Lifted

Andy was always startled by the intensity of his hatred for Donald Young.

Hate was not one of his usual emotions. Affection and mild dislike were his typical extremes. He was known for his equanimity, which was an asset for teamwork but a liability when arguing difficult positions.

“I know that Andy disagrees, but hear me out,” Donald was saying. Had the two men ever agreed on anything? Andy couldn’t remember. He couldn’t think clearly because he wanted to smash Donald’s face into the conference table to shut him up.

“We’ve got the difficult situation in France to consider,” Donald continued. “And Podenski’s takeover in Poland poses unique difficulties for our predictive modeling, especially given the crisis in Ukraine. Even the latest AI has a hard time dealing with the extensive branching factors involved in our stochastic simulations.”

Andy wanted to say something, but Donald’s forceful stream of buzzwords resisted interruption. Andy contented himself with tapping his pen on the table in a nervous jitter.

Young broke off and frowned. “Could you stop with the pen, please?”

Andy feigned surprise as he stilled his hand. “Sorry. I was just going to say that our old models produce perfectly reasonable results here. There’s no need to over-complicate things with trendy new technology.”

Donald reached across the table and pulled the pen from his colleague’s hand.

“Hey!” Andy protested.

His nemesis read the words engraved into the surface. “Andrew Maddox, MBA. Your lucky pen, right? A gift from your parents at graduation; we all know the story. But luck won’t help you win this argument.”

The older man at the head of the table cleared his throat.

“This is supposed to be a discussion, not an argument,” he said. “You are two of the brightest consultants in the company. I want to hear your opinions without the bickering.”

Andy flushed and adjusted his tie. He took back his beloved pen.

Donald gave a curt nod that could optimistically be interpreted as apologetic. “You’re right, Seton. And the final call is yours alone, of course.”

Seton Collingsford rolled his eyes. “I can still recognize brown-nosing when I hear it. Let’s try to return this meeting to a productive discussion.”

Andy suppressed a chuckle.

The meeting continued for another twenty minutes. Young’s arguments grew ever more impassioned and jargon-laden. The light streaming through the tall windows of the conference room added drama to his practiced gestures. Andy, backlit and in shadow, felt himself slowly pushed away and abandoned. The final result was no surprise.

“Let’s go with Donald’s approach,” Seton said. “We don’t want to be criticized for refusing to use the latest tools, even if they aren’t as battle-tested. Get me a draft report by end-of-day tomorrow, please.”

Andy stared into the grain of the teak tabletop to avoid catching a glimpse of Donald’s smirk.

* * *

After the painful confrontation, Andy left the building to buy some comfort food for lunch. He returned with a bag clutched in one hand and stood alone in the elevator lobby, waiting for any of the six cars to arrive and take him up. The smell of his cheesesteak sandwich was intoxicating and a small spot of grease was edging its way across one corner of the paper bag. Andy turned the damp spot away from his Brooks Brothers suit.

Ding. The elevator doors parted at a leisurely pace, as if they were doing their job only with the greatest reluctance.

Unbidden, a counterargument to Donald’s fanatical plea for the latest AI technology popped into Andy’s mind. He reached into his breast pocket for his lucky pen as he entered the elevator, eager to write down the idea before it faded.

The pen wasn’t there. Probably left it on my desk again, Andy thought. He began to check his other pockets.

The elevator car remained in place, waiting for instructions. Andy reached out to the button panel to select his floor, then stopped.

What was that?

An unfamiliar button was positioned near the bottom of the panel, in between the standard Door Open and Door Close selections. The odd button was labeled with two squares, one floating above the other, with a horizontal line separating the pair.

Andy’s natural caution warned him against pressing the button, but curiosity won out. He jabbed it with his left hand while continuing to search his other pockets with his right.

Nothing happened.

Andy shrugged. His search complete and his patience exhausted, he pressed the button for the fifty-third floor and the doors closed. He recited his counterargument to himself, so he wouldn’t forget it on the way up.

When the elevator arrived, Andy stepped out and admired the view, as he always did. The looming skyscrapers of Manhattan fascinated and astonished him in equal measure. Never complete, always changing. Sort of like his endless consulting reports, but with considerably more beauty and utility in the finished product.

