This is a book about choices, which is a bad way to start a book about choices because at their core every book is a book about choices. Dare I say every moment is about choices.
Should I save more or spend less?
Should I open an online jewelry store to give full expression of my creativity?
Should I say, “I love you,” or just keep my mouth shut?
Should I make the orange duck, or should I not take a swing at it?
Should I write a book, which at its core will be a book about choices?
You and I make choices every day. We choose what socks to wear to and if we are going to obey our parents. From the moment we wake up to the moment our eyes close in peaceful nighttime slumber, we make choice after choice after choice after choice.
There are two classifications of choices with which we are all familiar: Good Choices and Bad Choices. Most of us recognize which kind of choice we’ve made by what happens afterward.
When we choose to brush our teeth before anyone has told us, we know it’s good choice because we hear, “I’m so impressed with you that you would do that honorable task without needing to be told.”
When we choose to cut all of the hair off of our sister’s favorite doll, glue it to the doll’s body, and replace the doll head with a toy dog’s head, we know it’s a bad choice because we hear shrieking at the highest levels the human ear can take along with a spanking, a scolding, and a removal of every privilege we would ever get till we turn thirty years of age.
This chapter is about a different choice - to steal or not to steal - that is the choice.
I would like to say that while strolling through the halls of academia - the third floor east hallway of the Makum Psychology Building at Athens State University to be exact - the dastardly person dressed head to foot in black like a common cat burglar, assigned to steal a hush-hush experimental piece of mind-altering equipment had made a different choice.
They could have chosen to slip into a class about Freud. They could have chosen to slip out of the building to eat a hamburger. The could have chosen to slip on a banana peel, for that matter. However, they chose to follow their assignment. The rest of the story, as they say, is what follows.
Upon reaching room 321 of the Makum Psychology Building, our shadowy figure turned the doorknob silently, pulled the door open and chose to slip on in. The hallway was brimming with students pawing away at their smartphones so this breach of security went completely unnoticed.
The criminal pulled the black ski mask from their head revealing black hair pulled into a smart ponytail. The hair framed a face that contained two wickedly shaped eyebrows, two suspicious eyes, one cautious nose, and a mouth that was spread into a mischievous little smile.
She quickly made her way to the back of the room. There was a door there with a sign, which read, “AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY,” which everyone who has ever read a book before knows really means “ADVANCE THE PLOT THROUGH HERE.”
With expert speed and dexterity, the door was unlocked, opened, and closed. Inside were shelves, cabinets, and a safe. None of these things interested this villain. Instead, she was transfixed by a simple metal box sitting in the middle of a tall metal table.
The box was not much to look at, just a gray, metal cube with a red button on top. Her smile grew wider. She scooped up the box and dropped it in the black bag slung over her shoulder and turned to leave the building the exact same way she went in. It was almost too easy.
I say “almost” because as she turned to leave the room she was greeted by three security officers, each one with their arms crossed over their chest, and a very serious look on their faces.
“Good day, gentlemen,” the criminal smiled, “wish I could stop and chat, but I have an engagement to keep.”
And with that, she dropped her smile and dove climbed out the window conveniently left open. With cat burglar like agility, she shimmied up the brick facade of the building and began running across the roof.
Within half a minute, the building’s alarm was ringing as loud as it could hope to ring. Wasting no time, the deft criminal dove off the roof and grabbed a thick limb of a nearby oak tree. From there she did her best acrobatic routine to get from branch to branch until she was securely back on the ground.
She took off running across the guest parking lot where she found her car and got it. The only thing that slowed her down was the sight of a flier trapped between her windshield and her wiper. It was advertising a student’s online jewelry store. The pictures were quite nice and the villain decided to keep it to see if she might be interested in a necklace or earrings later on. Everything she had at home was so very last year.
In her rear view mirror she saw the security officers running her direction, so she started up the engine and sped out of the parking lot. Her smile was back.
