#birdfic

"Sir, I'm afraid I have to postpone this chat until a later date, I have a—yes that sounds lovely, ye—sure, sure yes, that's—thank you sir, you as well. All right then. Yes, until then, bye-bye." She snaps the phone closed and stares at it for a moment slightly stupefied. You shrug off your coat to hang it and step into the office. Closet. Spare broom-cupboard rented by the college? In any case, it's not what you expected and you can't decide if the chaos dwarfs the girl behind the desk, or if it bends around her like a fisheye lens made of pure junk with her at the focus. The closet-office is inundated with documents and books, wildly tacked maps on the wall, newspaper clippings, and a somewhat alarming assortment of corked flasks and you are both quite unsure of this opportunity and wonderfully intrigued. The girl sets the cell down as if it were triggered to explode any minute.  "My goodness, he talks fast."

"You held your own, I think. May I?" you say and gesture toward a wheeled chair with fraying plaid upholstery. It's not the only thing that delightfully lacks taste in here; the carpet is but a jilted memory of a lovely emerald green and the dusty window framing the girl's mischievous black hair is lopsided, letting in streaky light that falls on sagging bookshelves, ugly wood paneled walls, and yet... The girl manages to stand out like a pop art piece in a house full of antiques. She looks up and her eyes go wide, as if remembering herself suddenly.

"Oh, of course! Sit sit, let me pour us some coffee. Pardon the um," she pauses to hop over a teetering stack of banker boxes stuffed with papers that stick out like renegade locks of hair, "The mess. Just got dumped in and haven't had the time to tidy, hoo, no siree."

You get the feeling that this is a constant. "Sounds profitable."

"Hah! Sure, sure, on the business end of things we're positively booming!" she says and grabs two mugs from inside an unplugged mini-fridge. "Which has done diddly-fucking-squat for my sense of calm, thank you very much."

"Umm..." you start and watch her splash steaming coffee into the mugs. The casual f-bomb makes you reconsider your initial description of her as quaint, which means you like her already. "I'm sorry?"

She practically splutters, then waves her free hand wildly and shakes her head, somehow not spilling a single drop. "Oh no no no, don't be, my gosh! I'm just making a stink and also a rather regrettable first impression, ugh, come on now Crocker, think sharp!" You smile briefly to yourself; all that formal interview knowledge you had brushed up on suddenly seems gauche. You relax the set of your shoulders as the girl nimbly steps over stacks of textbooks and boxes as if they were just part of the terrain and holds out a mug for you to take, grinning. "Hello, I'm Jane Crocker."

"Rose Lalonde," you say and take the mug, nodding gracefully. "A pleasure to meet you."

"Pleasure's mine, I hope! Depending on how you answer my questions, I suppose, hoo hoo." 

"I shall try to perform at my utmost, then."

"Pshaw! I'd rather you be honest," she sets her mug down on a stained coaster and hops back around to the boss end of her desk. Honest, you think sarcastically, how novel. But maybe it's worth the risk. Jane rummages briefly through the piles of documents for a legal pad and flips to a blank page, scribbling the point of a pen on the corner until it lets out ink. "So, I presume you're here because of the advertisement?"

"'Current architecture student wanted for definitely illegal business that will probably get you killed. 4.0 grade point required, triple that preferred. Must get off on puzzles,'" you recite from memory with a quirked eyebrow. The flier had been hammered to a cork-board for Official Department Announcements Only on top of the official department documents with a neon pink golf tee, typed up in every offensive type face you thought possible. You had torn it from its post immediately upon read-through and folded it into a neat square, thinking why the hell not, it's Friday. And here you are, watching a busy looking, scarf tied and corduroy clad girl execute a magnificent eyeroll.

"Yeah, that erm. He took that to printing that without my approval. As usual."

"He?"

"Don't worry about that for now. So, do you like puzzles?"

"I do."

"Good! And your grade point?"

"4.0," you say and slide her a glossy black folder containing your CV, transcript, and samples from your portfolio. She rifles through it immediately and starts circling randomly with her pen, chewing on her lip gently with large incisors. You can't see what she's emphasizing and you resist the urge to lean and peer over the box of office supplies and... horse figurines? Hmm. She nods every once in a while and you wait patiently until she nears the end of your packet. "So, if I may..." you interrupt carefully and she waves her hand again, continuing to mark up your credentials. "What exactly is this job? I admit I'm here mostly due to curiosity."

"Why architecture?"

"I'm sorry?"

She looks up and presses the pen gently into her chin. You are struck suddenly by the piercing blue of her eyes; you hadn't noticed until now, charmed by her softly curled hair, rounded face, and chipper disposition, but she seems keen as a knife now that you're really looking. Her eyes are the exact color of a dusty noon sky, but sharpened to a point. "You have an awful lot of philosophy and literature under your belt. Why are you majoring in architecture, then?"