Andy walked to his desk and began to search among the scrabble of papers and miscellany for his cherished pen. It wasn’t there. Worse yet, he had forgotten his counterargument to Donald’s position. A grim suspicion had taken its place in his mind.

He looked over to the desk facing his own. Maizie Grunfeld was typing with great rapidity, intent on her own work.

“Excuse me, Maizie,” said Andy. “Did you see anyone come over here while I was out picking up lunch?” The bag containing his greasy cheesesteak lay on his desk, cooling and nearly forgotten.

Maizie jumped and looked at him in a distracted way.

“I don’t know. I was lost in what I was writing and wouldn’t have noticed anything short of a bagpipe band.” She grimaced and her hand moved to her stomach.

Andy noticed the gesture. “How are you doing, by the way?”

Maizie shook her head. “Some days better than others. Hopefully they’ll get it all out eventually. Thanks for asking.”

Andy nodded. He was sorry to have disturbed her.

So what had happened to his lucky pen? He saw Donald smirking at him from across the room and knew the answer. He strode over and confronted his rival.

“Give it back,” Andy said.

“What are you talking about?” asked Donald.

“I know you took it while I was out. My pen. Give it back.”

“What would I want with your silly pen?” Donald’s bafflement seemed genuine, but Andy knew him to be a virtuoso liar.

“You know what it means to me. I want it back. Now.”

Donald caressed his Harvard necktie. “Look, we may not get along, but I wouldn’t steal anything of yours. That would be beneath me.”

The argument had drawn some attention. Maizie had swiveled her chair around and was listening with interest. The door to Seton’s office was cracked and Andy did not want to risk further escalation.

Andy shook his head. “Never mind,” he said. “I’ll keep looking.”

* * *

The following morning at eight o’clock, Andy again stood alone in the elevator lobby. He wasn’t due at his desk until nine, but he was determined to put himself ahead of Donald for once. He re-combed his hair in front of the tall mirror on the wall, ensuring the part was razor-sharp. He flicked a microscopic speck of city dirt off the shoulder of his navy blue suit and pulled the jacket straight. He tried to smile.

He had not found his lucky pen, despite a thorough search. He was surprised by the depth of his sadness. The pen had been a treasured gift at the beginning of a new life, and had acquired the significance of a talisman. Now it was gone.

Donald Young was to blame. Andy was sure of it.

The elevator arrived and its doors slid open with lethargy. Andy stepped inside and pressed the button marked 53. As the doors trundled shut, Andy glanced at the bottom of the control panel and chuckled.

There it is again, he thought. That weird button with the two squares and a line. Looks like Donald lying down and sneaking a nap.

Andy extended his first two fingers, one above the other, and put a fingertip in each square.

I’m shoving my fingers up your sleepy nose, Donald. Heh heh.

Andy continued to press with increasing force.

Ooh, my fingers are in really deep now. I’m pulling out little flecks of brain and boogers. How do you like that, Donald? How do you like that?

The elevator arrived at its destination and Andy withdrew his rigid fingers from the button with a start. He shook his head, straightened his jacket again, and headed for his desk.

Maizie Grunfeld looked up and smiled. “You’re in early.”

“You too,” he answered.

Her smile faded. “Well, I have an appointment with my oncologist this afternoon and I have a lot to do before then.”

Andy blinked slowly and nodded. “I’m sorry, Maizie. That’s rough.”

Maizie tightened her lips and gave a quick, short nod. She returned to her work.

Andy lost himself in his research. Despite his ongoing rivalry with Donald, he enjoyed his consulting work and found it fascinating to advise clients on critical decisions.

He was jolted from his analysis by the rapid padding of footsteps approaching his desk, followed by Seton Collingsford’s sharp voice.

“Where’s Donald?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Andy said.

His boss frowned. “I need to ask him a question about that report he’s writing, but he’s not around. It’s after 10:30; where the hell is he?”

Andy tried not to smile. 10:30 was practically afternoon by the strict standards of his company.

