Company (17 page)

Across the table, Karen looks up from a list of action items. There are deep, dark troughs under her eyes. Her hair is frayed. “What?”

“Nothing.” Simon reaches for a mint. As he does, everybody else exhales sharply.

“Simon,” says Darryl Klosterman. His voice is gentle but pained, like a doctor explaining that the cancer is inoperable. He is sitting beside Karen Nguyen.
Everybody
is on the opposite side of the table from Simon, because, allegedly, Simon smells. That's what they said, ten hours ago. Another explanation is that they are plotting against him. “Please. No more mints.”

Simon slowly unwraps the mint. The plastic crackles.

“Simon,”
says Helen Patelli. She is a tall woman with graying hair, which is all Simon can see at the moment, because she has her head in her arms, resting on the table. “If you have one more mint, I swear, I'm going to slap you so hard.”

Simon pops the mint in his mouth. He sucks on it more vigorously than is really warranted, making little smacking noises.

“Please. Please,” Darryl says. “We're almost done. This is it. Let's just keep it together for one more half hour, then we can all go home.”

“That's what you said yesterday,” Helen says into her arms.
“Yesterday!”
Her voice cracks.

“But we've agreed. This is it, no matter what. This is our last revision. We made that perfectly clear. If they want more changes, they can get someone else to do it. So let's just pull together for this one last—”

The meeting room door cracks open, spilling light into the room. Everyone looks around, dazed. Even Helen's head comes up. Standing in the doorway is a tanned, handsome man in a beautiful pinstriped suit. Simon doesn't recognize him.

“Not interrupting, am I? Blake Seddon. Senior Management.” He smiles. His teeth leave an afterimage on Simon's retina. “Just wanted to duck in and say what a fantastic job you're doing. Everyone in Senior Management is aware of the sacrifice you've made. Including Daniel Klausman.”

This gets a murmur from the group. Helen says, “Daniel Klausman . . . knows about us?”

“He's very impressed. He told me to make sure that when all this is over, you get whatever you want. Vacation days, a bonus—you name it.”

Simon sees his co-workers' mouths split open and their teeth emerge. It takes him a moment to realize what's happening, because it's been at least a day since he's seen any of them smile. Even Karen Nguyen's mole briefly disappears behind her nose. The tightness in Simon's chest eases a little.

“Now,” Blake says, looking at a piece of paper in his hand, and Simon's gut spasms. This is what happened two hours ago, and three hours before that, and so many times before that that Simon can't remember them all: someone comes in to deliver praise, then . . . “I want to make sure you know these figures need to be plotted out over five years. Right?”

They stare at him. They are, of course, aware of no such thing; nobody mentioned five-year projections last time their objectives were updated, or the time before that, or
ever,
not even back when this nightmare began and they were all human.

Darryl clears his throat. Simon knows what's coming. Darryl will explain their position, and this pinstriped man will frown and say he can't understand how this happened, and after five minutes of excruciating dialogue, during which it will be explained that their work of the last thirty-four hours is basically useless without five-year projections, they will agree to keep working,
just this one more time.
To cut this short, Simon stands up. His pants make a peeling sound as they separate from his office chair. Everybody looks at him, dull surprise on their faces, as he walks unsteadily around the table.

“Yes?” Blake says.

The feeling starts in Simon's calves and comes scampering up through his legs. It floods his torso. He doesn't completely identify it until it hits his right shoulder and funnels into his arm, then he realizes: it's violence. He has about a quarter of a second to think,
Do I really want to punch this guy in the face
? and the answer is nonverbal: his fist rocketing out and smashing Blake's face. Blake yelps, pinwheels back, bounces off the door frame, and sprawls on the carpet. Simon just stands there. He is quietly prepared to go ahead and kill Blake, but this punch feels so good he takes a few moments to savor it.

“Simon!”
Helen shrieks. He turns. They're a line of circus clowns, their mouths all hanging open.

“Ug! Ug! Jeebus
Chrised
!” Blake yells. He tries to scramble away and to catch the blood dribbling from his nose from dripping onto his shirt.

“This meeting,” Simon says, “is over.”

Karen stands first. The others are slower to react, but then, one by one, they rise, pushing back their damp, sweaty chairs, and grope toward the doorway. They mill there a second, then they hug. Helen's eyes fill with tears. They emerge from the darkness, squinting against the unexpected fluorescent light.

Jones shoves his hands into his pockets and inhales deeply. It's a bright, crisp Monday morning, the kind that gives you a little taste of the Seattle winter on the way, laced with an echo of the fading summer already passed. Jones stamps his feet on the plaza tiles. He's out in back of the Zephyr building. Around him are four or five loose groups of smokers, sucking down their first workplace cigarette of the day. He is here to watch them.

