Dark Market

Chapter Six

Chapter Six

With a hand over her mouth a young woman barged past Savage and ran for the corridor.

What's that about? Savage thought. He followed Thomson between the desks in silence.

The twentieth floor. The Relationship Department. Two rows of desks, monitors and headsets tapered as far as the window in any direction.

Thomson nodded at the Relationship Director in his side office with the door open. Only minutes after the unofficial OpCo he had his sleeves rolled up, headset on and strode up and down. A work tempo for the rest of the office to mirror.

Thomson led Savage to a desk crammed between two middle ranking suits, their jackets off.

'What's this?' Savage said.

'Your desk, my liege.'

Savage cocked an eyebrow. 'You're kidding? What happened to the security department?'

'It's still there, in a different place, but you. You're the kite remember? This is where you fly.'

Savage folded his arms, jutted his chin at his old colleague. 'How am I supposed to get anything done here?'

'You're not.' He chuckled at Savage's reaction, 'Just look busy,' and turned his back.

Savage watched him walk away, then stood and stared, lost for a moment, like in an alternate reality from a dream.

His eyes followed the long lines of terminals until they disappeared around the other side of the central atrium.

Lots of bodies. Lots of money to move.

The fat man on his left bucked the office zeitgeist and slept, head back, mouth open in a silent snore. The whispy male to his right scrolled through pages of spreadsheet data on screen, then dialled a number.

'Charlie, it's Max' he said. 'How the devil are you?'

Savage sat down at his oversized screen. A decisive act.

Come on go-to-guy, what now?

'Yeah, I heard, it was the deputy pm,' Max said. 'Did you watch the video?'

Savage wondered whether Charlie was a man or a woman.

'It's lucky I've got you on the phone then. We need to close the deal, now. Send me the necessaries and I'll have Services sign off on it a-s-a-fucking-p.'

The Relationship Department – a softened name for the overtly commercial Sales Department.

Savage just knew that somewhere in the room there would be a notice board with the relationship star of the month on it. Like whore of the month, how many tricks could you turn? Except sex was against the rules of course. A conflict of interests.

Sex issues got escalated to him – in the old days. In the new days Savage didn't even have a log-in for the terminal in front of him.

Max was talking again. 'Did they say who the killer is?'

Now, that was more Savage's area. He glanced at his neighbour's screen and saw a video feed of a man in a hospital bed. Lots of blood.

'There's going to be a shit storm alright,' Max said. 'I'll stay on the line while you send that over.'

Sick puppy that killer. Sick sick puppy. But Savage had seen worse and he had other things to do. He shook his mouse. The log-in screen popped up.

Savage craned his neck. Armstong was still on the phone. Who'd give him a log-in?