Company - Max Barry [71]
There's a click. Just a small sound, but Freddy, Holly, and Jones stand up at the same time. They peer over their cubicle wall, as, all around, other Staff Services employees do the same thing. The meeting-room door swings open.
Roger emerges first. His smile is brilliant.
The queen is dead; long live the king! The workers jostle for a glimpse of Roger, for a touch of his hand. He moves among them, greeting the people, shaking hands, thumping backs, kissing cheeks. “I will govern for all the people,” Roger declares, and the workers cheer. “This is a new beginning. I promise you hard work—but also respect. Recognition. And reward!” The employees' faces brighten. Relocation Services and Gymnasium Management employees grin at each other. Workers from Social Club and Business Card Design clink coffee mugs. They are survivors. It is four thirty in the afternoon; it is the dawn of a new day.
The sales assistants are awestruck. Holly says, “Did you know Roger was so . . .”
“No,” Freddy says.
Roger draws closer. The assistants give him big smiles and thumbs-up. Freddy grabs Roger's hand and pumps it enthusiastically. “Good for you, Roger. Well done!”
“I appreciate your support.” His eyes jump from one to the other. “Things are going to be different from now on. Things are going to get done. We're going to find out who really took that donut.”
It's spattering rain outside, but none of the outcasts go home. Droplets speckle their faces. Their makeup runs. Their hair frizzes. But their anger is not diluted. Promises are being made to set up a permanent picket line; a roster is circulating. They are not completely sure what they will demand, but one thing is for sure: they don't deserve this.
In the lobby, now deserted except for herself and Security, Gretel hears the elevator ding. She twists in her chair. The doors slide apart to reveal Eve and a man from Senior Management: Blake Seddon. All the girls swoon over Blake because he's young and good-looking and has more money than he knows what to do with. He's also currently wearing a black eye patch, which Gretel heard is because of an injury he received saving a little girl from being run over in the street right outside the Zephyr building. He smiles as he and Eve approach the reception desk, and Gretel feels her own mouth curve upward almost involuntarily.
Eve takes her seat behind the desk. Blake keeps walking up to the line of Security guards facing out the glass. “Hoo,” Eve says. “What a day. What a day.”
Gretel isn't sure exactly what about today has been so draining for Eve, given she has been largely absent for it, but she has learned not to ask questions. “Yeah.”
“When this is all over, I'm going out and getting really, really drunk.”
Gretel smiles. Another thing she's learned is that when Eve says something like this, it's not an invitation.
A Security guard comes up to the reception desk. “Umbrella,” he says. “Do we have an umbrella for Mr. Seddon?”
Gretel reaches under the desk and retrieves a natty black number. The guard takes this to Blake Seddon, who flashes a smile in Gretel's direction, even as his eyes slide over to Eve. Then he walks out to meet the horde.
They see him coming and yell their disapproval. By the time Blake stops and raises one placatory hand, they are a seething, shouting mass. If he can feel their fury, he gives no sign. He simply waits underneath his black umbrella for them to quiet.
“My friends,” he says. “My dear, dear friends.”
For a second it seems the mob will actually run at him. But they are not so far gone. Slowly their outrage subsides again, and this time Blake is able to speak without interruption.
“These are difficult