The problem began a few months earlier. Jack Napier was working for a cleaning service as the second shift lead at West Gotham Elementary. One of his subordinates, a high-functioning autistic man he called Thing 1, started arriving to work later and later, making vague claims about car trouble. Jack avoided mentioning this to any of his dozens of superiors because he didn't want Thing 1 to be fired. In his experience new employees were always worse than the ones they replaced. Only recently his other subordinate, who was mentally competent but missing an arm and a functioning kidney, had been replaced by a moron who could somehow run a four-foot-wide vacuum in a twelve-foot hallway without accomplishing anything.
So instead Jack covered for Thing 1, helping him complete his work before the next school day. This had been particularly difficult lately, as the desperately understaffed company often asked Jack to cover positions at other buildings. He knew something had to give eventually, so he wasn't terribly surprised when Ruth, a school employee who inspected the cleaners' work, found him still vacuuming at 5 AM. He told her everything.
"I understand your problem," she said when he finished. "You don't want to lose anyone because staffing is so bad. But don't you think he knows that too? Don't let him use you."
This hadn't occurred to Jack. He'd always looked at Thing 1 as an innocent victim of circumstance still trying his best. The idea that he was deliberately taking advantage of Jack was upsetting. But this was the least of his problems. Jack had barely gotten home to bed when Boss 473 called.
"I just got an e-mail from Ruth. Why am I hearing these things from her? Do you realize how bad it makes me look that I don't know what's going on in my own buildings?"
"Sorry."
"You shouldn't be talking to her anyway. I know she acts all nice like she's trying to help, but she's not. She's looking for information to use against us. She wants to get rid of the company."
Jack couldn't understand why someone would be so eager to shoot themselves in the foot. Getting rid of his company would mean re-staffing the entire school district, and it wasn't as though school would be shut down to give them time. But maybe Boss 473 was right. Jack had misjudged people before.
Later that day Boss 336 stopped by to talk with Thing 1, threatening his job if he didn't show up on time the following day and assuring Jack that he would monitor the computerized time clock (as someone logically would have been all along). On the next day, a Friday, Thing 1 did as he was told. It wouldn't last.
The following week was awful. West Gotham had parent-teacher conferences, meaning Jack and his subordinates couldn't begin most of their work until 7:30. On the same days Boss 473 had him covering day shift positions. Thing 1 was once again keeping horrible hours with no consequences. Then, on Friday evening, Boss 502, stopped in.
"473 was here doing an inspection this morning. He says you have some kind of agreement with your day shift where you're trading duties?"
This was another of Jack's efforts to retain coworkers. When the company altered job descriptions at the beginning of the school year, Jack's day shift coworker didn't like the changes, The two of them agreed to stick to their old routines, without consulting the company. Jack also ignored his subordinates' job descriptions to allow for their incompetence and unreliability. It all meant that if he took a day off, his substitute would have no idea what was going on. To hear Boss 502 tell it, 473 was not happy.
When they'd finished discussing this, 502 turned to leave before remembering something else. She handed Jack a set of keys: district masters, able to get you into any school in Gotham City.
"What are these for?" Jack asked.
"The maintenance building."
"Oh right. Of course." Jack had completely forgotten that he'd promised to clean the little building attached to the bus garage. Along with a break room and bathrooms for the drivers, it contained the offices of Ruth and her boss the facilities director. It was the facilities director who had originally decided to outsource many of his duties to the cleaning service, freeing him up to oversee the school district's endless construction project. He had technically never formally renewed the company's initial three-year contract, instead allowing it to roll over automatically for one year at a time. Besides avoiding renegotiation, this kept the company in a constant state of panic, like a career politician in an election year.
This year, however, had been particularly tense, and Jack suspected that his building was being uses as a proving ground. He knew, at least, that he was being watched. For one thing, the timer controller his hallway lights had been reprogrammed to keep them on later, accommodating his late schedule. Then, at a meeting of building leads, Boss 429 admonished everyone for not making better use of their Kaivacs, a combination pressure washer/wetvac intended mainly for detailing bathrooms. He pointed out that each Kaivac had a meter allowing Ruth to see if it had been used as much as the contract stipulated. The criticism was almost certainly aimed at Jack; his situation had allowed him to clock a mere twelve minutes on the impractical machine.
Luckily, the maintenance building was a quick clean, and Jack finished in under an hour. As he walked trash out to the dumpsters at the end of the night, he passed through the garage immediately adjacent to the offices. Rather than buses, this one was full of the district's other vehicles. There were big delivery trucks, pickups with snowplows, golf carts for driving around the larger campuses and unmarked white vans for the few remaining handymen. The remaining space was used as a graveyard for old cleaning equipment that had been replaced but never discarded. An early model Kaivac sat near the vehicles, just a few feet away from a gas can. Jack looked it over, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.
Jenny Cole was turning the last corner on the way to the bus garage Monday morning when a voice crackled over her radio.
"Bus 10 to all drivers. Return to last stop and wait for further instruction. Do not return to base, Repeat, do not return to base. Over."
Jenny frowned. She'd just finished her morning run and was ready for a nap. What was going on? Had they closed the schools for some reason? Did she have to turn around and take the kids back home? She noticed Bus 10 parked on the side of the road ahead of her and pulled up behind it. Across the street, the maintenance building was on fire.
By the time the fire department arrived at the bus garage, students on the third floor of Gotham Central High were finishing first period. Their chatter as they flooded into the hallway was loud enough that some of them didn't hear the Kaivac's motor pressurizing its water tank. Those that did watched as a janitor wearing thick white gloves fumbled with a barbecue lighter in his left hand, holding the spray gun in his right. Once he was able to sustain a flame he told the nearest student "Turns out I was wrong about Kaivacs along. They're handy as hell!"
At this he pulled the trigger of his spray gun, producing a fan shaped mist which turned into a plume of fire when it touched the lighter's flame. He cackled hysterically and directed it into the crowd of teenagers. The laugh overpowered their screams as they fled into the stairwell. Students entering from the second floor were shoved aside as they struggled to understand what was happening. They caught on when the alarms and sprinkler system kicked in but were still surprised at the appearance of a janitor with a flame thrower on the top floor. The fireball flickered and writhed under the sprinklers, tossing burning drops of gas in every direction.
Since the emergency exits at the bottom of the stairs were blocked by a cafeteria table, the students poured into the ground floor lobby. The leaders had gone only a few steps before their feet flew out from under them. The next wave trampled them before slipping themselves, and so it continued. Jack having abandoned his spray gun when he ran out of hose, watched gleefully from the doorway as the healthy, attractive, hope-filled youths flopped around in caustic floor stripper. He guffawed when one of them attempted to steady himself on a conveniently placed floor buffer, only to be flung into a wall when the machine turned on. But the janitor's fun was cut short when he saw a fit young woman in athletic wear-the gym teacher-running straight for him.
Jack climbed over the cafeteria table and out the emergency exit, followed closely by his pursuer. He hopped into his waiting get-away vehicle, a golf cart, and sped to the nearest building. It was the school pool.
The gym teacher nearly tripped over one of the empty chlorine buckets strewn about. She stood at the edge of the pool and looked around. The paths on either side of the pool were blocked off with whatever junk the rogue janitor could find. Suddenly she felt a wet hand grab her leg. Struggling to free herself, she saw that Jack's navy blue polo shirt was now a pale lavender. He pulled her feet out from under her.
"Come on in, hon," he laughed, wrapping his arm around her waist. "The water's fine!"