Bang! Ding! Ow! Mac, Hannah, Julia, and Rowcols tumbled down the crooked chute, catching every turn and burn with a sensitive extremity. Except for Rowcols, of course. That spiteful glorified skipping stone, barely worth a kindergartener’s Cheeto-dusty fingers to grace his screen, just piped in some elevator muzak the whole way down.
Hannah saved Mac from most of the pain, bracing his swelling ankle with her gorilla grip strength.
Then light.
CRASH! Mac rolled off Hannah’s back and executed a good-enough imitation of a martial arts-style breakfall on the 90s-era shag carpet beneath him. Beside him, Hannah and Julia were white apparitions covered in an unknown, powder-like substance atop a cheap office desk made of sawdust, glue, and thoughts and prayers.
Trap? Poison?
Mac panicked for half a beat.
Smacking her lips, Hannah coughed, a puff of the stuff ejecting itself posthaste from her mouth. “ALMOND FLOUR?! WHO THE FUCK BAKES LIKE THIS?! MAC WOULD NEVER.”
More dust shook from the fluorescent lights fixed into the particle board subceiling, aftershocks of the crew’s crash landing into the backrooms.
Julia sneezed, a disappointed look washing over her face. “Damn…”
Everybody groaned in cringe and pain. Despite his bad ankle, Mac made a feeble attempt at getting back on his feet. Before he had the chance to stumble again, Hannah zipped over and caught him.
She’s so cool.
Wrapping her arm around him, Hannah gave her support. “Take it easy. I’ve got you.”
Mac kissed her on the cheek. “Thanks, Cheryl. Love ya. In a way that doesn’t imply any romantic affection, of course.”
In front of them, sitting cross-legged like a queen on her throne of medium-density fiberboard, Julia dusted off her legs and cleared her throat.
Beep boop! Rowcols joined in, also reminding them to mind their manners.
A rosy shadow stalked to the surface of Hannah’s cheeks, lighting flares under every freckle on her face. Mac smiled at his two new colleagues, despite the fluorescent lights and almond flour painting them as seventh-rate ghouls working for a company with no such qualms about ethical quandaries and no PTO.
Sniff! The telltale smell of fresh scones and coffee wafted into Mac’s nose.
But this signature doesn’t match the vibes of this place at all. Something’s off…
Hannah twitched around. Too late.
“Bag ‘em, boys.”
Fwoosh! Terror struck as Mac flailed side to side in a knee-jerk reaction. Pressure rose in his throat, his vision turning black as he kicked wildly at air.
“Hup!”
“What the fu—”
He found himself lifted in the air by multiple sets of hands.
“You gon’ work tonight, you stupid couple!”
“NOO!”
---
Hannah’s hair tickled the back of his neck as he sat bound in a chair, back to back with his wife. The burlap sacks over their heads, smelling of freshly roasted coffee beans, came off.
Four slow claps. A soft-but-bassy rumble from the other side of the one-way glass addressed them. “Well, well, well… look who finally showed up to work. ‘Taking care of logistics,’ huh? It’s been SEVENTEEN chapters. Brunch villainy never sleeps, and you’ve been… Doing that too much. With each other.”
Shit. Abe. He’s right. We’ve been TOO lovey-dovey.
Hannah argued back. “C’mon, Abe! We only did it, like twice last night! That’s just how marriages out of obligation work.”
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
Mac thought for half a second, a single sympathetic neuron firing in perfect sync with Hannah’s one brain cell reserved for him.
Well, even though Abe’s completely right, I gotta back her up on this. She’ll fire me, or worse, if I don’t!
“Yeah… What she said!”
Smack! Over the intercom, a group of breakfast guerrillas applied their palms directly to their foreheads.
“Hannah, I know you love Mac with all your being, but what good is love when the Brunch Illuminati have three nukes pointed at San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose?” Julia asked.
Rowcols concurred.
“Abe’s roight, get ta work, yew rascals!” Eureka stung their earpieces.
To top it off, Tar hung the pièce de résistance on the convo.
“Bestie, this was the only way to get this bitch rolling with any sort of momentum towards the dramatic ending we both want. You’ve been schnozzing too much with your insanely attractive husband.”
Tar paused, giving Hannah a moment to think rationally. “Don’t you wanna stay in the Bay and start a family? You have given regular people here new hopes for a dignified and loving life. People like me. People like Eureka, Gordon, Julia, and Abe. You. Mac.”
Argh! Their arguments are too strong! I gotta say something…
“You’re right. We’ve been shirking work because it’s been… Too professionally engaging. What do you need us to do?”
“MAC—” Hannah hissed.
“Glad you asked… Let’s untie you and talk biz,” Abe interrupted, not letting Hannah get the last word.
---
In the moody half-light, Mac propped his elbows up on the situation room’s table and clocked that it was made of a nicer material than the office-standard medium-density fiberboard.
Whoa… Real wood grain…
Mac and Hannah shared a chair, Hannah’s ten-out-of-ten, would-recommend body serving as his heated throne, and her hands serving as Mac’s seatbelt. As usual.
“You like it, Babyboy? Once we get a bigger place, we can scavenge all the thrift and surplus shops in the Bay for something similar.”
“Yeah… It IS nice.”
Wait. Hannah’s just doing this to distract us! Gotta put my foot down.
Mac wriggled in his seat, protesting. “Hannah…”
Hannah frowned.
No. We actually need to work.
“There is no ‘bigger place’ if we don’t stop these lunatics from nuking the Bay. For our sake and the sake of our future family, please keep it professional?”
Then, like an idiot, he sweetened the deal by opening up negotiations about the number of children they wanted. He whispered a number to her. Rookie mistake.
“Never start a deal by offering a number.” His father’s words echoed in his head a beat too late.
Hannah whispered a higher number back.
Mac gulped. His eyes bulged from their sockets.
“Gah… Three and you have yourself a deal.”
Hannah smirked. “Pleasure doing business with you, partner.”
Bonk! Julia love-tapped their heads together. “Task. At. Hand.”
“Yes, High Bailiff Julia,” they replied in unison.
Yoked Abe Lincoln prattled on, moving pennies, eggs, a suspiciously red Hot Wheels car, and a Matchbox taco truck around the paper battlefield on the table with a comically overextended black Pentel R.S.V.P., the pen flopping like a freshly caught fish.
“As I was saying, the CG&E convoy will be passing the 580/680 interchange in West Dublin,” he continued, rearranging an egg like it was behind on a predatory loan.
He paused, squinted at his Council, then looked up.
“You get where I’m going with this?”
Mac peered at the simulation.
Oh.
Abe wanted a pinch—cut the convoy off, choke the exits. Avocado Company, the cell on the western front, would pay their fare and lie in wait on the BART platform. Bacon Company would—
Abe moved the Hot Wheels car. “Nyoom!”
With a second look, the whole plan snapped into focus. Coffee Company. Donuts Company. Eggs Company. Four chokes in a natural traffic bottleneck, plus a reserve element to secure an escape route for the package.
Eggs Company, huh? Eureka and Tar in the taco truck, serving as the operation’s eyes and ears. The main force flips the package to Gordon. Gordon will be driving his car, and me and Hannah’s job is to protect him… Eh… We mostly do it live anyways. What could go wrong?
“Y’all ready? Break!” Abe rang the all-stations alarm. Battlestations.
