“Every ridiculous thing Brad wants is self-serving.”
“What, passing legislation is harder than swapping an entire company from B2B software to consumer appliances?”
“It’s not about difficulty,” Bel’aliol said, reveling in her discomfort. “Do you really think you’re the first human in history to try to trade a soul for a good deed? Although I’ll grant you the novelty of trying to sell other people’s souls instead of yours for that altruism.”
“I thought you weren’t supposed to be evil. You all keep correcting me that it’s the Infernal Plane, not Hell.”
“We’re not whatever your religions have made up, no.” He steepled his fingers. “However, that doesn’t mean we’re in the business of putting ourselves out of business. Our entire model depends on you fools wanting things so badly that you’re willing to sacrifice a chunk of your afterlife for it. Why would we ever do something that decreased the net amount of misery on your plane?”
The thought should have been obvious. She knew how corporations worked on her side. And yet, it took herbreath away. “You only grant wishes that make our world worse?”
He shrugged. “Neutral is fine. The occasional tiny benefit can be tolerated for the sake of the whole, although we usually have to get special permission, slippery slopes and all. But no saving innocents without seriously corrupting the guarantor, no solving poverty or disease, certainly nothing that makes your political systems less of a disaster than they already are. We give our clients anything they want, as long as it increases the amount of wanting.” He gave her a toothy smile. “Still interested in doing business?”
She swallowed. “I’ll think about it.”
“You do that,” he said. “But I’ve been doing this job for more than six hundred years. I highly doubt you will think of a loophole I haven’t already seen. Ah, I can see the loathing in your eyes. That’s fine. Consider it motivation.”
He tapped the crystal.
“Play your cards right,” he continued. “And we need never see each other again. But should this episode end, shall we say, unsatisfactorily, we may spend a very, very long time together. I have my preference in the matter, of course. But it’s up to you. Remember—the House always wins.”
25
Maybe we tip off Valefar that we’re on to them?” Lucareoth said when Morgan got back upstairs with the burritos that night. The little burrito joint near their building was excellent, but they didn’t deliver. “Except I’m worried Brad’s scheme is far enough along that it wouldn’t even slow things down. How are we going to stop this?”
“Should we stop this?” She set down the bag. She’d managed to spend the rest of the day focused on logistics, but she’d had too much time to think while waiting for their order. “What if the soul market is the solution to our problems?”
Lucareoth sat down slowly. “How can you say that?”
“If Brad pulls this off—it’s a big if, still, butif,” Morgan said, not meeting his eyes. “Well, there’s the answer to your quota and my debt. It’s not like we weren’t already trying to get souls already. We’ve failed and we’re out of ideas. This could fill the gap, without asking so much of anyone we know. I don’t have to hold my breath every time I cross a street, worrying I’m going to die and spend the next century getting tortured in a lamp. You can probably convince Bel’aliol to keep you here as an account rep, and you neverhave to go back or get eaten. We can stay together. Heck, you’ll probably get a promotion, I’ll get a promotion, we make rent and you and I and Gisele don’t get thrown out on the street. It could solve everything.”
“At the cost of thousands of people’s souls!” He was staring at her.
“A fraction of their souls.”
“That’s still part of their soul!”
“So they spend a few minutes on the Infernal Plane powering stuff.” She rubbed her face. She’d just spent ten minutes counting stained ceiling tiles, after forty-five minutes trapped on the subway next to a guy whose cologne hadn’t covered his body odor. “Maybe a day or three. Humans already built a society full of stuff we find painful. Our lives are basically run by corporate overlords who churn through us and toss us out with no warning if it will save them a dollar. We spend most of our time doing annoying, meaningless stuff. How much of our lives do we spend commuting? Or in line at the DMV or filling out expense reports or any of the other stuff we already call soul-killing? Is it really so bad if humans spend a little more time having our souls drained before we go off wherever it is that we go?”
“And what about consent?” Lucareoth folded his arms. “Gisele was pissed at us for not giving her a choice on whether to do something—this is worse. None of these people really understand what they’re being asked. They’ll barely be aware it’s been asked. And what do they get for their soul-labor anyway? A crappy kale smoothie?”
“They’re literally consenting, it’s part of the marketing campaign. We know the Deal doesn’t work if they don’t know.” She walked around the table, pulling the burritosaway from Rix’s investigative nose. “And we pay in our labor for stupid things all the time.”
“Not after death!”
“Pretty sure capitalism would keep you on the hook after death if they could figure out how.”
“You’re OK with making it worse.”
“We’re talking about people who don’t even see you as a person!” Why couldn’t he see she was doing this to protect him?
“So just because they see me as a monster means I have to be one?” He shook his head. “Look, I agree that a lot of humanity is petty. And stupid. But I like your plane because sometimes you’re allowed to want something other people don’t want you to want. I want to be something different. And now you’re telling me you’re giving up.”
“Can I stop it at this point? Really?” Her throat tightened. “I’m this tiny little cog in this giant machine, and Brad’s going to do it with or without my help. I don’t know who made all the parts of my phone. I don’t even know that everyone who touched that burrito is happy and fairly compensated. But I do know that my life’s at risk, my livelihood’s at risk, my… my love’s at risk. And I could do my job and let this happen and save all those things, or I could lose everything and it would still happen anyway.”
His tail lashed unhappily. Then it stilled. “You love me?”
“I shouldn’t have said that,” she said, and when his face fell, she rushed, “That way, I mean. I’m sorry. It should have been some perfect shining moment and I’ve just ruined it. I’m ruining everything, just like I always do.”
