by Tom Holt
“Yes,” she said. “But this one actually worked.”
“Ah.” He thought for a moment, then said, “Hang on, though. The JH88C works. Any rate, I’ve never had any sent back, so they must be all right.”
Slight pause; then she said, “The JH88C creates an interdimensional bubble capable of supporting one adult human for up to forty-eight hours at a time, while the inbuilt matter/energy transfiguration unit allows limited holographic imaging for a strictly limited range of pre-programmed fantasy activities. Van Spee’s version was permanent, and you could do anything you liked in there.”
“Really?’He raised his eyebrows.’Cool.”
“Cool,” she agreed, “except that it did all sorts of horrible things to the real world. But he didn’t care about that. Not a nice man.”
“Obviously.” He thought for a moment, then said, “You know a lot about it—”
“For a SatNav, you mean?” She didn’t say it nastily or anything, but he got the message. “I don’t just do quickest-way-from-A-to-B, you know.”
“That’s for sure,” he said. “You know, I went to this launch meeting about the JH88C, and they told us all about it and the points we should be stressing to customers and all that, but they didn’t say anything about interdimensional bubbles or blowing up planets.”
“Didn’t want to overload you with stuff you didn’t need to know, presumably.”
“I guess so.” Pause; thought. “But you know—”
“After six hundred yards, take the first exit.”
So he did; and a sociopath in a Daf sixteen-wheeler tried to carve him up on the inside, which provoked him into the use of intemperate language, and after that he’d forgotten what they’d been talking about; and soon afterwards they turned into Frobisher Way, and she said, “You have now arrived at your destination,” and he parked the car and went in to the office.
“Oh, it’s you,” said Julie on reception. “You’re late.”
“Am I?”
She nodded. “He’s waiting for you,” she said. “In the small interview room.”
“Ah,” he said. “Lucky me.”
As he trudged slowly through the industrial Axminster, he ran through a short list of possibilities. Get rid of the most unlikely ones first: he’s pleased with me, he wants to give me a pay rise, he wants to promote me. Yes indeed; and the pig now boarding at gate number six is the 17:09 scheduled flight to Mogadishu. Rather more probable: he’s pissed off at me, he’s really pissed off at me, he’s really seriously pissed off at me—
He knocked on the door, waited for the familiar grunt, and went in. At the far end of the room, his huge pink face reflected in the highly polished table top, sat Mr Burnoz, area manager; not a pleasant sight, but not so bad if you’re expecting it. Opposite him was some scraggy kid in glasses.
“You wanted to see me, Mr—”
“Come in, sit down.” Mr Burnoz turned his head and smiled at the scraggy kid. Female, he noted, more than a passing resemblance to a weasel. “Angela, I’d like you to meet Chris Popham, one of our sales reps. Chris, this is Angela—” some surname he didn’t catch”— who’s joining us for a month as part of her degree course.” Burnoz smiled hugely, as if he was trying to catch the sun in his teeth. “Angela’s taking advantage of our sponsored graduate-intake programme. Ultimately we’re hoping she’ll be joining us at Kettering, meanwhile we’re giving her this opportunity to get some front-line hands-on experience in basic marketing.”
A chill sensation, like a column of frozen ants climbing up his leg. “That’s great,” Chris said through a fixed smile. “How do I—?”
“We thought it’d be a really good idea if Angela sat in with you while you do your rounds for the next six weeks,” said Mr Burnoz, cheerful as a game-show host, oblivious as an icebreaker grinding through permafrost. “You can show her what it’s really like in the trenches, so to speak, the raw, bloody cut and thrust of modern marketing. Not something you can get a feel of from books or sitting in front of a computer screen, I’m sure you’ll agree. I know Angela’s really looking forward to it.”
In which case, Chris thought, never under any circumstances play poker with this child for money, since she clearly guards her emotions like a dragon on a pile of gold.
“Absolutely,” he heard himself croak. “Great idea.”
