Mac held his son’s hand and looked up at the small print sign above the entry to the government building. It read, “Normalized Opportunities, Health, Employment and Limited Parenting.” The dreary building didn’t quite have its paint chipping or dull color fading, but it might if given a week. A be-headed doll had been discarded beside the smudged glass door. Its soulless eyes stared up at the withered, striped canopy as if contemplating some existential pain. Mac decided to ignore the dark stain on the cracked concrete beneath it. Might as well just rip the bandage off and be done with it.

  “Zach,” Mac knelt down to address his small boy and ruffle his hair, “I have to leave you with some nice people inside while I fill out paperwork. I suspect I’ll be a while. You’ll be good, right?”

  “Daddy,” Zach looked slightly disappointed as he reached out to ruffle his dad’s hair, “I’m always good.”

  “I know that,” Mac smiled, “Just be patient for me. I’ll be back as quick as I can. Now, let’s go inside.”

  The door creaked open like a graveyard gate as the father and son stepped inside. There was the expected white tile floor that hadn’t been waxed in ages and dark brown mop boards pretending rather unconvincingly to be connected to the wall. As his eyes went up, he took in the faded pastel paint and numerous broken toys peeking out of a decrepit toybox only held together by the dark mold around its corners. All of that contained behind a chain-link fence to the back wall where an exhausted vampire with a one-eyed sock puppet stood in front of three young children sitting on an area rug.

  “And that, children, is why you must always run from dragons,” the vampire finished his story with a half-hearted flourish. “Now children, who wants to learn their blood type?”

  “That’s it. We’re leaving,” Mac acknowledged mostly to himself as he took his son’s hand and turned back to the door, “You’re with me today, Zach.”

  “Awwww,” Zach looked down sadly, “I wanted to hear the story. Maybe the boy lived this time.”

  “Zach,” Mac replied as the door creaked open again, “You watch TV, the child always gets eaten by the dragon.”

  “But what if they hid under their blankets?” Zach challenged as they walked towards the next entrance.

  “Dragons aren’t real, Zach,” Mac advised his son. “TV shows just use them to teach children to obey authority figures.”

  “What’s an authority figure?”

  “Well, I am… to you at least. I tell you what to do and you do it… usually.”

  “So, if I don’t do what you say, I’ll be eaten by a dragon that isn’t real?” Zach quizzed his father outside the next door.

  “I guess you could hide under a blanket. That seems to be the only other thing that works. Or you could just listen to your dad and be safe from the start,” Mac explained with a wink. “When we go inside, be on your best behavior, okay. I wouldn’t want a dragon to get you.”

  Zach nodded affirmatively and clutched his dad’s hand a little tighter as they stepped into the large mostly empty room.

  The lobby was essentially what Mac expected; somewhat dingy, the occasional fluorescent light blinking in seizure inducing fashion and several drooping motivational posters designed and hung by the lowest bidders. A dour, and likely underpaid government worker sat behind the only occupied desk, oblivious to the spacious room around her. From her apparent age, she might have been a zombie, but it would be rude to ask. A bright red number dispenser accounting for the only color in the room surrendered a ticket after token resistance that left a cut on Mac’s finger. He should probably wash that off.

  “Come on, Zach. Let’s have a seat while we wait.” Mac led his son to the wireframe chairs against the front wall.

  “Daddy.”

  “Yep.”

  “There’s a sad, creepy looking man in the corner staring at us,” Zach commented to his father.

  “That’s normal in these places,” Mac replied without even bothering to look. “Just don’t make eye-contact.”

  “Number forty-two,” the loudspeaker called out into the other-wise empty room.

  Mac carefully stood up and walked across the low-ceilinged room with Zach following quietly behind him. The security camera in the corner followed them across the room and paused when they stopped at the lonesome desk in the middle. Mac professionally wondered if it was more of a fisheye style or flat view, but he did resist the temptation to make faces into it. Zach, however, indulged himself gleefully.

  “How can I help you today?” the woman asked without taking her eyes from the screen.

  “I’m here about finding a job,” Mac ventured softly.

  “Felt like dropping by,” the elderly lady answered in a somewhat stilted fashion as she continued to type. “That’s why your lazy rear-end is here instead of working.”

  “I was assaulted at work, fell into a coma and lost my job,” Mac replied as politely as he could muster.

  “That’s what they all say,” the lady replied still unwilling to even look at him.

  “Aren’t you supposed to help me find a job?” Mac asked with honest doubt creeping into his voice. “I did walk into the government employment agency, right?” Mac looked back to confirm the seal on the sliding doors he had entered through. Though chipped and fading, it was still there.

  “And you assume that because I work for a government agency with a fancy symbol on the door, that I’m supposed to help some luckless dead-beat without a job?”

  “I… did,” Mac replied in increasing confusion.

  “I suppose that you think because you pay taxes, you are entitled to my assistance?” the lady replied still typing away on whatever she was working on.

  “I…”

  “You low-life piece of trash, I’ll destroy you and your entire family,” the elderly lady continued monotone as her fingers continued typing.

  “I… I… I’ll be… uh…” Mac thumbed back towards the door.

