I woke up that morning feeling great; I couldn't wait to tackle this day with full force and a smile on my face. I was going to an interview at Tin Corporation. I had been waiting to work at this place since I was thirteen years old. Tin Corporation is a very well respected company. The work environment is well known for how laid back it is, and there is no pressure what so ever. All they ask is for you to come up with great ideas for pretty much anything. This can be for a new car design, a new computer component, or a new idea for a movie. Then, once they have that great idea, they take it to other well-known companies and try to sell them. If your idea gets sold, you get a commission check. On top of that, you are paid a salary, so if you have a dry week, you aren't screwed over. I thought this would be a great place for me to work and I thought this day was going to be a new start to a very boring and unsuccessful life. I was wrong.
I walked through the glass double door entryway with my head held high. Already, I could tell that this company had a lot of money. In the center of the five hundred square foot lobby was a circular receptionists desk. The desk was topped with marble and gold trim around the edges. On the center of the bottom part of the desk was gold lettering saying "Tin Corp." To my right was a staircase. This staircase led to a second floor balcony that went around the whole lobby.
I walked up to the receptionist's desk, "My name is Timothy Asterlein and I'm here to see Mr. Bristen for an interview." I said to Sally. "Ok Mr. Asterlein, give me one minute and I will let Mr. Bristen know you are here. If you'd like, you can take a seat to your right." She replied. So I walked over to the seating area and sat down. The chairs might have looked savvy, but they were uncomfortable as hell.
After a few minutes, a very sophisticated middle-aged man came up to me. " Mr. Asterlein I presume?" I rushed to my feet "Yes, yes I am, nice to meet you Mr. Bristen." And I shook his hand. " Same to you, if you'd follow me I will take you to my office." He said.
I followed him up the marble stepped staircase and up to the second floor balcony. We took a right and went into a small hallway leading out to a bigger office area. His office was at the back of this room. We walked down the center isle through all of the cubicles. The office door was completely glass with a large window to the right of the door covered with blinds for some privacy. I walked into his very large office with a large window and a great second story view of Central Park behind his desk. Mr. Bristen took a seat at his desk, "Take a seat Mr. Asterlein." Said the very sophisticated business owner. So I took a seat. Once again, the chairs looked nice, but were not very comfortable. At this point, I was already sweating. Here I am, at the chance of a lifetime. All I have to do is get through this interview.
Bristen was looking at my resume. "Mr. Asterlein, you have no former experience at an idea-based company?" "No," I replied getting a little nervous. "I haven't worked for a formal company. However, I have helped friends with other ideas that work with other idea based companies. Although, I have not gotten any credit for the work I'm afraid."
Bristen shifted a little to the right in his chair; again, I got nervous. "Well, I do not know if we could take that work into account for the reason that you did not get credit. But, when I talked with you on the phone, you seemed like the kind of guy that would work for this company. I have put together a quick question and answer that I would like to…" Then he stopped and fell back in his chair and the glass window behind him shattered. I quickly wiped my face and looked at my hand. I was stunned. It was blood, blood all over my hand. I looked at Bristen. He was lifeless with a small hole in the middle of his forehead. He also had another in his lower left jaw and three more in his chest. I heard some more gunshots. I quickly got to my feet. I scurried to a corner in the room by the shattered window. I could feel a cold breeze on the right side of my face. Again, I heard some more gunshots and some screams following. It sounded like a small machine gun. Something like an Uzi.
I had to think. What do I do? I have never thought that I would ever be in a situation such as this. So, I really had no clue as of what I was to do. Do I stay in this room? Do I look out the blinds and see if there is time to run downstairs without the gunman seeing? But if I did do that, and the gunman saw me, I would be screwed. But if I did not take action, I could also just be waiting for the gunman to finally check out this room, and then be gunned down.
I had made my decision. I fell to the floor and quickly crawled over to the window, covered with blinds, in the front of the office. I sat down to the left of the window. Again, the gun was fired. This time, I could distinguish there was more than one gunman. How many; I could not tell. I was sweating more than I was previously. That was not surprising to me, but what was surprising was that the shooting had stopped. I slowly cracked the blinds and looked out. I didn't see any gunmen, but blood was everywhere. Finally, I heard sirens.
I just sat there, I didn't want to move, and I was too scared too. I looked out again, and it was the worst mistake of my life. There, standing about twenty feet away from me was one of the gunmen, and he saw me. Next thing I heard made my skin crawl. "Guys! Theres one left!" I hurried to my feet and ran to the shattered window facing central park as if I were going to jump out of it, which didn't seem like a bad idea at the time. Then I heard the door open. "Right here guys, here he is!" he said.
