Severance Package Read Online Free PDF Page A

he’d never stopped to wonder about the companies up here. There was more than one, certainly—there was a directory at the end of the hall.
    He didn’t stop to wonder now, either.
    The air in the fire tower was mercifully warm. Ethan was tempted to take a seat on the cool concrete and savor the varying climes. Breath warm; sweat out the French martini. Meanwhile, let the soothing cool work its way up from the steps, into his buttocks, and beyond, healing the O-ring damage he’d sustained up on thirty-seven.
    But the later his appearance on the thirty-sixth floor, the worse off he’d be.
    Up, Ethan, up.
    Go, Ethan, go.
    Down the stairs. Hand on the doorknob. Get it over with.
    The cardboard he’d used to prop open the door was still in place.
    There were smiles at first, then confused frowns. Was this supposed to be an icebreaker? Jamie thought. Or was this David’sstrange way of saying there was going to be a Saturday-morning fire drill?
    “Stop it, David,” Amy said. “This isn’t funny.”
    “Sarin,
David?” Nichole asked. “Isn’t that a little harsh?”
    Stuart tried to jump on the bandwagon. “Seriously. Couldn’t you have made do with a little burst of anthrax or something? Let the trespasser know you mean business, but live to tell the tale?”
    “Biological agents like anthrax take too long,” David said. “And it’s not as easy to weaponize as you think.”
    “Right,” Stuart said. “I always have trouble with that.”
    “Plus, you could take a full blast, right in the face, and still figure you were okay for a while. Then you could make your way down the stairs and out to Market Street. I figured the immediate impact of sarin—burning eyes, nausea, constricted breathing, muscle weakness, the whole nine—would be the only thing that could keep you guys on this floor. I didn’t use an extravagant amount, but certainly enough to prevent you from reaching the bottom floor. Your throat would close before you made it down three or four flights.”
    Amy’s nose wrinkled. “David.”
    “Am I being offensive?”
    “Hostile work environment,”
Stuart said in a mock falsetto.
    “Okay, we get it, it’s lockdown, we’re not going anywhere, ha ha ha,” Amy said. “So what’s the operational plan?”
    “Whoa,” Nichole said. “Before we start talking about plans … David, you do know who’s here, right?” She motioned at Jamie.
    Me? Jamie thought. Oh, you’ve got to love the Clique. God forbid I sit in on a meeting with any substance. Freaky as it was.
    David tented his index fingers under his nose again. Raised his eyebrows slightly, then opened his mouth …
    And there was a scream.
    Not from David. From somewhere else. Beyond the walls of the conference room. Elsewhere on the floor.
    Molly said, “God, Ethan …”
    Ethan had glanced up at the weird thing above the door just before it happened. Thing was bone-white, cushy, the size of a fanny pack, and had a keypad and bright green digital display with the word READY . He turned around to look at the wall behind him—maybe there were more? His hand was still on the doorknob. As he turned, the door opened another inch.
    He heard a clicking sound. A blast of mist hit him square in the face. His eyes burned immediately. It freaked him out.
    So Ethan didn’t care how it might sound. He screamed.
    He screamed like hell.
    David and Molly exchanged glances, and David said, “We’re going to have to check that out.”
    “Wait,” Amy said. “Was that
Ethan?”
    Jamie stood up. He looked outside, in the haze of the summer morning, scanning for planes. He couldn’t help it. He’d worked in a building in Lower Manhattan on 9/11, right at Broadway and Bleecker. His office window had faced the Twin Towers; he’d been taking a leak when the first plane hit. Jamie had walked back to his office and saw, with a start, that the upper floors of the North Tower were on fire. Someone screamed.
    The scream, the blaze: forever entwined in his