Company - Max Barry [39]
Freddy stares. “Maybe I should speak to her.”
“Exactly. Exactly. Get to know her a bit, then when you tell her about the flowers, she already knows you're a nice guy.”
Freddy nods slowly. “Thanks. Thanks, Jones. You know, at first . . . I thought maybe you were moving in.” He laughs.
“No, no! Come on.”
Freddy smiles: genuinely, this time. “You're a good man, Jones.”
“Come on,” Jones says. “Come on.”
At seven fifteen in the morning the lights of the Zephyr building burn in the fog like the port windows of a sinking ship. Tendrils of dawn sunlight leak into the night sky, but it makes no difference to Zephyr Holdings: inside, thanks to the eternally vigilant fluorescents, it's always 9:00 A.M. Turning off the lights, after all, would imply that employees are expected at some point to leave. So at Zephyr the lights stay on regardless of whether anybody's home.
Jones walks across the parking lot, gravel crunching under his shoes. He is surprisingly alert for this time of the day, considering he hasn't had a coffee yet—but then again, he is en route to his first secret Project Alpha meeting. He enters the lobby and squeaks his way across to the elevators. All four cars are open and waiting for him.
Jones steps inside and sets down his briefcase. Eve gave him specific instructions on how to reach level 13, these being: (1) choose an empty elevator, (2) swipe his (upgraded) ID card, (3) press the 12 and 14 buttons simultaneously, and (4) press DOOR OPEN when the elevator is roughly level with 13. This doesn't sound too complicated in theory, but Jones expects to spend a bit of time bouncing between floors before he's nailed step four, which is why he's here fifteen minutes early. But he gets it right on his first attempt: the screen flashes up 13 and the doors open on blue carpet and muted lighting. Jones feels mildly proud of himself.
He walks down the glass corridor, following the sound of voices, and enters a meeting room. There are half a dozen people already here, including Eve Jantiss, who is leaning against an oak table roughly the size of Jones's apartment. This table can't be a single piece of wood, because that would be ridiculous, but it certainly looks like it. It is a rich, warm brown, not so much reflecting the recessed lights as gently spreading their luminence around; it is a table so beautiful that Jones actually notices it despite the fact that Eve is right in front of him in a short black skirt and buttoned shirt. “Jones!” she says. “You just won me fifty dollars.” She points through the glass wall to a bank of monitors. “Level 13 on the first try. Tom thought we'd need to go fetch you.”
“Hi,” says Tom, a middle-aged man with a bright blue tie who is browsing the buffet table on the other side of the room. Jones nods hello.
Eve says, “You know, one time I tried that trick at the Hyatt in New York, pressing 12 and 14 then DOOR OPEN at 13, and I surprised a bunch of FBI agents. I swear I'm telling the truth.”
The room chuckles at this, so Jones wipes the amazed expression off his face and replaces it with a smile. He looks around for somewhere to stash his briefcase.
“Under the table,” Eve says. “And help yourself to a pastry.”
This occupies Jones for the next few minutes, along with introductions to the other agents of Project Alpha. They all seem reasonably sociable, but the common thread is that they are clearly very smart. Jones realizes he will be running along behind these people for a while.
“Ah, the wunderkind,” a voice says behind him. Jones turns to see Blake Seddon grinning at him from the doorway. Blake is Alpha's plant in Senior Management. He is deeply tanned, in his late thirties, wears pinstriped suits, and has teeth so bright that Jones finds himself squinting. Did his parents just take the gamble that he would turn out a square-jawed