The Emperor's New Clothes (Royce Ree #1) (7 page)

Interview for Posting ID 1561
.

With a deep breath, I
clicked on the pristine, bold, sans-serif subject line. At last, I
was summoned, to come in on Monday with two pieces of photo ID and
a certified copy of my transcripts.

The news merited more
coffee, and an espresso machine was added to the list of things to
buy - this instant filth was corroding my taste buds.

"Imp!" No answer.
"Imp!" A purr from the drawing room indicated that Imp was at its
customary spot. "Imp, turn that off!"

There was a hiss,
followed by the high-pitched squeal of a cheap remote, and my
familiar finally deigned to enter the study. All three feet of its
mottled grey-and-glass skin bristled with contrition. A clever
ploy; I decided I was not angry at it after all.

"Coffee," I said,
holding out my now empty cup. "And find me something to eat, will
you?"

Barely two minutes
later, I had a steaming cup of coffee, and a small plate of
chocolate biscuits on my desk, reminding me of why I tolerated the
impertinence - chocolate biscuits and efficiency were not to be
trifled with.

Purr
brrup?

"Dig up the paperwork
Petra sold us."

Squeak!
Squeak?

"Yes, on Friday. And
if you behave yourself, I'll get you cable next week."

Purr.

#

Reputable netizens were of the
opinion that all software engineers wanted to work for JCN. And it
was in one of JCN's conference rooms that I found myself on Monday
morning, cooling my heels.

It wasn't till 28:23 that a large
middle-aged man entered the room, and gripped my hand in a
bone-crushing handshake.

A student of 'Manage with Power!'
self-help seminars, evidently.

"You have a very impressive
resume," he said, "for an entry level candidate."

"Thank you, sir." At $3,000 per
professionally typeset page, it better be impressive.

"Have a seat, Mr.
Penn."

"Thank you, sir."

"Let's start with why you want to
work for JCN."

Smile #23 twisted my lips upwards,
tinged my eyes with the right proportion of bravura and warmth.
"Would you like the approved interview response, or the
truth?"

His pupils dilated. "Whatever you
want to tell me."

So I hadn't misread the man - in
his book, boldness equated to honesty, charm to skill. Mr.
Management was going to hire me today.

The surety sat in my stomach like
warm vanilla pudding throughout the rest of the
interview.

"I think that's about it," he
said, after thirty-two minutes. "It was a pleasure talking to
you."

"Same here, sir," I said. Just
then, the door to the conference room slammed open.

"Hey!" said Mr. Management. "We
were just about done."

"Thought I'd drop by," said the
newcomer. "You know, Lead Developer interviewing a tech
guy?"

Lead Developer? A new variable.
Abrupt, bespectacled, unkempt hair. And very attractive. At least,
very much my type. Another variable, but not necessarily a bad one
– people tend to react rather well to admiration.

"Hello sir," I said, standing and
extending my hand.

Mr. Lead Developer gave me an
irritated smile, and took a seat. Then, after a moment or two of
leafing through my resume, he looked up.

"Caltech, huh?"

It all went downhill from
there.

"What is a pure virtual
function?"

"What is the diamond problem, and
how can it be avoided?"

Charm, flattery, challenge, every
conversational gambit in my diplomatic arsenal was ignored; he dug
for undiluted data with the single-minded ferocity of an attack
dog.

"Why the hell would you use a loop
for that?"

The questions were purely
malicious; he'd plumbed the rather shallow depths of my technical
knowledge a third of the way through the interrogation.

"How would you go
about-"

"Sir," I said, "I honestly don't
know. This is why I would like to work here, and gain from your
experience and leadership so I can make a valuable
contri-"

"Stop playing buzz-word bingo, Mr.
Penn. Do you, or do you not know how to..."

The one and only correct response
I managed to provide was a quick solution to a mathematical
algorithm. The windows diffused the mid-morning sunlight into
something soft, a mocking counterpoint to the stinging papercut I
acquired from the edges of my neatly stapled CV.

"Well, I think that's it," said
Mr. Lead Developer finally, and got to his feet.

Through it all, Mr. Management had
been sitting off to one side, stunned into silence by his favoured
candidate's abrupt fall from grace.

"Um, yes," he said now, rising
from the table a heartbeat after the Lead Developer. "We'll be in
touch."

There was nothing else to do but
get up, nod, and leave the room. Their scrutiny followed me all the
way across the hall and into the lift. And my better-than-human
hearing couldn't help but pick up the threads of their analysis of
me.

"He knows jack shit."

"Maybe he just needs a little
training, some hands-on stuff. I don't remember most of what I
learned in college."

"No one has time to babysit. You
like him, put him in sales."

#

It's very hard to get
lost in the grid that is downtown Toronto, and by the time I
reached Allan Gardens. I still hadn't managed it. Giving up, I
headed South on Sherbourne, to Moss Park, and claimed a bench in
the shadow of a stunted birch. There, I waited for the cortisol to
fade from my system. It took effort; the sun was tinged orange by
the time my humour was restored. The wind changed direction,
bringing with it the almost undetectable smell of sweat and urine
and old-man clothes.

And, suddenly, the
Symbiot woke up.

It zeroed in on a
man, shuffling slowly towards my bench. A mutation, one I had not
seen before, lurked within his decrepit body. It tainted the air
with want, clamouring to be fed upon.