"It's relaxing."

"Relaxing!" she echoes brightly and sits back in her chair, grinning. "I must say, I've never heard anyone call it that before."

You sip politely at your coffee and smile, "Neither have I. It seems to not be the prevalent opinion."

"Hoo hoo! No, definitely not." She props the pad against her forearm and poises to take notes. "And yet," she says and nods at you, pressing the pen against her chin again. "We're looking for someone with both technical mastery and exceptional creativity."

"That's a bit vague."

"It is!" she says and laughs her soft little hoots. "Well, hmm. How can I put this. Are you satisfied with your capabilities?"

"I'm not quite sure what you mean," you say and she scrunches up her face in thought. 

"Umm... Do you ever... ugh, that buffoon's parameters are impossible to put into interrogative form," she mumbles to herself and smacks the legal pad down on her desk. Intrigue bubbles up inside of you with every mention of this mystery "buffoon" and his cryptic job opening, and you're more glad you came with each passing second. Jane huffs a sigh that flutters her soft bangs and you can't help but grin, patient but itching to know her secrets. She leans forward after a pause and holds out her hands emphatically, "When you design things, offices, houses, what have you. Are you content?"

Ah. Now things are really getting interesting.

"No," you say, your heart sparking. You're beginning to think that the advertisement was not as exaggerated as you had assumed. She nods vigorously.

"Okay. Why not?"

"I suppose it's because there seem to be an surfeit of limitations to the craft."

"Exactly! Oh drat, I'm leading you on, aren't I..."

"Not at all," you say and laugh softly. "It has been my opinion for a good while now. Physics is a rather cruel mistress."

"How do you mean?"

"She taunts you with such romantic possibilities and then right as you get to the edge," you smack the desk lightly, "She cracks the whip."

Jane hoots and chews on her lip again, "Oh, he'll like you."

"And who is this he that keeps popping into this interview?"

"My colleague and primary source of frustration. Your employer, I guess you could say."

"You make it sound as if I'm hired already."

"Well um, considering your qualifications... and the turnout..."

"I'm the only one who's answered?"

"We'll need to do some basic tests and such, you know, see if you've got the knack for it," she continues without addressing your question and drops her chin into her hand, drumming her fingers against her cheek in thought. "Are you free the rest of this afternoon?"

"I can be."

"Brilliant! Oh, though..." she pauses mid-rise and squints her eyes in thought. "Perhaps my noggin's not the best course for a first-timer... I'm a tad, er. Difficult to dupe."

Oh, you are definitely glad you're skipping classes today. You make no move, steeling yourself as stubbornly as possible and after a moment of consideration, she claps her hands together once and nods.

"Well, nothing for it! We'll just run a make-or-break."

- - -

You wake up screaming and just barely roll over in time to vomit everything you've ever eaten on the floor, accidently scratching angry red lines on your forearm when you rip out the cannula from your vein. In between racking dry heaves, you do a count of your limbs and drag your palms across your stomach, neck, and then push soaking bangs out of your eyes. You don't even know what the fuck. There had been magic, wonder, an orgasmic sloppy fuck-around with every law of physics that you knew, and you had turned to grin at Ms. Crocker and she smiled, brilliant and impressed, and then... 

Then she dropped a half-burned cigarette from her small, tough hand and stomped it out while you suddenly noticed the entire universe curving violently inward, the benign crowd of tourists suddenly wholly uninterested with the Piazza San Marco fractal and its thousands of dark pigeons replicated in swirling spirals. Jane placed a hand on your shoulder and looked a little sad, but it quickly gave way to thrill and a strange sort of curiosity, like she was about to double-dog dare you. The broken mirror beauty of the world suddenly had seemed pointed at you, like magnifying glasses copy/pasted to infinity, and you heard Jane say something short before it shattered into a maelstrom of dimensions and pain.

One last thing.

There are a thousand things you want to spit, curse, ask, beg for, but the words die in your throat when you whip up to face Jane and there's someone else in the laboratory with you. You stare dumbfounded as Jane flicks her thumb on an old brass lighter over and over and over, a cigarette in her gentle smiling mouth. When she's satisfied that it won't light, the mid-height, wiry blond with old sneakers, dirty jeans, a toolbox hairstyle, and the most outrageous affront to fashionable glasses you had ever seen smoothly holds a lit bunsen burner out in front of her. She snorts and lights her cigarette, pulls out the cannula from her own arm, and throws you a winning, smoky smile.

You spit lingering filth on the floor and say to Jane with a gravely post-hurl throat, "I hadn't pegged you as the type."

"Oh trust me, she's a chimney," the smug stranger monotones and Jane blows a cloud of smoke up at his face. So this must be the mystery employer. You are suddenly venomously pissed that the flier was so eye-catchingly terrible. This was not what you had signed up for. He tilts his head minutely at Jane, "So?"

