Alacazar was nice enough to let us use Pinetree International Exports (what about the imports?) to interview people to round out our squad for the upcoming secret agent thing he wants us to do. I sat at his desk of course since I’m the leader. Blue carried in the reception desk for he and Martialla to sit behind, which is kind of cute. Like little kids emulating their parent at the office.
The process reminded me of the time that I auditioned for a movie. Even if you can’t act, you have a decent chance of getting cast in a musical if you can sing and are pretty. And I can sing like a mother and am pretty as balls. I halfway expected the people coming in to hand us headshots. Not many locals came to “try out”, I wonder if that’s because they didn’t want to deal with foreigners or if the word was out that we had enemies. Probably both.
The woman before us didn’t have a costume or anything like some of them do, she was just a woman. She was wearing short shorts that bordered on being hot pants. I don’t love shorts. Cover up your knees people. Knees are gross. All knobby and weird. Keep that shit hid. She had blonde hair down to her ass which I didn’t love either – I’m pro long hair but keep it within reason.
“So what’s your deal?”
“I can shift myself into two or four dimensions. I could probably also do one dimension but I don’t think I’d be able to come back from that.”
“What about five dimensions?”
She shorted and tossed her mass of hair, I’m surprised she didn’t strain her neck “Don’t be ridiculous.”
I scowled “What does this power actually do?”
“Well when I’m two dimensional I don’t have any depth, or length if you prefer.”
“So you can do what? Slide through a crack?”
“Sometimes. I still have width so I could only fit through a crack if it’s wide enough. I could slide under a door because a door is big enough for me to go through in three dimensions, but I couldn’t go through a keyhole or a small window because it wouldn’t be wide enough.”
“Could we fold you?”
“Only if you wanted to kill me.”
“Are you invisible from the side when you’re two dimensional?”
“Technically yes, if you’re totally perpendicular to me you won’t see me, but if the angle is off even a little you’ll know I’m there. I can sort of hide up against a wall, behind a cabinet or the like”
“That doesn’t seem very helpful.”
“It isn’t really, but when I’m fourth dimensional I can travel anywhere in the world almost instantaneously.”
“Cool, how does that work?”
“Did you ever read Flatlands?”
“No, is that the girly magazine that Martialla was in? Was it the special amphibian babes edition?” I laughed heartily at a well-crafted burn.
Martialla glared at me “I got turned into a fish, what’s your excuse?”
I smirked “Shut up Martialla, I’m stacked and everybody knows it.”
Long-hair seemed confused by this exchange “Flatlands is a commentary on Victorian social norms written as a mathematical essay in narrative form about a two-dimensional world.
“Jesus Christ, I think just hearing that sentence made me sterile.”
“Uh, it explains how to a two dimensional being, a three dimension being like a human would seem like they have super powers. Among other things. But really it’s just a matter of perspective.”
“So you can teleport us places? That would be very useful.”
She shook her head “No, I can be at those places in an instant but just me.”
“So you could travel to Paris instantly, but I couldn’t come with you?”
“No you couldn’t come with me, because you’re a three dimensional being so you can only move in three dimensions, see I’m not actually going anywhere. When I’m fourth dimensional I can interact with the three dimensional world at any point so to you and everyone else it seems like I’ve traveled a great distance but I didn’t move. Relatively speaking.”
Blue held up his hand “I thought the fourth dimension was time.”
She ducked her head “The terminology is a little confusing. Einstein’s theory of spacetime is different from Euclidean dimensions. For instance, a square is a two dimensional cube viewed from one side, just like a cube is a three dimensional tesseract viewed from two sides. When someone is talking about time being the fourth dimension they’re referring to time governing the properties of all known matter at any given point. Knowing an object’s position in time is important when . . .”
I waved my arms “Okay enough, you’re out, I don’t want anyone on the team with powers I don’t understand.”
Martialla snickered “You don’t understand your own powers.”
I glared at her “I understand what they DO, that’s all I meant.” I turned back to long-hair “Wait, do you have an apartment or something? Someplace I could take a shower? I feel like I have some kind of fungus on my armpit. If you can hook me up with a shower you’re on the team.”
“Not exactly, no.
I jumped up and gestured violent towards the door “Then get the hell out of here!”
And everybody knows it.