Company - Max Barry [107]
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,