by Tom Holt
There was no one in the waiting room; well, there wouldn’t be, would there? All the others would’ve made it on time. He sat down and tried to stabilise his breathing, but he felt as though someone had just cleaned his windpipe with coarse sandpaper, and his shirt collar was squelchy with sweat.
A nice lady came out, told him that Mr Nacien was running a bit late, and would he like a cup of tea? He said yes, please, without thinking, and about thirty seconds later, the nice lady came back with a cup, saucer and plate of digestive biscuits.
“Drink up,” the nice lady said, “before it gets cold.”
So he drank the tea, which tasted a bit odd, and handed the cup and saucer back to the nice lady, who smiled at him.
“Oh, by the way,” she said. “The tea was laced with some stuff that makes you tell the truth, whether you want to or not. Sodium penta-something. Hope that’s all right.”
“What?”
“Oh, it’s perfectly harmless,” she said reassuringly. “All it means is, you say what you’re actually thinking, not what you want to say. Wonderful what they can do with chemicals these days, isn’t it?”
He blinked at her. They’re evil, he thought. But, on the other hand, they might just possibly give me a job, so be nice. “No,” he heard himself say, “it’s not all right, it’s appalling. How am I supposed to get through a job interview telling the truth?”
“Oh, you’ll be fine,” the nice lady said. “Right, Mr Nacien’s ready for you now. Good luck.”
Maurice smiled weakly. “I hate you,” he said. “I hope you burn in hell.”
“That’s the ticket. Through the door, second on your right.”
The directions brought him to a white-painted door; he knocked, waited, and heard a voice say “Come in.” He turned the handle and pushed the door, which (needless to say) opened outwards. Beyond the door was a large, light room, sparsely furnished, having in place of a back wall a huge window, open, leading to a balcony with deckchairs, golf umbrellas and a potted palm. The desk was in a direct line between the door and the window. Behind it sat a bald man, tall and fat. He smiled as Maurice slouched in, and waved him to a chair. “Hello,” the man said cheerfully. “My name’s David Nacien. Do sit down.”
Maurice sat down. In spite of everything, he couldn’t help noticing how wonderfully comfortable the chair was. Mr Nacien glanced down at a cribsheet on his desk and said, “You’re Maurice Katz.”
“Yes.” Maurice made a quixotic attempt at a friendly smile. “That tie’s ridiculous. It makes you look like you’ve spilt trifle all down your shirt front.”
Mr Nacien nodded. “Quite,” he said. “Now, then, let’s see. Six GCSEs, three A-levels, splendid. English, computer studies and philosophy.” He raised his eyebrows. “Interesting choice. What made you choose it?”
Maurice tried to imagine what an intelligent expression would look like on the face he saw when he shaved, and did his best to arrange himself accordingly. He had no idea if it was working. He had his doubts. “I really fancied this girl, and she was going to do philosophy, and I thought it might help me get off with her if I did it too. Also, I thought it’d be a real doss.”
Mr Nacien nodded encouragingly. “And was it?”
“No. Loads of reading.”
“Ah.”
“I didn’t do any of it. I cut and pasted stuff off the internet instead.”
“Excellent. Then three years reading Theory of Website Design at Towcester.”
Maurice nodded. “I thought that’d be a doss, too.”
“Was it?”
Maurice shrugged. “Actually, I don’t remember much about Towcester.”
“I see. Now then, your most recent employment: IT assistant at Overthwart and Headlong.”
“Yes.”
“Did you like it there?”
“No, it was foul. I never really found out what I was supposed to be doing, the management were a bunch of fascists, the money was rubbish and there were only two women under forty on my floor; one of them was well and truly spoken for and the other one looked like a warthog.”
“I get you. Why did you leave?”
“They fired me. I got caught skiving.”
“Most distressing,” Mr Nacien said sympathetically. “Do you feel they acted unreasonably?”
“No. I mean, I was always calling in sick; it’s just a shame I got caught.”
