Part Four: Three months ago (4)

4.

Ykwanda screamed a mighty scream, awaking in a panic when a many-legged nightcrawler attacked her in her sleep. Meanwhile, one floor up, her daughter Selene had company. Chad lost his cool and fled out the 2nd floor window, the same way he entered. The nosy neighbor across the street, Mrs McConegie, up at this late hour watching her soaps (and her neighbors) saw a hoodlum exiting the Lamar's home, possibly with valuables, possibly with a collection of human heads. Needless to say, she called the police (as she frequently does). Dispatch was used to her calls, and knew her by name, so they also knew better than to take her calls seriously, yet policy requires that they do so. Eventually. Janice took the call, then checked her Facebook page to get all the latest gossip before sending a squad car to the scene. While online, she saw a particularly applicable advertisement for a nifty patchwork quilting company, and browsed their site for a full twenty-three minutes - but that has nothing to do with this Chain of Events. Officer Davis received the call to deploy to the Lamar's neighborhood while he was on the phone with his girlfriend of three weeks, Michelle, who was across town yearning. When her beau had to get back to work, she felt the need to watch a steamy romance on cable. The flashing lights of her flatscreen cast across the street alerting the neighborhood dog, who began to bark incessantly. Not to be outdone, the other dogs in the vicinity chimed in as well, creating a sinuous pathway of sound throughout this side of the the city, dog to dog. Most of the dog's masters, awoken from slumber, shouted at each of the dogs and then returned to bed in a bad mood. Eight of these people happened to be coworkers at the same investment firm, a job they all despised anyway, but today adding fatigue from poor sleep along with a generalized bad mood, the mutually decided to go on strike the following day until their employer gave in to giving better benefits, specifically dental insurance. The employer was enjoying a fine morning of golfing at the time he was informed of the strike. He was only four over par at the 10th hole, his personal best. After his secretary called him, his next shot went wildly off course, landing in the pond directly into the head of a fish in the process of leaping out of the water at a breakfast fly. Instant death, poor fishy! For three days this dispatched trout slowly decomposed until Ricky the maintenance man fetched him out. As is the way with rotten fish, they leave a stink. So Ricky, upon coming home for the evening, smelt poorly, so he didn't get no play from his ladies that evening. But again, this has nothing to do with the Chain. Back to the dumpster wherein the fishy rots. Thank the stank, this particular dumpster now has added bum repellent, as that the homeless are less likely to go diving where such extreme smells are found (Hey! Even they have standards!). As such, this dumpster was left unmolested all the way through the weekend, at which point a particularly potent batch of mould festering on the bottom suddenly sprouted legs and began to tap dance and hum its way out through the top and then across the street where it starred in a low-budget broadway musical for three weeks and a day. On the very last performance, at the pinnacle of its career, the fungus suddenly exploded, spraying spores all over the stage and dining guests, creating a massive fungal infestation. Soon the Department of Health shut the business down for contamination, and the building was condemned. Neighboring real estate began to plummet, and within a matter of weeks vendors and renters were packing up and moving out. All the combined might of pest and mold control couldn't stem the flow of tapping and singing fungus from spreading, so they had to summon the Specialists. They arrived with flame-throwers in hand and lit up the entire block late Tuesday night. Nothing ever happens on a Tuesday, so when Bill Webern, the gate security guard at Ft Burkgold, saw a significant glow in the evening horizon, he speculated for a bit about it and then set his jaw for another long pointless night. Little did he know, the four and a half seconds he watched the city glow, a pair of shadows could be seen on one of the security camera monitors crossing over the fence.

Twenty minutes later, now indoors, Stu begins to loose his cool.

We're currently crouched behind an office partition on the ground floor, attempting to ninja our way past the only manned desk in the entire room, currently occupied by a particularly rotund security guard lounging back in his office chair while his sidekick works on a word puzzle of some sort, neither one of whom seem in any way concerned with their job. The silence is intense as we wait for something to happen.

Wait...

Wait...

Wait...

"Hey Mel..."

"Whut?"

"How do you spell…?"

(silence)

"You link digital characters representing sounds in a specific manner to coherently form another perceived mental symbolic representation of human thought. That's how you spell."

"...What?!"

The radio crackles suddenly, some garbled speech on the other end which I don't quite understand, but immediately Mel clicks his set on and responds, "Yeah, I'll have Doug head right on up." Then clicks off.

"Chief Bizsnitch wants you upstairs pronto."

"Yeah, I heard 'im." Doug packs up his papers and trots out, passing directly opposite the partition behind which my knees are burning.

