Number Seventy-three
Hi everyone! Sorry that it’s been so long, but I’ve just been so gosh-darn busy! I just started my first class in graduate school, and we’re still working to get the house set up. In fact, I probably shouldn’t even be taking this time to write! I should be working on homework! Oh well!
Here is something I wrote. It’s about problems!
Polly Hawthorne has the best resume, the best degree, the best connections, and the best serious-but-stylish business suit out of anyone in her age group. She graduated first in her class from the School of Political Science at Yale and has high hopes for a career in politics. She doesn’t align herself on either side of the two-party system, but she votes Democrat to spite her parents (her own opinion being that both parties are equally adept at screwing up). Instead of aiming Left or Right, Polly has a different plan: aim up.
She is standing outside a nondescript concrete building in Washington, DC. She pushes the polished black button on the intercom and nervously adjusts her hair. A voice crackles from the speaker.
“Office of the Vice President, the Honorable Richard B. Cheney. What is your business?”
“I have an appointment for 1:48 to interview for the intern position,” Polly says. “My name is Polly Hawthorne.”
“Miss Hawthorne,” the voice says after a moment. “Applicant number seventy-three. Please take a seat in the waiting room.”
The iron gate barring the doorway buzzes and swings open. Polly strides inside to find a very plain waiting room: fluorescent lighting, white walls, black linoleum, grey metal folding chairs, an intercom box, and a postcard-sized American flag on the wall next to the only other door. The voice from the intercom asks her to take a seat.
She sits down on a metal folding chair, resting her portfolio on her knees. So far it’s not quite what Polly expected. She’s not sure what she expected, but it probably involved more marble columns and plush, red velvet cushions. Looking up to the corner of the room, she notes the beady little eye of a surveillance camera. Maybe she expected that, at least.
After a minute or two the door opens and an attractive man, maybe about twenty-nine, steps into the room. He’s wearing a grey, tailored suit with a grey silk tie, and he’s holding a clipboard. Despite his seemingly youthful face, there are little wings of gray forming at his temples.
“Number seventy-three. Polly Hawthorne?”
“That’s me,” she says, standing up and extending her hand with a smile. “The voice from the intercom?”
“Yes,” he says, looking down and making a note. “Please come this way.”
She follows him through the door into a sprawling room filled with cubicles. Despite its size, the room is extremely quiet, a low industrious hum punctuated only by a bell that rings once every few minutes. To Polly it sounds kind of like a kitchen timer. As they weave their way through the office hive, Polly starts to feel slightly uneasy. Her guide hasn’t spoken since the waiting room, and the bell is starting to bother her.
“What’s that noise?” she asks, breaking the silence. A man’s head appears over a cubicle wall, makes eye contact with Polly, and disappears. Her guide looks back at her and scribbles something on his notepad.
“That’s the bell,” he says.
Polly looks up at the back of his head, ready to say something to the effect of, “Thanks for nothing,” but decides against it. Looking around, she sees a few more men poke their heads up and watch her pass. In fact, the only people she’s seen since she arrived have been male. She’d heard that it was a man’s world at these top government offices, but she never let that stop her.
“I don’t think I caught your name,” Polly says to her guide.
“Mr. Janus,” he says without turning to face her.
“Ah, well, nice to meet you Mr. Janus,” she says. She can see him making another note on his pad. “Do you need to see my resume?”
“That won’t be necessary, Miss Hawthorne.”
They reach the other side of the cubicle farm. Mr. Janus gestures to a large, heavy-looking door set with a small window at eye level. He pushes some buttons on a keypad next to the door, and it beeps and swings open.
“Please wait in there, Miss Hawthorne.”
Growing ever more anxious about the whole process, Polly steps inside the room. It looks like an interrogation room, with a single light hanging from the ceiling over a wooden chair and table. There’s a small cage on the table, which upon closer inspection contains a tiny, grey and white tabby kitten. Polly walks over to get a closer look, and the heavy door closes behind her.
