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disappear as if the wall were swallowing it. He yanked it back, surprised, but when he held the hand up to his face, it was undamaged. Barrow hesitated for only a split second. Then he plunged headfirst through the door.
    “Mr. Barrow,” Armando Scholl greeted him. “So nice of you to join us.”
    Barrow looked around in confusion. He was in an entirely different place now. When he looked back, the wall behind him was smooth and completely featureless, with no sign of the glowing door he had used to get in.
    “Sorry,” Barrow muttered. “Got turned around.”
    This new room was a bit more detailed than the other one, but it looked like a very bad attempt at creating the semblance of a workspace using the minimum number of lines possible. The floor was crisscrossed by more of the glowing lines, at least giving Barrow a sense of space and distance. It wasn’t very big, and the only other objects inside it besides his avatar and Scholl’s were a couple of boxy structures that might have been tables, or just cubes. The general darkness of the room had no impact on the way either of the avatars was lit. Scholl looked incongruous, standing in the middle of the rough, unfinished environment. It felt as if two different bits of technology had been used: the more advanced one to create the avatars with all their perfect details and some kind of low-budget special effects to try to create a semblance of space using only glowing lines.
    None of the other new hires were there. Only Scholl was still waiting for him.
    “Late again,” Scholl said and approached the place where Barrow was standing. “Is this the kind of first impression you intended to make, son? Or do you just really not give a damn about getting this job?”
    Barrow scowled. Scholl’s avatar looked just like him, and now that they were standing face-to-face Barrow could see that the man in front of him was short, unimposing, and almost pathetically thin. He looked old but in that slightly emaciated way that some of the survivors from the Great Famine had. Barrow suspected that Scholl had been born in the slums, and he had gone through the famine that had struck Aurora thirty years ago, before Barrow was born.
    “I do want this job,” Barrow said, trying not to get angry. “Tell me what you need me to do.”
    Scholl gave him another long, appraising look. “You think I’m an idiot, Steve Barrow?”
    Barrow blinked. “What?”
    Scholl called up a screen in midair with a gesture. It showed Barrow’s record, even the confidential parts that the Otherlife Human Resources execs had been unable to check due to privacy and fair opportunity laws.
    “How did you get that?” Barrow asked, brain racing. He was screwed. He had been counting on his lies to get him through the first few weeks, until he learned the ropes and became too valuable to fire lightly. He had gotten through two interviews and one assessment center session already with no problem, and now this guy called up his entire history and by doing so made all his efforts worthless.
    Scholl began scrolling down the report, which showed a color hologram of Barrow several years ago. He recognized the holo as the one they had taken when they admitted him into prison.
    “Steve Barrow, twenty-nine years of age,” Scholl read. “No record of higher education, high school unfinished. No living brothers or sisters, parents deceased. Arrested eleven years ago for armed robbery of a convenience store along with three other males, including charges of assault and resisting arrest. Given a sentence of five years’ imprisonment at Death Valley Prison. Granted freedom after four years and one month for good conduct. Hired seven months later by Aurora Transport as Security Guard of the class-3 trading airship Titania . Employed for six years, good attendance record and performance reviews. Recommended for promotion to Security Chief once, opportunity declined. Most recently fired from the position after an incident