SL Huang - Up and Coming - Stories by the 2016 Campbell-Eligible Authors

“We had an event,” he said.

“We did.” Deidra nodded, concerned.

“The power is out, which means the elevator is most likely out, and we’re on the eighty-fifth floor.”

“The power is out?”

“Focus, Deidra. Is there a protocol? You’re Human Resources, you must know if there’s a protocol. What are you supposed to do if there’s a power outage? If there’s an…” He stopped himself. Those words. An attack . Those words wouldn’t help the situation, wouldn’t put Deidra’s head where he needed her to be. The way to control the situation was to keep her calm, to keep everyone calm.

“A power outage?”

“Yes,” Nate said, “a power outage.”

“We have a protocol.”

“Great. I thought so. I mean, you seem very organized. What is it?”

“We stay here.”

“Stay here?”

“In the event of a power outage. We stay on the floor until someone notifies us or someone comes.”

“So we sit tight? That’s it?”

Nate was aware of the finer details of what happened to the last building that occupied this block, what had happened to those that were told to stay on their floors and wait. It was also the right thing to do.

“First we do a head count,” Deidra said, “so we can call…” Her eyes shifted to the black phone on her desk. She was already aware it didn’t work.

Nate didn’t want her to ponder. “A head count. And who does that?”

Deidra’s eyes went wide. “I do,” she said. “I’m the floor warden.” She spun to the side and then rose from her chair. She swung up the door to the compartment overhanging her desk unit and from between a stack of stapled papers and a dried out plant, removed a shiny yellow plastic construction helmet. She plopped it on her head, forcing her curls to sprout out sideways around the rim, and then straightened the front of her skirt as she had her blouse. She opened a cabinet drawer just below the desktop, removed a flashlight and clipboard, and then flicked the switch of the light to check it.

Nate bit his lip when the light didn’t go on.

“I just bought batteries,” she said. She set the flashlight down and went to work filling out the paper attached to the clipboard line by line.

“Today is the twenty-sec—”

“The twenty-third,” Nate corrected.

Deidra’s lips went tight across her face. “The twenty-third.”

The top of the pen bobbed rapidly as she checked two of a series of boxes. “Occupied?” she mumbled. “Obviously…Time?” She looked at the tiny sparkling watch on her wrist. “My watch stopped.”

Nate flipped his wrist over. EMP, all right. “Did it stop at 12:23?”

“Yeah, 12:23.” Deidra grinned and cocked an eyebrow. “How did you know?”

“I keep exact time,” Nate said.

“Me too.” She scrawled the time down on the clipboard and then glanced up at Nate. “But how is it your watch stopped at the same time?”

“The outage. It’s that kind of outage. Anything electric. That why the phones and the flashlight don’t work.”

“Oh.” Deidra tapped her lower lip with the end of her pen. “Anything electronic?”

“Uh huh.”

“Cory,” Deidra said under her breath.

Nate realized she was merely speaking out loud and not to him, yet he asked, “Who?”

Without an answer, Deidra stormed past Nate, out of her office and into the aisle. “Cory,” she repeated as she walked. Nate followed her. At the end of the aisle a black woman with a beehive hairdo was stretching her arms.

“Iona?” Deidra asked. “Have you seen Cory?”

The woman gazed down the aisle and shook her head.

The cubicles were empty, up until the third. Deidra stopped and threw her hand flat up against her nose. Nate caught the odor when he neared. Cory, a husky twenty-something man, was slumped down in his Aeron chair. He’d defecated himself when he died.

“He had a pacemaker,” Deidre said, “an electric one. He joked that if the power ever went out he would…” She wobbled her head to the side. “He’s been right there, all night.”

Deidra lifted her clipboard and began jotting down the details of Cory’s demise.

Nate looked past her shoulder to Iona, who was now rolling her neck in a circle.

He decided he wanted to get a lay of the land.

“I’ll be right back,” he said.

“Okay.”

Nate stopped two steps away and then pivoted back around.

“Who else should be here?” he asked.

“Most everybody goes to lunch. Jenny, Henry’s assistant, she’ll be here for sure. Maybe the marketing team on the far side.”

Nate nodded and headed out on his mission to survey the floor. He smiled at Iona and she smiled back, but he gave her space as he rounded the corner.

The floor was essentially a square with the elevators, stairwell, and core in the center. Nate saw the girl he thought must be Jenny sitting at the end of the aisle. She was a Native American, or Polynesian, Nate wasn’t sure. She was a big girl, heavyset, with full round cheeks, and a sad smile. A pleasant smile, but sad just the same. That was understandable. He didn’t expect to find anyone happy, or dancing. The cubicles on this side were two deep and the walls lower than where he’d been seated, chest high, but he didn’t see anyone standing in them. The glassed offices on this side were nicer, darker finished woods; they would’ve overlooked the financial district, but a fog blocked any view. The limited light, along with the dark walnut hues, gave the offices a heavy shadow. Midway across the floor he saw a silhouette. Nate stopped and peered through the glass wall. A portly man in a sport coat and tie was writing on a legal pad. He lifted his porcine head to look back at Nate.

“Are you from downstairs?” the man asked.

“No,” Nate said. “Are you all right?”

The man didn’t answer.

“Sir?”

“You’re not from downstairs?”

Nate shook his head. “No, sir.”

The man grunted, waved him away, and then buried his forehead in his hand. Nate watched him for a moment more and then continued toward the girl at the desk.

“You’re Jenny?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Are you okay?”

Jenny nodded her head.

“Is there anyone else over here?”

She tilted her head to the office to her right. Nate leaned forward to see in. The office was three times the size of the others that he’d passed, a large suite, Henry’s office. Henry, a tall man in a pressed white shirt and tight-fitting olive green slacks, was standing arms akimbo at his windowed wall, staring out into the abyss.

“Do you mind?” Nate asked Jenny.

She shrugged.

He circled her desk to the office and rattled his knuckles on Henry’s doorframe.

The man across the office answered with a Brit accent. “How can I help you?”

“Excuse me,” Nate said. “I was just—”

Henry spun to face him. “Come in. Come in.”

Nate nodded and entered the room.

“Hi,” Nate said. “I’m—”

Henry cut him off again. “Nathan Farthen.” Henry held up a hand to greet him. “The Ranger. I know who everyone is coming into this office.”

“Of course. Nate is fine.”

Henry took Nate’s hand firmly into his own. His smile was reassuring and apart from a slight shadow of a beard, he appeared to be in prime form. “Sit down,” he said, gesturing to the leather couch on the side of the suite.

Nate lifted both of his hands. “Thank you, but…”

“Right,” Henry said. “Me too.”

Henry walked back over to the glass and resumed glaring into the fog.

“EMP, you think?”

“Yeah,” Nate said. “Something twenty-five, thirty klicks up.”

“And the tremor?”