Mythlings, Inc.

by Tym Greene

Four years after the events of University Admythion, Jason Leander has graduated and is out to find a job, and Midland Monetary, Inc. is bound to provide him with more career satisfaction than he could have possibly imagined.

Four years ago, Jason Leander had read an old spellbook, altering reality and gaining more friends (and a more interesting college career) than he could have imagined in his wildest dreams. Spending so much time with his equitaur roommate Priam Florakis—first in their dorm room and then in a small apartment—had rendered his erstwhile antagonist something far more than a friend, nearly a brother, but not quite a boyfriend.

That particular role was instead quite expertly filled by Lenny Orland. The leonine greaser never failed to have his mane teased up into a slicked-back pompadour, not even when he was otherwise covered in rock dust or blown sand from some excavation. As his geological studies had progressed, he’d been spending more and more time afield, doing the work he loved and making the connections that had earned him an internship following graduation.

Jason, though he found his heart aching on the days without the big cat’s tender presence, was glad Lenny was finding such success. After all, how could he not wish the beastman he loved every success? And it also freed up his time to focus on his own studies. Despite the guidance and support of the lion and the centaur, the human had had a rough time of it: try as he might, he’d been unable to decide on a major until the last minute, and then had only followed his father’s advice out of desperation. Without a declared major he wouldn’t have been able to sign up for classes, and certainly wouldn’t have graduated with his fellows.

So now the recently-framed diploma on his wall read: “The Trustees of the University upon recommendation of the Faculty have conferred upon Jason Leander the degree of Associate of Science in Business Administration.” A good, practical degree with skills he could apply to any job, and far more sensible than one in ancient literature—specifically mythology—which had been the only other option that had come to his mind. He sighed and turned away from the gilded parchment, burying his face in soft horsehide.

Priam’s tail flicked up and brushed against Jason’s nose: the equitaur always enjoyed playing couch for his roommates (especially when their tender caresses became more playful, or more amorous), but he’d not been blind to Jason’s worries and dissatisfaction. “Look,” he said with a snort, setting aside his Sports Illustrated, “You can’t keep moping around like this. Your degree doesn’t matter as much as you’d think, and once you have a job—any job—it’ll hardly matter at all. Didn’t you say you have an interview tomorrow? Why don’t you go get ready, lay out your suit, type up a few extra copies of your résumé, polish your shoes; anything’s bound to be more productive than sitting here and moping. Besides, you’ll feel better and sleep better if you do.”

Jason patted the warm flank and got to his feet. “Can’t argue with good horse sense,” he said begrudgingly. The small closet of a room he’d designated as his “office” was well organized, binders of class notes and textbooks arranged by semester, other books ordered by genre, a photo of the three young men on a summer trip to the Preakness Stakes (they’d agreed that the winner, Bally Ache, was handsome, but his name was hilarious) perched atop the shelves next to an old snapshot of his father standing before his bookshop. The typewriter was where it ought to be, as were the previously-typed copies of his résumé. I probably have enough, he thought, but I suppose a few extras tucked into my briefcase wouldn’t hurt. He knew that the detail-oriented and decision-free task would also serve to distract him from his worries. But there was no paper.

He checked the small desk, the hand-me-down briefcase (which had been stamped “Leander” when his father had purchased it for his own first interview, some thirty years ago), he’d even started pawing through the class notes in case there were a few blank sheets tucked away. Then he saw the tome.

The leather-bound manuscript was still open, illuminated pages dusty despite being tucked away in the little space between the top of his first semester textbooks and the underside of the bookcase. Ever since he’d made the offhanded wish, it had remained frozen, stuck open, pages blurred. What had it even been? More friends? More myths? Whatever it was, that wish certainly worked. Even as he thought this, however, the centuries-old inked letters seemed to grow crisp and the pages loosened their hold on one another.

But he’d found the spare paper and had turned his attention back to the typewriter. It wasn’t until later that he even thought of the book again, after he’d typed half a dozen copies of his résumé, had dinner, brushed his teeth, and stripped for bed (after all, when your bedmates are an equitaur and a lion, bare skin against soft hides is the way to go); he was groggily packing things up for the next day, neatly stuffing the typed pages into his briefcase, when the gilt illumination caught his eye.

He ran a hand across the edge, feeling the dust of four years on the open page. Yawning, he brushed it clear and let his eyes stumble along the words again, not realizing that he was mouthing each syllable—just as he’d done on that first day of classes so long ago—while in his head he held the amorphous wish that he’d been worrying over for the past few months. I wish I could find a job…a job that suited my interests…

The pages grew blurry. …my needs…

They stuck togethermy desire.

Jason was so sleepy, however, that he wasn’t aware of sliding the once again stuck- open book back in its place, nor did he guide his feet as he padded back to the shared bedroom, with the floor-level mattresses where Priam’s six limbs were already sprawled out. He fell into bed and rolled up against the equitaur’s belly, letting the softly-scruffy hide warm his cheek as the legs enfolded him. He slept better than he’d done in a long time, especially for a night when Lenny was out at a dig.