“Splendid,” said Mr Burnoz, as the scraggy kid shifted her head a fraction to the left and gave him a look that would’ve separated paint. “In that case, why don’t you pick her up outside the building here at, what, let’s say six-fifteen tomorrow morning, and you can take it from there.”
Chris hoped he’d managed not to let the pain show in his face. “All right, then,” he said. “I’ll look forward to it.”
The raw, bloody cut and thrust of modern marketing. That was, he told himself as he slouched back across the pure-wool tundra, one way of describing it. But offloading a trainee—and not just a trainee: a graduate trainee, a graduate bloody trainee who hadn’t even graduated yet, a kid—on him was a refinement of cruelty he wouldn’t have thought anybody, even Mr Burnoz, was capable of. It was heartless, it was vicious, savage, inhuman and unnatural; furthermore, he was at least ninety-nine-point-nine-eight per cent sure that Mr Burnoz hadn’t meant it that way. Far from it. Somebody—Kettering, presumably—had sent Mr Burnoz a memo saying offload this skinny kid on one of your reps, and Mr Burnoz had chosen him at random, or because he’d seen his name on a report or an expenses claim at some point recently, and had recalled it when faced with the chore of placing the trainee... Arguably, that was worse. Which would you rather be: the martyr on the lonely gallows, or the hedgehog squashed flat by the artic whose driver hadn’t even seen you?
Back into reception, where Julie—she was married, and every time she mentioned her husband Chris couldn’t help thinking of those birds in Africa who live by picking shreds of meat out of the jaws of crocodiles—handed him a sheaf of yellow While You Were Out notes, which he stuffed into his briefcase without looking at them. A trainee, he muttered to himself as he splashed through puddles in the car park, a sodding kid. And six-fifteen in the bloody morning.
He’d started the car and let in the clutch before he remembered; and then he felt a little better. Today was Wednesday, Karen’s evening class, which meant... He smiled, eased the car into gently purring motion, and drove gracefully home, stopping to let other people go at junctions.
There was a note on the kitchen table: no food. Chris acknowledged it with a slight nod. Sometimes, though rarely, Karen cooked. He didn’t hold it against her; he guessed it was something she felt she had to do now and again, and it was probably just as well that she got it out of her system, rather than bottling it up and getting some sort of a complex. Nonetheless, in their house the definition of good food was like the proverbial definition of good news. He’d get a burger instead, or a kebab. Things were looking up.
Chris changed quickly, lynching his suit on a wire hanger and pulling on a pair of jeans, transferred his wallet, phone and keys to his civilian jacket, checked the mercifully mute answering machine and lunged back out again, walking quickly without actually running, as if escaping from a POW camp. A glance at his watch told him he was cutting it fine, for which he had Mr Burnoz and the skinny teenager to thank. As he turned the corner by the pillar box, he realised that he was rehearsing an opening line in his head. He wondered about that, just briefly, but so-whatted away the tender shoots of guilt. My evening off, he told himself. I deserve it.
She’d got there first; she always did. She’d bagged a table—not too close to the door, the bar or the toilets—and bought the drinks. She always did it, and he’d never once commented on it. Furthermore, she always smiled when she saw him. He couldn’t think of anybody else who did that.
(But that’s OK, Chris told himself, his inner voice just a touch nervous inside his head. That’s the difference between a permanent might-as-well-be-married girlfriend and a, well, a friend. A friend is some
one who likes you.)
“Sorry I’m late,” he said, dropping into his seat. “Held up at the office. Don’t ask. No,” he added, as his fingers closed around the cool, damp body of the glass, “Ask. I need to whine at somebody.”
“Fine,” she said. “Whine away.”
So he whined: Mr Burnoz (she knew all about him by now), the trainee, six-fifteen in the morning. She nodded at just the right times, precisely the right tempo and degree of spinal flex, the murmurs and tongue-dicks interpolated at exactly the right moments. All fake, of course; but somehow, that didn’t spoil it. Quite the reverse, in fact. Chris knew perfectly well that if her boss called her in and assigned her a trainee to babysit for six weeks, she’d accept the assignment as an interesting and worthwhile challenge, and by the time the six weeks were up the trainee would scuttle back to college with a renewed sense of purpose, and quite likely they’d send each other Christmas cards for the rest of their lives. So of course she didn’t understand why he was ranting about the bitter injustice of it all, but nevertheless she was pretending to, and that was really very kind—
“Anyway,” he said (rant over; and yes, he felt a whole lot better now), “that’s quite enough of that.”
