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ROGER WAS LOOKING AT the hole in his iPhone, trying to turn it on and failing. “Mother fucker, I just got this fucker. It’s brand new, and I just installed the arms cartel app. Damn, damn, damn. “
“Forget your phone, Roger. What happened to Betsy?” Mitchell said in a near sob.
“Betsy, what about Betsy? Don’t ever kid about Betsy” said Roger as he dropped the forgotten iPhone, which now had a convenient hole for a neck-chain.
Roger joined Mitchell who was caressing the monitors in an attempt to get them online again.
“That bitch messed up our Betsy” shouted Mitchell.
“Bitch, you can shoot us and kill my phone but taking down Betsy is going too far. This is war.” Mitchell’s voice cracked with emotion.
Roger and Mitchell turned to each other. With eyes misting over, they grasped each other by the shoulder and in unison said, “Vengeance.”
Then they realized they were alone in their office. Roger was the first to count heads and after calculating this problem twice and coming up with the same number twice, two he turned Mitchell.
“Where did Kevin and Danny disappear to?”
Mitchell whirled around and came up with the same headcount and smiled, “They’ve gone to recon. They’ve finally gotten into the spirit of things.”
Kevin and Danny were still playing living statues not sure whether to go back to the office or try for the desk where Suzanne might be lying in wait.
“Why doesn’t one of us go to the desk while the other covers him?” Kevin casually suggested as he moved alongside Danny and then behind him in two quick moves.
“Okay, who is the one going and who is the one covering the one going?” whispered Danny, whipping his head frantically in all directions trying to catch a glimpse of Suzanne and failing to notice that Kevin was no longer in front of him.
“Let’s not quibble about who gets to be the hero,” Kevin whispered in Danny’s ear as he slowly pushed his friend forward and then took two giant steps backward near a potted plant.
“Hero? Who would be the hero, the desk person or the cover person?” asked Danny as he tiptoed forward toward the desk.
Given he was scanning the area, head whirling around as if possessed by the devil, Danny walked directly into the desk. Hitting the Tweedles’ workstation, he shrieked causing Kevin to shout. “Damn it, Danny, I’ve got your back!” He grabbed and threw what he thought was a plastic potted plant next to him toward whatever or whomever Danny was shrieking at. The houseplant, however, was not plastic nor was the planter, and Kevin nearly ruptured himself trying to throw what turned out to be freshly watered and fertilized soil clumps at Danny’s back.
“Oh God, Kevin, she’s shooting at me, I’ve been hit. Save yourself!” Danny screamed as he belly-flopped onto the desk, slithered over the top and landed in an un-heroic heap on the floor, weeping amongst what appeared to be hundreds of spent cartridges from the Tweedles assault. “I’ve been hit, I’ve been hit.” Danny moaned repeatedly. “I’m losing a lot of blood!” Kevin forgot the plant and dirt clumps and the possibility of Suzanne hiding nearby and rushed over to Danny, curled up behind the desk.
“What do you mean you’re losing a lot of blood? No one hit you. Well, at least Suzanne didn’t hit you, you asshole.” Kevin punctuated asshole with a not so gentle nudge with his foot in Danny’s behind.
“Ahh! Don’t kick me I’m wounded. I can feel the blood running down my back.”
Kevin pulled up the back of Danny’s shirt, grabbed a clump of dirt that was trickling down Danny’s sweaty back, and showed it to him.
“Here’s your wound, you nit. God, you’re such a pussy. Ewww, my hands are all slimy now. Where’s the Tweedles’ hand sanitizer? They must have some around here somewhere.”
Danny regarded the clump of dirt Kevin had just handed him, “Why is there dirt running down my back? Who was throwing dirt at me? Hey, asshole, why were you throwing dirt at me, and why was I the one that had to go first behind the desk?” As he was asking these pertinent questions, he punctuated each inquiry with a kick to Kevin’s shin.
Kevin had found a family size pump container of hand sanitizer and was trying to back away from Danny’s kicks while remaining behind the safety of the desk. Since was still trying to kick him, Kevin squirted the strawberry scented hand sanitizer in Danny’s general direction.
“Hey, fuckface, you’re going to get your fat face shot off dancing around like that,” Danny hissed with one final kick to Kevin’s shin.
Kevin realized the wisdom of Danny’s words. Due more to the thin coat of hand sanitizer on the floor than grace on Kevin’s part, he slid to the floor alongside Danny who was still giving Kevin dirty looks.
“Listen you can kill me later if Suzanne hasn’t killed me or both of us first. We need to find our phones and call for help and then get the hell outta here,” Kevin said to Danny and then stuck out his hand for a truce.
