Tourists of the Apocalypse (2 page)

The lobby is two breathtaking stories of open air. Balconies on the second floor peer down on us. Level two is Sales, Marketing and Executive offices. The glass front rooms facing the lobby are highly coveted. My only tiered relationship on two is Maggie, a secretary in Sales. She’s a
Tier 2
, defined as
Eat lunch together sometimes and have seen each other socially outside of work once or twice
. She’s married with two kids, husband cheats on her, but she’s sleeping with a guy from Maintenance. No harm, no foul as they are both overwhelmingly unfaithful.

“People who work in glass offices,” I sigh, amused that she often justifies her own flings by citing that he cheated first.

To get into the open court, you have to pass through a security checkpoint and a full body scanner. The behemoth is a fifteen-foot tunnel of grey plastic. Your belongings go on a rolling belt through an x-ray device and meet you on the far side. The office gals make flirty conversation with two of the men working there as they pass.

As I move through an x-ray image of me flashes on the screen. It’s not a big screen, but everyone in line can see it. This includes the three guys wearing guest badges waiting on the cue. Several deep inhales are the only sound when they get a good look. On the screen it’s obvious my legs are missing from mid-thigh down. Two complicated prosthetics hold me up. They contain several long pipe-like sections and a multitude of rods and charged gas cylinders. After a moment, the screen flickers and goes dark. A pall of silence has fallen over the line, annoying me more than the image on the screen. Honestly, I haven’t had legs since the fifth grade.
I’m over it.

Glancing back, the men in line all look the other way when I try and make eye contact.
Is it disgust or pity they are feeling?
One older man in a blue suit is taking quick peeks back in my direction. No doubt he is having a twisted sexual daydream about the legless girl. A certain percentage of the population share some sort of kink about the handicapped. It’s not the kind of sexual attention most girls like, but after all these years I find it uplifting.

“At least someone wants me,” I whisper, but then cover my mouth and pretend to cough.

I escape with my bag into the lobby. Two large trees grow out of cut outs in the marble. A small circular information kiosk offers tablets with the day’s breaking news, some sort of doughnut holes and tiny one sip coffee cups. I pause to suck down two of the latter.
I love coffee
. People are trickling in and I wander to the far side before putting a hand on the marble tiled wall by the elevator to rest. Before I can push the button, a disinterested man with his face buried in a tablet does so for me. I try to acknowledge his good deed, but he never looks up.

Once on the fourth floor, I work my way through a maze of cubicles before coming upon my desk. There are a dozen Engineering staff outside of a boardroom with glass walls. Each cubicle has a chest high work table and tall chair to work from. My chair is spring loaded and has wheels that roll. The only other thing in the space is a hook for my coat and a small locker. On the table are several tablets and an input pad. The wall over the desk is a flat screen that glows cobalt blue awaiting the day’s tasks.

“Honey, I’m home,” I sigh, pulling on a long white lab coat.

Taking a moment to attach my building ID to the front of the lab coat, I pause in thought, then clip a radiation badge from the corner of my desk under it. Medical leaves a radiation badge on the corner of everyone’s desk overnight. At the end of the day you have to push it through a slit next to the lifts as you leave. This isn’t a dangerous area, but with a massive
Inversion Reactor
under the building, it’s a good idea to keep an eye out. The badge is green, but turns red if exposed. Mine has never changed, but I doubt the coffee gals on the first floor realize how close they are to being reduced to microwave popcorn. The first floor administrative staff doesn’t know about the reactor or wear badges.

“Ignorance is bliss.”

Sliding onto the stool, I tap the input pad. The screen glows to life, the Talus logo in white. One side of the desk is a keyboard, although it’s really just a touch mat. The rest of the desktop is a finger drag. There is an implant in the tip of my right index finger that allows me to drag it across the table top and move the cursor. The chip is coded so Talus knows every terminal I try to use and mine works only on this desktop. Once the mainframe recognizes the implant, the screen fills with my work. I spend a few minutes updating my calendar and reading incoming memos. They track everything, so neglecting to do so would draw attention.
And we don’t need that today.

