissal had the words I wanted to say beginning to well up within me.
It’s a difficult thing to choke on your own emotions, and to this day I think I would have been fine if I had been able to just take one deep breath. That, however, had been too much to ask. Before I could even consider telling Mr. Mitty about the maintenance work being done on the fiber optics lines on his floor, he opened his big damn mouth.
“Can you hurry this up please, Mrs. Warren. I do have important things to do.” That short clipped tone had been all it took for my inner bitch to rear her head. What possessed me to do what I did next is something I can never truly explain. I would love to tell you that it had been because he had said something completely out of line. Called me some derogatory name or threatened my life, but nope. This situation can be explained only as I had been totally, one hundred percent sick of people’s shit.
“First of all, Mr. Mitty, it is Miss, not Mrs.” So far, so good – I should have let it stop there, but I didn’t. “Secondly, I apologize for the inconvenience of you having to wait two damn minutes while I look at the logs for your floor. While I’m sure you have important business to attend to, our servers are overtaxed from the rather high volume of calls coming from the whole building today.”
Yes, I was talking in a peevish, oily little tone. Hell, if the guy had been standing in front of me, I may have done him the courtesy of hissing in his face and trying to see if I could full out Gorgon him to death.
“Miss Warren, I apolo…”
“Save it. I regret to inform you that all internet access and Wi-Fi have been disrupted on your floor while they do maintenance. As soon as it is back up, I will be sure you are informed. Good day, sir.” Without another word I slid one hand forward and pressed the button to disconnect the call.
“Damn, Angel. Are you looking to get fired?” Turning my head, I looked over to see one of the girls working nearby me sitting right in the middle of the aisle.
Of all the people that worked around my little cubicle, Katie had become the one I liked the most. A wallflower by nature, she seemed to be a sweet woman who looked as if she would have been happier chasing butterflies out in a field than cooped up in an office like this. If there had to be a poster child for wholesome farm girls next door, she was it. In fact, it had been Katie I had protected when I threw old Sharpie (i.e. Mr. Shapiro) under the bus.
“Not especially, but that guy was an ass.”
“You know they could nail you for that call.” Katie’s concern was outlined not only in the nervous tremble in her voice, but with her hand idly fidgeting with the small silver dream catcher charm on her necklace.
“Oh, I’m sure they could…if that douche was even paying attention when I spoke my extension number. The likelihood of that is basically slim to none.” I gave a lopsided grin and a wink.
“I hope you’re right.” Katie’s soft spoken words made me relax a little. If nothing else, I could dream that there would be no form of repercussion for what had just happened. I honestly didn’t want to leave her in this office with a whole bunch of vultures circling overhead.
While it had become a taboo office topic, the ‘Incident’ that involved Katie had also involved Sharpie’s former assistant. Jake had been the epitome of womanizing scum. He had a penchant for finding and latching on to new ‘prospects’ in the office, and using his position to force them into line with what he wanted. More than a few girls had come and gone because of his antics. There were plenty of rumors to go around, but no one voiced them for fear of the manager’s anger.
When you worked a menial level job, you were basically stuck, at least back then. You needed the job for the pay and couldn’t afford to lose whatever job you had, considering the state of the economy. At the time, it meant that for those of us on the twentieth floor, no matter what you may have noticed, you couldn’t really do anything about it. Jake was Sharpie’s golden boy so if you complained, the only person that would go through hellfire was you. For months, Jake had been a predat
or actively stalking among helpless lambs and no one could do a thing to stop him.
Some people never pinged on his radar (like me), while others were left alone just because they had no qualities he could exploit.
People like Katie held no true understanding of people with ulterior motives, and in that way they were the perfect kind of prey. Anyone with half a brain cell would have seen how uncomfortable Kate became when Jake’s attentions began. It had been subtle at first, hanging around her cubicle to make small talk about her job or certain protocols. Over time, it became much more overt. There were a slew of sexual innuendos and implications that on the whole bordered on threatening.
