#fine brain

"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.