“Moving on,” said Mr Nacien, “why did you decide to apply for this position?”
“Well,” Maurice said, “I put in for everything I could find, and all the others turned me down. Hardly surprising, really. I mean, who in their right mind would want me?”
“Mphm. And what special qualities do you think you would bring to the position?”
“Absolutely none.”
“A refreshingly different perspective, perhaps? Energy, enthusiasm, commitment? A shared ethos?”
“No.”
“Right.” Mr Nacien ticked a box on a piece of paper. “Any questions from your end so far?”
“Yes. How long before this stuff wears off?”
Mr Nacien folded his hands on the desk. “That depends on the physiology of the individual. It can be anything from thirty minutes to twenty-four hours.”
“Twenty-four hours? My God.”
Mr Nacien smiled. “Indeed,” he said. “Society professes to place such a high value on truth, but it’s hard to see how our civilisation could possibly function if we weren’t allowed to lie like troopers all the time. I imagine,” he went on, “you considered the issue in depth as part of your philosophy course.”
Maurice shrugged. “Search me,” he said. “I cut and pasted stuff. I never read any of it.”
“Of course not. So, where were we? Ah yes. I take it you’re fully conversant with what we do here at Carbonec?”
“No, not a clue. I just saw this ad saying admin assistant, and I thought—”
“That sounds like a total doss?”
Maurice nodded. “Is it?”
“That would depend,” Mr Nacien said, “on the degree of drive and initiative you brought to the position. So tell me, do you have a passion for administration?”
“Hardly.”
“Would you describe yourself as a team player?”
“Me? You must be joking.”
“In your previous employment, what were your expectations?”
“Well, I hoped they’d basically just leave me alone so I could play games on the computer or read a book or something.”
“And were they met?”
“No,” Maurice said sadly. “Alice was always prowling around trying to catch people out, so you had to look busy, even when there wasn’t any work on, which was most of the time. And the phone kept ringing, with people wanting to shout at me about stuff I didn’t know anything about.”
“What strategies did you use to cope with these challenges?”
“Actually,” Maurice said, “I had quite a good one. I got this bit of Blu-Tack, about yay big, and I made it into a little cube and stuck it on the phone between the receiver and the handset, so it looked like the phone was on the hook but actually it was off and they thought I was on a call. They never did find out about that one.”
“That was very resourceful of you,” Mr Nacien said. “It demonstrates an ability to think outside the box. You’ll see just how important that is if you get the job. All right, how would you describe yourself?”
“Me? Oh, I just sort of chug along, you know? When people used to ask me, What do you want to do when you grow up? I told them, as little as possible.”
“Interesting.” Mr Nacien drew his fingers down his chin. “So, what excites you most about working for Carbonec?”
“Getting paid, though I must say, the money you’re offering is rubbish. And getting away at five thirty sharp.”
“What challenges are you looking forward to in this job?”
“Oh, the usual. Making it look like I’m doing something. Figuring out what the he
ll I’m meant to be doing without actually asking anyone, because that always makes you look such an idiot. And not getting found out when I really screw up, of course. That’s a real biggie, isn’t it?”
Mr Nacien smiled. “So if I were to ask you why you’re the best person for this job—?”
“I’d probably laugh myself sick.”
“And how would you feel about supervising two or three junior staff?”
“Dear God, what an appalling idea. The blind leading the blind in pitch darkness on the edge of a cliff. It’d be total chaos.”
Mr Nacien put the cap on his biro and stowed it in his top pocket. “Now, are there any further questions you’d like to ask about us?”
“Not much point, is there?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Mr Nacien replied. “I’ve got – let me see – another two hundred and seven candidates to see, but as soon as we’ve come to a decision, we’ll be in touch. Thank you for your time, and I hope we’ll be seeing more of each other in the near future.”
“I don’t,” Maurice said. “You give me the creeps.”
Mr Nacien smiled. “If you speak to Jackie on the front desk, she’ll give you an antidote to the truth serum. Oh, and you wouldn’t happen to know where Theo Bernstein is, would you?”
