2

Nothing more is heard on that front for about a week. Then Platt calls you into his office and motions you towards a chair. "So I heard from Ms. Morales's editor this morning that her piece on Platinum is not going to be appearing, thanks to some kind of personal conflict."

Platt leans back a little. "I knew when I threw this your direction that she might be a little hostile. Her editor practically warned me of it." Not, apparently, that Platt felt like it would be fair play to tell you any of this. "But I understood that she had a decent track record of covering event venues and that sort of thing."

You describe a few of Ms. Morales's favorite articles.

Platt has gotten rid of the World's Greatest Uncle mug and is drinking this morning from an antique Paragon china tea cup. "Have I shown you this?" he asks. "It's my new acquisition, a classic fortune-telling teacup. $400 on eBay, but well worth it." He tips the cup towards you, and you see a few bits of rooibos stuck to the symbols inside the cup. "Oh look, they're sticking to the question mark. Well, divination is seldom all that reliable."

You wait.

"Did you do something to prevent Ms. Morales's unfavorable article from appearing?" he asks bluntly after a minute.

"So not ethical or kind, but we're not going to be sued," he translates. "Good to know. I don't want to hear anything else about this, and I don't want you to repeat…whatever it was…in the near future. I want your next interactions to be squeaky clean and beyond any conceivable hint of reproach. Is that clear?"

You nod.

Platt reaches into a drawer and takes out a file folder. "I have your new contract, if you'd like to sign it. And we also know who you'll be working with. It's very important that this client is handled with extreme care and discretion. Understood?"

He takes a magazine photo out of the folder. You recognize it; of course you recognize it. It's been on newsstands everywhere.

Ax Williams, net worth $500M as of zir company sale last week, previously a startup worker living on ramen noodles. No one has any idea what to expect from zir, but ze now has the money to do whatever ze might want. Possibly the most interesting portfolio at the company.

"And Caskchild—well done," Platt adds.

Platt nods. Your first job as an Elite awaits

The first step in becoming Ax Williams's concierge is getting to know something about zir, even before you meet.

Possibly it's best to start with the obvious. Ax Williams sold a company called Fama that has something to do with online privacy and reputation. If you go look at the website now, though, it offers a free demo that promises to analyze the online social profile of anyone you like.

"Allow our blend of data science and machine learning to profile your social presence…and find problems in the making!" Hm. Yes, that will be no problem at all.

There's a pause. Quite a long one. You're chatty online, and Fama has a lot to find.

It looks at your Twitter account. It looks at loads of things. Then it comes back with a list of action items to address in the near future.

Item: public profile demonstrates high appetite for risk and low awareness of consequences. Greater practicality would be a better fit for the subject's current employer. Remediations: change career to one that better rewards risk (e.g. Navy Seal) or reduce appearance of risk appetite.

Item: public profile suggests a disregard for law and order which might be prejudicial in certain circumstances. Remediation: remove certain posts and social media statements to reduce the appearance of law and order disregard.

Generally speaking, it seems to think that you could be a bit more discreet.

The Fama report concludes with a brief description of data privacy laws in Argentina, the EU, and the United States, explaining that you may have the right to request that specific information about you be removed from search engine results. There's a service to send automatic delinking and privacy requests to Google and other providers, if you dislike any of what Fama has discovered about you.

The language processing and data analysis required to discern how an individual fits into their social domain, and then issue back a report like this? It's truly extraordinary.

Whatever you think of Fama, though, it works—because Ax's own online profile has been curated within an inch of its life.

Online research on Ax Williams gives you a very consistent and very recent view. Zir big sale was preceded by years of hard work, and you can find the evidence of that. Zir company, Fama, had a website, photos of Ax and zir coworkers, logos of the companies ze was working with. Ze has given a few interviews recently. But beyond that? Nothing. No unguarded social media accounts. No Instagram vacation photos. No forum memberships from twenty years ago that talk about now-embarrassing topics. No blogs. Very few mentions anywhere, except in association with Fama itself.

Ax has removed any unflattering reference to zirself from the face of the internet. Or perhaps there never were any in the first place.

You don't see much of Felix in the days before your promotion goes through, but when you do see him, he is giving you a stare of the most naked hostility.

You know the Platinum system well enough to make changes that aren't logged under your own name. You sneak in there and cancel a bunch of reservations Felix was supposed to make. You reassign event billing to the wrong account entirely, so that a low-level client will be socked with the charges for a wedding that cost a quarter million to set up.

You do enough damage that it looks like Felix's been careless (or possibly not sober) for the past few weeks, without quite going far enough to make it unbelievable.

It doesn't take long to see the effects, either. That night Felix is working late in the office, and a day or two later, you see him coming out of a meeting with HR.

Performance improvement plan, maybe? It would clear the road for you a bit if he were to be fired.

Staff meeting at Platinum Headquarters

Your introduction as Elite

The staff room has laid on Lace Bakery artisanal cupcakes (gluten-free, $12 each) in honor of your promotion. There hasn't been a new Elite agent promoted from inside in a couple of years, and you can't remember whether the last one was received with this kind of enthusiasm. But despite the lingering gossip about you and Felix, now your coworkers seem genuinely delighted that you're moving up. But whether they've seen the way the wind is blowing, or they've changed their minds about how they feel about your ambitions, now your coworkers are acting far more openly pleased for you.

