Because You Asked

Because You Asked

**Warning: This containts references to violence and blood please be aware prior to reading **

You Asked

My blazer tugged open in the vacuum of air from the massive glass doors swinging shut. Entering the Meta Building, I glanced behind myself to ensure it had closed. I ran my right hand through my tousled hair, dipping my head in the direction of the security guard.

“Good Morning Dave,” I greeted the man cheerfully, like all people should, in my opinion.

“Morning Bradley! Good to see ya,” he responded with as much gusto.

That is something that I liked about Dave, he always said hi back. He didn’t have that air of superiority that you could feel rippling off the majority of residents in the ‘oh so lovely’ New York City.

The elevator dinged, signaling it had reached the foyer. As Istepped in and hit the button for my floor, way up at the top, floor 55, my stomach flip flopped. My least favorite part of the day. Another cheery ding left me at the operations floor. I prepared my morning coffee at the food bar, greeting all my coworkers as they passed.

With a hot latte in one hand, briefcase in the other, I walked to the center cluster of cubicles in the middle division on the floor. Placing both in their respective spots, I grinned as I saw Stacy was also situating herself across from me.

“Good morning Stacy! Happy Thursday!” I quipped as I leaned my hand over the divider for a high five, something I did every morning.

“Hiya Bradley, “ she high fived me,not nearly as enthusiastically, “good morning to you too.”

I sank into my chair, unbuckled my briefcase, and pulled out the assignments for the week. I had been working for Meta for nearly ten years, I was now a Senior Coding Specialist, double checking all the submitted work for the plethora of websites under our jurisdiction. It was a good job, people told me that. Mama said it was a respectable job, that I should be proud. I suppose I was. I set to work on the stack I had labeled ‘Thursday”.

Around 4:15p.m. I was reviewing my last file when the phone at our reception desk rang. I saw Elaine pick it up, but she didn’t say anything, her face turned a deadly shade of white. Her hand trembled as she returned the phone to the desk and shuffled quickly into Charles’ office. She left the door ajar, I grumbled to myself as I went back to work. I hated when people left the door open when they went through them.

As I returned to the task before me, the full building intercom speakers started crackling. like little gophers peeking out of their burrows, I saw the heads of my peers pop up, anticipating the inevitable announcement.

Nothing came. Just static.

Barely discernible speech in the background, the crackling continued. Maybe someone had hit the intercom button by accident? Or maybe Dave was playing a prank on everyone? I shook my head, I knew that Dave was not the pranking kind. Curiosity paused the productivity of the day as everyone waited. After about a minute of this nonsense, Charles and Elaine appeared in the doorway to his office.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Charles started after glanding at the nearest intercom speaker, “ I have news,”

In the deafening silence of everyone's attention diverting left to our leader, a small ding, reverberated through the room. The elevator. Head’s swung to look right.

The doors slid smoothly open, I craned my neck to get a better look at whoever was interrupting. A thin, young girl in a black pencil skirt bolted through. She halted as all eyes took in her disheveled state. Her hair was knotted and falling out of its clean updo, the ivory of her sweater stained with dark splotches.

“There's..there are men downstairs,” she choked out between gasping breaths and smearing something red across her forehand in an attempt to wipe off the sweat, “Men with gu…” a staccato ripple of popping noises came ripping through the intercom, accompanied by screaming, “they have guns! Claiming..they are holding everyone..here hostage!”

A beat of silence. Another. My heart slowed, my hearing heightened, there were men bringing guns into our building. Did they not read the signs saying there were no firearms allowed on the premises? Did Dave not stop them?

Everyone on the floor sprang into action, calling and texting loved ones and the authorities. Packing their things, dashing for the nearest offices with boltable doors. Sealable safe rooms. Stacy looked at me in horror, rushing to pack her things, yelling at me to do so as well. By now the intercom had dulled back to the crackle, but you couldn't hear it over the commotion.

I was confused. Why was everyone panicking, they are just holding us here? Why was the girl's shirt stained red? Were people hurt? Thoughts clambered over one another for the forefront of my consciousness when the room went black. The lights, someone had shut them off. Everyone dropped to panicked whispers, as if the darkness would cloak them from bullets if only they could meld into it.

I felt a hand grab mine, Stacy. I could feel the dainty gold ring that she wore on her index finger.

“Bradley,” her voice was hushed, “we need to get into the conference room, it has the safest door. Since it doesn’t have a window.”

Ding.

Silence. I raised my eyes from the desk to the door as the silhouettes of three armed men stepped out of the elevator.

“Who’s on this floor!” a gruff man's voice called out.

“The Operations Team,” I called back, answering.

Gasps echoed through the room, Stacy grabbed my arm, “what are you doing?!”

“They asked a question,” I matched her hushed level, “I was just being polite, answering them.”

“Well, Operations Team,” the man spat, “you are all to come downstairs, with the rest of the employees of this building. Listen. You live. Don’t Listen, you die. Simple.”

Silence met his demand, I nodded my head, about to respond, Stacy clamped her hand over my mouth.

“You do not answer them!” she hissed, dragging me to the ground.

She crawled to the conference room with me hot on her heels. I could hear the men shuffling around the room, dragging people up. A thud as muscle met muscle, someone was fighting back. A deafening bang a scream, groaning, then silence once more.

Stacy and I had made it into the conference room, swinging the door shut silently, we stood. Groping for the wall, I reached for the light switches I knew were there. That was something Mama had always taught me, when you go into a room, turn the light on, when you leave, turn it off. It was a rule.

My fingers found the switch and I flipped it, washing the room, and Stacy’s horrified face, in fluorescent buzzing light.

“WHO'S IN THERE?” a yell from behind the door.

“Bradley what did you do?!” Stacy ran past me horrified, reaching for the lights.

