It was about lunch time the next day that Graham got another phone call. He was alone in the building, working on something. He was playing the “moral justification” game again, which was stupid. SysTech was a giant corporation. Not only would they not notice something like this, they could hardly care that much.
It was in the middle of those thoughts, that Graham got a call. The call. The same one he had been getting nearly every day since the “office ninja” had started working for him. The call took less then 15 seconds. In which time, Graham had to pretend with all his might to be pleasant and confident that he’d fix the problem.
This is why the second that the guy hung up, Graham slammed down the receiver and swore. Adam hadn’t shown up for work today, at all. Graham ground his teeth together as he punched in Adam’s number. There was no response. After 25 rings. Graham started getting angry. He needed Adam to stay at this job, just this job, he could cut people in half with that ridiculous “ninja sword” he had at every other job Graham ever gave him. That is, if he really wanted.
This wasn’t good. Not at all.
No reason to get angry, it was probably something stupid again. He would just have to deal with it after lunch. He was already late, after all. Graham got his jacket on and walked out of the cubicle room. He went to the bathroom for a few minutes, and then walked down the hall towards the stairs that led to the bottom floor. It was right before he reached the stairs that he got an idea.
Adam had a cell phone! Graham stopped and dug around in his pockets. He remembered writing it down one time in a rush and stuffing it into a pocket, since he didn’t plan on ever using it. Graham’s questing hands found a piece of paper in his right pocket, and a cell phone in his left.
Feeling triumphant, Graham immediately dialed the number. It rang a few times, and Graham frowned. The dial sounded strange. It had an odd echoing quality to it. He shook his phone. It probably needed new batteries.
After a couple of rings, Adam answered. It wasn’t voice mail, it was actually him.
“Adam a little busy right now, Ryan” he said, in a barely perceptible whisper.
Graham was confused. Ryan? The guy from SysTech? Why was Adam expecting a call from him?
“No Adam, this is Graham. Where are you? You were supposed to be at work today. I can’t keep-” Graham stopped. He was hearing the strange echo sound again. It sounded like his voice was coming out twice, the second time due to someone besides him. But it was HIS voice. What the heck was going on?
Adam hung up; all Graham heard now was dial tone. He put his cell phone away and walked towards an open door, where he thought he had heard his own voice coming from. It was an empty conference room. Graham heard a rattling. It was coming from the top corner of the room. It was a grate, leading into an air duct. Graham ran over there, having no idea what to think. Was someone in there? The air duct here traveled through the middle of the ceiling, and into a wall. Then it got smaller as it angled down to link into the first floor. There’s no WAY anyone could fit in there.
Something was banging through the duct now, with no regard for being quiet.
“Adam?” Graham said, incredulously.
Suddenly he heard a soft fleshy popping sound. Then the crashing sound proceeded down the diagonal shaft to the first floor. Adam stared, his mouth dropping open. He did not just hear his own voice coming over Adam’s cell phone, and then watch him crawl through an air duct into a shaft two feet too narrow for a human.
That’s when something came back to the surface in Graham’s mind. It was Lloyd’s babbling comments from earlier. It had been something about ninja being able to dislocate their arms to hide in strange places. No, Graham thought, No way.
But, if Adam were here, then what was he doing? Was he coming to kill someone? Was he that much of a nutball? Graham thought about this, and decided it was a possibility. But who? Was he after Graham for some slight to Adam’s bizarre sense of ninja-honor? Then why had he run away from Graham?
He shook his head. This was ridiculous. It must be a joke or something. That’s it; one of his colleagues was playing a trick on him. But how had his colleague gotten Adam’s cell phone? And how had he fit into that diagonal shaft?
Adam looked up at the duct over his head. Where had he been coming from? Let’s see, next to this room was a storage closet, then another conference room, then… the big cubicle area where Graham worked.
He ran back out into the hallway and back towards his office. Was there someone in there, dead? Graham felt sick in the middle of his stomach. He flew back into the big room where he worked. Turned on a light.
There was no one. He walked around a little, and didn’t find anything. Graham didn’t get it. What was going on?
And then Graham started remembering something else that Lloyd had said. It was something about how ninja were often used more to gather information than to kill people.
Graham froze. He had told stuff to Adam. Little things he had said off-hand while trying to convince the kid to act normally. Graham had tried giving him examples of the stuff that he had been doing. So he had told him a little bit about his files and where he kept them. It had never even occurred to Graham that Adam could ever possibly be smart enough to-
On impulse, Graham whirled around and back to his desk. He opened the drawer and flipped through the dividers looking for the… “special” ones, way in the back where no one else would see them by accident.
They were gone.
Graham took out his cell phone and called building security.
****
Graham made it to work the next day in a foul mood. That morning he had found a note on his door, tacked there by a strange looking knife with a small metal loop behind the handle. It was from Adam. Needless to say it hadn’t made Graham very happy.
When he got into his cubicle, Lloyd was there. Of course. He only ever showed up when you’d rather be shot out of cannon into a pool full of razors then talk to him.
“Hey Graham! Did you hear about last night? Someone wearing all black was spotted on the bottom floor of the building. A guard chased him, and got hit with shuriken.”
Graham stared at him dispassionately.
“You know, ninja throwing stars! The guard got hit with them while he was chasing the guy in black. You know what that means right?”
Graham stood there, not saying a word, desperately wishing a safe would fall out of the sky onto Lloyd’s head. None appeared forthcoming though.
“Shuriken are only used to slow down opponents, like ones chasing you. I was right! Cool huh?”
“Yeah, great.” Graham walked past Lloyd, took off his jacket, and put the note and knife thing down on his desk.
“Wow! Is that a kunai?”
Graham turned sharply to look at him.
“A what?”
“A kunai, it’s like a ninja throwing knife.”
Graham was about to suggest to Lloyd a particularly excruciating way in which he could leave this plain of existence, when his phone rang.
It was his boss. Apparently Office Lenders had been served with a lawsuit that morning. From SysTech. Concerning some misappropriated funds. He was asking what Graham knew about it.
At the same time, Graham noticed out of the corner of his eye, that two men wearing dark suits had slipped in the back door and were talking to Linda in the back. Presently, she was pointing in his direction.
Graham was too far away to hear whatever she was saying over the angry voice on the phone, but he couldn’t help but notice how a lot of his co-workers who were near to Linda were now glancing in his direction and favoring him with some pretty unpleasant looks.
Graham looked down at the note he had taken off his door. It said.
The last thing people will believe; is that you are who you say you are.
Adam think Graham steal from wrong company.
There was also a business card that had been taped
to the note. It said:
Adam Chang
Ninja for Hire
Reconnaissance, information retrieval, etc.
Any and all terrains
Cheap rates
Call Adam today
555-6487
“WOW!” came a yell from behind Graham, directly into his ear. It was Lloyd, reading over Graham’s shoulder.
Graham briefly wondered if Adam did assassinations.
###
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