1
Harriet Zyczyk watched the water droplets slide down the thick glass of the train window. It was spring, and there would be no more snow. The 'plain Jane' twenty year-old felt safe inside the thumping metal monstrosity, protected from the rocks and bottles sometimes hurled at the Long Island commuter car as it passed through rough neighborhoods.
Introverted loner Harriet had led a quietly unremarkable life. She was excluded, usually by her own preference, from nearly all social interactions in school as she kept her head down and face hidden by thick 'nerd' glasses and her long, un-styled straight brown hair. Largely unnoticed, she was always last in any alphabetical arrangement, and sometimes omitted completely on rosters. Some thought her Hungarian-descended last name to be a typo. She didn't make it into the yearbook. They didn't even call her at graduation; no diploma had been printed. Her inebriated mother's explosive overreaction at the conclusion of the ceremony was quite embarrassing, and the videos of it posted by other parents were a brief internet sensation.
Harriet's berating, oppressive mother was gone now, joining her late father, eternally patronizing whatever smoky dive bar in hell they could find. Harriet enjoyed exactly six days of peace in the house alone before her asshole uncle showed up to contest the will, and began moving his belongings in. The young woman's call to the police resulted in a magistrate's ruling that they share the house until the probate court could decide the matter. The uncle was a lazy low-life with a gambling addiction, and made a meager income cutting lawns and plowing snowy parking lots with an old truck.
Harriet exited the train at a stop in Queens, a block from her job at the bank. She used the back entrance of the combined branch and operations center as always, and took the stairs down to her solitary basement haven. Her title was 'Secure Document Clerk Level 2'. It was a position created by government data security regulations. Harriet's guidance counselor, high GPA and squeaky clean school record, not even a detention, got her the job. Brown-haired Harriet essentially scanned confidential papers and logged them into the bank's digital records, then affixed the appropriate bar code labels and filed the paper originals in an adjacent huge vault. Unless it was the last few days of the month, she was left alone to do her work, and read during slow intervals. At home there were bookshelves full of cheap paperbacks of her mother's, and daydreaming Harriet had amassed quite a library in the bowels of her desk. She often fantasized, adding explicit anatomical details and putting herself in the place of the books' female characters, being charmed by a mysterious industrial tycoon, swept off her feet by a lusty pirate, or pinned helpless beneath a shirtless, out-of-control farmhand. Once home in her room most nights, with the door locked securely, she would masturbate crazily, recalling the day's reading or watching porn.
2
About a half hour into her shift, a coworker announced there were 'Friday' bagels upstairs in the lounge as she left a stack of mortgage documents in the metal tray that served as Harriet's inbox.
Checking the time on her laptop, Harriet pressed the button under her desk for the guard to let her out of the secure exit door to the windowless room. The recently hired guard was young, and looked at Harriet overtly and longer than required to verify she was not carrying confidential documents out of the secure area. He had creepily joked about strip searching her, which she ignored.
Harriet wasn't sure how she felt about his stares at her chest, as her mother had always derided her for being 'fat and dumpy'. Short and luxuriously curvy, the young woman's post-shower view of the pale but smooth-skinned, small-waist hourglass figure in the mirror didn't seem to warrant such criticism. Sure, due to her modest budget, she wore a lot of hand-me-down, random clothes from the zenith of her mother's business career, dry cleaner-freshened nineteen seventies and eighties outfits never discarded, but she didn't feel completely unattractive.
The white lightweight turtleneck, a bit tight, yellow scarf in her hair, black geometric-patterned skirt, black hose and yellow platform heels could be labeled 'vintage', but a few of the women complimented her 'new' ensemble.
Hovering around the bagel table in the employee lounge, Harriet had to make a conscious effort to avoid slouching and crossing her arms across her chest to hide the ample feminine lines many women endured augmentation surgery to possess. Although she had been at the bank nearly two years, many didn't recognize her, especially since she began wearing contacts and makeup. Some thought she was a new temp; others, that noticed the extra security badge hanging around her neck, assumed she may be a compliance auditor from headquarters. This tended to make coworkers avoid any conversation with her, beyond polite small talk.
Suddenly the room went nearly dark. The fire system emergency floods and the gray daylight from distant outside windows lit the space enough for everyone to continue their breaks after initial joking comments about not paying the Con Ed bill. A few open laptops remained lit in the meeting room across the hall, but showed error screens that the network was unavailable.