Midland Monetary, Inc. was a venerable institution—it said so right on their website—and their headquarters backed that up. Planted squarely in the middle of the business district, the drab brutalist concrete base with its International Style glass-and-steel shaft looked identical to the other towers that surrounded it, each one a knockoff of that one famous building by that one famous architect in New York, each just as imposing and soulless as the next. Despite the name and address spelled out in thick copper letters above the main entrance, it still took Jason several minutes of wandering around the yawning urban canyon to find his way.

The lobby was just as gaping as the streets outside, with polished granite slabs in place of wall decoration, and exposed air ducts serving as ceiling murals. Jason Leander shivered, and not just from the chill air. But the receptionist had a kind smile as she took his name and advised him to take one of the tubular steel chairs (very modern, very chic, and very uncomfortable) while he waited for his interview. He’d only just found a position that was acceptable to his back, at the cost of cutting off circulation to his legs, when a tall figure strode up.

He stood and took the proffered hand. “Welcome to Midland,” the ascetic businessman said with a detached air that was almost insulting, as though he were just reading off a script. “My name is Albrecht Schermerhorn, and I’ll be conducting your interview and tour today. Please follow me.” He sounded bored, but Jason did as he was told, waving thanks at the helpful receptionist as he was led by. The fact that the receptionist now had a beard didn’t immediately register to Jason’s preoccupied mind.

The interview was conducted as almost a fait accompli, and was followed by a PowerPoint presentation detailing just how amazing Midland Monetary, Inc. was to work for. Jason couldn’t resist glancing around the large conference room, with chairs and water glasses set out for a dozen other people, yet he and Mr.

Schermerhorn were the only occupants. He tried to pay attention to the slides, but the jargon and Dilbertian business-speak (rife with “synergy” and “game changers”) made his eyes glaze over. He understood that Midland was a bank and financial institution, but beyond that all was a blur; he didn’t even know what his position would be. But if they’re giving me this presentation and a tour, I guess that means I got the job, he thought without much conviction.

“Any questions,” Mr. Schermerhorn asked, looking around the room as though expecting a forest of upraised hands. “No? Excellent. Let’s begin the tour.”

Jason rose and held up a timid hand, trying to catch the executive’s eye. “Excuse me, Mr. Schermerhorn, does that mean I’m hired? What will I be—”

“Please hold all questions to the end of the tour,” was the imperious reply. “First, there are a few forms to sign.” He led Jason to a table at one side of the conference room where there were several stacks of printed sheets. “Please take one from each column and fill them out.” Just as before, they had the look of being prepared for a much larger crowd of applicants: one pile held a dozen copies of non-disclosure agreements, another had forms for personal information—tax ID, address, telephone, birthdate, and the like—and so on, but always with more copies than were needed for just the one applicant.

Still, Jason dutifully filled out one of each, glad he’d brought his résumé to be able to include specific details of his work history and schooling. When he was done, he handed the stack to Mr Schermerhorn, who quickly inspected them, and then led Jason back out to the lobby. The secretary now had thick mustaches and a dark nose, his wide grin showing off his white and rather pointed teeth. Smiling back at the friendly man, he was reminded of the protective foo-dog statues he’d seen in front of some of the businesses when he’d passed through the city’s Asiatown on his way to the interview.

The secretary waved a rather paw-like hand, as though to say “Good luck,” then rolled up Jason’s forms and stuffed them into one of the pneumatic tubes whose columns rose like a pipe organ behind him, whisking them away to somewhere in the vast building to be filed. As he followed his guide toward the elevator bank, Jason wondered why he hadn’t noticed earlier the tubes’ ornate gilded design, as though they dated from the previous century. He also didn’t notice that the furniture in the waiting area had taken on a similar provenance and patina, well-worn but sturdily built antiques, complete with gilded carvings and plush velvet upholstery.

Standing in the large elevator—given the size, it must have been intended for freighting furniture—he waited for his guide to commence the tour, but the executive seemed to be suffering from a bit of executive dysfunction. “Up, or down,” he muttered, glancing at Jason as though surprised to see him standing there. “Ahem, apologies. I’m just…of two minds right now.”

“Oh?” Jason asked politely.

Mr. Schermerhorn shook his head, which caused his left-side bangs to slip their pomaded moorings and fall messily beside his face. He tilted his head to that side, and said languidly, “We could go up first…” then he tilted his head to the other side and said, in a calmer voice, “…or we could go down first.” He shook his head again, and suddenly it was like there were two faces, squashed together, pulling apart.

Jason was reminded of the gummy bears he’d had in his Easter basket, many years ago. It had been a warm day, and the soft candies had melted, requiring him to delicately separate conjoined limbs, stacked bodies, and merged heads. With a soft wet sound and a pop, Mr. Schermerhorn’s head became two, one with a shaggy mess of hair, while the other had the same neatly coiffed style as before the businessman’s indecision. Without missing a beat, the heads turned to one another to continue their discussion.

