NOTE: This is another of those annoying, stick-in-the-back-of-your-head-to-bug-the-hell-outta-you-until-you-finally-write-it-down-and-get-it-outta-the-way stories that may or may not continue. If it does, expect a lot of John Woo-like gunplay, martial arts and Die Hard-esque few-against-the-terrorists style story.

There; even if I don’t go any further with this, you at least knew what was going to happen – whether you feel cheated either way is up to you. Sorry.

And enjoy!

Part One

It was midday, and life in the office was in full-swing; telephones were ringing nonstop, accompanied by the clickety-clack of keyboards hammering away in a dozen cubicles, and two dozen voices chattering incessantly to each other, and to clients on the other end of the phone lines. It was just another normal day, a day like every other...

However, it would soon become a sinister, living nightmare for each and every employer in the 121-storey-tall office high-rise.

Sat in a cubicle not unlike any of the others, was a quiet, meek little man in a suit that looked a few sizes too big. He was hunched over his desk, gazing at the screen of his PC intently, beads of sweat dotting his brow as he read an internal Instant Message...

“Invite: ‘Prepare, join the MC.’”

MC, of course, stood for ‘Mass Convo’ and – when he clicked the link provided in the popup, the small man was taken to a new IM window, one with over 170 users connected. But no one was talking, everyone was waiting. He could feel their anticipation, knew what they were waiting to hear. He knew what was coming, and it scared him so much he screamed silently, teeth gritted as his eyes bulged, unblinking as they flew from the screen to the plain, black leather suitcase in his lap. It seemed to burn under his touch, and he snatched his hands away as if scolded. Placing it on the desk beside his computer, the balding man wiped the sweat from his eyes and stood up slightly in his cubicle, so that his beady green-eyes were raised above the dull-gray dividers, where they scanned the room and its occupants feverishly. No one was looking, no one expected a thing.

Slumping back into his seat, the man fidgeted with his hands, wringing them out awkwardly as his gaze kept falling back to the black suitcase, that ominous dark object that carried his fate within its clutches. When he could bare it no longer, he dipped even lower in his seat and flicked the combination into the suitcase, opening it gingerly. Inside, its contents looked innocent enough; files and other numerous pieces of paperwork, a spare tie and shirt, a half-read novel and his wallet. The appearance was deceitful, as what lay beneath was so far from normal that he couldn’t believe he was doing it – and for what? He didn’t even know any more, he just knew it was insane...and yet, why was he not running away, then? Why was he still a part in this insane plan?

Sighing at how disgusted he was with himself, he emptied the contents of the suitcase onto the desk before pressing the concealed catches in the bottom corners of the suitcase, the base coming loose with a barely audible click. Visibly shaking now, the man craned his neck to look over the dividers once more, just to make sure no one would be looking, and pried out the fake base of the case.

Underneath, on one side, lay a new Beretta 92, fully loaded with one in the chamber and enough backup ammunition to reload the firearm a total of six times. On the other side, resembling a beaten, misshapen block of children’s modelling clay, sat a block of C4 plastic explosive the size of his fist, as well as all the components – detonators and all – needed to employ it.

He found himself staring blankly at these weapons of destruction, his eyes bulging as sweat trailed down and over his eyebrows; this was sheer insanity! Was he really willing to do this, to take the lives off his fellow workers, some of which he liked to think of his friends? And for what, dammit? What was he fighting for, really? Was it even fighting? No, he knew his mind better than to fool himself into believing he was fighting for a cause anymore...how, then, had he ever allowed himself to get dragged into this...this ludicrous cult?!

His silent, inner-turmoil was interrupted by the mild bleep of the instant messaging window – someone had finally entered a message. It simply read:

“It begins. Act, my Children.”

No! This was it, just when he was beginning to realise the error of his decisions?! He couldn’t go through with it, he just couldn’t, these people...they didn’t deserve to die! He couldn’t even remember the lies the group’s leader had fed him to brainwash him into accepting this murderous act of ‘redemption’, but he’d be damned if he’d go through with it, it just wasn’t right!

And then, as if every other background noise was softly muted, he heard the distinctive snap of magazine slotting into the grip of another handgun across the room. He knew the sound already as he had hated it from the moment he’d loaded his own firearm, back in his desolate, lonely apartment. It was at that moment that he knew he wasn’t the only member of the group on the seventy-fifth floor...and he also knew, deep down in his gut, what he had to do.

Taking his Beratta in his clammy hands, he rose from his seat as the world around him erupted into chaos; the other worker was brandishing his gun around, screaming for everyone to get down with a psychotic, feral glare in his eyes. The man took one look at his ‘comrade’ and knew that, unlike himself, there was no going back for him, that he had fallen completely under the leader’s spell of lies.

“Friend!” the crazed man roared with sinister joviality, upon spotting him with his gun in hand. “Our time has come to rise up and overthrow the oppressive ones! Join me in enlightening these heretics, these blind pigs who scurry around, blissfully unaware of the lies and dictatorship from which they feed! Enlighten them one,” he went on, bringing his gun to bare on the nearest woman, who was cowering under her desk, crying uncontrollably, “by one...”

The first shot split the air with a crack that rang in the ears of all present as they screamed, tearing through his shoulder and rendering it useless, his arm falling limply to his side, the gun clattering to the floor. Uttering a grunt through clenched teeth, he clutched his shoulder, the blood soaking the pristine-white, tailored shirt and sticking it to the torn, burning flesh. He rounded on the man across the room, whose Beretta smoked revealingly. “Friend...?” he murmured, the crazy gleam now slightly diminished with the shock and surprise of such betrayal.