Unsettling noises jolted everyone's senses, then came a horrible realization. There was yelling, female screams of terror, and then gunfire, rapid and warlike. Her pulse raced.
In seconds, two men dressed entirely in black from their ski masks to their military-style boots were pointing short machine guns at them. They kicked the table of snacks over, sending the bagels and plastic tubs of cream cheese flying. With forced foreign accents, they yelled at the employees to walk toward the lobby. Once there, it was apparent there were at least eight gunmen, all identically in black tactical outfits, except for different colored cloth bands around their upper left arms. Not a drill. This was bad. This was very bad.
The scene was chaotic and surreal. Harriet walked head down in line with her coworkers, mostly women, and stood while they were searched violently. Any suit jackets were yanked off, leaving some women chilled with stiff nipples in thin camisole tops. One man was hit in the jaw with a gun butt for refusing to relinquish his Apple watch. He fell to the floor unconscious, blood leaking from his mouth.
The collected cell phones, car keys, fit bits and electronic watches were all tossed into a large metal bucket. An open, square gallon can of acid was upturned and placed inside. A small cloud and the sharp stink of melting plastic wafted across the room. The floor was littered with plaster chunks from bullet holes in the ceiling. Security badges, purses and wallets had been tossed into a black trash bag that was carried away.
Harriet's wrists were duct taped behind her back, and her mouth was covered nearly from ear to ear. As she furtively scanned the dim room, Harriet saw that all the hostages were gagged except one. An Asian-descended woman in only a sheer lace bra and yoga shorts, a Vice President who made an ill-timed visit to the building's fitness center locker room, sat taped by the ankles and waist to a chair, answering questions quietly and typing on her laptop as one of the masked men held a gun against her temple.
One of the gunmen, who had a teal-colored rag around his right upper arm, was walking down the row of captives, opening and placing a loose canvas grocery bag over each hostage's head. He avoided eye contact with everyone but Harriet. She looked into his blue eyes for just a moment, until her vision was blocked. Another masked man behind him then pushed her backwards until she fell on her ass, then followed suit when those beside her scooted on the cold marble floor until their backs were against the half wall of the teller's counter.
After about ten minutes, Harriet began to loudly hyperventilate, leaning on the teller next to her. One of the gunmen crouched down and began yelling in the hokey foreign accent, lifting the canvas bag off and ripping the duct tape halfway off her face.
"What's your problem, Miss Piggy?"
"Asthma...." Harriet whispered, unable to speak any louder. "I...need my...inhaler...in my purse."
"Fuck!" the gunman said, then pointed at one of the other masked men. "You! Go find her fuckin' purse and let her suck on her inhaler for cripes sake!" He held up three black-gloved fingers. "Three minutes or I'll kill you both!" He took the man's machine gun away and waved it at Harriet briefly.
"C'mon Tubby!"
Wheezing loudly and un-hooded, Harriet was jerked up off the floor and led by the arm by the masked man. She passed a young woman with pink vomit gathered in her cleavage; another sat in a puddle of piss.
In moments they were in the stairwell, harshly lit by the emergency floodlights high on the walls. A dozen or so black gym bags packed with something sat along one wall. This was also where the trash bags of belongings had been ransacked. Purses, wallets and much of their prior contents were strewn all over the stairs.
"Which one is yours?" The gunman asked about the purses.
"Not here...basement...my desk...locked...need my...badge." she whispered.
"Shit!" the gunman said, now in danger of not meeting the three minute deadline. He located her lanyard and badges quickly, as at least they had been tossed into in a pile.
Harriet fell onto a hip, wheezing, and to the assailant it looked like she lost consciousness.
"Girl! Don't die on me!" the young man said, then scooped her up into his arms in a honeymoon carry, "Where do we go?"
"Down."
Maybe it was too many trashy paperbacks , but she found being carried by a masked criminal strangely alluring. It was her first time being touched by anyone since the hugs from strangers at her mother's funeral four months ago. It was her first time being carried by anyone since she was a child. The gym bag was heavy, she felt as it bumped against her randomly. Her breasts, jolting within her bra with each hurried, descending step, were prominently displayed to him, since her arms were still restrained at the small of her back. They had never been so close to a man's face before, she realized. Maybe she would write her own romance novel about this very experience/
3
"Here," she gasped when they reached the unmarked door beyond the guard station. He swiped her badge.
