Company - Max Barry [29]
“Oh, yes! The answer is you can't.”
“I can't,” Jones says heavily.
“They suggested you speak to your manager, or, failing that, use the suggestion box. Do you know about the suggestion box?”
“So, let's see.” Jones drums his fingers on the counter. “I can't get to level 2 without an appointment. I can't get an appointment because I should speak to Sydney. And Sydney could answer my question, but she'd sack me for asking it. Have I got that right?” Jones hears his voice growing loud. No one answers him: not Gretel, not the beautiful Eve Jantiss, not the silver-haired janitor. “What do you think would happen if I camped out in the parking lot until someone from Senior Management arrived? They have reserved parking spaces, right—what would happen if I went down and sat on a BMW?”
“I think they'd call Security,” Gretel says.
“Ah! Of course! And while the guards dragged me away, they'd probably lecture me about proper channels. Meanwhile, nobody in this company has any idea what it does!”
The janitor says, “There's a mission statement hanging right on that wall, son.”
“Sssss,” Jones says, which is the sound of air whistling between his clenched teeth. Then he spots something: across the lobby, the stairwell door is wedged open by the janitor's trolley of cleaning products. The stairwell doors are normally locked—Jones knows this as a result of the August blackout. His eyes flick between it and the janitor. He begins to walk toward it.
He makes most of the distance before anyone reacts. It's Eve who seems to realize what he's up to first. “Where are you going?” There is something strange in her tone, something not quite like fear and not quite like menace, and it inflames Jones's determination. When the janitor says, “Hey!” Jones breaks into a run. He kicks the trolley out of the way, which bounces off the wall and topples over, sending plastic bottles of colorful liquid spinning across the tiles. Entering the stairwell is like stepping into a freezer; it's a good twenty degrees colder than the lobby, is full of deep echoes, and smells like concrete. Jones pulls shut the door behind him, which makes the kind of satisfying click that tells him it'll take the janitor a lot of fumbling around with keys to get it open again. Then he begins leaping up the concrete steps two at a time. It's funny. He doesn't feel like he's destroying his career.
Freddy arrives on level 3. It's so high in the building he feels a rush of vertigo and his knees tremble. Or maybe it's not vertigo. Maybe it's the sign before him:
HUMAN RESOURCES
Everything looks different here. The lighting is muted. The walls are a dark blue, not the ubiquitous cream. There are no motivational posters, no orange-and-black logos, no taped-up printouts of pie graphs. Everything is soft and shadowy. As Freddy walks down the corridor, his footsteps completely swallowed by the carpet, he could almost believe the walls are breathing in and out.
There is a reception desk, but no one staffing it. It is black and smooth, devoid of clutter. There's not a phone, nor a notepad, nor a ceramic bear in sight. No RING FOR SERVICE bell. Freddy looks around nervously. Two identical doors lead off from reception, one left and one right. Maybe this is some kind of test. Maybe one leads to Heaven and the other to Hell. Or, since this is Human Resources, maybe they both lead to Hell. Freddy bites his lip. He thinks he'll just stay where he is.
The door on the left clicks and swings open.
“Hello?” He walks up to the door and peers through it. It opens onto a long, empty corridor with half a dozen identical doors on each side.
He clenches his jaw, puts one foot in front of the other, and walks through the doorway. He half expects the