Chapter 5: The Eruption

Chapter 5: The Eruption

The air in Brenda Mills’s glass-walled office was thick enough to chew. Leo sat perfectly still in his chair while Richard, the head of security, stood by the door like a gargoyle in a cheap suit. A sleek, severe-looking woman with a leather briefcase and an expression that could curdle milk had introduced herself as Ms. Jennings from the legal department. She was now pacing the small space, her heels clicking a sharp, angry rhythm on the floor.

"Let me be perfectly clear, Mr. Vance," she said, finally stopping to fix him with a predatory glare. "You are claiming that your prescribed medication was stolen after you placed it inside a sandwich in a communal refrigerator?"

"I'm not claiming it. I'm stating it as a fact," Leo replied, his voice a placid lake of calm. He met her gaze without flinching. "I placed my personal property, which included my medicated food, in the designated employee refrigerator at 8:45 AM. At 1:30 PM, it was gone. I have video documentation of me preparing the food and adding my prescription. I have the pharmacy receipt. I have my doctor's diagnosis. And I have twelve weeks of prior complaints to Ms. Mills about the ongoing issue of theft, all of which were dismissed."

He gestured politely toward Brenda, who looked like she was about to be physically ill. Every word Leo spoke was another nail in her professional coffin. Ms. Jennings’s sharp gaze flickered to the wilting HR manager.

"Is this true, Brenda? Twelve prior complaints?"

Brenda could only manage a pathetic, jerky nod.

Ms. Jennings’s jaw tightened. "Unbelievable." Her focus snapped back to Richard. "We need to find out who took the food. Now. Check the security logs for the kitchen entrance between noon and one."

"Already on it," Richard grunted, speaking into his radio.

It was precisely at that moment, at 1:58 PM, that a low, guttural roar echoed down the hallway from the executive suites. It was a sound of pure, primal agony, followed by a series of frantic, percussive bangs and a muffled crash.

Every head in the office turned towards the sound. The open-plan workspace fell silent, conversations dying mid-sentence. Another strangled cry, this one higher-pitched and more desperate, pierced the quiet.

Ms. Jennings’s eyes widened. "What in God's name was that?"

Leo calmly checked the screen of his phone, then put it away. "I believe," he said to the room at large, "the medication is beginning to take effect."

---

Upstairs, in the hushed, carpeted luxury of the executive floor, Vice President Marcus Thorne was discovering the true meaning of chaos.

The first sign had been a subtle gurgle deep within his gut, an ignorable tremor he’d attributed to the spicy capicola. He had savored every bite of the stolen sandwich. It was magnificent. The bread was hearty, the meats were exquisite, and the creamy avocado spread was a stroke of genius. He’d eaten it at his massive mahogany desk, feeling the familiar, satisfying thrill of petty tyranny. The little data analyst’s culinary skills were truly wasted on him.

But then the tremors had become rumbles. The rumbles became violent, seismic lurches. A cold sweat beaded on his forehead, staining the collar of his thousand-dollar Egyptian cotton shirt. The wholesome seven-grain bread now felt like a block of industrial concrete in his stomach, and he could almost feel the Avocado Annihilator Sauce waging a blitzkrieg against his insides.

He had sprinted, or rather, waddled as fast as his clenching muscles would allow, to the sanctuary of his private executive bathroom. This bathroom was his sanctum sanctorum, a testament to his status, with Italian marble tile, a rainfall shower head, and gleaming chrome fixtures.

Now, it was a warzone.

The eruption was swift, biblical, and utterly devastating. His bespoke suit, a symbol of his power and control, felt like a straitjacket. His arrogant smirk was long gone, replaced by a grimace of pure, agonizing horror. He was no longer Marcus Thorne, VP of Marketing. He was just a man, trapped in a porcelain prison, his body in full-scale, catastrophic rebellion. The universe was being violently, unstoppably expelled from his colon.