“As I said, I don’t know. I haven’t seen him.”

“I’ll have my assistant try to reach him at home, or wherever he is. It’s not like Donald to be irresponsible like this.”

No, it isn’t, thought Andy. But I love it.

Collingsford walked away with angry strides.

At noon, Seton returned to Andy’s desk, his annoyance now mixed with concern. He reported that Donald couldn’t be reached at home, or anywhere else. Seton had even asked his assistant to put in a call to Donald’s emergency contact, his sister in Minnesota. She had not heard from her brother in several months.

Andy nodded sympathetically while munching on his pastrami Reuben.

“Anything I can do?” he asked, hoping he knew the answer.

“Yes, there is. I’m going to need you to prepare that draft report, combining Donald’s research with your own. I’ll give you access to his folder on the shared drive.”

“When do you need it?”

“End of day, as I told you yesterday.”

Andy tried not to sound alarmed.

“It will be difficult to incorporate Donald’s research in that short time frame.”

“Do the best you can. I’ll get you some help. Maizie?”

Maizie looked up from her computer screen with an irritated expression that softened when she saw the source of the interruption.

“Yes?”

“Drop what you’re doing. You and Andy need to get this report done. Thank you.”

Seton walked away.

* * *

The afternoon was difficult. Andy and Maizie divided Donald’s research files and pored through his notes. Although Andy had hoped to discover passages he could ridicule for their single-minded infatuation with AI, he found himself relieved to discover that Donald’s work was both thoughtful and well-written. Large chunks of text could be copied and pasted into the draft report with little editing.

This still left a number of problematic passages to compose. The most difficult sections involved highly volatile situations whose outcomes were unusually hard to predict and model.

“The German chancellor is most unhappy with Poland’s new leader,” noted Maizie.

“Dirgul Podenski,” said Andy. “A tyrannical man and borderline megalomaniac.”

“No need for the ‘borderline’ qualifier. He is a very dangerous person.”

“What about the chances for an accord with Slovakia?”

Maizie offered her assessment. Andy proposed an alternative. The analysts threaded their opinions with those of their absent colleague and the report slowly filled in.

A chime sounded on Maizie’s computer. She looked up.

“I’m sorry. It’s 4:30 and I must not disappoint my doctor. Andy, this has been a pleasure.”

Andy smiled. “It has. I’m surprised.”

“Some of us work well under pressure,” Maizie answered. “Those who don’t are not likely to survive in this firm.”

Andy studied her tired face. He knew she was ten years his senior, but she looked far older than forty in that moment of haggard transparency. He wondered how much of the accelerated aging was due to her cancer and how much was the result of her high-intensity job.

“Let me ride down with you,” Andy said. “We can chat about a few remaining details before I give the report to Seton.”

They walked to the elevators. A car arrived with uncharacteristic speed and the pair entered while talking about agricultural issues in Spain. Andy pressed the button for the lobby, then took a glance at the bottom of the control panel and frowned.

“That’s funny,” he said.

“What?”

“The new button. The one with two squares and a horizontal line. They don’t have it in this car.”

“I haven’t seen any new button. What does it do?”

“I don’t know. I’ve pressed it a couple of times but nothing happened.”

“Maybe it’s a psychology experiment. Or they’re secretly recording everything and you’ll wind up on a TV show with an audience laughing at you.”

Andy didn’t find this funny. He tried to resume the conversation about Spanish agriculture.

In the lobby, he said goodbye to Maizie before returning upstairs to finish the report.

* * *

The following morning brought two delights: Seton loved the draft report, and Donald B. Young, MBA, remained AWOL.

Where was Donald? Andy found he didn’t care. He tried to kindle some compassion by thinking about his colleague’s family, then remembered he didn’t know who they were. Donald was single and apparently hadn’t talked to his sister in months. He had never mentioned his parents. Andy mentally set his rival aside and returned to his work in a relaxed mood.

He looked over at Maizie and grinned, gesturing with an enthusiastic thumbs-up sign. Maizie smiled back, but the effort was clear. Andy had almost forgotten about her appointment with the oncologist.