“Okay agreed. If we don’t get killed, I can pumelize you later.” Danny grasped Kevin’s hand, and they both shook.
“Do you see either of our phones?” asked Kevin
“No, but there’s a lot of shit that came out of the drawers and off the desk. They could be under it. You know when I’ve lost my phone before, I’ve called it from another phone. Maybe we can find our phones that way.”
“Yes, good idea. I’ll just find my phone and then call yours so we can then call for help. Do you have any idea where my phone is, Einstein?”
“Christ there’s no reason to get snotty about it. So my logic broke down a little. I am under a teensy weensy bit of stress here. Wait, doesn’t your phone have that app where if it’s stolen it gives its location?”
“Yes, but again that doesn’t help us, I’m pretty sure it’s in this building. The app just gives you the address or location of the phone; it doesn’t give you blueprints of the building it’s in.”
“I thought it had a feature where you could remotely ring it from a website.”
“Oh my God you’re right. I can check it from one of the Tweedles’ IPads. One of them has a green camouflage cover, and the other has a desert camouflage cover. In fact, you can check yours too; I put the same app on your phone.”
“When did you do that and why didn’t I know you did that? Danny was rummaging around in more of Tweedles’ cupboards and finally came up with two iPads. “Found them! Here’s the desert camo one.”
“Well I was going to tell you because it’s kinda cool, but then I thought you might lose your phone on purpose just so you could find it. Just go to lost/stolen phone heading and enter your phone number. Your password is the usual.”
“Oh gimme some credit, I wouldn’t do that. Well, not too many times. How many times did you lose yours? And how do you know my password?”
“Four. The last time someone was just about to pick it up, so I thought I should conclude the testing process. Your password is “the usual.” Type it all in a row no spaces.”
“Good idea. Okay cool, it accepted it. I’m ready to ring, how about you?”
“Ready, ring.”
Both froze in anticipation of the ringtones.
“How long does it take?” whispered Danny.
“I don’t know. It always took me awhile to find the phone. Probably a little longer than a Words with Friends response, but I’m just guessing.”
Danny tilted his head and raised his hand, “Wait I hear something.” God, what is that? It’s ear bleeding hideous.”
“It’s, it’s. I forgot what ring back I chose for you. It’s your phone.” Kevin was laughing so hard he couldn’t speak. “BBBBiiiiieebb,” he finally managed.
“Bib what’s a bibe?”
“Justin Bieber,” gasped Kevin.
“You really are the biggest asshole on the planet.”
“I couldn’t resist.”
“Hey, why is it fading? Thank God, but it seems to be moving away. Why is my phone moving away?”
“It sounded like it was coming from the bank of elevators or maybe the stairs. I didn’t hear the noise of the elevator doors, so it must’ve taken the stairs.”
“Will you stop making it sound like my phone grew legs and it decided to go for a stroll. How did it suddenly start moving?”
“Suzanne. Fuck.” They both moaned in unison.
Suzanne had propped the lobby stairs door open to better hear any activity in the lobby. From the second floor landing, she could hear what sounded like a three-ring circus being set up by drunken clowns. “God, those idiots are about as stealthy as water buffalo.”
Just then the phone began emanating a horrible sound. She frantically tried to answer it to get it to stop or dismiss the call, but realized it wasn’t a call it was a remote locator tone. The high pitched wailing voice wouldn’t stop. Luckily there was a fire escape near the landing, and the phone immediately became a clay target in Suzanne’s sights. One last wail came from the phone, and then, BAM! No more screeching.
“Thank God for that. That would be the ultimate torture. I wonder if our boys in the CIA have thought of Bieber torture. That’s probably too extreme for even them,” Suzanne muttered. Hearing more commotion from downstairs, she walked down to the lobby level and pointed her AR toward the open lobby door.
“Well, if the phone and Suzanne are headed upwards, maybe we can head outside through the front lobby doors. We can grab the Tweedles and be on our way,” Danny said as he started running for the security office. Kevin, however, still wanted his phone and was loitering next to the shelf of potted plants alongside the security desk, wondering why his phone’s alert hadn’t gone off when “STOLEN!” suddenly erupted near his head. Kevin jerked back from the potted plants slipped on the mixture of hand sanitizer and spent shells and promptly fell to the floor.
Suzanne heard “STOLEN” echo through the lobby, and thinking one of the idiots was coming toward the door, shot off a round through the open door that traveled across the lobby and lodged into the information security desk closest to the exit doors. She realized her mistake almost immediately and stopped firing. “Idiot, the only thing you’ve hit so far is a phone, and now a phone alert is giving you the jitters.”
