“So it came back?”

I looked up at my oncologist and away from the multicolored CAT scan printout shaking in my hands.

Dr. Susan Mitchell frowned at me and the expression caused her attractive face to furrow with wrinkles, creasing her otherwise flawless light brown skin. She rested her hand atop mine and despite the bad news I felt a jump in my stomach at her touch.

I’d known Susan for over three years now and if not for the fact that she was my doctor, charged with treating the pea sized tumor growing inside my head, I probably would have long since asked her out.

And if the news had been different…maybe I even would have.

Her short cut hair looked especially well styled today, complementing her sculpted brows and hazel eyes. Not to mention her figure looked absolutely stunning in her close-fitting, one piece dress that was the color of the blue Chicago sky sitting outside her office window.

“So now what?” I asked. According to the printout, the pea inside my head was now the size of a small grape. “What does this mean?”

Susan’s throat flexed in a swallow. “There’s not much we can do at this stage, Cole. I wouldn’t recommend surgery at this point, but there still might be treatment options. We could consider another round of—”

“No,” I said. “I’m not going through all of that again.”

Visions of the last few years of my relatively short 25 years of life flashed through my memory in a haze. Hospital beds, constant sickness and all of it while suffering the loss of both my parents just a couple years before being diagnosed. Between the medical bills and my inability to work, nearly everything they had left me was now gone.

Including the family home.

I thought I’d gotten a new lease on life when I went into remission last year. I had even regrown my hair and packed on a bit of muscle from hitting the gym five days a week. And although my new job at a construction firm largely consisted of me operating as a project manager more than an engineer, it was interesting work in a field I enjoyed.

But none of that mattered now.

“You really only have one decision to make,” Susan said and her hazel eyes filled with compassion as she touched my hand again. “It’s either fight or die.”

As I considered my options a deep anger and resentment filled me. “I gave up two years of my life fighting this thing and it still won. What’s to say the outcome won’t be the same?”

Susan shrugged empathetically. “Nothing says it won’t be, Cole. But we can only do what we can. It’s your own body you’re fighting against.”

That caused even more resentment to stir. I’d always been fit. Did sports, ate well…most of the time. I had studied aikido since I was a kid and kept it up into adulthood, even winning a few championships in college. I hit the gym regularly. I didn’t smoke or do drugs; drank only occasionally. I had lived the ideal healthy lifestyle…and still… I’m the one who ends up with cancer inside my brain.

“Screw all of that,” I said making a snap decision. If I was going to die, I wasn’t going to let this thing ruin what time I had left.

“How much?” I asked.

She raised a brow in question. “How much what?”

“Time…before I die.”

Susan blinked with a pause. “Untreated…a year perhaps?”

A frigging year…thank you universe.

“Well I’m going to make it a good one,” I said and rose from the small chair in her office, my heart pounding in my chest. “I choose to die.”

Susan’s mouth fell open a little, but her professionalism quickly engaged with a small nod. “Cole, I understand it’s your choice, but...”

I saw a bit of sadness in her eyes and it prompted me to say something else. During my treatments over the last three years we’d spent days and weeks together. She’d seen me at my lowest. She knew almost everything about my life and me hers. I knew she had a high three digit IQ, a mother from Jamaica and that she loved playing videogames in her free time—just like me. If things were different she’d be the perfect girl for me. It was a running joke between us as to why she couldn’t get a date. Her answer would always be the same: ‘I’m too busy caring for you,’ she would say and I could feel the emotion behind her words every time she’d said it.

“Have dinner with me tonight, Susan,” I said.

Her mouth fell open again, but this time in shock and I swear I saw her turn a shade of red despite her mocha complexion. “Cole…I think that maybe you’re still in shock over the news.”

“No, that’s not it,” I said and felt a newfound sense of confidence as I casted aside everything that I’ve allowed to hold me back these three years—the cancer, the treatments, the constraints of our doctor-patience relationship. “You’re a beautiful young woman, Susan. And you’re still single despite how wonderful, compassionate and intelligent you are. I want to take you out on a date. A real date to let you know how I truly feel about you.”

My heart pounded in my chest. I honestly didn’t know what’d gotten into me, but I liked it. I’d never been one to be so bold with the ladies and looking back throughout college and even high school, I probably let a few good ones slip by—all because I could never muster up the courage or confidence to ask a girl out. Fear of rejection and inadequacy and all that crap.

But no more. Not this time.

I’ve got nothing left to lose now and I’m certain of the sparks I’ve felt between Susan and I before—there was more to her gentle touches than simple bedside manner.

“I…” she stammered and then she composed herself professionally once more. “Cole, as your doctor I don’t think a relationship like that would be appropriate between us.”

