Page 17 of Colin Gets Promoted and Dooms the World

My gaze flicked to the man on the other side of the window. He was looking around the room with a groggy expression. “Oh, no thanks,” I murmured politely.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.” I paused to gather my thoughts. “Look, I’m sorry. I think there’s been a misunderstanding. I’m supposed to be interviewing for a job, not—whatever this is.”

Ms. Price tilted her head to one side. “This is your interview, Colin.” She nodded to the button in front of me. “What if I told you that there will be no negative repercussions whatsoever if you press that?”

“For me, or for him?”

“For you. He will definitely experience negative repercussions.”

“Then—”

“Do you want this job?” she interrupted.

I hesitated, my gaze sliding back to the man in the other room. He was wriggling around a little, and I realized belatedly that his wrists had been secured to the arms of the chair. “I’m not sure,” I answered honestly. “This is very weird.”

“There are opportunities here at Dark Enterprises that you will find nowhere else,” Ms. Price told me. “Opportunities to do and be whatever you want.”

As I listened, I watched the man try to free himself. His handsome face now wore a fierce scowl, and the muscles of his chest and arms flexed beneath his thin T-shirt as he struggled against the restraints. The tableau was…compelling.

“An entry-level position here also pays three times more than you make now and includes full benefits.”

I sat up a little straighter at that news.

“All you have to do is press that button.”

My gaze lingered on the restrained man. “If I shock him, I get the job?” I asked slowly.

Instead of answering, she asked a question of her own. “How would it feel, do you think, to grind someone else into the dirt for once?”

I reached out and pressed the button.

On the other side of the glass, the man convulsed in his chair, mouth falling open in a combination of pain and surprise. Then he slumped forward as if unable to hold himself upright.

“Excellent.” Ms. Price pushed a second object toward me, and it took real effort to tear my attention away from the man recovering on the other side of the window.

Sitting next to the button in front of me was now a small dial surrounded by numbers up to ten.

The pointer was set to 1. “You can increase the strength, if you’d like. ”

“Oh, no, that’s—”

“The man sitting in that room is named William,” she broke in smoothly.

“He went to Princeton on a lacrosse scholarship. He can barely string together a sentence, yet he has a high-paying job in his mother’s law firm.

You two are the same age, but his net worth is six times higher than yours.

He has more than fifteen thousand followers on Instagram while you have seven, four of which are bots.

” She watched me. “He’s lived a charmed life. How does that make you feel?”

Resentment smoldered deep inside me as I turned to study the other man. He was trying again to loosen the straps securing him to the chair, mouth moving as he said something inaudible. A lacrosse scholarship? I turned the dial a single notch and pressed the button again.

The shock lasted longer this time, and William was still twitching feebly when I looked back at Ms. Price. “Do I have the job?” I asked, my voice a little unsteady.

Instead of answering, she leaned forward and placed a third object on the table in front of me.

It was a sleek smartphone displaying the Grindr app, the profile that of someone named big_willy_69, its photo a perfectly sculpted male torso.

Before I could do more than notice those details, Ms. Price expertly navigated to the app’s direct messages.

There were a lot of them. She pressed one next to a familiar profile picture, and on the screen appeared a message from… me.

Hi there! I like your photo.

Below was William’s terse response.

Not hot. Blocked.

My face burned. I remembered this particular exchange. “That’s him?”

“Yes.”

Calmly, I reached for the dial and cranked it up to 10.

Then I pressed the button with my hand and kept it there.

We both watched William try to scream past his clenched jaw, tendons bulging from either side of his neck as his body convulsed wildly, face darkening to an ugly purple color.

The chair vibrated and shook with the force of his spasms. Then the window abruptly dimmed, becoming a mirror once more.

I stared at my own reflection, at the cold fury in my eyes, and slowly lifted my hand from the button in front of me.

“I knew you had it in you,” Ms. Price said.

I wondered, sometimes, what happened to William.

Maybe he was still working at his mother’s law firm with a convenient gap in his memories from two years ago.

Maybe he never left the building. To be honest, I didn’t care.

The Williams of this world always landed on their feet, at least until someone strapped them to a chair and shocked them repeatedly.

“Gee, thanks for that lengthy flashback,” Lex said wryly.

I shrugged. “Hey, you asked.”

“And that was your entry interview?”

“Yeah. Neat, right?”

Lex shook their head slowly. “That’s C-suite fast-track stuff.”

“What do you mean?”

“They don’t have you torture someone unless they’re considering you for something big. We had a woman here who was being groomed for middle management, and I think she pulled out someone’s fingernails during her entry interview.”

