Dragon, INC. Game development studio. Subsidiary company of C.L. Dodgson Enterprises, a division of Harvestmen Corp.

Kazi glanced over her notes one more time - far more sparse than she preferred for this kind of interview - as if the scant few sentences would provide a sparkling new, last minute insight. Game design wasn't exactly what she'd had in mind for her dual degree in intercultural politics and social sciences, but with an average of roughly 5,000 or so applicants for any given brainwork job, she'd put her foot in the door. For a brainwork job offering nearly enough compensation for a private domestic unit, she might consider accepting an offer, even from a company with such few public details available. 

Of course, it was highly likely that any such offer would be a scam. Especially coming from a game development studio that had yet to publish a single title. But on the chance that there was more than a hook behind this bait....

Playing up a bit of mystique around a new company was hardly unheard of. Keeping a game's development quiet wasn't unusual either, especially if the corporate overlords weren't confident that the end product could live up to their hype in a highly competitive field, especially one that could be considered over-saturated.

Seven Sanctuaries. A sword and sorcery role playing game. Very old fashioned. Practically an antique genre.

Kazi could hardly throw stones at glass houses, being a bit of a basic puzzles and rhythm girl herself.

Nevertheless, the game could hardly be considered ground breaking content, which could account for the statistically low turnout waiting in the whitespace with her on Dragon, INC's virtual threshold.

According to the live count, there were only 2,493 unique, living users logged into the virtual room, and 7,316 bots, fallen from a peak of 3,764 and 8,372 two hours ago. That was after two preliminary screening rounds. 

Kazi expected that the interview would weed out a good two thirds more, whether or not they were notified.

Kazi didn't bother to mill her avatar around the room. She had no interest in showing off, networking, or socializing. The ambient chats told her that none of the other applicants knew more about the company than she'd scraped together for herself. Low impact devs. Low impact game. Yet better than competitive compensation. Enough to catch a few eyes.

Her notes exhausted, Kazi checked her appointment alarms and her schedules for the rest of the week, for the third time in the last ten minutes. Everything was set and in order. Her next round of screening and interviews for the next job were in three hours and fifteen minutes, ending with just enough time to clear the cafe before curfew and make it back to her casket of a sleeping unit for the mandatory rest period. If Dragon, INC didn't open their interview on time (inefficient), or the interview ran late (doubly inefficient, and possibly incompetent), then she would have to cut out early. It might result in a gray smudge on her reputation, but in her personal opinion a company's inefficiency was a greater stain than the loss of a few citizenship points. And Dragon, INC would lose any chance to have herself as an employee. Theirs was by far the greater loss. Kazi had no intention to board a sinking ship. Especially if it wanted to sink before its launch.

But at the exact moment that the whitespace's countdown timer ran down to straight zeroes, an access link appeared, suspended before Kazi's "eyes." 

Kazi opened it promptly and found her avatar in a spacious room occupied by rows and rows of traditional student desks. Unconventional, but perhaps fitting for a game development studio.

To match its unusual seating, the room seemed to be kitted out as a traditional mid-to-late twentieth century school room, complete with unnaturally long swaths of chalkboards along the walls. A larger, teacher's desk marked the "front" of the "classroom," with all of the desks facing toward it. 

For a moment Kazi felt a pang; her parents had been very traditional and insisted that she spend several of her early educational years in a physical classroom. To teach her discipline. She'd hated every moment of it.

Still, perhaps old habits could be useful. Kazi strategically chose her seat among the sea of desks as the room rapidly began to fill. More applicants using the access link. 

The front and back rows of the "classroom" quickly turned into a scramble, while some of the applicants simply milled between the desks or leaned against them. Some eyed the setup with confusion. Clearly some of them had never been exposed to classical teaching. Kazi almost envied them if they'd never had to endure the screech of chalk on those infamously torturous boards.

