Today

Scott stood and watched as the guard slowly walked toward him, his right hand coming up with a Taser.

Then he turned to look over his shoulder and saw Herb walking toward him from the other side, his gun drawn.

“You cannot evade us!” the two said in perfectly matching tones.

“Shit, shit, shit!” Scott said, spotting the empty meeting room to his immediate right. He immediately ducked into the room and slammed the door behind him. Then he locked it and dragged one of the three meeting room tables over to it, flipped it over on its side and pushed it up against the door.

Someone slammed against the door from the other side.

Scott knew it wouldn’t hold. Besides, the guard likely had a key to the room.

There wasn’t a phone in this twelve by eighteen foot meeting room, just a few more tables, a half dozen chairs, a whiteboard and a single window. But even if there had been a phone who could he call? Building security? They were obviously in on it with Herb, whatever it was.

And what the hell was it with the monotone robot-like voice, the matching glazed look on their faces?

There wasn’t time to think about that, to try to understand it. They weren’t just trying to capture him. Herb had made the intent quite clear. The goal was to kill him.

Scott needed to find a way out by any means possible.

He rushed to the window as someone again slammed against the door.

There were no latches to open the window, just a thick sheet of glass.  Scott looked out, knowing that there was a drop down to the 3rd floor roof-top turret below.

Scott set down his backpack. He lifted one of the wheeled archback office chairs, then threw it against the window.  The chair bounced off.

“Dammit!” he yelled as someone again slammed against the door from outside.

He picked up the chair again, and once more threw it against the window.

This time a spider-web of cracks splintered out.

Now we’re getting somewhere.

The third time he launched the chair against the window, the spider-web cracks shot out farther across the surface of the window.

Scott heard a key being inserted into the door’s lock.

He hefted the chair again, this time shattering the glass completely.

Scott grabbed his bag, looped it over his shoulder, and stepped up into the window. The broken edge of the glass sliced into his left hand as he pulled himself into the window’s opening.

The door behind him opened and slammed against the table he had tossed in front of it.

“You cannot evade us!” a robotic voice stated.

Scott jumped out the window to the rooftop alleyway one floor below. When his feet hit, he folded his legs beneath him and rolled out of the fall, losing his backpack in the process.

Rolling several times, Scotty moved up into a crouched position about a foot away from the chair he had thrown through the window. He then rushed to the edge of the roof that overlooked the building’s parking lot. There was no fire escape stairway or any other means of climbing down or up. And there was no way that he was going to be able to survive a leap down three stories onto the pavement.

He raced back to the chair, picked it up and launched it against one of the third story windows into another vacant meeting room.

This time, the window cracked upon first impact.

Scott picked the chair up again, this time feeling a sharp pain in his left hand. A line of blood leaked down from his palm and over his wrist.  He threw the chair again.  The crack became bigger.

He glanced back up at the window he had just jumped out of. Neither Herb nor the security guard was visible. They were obviously still trying to get into the room.

He picked up the chair again. Threw it. The window spider-webbed into a road map havoc of cracks.

Another throw.  Deeper and more intense cracks.

“Come on!” Scott yelled, hefting the chair again with all of his might.

The fourth throw did the trick and the glass imploded inward along with the chair.

Scott picked up his backpack, threw it over his shoulder and ducked into the window just as he heard, again in unison, the two men say in that eerie robotic tone.  “You won’t get away! You cannot evade us!”