“If we go up,” his left head said, with almost a wheedling tone, as though eager to avoid any undue exertion, “we can get straight to the point, and deal with the details later.”

“Or never,” his right head replied acerbically. “If it were up to you we’d skip to the last page of every book.” The right head nudged the left in a sort of sideways headbutt. When it pulled back to resume the discussion, Jason could see that both heads had shifted, their faces pushing forward into blunt muzzles, their noses wider and darker, like slices of mushroom on a pizza, but they were not identical. The right head, for example, had horizontal rectangles for irises, while the left’s irises were round and golden. “You know the best way to proceed is one step at a time.”

The left head snarled, showing pointed teeth in contrast to his fellow’s blocker dentition. “But it’s such a long way to go.”

Budding horns poked out of the right head’s forehead, while a neat goatee sprouted from his chin. “It’s the same number of floors…give or take a few…whether we head straight to the top or start in the basement, and going through all of the departments now saves us having to go through them later.” He gave his shoulder- partner another nudge and seemed to have won the argument. The leonine head did nothing but growl softly as the caprine head took control of their shared body and pushed the down button.

Jason couldn’t help but be reminded of the tripartite Professor Frederick, with whom he’d spent so many long and pleasant office hours. Curious at how far the similarity ran, he snuck a glance at the businessman’s slacks, but saw no sign of a tail. Nor was there any hint of a third head sprouting from the already-crowded shoulders, unless it were hiding somewhere beneath the crisp two-collared shirt and double tie. He shrugged and turned his attention back to the bright bronze hand above the doors as it swept counter-clockwise.

Then something bumped his rump. “Don’t mind them,” said a quiet voice from somewhere lower down, but Jason couldn’t see anyone else in the spacious elevator, and Schermerhorn was standing practically on the other side. But he noticed a thick tube of flesh, emerging from a brand new, had-always-been-there hole in the backside of the slacks—there was even a buttoned flap holding the opening closed beneath the shiny black leather belt. A tube of flesh that was pointing straight at him, or rather, his behind.

Jason turned to look properly and was met with a small face, a miniature copy of Schermerhorn’s head rendered in clay and then squashed into a flat oval. It smiled up at him and flickered a still-thick tongue, even as smooth skin begins to split subtly into scales. He glanced up at the other two heads, seeing that they now looked more animal than human (goat for the right, lion for the left), and were still holding a whispered conversation with one another.

“I ssusspect that they jusst like to argue,” the tail-head hissed conspiratorially. “But we get along ssufficiently; it’ss more like a sspice—” He was interrupted by the elevator gliding to a halt.

All four heads looked up at the indicator arm: they were not yet at the bottom of its sweep. The doors opened and revealed the reason for the pause. A ponderous trolly, loaded high with bullion, zippered bags clinking with coin, and tidy bundles of bills in measured stacks, rattled into the car, right between Jason and Mr. Schermerhorn. “As you can see,” the goat head said over the top of the trolly, “we use this freight elevator to shift our stores as needed.”

“Oh, Good morning, Mr. Schermerhorn, I didn’t see you there,” said the diminutive man pushing the trolly.

“Good morning, Stebbings,” the lion head yawned. “No harm done. Stocks must be moved and all that.”

“Yessir, thank you sir.” Stebbings practically saluted, his hands growing larger as his neck swelled up. The elevator doors closed and the car continued its descent as the bank employee’s body continued to inflate. Soon the stubby human was gone, replaced by an ogre with dark violet skin and an almost-piggish upturned nose above his long upper lip. His ordinary grey suit had vanished, revealing burly stevedore musculature and a dusting of orange body hair. His only clothes were leather spats, the same tie he’d been wearing before, (albeit expanded to cover acres of thick neck) and a formal loincloth that looked like it had been made from a skunk pelt. It was also, Jason noticed, an inch or two too short.

But the elevator stopped and the ogre turned around, his meaty thighs and rump obscuring the swinging sausage tip that had so attracted the young man’s attention. As Stebbings began tugging the trolly out into the hall, Jason reached out a hand to him, introducing himself and relishing the warmth and softness of his leathery skin. After the exchange of “Pleased to meet you”s and “Hope to see you again”s—more earnest than Jason had expected—the ogre continued hauling his valuable load, with far more ease than when he’d pushed it in, and Mr. Schermerhorn continued his tour.

“Here in the lowest level we have storage—” the goat head began.

“Including important things like toilet paper and note pads,” added the lion head.

“Yes. And of course the extremely trivial vaults, which are far less important to our business as a bank than, ahem, toilet paper and notepads.”

“Don’t forget penss!” the snake head added, causing the lion head to join him in a fit of giggles. Even the goat’s muzzle quirked up a bit at the childish joking of his bodymates. It struck Jason that whereas Professor Frederick—being formed from three separate people—had retained their unique identities as the chemistry professor Basel, the English professor Buckley, and the Latin professor Bhujang, Mr. Schermerhorn’s three heads seemed more to reflect different aspects of his own personality.