Humiliation washed over him in hot, shameful waves. He, who commanded million-dollar budgets and terrified junior employees with a single glance, had been laid low by a sandwich. He gripped the sides of the toilet, his knuckles white, as another calamitous wave hit him. It was in that moment, amidst the wreckage of his dignity, that a single, furious thought crystallized in his mind: He did this to me. That little nobody, Vance. He poisoned me.

---

The sounds from the executive suite had escalated. Richard from security had sprinted off in that direction, his radio crackling. Two minutes later, he was back, his face pale.

"It's Thorne," he announced to Ms. Jennings. "He's… indisposed. He’s screaming that he's been poisoned."

Just then, two uniformed police officers walked into the office, their presence immediately changing the atmosphere from a corporate crisis to a criminal investigation. One of them, a stout, friendly-faced man in his late twenties, saw Leo and his eyes widened in recognition.

"Leo? What are you doing mixed up in this?" the officer asked. "Dispatch said something about an employee being poisoned."

"Hey, Dave," Leo said, his voice betraying a hint of relief. It was Dave Reilly, an old friend from high school. The odds had just tipped further in his favor. "It's a long story."

Before he could elaborate, the elevator doors dinged and Marcus Thorne himself staggered out, a man utterly undone. His face was pale and slick with sweat, his expensive suit was rumpled and stained, and his silver hair was plastered to his forehead. He leaned against the wall for support, his eyes wild with fury and shame. He saw the police, and then he saw Leo.

"There he is!" Thorne bellowed, pointing a trembling, accusatory finger. "That's him! He did it! He poisoned me!"

Officer Reilly straightened up, his friendly demeanor vanishing behind a professional mask. "Sir, please calm down." He turned to his partner. "Secure the area."

Dave walked towards the scene brewing in Brenda’s office. "Okay," he said, looking from Thorne's disheveled form to Leo's calm one. "What's going on here? Mr. Vance, this man is accusing you of poisoning him. Did you poison him?"

"No, Officer, I did not," Leo stated clearly and firmly. He held up the pharmacy printout and receipt. "I was prescribed a powerful laxative for a medical condition. I prepared my medicated food for myself this morning. Mr. Thorne, it seems, stole my lunch from the refrigerator."

Thorne scoffed, a wet, ragged sound. "A likely story! It was a trap! He tried to kill me!"

"Sir, it's a laxative," Dave said, looking at the prescription. "Unpleasant, I'm sure, but not exactly a lethal poison." He turned back to Leo. "So your lunch was stolen, and it had your medication in it."

"That is correct," Leo said.

The entire office was watching now. Legal, security, HR, and a dozen curious employees peering over their cubicle walls. The power dynamic had been completely inverted. Marcus Thorne, the untouchable VP, was a mess, raving like a lunatic. Leo Vance, the invisible analyst, was the calm center of the storm.

Thorne, seeing his authority crumbling, tried one last, desperate gambit. "He's lying! How can you prove he didn't just put it in there for me? Arrest him!"

Leo held up a hand. "Officer, may I ask Mr. Thorne a question?"

Dave nodded. "Go ahead."

Leo turned his full attention to the sweating, furious Vice President. His voice was not triumphant, or angry, or smug. It was quiet, curious, and devastatingly simple.

"Mr. Thorne," he began, letting the silence hang for a beat. "I have just one question for you. My sandwich was wrapped in wax paper and sealed in an unmarked brown bag. I never mentioned what I was having for lunch to anyone. So, please, tell the police..."

He paused, letting Marcus meet his gaze.

"...how did you know it was poisoned?"

The trap sprang shut.

The question was a masterpiece of irrefutable logic. To claim he knew it was poisoned was to admit he knew what was in it. To know what was in it, he had to have opened it. To open it, he had to have stolen it.

Marcus Thorne's jaw worked, but no sound came out. The furious color drained from his face, replaced by the ghastly pallor of defeat. In front of the police, his legal counsel, his security chief, and half his department, he had been exposed. He couldn't answer. To answer was to confess. To stay silent was to confess.

Leo Vance, the sandwich artisan, had served a dish of justice so cold, it had frozen Marcus Thorne right where he stood.