Imagine All the People

I daydream a lot, even while talking to people, which probably isn't a good thing, but I can't seem to stop myself. I feel a bit like JD from Scrubs when he goes off on his little imagine spots, except I don't think people notice.

One of the themes that usually comes up during my imagine spots is some sort of crazy rescue technique. The target of the rescue varies depending on which particular friendship group is on my mind at the moment. Usually at work, when I'm in a particularly boring meeting, I imagine our building being taken over in some sort of Die Hard-esque hostage situation (not very sensitive given recent events, but I guess given the nature of my work, not completely out of the question). Anyway, my team will be rounded up in one of the larger meeting rooms, with no food and no water. There will be 4 masked gunpeople (i.e. people with guns, as distinct from gun-humans), and how they will manage to secure the many floors of my office building without having a very large crew is beyond me, but my imagination doesn't really care about that particular plot hole.

All of our phones will have been confiscated, and at this point, some of the people on my team will be in tears, panicking. But I always remain super calm and collected, just waiting for an opportunity to act. A few hours in, it is now lunch time, and all of the staff are starting to get hungry. The hostage takers have anticipated this, and raided our internal catering kitchen to feed everyone. This is my chance! I tell them that I have a billion allergies, and I cannot eat this food without dying. My Anapen (because that seems more suitable for me to have than an EpiPen, given my name) is in my desk, and I just need to go down and retrieve it and I'll be fine (not how those pens work, but in my imagination, the hostage takers don't know that).

The hostage takers discuss among themselves, and they're split, half will not care, and want me to eat the food anyway, and the other half will not want a dead hostage before negotiations have even begun.

Hostage Taker A: We need to feed her.
Hostage Taker B: It's only been a few hours since breakfast, she's not going to die from missing a meal.
Hostage Taker A: That's true.
Hostage Taker C: Just go and get the damn pen, just in case. What if one of the other hostages makes her eat it in order to create a distraction?
Hostage Taker A: That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard, but for the sake of this imagine spot, I'll accept your argument. I'll take her down to get her pen.

So I leave the meeting room escorted by HTA, and we take the stairs to get down to my floor. Using my super kung fu skills that I have for some reason, I manage to knock him out in the stairwell, but really quietly, so nobody hears, then I drag him into a corner, and steal his clothes and gun. We are the same height and size for some reason, even though that is also incredibly unlikely given that he's a man, but let's go with it.

In my disguise, I head to one of the top floors, where the CEO happens to work in, and peek out from the stairwell into the lift lobby. Coast is clear! So I get out and walk confidently to one of the doors and swipe my pass. Oh, that's right, I don't have access to this floor because I only work in technology, so why would they want us plebs here? I don't know why my imagination didn't give me a free pass on this thing as well, but such is life.

I knock on the glass door and make an expression like, "Oops, I forgot my pass, can you let me in please?" which of course, since I'm in disguise, the hostage takers totally fall for it, and one of them presses the button to open the door. After walking in, I super kung fu him to the ground as well, and drag him into one of the small conference rooms so that nobody will find his body.

All the staff who saw that are looking at me in fear and confusion. Nobody says anything, so I take my mask off.

Me: It's OK, I'm one of the programmers from the FX team. The stairwell is all clear, run now while nobody is looking. Don't leave the door open too long or you'll set off the fire alarm.

The staff in the immediate area sneak out into the stairwell quietly, while one of them gestures to one of the offices on the other side of the floor. I nod my head in acknowledgement and put my mask back on.

Using my mirror that I always carry around, I do that sneaky peak around a corner thing, and notice there are two more masked hostage takers on this floor and still more staff in those areas. I do what any sneaky rescue officer would do.

Me: HEY! MY GUN IS BROKEN, CAN YOU HELP ME PLEASE?

Both of them look at me with a WTF expression on their face (I can tell, even though they're wearing masks), so I use that moment to super kung fu run towards them really fast, and I tackle the first one, and manage to roll him around and use him as a shield so that when the second one fires his gun at me, he takes the bullets instead. I throw his body off, and super kung fu run towards the other guy, because he's busy reloading his gun now, and I kung fu knock him out and steal his gun, so now I have four guns. But still only two hands, so I ditch three of the guns. I tell the staff to run out the stairwell and they do.

There are no guards around the CEO but he is tied to his plump office chair. And he is gagged. So I go into his office and I take my mask off, "It's OK, I'm one of the programmers from the FX team."

He looks really relieved, and motions for me to ungag and untie him. So I remove his gag.

Mr CEO: I'm so glad you're here. What's going on? I woke up from my nap and I was in this chair.
Me: The building is in a hostage situation. All the people on this floor have escaped, but the other floors are still in danger.
Mr CEO: It's OK, I saw what you did with those two guys, you should be able to clear the rest of the building easily.
Me: So you want me to use my valuable skills to help save the company?
Mr CEO: Yes.
Me: WELL, PERHAPS YOU SHOULD HAVE CONSIDERED THAT BEFORE CUTTING FUNDING TO MY TEAM.

And that's when I realise someone is asking me a question, and I have no idea what has been said in the last twenty minutes.