At noon, Andy went out to buy another of his cherished high-calorie sandwiches for lunch. As he rode the elevator down, he looked at the control panel and again noted the absence of the mysterious button that had intrigued him. He hoped Maizie was wrong about it being a plant for a TV comedy show; he hated the idea of anyone making fun of him.

Andy returned to the building a few minutes later with a chicken parmigiana hero neatly wrapped up in a brown paper bag. He noted with pleasure that none of the sauce had leaked out this time. His sense of symmetry was satisfied when the same elevator that had brought him down to the lobby arrived to take him back up. He stepped inside, glanced at the control panel as he reflexively pressed 53, and promptly lost interest in his sandwich.

The strange button was back.

Was this a joke? Where were the cameras and the laugh track?

Andy ran his finger around the edge of the button, tracing the metallic circle with disbelief. Two squares, one line. It was real. It was embedded in the control panel. And it hadn’t been there fifteen minutes earlier.

He thought back to the first time he had seen and pressed the button, on the day his lucky pen vanished. Then the second time, as he arrived early on the morning his enemy had disappeared.

Gone. And gone. It couldn’t be. That made no sense.

But neither did the button’s guest-star appearances in the elevator at random times.

Andy laughed; a disturbed chortle from a dark place. He imagined the unseen TV audience laughing along.

Okay, he thought. If this thing is fake, you can laugh all you like. But on the off-chance it’s real, why not give it a shot?

He focused his thoughts, then spoke the words aloud to emphasize them.

“Make Maizie’s cancer disappear. Take it wherever you took Donald and my lucky pen.”

He pressed the button.

When the elevator deposited him on the fifty-third floor, Andy went quickly to his desk and set down his sandwich. He walked over to Maizie.

“That was great work yesterday. Seton was crazy about our report. How are you feeling today?”

Maizie looked up, a blank expression on her pale face. She covered her mouth and coughed.

Gouts of blood splattered through her fingers onto her computer screen and keyboard.

Andy stepped back in horror as Maizie arose from her chair. She removed her hand from her mouth, revealing the blood running like a slow faucet from her mouth and nose.

“Help me. Help me.”

The words misted blood into the air.

People were screaming. Someone shouted for the receptionist to call an ambulance.

Maizie took an unsteady step forward and collapsed in a widening crimson pool.

* * *

Andy sat at his desk, staring at his bright computer monitor in the darkening office. On the screen was the latest version of the report that he and Maizie had prepared together. Maizie herself was long gone. There had been nothing the paramedics could do except remove her body with as much dignity as could be managed on blood-soaked industrial carpeting.

Seton Collingsford had told everyone they could go home for the day, and most people did exactly that. Andy had decided to stay, not because he was unaffected by the afternoon’s tragedy, but because he needed distraction from the question that gnawed at him.

Had he killed his friend?

Not deliberately, of course. And maybe not at all. Stomach cancer was a horror, and any rational person would say cancer was obviously the culprit.

But Andy wasn’t convinced. He was beyond the point at which he could write off the mysterious elevator button as irrelevant, despite his reluctance to give credence to the supernatural.

If it were just his lucky pen that had vanished, there would be nothing to think about. Andy lost things all the time, though admittedly not items he treasured.

Then there was Donald. He was a quintessential Type A personality who would no more abandon his job than he would set fire to his Bentley and use it for roasting hot dogs. His disappearance had no known explanation, but many seemingly irrational acts became rational only after the facts put in their appearance.

Finally, there was Maizie. Poor Maizie. Andy had thought he was helping her, but he realized what had probably happened.

Donald and the lucky pen had been taken away, lifted into some other place. Maizie’s cancer had been lifted right out of her body, leaving nothing behind but gaping holes. Those internal wounds became fatal injuries that led to a prompt and gruesome death.

Didn’t the elevator understand what would happen? Andy wondered, before realizing how nutty that idea would sound if spoken aloud.

Andy looked down at the arm of his cashmere suit, noting with regret that a smear of Maizie’s blood had stained the elbow. He chastised himself for his regret but felt it anyway.

He arose and turned away from the window, with its dazzling nighttime view of the city. He walked down the long corridor of the shadowy office, trying to find sense and direction.

