Page 73 of Colin Gets Promoted and Dooms the World
“Then Management will intercede directly. They will sequester New York in another realm and try to bind the Abomination again. Even if They succeed, the entire world will have watched one of its great cities vanish from existence. The masses will become aware of forces and powers beyond their understanding, leading to decades of instability and paranoia that will make the witch hunts of the past look like amusing diversions. The company will be driven back into the shadows for a time, but Dark Enterprises will survive. We always do.”
Her calm recitation made my skin crawl. She was describing Management’s best-case scenario, and it wasn’t good. Better, perhaps, than a lifeless piece of rock orbiting the sun, but I didn’t want to be sequestered, whatever that meant, or burned at the stake by a mob of panicked normies. “That’s—” Words failed me.
“Did you think this would end happily, Colin?” Ms.Crenshaw inquired icily. “That the unleashing of one of humanity’s most feared and implacable enemies would conclude with everything wrapped up in a neat little bow? I’m sorry to disappoint you.”
Maybe she was right. Maybe a happy ending had never been in the cards after all. “We have to try, though,” I insisted. “We have to destroy that thing before it kills us all.”
“An ambitious goal,” she said wryly. “The executive board willsettle for binding it, if we can.” Glancing at her phone, she added, “The devouring of the city has resumed, so it would appear that the Abomination managed to escape Hell. Analysis and Logistics is working to track its location, and R&D is designing a containment apparatus that requires a number of specialized materials. We have people scouring the planes for some of them, but the most important are human in origin. We haven’t had time to appoint a new HR director, so I need you to go down there and make sure they’re properly motivated.”
I hid a wince. “Why me?”
“Because I’m telling you to do it.” Ms.Crenshaw tapped at her phone, and my own phone vibrated in response. “You have the list of resources we need. Off you go.”
While waiting for the elevator, I checked the list that Ms.Crenshaw had emailed. It consisted primarily of humanity’s worst vices, things like greed, hypocrisy, authoritarianism, cruelty. These darker impulses had created the first Abominations—perhaps they were still drawn to them now. If so, the executive board was constructing a metaphysical honey trap for an enormous wasp.
When I arrived at Human Resources, I left the elevator and turned right, following the same path I’d taken every morning for two years. Things seemed subdued, unsurprisingly, and as I walked along the edge of the bullpen I noticed a number of empty cubicles. Their occupants either hadn’t survived the events of yesterday or had opted not to return to work. Either way, they were dead.
Inspirational posters featuring adorable animals no longer covered the walls in what had been Ms.Kettering’s office. Now it looked bleakly sterile, its only occupant Sunil, sitting at his desk in one corner of the room. He should have been out on the floor, rallying what was left of the department, but instead he was playingsolitaire on his computer. His unprofessionalism suddenly enraged me. The company was incrisis, and he couldn’t even be bothered to do his job.
“You realize we’re in an emergency, right?” I demanded from the doorway, voice hard.
He jumped a little and turned to look at me, eyes burning with dislike. “What are you doing here, Harris?”
“I need the most recent numbers you have for resources cached here in the building.”
“Kiss my ass.”
“And contract gonorrhea? No thanks.”
Deliberately, he rose from his desk. “What did you say to me?”
“I said, I don’t want to come within half a mile of your ass,” I responded with chilly anger, “but here we are. Now. Get me those numbers.”
Sunil stalked toward me, voice hissing from behind clenched teeth. “Who the fuck do you think you are? You can’t talk to me like that.”
“I just did.” Like everything else, Sunil no longer mattered. He couldn’t intimidate me now. “The board wants a bunch of resources funneled to R&D by close of business, so we don’t have time for your toxic masculine bullshit. Go back to your computer, call up your latest quota report, and show me what’s available.”
Looming over me, Sunil grabbed the front of my cardigan in one fist. “I’m going to put you on your knees,” he growled.
Unbidden, an incantation floated into my mind, the same one I’d practiced endlessly for Ms.Crenshaw. Looking up into his eyes, I spoke the words with flawless intonation while focusing my will on the hand holding me. Greenish flames burst to life, licking hungrily at his skin, and he stumbled back with a yell. I spoke another wordand the fire died as abruptly as I’d conjured it, leaving his shirt cuff blackened and smoking.
For a long moment, neither of us moved. Eyes wide, he cradled his hand close to his chest, the skin reddened and raw. “You—” He stopped, then tried again. “You just—”
I didn’t let him finish. “While you’ve been down here playing solitaire and jerking off in the bathroom, I’ve been learning the secrets of the fuckinguniverse. You think you’re hot shit, Sunil? You’ve spent the last four years running errands for a mid-tier exec. I work for the CEO, and she’s taught me things that would blow your puny mind.”
“You can’t talk to me like that,” he said again, sounding less certain this time.
Contemptuously, I turned my back on him. “Send me those numbers ASAP, or I’ll come back down here and set your junk on fire.”
I was waiting at the elevators when his voice roared across the bullpen. “Harris!We’re not done here!” A few heads appeared over the cubicle walls as he came after me, striving to regain his usual confident swagger, crowding into my personal space. Rather than shrinking back the way I had the day before—had it really only been a day?—I stared up at him and waited while my former colleagues watched.
“I still know what you did,” he said, his voice now a low snarl. “You used an angel to try to stop that…thatthingthat showed up yesterday, and you failed. In fact, you probably made everything worse. I can’t evenimaginewhat the board will do to you when they find out.”
I let the moment stretch well beyond the point where it became uncomfortable before asking, “You saw what happened to Tamsin, right?”
He blinked, sneer faltering. “Yeah. She’s dead. Because of you.”
“Wrong. She’s dead because shefuckedwith me. So go ahead and run to the board. In fact, why don’t you come with me right now?” I made myself smile. “We’ll see if you make it to thirteen.”
