He arrived at an intersection which was densely packed with dead vehicles. There were more people here, most looked to be workers from a huge nearby office building. The sign outside the building made him pause. Pickering Office Tower.
Well, well, he thought. That was a name from the past. Not the building, but of one of its inhabitants.
Nate felt a strange mix of anger and excitement course through his body.
There is opportunity in chaos.
He walked toward the office tower. There were clusters of office geeks talking excitedly to each other and waving their cellphones around, trying to understand the situation.
Nate approached a trio of women, all wearing long tight skirts which he found appealing. “Hey, what’s going on?” he asked a pretty blonde.
The blonde was a little startled by his appearance. Nate didn’t look like he worked in a cubicle by any stretch of the imagination. “Uh, the power’s gone out. Can’t work.”
A brunette gave Nate the once over and liked what she saw. “Yeah, they might give us the rest of the day off.” Her eyes flashed at him.
Nate grinned. “I think it’ll be longer than that. More like a vacation, an extended one.”
“Why’s that?” the blonde asked, more concerned now.
Nate didn’t answer. He tilted his head back to look up the tall building. “How many stories do you think that is?”
The blonde giggled nervously. “It’s twenty-one stories. I should know. I had to climb down every last one of them.”
“Why?” Nate asked.
She giggled nervously, again. “Because the elevators aren’t working. You need electricity for that.”
“Huh,” Nate said. Then he asked, “Isn’t there a law office up there?”
The blonde blinked in surprise. “Yes, Anderson and Associates. That’s where I work. Did you have an appointment?” He was starting to make them nervous.
“Yeah,” Nate said, “I got an appointment with Jonas Anderson. He out here somewhere?” He looked around at the crowd.
The blonde shook her head. “No, he’s waiting it out in his office. It would take more than a power outage to get Mr. Anderson out of there on a work day.”
Nate said, “We’ll see about that.” He left the perplexed women and headed to the front doors.
“But the elevators don’t work!” the blonde called after him.
He entered the main foyer which was crowded with people. Others trickled through the doors heading outside. Everyone was annoyingly excited at this curious event, so dull were their lives.
Nate found the building registry on a wall and scanned the names.
Anderson & Associates – Partners in Law – 21st Floor.
Figures it would be the top damn floor. He shrugged. Guess he had to work for this. Besides, it was the least he could do for Chris.
He found the stairs and started up. Tired looking fat men in shirts and ties bumbled downward. It was dark, but each floor had propped open the stairwell door letting some sunlight in from the floor’s windows.
At the tenth floor Nate found a maintenance man up on a low ladder. He was fiddling with an emergency light which was wedged up in a corner.
“Shouldn’t those be working?” Nate asked. He’d passed one on each level, all off.
“Should, yeah,” the man said. “But something is wrong with the batteries.” He tapped the large narrow block beneath the light. “Should have switched over to them the second the power went out.”
“The batteries don’t work, either?”
The man nodded in the gloom. “Not just these, but all of them.” He held out a large flashlight and flicked its switch back and forth. Nothing happened. “Phones are toast, too.”
“Huh,” Nate said and left the man to his futile efforts. But before he climbed a couple of steps he turned back and asked, “What do you think could do that? Cause a power outage and kill the batteries?”
The maintenance man gave it a moment of thought, then said, “Aliens,” and returned to his work.
For the next eleven floors Nate played that word over and over in his mind. Aliens. That can’t be. Could it? An alien attack?
As he finally reached the twenty-first floor, he pushed the thought of an alien invasion out of his mind. He’d think on that later. For now, time to catch up with an old friend.
He left the stairwell and entered a lush office foyer, the kind only lawyer money could buy. There wasn’t a receptionist at the desk so he went exploring.
After passing empty cubicles and offices he heard voices coming from an open door marked Board Room.
Inside, he found two men pouring over stacks of papers and giant law books. A pair of laptops sat on the huge table, their screens black.
The men looked up as Nate entered. One of them, a fat man with a stylish goatee and powder-blue tie, gasped.
“What’s up, Jonas?” Nate asked the fat man. “Long time no see.”
Jonas stood in alarm as Nate walked up to him. “N-Nate! Oh, what a surprise. I wasn’t expecting you.”
“You weren’t expecting me?” Nate said, his voice rising with anger. “Jonas, you should always be expecting me.” He pulled out his pistol, but kept it by his side.
“Oh, God!” Jonas said, raising his hands. His fat blubber quivered beneath his expensive clothes. Clothes Nate helped pay for.
Nate grabbed Jonas by his powder-blue tie. “You should have been expecting me every single day since Chris died. Which wouldn’t have happened if you did your damned job!”
The other lawyer, tall and skinny with glasses, had stood up. He backed up against the wall, eyes wide with terror.
Jonas was beside himself with fear. “But it wasn’t me! It was the judge. You know the evidence was too strong.”
“Too strong?!” Nate screamed, spitting his words over the man’s face. “I paid you all that money so the evidence wouldn’t matter!”
“B-but they had Chris on video, pulling the trigger! You saw it yourself!”
Nate breathed heavily, his rage growing hotter by the second. “You know they shanked him, right? He bled out in the showers!” He pressed his face up against the terrified lawyer’s and screamed, “But before they shanked him, they took turns fucking him in the ass!” Nate’s eyes were wide, crazed. “He wouldn’t have been there if you did your fucking job!”
The skinny guy with glasses suddenly ran to the door, his tie flapping about. Nate calmly aimed and shot the fleeing man in the head, splattering blood and bits of brain matter over a large beautiful painting of a sailboat.
Jonas cried out in shock then grabbed at his chest in pain.
Nate looked at him in disgust. “Oh, no. You don’t get to die on me before I can kill you.” He aimed at one of the nearest windows which lined one wall of the huge room. Six shots punctured the reinforced glass, creating a large cluster of cracks.
Nate heaved the sagging man to his feet. “You got some co-workers downstairs who want to see you, Jonas.”
Jonas gasped in pain, eyes locked onto the shattered window. He shit his pants.
With his free hand, Nate pulled the lawyer along by his tie and hurled him at the window.
“Nooooo!” Jonas screamed, then smashed through the glass and vanished from sight.
Nate peered out the window and watched the fat man plummet. He’d never seen someone fall from this high up, before.
Jonas hit the pavement below narrowly missing groups of office workers. The lawyer didn’t so much as splatter as he practically turned inside out with the impact.
As Nate reentered the stairwell and began the long descent, he found one thought playing over and over in his mind.
Aliens. Now wouldn’t that be a sight?