by Hayes, Drew
In one stroke of fortune, Al didn’t appear to fall into the bloodthirsty camp, and as I scanned her application, I noted an excellent history of self-motivated higher learning. She’d taken business classes, introductory accounting courses, even some freelance entrepreneurial offerings. No degrees, however; just lots of partial education. On top of that, she’d listed no relevant work experience, or prior history at all. Part of me wondered if that was in error, but aside from the smear of color across the top of the page, her application was flawless.
“Quite the number of classes under your belt.”
“But nothing formalized to show for it,” Al replied, answering my question before it was even spoken. “My family life growing up was complicated. Traditionally, these aren’t the sorts of pursuits we go in for. I was able to grab classes here and there by making them seem like flights of fancy, and while the internet opened up more opportunities, a degree was never on the table. Not until I can get it on my own.”
Earnest, straightforward, and with a strong personal conviction toward growth. But Al was squirming slightly, her confident tone not mirrored in her wandering eyes and fidgeting hands. While I’m far from an expert in body language, being uncomfortable in an office setting is my native tongue. We hadn’t hit her most dreaded hurdle yet; although, I had a hunch where it would be. If the curious education wasn’t worrying her, then there was an obvious next step.
Rather than head there immediately, I decided to steer away first and get to know my applicant a little better. We couldn’t linger for too long, what with the crowd, but there was no point in even holding these interviews if I wasn’t going to do them well.
“Okay, Al, you can pick which of these next questions you wish to answer: why do you want to work here, or what are your greatest strengths?”
She looked back, frozen for several seconds, barely even daring to move. I thought I’d terrified her comatose until she let out a careful, steadying breath. I knew that expulsion well; it was a technique to manage nerves that I, myself, had been very fond of—back when oxygen still influenced my body. “That’s a good surprise question. I wasn’t geared in to having a choice; nearly threw me for a loop.”
“It’s partially born from having to muddle through terrible questions when I was on that side of the desk, and partially because I like seeing which questions applicants choose to answer. Says almost as much as the answers themselves.” That was, perhaps, a much cooler explanation than the truth, which was that I’d seen too many poor answers sink entire interviews in my own corporate days. Offering options tended to put people more at ease, give them a sense of control. The rest of the bluster was just to make sure they took the choice, and subsequent answer, seriously.
Adjusting her jacket slightly, Al straightened up. Even if she didn’t feel confident, she was powering through, a move I very much respected. “In that case, I’ll take telling you why I want to work here. Truth be told, I do want to learn accounting, but it’s not just that. I want to learn everything about running a business. All the nitty-gritty details, all the paperwork, all the boring aspects most people try to skip. Because one day, I want to start my own. Not an accounting firm; numbers are just one skill I’m going to need. We’re talking years and years down the road, though—I don’t want you thinking I’m just hopping in for a quick education. My kind live a long time, and I’m willing to put in however long is necessary to learn it all.”
In the course of this interview, I’d learned several things. When let loose, Al could talk for a clip. Her internal drive was exceptional, and she either had an honest nature or had chosen a very strange stretch of lies to spin. My goal for today had been to hire someone with ambitions toward accounting, but there was no harm in someone who wanted further knowledge. The one major concern would be her clearly stated desire to eventually break off—but, then again, did I really expect these people to spend centuries with me? We weren’t asking her to swear fealty to the House of Fred: this was simply a job. From that perspective, a multi-year commitment was perfectly reasonable, especially if Al worked as hard as she suggested.
Which, unfortunately, brought us around to what I suspected would be Al’s biggest issue: the utter lack of experience. “I understand the desire to learn, and the yearning to strike out on your own. However, given what you’ve just said, it does call into question why you haven’t tried this route at other companies in the past. You seem the sort who would have a career plan, and I know I wasn’t part of it, as we only put word out that we were hiring earlier this week.”