  “You’ll pay for that. I’m armed. And don’t you forget that,” the elderly lady continued blandly.

  “Excuse me!?” Mac practically shouted as he back away with one hand raised defensively and the other keeping his face-making boy behind him.

  The elderly lady stopped typing and slowly raised her eyes to look at him.

  Mac stood there awkwardly waiting for her to say something, and the silence dragged on uncomfortably between them. “Are you going to stand there all day like a lazy dragon with your mouth open waiting for lunch to step in, or explain how I can assist you?”

  “I… need a job…” Mac stated hesitantly.

  The lady shook her head absently then pulled the ear bud out of one ear. Tinny sounding troll rock music characterized by a fast heavy beat clashed with the elevator style music in the lobby. “You’ll have to speak up, Sonny,” the elderly lady leaned forward then smiled at his confused look. “The ambiance music here hasn’t changed in twenty years. This is how I keep my wits about me. It can make you a bit… loopy… after a while,” the clearly unstable lady informed him.

  If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  “I need help finding a job,” Mac tried a bit louder to be heard over the tinny troll music, emanating from the wax-encrusted earbud on her shoulder, then tactfully forced down a gag reflex at the gruesome display.

  “Great, we can help with that,” the elderly lady smiled as she set her crusty earbud down on her desk beside the keyboard. “I just have a couple government forms for you to fill out first,” she reached down into a drawer and pulled out a folder as thick as Mac’s finger. “Only fill out the front side, The back side has my rejected manuscript written on it… and won’t be of use to anyone,” she added dejectedly as she put on a brave face, “…but, it saves paper this way to help keep us compliant with environmental rules.”

  Mac smiled. Because, what else could he do?

  “Do you need a pen?” she asked.

  “Yes, please,” Mac replied.

  “Check on the counter over there,” she motioned to a pot with fake flowers taped to pens sticking out of it on the front wall. “When you’re done, bring it back over.” So saying, she put her waxy, yellowed earbud back in and started typing again.

  Mac pulled a flower pen from the pot and tested it on the sheet. All it did was scrape the paper, so he tried the next one, and the next one…and the next one. That one worked for about half a page before the ink ran dry. Mac considered licking the end of the pen to see if that would help, but thankfully remembered where he was, set the pen down, and reached for the next one.

  Mac was about to put the flower pen to the test when he felt his son pull on his pant leg, “Daddy?”

  “What is it, Zach?” Mac asked as he squatted down to hear his son.

  “The lady at the desk left.”

  Mac looked back at the desk. Sure enough, it was empty. It was getting close to lunch, so maybe she was on break. “Don’t worry about it, Zach. I doubt I’ll have these filled out anytime soon.”

  He tried the pen, and quickly realized it was dry, too. Talk about cost-saving measures. They didn’t even buy new pens. Mac verified the last four pens in the pot were dry in quick succession. His increasing frustration masked the thump and muffled squeak of what could only be the departing withered soul of a truly dispirited employee in the back office. Mac’s echoing step on the regulation white tile floor to revisit the government employee and ask the obvious masked the faint sound of what could easily have been an employee’s bottom-drenched, lunch sack being dropped to the unforgiving, regulation tile. It might have been accompanied by the sound of dentures careening across a rough tile floor until a responsible corner reeled them in to entrap an adventurist roach with a click. The desperate man would never know.

  Mac was concerned to see a not quite petite woman in what could have been his grandma’s business outfit. The multi-colored headscarf adorned by mythical dragons was just atrocious. She paused to look back at the door she must have just come from as if arguing with an unseen person beyond the frame. The woman threw up her hand that wasn’t holding the briefcase in annoyance and then stumbled awkwardly toward the lonesome desk in her off-white high heels that clashed with her business outfit, which was a feat in and of itself. Mac wondered if he should call the ambulance now, but decided a broken ankle probably wasn’t worth it. The tackily dressed woman reached out to the reception desk like a sailor in the open sea reaching out to a raft before settling herself in the not quite rolling chair with an audible sigh.

  Maybe she would be of more help than the last person. Mac’s subconscious suppressed a snicker and rolled its eyes at whatever part of his brain had suggested that.

  “Uhm, Hello,” Mac tried cautiously as he approached the desk.

  “Good day, Sir,” the terribly dressed young woman replied in a voice he wouldn’t mind listening to all day. Her wide eyes briefly glanced up to meet his own. If the woman had just left the horribly done make up off, she might have stolen his breath away. It was like someone had just thrown paint from two decades ago haphazardly over a master-crafted antique.

  “Do I know you?” Mac asked as a distant memory threatened to surface. An old ski lodge or possibly deep in a forest.

  The woman focused her suddenly embarrassed gaze back down at the keyboard and tugged on her scarf obscuring her face, “Nope, we’ve never met before. How can I help you?”

  “You’re sure?” Mac replied, “You look vaguely familiar.”

  The nervous young woman hid her face behind a horribly out of fashion, puffy sleeve, “Absolutely, I’ve never seen you before. You need a pen, right?”

  Mac just let it go, “Yep, do you have another pen… that works?”

  “Actually, no,” the younger woman answered still keeping her head down.

