Company (39 page)

“So that's what's in my best interest. To lie. To keep lying.”

“Yes.”

He looks around. “Where's that ethics tape? The one you play for nervous investors?”

“Um . . . I think—”

“I'm joking.”

“Oh.” She smiles, but her eyes flick up and down his face. “Well, that's good. You should laugh about this. It's just business.”

This makes him feel like crying again. He forces it down. “If I tell the workers about Alpha, they hate me. And they lose their jobs. If I help you, nobody gets fired.”

Eve hesitates. “Actually, I will need to fire certain key people.” She sees his expression. “But we can talk about that later. Jones, I know this is tough. But one day you'll look back and realize this was a huge step forward for your career. I have so many ideas for Alpha—I shouldn't tell you this, it's still in the early stages, but I think I can get financing for a village in Virginia. We can build a town, Jones. A town for Zephyr. It'll have a school and a mall and every home will have broadband and an inbuilt meeting room and we'll give them everything, everything they want. All they have to do is live in the town. You say we've been stealing pieces of people's lives, and you're right, you're exactly right. But in our town there won't
be
a difference between work and home, because everyone will be at work twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, and at the same time they'll be home. You see? They'll work, not because we force them to but because their town depends on it, because that's how they improve their quality of life. Because they're proud patriots of the company.” She squeezes her hands together, her eyes shining. “You see, Jones, you can't end things now. We have so much left to do.”

Eventually, Jones says, “I need to think about this.”

“Of course. Of course you do.” She nods. “I'll give you some time. Alpha meets again at noon. Come along, okay?”

Elizabeth sits up. She pushes her hair back from her face. She shifts her butt, which feels as if it is stuck to the top of Roger's desk. She begins buttoning her blouse.

Roger squeezes her shoulder. “That . . . was . . . incredible.” He shifts to look up at her, and she can see his gleaming smile without even having to face him. “Don't you think?”

“Mmm.” She looks around for her panties.

“I want to apologize. I've been a bit of a shit to you lately, I know. It's just, sometimes, Elizabeth, I get so focused on the politics. You know what this place is like.”

She realizes that they are hanging from her left ankle. She bends forward, dislodging Roger's head, and tugs them up.

“I mean, if I'm going to be brutally honest, it's insecurity.” He laughs. “You probably don't believe me. But it's true. You made me nervous. I always felt I had to prove myself to you.”

She stands and begins fixing her skirt.

Roger sits up. “I guess what I'm trying to say, Elizabeth, is I want to take this further.”

She looks at him. She shakes her head.

Roger blinks. “What? What do you mean?”

“I don't want to.”

“You don't want to what? Have sex again?”

“You.”

“You don't want me?”

Elizabeth shakes her head.

“Why not?” His face pinches. “What's the matter? Was something wrong?”

“No.”

“Then what's the problem? For God's sake, what
do
you want?”

Elizabeth thinks. “Gherkins.”

When Jones arrives back at Staff Services, he finds himself in the middle of a hockey game. He stands in the doorway, watching people clamber over desks and knock aside chairs. One man bumps a cubicle wall and sends a row of manila folders tumbling to the carpet. His foot lands on one, tearing its cover, and he runs off without looking back.

“Jones!” Freddy comes over, looking happy and excited. “We're playing hockey.”

“So I see.”

Freddy peers at him. “What?”

“Well,” Jones says peevishly, “we didn't overthrow management to play games.”

“Aw, come on. It's the first day. We're just having fun.”

“Freddy!”
someone yells. Jones looks around as Holly streaks past, knocking along a rubber ball with a cardboard tube.

Freddy glances apologetically at Jones. “Things will settle down. They're good people.” Then he runs after Holly.

Jones walks to the Training Sales cubicle, which is empty. He sits down heavily and puts his head on his arms.

At first he thought it would be impossible to convince people that they need Senior Management back. Now he thinks it's inevitable. Eve was right: this isn't a company, it's a party. And they will all realize that, sooner or later: they will see nobody is working as hard as they used to, and understand what that means.

“Hello?”