“About that…” Her squirming hit a fever pitch; we’d definitely hit her stumbling point. “I actually have had jobs before. Some at mundane companies, some run by parahumans. But I once read that you shouldn’t list a place if you didn’t work there at least a week…”
It was my turn to wear a surprised expression. A job not working out was one thing, but how was she managing to get fired in the span of under a week? Multiple times, from the sound of it? Personality differences could certainly arise, yet Al seemed amiable and competent. Mercifully, she didn’t force me to pose the question.
“Not because I showed up drunk, or stole, or anything,” Al said, veering toward babbling as her nerves won ground. “But my parahuman nature has fairly… noticeable displays, at times. Causes friction. Sometimes they fire me; more often, I’ll just go once I see the warning signs.”
While this interview was for Al, to my surprise, I found myself facing an unexpected test. She was, to the best of my gathering, a candidate who, while perhaps not fully qualified, certainly had the features I looked for in an employee: upfront, driven, and with clearly defined goals. The largest potential hurdle seemed to be her parahuman nature, which was plainly a factor to contend with. When we’d opened this interview, I’d told her there was no need to share what she was, and Al had taken me up on that. If I asked, my gut said she’d tell me. It would paint the full picture, telling me the entirety of what I’d be biting off in choosing Al.
I won’t lie and say there wasn’t a real temptation to do just that. My mind lit up with defenses and explanations, arguing that it was safer for the clan to know what we might be letting through our doors. But in the end, the application I was looking at made a concrete case for why I couldn’t go back on my word. Based on what I could see, Al had the makings of an excellent employee; others in a hiring role had plainly seen that, too. Yet here she was, swinging at a wild chance of a job in the middle of the night, all supposedly because of her supernatural heritage. Maybe Al wouldn’t be the best fit for the role. There was still a waiting room full of candidates to speak with. But whether she was or wasn’t, it would be based on her , not her parahuman complications.
“Well, if you have environmental or dietary requirements, that is something we’d need to go through during the hiring process, should you get the job,” I explained, setting up proper expectations, just in case. “Outside of that, what you are is your business, and we can deal with hurdles that arise as needed. I hate to keep this short, but as you’ve seen, there are quite a few others I’ll need to speak with tonight. Is there anything else you’d like to say before we head back to the lobby?”
Al took her time, carefully considering the opportunity rather than spitting back a bland pleasantry. “I get that I’m selling an odd package here, one with obvious complications, even if you don’t yet know what they are. All I can tell you is that what I am matters a lot less to me than who I want to be, and the kind of work I can do. If you give me a chance, I’ll use it to prove that to you.”
“Very well said,” I noted, rising from my chair. Al followed the lead, wrapping up with a steady handshake as we headed out the door. “Originally, I was going to ask those with promise to linger for a second interview once we’d narrowed down our options, but that was back when I considered ten people showing up an optimistic pipe dream. Please feel free to take your leave, and we can schedule a follow-up via phone.”
“If i
t’s okay with you, I’d rather wait, just in case. I want this job, and I’m not afraid of cooling my heels to get it that much faster.” I was fast growing to appreciate Al’s straightforwardness. She said what she wanted plainly, in no uncertain terms, and worked steadily toward it. The dedication certainly didn’t hurt, either.
Heading to the door, my eyes were struck by a splash of red on the desk. Momentarily confused, I quickly realized it was just my bowl of mints. Except… I was positive I’d gotten the plain kind offered in bowls at diners, not the round ones with red and white striping. It was a detail I’d have given more thought to, were there not more pressing matters to deal with.
When we finished the short walk to the lobby, I noticed a commotion coming from the other side of the glass. Shifting our positions, I moved so that Al was behind me as we drew near the door. Unless she was something truly special, odds were strong that I was the hardier of us. If anything was going to go wrong, it would hit me first. As I arrived, I found myself looking out at what was possibly the last thing I expected.