Wait, why are things changing again? He’d gotten so used to seeing humans become less-so over the course of his college career that he’d almost taken it for granted.

He’d been accepting Mr. Schermerhorn’s alterations as he’d accepted the change of nearly everyone he’d come into contact with at the university (and, truth to tell, out of it), as the rippling effects of that first day’s wish had continued their work. It had become so wide-spread that there hadn’t really been anyone left to change in the few weeks between graduation and his interview, so he hadn’t noticed the difference in the slightest.

And then I read the book last night, he thought with a feeling in his stomach that was half giddy and half sinking. If this were a sit com, he might have looked at the camera and given an exaggerated shrug—as though to say: “Whoops, I did it again.”—as the laugh track rolled and a trombone played a mocking wah-wah. But this was not a situational comedy, this was real.

So real that he could smell the healthy sweat of Stebbings as well as the mingled meat-and-clover scent of Mr. Schermerhorn’s breakfast, along with something else, a sulfurous brimstone smell that called to mind something from one of his classes, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on what. His guide (specifically the goat head) was droning on about the bank’s history, how it was founded some centuries ago as the result of what was found in a cave on this spot, the same cave being enlarged as further excavations continued into the modern era.

Jason was confused, certain that he’d noticed the bank’s founding date as being close to his own birthday, a decade after 1929’s Black Tuesday crash and the financial world’s subsequent chaos. But now it sounded as though it were nearly as old as the entire nation. Even as he looked around, he noticed that the fittings and materials around him had much more of an “old money” feel, as though he were striding through a private mansion in New York or Boston; gone were the brutal, unaccented concrete walls, the harsh fluorescent lights, the inexpensive linoleum floor. Instead all about him was stone, polished and dark.

An ornate bronze portal marked the entry to the vaults proper, and the tiny tour followed in the ogre’s path. Orderly ranks of shelves marched along on either side, bearing the same bounty Stebbings had been ferrying, albeit several orders of magnitude more, a library of wealth. Tall square pillars divided the lines of shelves into regular sections and flanked the ends. The stone columns were lined with ribbons of gold-bearing quartz that sparkled even under the steady warmth of incandescent light, having obviously been left during the mining process, as the diggers sacrificed any potential profit to be removed from their volume in favor of the savings of avoiding the need to shore up as they dug. The practical decision had turned the mine into a beautiful cathedral to the fruits of the Earth’s depths.

Then Jason realized his guide had stopped, giving him time to appreciate the splendors around him. “It’ss okay,” said the snake with a wide grin, “ssometimess I get overwhelmed in here too. ‘A thing of beauty iss a joy forever,’ and working in a company ssuch ass ourss, there iss much beauty to appreciate.”

Even as he said it, they passed the ogre. Stebbings had his back to them, bent over as he moved bullion from trolly to shelf, and they were presented with the former human’s appreciable assets. But they couldn’t spend all day admiring the clerk’s eggplant-smooth flanks, so Mr. Schermerhorn lead the way further into the Moria- style vaults.

As they approached a corner, a roaring sound became more noticeable. Where moments before it could have been passed off as the rattling of a furnace or air conditioning ducts, now it seemed more organic. The ambient temperature, as well, was increasing; Jason found it to be comfortable after the chill of the basement hallway, like the sun coming out from behind a cloud on an early spring morning. Then the tour rounded the corner, and Jason finally recognized what the smell he’d remembered had been from: dragonbreath.

Sitting at an oversized granite desk, and with his bulk cushioned by an ergonomic gold chair, sat a large and very familiar dragon. The trays on his desk—marked “In” and “Out”—were filled with labeled rock samples, and he was busy licking, sniffing, nibbling, and visually examining each one, then notating his observations on its tag. He had just finished one when he looked up and beamed at the human. “Jason! How’s it going?”

The dragon was Winston Rochester, one of the students who’d shared the Intro to Geology class with Lenny and Jason. Of course, he’d been human too, shy and uncertain, until Jason’s first wish affected him like it affected everyone he’d come into contact with, leaving him a rock-hungry beast with a fondness for the suddenly- dwarven Professor Halvard. While Jason hadn’t interacted with him that first day of class, but they’d bumped into one another over the semester, and later at the various Geology Club functions Lenny brought him to. “Hi Winston, I didn’t know you worked here.”

“Yeah, Halvy set me up as a summer intern a few years ago, and now that I’ve graduated, they decided to hire me on full-time.”

“Congratulations! We all know how much you love rocks, so I bet this is a perfect job for you…what are you doing, anyways?”

“Oh, it’s nothing too special,” the dragon demurred, his tongue flickering out as some of his former bashfulness returned. He twisted his bulk to hold up one of the chunks on his in tray, a nondescript mottled blueish-grey, the little label fluttering on its string. “These are ore samples from the bank’s various mines, and it’s my job to test each one for traces of valuable ores.” He sniffed at it daintily, pressed the forks of his tongue to the gritty surface. “This, for example, has traces of kimberlite.”

