And then he understood why he was doing this. He didn't want seven days in which to consider killing Mercy Adrians. He was afraid of all that time. He was afraid he would learn that this job meant more to him than a young girl's life. "He said you wanted me turned in. He said that if he didn't turn me in, you would."
Her head came up, slowly, until she was looking at her typewriter. She began to type. He said, "Stop that and answer me."
She continued typing. Mr. Tzadi came up behind them, and passed them. He said, "Hello, Mercy, Der." Neither answered him. He stopped and looked at them. Mercy kept typing. He said, "I see you've made a serious error, Der." He said it softly, sadly.
He continued on up the hall. Derrence watched him. Tzadi said hello to everyone he passed. He called them by name. They called him by name. He knew everyone and everyone knew him.
The confusion was stronger, and so was the strange new fear. Everyone was a spy! Everyone on the 36th floor was in with Tzadi! And yet, Tzadi wanted him to stay on. It was Mercy, and the others, who wanted him fired. Yet how could everyone else....
He trembled. He backed from Mercy, staring at her. She kept typing. He turned and entered his office. He closed the door, and wished he could lock it. He heard himself saying, "Dear God, dear God, dear God." He sat behind his desk. Then he got up and went to the window. He looked down to the busy street far below. Cars and people; millions of them. Life, going on normally, as it always had. Why then this feeling of being alone? Why then this growing horror of total isolation?
"Except for one," Tzadi had said to the waiter, and the waiter's face had grown sad and he had moved away. As sad as Tzadi's face when he'd looked at Derrence in the hall a few minutes ago.
And the one was an animal. And man was an animal. And he was a man.
He shook his head and put his trembling hands together and said, "What is this? You're going to lose your job, granted. Is that any reason to lose your mind too? Tzadi and that waiter are religious nuts. They have a symbolism and language all their own. Besides...." Here he laughed, because the fear was coming out into the open, and as soon as it did it was revealed as ridiculous. "Besides, how can you be the last man on earth if Tzadi and all the others are here, right here in Chester Chemical? And the waiter and all the millions down there in the streets? And the other millions in the other cities and countries of the world?"