Her junior account executive had jumped straight to introducing Morgan to another junior account rep from an ad tech vendor who wanted Morgan to spend even moremoney on another new technology platform Morgan had never even heard of. She wondered how many layers of companies you’d need to get through before you hit the first one that physically impacted the world in any way.
“With this add-on, you can gather intent data from multiple sources,” the vendor rep on the video call was saying. She had hair too straight not to have been professionally blown out and enough vocal fry to annoy even Morgan. “When enough people at the target company have given enough intent signals, you get a Hot Stuff! alert. You can set the threshold wherever you like, but we recommend four to five chili peppers.”
“And how many people is a chili pepper?” Right now, all the chili peppers next to each target account on her screen were grayed out. Rix, meanwhile, wanted very badly to chew on her shoe. Gisele was willing to tolerate a fourth roommate, but only to a point, so Morgan was taking full advantage of the dog-friendly office policy. If Hayley could bring her disgruntled pom-pom, Luke could bring his lightly disguised demonic mutt.
“That’s proprietary information, but rest assured that we’ve done extensive testing for your industry to calibrate an appropriate threshold,” the rep assured her. “Then you can plug into any of several third-party applications to create personalized user journeys to increase demand.”
So, they were stalking people to see who might want their product so they could try to convince them harder to want the product. It did seem better than blasting people who didn’t want the product at all, but she wondered how the people giving the intent signals would feel about that. “And how much is this add-on?”
The ad budget had given her enough clue to not take a sip of her coffee, so she didn’t have to spit it at the screen. That number was yet another yearly salary. “And how important is it to your own quota that you make this sale?” she asked, a little too casually.
The rep looked a little offended. Despite the fact their job titles literally overlapped with each other, apparently mentioning other people’s quotas wasn’t done. Which was a pity, because Morgan would have loved to know if Ms. Shiny Hair was willing to sell her soul to make the number after this conversation. No, that was mean. “I want to make sure we’ve paired you with the package that’s best for your organization’s needs,” the rep was saying.
“Thanks, I’ll have to check the budget and think about it,” Morgan replied, faking a smile as she said polite goodbyes and closed the video window. Rix lifted his head from the floor and wagged his tail. There were a couple of shiny spots where his drool had melted the carpet.
Luke poked his head in. “Want a snack?”
“You don’t have to keep getting me stuff,” she said.
“I like it when you’re satisfied,” he said, sitting down next to her. Was it everyone that he enjoyed pleasing, or just her? “And I can’t get what you really want.”
She stilled. “I don’t blame you for all this.”
“That’s OK, I do.” Before she could come up with a response, he changed the subject.
“How’d the call with the ad agency go?”
“Business-to-business advertising is ridiculous,” she said, only refraining from banging her head on the table because she didn’t want Ronaldo to see. “Apparently spamming is the illegal routine practice everyone does anyway.”
“No idea what that means, really happy to keep it that way,” Luke assured her.
“Mass cold calling, basically,” she said. “But, like, ten thousand people at once.”
He perked up. “That’s a thing?”
“I don’t think you guys can use it if our email’s not compatible,” she said. “How’s your day going?”
He blew his bangs up out of his eyes, and she wondered where he’d picked up the gesture, since his natural form didn’t have bangs. “I accidentally called a convent.”
And there was the spit-take she’d avoided earlier. He pounded her back as she gasped air back into her lungs and fumbled for the tissue box to clean off her screen. “You what?”
“I dialed the number wrong,” he said. “But it was weird. They were a really good prospect.”
She blinked at him. “For buying HR software or selling their souls?”
“Both, maybe?” He shrugged. “Seems like recruiting isn’t going great for nuns these days.”
“Which did you sell them?” she said, vaguely horrified.
“Neither.” He shifted in his chair. “It didn’t seem… right.”
She blinked. Did he have a conscience after all?
“I had a nice conversation with Sister Dolorosa about how nice that young Sister Bridget is and how much she wished there were a few more like her, and then she said she’d pray for me.”
“Oh.” Morgan sat back, wondering how much of this was transferal of guilt. Had he ever felt guilty before, she wondered? He looked abashed and a little confused. It was weirdly cute, and when she reminded herself yet again that he was a demon instead of an attractive colleague, it didn’tstick as well as it usually did. She lowered her voice so it wouldn’t carry through the open door. “How does that work? I mean, does it, like, burn?”
“Since I’m not actually from Hell and I don’t know where your souls even go when they leave us, it mostly seemed like a nice gesture.” He rubbed his head, reminding himself that his horns were still there even if they weren’t visible in his reflection. “I’m not sure you humans appreciate how nice it is when you’re nice to each other. But a surprising number of you seem to want nice things for each other without something in return?”