  “Then why ask me if I need a pen?”

  “Ah… yes… that stupid troll... This is his fault.”

  “Hey, I like trolls,” Mac challenged. “One saved my life. Don’t go disrespecting them.”

  “I’m sorry. I’m not quite ready,” she glanced back at the darkened door frame she had come from. “Pens are a bit hard to come by… Maybe…” she reached down into her brief case and pulled out the tablet, “You could just use this instead.” The woman clicked a button to turn it on and handed it to Mac. “It’s a new… customer service… uh… thing we’re trying out. Temporally generated auto-fill features and that kind of quantum stuff.”

  “Temporally generated auto-fill features?” Mac repeated her words back as a question. She was still hiding behind her scarf, so he couldn’t tell if she had said that piece about customer service with a straight face or not.

  “It’s the latest technology. We had to find a way to work around the out-of-control lag we’ve been experiencing… thanks to a certain troll,” yet another angry glance back at the darkened door frame.

  Mac ignored the slight and twisted the tablet in his hand taking note of the blue, electrical sparks cackling around the corners. Best not to spill water on it. He absently moved Zach away to his opposite side with his free hand as yet another blue discharge arched around his hand holding the tablet leaving a slight tingling sensation in his fingertips.

  “So… you don’t have a pen?” Mac tried again surprised at how eager he found himself to fill out forms the old-fashioned way.

  “I’m afraid they’re strictly out of our budget,” the woman replied with surprisingly honesty even as she kept her face down and away. “The return on investment of this technology should pay itself off shortly. Just try it… by the counter… way over there. The job searches are already in the tabs.”

  “Of course, away from you,” Mac replied. “I hope you don’t mind keeping an eye on my boy while I work through them. The childcare here left me a bit nervous.”

  “I assure you it’s perfectly safe,” the woman responded with something less than full confidence.

  “Stay here with the lady, Zach,” Mac firmly instructed his four-year-old as he carefully carried the tablet away from his body over to the empty counter to get started.

  “Well, aren’t you precious,” the woman commented to Zach as Mac walked away.

  “I’m four.”

  Mac set the tablet down on the counter and clicked on the first open tab ignoring the photoshopped screen saver of the owner’s beautiful sister who looked really familiar and a shifty-eyed dragon resting beside an idyllic pond. The Hench Helpful Help triangular logo adorned the top of the page. Ah yes, the competition from his days as an expendable intern. There had to be other options. Please, let there be options.

  Mac scrolled down the page out of morbid curiosity and was surprised to see the entire form auto-fill as he scrolled. The red submit button at the bottom blinked at him. He hadn’t checked the auto-fill answers, but seeing as it was for Hench Helpful Help, he didn’t really care, so he just clicked it once to bring up a successful submission notice and reference number he didn’t bother to take down. How could he? None of the pens worked.

  “Well, of course dragons are real,” Mac heard the woman tell his son. “I personally know one named Olivia. She’s quite sweet and has never once eaten a little kid… that we know of.”

  Maybe Mac would have been better leaving the kid with the vampire. No. He could undo this with a little quality time.

  He refocused on the next tab for a transportation company. Mac scanned the autofill answers this time and was astonished to find them accurate and even well written. That took him less than two minutes, so he worked his way through the other eight tabs all pre-filled with work that he could logically have written. He was well-rounded from his internship and first employer despite lacking a true specialty. That wasn’t being fair to himself. He did, at least, understand security fairly well.

  Zach had the lady giggling with her hand over her mouth when Mac turned around. Good kid, Zach. He always got along with everybody. Best to rescue him, soon. “Uhm, Ma’am,” Mac lifted the tablet cautiously in three fingers and as far away from his body as possible when he called across the room.

  “It’s Miss Windsor,” she replied in the beautiful, almost childish voice that clashed with her general appearance. She seemed to realize something and abruptly returned to her previous odd manner of staring down at the terribly boring floor tiles and obscuring her face. Maybe she hadn’t figured out the pattern. It was four up and eight across with a clockwise rotation. Hardly original.

  Government people. Mac shook his head. “Miss,” Mac corrected himself, “I filled out all the tabs. Should I use this to go to other job sites while I’m here?”

  “No need, the technology already selected the best ten matches for you,” the terribly dressed woman explained as Mac walked back to her desk. “I can guarantee you’ll get an offer from at least one of those within the week.”

  “It was nice talking with you Zach, and I loved your funny faces,” the woman raised her wide-eyes and smiled as she addressed his boy directly. “I look forward to seeing you again, you little charmer.”

  “So certain I‘ll be back?” Mac quizzed leaning closer. “You just guaranteed I’d get an offer.”

  “My only concern was the auto-fill technology,” the woman replied professionally still refusing to meet his eyes. “As long as that worked, I can guarantee the job offer.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Mac replied with a resigned look in his eyes she had no opportunity to sympathize with. “Come on, Zach, let’s take you to a park or something.”

  “Bye, bye, nice lady,” Zach waved to the younger woman at the desk who politely waved back before wiping her brow with her sleeve leaving a lighter patch behind where the heavily applied foundation rubbed off.