Disguise Yourselves Be Careful What You Wish For chapter 3 by witeja9199

Seven seconds is not a long time. In seven seconds a person can sneeze, forget their password, or make a decision they have been avoiding since their first appraisal.

"Right," says Kirsten. "Right. I wish–"

"Wait," says Mazzaroth.

"–that when Gareth Voss walks through that door, he can't tell that any of us are us. Me, you, the lamp. A disguise. Not a goat, not a curse, not a lesson."

Mazzaroth closes his eyes like a sommelier who has been handed a pint. "That's one gone, then. Disguises fall under Schedule Nine, and they need an anchor, somebody real to hide inside. Quickly. Whom does Gareth never question?"

"Aldous Crake. Director of Operations. He once made Gareth cry in a lift."

"Splendid. I shall be Mr. Crake's secretary, and the lamp can be paperwork." He is already rolling up his sleeves, which is difficult, as he is in the process of acquiring a blouse. "Nobody in the history of the world has ever looked closely at a folder."*

"Why would his secretary be–"

"Four seconds."

There are three pops, one of them rather damp.

Kirsten opens her eyes and finds the ceiling closer than it was. Her shoulders have been replaced with a wardrobe. When she clears her throat, the sound arrives in her ribs first. A tie hangs around her neck like a smug noose, and her hands are large, hairy, and wearing a signet ring that seems to be judging her.

"Oh God," she says, in a baritone that could grout a bathroom. "I'm a man. I'm a large man. I'm..." She looks down. Then looks down again, like someone checking a bill that has gone up. "Mazzaroth. There is something here."

"There generally is," says a breathy voice behind her. "Don't fiddle. You'll only make it weird."

The secretary is perhaps twenty-eight, in a pencil skirt and a blouse that has never in its working life been asked to hold so much. Her hair is up, her lipstick is immaculate, and her eyes are still, unmistakably, those of a being who considers the carpet tiles a crime.

"Is this necessary?" says Kirsten.

"I'm managing," says Mazzaroth, adjusting something structural. "Now lean on the desk. No, lower. Loosen the tie. I'm just going to..." She rakes both hands through Kirsten's new silver hair.

"What are you doing to Aldous Crake's hair?"

"Mussing."

"This isn't a disguise, this is... you've made it look like..."

"Like the thing a man will never, ever look at directly," says Mazzaroth, undoing one button and then, with the air of an artist, a second. "You wished he couldn't tell who we were. You never specified what he'd think he was looking at. In this building, a burglar would be worse. People only look away from two things, you know: fire, and the boss."

The door opens.

Gareth Voss stands in the doorway, holding his phone like a trophy. "Kirsten? I know you're in he–" His mouth keeps moving after the words stop. "Mr. Crake?"

Kirsten has no idea how to talk like a man who owns the floor. Then something rises from deep in her throat, like a belch from the sea, and it says: "Voss."

"I, sir, I thought... I'm so sorry, there was a lamp, and–"

"Do you knock, Voss?"

"Yes, sir. I mean, no, sir. I mean..."

"Aldous," murmurs the secretary, from somewhere behind Kirsten's shoulder, doing up a button very slowly, "shall I tell the gentleman we're mid-meeting?"

"Mid-meeting," says Gareth, in the voice of a man whose soul has gone out for a walk. He points at the folder on the desk, which hums faintly. "Are those...?"

"Expense claims," says Mazzaroth, with a smile that could curdle milk. "Very personal expenses."

Gareth goes the colour of tinned salmon. "I didn't see anything."

"See that you didn't," says Kirsten, and finds to her horror that she means it. "And Voss?"

"Sir?"

"Close the door. Gently. As though you never opened it."

He does. The lift pings, changes its mind, and somewhere in the stairwell a man can be heard choosing the stairs.

For a moment nobody speaks. In the corner, the photocopier gives a thoughtful, sympathetic whir.

"Right," says Kirsten, trying to say it in her own voice. It comes out like a cello. "Change us back."

"Can't." Mazzaroth is re-buttoning, and looks more embarrassed than she did during the performance. "It's a wish, not a courtesy. The disguise holds until nobody who saw it still believes it, and Gareth Voss loves gossip the way other people love oxygen."

"So by morning..."

"Half of Logistics. And that is not, I'm afraid, the worst of it." The secretary hesitates. "The longer one wears a template, the more of it wears you. Tell me, what's your opinion of the Bulgarian office?"

"Honestly?" says Kirsten. "They take liberties." She stops. "I've never been to Bulgaria. I don't have an office."

"That's the opinions. Next it's golf."