He lifts his head. It's Alex Domini, the man he hired to coordinate the rewiring of the Zephyr computer network. Alex has a sheaf of papers in his hand. Apparently he is the only person actually working in Zephyr today. Of course, Alex is on contract.

“Sorry to bother you. Is this a good time? I have a little problem.” He comes into the cubicle, looking sheepish. “The thing is, I can't get to level 13. There's no button 13 in the elevators, and the stairwell doors are locked, so . . . I don't know what to do.”

Jones stares. “Why do you think there's a level 13?”

“The wiring. I hooked in a laptop, and there's definitely a network there, between 12 and 14. I just can't . . . find it.”

Jones swallows a couple of times. “Level 13 is hard to get to. I'll take you there.”

“Ah! Thanks. Geez, I thought I was going crazy.”

“It's not you. It's this place.” When they reach the elevators, he says, “By the way, how's the rest of the network coming along?”

“It's basically done. Even level 13—I don't know what's there, but it's wired in to everything else now. We more or less just need to turn it on.”

“Interesting,” Jones says.

Jones is in the level-13 monitoring room when the Alpha agents begin to return. Eve is first to arrive: she walks past the glass wall, heading for the meeting room, then sees him, stops, and beckons. Jones closes the door behind him. “Hi.”

“Hi. How are you doing?”

He shrugs. Together they walk toward the meeting room. “Okay, I guess.”

She nods. “I don't want to push you, Jones, but—” This is the point at which she opens the door to the meeting room and reveals Alex sitting at the great table. Eve looks at him, then at Jones, then back at Alex. “Who are you?”

Jones says, “He's working on the network.”

“What's he doing here?”

“I let him up. He needs to splice some data cables or something. I don't really understand the details.”

Alex says uncertainly, “Sorry . . . should I go?”

“Thanks, yeah,” Jones says. “We need this room now.”

Alex stands. Two more agents arrive on level 13 and come up behind Eve and Jones. Eve doesn't move, so there's a logjam: Alex waiting to get out, agents waiting to get in, and Eve blocking the doorway. Her eyes flick between Alex and Jones.

Jones says, “Well?”

“We're not going in.”

“What? Why not?”

“Because,” she says, “you're trying to be clever.”

“What's going on?” says Mona.

Jones says, “I don't know what you're talking about.”

“I'm relocating the meeting.”

“What?” Jones yelps. “You think he bugged the room or something?”

Eve says, “This is not a good start to our new working relationship, Jones.”

“What did I do?”

“Everybody out. And someone get
this
guy off level 13.”

On the way back to the elevators, Eve grips Jones's arm just above the elbow. She whispers, “You
know
I was looking forward to sitting in the big chair.”

Eve inspects two meeting rooms off the lobby before she finds one that satisfies her. She pulls the blind over the little window in the door, eyes the security camera in the corner of the room, then calls level 13 on her cell. “Just so we're clear,” she says, “until you hear back from me, nobody is to be in the monitoring room but you.
Nobody.”

“This is nuts,” Jones says. “Klausman wouldn't have made us traipse down here. What if someone barges in?”

Eve hesitates. “Mona, can you wedge a chair against that door?”

Mona looks startled. “I'm not sure . . . okay, I'll see about that.”

“We have a perfectly good meeting room on level 13.”

“Jones,” Eve says, “shut up.”

Blake says, “Eve, as much as I hate to agree with Judas here—”

Eve slaps the table with the palm of her hand. Everyone jumps. “We're here. We have a meeting to get through. Let's go.”

Freddy is passing by his desk when he sees something weird on his computer screen. He detours into his cubicle to peer at it. For the last few months, Freddy's desktop taskbar has sported a little computer with a red cross through it. Now, there's a yellow balloon with the message:
ZEPHYR INTRANET IS NOW CONNECTED. SPEED: 100.0 MBPS.

“Hey,” Holly says, coming in. “I thought you were getting me a coffee.”

“Check this out.” He reaches for his mouse. But before he can activate his e-mail, a new window pops up. First it says
STREAMING UPDATES,
then it says
COMPLETE,
then it disappears and something else comes up.