Jim Baen's Universe

Fantasy Stories

A Hire Power

Written by J. Simon

Illustrated by K. Thor Jensen

Another Monday in the office, and it was going to be a bad one. She could tell. Liz sipped her coffee and grimaced. Stone cold. She didn't know how they did it. The stencil on her door read: "Liz Flaraherty, Inhuman Resources." Her computer had a virus scanner, a firewall, and a jingly bell to ward off demonic possession. Her stapler rarely stayed where she put it, though she never actually saw it move. All in a day's work.

The phone rang. She picked up—"Hello?"

"Divination support."

"I don't need support."

"You will."

Liz slammed down the receiver. This was bad. Tech support had a crystal ball, and they only called when something very bad was about to happen. On the other hand, if she avoided talking to them, she could put off the otherwise inevitable disaster . . .

". . . except that you can't," said Devon as he slipped into her office, "since we knew that would be your attitude and only rang the phone as a distraction. Sorry."

"All right. What's going to happen this time?"

He shrugged apologetically. "Sorry. Causality. You've got to actually do it before the me that was in the past can foresee the future you doing it and become the present me waiting for the present you to do what the future you did to summon the past me to fix the problem that hasn't happened yet."

"Did you, perchance, foresee a swift kick in the butt?"

He turned and pointed. There was a pillow stuffed down his backside.

"Damn you."

"Go on. Don't mind me. Go through your normal routine."

Liz reached cautiously toward the computer, eyes never leaving Devon. No reaction. With the delicacy of someone probing for mines, she touched her coffee mug. The stapler. The file cabinet. He just watched her.

"Give me a hint."

"Dinosaurs versus tanks."

"What?"

"You'll see."

"I don't need this," Liz groaned. Still watching Devon, she lifted the mail bin up onto her desk. It was locked seventeen ways with cold iron and had a gilded goat's skull on the top. It rattled ominously. Little paper fingers reached questingly under the lid.

"Isn't there supposed to be a blanket counter-animation on my office?"

"Dunno. Didn't foresee that problem. Were any error messages oozing from the walls in pentagrams of blood when you came in?"

"Listen, Devon, résumé golems may be made from paper, but they're strong. Just what problem did you foresee?"

There was a grating creak, a sudden jolt, and the mail bin's lock snapped right off. Hundreds of résumé golems swarmed out of the box, chortling and cavorting and shouting Employment Objectives in reedy little voices. Devon held up a shiny, brand-new lock. "That one," he said.

Liz rubbed her temples. Such an auspicious start to the day. Dozens of résumé golems danced in a fey ring on her desk, invoking the elder gods of Accounts Receivable. Devon shrugged and went about fixing the mail bin. Animate paper men climbed up her shoulders to whisper salary requirements in her ear.

"All right. That's it. Wally! Pedro!"

The two large paperweights on her desk quivered. At her command, they twisted to look at her, air bubbles pushing up to form bulging frog-like "eyes."

"Eliminate all résumés that have not graduated from an accredited hundred-year wizarding college," she decided. "I want archmaster-level experience with large distributed divinations,

WIZ-XP, QuikFetish, GolemPublisher, oh yes, and twelve years' experience with that time-travel cantrip that's going to be released next month."

The paperweights smiled, exposing ghastly maws dripping with molten glass, their eyes now glowing a dusky demonic red. Slithering along the desk, they began slurping and chomping and chewing their way through the clutter. Devon finished his work, glanced warily at the ongoing carnage, and hastily excused himself from the office. Finally, fourteen quiescent and eminently qualified résumés were in her hand—and one last envelope lay in the middle of the floor. Odd—usually the problem with Wally and Pedro was to stop them from eating things. As she watched, the envelope's printed address flowed and shifted into elegant script: "Just add water."

"I don't have time for this. Why," she asked rhetorically, "does everyone think I want to see their clever little tricks and gimmicks? Wally, Pedro! Destroy!"

The paperweights wobbled and gibbered, but did not advance. Liz groaned, dipped her fingers in cold coffee, and flicked a tiny droplet onto the paper.

THOOMP. Just like that, it expanded to the size of a small pillow. Curious despite herself, Liz flicked another drop onto it.

THOOMP-THOOMP-THOOMP. The paper doubled and redoubled in size until it was as big as a bed, and as thick. With a tearing sound, the oversized envelope opened and a blinking, bearded, bespectacled man crawled out.

"Archmage Argentus." He bowed. "Master of the arcane, keeper of dread secrets, proactive efficiency wizard nonpareil at your service."

He drew a glowing glyph in the air, and a little molten man dropped into Liz' coffee and began doing a credible breaststroke through the now-steaming liquid. Argentus snapped his fingers, and the creature vanished. "Kona elemental," he explained.

"Hmph." Liz blew on the coffee, sipped it. Whatever he'd done, it was good. Refilled to the top, too. "All right. That was kind of impressive. I don't suppose you have a gigantic expanding résumé in your pocket?"

The wizard shrugged. "That could, ah, be a slight problem. I've spent the past thousand years in a cave in