Evasion (5 page)

As he had stepped through the window, he’d heard another shot fire from the fourth floor, and the sound of what Scott figured was the bullet ricocheting off the brick less than a foot from his head. So they were still upstairs at the window, or at least Herb was.  But they had to be following him once they saw he had successfully smashed his way inside.

So he didn’t have much time.

The only way for them to get down, he knew, was via the front hallway elevator, which was shared between Digi-Life’s office and two other building clienteles, and the rustic wooden stairway access, also shared, but a much quicker way to descend a single floor.

Scott raced down the hall and headed past the main stairway access doors, through the kitchen area and over to the metal circular staircase that graced the “front” of the building. Thank goodness for another way up and down, at least between the third, second, and first floors. The fourth floor didn’t have that additional access.  Except for the make-shift window exit Scott had just devised, there was previously only the two ways down.

The echoes of his footsteps rang loudly on the metal stairs as he quickly descended down and around. He was worried that the sound would carry and they would know where he was, but, given that he was on the third floor and there were only two ways to get out of the building (apart from breaking a window, he supposed), would be heading down at least one more flight. From the third to the second floors there were only two options – the circular metal staircase he was now on or the shared rustic wooden stairs on the opposite side of the front of the building.

There was a fifty-fifty chance of them knowing which way he had taken. Not that they’d have descended so quickly.  Not unless they, like he had done, decided to jump down from the fourth to the third floor.  Without someone threatening them with a gun, would they really take that risk? Scott couldn’t even believe he had done it; not to mention that he hadn’t broken something in the act.

As he made it around the final curve of the metal staircase and onto the second floor, Scott could clearly see down to the 1
st
floor entrance from the open balcony area of the second floor.

All he had to do was move around the balcony, a simple series of three left turns, and make his way down the stairs.

As began to navigate the second corner, out of the corner of his eye he spotted a pair of blue jeans covered legs heading up the stairs from the very bottom.  He didn’t stop to look to see who it was. So far, the only two people he had bumped into had a crazy glazed look in their eyes, so he wasn’t going to take any chances.

He took a quick right turn that would take him to the front stairwell and pressed the blue button that, from the inside, triggered the door to become unlocked for three seconds. From the other side of the door, Scott knew, one needed to tap their passcard against a key reader in order to perform the same task.

He slowly opened the door and peeked inside to see if the stairwell was empty. It was. Footsteps echoed. Quickly. No voices. Just what sounded like a pair of feet slapping down quickly. The sounds came from a couple of landings up, but were heading down fast.

Damn
.

He wasn’t sure getting into this stairwell would be a good idea. Digging his pass card out of his backpack once he got to the first floor could cost him precious few seconds that would have Herb and the guard catch up with him.

He let the door close and looked back down the hallway to the balcony that overlooked the stairs.

The person ascending had made it to the top of the main stairwell, his brown sport-coat covered back to Scott, before turning right to the final small flight to take him all the way up.

Scott turned to his own right and raced down the aisle of the open concept office, past a stream of grouped project team desks, past three separate sitting areas with couches, coffee tables and mini bar fridges, ad hoc team resting and meeting areas for various collaborative tasks.

There was a visible main aisle on the far side that ran adjacent to this one, past two sets of office areas that blocked one side from the other.

Scott ran past the first set of offices and didn’t see anyone working at any of the desks.

If there had been anyone there, if they were in on whatever it was that was going on, they would have likely joined in pursuing him – if they weren’t they would have likely given him an odd look, wondering why he was racing down the aisle at top speed. Nobody ever did that. It was odd, out of place. Completely unexpected.

Sort of like what had happened to him this morning.

Scott made it to the second set of offices and towards the small doorway that led to the back office kitchen. The server operations guys, the ones most likely to be here working all hours of the day during the course of regular business, had their stations here; the large status screens indicating web traffic, transaction volume and global server status on a series of thirty-seven inch monitors.