The second shot didn’t miss its mark, striking him square in the centre of his forehead, the resulting exit-wound spattering blood, fragmented bone and steaming brains against the wall behind him as his head snapped back to even more screams, as if amplified with every shot. He staggered on the spot, his arms out as his sides, jerking spasmodically, his head soon falling back down, blood seeping from the wound like a mask until his open-mouthed chin was pressed against his chest. His wild eyes were now blank, blood dripping from his brows as he stared at his killer with haunting disbelief before his eyes rolled up in their sockets and the body pitched forward, crashing through a cubicle divider.

The screams continued for what seemed like a dreadful eternity in which the young man could do nothing but staring along the barrel of his handgun, its smoke filling his nostrils damningly and making him nauseous. He couldn’t take his eyes off the spot the other group member had been standing before he had shot him down, the only reminder visible being the broken divider and the bloody mural on the walls. It wasn’t until the screams had died down that he, and everyone else, could hear the sound of more screams and gunshots coming from above and below them. But no matter what he heard, he couldn’t move, his eyes fixed on the terrifying sight he had created.

It was only when a female worker had approached him cautiously that he managed to shake himself out of his dark thoughts. “You...you saved us,” she whimpered, in shock, her mascara running from where she had been sobbing in fear of her life.

“No,” he groaned, his gaze averted from her appraising, nervous smile. “I didn’t...can’t you hear that?” he asked, using his gun to point to the ceiling and the floor, at the sounds of havoc been wrought all around them.

“Yeah, but...Christ, Tony! Why do you even have a gun? And why did he call you ‘Friend’?”

“I was...supposed to be a part of...all this,” he admitted, hand tightening on his gun.

“Jesus, he’s got a bomb!”

Tony rounded on the voice to discover another woman peering over her divider, her eyes glued to the C-4 sitting in his case. “What the hell is going on?” she cried, tearing her eyes to look at him damningly. “Are you going to kill us, you sicko?!”

“No, I mean, I was supposed to, but...I’m so confused..!”

Leaping over to the suitcase, Tony snatched-up the explosives as tears threatened to overcome him and reduce him to a emotional wreck – and heaven only knew how these people would treat him then, given the evidence against him – and darted to a corner of the room, the erratic waving of his gun motivation enough for everyone else to get clear of him and group on the opposite side.

“Tony,” one senior supervisor stood above the cowering masses, pulling her skirt down from where it had ridden up her thighs from crouching. “Tony, you’re scaring us...”

“I-I never meant to hurt anyone! I was...I was just lost, you see, and he-he said he could help me, right? Help me find my...my purpose,” his voice fell at these last few words as he lost all sense of belief and conviction in what he had been told. “But he lied!” he snapped with renewed vigour, his anger now vented to the puppet master orchestrating this chaos all around them, “The bastard lied! My purpose isn’t to kill others, is it? Is it...?” he repeated, not so sure of himself as he stared down at the gun, still gripped tightly in his hand. “Maybe,” he considered slowly, before bringing the gun to his head, the barrel jammed against his temple. “Maybe he was right, in a way...mad, sure, but what if the only life I was meant to take...was my own?”

His finger squeezed on the trigger, and the room erupted into screams. When they eventually died-down, Tony was still standing, tears rolling freely down his face as he stared at the Beretta morosely. “Now it chooses to jam,” he snorted, bitterness oozing from every word as he cleared the chamber. Then, almost as if he were Lady Justice weighing up his own crimes, he raised the C-4 as the gun fell slowly to his side. “Dramatics it is, then...”

Fumbling, he turned the gun around, the barrel still warm from its previous evil deed under his clammy palm. He then took the butt of the handgun to fixed window by his side, which he had to strike several times before it finally gave in, Tony wincing and trembling with every blow. Almost immediately he was buffeted by the heavy winds from outside, his tie flipping and flapping over his should, almost as if it was making its own desperate bid to escape the fate he was making for himself.

Tony took one step out the window to cries pleading for him to come to his senses, and their was a collective sigh of relief when he ducked back in, a deep, contemplative look on his face.

“Please, tell my family I was killed, but not what I was going to do,” he requested softly, “I don’t want to break my mother’s heart...”

Before anyone could reply, he pushed off with his other foot, tilted over the window frame, and fell out of sight, to plummet seventy-five storeys to the busy streets below. But his sense of repentance didn’t stop there; for him, there was no way he deserved to remain on this earth whole, even in death.

As the wind slammed and slapped him mercilessly (As it should, he thought), he clutched the C-4 tight in his hand and he brought the muzzle of the gun to it, eyes clenched shut as he squeezed the trigger...

Eyes that shot wide open as he let out a high-pitched scream that was whipped away by the airstream. Eyes that stared, horrified, down at the C-4 in his hand – C-4 that now had a large, smouldering hole boring right through it and what was left of his hand. He stared through this savage hole at the bustling world below as it rushed up to welcome him in its deadly embrace.

So much for Karma...

That was the last thing his downtrodden mind thought before he slammed into the ground with such force that his corpse bounced – with a sickening, wet thud – only to land on a nearby parked car like a ragdoll thrown down by a jaded child, the majority of his bones broken or shattered completely.

And, even in death, people screamed around Tony.