“Hey, why is there a kitten in here?” she asks. No one responds. She turns around to find that she’s alone in the room. “Hello?”
Walking back to the door, she pulls on the door to no avail. It’s firmly locked.
“The door is locked, Miss Hawthorne.”
It’s Mr. Janus’s voice, coming from an intercom next to the door. She presses the button to speak.
“Hello? Yeah, I noticed that it’s locked,” she says. “Can you unlock it please?”
“The interview process is brief, Miss Hawthorne,” he says. She stands on her toes and peeks out the tiny window in the door, but all she can see is the tops of cubicles.
“Why is there a cat in here?” she asks, but he continues without answering her question.
“We will begin shortly. Please have a seat.”
Now having serious doubts, Polly sits down at the table. The kitten is awake and starts rubbing itself against the bars of the cage, purring. Polly scratches it between the ears.
“Application number seventy-three,” the speaker says. “Your interview will now begin.”
Nothing happens. The door remains closed. Polly starts to get up to push the intercom button, but then he continues.
“You have one minute to unlock the door. After one minute has passed, a nerve agent will be released in the room, killing you and the kitten.”
It takes a second for Polly to process what Mr. Janus just said.
“What? What do you mean, nerve agent?”
“In thirty seconds the agent completely shuts down your central nervous system. However, most applicants asphyxiate once they lose control of their lungs.”
“You can’t be serious! Is this a joke or something?”
“The timer will start shortly, Miss Hawthorne. Do you have any questions?”
“Where is the key?” she asks, taking note of the vents set into the walls near the ceiling.
“The key is inside the kitten,” he says, and a timer on the wall comes to life, counting down from sixty in large, red numbers.
“Inside the kitten?” she says incredulously. The kitten looks up at Polly and mews.
“Good luck, Miss Hawthorne.”
“Wait! Wait, hold on! I’m not ready!” Polly says. What if he’s serious? They can’t really do this, can they? Polly glances nervously at the timer, which is already down to fifty.
Polly grabs the kitten’s cage and picks it up, but there’s no key underneath. She hurries around the room, checking the corners, but still no key.
The counter is at thirty-seven seconds.
Getting on hands and knees, Polly crawls under the table to see if there’s a key taped underneath. No luck. She checks under the chair – still nothing. Twenty-two seconds left. She looks up at the ceiling vents and shivers.
Thankfully, the kitten’s cage isn’t locked. Removing the tiny creature, she holds it in her lap and prods it tentatively in the stomach. It squirms and mews at her. There’s no way in the world I can do it, she thinks. No way. She sticks her finger in its mouth to see if she can’t make it throw up the key. The kitten bites her.
“Ten seconds remaining, Miss Hawthorne.”
She holds the kitten down on the table. Should she break its neck? Would that be less painful? What am I thinking, she asks herself, how would I even get the key out after I kill it? Do they expect me to…?
“Five seconds.”
She drops the kitten and runs to the door, pounding her fists on the reinforced steel.
“Stop it! Stop! I can’t do it! Don’t do it!” she screams, tears smearing her eyeliner. “You can’t do this!”
The timer reaches zero. A bell rings, kind of like a kitchen timer, and the door opens. On the other side stands Mr. Janus, making a few more notes on his clipboard.
“Thank you, Miss Hawthorne. We will contact you when we’ve made our selection.”
Incredulous, Polly searches his face for a sign that he’s joking. The kitten is rubbing against her ankles. He looks up and raises his well-formed eyebrows.
“Miss Hawthorne? Do you have a question?”
“N-no,” she says, wiping a tear from her face and further smudging her makeup.
“Very good. Please leave via the waiting room. Thank you for your interest in the Office of the Vice President.”
Bedraggled, still shaking, Polly clutches her bag to her chest and hurries down the cubicle aisle to the waiting room, twitching every few minutes when the bell rings.
July 16th, 2007 at 6:07 pm
wow. that was impressive and slightly disturbing.
July 31st, 2007 at 8:53 am
Hrmm, that sounds just like the current regime =)