Page 10 of Colin Gets Promoted and Dooms the World
“Sunil. Yes. He’s been sabotaging me. Doctoring my reports.”
“I see.” Closing the folder and tossing it back onto her desk, Ms.Crenshaw leaned back in her chair. “What would you do to Mr.Chandola if he were here?”
I blinked at her. “I don’t understand.”
Elbows on her chair’s armrests, she steepled her fingers together. “This is someone who is trying to force you into early retirement. Someone to whom your life—your very existence—is meaningless.” She watched me dispassionately. “If you could do anything to him, what would it be?”
“I…I don’t know.”
A fleeting expression of disappointment crossed her face. Bending forward, she reached for the sleek phone on her desk.
“Wait!” I swallowed thickly. “I…I would make him beg. On his knees.”
Her hand paused above the phone.
Struggling with myself, I went on, the words coming easier the longer I spoke. “I would grind his face into the floor until he apologized. Until hemeantit. Then I’d travel back in time and change thecourse of his entire life so he winds up working as a telemarketer, screamed at all day by strangers while barely making enough to afford the rent on a mold-infested basement apartment in a tiny, boring town hours away from anywhere, his soul shriveling day by day as he wonders where it all went wrong. And then I’d show up and tell him it all went wrong when he messed with me in an alternate timeline, leaving him devastated and wishing he were a better person for the rest of his sad, miserable life.” My chest was heaving with a mixture of adrenaline and savage exultation by the time I finished.
“Inventive,” Ms.Crenshaw observed as she leaned back in her chair.
Lifting one hand, I wiped away the sweat beading on my forehead. “I’ve thought about it a lot,” I said hoarsely.
“I’m glad to hear it. That’s the kind of attitude we like to see here. Uncompromising. Vengeful.”
I fought to get my breathing under control. “You’re not angry with me? I’m not being…terminated?”
“Not at all. In fact, right now you’re interviewing for a position as my assistant.”
I stared at her.
“My last one imploded this morning,” she added, “which is inconvenient.”
Slowly, I nodded. I was sure it was.
A long silence fell as Ms.Crenshaw studied me. “What do you want more than anything, Colin?” she finally asked.
I didn’t hesitate this time. “Power.”
Her eyes were cool and watchful. “Why?”
“Because people with power aren’t bullied or ignored or overlooked. Because I want to do more than sit in a cubicle and enterdata. I want to put a mark on the world so deep that no one will ever forget me.” I swallowed convulsively as I thought of Sunil. “And because there are people who need to pay.”
For the first time, Ms.Crenshaw smiled. “Wonderful,” she said. “I think you’ll do well here.”
Six
I had my promotion.
Everything was going to change now.Everything.No more inspections, no more spreadsheets. I was safe from Ms.Kettering and the Firing Squad, safe from Sunil’s attempts to railroad me into early retirement. As assistant to the CEO—the CEO!—I was in the big leagues now.
I was still lost in an incredulous daze when Ms.Crenshaw sent me down to the fourth floor and an appointment with Personnel. I’d always thought that the drab confines of Human Resources were soul-crushing, but it was nothing compared to this vast expanse of cubicles stretching away into the far distance. Countless banks of fluorescent lights shone down with the harsh illumination of a thousand suns, their hum reminiscent of an enormous swarm of killer bees. Literal signposts stationed throughout the acres of cubicles gradually led me where I needed to go, and everything was so quiet that I could hear my shoes thudding against the brown stain-resistant carpeting.
The employees here certainly seemed efficient, all of them clacking away at their keyboards, desks devoid of photos or plants or other personal touches. At some point in my interminable journey across this corporate hinterland, I started to notice people moving in an eerie unison, reaching out at the same moment to pick up a file from their desk, pausing to extract a highlighter from a drawer. A dozen heads swiveled as one, expressionless faces tracking my progress as I hurried past. No one spoke.
It took me close to fifteen minutes to reach my destination, a tiny cubicle occupied by a middle-aged man with dead eyes and a comb-over. There, I filled out a surprising amount of paperwork, all of it intended to protect the company against legal claims in the event of my death, dimensional translation, disappearance, disintegration, and/or dismemberment. Then the man made a small, practiced incision in the crook of my elbow, fingers clammy against my skin, and caught my blood in a small bowl. He watched me sign everything in triplicate with a steel-nibbed pen that gleamed a dark, liquid crimson as I carefully scratched my blood onto the thick paper, and when I glanced up, I caught him staring into the bowl with a gaze now animated by silent hunger. I thanked him as I left, and as I started back to the elevators—barely visible on the horizon—I was certain that he was already licking the pen clean.
Back in the elevator at last, I studied my reflection in the mirrorlike walls of pure obsidian as I ascended to the thirteenth floor for the second time that day. I was looking at an executive assistant. Maybe it was time to update my look. Something in pinstripes, perhaps—something that screamed confidence and money, though I had very little of, either.
I paused in the act of straightening my bow tie. Why was I smiling like that, all pointed teeth and crazed eyes? Was I having a panicattack? A delayed reaction to my promotion? The elevator began to slow as I lifted hesitant fingers and prodded my face. I wasn’t smiling at all. Baffled, I watched as the gloomy image in front of me leaned closer, mouth opening—
