Jamie Brodie 01 - Cited to Death

turned my PC tower over to the UCLA police, the computer crimes guy, on Friday afternoon.”
    Andy looked shocked. “You did? Why?”
    “Because some other weird things have been happening to me, and I thought the hacks to my computer might be related to that. If the cops can figure out who’s been messing with my computer, they may be able to find out who’s behind the other attacks.”
    Andy paled. “Attacks? What attacks?”
    “My tires got slashed the other day, and someone tried to break into my apartment Saturday night.”
    “Wow.” Andy looked worried. “Well, I guess that’s cool, but I’m gonna have to tell my boss about it.”
    “Yeah, that’s fine. The detective will probably contact him anyway.”
    “Okay…well, I’ll have to bring you a new tower. It might take a couple of days. We don’t have that many to go around with the budget cuts.”
    “Sure, that’s fine. I can improvise until you can bring me a new one.”
    Andy agreed and left. The rest of the morning was uneventful, and I was getting ready to eat lunch when I saw an email from Karen Lewis.
    Jamie - here is your Welsh language article. Have fun translating. -Karen
    I opened the article. It was six pages long, and had several tables. I copied the article, opened Google Translate, and pasted the article into it. The translation popped up in the second window. I moved the translation into a Word document. It looked to be just as scrambled as the citation had been. Great. The unscrambling would take forever.
    I saved the Word doc to Dropbox. Then, it occurred to me to change all my passwords to every app and site where I had an account, making them as complicated as I could. Until I knew what was going on, I wanted to make it as difficult as possible for anyone who might be looking for anything by or about me. I also changed the password on my laptop. Just in case.
    We were busy at reference, but it was starting to let up some. Clinton barely had to wait when he arrived at 1:30.
    “Hi, Clinton.”
    “The word for the day is velleity .” He bowed and walked away.
    Liz looked the word up. “Willpower in its weakest form. That would be me with ice cream.”
    That would be me with Pete , I thought.
    I was settling back in to my office after my reference shift when Harley Buhrman showed up.
    Harley was a throwback to the days of traveling encyclopedia salesmen. He was in his sixties, pear-shaped, with a dyed combover, a cheap suit, and scuffed loafers. He had an ingratiating manner and wore far too much cologne. Drakkar Noir cologne.
    Oh, shit . I should have met him outside.
    I jumped to my feet. Harley started to step into my office. “Dr. Brodie, good afternoon! I brought…”
    I didn't hear the rest. Harley was drenched in Drakkar Noir, as usual, and it was attacking my airways. I grabbed my inhaler from my desk drawer and waved Harley back. "Get out! Get out! You can't…” I had to stop and try to take a breath. I took a puff from the inhaler, with no relief. That inhaler was empty now. I tossed it on my desk.
    "Harley! Get out! NOW!" I shoved him out the door and almost ran down the stairs to the circulation desk. It was getting much harder to breathe, and my chest hurt. I grabbed the top of the circulation desk to steady myself. Liz had stopped there and was staring at me.
    "Are you okay?"
    "No!" I had to stop. I only had breath enough for one word at a time. "Asthma..." breathe... "call..." breathe...
    But Liz was already dialing the campus emergency number. I leaned on the counter and concentrated on breathing. Slow down, don't panic, slow down ... But it wasn't working.
    Dr. Loomis appeared. "Jamie! What on earth..."
    "He's having an asthma attack. I called the paramedics." Liz moved over so I could see her face. "Is there any other medicine in your office? Is there anything else we can do?"
    I pointed at Harley, who had overcome the shock of being shoved and was nearing the desk. "Keep..." breathe... "him..." breathe... "away..." breathe... "from me." Breathe. "Cologne."
    "Oh my God." It occurred to me that I’d never heard Dr. Loomis say that. "Mr. Buhrman, please leave the premises.”
    Harley was sputtering. “But…but…I didn’t know…”
    "Dr. Brodie has a warning sign posted on his door. I can’t imagine how you missed it." Dr. Loomis took Harley by the arm and nearly dragged him to the door. "Get out of the building and stay out. Do not come back today. Do not come back at all unless you clear it