“Yes,” she replied, with a very slight nod of her head. “So, how’s Karen? I haven’t heard from her forages.”
“Oh, same as usual.” He was frowning, for some reason. “Still doing the evening classes. And working late.”
She absorbed the information without any show of opinion. It was a special talent of hers. “She always was a busy bee,” she added. “I remember her in our A-level year—”
“You can’t talk,” Chris felt constrained to point out. “You were worse.”
She nodded. “Still am,” she said. “All work and no play makes Jill a senior executive officer and deputy head of department. Of course,” she added, “it helps if you enjoy what you do.”
He frowned a little. “Quite,” he said. “Killed anything interesting lately?”
“As a matter of fact, yes. We had a level-three infestation just outside Faversham, and it was my turn. Bloody Robinson tried to gazump me, but I insisted. Two of them,” she went on, fiddling with the rim of her glass. “A nesting pair.”
In spite of himself Chris was impressed. “They’re supposed to be particularly nasty, aren’t they?”
Nod. “We eventually got them cornered in the toilets of a sort of Happy Eater place—me, Derek and old George Ruffer—he’s supposed to be semi-retired now but he still turns out when we’re short-staffed. They had to cone off two lanes of the motorway. Got them in the end, though.”
“Rather you than me,” Chris said, with genuine feeling. “I really don’t know how you can do that,” he went on. “I mean, quite apart from the danger. I just can’t get my head around how you go about it. Mentally, I mean. You wake up, coffee and cereal, what shall I wear to work today, seat on the train if you’re lucky, and then, ten minutes after you’ve clocked in you’re out there with a suitcase full of weapons fighting the forces of primeval darkness. I don’t think I could face it, really.”
Jill shrugged. “It’s interesting,” she said. “Also useful, you’ve got to admit.”
“Dirty job but someone’s got to do it?” Chris pulled a face. “Come on,” he said, “that’s hot the real reason.”
“Very true.” She smiled. “The real reason is, if I stick at it for another three years—”
“And manage not to get killed or horribly mauled—”
“Yes, quite. If I stick at it three more years, I’m practically guaranteed the next junior secretaryship when one crops up, which otherwise I wouldn’t have a hope in hell of being considered for until I’m at least forty. And after that—”
Chris pulled another face, and Jill laughed again. “Well, I’m sorry, that’s just how I am,” she said. “I like being ambitious, it keeps things interesting. I know it doesn’t suit you, and that’s fine. I guess I’m just not a rut person. And if it means having to kill a few demons now and again, there’s worse ways of making a living. Accountancy. Insurance. Anything with children.”
“Or selling,” he said. “Now there’s a dead-end career if you like.”
“Quite.” Jill grinned. “Look at you, for example. Seven years of devoted service, and they land you with a trainee. Give me a nice, straightforward demon any time.”
Chris realised he was scowling, but made no effort to stop. “Ah well,” he said. “I didn’t go to university, so what can I expect?”
She didn’t react; she never did. But Chris felt something click into place between them, separating them, and (as always) wished he hadn’t said it. Meanwhile, she was looking at him, and he could read the message as clearly as though she had a ticker-tape machine on her forehead. It’s not just because she’s a trainee, he read, it’s because she’s a graduate trainee. Can’t forgive her for that, can you? He shrugged, and she knew him well enough to accept it as a retraction, a reset to zero, as though the U-word hadn’t been said out loud that evening.
“Changing the subject,” he said briskly (and a slight glow in Jill’s eyes meant she approved), “there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you, since you know all about the business and everything.”
“I do,” she said. “Go on.”
So he told her all about the DW6 mystery; but he hadn’t got very far when she stopped him.
“How do you mean,” Jill said, looking uncharacteristically blank, “powdered water?”