The speeding car was directed through unsuspecting traffic with a great deal of precision. However, the longer she drove in the open the more blue and red flashing lights she saw catching up to her. She toyed around with letting the catch her so she could fight them off before making her final getaway, but then she remembered her dinner appointment after she dropped off the stolen box. She glanced at her clock and realized she didn’t have time to fight the police and make it to dinner on time, so she checked her mirrors one more time before exiting the highway at the Sunnyslope exit.
Her car phone rang.
“I’m kind of busy right now. Can I call you back?” she said.
“You’re all over the news, boss. Is everything okay?” came the voice on the other end.
“Okay is a state of mind,” she said.
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know I saw it once on a t-shirt. Just make sure you have the chopper ready at the meetup.”
“She’s fueled up are ready to go when you get here. Do you know how much longer you’ll be?”
Just then, the car entered a school zone, and every car in front of her was stopped.
“No,” she replied, her smile turning into a snarl. “School zone.” In the distance, she heard police sirens approaching.
“Start up the chopper and come get me. We’re moving on to Plan B.”
“I think at this point we’re on Plan D, boss,” the voice said.
“Don’t get sassy,” she replied, “just get me out of here.”
“Alright, boss. We will be there in ten minutes.”
“Be here in five,” she growled and hung up the phone. Secretly she missed old phones and the ability to end a call by slamming down the receiver. But then she remembered those kinds of phones never worked in cars anyway and she exhaled in frustration. The sirens were getting closer and the cars were not moving any faster.
Being the boss of a super evil crime syndicate is a very demanding position. It requires ruthlessness, not just toward other people, but to the execution of a plans details as well. After each heist or kidnapping or amazingly complicated scheme, she liked to pull the team together and have an evaluation conversation. In this conversation she covered four questions:
What went well?
When went wrong?
What was confusing?
What was missing?
With else to do, but kill time, she decided to get a jump start on the evaluation.
What went well? Got in as planned and left with the box.
What went wrong? Somehow she’d overestimated the student’s and security officer’s apathy and now she was stuck in a school zone and running on foot would not end any better.
What was confusing? She thought on this one for a while. The plan had been straightforward enough. She did make the mental note to have the chopper already in the air next time, should something like this happen again.
What was missing? An escape plan! The lights dawned on her. How could she have been so sloppy? Every good criminal knows the job isn’t done until every possible problem has a solution.
She shook her head in disgust at herself. She’d been too successful. She’d lost her edge.
Just then there was a tapping on her window. It was a police officer motioning for her to get out of the car. She looked at the clock again. One minute to go, she noted before getting out of the car.
“Arms where I can see them!” the officer ordered. She looked around and saw dozens of police officers surrounding her. One false move and she would be behind bars for a good long while. She’d been to prison before. The food was bland. The beds were concave. She never wanted to go back.
Once her hands were raised to the level of her eyes, the officer ordered her to take off her bag and empty the contents. Keeping one arm raised, she hooked a thumb under the strap, pulled the strap over he head and held it out to the officer.
“Open it,” came the order.
“You don’t want to do it?” she asked.
The officer nodded his head for her to do it. She shrugged and lowered her hands to slowly reach into the bag. She pulled out the box and held it out to the officers.
“What is it?” he asked.
“It would take too long to explain,” she said. “Would you like a demonstration?” And without the common decency to wait for a response, she pressed the red button on the top of the box.
No sound was made.
No explosion was detonated.
No energy pulse wiped out the town’s electricity.
Nothing terribly dramatic.
Nothing except every police officer surrounding her relaxed and backed away from her.
Several of the citizen onlookers cried out, “What are you doing? Are you going to arrest her?”
The officers replied something like, “There will just be another criminal showing up here later. What’s the point in fighting it anymore?”
The villain’s smile spread from ear to ear.
At just that point in earth’s history, the helicopter arrived and dropped a rope ladder for to pick up their boss. She placed the box back in the bag, pull the bag back over her shoulder, and retrieved the flier from her passenger seat before climbing the ladder.
With a wave of her hand, the helicopter rose high above the crowd and she let out a mighty and victorious evil super-villain kind of laugh.