The gunman was very tall and was wearing all black. He had a black ski mask on and black boots. He was wearing a jacket that looked as if he could hold hundreds of rounds of ammo, which of course wasn't good for me.
In came two more gunmen all dressed the same, of which both were holding the same machine gun. "So you thought you could hide out in here till it was all over huh?" Said the last gunman that entered the room. "Well come on, we can use you." Two men rushed forward and grabbed both of my arms very firmly. The last guy standing in the doorway, the last one that entered the room, was clearly the leader. He stood back and told everyone what to do. "Get him to the balcony, we can use him as a bribe. "This won't work gentlemen, " I said calmly. "Shut your damn mouth." Said the leader. "Anything can work when we have firepower." "Not this." I said. All of a sudden I got hit in the back of the head, with one of the guns. I got dizzy for a minute. "Wanna keep talking?" the gunman to my right said.
We got to the railing at the edge of the balcony. As I looked down I could see the receptionist sprawled out on the floor with multiple gunshots in her back, she tried running. I looked out the windows and saw multiple police cars in the street. There had to be at least ten. I heard someone on a loud speaker, "Surrender or we will use force!" The gunmen just laughed. "Why are you guys doing this?" I asked. "Well, " the gunman started to say "Because this corporation robs the American people of there imagination. Everytime anyone on the outside gets an idea, they rip it from them and use it for their own gain. And that is why everyone must die, including you sir." "Sir…" Said the gunman to my left, "I think we need to take another route, we wont be able to get out the front, to much gunpower." "Yea, I agree." The leader said "Where is the closest stairwell where they can't see us?" He asked me "I don't know, I was just here for an interview, I'm not even employed here." He got a dumfounded look on his face "Oh, wow, talking about the wrong place at the wrong time. Today just isn't your lucky day is it?"
Right as we began to turn around, the police got on the loud speaker again, "One minute to respond or we will breach." They stopped just beyond the visual barrier of the men outside. "What do we do with him?" One of the men said. "He's just extra baggage now, he's not keeping them outside, they are gonna breach." "No we can use him, they wont shoot towards a hostage you idiot. Now lets go. There's gotta be a stairwell by the offices." And the leader tugged on me we headed back into the office area. So many dead bodies, I felt so bad for them, they had no chance. I had to think of a plan. They were going to breach in less than 45 seconds. I just had to think of a plan by then, not hard right?
We headed to the back of the room and the gunmen were right, there was a stairwell. Right as we got to the door we heard "Freeze! NYPD, do not move!" Right as I heard that I acted on impulse. I elbowed the gunman in the stomach and turned to run, right as I did that, I felt a huge amount of pain in the back of my knee. I dropped. I was shot. Even though I was in a huge amount of pain, I crawled to cover in a cubicle. I continued to hear gunshots, I peeked outside the cubicle, and one of the gunmen was shot dead on the floor, bullet holes in the chest. I saw a SWAT team member advance his position down the center isle of cubicles. I could not see any gunman. I went back to cover then hurried down towards the rest of the police. I got up in a squatted position and turned the corner. As I did this, I ran into the chest of a gunman. He grabbed me and slammed me to the floor and put a gun in my mouth. "You move, I'll blow your ****ing brains all over this floor. I'm not dying today." He said. He grabbed me by the hair and pulled me to a slouched position. "You better keep your head down. I swear to god, they find me, your dying too." We hurried to the back of the room.
We got back to the office where my interviewer was shot. He quickly got me into the office and then very quietly shut the door. The blinds were still closed, and Mr. Bristen was still dead in his chair. He ran to the back of the office at the window and very stealthy looked out and down at the ground. He whispered, "****, they're everywhere. Man…" He turned his back towards me, and I bolted, right towards him. I got a hold of him and threw him to the ground. He lost his gun, and I went for it. The gun slid all the way to the shattered window and came to a stop. Right as I grabbed the gun, I felt him grab my shoulders and pull me back to the ground. I didn't have a chance to shoot him, he was to fast to grab my hand. I rolled him to his back and right as I did he did the same. We were fighting for the gun and he finally got it lose.
"Your done" He said. "I've had it with your ****." He pointed the gun at my chest. I heard a gunshot, but no pain. The gunman fell to my chest, dead. I looked up and saw a SWAT team in the doorway. They rushed in and grabbed the man off my chest. "Are you all right sir?" asked the SWAT team member. "I've been shot in the back of the knee." I responded. The officer then rushed out of the room and got the paramedics.
I got outside on the stretcher and there were enough people, standing outside watching, to fill up a small auditorium; all eyes were on me. I didn't pay any attention to anyone, except the shooter I saw being put into the police car. He was young, 18 at most, and his life was already over.
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