As we approach the production area I see the team gathered in the hall near Nick’s office. They all turn and gawk at me and my entourage before quickly disbanding.

Andy heads back to his work area several steps behind us.

Once I’m inside my cube he peeks over the top of our shared wall. “Whoa dude, what’d you do anyway? Did they catch you doing on-line porn at work or something?”

He looks genuinely concerned, not just for me, but it appears for himself, too.

“No, it wasn’t on-line porn, Andy, and if you don’t mind, I’d rather not talk about it.”

“Sure,” he says, seeming to understand that I need my space. “But I’m sorry man, whatever it was. I’m going to miss having you around.”

I look up at him and his face is distressed. Who would have thought that the butterball’s a softy? He’s the last person I expected that from. “I’m sorry too, Andy,” I reply, realizing that I’m really sad to leave my team this way. They’d become like a second family to me.

I look sideways and realize that HR Cathy is standing outside my cube, and she’s pulled out a pad and pen. She sticks her head inside.

“Sorry, Nathan, but before you leave I have to write down what you take.”

“Really?” I say, irritated as all fuck. Now I’m a goddamned criminal. The guard hands me an empty box, and I slam it on my desk.

“Spiderman,” I call out tauntingly, waving it in the air for her before sticking the figurine inside the box. “iPod…Daffy Duck mouse pad…” I rattle off the titles of my reference books, and she gives me a suspicious look. “Hey, I brought them from home.”

“They’re his,” an angry voice responds, supporting me.

I turn to see Joel standing in my doorway.

“Nathan?” he asks, his hands straight out, palms turned upwards. He looks like he’s in pain. “What happened, dude? I need you here. What the hell?”

“I know, Joel. This is so messed up.” I look down and shuffle my feet.

“What can I do? I’ll go upstairs and fight this bullshit, whatever it is.”

“There’s no fighting this,” I say. “I’m sorry. This is really, really bad. Believe me; I never would want to let you down like this.”

“Fuck,” he curses, looking down. “You were my best guy, Nathan. And besides that, I liked working with you.”

“Me too,” I agree, feeling worse by the second.

He turns and looks back at Cathy and steps closer. “Hey, I’ll give you a call later, and we’ll set up a time in the next day or so to go out for drinks. Okay?”

“Yeah, sure. Thanks man.”

He punches me lightly on the shoulder and then steps back. “Damn.”

“I know.” I nod sadly.

“Okay, later, Nathan.”

I try to refocus, quickly riffling through my drawers and shelves for anything I don’t want to leave behind including my black Darth Vader shaped coffee mug and joke-of-the-day flip calendar. I pull open the bottom drawer, and I feel a huge surge of relief to see it’s completely empty. They never would have let me carry those drawings out of the building now. Nick and Dani came through for me.

I stand back up, and realize that I’m finished here. This part of my life is over.

“I’m done,” I tell Cathy and she looks relieved there hasn’t been more of a scene. But just then Dani and Nick push their way past Cathy and the guard.

Nick gets to me first. He pulls me into a hug and leans into my ear, speaking in a low voice, “We’ve got you covered, Nathan. Where are you headed now?”

“I don’t know…” I answer, because I really don’t.

“We’ll meet you at your house in about an hour.” He quietly states.

As he pulls away, I see Dani looking at my box and crying.

“It’s okay, Dani,” I say, pulling her into a hug. “I’ll be okay.”

“It’s not okay,” she argues. “This is so fucking wrong.”

“Excuse me,” Cathy interrupts. “He was just leaving.”

Dani gets a fierce look on her face and squares her shoulders. “Hey…back off! Do you understand that this is an outrage? He doesn’t deserve this, and you should be ashamed to be a part of it.”

Cathy starts to respond and then seems to think better of it, taking a step back to talk to the security guard.

“Dani, believe me, I’m better off getting the hell out of here, after what went down. I’ll fill you in later, okay?”

She nods solemnly, wipes the new tears away, and gives me one more hug. “Later,” she whispers.

I grab my box and head out. As the guard and I walk towards the elevators, Genna and Kevin step forward. I’m not sure how much more of this I can take. I’m barely holding it together.

“I’m so sorry, Nathan,” Genna says softly. “We’re really going to miss you.”

“Me too,” I offer, giving her a weak smile. “Hopefully I’ll see you guys around.”

Finally in the elevator heading to the lobby, I look at the security guard. He’s new to Sketch Republic. I’ve only noticed him around for a couple of weeks. This must be a really shitty part of the job.

“You seem like a nice guy,” he comments during our descent. “This must suck.”

I realize that he’s too green to understand he shouldn’t be sympathetic to the fallen. “It does suck,” I admit. “I’ve never been fired before.”

He shakes his head. “Wow. And that was a good job I bet.”

I nod. “And you know what else? You’re right…I’m a really nice guy. I guess that didn’t get me far.”

“I guess not,” he agrees. He follows me into the parking garage, watches me load my box into my trunk and drive off.

I’m in a surreal haze coasting down the street when my missed call prompt goes off. I pull over, and look at the phone’s screen: Morgan. I shut off my car and hit send.

“Hey, Morgan, it’s me, Nathan.”

“Damn, are you alright?”

“No, not alright at all,” I say. “Do you know where Brooke is?”

“That’s why I called, to see if you knew what was happening with her. She came running in here a while ago, grabbed me and pulled me into her office. She was crazed.”

“Fuck,” I swear. “What happened?”

“She took this tote bag out of her closet, opened her locked file drawer and stuffed some files and two flash drives in the bag.”

“Did she say why?”

“That’s the thing. She was shaking and rambling about only having a minute before she had to get back. Something about her telling someone she was sick to her stomach and was going to throw up, so she could get away to take care of this.”

“Oh, Brooke,” I sigh.

“So she gives me her car keys and tells me to immediately go lock this bag in the trunk of her car. That I needed to be very casual so that no one notices what I’m up to…then come right back up and just do my job like nothing’s happened.”

“Do you know what was in the folders and on the flash drives?”

“I have no idea. I’d never seen them before. But another thing she did before she left was open up a cupboard and stack up every one of those Starbucks cups you did for her and then put them in the bag. I didn’t know she’d kept them. Did you?”

My heart thunders with hope at this simple, yet significant gesture. “Yeah, I knew.”

“And then this is the last thing she said to me before she tore out of here, ‘Morgan you have no idea what’s in these folders or on the drives…I never showed them to you or talked to you about it. Do you understand me?’ She was so intense that she totally freaked me out. And then just like that, she was gone.”

“Damn,” I groan. “So what did you do?”

“I got the bag in her car and came back up like she asked. And now I’m waiting for her to return from HR. What’s going on Nathan? I’m completely freaked out.”

“Arnold’s trying to destroy me, and he’s trying to use Brooke to make it happen.”

“She won’t stand for that,” Morgan states emphatically.

“I know, but he may not need her to do it. He seems to be doing pretty well on his own.”

“No,” she gasps. “It’s that bad?”

“That bad,” I confirm.

“Fuck. Fucking Arnauld. Mother fucking Arnauld.”