“But you’re not my doctor anymore,” I said with a grin. “I quit fighting, remember? That means you’re fair game. Now will you let me take you out or what?”

As I continued to grin, she slowly shook her head and blushed with a smile.

Finally she laughed. “Pick me up at eight.”

* * *

The day I chose to die was not a particularly convenient one.

It was half past three and I was back at the office. Sitting down to my computer I fired up the scheduling program to review my current job status and went to work trying to figure out how we were going to accelerate a bridge construction job that was already three months behind.

“Stupid idiots in procurement,” I lamented. “I sent the purchase order request for the rebar months ago. And only now do they realize they dropped the ball and didn’t send it?”

“Hey, who’s the project manager?” My boss, Bob, gave me a look from over the top of my cubicle partition, raising his bushy eyebrows with the rhetorical question.

I sighed. “I know, Bob. I’m the project manager. Don’t worry, I’ll figure it out.”

“You should have figured it out two months ago,” he said, but not in a stern way. “You know how procurement is. You should have predicted the screw up and been following up a lot sooner than now.”

“Right,” I said, punching away at my keyboard. “I get it.”

Part of me wanted to just up and quit. What the hell would it matter anyway? I wasn’t going to be alive to see the end of this project.

“Look,” Bob said in a softer tone, perhaps sensing my off mood. “I know you’re not doing fancy design work like you probably want to, but honestly, being an engineer is a lot more than just crunching calcs and CAD drawings. This is where the real rubber meets the road. The execution is where a project either succeeds or fails. You can design something as beautifully as you want. But if you can’t get the guys who pour the concrete to coordinate with the guys who erect the steel, you just made yourself a mess, not a masterpiece. You get me?”

He said it in a firm but supportive way. It’s something I’d come to respect of Bob as the senior engineer in the company. Bob looked at me with his wizened gray eyes, his mostly bald head covered with wisps of white hair. In truth I’d learned a hell of a lot from him in the year I’d worked for Grumm Construction.

“How do you deal with it, Bob?”

“Deal with what?”

“Years of this stuff,” I said. “Other people always dropping the ball and you still being the one responsible for cleaning up the mess.”

The old engineer chuckled. “You learn to roll with the punches, kid. At the end of the day, all we’re truly managing here is risk. We’re all juggling too many balls and your job is to figure out which ones are made out of rubber and which ones are made out of glass.”

I smiled at another one of Bob’s engineering analogies. “Bounce versus shatter. I get it.”

“Besides,” he said which a smile. “I know I’ve got a great future to look forward to after all this.”

“Retirement?” I smiled with him, but then frowned inwardly as I realize that I’d never have the prospect of any such thing.

One year. That’s it.

“Retirement?” He chuckled with a shrug. “Sort of, I guess. Now go put that engineering mind to work. Turn that glass ball to rubber. Remember, we don’t build stuff. We solve problems. That’s our true skill as engineers. So go solve this stupid problem that procurement has made for you.”

Bob smiled and clapped me on the shoulder. I returned the smile and felt a new found confidence growing within me. I could do this. I could solve any problem if given enough time.

“Thanks, Bob,” I said.

As he hobbled back to his own desk across our small office, I set to thinking.

The tender I’d conducted for the steel had closed months ago and the three shortlisted bidders had all submitted pricing within our budget. But their delivery time was two months. I needed that rebar on site within a week to get back on track.

Over the next hour I called back the suppliers and to my chagrin none of them could make the now impossible delivery time. Another hour passed as I called new suppliers and even the steel mill outside of town to see if I can get lucky, but the order was too small in their eyes to change their production schedule.

“There’s only one guy who would have that much stock on hand,” Mark, the foreman for the steel mill’s production yard, said.

“Who?” I asked.

“I just filled an order for twice that much for the Piedmont job downtown.”

“Piedmont…” When the realization hit me, my stomach filled with dread. “Shit…Lowe has that job, don’t they?”

“Afraid so,” Mark said. “Good luck to you, man.”

I hung up the phone with a curse. I had only one call left to make.

“Lowe construction, Barry Lowe speaking.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat as I prepared to barter with one of our company’s top competitors in the business.

“Hi Mr. Lowe,” I said as cheerily as possibly. “It’s Cole Jacobs from Grumm. How are you today, sir?”

“Yeah, what do you want?”

His icy tone zapped my energy like a record scratch.

This was not going to be an easy call.