Apparently there would be no lurking during this "interview." Every avatar was set to open visibility. The access link had also dressed all of their avatars in identical student uniforms. The sight of some of the more exotic avatars geared up in generic schoolyard kit was amusingly incongruous.

Kazi herself didn't favor changing her avatar very dramatically from her in-person appearance. She liked to think of it as her best self. A little cosmetic touch up, a little authoritative aura, a little more control over her dark, wavy hair, styled into a sleek, professional look, and her skin burnished to a glowing teak. Nothing that a bit of physical work wouldn't do, and brazenly human. 

She happened to like herself as she was.

A sudden squealing shriek caught her off guard, making her flinch.

Chalk, dragging itself across the chalkboards.

Simultaneously, the chalk wrote on each wall:

CHOOSE YOUR PLACE.

A handful of applicants who hadn't seated themselves yet scrambled to do so as empty desks abruptly became a rapidly diminishing commodity. There weren't enough for everyone.

The light chiming of a bell rang out.

Abruptly, the wooden floor gaped wide between each row of desks.

Several of those who hadn't found a seat simply dropped, soundless and stunned. A few screamed bloody murder until the sound abruptly cut off. Fewer, more intrepid, leapt or flung to grab for the nearest desk, only to drag it - and any occupant - into the hollow void.

The "interview" had begun.

Kazi hid her impulsive grin. This was far more interesting than answering automated questions.

Speaking of which.

A sheet of blank, lined paper and a graphite pencil appeared on each desk.

Very well, Kazi thought. Let the interview begin.

Forty-five minutes later, after rapid-fire questions screeching their way across the chalkboards only to vanish faster than some could read, the number of remaining applicants had shrunk considerably. Some fell screaming into a gaping void as the floor opened beneath their feet. Some went screeching in fury, throwing down their pencils and standing from their desks - to meet the same void sucking them away. 

With each loss, the desks slowly, subtly, unobtrusively condensed to keep the narrowing field of battle unnaturally tidy. 

The live count was reduced to 325. All human. No bots.

The range of topics posed in each question was absolutely esoteric. Even Kazi had quickly given up trying to anticipate a pattern and had to focus solely on scribbling an acceptable answer before the next question ripped into existence. Every time she reached the bottom of her lined paper and flipped it over, the lined sheet was blank, renewed and fresh.

Waiting for the touch of graphite.

Kazi reveled in it. Even when it felt like she'd scribbled sheer nonsense on the page, she fought fiercely to give answer to every question. Evidently it was enough, because her desk remained. This company was not looking for yet another trite carbon copy of an interview sheet. No. They wanted applicants who could think on their feet and respond to the unexpected under pressure. 

From the corner of her eye, she glanced to evaluate the room. She couldn't be the only one who'd noticed that the room was condensing more than was strictly necessary to close the voids.

The room was getting smaller. The aisles narrower. The chalkboards looming taller.

Across each board, the first command remained.

Choose your place.

Coincidence? Kazi thought not.

Physically choosing a desk was the obvious answer. Indeed, clearly the expected answer, given the result for those who'd failed to secure a desk. And yet....

Why leave those words on the board when every other question and command had erased itself?

There was always a trick to every interview. The small, unspoken expectations. The true, underlying question behind every question.

Do you belong here?

The small bell chimed again.

The lined paper and graphite pencil disappeared, replaced with a stapled test booklet. In large block letters across the front cover, it read: DO NOT OPEN BEFORE TEST BEGINS.

READ ALL INSTRUCTIONS.

A fat black pen appeared beside it. 

Someone evidently didn't read even the first line of instruction.

Screams rang out as a woman ripped open the test packet.

Thick, slimy black tentacles dripping with shimmering blue ink squirmed from between the torn pages, wrapping around her and dragging her struggling avatar into the sodden pulp of the torn paper.

Read all instructions. 

Kazi flipped over the paper packet, and found the back covered in tiny shimmering print. 

The small bell chimed. A flip-card countdown appeared on the "teacher" desk.

Thirty-five minutes.

