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This was the building she'd visited earlier that day,
and now she must find the Human Resources office. She
knew it was at the front of the building, more or less
in the center, but buildings always look a little different
from the inside.
Between floors 3 and 4 she encountered a couple, kissing
passionately. Otherwise she had the entire stairwell
to herself. She found the floor. After two wrong turns,
she found the office she needed. It had double doors
made of glass. There were only two people inside, a
man and a woman. Sue watched and waited. All she needed
was five minutes alone in there, to look at the files.
She didn't dare to open the doors. She knew of one or
two tricks that might get her inside but it would be
better to save them, better to wait and see if she could
simply walk in.
After about ten minutes the man spoke to the woman.
He stood and yawned and walked towards the door. She
readied herself. He pushed the door and walked briskly
out. Susan caught it as it swung back, slipped inside
silently, and allowed the door to swing closed in a
slow natural arc.
The woman was reading a computer screen and idly picking
her nose. Sue knew from experience that she needed to
exercise great caution. In a silent room even clothes
make noise, swishing, crinkling, scuffing. In most normal
situations, when you see someone walk across a room,
say, the visual effect so far outweighs any other stimulus
that often you don't notice the sound they make at all.
But take away the visual stimulus, just close your eyes
and listen, and gradually a whole other world emerges
to the senses. You can tell how heavily the person is
walking, how fast they are moving, you could make a
guess what they weigh, you can maybe hear their shoes.
Just how panicky would you get if you heard all that
and looked up to find no one there? Sue knew from bitter
experience that people expect a certain level of silence
from an empty room.
To overcome the problem, she once toyed with the idea
of nudity but usually it was just too chilly. The best
way to navigate close to people in quiet places, she
had found, was to leave her arms at her sides, keep
her legs straight, ankles and knees together, and just
will her body to float. They didn't do it like that
in the movies or in comic books, but this was real life.
Even then there was no guarantee of safety. Bats and
dolphins build a mental image of their surroundings
based on sound but so do humans. It was hard to tell
for sure, but Sue had a feeling that she had seen people
look up, surprised, when she moved in front of a transistor
radio, for example, or an open window. They would look
up, glance around, obviously aware that something was
not exactly as it should be but unable to turn that
inkling into a solid thought, so they would give up
and return most of their attention to whatever task
had been occupying them. Most of their attention.
Susan looked at the labels on the file cabinets. Some
of them were easy to interpret, some she couldn't understand
at all, and some just had alphabetic ranges like A-D
or E-H. She made a mental note of which drawers to look
in. When she finally got time alone she might have just
a few seconds and she wanted to be prepared. Top drawer
of the first cabinet, she said to herself, bottom draw
of the second, and take a look in the I-L section. Right.
The woman finished off her left nostril and flicked
the harvest at Susan. A very observant person could
have noticed that it changed direction in mid air, when
it bounced off Susan's jeans, but this was not a very
observant person.
She picked up her purse and left the room. Susan glanced
towards the corridor to check it was empty and then
began to open the drawers of the file cabinets, careful
not to let them squeak. She found her job application
on the third try. There was the form she had filled
in: Susan Claire Kay Kennedy.
The lower part of the form bore the fierce warning
'For Administrative Use Only'. In the corner were a
row of boxes: Pending References, Rejected, Accepted.
With a thick red pen someone had drawn a check mark
in the last box. Susan's spirits soared. Accepted. Accepted!
At last, a job. She had been accepted! At last she could
earn a little cash. Just a little cash to pay at least
some of the rent and buy some food. Oh! A job, a job,
a job. By now she was dancing with excitement.
She closed the file cabinet an instant before the woman
returned. The woman read a telephone number from her
screen and began to dial. She waited for the connection,
and then sighed and waited while an answering machine
gave a polite message, and finally she spoke.
"Hello, this is Patty at Humble, Humble and Peert.
I'm calling with a message for Susan Kennedy."
Sue gasped. "Susan, hi, good news. Your job application
here was successful. We'd like you to start as soon
as possible. We were thinking of Wednesday. Could you
let me know if that will be OK? Also, one of our staff
is ill today so if you happen to be free today we could
get you up to speed this evening. If you hear this message
in time please give me a call at 555-..."
Susan was so excited she almost forgot to note down
the number. She made more noise than she should, grabbing
a pencil and a scrap of paper from a desk. She scribbled
the number and wondered how long it would take to get
to a telephone.
Sue could simply open the office door and leave. The
woman would not fail to notice, she'd wonder what was
happening, but there was nothing she could do and there
was no way to link the strange happenings to Susan.
It would be tragic if Sue missed her first pay check
because she was trapped in the HR office of the very
firm that wanted to hire her.
Then she noticed that the window was open. What the
hell. She slipped the scrap of paper into a pocket and
jumped out.
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