"Mm-hmm," Jane hums cheerfully and the blond looks dispassionately pleased, somehow, when he slides forward to hold out a hand. You don't take it, favoring an upward glare instead, and he lets out a short exhale through his nose. Jane steps up and hands you a damp, warm washcloth, which you drag across your face as they stare at you. The initial shock of being torn to literal pieces by ethereal strangers—guts ripping out of your abdomen and bones snapping under their furious hands while Jane Fucking Crocker just watched with her hands clasped behind her back—fades slightly, letting through that gnawing curiosity that had led you here. You're glad to know you still possess your dangerous reckless streak, despite having a moment where you wanted to overturn every cart of medical instruments on your way out the goddamn door. When you're composed enough to drop the washcloth to the puddle of vomit without shaking, the blond holds out a hand again. This time, you take it.

You're ticking off uses for the crab lizard in your head. It would be gauche to leave the beast to rot. It would defeat the purpose of killing it in the first place, which was partly to save your own bloody hide, but mostly to do with the fact that there were too many crab lizards roaming about lately. Just the other day one lumbered into your pumpkin patch, snuffling up the ripe ones, and got far too close to your humble abode for anyone's comfort. You had chased it off by firing blanks, but you heard others growling in the forests at night, so it was just about time to thin them out one or two.

The robot stands close by with his arms crossed, fiery shades gleaming in the failing light. He assisted you with this kill, because you were still learning. Grabbed your collar and tossed you like a potato sack away from snapping jaws. Took the brunt of a tail lash, which would have probably smashed your ribcage to smithereens. You chewed on your lip at the thought. You didn't need any charitable flipping assistance, except you really did. You were still too reckless, not precise enough or preemptive enough, or so the prevaricating Mr. Strider liked to tell you every dog blasted evening. You turn back to the bullet ridden corpse and glare gory daggers.

When the fairy bulls have finished with their aria, they take off in a buzzing cloud of brown fur and glossy wings. And then it's just you and the candy red oozing corpse. You're covered in its blood, shirt and shorts and shoes soaked right through, all sticking to you like seaweed. The robot steps into your periphery with his sword gleaming evilly, ready to cut where he's ordered. His methods unnerve you horribly. He slices and skins and snaps without feeling, and that... it makes sense, but you can't frigging stand it. But he's strong enough to break off legs and drag them back to your broken tower. The crab lizards are huge. You can only lift so much.

When you've gleaned enough meat to last for months from the thing, you turn without a word and walk to the ocean. The robot follows you without question, probably thinking you've got more creatures to slay. But that's not it. Not it at all.

You can use this though, you can kind of take it and rotate the knob a few dozen degrees so that the blood that you're leaking all over the stairs and carpet and checkerboard bathroom tiles is sassy, like little petty morsels of revenge that your bro's gonna have to scrub out later with a steel sponge and splashes of chemistry from the plethora of toxic shit he's stashed in cupboards and drawers. Maybe some will stick. Maybe a few weeks from now, you'll fall asleep on the stairs where the airflow is at least begrudgingly passable and you'll shift when that one stair with uncovered plywood, the one you had to fix after your foot went through it during an escape and you shredded your shin and had to get an assload of shots for tetanus and the diseases in mouse shit, it digs into your lower back and scratches soft white streaks because the pillow shifted. Maybe you'll turn and you'll see a little trail of brownish reddish speckles and you will suck in a breath and push your arm up your shirt, run your fingertips over the faint white scribble on your chest, the signature by sword-tip that took fucking forever to close up (which is partly due to the deep reach of the steel, and partly because you're a scab-picker), and you will know that this top floor apartment will never ever ever wash clean of you. You're jacked in tight to this bitch, you're threaded like tendon fibers, like calcified tissue in the corners, and no scalpel will hack you out.

Your bro dumps you on the toilet and walks off to get his sewing/med kit. No shit, he just fucking walks, and when the soles of his sneakers leave ghosted honeycomb sponge-prints of you on the tile, you very nearly throw up all over your jeans. You peel off your shirt, like numb epidermis, and throw it in the sink. You drop your shades behind you, looking down at the rivers on your chest, and think, this is gonna make an awesome scar.

When your bro comes back with his kit, he hands you a gallon of water and waves his hand at your gash almost dismissively, like get rid of it, it's annoying. The water stings and is cool and makes way for more blood and you furiously hope the runoff gets in the cracks. At least he takes off his glasses, dropping them on the back of the toilet, and you pour slow while he burns a curved needle with a Zippo. Obscenities bubble and froth in your throat, but you're saving them for the thread.

He kneels down and you upturn the gallon of water so the rest of it crashes on your chest and pours down your legs and onto the floor. You toss the empty jug over his shoulder and lean back against the toilet; the porcelain is cold and slippery with your sweat, and you hold your breath for the first stitch.