The Interview

The Interview

Royce walked beside me. I wore a brand new suit, while he wore khaki slacks and a polo shirt. Our disparity made sense – after all, I was the one being interviewed. I was the guy desperate for a job. This was my last, best chance. If I bungled things, I’d lose my lease, my car.

I saw how little Royce had changed over the years. Since grad school, we’d communicated solely via email and phone calls, but his manic gesticulations were still on full display as he prepped me for my first interview in months.

“I’ve been telling you ever since I started here, Amherst is a great outfit. Everyone I work with is fantastic. A bit quirky – some would say nerdy or outright strange – but they’re great mentors and colleagues.”

“I get it – leading edge companies tend to be that way,” I said. We continued down the long, doorless hallway with only glowing sconces to light our way. “I’m pretty strange at times, myself. I can do weird, Royce. I get that.”

“Ask lots of questions - shows enthusiasm and curiosity. No pre-canned corny answers to questions, either. They’ll see right through it. Jennings will throw you a few curve balls, so be ready. In fact, everyone threw me curves for my interview, just to see if I could think on my feet.”

“Royce, listen,” I said, momentarily pausing my stride. I managed to slow him down for at least a few seconds. “I got this. You know me from grad school, right? I’m the same inquisitive, motivated scientist you worked with, roomed with. Hell, partied with.”

At last we reached the end of the hall, where a large wood door stood before us, shut.

“Go get ‘em tiger!” he said, with a light, mock punch to my shoulder.

Then he knocked firmly on the door. A brief pause, then a click, and the door drifted open several inches. Royce pulled a melodramatic about-face and marched resolutely off. I swallowed, straightened my tie, and made my “confident entry”.

From that moment on, my sanity was in question.

---

I was numb, dizzy by the time Royce found me shuffling up and down that hallway in a trance.

“Buddy, you’re pale as a ghost. You okay?”

“I dunno,” I said.

He guided me to his office, one hand on my shoulder – through a labyrinthine maze of hallways. Once inside, he closed the door and eased me down into a comfortable office chair. Bright light streamed through the wall-sized windows. Beyond the glass and far below, the city's metal monoliths vanished, rank upon rank, into the midday haze. Royce sat down beside me.

“You look terrible. What the hell happened in there?”

“You never told me,” I whispered, as images from the past two hours swirled through my head, raised goosebumps on my arms. “I feel like this was all some crazy setup.”

“I never told you what? And what do you mean, a setup?”

“Those creatures. I thought I was hallucinating at first, but then they started communicating with me. That’s the only way I stayed tethered to reality. To sanity. At first, I nearly threw up in fear. One called itself, or himself, Jennings.”

“What do you mean, creatures? Listen, you having a psychotic break, buddy?”

“Royce, level with me. Was I breathing some weird sort of of “LSD gas” in that room? Just to test my reactions? I mean, you said they’d throw me some curve balls, so I thought this might’ve been their opening volley.”

“LSD? What are you talking about? Here, let me get you some water.”

Royce slipped out the door and returned with a plastic cup full of cold, clear water. He handed it to me, sat down, and urged me to drink.

How could I describe what I’d seen in that room? The blinds had been drawn, and four glowing beings – like huge jellyfish hovering above their chairs – were the only sources of illumination in the room. I nearly fainted, until one of them spoke.

“Good morning, Mister Liebowitz. I’m Dorian Jennings, and I’ll be guiding our interview conversation. Please, take a seat at the head of the table.”

I sat, then heard strange whirring sounds emanating from the four of them. I finally found the source - a series of small tendrils on their undersides that spun in a blur - like propellers of a kind. Is this how they remained aloft? A thought occurred - perhaps these were surreal-looking drones, not living beings, controlled remotely by my interviewers. If this was the first "curve ball" they'd thrown, it was a doozy.

But then I felt something that dispelled such notions. Squishy-feeling flesh - cool, slippery - was sliding deftly into each ear. I reached up in alarm but felt nothing. My heart began pounding as the sensations wriggled deeper into my head. Then Jennings spoke again, this time "in my mind". An immediate perception - of pure thought - free of the reverberations of a human voice in this bare-walled, acoustically reflective room.

"Please, make yourself comfortable, Mister Liebowitz. I'd like to introduce my colleagues - Wilma Cox, Jeremy Usher, and Linda Walls."

As he "thought" each name in my head, the nearest of the creatures extended one long tendril and pointed briefly at each of the others.

These weren't drones. No, these were living, breathing creatures. At least I think jellyfish breathe.

Jennings' voice was comforting, calming, and my heart slowed in my chest. Despite the absurd, some might say terrifying, nature of these creatures, I tried some box breathing and kept telling myself - "You can do this. You will not be harmed. And you must get this job."

Thus, the main interview commenced.

Throughout those two hours, I spoke aloud, but everyone else spoke telepathically. Somehow, I could easily distinguish one mental voice from another. And there were these other creatures, too – like hazy red corpuscles, each about six inches across – that emerged from air vents in the ceiling and floated among the jellyfish. They moved from one creature to another, as if transferring energy of some sort among them. A couple dozen of them floated about continuously, and I was glad none of them approached me.

It blew my mind, how quickly we immersed ourselves in a conversational flow. Their questions were challenging, and I soon forgot the surreal absurdity of my situation. I answered with great enthusiasm and asked a lot of my own questions, too, about their genetic engineering methodologies, their lab facilities, what kind of role I might play.

After hearing of my seemingly ludicrous experience, Royce sad wide-eyed in his chair.

“I have no idea where all of this is coming from,” he said. “Are you trying to sabotage yourself? Is that what this nonsense is about? Are you trying to fail?”

I described how, halfway through the meeting, the door opened, and a large spider-like creature – addressed as Mister Babcock by Jennings – its body covered with luminous orange fur, carried in a platter of donuts, placed it on the table and left without a word. I reached for one with chocolate icing and coconut shavings. Then my interviewers reached over with their loosely hanging, luminous tendrils. Each grabbed a donut and shoved it into whatever counted as a mouth. Seconds later, each donut reappeared, barely visible, inside the bell-shaped body of the jellyfish.

I fell silent, while Royce stared at me, a look of grave concern on his face. Then a knock on the door broke our silence. Royce opened the door and admitted a fiftyish-looking man with stubbly gray hair, a ruddy face, and bright blue eyes. He wore a retro-style tweed suit, round wire-rim spectacles perched on his nose.

“Mister Jennings!" Royce said. I did a double take, as the man looked down at me with a grin.

“We’ve already made our decision,” the man said, and I recognized that voice – from inside my head. “And we’re prepared to make you a generous offer that does justice to both your experience and talent.”

He stepped further into the office and handed me a typewritten page, while three others filed in – another man and two women, all of them dressed in classy but retro-style outfits. Royce watched on, amazed, as I read through the offer page that Jennings had just handed me.

I couldn’t believe it – nearly double my previous salary, with incredible benefits, to boot.

“Mister Jennings, and, all of you, thank you. I accept this incredibly generous offer, and I look forward to working with all of you here at Amherst!"

"Welcome aboard!" Jennings said.

As I shook hands with each of them, strange clicks sounded from out in the hallway, and I glimpsed the spider creature – Mister Babcock – stride past, his long, spindly spider legs propelling him forward.

I didn't give it a second thought…