Standing around the lobby, nearly all of the applicants were singing, dancing, and generally causing very vocal merriment. On its own, that would have been concerning, but there was a larger issue catching my attention: Bubba and Amy were both belting songs with the rest of the room. They had their arms around each other’s shoulders, both visibly relaxed, singing and swaying for all they were worth.
Whatever was going on, two of my helpers were smack dab in the middle of it.
4.
The upside to unwilling adventures is the benefit of experience. If I walked into a room and saw everyone on fire or nursing bullet holes, I’d know Krystal was on the scene. Lots of precise, deadly blows? That meant Arch had come through. Giant smoking hole with no sign of survivors? Well, that one I’d yet to encounter in person, but I had a hunch I’d know Gideon’s handiwork when I saw it.
As for a room full of people who looked to be in an altered state of mind, one rarely had to look farther for the cause than the master alchemist and revered mage named Amy Wells, whose specialties were known to revolve around the recreational side of mystic herbology. Need some horrific danger stopped dead in its tracks? Call the Agency. Need to get absolutely wrecked despite a parahuman metabolism or being a living corpse? That took nothing more than a text to Amy.
“Stay back,” I cautioned Al. Peering through the window, I scanned the room, hunting for Lillian. Generally speaking, unless one of Amy’s concoctions was made specifically for undead, we tended to be immune to them. She used elements that relied on traditional ingestion—in this case, my guess was on inhalants—and vampire bodies generally ignored such things. Unfortunately, the trouble with magic was that there were no universal rules. I’d once accidentally drunk from Amy’s glass rather than my own at dinner and spent the next three hours watching the ceiling swim. Whatever this was, I couldn’t be certain of my immunity, which was why my eyes hunted so fervently for Lillian. If she still had her head, then I could go in. Otherwise, I risked becoming as addled as the others.
Much as I craned my neck, I couldn’t find her. That could be a good sign; perhaps she’d held on to enough mental clarity to flee while escape was still an option. Or perhaps Lillian’s idea of a fun time involved racing through the night; I preferred not to think too hard on that possibility.
“Real shitshow in there, right?” I heard a voice ask from behind me—a voice that definitely wasn’t Al’s. Spinning around, my eyes locked on Lillian, standing at Al’s side and visibly waiting for me to notice her arrival. “Also, we have got to work on your awareness, Fredrick. I wasn’t even being quiet.”
“What… how…?” Eloquence has never been my talent, and getting caught by surprise only exacerbated the issue as I floundered for mental purchase. After a moment to compose my thoughts, the next attempt at speech was thankfully more cohesive. “What’s going on out there?”
“You can put the pieces together easily enough. The crowd started to get unruly not long after you left with our first candidate, here. Parahumans aren’t great with patience, in general—not as many lines in our culture. Since we’re not supposed to use force outside of extreme circumstances, Amy said she was going to fix the room’s vibe. A few drops was all it would take; once they hit the floor, everyone would breathe in the good mood.”
Lillian was right: this was more or less how I’d have imagined things had played out, which said a lot about my friends and my life, a fact that there was insufficient time to properly contemplate. “I’m guessing Amy miscalculated?”
“Dunno. It’s possible her idea would have worked, except that whoever brought the tengatulon didn’t train it well. Amy got whacked on the knee by a rogue tentacle while pouring and dropped the whole bottle. It had considerably more than a few drops in it. Good news is, it definitely doesn’t work on vampires. I got a face full of it and feel fine, so at least one of us is sober.”
The implied bad news was that we were now two sober vampires and one job applicant, pitted against an entire lobby of blissed-out parahumans. They appeared content and pliant, so that was something. And in all honesty, despite the strange scene, it was impossible to say that things hadn’t calmed down. No destruction, no panic. Just a bunch of people singing along to what appeared to be four different songs coming from various people’s phones. Looking out at them, a new, immediately relevant thought entered my mind.