Apparently this has become too much for Stu. He taps me on the shoulder, and I look back. His frantic hand gestures combine with his frantic face mouthing something frantic about going back the way we had come. And because I'm like that, I play dumb and gesture back a double tap to my head, a thumbs up, an OK sign, and a bunch of other random meaningless signs for good measure. I indicate forwards and mouth back to calm down.

What do you mean calm down? He mouths back, then double-times another rapid series of hand-wavings and mouthings at me, several of which were quite explicit, all in silence.

I was in the middle of a potent reply when the silence was split in twain by a sudden gut-wrenching snore from the desk. Our two heads pop up over the partition where to all bewonderment, the pathway has now been laid clear. I smile at Stu, and we then stealth past the sleeping guard and make our way directly to a maintenance locker room in which we quickly change into some of the spare uniforms we see lying around.

"Now the trick here will be to avoid close contact with anyone who will see that we don't have any security badges." I instruct, "That shouldn't be a problem, because I think I have it arranged so that we won't have to run into anybody at all. But just in case, act like you belong here and no one should take any notice."

"Right, it's just that easy." Stu replies a little sardonically. "You act like you've done this before."

"That's because I have." I reply smugly as I open the door and exit before Stu can respond. That seems to have at least silenced Stu for the time being, because he follows my lead without questioning or balking through the labyrinth of the first floor until we get the the back stairwell. It's got a security lock on it and is shut tight.

"What now?" Stu challenges. "I thought this was all planned out!" He's about to abandon ship so I flourish my hands dramatically.

"Never fear, Young Grasshoppa!" I reply, then take a step behind him, reach into a fake potted plant, and to Stu's bewilderment, procure a security badge of one Miranda Peters, a consultant of some sort with high security access. I swipe the card across the base of my nose, inhaling deeply and say, "Why hello, dear flower. There you are!" Then quickly swipe it through the card reader, producing a very satisfying beep and a green light. The door clicks, and I open it, waving Stu in.

"I will never doubt again."

"See that you don't."

We efficiently climb flight after flight, for a while seeming to be on the Penrose Staircase itself. Finally, at floor twenty-two we pause for a breather. Suddenly to our dismay, a set of voices on the other side of the door becomes markedly louder, and we duck behind the door just in time as a pair of Important Someones open it into the stairwell. They are so engrossed in their conversation, having something to do with a large increase in their missing persons lists as of late, that they do not even notice us flattened against the wall behind the closing door as they proceed down the stairwell. Breathing comes back in slow increments and we resume our ascension.

At last, we arrive on floor thirty-five, having burned approximately a bajillion Calories in the process. I feel so sexy and slim right now as I all but vomit on the floor from over-exhaustion.

"Seriously, Seamus, couldn't you have finagled us a way into an elevator or something?"

"Dude, shut up!" I reply through my gasps.

"Well, this is it, right? The thirty-fifth floor?" Stu presses his ear to the door and listens.

"This is it," I confirm.

"So what's our next move?"

"What time you got?" I ask. Breath recovered.

"It's nine forty-three."

"Perfect!" I reply, "Time to go in!"

I swipe the card through the security lock and swing the door wide open into a room bustling with activity and noise from all directions. One-way mirror walls surround darkened rooms, some with solitary spotlights shining on a seated individual in the center. White Lab Coats carrying clipboards are busy taking notes at each chamber while Black Suits carrying briefcases ask questions and talk on cell phones. A loud humming dominates the background ambiance, so no speech is actually heard from one bay to the next. By design, no one is looking at the blatantly open doorway into the stairwell at this exact moment. Stu has no choice but to follow as I rapidly walk into the room devoid of cover and follow a prescribed, coordinated pathway. My latest masterpiece! For here an assistant stumbles on something lying on the ground thereby distracting the people in her bay, there a phone rings and the Suit turns towards the back wall to answer discreetly. Once someone steering a rolling tack board with a lot of complex schematics pinned on one side drives past another opening, and we stealth behind it for a few steps, until reaching the next diversion - this one a particularly greasy looking fellow wearing a hawaiian shirt who suddenly slams himself against the glass from within, shouting "Can't nobody hold me for long!!" and everyone in the bey recoils with surprise. The coordinated Events are plethora, and are like music to my ears. I cannot help but hear Fonklagi by Sigur Ros play in my head as we waltz through the floor. Spirits passing through a fog, completely unseen, yet if seen, not noticed. At the end of the room, the doorway-

leading to the hallway-

leading to the security pass lock-

leading to the destination:

They.