“The…host matrix for diamonds,” Jason said, dredging the fact up from some half- remembered class notes.

“Exactly. So I mark that on the label and tell them to continue digging there.” He sighed heavily, “It’s hardly an efficient system, since I can’t tell them in which direction to dig, and there’s always the possibility of nearby deposits not indicated in the samples, but it’s easier for the company to ship samples than it would be to ship me from site to site. I’ve been on to one of the mines with Halvy and it was better than being in a candy store,” he leaned back, making the gold chair creak. “Now that was a fun field trip. All the tailings I could eat, and I felt so useful, being able to say ‘dig here,’ and ‘that seam goes further that way,’ and the like. I even pointed out a deposit of copper that was hiding a few feet past the current tunnel wall.”

“I remember seeing that noted in a memo,” Mr. Schermerhorn added. “Hardly the most precious mineral, but with all the electronics industries popping up these days, extremely valuable for the company. You raise good points, Mr. Rochester. I’ll present your suggestions to the board.”

“I can even do some of my own flying,” he added hopefully, flapping his crimson batwings.

“Hmm, I suppose we’d have to figure out a rate for airborne travel. Something between the per-mile for road travel and the stipend for air fare, I’d imagine. But we can let the bean-counters work that up. If,” his goat eyes stared at the dragon, making his point clear, “if the board decides to approve your suggestion.”

“And it’s not like they’re always the most…understanding of fellows,” Mr. Schermerhorn’s lion head yawned.

“I understand, sir, but I know it would be a great idea for the company…as well as for me. Thank you for listening.” He turned back to his work, a wash of emotions on his long, scaly face. “It was good to see you, Jason. Good luck at your job, and say hi to Lenny for me.”

The human waved at his former classmate as he followed the chimera around another corner in the bank’s maze-like underside. They passed branching corridors and offices greeting or ignoring other employees—colorful ogres, for the most part, but there were a few humans too. They passed sorting and analysis rooms (with dragon-sized doors) and a bank of freight elevators that disgorged a gaggle of miners. A line of men queued up along the wall, their clean coveralls and hard hats marking them as the replacement shift. “Thosse sshaftss go down to the cave excavationss,” the tail head said while they waited for the shift change.

And as the two crowds of men crossed in front of Jason, they seemed to shift, losing height and gaining bulk. At first he thought they might be becoming ogres too, like Stebbings; unlike him, however, their skin remained whatever color it had been.

Soon the growth of long beards—plaited and tucked into belts—and filtering mustaches showed that these men had become dwarves like Professor Halvard, stout and merry, even after a day’s worth of mining. “There’s no need to go down there,” the leonine head said, clearly hoping Jason would agree.

“Unless you’re interested in seeing the mines,” the goat had offered.

“Well, I am interested, naturally—it’s not every day you see a bank with a working mine—but I don’t want to get in the way of their work…and I still don’t know what my job will be.”

As they rounded another corner in the mazelike underlevels, a rhythmic pounding sound grew more noticeable: the next large set of doors they passed opened to reveal a man operating a stamping press. Each hissing clunk impressed the bank’s logo and purity mark on one of the several gold bars he was hefting from one cart to the next, while a pile of smaller blank coins were stacked beside him, obviously waiting for press head to be switched for the next batch. The opening door must have started a gust of wind, or perhaps it was merely a vicissitude of fate, but one of the coin blanks fell from atop its stack. Reaching instinctively to grab it, the worker fell into his press.

There was a blur of motion and Jason shut his eyes, afraid to see the inevitable carnage…only to hear no screams at all, just the continued thunk-clink-thunk of bars being stamped and moved. He opened his eyes to see that man and machine are now one, a handsome and thick-built golem, using his own hands as both ram and platen. Chrome accents gleamed like epaulets and a goatee against the dark red earthenware of his upgraded body, sculpted muscles like bowling balls as he lifted ingots with ease.

He set down the last bar and turned is attention to the stacks of blanks. Then, to Jason’s surprise, he pulled off his own hands, replacing each with another from the rack. The casual way he swapped out his own body parts reminded Jason of the old toy soldiers he’d had growing up: their heads had been made separately from their bodies, and as a result could be removed or exchanged to better suit expression and mien to their imagined action. So too the golem: his right palm had a circle with the coin’s obverse carved in negative, while his left presumably held the reverse. With a precise clap, he sandwiched the blank between his palms, then dropped the finished coin into a bin that he swiftly filled.

The sound increased, and Mr. Schermerhorn gestured at the room which seemed to have expanded while Jason was watching the pressman: a half dozen other golems were engaged in similar pursuits. Coins, ingots, and medals were churned out with meditative regularity, and slenderer one in the back seemed to be using his nimble fingers to cold forge gold chain, cutting and bending one link at a time with blinding speed. “It’s very handy to have so much of the refining and manufacturing of our various products done in-house,” the leonine head was saying, as though he were personally responsible for ferrying raw material and finished products around, and was grateful of the short transit.

