And another awesome entry to the podcast page! I was fortunate enough to be on @samplechapterpodcast twice, this time reading the first chapter of Unsecret Identity. Big thank you to Jason!
Also be sure to listen to @thecasualauthorpodcast
jonmcbrine.com/podcasts
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Hermes Manufacturing, Biotech Division

Human Resources

Citadel Ken-3, East Hong Kong

Morning, three years ago

Bethany had been hours in the waiting room. An unused air conditioner made her suit all sweaty and every second that passed made her more unpresentable for the job interview. The company had a strict "no internet" policy, and not even avatars could enter the building. You needed to go using your real body for security reasons.

"I can't believe this," she said to herself. "Forbidding avatars... what is this, the National Bank?"

To make things worse, she had made the mistake of not applying moisturizer before,
and her bat wings were sweaty and kept itching. And her tail - that she had coiled inside her pants to hide it - was uncomfortable AF. The worst part? She had been here since 8 in the morning, but the human resources guy was too busy. One by one, she saw how other candidates got called - even candidates who had arrived an hour after her.

What use was arriving first and sending your resume in advance, if candidates got called not by punctuality but in arbitrary order?

One by one, the job candidates entered the interview room and she was the last one left. It was already lunch time and she hadn't eaten because she wanted to make her teeth look pretty for the interview. Now she was drenched in sweat, her hair was a mess.

She visualized the worst case: She had to pee and the interviewer called her just to jot down her absence while she was in the bathroom.

She had to make a choice; to go now while the last candidate got in, or risk missing the interview.

She scurried to the bathroom, washed her face, rinsed and combed her hair, dampened her wings and put her shirt and bra under the drier.

"Come on, come on, hurry..."

She quickly put on her bra and shirt - carefully sliding her wings in the slits that she had sewed all by herself. It was perfect. She walked back to the waiting room and noticed it was already empty.

"Shit... did I take too long?"

The door to the HR office opened. The last candidate was leaving. She ran to the secretary. "Excuse me, is it my turn yet?"

"Just wait a minute," said the blue-skinned (android) secretary. "Sir, miss Michaels is inquiring about her interview."

Bethany heard a heavy sigh from the other side of the line.

"Let her in."

Her anxiousness began to set in. Shit, I can't risk taking a pill right now... fuck fuck fuck fuck...

"Good afternoon," she said.

"Yes, yes, good afternoon" replied the HR guy, reading her curriculum.

"Sorry for the lateness, some interviewers had leverage and needed to attend them first."

All of them???

She took a deep breath. "I understand."

"Okay, let's see your resume... it says here that you passed your exams with perfect scores. That's good."

"That's right."

"So you have a degree in bioengineering."

"Yes, sir."

"Your bachelor thesis... proof-of-concept of bioreactors for fast production of androstenedione in cultured porfyrococcus vaccinium. Tell me about your thesis."

"Yes. Due to the high demand of gay pills in the entertainment market, factories are having trouble synthesizing novo-estradiol and similar hormones. Our team managed to do a critical path analysis of the manufacturing process, and found a bottleneck in the production of androstenedione. A quicker way of producing it is through the use of benzene derivatives, but that was banned the last century for environmental concerns, which caused a tenfold increase in production costs. So I picked the purpleberry, which has a proven fast-track method of producing its aromatic molecules, and managed to crunch some molecular simulations to modify them to produce androstenedione instead."

"Interesting... but if I recall correctly, gay pills are easy to manufacture already."

"Yes, but the method is patented, so we needed a workaround method that wasn't patent encumbered for mass production."

"Ah... I see. Tell me, what motivated you to pick this particular subject for your thesis? Why not food production, or creating new meat flavors?"

"Well... the entire biochemistry of hormones and sexual orientation modifiers has always fascinated me. Scientific curiosity."

"I see. How did you manage to buy the concepts required for this kind of research?"

"I didn't, sir. It was all study and manual research."

"Oh? You mean you learned all of it by yourself?"

Bethany nodded. "That's right, sir."

"Interesting... now, for the technical qualifications... oh, you already took our technical aptitude test?"

"Yes, sir."

"97% correct answers. Impressive!"

Beth smiled. "Thank you, sir."

"Good, good... technical qualifications... passed. There is one last issue."

"Yes?"

"We happened to do a background check..."

In an instant, Bethany's confidence fell through the floor and two stories below.

The HR guy kept reading. "It says right here that you went to juvenile prison a few years ago..."

"Uh... I..." she swallowed. "That was in middle school. I was fourteen!"

"Would you mind telling me what happened?"

"It was a prank gone wrong... there was a lot of bullying happening in that school..."

Her voice began to break. "...and most of the bullying was targeted at me..."

"And you wanted to prank them back."

"It's a long story, I'd rather not get into details."

"Did anyone get injured as a result?"

"One person broke his ankle. I did not directly cause that injury, but that person was related to the principal. He wanted to make an example of me, and pressed charges. I swear to god, I'm not lying."

"I see. What school did you attend?"

"I'd rather not say."

"Hmm."

"Have you ever done pranks before, mister...?"

"Oh, yes, sure. In middle school? We did lots of pranks." He began to laugh. "There was this kid, whom we called Chuck, who kept doing silly stuff, so one day we decided to change his shampoo for..." he began laughing as he told the story. "And then Chuck's entire hair caught fire."

Beth laughed. "Yeah, that was funny!"

"Ah, yes... good times."

"So... pranks like that. Harmless in the long run, right?" Her eyes were still watery.

"Yeah."

"So, am I still a good fit?"

The interviewer stopped smiling. "Sorry; no."

Quiky Meals

Somewhere in the citadels

A few weeks ago

"Michaels? Bethany Michaels!"

"Shit shit shit shit shit..." The cat-eyed girl with blood-red short hair and a long tattoo on her arm just arrived via the employees door. "I'm here, I'm here!"

"You're late again!" shouted the manager. "It's the third time this month!"

(The scene continues as I wrote earlier)

What do you think, people? Personally, I love it. Stressful, with a glimmer of hope, and then a punch in the gut. Her breakdown in the fast food joint later emphasizes how much her personality changed and how life is unfair because corporations are led by soulless bastards.

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