Prompt – And to top it all off, they give you a medal for it
John Ang looked up as I entered his office and plopped down on his sofa, “Hey Harry, how did it go?”
“Oh man, you don’t want to know”, I sighed
John arched his eyebrow at me from behind his desk.
“Okay, but you aren’t going to believe what hell I’ve been through.”
“Did you destroy another computer again?”
“Give me a break, man. I didn’t mean to do that. No, this was supposed to be a sweet corporate espionage gig. In and out, no problems. However, it was anything but that.”
John put his hand under his chin, “I’m all ears, you got to tell me all the details.”
“Getting in was no problem, from the roof into the top of the elevator shaft. I was climbing down and the elevator started rising. I didn’t know they had hi-speed elevators in that building. I panicked a bit and saw a ventilation grate and busted through it like a Mack truck.”
John chuckled, “If you had told me about it before you left, I could have researched all that for you.”
“I know, I know, but I didn’t want to bother you after that incident with The Universe. Anyways, in the process of getting into the ventilation system, I tore my pants pocket which had my map of the building and all the details and they fell out.”
“Don’t tell me, you got lost in the ventilation system.”
Closing my eyes and nodding, “Yep, wasn’t long before I was completely lost. And let me tell you, the vents in the building were nothing like you see in the movies all shiny and pristine. Nope, dusty and grimy, I had to fight to not to sneeze the whole time. But that wasn’t the biggest problem. I could only remember that I was to break into the PC of a guy whose name was Scofield and get his financial sheets. I couldn’t remember what floor or office he was in.”
“See, this is why you should never go solo. Why didn’t you call me?”, John said as he grabbed a couple of cokes from his fridge and tossed one to me.
Taking a big swig, I belched, “The damn building was like a Faraday cage, I couldn’t get a signal and I had to be super quiet in the vents as it echoed any noise I made. About six hours in the vents, I was tired, hungry and thirsty, I finally came across an opening into a kitchen break area. By the way, the openings in each office were small, again nothing like the movies.”
“Of course, especially the older building you were in. So what happened next?”
“Well, the opening into the break room was big enough that I could get through and I started rooting around for something to drink and eat. Then I heard the ding of the elevator. Oh crap, it’s a security guard. Because at 3 in the morning, who else would it be. I hid behind the door and when he came into the break room, I snuck out and headed for the elevator as quick as I could. Once in, I punched a number at random.”
Finishing my coke, I deftly threw it into the trash bin by John’s desk.
John laughed and said, “Let me guess, Harry Gruen, the luckiest bastard in the world just happened to get the right floor for Scofield’s office.”
Chuckling and looking at the ceiling, I said, “Yep. Right on the floor directory outside the elevator was Scofield’s name. I quickly located his office and picked the lock. Once inside, I saw he had a laptop on his desk.”
“Wait. Didn’t you say it was a PC that you were supposed to break into?”
Nodding my head slowly, “Again, yes. But I figured maybe they wrote PC on the instructions meaning the laptop. Anyways, easy peasy to break into laptop and I saw he had an encrypted folder. So I plugged in my flash drive and started my hack of the folder. While I was waiting, I leaned back in his chair. You know, one of those super comfy executive chairs.”
“And you fell asleep.”
“Oh god yes, I was tired, grumpy and filthy, of course I fell asleep.”
Laughing, John said, “I got a feeling this is going to be good, what happened next.”
“Well”, I said slowly, “I woke up when Scofield banged his door closed. He yelled at me and grabbed the phone on his desk and called security. I had jumped up and backed away from the desk, trapped like a rat. Thankfully, security was real quick.”
“Wait? What?”
“Yep, I happened to look down at his laptop right as security came in and I yelled out to them to arrest Scofield as he was also yelling for them to arrest me.”
“Okay, now I’m confused.”
“You would think that Scofield was a pretty unique name, right? Well, turns out there were two Scofield’s in the building and of course I had picked the wrong one kind of. Remember that encrypted folder I told you about?”
“Yeah, so?”
“Turns out this Scofield was a major ring leader in child pornography.”
“You have got to be kidding me?”
“Nope, I swear on all that is holy, I saw images I wish I could un-see. One look at the pics on his laptop and security grabbed Scofield until the cops got there. I did some fast talking telling them a B.S. story about how I was an investigative reporter after they had hauled both of us to the local precinct.”
“They let you go?”
“Yep, seems they had a bigger fish to fry with Scofield. And to top it all off, they gave me a medal for exposing Scofield.”
John roared with laughter, “Only you would land in a pile of crap and come up smelling like a rose.”
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Writing with Cancer 