One of the server ops guys was here, hunkered down over his desk. It was Gary, the sharp-witted one who had been the first to befriend Scott when he arrived at Digi-Rights; and though Scott didn’t really have any friends at this company, there were some good colleagues, and Gary was one of them. During trips into the second floor kitchen, the company’s largest kitchen with the most flavors of coffee, the largest selection of fresh fruit and snacks, Scott usually chatted with Gary about the local sports teams if they were both in the kitchen. If not, Scott would pop around the corner just to say “hey” and shoot the shit if Gary wasn’t already in the middle of a phone call or a conversation with someone else.  Often, when Scott walked past Gary’s desk he could see the man toggle between one of the status screens that monitored the servers and an internet sports channel, where he could catch afternoon games and keep up with the various scores.

This corner of the office was, in many ways, Gary’s inner sanctum; a comfortable area. It always felt warm and welcoming to Scott, the same way that Gary was warm and welcoming to pretty much anybody that he met.  Along with the screens, the two arm chairs and the couch, there were a few posters and a small beer fridge, and always lots of great additional snacks, well beyond the ones the company provided in the kitchen. No, visiting Gary was almost like visiting a buddy’s basement bar or man cave. It came with that comfortable, happy feeling.

And not just décor and scenery and treats. Gary had even taken the time, when there weren’t many people around, to block off the air vents near his desk.  Anybody who was sitting near an air vent consistently complained about just how cold or how hot it could be. In the winter it blew a strong blast of hot air, way too intense for any comfort; and in the summer months, it blasted freezing cold air, decently balanced for anybody who was at least ten feet away, but for those directly underneath it, the temperature was just too cold, and so sweaters and cardigans were worn by those whose desks were under or near the air vents.

But not Gary.  In the same way he had hand-selected the furniture and additions to his air, he had taken the time, when none of the “powers that be” were around, and blocked off the direct flow of the air vents.  In the sophisticated manner of a good hack (something Scott could really appreciate), Gary had inserted reflow filters inside the vents themselves. Not only was Gary’s tampering not visible, but the filters didn’t completely block the air flow – they routed ninety-five percent of the air back and towards the closest three vents several yards away.  A direct blockage would have likely caused a “breakdown” or requirement of some maintenance upon which the building’s landlord would know Gary had tinkered with the air vents.

Gary had let Scott in on his little secret one time when the two of them, working late one evening and taking a break to watch a Toronto Maple Leafs game go into overtime, Scott commented on how wonderfully comfortable Scott’s “hang-out” was – and he couldn’t understand how, when Scott’s desk was directly below an air vent, that it wasn’t terribly uncomfortable like everyone else’s adjacent-to-vent location.

“I’ve got to ensure my guests are comfortable,” Gary had said, and then explained to Scott the details of how he had “hacked” the ventilation system to get it to deliver just enough of the heat or cold without the blatant overkill that had been so problematic.

So Gary, always looking out for everyone else, always offering a warm smile and sense of ease, was a good guy, and someone Scott felt he could trust.

Of course, Herb had been a decent boss too, at least until he pulled out a gun and took a shot at Scott’s head.

Would Gary also turn homicidal like Herb and the security guard?
Scott wondered. He couldn’t take that chance.

“Need your coffee that bad, Scotty?” Gary called out as Scott raced past him and into the kitchen.

He didn’t respond to Gary as he darted into the kitchen and made a sharp left.

But he did pause for a moment to look back at Gary who was sitting at his desk in front of three screens feeding him some sort of data about the overall health of the company’s websites and back end systems – and, likely, a screen that was toggling back over to the monitoring of the basketball, football, baseball, and hockey scores.

Gary was looking him in the eye and had a partially-confused, partially-bemused look.

There was no glassy-eyed stare. He was simply the Gary that Scott knew and liked.  Good old Gary.