“Where is she now?” I whispered, rapt.

“Oh, she exploded.”

“She—what?”

“Exploded. She opened the wrong book and went kablooey all over the stacks.”

I swallowed.

“So,” Lex continued, “I guess that explains how you ended up on thirteen. I did wonder, since you don’t strike me as the kind of asshole you usually see clawing their way to the top. You haven’t mentioned an Ivy League degree or your rich parents even once.”

Still processing the idea of being fast-tracked anywhere, I shrugged uncomfortably. “I wanted more than sitting in a cubicle for the next forty years. That’s all.”

“Well, it looks like you got it.” Lex picked up the blood-smeared disc and passed it back to me. “Wherever you found this, I’d get rid of it if I were you. Nothing good comes of messing with Management.”

Studying the disc for a moment, I closed my fist around it. There was no point in getting rid of it now. The damage was done. “Thanks for helping me. I really appreciate it. I would’ve spent weeks wandering around in here before I found anything.”

“Hey, just doing my job.” Lex climbed to their feet and stretched. “Don’t worry about the books. I’ll reshelve them.”

“Okay.” I got to my feet as well. “Thanks again.”

“No problem. I’ll see you around.”

It was tough to concentrate for the rest of the afternoon.

The metallic disc in my pocket felt like it weighed roughly two hundred pounds, and I kept wondering if Management could somehow sense it there.

Probably not, since I wasn’t shrieking while someone slowly tore off my limbs or whatever Management did to employees who crossed Them.

Still, when Ms. Crenshaw called me into her office for the second time that day, a familiar spike of anxiety went through me.

I found her standing in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows, gazing out across a darkened, unfamiliar city that stretched for miles into the distance, illuminated by the faint light of three tiny moons.

I stood there uncertainly, watching her, until she finally turned and noticed me. “Take a seat.”

Sinking into the chair in front of her desk, I nervously rubbed my hands on my chinos.

Instead of sitting as well, however, Ms. Crenshaw returned to her expressionless study of the city beyond her windows.

The silence stretched. Finally, I cleared my throat and asked hesitantly, “Is everything okay, ma’am? ”

Swiveling on one heel, she eyed me for a moment before lowering herself into her own chair. “I’ve received word from Analysis and Logistics that several oracles attempting to divine the source of Monday’s incursion have suffered catastrophic strokes.”

My ears perked up. “That’s terrible,” I said thoughtfully.

“Their deaths are regrettable, yes. But they suggest that whatever was in that elevator is far more powerful than what we’d originally assumed. Powerful enough to destroy those seeking it.”

I didn’t like that people were dying down on the ninth floor, but I still experienced a flash of relief. It sounded like the company’s oracles couldn’t see what I’d done, or if they did, they died before they could tell anyone. Carefully maintaining a solemn expression, I murmured, “I see.”

“That doesn’t concern you, however.” Ms. Crenshaw leaned forward and rested her elbows on her desk, steepling her fingers together.

I had a sudden, uncomfortable memory of my last performance review with Ms. Kettering.

“You’ve survived your first week on the thirteenth floor.

That’s good. Let me clarify something, however.

While some of my colleagues believe in coddling their assistants, I do not.

I believe in testing to failure. It’s a methodology wherein something is subjected to ever-increasing amounts of stress until it breaks. ”

I straightened my spine and gave her what I hoped was a firm and decisive nod.

“I’ve had assistants who broke after a month of my tutelage,” Ms. Crenshaw went on matter-of-factly, “and others who managed to claim a chair on the executive board. I don’t know which path you will take, Colin, but I intend to find out.

” Her lips curved ever so slightly, showing a sliver of teeth, and I flinched despite myself.

“I’m not going to break, ma’am.”

“We’ll see” was all she said, ominously.

I rose to my feet, then paused. “Was I fast-tracked to this floor?”

She raised a single eyebrow.

Licking my lips, I pressed on. “What I mean is, was I always on a trajectory to thirteen?”

Ms. Crenshaw studied me. “Why do you ask?”

“My initial interview. The torture. I wondered if…” I trailed off under her expressionless stare.

“Here at Dark Enterprises, we pride ourselves on recognizing potential and developing it to its fullest extent.” She leaned back in her chair as she spoke.

“Samantha Price was quite impressed by your willingness to realize your ambitions, whatever the cost to others. That kind of work ethic certainly aligns with our corporate values. But now you must impress me, Colin, and however exacting Ms. Price’s standards are, mine are more so. Is that clear?”

I bobbled my head up and down.

“My advice? Worry less about how you ended up on thirteen, and more about how to survive here.” She turned away. “Have a nice weekend.”