Company - Max Barry [95]
“You're not listening. These aren't suggestions.”
“That's enough. You three are leaving, right now.” Stanley starts forward, planning to physically bundle Jones, Freddy, and Holly into the elevator. But he has forgotten that people usually do what he tells them because they are paid to, not because he is a dynamo of hot, charismatic masculinity. None of the three budges, and when Stanley realizes they're not going to, he pulls up. He feels his face redden. “I'm calling Human Resources and Asset Protection. You only have yourselves to blame. I hope you realize that.”
He strides to the closest PA's desk and picks up the phone. His hand is trembling. The last time Stanley was involved in such a physical confrontation, he was seventeen. Then the handset clicks in his ear. Stanley turns. The young woman has followed him to the desk and pulled out the phone cord. Stanley stares at her in disbelief.
“Nobody's calling HR,” she says.
Daniel Klausman is wandering through Treasury, emptying trash baskets while keeping an eye on an interesting political tussle between three accountants, when his pocket starts shaking. It's his cell phone. He has it on vibrate because the idea of a janitor with a cell phone might alarm the Zephyr workers, might get them thinking about their own careers and the ratio of the work they put in to the rewards they get out. This is an idea Klausman has tried to impart to other Alpha agents, mostly successfully. The exception is Eve Jantiss, who parks a blue sports car in front of the building. Eve's argument is that Blake gets to drive a sports car to work so why shouldn't she, and the fact that Blake is in Senior Management while she answers phones hasn't swayed her. Klausman has a great deal of respect and admiration for Eve, but he is aware that she is driven by something like pure greed. For a long time now he has had the niggling feeling that one day Eve will, at least in a political sense, knock him down and clamber over his limp body.
He walks to a service closet, leaving behind the Treasury cubicle farm and its emerging political dynamic. As well as being out of the sight of curious Zephyr employees, the closets have the advantage of being one of very few places in the building that are not under electronic surveillance. This was not always the case, but Klausman once had an embarrassing incident wherein he said uncomplimentary things about an Alpha agent while that person was standing in the monitoring room. Also they kept catching employees having sex in the closets, and while everybody quite enjoyed getting those tapes out for the Alpha Christmas party, he worried that if the terrible day ever arrived where Zephyr's secret was blown, this would look very bad. It's one thing to simulate an entire company in order to secretly study its employees—if that ever becomes public knowledge, Klausman will still hold his head high in any gentleman's club in the nation—but another to build a collection of hidden-camera sex tapes. That could give people the wrong idea.
He closes the closet door and fishes his cell phone from his overalls. “Yes?”
“Mr. Klausman.” It's Mona. But her voice is oddly tight. “May I ask—has Jones been assigned some kind of project with Senior Management?”
“No, of course not. That's Blake's area.”
“Then I think you should come to 13. Right away.”
“What's happening?”
“Um . . .” she says. “I don't know.”
Stanley Smithson retreats, but only to gather reinforcements. He returns with the Phoenix. Freddy and Holly's eyes widen in recognition. To most Zephyr workers, Senior Management is a jury box of anonymous faces, but everyone knows the Phoenix. He's a thick-necked man with a red face, blue shirt, and graying hair. Currently his sleeves are rolled all the way up to his biceps, which, while not quite the gasp-inducing specimens they were when he was a storeman, are still highly impressive compared to the atrophied muscles of his fellow executives.
There is a well-known