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THE APPLICANT

  By Michael W. Layne

  THE APPLICANT

  By Michael W. Layne

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously.

  Copyright 2013 Michael W. Layne

  Cover art by Jeff Brown Graphics (https://www.jeffbrowngraphics.com)

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  “The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.”

  W.B. Yeats

  Contents

  The Applicant

  Excerpt from The Conservation of Magic

  Note from Mike

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  1

  It was just past dawn in the Tysons Corner area of Northern Virginia, and the Rune Corp employees were filing one by one through the front doors of the five-story, all-glass office building. For them, it was the start of just another workday. But for Chris, this morning was potentially the beginning of a whole new life.

  Chris was fresh out of college with a B.S. in computer programming, but so far he had only been able to find temporary work doing construction jobs. A temp construction worker was not the career he had been hoping for, although the truth was that Chris had no idea of what he wanted to do in the real world. He only hoped to one day make more money, get a girlfriend, and if possible, be happy. That was one thing he noticed right away about the Rune Corp employees slogging their way through the oppressive morning humidity of the D.C. summer—despite the heat, they all seemed happy. Chris also noticed that none of them were wearing suits. In fact, they were all dressed in comfortable clothes such as jeans and tee shirts. Maybe Chris had wasted his money buying a new suit for the interview after all. Then again, if he didn’t get this job, at least he’d be ready for the next opportunity when and if it came along. The thought of having another interview lined up made Chris laugh since he had been looking for a job all summer, and Rune Corp had been the first place to show even a remote amount of interest.

  The Rune Corp logo looked down on him from five floors above the ground as Chris hopped out of his car and made his way to the bank of reflective glass doors that led into the building. As he approached, a young woman with short blonde hair and dressed in a well-tailored blue pants suit stepped forward to greet him.

  “Chris?” she asked, holding her hand out to shake. “Hi. I’m Cara. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

  Chris returned her firm handshake. From that brief touch alone, he was instantly in what Chris referred to as severe like and was unable to form much of a coherent sentence. Instead, he simply nodded and followed Cara for a few feet to where a man and a woman stood waiting. As Chris was introduced to Natalie and David, hands were shaken, and premature judgments were made by all parties. Natalie looked slightly older than Chris and was red-cheeked and petite with auburn hair, while David was tall and rail thin with shaggy dark brown hair. Both were dressed well in sharp, dark colored business suits, making Chris feel a little better about his own choice of attire. After chatting for a minute or two while Cara made a phone call on her cell, Chris thought that Natalie seemed overly tough and determined, whereas David came across as being a bit reserved and shy, but with an intense stare. Chris tried to not let his first impressions dictate how he was going to interact with the other two candidates. In other circumstances they might have all been friends and might have had a beer after a long day of interviewing, but today they were combatants. Chris would be nice and considerate, of course, but he also would be prepared to do whatever it would take to win.

  “First, we need to get you inside,” Cara said to the group, with a smile. “That may not seem like a big deal, but I have to ask you to please leave any cell phones or other personal electronic devices in your car. I know that’s a bit of an inconvenience in today’s world, but I promise you, it will be all right.”

  Chris stood next to Cara in silent smugness while Natalie and David raced off to their cars to drop off their smart phones. Of course, there was no need to mention to Cara that he had accidentally left his cell phone in his car because he had been so nervous. All Chris cared about was that it appeared as if he had anticipated Cara’s request before she had even asked.

  When the other two applicants returned, slightly out of breath, Chris followed closely behind Cara as she led them to the Rune Corp front doors.

  “You have to enter one at a time,” Cara said, “and I will be waiting for you in the lobby once you make it through. Just pay close attention to the security message inside the vestibule and follow the instructions.”

  Cara slapped her badge against one of the optical readers, and the door clicked open. Then, as if she had suddenly remembered something important, she let the door close without entering and turned to address the three of them again.

  “Almost forgot,” Cara said as she removed three badges from her coat pocket and handed one to each of the applicants. “You’ll need these to get through the doors.”

  And with that, Cara used her badge again to open the door, and then she entered the building. Chris heard the door click as it closed behind her. He knew that Rune Corp was known as a cutting edge think-tank involved in a lot of interesting work on artificial intelligence and knowledge management for the government. Not even being able to enter the lobby without going through these levels of security procedures seemed a bit excessive, but it also piqued Chris’s interest. His visitor’s badge was also pretty cool. It had a raised letter “V” in the middle of it, and appeared to be made of a very thin piece of reflective black stone with silver rune-like patterns layered throughout. He clipped the badge to his suit lapel while he waited for a couple of regulars to single-file their way through the doors.

  While he waited, Chris looked up and noticed the level of detail in the two-story mirrored windows that made up the exterior of the lobby. Each was trimmed with polished copper and etched with intricate Celtic rune designs. Someone had spent a pretty penny on these and was trying to make a statement about the affluence of the company. Chris had to admit that he was more than a little impressed.

