Company - Max Barry [105]
Blake says, “Whoa, whoa—”
Eve says, “Daniel. You know I'm right.”
Blake: “This is not the kind of thing that should be decided on the spur—”
Eve: “Blake, you had your chance. It was on Friday, at 5:00 P.M.”
Blake: “Oh, come on, what has that got to do with—okay, maybe that could have been handled better, but they took us by surprise. It was—”
Eve: “Unless we do something, we'll be sitting here tomorrow saying we could have done today better. Daniel, I love you. And I love this company. That's why I'm pushing so hard. I'm sorry to say it, but if you can't see this is a crisis, I'm tendering my resignation.”
Blake: “That's a cheap stunt.”
Eve: “I'm completely serious.”
Blake: “You bitch—”
Klausman says, “All right.” His voice is soft, barely audible. He doesn't meet anyone's eyes. Jones almost feels sorry for him.
Jones leaves and nobody cares: they're enraptured by the seismic power shift occurring around Daniel Klausman and Eve Jantiss. He walks down the corridor, and, on a whim, enters the monitoring room. There are two techs present, but after the first curious glance, they ignore him. Jones pulls a chair into the middle of the room and stares at the monitors for a while.
“I don't know what to say to you.”
It's Blake, standing with one hand on the door handle. Jones turns back to the monitors. He hears Blake let go of the door handle and come closer, until he can practically feel waves of silent hostility breaking against his back. “You know, Eve is Eve. She saw an opportunity, she took it. I hope she wraps her car around a pylon on the way home tonight, but I get it: she outplayed me. You, though—I warned you. I told you what she was like. But you went ahead and let her screw you anyway. You spineless piece of crap, I bet you still think she's on your side. I bet you can't wait for her to come out of that room and tell you everything's going to be all right. Is that why you're hanging around?”
“Blake?” Eve says. Jones sees her reflection in the glass wall. “I know you're pissed and all, but let's not do anything that will make it impossible to work with each other, okay?”
Blake makes a noise that sounds like he's chewing his own tongue. “I'll leave you two to it.” His voice is wet with contempt.
Eve closes the door behind him. She comes around and squats in front of Jones. When she enters his field of vision, she is sharing a wide, beautiful smile with the two techs. “Okay!” she says to Jones. “Let's get coffee and talk this thing out.”
Jones starts to laugh. It pops out of him without warning and escalates into something uncontrollable, where there are tears in his eyes and a stitch in his side. Eve watches him, her smile growing fractured.
“You,” he says, “are unbelievable. I mean that.”
“Thanks. So what do you say—”
“We're not going for coffee.”
“Ah.” She rocks back on her heels. “So it's like that.”
“What you said in there about sacking people, was that just for Alpha? Or did you mean it?”
She says softly, “Jones, this isn't a company. What you've done . . . it's sweet. It really is. But it's not workable. You still think there are such things as good companies and bad companies, and there aren't. I'm sorry.”
Jones stares at her.
She holds up her hands. “Okay, let's get this straight. I did not pretend to like you. I am not some kind of corporate whore who uses sex to get what she wants.” Jones starts laughing again. “I mean it. I care for you. Look at me. Jones, I adore you. What happened in there, that's business. It has nothing to do with you and me.”
“It has everything—” he chokes on the word. For a second he thinks he's about to cry.
Eve doesn't say