Page 28 of Colin Gets Promoted and Dooms the World
“He’s amazing,” I agreed as I slowly peeled myself off the door and wandered toward her. I felt punch-drunk, dazed. “Way out of my league, though. I mean,absurdlyout of my league.” Slumping onto the sofa next to her, I stared up at the plaster ceiling and its spiderweb of thin gray cracks. I was both elated and despondent, which was a confusing mixture of emotions—elated because it was the best date I’d ever had, and despondent because I was sure he’d wake up tomorrow and realize I was nothing special.
“Stop that,” Amira told me sternly. “Now. Sit up and tell me absolutely everything. Don’t leave out a single detail.”
As I did so, something unfamiliar and a little scary took root somewhere deep down inside me:hope. It had been a long time sinceI’d last allowed myself to believe that good things were on their way. Even now, I resisted that feeling because I didn’t want to jinx myself by embracing it. I couldn’t help it, though. Eric made me hopeful.
Maybe everything would be okay after all.
Twelve
After my date with Eric,I was on cloud nine. Nothing—not even sinister promises from world-devouring monsters—could dent my mood. I drifted through Sunday in a pleasant haze, smiling at the surly woman who lived across the hall and giving a rapturous play-by-play of our date to a pair of very nice Jehovah’s Witnesses who made the mistake of approaching me while I was running errands. That same feeling persisted into Monday morning as I crossed the echoing lobby at Dark Enterprises, waving cheerfully at the receptionist while she ignored me. Waiting at the elevators was Lydia, another executive assistant who worked for the fearsome head of Personnel, Ms.Yamada. I’d first encountered Lydia while she was trying to blot blood out of her silk blouse, and after running into her several more times I’d realized that she always had blood somewhere on her person. It was probably because of all the performance reviews she oversaw for Ms.Yamada, but she must have been really hands-on to be hit by so many arterial sprays.Despite the perpetual blood spatter, though, Lydia was friendly and surprisingly noncreepy, which I appreciated.
“Good morning,” she murmured.
“Hi, Lydia. How are you?”
“Oh, you know. It’s going to be another busy day.” She made a face.
Nodding sympathetically as one of the elevators arrived, I waited for her to enter before following. “Ms.Crenshaw is showing me how to divine the future this morning,” I told her while she pressed the button for thirteen. “I’m looking forward to it.”
“How fun!” she said enthusiastically. Then her expression grew serious. “Try not to peer too deeply, though. I once knew someone who caught a glimpse of his own death. He always said it didn’t bother him, but he developed an irrational fear of pocket change.” Lydia shook her head sadly. “In the end, someone threw a penny off the top of the Chrysler Building.”
“And it went through his skull and killed him?” I guessed in a horrified whisper.
“Oh, no. It landed on the sidewalk. But it startled him so badly that he stepped out into the street and was decapitated by an antique mirror being carried by a bike courier.” She thought about it for a moment. “It’s funny, isn’t it? You’d think he would have been more afraid of mirrors. Or bike couriers.”
I considered this in silence until we reached the thirteenth floor. As we both departed the elevator, Lydia said, “Why don’t you join me for lunch today? Noon, in the cafeteria.”
“Sure,” I said, still thinking about decapitations. “That sounds nice.”
Lydia headed off to get blood sprayed on her while I made myway to Ms.Crenshaw’s office, now decidedly less excited about looking into the future. My steps slowed abruptly as another thought occurred to me. What if therewasno future? What if I peered through time and saw nothing but that faceless Thing devouring the last of our world? Would my brain explode like the oracles down in Analysis and Logistics?
Quickly running through potential excuses I could use to get out of this lesson, I concluded that nothing short of a catastrophic and life-threatening accident would help. Thus, it was with some misgivings that I soon found myself trying to divine the future with a set of human teeth while Ms.Crenshaw watched from the other side of her desk.
“What do you see?” she asked. Her phone dinged quietly, and she glanced at its screen.
Rattling the teeth between my hands, I let them spill across the glass surface with a sound like a macabre xylophone. “Uh.” I squinted down at the teeth and tried to read something in their scattered arrangement. Was that a body with four legs? “You’re going to adopt a puppy?” I ventured, my voice rising uncertainly.
“I’m allergic.”
I tilted my head to one side, then the other. “The stock market is going to rise,” I guessed, trying to sound more definitive.
Ms.Crenshaw arched an eyebrow.
“It’s going to rain tomorrow,” I blurted, which was cheating because I’d checked the forecast on my way in to work.
Shaking her head in disappointment, she rose to her feet. “You need to open your consciousness andsee. The answers are right in front of you.”
I stayed in my chair. “What do you see, then?”
She turned her head to peer down at the yellowed teeth strewnacross her desk. “You have a very unpleasant surprise awaiting you,” she said after a moment, her dark eyes flicking back to me.
I swallowed uneasily. “Great. But…who am I talking to? I mean, who’s sending me these messages about the future?”
“No one. You are simply opening your mind to probabilities that already exist.” She crossed the room to take her bright blue suit jacket from where it hung next to the door. “There are forms of divination in which one asks questions of particular entities, but those are generally much riskier.”
“Entities like—?”
“Those that exist beyond the limits of conventional reality, usually. They have a perspective that we lack.” Shrugging on her jacket, she brushed a piece of lint from her lapel. “The Eternal Ones, for example, dwell outside of time, though asking them for favors often comes at the price of one’s sanity. The spirits of the damned are easier to manage, but reaching across the Veil can have unexpected and dangerous consequences. And then there are the Prophets of the Black Sun, if you don’t mind people who wear socks with sandals and refuse to be vaccinated.”
