Smoking the Interview

The next day, Cathy arrives at the theater: Creative Artistic Passion. It's a big wooden building with a ticket booth outside. Following the emailed instructions, she walks up to the ticket booth, knocks five times, pauses, knocks twice more, then waits.

About ten seconds later, a young man with an overcoat, bowler hat, red tie, and a green apple hovering in front of his face. He grabs it with his left hand, revealing he was holding it in his mouth with a simple wooden stick stuck in it, “Hi, sorry about that, we're doing ‘Complaints from Art’ and I'm ‘The Son of Man’. Name's Jake. So you're Ms.

Cum-in here for the effects position?”

“Yes, I'm Cathy Cu-min, like the spice” she pauses, making sure to emphasize the pronunciation as she holds out her hand, “How'd you….”

The man shakes it firmly, “The secret knock,” he laughs, “we give a different one to each candidate. Most people don't take it seriously. Follow me, please.” He lets go and heads back into the building.

The tech heroine follows into an empty lobby, a bit warmer that she'd expected, with a concession counter (currently unmanned), some stanchions placed every here and there, abd labeled stairwells to the upper balconies. The Son of Man stand-in leads her to the ground floor entrance to the theater proper, down the walkway to the stage, then up some stairs on the side of it. There's several people just off stage behind the curtains in costume; Cathy recognizes The Mona Lisa By Leonardo da Vinci, Christina’s World By Andrew Wyeth, Happy Accident On The Swing By Fragonard, and Olympia By Edouard Manet… but there are many others she doesn't know off hand.

“So that's why you have the temperature up,” Cathy idly comments.

“Yeah, Janet is ALL IN on theater,” Jake shrugs, “She's the one that added Olympia to the pool, and we have the associated licenses and permits. So…” he shrugs, “But here: Hey all! We maybe have a new effects person. Let's give her the stage for bit, eh?”

The various paintings clear out, carrying their frames with them off stage, and a man sitting down three rows from the front with a megaphone nods, “Yes… we'll need something NICE for the fire scene… tell me, Ms. Cum-in, what do you think you can do for us if you get the position?”

“It's pronounced Cu-min, like the spice…” Cathy grits her teeth so she can smile, and continues, “I specialize in holographics, and have arranged a simple demo… I'm afraid it's not specific to your play or the room, given that I didn't have access to your script or the space while preparing it, but…” the technological sorceress pulls a holographic box out of her equally fake purse, sets it on the floor, and presses a button.

A green european-style dragon the size of a bus comes swooping down over the empty seats, breathing fire at the stage, roaring all the way. The wind of its passage knocks off the director's hat, and blows a few papers around. The flames manage to encompass one of the actors (and Cathy herself), who are both fine after the dragon turns around and lands on the stage… then shrinks to the size of a housecat, and hops up on Cathy's shoulder.

“That represents about an hour of coding,” Cathy smiles as the actor caught in the ‘flames’ faints, “and I can set it off on whatever timing I desire, for as long as power holds out. I'm afraid I don't have much of a resume within theater….”

“You're hired,” the apparent director interrupts, standing, “We'll get the contracts all filled out right now, this way, please…”

The director leads the woman off stage and to a small office, where he reaches for some paperwork, “Standard onboarding: Contract, W2, work authorization check, and such. I'll also need a copy of…” He's interrupted by a loud clanging noise, continuing with, “Ugh. I don't know many times I've told him not to smoke in the building…” he shakes his head, “I'll go silence the alarm again; you can keep filling out the paperwork…” and walks calmly out of the

[office.

As

](http://office.As) Cathy knuckles down to read despite the alarms, she hears some very girlish screaming, then pauses, sets down the paperwork, and walks out of the office… to see the stage in flames. “Hmm… I need to prepare something in case of fire…” she muses as she walks calmly to one of the well-marked egresses, “...I wonder why the sprinklers haven't dealt with it already?”

As Cathy finds the director in the quickly gathering crowed, the old wooden building goes up in smoke quickly, the fire department arriving in time to save the neighboring buildings only… the theater itself a total loss. All that's left is a big pile of ashes, the first two letters of the first word of the sign, and the first letter of the next two words.

“It's all gone…” the director cries, “...I should have just fixed the stupid pipes rather than bribing…” he pauses and turns to the heroine, “...I'm afraid I won't be able to finish your employment paperwork, given that…” he gestures vaguely at the ruins of his livelihood.

“Yeah, I get it,” Cathy sighs, “Ah well. You have insurance at least?”

The man perks up at that, “Yes… insurance… I have a full rebuild policy… and that ild building…” he smiles, “Thank you for reminding me I'll be able to retire on that payout. Have a nice day…” the man walks off, whistling a jaunty tune.

Cathy just shakes her head as she finds a spot to switch shells….