  In a minute or so, it was Chris’s turn. He held up his badge to the reader and opened the door after the lock clicked open. He entered a glass-enclosed chamber with a door made of very thick glass through which he could see Cara waiting for them. Before Chris could try the handle to the interior door, his badge glowed slightly with red and blue hues dancing across its polished black stone face, and a voice filled the small vestibule in which he stood. A pre-programmed message warned Chris of his obligation to keep everything he saw or learned while in the building that day as a close-hold secret. The voice also advised Chris that by entering the lobby of Rune Corp, he was de facto acquiescing to a non-disclosure agreement to protect the intellectual property of the company. While the narrator was speaking, a subtle vibration permeated Chris’s body, making it seem like he was feeling the security warning more than he was hearing it. At the same time, Chris also couldn’t help but roll his eyes slightly at how unnecessarily ominous the message sounded before he realized that there was a good chance he was being recorded on video. Changing his face to stone, Chris waited as stoically as possible until the voice told him to open the door in front of him and to have a good day.

  When he finally walked into the Rune Corp lobby,
Chris was stunned. Immediately, he was awash in fresh, cool air almost as if he were outside on a crisp spring day. Other than the floors of dark polished granite, the lobby felt more like a pristine forest than a corporate business office. It was filled with fresh, thriving green vegetation and smelled of moist dirt—not heavy or pungent, but fresh and alive. There were plants and flowers everywhere and a sense of harmony that took Chris by surprise. At the center of the huge lobby grew a massive evergreen tree, its branches rising up to the top of the glass atrium ceiling five stories above. A tree, Chris thought. Inside a building. He had never heard of such a thing. Chris had entered Rune Corp that morning expecting to be wowed by the company’s high tech toys, but so far he was shocked mostly by its aesthetics.

  Chris snapped himself out of it and looked over to see that both of the other candidates were taking in their surroundings as well. Natalie looked just as surprised as Chris, whereas David seemed to be more focused on the giant tree taking up the middle of the lobby.

  Cara positioned herself in front of them.

  “As you can see, my father, Ohman, and I are very concerned with providing our employees with a pleasant work setting,” Cara said. “We believe that the greatest technology innovations come from observing the natural world around us, and that the human mind works better when surrounded by a healthy environment. Not only is our building teeming with real plants and vegetation, but we are close to being one hundred percent green. Almost everything is recycled, and we contribute to several conservation efforts and lobbies regularly. Unlike a lot of companies that do things for the appearance of being green, I can assure you that we are the real deal.”

  Cara smiled, and Chris felt his knees go a little weak. She motioned for the three of them to follow her across the lobby to the elevators.

  “What kind of tree is that?” Natalie asked while they were walking. “Did you have to actually construct the building around it?”

  Cara paused for a second, then walked back over to the tree. She stopped a few feet away from its trunk, as the four of them stood beneath its lowest branches.

  “This is Oodrosil. I know it may seem odd to you to name a tree, but once you see it standing here every day, welcoming you to work in the morning and wishing you well at night, the tree starts to become more like an old friend than anything else. So, we named this magnificent tree loosely after the wise and ancient tree of life in Celtic mythology. And I somehow think it rather likes its name.”

  “But how did it come to be in the middle of your lobby?” Natalie asked.

  Cara started to speak, then closed her mouth as if she were searching her thoughts.

  “I think Oodrosil just moved here on its own one day,” she said, laughing a little as she turned her head to look up at Oodrosil’s highest branches. “Now, please follow me. We have a lot to talk about.”

  The three candidates fell in line behind Cara as she led them across the lobby to the closest elevator. Almost immediately after Cara hit the call button, the doors slid open, and the group entered the elevator and hit the button for the basement.

  “I know you are all forming a lot of questions already. Trust me when I say that I will answer all of them as well as the questions you will most definitely have after we get downstairs and have a chat.”

  The doors closed, and the elevator dropped slowly. It was hard to tell how far down the elevator was going, but it seemed to travel much further than just a single floor. When finally the doors opened, the four of them walked out into what felt to Chris like an envelope of silence. The place was filled with employees walking here and there, but no noise seemed to come from anyone—not from their shoes on the polished stone floor or from their voices. Everything seemed muted, similar to the way it felt when ears had to adjust to the sudden rise in altitude of an airplane just after takeoff.

  One thing that was clearly different from the lobby upstairs was the absence of greenery. The basement was stark and cold in its design, and Chris couldn’t imagine Rune Corp employees choosing to work down here of their own accord.

  Cara walked them past a locked rack that was built into the wall and seemed to contain dozens of small black cubes softly glowing and pulsing with deep crimsons and azures. Cara led them into a room where there were four comfortable chairs arranged around a thick table made of plastic. On the table sat a wooden ball about the size of Chris’s fist. Cara closed and locked the door as she motioned for the candidates to take a seat. After everyone was situated, Cara sat down and adjusted her suit before addressing them.

  “Now then,” Cara said, “let’s talk about magic.”