The walk to the third floor was much more orderly than his recent travels through the complex. Kyle was not foolish enough to think he was off the hook, but he found comfort in the fact he now knew he was going to the right place. He stepped out of the elevator and click-clacked his way down the dark hall to his left. He had never been to the third floor, but this was certainly a day of firsts. He turned around the corner, following the arrows that sat below “PIA” on the walls. The corridor came to an end 30 meters ahead and Kyle approached the lone doorway with an air of confidence he hadn’t known for what seemed like an eternity.

It was gone in an instant. There was a picture hanging on the door. A picture of Bjorn. And below it was a note. The note was faded and had obviously been hanging there for quite sometime. In barely legible handwriting it said “If you’re just stopping by, I’m in the lobby, its more interesting there. If you actually need me, I’m likely already doing my job.” It was signed with an ostentatious B.

Embarrassment, anger, bemusement, helplessness, bloodlust, despair, Kyle cycled through all these emotions with his fists clenched and his jaw on the floor. He forced a deep breath, spun on his heels and sprinted back to the elevator. The elevator hadn’t left the third floor yet so within seconds he was descending back to the lobby. When the doors opened he was on the move again, his head on a swivel, looking for Bjorn.

He ran to where he had spoken with the supposed doorman, there was no one there. Desperately out of shape, Kyle was winded, had a stitch in his side and a blister on his heel. He limped back towards the elevators.

“He left a message for you.” Lost in his own thoughts he almost didn’t hear it, but he finally lifted his head and looked around.

“Huh?”

“He left a message for you.” It was the receptionist, whose bored manner infuriated Kyle even more.

“Who did?”

“Who else?” She lazily cast her eyes towards the door.

“Bjorn?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, what is it.”

“He said, ‘tell the new guy I’m on it and not to have an aneurysm.’”

“That’s it?”

“That’s what he said.”

“Are you sure?”

“Listen honey, all I do is sit here all day and take messages, and if you’re going to be like that you just go right ahead and have that aneurysm.”

“Right, err sorry. Do you know where he went?”

She was back to staring at her nails now and replied without looking up. “Think he went to the observatory.”

“ummmm”

A heavy sigh, “top floor, southwest building.”

And away he went.

It took some time to navigate to the building's main entrance from Kyle's less than prominent office in Post-Perfection Diagnostics, and he twice turned down the wrong corridor, delaying him valuable seconds, but expanding his vocabulary in a fashion that gave the lie to the theory of punctuated "equilibrium". When he finally burst into the lobby, his shirt was mostly untucked and his hair looked like he'd been running his hand through it nervously while sweating actively. The head receptionist followed his path with a certain amount of alarm, but did not move to intercept him. He was wearing a badge.

The doorman (Al? Mohammed? Peng?) was leaning casually against one of the inner pillars and talking to the air in front of him. Kyle stumbled to a stop just in the doorman's field of view and sputtered "Al? Mohammed? Er. Peng?"

The doorman paused his monologue and raised an eyebrow at Kyle quizzically. He tried to participate in the newcomer's thought process. "Carlos?"

"Right, sorry, Carlos, of course. Look, I need your help, we've got a situation."

The doorman narrowed his eyes uncertainly at Kyle.

"I, uh...I've got a situation." Kyle's eyes shifted uncertainly left and right. If Carlos couldn't help him, then he had wasted a great deal of time.

"Elka, can I call you back?"

"I'm sorry, I really don't kn--"

"Great, thanks. Hey, you too...yeah, you bet, I'll bring it with me tonight. ... No, I think that's pro--what did you say? You're shitting me. Over LA?" The doorman's attention shifted pointedly to Kyle. "I better go...okay...bye." He reached up and poked at the side of his head and squinted at Kyle thoughtfully. "You know there's a cloud over LA?"

Kyle made a muffled whimpering sound and then regained control of himself. He squared his shoulders and said "Look, Carlos, I figure you know basically everybody in the building, and I--"

"Who's Carlos?"

That took Kyle a moment to process. "I'm sorry? Uh...Carlos...your name..."

"My name is Björn."

"Ah. Well."

Björn blinked at him and prompted "'everybody in the building'...?"

"Ah...yes, well, I suppose you have a pretty good idea of who does what, and where they are, and all that. You've been here for a while, right?"

"Sure, yeah, I suppose I do."

"I'm trying to find Damage Control, or Operations, or whatever the hell. You know, the people that...do...things. Actual things." Kyle expanded on this point by vaguely flailing about with his hands. Björn watched this with some interest and then looked up at Kyle again.

"You mean like Post-Imperfection Actionables?"

Kyle looked back at the org chart clutched in his hand and saw 'PIA' in the middle of the sheet. "Is that what that means."

