Banana Bikes

"Jesus Christ, Willy, who'd have thought that it would all end up like this," he said, shaking his head in disbelief. "All I wanted to do was make a difference. All I wanted to do was make the world a better place." He reached his hand out and stroked Willy's cool yellow frame. In the distance, he could hear the sound of sirens shrieking, ripping through the midday heat like a dull knife.

"Hey, Chuck, are you ready?" someone called from down the hall. "They're here for you."

"Ah," Chuck sighed, looking down at his bike. "Yeah, I guess so." He patted the bike's seat one last time. "See ya, Willy," he said, then left the room.

The hallway to the main lobby was longer than he remembered. It seemed to stretch on forever. When his startup, Banana Bikes, had received its first injection of capital, he'd moved the company from his grandma's garage into this beautiful building right in the heart of Downtown. He'd loved everything about this building, especially this long hallway that led from the lobby to his office, overlooking the bay on one side and the city on the other. The hallway was lined with glass so that he could look out and see the city buzzing with bright yellow Banana Bikes. He used to spend hours peering out these windows. Seeing all those Banana Bikes zipping down the streets had filled him with a sense of pride. The company he had started was changing the world - getting cars off the streets and getting people exercising. Who could have imagined things would turn out the way they did.

When he finally emerged from the tunnel into the bright yellow lobby, he was hit with a wall of light and sound. Reporters lobbed questions, hecklers lobbed insults, and hundreds of cameras flashed epileptically from every direction. The mob pressed in around him, the smell of their fear hot and pungent. He pushed his way through the crowd until he was able to get to the small stage that had been set up near the elevators at the back of the lobby.

Once he was on the stage, the room fell suddenly silent. The silence was thick and heavy. He felt like his legs were going to buckle under the weight of it.

"Ah," he stammered, pulling the mic toward his face. "I'm... I'm Chuck Kowalczyk... I'm the CEO of Banana Bikes." He looked out over the sea of faces, not sure what to say next.

"Are you taking responsibility for the outbreak?" a voice called out.

"Make him pay for what he's done!" another shrieked.

"Ah..." Chuck stuttered, "well, the thing is... yes, I know it's bad..." He tugged nervously at his shirt collar. "Bad" was an understatement. It was a full-blown pandemic out there, and it was all because of his company, it was all because of his dream; it was all because of him.

"You did this!" someone barked. Chuck looked out into the crowd where a large photograph of a young man with a thick black beard was being waved about wildly. "Look at him!" the voice continued. "This is my son! You killed him, you bastard!"

"Ah... No, it's not like that," Chuck pleaded. "We didn't know it would happen like this." He had been warned, but nobody had taken those warnings seriously. How could a bike-sharing program spread disease so effectively? Nobody could have seen this coming, not on the scale that it had happened.

"What about Bert Aron?" someone demanded. "Hadn't he warned the Banana Bikes Board of the dangers?"

"Ah..." Chuck grimaced. "Well, it wasn't like that." A bead of sweat trickled down Chuck's forehead and dripped into his eye. He wiped it away, but it wouldn't stop stinging. That sonofabitch Bert had warned them, but they had thought he was a crackpot. Who could have imagined a new strain of hepatitis would take up a symbiotic relationship with his harmless yellow bikes and spread so rapidly among the burgeoning hipster population of the city.

"Aron was on record!" another voice called out.

"You did this!" someone screamed.

"You're responsible!" another voice bellowed.

"The blood is on your hands!"

The cries echoed in Chuck's brain. All he had wanted to do was make the world a better place. All he had wanted to do was spread a little joy. He looked out over the crowd. Order had broken down completely. They were pushing forward, inch by inch, pressing against the stage. Chuck looked down at the writhing mass of angry people. There were no police. No security. Those sectors had been hit particularly hard by HepX. There was nobody to hold back the crowd.

Chuck looked back over his shoulder and saw, leaning up against the elevator, one of his bright yellow Banana Bikes. If he could just get to that bike, maybe he could make a break for it, maybe he could outrun the crowd. He turned to run toward the bike, but before he could take a step, an iron grip locked around his ankle and he fell flat on his face. He rolled over to kick at whoever was holding him, but it was no use. The angry crowd dragged him off the stage and ripped him apart.