The Management Style of the Supreme Beings

by Tom Holt

  “What?”

  “In fact, I didn’t even know there was a tunnel till you told me. A cheque will do fine, by the way. I’m not sure I could lift all that cash without a crane.”

  “You might have told me you don’t know.”

  “I don’t suppose you’d have believed me. But it’s true.”

  The elf nodded. “All right,” she said. “I’ll tell the boss.”

  “Good idea. You can get him to sign my cheque while you’re at it.”

  After that Bernie had a couple of hours to himself. Then the cell door opened, and a huge fat man in a red Santa suit came in. He was carrying a chessboard under his arm, and in his hand he held an envelope.

  “Are you familiar,” he said, “with all those stories where the hero plays chess with Death for the lives of his loved ones?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good at chess, are you?”

  “Not bad.”

  The Red Lord nodded, unfolded the board and turned it over. On the back was Snakes and Ladders. “We won’t play chess, then. Here’s the deal. If you win, you get this eight million dollar cheque and safe passage out of here, just as soon as you’ve told me how to find the access tunnel. If you lose, I cut you into small cubes and feed you to the reindeer. How does that sound?”

  “I don’t know where the access tunnel—”

  The Red Lord shook his head. “Don’t be naughty,” he said, “be nice. You know precisely where it is because you had Maintenance get estimates for fixing it up, and when you got them they seemed awfully high, so you went and took a look at the site for yourself. That’s the sort of guy you are. Painstaking. Thorough.”

  “How did you—?”

  The Red Lord tapped the side of his nose with his forefinger. “You tend to go to bed around half-eleven and you’re generally up by six-thirty, at which point you have a shower, a cup of decaffeinated coffee and two Weetabix. You put your socks on before your pants. You brush your teeth for exactly two minutes. Also, you’re a terrible liar.” He reached into his pocket and produced counters and dice. “I’ll throw first,” he said. “I’m feeling lucky.”

  Bernie could feel sweat oozing into his shoes. “Let’s not play the game,” he said. “I’ll just tell you about the tunnel.”

  “You sure?”

  “It’s just this feeling I’ve got,” Bernie said, “that any dice you roll always come up six.”

  “Funny you should mention that.”

  Bernie sighed. “It’d probably be easier,” he said, “if I drew it for you.”

  The only paper available had jolly robins on one side, but the other side was blank. “To scale?”

  Bernie looked offended. “Naturally.”

  “What’s this? The sensor grid for the alarm system?”

  “No, it’s where the pen stopped working and I had to scribble a bit to get it going again.”

  “Fine. You’ve been very helpful.”

  Bernie smiled weakly. “You wouldn’t actually have fed me to the reindeer, would you?”

  The Red Lord smiled. “What are mince pies filled with?”

  “Mincemeat.”

  “Which these days signifies a mixture of dried fruits and spices. But that’s relatively recent.” He took the cheque out of the envelope and tore it up. “I don’t mind if people play games with my elves,” he said, “as long as they don’t mind playing games with me afterwards. Understood?”

  Bernie nodded. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  The Red Lord shrugged. “It’s all right,” he said. “Actually, I admire your loyalty and resourcefulness, not to mention your mathematical ability. In fact, I could use someone like you, if ever you’re interested.”

  Well, you can’t help being flattered. “That’s very nice of you,” Bernie said. “But Mr. Lucifer would be lost without me.”

  “We’ll see. Enjoy the rest of your stay. I’ve assigned you the VIP guest room.”

  “Wow.”

  “Not so wow, this is it. Still, it’s all to do with status, isn’t it? Sounds so much better than dungeon.”

  Bernie lay down with his back to the wall and tried to get some sleep. He’d just fallen into a light doze when the door opened. He opened his eyes. “Oh,” he said. “It’s you.”

  Jersey had the grace to look sheepish. “How have they been treating you?”

  Bernie shrugged. “What bothers me is the thought of the mess they’ll have got themselves into at work. It’s always the same whenever I’m away from my desk for five minutes.”

  “They’ll manage.”

  “No, they won’t. Management is exactly what they’re worst at.”