“Wait, why are you back here? If you’re immune to Amy’s potion, shouldn’t you be keeping order?” While I can appreciate how it might seem as though I was accusing Lillian of dereliction of duty, that couldn’t be further from the truth. I’d worked with Lillian more than enough to know she was dedicated, as well as independently competent. She wouldn’t have left the lobby without a reason, and said reason seemed the sort of thing I should probably be abreast of.
Sure enough, a cloud of worry flashed across Lillian’s face, one she kept largely concealed from Al. “Because I’m not the only one who wasn’t affected. There was a guy sitting in the corner, noticeably big, even in a room of therians. Didn’t seem the sort to go in for an accounting job, but I know how you feel about preemptive judging, so I kept an eye on him, quietly. Not long after Amy dosed the room, he slipped out. I heard him going around back, and then…” Lillian’s eyes darted around once, like she was afraid of being overhead. “Fredrick, it pains me to admit this, but I lost him.”
“Sorry to interrupt, but given what that lobby looks like, you shouldn’t be so hard on yourself for losing someone in the chaos.” Al patted Lillian on the shoulder.
“You’re sweet. However, it is not shame that worries me. It’s fear. I am no newly turned prowler of the night. I have had time and training; within the Turva clan, my skills as a tracker were widely respected. For someone to slip even one of my senses when I’m paying full attention means that they have exceptional skills of their own. The sorts of skills an assassin might have trained.”
I really, truly, dearly wanted to tell Lillian the idea was absurd, and was stopped only by the simple fact that I knew it wasn’t. The Turva clan she’d just mentioned had already tried to take me out through various means, all of which had failed. The latest had involved bringing in the Blood Council, the final resort of our vampire ruling system. With that gambit gone south, it was entirely possible they would switch gears and attempt a more overt solution. There would be fallout, if that were the case—my clan had alliances with powerful people—but none of that would make me any less dead. The permanent kind of dead, too, where I didn’t still get to enjoy time with friends and muddle through new experiences.
“That said, it’s a long walk from seeing people lose their minds to being a secret murderer, so maybe our big man was just looking for the bathroom.” It was hard to say how much of Lillian’s optimism was for my benefit and how much was for the sake of Al, a stranger who likely wasn’t accustomed to these sorts of issues. I also wasn’t entirely happy with the realization that I c
learly was becoming unfazed by them, another implication that would require proper time to unpack. “The real question here is what do should we do next?”
I looked back out through the glass. While the group was content, there were also several parahumans with unnatural features visibly on display. I didn’t know how they normally blended in with human society, so I couldn’t put those measures into place. Given their state of mind, it would be cruel, bordering on criminal, to turn them loose into the world without the capacity to care for themselves. And since the only person I knew who might be capable of reversing the effects was leading a drum circle using an overturned plastic wastebasket, it didn’t seem like Amy would be a lot of help in curing everyone. Our only option was to wait it out, let people sober up enough to make their own way safely home. Maybe Amy would come around early and could help speed things along, but we couldn’t risk digging about in her supplies. At her best, Amy considered labels to be suggestions more than tools.
“We keep going with the interviews,” I declared. “It’s what they’re expecting, anyway, and I’m not sure this will fundamentally impact their ability to answer basic questions. Anyone who wants a do-over can have one, but if nothing else, this should let us weed through those interested in the position, rather than the rumors.”
“Oh, sure, when you hold interviews with people who are fucked up, it’s fine, but if I’d suggested having Amy whip up something to put us in a good mood, you’d have said it was unprofessional. You see what we’re dealing with?” Lillian gave Al a good-natured elbow poke in the ribs, eliciting a sharp giggle that Al quickly cut off by covering her mouth.
“Sorry,” Al said quickly. “I’m kind of ticklish.”
“My fault. Apologies, and so noted.” Lillian strode over to me, peering out through the window. “I still think I should be patrolling for our missing man. With Amy and Bubba out, it might even be time to call in backup. You’re still down a bodyguard, you know.”