'Temporary manager?' Bill said.
'She cannot become a full-fledged manager unless she completes our two week training course.'
'I thought she had.'
'No.'
Newman King was next to him now, and this close he seemed even stranger, ever! more monstrous. Not only was his skin pale, it seemed to be fake, made out of rubber or some sort of malleable plastic. His too-perfect teeth also looked artificial. The only parts of him that seemed real were his dark, deep-set eyes, and they burned with a cruel animal ferocity.
The CEO held up the handful of papers, shook them. 'So what do you want me to do?' he asked. 'I've been reading your missives, and I can't quite figure out what you want. Do you want me to close the Juniper Store?'
Bill was more frightened than he had ever been in his life, but he ignored his quaking legs and gathered his courage and, in the strongest voice he could muster, said, 'Yes.'
King was smiling. 'What would that accomplish? It would put a lot of people out of work, that's all. It wouldn't bring back all of those other businesses.' His smile grew. 'It wouldn't bring back your Buy-and-Save market.'
The smile stretched into grotesquerie. 'It wouldn't even bring back Street's electronics shop.'
Bill's heart was pounding crazily. 'You know about them?'
'I know everything that affects The Store.'
'You drove them out of business.'
'So?'
'You killed people. Or you had them killed. Or your people did. All those missing --'
'Casualties of war,' King said.
Bill stared at him. If he'd only smuggled in a tape recorder . . .
'Tape recorders don't always record me correctly,' King said. He turned away, began walking back up to the head of the table.
Lucky guess, Bill thought, hoped, told himself. Hands shaky, legs wobbly, he started after the CEO, not sure if he planned to jump on him or punch him in the back or simply yell at him. Everything he'd ever thought about The Store, the worst of it, was true, and though he was more terrified than he'd ever been before, he was angrier than he'd ever been before, as well, and he focused on the anger, used it to give him strength.
King suddenly whirled around, and the air between them seemed to shift in a way that emulated but did not quite replicate wind. Bill instinctively moved back.
'You were about to ask me about Store policy,' the CEO said. 'You wanted to know why we do what we do.'
'Why do you?'
King smiled, not answering.
He faced the CEO. 'Why did you bring The Store to Juniper?'
'It was an open market.'
'But what's your goal? What do you hope to accomplish? You're not just in it for the money. You had that from the beginning. You didn't have to . . .' He shook his head. 'You get people dependent on your store, then you switch products on them, force them to buy . . . bizarre items. Why? What's the point?'
King smiled. 'I don't force people to buy anything. It's a free country.
They can buy what they want.'
'Bullshit.' Bill stared at him. 'What are you after?'
'We've just about conquered all the hick, hillbilly, Podunk, redneck, backwater, dipshit towns in America. It's time to move onward and upward, to expand our base, to drive Kmart and Wal-Mart and Target and all of the rest of those losers into the fucking ground.' He pointed to a map of the United States on the wall next to him that was dotted with blinking red and yellow lights.
'That's what you're after?'
'Partially.'
'And what else?'
King shook his head. 'You wouldn't understand.'
'What do you mean, I wouldn't understand?'
'You're not capable.'
'Try me.'
For a brief fraction of a second, there was a look on King's face that he could not interpret, an unfamiliar, unreadable expression that made him appear even more alien than he already did. Then, as quickly as it had come, it was gone. 'Believe me,' King said. 'My motives are not even in your vocabulary.'
Bill suddenly felt cold. King was right, he realized. He probably _wouldn't_ understand.
And that knowledge frightened him.
'Why did you invite me here?' Bill asked.
'To talk.'
'About what?'
'The future.'
'What the hell is that supposed to mean?'
King chuckled. 'You're a good man, a smart man, a fine chess player, a worthy adversary. I admire that.'
'So?'
'So I asked you what you wanted --'
'And I said I wanted you to get The Store out of Juniper.'
'And what I tried to tell you was that progress can't be undone. The world can't go backward. It can _not_ go forward, it can stay where it is, but it cannot go backward. The Store is in Juniper. That's a done deal. But I'm offering you the next best thing.'
'What's that?'
'As I said, you're a good man. I admire you.' He paused. 'I'd like you on my team.'
Bill started to respond, then shut his mouth as what King was saying sunk in.
The man was . . . offering him a job?
'Your own store.' The voice was soft and seductive, the deep-set eyes piercing and hypnotizing in the pale- skinned face. 'You pick the town. You run things the way you want. Juniper's available if you'd like it.'
'I --'
The CEO held up a hand. 'Don't say anything. Not yet. Don't make up your mind, don't say yes or no.' His voice was smooth, mesmerizing. 'This is a once in-a-lifetime opportunity. And I'm only going to offer it to you this one time.
You turn it down, and you're out of this building and on your way back to Arizona within the hour.'
'Why?' Bill said.
King smiled. 'I've always found that my worst enemies, my most bitter critics, those who put up the greatest fight against me, invariably turn out to be the best managers. They're thinkers, they're doers. They're not sheep. They can handle power and they know how to use it when it's given to them. You'd make a great manager.'
'Why would I want to?'
King's voice dropped, and he closed his long fingers into a fist. 'You can _own_ that town. You can decide what people eat, what they wear, what they listen to, what they watch. You can control everything from their brand of underwear to their type of toothpaste. You can experiment. You can mix and match.' He leaned forward. 'That's what The Store can give you. Power.' He held up the papers. 'What I read here in these faxes and messages is that you're not happy with the way things are; you want to change them. Well, I'm giving you the chance to do exactly that. You can rebuild that town in your own image, and it'll be exactly the community you always wanted.'
'What I don't like is The Store. That's what I want to change.'
'And here's your chance. You can do it from the inside.' King dropped the papers on the table. 'The dirty deeds are done. That's all over with. You don't have to be a part of that. What we have now is a level playing field. And what I'm offering you is one of the pieces.' He grinned. 'Now give me your response.
Now tell me if you'll accept the challenge.'
'Okay.'
