Page 52 of Colin Gets Promoted and Dooms the World
“I’m not messing around with an Abomination,” Lex told me with grim finality. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to hide the fact that we destroyed a priceless artifact while hoping that whatever ended Elsabeth isn’t coming after us now. Thanks a lot, Colin.” With a last, disgusted shake of their head, Lex opened the door and stomped out.
I lingered in the small room for another minute or so, trying to process what I’d witnessed there. Then I hurried out into the hallway and immediately came to a halt at the sight of Sunil leaning casually against the wall. Giving me a slow, lazy smile, he said, “That was quite the commotion in there.”
My stomach performed a series of unpleasant backflips. “What are you doing here?”
“Oh, I was just passing by,” he said with a shrug.
“Tamsin said the same thing the other day. I didn’t believe her, either. You’re following me, aren’t you? Spying on me.”
Straightening, he moved closer. “Why would we bother doing that, Harris?” Craning his neck, he tried to peer into the room behind me, and when I pulled the door shut his smile sharpened. “Your friend ran off before I could make sure everything was okay,” he added with an air of false concern. “Is that the same personTamsin met in here the other day? You two are spending an awful lot of time together.”
“We’re working on something important,” I told him, trying not to sound defensive.
“Something that’s going to land you in middle management?”
I met his gaze defiantly. “Yes.”
He smirked. “Reading books and playing with toys isn’t going to impress the board, Harris. It doesn’t matter, though. Kettering’s gone, and until the board appoints a replacement, I have access to unlimited amounts of human resources. Between that and Tamsin’s connections in Transportation, we’re going to land a new investor for the company. Something crazy powerful that will make Management cream Their jeans.” Leaning forward, he fixed me with a malicious grin. “Maybe we’ll offer it your soul as a signing bonus.”
“Is that supposed to scare me?” I asked, as if it didn’t.
Sunil shrugged and put his hands in his pockets. “Enjoy your time up on thirteen while you can. It’s almost over.” Then he brushed past me and walked away.
Eighteen
No more Ouija boards, ever again, I decided during the trip home. I didn’t feel particularly bad for Elsabeth Brünner—she’d made her choices—but I’d sensed her fear and desperation in those final moments. The Thing had found her just like it had found the oracles from Analysis and Logistics. More worryingly, she’d said it was everywhere. I actually looked around the subway car as if I might find it standing there, holding on to an overhead rail while it decided which commuters it was going to devour next.
I didn’t see it, thankfully, but as I scanned the train I noticed belatedly that things were a little…off. Those seated around me huddled in on themselves, shoulders hunched as if waiting for a blow to fall. Even the guy who normally harangued us with Bible passages was subdued, mumbling to himself at the far end of the car. The mood was tense, even fearful. People were starting to wonder if they would make it home or disappear somewhere along the way.
About a minute after leaving 103rd Street station, the train braked, hard. There were a few mutters as we all righted ourselves,and then we sat there, waiting, while the darkness of the tunnel pressed against the grimy windows. Eventually the driver’s voice blared from the intercom, “We have a train stopped ahead of us. MTA workers are on their way. Your patience is appreciated.”
A few people groaned or sighed, but mostly we all stared at our phones and waited. Every news site I checked was running stories about the disappearances in the city, most featuring so-called experts with theories that ranged from an insidious act of terrorism to a widespread hoax perpetrated either by woke libs or fascist right-wingers. The NYPD was being cagey about the number of people who had vanished, but media outlets were estimating it as somewhere north of five thousand, pointing to the avalanche of anecdotes and blurry videos overwhelming social media. There were protests at City Hall and reports of gridlock paralyzing every route out of the city.
Is this what it feels like to be powerful?I wondered as I scrolled through yet another news story. I’d set into motion a chain of events that was affecting millions of people—examined in a certain light, that was pretty badass. All things being equal, however, I would have preferred to get my promotion without becoming responsible for the likely deaths of several thousand New Yorkers. I needed to stop this, and soon, before there was no one left to give me another promotion.
We sat there, unmoving, for almost forty-five minutes, punctuated by occasional monotone announcements from the driver thanking us for our continued patience. Then someone said, “I can see lights out in the tunnel,” and we all turned to peer through the windows. Sure enough, bright, bluish-white beams bounced and skittered along the walls and ground as people holding flashlightsapproached. We heard someone calling loudly from farther up the tunnel, and then the doors to our carriage were pulled open, allowing warm, stale air to flow inside. “Everyone out!” a man’s voice shouted.
Confused and uneasy, we gathered up our things and filed obediently to the open door. Two burly men dressed in military camouflage helped us down to the rock-strewn ground where other military personnel waited, all of them armed with automatic rifles, the light from their headlamps blinding when it swept over us. Barking orders, they gathered us in a long line against the tunnel wall, away from the tracks, and marched us through the hot, fetid darkness back the way we’d come, to 103rd Street station.
That was how we learned that the governor had mobilized the National Guard.
I discovered later that the train in front of us had braked automatically when the dead man’s switch was tripped, presumably when the driver disappeared along with everyone else on board. MTA workers found the train empty except for the belongings left by its former occupants. Security footage showed the driver in her cab one moment and then gone the next, the two separated only by an infinitesimal distortion in the recording.
It took a long time for me to make it home, and I was disquieted and exhausted in equal measure when I finally closed the apartment door behind me. Amira was sitting on the sofa, looking down at her phone while local news played on the TV. It took her a few moments to notice me, and when she did, her smile was clearly forced.
Deciding not to regale her with my tale of commuting woe, I sank down next to her. “What’s wrong?”
She frowned a little. “I’m not sure. It looks like Dr.Cheng ismissing.” That was Amira’s graduate advisor, the woman supervising her PhD and the primary reason Amira had decided to pursue a career in physics. She idolized her.
My heart sank. “Are you sure?”
“She didn’t show up for our seminar this afternoon. No one can get a hold of her.” Amira glanced down at her phone again. “She isn’t answering my texts.”
“I’m sure she’s fine,” I told her, though in fact I wasn’t sure at all. “Maybe her phone isn’t working.” On the TV, people screamed and chanted outside City Hall, waving signs that readTell the Truth!andSAVE US. A cordon of police shoved protesters back while the mayor addressed the crowd from a podium in front of the columned portico, striving for calm but not quite getting there.
Slowly leaning into me, Amira stared at the TV as well. “I’m scared,” she said quietly.
All I could do was put my arm around her shoulders and squeeze.