Darkness enveloped us again, I shrugged, “ had to turn the light on when we got in here.”

Obvious.

A fist hammered on the door, “We know you're in there, turning the lights back off doesn't change that.”

More banging. Then there were two of them. Hitting the door over and over with what had to be something large and solid. The door was rattling on its hinges, I could see Stacy’s silhouette from the bit of light that came through a window on the far corner. She looked terrified, and pissed. I stared at her blankly, not comprehending what I did to make her mad. She was going to be in a dark room, no one does that.

The door gave way, two massive men filed in, chucking a wood chair aside. Masks covering their lower faces, military looking guns pointed at our heads. I froze, I knew the gun pointed at us was bad, and learned that from Mama too. They gestured for us to kneel, I heard Stacy’s knees hit the ground with a light thud, I followed suit, keeping my hands above my head.

“Who are you two?” the one on the left growled.

“I am Bradley Donavan, this is Stacy Moore,” I answered promptly.

He stared at me blankly. Then exchanged a look with his partner. Confusion?

“How old are you?”

“32 and ⅓.”

“What is your job?”

“Senior Coding Specialist.”

“Is that important?”

“I think all jobs are important.”

“Why do you keep answering all my questions?”

I looked at him, confused as to why he would bother asking that, “because you asked.”

He stood there for a moment, his head tilted to the side strangely as an idea seemed to form, “do you do everything that you’re told?”

“Told, no,” I shook my head, “I don’t do everything that I am told. I do things that are nice, and acceptable to society. Answering peoples questions when they ask falls into that category wouldn’t you agree?”

I could feel Stacy’s eyes burning a hole in the back of my head, pleading with me to stop talking.

“I see.” was all he said.

—---------------------------

We were led downstairs to the fifth floor with the rest of the hostages, and I figured out, through the chatter and babble, that the police had the building surrounded. That the men, they kept calling them the “Felons”, were holding all of Elons top staff members for ransom, wanting to get paid ten billion dollars, or resort to option b.”

With Stacy on my right, and a wall on my left, we waited.

And waited.

And waited.

It felt like forever, checking my watch in exasperation, I realized that it was 6:00p.m.

“Excuse me?” I got up, raising a hand to get the attention of the nearest man, who happened to be our guy from upstairs.

He grumbled, raising his firearm slightly in my direction. I approached him, all eyes on me.

“I was wondering..how long do you intend to keep us here?”

He looked annoyed by my question and grabbed my arm, “You’ve been pisssing me off, come on.”

I heard Stacy call my name as I was led to the front of the room, where the man who was obviously running this operation, was convening with the police by phone.

“Chief, this guy keeps asking stupid questions,” the guy tossed me to the ground in front of his boss.

The skinny, short man looked at me as I scrambled back to my feet, flustered.

“They are not stupid.” I brushed my blazer off indignantly, “I just wanted to know if you are letting us leave soon, I have to feed my cat at 7 p.m. and it is getting late.”

The boss gave me my full attention, “What did you just say?”

“I said. That I need. To feed my cat. At 7,” I repeated, punctuating my sentence with my hands, “sir…”

He looked at me silently. Surveying, “I see, how do we know that is the truth?”

Anger boiled in my lung at that, was he accusing me of being a liar?

“I never, ever, lie. I was taught not to grow up, weren't you?!” I huffed, “Or do you just not have manners or follow any of the rules? Going around leaving doors ipen and lights off and everything?”

He laughed, dark and low, as if calling me a liar was funny, recognition dawned his dark eyes.

“No…no…of course not. I should have known that you always tell the truth. You’re Bradley Donavan. Aren’t you?”

A pause.

“Yes.”

“And you need to get home, to feed your cat?”

“That is what I said,”

“Well…if you can keep a secret, I’ll let you go to the cat,”

I thought about it for a moment. My Mama and Papa had always had me keep secrets growing up. ‘Don’t tell mom I'm drinking’, ‘don’t tell dad I'm meeting with Mr. Stanford’. It was exhausting, but I knew, keeping a secret for someone was important.

“Of course, I never tell other people secrets”

The mysterious slender man walked to me, leaned in, and whispered in my ear a moment. I stood there, frozen in place, thinking it over. It was a secret, a big secret, an important secret. I glanced back at the room of people. Intercom crackling.

“I won’t tell a soul,” I swore, “cross my heart.”

The man looked at me strangely, then with a nod, told his people to let me through. I stepped past his guards, the crowd behind me yelling now, so loudly it drowned out the ding of the elevator as I stepped in.

—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I crossed the foyer, moved Dave off the intercom button, and shut his permanently open eyelids. Then stepped around the crimson stains on the marble floor to exit the main door. Checking that it was closed behind me.

A full SWAT team rushed up to meet me, one of them identifying me as ‘Bradley Donavan’, the wonder kid that had worked for Elon and went viral a few short years ago.

They pulled me away from the building, peppering me with questions. All of which I answered promptly, accurately, calmly.

“Ok Bradley, I have two important questions for you, then someone will escort you home to,” the man with the badge reading Hanson flipped through notes, eyebrows raised, “feed your cat?”

I nodded, checking my watch, 6:30 p.m.

“First, did they say what their plans are?” He queried, pen poised to write down any info.

“I am dreadfully sorry,” I paused, thinking, “that is a secret I promised to keep.”

Hanson scanned me up and down, as if he couldn't believe it. Pen scratched on paper.

“One more,” more scratching, “how come they let only you out?”

I sighed, wondering why people always asked the silliest questions. They think that everything is difficult and complicated, but really you just have to follow the rules.

“Because,” I shrugged, “I asked.”

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One week later, headlines across America read: Meta building went up in an inferno. Only one survivor, Bradley Donanvan, claims let go, “Because He Asked.”