Considering the fact I have made it abundantly clear that I am not the biggest on social interaction, you’re probably wondering why I even got involved in this mess. There are, as you are now well aware, exceptions to every rule. Katie became one of them for me. Her first day on the job, she’d been so nervous she had knocked over my coffee when she tried to introduce herself. A part of me had crumbled watching her try to scrub at the sticky mess for ten minutes while crying her apology in absolute horror.
Poor girl had been too sweet for her own good. I don’t know why, but after that, I kind of made it my mission to look out for her. Like I said, I have no clue what the hell got into me. I mean, logically she and I were about the same age, but I felt the need to protect her like she was a little kid. Truthfully, as months passed, I realized she did not have one iota of guile present in her, and that made me all the more protective.
So when the day came that I walked into the almost empty office to retrieve my car keys after everyone (or so I thought) had left, I instead found something that had my hair trigger temper igniting faster than a bottle rocket. Katie was backed against the snack machine in the break room with her hands trying to push Jake away as he pinned her in. I heard her before I saw her, the small mewling noises she was making was the very thing that grabbed my attention in the first place. As I rounded the corner taking in the scene, I reacted. Without a second thought, I strode out of the office, grabbed one of the folding metal chairs in the break room and slammed it over Jake’s back.
Yeah, yeah, I know. What the hell was I thinking? Not exactly the best way to handle the situation, but quite frankly I don’t give a damn. If he had wanted a fair fight, he should have learned to take no for an answer. I stayed with Katie while members of security made their way upstairs. While I had been calling them to put the wheels in motion to get justice for what I had witnessed, Jake had been making his own calls.
Sharpie had been the first call that scumbag made. His second call had been to HR to try and demand my head on a pike. At that moment, I couldn’t have cared less about losing my job. In hindsight, I realize the stupidity of my actions, but I can’t say I really regretted them.
To my relief, one of the guards that showed up had been Isaac. From there, the rest had been cake. He called the cops and filed the incident report. Had it not been for Isaac, things could have gone a whole lot differently.
Early the next day we were called to HR for a meeting over what they were describing as a ‘minor incident’. Considering my penchant for spinning conspiracy yarns, it had not been lost on me that they were already trying to gloss over what had happened to cut down on paperwork. My lack of filter got worse, fueled by my anger over the whole mess, and I had blasted down their house of cards with an impassioned and expletive laden rant. I made it known that Sharpie was well aware of what his boy had been up to, but let it go in order to keep his precious assistant.
Effectively, I had signed my own execution order with that outburst. Jake lost his job, Sharpie got put on probationary status, and I got a pissed off boss. Bright side, I didn’t have charges filed against me for assault, so I suppose there is a small gift in how things turned out. I also got a forever friend in the skittish Katie, even if it came at a price.
At this particular moment however, she was being a worrywart. Not that I blamed her; no one else in this dump seemed to even remember her name. Sighing, I set down my headset and spoke softly as Katie shifted a little in her seat to move back towards her desk.
“It’ll be alright, Katie. How often do any of us even garner more than a second’s notice from the guys upstairs?” Logic, that always seemed a sure fire way to win.
“I get that, but one day your mouth is going to get you in trouble, Angel. I really don’t want to see you in a jam.” Again, I watched as her fingers rolled that small dream catcher charm back and forth on the chain around her neck, and had I been anyone else I might have gotten a little weepy with her proclamation. Still, my eyes smarted and I had to suck in a deep breath just to make sure I hadn’t spurted a leak or anything. Cool façade maintained. Angel – 1, Emotional Breakdown – 0.
“I appreciate that, Katie. Maybe you were sent here to be my conscience.” I grinned a little as I scooted back towards my own desk.
While soft, Katie spoke again. This time, her voice had dropped nearly low enough that it wouldn’t even qualify as a whisper. Still, I heard it none the less. “You know the difference between right and wrong, Angel. You don’t need a conscience, but you do need a guardian angel of your own.”
