Lawrence
Lawrence knew the old man wouldn’t go down without a fight.
Of course.
No one in their right mind would leave a job at Blink Inc.
“B-but I don’t understand, sir. This is all so sudden,” he protested, his wrinkled hands quivering as he spoke.
Lawrence rubbed his eyeballs and sighed, “Mr. Wilson. It is a simple fact that Blink no longer requires your services. I don’t think it should be all that difficult to understand.”
“This is an outrage!” he said. “I have worked here for over forty years. That’s longer than you’ve been alive, boy!”
“Mr. Wilson.” Lawrence raised his voice. “I must remind you that you are speaking with the Chief Secretary of the Managing Director.”
The old man scoffed at him. “Fancy words for a bellboy.”
“Regardless.” He continued in his professional monotone. “I am to make sure that you are adequately compensated for any… inconvenience.”
Lawrence tore a blank paper from his checkbook, inked it with a reasonably large number, and extended it toward the old man. “This should be fair severance for your services.”
The old man snatched the check and tore it into pieces. “I don’t need your pity, lapdog. I gave my life to this company. And they didn’t even think twice before giving me the boot. What makes you think you’re gonna stick around?"
Lawrence gave him no answer.
The old man got up from his seat and began to walk away. For a moment, he stopped in his tracks and looked Lawrence in the eye one last time. “I’d say go to hell but that’s too kind of a fate for scum like you.” He shut the door behind him with an angry slam.
Lawrence sank into his armchair and exhaled. “God, please. No more.” He groaned and grabbed a cup of coffee.
The transceiver on his work desk lit up with a green light. A woman’s voice came through, “Really? I thought that went rather well.”
Lawrence took a long sip from his cup but the coffee was already cold. He complained for a second but continued sipping regardless. “Of course, you would say that.”
He heard a small chuckle from the other end of the phone. “How many was that today?” she asked.
“Fourteen,” answered Lawrence, looking at his watch. It was half past two. “Boss-man’s downsizing like there’s no tomorrow. You should watch your back.”
“Oh yeah, that reminds me. The boss wants to see his Chief Secretary as soon as convenient. I’d hurry if I were you.”
“Great,” said Lawrence, slamming his cup on the desk. “There goes my lunch break.”
The other employees called him the messenger of death. Lawrence preferred the nickname he’d come up with: ‘the designated punching bag’. For the six months that he’d served in this position, he had fired more angry workers than he could count.
Actually, he could, now that he thought about it. Eight hundred and forty-three, to be exact.
Eight hundred and forty-three honest, hardworking people who would like nothing more than to see his head on a pike.
That’s the price of success, he told himself and made his way to the ninety-ninth floor.
Patricia was waiting for him outside the elevator. Her long red-brown hair was tied neatly into a bun that looked a bit too tight. She was dressed in a gray-white pantsuit that exuded an air of professionalism. Her small, clammy fingers were wrapped around a leather binder that she was holding tightly to her chest. She was tapping her heel so furiously, Lawrence was surprised she hadn’t dug a hole in the floor.
“Waiting for someone?” He called out from behind.
As if on reflex, Patricia gave an audible gasp and flung the leather binder at him. Lawrence’s glasses were knocked clean off his face.
Patricia rushed to help him, then realized it was just Lawrence, and her expression shifted from motherly concern to quiet disdain.
Lawrence crouched over to pick up his glasses. “Sorry. I uhh…”
“Just get in the office,” she groaned, pointing to the massive, gilded door frame behind her. The words MANAGING DIRECTOR were plastered across it in shining golden letters.
“Nervous much?” asked Lawrence.
Patricia resumed her furious tapping. “Asshole’s been talking to Norton all morning.”
“And?”
“I don’t know yet. He’s been huffy ever since we started hiring Wadin immigrants. Says it makes his government look bad.”
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“Hold on,” said Lawrence. “I thought we were doing him a favor? God knows he hasn’t done shit since the wall came down.”
“Yeah? Well, tell that to his face. And don’t forget your assignment.” She stressed the last part by raising her voice.
“Fine,” he muttered and began walking away.
“Lawrence!”
He turned around. Before he could process what was happening, Patricia pushed him against the back wall such that her lips were right next to his ears. She whispered, “Do not for a moment forget where your true loyalties lie.”
Lawrence answered with a nod.
“Good,” she smiled and walked away without a second thought.
Jeremy Calico from Accounting, who had witnessed all of this drama, winked and whistled as he passed by. “You lucky son of a bitch.”
Lawrence did not dignify him with a response.
He breathed a sigh of relief as he opened the massive, gilded door. Despite its enormous stature, the doorframe moved as if it weighed nothing. Lawrence walked into the boss man’s office, as he’d done countless times before, and found Mr. Roland engaged in a video call with a man who appeared to be talking more with his hands than his mouth.
“That’s it! You’re finished. That, my friend, was the last straw. You are fucking done, you hear me? That is the last time you get to screw me over.”
Mr. Roland leaned back in his armchair, sighed, and smiled at the man on his computer screen. “Gonna have to be more specific, mate.”
“My wife,” said Mr. Norton.
“Oh, yeah, I remember that. It was in the evening news, was it not?” Mr. Roland grinned.
“You told her about Gina, didn’t you? I fucking know you did. Don’t even try to pretend otherwise.”