“No.”
“No matter. It was nice to meet you, Mr Katz. Good morning.”
The antidote worked almost immediately, but over the next three days he had a number of terrifying relapses, which forced him to stay at home with the door double-locked and the phone off the hook. On the fourth day he put the phone back, and almost immediately cousin Tony from Nottingham rang to say he’d be in London for a week and could he and the rest of the band stay at Maurice’s place? For a moment it was touch and go, but he kept his head and managed to invent an infestation of flesh-eating beetles, which he made sound so convincing that he was awake half the night listening intently for scuttling noises. After that, he reckoned the crisis was past and he was no longer a danger to himself and others.
It was good to smell fresh air again, but apart from that, things seemed pretty bleak. He had no job and no money, and finding Stephanie seemed as impossible as it had before he got the stupid coordinates. The rent would be due any day now, and paying it would take him well past his overdraft limit, but the thought of leaving the flat horrified him. It wasn’t that it was a particularly nice place to live, but he had a dreadful suspicion that it was somehow inextricably linked to Stephanie’s disappearance and, therefore, to getting her back. If he gave it up, she’d be lost forever.
He agonised over it for a day or so, then came to a terrible decision. There was only one thing he could do.
PART TWO
Not a Door.
He called George.
Hello, said George, and how the devil are you? How long’s it been? As long as that? Good Lord. Yes, yes, of course, let’s have a drink or lunch or something. Where are you these days? Still? Actually, that couldn’t be better: I need to run up to town and see to a few things – how about Wednesday? Pop by the London office, say twelveish?
If only, Maurice thought, as he walked through the colossal plate-glass doors, I believed in God. Because if I did that, I’d also believe in the Devil, which means I’d be able to approach Him with an offer to sell him my soul for what I need for the rent, and then I wouldn’t have to be here.
The doors opened into an atrium. It was the sort of thing Kublai Khan might’ve had at Xanadu if he’d had the money, the total lack of taste and the planning permission. Far above his head, a huge stained-glass dome flooded the marble floor with dappled red and green light. A fountain in the exact centre shot up a fire-hose jet of water that didn’t stop rising until it was level with the fifth floor (Human Resources and Accounts). Birds of paradise, imported under special licence from the Spice Islands, wheeled in free flight overhead, occasionally crashing head-on into the practically invisible glass-tube lift and dropping like stones into the frothing water beneath. Two security guards, wearing more body armour than Sir Lancelot, intercepted him before he’d gone two yards; they escorted him to the front desk, where a stunningly beautiful receptionist scanned his biometric data with a tricorder, called up his medical records and psychological profile, ran a criminal record check (2007: 36 mph in a 30 mph zone) and gave him a pass with a small, twinkling hologram of himself set into it like a rare jewel. “George’ll be down in a moment,” she said, giving him a smile that burnt the skin on his cheeks. “Can I get you a frankincense latte and a slice of passion fruit baklava?”
No doubt about it, George had done all right for himself since they were at school together. All in all, he wasn’t surprised. George had always been the smart one. He’d started his own software business, Smartarse Data Solutions, in their GCSE year. By the time the results came through, he was already employing a hundred people – two hundred the next year, and he was flown in by private jet from a meeting in Kyoto to sit his Geography A-level. He couldn’t spare the time to go to university, so he had one built on the roof of his corporate HQ.
“Hello, Maurice.” He looked round and there was George: still impossibly tall, his ears still sticking out like wing-mirrors, still wearing what looked like the same jeans and Blood Geranium T-shirt he’d worn when he was sixteen. Maurice offered a silent prayer that the truth serum was well and truly gone from his system, and forced himself to smile. “Hi, George,” he said.
People who met George for the first time found it hard to understand why he was so universally hated. People who met him for the third time were routinely scanned for weapons by Security, and with good reason. Of course, the X-ray scanners built into the doorframe at HQ were wonderfully unobtrusive and could tell a bunch of keys from a Kalashnikov without setting off a single alarm. Of course; George had designed them himself. Accordingly, they were intelligent enough to qualify for a place at the Sorbonne.
