Interview Aftermath

Interview? Totally relatable, or at least it should be.

It’s time to blog as a character again, to write about what happens after an interview.

To me, this meant it had to be a character from the Times of the HG Wells Star Trek: Enterprise fan fiction series. I hadn’t written too much about HD Avery so here’s a chance to get to know him a little better.

This is Who I Am and Why I’m Here

Today is, uh, August 25th, 3109. My name is HD Avery. Well, uh, my full name is Henry Desmond Avery IV. So you know I call myself HD ‘cause the rest of it is completely lame-o.

 

So, anyway, I was contacted through these weird channels, and they brought me in, by shuttle, and we went through a bunch of way stations and I dunno what they all were but I’m thinking that was the idea. And we got to what was the headquarters of – get this – the Temporal Integrity Commission.

Now, I am used to playing it cool, of course, but it is apparently this is a group job interview.  And there are, like, twenty or so people. We’re all human or mostly, ’cause otherwise you can’t travel to Earth’s past ’cause that’s the kind of help they’re looking for.

So I meet this hot honey and she turns out to be the boss, get this, Admiral Carmen Calavicci. And she’s, you know, she’s telling me about the job and all that interview stuff, and all I can think of is that she is just this total MILF. Know what I mean? Are you hip to the 21st century lingo? ‘Cause not everyone is, yanno.

Total hot tamale. Er, pasta, or something. Ethic honeys of any sort are just, you know, they are nuclear.

Then she passes me off to this guy who’s, like, the size of a shuttle and he’s part-Gorn, I think. And he’s okay, but we don’t have much to talk about as he’s the Chief Engineer. Name’s O’Connor. Then they bring in some of the other candidates, and I don’t think any of them are in direct competition with me, but you never know, know what I’m sayin’?

We Had This Project to Do

And for this part of the interview, we’re made to pair off and try to work out a problem. We are given this holographic scene, everybody’s got their own suite, and it’s me and this totally prim and proper honey, she’s like Miss Priss and she’s named Alice Trent and she knows all about – can you believe this? – manners and protocols.

So anyway we have to figure out where we are, and what year it is.

And we are not allowed to just come out and ask. We have to blend in, as if it was real, okay? It’s all bright lights and big city and it is beyond glitzy.

But it’s older, yanno? So Alice, she says 21st century, and I am thinking maybe, maybe not ’cause it’s in real good shape and the people look healthy and there’s all these fancy cars and I think they’ve even got those old internal combustion engines.

And then, we’re walking along, see? And we gotta figure out the year and the place and there is this holographic honey wearing these – man oh man I know it ain’t real but the effect’s the same, okay? – these hot pants.  So I ask her if she’s a pro and she says yes and Miss Priss is just about ready to have a cow or something. Then I ask the holo-honey if it’s legal there and she says yes again and wham! I know it’s old Nevada.

Viva Las Vegas

There’s slot machines and wheels of fortune, if you go into even just the foyers of buildings, so it’s either Reno or Las Vegas. So I start singing the only song I know about Nevada, and that’s Viva Las Vegas.

Well, the holo-honey, she looks all sad and I ask her why the long face and she says it’s a pity that he died so young. And then the holo-honey tells me she won’t talk to me no more unless I pay her. But we ain’t got no money, so she, like, disappears back into the program.

By now, Miss Priss is totally mortified but I tell her to get Arctic ’cause I know we’re in either Vegas or Reno and it’s after, I think, about 1979 or so ’cause Elvis is dead. Then Miss Priss finally starts to look around and she’s picking up clues, too, and she says it’s before The Third World War ’cause the air is clean and all the holo-people don’t look sick. I’m all polite and stuff and I don’t tell her I already figured that part out. I mean, honestly. Duh.

Karaoke

Then we walked some more, and there was this place with karaoke and so we went in there, and I can tell Miss Priss hates it in there, so I am, you know, totally stoked.  And I start asking what’s the really new, cutting edge stuff they’ve got, and there’s a DJ there, and he punches up, it looks like it’s maybe one of those monster kinda rap-R & B-type hits that were really popular during those decades.

It takes me a little while to figure out the beat and by then Alice is asking one of the holo-people some stuff about the President of the United States, and somebody says – stupid holo-people – says that the President is not a citizen, so we know it’s truther nonsense about Obama and that is, I think, somewhere between 2000 and 2020 and that works with the music.

Now we’re cookin’ but we still aren’t at a year yet. I mean, a two-decade range, it’s just not good enough, am I right? So Alice and me, we set about trying to figure more of it out. And nobody’s reading a newspaper, so that’s no good, and they’ve all got little PADD-like phones but that doesn’t narrow it down much although I’m thinking it’s later in our two-decade window.

Then I Sang

So I go to sing the song and there are, I dunno, maybe sixteen or so holo-people in the room. I am used to performing in front of tons more, but that’s okay.  And I said, “This is for Elvis, Viva Las Vegas!” And they all cheered so I think that kinda helps to confirm that it’s Vegas and not Reno.

I sing the song, and Alice is looking everybody over, and somebody mentions that they think Miami won’t repeat as NBA Champions. And we look at each other and we both get it, ’cause Miami wasn’t champs after 2014.

And she said out loud that it was 2014 Las Vegas and the program stopped and they said we were right. Then we had to go home.

The Flight Home

This was tricky and bad as I went back with these honeys named Helen Walker and Marisol Castillo. There were other people, but that’s who I was noticing, okay? But the shuttle crashed on Berren One.  And we had a casualty – Walker didn’t make it. I know I should talk more about it, but I didn’t know her and it all feels just kinda weird. I dunno. You know?

So it’s been a really full day with the interview and I am beat and maybe I should be sadder because of Walker’s death but I just feel tired and strange. I guess they’ll contact me and tell me if I got the job. I dunno.

Thanks for listening, and here’s the song I sang in case you’re interested, okay?