We had beaten out Lowe Construction to snag this bridge job, all despite them being the bigger and more experienced company. Their bid was lower too, according to the Bridge Authority who tendered the job publically. But we had snuck through with preferential treatment, being a female owned company with a solid Public Private Partnership scheme that had them paying no money down. I’d helped develop the plan, securing financing from a Chinese investment firm. The 50 million dollar loan would eventually be paid back from a new bridge toll that the authority would introduce once the bridge was completed and operational. That meant that timing was everything. A delay would mean literally millions of dollars lost each day in both financing charges and lost revenue.

It had been a lot of risk to take on, but winning the job was something Gladys Grumm, the company president liked to rub in Barry Lowe’s face at cocktail parties, but now I was preparing to eat crow for it.

“Hey, Mr. Lowe…” I continued, despite the ice in the air. “…you wouldn’t happen to have some extra two inch galvanized rebar on the Piedmont site would you?”

Barry Lowe was one of the owners. His older brother Carl was the CEO, but Barry was the true brawn and brains behind the operation—the general manager and head of operations—a tough as nails foreman who had risen through the ranks to become one of the county’s top construction bosses.

There was silence on the other end of the phone.

I remained quiet, already knowing he has the goods, but how he answered would let me know whether he was willing to play ball or not.

“Maybe…Why? What’s up?”

Yes! An in!

But he could be just fishing for information or something. I decided to come clean. “We’ve got an order delay with one of our suppliers. We could really use some rebar to keep our crews going. Our order will be filled in 8 weeks. If you have some extra, any chance you might be willing to do a swap?”

He laughed on the other end. “I’ll give you this. You’ve got balls, Cole. Calling a VP at your level to ask for something like this?”

“Nothing beats a try but a failure,” I said and grinned through the phone as I used one of Bob’s old lines.

A chuckle came back, but a more good-natured one this time. “I see Bob has been training you well. Tell you what, Cole. You actually impressed me. What you pulled together with that PPP deal was pretty brilliant. And by what I can tell so far, you’re running a tight crew on the construction. If not for this rebar deal I imagine you’d be back on schedule instead of being behind a couple months. ”

My heart skipped. How the hell did he even know that? “Yeah that’s a pretty good guess. If I didn’t know any better I’d say you have a spy in the office or something.”

He laughed again. “Maybe I do. But honestly, I just make it a habit to keep an eye on my competition’s talent. Especially when they’re good enough to beat me on a tender.”

“Well uh… thanks. I guess?”

“Tell you what,” he said. “I’ll make you a deal. I’ll do the swap, no markup or nothing.”

“What? Really? That’d be great. Thank you!”

“On one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“After the bridge job, you come and work for me.”

My heart nearly jumped out of my chest. Working for someone like Barry Lowe would mean opportunities through the roof. They ran half the construction sites in the county. I subconsciously looked over my cubicle partition for Bob, but he’d already left for the day. He’d been my mentor this whole time; gave me a shot when I had little to no experience and was fresh out of remission. He’d literally taught me everything I know, plus I could still learn a lot from him too. It certainly wouldn’t feel right to betray his trust by jumping ship like this.

On the other hand, I probably won’t be alive to betray him anyway.

And I still needed to complete this job.

If I said yes, I could at least get it back on track.

“You’ve got yourself a deal, Mr. Lowe.”

“Call me Barry,” he said. “Send the details to me by email. I’ll have it delivered to your site by tomorrow.”

I hung up the phone and punched the air in victory.

“Yes!” I said, but then mumbled. “Sucks that I’ll still be dead in a year, though.”

I sighed and sunk back in my chair. Depression hit like a tidal wave as I sent the email to Barry Lowe, specifying the exact quantity and thickness of material I was looking for.

After a few minutes a reply came back simply.

‘Done deal.’

I checked my phone and saw it was nearly six o’clock. My mood lighted as my thoughts turned to Susan. I still had time to catch the train to my apartment, shower and clean up, pick a nice restaurant and maybe even stop for some flowers along the way. I decided to start looking where to take her and brought up a Yelp search for Indian food.

She loved Indian food.

“Cole!”

The shout pulled my eyes away from the pictures of Chicken Tikka Masala on my screen and to the five-foot-six Hispanic woman now staring down at me from over my partition. She was a spitfire brunet, poured into a grey power suit, with piecing dark eyes and a frown tugging at her pouty lower lip. I casually minimize the web browser as I cleared my throat.

“Yes, Ms. Grumm?”

Gladys Grumm, the company CEO had inherited the company from her father, but at 40 something with a bunch of letters behind her name in both engineering and business, she was more than qualified to take over the firm. And she had his work ethic to boot. Or so Bob had told me anyway.

His temper too.

And right now I was staring right at it.

Her delicate features twisted into a scowl and my stomach shifted nervously as she continued to study me.