"Third floor, northeast corner." He watched Kyle race back towards the stairs with pursed lips. This was looking like a strange day. He returned his attention to his professional responsibility, the door, but his eyes kept flicking uncertainly to the sky.

run for the door

Kyle was not much for cussing. Narrow, straight, and all that. His series of shits had been rather an anomaly. But now he had reached a whole new level of desperation.

"Fuck."

The heavy office door had closed behind him, and he stood frozen in the hall for just a moment.

"Plan. Cloud. Fuck." he muttered to himself. Then, with a little shake, he went pattering off down the hallway. Click, click, click went his shoes in a regular rythm on the polished floor. He had given up all semblance of dignity, and was running as fast as years of a sedentary lifestyle would allow him to run. He came tearing into his office and began searching frantically through file folders. His office was pristine and his filing system immaculate, thank god, because he was really making a mess of it now.

"Orientation materials, orientation materials, here! Got to be a map, or an org chart in here somewhere ... yes!" He pulled out the map. The halls were color-coded. Diagnostics was blue. A soothing color, Kyle thought in some small part of his brain that still understood what it meant to be soothed. "Ok, what have we got here - 'Strategic Planning, Customer Relations, Inter-agency Affairs, Modeling, Forecasting, Data Analysis, Publications, .. what the fuck? Where's the post-sighting procedure, or damage control, or operations, or whatever? Think, Think!" he thought back to orientation, the dizzying trips up and down halls, the endless parade of well-groomed, mostly white male faces hovering above firm handshakes. What had it been called? The department that took over after him, who were they?" He couldn't remember. A thought had crept into his head like a tiny wad of chewing gum, and was now expanding in a huge bubble that threatened to crowd out all other functions -- maybe there hadn't been one. Maybe it wasn't that he couldn't remember them, they just didn't exist.

For one moment, just one tiny moment that he would later unsuccessfully attempt to sweep into the oblivion of forgetfullness, he succumbed to panic. He ran out into the empty hall and started yelling -- not terribly londly, but definitely yelling -- "Help! There's a cloud! Someone help!" In the middle of this undignified moment, it occurred to him who he should ask. The doorman. He had been around forever, and he knew everyone. With newfound purpose Kyle ran (his cardiovascular system was becoming increasingly functional with every passing moment) towards the front door.

No, he had not wondered.

“Sir…” he began.

“Decreased productivity,” said the Director. “Mass depression. Increased suicides. You are familiar with the mortality statistics, Kevin.”

“Yes, I…”

“Should people die because of your failures, Kevin?”

“It’s Kyle, sir. No, no one should die…”

“Of course it is,” said the Director. “Kyle. Scottish. Meaning narrow, straight or channel. Bodies of water. Perhaps you welcome this cloud.”

“No, sir,” said Kyle, with all the appropriate, and heartfelt, dread the question and answer demanded. The Director stepped from the shadows until he stood before his office windows, spanning 270 degrees and bubbling like a fishbowl from the specially devised turret. The southern California sun sifted gloriously across the office, spraying the colorless interior smoggy golds and auburns. It hovered majestic. It had not yet met the cloud.

“Perhaps,” continued the Director, “you would like to see it rain. Water in the streets. Flooding on the sidewalks. Bodies of water obstructing progress, creating dangerous conditions, causing accidents. Narrow. Straight. Channel.” Kyle did not answer. He could not. The Director turned, then, and looked at Kyle for the first time. He had a long face. Everything about it stretched up, towards the top of his turret bubble, or down, to his elongated shoes. The chin, thought Kyle, in that small part of his brain that still managed to function, despite impending career doom, was the worst offender of all, sweeping down and then turning up. The Director cocked his head. “No,” he said. “I don’t believe you would.”

“No,” said Kyle. “No. No. Absolutely not.”

“Tell me what you plan to do,” said the Director.

“What I plan to do?” said Kyle. “What I plan to do?”

“Do not repeat yourself,” said the Director. “I may decide you are too slow for my office. By my office, I really mean, this building. You follow.”

“I follow,” said Kyle. “It’s just…the thing is…I am in diagnostics. A little forecasting. I am very, no, extremely unfamiliar with clean up practice, or even post-sighting procedure. I don’t even know where their offices are, I mean, the offices of the people who do that sort of thing.”

“Now I begin to think you are unprofessional,” said the Director. He cast his jaundiced face downwards, and looked a little sad. He reached for his phone, and the mass of buttons on its surface.

“No, wait,” said Kyle. “Just wait. Of course I know what to do. Of course I have a plan.”

“A movie shoot is being disrupted, even as we engage in this infantile conversation,” said the Director.

“I’m on it,” said Kyle. And fled.