The Jennifer Morgue - Charles Stross [158]
“Oh, Bob!” She hugs me tighter: “Of course! Yes!” She’s squeaking, too, I realize dizzily: Is this normal? We kiss. “Especially if it means we can hole up in a luxury hotel, order in a magnum of champagne, and fuck each other senseless without being haunted by the ghost of James Bond. You’ve got a sick and twisted mind—that’s why I love you!”
“I love you, too,” I add. And as we walk along the beach, holding hands and laughing, I realize that we’re free.
PIMPF
I HATE DAYS LIKE THIS.
It’s a rainy Monday morning and I’m late in to work at the Laundry because of a technical fault on the Tube. When I get to my desk, the first thing I find is a note from Human Resources that says one of their management team wants to talk to me, soonest, about playing computer games at work. And to put the cherry on top of the shit-pie, the office’s coffee percolator is empty because none of the other inmates in this goddamn loony bin can be arsed refilling it. It’s enough to make me long for a high place and a rifle . . . but in the end I head for Human Resources to take the bull by the horns, decaffeinated and mean as only a decaffeinated Bob can be.
Over in the dizzying heights of HR, the furniture is fresh and the windows recently cleaned. It’s a far cry from the dingy rats’ nest of Ops Division, where I normally spend my working time. But ours is not to wonder why (at least in public).
“Ms. MacDougal will see you now,” says the receptionist on the front desk, looking down her nose at me pityingly. “Do try not to shed on the carpet, we had it steam cleaned this morning.” Bastards.
I slouch across the thick, cream wool towards the inner sanctum of Emma MacDougal, senior vice-superintendent, Personnel Management (Operations), trying not to gawk like a resentful yokel at the luxuries on parade. It’s not the first time I’ve been here, but I can never shake the sense that I’m entering another world, graced by visitors of ministerial import and elevated budget. The dizzy heights of the real civil service, as opposed to us poor Morlocks in Ops Division who keep everything running.
“Mr. Howard, do come in.” I straighten instinctively when Emma addresses me. She has that effect on most people—she was born to be a headmistress or a tax inspector, but unfortunately she ended up in Human Resources by mistake and she’s been letting us know about it ever since. “Have a seat.” The room reeks of quiet luxury by Laundry standards: my chair is big, comfortable, and hasn’t been bumped, scraped, and abraded into a pile of kindling by generations of visitors. The office is bright and airy, and the window is clean and has a row of attractively un-browned potted plants sitting before it. (The computer squatting on her desk is at least twice as expensive as anything I’ve been able to get my hands on via official channels, and it’s not even switched on.) “How good of you to make time to see me.” She smiles like a razor. I stifle a sigh; it’s going to be one of those sessions.
“I’m a busy man.” Let’s see if deadpan will work, hmm?
“I’m sure you are. Nevertheless.” She taps a piece of paper sitting on her blotter and I tense. “I’ve been hearing disturbing reports about you, Bob.”
Oh, bollocks. “What kind of reports?” I ask warily.
Her smile’s cold enough to frost glass. “Let me be blunt. I’ve had a report—I hesitate to say who from—about you playing computer games in the office.”
Oh. That. “I see.”
“According to this report you’ve been playing rather a lot of Neverwinter Nights recently.” She runs her finger down the printout with relish. “You’ve even sequestrated an old departmental server to run a persistent realm—a multiuser online dungeon.” She looks up, staring at me intently. “What have you got to say for yourself?”
I shrug. What’s to say? She’s got me bang to rights. “Um.”
“Um indeed.” She taps a finger on the page. “Last Tuesday you played Neverwinter Nights for four hours. This Monday you played it for two hours in the morning and three hours in the afternoon, staying on for an hour after your official flexitime shift ended. That’s six straight