“Why the hell is Barry Lowe calling me and telling me, ‘you’re welcome’?” she said.

My stomach turned to jelly and my mouth opened before I was ready to talk. “What? No ah… No ideal. Why he would…say that.”

Holy shit, don’t tell me he’s going to turn this into some kind of pissing match between the two of them. I panicked inwardly and tried to think of how I could perpetuate the lie. What if he tells her I’m going to quit? That I screwed up with the rebar? That she owes him a debt because of me?

“Did some shady business happen with the bridge tender?” She pointed a finely manicured index finger in my face. “Was there any kind of conclusion going on between you and Lowe? This was public project, Cole, and it’s going to be audited by the county. I don’t want this showing up three years from now when I’m running for city council.”

Whew…no idea about the rebar. But at least I could be totally honestly with her about what she was actually worried about: her future political career. “Ms. Grumm, I can tell you with a surety that nothing untoward went on during the tender. We won the job fair and square. No help from anyone or anything. Well…except for maybe your oratory skills during the public consultations sessions. I think you kind of had an unfair advantage versus bumbling Barry.”

Her scowl turned into a smirk. “You little brownnoser. You know just how to butter me up, don’t you?” She then gave me a sultry smile. “Keep doing that and you might get to stick that nose of yours up someplace a bit more sweet.”

What the fuck…? Did she seriously just say that? Did the CEO just hit on me? And crudely too…who even says something like that?

“You’re right about Barry though,” she said, switching gears like she hadn’t just said something that could amount to a sexual harassment law suit. “That stupid schmuck couldn’t talk to a crowd if his life depended on it.”

I nodded and grinned, eager to end the conversation.

“All right never mind about all that,” she said. “I’ve got something else for you to do. The investors are flying in from China tonight for a surprise inspection. I’m meeting them at the airport and then taking them for a late night wine and dine. I need you on point with a full presentation on our progress tomorrow morning along with a site tour.”

“A presentation? Tomorrow morning?”

“Yes at 10 am.”

I looked at the time and blew out a sigh. I guess I could squeeze it in before my date, I considered. I wouldn’t have time to clean up though. Still, duty called.

“Yup. No problem, Ms. Grumm.”

“I keep telling you, Ms. Grumm is my mother. Call my Gladys.”

“Yes, Gladys.” But the name still felt weird in my mouth and I added. “Ma’am.”

She eyed me a moment more and said, “You been working out?”

I felt a heat growing inside my crotch as her look became predatory. I’m not going to lie—Glady Grumm was one hot woman. Fit body, plastic surgery face and a real cougar to boot. But she was also my boss and could be hella unstable at times.

“Yes, I have,” I said as professionally as I could manage. “Thanks for noticing.”

She licked her ruby lips. “Tell you what, Cole. You’re going to come with me to the airport to pick them up. I’m bringing you along for the wine and dine.”

“Um… tonight?”

“Yes, 8 o’clock.”

Shit…

“What?” she said, perhaps seeing the look on my face. “Don’t tell me you have plans. And if you do, I don’t care. Break them. You’re coming with me tonight.” She then spun about, and began clacking out of my office in her high heels. “Get started on that presentation. I’ll order something for you to wear. You can keep it as a bonus…if you perform well for me tonight.”

* * *

“Damn it all to hell,” I muttered as I plowed away at the presentation. This couldn’t actually be happening to me, could it? First I get re-diagnosed with cancer, promptly decide to live my life instead of fight it, ask out the girl of my dreams—who says yes. And then not more than two hours later, my cougar of a boss straight up propositions me like a sugarmama hiring a gigolo!

I groaned and glanced at the designer suit hanging on the back of the spare chair next to me, hand delivered by some Chinese laundry dude ten minutes ago. I was totally screwed. All I could think of was Susan. I’d just encouraged her to step way outside her comfort zone for a chance at love that would last no more than a year at best and most certainly end in tragedy.

And she still said yes.

There’s no way can I stand her up, I thought. But how do I say no to a ball buster like Gladys Grumm?

“Curse my life,” I said with a sigh. “Can this day get any frigging worse?”

The universe answered with a burst of sparks from my computer.

My heart jumped as lightning flashed outside the windows and thunder boomed throughout the office. Some unseen force threw me back from my desk and I went tumbling onto the cheap linoleum floor. My aikido instincts kicked in, and I rolled to wind up crouched on the balls of my feet instead of my back.

What the hell was that?

Darkness filled the room as the lights flickered off and the computer screen died.

“Just frigging great,” I said. “An actual lightning strike?” I glared up into the darkness, shaking my fist at the heavens. “Hey, I still got a year left, you know? No need to make it a living hell for me or to zap me with lightning to cut it short!”

