Page 46 of Concluded (The Bureau #13)

“Show respect. Obey their orders. Put aside your personal desires. It’ll be worth it in the long run. Imagine what you and I could accomplish together. But not yet. Bide your time.”

Before he could decide how to respond to this, she rose to her feet. “Let’s go talk to Garrick,” she said briskly.

* * *

Spurling waited for them in a modest-size room with a glass wall that overlooked a hillside covered in cultivated grapevines.

A television with a gaming setup dominated one wall, but the set wasn’t turned on.

Spurling sat in a leather armchair, holding a highball glass full of amber liquid.

A bottle of bourbon perched on the table beside him.

Today he wore tennis shoes, khakis, and a green golf shirt with a pair of sunglasses hanging from the front placket.

Irina glided over, bent down to kiss his cheek, and then arranged herself on the arm of the chair, one hand lightly massaging Spurling’s shoulder.

Dee stood awkwardly as they both stared at him, then he moved to sit in the chair across from them.

But that proved to be slightly awkward too, as it was too low and his knees stuck up.

“I trust you slept well,” said Spurling lightly. He sipped his drink, watching Dee over the edge of the glass. “I don’t have much time, but you can ask a few questions, if you want.”

A few. Dee tried to decide what information would be most helpful to the Bureau, if he ever managed to get it to them. “Who’s in charge and what are they trying to accomplish?” There. That was pithy enough.

Spurling drained his glass and refilled it. He didn’t offer any to Dee. Maybe he knew from his experiences with Irina that Dee couldn’t drink the stuff—assuming it was a djinn thing and not a personal quirk—or maybe the guy was just a jerk. In either case, he drained the refill before replying.

“The world’s screwed up,” he finally said.

“Has been for a long time. I don’t have to tell you that.

Birthrates skyrocketing among people who shouldn’t be reproducing, while the smart ones, the healthy ones, have hardly any kids.

And instead of rewarding hard work and intelligence, we just give handouts.

We’ve let ourselves drown in emotions and subverted the natural order of things. ”

Oh, great. Spurling was a racist on top of it all. Probably also a misogynist, judging from how he treated Irina. And a classist. Maybe a homophobe too.

“I want answers, not a lecture,” said Dee, fighting the urge to squirm in the uncomfortable chair.

“This is an answer. There are some people who are working to improve things. Some guys, they’re ready to give up on the planet altogether and move to Mars, but that’s bullshit.

This is our planet. So a few of us have formed a coalition.

We’ve all got brains, money, power. The will to make things right again. ”

“And how are you going to do that?”

Spurling took his time with another refill.

There was something… off about him. Not just what he was saying, but also his physical self.

Irina had implied that he was human, and he certainly looked it.

But then so did Dee. You didn’t have to have horns or giant wings to be…

something else. If a creature had suddenly come bursting through Spurling’s chest like something out of a horror movie, Dee would have been grossed out and startled but not especially surprised.

Nothing burst out, though.

“Do you know what disruptive innovation is, Dee?”

“No.” But he was pretty sure he was about to find out.

After flashing a superior smile and taking another long swallow of whiskey, Spurling set down the glass, apparently so he could motion with his hands while speaking.

“Disruptive innovation is when something comes along and completely changes how people do things. Mass-producing cars—starting with the Model-T—was one. That replaced horses. Streaming services. Remember when we had to watch a TV show on a particular day and time or drive to Blockbuster to rent a movie? Smartphones. Online one-stop shopping with fast shipping, like Amazon. Do you get the gist of it?”

Dee nodded.

“Okay, well, those are all examples of marketplace disruptions. There are other kinds too. Back in the eighteenth century, Sir William Blackstone thought it would be a great idea to summarize several centuries of English court decisions—the common law—into a single multivolume set. Even our Supreme Court still cites his work. Several decades later, Sir Robert Peel completely restructured how policing works. We’re still following his principles, at least theoretically.

Disruptions can be political, social, environmental, religious… .”

For every minute that Spurling was blathering away, Achilles was stuck somewhere, suffering. Dee balled his hands into fists and took a few deep breaths. “I get it.”

Spurling leaned forward, his expression the most animated that Dee had yet seen. “What my partners and I are doing, kid, is disrupting everything . When we’re done, the leeches will be gone. Survival of the fittest, right?”

Dee felt physically ill. The ideology didn’t shock him, but he had the gut feeling that these plans weren’t just possible, they were probable. And imminent.

“How?” he managed to ask.

“We have a variety of mechanisms in place. It’s a multi-faceted approach.

Disinformation, distractions, diseases, divisiveness.

” He spread his hands, palms up, as if to signal that this was no big deal.

“We use our tools, large and small.” He patted Irina’s leg, rather hard, apparently to indicate that she was one of those tools. She beamed at him.

“I could be one of those tools.” Dee phrased this somewhere between a statement and a question.

“Could be. Depends what you can do. Ashley indicated that you could do a lot, but you got rid of her before she found your limits. Hell, I guess the fact that you ended her tells us something already. She was a tough cookie.” He chuckled, apparently not grieving the loss.

Then he looked more serious. “Also depends on whether we can trust you.”

“I told you—I’ve had enough of the Bureau. I don’t really care about you guys either, but I do care about myself. And I figure my chances are better on this side.”

Spurling’s eyes looked ordinary enough, pale blue and a little watery. But they creeped Dee out. He felt as if there was a camera hidden behind them, as if someone—or something—was watching him too.

“Well!” Spurling clapped loudly, making Dee jump. “As it happens, we’ve got a little test to prove both your strength and your loyalties.”

“A test?” He wasn’t going to like this, Dee was certain of that.

“Yup. All you gotta do is grant me one wish. Damnation, I wish to start a war.”