Machine Man - Max Barry [62]
The elevator doors opened. We were not on Lola’s floor. We were somewhere else.
“But no, no, no,” said Cassandra Cautery. “You and Lola Shanks couldn’t keep your hands off each other, and everything’s gone to shit.”
I saw myself in a huge silver mirror hanging on the opposite wall. Beside it sat a little table with a lamp and a vase of white flowers. On the other side was a life-sized statue of a woman with an outstretched arm and blank eyes. Some kind of goddess. Cassandra Cautery exited the elevator.
A beautiful girl appeared, smiling like a sunburst. Beside her, the goddess seemed plain. “Hello! You must be Dr. Neumann. And Cassandra! How are you? What is that shirt, by the way? I always mean to ask.”
“I don’t remember.”
“Well, I love you in it.” The girl put her hands on her hips.
“Is he ready?”
The girl turned solemn. “He’ll be two minutes. But if you come with me, I will get you completely set up with whatever you need. Is that okay?”
The girl sashayed away down the corridor. Cassandra Cautery stared after her with loathing. I felt out of my depth, like a deep-sea fish hauled to the surface. I was not compatible with this environment. I did not possess the parts necessary to survive in it. “Where’s Lola?”
“Being looked after.” Her voice was flat. She didn’t look at me. “You need to stay away from her, Charlie. At this point you would do her more harm than good.” She walked after the girl.
I looked at the scanner in my hands. Then I put it on the carpet beside the elevator and followed.
THE GIRL took us to a sitting room. I say this as someone who is not totally sure what a sitting room is. I mean something from an eighteenth-century mansion: drapes, busy wallpaper, chairs with curving, detailed legs. Turned, I think is the word. I straightened my posture. It just felt necessary.
“You know who we’re meeting,” said Cassandra Cautery, once the girl had closed the door on us. This was not posed as a question, although I didn’t know the answer. “The Manager.”
“Which manager?”
“The Manager.”
“Who?”
“The Manager,” she said. “The Manager. You know. The Manager.”
“That’s his title?”
Cassandra Cautery stared at me. “Of course not. He’s the chief executive officer. But everyone calls him the Manager. That’s what he does. He manages. You know when Congress wanted to shut us down after the Boston VL38s turned out to be not so nonlethal? Of course you don’t. Because he managed it. How can you not know the Manager?”
Now she mentioned it, The Manager did sound familiar. He might have signed off on a few company-wide e-mails that I skimmed through. There might have been a few inspirational quotes from him on the cafeteria notice board. When people told stories about employees who vanished, projects that evaporated overnight, lab fires that were never officially reported and accidents that never happened, they might have said: Then The Manager came. “The Manager.”
“Exactly.” Her thumb slipped into her mouth again. “The Manager.”
THE DOOR handle clacked open. I was disappointed. The way Cassandra Cautery had been acting, I expected lightning crackling around the shoulders of his tailored suit. And he was in a suit, and I guess it was tailored, but otherwise he looked normal. If I had been buying a car and this guy walked out of the salesroom, I would not have been surprised.
“Dr. Neumann.” He came at me with his hand outstretched and his teeth exposed. His hair was extremely neat. I wouldn’t have thought you could get hair to sit like that. Not with consumer-grade chemicals. “Can I get you anything? Water? Coffee? Something to eat?”
“No.” I shook his hand.