CHAPTER 2: THE IDEA

When he walked out of the apartment building, David had originally felt lucky that the morning rainstorm had already passed. That was until he steped into a puddle that was deeper than the usual and got soggy feet. The worst of it all was that he had fumbled his extra bagel onto the ground.

"Damn pothole", he had cursed as he stumbled around to keep his balance in the crosswalk. Guess he was going to be hungry the rest of the morning.

Three Rivers City had a population of around 350,000 people and those people knew how to beat up the infrastructure. Imagine the perfect downtown cityscape, then imagine people so busy they don't pay attention to how they are treating things around them and the devastation that their haste causes. Bent street signs where cars clip them pulling too close to the curb. Potholes created by the repetitive beating that the large number of delivery trucks zooming around all day. Smells of what appeared to be bodily fluids and booze all over the sidewalks near the local bars that seem to be spread throughout downtown. Thankfully, the crime didn't seem to be that high in the areas David frequented and the taxes were relatively low. Three Rivers City wasn't a bad place at all. If it had to be summed up in one word: busy.

After navigating the labyrinth of streets on his usual 1.5 mile route, he arrived at work a few minutes before the majority of staff arrived. He managed to squeak and slosh his way through the building and arrived at his office. Just as he was opening his office door he could hear his boss talking down the hall. Guess the meeting tomorrow was just too important to be straggling in for those with the company involved with kicking off this new project.

The Carmine Corporation must have been looking for a tax write off because they donated 10 million dollars for the development of a "Creatures of the Night" building at the Three Rivers Zoo. The concept was for the building to house the standard nocturnal animals: bats, owls, bugs, reptiles and an assortment of amphibians. His design firm was very lucky to be selected as the architect and engineering service provider for this project. The client meeting needed to go very well. If the meeting flopped, the chances of the project being pulled from the firm were pretty high. Everything must be perfect.

While the team members managing this project may have been amped up, those in the office that didn't have involvement were still their typical Monday selves. After about an hour of working, the office's notorious coworker, Jeff, decided to make his rounds to tell everyone about his weekend exploits.

These exploits usually consist of some story about the random women that Jeff manages to swindle into hooking up with him during the weekend.

After peaking his head into David's office, Jeff immediately started on this week's weekend story.

"This chick I met this weekend was crazy. She scared the shit out of me. We were about to get at it when she stopped, got all serious and asked me what my safe word was. From jokes and shit on TV, I knew what she meant but that's one hell of a thing to ask a guy when you just got him back to your place, you know?," he continues,"I mean, I'm standing in front of her half naked with a rager of a hard-on and she pops this kinda question. Good thing I had a few drinks in me cause it ended up being one hell of a night."

After listening to Jeff's breathless raving of women conquering, David finally looked up from his desk at Jeff. To David's annoyance, Jeff took the acknowledgement as a sign to continue the story.

He went on, "I even woke up this morning screamin 'yellow' over and over again. Yellow was my safe word by the way. She said she enjoyed me too so maybe this will be the start of something cool."

"Good for you, Jeff. I hope you can finally meet the right one and settle down." David said while thinking, "because if you get married you won't need to interrupt my work with these woman conquest stories."

"Let me get back to work, we have that big client meeting this week and everything needs to be on point", David gave Jeff the heads up on the situation so he didn't get himself in trouble wondering the office with his stories. Seemed like the passive warning went in one ear and out the other though.

While Jeff made his way to the next office to rattle the same story off, David started working on a few concepts for the conceptual design and general layout of the night exhibit. The next two hours continued at his desk, solving problem and managing his other projects. With a gurgle of his stomach indicating his hunger, David decided it was time to go eat his lunch.

The TV was blasting the sounds of applause when he walked in to find a spot for lunch. Oddly no one was sitting in the break room eating. He looked over at the time clock and realized it was only 10:45 a.m.

"Damn pothole", he cursed again as he continued to slosh around the break room. Sitting at the table, he pulled his lunch out of the bag.

The TV in the break room was already running with one of those standard daytime talk shows. A magician was on the show standing in front of the audience with hands spread wide and doing some over exaggerated 'magical' finger movements. He built up the anticipation with the audience telling them that they would see a box disappear when he said the magic word, "Kazamm". Sure enough, the trick was a success. The magic word made the box disappear.

Bored with watching the show, David quickly choked down his three sandwiches and walked back to his desk.

After having a big lunch, David actually started to feel physically better but was struggling to keep his eyes open at his desk. Other than the drowsyness, the rest of the day went fairly quickly and he was totally immersed in his work. Diligently working in his office, he realized that he must be the only one left in the building when he got up to go to the bathroom.

Since it was late, he decided it was time to pack up and start the walk back home. Since he ended up being the last person in the office, he had to lock up for the night by setting the alarm and walking out a specific door that locked behind him. Just as he was about to exit the building, David realized that he forgot his wallet and keys sitting on his desk.

Thankfully, he remembered his stuff before the door shut. If he would have been locked out, he would have had to call his boss to come unlock the building. With the big client meeting coming up, the boss would have been pissed for getting his evening disturbed.

David ran back upstairs only to be assaulted by the screaming alarm system. Only thing worse than calling the boss to open the office is having the boss called by the police, so David was quick to run to the alarm panel and shut it off the alarm. Grateful that he managed to get the sirens turned off he stood by the secretary's desk waiting fo the follow up phone call. Within a minute, the phone rang. Quickly picking up the phone, David heard on the other end of the line, "Guardian Alarm Systems, please state your code word." "Cadillac", David responded immediately with the password to let the security company know that everything was alright. "Thank you for your response. We will cancel the calll to emergency services," the operator on the security line said emotionlessly.

Running back to his office quickly, he grabbed his keys and wallet from his desk and went through the exit routine again.

Walking back to his apartment, a random idea popped into his head as he was reflecting on his day. "Wouldn't it be nice if I had a safe word, a magical word, a passcode that could get me out of my bad dreams," David thoughtfully fantasized while walking home.