Suddenly the door opened and a man came in. He was holding a briefcase, one of those old-fashioned ones, used for documents, that opens up like a harmonica. He started walking towards one of the desks, but stopped in surprise when he saw us. “What are you doing here?”
“Andrew,” Mark blurted out and it sounded like this man was the last person he wanted to see. “We’re just talking. Actually, we were just discussing The Collective’s video.”
Was it his boss? Was I even allowed to be here?
Andrew’s expression turned disapproving, his eyes narrowed and he barked: “Can I have a word?”
They went to the kitchenette together and I heard a defiant: “Why did you bring her here?” But then Andrew closed the door and their conversation became so muted, I couldn’t pick out any individual words. One thing was clear though, judging by the angry tone of Mark’s colleague, it was a heated argument.
I was getting the impression that Andrew somehow knows me, but it seemed ridiculous. From where?
The kitchenette door flew open so unexpectedly that it made me jump and spill tea all over myself. Andrew hurried to his desk, still holding the briefcase. He took some folders out, locked them in a cupboard and threw one last angry face at us before disappearing in the corridor.
Mark smiled, clearly feeling self-satisfied.
“He doesn’t agree,” he explained. “With you being here. With me telling you about…”
“About what?” I encouraged him.
He shrugged. “About us.”
I didn’t know what to make of that, so I just raised my eyebrows.
He rubbed his forehead for a while, like he wanted to organise his thoughts first. “The Association and The Collective belong together, they’re sisters,” he said slowly. “They both aim to create some order in the world, but each does it slightly differently. The Association fixes the damage already done, The Collective wants to fix the cause. Until today, the rule was that you can only belong to The Collective if you’ve been a member of the Association for a while. And The Collective will accept you only if you fulfil certain… requirements.
“I’ve been a member of both for quite a few years now and had my fair share of events. Believe me, some things I wish I’d never laid my eyes on… I’ve gone through all the same stages as my predecessors and colleagues who’ve been in The Collective longer than me. At first it was a desire to help the world. Young people with a traumatic past, tortured animals, nature destroyed by man. Then I was thinking about how to prevent all this suffering happening in the first place, and together with others did research into how to change people’s mentality. We started various programmes, then ended them because their effect on people and the feedback was… well, it wasn’t great. We barely made a dent.
“People will only give up their own comfort and bad habits if you hold a knife to their throat. Only when their life is at stake do they start thinking about how much they’re hurting others, and that they are willing to change. Unless you do something drastic, everyone is just gonna turn their back on you and forget about any changes, no matter how selfless, because it’s just too much work. And if they don’t get any quick, tangible results, they’ll give up on making a difference and go back to their destructive behaviour.”
My pulse quickened while listening to Mark’s speech, and after a while I realised that I was wiping my sweaty palms into my trousers. Why did his words make me nervous, and even a bit shaken? I almost wished he wouldn’t continue.
“And that’s why we’re going to do it.”
My stomach flipped. “Do what?”
He looked straight into my eyes and took a deep breath. “Eradicate the cancer.”
I must have misheard. “I’m sorry, what was that?”
“Mankind will never change, no matter what we do.” His face hardened. “Just fixing the damage and setting up new rules and habits won’t make one fucking bit of difference. The planet will be better off if people just disappear.”
My ears rang and my heart beat loudly. Is Mark really telling me what I think he is? As inconspicuous as I could manage, I measured the distance between me and the office door, but the trouble was that Mark was standing in the way of my escape route. A strong tall man who could easily clasp me in his arms like in iron pincers.
“Do you have a specific plan?” I asked ironically and my voice betrayed me. It broke on the last word and revealed fear.
“We do,” he confirmed, looking serious. There wasn’t even a hint of a joke in his face. “It won’t be long now and we’ll initiate it.”
“You’re crazy. You’ve completely lost your mind!” The words flew out of my mouth like a stone from a sling. I agreed to help establish harder punishments, not to genocide!
He got a hold of my hand as I tried to run to the door. “Connie, wait. I need to explain it all to you!”
“Let go of me!”
He immediately did and that shocked me enough to slow my steps. Before I managed to get to the door, Mark pushed me aside with his shoulder, closed the door and leaned against it.
Tears of despair rushed to my eyes and I was only too aware that I’d been made a prisoner. What on earth is he planning to do?
Mark raised his palms up in a familiar gesture of surrender. “I don’t want to hurt you! I just need you to listen!”
I took a few steps back, just to be further away from him, and my thighs hit a desk. I couldn’t react verbally and he used this opportunity.
“It’s not just the Perth branch, the whole company is involved and it’ll be a world-wide expedition. We want to put an end to all this suffering. Think about all those twisted people. The greedy, selfish, cruel people who don’t
