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Random Uses For Fate
In keeping with Fate's intolerable humor, things opted to go wrong in a most indelicate manner.
Somewhere between the moment they'd entered the meeting place and the roof was sent on a fiery flight, Peter arrived at an intimate understanding of his place in the universe; squirming under the boot of a laughing god. Bits of a drop ceiling fell around the fleeing pair, Olivia's feet tangling in the thin framing. He pulled the stumbling woman upright and, once the parking lot was in view, threw them both clear of the careening debris. Above their gasping heads plumes of asbestos-laden smoke rose through what could now be labeled a building-wide skylight.
Light explosives, Olivia muttered while picking dry wall out of her hair.
Thank the snorting deity for that, Peter mumbled as a gash at his elbow painted roses on his sleeve.
The one-floor, low-rent business complex had been tragically plain, rows of cheap desks lining white walls with dollar store wall hangings and the occasional dusty plastic plant in a corner. The décor was not likely improved by the new scorch marks. FBI snitches are apt to pick horrid little places for clandestine meetings and they hadn't been terribly anxious when they'd arrived.
Who knew impending doom rented an office here?
Asphalt, as one might expect, was no friend to the backside that had greeted it. Rising gingerly on shaking legs, Peter reached a hand out to stabilize Olivia but the offer was rejected in her self-sufficient, early feminist way. Still, it was difficult to lecture her on the wonders of gratitude when she'd nearly taken a stapler to the head. Peter had almost lost a limb to a dislodged keyboard, which only bolstered his personal pact to never sink to the apparently deadly depths of office work.
An FBI crew rolled onto the site in no special hurry, looking entirely unimpressed with the mess and proceeded to wander about poking at grounded ceiling tiles. A batch of suits followed, the safety of their fellow agent seemingly second to the losing battle of retaining the shine of their shoes while trampling through industrial residue. The noxious fog was clearing while a female EMT surveyed every scratch and bump, mapping out Peter's skin with a sickening interest. Not that he was traditionally opposed to estrogen-fueled attention but the woman must have put on her morning face with an uncooperative spatula.
Olivia, on the other hand, looked as radiant as one could with an abrasion-covered scowl. She was displeased with minor pawns ruining a good pant suit and woe to the source should her hands ever share a room with his throat. Once the exam was completed with minimal eye contact on his part, Peter's skin stopped crawling. It probably helped that the next person to touch him was a woman who seemed determined to reenter the scene of their near-burial. He let Olivia's firm grip steer his arm, along with the rest of the body, back through the building's smoldering shell. Technicians in balloon-like coveralls were taking samples, photo-documenting and musing over ignition sources. Peter's purpose in all this, as in so many areas of his existence, remained an unfortunate mystery until Olivia's hand, newly unglued from his stained sleeve, brushed his.
Support.
Oh yeah. He'd read the manual on that and, based on page eight, he placed his hand on her lower spine in perfect textbook fashion. Olivia looked skyward into a midday sun that brought brights and shades to what was once a solid gleam of florescent lighting. The unnatural illumination of the indoors lent a deeper tarnish on her face's emerging bruises. It's true; guys dig girls with scars.
Someone's bound to succeed eventually, he thought. And all this government-edition dodging can't be good for a newcomer's health. Peter had long intended to take up jogging but all this running was making exercise rather redundant. More irritating was the confirmation that he was now trapped in the clichéd cop drama where every abandoned building must explode on the seekers of justice. All they needed was a foreboding theme song and intricate title sequence. In truth, Peter wouldn't know justice if it tongued him in an alley.
He just had nothing better to do.
Nothing better than to cart this disheveled woman off to a bar and pray that liquor can drown the ringing in his ears. But Olivia's thoughts were clearly not dwelling on vice. The discovery of a grimy rubber band meant the rebirth of the angry ponytail, a requirement for investigating. Peter watched bodies moving through the rubble, swabbing surfaces and bagging bits with a sudden hurry that suggested the evidence wears running shoes. The place was a swirling vortex of activity, excepting the wandering man perfecting a slo-mo path of the inner perimeter. Apparently, not even a near-death experience can block boredom.
No one sought the consultant's opinion on this spot or that speck, so his reasons for remaining in the blast zone dwindled to nil. In a former life, he sported the virtual badge of an answer man. Now his answer for escaping the hollow site would consist of a feeble mention of babysitting duty. It wasn't a stretch, knowing that the lab could well resemble this office if Astrid couldn't keep Walter nailed down. Both father and son shared the genetic trait of being randomly needed, like bad medicine or public sex. The in-between required only mediocrity; show up, gristle about, depart.
But had he not been randomly present to register the odd beeping near the break room, had he not shoved a pretty girl face first out the door, Olivia would have been here alone… and spectacularly dead. Most women don't come in a flame-resistant model. And with the force of C-4, (the remnants of which were being dragged out of a copy machine) enlightenment blew him over.
It could have been vastly worse, but it hadn't. They'd lived to peel themselves off the pavement and see the wreckage from the outside. Fate and a tall blond had put him in this moment, in this building, in this life. God may well be laughing, but maybe it was more often with him than at him. Unlikely as it may be, the fantasy was encouraging on a day when things had gone so indelicately wrong. After all, being tripped by projectile post-its or having one's throat slit by flying file folders was no way to go. It was conceivable that, as Fate might swear, there was humor to be divined from this day.
Startled agents drew their weapons at the sound of a madman's chuckle behind them. Peter had to cover his mouth and duck.