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All frolickers, fellators, and fuckers in this work of fiction are of legal age to fornicate.
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Prologue
Three years ago, I started working at this venture capital place as a web-designer. It's a fairly large company - but it's small enough that everybody mostly knows everybody.
The benefits are above average, and the employees are motivated by profit-sharing options and a 401k with a superior matching program.
Three months ago, there was an opening in our fitness and wellness department. I emailed the info to my sister. She applied and got the job.
Megan is not a supermodel - but she's fit, taller than most women, and has thin legs - so her butt (while not big) draws the eyes of most men. With her light brown hair (that stops just short of her shoulders) and her mostly flat (B cup, maybe) chest, she looks like a gazelle - strong and graceful.
Last month, one of the founder's kids - Rich Ridley - who is an Assistant VP in Marketing - asked Meg out.
The first date went well enough - and he's (obviously) connected - so she said "yes" to a couple more.
Ridley quickly turned into an ogre on a power-trip so Meg started turning him down.
A week later, he appeared at my desk - to try to get me to pressure her into changing her mind.
The conversation started with promises - but moved to implied threats fairly quickly. It was pretty easy to see why Megan was telling him "no".
Besides that, I'm not about to push her into a relationship with this arrogant fucker when I spent so much time convincing her this was a great place to work.
The entitled twat came back a couple more times - each time with a new angle - and then he suddenly stopped showing up.
Last week, Meg and I each got pulled into HR. We're being moved to a new branch office that's opening near Panama.
We each get $100k in moving expenses and will be part of an advance team that will be coordinating logistics from the ground up.
It's an "opportunity of a lifetime" - they said - and not optional.
Of course, as soon as I got back from HR, I started asking my computer-nerd coworkers about the new Pearl Islands office. They peeked into all of the data we have access to. As far as we can determine, there is no office opening in Panama - and never will be.
Welcome to the Bum's Rush.
What to Pack?
From what Megan and I are being told, we're flying into Panama. From there, we'll travel by boat to the prospective location.
Supposedly, there's an intermodal cargo (Conex) box of supplies getting dropped off with us.
We'll have international phone service via towers on the mainland. We'll set up and organize the new campus - using local labor - and notify the corporate office when we're ready for the rest of the team members to be deployed.
It doesn't take a genius to realize that a fitness trainer and a web-programmer would not be the right people for this task - which helps confirm that the whole story is a work of fiction.
Since it's pretty obvious we're being dropped on a deserted island and left for dead, I started trying to figure out what I needed to take with me.
Honestly, I'm betting we get chloroformed and dumped - with nothing more than the clothes on our backs - but I'd like to hope it won't be that bad.
Best-case scenario: I load a backpack with as much shit as I think I can carry - and hope the fuckers they hire to dispose of us are generous enough to let me keep it all.
Maybe I'll carry a wallet, overloaded with cash, and either use that as a bribe - or hope they just knock us out, steal the money, and take off.
When I got home, I dug through my storage crates, looking for my old Boy Scout shit.
Most of the stuff our Scout Troop had bought (or made) was already stored in non-descript containers - like an Altoids tin for the fire piston and the char-cloth scraps.
I found my old trail-pack and started grabbing stuff that looked useful.
I threw a couple knives in - with a sharpener. I found some tools that fold down to make them easier to transport: a tree saw, a shovel, and a mattock.
Of course, I pitched in a bundle of parachute cord, a roll of duct tape, and a small tarp.
For meals, I grabbed two mess kits, a couple small pots, and a net hammock that could double as a net for fishing.
I found a small first-aid kit, sewing kit, a hand mirror, a compass, iodine tablets, a wind-up flashlight - as well as some bug spray, aloe, and sunscreen.
I didn't see any mosquito netting so I ordered some with expedited shipping. It showed up the next day.
I packed all the items into the various stuff-sacks I'd collected over time, loaded them into the bottom of my pack, and threw a couple outfits (plus spare socks & underwear) on top.
The bag was nearly bursting at the seams. When we leave Panama, I need a couple bottles of water - for both the water - and the bottles.
In my pockets, I'll have my phone, an extra battery, and my charger - whatever good that'll do - in a waterproof pouch (since I expect to be tossed overboard).
Megan came over. She was crying before I even got the door open. I wrapped her in a hug and pulled her inside. It took a while, but I eventually got her settled down.