Ten minutes past ten: almost to the minute, that's when they turn up en masse each day. It took Jones a while to figure out why: that's when the morning snacks used to arrive, before Catering was outsourced. Now they're delivered anytime between nine thirty and eleven (the cookies either brittle or soggy, the fruit as cold and hard as blocks of ice), but the smokers have a tradition and they're not changing. Now he's aware of it, Jones finds it amazing. He has positioned himself in various strategic locations around the building and it happens the same way everywhere: it's as if there is a silent siren, inaudible to all but the smokers, who suddenly and simultaneously get restless. They shift in their chairs. They drift out of conversations. Their hands, not quite consciously, probe their pockets for lighters and packets of cigarettes. And by ones and twos, they detach from their departments and flow down the elevators to pool here, outside the rear doors. Then their mood improves: they greet each other and smile and talk about things not related to work at all. While they are here, they are the happiest people in the company.

Jones finds this fascinating. Is it just the nicotine hit, or could all employees benefit from regular short breaks? This should be a project, he thinks. He could try it with a group of nonsmokers. If he's right, it could end up in
The Omega Management System.
It could end up in companies around the world.

He has loitered here for about as long as he can without attracting suspicion, so he turns and heads back into the building, feeling excited. He pulls open the door and it leaps toward him, revealing that Freddy is on the other side of it, pushing. “Jones! What are you doing here?”

“Just getting some fresh air. What about you?”

Freddy checks that they're out of earshot. “She's not at the desk this morning. Thought I'd come hang out with the regular Joes.”

“Ah, good, good.” Jones steps aside to let him pass.

Freddy squints at him. “You're not still poking around, are you?”

“What? Oh, no, no. I'm over that.”

“Why, did you find something out?”

With heroic effort, Jones restrains himself from saying,
Why do you say that?
“No, not really. I just decided . . . you know, it doesn't really matter what the company does. I have my own job to do.”

“Oh-oh. They got to you, didn't they? Let me check your belly button.”

“What?”

Freddy laughs. “I'm just messing with you, Jones. It's good you're settling down.”

He intends to go directly back to Training Sales, but when the elevator doors open and there's nobody else inside, he decides to duck into level 13 and make some notes about his ideas. He swipes his ID card, presses 12 and 14 together, and watches the screen with his thumb resting on
DOOR OPEN.
The more he does this, the more fun it is. He jams the button at the right time:
ding!
Level 13!

The monitoring room contains four computers for agent use, so Jones logs in among the banks of TV monitors and opens up a new project file. Ten minutes later he is so lost in his thoughts that when Eve Jantiss breathes in his ear, “Interesting,” he jumps about a foot out of his chair.

“Whoa.” He laughs. “Don't do that.”

“Look at you,” Eve says. “All full of ideas. Daniel was right about you.”

“Thanks.” A grin surfaces on his face, which he is powerless to suppress.

She slides her butt onto the desk. Eve is dressed relatively formally today, wearing a gray skirt that goes below the knee. “Hey, let me ask you something. Are you free Thursday night?”

“For what?”

“We have a corporate suite at Safeco Field. Do you like baseball?” She smiles. “From that expression, I will assume yes.”

“Are we having a function?”

“No. I just thought you might want to go.”

“Okay. Sure. That'd be awesome.”

“I'll pick you up at six thirty. Barker Street?”

“You know where I live?”

“Jones,” she chides. “We know everything.” She stands and begins to walk away. Jones resists the urge to watch. Then she says, “Oh, Jones, one thing . . .”

He turns.

“Now you're working for Alpha, you can't intervene in Zephyr. You're an observer. That's it.”

“Yeah. I understand that.”

“You understand the concept. You don't understand the implications. When you realize the difference . . . don't do anything stupid, okay?”

On Wednesday Jones, Freddy, and Holly head to the café across the road, Donovan's, for lunch. This is Jones's third month at Zephyr and he's eaten here almost every day; so, too, it seems, has most of Zephyr. Beginning at noon each day a steady stream of suits gushes from the elevators and bubbles across the lobby; it momentarily pools at the sliding doors then bursts across the road, where it stands in line for bagels and sandwiches, and discusses corporate politics. Jones looks around at them, these workers from Communications and Finance and Compliance and Travel Services and Corporate Supplies, who are not exactly his co-workers so much as his test subjects.

“Did you guys notice Megan?” Holly says. “When we left, she was staring at Jones.”

Jones looks at her, unsure if she's joking. Freddy says, “Megan, really? That's weird.” He turns his attention to a row of sandwiches under glass.

“I saw her in the gym again this morning. She's really doing well.”

“You know, ever since they outsourced the morning snacks,” Freddy complains, “I'm hungrier at lunchtime. I think they must be less nutritious.”

“They'd better not be,” Holly says. “I'm on a controlled intake plan.”

“They cut out donuts,” Jones points out. “That's not less nutritious.”

Freddy says, “Oh God, can we not talk about donuts anymore? I get enough of this from Roger.”