“You’re looking great,” George said. “Would it be OK if we had lunch here in the office? I daren’t leave the building or Kareena will kill me.”
Something splatted on the top of Maurice’s head. He closed his eyes. “Sure, George,” he said.
George laughed. “Those bloody birds,” he said. “They’re just to impress the Japanese.” He lifted his hand an inch or so, and two enormous men in black suits appeared out of nowhere. One of them held Maurice in a gentle but vice-like grip, while the other dabbed at the top of his head with a handkerchief. “This way,” George said. “No, Kurt, it’s all right: he’s with me.”
Maurice followed George. The two enormous men followed Maurice, exactly four yards behind him at all times, until they reached what looked like a perfectly blank marble wall on the far east side of the atrium. “Sorry about this,” George said, as one enormous man bounded forward and dropped a bag neatly over Maurice’s head. “The stupid insurance people insist, I’m afraid. It’s a real pain, but there you are.”
When the bag was removed, a lift door had mysteriously appeared in the wall. George stepped in, Maurice followed and the door sighed shut.
“We had Barack in here last week,” George was saying, “and his people made the most dreadful fuss – there was nearly a gun battle out there. But you’ve got to be firm, haven’t you?”
The lift went up, and up, and up. “Barack who?” Maurice asked.
“So,” George said, “seen anyone from school lately? You heard about Kieran and Shawna? Can you believe it? I suppose at some point the UN will send in a peacekeeping force, but by then it’ll probably be too late. Ah, here we are.”
Something went ting, the door slid back and George stepped out onto, apparently, nothing at all. Maurice hesitated, and looked down. He could see the tops of the heads of people sitting at desks, about twenty feet below.
“Glass floor,” George said with a grin. “Come on.”
Not just the floor; the walls and the ceiling, not to mention the furniture, were all clear glass, some rare and abstruse variety that eluded th
e light almost completely. “We developed it for the security side of the business,” George said. “Stealth technology, and all that. This way.”
Overhead and on either side, fluffy white clouds and a pale-blue sky. He glanced back longingly at the lift door, which slowly faded away. “George,” he said, “when you want to go back down again, how the hell do you find the lift?”
George grinned. “I told them to fix us up some grub in the conference room,” he said. “Oh, watch out, mind the—”
Something whacked Maurice in the face.
“Door. Oh well. It’s OK, nothing broken. Right, sit yourself down and let’s eat.”
George bent at the knee and sat down on thin air. Maurice prodded tentatively with a fingertip until he encountered some kind of resistance, made his best guess, sat down and found himself sprawling on the (invisible) floor. “Sorry,” George said. “To your left, about ten inches, yes, that’s it, you’re there. It’s a bit of a pain till you get the hang of it, but it impresses the hell out of the Scandinavians. Terrine of swan liver with spiced fig and marsala jelly OK to start with? Or they can do you a bacon sandwich if you’d rather.”
The sooner I do it, Maurice told himself, the sooner I can get out of here. “George,” he said, “I need a loan.”
“Sure. How much?”
“It’s the rent, you see. I lost my job, and you know what it’s like finding a place if you’re out of work these days.”
“Of course. How much?”
“I’ll pay it back, I promise, soon as I get another job and—”
“Fifty thousand? Hundred? Hundred and fifty? Dora,” George said to nobody at all, “fetch me my chequebook, there’s a love.” Two seconds later, a beautiful girl in tortoiseshell glasses walked through the wall, smiled and put down a chequebook on the thin air that had to be the table. “Or shall I just leave it blank and you can fill it in when you’ve made your mind up?”
Yes. Maurice thought, but how much is my soul actually worth? Unfortunately, it’s not like second-hand cars – there’s no handy book you can look it up in. At a guess, somewhere between forty and a hundred pounds. Even so, it was a mistake coming here. I should’ve tried putting it up on eBay instead.