The Tweedles had ventured out of the security office just as Danny ran up to the door to tell them it was time to vacate the building. Danny heard “STOLEN,” turned to see where it had come from, and saw Kevin fall at just about the same moment Suzanne fired the AR round through the lobby stairs door. “Kevin!” Danny shouted as he grabbed Mitchell’s .45 and ran toward the stairwell.
Kevin crawled out from behind the desk and saw Danny running by with Mitchell’s .45.
“Oh, this can’t end well,” sighed Kevin and started after Danny.
“Danny, where are you going? This isn’t like playing Call of Duty; you don’t know what you are doing.”
Hearing Kevin behind him, Danny attempted to put on the brakes, but he was already through the threshold of the doorway. He tried to make a quick U-turn and duck at the same time but only succeeded in sliding on his butt. The hand sanitizer had managed to get all over his clothing, and there was enough on his pants to help his distance. He was able to slide into the landing and head down the stairwell.
Suzanne heard the commotion coming and was aiming for her target’s head. She wasn’t prepared for a Danny sized missile sliding through the doorway on his butt shooting wildly. Bullets bounced off the handrails and walls until Danny hit the stairs. Feeling the need to hang onto something, he grabbed for the rail. Suzanne hit the ground and retreated briefly into the second-floor hall until the shots diminished and then stopped. She crept forward on her belly toward the railing, and looked down into the stairwell to see Danny’s head disappear down toward the lower level as, Kevin ran toward him. Suzanne felt the time had come to finish them off, and sprinted down the stairs with her bag of goodies strapped to her back. She slammed the stairway door shut and blocked it with a wedge of wood she kept in her duffel bag just for that purpose seconds before the Tweedles arrived at the door armed to the teeth.
Kevin now asked Danny, “Where are we going?”
“I don’t know. I thought that bitch had shot you, and I really didn’t have a plan. We can hide in the NMR room.”
“OK, but we will have to lose the gun and everything else. Hey, crazy legs is absolutely loaded down with.”
“Yes, I know this should be fun.”
They both high fived each other and with an excessive amount of noise, ran into the NMR room and hid behind the washing machine.
“Where are you going to go, boys?” Suzanne crooned. “You’ve cornered yourselves. You two never were the brightest bulbs, but out of this entire building, this is the room you decide to hide in and in the corner. What a couple of weenies.”
As she was giving this motivational speech, she maneuvered closer and closer to her prey but all of a sudden she felt a sudden jerk by her weapon toward the NMR.
“What the hell..?”
She managed to finish this sentence just as her rifle attached itself to the body of the NMR. She could’ve let go at this point, but no fucking machine was going to take her favorite rifle. She took two steps forward and was immediately whirled around and pulled back toward the NMR by her backpack, which unfortunately for her was chock full of metal. Suzanne believed in heavy duty rather than plastic. She struggled and only succeeded in dropping the pack onto her wrists and hands, so now she couldn’t undo the pack from her body. To make matters worse, she was wearing her steel tipped combat style boots.
“Hi, Suzie. If you get bored, you may want to peruse the posters on the wall. You obviously didn’t bother to before now,” intoned Kevin.
“Tah-tah, for now, Suz,” Danny sang in his friendliest of voices.
“Posters? Why would I want to read any fucking posters, you shits?”
On the wall, conveniently in front of Suzanne for her reading pleasure, was a large poster with orange and red lettering and a cartoon character shaped like a beaker with an unhappy face and the words,
“Magnet Field.”
Suzanne read further, out loud: “No moveable metal objects allowed within 3 meters of the instrument. Now you tell me. ‘May permanently damage watches, calculators, and some credit cards.’ Oh no you mean my watch may not tell the correct Greenwich Mean Time? I think that’s the least of my fucking problems. Oh shit, should’ve read this first. ‘Magnet Quenching, Cryogenic Failure- Helium and Nitrogen gases may involve risk of asphyxiation in confined space.’ I wonder if the magnet quenches if, say, there is a nearby explosion. Fuck, fuck fuck!” screamed Suzanne as she attempted to move her arms and legs and was only able to make slow, turtle like movements except for her head, which repeatedly banged against the NMR.
“Too bad, about Suzanne. I really liked her cookies,” Danny said to Kevin as they wandered through their lab on their way out to the stairway.
“What do you mean by her cookies? Her cookies. Or her cookies?
“Don’t be such an ass. Her cookies.”
“Okay then.”
“Um, Kevin, what are these gray blobs doing scattered around the lab?”
“What blobs? Uh, those aren’t blobs. That’s C4! Let’s get the hell outta here and tell Roger and Mitchell.”
“See Four? See four of what?”
“Never mind, let’s move!”