Chris looked at her. “You’re kidding me, right?”
But she wasn’t, because she didn’t do that sort of thing. He paused, while the world went all to pieces and slowly re-formed around him. “Are you seriously telling me you’ve never heard of—?”
Jill frowned. “Come to that” she replied, “are you seriously telling me there’s such a thing as powdered water?”
“Apparently.” Chris shrugged. “At least, it’s this sort of very fine grey powder, like a kind of mixture of talc and soot. It comes in a plastic tub with a kidproof lid, you can have the one-kilo size or the five-hundred—”
“Powdered water?”
“That’s what it says on the label,” he replied, ever so slightly defensively. “Mind you, I’ve never actually seen it in action, so to speak. But—”
Jill was focusing on him. He knew that look. It was lucky she didn’t wear glasses, or she’d burn holes in things. “It’s a gag thing, surely. Like pet rocks and bottled LA smog, novelty Christmas gifts for sad people.”
Chris shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he replied. “We don’t do stuff like that.”
Now Jill raised her eyebrows; not a good sign. Two gym mistresses and a maths teacher had needed counselling, back in Year Ten. “Does it say on it how you’re supposed to use it? I mean, are there instructions on the tub?”
Another headshake. “All it says is, instant powdered water, just add...”
Pause. She was thinking. “Just add?”
“And then three dots,” he told her. “Just add dot dot dot. Oh, and there’s a lot of legal stuff: for use as a water substitute only, may contain traces of—”
“Just add.” Jill’s thoughtful frown had escalated into a scowl. “That’s silly,” she said.
“Yes.” His turn to frown. “Really, haven’t you heard of it? I thought you knew all about—well, trade stuff. Magic artefacts and their properties. Didn’t you do a—?”
“A course, yes,” Jill said. “In my second year at Loughborough. And yes, we did everything, you name it, from mandrake roots to elixirs of eternal youth.” A thought struck her; Chris could see the ripples of impact in the lines appearing on her forehead. “Is it a fairly recent thing?” she asked. “Only I suppose it could be a recent invention, hence not covered in the course.”
Shrug. “Don’t think so,” he replied. “I get the impression from customers that they’ve been ordering it from us for years.”
“Powdered water, for crying out l
oud.” Now he’d done it, a question to which Jill didn’t know the answer. She hated those. “And you’ve no idea what the people who buy it use it for?”
“That’s what I wanted to ask you.” Now he was starting to feel guilty. She took things seriously. Something like this could spoil her whole day. “I wish I hadn’t asked you now. Only I was sure you’d—”
“No, that’s fine.” She sounded like she was having trouble remembering he was there. “I’ll ask around at work,” she said, making an effort to break free of the mystery. “Someone’s bound to have... And you sell a lot of this stuff?”
“Hundreds of kilos,” Chris replied. “One of our best lines. Most of the places I go’ve got a standing order.”
“Oh. Oh well. As soon as I’ve found out about it, I’ll tell you. Just add,” Jill repeated, the frown coming back and changing her face into one he hardly recognised. “Just add what, though? And why bother? I mean, it’s not as though water’s all that hard to come by in this country. For export, yes, I could see the point. But when all you’ve got to do is turn on a tap—”
This could go on all night, Chris realised, and it wasn’t the way he wanted to spend his evening off. If he wanted tension and one-sided conversations, he could talk to Karen— “Anyway,” he said, a little louder than he’d meant to, “how’s everything with you? Apart from work, I mean,” he added quickly.
“What? Oh, fine.”
“Heard from any of the others lately?”
He was on firm ground there. Jill had taken on herself the duty of collating and distributing detailed updates on everybody in their year, and needless to say, she did it very well. “Paul’s still with the BBC, of course, he’s producing gardening programmes now. Amelia’s transferred from the Tank Corps to Signals. Sara got deported from Bolivia for raising awareness about something or other; she’s being very smug about that. Colin’s still on the run, there was a sighting in Leeds about six weeks ago, they assume he’s trying to leave the country on a false passport—”
