Office Manager of the Apocalypse

Flyboy: u still there?

Valkyrie: YAH! trying to find working live feeds

Valkyrie: see what’s going on out there

Flyboy: anything in Paris? i’m underground & just have my phone

Flyboy: no idea what’s hap outside

Valkyrie: looking

Valkyrie: here’s a link: www.skylinewebcams.com

Flyboy: k

Flyboy: Eiffel Tower looks fine

Valkyrie: yeah

Valkyrie: looking for more

Flyboy: send me a pic from your window—need to see you safe

Valkyrie: hold on....

I took my phone to the window, looking for the least concerning backdrop. Large plumes of smoke bloomed from downtown Dallas and spiraled upwards from the airport. My building was far enough from downtown for me to detach from immediate danger, but the airport, that was closer. I opted for the Trinity River Valley next to my highrise. It looked normal-ish, just a heavy police presence. I held the phone out and threw up a peace sign before capturing the selfie of me with the river in the background.

And sent.

Flyboy: WHEW! Wish I was with u

Valkyrie: meeeee tooooooo! But glad ur safe

Flyboy: gtg conserve battery and what not

Valkyrie: kk luvs you & b safe

Flyboy: luv u too little fox

Flyboy: keep managing

And with that, he was gone.

His “keep managing” message referred to my being an office manager. Sure, I joked I was a lawyer wrangler or tried to sound impressive saying I managed a law firm. But at the end of the day—and by the end of the day I meant possibly the end of civilization as we knew it—I only managed the accounts and maybe some travel arrangements. I was ill-equipped to wrangle Armageddon.

Yet there I was.

Power was going off and on, but the twenty-floor office building had back-up generators, for however long those would last. I was still getting some spotty and slow loading internet action, so our ISP was still up. I guessed their data centers were not downtown.

At first, I thought maybe it was just Dallas, before Hiram let me know Paris was on fire. Upon further internet research, I found cities around the globe burning or half-obscured by smoke. I could see our downtown from the window on the 17th floor, but it was hard to make it out through the smoke and debris.

There hadn’t been one colossal explosion, and I hadn’t heard crashes, well, not at first. My desk was near a window with a view of the skyline, a perk of being the manager—no private office, but still a great place to sit. I’d noticed a single plume of smoke, a fire. The first thing I did was check the handy-dandy Dallas Fire-Rescue Active Incidents website. The map was crazy with red dots, each representing an alarm that had sounded. Something bigger than an isolated fire was happening. Soon there were multiple plumes, and after that the skyline was obscured by smoke, or dust, or something, and the City Hall website went offline.

Eventually, there were muffled crashing sounds. Online, people said they could feel the ground shake, but not me. None of us in the office did. But we could see it—a skyscraper disappearing into the smoke.

There’d only been three of us in the office. Two partners were out of town, and the one associate on-site left in a panic since her husband worked downtown. The receptionist left on her heels. The rest of the team was already working from home—fingers crossed for safety. But that left me alone and alternating between peering out of the windows and scouring the internet for information.

Maybe I should have left too, but my house was just east of downtown, and I didn’t have friends or family, or even pets to rescue. My houseplants could fend for themselves. Bestie Hiram, aka Flyboy, was stuck in Paris on a work trip, and he’d responded to my immediate and frantic texts to let me know he was in a shelter. My second check was my doorbell camera. I couldn’t see the street through smoke or dust or whatever it was, then it stopped working.

I’d ceased all office management duties in lieu of doomscrolling, literally. Preparing billing statements didn’t seem important any longer. Hiram’s Paris was on fire, as were Chicago, New York, Miami, and Rome. I saw nothing about London or Berlin, or the US West Coast. People were claiming it was a Russian or Chinese satellite attack. A famous hacking group called Vendetta tried to take credit, but no one believed they could pull off this coordinated of an attack. Religious zealots claimed it was God’s judgment on a wicked world. And of course, the crazies were yelling ALIENS in all caps on every social media outlet.

News agencies advised to shelter in place. Our office had a robust fire alarm system that hadn’t made a peep, so I felt safe enough. I kept the fridge full of snacks, sodas, and ramen—part of managing the office. A bathroom was across from the front door, and the emergency stairwell was just down the hall. All the phone batteries were charged and on the ready as long as there was still a network to access. Even if the power went out, I’d be fine for a while.

After brewing a cup of hot tea and parking one of the partner’s executive desk chairs in front of the big window, I stared at my phone, willing Hiram to check in. I needed him to be safe. It was possible I was in love, but I hadn’t had the courage to tell him. I vowed to fix that if he’d just reply.

Valkyrie: u there?

Valkyrie: hoping you still have bars and are okay

Valkyrie: lemme know

Several minutes passed before three dots appeared, letting me know Hiram was replying.

Flyboy: i’m still here

Flyboy: u still managing?

Valkyrie: indeed

Valkyrie: managing the hell out of this

Flyboy: that’s my girl

I felt as if my unvoiced emotions had reached him, and there was no need to pledge my undying love via text in the middle of an apocalypse. Plus, wouldn’t it mean more if I told him IRL when he came home?