Mr. Roland ignored his angry stare and picked up the Rubik's cube on his desk. He busied his hands with the colorful contraption and continued to speak in a dismissive tone, “Hey, she didn’t catch me plowin’ your mistress, mate. That one’s on you. Shoulda been loyal to your sweetie pie. Besides, I’m sure that’s the least of your problems these days. Remind me, what was your public approval rating last week? Thirty points? Twenty-five? Not even that?”
Lawrence stood in the doorway with an awkward expression. He coughed a bit, hoping to catch the boss’s attention, but Mr. Roland elected to ignore him. He groaned and resigned himself to standing in the corner, as he’d done countless times before.
“That’s none of your business,” muttered Norton.
“Oh, dear, dear Tim.” Mr. Roland shook his head. His Rubik's cube was nearly solved. “You gotta stop hittin’ the bar, mate. Did you forget already? Elections are in three weeks. Six months since the walls came crumblin’ and you haven’t done jack. How do you think that’s gonna fly for your campaign?”
“I’m the only one holding Lucidea together. If it wasn’t for me, this country would’ve destroyed itself a long time ago. We are not ready for other nations.”
“That’s what you tossers have been tellin’ folks for five hundred years. Now that the Treaty’s gone, you can’t play that card anymore. Like it or not, we’re a global economy now, mate. You gotta think globally.” Mr. Roland put a finger to his temple to exaggerate his point.
Norton scoffed at him. “You and that big mouth of yours.”
Mr. Roland laughed in response. “My girlfriend likes it, if you get what I mean.”
“You…!” Norton attempted to threaten him with a death glare, but seeing that it had no effect, he resigned himself with a heavy sigh. “Forget it. Thanks to a certain someone, I have a press conference to attend. But this discussion is far from over.”
“Take care, Timmy.” The video turned off as the last piece of the Rubik's cube snapped into place. Mr. Roland tossed the solved puzzle over his shoulder, and it landed straight into the dustbin behind him.
Seeing his chance, Lawrence took a step forward. His feet had gone numb from standing in one place for too long so he moved toward Mr. Roland’s desk with an awkward waddle. “You called, sir?”
“Oh, Larry, there you are,” his boss responded with a beaming smile. His perfectly combed golden hair shone brightly under the expensive ceiling lights. “How’d the firings go?”
“Splendid, sir,” he answered. “Fourteen down.”
“Fourteen? Good job, Larry,” said Mr. Roland as he got up and walked over to the raised platform by the window. It served no purpose beyond making him look intimidating to anyone that walked into his office. The window on the ninety-ninth floor provided a bird’s eye view of the entire city. Roland was an ambitious man. He might have inherited Blink from his family, but it was he alone that had turned it into the global powerhouse it was today. By Lawrence’s estimate, there wasn’t a single person on the planet that hadn’t heard of Blink Social Media, Blink Videos, Blink TV, Blink Consultants, Blink Finances, and last but not least, Blink Military Solutions.
“That makes fourteen vacancies for people that actually need those jobs,” Roland continued. “Sure hope that drives those social metrics in our favor. Speaking of which, I’d better practice my opening for the presidential debate. Would you care to listen, Larry?”
“Gladly, sir,” answered Lawrence, knowing full well that ‘no’ wasn’t an acceptable answer.
Mr. Roland took the stage, cleared his throat, and began his speech. Lawrence pretended to listen. He was good at pretending. He gave the appropriate amount of applause whenever required, nodded whenever he was prompted, and even threw in a hoot and a whistle for authenticity’s sake.
When he was done, Mr. Roland jumped down the platform and cleared his throat. “Ahem! That was a throat drier. You clean up the desk, Larry. I’m gonna find something to drink. Toodles!”
Mr. Roland waved at him and disappeared behind the massive, gilded door.
Lawrence looked at his wristwatch and counted down to five. Then, he looked at the security cameras located in the four corners of the room. Every single one of them was facing away from Mr. Roland’s desk.
That’s my cue.
Lawrence put his hands in his pockets, whistled, and walked over to Mr. Roland’s computer. He turned around and took another look at the massive, gilded door. When it showed no signs of motion, Lawrence retrieved a flash drive from his pocket.
“Here goes,” Lawrence sighed and jammed it into the computer.
“Come on, come on, you piece of shit!” he complained in a low whisper. After nearly forty-five seconds or, in Lawrence’s opinion, an eternity, the download was complete. He pulled it out of the computer, shoved it back in his pocket, and paced out of the office like his life depended on it.
Opening the door, he found Patricia standing in the same place as before. She looked at him questioningly. He gave her a silent nod and kept walking until he was standing inside the safety of the elevator.
Once he was certain that no one could see or hear him, he collapsed onto the floor of the elevator and cried. “Oh, God. Please, no more.”
The moment he thought he was in the clear, his phone started ringing. The sudden noise nearly gave him a heart attack. He answered the call with shaking hands.
A deep voice greeted him. “Good job, Lawrence. Caroline had her doubts, but I always knew you’d pull through in the end. I pray she didn’t give you too much trouble.”
“It was okay, sir,” he answered meekly. “What do you need me to do now?”
“I’ll need some time to decrypt the files on the drive. In the meantime, keep an eye on the big man. Make sure he doesn’t do anything… erratic.”
“And what about you, sir? What are you going to do with the information?” asked Lawrence.
“God’s work, kid. God’s work. We’ll call you soon.”
When Lawrence hung up, the caller’s name was displayed on his screen in bright golden letters.
TRENT MORNINGSTAR
He promptly deleted the call record.