I assured her that this was no more her fault than mine - and that going back to the jerk would have accomplished nothing if he was this easily angered - and this empowered.
My goal was to survive long enough to be rescued - and come back to find another job outside of his circle of influence.
In the meantime, the $100k would be invested and - someday - his "severance package" should fund the bulk of my retirement - which I viewed as the ultimate revenge.
Meg was not as up-beat, obviously, but, after we talked for a while, she decided that my approach offered: (a) the best shot at surviving this with our sanity still intact, and (b) a way to minimize the long-term effects (assuming we lived to tell about it).
I'm not that smart but, being a couple years older, Meg has always come to me when she needed to deal with something that she didn't want to bug mom & dad with.
We talked about how much we could share with them about what was going on.
HR had made us sign an NDA that seemed a little cagey but I didn't have any lawyer friends to run it by to see for sure.
In the end, we decided to go with the company story for mom & dad - but leave an "in case of emergency" Manilla envelope under the pillows in our old rooms that they could open once we'd been declared MIA.
Meg had just been getting ready to go apartment hunting when Ridley started causing problems - so her stuff was all still at home.
I'd had my own apartment for a while now but I'd informed my landlord about the transfer and would be moving all of my shit back to mom & dad's.
I dug around a little more in my leftover Boy Scout stuff and ended up filling half of Meg's pack with duplicates of most of the items that were in mine.
She didn't get the foldable tools but I found a small hatchet that seemed like it might be a good idea.
I only had one fire-piston so she ended up with a flint & steel but - other than that - our loads were fairly similar.
I also threw two small BPA-free water bottles in her bag.
A couple days before we were scheduled to leave, $100,000 showed up in each of our bank accounts.
After doing a little research, I visited the State Department, set up accounts for each of us at the US Embassy in Panama City, and transferred $5000 to each account.
The rest of the money (as well as most of what was in my savings) went into moderately aggressive mutual funds that would shift to more a conservative portfolio a little at a time over the next 30 years.
For Meg, we left her savings alone (there wasn't much there yet) and just shifted her $100,000 into mutual funds set up the same way mine were.
Print outs of the accounts, sign-in IDs & passwords, and everything else we didn't want to lose went into the Manilla folders and got tucked under our pillows.
We gave mom & dad hugs and caught an Uber to the airport.
Meg had $300 stored where it was easily accessible and another $200 in a thin money-belt around her waist. She was dressed in long sleeves and full-length pants that would keep skin from the UV rays - as well as from roaming eyes.
I was also dressed to avoid the sun - but in fabrics that were as light as Meg's - with $500 hidden in my money-belt and $1000 in my wallet.
Our money belts also had laminated photocopies of the ID page from our passports.
When we got to the gate and sat down, Meg took my hand in hers and wouldn't let me shake her off.
I tried to talk her off the ledge - and she really didn't seem that stressed - but she insisted on maintaining physical contact the whole time.
When I complained that I needed both hands to reply to an email, she hooked her left arm through my right one and leaned against my shoulder.
Once she was sure I was done with my business, she reclaimed my hand.
Expatriates
As soon as we were in our seats, Megan was back to insisting on either the hand-holding or the arm-lock with the head on my shoulder.
I kissed her forehead and told her it would be fine.
She kissed my cheek, snuggled under my arm, threw her arms around my chest, and hung on like we were falling out of the sky. We were still waiting on the rest of the passengers to load.
The stress must have exhausted her because she fell asleep before we'd even taxied to the runway.
I hooked my arm through hers, interlocked our fingers, and leaned her head on my shoulder.
A little over five hours later, we were waiting on the people in front of us to get off so we could disembark.
We went to baggage claim and collected our two large packs.
With all the questionable hardware inside, the only way to take them with us was to check them.
Meg's pack didn't look like it had been touched - even with the hatchet inside.
A few of my things were, obviously, not where I had put them - so they'd at least done a cursory inspection of the contents of my pack.
We flagged down a taxi, told him our destination - with one waypoint - and climbed in with our bags.
Our first stop was the US Embassy. We checked in, confirmed that our money was sitting there, and then gave them as many details as we knew about where we were going and what we'd been told we were doing.
Since we didn't know when we'd be back, there wasn't really a way to tell them when they should start looking for the bodies - but at least they'd have a record that we'd been here at this point.