“It’s also a considerable savings in shipping and quality control,” Mr. Schermerhorn’s goat head added prudently. Jason couldn’t be sure, but it seemed as though his guide had gotten taller and broader in the past few minutes, his suit wrapped around a body that looked like it had been modeled on one of the golems: broad shoulders—with plenty of room for two thick necks—and round shoulders stretching out the finely-pinstriped material in a way that made Jason almost ache to touch it. Even the snake tail seemed to have grown, a thigh-wide cylinder of muscular scales emerged from the tailored trousers, terminating in a head that seemed to have been upgraded from garden snake to anaconda.

But the eyes were the same, and the smile was as gentle. It nudged against his chest, and lifted itself into his tentatively caressing hand like a reptilian cat. “There’ss other sstuff down here, but I think we sshould sshow you the officess too.”

So he let the enbuffened businessman lead him back through the maze to the original freight elevator they’d come down on. On the way, he waved Winston, who was gnawing at a particularly complex sample, and was a little sorry not to see Stebbing’s handsome purple bulk in the stacks. At first, however, he was confused—perhaps they’d taken a wrong turn—because the freight elevator didn’t look anything like it had before. Scratched steel and flickering fluorescents had been replaced with gilded mirrors and stained-glass lighting. Even the doors—which looked much wider—seemed to have become more opulent, with bookmatched burlwood inlaid in mahogany frames, which gave Jason the eerie feeling that he was being watched (and not just by one or another of Mr. Schermerhorn’s heads).

Then the doors opened onto the lobby, confirming that this was indeed the same lift they’d taken at the start of the tour. Jason peeked around the corner to wave at the cerberus secretary, still manning his post at the front desk, and got a trio of happy dog faces grinning back at him. Then a matronly woman stepped into the elevator, her cow-print vest and grass green skirt very chic in the “older person wearing the hip new fashions of the young” way. Mr. Schermerhorn greeted “Ms. Mignon” with a professional nod, one executive to another.

But as elevator resumed its upward motion, Jason noticed that there seemed to be a tail attached to her cowprint jacket. Hadn’t it only been a vest? he wondered, already suspecting where things were going. Her sensible high-heels seemed to each have a cleft in the front, almost as though some fashion designer were trying to evoke the look of cow hooves. Unsurprisingly, by the time the doors opened on a vast and labyrinthine cubicle farm, Mr. Mignon steps out, a minotaur in a grass green dress suit that accentuated the curves of his fatherly figure. Taking wide strides over to the water cooler and snack table, he hunkered down on a plush chair guard over the office workers. Horned heads poked above cubicle walls, and the low rumble of dozens of ruminants quietly processing hay donuts and grass chips—not to mention coffee with plenty of cream—reminded Jason of his Uncle Ellis’ farm, the Elysian Fields where he used to work of a summer.

An arm waved at the cubicle farm. “This is mostly data entry and accounts management, vital—”

“But boring” the lion head interrupted the goat, impatiently pushing the button for the next stop a few floors up.

Jason couldn’t help but marvel at how fast the change was progressing through the building. When exactly, he wondered, had the cubicle farm become more literal: when he first entered the office? as the elevator approached the floor? or the instant before the doors opened, to let the minotaur out to guard his herd? Just like at the university, he’d seen many variations in time and tempo, as though there were no way to anticipate what would change or when. And then there’s the possibility that I might not even notice something changing, he thought with wild realization, running a hand down his face.

Seeing the people, the world around him become more interesting, more unexpected and more friendly had been one of the highlights of his college years. Now he was granted the same boon in his new job—whatever that might end up being—and the possibility of missing one of those changes, of not experiencing the unbridled joy and rightness of the result, gave him pause.

While Jason was worrying thus, the elevator passed the floor dedicated to the computer room. Jason barely noticed as Mr. Schermerhorn’s description seemed to shift from a single, massive, room-filling device (the statistics of bits and bytes flying out of Jason’s mind as soon as they flew in) to several workers who sounded very much like computers themselves. Before he could realize what this meant or compare them to the old radio serials he barely remembered from his childhood, the elevator had stopped again. The doors rolled open to reveal a large library-style room, filled with binders and filing cabinets,

As the trio of Schermerhorn heads explained, in their usual piecemeal fashion, this was the bank’s reference library: providing information on relevant laws and conversions, historical value archives and customer records. A bearded face peeked between a set of three-ring binders, prepared to shush the loud voices, librarian-style.

Then the archivist saw who was giving the tour and returned to his work.

The odd thing was, as he talked, the list seemed to shift, as did the contents of the shelves around them. Soon they also held tomes on gemlore and metal manufacturing techniques, reams of mining test results, and books of spells…much like the one sitting in Jason’s little closet-office back home. While the human was distracted by the glints of golden bindings and jeweled accents, he almost didn’t notice the archivist’s body shifting too as they walked past. The company librarian’s beard darkened from red to black, spreading to cover body as he slimmed down, leaving a lithe panther playfully stalking the stacks where a grumpy man once patrolled.