A faint hum filled the air, and I figured it was the building’s emergency generator kicking in. I expected the lights to come back on, but the room remained dark. Then finally a light did emerge, faint and small, like the head of a flashlight wondering in the darkness. The eerie sight caused my chest to tighten. It had to be a security guard or something, but I didn’t hear footsteps. Two more lights emerged and joined it. My heartbeat began throbbing in my ears as the lights came closer, literally hovering around me.

What… the… hell…

I blinked to see if maybe I was hallucinating. Did I actually get struck by lightning or something? Or maybe it was the stupid tumor inside my head. Susan did say that eventually it could press on my optic nerves or something. Could it be making me see things?

“Is this him?” a female voice said, seeming to come from one of the balls of light floating about me.

“Doesn’t look like much,” came another voice, also female but sounding a bit older and haughtier. “Is this really supposed to be the Legendary Sage of House Velmar?”

“Well it is a ‘he’ so that’s a start,” the first voice said again.

“It has to be him,” a younger female voice said. “This is where the portal spell is set to appear.”

“That’s what you said last time, Yunni,” the haughty voice said again. “You’d better be right. This is our last shot at this.”

“I know, I know,” the one, Yunni replied. “I performed the spell right this time…At least…I think I did…”

“You think?” The haughty voice sighed. “Goddess give me strength.”

Spells? Legendary sage? What the hell is going on? My heart was beating so fast I feared my head might explode. I was too freaked out to do anything, though. I felt like a diver being circled by sharks with no cage.

“I thought he was supposed to be older,” the haughty voice said. “This looks like some damn kid. Plus there’s something wrong with him too.”

“Wrong?” Yunni asked.

“Yes, I sense something corrupt inside of him.”

“He looks fine to me, Devena,” the first voice said with a hint of interest in her tone. “Damn fine actually”

“Oh get your mind out of the gutter, Phee,” the haughty voice—Devena, I surmised—said. “You half breeds are always on heat.”

“What did you call me?”

“Not the time, guys!” Yunni said. “Do we still take him or not?”

Take him? “Okay…” I finally said. “I don’t know what the hell this is or what’s going on, but no one is taking me anywhere.”

“Ah!” Yunni yelled in surprise. “Did you guys see that? He just said something to us!”

“I didn’t hear anything,” Phee said.

“It’s a one way visual scrying spell, you idiot,” Devena said. “Of course you can’t hear anything. We can only see him, but he can’t see or hear us.”

Uh oh… am I ‘not’ supposed to be hearing this? That made whatever this was even more creepy and bizarre. Were these frigging aliens or something? No…Crap like that doesn’t exist. This had to be some kind of prank gone wrong. Hidden cameras or something and they forgot to mute their mics.

“Hey!” I shouted at the balls of floating light. “The prank is over, you morons. I can hear you, okay?”

“Wait!” Devena said. “He actually is speaking to us. Can he see us? Yunni, did you mess the spell up again?”

“Um…maybe?”

Devena grunted out another exasperated sigh.

“Look, I’m sorry,” Yunni said. “It’s like way above my experience level right now. We’re lucky I was able to use the scroll at all!”

“Time’s almost up,” Phee said. “We spent the last of our gold to get enough mana crystals to cast this thing again. It’s either him or nothing, Yunni. Just do it! Quick!”

“No, wait!” Devena said. “I told you I sense something wrong with him. He’s cursed with something.”

“Cursed with what?” Phee asked.

“I don’t know,” Devena said and then she added slowly. “But it’s killing him.”

Fuck me…even they know I got cancer?

“Five seconds,” Phee said. “If we don’t take him we might as well pack up the guild and kiss everything goodbye.”

Five seconds? I began counting down in my head. Four…three…

“Wait!” I shouted to them, even though they couldn’t hear me. I scrambled to my feet. “Don’t take me to your spaceship you damn aliens or whatever the hell you are!”

“Dying or not, he’s still a human,” Yunni said, ignoring my plea. “It would at least mean we’d have ourselves a true guildmaster again. We’d have a chance to compete. Maybe even win.”

“I’m with her,” Phee said. “No way can I go back to my tribe empty handed like this. Besides he’s gorgeous as hell. Bonding with him would be a pleasure for once.”

“Ugh, fine,” Devena said, sounding disgusted. “I’m broke now anyway. We’ve got nothing left to lose. Take him.”

“Wait!”

My shout was drowned out by a clap of thunder as the office began to spin.

My last thoughts were of disappointing Susan while simultaneously pissing off Gladys Grumm.

How the hell did I manage to do both?

Finally everything went black and the world disappeared.