Thompson shrugged. “I guess that’ll be up to him.”
“What is this?” Connor asked. “Some kind of hazing thing? Aren’t we all a little old for that kind of nonsense?”
“Who you calling old?” the white-haired man asked, crossing his arms.
Thompson raised an eyebrow at Connor. “I wouldn’t recommend pissing Harold off on the first day.” He shook Harold’s hand and took the towel the man held out. “He might give you the wrong one.”
“The wrong one?” Connor asked.
“It’s only happened once or twice,” Thompson said as he pushed open the door marked “Out of Order.” He shut the door behind him. “At least, that’s what I’ve heard.”
From inside the stall came a loud metallic click, followed by a long whooshing sound.
“Those rumors were never substantiated,” Harold said, holding out another towel.
Henderson stepped past, took the towel, then entered the same stall. When he opened the door, Connor saw that the stall was empty.
“What the hell?” he said, taking a step forward.
“Ah ah, one at a time please.” Harold raised a finger. “Sorry, company policy.”
“Company policy?”
Harold held out a third towel. “This one’s for you, Sonny.”
Connor took the towel. It was heavier than he’d expected it to be, but otherwise it was soft and fluffy and felt just like a… well, a towel. “Okay?”
Richards pushed the stall door open and stood to one side. “Put the towel on the lever and flush. It’s really that simple. Just make sure the towel is in contact with the lever.”
Connor didn’t move. “And then what? Scotty beams me away in the toilet? A sewer alien comes up to eat me? Where the hell did the other two guys go?”
Richards laughed. “You’re not going to get beamed up or eaten, I can tell you that. Trust me, it’s going to be fine.”
Reluctantly, Connor stepped into the stall and shut the door behind him. He inspected the toilet, looking behind the tank and around the underside of the bowl. It looked like an ordinary toilet. He felt the towel in both hands, running it through his fingers, feeling for anything out of the ordinary.
“Put the towel on the flushing lever,” Richards said from outside the stall.
This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever done in my entire life, Connor thought. But he put the towel on the lever. “And then what, I just flush like normal?”
“That’s the idea.”
“He’s kind of slow, isn’t he?” the old man said.
Connor shook his head and pushed down on the lever.
Chapter Sixteen
The instant the toilet flushed, the floor dropped—taking Connor and the toilet with it. He put his hands on the tank to steady himself as he dropped down some kind of elevator shaft.
His stomach lurched at the sudden movement. “What the hell?”
The brown walls of the toilet stall had been replaced by slate-gray concrete marked with alternating yellow and black stripes. Then the walls rose away, and the toilet-elevator slowed as it entered a featureless room about as large as the restroom above. The entire rig settled into a recess in the floor, and stopped.
Connor turned to see Thompson and Henderson smiling at him.
“Nice work,” Thompson said. “Most people fall over on their first time.”
Connor backed away from the toilet. As soon as his feet cleared the platform it launched itself upward, disappearing into the ceiling. A series of clicks echoed down the shaft as it locked into place above.
Other than a wastebasket filled with hand towels, there was literally nothing in the room they’d descended into, but a plain steel door stood on one wall, with a hand scanner beside it. The place reminded Connor of a fallout shelter—and the whole experience made him think of the old sitcom Get Smart and the series of security doors Maxwell Smart was required to negotiate before entering Control’s headquarters.
Hydraulic pistons hissed, and the toilet platform descended, bringing Richards with it.
Henderson patted Connor on the shoulder. “I just got called into something, so I have to get going. I hope to see you again soon enough.” He took Richards’ place on the toilet platform and almost immediately vanished up into the ceiling.
Richards stepped up to the door and placed his palm on the reader. A blue line passed beneath his hand, and a click echoed from inside the door. Richards stepped back, and three massive locking bolts slid out of their retaining blocks on the right side.
“Stand clear,” a digitized voice warned, and the door began slowly opening outward.
Richards rapped his knuckles on the side of the door as it swung open. “Four feet thick, reinforced steel. This baby will stand up to a nuclear blast. Just don’t get your fingers caught in it. You’ll be using your toes to paint with for the rest of your life.”
Connor laughed. “Yeah, no kidding.”
Beyond the blast door was a corridor that ran straight for about a hundred feet before making a right turn. There were no markings or signs, no emergency exit directions, nothing. Just a plain, bare hallway with track lighting illuminating the way.
“I guess you guys couldn’t afford an interior decorator,” Connor said, following Richards down the hall.
“We’ve got better things to spend our money on.”
Connor jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. “Like toilets that drop into the floor?’
“Exactly.”
“So now that we’re here, is someone finally going to tell me what this place is? Who you guys really are?”
They turned the corner, and the hall ended at a door. Richards put his eye up to a box on the wall next to the door, and a green light scanned his eye. The door clicked, and he pushed it open.
“Welcome to the Outfit, Mr. Sloane.”
Connor hesitated, then stepped through.
He found himself standing on a metal walkway twenty feet above the floor of a vast room, larger than most warehouses. On the floor below him, cubicles were arranged in a grid as far as he could see, with men and women working busily at computer screens or talking amongst themselves. Up here, at Connor’s level, metal walkways led to
