Just Another Job

by Casey Peterson

  “Did you find it?” asked Johnykin. They were sitting and Chris reached into his pocket. He pulled out the fragments of plastic and metal that made up the USB drive.

  “Oh no,” said Johnykin. “Can you fix it?”

  Chris puzzled over the mess in his hand and studied the chip. There didn't appear to be any damage to the guts of the device. “Won't know until we try it.”

  “Come on guys,” said Frank. “Get off your asses and do something.”

  Johnykin opened her mouth to argue the point, but Chris pocketed the USB drive and hurdled over the seat to the cargo area. There were carpeted panels that could be lifted. Johnykin stayed in her seat to give Chris room to work and leaned over to watch.

  “Those are for another row of seats,” said Johnykin. She tried to remain helpful.

  Chris pulled them up forcefully. Underneath were attachments for the seats as Johnykin stated, but also what they had been looking for. It was the size of a small phone. There weren't any blinking red lights or noises coming from it but it was obviously foreign. A strong magnet held it to the metal frame in which the seats normally clung to.

  “We got it!” said Johnykin to Frank in the front.

  “Get rid of it!” said Frank.

  “Not yet,” said Chris. He scurried over the seat and back to his front row view of the action. They just started down the last hill on to the 205 and into Tracy. He looked to the side mirror to spot their pursuit but couldn't find them. “You ditched them?”

  “Just put some distance between that they'll make up soon enough,” said Frank. “They're driving safe.”

  “No reason to rush,” said Chris holding up the GPS tracker.

  “So get rid of the damn thing.”

  “Take the exit for the mall,” said Chris. He pointed to emphasize.

  “What!?” said Frank.

  “Just do it!” said Chris. Frank slowed down and swept the SUV across the lanes to make the exit. He blasted through the stoplight and headed for the mall parking lot. Chris opened his window to better see the collection of hundreds of vehicles parked in one area.

  Frank put together the plan and pulled inside. He scanned the parking lot. Johnykin figured it out too and did the same. With three sets of eyes it didn't take long. Johnykin spotted it first and Frank sped up to reach before she could finish saying 'there.'

  Frank put the brakes on hard as Chris jumped out with the GPS in hand to face another black SUV.

  “It's not the same model,” said Frank.

  “Doesn't matter,” said Chris with his back on the pavement looking for a good spot underneath the carriage to stick the tracker to. The magnet held it securely to the frame and Chris squirmed out from beneath.

  “We'll go around the back streets of the mall before getting back on the freeway,” said Frank.

  “Sure,” said Chris. “But we need to stop at RadioShack first.”

  “The fuck why? I don't care if they're taking their time to get us we don't have time for shopping.”

  Chris pulled out the USB. Frank groaned as loud as he could and drove to the back of the mall. They parked and rushed out.

  He hurried them inside and jogged to the RadioShack store. Chris went through the shelves as fast as he could, grabbing a soldiering kit, wires, screwdrivers, and any other possible piece he would need. He handed them over to Frank and pointed to the register to keep things moving.

  The speed of everything didn't give Frank time to dissect what they were doing and he felt uncomfortable in his position as a follower to Chris. Not to mention the implied notion that he would pay for everything at RadioShack today.

  Chris threw down a roll of electrical tape on to the counter. “That’s it.” Everything else was rung up and the cashier scanned the barcode before whispering the final price to Frank who already had a death grip on his credit card. Chris shoved everything into a black duffel bag he found in the SUV. The whole process took less than five minutes, but they had no clear idea how far behind Erik was and so nervously searched the crowd as they hustled back to the SUV.

  Frank unlocked the doors and Chris dove into the back seat. He grabbed something and jumped back on to the pavement where he began tearing off his clothes.

  “What the hell are you doing?” said Frank. He opened the door and stood on the ledge to peer over the top of the SUV.

  “Changing,” said Chris, and once he was down to his underwear scooped up the Super suit and put it on. Fully dressed again, Chris ran around the back of the SUV to Frank. “I’m driving; you’re changing in the car.”

