Rosemarie Clark Stories

Without checking the progress of the file transfer, she snatched the silver key flash drive out of the hub. Concealing the drive in her bra, she winked at the swimsuit model cutout before proceeding out through the doors. 

The alarm was deafening, along with the red strobe light that illuminated the whole hallway in a literal metaphor for her mortal danger. The driver rushed towards the stairwell. Before reaching the door, a voice in her ear warned, “Don’t go that way.”

Despite not helping the situation, cursing made the driver feel better. She quickly fled down the opposite hallway. “Where am I supposed to go?” she quips back into her wrist directed at Comms while not slowing her pace. 

“Make a left…now!” echoed Comms. 

The driver slid past the perpendicular hallway in an unintentional ode to Risky Business and, in the process of changing direction, she ran in place for a few steps before falling to one knee. A crack echoed through the subterranean hallway as the driver’s kneecap popped out of place. Rolling to her side, she clutched her knee before instinctively extending her leg, popping the knee back into place. It couldn’t be the best thing for her knee, but she wasn’t one to dissuade her instincts while injuring herself. “You good?” she heard in her ear piece while she regained her footing. 

“Yeah, I’ll be fine,” she lied, while limping along the new hallway. At the end, she found a service lift. The driver retrieved the security guard’s keys she had swiped what seemed to be hours ago but was less than 20 minutes. She cycled through a few before seeing a key with a service lift symbol. She tried the key in the service lift’s side panel and started slamming her fist feverishly onto the call button. 

The sign above the service lift doors lit up with the number 2. She checked in with Comms again, “how long before the calvary gets here?”

“Security just reached your floor. You have 30 seconds before they see you,” replied Comms. The service lift creeped slowly down to Sub-Basement B, but before her 30 seconds were up, the doors opened. 

She limped into the service lift and tried inserting the same key that called the lift to activate the button for the roof. To her horror, it didn’t fit. There were no less than 20 keys on the security guard’s key ring. That’s a 5% chance of finding the right key on the first try. 

The odds were in her favor that day. She thanked every deity she knew in that moment because she had found the correct key on the second try. The driver activated the roof button and slumped against the back of the service lift. 

As she watched, a group of security guards barreled down on her from the other end of the hall. After what felt like an eternity, the doors closed, confining the exhausted and injured delivery driver. “That was close,” echoed in her ear. A sentiment the delivery driver agreed with wholeheartedly.