Turn About

Alex 01

Even late at night the city throbbed with a million pinpoints of light. If I had been able to see the stars, I might have been able to draw comparison. Unfortunately in this day and age there was hardly anywhere on earth that you could go to see the stars anymore. Most people never even bother to leave their corporate enclave, barring transfers they never saw more of the world than the holovid showed them.

My office was pretty high up, and quite simply that meant that I was a pretty damn important guy. It was a well-known fact that the higher your work space was, the more powerful your position with the company. I once had lunch with a middle management wage-slave who had a theory that the elevators went all the way to heaven, but you had to have an executive washroom key to get inside. That was back before my meteoric rise, now I knew better, the higher up the corporate ladder you went the farther you got from anything resembling humanity.

Being a Vice President of the company gave me some clout, but on the other hand there were more VPs than any other single position in the company. It was the killing ground for future executives, you either moved up the ladder or were culled from the herd. I guess I had an advantage, because they had put me in charge of a research division. I had been a research project leader before my promotion. At the time it had meant great things, now I wonder if I made the right choice moving into the arena.

I stood up and walked over to the window of my office. The Plexiglas they used for windows had been treated to seal out the temperature, but I could see the clouds swirling overhead. Yeah, I was pretty high up, but even I didn't have an office above the clouds. With the warmth and humidity outside, it looked like a nasty thunderstorm was starting.

Sometimes I remembered my childhood, back when some people still lived outside of city and enclave. The sharp taste of ozone in the air during a particularly fierce thunderstorm, the soothing sound of raindrops on the roof of our house, and the fresh smell of grass after the storm ended. Even decades later it was still fresh in my mind.

As I watched the first raindrops fall, the soundproof windows kept all the sounds of the city out. I might as well have turned the windows opaque and projected false scenery, that was what most of my neighbors did. Looking at the muted storm outside my windows, I had to concede that it might have seemed more real if it were fake. That was true of most things in my world, the fake things were the most vibrant. It made sense to me, as much as I thought I missed being a kid and playing out in the storms, I knew that part of me loved the safe and secure feeling of being inside my office. Not even Mother Nature herself could blow my house down, we made our buildings tornado and earthquake proof. Towering monoliths of plastic and steel that scraped the sky itself. In the end none of that really mattered to me, it was all a distraction to keep me from thinking about what I had in my desk drawer.

My hand shook as I slid it open and gazed at the three items inside. The first was a small plastic card that was mostly transparent with the words MagLev in large letters, and a scrolling holo display below that showed the departure time. Beside that was a plastic tube about three inches long with a flat display on it as well. At the moment the display was blank, but I knew that all I had to do was put my thumb print on it and I would get a read out of how many credits were on the stick. I had liquidated most of my belongings and money into the untraceable stick, it would be enough to live well for a long time. It was the last item that held my attention the most, however, and that was because it was a gun.

The gun was a medium caliber compact pistol that was favored mostly by cops and security guards. It had been recommended to me because it 'has enough stopping power and holds enough bullets to get the job done'. As I picked it up my hand shook so violently that I wondered if even fifteen shots would be enough to hit anything. If the friend who was waiting for me had heard me say something like that he would have smirked and said a prissy exec like me had no business with a gun anyhow, but desperate times...

I had been waiting for what seemed like years when the televid finally rang. In a nervous rush I pressed the connect button so quickly I almost knocked it off my desk. The display remained blank, but a deep voice said, "The dinner reservations have been arranged, I'll be expecting you tonight."

He was purposely disguising his voice, but if I hadn't known him so well it would have sounded authentic to me. I caught myself before I nodded, with the video display blank it would have done no good, and said, "I'll be there."

Normally he would have cut the call without saying anything else, he was brusque like that, but instead he added, "Be careful, it looks like all hell is breaking loose out there, bring your umbrella."

Before I could reply, he cut the connection, but I had gotten the message. As much as I hated it, I would have to bring the gun. If he was worried enough to say something, then that was enough to send a major chill down my spine.

I threw on my overcoat and loaded the pockets with the items from my desk, making sure that the gun was in the large pocket near my right hand. If I was lucky I wouldn't have to touch the thing again, but no way was I taking a chance on fumbling for the thing if I needed it. Then I was out the door and down the hallway to the elevator.

That late at night most of the people had left, but there was still the occasional late worker or security guard. Anytime someone glanced at me, I had to resist the urge to scream or draw my gun. I remembered from watching old movies on the holovid that people used to smoke cigarettes when they were nervous, but no one smoked anymore. Most vises were a lot more intrusive now, you either piped it directly into your brain or your veins. The only people who still smoked were the riffraff that lived in the city between the corporate enclaves.

Right then, however, I really felt like I could use a cigarette.