  Frank handed the keys over. It was getting easier to follow Chris’s orders but not by much. Johnykin threw the other Super suit at Frank as he moved to the back seat. Before they could close the doors, Chris put the SUV in gear and peeled out of the parking space. The movement jolted Frank and Johnykin back in their seats and Chris’s continued aggressive driving made it much more time consuming to change.

  Like Frank advised, Chris took the long way around a couple back roads to get past the mall and onto the 205 freeway again. There was no sight of Erik or any other black SUVs trailing them. Frank finished getting the suit on and climbed to the front seat. Johnykin was dressed too and leaned forward in the middle of them.

  Johnykin and Frank spoke at the same time, “What’s —“

  “We go to X-Tech and tell them there's a reported bomb threat. Then we hijack the internet and TV broadcasts to show everyone the video about the true Supers.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The X-Tech headquarters was a repurposed theater downtown, modern accoutrements from energy-efficient windows to expensive security cameras popped up every few feet. Johnykin elongated her neck to its furthest point in her lead through the automatic glass doors. Chris and Frank flanked her with their chests flexed and sticking out like Olympic demigods.

  The first impression was key, as Chris told them before leaving the SUV. At the moment, he proved right. The receptionist at the main lobby entrance gawked and unceremoniously hung up on a customer seeking assistance. She then reigned in her feeling of awe to become as helpful as possible in assisting the impressive figures before her.

  “Good afternoon. How may I help you gentlemen and miss?” said the receptionist.

  Johnykin smiled weakly at the passive aggressive question. Then she stepped forward to the half-moon desk and placed her knuckles on the polished granite. Johnykin leaned forward to come within inches of the now embarrassed receptionist.

  “We don’t mean to startle or panic anyone —or you —here, but we have a very reliable source telling us a terrorist has planted a bomb inside the building,” said Johnykin.

  “A what?” said the receptionist now pale along with embarrassed.

  Chris walked up to put himself shoulder to shoulder with Johnykin and placed a bag on the desk. “Call security or the manager in charge and tell them to evacuate the building as calmly as possible.”

  “Okay,” said the receptionist, and picked up the phone again. She eyed the bag.

  “Tools for bomb disposal,” said Johnykin, and stayed to watch over her complete the call. Chris moved away from the desk to talk to Frank.

  “I don’t know. What if they’ve changed the security programs to something I can’t get around? What the fuck do we do then?” asked Frank. He bit at his nails and stared down the incoming employees.

  “Then we plug the USB in to any computer here and at least get it on to reddit like the original plan,” said Chris.

  “Look at them. I don’t recognize anyone here. They must have been getting rid of people constantly. Finding bullshit reasons to fire everyone.”

  “Probably. That doesn’t matter unless it helps you right now. Come on, we have to do a search and lock this place up.”

  Chris ushered Frank back to Johnykin, who was waving off the receptionist. They stood tall again at the front desk, pushing the play to as believable a point as they could.

  A man in a suit stopped to
talk to Johnykin. “When are the bomb squads or rest of the emergency services coming? There’s no one outside.”

  Johnykin smiled and grabbed the man’s hand. “Sir, we’re Supers. We are the first responders. This should be taken care of in a relatively short time with the least bit of inconvenience towards you and your company. If we need backup, they’ll come.”

  “Okay,” said the man. He wasn’t convinced but walked out and immediately went to his cell phone to make a call.

  With the man in the suit taking up the rear of the exiting crowd, Frank followed behind him. The man waited on his call due to Frank’s towering torso eavesdropping just behind. At the entrance, Frank disabled the automatic sensors and forced the two panes of thick glass together and locked them. He gave an inspired thumbs up to the crowd outside looking back in. The man in the suit had his phone to his ear now and was directing everyone away from the building just in case his suspicions proved unfounded.