You spend the first few minutes of the meeting listening to the reports people have gathered on Ax: magazine profiles, messages from contacts at other companies, coworkers ze worked with in the past. Mostly, you feel the gaze from publicity photos, an icy shade between blue and grey.

At the end of the meeting, one of the interns raises a hand. "Er…I need to raise a PR alert?" he says. "Something has come up on our name searching this morning."

Platt looks at the intern and then at his watch. With clients, there is time for tact—all the time in the world. At staff meetings, not so much.

"Well? What does the bottom half of the internet have to say?" he asks.

How bad is it?

The intern reads: "'Just got a tip from the concierge at the Chicago W that Platinum has been procuring actresses for a celeb client and sending them up to his room every night. Guess they are really an escort service after all.'"

Platt rolls his eyes. "That isn't happening," he says, "so there won't be any substantiation. If anyone does contact us for information, issue a total denial. Don't go after it preemptively, or it will look like we have some reason for concern."

You've got other things to think about, and this bit isn't that important.

He glances at his watch. "Let's wrap here. Our new Elite concierge needs to catch a plane to SeaTac."

Ax Williams's Penthouse

Escala Building, Seattle

Your first encounter with Ax Williams is in zir new penthouse at the top of the Escala building in Seattle. There are windows from floor to ceiling: views of Elliott Bay, of the Olympic Mountains, of ferries coming and going, of the city lights.

You're prepared to talk about Fama. You're prepared to get to know each other. You've picked out the three or four facts about you that would most help to develop a client-concierge bond. You've got a sheaf of notes about lifestyle options for the newly wealthy.

"Never mind that, I've got a more urgent problem," Ax says, hustling you through the living room and into the kitchen.

There's a stack of pizza boxes in there, at least a dozen of them—has ze been living on nothing else?

"I gave the movers dinner," Ax explains with a self-conscious grimace. "And then I haven't figured out where the trash goes here."

"Thanks. This building has a lot of corridors."

Ax shows you the dining room, with its floor-to-ceiling view. "My real estate agent kissed my cheek after I bought this place," Ax says. "I'm more used to the kind of landlord that pretends not to receive your phone calls when the plumbing breaks."

You're having a hard time getting a read on Ax so far. Ze seems a little reserved.

Finally, ze blurts, "Look…I know you've probably got a whole checklist of things to sell me, but I'm not going to need all of it. So I don't want you to feel like you have to do the whole routine on me. You can relax and just take care of a couple requests."

Ax is paying Platinum a retainer, but there are additional percentages on that for specific arrangements you make. Platt isn't going to love it if this client turns out not to want to buy anything.

"This place would be perfect for New Year's," you say. "Your guests would have a front-row seat for the fireworks."

Ax is silent for a long minute, and you almost wonder whether you've read the situation wrong after all. Then ze says, "That's the dream. I think I might need to extend my social circle, though. When I was working, I drifted a bit from a lot of my old friends, and I'm not sure I can look them up again now without it being weird."

"Don't worry about that," you say. "We can tackle it. Find a tactful way to put you back in touch with those people, and also make some new connections that weren't possible before. After all, you've been really busy, I assume. Working long hours. It's natural to want to reconnect with old friends once the opportunity arises."

Ax meet your eyes and looks away again. "I was worried if I threw a housewarming party or something, it would look like 'hey everybody, check out how I'm rich now.'"

"Unless they can't read," you say, "they already know you're rich now."

Ze nods, taking in the justice of that observation.

Ze throws open the French doors on a master bedroom larger than a lot of apartments you've seen. The windows face out towards the Space Needle. Marooned in the middle of the room is a twin-sized futon with a greying mattress.

"I don't know what kind of furniture you buy for a place like this," says Ax. "I went to the furniture shop downstairs and wandered around. But I felt like those beds were designed for a Swedish air hostess from 1960." The furniture shop would be the Roche Bobois. Not very Ax.

Ze walks to the window and stares out. It's raining today, a fine rain with such tiny droplets that there's no point in carrying an umbrella, but the clouds hang low, and the flag on the top of the Space Needle is limp and motionless.

"When I was growing up, all our furniture was ratty. You'd sit on an armchair and pieces of foam would fall out of the seat. My mother never let people come over to our house."

A little curl at the left corner of the lip. "I don't need any help sourcing dungeon gear, if that's what you're offering."

"Hey, some clients also really favor a disco ball over the bed," you say. "And it's never the ones you'd think."

"All my other stuff I put in the second bedroom," Ax says. "Lately, I haven't had as much time for this because I've been busy with the startup." Ze throws open another door and leads you through into a room considerably more cluttered than the master bedroom, but no more artfully decorated.

There are a couple of dressmaker's dummies, and a desk with a midrange but functional sewing machine, and a closet full of old costumes. There's a shelf of wigs on wig stands. There's paint, glue, foam, a hair dryer, Worbla's Finest Art thermoplastics for crafting fake armor, and a cheap rotating fan with the enamel chipping off.

"Mostly I cosplay characters from visual novels. The fan is for ventilation," Ax says, kicking it with the toe of zir boot. "Now I have an all-season wraparound terrace, I guess probably I can do my painting out there. Unless you think that's going to be against the condo association rules."

Last Chapter Next Chapter