There are no input slots to upload anything or to copy files onto a flash drive. This is a problem for me as I plan to override the entire system today, toppling over the proverbial applecart. Luckily, all of the engineers have a cloud drive on a server separate from the mainframe. It’s used for notes and ideas. If you’re working out a problem, you can open a window and save to your cloud drive. From what I have seen, this is the network’s only weakness. The cloud isn’t actually connected to the mainframe, but it does require maintenance. The main server defrags the cloud once a week and is defragging mine now. When doing so, my cloud is connected to the server.
A proverbial chink in the Dragon’s armor so to speak.

Since I cannot upload anything from outside the secure system, the code had to be hand-typed. I have worked at Talus since I was twenty-two and I am currently thirty-nine. I have been in Engineering for the last twelve years, and at this desk for ten. I started typing in the encrypted code line by line and saving it to my cloud drive seven long years ago. In between daily work assignments I dedicated maybe three hours a day to this task. I finally finished compiling the code two months ago. It’s sitting like a bullet in the chamber this morning and an orange
Begin Assault
square flashes next to the cloud icon on my desktop.

“Time to see if this dog will hunt,” I mumble, pressing a fingertip on the screen.

The monitor goes blank before returning to the generic sign in screen. It’s not wise to have any screen belonging to Talus giving me updates, thus my desk screen will not advise me of the virus’ progress. Without warning, the florescent lights overhead dim briefly, and then return to their normal illumination.

“Play ball,” I whisper, feeling empowered.

The lights do this one more time indicating the upload to the mainframe was successful. Waving my phone over my head, I hold down the power button. After a half minute it vibrates. Lowering the phone, I see the words
Connection Established
on the screen
.
I’m lost in thought when another voice breaks the silence.

“What’s with the lights?” a tall blonde woman buzzes from the doorway to my cube.

I don’t answer right off, pausing to take in Andrea’s skin tight skirt and equally undersized blouse. Buttons on the shirt are nearly pulled sideways in an attempt to keep her boobs from popping out. She’s only twenty-four, but skyrocketed to the same level as me in under two years. I’d suggest she got here with her wardrobe if she wasn’t the smartest Engineer in the department. I’m just gawking, so she asks again.

“Lucy, the lights?”

“Yeah, no idea,” I profess. “Aren’t they sending a client through today?”

“What day is it?” she ponders aloud, kicking off her high heels and wiggling her toes in the carpet. “These shoes are like standing on razor blades.”

“It’s Thursday,” I tell her, “the fifteenth.”

“Yeah, they are,” she nods, affirming my suggestion that the big machines will be running. “But why the power flux?”

“Maybe they are running up the reactor to clear the chamber.”

“Yeah, right,” she huffs. “And you’re running in a marathon.”

I join her in faux laughter. For some reason she thinks we share a kinship allowing her to poke fun at my handicap. What has let lead her to believe this is beyond me. I suspect there’s a cheerleader slash mean girl explanation rooted in her primary school experience somewhere. Today my laughter morphs into the real thing when I think of what will follow this socially embarrassing situation. A visual of her charred high heels lying in a pile of smoldering rubble plays across my mind.

“Alright,” she declares, slipping her feet back into her shoes. “I have a ton of crap from yesterday to deal with. Are you coming down later for Jensen’s birthday?”

“Probably,” I waffle, having no intension of attending.

“Live a little bit Lucy,” she snips. “He ordered an ice cream cake.”

I nod and she disappears into a cube down the hall. Her chair sits in direct view of the glass walled board room which gives the higher ups a good view of her assets. A virtual genius, yet her main purpose is to fuel the sexual fantasies of some rich married guys.
I am not going to miss this place a bit.

At eleven o’clock sharp, I toss my purse over my shoulder and slide off my chair. Ten minutes ago, half this floor lined up at the lifts for a ride down to the second floor.
Apparently ice cream cake is very popular.
Un-noticed in the stampede, I trail along behind the herd. Making sure Andrea is well in front of me, I observe my co-workers chatting about workplace drama, math equations and cake. All I hear is
wonk, wonk, wonk
as I stare distractedly at the trash stuck to the toe of my shoe.

There are two others in the lift with me, the last load to go down. Sarah, a third year Engineer from my department stands next to me. When the lift hits level three she exits, turning to wait for me to join her. When I don’t, she crosses her arms and looks surprised.

