Headhunters, Part 2

Stuck in traffic on the way home, I wished I had a Blackberry. I shuddered even as I made the wish, and looked around the inside of my car to make sure that it hadn't come true. I could remain blissfully unaware of e-mail, even this one. Without even knowing the offer, my brain sizzled with the prospect of escape. As I crawled along Brock Avenue, I knew that it wouldn't really be escape--I'd be trading one brig for another, still shanghaied by life.

The traffic drifted apart, breaking gradually until the flow became even once more. From the corner of my eye I saw a police car and what might once have been a sedan. I kept my eyes ahead of me, careful for the speed traps they set up at the end of the month.

Along the side of the road, the office buildings gave way to stores, which turned into apartments. These came further and further apart, until Brock joined cleanly with a wide swatch of road that took me into the hinterlands around Larch. I peeled off of the road five minutes later, into a dusting of buildings that rose up into what would soon enough be a proper commuter city.

There was plenty of space in the building's parking lot, leaving my car stopped alone on the cracking concrete. I'd gotten an unshaded space, so the car always ended up hot and the tar around it suffered the worst of the freeze-thaw cycle. The management office never had time to handle things like spot change requests, but they did have time to tag your car with annoying fliers and adhesive reminders to not park in an unauthorized spot--what else was security supposed to do out here? There was, after all, a mall near enough that the lot looked appealing to those cruising in.

Before I got to the door, I heard a long, labored "Ahem". It was like someone trying to clear drying caulking out of their throat. I turned and saw a hunched over young man smoking. He leaned against one of the pillars that held up the section of the building that shaded the nice spots in the parking lot. He didn't look like a bum--and I'd never really seen a bum out here.

"So," he said, voice a ruined mess of tar and blood, "you given any thought to the job offer yet?"