  Jersey sat down next to him. “I just got back from a mission behind enemy lines.”

  “Oh yes?”

  “Yup. I was successful. As a reward, they’ve given me the Presidential Suite.”

  “Ah.”

  They sat in silence for a while. Then Bernie said, “You do realise the Venturis have got your girlfriend.”

  “Yes.”

  “Presumably that’s why this lot wanted the plans of the access tunnel.”

  “Correct.”

  Bernie nodded. “Did they tell you the access tunnel comes out in the north side of the Venturicorps HQ’s main septic tank?”

  “No, they didn’t.”

  “Well, it does.”

  “Right.”

  “I didn’t go in there myself,” Bernie said, “because that would’ve been trespassing, and Venturicorp do love their automated defence systems. But the reason we need to refurbish those tunnels is the smell.”

  “I see.”

  “It leaks out, you see, into the main Hell complex. You can smell it right across the campus.”

  “Fine.”

  “And the residents are starting to complain, and to be fair I can see their point. Eternal torment is one thing, but—”

  “Thank you, yes.”

  “Like I said,” Bernie went on, “I didn’t go there myself, but one of the work demons inadvertently crossed the line into Venturi territory.”

  “Oh yes?”

  “Yes. Luckily, he’s immortal and indestructible. Even so, it took six hours and a gallon of superglue, and he’s still bumping into things.”

  Jersey nodded. “You’re suggesting I should be careful.”

  “It might help, yes. Of course, I expect you’re used to that sort of stuff.”

  “Fairly used,” Jersey said cautiously. “Um, you wouldn’t have any more detailed hints, would you?”

  “Don’t go.”

  “Aside from that.”

  “No. Listen,” Bernie said, sitting up and turning to face him. “You don’t actually have to do this.”

  “Actually—”

  “No, you don’t. She’s not your girlfriend; she doesn’t like you any more. And once the Venturis have crushed Santa, they’ll let her go. And they’re not really so bad, are they? I mean, yes, the world isn’t exactly a cheerful place these days, but there’s no crime and everybody’s got a job. Maybe cheerfulness comes at too high a price.”

  “You’re from Hell. Maybe your perspective is slightly skewed.”

  “Maybe. But honestly, do you really believe you stand a chance against the most powerful organisation in the Universe? Think about it. And if it counts for anything—”

  “Yes?”

  “You can have your old job back any time you like. I mean it. It’ll be there waiting for you. You might even get promoted to head of coleslaw.”

  “Thank you,” Jersey said with a slight catch in is voice. “I appreciate that.”

  “But you’re still going?”

  “I think so, yes.”

  “You do realise the Venturi know all about that access tunnel? In which case, it’s almost certainly a—”

  “Trap, yes.” Jersey gave him a lopsided grin. “Bernie, it’s always a trap. All human life is a trap. Good and evil are hereby abolished was a trap, to get you to sin more than you can afford. Eat of the fru
it of any tree in the garden but not this one was a trap, sure as God made little green apples. There is absolutely no circumstance on this Earth that isn’t a trap in some form or another. Every time a newborn baby opens its eyes for the first time, there’s an angel hovering overhead whispering ‘Gotcha!’ So long as you realise that, it’s fine. You take precautions. You don’t go blundering into the carefully laid snare and then say, goodness me, I never expected that. No, you look around, you weigh up the tactical situation, you say to yourself, if I was a trap, where would I be? And you always have a little something in reserve, just in case.”

  Bernie nodded sadly. “I asked our quartermaster for one of those,” he said. “He offered me a pitchfork and a packet of chewing gum.”

  “Good choices. At close quarters a pitchfork makes a devastating weapon. And when it comes to plugging the hole through which seawater is flooding into your sealed underground tunnel, five sticks of spearmint can mean the difference between life and death. But presumably the elves took them off you when you got captured.”

  The door opened, and an elf stuck its head in. “It’s time,” it said. “They’re waiting for you.”

  Jersey stood up. “Ah well. It is a far, far better thing that I do now.”

  “Is it?”

  “It bloody well ought to be. See you around.”

