Story code: ST-001404
Part 2: The Protocol
The thin aluminum partition rattled violently under the sudden impact of a heavy fist. Greg flinched, his leather shoe slipping on the slick porcelain rim of the toilet bowl. His sole scraped loudly against the ceramic, squeaking in the dead air of the washroom. The silence that followed was absolute, heavy, and damning. He had given himself away.
“I know you’re in there, Greg,” a voice rasped.
It was Julian. The voice was distorted, hollow and rough, as if his vocal cords had been shredded by his own screaming.
Greg clamped his eyes shut, pressing his spine hard against the tiled wall of the stall. He wanted to melt into the grout. The memory of the open-plan sales floor rushed back with sickening clarity, answering the desperate questions his panicked mind had been trying to suppress. Julian hadn’t just randomly fainted. He had suffered a massive, agonizingly public breakdown.
It had started when Greg delivered the termination notice loudly in the middle of the crowded pit-a calculated management tactic Greg had designed to set a harsh example for the Q3 revenue targets. But instead of quietly packing his desk, Julian had shattered. He had dropped to his knees right there on the commercial carpet. He had hyperventilated until his lips turned pale blue, tearing wildly at his own collar, begging and weeping that he had a baby on the way, that he couldn’t afford to lose his company health insurance.
And Greg’s role in the spectacle? Greg hadn’t tried to preserve Julian’s dignity. When Julian had lunged forward in a blind panic, that pale hand grasping desperately at Greg’s suit trousers, Greg had physically lashed out. He had shoved Julian backward with his foot to break the grip. Julian’s head had cracked against the aluminum leg of a standing desk before he crumpled to the floor, thrashing in a disorganized, terrifying fit of hysteria.
Terrified that Julian’s flailing might somehow be construed as a workplace assault against management, Greg had pointed his finger at the paralyzed junior developers nearby. *”Document this,”* Greg had shouted over Julian’s sobs. *”Get your phones out. Document this erratic behavior. I need a record for HR so he can’t sue us.”*
Greg had authorized the spectacle. He had commanded the digital barricade to form.
“Greg,” Julian said, the scuffed oxfords shifting on the tiles outside the stall door. “Unlock it.”
Greg’s phone buzzed violently in his clammy grip. A new Slack notification. Someone had replied to the main video thread. He didn’t dare look at the screen.
Julian’s fist struck the metal door again. *BANG.* “They’re making memes, Greg. Mark from IT added a backing track. The CFO just replied with a wide-eyed emoji. It’s got four hundred views. Someone already downloaded it. It’s probably on Twitter by now.”
Greg swallowed hard, the bile burning the back of his throat. “Julian,” he whispered, his voice trembling so badly it sounded like a whimper. “Julian, please. You need to go to the nurse. You hit your head.”
“I don’t need the nurse,” Julian replied, his tone chillingly devoid of emotion. “I need you to look at me.”
Greg stared down at the gap beneath the door. The black oxfords remained perfectly still.
“You told them to film me,” Julian said, his breath hitching slightly. “When I couldn’t breathe. When I thought I was dying. You made me a zoo animal.”
“It was protocol!” Greg squeaked, his deeply ingrained corporate defense mechanism automatically overriding his panic. “You were acting aggressively, Julian. You grabbed me. I had to protect the company. It’s… it’s a standard liability measure.”
“Protocol,” Julian repeated softly. A low, wet cough echoed in the bathroom. “Is that what you’re going to tell the police?”
Greg’s stomach plummeted into freefall. *Police?*
“They’re not here for me, Greg. I called them for you. Assault. You kicked me. I have eighty-five different angles of it, thanks to your little protocol.”
Greg’s mind raced, desperate to reconstruct the geometry of his actions. He had shoved Julian, yes. Just a push with his shoe to break the grip. Was it a kick? The camera angles were all pointing downward from the inner circle of the crowd. He scrambled to open his phone, covering the cracked screen with his palm to dim the harsh glare. He found the Slack thread. He scrubbed the horrific seven-second video backward.
Right at the two-second mark, just before the camera jerked up to the ceiling tiles, Greg saw it. His own polished leather shoe entered the frame, striking Julian firmly in the chest. In the shaky, contextless vacuum of the short clip, without the audio of Greg’s frantic orders, it didn’t look like a defensive push. It looked exactly like a vicious, unprovoked kick to a weeping man who was already falling.
“You’re ruined,” Julian whispered from the other side of the door. “But before they get upstairs, you and I are going to have a chat.”
The metal latch rattled. Julian was sliding something thin-a key card? a pocket knife?-into the slit of the lock housing from the outside.
“Julian, stop,” Greg hissed. He dropped his legs from the toilet rim, his knees screaming in pain as his feet hit the linoleum. “We can fix this. I can retract the termination. With severance. A full year of pay, Julian. Just put the phone away. Tell them it was a misunderstanding.”
The lock mechanism began to slowly turn, the metal scraping against the housing.
Greg pressed both his palms against the door, applying all his weight to keep the deadbolt forced into its slot. The cold aluminum dug into his skin. Through the thin, vertical gap between the door and the frame, he could see a sliver of Julian’s face. Julian’s forehead was scraped raw, a swelling purple contusion blooming above his left eye, but his expression was terrifyingly serene.
“Open it,” Julian commanded, pressing his face directly against the gap. His visible pupil was fully dilated, dark and bottomless.
Suddenly, the main bathroom door hissed open. The heavy hydraulic hinge whined its familiar metallic groan. Both men froze.
Rapid, squeaking footsteps rushed in. Not dress shoes. Rubber soles.
“Julian?” a panicked, breathless voice called out. It was David from HR. “Julian, are you in here? The paramedics are downstairs in the lobby. You need to come with me right now.”
Greg held his breath, keeping his entire body weight braced against the stall door.
Julian didn’t step back. His shadow remained cast completely across the floor. “I’m right here, David,” Julian said calmly, his eye never leaving the narrow gap where he stared directly at Greg’s trembling face. “But Greg is hiding in the stall. And I think he’s having a medical emergency. He’s locking himself in and refusing to come out.”
David’s rubber soles squeaked as he hurried toward them. “Greg? Greg, are you in there? Did you strike him, Greg? We have the footage on the monitors upstairs.”
Greg squeezed his eyes shut. The pressure was absolute. If he opened the door, he faced HR, the paramedics, the police, and Julian’s wrath. If he stayed inside, he was barricading himself like a guilty fugitive while the entire corporate hierarchy watched the footage of him assaulting a subordinate.
“He’s acting very erratic, David,” Julian said, a cruel, cold edge finally creeping into his voice. “You should probably document this. Do you have your phone?”