Passing through the last few shelves Mr Schermerhorn led Jason across the hall to a bustling room filled with younger men. They were all clustered around a bulky, gray, desk-sized machine and many clattering teleprinters, pumping out pages of text and strips of stock prices. “That device is a brand new Xerox 914, not many banks have the capital to be able to invest in new technology like that, and we’re very proud. Aren’t we lads?”

As they cheered their agreement, the copyroom men seemed to shrink in stature, faces pulling out into long muzzles beneath their green eyeshades, old-style armbands—no longer keeping shirtsleeves cinched tight—now wrapped ornamentally around bare biceps. The skin beneath these manly garters darkened, shifting to red or green or even blue, and splitting into delicate scale patterns. The print shop workers, now kobolds, busily chirped as they continued to gather and collate pages, then scuttling off with their bundles: either depositing them in the pigeon holes of the nearby mail room, or in the in-tray of the archivist panther, or else to distribute them throughout the building. Jason suspected that he’d see more of the short kobold mail clerks as they continued making their rounds. He didn’t notice that the company logo on letterheads and the name on address labels had shifted too: where black ink had once spelled out Midland Monetary, gold letters showed something different. After all, everyone knew that Mythlings, Inc. was not only the most secure bank on the planet, but also a producer of fine jewelry—from necklaces and tiaras to tail rings and horn cuffs—as well as being a foremost authority on the magic of mined substances.

There was another freight elevator on the print room side of the building, so Jason and Mr. Schermerhorn joined several kobolds bearing packages and other mail in their journey up to the next floor. The ornate doors opened, revealing a sign that read “Executive Break Room” and a stern-looking gryphon manning the door across the little lobby. Jason couldn’t tell if the security guard had been changed like everyone else in the building, or if he too was a graduate of Jason’s mythological university. Okay seeing the chimera, however, his stern expression melted and he clacked his beak in a smart salute. “Going in, Mr. Schermerhorn?” he asked as he pulled the door open with a nimble talon.

The room within was done up like an old malt shop, with marble tabletops and spitoon-style brass pots holding lush ferns. Beyond wood-paneled arches Jason could see more tropical plants, arranged around a fountain. Tasteful signs pointed to “Sauna & Steam,” “Gym,” and “Massages” beyond the splashing water. A lean waiter—of the sort one always sees classed as the butler in movies and stage shows—took their orders: black coffee, a strawberry milkshake, and green tea for Mr.

Schermerhorn’s three heads, and a Coke with cherry and vanilla syrup for Jason. The waiter’s long tail swished beneath his black vest as he strode away on gleaming white hooves. He returned swiftly (almost magically so), fully unicorned and easily carrying the drink-laden tray on the hoofy fingertips of one hand.

Mr. Schermerhorn’s heads enjoyed their selections with varying degrees of investment. Ever businesslike, the goat head tossed back his coffee without hardly tasting it, his full attention on Jason Leander. “I imagine you’re dying to know what job we have planned for you.”

“Yes sir, Mr. Schermerhorn. I’ve been wondering that all day, to be honest.”

“Please, call me Albrecht.” “Or, better still, Al,” the leonine head interjected, licking whipped cream from his muzzle.

“Quite. You see, a CEO deals with many different areas: he must be a businessman, a leader, a planner, a prognosticator, a listener. He needs, so to speak, a hoof in one realm and a claw in the other.” He gestured at the floor where his right leg terminated in a hoof, and his left in lion’s paw. But I know I’m also not the youngest fellow here,” he adds as grey streaks his goatee and mane and crow’s feet wrinkle all three pairs of eyes. The suit pushed forward into a little bit more of a paunch, as though his exercise regimen were unable to quite keep up with the appetites of his three heads.

Jason wasn’t sure what to say to that, and instead looked into the eyes of the man who had been growing subtly warmer and more personable as the tour progressed. Gone was the disinterested executive marking time with rote slideshows and memorized speeches. A gentle nudge drew his attention below the table again: the snake head had made use of its scaly length to stretch out and rest on the human’s knee. Acting on a whim, he lowered his hand to stroke behind the arrowhead jaw, and—like petting a cat—Al’s tail bumped up against his fingers, encouraging further contact. The leonine head burbled happily into his half-empty milkshake, and even the goat’s face smiled wistfully.

“I knew there was something I liked about you.” Then he shook his head, stroked his goatee, and resumed some semblance of his gruff businesslike demeanor. “Well, we’ve longered…lingered long enough,” he blushed, his ears canting back, surprised at how the simple contact had flustered him. “Time to show you where you’ll be working.”

