INTERFERENCE. Part One: Chapter Eight.

      Chapter eight

The phone call came at ten thirty. He leapt about an inch into the air when he heard it. Trying not to tremble but unable to stifle a tremour in his heart, he picked up the phone. His own hand, shaking, embarassed him.

“Who is this?” he asked.

“Hey, man.” Came the most jocular voice he had ever heard. It seemed almost comforting to Fritz, although there seemed to be a nervousness in it that, of course, might have been his own.

“Who...?” he repeated.

A brief pause betrayed a moment's hesitation on the other end's part.

“Did you call for me?”

This struck Fritz, immediately, as incredibly haunting. Then he put two and two together.

“Is this the Tech guy?”

“Yeah, totally, dude.” Fritz could have sworn he heard a moment's withdrawn disdain in the man's voice, but then he wondered HOW he might have heard that.

“Where were you all day?” Fritz tried to sound curt, but not alienating, although he knew himself to be in the right,

He thought he heard something like chewing on the other end. “Don't know what you mean, man. Want   me to look at something?” This time, Fritz was practically sure that the other was almost mocking him. Keeping his head cool, Fritz asked, “What's your name, anyway? James?” He remembered the receptionist.

“Jake.” The guy, or kid, as Fritz thought would be a more adequate description of him, sounded distracted and slightly, but indifferently, off put by the mistake.

“Will you come up here?” Fritz asked. He looked out the window at the black sky outside. If he could get away with it, he would sleep here. Knowing that at least one other guy was in the building made him suddenly not miss his apartment at all.

Another pause. “Umm,” he sounded like he was chewing chow mein or something, “What's wrong with coming down here?”

“Okay, honestly. I was looking for you all day. I think you owe me a visit. No offence.” Fritz felt himself suspended in time. A moment passed, and then he heard a snicker. He became angry.

“Okay, what is funny?” He wished that Jake What's-his-name could see his furrowed brow.

“Aww, no man I was just...” and his voice was interrupted by another guffaw.

Christ, Fritz blasphemed to himself, he's watching t.v.

“Okay,” Fritz gathered his soundness of mind. “Well, just so you know, I'm coming down there now. Now, if you want to meet me halfway: feel free to. I would just strongly advise that you do because guess what? If you don't, I'll let Stephanie know. She's not going to be happy either way, but there's no way in... there's just no way I'm taking the blame for this. I'm sorry, Jake, but: This is your job.”

Pause.

“Who's Stephanie?”

What an idiot.

The walk down the spine of the building was really no different from any of the other walks, according to Fritz's objective mind. His subjective mind, however, was unscrupulous. He felt like he were already being chased by some maniac. He found himself, momentarily, fantasising that he were a prisoner of war somewhere. This was done with the intent of clearing away the terror. Then he thought of what would happen if an actual terrorist captured him, and he felt worse. He walked close to the angularly spiraling rail whenever he passed by a door, too terrified to check if any one of them was locked, but fully prepared to leap over should someone emerge from it. Then he reasoned that, if some intruder emerged from any one of the doors either above or below him, he would be entirely hosed. He began to check every door. Some of them were locked. Others looked out over rows of corridors upon which the deep blue light of the city settled. It would have been a comforting sight in any other situation, but he kept shutting the door behind him immediately upon each examination. He did so before a silhouette could emerge from one of the cubicles. None appeared, however. All the way down the thirty-story building, he tried keeping count of which doors were open and which were locked. He was still trying to remember when he reached Jake's floor.

The red corridor seemed almost absurdly comforting. For the first time in maybe his life, he felt a sense of almost adventurousness in finding this strange red corridor whose entire character, standing now in juxtaposition to his deepest fears, lending an almost asylum, as it stood apart in its own, albeit inexplicable and absurd, dignity.

As he passed the door on his right, he suddenly felt almost a sense of panic swipe over him, and he had to make a considerable effort to efface it from his mind. If I get my marbles back, he thought, I'm definitely Not letting this happen again. As he passed the door to his right, he felt something even stranger, and therefore more terrifying. His mind was cast inexplicably back to Stephanie. For some reason, he pictured her sitting at a magistrate's table and having claws.

Arriving at the door labeled “Tech Support Lab”, he knocked without interruption.

“Hello?! Hello??” He didn't care that he was yelling.

No one answered.

He tried again. “JAKE!” He was even stunned, momentarily, by his own aggression. It felt almost like someone else within him had yelled it.

No answer. He pressed his ear to the door. There were no sounds within. Did the son of a bitch go home? He could not believe it. Then he thought: Well, I don't believe it. This is bullshit. I need to know.

He raced back up the stairs, giving up on remembering the doors.

He tried calling Jake. He had the number inscribed on a tiny sticky-note. “Hello?” came Jake's voice, within a few rings.

“Jake! Dude.” Fritz almost laughed exasperatedly. “Where the hell are you? Aren't you in the Tech Lab?”

“Yeah, bro.”

“Where is it? I think I've been going to the wrong place this whole time!! I'm such an idiot.” A sense of comfort settled in his stomach. Parts of Fritz's body unclenched. It almost felt, in fact, as though a warm glow had set in within the office.

“Dude, it's on the fuckin'... you know where the Basement is?”

“Yes,” Fritz said, excitedly.

“Yeah. So you just go down the corridor.”

“Okay, wait. What colour is the corridor?”

“Uhh, hold on... it's red.”

Whatever warmth Fritz might have felt now felt like only a sterile memory pushed aside and put at the distance of objectivity. “How many red corridors ARE there?”

“Just one, dude.”

“And... you're There. Is that correct?”

“Yep.”

“Okay, honestly: What the hell? Where were you four minutes ago?”

“Been here, dude.”

[Dm.A.A.]