I is for Ian

“Man, he might have just cost us our jobs,” Carl lamented. “What if they fire the whole lot of us because of his fuckup? What then? I was depending on this job for the next three weeks.”

I nodded. He had a point. I tried assuring him that if anyone got fired, it would be me, but I wasn’t even sure of that. I just knew I would fight like hell for the rest of the team. I was going to make sure Carl got taken care of one way or the other.

“So, what now?” Carl said. “What can I do to help?”

“We need to clear the crew out of the building. Immediately,” I said. “We also need to lock down all the equipment or clear it out if it would be safer not in the building. But I can’t imagine anything other than vehicles not being safer inside than outside.”

“True,” he said. “I can lead a couple of guys hauling stuff into the back of the trailer too, get it out of the way. Power cables and whatnot.”

“That would be great. If you can do that, I’ll take care of getting the rest of the guys on board.”

My eyes scanned the room and noticed Dr. Davis sitting not too far away. I groaned. Of course she had to witness my downfall. It was probably a win for her, especially after everything that had happened on our brief trip between floors. She was looking away, but I got the impression she was listening to us. Oh well. Let her have her fun. She wouldn’t have much of a chance to rub it in.

“Did you hear anything about the storm?” Carl asked. “Some of the boys said it’s moving a lot faster than they were predicting.”

“Yeah, I saw that,” I said. “Of course, I haven’t heard anything in the last hour or so.”

“It’s gotten worse. Dumped a ton of snow just west of here, and they’re saying it will get to the mountains and just stop. We’re getting a blizzard and a half.”

“Great.”

“Alright,” Carl said, taking off his ball cap and rubbing his nearly bald head. “I’ll get the boys outside and start piling stuff up in the trailer for you. I’m not charging for it. I can’t leave you guys out here stuck like this on my conscience. Not when I was in support of that weasel messing with the generators.”

“I appreciate that, Carl,” I said. “You can cut out whenever you feel like, but I appreciate you staying as long as you can.”

“Yessir,” he said.

Carl turned and headed away for the door. There were probably a few of the crew out there taking a smoke break. They were going to regret getting caught by Carl, because they were going to be stuck out there for a while.

I looked back over to where Dr. Davis sat and almost approached her. Part of me wanted to apologize for being a bit of a dick before. Before I could say or do anything, however, she stood up and headed back toward the stairwell, disappearing behind the door. Shrugging, I followed, letting a couple of people between us who were rushing to get back to their floors.

When I reached the fourth floor, news had spread already. Most of the crew was crowded around the door to the stairwell waiting on me. Questions were coming at me before the door even opened, and I shut it behind me, holding my hands up in a request for quiet.

“Alright,” I said, “I’m going to level with you. Just calm down.”

“What’s going on, boss?” one of the men asked.

“They said the storm should be here soon. Are we getting out of here?” another asked.

“We are,” I said to a general chorus of noise that I couldn’t decipher if it was anger or elation. A mixture of both, I assumed. Anger from the ones who were simply there to use as many hours as possible to drive up their paycheck and elation from the ones who were looking forward to being snowed in somewhere there was ample heat, electricity, and cable.

“When?”

“Now,” I said. “But first we need to square away all of the equipment. I have a checklist, and I will be passing them out to the section heads. When everything has been secured, check them off and bring the list back to me. It’s your ass if anything gets damaged or goes missing, got it?”

“What about the generators?” another man said from the back of the pile, snickering.

“Yes, the generators too,” I said. “And Ben will be getting his when I catch his ass.”

Nervous laughter rippled through the group.

“Are we coming back?”

“To be honest, I don’t know,” I said. “I’m going to fight like hell to make sure you guys get to come back and finish this job yourselves. Whether I will be here with you, I don’t know. But that’s not our worry right now. Our worry is getting the equipment secured and getting back to your hotels or your homes. Got it?”