Reaching the bottom of the stairs, you turn the corner to enter the sprawling first floor everything of this small little townhouse. Open floorplan at it’s finest the kitchen, dining, and living area all just flow into each other. It didn’t make the place any bigger, but it at least made the small domicile you and Sable shared feel more inviting. Mind you, with a large section of your childhood spent actually living in a lab, even a small townhouse was a five star hotel.
Speaking of, the breakfast buffet today is scrambled egg whites with cheese on toast with a large sliced apple. Orange juice on the side. Breakfast of champions if you ever saw one. And of course today’s chef, like always, is the esteemed Sable Paige. You approach your surrogate grandmother and kiss graying black mink on the forehead. “Morning Sable. Breakfast smells wonderful.”
“Breakfast smells wonderful, he says,” she says somewhat mockingly as she reaches up and fusses with my fangs. “You spend all that time polishing your fangs, only to come down and eat cold food. Next thing you know you’ll miss the bus because you were upstairs brushing them again.”
I try not to laugh, and fail. “That’s what dental gums are for, Sable. I’ll be first one in line for interviews.” I sit down at the table and reach for the pepper shaker. As wonderful as she is, Sable doesn’t season food and says with my condition I don’t need any salt. So, pepper it is.
Sable, for her part, rolls her eyes as she sits down. The mink has her hair up in a bun again today, this time held up with a pair of chopsticks. Yesterday it was a seashell spiked comb, and tomorrow it might be tuning forks. Sable is a very... diverse lady. Her name and love of tea says she’s English, but you’re pretty certain when she swears it’s in either Russian or German... possibly either one at different times. And sometimes in the heat of the summer she wears loose woven blouses you’re pretty certain are African in style.
All you really know is that the old mink has lived a long and interesting life. Which is why you take it as a genuine compliment when she says, “You know you're far too bright bright for that job. A child like you should be going to college, studying the arts and sciences... not processing prescription orders at a glorified distributary.”
You smile as you use your knife to neatly fold your toast into a sandwich. “I’m pretty certain the office I’m applying at isn’t a distributary.” Once the toast is neatly folded, you expertly guide the meal between my fangs and bite, making sure to chew thoroughly and swallowing before continuing. “Yes, there will be a lot of data entry. But I’m twelve. Kids my age are at best working retail and at worst running with gangs. This job will pay forward a lot better towards a college fund than either.”
She huff slightly as she breaks open her soft boiled egg. “There’s more than enough room for a nice community college in the budget,” Which is technically true, but there were other reasons you wanted to wait a few years before college. Like maybe six years. Fake ID and physically adult body aside,you were still technically underage. All those hormones flying around, you’d prefer to actually be legal before putting yourself up for sale.
After all, the girls would be all over a skinny little pretty boy like myself.
You don’t, of course, use that as your argument. Instead, after having three pieces of apple you respond, “What can I say, Hubert’s stories of self sufficiency have inspired me.” You take a swig of orange juice before adding, “Besides, I need to talk to people who aren’t family. Otherwise I would have done what Eleni suggested and work as the lab’s secretary.”
Sable huffs again, but doesn’t voice a counter argument. For a brief moment you eat in silence.
The silence is broken when you say, “Speaking of, what are the plans in the lab today?” It’s an easy distraction, given what your conversations with Raphael have already told you. Given what he told you Sable needs to vent.
And vent she does. “Nothing but client meetings all day.” She raises her left hand to her temple, still holding her fork. “Sao Paulo State University keeps on threatening to cut funding for the mastodon genome mapping if we don’t come up with more dynamic results. Stork Tech keeps on expecting larger results with the preliminary Percrocutidae reconstruction. And an anonymous prospective client keeps on sending proxies insisting we sign a non-disclosure agreements before even knowing what they want us to do.”
“So,” you say with a pause, “Basically all code words for barbarian hype.”