The remaining drinks were quaffed and the unicorn waiter bowed and began clearing away the glasses. As they left, Jason noticed that the sign now said “Employee Break Room.” He watched as a giggling dwarf and a blushing minotaur scuttled past the gryphon guard’s welcoming smile, hand in hand and clearly intent on making use of their break time for a little office romance. Human and chimera boarded the elevator, stepping aside to make room for a centaur—wearing only the top half of a business suit—to clop in, with several mail-clutching kobolds on his back. He exchanged friendly greetings with Albrecht, mentioning something about an upcoming board meeting.

At the top floor the tour exited, and Al said, “Looking forward to it, asss ussual, Chiron. We’ll have to give thiss one a formal introduction, before the massive doors closed and the freight elevator whisked its burden to regions below.

There was a handsome sphinx—wearing the traditional ornamental beard in suitably-executive gold—at the secretary desk across from the elevator bank, and he bowed low at Mr. Schermerhorn’s approach. “Good morning, Pthomson, this is Mr. Leander,” Albrecht said as they passed the desk and headed to the enormous doors behind it.

“Ah, welcome. Your arrival was foretold,” the sphinx replied, his voice as rich as molten dark chocolate.

“Yes, by me, this morning,” the goat head barked, displaying a modicum of his earlier pricklyness, allayed by the lion’s toothy grin.

“Hold all my callss,” the tail added as he pushed through the doors. “Yes sir. Don’t forget your three o’clock appointment.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” the goat tossed over his shared shoulder.

The room inside—the penthouse office suite—was awash with light, glinting from gilded window frames and polished granite floors. Jason was unable to resist the panoramic views on display, and rushed to the nearest side of the greenhouse-like space. The towers of the city’s business district rose around him, threaded with low clouds. Are we higher up, he wondered, trying to compare the downward perspective with what he remembered from that morning’s upwards glance. The architecture, too, seemed to have altered, with fewer plain glass blocks and more ornamental flourishes, as though Louis Sullivan had never fallen from favor. There were balcony and rooftop gardens on many of the buildings, and even the rippling reflections of a pool.

“You know, it’s been ages since I looked out this window,” Al said quietly, somehow managing to pad up silently behind Jason without his claws making the slightest click on the stone floor. “This is what I need you for. Fresh blood,” the goat head said while the lion head kicked his lips suggestively. “And a fresh mind. I have a feeling that hiring you was exactly what this company needed, you could really change things up around here.”

You have no idea, Jason thought with a secret smile. He stroked his upper lip, remembering vaguely how things had been at the start of the day. Just like with his memory of how things had been at the university, before his wish had started rewriting reality, these memories slowly faded as well, until he was left only with the knowledge that things had been different, and somehow less than how they currently were. He didn’t even notice that his once-bare upper lip now bore a thin mustache, its strands merging as they lengthened.

Al meanwhile was directing his attention to two side-by-side desks in the middle of the room. They were set close enough for any occupants to hold hands, or for a certain snakely tail to arch across and rest companionably on his neighbor’s shoulder. One desk—its chair bearing an oversized hole at the back so as not to trap that same scaly appendage between plush leather and trim backside—showed signs of wear, including claw marks on the left and gnaw marks on the right. The other desk was so new Jason could practically smell the sawdust and varnish.

“After all, I shan’t be CEO forever,” Al was saying. “And when the time comes for retirement, I’ll rest easy knowing someone I can trust is in charge.”

“Conssider thiss a promotion sstraight to the top, Jasson my boy.”

“I…I can’t…” he looked at Anbrecht, saw three pairs of wizened eyes looking back at him with frankness and…yes, and with affection too. “Really, this is more than I could have hoped for.” Or wished for. “Thank you!”

“Now, to business.”

Jason sat down at the desk, glad its chair had an opening for his own tail, then turned to his new friend and coworker. “By the way, what were you thinking of regarding Winston’s request?” he asked, stroking one of the long whiskers that drooped from his upper lip. “I really feel that his suggestion—flying to our various sites personally instead of merely examining samples—would be in the best interest of all parties.”

The chimera grinned at the young man (slowly becoming a lung man) beside him. “Oh, I’d already approved that. Put the papers through when we were in the mail room, actually. He’s probably already packing for his first assignment.”

“How remarkably efficient,” Jason purred, flexing the claws that had once been encased in second-hand but well-polished shoes. I really did luck out, landing this job. I can’t wait to tell my kitty, he thought proudly, thinking of his boyfriend’s encouragement. He tried to remember where the lion had said his current dig was, but the facts were clouded. Before he could ponder further, the desktop intercom emitted an electronic buzz.

Pthompson’s buttery voice managed to convey its polished silliness even through the speaker. “Your three o’clock is here, sirs. A Mr. Lenny Orland?”

Guess I won’t have to wait. “Show him in,” Jason said with playful imperiousness, stroking his mustache. The new eastern dragon was excited to see the lion’s reaction to new job. Looks like I found a job that fit me after all, he thought proudly; it didn’t occur to him that he might have been tailored to fit the job as well. After all, it’s just a question of good business.

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