A heartbeat later, a
strident ringing from my pocket jarred the Symbiot out of its
singular focus. Grateful for the reprieve, I thumbed
talk.

"Hello."

"This is an automated
reminder from Petra Exile Services. Thank you for choosing Petra
Enterprises for all your Relocation needs. Payments on your account
are now overdue. If you have already made a payment, please
disregard this message, otherwise please contact our Customer
Service department at 1-800-555-5555 immediately. For your
convenience, this message will repeat in Akkadian, Imperial
Mandarin, Latin, Sanskrit, Lingua-"

Sighing, I hung
up.

The old man lowered
his body onto the bench. "A long day," he said. "A long day, young
man."

"It was," I agreed,
and went home.

#

The convection
currents are strong today; the helium-rich updraft is making my
poor baby's engines whine.

Breath-mask, full
tank. Check.

Sensors, safety,
comms. Check.

Excalibur.
Check.

Enough.

I've got your
number...

It took effort to
wrench myself out of the dream-memory. Imp was shuddering, curled
into a tight ball against my stomach.

"Hush, hush little
thing," I whispered, stroking its scaly head. "It's over. And it
won't ever find you."

Peep?

"White noise.
Promise."

#

Wednesday morning
brought with it new mail. Imp placed it at the corner of my desk,
along with a cup of the vile-tasting coffee.

Thinnest envelope
first.

Apparently my
application did not meet the required merit criteria, but they
thanked me sincerely for applying. With elaborate care, I crumpled
the paper and placed it in the bin.

There was also a very
nice letter from the cellphone company that thanked me for choosing
them, thanked me for paying the first month's bill via electronic
means, and then thanked me for paying the environmental tax for
paper-based billing.

A
little less gratitude would perhaps have been better received by
me;
that
particular letter earned itself a violent
transition to refuse.

Still no emails. A
vague restlessness came over me. Stepping out of the study, I
caught a ray of sunlight through the drawing room
window.

"Walk." I said to
Imp. It gazed mournfully at the TV. "Fine, stay."

It squeaked,
snuggling deeper into the sofa.

At College and
University, the wind tore my attention away from the cellphone bill
and towards the entrance to Queen's Park station. Misshapen
whispers, like the longest shadows at sunrise, were rising out of
the ground.

And
that's
why the city and I broke up last
time. She drew my attention too deeply into her dark folds,
reminded me, painfully, that I was not my father, that the Mark of
the King did not grace my brow, and there was very little I could
do other than make the shadows deeper.

But this was a new
age, and now the air was threaded through with circuits and
lightning. The suicide's shade had dissipated under the wireless
onslaught long before I got to the next intersection. And, like a
benediction from unnamed gods, not twenty steps away hung a green
and white sign, Lady Liberty smiling at me with the promise of
caffeine.

Latte in hand, I sought out an ATM. Less than three hundred
dollars for the foreseeable future, with rent due in two
weeks.
Perhaps you should
tone down the lattes.

As if to reward my
wholesome thought, my cellphone went Bing!, startling a young woman
to my left. Giving her an apologetic smile, I pressed
talk.

"Good afternoon is
Mr. Penn there" said a monotonic female voice.

"Speaking"

"You applied for a
position at Rogers."

"Yes?"

"We've already
finished hiring for customer service. Would you be willing to do
cold calls."

"Um..." Pride warred
with the memory of my account balance. "Sure."

"We're doing group
interviews at nine on Monday at our Yorkdale office. Please bring
two references. Be on time. Do you have any questions."

The lack of any tonal
quality to her voice made me wonder if the requirement for
'enthusiastic' and 'helpful' on the posting had been a
sham.

"Not at this time,
thank you."

"Goodbye."

Cold calling.
Breathing deeply, I enumerated the merits of humility. Which led me
to the next problem - references. Well, I had Petra on speedial for
such things.

#

"Thank you for
calling Petra Credit Services. Please enter your thirty-two digit
personal identifier, followed by the pound key."

I probably looked
like a lunatic, stabbing at my cellphone for a good minute. At
least the system accepted the number on the first try, putting me
on hold while it went to fetch a 'customer service
representative'.

"Good afternoon Mr.
Penn, my name is Sajiya dePetra, do you mind if I ask you some
questions for security purposes in order to access your
account?"

"Go ahead." You have
my voiceprint and SIM on file. Is my birth-date really
necessary?

"Could you please
give us your birth-date?"

"November 11th 394
CE, Julian adjusted."

"Thank you sir. And
what is your full mailing address including hyperspatial
coordinates?"

A shopping-bag laden
woman crossed the street to avoid walking by me. Understandable,
given that I was, to all intents, hissing and croaking into my
phone.

"Finally, sir, do you
have a consort or a partner you are sharing your checking account
with?"

"No."

"Thank you for your
patience. How may I help you?"

"I need three
references generated for an entry-level position."

"Please hold while I
pull up your account."

Didn't she just
access my account when she asked me all that? But it took two full
cycles of Gaga's Bad Romance, played on what sounded like a
ukulele, before Ms. Petra returned.

"I'm sorry sir, your
credit account with us is fully extended. Do you have any other
means of making a payment for the service?"

Switching ears, I
decided to stop for a red light at the corner of Yonge and College.
"I thought I had access to whatever services I needed?"