“Oh God—they did it, the bastards did it!” exclaimed Simon as he leaped from his seat at the head of the conference table.

Joseph Lyman, worth 3.8 million with a beautiful 40 year old arm candy bride, and a stunning 30 year old mistress between the Hyatt Regency bed sheets; a Mercedes in the parking garage and an Audi at home—and what a home—saw it all evaporate with this satanic sentence obviously pulled from some devil worshipping cult’s apocalyptic literature.

“This cannot be!” he heard himself foolishly shout, denying the obvious.

Who are ‘they’? He thought, as tears rolled down his face. Squinting against their flow he stood to follow Simon, to find out who ‘they’ were; discover what could be done to negotiate with them; how to sure up the stock market so that his hedge fund wouldn’t implode with the rest of the economy if this shit really went down.

Bill Macy—that old cook—had already cracked up, stabbing himself in the ears and hobbling after Simon. No matter, Joseph would beat him to it. Simon would know who ‘they’ were and just needed a calming voice to keep him from blurting the odd inconvenient crass truth.

He heard Aaron chanting some ‘om’ bullshit as he tore up pieces of tissue and stuffed them into his ears. Joseph had no worry about falling prey to some audio suggestion bullshit. He had a mind like a steel trap and a mouth like a diplomat. His only display of irrationality had been Jenny, and she was well-contained every Monday and Thursday afternoon at the foot of the bed in the executive suite.

Simon had turned left out of the practice and Will was turning right. Whatever the hell for Will? Why not just leave?

Joseph reached Mrs. Peachtree’s desk, where she was in a grunting tangle with the Nigerian security guard, and it occurred to him then, that Will—good old about dead Bill Macy—was headed down into the parking garage to sweep Jenny off of her feet. That old romantic has always wanted her, has done things to undermine your affair with her—subtle things! And he would like to do things to Jenny too, like Mufasa here has always wanted to peg this nasty old witch.

Joseph noticed then, the automatic handgun in Mufasa’s holster that was on the floor as his pants had just dropped to his ankles

“I ought to blow him away!” Joseph thought, and grabbed the handgun, the black giant non-the-wiser as he partook of Mrs. Peachtree’s rancid fruit.

“I ought to blow him away!”

Joseph turned right down the hall, saw Will’s flabby back, raised the weapon, and then saw Will disappear behind the intervening wall as he headed down the access way.

“I ought to blow him away!”

Joseph walked down to the corner and saw Will disappearing into the stairwell, pulling the door shut behind him as he looked over his shoulder at Joseph with a blank wide-eyed look in his eyes.

“I ought to blow him away!”

He raised the weapon, released the safety, and cut loose into the metal door frame, punching hole after thundering hole into the thing—more holes than he could count.

“I ought to blow him away!”

Joseph squeezed the trigger again even as his ears rang like angry bells in his brain. The hammer fell on an empty chamber. He said something to himself but could not hear it.

What am I doing? He thought.

He then heard—or no, sensed—something beside him, and looked to his right to see a man in a suit, a man he recognized, a tall man with black gloves. His blue eyes shone bleak like a winter sky under a forehead with a single fine crease. He wore ear protection strapped to his head and chin like a fighter jet pilot.

Joseph opened his mouth to say something, to inquire as to the—whatever it was they did here in the building.

As his mouth opened it was covered by that sure gloved hand, and something popped in his neck. “What has happened,” he wanted to ask, only to feel a ragged gasp and a welling of blood in his throat, filling his mouth and spilling out over the cruel gloved hand as it pressed him back against the water fountain and the world titled the wrong way…