Story code: ST-001909
Part 2: The Synergy Protocol
Mateo gasped as the air was violently punched from his lungs. The heavy metal coils of the vending machine dug painfully through the thin backing of the appliance and into his shoulder blades. A dozen bags of chips and candy bars swayed ominously behind the glass, the entire machine groaning under his weight.
Brenda’s grip on his grease-stained apron was like a vice. Her manicured fingernails dug sharply into his ribs through the thin white cotton. “Do not move,” she hissed. The blast of her breath hit his chin, devoid of any of the forced, peppermint-scented cheer she usually projected. “Do not make a single sound.”
The buzzer from the alleyway door continued to scream, a solid wall of harsh electronic noise that rattled the cheap acoustic drop-ceiling tiles above them. Mateo shoved her wrists away, his raw survival instincts finally overpowering his deeply ingrained fear of corporate authority. He was an undocumented worker in a kitchen that notoriously looked the other way for cheap labor; his entire life in this country was predicated on avoiding loud noises, sudden movements, and closed-door meetings with management.
“Is it a raid?” Mateo choked out, keeping his voice to a frantic, raspy whisper. “Is it immigration?”
If it was ICE, he needed to act now. He knew exactly how to pop the latch on the ceiling vent above the mop sink. He couldn’t afford to rot in a locked box waiting for men in tactical vests to cuff him.
Brenda didn’t answer his question. She released his apron only to spin around and slam her open palm against the heavy steel deadbolt of the breakroom door. She threw the lock with a loud, final clack, then pressed her spine against the laminate wood, sliding down an inch as if trying to anchor it to the floor.
“Brenda, look at me!” Mateo demanded, taking a half-step forward, his fists clenching at his sides.
“It’s not immigration!” she snapped back, her voice cracking into a shrill, hysterical whine. “I called immigration on the morning prep crew last month and they took three hours to dispatch a single van! This is not them!”
Mateo froze, the cold cruelty of her admission washing over him. She had turned in the morning crew. She was a monster, a woman who treated human lives like line items on a budget sheet. Yet here she was, barricading a line cook inside a breakroom, her entire body trembling in a state of absolute, unadulterated terror.
The continuous blare of the alleyway buzzer abruptly cut off.
The silence that followed was suffocating, thick and heavy, ringing violently in Mateo’s ears. The cramped breakroom felt entirely too small, the smell of burnt coffee and industrial bleach suddenly nauseating.
Then came the pounding.
It was not the polite, urgent knock of a delivery driver frustrated by a locked door. It was a massive, structural boom against the cinderblock wall separating the breakroom from the alley.
*Boom.*
The entire room vibrated.
*Boom.*
Dust shook loose from the ceiling tiles, drifting down through the harsh light of the fluorescent tube like dirty snow. Mateo backed away from the wall, his hip bumping into a small circular table covered in outdated shift schedules. His mind raced through terrifying possibilities. Was it a cartel shakedown? A coordinated robbery? The cash office was on the complete opposite side of the building, far away from the kitchen.
Brenda pulled her smartphone from the pocket of her tailored slacks. Her hands were shaking so violently that the device slipped from her grip. It clattered hard against the linoleum, sliding to a halt inches from Mateo’s grease-stained clogs.
He looked down. The screen was brightly lit, displaying an active text thread from the restaurant’s executive chef. Mateo’s eyes darted across the glowing words.
*Chef: They are inside. They came through the dining room.*
*Chef: Oh god they are pulling people over the counter.*
*Chef: Lock the*
The text cut off mid-sentence.
Mateo felt a freezing spike of pure adrenaline pierce his stomach. He lunged for the door handle. “My guys are out there!” he yelled, no longer caring about keeping quiet. “Javi is on the fryers! He’s just a kid!”
Brenda kicked out with her pointed heel, landing a sharp, vicious blow to Mateo’s shin that dropped him to one knee with a gasp of pain. “You idiot!” she cried, scrambling across the floor on her hands and knees to snatch up her phone. “They don’t want the kitchen staff! They want the payroll roster! They want the terminal access!”
Mateo clutched his throbbing leg, swearing loudly in Spanish. “Who? Who wants the roster?”
Brenda ignored him. She reached up and violently slapped the plastic light switch on the wall.
The overhead fluorescent tube flickered and died. The only illumination left in the sweltering room was the pale, sickly white glow of the vending machine. It cast long, warped, terrifying shadows across Brenda’s face, hollowing out her eyes and highlighting the sweat pouring down her neck.
The ambient noise leaking through the heavy door from the kitchen was changing. Mateo held his breath, straining to listen. The constant, deafening roar of the overhead exhaust hoods was still running, but the human sounds were entirely wrong. There was no screaming. No panicked yelling of a robbery in progress. There were no sirens in the distance.
Instead, there was a heavy, rhythmic crashing. Metal prep tables screeching against the tile floor. The continuous, agonizing shatter of heavy ceramic plates being swept to the ground.
Beneath it all was a strange, low, mechanical buzzing noise, like a massive hydraulic pump engaging and disengaging in the center of the kitchen.
“I triggered the silent alarm,” Brenda whispered in the dark, her chest heaving as she backed away from the door. “Corporate security is supposed to be here in four minutes. We just have to wait four minutes.”
“Corporate security?” Mateo breathed, pushing himself back up against the glass of the vending machine. “Not the police? Brenda, what is out there?”
A heavy, wet thump hit the other side of the breakroom door.
Mateo flinched. The impact was soft, yet immensely heavy. Someone, or something, was standing right outside in the narrow hallway.
Brenda clamped both hands over her own mouth, her eyes wide and reflecting the pale light of the snack machine.
A dark shadow eclipsed the thin strip of yellow light spilling under the bottom of the door. The heavy brass doorknob slowly twisted to the right. The deadbolt held firm, a sharp metallic clink echoing off the cinderblock walls.
Then, a voice filtered through the solid wood. It sounded exactly like the executive chef, but the cadence was entirely wrong. It was flat, heavily distorted, and skipping rhythmically like a scratched vinyl record.
“Mandatory… wellness… pause,” the chef’s voice droned from the hallway, devoid of any human inflection. “Open… the… door… Brenda.”
Mateo stared at the doorknob, the blood draining completely from his face as he realized what the HR rep had been saying just moments before.
The brass handle twisted again, violently this time, metal groaning against metal as the thick wooden frame of the door began to splinter.