Flyboy: sirens going off again

Flyboy: I love you

That was the last message I had from Flyboy, even after sending him twenty messages in frantic succession, willing him to respond, and praying to six different deities, including Zeus—just in case. Hiram was probably fine, and it was more of a cell tower or satellite issue than a collapse of society zombie issue. I kept the phone charged and on noisy. also just in case.

Several other friends had checked in, but not as many as I’d expected. I told them to come to my building and bring booze. So far, I was still alone. There were about twenty other people in the building, including security. My floor was empty, but when I went down to the lobby, via the endless stairwell, security was still there securing the line at the vending machine, which I joined.

“Can someone save one package of Pop Tarts for me?” I’d noticed people ahead of me buying snacks in bulk.

“Gimme your dollar,” said a petite, black girl at the front of the line.

I forked over the dollar; she bought my toaster pastries and tossed them to me as the people between us groaned.

She looked over her shoulder. “Don’t pretend there’s going to be anything left by the time she gets to the front of the line,” she said while purchasing the remaining Snickers bars. “What floor are you?”

“Me? Seventeen.”

“Okay, Seventeen. I’m Twelve, and accountability is key. We are all checking on each other. Once a day you come down to twelve and I’ll come up to seventeen.”

“Will do, Twelve. I’m in the corner on the side. And thanks.”

“I got you,” said Twelve.

This seemed like a reasonable ask under the circumstances, and I liked my spiffy new code name. I squirrelled away my Pop Tarts from the jealous masses and went back to my floor, a little uneasy to have given away my exact location. But at her suggestion, others had shared floor numbers, so I had some idea which floors were occupied, mostly lower levels.

Back in my suite, which was keycard protected, I lay prone on the floor, catching my breath from the hike up seventeen flights of stairs. Once recovered, I found the toaster and plugged it in on the counter, feeling accomplished as I watched my Pop Tarts turn golden brown.

My phone still showed no signs of life from Hiram, but my socials were blowing up with information, and most of it seemed legit. Either AI was suffering from reduced resources, or was quietly plotting its next more.

Night was falling in Dallas, so it was after midnight in Paris. Live cameras were down, probably no network, which bolstered my theory about Hiram’s overall safety.

“Why didn’t you tell him you loved him? Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.”

To keep myself company, I sang old pop songs while monitoring the news. Local news streamed on socials; but not their websites. I assumed, as I belted out the chorus from “London Calling” by the Clash, that reporters were picking up signals in the field. Speculation was that foreign entities were to blame for the widespread infrastructure failures, cyber and terror attacks, and local vigilante groups were taking advantage of the disarray. Apparently, the Dallas Proud Boys had looted and now occupied City Hall.

I’d just finished the last of the songs I knew from memory, Britney Spears’ “Toxic,” and couldn’t scroll any longer. I pushed two big reception chairs together and curled up. It was still dark when I bolted straight up at the alarm’s mechanical voice assuring me this was not a test.

Before evacuating, I looked out of the window down to the neatly manicured and surprisingly still well-lit circle in front of the building; no firetrucks, just a couple of SUVs and a few pickup trucks. I could see men in tactical gear with big guns—not the army from the nearby reserve, nor the Irving SWAT. One of them raised his weapon and shot indiscriminately at some nearby apartments, so definitely not police.

“Yeah, I’m gonna take my chances here.”

A moment later I saw Twelve scampering down the hallway towards my suite, waving. I let her in, locking the door behind her, and she motioned for us to move around the corner away from the glass door.

“I don’t think they will come up here, but they were all over the lower floors,” she said while catching her breath. “Five called me, but then I heard yelling and the line went dead.”

“Who are they?”

“I don’t know, but they are angry white men with guns, probably high as fuck.”

“Did they follow you? Should we hide?”

“Noone saw me. They might have heard me in the stairwell, but I don’t think they’ll come this far up. I almost died going from twelve to seventeen. Your lights are off, and the elevators are down. Hell, if I didn’t know the building layout, I wouldn’t have been able to find you.”

“Might be worth me popping out and pulling down the little sign pointing to my suite.”

“Good idea. I’ll stay here.” She was still panting.

I slipped silently down the hall and yanked down the arrow sign pointing down the short, crooked hallway and scurried back to the suite.

“Done, and I didn’t hear a peep, except the alarm,” which was still telling us to evacuate every five minutes.

I knew most of the building’s equipment was in a basement area connected to the loading dock, which was locked down after hours. With the building secured, we were not a soft target, even if someone had access to the lobby and the fire room.

Reveling in my heroics with Twelve, I almost missed my phone’s custom jingle for Hiram. It was probably the third message ding when I dove over the reception desk to grab it from the table next to my makeshift bed.

Flyboy: u alive?

Flyboy: I take time out of my busy day to check on you and get zero response

Flyboy: I’m offended!!

Valkyrie: YES. YOU OKAYS?????

Flyboy: CHILL CHICKA! moving to army base outside city

Flyboy: just got signal

Valkyrie: love u 2

Flyboy: I know

Valkyrie: Han Solo?

Flyboy: course

I exhaled a deep breath I didn’t know I’d been holding.

Flyboy: u okay?

Valkyrie: managing :)