Fresh screams and fury erupted as those who hadn't found the additional instructions found out the hard way.

The tension in the room thickened as the remaining applicants raced to read the tiny print. The stapled packet was thick, and half an hour was insanely short unless most of the interior was blank - which Kazi doubted. 

She dismissed all previous thoughts of cutting out of this early. No. She would cancel her next interview. This little game had completely hooked her competitive self.

The first paragraphs of the instructions read like a copy-paste of every test ever formatted. Her reading speed and comprehension was in the top 93rd percentile for the planet, and even so Kazi had to fight down the instinct to start skimming. After all, the devil was in the details.

Devil indeed, and as the applicants began to scream, Kazi waded through the carefully constructed jumble of legalese and jargon designed to test the patience of the most saintly lawyer. The back of her neck prickled as the hyper-physicality of the constructed space began to close in on the remaining avatars.

If so inclined, she now could have reached over and touched her nearest neighbors.

Avatars couldn't sweat, but if they could it would be pouring from the man to her left, his features twisted in frantic concentration. With a sharp hiss, he gave up, swiping his finger to scroll the lengthy text to the end to read the last segments. Nodding to himself in smug satisfaction, he ripped open the packet. He froze for a moment, holding his breath, bracing, but nothing reached out to grab him. With a smirk, he took up the pen.

Kazi supposed she could have warned him, but it was more interesting to see him uncap the pen and stare uncomprehendingly at the blot of ink that spilled out of the cap. The ink hissed and sizzled on the desk's surface. The stink of acid-burned wood stung Kazi's nose.

The applicant flung pen and cap away from himself, scattering the acid over the pages of the test packet. Yelping, he tried to save the test, picking it up and trying to shake the acid off, but in so doing he spattered it on his fingers and himself. Gasping in panic as the acid started to eat away his virtual fingers, he leapt out of his chair - and the blankening of his features displayed the moment he remembered that was a bad idea.

Kazi leaned a little to peer into the briefly gaping abyss, wondering how long they let you "fall," and if the "failed" applicants met with further puzzles in the darkness before they could escape back to the "reality" of the net's whitespace, or if they were simply released to face their shame.

One of the convoluted lines she'd read seemed to indicate that second chances were achievable, at greater cost and lessened chances of achieving a higher position with the company, so she suspected the answer was more puzzles. She spared a glance at the live count.

114. And falling.

Deeper into the extended instructions, Kazi found herself growing intrigued. There were, indeed, interesting little breadcrumbs scattered among the tangle of twisted words. Very interesting. And helpful for the test at hand. 

And the more she read, the more she found herself interested in working with this Dragon, INC.

The room had grown small enough that the tension from the applicants frantically swiping their way down the lengthy, lengthy additional instructions was becoming a tangible stress, closing in just like the looming chalkboards. More and more were abandoning caution and skimming forward. And yet, among them there were still a handful who still read calmly and deliberately. Kazi may yet have actual competition for this position.

But had the others looked beyond the test packet laid before them?

By the time Kazi finally reached the last lines of the additional instructions, a fair number of the other remaining applicants (48) had already carefully tapped the pen against the desk three times in a particular spot before slipping it between the pages of their test packet and feeding it to their ravenous desks. Kazi did the same, careful not to let the desk's curving fangs catch the ends of her fingers, and then folded her hands tidily on top of the desk, waiting for the teacher's orders, as instructed.

Her neighbor to her right, who was nearly bumping elbows with her at this point, quickly copied her pen tapping and shoved the pen into the packet.

The woman must not have tapped the right place on the desk, as specified by the instructions, because it signaled to the desk that she was safe to eat.

As the room quietly shuffled Kazi's new neighbor into place, she eyed the remaining desks. It was possible that she wasn't the only one who shared the nascent plan percolating in the back of her mind. One did not make it this far in such a desk-eat-desk (heh) environment by being a complete brick. 

It was also possible that making the wrong move at exactly the wrong moment, Kazi could meet just as disastrous a fate as all those who'd met slimy or gristly ends.

