Robert Bennett - The Company Man

“But as we spoke he seemed to change. It took place gradually, over a few hours, but I noticed after a while. His accent changed. Became American, Southwestern, like mine. He loosened up. And then we started talking. Not talking about work or prison or his past, but about me. About becoming Presbyterian. About Nap Lajoie and horses and Kipling. Things I loved. And we talked for hours. Hours and hours.

“And suddenly I had no idea why I had been so worried about this prisoner. He was a great fellow, smart and cheery. Like a kindred spirit. I told him so, told him I was astonished to find him here in prison. And that was when he cracked a little. Just a little. He looked at me, so sad, and asked if maybe he didn’t belong there. Maybe prison was where he should be. I told him no, no, a man like you is made for great things. Prison is no place for a man with such potential. And he nodded like he was agreeing. But, you know, I don’t think he ever really believed me. I think he would always believe that he belonged in that prison. That he deserved it, somehow.

“But I signed him. And when I came up I found Brightly and his men busy as bees, writing down this and talking about that. They had been watching, you see. I told them I had no idea why such a man was in prison, he seemed like a worthy man to me. Surely he must have had understandable reasons for his actions. And Brightly smiled at me and he said, ‘Evans, did you even get that man’s name?’

“Well, I was astounded. I’d forgotten, and I couldn’t believe it. I started to tear open the briefcase to see what he’d signed on all the forms when Brightly told me not to bother. They knew who he was. He was a smuggler and raider out of India, ex-British colonial. Son of an ambassador, they figured, been living off our shipping lines for years. They’d tried to catch him but, well, he always seemed to know when we were coming. It was like trying to catch a ghost. When they caught him it wasn’t out of any cleverness of their own, he was raving drunk in some bar and bragging. Then they tossed him in prison, and… and he survived. Which, really, was remarkable. Do you know, by any chance, how long a white man survives in a prison over there? Or any man? I can guarantee it’s not long. But he survived. Like he just knew when trouble was heading his way.

“And then, Brightly said, there was what he’d done in the cell in there. Hadn’t he changed? Hadn’t he somehow turned into the man I wanted to meet, the man I’d most like to talk to? And made me a friend. Did it in less than four hours, too. Said he’d done it to three other inquisitors. Turned them around and made them his. And then Brightly explained.” Evans frowned, thinking. “He said… Well. Child, you may think I’m mad for saying this, but-”

“I know what he can do,” Samantha said quietly.

Evans looked at her, stunned. “You do?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“Just from watching him. And from things he said. Then I asked and he explained it to me himself. It doesn’t seem like a gift too often. It seems more like a disease.”

“Yes,” said Evans, still shaken. “Yes, I rather expect it does. You’re cleverer than me, my girl. Cleverer by far. Were you mad? Angry?”

“I was. At first.” She paused. “I do wish you had told me,” she said, stiffly.

He smiled feebly. “I wished I could have. Believe me, I know the anger you felt. I was furious at him. And at Brightly. I was furious he had exposed me to that man, but he said he had to see what would happen, just to see if what the prisoner had done to the other interrogators was coincidence. He’d been doing it all day, you see. And they needed a real signature on that paper, he said. A real executive. I didn’t know that was a load of hooey at the time, of course Brightly outranked me, he always has. But I believed it, and Brightly told me how a man like that might be useful. Might be useful for the company in these dangerous times. ‘Come on, man,’ he said. ‘Think of the company. Think of Willie, do it for Willie.’ Willie being William McNaughton, you see. And I said, ‘Do what, exactly?’

“And then he asked me if I was happy. Happy there in Pakistan. Using outhouses and riding horses everywhere and having to learn a new damn language every ten miles, he said. Asked me if I’d like to take up a job here, at Evesden Central Control. In the Nail itself.

“Well, I was stunned. I’d only been here once for a geology conference. Put on a presentation for a bunch of keen, clever young men who tore me apart. I asked him what I would do. And he said all I had to do was take care of their new man. The man downstairs. They didn’t really even know his name or how old he was. Said I had to learn that and then it was up to me to control him. To be his better. To make him useful for Willie and the company.

“And so I went downstairs. And he introduced himself for the first time. And that’s how I met Hayes. We talked some more and he signed on and laughed like it was all some grand joke. Maybe it was. I’m not sure.”

Evans sat in silence for a great while. Then he sighed and adjusted his glasses. “I’m not stupid. I know Brightly handpicked me as a go-between. Between himself and Hayes. Brightly doesn’t want anything in his head to get into Hayes’s, that’s for sure. Hayes was and is his star pupil, his big find. How he found him in Nalpur is beyond me, but he engineered it and he got us both from there to here, me dragging this mad dog by the leash. I suppose you’re wondering why I’m telling you this silly story,” he said, smiling weakly again.

“Well, I’m not sure, no.”

“My point is, I was a tool to them. To the higher-ups. As Hayes is. As you are. And I knew it. I did, I knew it. When I bought in I knew what they wanted me to be, and I still know now. Now that I’ve paid. But, you see, I know that it’s been worth something. In these past four years, well, we’ve made marvels. Things you wouldn’t believe. Things that may…” He paused, smiled, and said, “Well, I shouldn’t tell you this. We’re working to make things that may one day leave here and land in Europe in only a few hours. And more. They say these same devices may one day touch the sun and the moon and maybe beyond. The very stars, Miss Fairbanks. We’d reach the stars themselves. It’s very primitive right now, very primitive stages, as, well, I think we’ve made apparent through some recent mishaps, but it’s growing. And there’s more than that, child. I don’t know all the mechanics, but there’s one thing…” He trailed off, then shook his head as if he couldn’t believe it himself. “You know the Earth turns, Miss Fairbanks?” he asked.

Samantha nodded.

“Turns like a top, in space?”

“Yes.”

“What if you could somehow harness that power? Develop something that was sensitive to that turning… and began to turn the other way as a reaction? What sort of power would that generate?”

She thought about it. It seemed like a simple enough suggestion but then as she put more thought into it she realized the enormity of the idea.

Evans chuckled. “Yes,” he said. “Everyone thinks of, oh, the trolleys and the phones and trains and airships. The conduits and the cranes. But there’s more. The bigger things are still being developed. How they come up with them, I don’t know. It’s like they pull these ideas from another world entirely. But we’re making a new age, Miss Fairbanks, right now. And we are but a part. Hayes is a part. I am a part. You. This city, even those in the slums and those in Newton and, yes, those in the Bridgedale neighborhood. We are all parts in a greater mechanism. Hayes alone has done more to protect the development of these ideas than he could ever know. The men he’s turned and bought and sold… He didn’t even care what he was doing it for. He just thought it was great sport. But he’s changed this company. One man has changed this company. And we will change the world in turn, in ways it can’t even expect.”