Again, the waterworks threatened. Much as I liked the kid, almost making me sniffle twice in one day? Not cool. Considering my apparent emotional upheaval (God, this day had sucked) I decided to let that particular vocalization slide unanswered. Still, those words would come back to haunt me soon enough.
Peering down at the computer screen, I noticed the time. Ten more minutes and I’d be out of here like a bat out of hell. Quite frankly, I had been handed more than my share of cranky executives, malfunctioning equipment, and server errors. I wanted nothing more than to go home, take a bath, and lose myself in the mindless culling of newbies, or some movie that offered me comfort in its familiarity.
While I pondered this monumental decision that would dictate the events of my night, I heard the soft peel of Bruno Mars’ The Lazy Song play out from the top drawer of my desk.
I can only imagine what I looked like, diving from my chair and towards that desk drawer like a mouse towards cheese. In my excitement, I lost my grip on the handle twice before I ripped open the drawer with a loud clang that startled everyone in the general vicinity.
My urgency came from the fact that particular ring tone had been set to go off whenever I got a text from Robbie. For anyone who knows my best friend, the fact that he is texting meant a matter of the utmost importance. He hated phones. He hated texting on phones. He hated to talk on phones.
Which was why those daily phone calls meant so much − I’m the exception to his rule. Still, knowing how much he felt about those things, I always did my level best to keep the conversations limited to a few minutes each. What could possibly be so important that it warranted Robbie to text me before our perspective workdays had ended?
A wise woman who knew she had been added on to her boss’s shit list would have slid that drawer shut and waited the…eight minutes it took to be done for the day. I, apparently, am not so wise a woman. I had that phone out on the top of my desk and unlocked faster than you can say ‘cookie’.
Sure enough, there it was in black and white. A notification saying I had received a text message from Robbie. Turning down the volume on my phone, I tapped on the screen to bring up my inbox and scrolled down to find my conversation with him. (Yes, I kept all of our texts until my phone got to full. Hey, sometimes I needed a reference to remember stuff we had spoken about.)
Robbie: Have you escaped hell yet?
Me: Not yet, few more minutes before I can leave. So, I take it this means I will have the pleasure of your company tonight?
Robbie: Looking that way. We need to talk. Serious shit going on down here. Saw something weird and need to know what you think.
Me: What’d you see?
Robbie: Can’t talk about it here. I hate texting. Too much to say.
Me: You’re freaking m
e out. DEFCON Level?
Yes, that’s right. You read that correctly. Like all best friends, we had a sliding scale that determined the severity of an issue that needed to be discussed. For us, we chose DEFCON ‘cause…well, we liked it. We also liked believing that we were that important.
Robbie: It’s a five. Go invisible on Skype when you sign on. Be careful getting home. No stops. No delays. Get home soon.
Me: Alright. <3
There it ended. No reply, no answering emoticon. That in itself told me this had indeed become a DEFCON Five situation. The last one of these we had experienced was when my mother had contacted Robbie when my grandmother had fallen ill. By ill, I mean on her deathbed. So you should know that we do not throw DEFCON Five out willy-nilly. Robbie’s lack of a response to my last message added to my ever growing paranoia that something truly wrong had taken place.
Turning my head to peer at the clock on the wall, I stared blankly for a good two minutes before I realized that it read five o’clock. It took me less than a minute to grab all of my shit and head for the elevator. I needed to get home and find out just what the hell was going on.
Chapter Five– Dawn of the Dead…Kind of…
No matter how quickly I thought I could make it out of the damn office building, fate was intent on being a bitch. I had run from my cubicle like the hounds of hell were on my ass and still missed all four elevators as they passed by my floor. Considering the size of the McGinley building, that meant I would be standing here for a good five minutes, just waiting.
Grumbling my discontent, I rocked back on my heels as the group of people around me began to grow. Where before I would have had maybe five or six people to worry about sharing an elevator car with, I would now be fighting just to get into one of the cars, let alone have enough space to breathe.