But great rewards demanded risk.

Choose your place.

Kazi had chosen her place. She merely had to devise a way to reach it.

As the numbers at the front clicked away and more and more applicants sat quietly at their desks waiting for the next bell, Kazi's conviction grew. Her plan would work.

Timing would be everything.

Almost everyone had finished reading, but now the desks were starting to crowd against the walls to either side.

The desks would start to get agitated at any moment.

Yet the bell hadn't rung.

Just how flexible were the physics in this "classroom"? The instructions had given her ideas, but it would be easy to misinterpret something in that tangled mess. Very gently, Kazi pressed downward with her folded hands, careful not to aggravate her desk. She was rewarded with confirmation.

Very flexible.

A goodly portion of discernment was knowing the difference between a time to be patient, and a time to move quickly.

Releasing her clasped fingers, Kazi shoved down on the safe corner of the desk, lifting herself cleanly out of her chair without touching the floor.

The move let her gauge the gravity of the room - she'd worried for a moment that she'd shoot all the way to the ceiling, which would present its own problems - and she quickly tucked her legs so that she could momentarily set her foot on the safe corner and launch herself up and over the applicant in front of her to land on the safe corner of that desk - which thankfully seemed to be uniform to each desk, because she hadn't been able to see every pen tap in the room.

Her sudden flight kicked up a disturbance, but Kazi set her mind to her current task and filtered out the others. The only thing that mattered was the next desk, and the one after that. She almost could have regretted not choosing a desk that had been situated closer to the front, but then that wouldn't have been nearly as much fun.

Abruptly the next desk she'd been aiming for was sucked into the black abyss, carrying its screaming applicant with it. Kazi's heart jolted as for a breath-snatching moment her outstretched foot hung over the nothingness of defeat.

Out of pure instinct, in a move worthy of the most dramatic wuxia battle, Kazi flung herself, mid leap, sideways to skim across the desk next to it instead, her trespassing foot risking the wrath of teeth. She launched again the moment her unnaturally light weight caught enough purchase on the polished surface, and she heard the desk snapping at her heels.

From the corner of her eye, she saw someone else copying her leaping.

She didn't pause to look to see if anyone else was, or if they had the same intention. She only had three more rows forward to reach the front of the room. She didn't even check the live count.

Her foot touched down on a desk in the front row, and her goal was only two arm's lengths away. She'd intended to skip her way down the row like a stone on water, but the walls had started to crush their way through the desks, and the desks were fighting back.

Her moment was now or never.

Kazi coiled into one, focused leap, out over the open floor where there were no other desks to save her.

Except one.

Her feet landed squarely, with her full natural weight, in the center of the teacher's desk.

Heart full of gleeful triumph, Kazi bent and plucked up the bell. She turned to face the disarray of the rapidly falling apart classroom.

Kazi gave the bell a ring. "Class dismissed!"

Immediately, all of the other applicants vanished. The classroom re-arranged itself back into its orderly rows.

Breathing as if she'd physically sprinted the length of the room, Kazi dropped into her chair. Her health and fitness app alerted her that her heart rate was elevated. She hardly cared.

A piece of parchment unscrolled itself across the wide desk. Choose your weapon, it entreated. Beneath the large heading spread the text of a contract for employment.

An array of pens offered themselves up; everything from chalk to ink brush to fountain pen to laser engraver. 

Ignoring the pens for the moment, Kazi read over the contract for employment as carefully as she'd read the instruction packet. Like the test packet, the contract had some very interesting and enlightening details.

At the very end, in plainer style, it repeated: Choose your weapon.

Kazi grinned. Don't mind if I do.

From her personal virtual inventory, Kazi opened her planner. "Let's discuss the terms of my employment," she addressed to the "empty" classroom.

The shadows began to peel away from the walls.

"The Harvestmen, I presume," Kazi greeted them with an incline of her head.

She was going to enjoy working with this company.