The Jennifer Morgue - Charles Stross [100]
When I finish coughing, he looks at me thoughtfully. “You strike me as being a reasonably adaptable, intelligent young man. It’s really a shame you’re working for the public sector. Are you sure I can’t bribe you? How would a million bucks in a numbered account in the Caymans suit you?”
“Get lost.” I struggle to maintain my composure.
“If it’s just that silly little warrant card you guys carry, we can do something about it,” he adds slyly.
Ouch. That’s a low blow. I take a deep breath: “I’m sure you can, but—”
He snorts. And looks amused. “It’s to be expected. They wouldn’t have sent you if they thought you had an easy price. It’s not just money I can offer, Mr. Howard. You’re used to working for an organization that is deliberately structured to stifle innovation and obstruct stakeholder-led change. My requirements are a bit, shall we say, different. A smart, talented, hard-working man—especially a morally flexible one—can go far. How would you like to come on board as deputy vice-president for intelligence, Europe, Middle East, and Africa division? A learning sinecure, initially, but with your experience and background in one of the world’s leading occult espionage organizations I’m sure you’d make your mark soon enough.”
I give it a moment’s thought, long enough to realize that he’s right—and that I’m not going to take the offer. He’s offering me crumbs from the rich man’s table, and not even bothering to find out in advance if that’s the sort of diet I enjoy. Which means he’s doing me the compliment of not taking the prospect of my defection seriously, which means he considers me to be a reliable agent. And now I stop to think about it, I realize to my surprise that I am. I may not be happy about the circumstances under which I took the oath, and I may gripe and moan about the pay and conditions, but there’s a big difference between pissing and moaning and seriously contemplating the betrayal of everything I want to preserve. Even if I’ve only just come to realize it.
“I’m not for sale, Ellis. Not for any price you can pay, anyway. What’s this archetype business?”
He nods minutely, examining me as if I’ve just passed some sort of important test. “I was getting to that.” He rotates his chair until he’s half-facing the big monitor off to my right. He stabs at the mouse mat with one finger and I wince, but instead of fat purple sparks and a hideous soul-sucking manifestation, it simply wakes up his Windows box. (Not that there’s much difference.) For a moment I almost begin to relax, but then I recognize what he’s calling up and my stomach flip-flops in abject horror.
“I do everything in PowerPoint, you know.” Billington grins, an expression which I’m sure is intended to be impish but that comes across to his intended victim—me—as just plain vicious. “I had to have my staff write some extra plug-ins to make it do everything I need, but, ah, here we are . . .”
He rapidly flips through a stack of tediously bulleted talking points until he wipes into a screen that’s mercifully photographic in nature. It’s a factory, lots of workers in gowns and masks gathered around worktops and stainless steel equipment positioned next to a series of metal vats.
“Eileen’s Hangzhou factory, where our Pale Grace™ Skin Hydromax® range of products are made. As you probably already figured out, we apply a transference-contagion glamour to the particulate binding agent in the foundation powder, maintained by brute force from our headquarters operation in Milan, Italy. Unlike most of the cosmetics on the market, it really does render the wrinkles invisible. The ingredients are a bit of a pain, but she’s got that well in hand;