“Eto snova kholodnaya voyna,” she exclaims as her fork hits her plate with a clank. “A few weight lifters with a rare form of gigantism show up on the bodybuilding circuit, and suddenly the only thing people can think about when they hear prehistoric DNA is barbarian. It used to be men of science could do research simply sake of knowledge. Now people are looking to make the next Mister Olympia... or worse...” She drops her fork to her plate with a clank. “YA poklyalsya, chto bol'she nikogda ne kosnus' etogo iskusstva.”
It was actually more than a few, or at least it was now. For most of your life, the word barbarian has been associated with the entire heavyweight division. You think you’ve read an Iron Man article that said it started up in the California circuit... In any case it’s been nothing but a nightmare for Solomon Bio since before even you were born, and only got worse after Stork Tech’s hostile takeover. Still, even with diminished agency, Hubert fights for the principles he founded his company on.
In any case, during Sable’s rant you managed to clean your plate. Gathering your dishes, you walk over to the sink and give them a thorough rinse before setting them aside to wait for a proper wash. Then it’s over to the bowl by the table where you keep your wallet, keys, dental gum, and pocket knife. Finally there’s your folder with extra copies of your resume, a print out of your interview application from their web forms, and other various important documentation.
Turning around to make an appropriately flamboyant exit, you have the wind taken out of your sails as Sable is standing right there in front of you. Reaching up, she straightens your tie, fusses with your hair, and then holds both hands on the sides of your head as she looks you in the eyes and says, “You are a brilliant young man who is far too good for that place. Do not let them tell you otherwise.”
Feeling the warm fuzzies for a moment, you let the Bravado fade away and suddenly you’re just an overgrown twelve year old again. Wrapping your arms around her, you hug her tight and do your best not to cry. “I won’t, Sable. You guys raised me better than to let others tear me down.”
“Good.” Letting you go, she walks past you... only to quickly slap your rear and add, “Now get out there and slay them.” ...Sable is the matriarch of your surrogate family, but some days the depths of how little you know your abuela is monolithically apparent.
Deciding to pull the escape cord on this awkward situation, you quickly flee the building. From there it’s a quick walk outside the housing complex and to the bus stop. While waiting for the bus you tap your feet, mouthing the words to your power song. You can do this, just one step forward...
***
...and two steps back as you once again dance around stepping on people’s toes in the standing line only waiting room. You knew the job market was bad at the moment, but you weren’t expecting a line out the door at seven am for interviews starting at eight am. Also, you thought the automated forms on their website were supposed to stagger the appointments throughout the week to prevent something like this...
Before you can ruminate on the sardine situation any more, the voice of the gazelle secretary calls out. “Mister Narang?” Oh, that’s your cue. Forcing your way through the crowd you try to make your way to the front desk before, “Mister Narang?” ACK. OK. Don’t worry, you can’t still make it. Just act like the skinny rail you were and squeeze through these people before, “Last call for Mister Nar...”
“Here,” you exclaim as you manage to reach the front desk before you lost your place in line. Taking a moment to compose yourself, you pull out your ID and the print out of your online interview application and hand them to the gazelle.
The secretary looks over your ID briefly, but raises an eyebrow at the at the print out. “You preregistered?” you pause in apprehension before nodding my head, feeling for the second time today very much twelve years old. “Darling, preregistered interviews are at the north entrance. South entrance is for walk in.”
You all but deflate... whelp. That’s a great first impression, waiting four hours in the wrong queue. Dejectedly you collect my form and ID, and begin the long walk of shame over to the other side of the building. You can almost feel all the feel all the eyes in the room staring at you mockingly.
“Mister Narang!” You’re almost through the front door when you realize the secretary has been calling for you again. “It’s OK, hun. We can buzz you in from here.” Heart lifting you flash your brightest smile... and immediately flatten your ears as you hear one of the ladies still waiting in line go blind from the light shining off your over polished fangs.
Not wasting any more time, you quickly hurry through the door next to the secretary. Following the signs to your interviewer, you try to compose yourself. You’ve got then. You’re as prepared as you can possibly be. It’s not like the interviewer...
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