Atonement. He was not a religious man, but nonetheless felt an urge to restore balance in the face of wrongs he had perpetrated. What could he do?

He had inadvertently punished himself by vanishing his prized pen, but realized this was no more than spare change on the balance sheet of redemption. What else could he do? He wanted something clearly correct that couldn’t go wrong.

World peace, he thought, and laughed. The canonical answer of every contestant in a beauty pageant.

Then he stopped laughing. He knew what he was going to do.

He returned to his desk for his topcoat, then headed for the elevators, hoping to get one of the special cars. When the elevator arrived, Andy got in and smiled when he saw the now-familiar button gleaming up at him.

Stability in Central Europe. Simplification of predictive models. A better world and an easier job. All tied up in one man.

Andy focused his thoughts on a single name and pressed the strange button. In his mind, two words echoed.

Dirgul Podenski. Dirgul Podenski.

* * *

Andy’s sleep was troubled and ragged. His impossibly soft Egyptian cotton sheets caressed his skin but were unable to soothe his mind. He finally fell into an exhausted stupor and was barely able to scrape himself awake when his alarm clattered. He made it to the office at precisely nine o’clock by skipping both breakfast and his usual morning internet time.

As he entered the office, he saw Seton and several staff consultants heading for the conference room, looking even more humorless than usual. Seton beckoned for Andy to follow them. Andy wondered if the meeting concerned the handling of Maizie’s death. A company couldn’t have a longtime employee fall over dead in a pool of blood without a well-crafted public statement that combined sympathy with careful denial of responsibility.

The consultants gathered around the conference table, adjusting their jackets and dresses as they seated themselves in the uncomfortable chairs. They looked expectantly at Seton, who began to speak.

“As we have just learned, Dirgul Podenski’s daughter Lena has effectively taken over her father’s role as leader of Poland.”

An uneasy murmur filled the room. Andy gulped.

“Dirgul was a notorious wildcard in all our models,” Seton continued. “Lena is far worse.”

“She’s out of her mind,” the man across from Andy said.

“That is perhaps an overstatement, but not by much,” Seton answered. “The situation is now highly unstable and likely to grow worse.”

Andy took out a notepad and an expensive new pen. He intended to take notes but found his mind wandering.

Nature abhors a vacuum, he thought. Why didn’t I remember that? Of course some power-crazed loon would jump in to replace Podenski.

The back-and-forth between Seton and the other consultants continued as Andy doodled on his notepad. A new idea occurred to him.

What would happen if he pressed the elevator button while thinking about someone who had already vanished? Would that person come back?

Monkey’s Paw, Monkey’s Paw, thought Andy. Zombies and screaming.

But maybe it was worth a try. How much more could he mess things up?

The meeting adjourned with much nodding and many serious expressions. Andy hadn’t listened to a word beyond the opening exchange.

He looked down at his notepad. It was covered with the same doodle repeated over and over.

Square-line-square. Square-line-square.

Seton came up behind Andy and looked down at the doodling. He put his hand on Andy’s shoulder.

“May we speak frankly?” he asked.

Andy nodded.

“I know that you and Maizie were friends. Her death has obviously caused you considerable distress. It doesn’t do you or the company any good to be at work when you’re feeling like this.” He gestured to the pad covered with a forest of symbols.

Andy arose from the table, his thoughts and emotions equally jumbled.

“You’re right, Seton. Maybe I should take a little time off.” A little time to try bringing back Dirgul Podenski. A little time to figure out what else might be done in the way of vanishing people, or things, or diseases.

“I’ll walk you to the elevator,” Seton said, putting his arm around Andy’s shoulder as they left the conference room.

They waited in silence as the sound of motors and cabling machinery thrummed around them. When a car arrived, Andy shook his boss’s hand and stepped inside. He glanced at the control panel and saw the button he had hoped for.

Seton reached into the elevator and pressed the button for the lobby. Andy noticed that Seton’s thumb managed to strike another button as well. One decorated with two squares and a horizontal line.

“I’ll be thinking about you,” said Seton as the elevator doors closed.