“No cake?”

“No,” I sigh, before putting both hands on my stomach. “I’m feeling gross. Going down to Medical to see what they can do.”

“You sick?”

“Nothing like that,” I shrug, patting my stomach again. “Girl trouble.”

She starts to nod and then looks confused. I can see she’s waffling between my being either pregnant or on my period. This amuses me as it had not occurred to me that pregnant was a reasonable excuse. I sort of assumed everyone thought I was either a lesbian or too grossly un-touchable to sleep with. Sarah apparently holds me in somewhat higher esteem.

“Time of the month,” I explain, almost sorry I didn’t say otherwise.

“Bad?”

“Uh-huh.”

“You going to be alright?” she begs in a concerned tone, one hand on the doorframe to keep the doors open.

“Yeah, enjoy your cake.”

The mention of desserts seems to redirect her attention. After reflexively licking her lips, she scurries down the hall. The doors slide shut, cutting off my view of her. Other than their own children, women are most defensive about menstrual issues. At least there is cake on her last day.
Everyone’s last day actually.

There are four floors listed, but beneath those are levels shown as B1 and B2. These are basement levels accessible only by
Reactor Personnel
or
Catch Teams
. Of course, I do not have clearance for the lower levels. Pulling my phone, I open an interface with numbered counters. The numbers race, but then slam to a stop with the same twelve-digit number on both counters. The lift jerks as it starts down.
That’s right, I am the boss of you now.

When the doors open, I am hit with humid air. It’s much warmer here in the bowels of the building as opposed to the over-cooled hamster cages above. The linoleum tiles are a red and white checkerboard pattern. Below them, on B2 sits the
Inversion Reactor
, the very thing generating all this heat. Of course it doesn’t so much reside on a floor as sit in a half-mile deep crater under the building’s foundation. There are tunnels one hundred sixty feet in diameter that run as far as five miles away from this installation. Some suck in cold air, while others pour scalding hot humid smog into the sky. Both types are hidden in huge smoke stacks next to other Talus facilities in this complex.
Do the employees at the wind turbine plant wonder why they have to wear radiation badges?

It’s a ghost town on this level today. Running up the reactor to power their little secret will flood this area with all sorts of crap that turns perfectly happy sperm into roadkill. I imagine that goes for eggs as well, but lucky for me I am not in need of mine. Management clears this level hours before the science nerds upstairs power up anything. For the time being, I have the place to myself.

A sign indicates the
Catch Room
is to the right. Unable to carry even the slightest extra burden in this heat, I drop my purse to the floor and drag it by the strap. I have to unclip one side and then pull it down the hall as if I were dragging a corpse in the moonlight. Sweat pours off my forehead dripping into my eyes.

Two large double doors sit at the end of the hall. My phone takes longer than I expect to open them. These are radiation containment doors, and there must be at least a dozen protocols to shut down before they pop open with a hiss. Cool air rolls out hitting my smiling face.

I drag my bag through the doors which seal behind me with a whoosh of air. The wall tiles here are all white. The floor is now some sort of marble, also solid white. The lights are blueish, as opposed to florescent. They are probably halogens, although I don’t know for sure. Nothing about this area is in the mainframe. No plans, no lists, no operating procedures. The only information I have to go on is from Waylon.

“So far that info looks pretty good,” I huff through drying sweat.

Waylon used to be on the
Catch Team
. Two years ago he was diagnosed with a nasty case of pancreatic cancer. This is not an uncommon outcome for someone working in this area, but traumatic for Waylon none the less. Having no family left him at a loose end, thus he demanded to stay working. They transferred him to the third floor doing basically nothing, thereby avoiding a lawsuit. Having learned that the mainframe didn’t have the specs for the lower levels, I took a flyer on Waylon. I started taking my coffee down on three and though twice my age, he wasn’t shy around the office cripple. Once I verified that he could tell me about this area, I entered into a
Tier 1
relationship. This highest and most uncomfortable level is defined by me as
I let them touch me and try not to cry.
I was lucky as Waylon couldn’t preform in his late stage condition, but I spent more than a few nights at his place wishing for death.