  Chris made his way past the cubicles and open rooms searching for any stragglers. Frank caught up to him and did the same, looking under desks and around corners. Johnykin stayed at the front desk. She grew more nervous after each passing minute. The floor gripped her feet in place as her mind ran through the scenarios of what might be in store for them in the preceding hour.

  Once Chris and Frank finished skimming the first floor, Chris realized Johnykin hadn’t joined them. He jogged back to the front where he found her staring into the grey stone of the receptionist’s desk.

  “Hey, Johnykin,” said Chris. She didn’t respond. He grabbed her shoulders to pull her gaze away from the murky reflection. “We gotta get away from the door. We need you to stand guard in the basement.”

  Johnykin pulled Chris into a tight hug. Her hands dug into his back as she cried into his shoulder. Chris squeezed her gently in return. He needed to get them to the basement to start, but he also needed Johnykin alert and focused on watching his and Frank’s backs. Chris waited for her to release and after a long minute the crying stopped. She pulled back to wipe the tears but gave one last quick hug as a silent thank you.

  Chris held Johnykin’s hand to add some extra assurance towards the immense gambit they were about to try to pull off as he took her to the basement entrance where Frank waited impatiently.

  The basement was just a broken lock away and down a short series of steps. The X-Tech building kept it’s storage on the second floor and to help with cooling costs, kept all the servers in the basement. All three made their way down to a chilly room with metal cabinets housing thousands of computers designated solely for access points to the World Wide Web and as a distribution of television services to the majority of the West Coast.

  Johnykin stayed next to the stairwell as Chris and Frank moved past the columns of powerful technology.

  “They might have moved the terminal. I haven’t been down here in forever,” said Frank.

  “Then we find the new location,” said Chris.

  “Here,” said Frank, stopping at one of the towers.

  “That was easy. They can afford to fire us but not move a tower,” said Chris. He handed over the black bag with the contents of their shopping spree at RadioShack. Frank pulled out a giant flat head screwdriver and forced it into a flimsy lock on the metal panel. A sharp wrench of the tool snapped the lock and swung the panel open. Chris grabbed the screwdriver out of Frank’s hand and took the bag back too. He shrew the contents of the bag across the floor before starting the reassembling of the USB drive to a workable state. Frank pulled out a tray from the tower with a laptop fixed to it and began his work.

  From Johnykin’s position next to the stairs, she could only make out part of what Chris and Frank were doing. She looked back up the stairs. What good could she do down here, she thought. There was only one way to get to the basement. If she was already inside, others would be inside too before she could stop them. Johnykin moved decisively up the steps and back to the first floor.

  She was at a better advantage to see everything but had nothing to defend them with from a gun-wielding Erik. Stepping around the cubicles and finding the same cheap desks and computers sprinkled with the usual personal paraphernalia didn’t offer any help. There was a second floor, she thought. But how much time until Erik showed up? An hour or two, maybe.

  Johnykin ran to the back of the building, figuring a door to the second level had to be in the vicinity. Away from the main entrance and thinking back on the basement, she felt the building fell short of its initial modern visage. Eventually a door with a just as primitive lock appeared. She sprinted and flung her body shoulder first into the metal obstacle. The lock snapped and she stumbled to keep her feet under her as another set of stairs, leading up, appeared.

  Back in the basement, Chris worked furiously to put the drive back together. The metal USB plug snapped off during or sometime after the plastic casing was destroyed. Chris couldn’t remember when now, but the process wasn’t as complicated as he once imagined. He could solder the plug back on and the drive should work perfectly. The plastic casing was pointless.

  “I need about twenty more minutes,” said Frank. His eyes were glued to the screen.

  “That’s fine. I’ll need about the same.” Chris looked up to watch Frank’s progress. It was extraordinary to see Frank processing information in a language almost completely foreign to Chris.

  Chris’s imagination took over from this thought. In his mind, he plugged in the USB drive and the video streamed out to the millions of televisions and web enabled devices connected to X-Tech’s servers. The three of them would walk out of the building to applause and possible cheers from the waiting crowd. But it didn’t stop there. Chris’s mind went further. The three of them would go on talk shows to tell their story, and then Chris would write a New York Times bestselling book about it all. Erik would face a lifetime sentence for the murders of Klaus and Carmen.

