The Chip

Please let her be here. Please let her be here. Please let her be here.

I grabbed the chrome door handle, looked up from my silent prayer and through the glass door to breathe a sigh of relief. She was here. Thank God. The other female guard behind the front desk was a wildebeest compared to her. Then again, most women are wildebeests when compared to this six foot two-inch stack of deliciousness with ample talents, massive rear cushions and curves in all the right places. To think that she puts all of that and her long, flowing black hair into a rent-a-cop uniform every day is a shame.

Focus, stupid. You came here to steal one thing and she isn’t divisible by six.

I shook my head to bring myself back to reality, straightened up the beige tie to my guard’s uniform and opened the door. I quickly strode across the dark marble tile and came to a stop right in front of her. I leaned over the desk a little and she finally glanced up at me with her deep, dark brown pools of…

DIVISIBLE…BY…SIX…STUPID! THE MICROCHIP!

I blinked and unconsciously checked for drool as she snickered. “Can I help you with something?”

I quickly glanced at her nametag and tried to turn on the charm after being a complete goof. “Yes, uh, Monica. You can do me a couple of favors actually. Please tell me this is magically the fifth floor, I’m relieving Melvin and I get to be beside your wi…I, mean under your wing for the next eight heavenly hours.”

She blushed a shade I didn’t know caramel could turn and pushed a strand of her hair back behind her ear. She giggled and smirked at me. “Fortunately for you, it’s not the fifth floor.”

My ears and eyebrow perked up. “Fortunately?”

She leaned forward. “Yes, fortunately. Because I don’t think you can handle all of this and it’d be a shame to send the new guy home crying on the first day.”

I leaned forward and gave her “the stare.” “You give me till the end of this shift and I’ll figure out how.”

She stood up and gave me a once over. I couldn’t help but notice her scan stopped in a certain region of mine before she came back up to my eyes. “That a fact, new guy?”

I smiled and nodded in return. “Yep. It’s such a fact you can Google it to see that I’m right.”

She laughed, shook her head and smiled at my corny joke. “Well, Melvin’s down there now waiting on you. You were supposed to relieve him ten minutes ago. One thing he hates is a new guy that’s late, so don’t be surprised if he’s pissed at you.”

I sighed and threw up my hands. “Well, I guess that won’t be the only crime committed here on this shift.”

Her eyebrow quirked up in confusion. “Huh?”

I tipped my grey ball cap to her and motioned up and down her body. “Putting all of that deliciousness into an ugly package like this uniform is a crime against humanity.”

She smiled and laughed a little too hard at that line. I walked around the desk and toward the elevators before I felt her hand grip my bicep. She spun me around, tapped her black boots on the marble floor and jabbed her finger into the ID badge clipped to my chest. “Where’s your card?”

I tilted my head and narrowed my eyes for extra effect. “Card? What card?”

She groaned, and not in the way I wanted her to. “Your security card? To get in the elevator and into the room?”

I scratched my head and gave her the most innocent smirk I could muster. “I thought I was supposed to get that from him. They never gave me one.”

She shook her head and brushed past my arm to push the down button on the elevator. “The second thing Melvin hates is new guys who forget their security cards.”

The doors opened and I stepped inside. Monica grabbed her security card, inserted it into a slot on the control panel, pressed the button for the fifth floor and stepped off the elevator. I gave her a wink and a tip of my cap. “Thanks.”

She crossed her arms. “You’d better buy Melvin lunch next shift to get on his good side.”

“Why? It’s not him I’m going to spend the next eight hours figuring out how to handle.” I blew her a kiss as the doors closed. Once they were shut, I cracked my neck back and forth and stretched.

That’s right. I think I know how I’m going to have to ‘handle’ Melvin.

I threw a couple of practice left jabs and a right cross before the elevator came to a stop. I shoved my right hand into my pocket and stepped off the elevator. I turned as a grey button-up shirt and beige tie blocked my vision. My eyes went upward as a giant, bald man stared back down at me. His fur-covered arms crossed over his massive chest as he towered over me and I sighed. “I’m guessing you’re Melvin?”

He grunted and practically snarled at me. “I’m guessing you’re the reason I’m late getting off?”

At least he didn’t say Fe, Fi, Fo, Fum.

I shrugged and scratched my head with my cap. “Yeah. Sorry about that.”

He snorted and shook his head. “Let me guess. You got caught up at the front desk.”

I smiled and put my hand up for a high five. “Wouldn’t you?!”

I held up my left hand for an uncomfortable amount of time while he stared at my palm like it was a snack. I slowly lowered my hand back down to my side and tried to avoid his death stare. Melvin snorted as his glare turned from my face to my chest. His eyes widened and he poked me in the chest so hard I felt like he broke my collarbone. “Where is your card?!”

“I thought I was supposed to get it from you.”

“Why would you think that?”

“They never gave me one at the office. I thought you were supposed to give me yours since I’m relieving you.”

The black giant scratched the equally giant brown bush on his face. “That doesn’t make sense.”

“It didn’t make sense to me either. Jenny at the office said something about being out of cards and budget cuts. I’m not sure. Either way, I thought she said to get yours when I got here.”

“How’d you get down here without a card?”

“Monica was nice enough to use her card for the elevator.”

The giant looked lost in thought. Is he really stupid enough to fall for this?

Please be stupid enough to fall for this.

Melvin grunted and grabbed his card. He snatched it off the clip on his chest and extended it out to me. “Stupid cutbacks, right?”

I shrugged and extended my hand to take the card from him. “Yeah.”

Melvin’s right eye narrowed and he snatched the card out of my grasp. He stuck his hand in his right pocket and pulled out a flip phone that looked like a child’s toy in his giant paw. “Just let me check with Jenny first.”

Well, damn.

I sighed as I gripped the roll of quarters in my pocket. He opened the phone and I snatched my hand out of my pocket. I swung up and for the fences as I launched a right cross at his jaw. Pain shot through my knuckles as I felt them all crack under the pressure of his gigantic chin, teeth and the roll of steel gripped in my fingers. I fell to my knees in agonizing pain and tried not to scream my head off. I closed my eyes and waited for his massive bear paw to club me, but I felt nothing. I peeked out of my right eye and watched as the giant redwood fell to the cement floor.

Well, damn. I guess the bigger they are, the more glass in their jaw.

I struggled to my feet and grabbed the card out of the giant’s hand. As Melvin took a quick nap, I walked down the hallway toward my prize.

Next stop, 36 million-dollar microchip.