Chapter Four
Murphy's Razor
Oscar's group (with the exception of Creed and Meredith, who still guarded the hostage corner) sat around one of the tables in the break room.
"Okay, so here's what we have so far," Oscar said. He cleared his throat and read the paper in front of him. "'To Michael and his group, As you know, we are holding Kelly hostage. We will gladly return her. However, we have a few simple demands. One: that you share the canned food in your possession. Two: That any other luxuries you have in your possession will be dispersed in a fair and equal manner.'"
"You need to have a third demand," Creed said from the corner.
Oscar turned to him. "Why?"
"One word: negotiations. They're going to try to strip down that there treaty as much as possible. You've got to overshoot to compensate."
"Good point, Creed," Oscar said, sounding surprised.
"Maybe we should ask that they have to perform a musical for us," Kevin suggested.
"Tissues," Pam said. "Ask for tissues."
"Enough about your goddamned nose," Stanley said. "This is a serious business meeting."
"What were you saying about a musical?" Phyllis asked.
Pam rose to her feet. "Okay," she said gently. She walked toward the door.
"Hey, you can't go!" Creed said. "Every army needs a little lady to raise morale. It's what your gender was born to do."
Pam turned back to them with her hand on the door. "I'm going to go find tissues. If somehow you guys get them, let me know." She left the room.
"What about dynamite?" Kevin asked after Pam left. "We could ask them for that."
Oscar
"Is this stupid? Well, what we have here is escalation. Sometimes you can only be as reasonable with someone as they're being with you."
"What are we going to do?" Michael asked, slamming a fist on his desk (he now sat behind it).
Jim sat on one of the chairs against the window wall. "You realize they're not going to hurt Kelly, right? They have the refrigerator, so, at this point, she might actually be better off over there."
"I don't really mind if they keep Kelly," Ryan agreed. He stood against the wall.
"Kelly left our base," Angela said. "She got what she deserved."
"What's that?" Michael asked, pointing to the bottom of the door.
Everyone turned. An envelope slid into the room from the crack between the ground and the door. It slithered in until it came half-way through, and then two pairs of feet scurried away from the floor.
Jim leaned over in his chair to pick it up.
"Don't, there could be dynamite in there!" Dwight yelled.
Jim looked up at Dwight. "Dynamite? In that little envelope."
"Murphy's Razor," Michael pointed out.
Michael
"Murphy's Razor: Always assume your worst fears are real, because they are. You think it's not a real thing? Well, then how do you explain Global Warming?" He leaned back in his chair with a satisfied smile. "Checkmate."
"'Our Demands,'" Jim said, reading the envelope out loud.
Dwight walked over and swiped the envelope from Jim's hands. "I'll read it." Dwight ripped the top of the envelope open and unfolded the paper within. "'To Michael and his group, As you know, we are holding Kelly hostage. We will gladly return her. However, we have a few simple demands. One: that you share the canned food in your possession. Two: That any other luxuries you have in your possession will be dispersed in a fair and equal manner. Three: that Karen joins our side to replace Pam–'" Jim scrunched his eyebrows at that. "'–Four: you must acknowledge our group as superior. If you fail to comply, then more hostages will be taken.'"
"Well then, the joke's on them," Angela said. "No one here wants Kelly back."
"We can't just let these terrorists get away with anything," Dwight said, looking deeply into Angela's eyes.
"Terrorists?" Jim asked.
"No, Dwight's right," Michael said. "If they don't think our group is a unified unit, then they're going to think they can mess with us more. Sure, it starts with Kelly, but where do we draw the line? Angela? Maybe even Dwight?"
Dwight nodded his head. "We need to defeat them."
"But how do we get in?" Michael asked.
"Don't you have a key to that room?" Ryan asked.
"Oh yeah!" Michael exclaimed, smiling. "I wish I would have remembered that an hour ago."
He reached into his pocket. The smile left his face. He stood up and stuck his hands in and out of every orifice in his clothes. "My keys are missing."
Creed
"What, these keys?" He pulled Michael's keys out of his pocket and jingled them in his hands. "You don't really think that Michael could have caught me running with those cans if I didn't intend it? They don't call me Creed the Dirty Bastard Pick-Pocketer for nothin'."
"Don't you have a pair of keys, too, Dwight?" Angela asked.
"Yes," Dwight said, walking to the door. "But I keep them hidden. Under the microwave."
Creed
With a sly grin on his face he raised Dwight's keys. In the distance, Dwight screamed, "DAMMIT!"
"I'm getting kind've cold," Karen said, wrapping her arms around her body. Michael's group still sat in his office. "Do you have any blankets?"
"I have some in my rescue kit," Dwight said. "I keep it under my desk. But I need someone to back me up when I enter No-Man's Land."
"I will go with you, Dwight," Angela said courteously.
"Thank you, Angela," Dwight replied. The two left together.
Dwight
"They may have taken our keys. But they will never take our spirit. Or our blankets."
Pam stepped out of the stairwell and into the darkened lobby. She walked to Hank's desk. Sitting on it was a box of tissues. "Yes!" she said happily. She ripped five from the top and practically stuffed them into her nose. After she finished clearing her nostrils, she walked behind Hank's desk.
Yawning, she stretched her arms out before slowly lying down. She curled up into a fetal position, her back against the inside of the desk. She closed her eyes.
All the lights in the warehouse remained on. Up on one of the high shelves, Roy lied in the makeshift bed. His eyes opened slowly. He groggily raised his arm and looked at his watch. "What the hell," he said slowly.
"We may as well do something while you think of a plan," Karen said, draped in a blanket, like everyone else in Michael's group.
"Yes," Dwight agreed. "Maybe a game will help clear up all of our heads."
Just then, all the lights went off, and Michael's computer shut down.
There was absolute silence.
"Murphy's Razor," Michael whispered.
Next Chapter: Both teams make plans to dominate the other, while a few characters escape the stupidity for a while.
Please leave a review!