  The dreamy fog grew thicker. Klaus and Carmen were dead. Chris saw the bloody corpses in his mind. They seemed more grotesque than he remembered. Blood was smeared over their faces and they were already beginning to rot. Wait, thought Chris. What am I doing? That’s not what happened. None of what he had been thinking had happened or would happen. It didn’t matter, either. But then Chris saw Frank and Johnykin riddled with bullets. Erik stood over them laughing.

  Stop, Chris screamed in his head. He felt his imagination tugging in the back. It whispered Sadie, Gerry, Louise. Chris closed his eyes. It was dark except for blips of light. The thoughts faded, but the lights were swirling into the images whispered by his imagination. He focused on the idea that should have been front and center and that was ahead of everything else earlier. The light formed into the broken drive, but then jumped quickly to Frank and the computer.

  Chris opened his eyes. “Shit.”

  “What?” asked Frank not daring to look away from the screen.

  “There’s no port. There’s no port for me to plug into the USB.”

  Frank stopped and pulled his head down to look at each side of the laptop. “Fuck!” He attempted to pry the laptop from the tray but it was bolted down.

  “Hold on, don’t break the damn thing. I can attach the drive manually like in Syria.”

  “Shit, I lost my train of thought. I still need time to break through the security and open all the lines to do a remote take over.”

  “And I need to attach the wires to create a link and now that we’ve said everything we should do…” Chris went back to work.

  Johnykin’s heart pumped faster as she took the final step up to the second floor door. This door had no locks and creaked open with a firm push. Inside was not the revelation she hoped for. There was no secret cache of machine guns or rocket launchers that would make everything convenient. Instead, hundreds of worn out computers and large tube monitors spread across the floor in piles. Mechanical mouses, floppy drives, and dot matrix printers gathered dust along with their various obsolete cousins.

  Something had
to be useful amidst the piles of junk. Johnykin told herself this as she swam through the first wave of off-white plastics. A lot of the equipment was heavy. They could throw the monitors or keyboards at Erik, thought Johnykin. Instead she continued to search for a more effective weapon.

  Chris's thinking ran smoothly again. The blips of distracting thoughts barely registered in the back of his mind and his hands moved confidently through the steps of constructing a new wired adapter.

  Frank made just as much progress, more in fact, when he shouted, “I'm through!”

  Chris looked up to see an overjoyed and tired face. “One more minute.” He soldered the last wire carefully to the tiny motherboard of the drive. “Start opening up the laptop.”

  Frank dove to the floor of tools looking for screwdrivers and then started underneath the tray that held the underside of the laptop in an inconvenient position for what they needed. Chris kept his eye on the solidified metal while tugging lightly on the wire that was held fast to it. The drive was ready. Chris stood up and felt his back pop in several places from hunching over for who knew how long.

  “What time is it?” asked Frank.

  Chris set the drive next to the laptop and pulled his phone out of the bag. “Almost 12:30. I don't see more than another half hour before Erik finally gets here.”

  “Unless he stops for lunch,” said Frank. “Fuck yeah!” Frank freed the laptop and flipped it over. In less than a minute the bottom plastic cover was open. Chris moved into position for his turn. His gut told him to be especially careful at this junction. They couldn't risk damaging the laptop or drive. Even with the extra precaution, Chris took only a few minutes to make the connection. He stepped back and could feel the butterflies rising in his chest as the plan took its final steps to completion.

  “Alright,” said Chris more to himself than Frank.

  Frank carefully moved the laptop back to a position he could work with. Chris's connection was flawless. Frank opened the drive and found the video file. He double-clicked it. Immediately an error message popped up. “What!?” said Frank, as he continued to work. He copied the file to the desktop and opened it again. The same message popped up. The data was corrupted. Frank ran through the strands of broken data. “Fuck!”