And somewhere in the building, likely heading this way, were Herb and the security guard, who were trying to kill Scott.  Would they also try to kill others? Was Gary in danger if Scott just ran past and didn’t warn him?

“What’s up, my man?” Gary asked. “You see the game last night?”

Scott stood there, just looking at Gary, wondering if he would “turn” at any minute.

“You okay?” Gary stood up from his chair and walked towards him. “You’re acting very weird.”

Deciding Gary could be trusted and needed to be warned, Scott remained in the kitchen but just around the corner, and only visible to Gary, gesturing for his friend to step into the kitchen.

“Oh, shit, Gary,” Scott said, putting his hands on the man’s shoulders. Gary’s eyes, previously bemused and concerned, began to fill with fear.  Scott kept a close eye on Gary’s eyes and facial features, still speculating that he could “turn” into the glazed madness he had seen earlier. But so far, everything seemed normal with his friend. “Something bad is going down here.”

“It’s not the burritos we had yesterday for lunch, is it?” Gary said, with a very serious look on his face. Scott loved the manner by which his friend could deliver silly jokes like that in such a straight fashion. Half of the people present when Gary pulled this never even picked up on the subtle humor the man was throwing into the room; but Scott always did, and felt that much more fond about him because of it.

Scott laughed.

“No,” he took his hands off of Gary’s shoulders. “Not the burritos. Something bizarre and freaky.”

“What?”

Scott looked back to the other side of the kitchen, at the door to the First Aid room, the one with the couch and the first aid kit, the sink, the refrigerator filled not with drinks or treats, but with ice packs and other pharmacy-like items.

“C’mon, let’s pop into the First Aid room. There are some people on their way, and they’ll try to kill us. We need to hide so I can explain.”

Twenty Years Earlier
 

“Ouch!” the pin prick woke Scott out of an otherwise contented and restful sleep. He had been having a dream that brought him back to the amazing Halloween party he had attended a couple of weeks earlier, the one he had hesitated to go to because there had been mid-terms to study for and, despite being in need of a break, he didn’t really have any friends.

But his room-mates had dragged him along to the university student theatre company’s house party.

Everybody had dressed up, including his room-mates. One dressed as a pirate, an elaborate one from Pirates of the Caribbean, and the other one had created a costume of one of the characters from
Pokémon
.

Scott, not having planned anything, threw together a last minute costume.  Wearing a red sweater and a pair of red track pants, he took a black felt marker and wrote the word “WELL” across the front of his chest.

When people couldn’t figure out what Scott was dressed as, he grinned and said “I’m well red.”  The moans over the bad pun usually earned him a back slap, a fist bump, or a beer raised in toast.

It had been one of the first times he had felt like he actually fit in.

So, half a dozen beers in to the party, he let his normal guard down and found that he had actually enjoyed himself.  When he spied, from across the crowded living room, one of his room-mates friends, an eccentric hipster named Wilson, dancing in a very stylized and artistic series of movements, completely oblivious to everyone else, moving his body in a rhythmic almost hypnotized manner, he thought it was one of the funniest things he had ever seen.

Several people had pointed out Wilson’s movements, including hip thrusts and rubbing his hands down the side of his own body, a very sensual series of moves, almost the type of thing you’d see a strip dancer performing, and which seemed to make people either uncomfortable or inspire laughter.

Despite the reaction of the people around him, Wilson danced on, completely oblivious to the attention, to the laughter, and all that.

Scott did something completely out of character, particularly given that he usually just quietly sat back when in a crowd and barely even contributed to the group conversation.  He moved in behind Wilson and started dancing with him in the same sensual and rhythmic fashion, spooking the hip thrusts, the ritualized masturbatory-style movements, making the crowd laugh even louder.

“Go Scotty!” someone called. “Yay, Wilson!”

The other dancers parted ways and made room for Wilson and Scott to perform their dance, Wilson still oblivious and Scott enjoyed this unique experience of being at the center of attention.