Standing in the corridor, he began to shake. He pounded the elevator button, and felt the eyes of Hackelberg's severe secretary burning into his back. Abruptly, he turned away and yanked open the staircase door so hard it smashed into the wall with a loud bang. He took the stairs in a rush of desperate claustrophobia, wanting more than anything to get outside, to breathe in the fresh air. He stumbled on the way down, falling a couple of steps and smashing into the wall on the landing. He stood, pressed against the wall, the cold cinder block on his cheek, which felt like it might be bruised. The pain was enough to bring him back to his senses. This is ridiculous. He had the right answer. Hackelberg was wrong. Hackelberg didn't run the company. Yes, it was hard to get anything done without his sign-off, but it wasn't impossible. Going behind Hackelberg's back to the executive committee could cost him his job, of course. Of course. Sammy realized that he didn't actually *care* if he lost his job. Oh, the thought made his chest constrict and thoughts of living in a refrigerator box materialize in his mind's eye, but beyond that, he really didn't care. It was such a goddamned roller-coaster ride -- Sammy smiled grimly at the metaphor. You guess right, you end up on top. You guess wrong, you bottom out. He spent half his career lording it over the poor guessers and the other half panicking about a bad guess he'd made. He thought of Perry and Lester, thought of that night in Boston. He'd killed their ride and the party had gone on all the same. They had something, in that crazy shantytown, something pure and happy, some camaraderie that he'd always assumed he'd get someday, but that had never materialized. If this was his dream job, how much worse would unemployment really be? He would go to the executive committee. He would not erase his numbers. He set off for his office, moving quickly, purposefully, head up. A last stand, how exciting, why not? He piloted the little golf-cart down the back road and was nearly at his building's door when he spotted the security detail. Three of them, in lightweight Disney cop uniforms, wearing ranger hats and looking around alertly. Hackelberg must have sent them there to make sure that he followed through with deleting his data. He stopped the golf cart abruptly and reversed out of the driveway before the guards spotted him. He needed to get his files somewhere that Hackelberg wouldn't be able to retrieve them. He zipped down the service roads, thinking furiously. The answer occurred to him in the form of a road-sign for the Polynesian hotel. He turned up its drive and parked the golf-cart. As he stepped out, he removed his employee badge and untucked his shirt. Now he was just another sweaty fresh-arrived tourist, Dad coming in to rendezvous with Mom and the kids, back from some banal meeting that delayed his arrival, hasn't even had time to change into a t-shirt.