  The elves escorted him to Sleighpad Six, where Donner and Blitzen were busily crunching their way through a large pail of bones. “The controls are set on autopilot,” the elves told him. “Good luck.”

  “What? Aren’t any of you coming with me?”

  “Not likely. It’s almost certainly a trap.”

  The usual smooth lift-off was followed by the usual gut-wrenching acceleration to—what? The last time he’d flown on the sleigh, his watch had grown a fourth hand. It felt incredibly fast, but when you screwed up enough courage to peer over the handrail, there was no ground below to gauge your speed by, and no sky overhead either. Everything was just plain white, as though the sleigh was a cardboard cut-out on a blank sheet of paper, but the smell of the reindeer—raw meat and bones didn’t seem to agree with them—was very real indeed. He tightened his grip on the rail and closed his eyes.

  A slight bump told him they’d landed. In front of him was a brick chimney stack, a trifle incongruous on a flat concrete roof. The rail gave him a leg-up and he crawled up the brick-red cowls and braced his feet against the rim while he unwound the rope from around his waist. A single self-securing crampon into the mortar, and down we go.

  If the chimney was only the illusion of a chimney, nevertheless it came equipped with plenty of illusory soot, which he wiped out of his eyes with the back of his hand. The rough texture of the illusory bricks ripped his coat and took the skin off his shoulders as he edged downwards a few inches at a time. Eventually his feet bottomed out on something solid, and he reluctantly let go of the rope and let his weight rest on the soles of his boots. Brushing away the illusory cobweb festooned across his face, he backed out of the grate and looked about.

  Hellmouth 34A was a disused siding just beyond the northbound platform of the Ginza station of the Tokyo metro. He left the rope dangling, hoping very much he’d see it again, and switched on his flashlight. The section of collapsed wall was exactly where it had been marked on the plans. He heaved a few bricks out of the way, got down on his hands and knees and started to crawl. The Venturi sensor net ended 12.526 metres from the inside face of the wall. The detectors for the automated defence system were 0.688 metres further on from that. In the gap between these two perimeters—far enough in to be detected, not quite far enough to be zapped into subatomic gravel—he stopped, slouched against the wall and settled down to wait.

  A blinding light shone in his eyes. “You, out of there,” barked a voice.

  “Sure,” Jersey replied. “Please don’t shoot, I’ll come quietly.”

  Four security goons in the familiar white plastic armour grabbed him by the ankles and dragged him out into a sunken tiled area. It was spotlessly clean and smelled refreshingly of pine needles.

  “I thought this was a cesspit.”

  “Drained it,” said a guard, “in your honour. On your feet.”

  They bound his hands behind his back with cable ties and put a bag over his head. He dropped to his knees and started to scream. A few kicks didn’t stop him, so they took the bag off his head. “What?”

  “Excuse me, but is that bag polyester?”

  “I don’t know, do I? Now shut it, or I’ll smash your face in.”

  “Only,” Jersey said, “I’m highly allergic to man-made fibres in contact with my skin. They bring me out in big red welts. It’s very uncomfortable.”

  “Tough,” said the guard. “So what am I supposed to do about it?”

  “In the left pocket of my coat,” Jersey said, “is a bag. It’s made of one hundred per cent organically produced hessian. I carry it about with me at all times for just this sort of situation. If you wouldn’t mind?”

  The guard took a step back. “You carry your own blindfolding sack?”

  “Always. Otherwise it’s such a nuisance, me kicking and screaming every step of the way, and the guards having to carry me up all those stairs.”

  The guard thought about it. “And if we use your bag, you’ll come quietly?”

  “As a little lamb.”

  The guard shrugged. “Get the bag from his pocket,” he snapped. “Come on, move it. They’ll be refilling the tank in four minutes.”

  Another guard pulled out the sack, unfolded it and handed it to his chief, who opened it. “There’s something in here.”

  “Is there?”

  “Don’t get smart with me.” The guard reached inside and drew out a small box wrapped in Christmas paper. “What’s this?”

  “Your present.”

  “What?”

  “A small thank you,” Jersey said, “for letting me use my own bag.”

  The guard took a scanning device from his belt and ran it over the outside of the box. “Socks?”

  “Yes. A bit boring, I know.”

  “I like socks,” the guard said. “Here, hold this.” He handed his blaster to one of his colleagues, then tore open the wrapping paper. “My wife always gives me iPads and windsurfing gear and motorbikes, but you can’t say anything, can you?” He opened the box.

  “Hope you like them,” Jersey said.

  Out of the box jumped three dozen elves covered in chainmail and wielding axes. You couldn’t call what happened next a fight. More of a foregone conclusion lovingly brought about by people who cared passionately about their work. “Thanks, guys,” Jersey said, picking up a discarded blaster. “Right, follow me.”

  “Not on your life,” said an elf. “We’re going back. We’ll wait for you in the sleigh.”

  “Hey—”

  “No way we’re going any further. It’s bound to be a trap.”

  “No,” Jersey said patiently. “This was a trap. We set it up, remember?”

  “A different one,” the goblin said. “Don’t take any wooden nickels.”

  Before Jersey could protest further, the elves scuttled back down the dark tunnel, leaving him alone with four peacefully sleeping stormtroopers. Bother, he thought, or a monosyllable to that effect. Never mind. The show must go on, and all that.

  A window opened in thin air, and a young man stepped out. He saw the stunned stormtroopers and took a step back. “Hi,” he said in a slightly shaky voice. “That’s four counts of resisting arrest and actual bodily harm.”

  Jersey took a folded cheque from his top pocket. “That ought to cover it.”

  “We don’t actually take cheques.”

  “You’ll take this one.”

  “Bank of the—Yes, fair enough. Um, it’s actually for a hundred thousand dollars too much.”

  “Is it? Oh, right.” Jersey swung back his fist and punched the young man on the jaw. “Better?”

  The young man got up and spat out a tooth. “E
e still owe oo ive dollars and irty cents.”

  “Keep the change.”

  An excruciatingly weary, awkward half-hour later, he slithered feet first up to the grille at the end of a long, smelly ventilation shaft, bent his knees and kicked hard. The grille popped out and clattered on to a concrete floor. He cleared his throat. “Hello?”

  On a bed in the room below a young woman was asleep. She opened her eyes and looked at him. “Oh,” she said. “It’s you.”

  “Yes. Look, I don’t think they’ve detected me yet, so if we’re quick …”

  She yawned. “What do you want?”

  “What do you think? You’re being rescued.”

  “Oh. Have I got to be?”

  “What?”

  She sighed. “It’s really sweet of you, and I expect you’ve been to a lot of trouble, and it was very clever of you to have got this far and please don’t think I don’t appreciate it, but I’d rather not be rescued just now if that’s all right.”

  “What?”

  “I’d rather stay here. It’s quiet and peaceful and they bring you your meals on a tray.”

  “Have you gone mad or something?”

  “I’m perfectly sane, thank you,” she said, “which is why I don’t want to be rescued, or at least not by you. I don’t mean that in a nasty way,” she added quickly. “It’s just that your way of doing things is all explosions and fist fights and crawling along tunnels and ticking clocks and falling through trapdoors and dodging booby traps, which is absolutely fine for you because you’re good at it, but I get out of breath walking up two flights of stairs. Also, I think the Venturi are in a different league from the sort of idiots you’re used to dealing with, so you’ll have your work cut out escaping on your own, let alone with me trailing along behind you. Also, this whole Father Christmas thing is doomed to failure. You really don’t stand a chance, and pretty soon it’ll all blow over and then they’ll have no more use for me and let me go, and I won’t be a hunted fugitive any more. I can get another job and carry on living a normal life without being worried sick all the time. Also, I quite like you but not at all in that way, and being rescued by someone sort of raises expectations, doesn’t it, and I know for a fact you wouldn’t be here if I was fifty-five and wore a size twenty, so let’s not kid ourselves, shall we? Look, I know it’s not really your fault that they grabbed me and put me in here. If anything’s to blame it’s deeply ingrained cultural stereotypes, but honestly all this action-adventure stuff is only going to make things worse, and I could get badly injured or possibly even killed, and that’d be just plain stupid, now wouldn’t it?”