"How may I help you?" She asked as he reached her.
"I was here last week about the job offer."
"I'm sorry, I don't recall us having a teaching position open." The older woman replied in slight confusion.
"Even if one such position was available, that isn't the one I applied for. I am here for the janitorial position, my name is Visuveus Vincent."
The old lady looked at Visuveus with wide eyes, before recalling having been told to be on the lookout for. She looked him up and down, hardly able to believe that he had applied to be a school janitor. She quickly got on the phone.
"Please wait a moment, the principal will come to see you momentarily."
Visuveus looked somewhat surprised at the fact that the principal himself was coming to see him, but he just sat and waited. It didn't take all that long for a frumpy looking old man to arrive and greet Visuveus, before gesturing for him to follow him to his office, which he did. After the standard pleasantries of offering something to drink and the like were taken care of, the two men sat down. The clearly nervous looking principal took a few moments to speak, but he eventually did.
"Mr. Vincent, allow me to be up front with you – the prospect of hiring you was discussed amongst the faculty, and we all came to the decision that while you have been perfectly behaved since your release, and that you appear as though you could do the job, due to its location, our school has many at risk students. Even having received the positive report that we did from your parole officer a little earlier, your criminal record is not that bad all things considered, however… your Alignment is cause for concern. We, that is myself and all the faculty, feel as though situations may arise which the school would like to be dealt with a certain way, but then you would deal with a different way."
"Are you saying the colour this wristband of mine flashes when scanned means that I am devoid of common sense?" Visuveus asked as he raised his left hand and looked at the principal with a piercing gaze.
This caused the old man to recoil with obvious fear.
"We all decided this, Mr. Vincent! All of us!"
Visuveus looked at the old man and sighed somewhat, before lowering his hand and standing up.
"I understand, Principal. Thank you for your time." He said before nodding and walking out of the office.
This kind of conversation was one that Visuveus had become accustomed to having with prospective employers. This meant he wasted little time and energy on them and was able to move on immediately – which was what he did in after leaving the school. Thankfully for him, everything was more or less in the same area – although applying for those jobs was a deliberate move on his part, as he was on foot. Visuveus proceeded to go down the list of the places he applied for positions at, with the entire morning and a portion of the afternoon spent getting receiving rejections to his face. The reasons were more or less the same, as were the demeanors of those turning him down, but to their great surprise, he neither lost his temper nor tried to coerce them into giving him a chance – he just left quietly and went on his way. He eventually got to the final spot – a small moving company which was the furthest away from the halfway house. By the time he arrived, Visuveus was looking a little weathered, so he excused himself to the bathroom before the owner came to meet him and freshened himself up as best he could. He kept a small toiletry bag in his other breast pocket, and after he was finished, he made his way out to the parking lot once more. The owner of the company still wasn't around, so it gave Visuveus time to look around. The building itself was small, along with the parking lot. The sign looked like it had been written by hand – free hand – and the sign, along with pretty much everything else related to this business, was shabby as all hell. As he continued to look around, a short, stocky man with a large pot belly, salt and pepper stubble and an overly sour looking facial expression approached him. He was dressed in dirty overalls that bore the company's logo and he just took a second to look at Visuveus. A few more employees appeared and they watched on in silence as the tension grew.
"…so, you're Visuveus?"
"Visuveus Vincent." He replied with a curt nod of the head.
"Sonny." The fat man said as he reciprocated the nod. "Now, you do know what the position we advertised is, right?"
Sonny asked this as he gave Visuveus a once over again, clearly hinting at the ex-con appearing to be over-dressed. Visuveus just nodded his acknowledgment of understanding what was being asked.
"Okay then… considering how you're an ex-con, and the last time you were here, your Alignment scan was pretty… damning, to say the least, I'm gonna ask you a series of questions. Answer them as best you can."
"Understood."
"First of all, you are Visuveus Vincent?"
"I am."
"You stay at a halfway house run by a Ms. Mubi?"
"That is correct." Visuveus said as a chill ran down his spine – something that seemed to happen to Sonny as well.
"How long have you been out?"
"Nearly three months."
The questioning continued down this path, with Sonny frequently taking his cap off and scratching his bald head, before sliding the cap back on. As it appeared as though the line of questioning had run its course, the atmosphere changed in an instant as Sonny looked Visuveus in his eyes.
"So… you were arrested for some robbery and assault charges, right? Violent crimes which had no fatalities?"
"That's right." Visuveus answered, without a lick of hesitation.
"Are there other crimes you committed that aren't on your record?"
"…there are." Visuveus answered, coming across as a little hesitant.
"Could you tell me what those crimes were?"
"…would things not go a lot quicker if you just asked whether or not I committed a specific crime, instead of asking me to try and remember every wrong thing I've ever done?" Visuveus asked, managing to contain his annoyance.
"Good point." Sonny said with a nod. "I thought I'd ease into it, but I may as well be direct. Have you ever killed a man, Vincent?" Sonny suddenly asked, not even trying to mince his words.
To his credit, Visuveus neither flinched nor reacted in the slightest to this question and just nodded almost immediately.
"I have."
"Any idea how many?"
"Enough that if you found out the exact number, you would not only immediately refuse to hire me, but you would also try to run me over with your truck."
There was a brief moment of silence as those who were present for this second, more in-depth interview heard Visuveus casually admit to possibly being a mass murderer.
"These people you killed…." Sonny continued after swallowing a lump in his throat. "Why did you kill them?"
"Because they had to die. Whether for survival, to realise ambitions or for a can of beans, if you have to choose between yourself and somebody else, you should always choose yourself. That's what I did. Simple as that."
"I see… and would you kill again?"
"I'm a parolee, Sonny. If I killed somebody, it would make things very difficult to me. These infernal wristbands do keep a record of everything I do, to if I was to murder you all and your families, it would report that and I would be arrested – or even put down for 'resisting arrest' as they like to claim we do."
Again, there was something of a period of stunned silence, as Visuveus mentioned killing them directly for the first time. The only person who didn't act so stunned or surprised was Sonny himself, and he even appeared as though he was smirking.
"I see." Sonny said, as he was no longer even looking at the paper he was supposedly reading the questions off of. "Do you have any powers, Vincent?"
"Not anymore, no." Visuveus answered with a slight shrug.
"You had your Powers removed?"
"That is correct."
"I see." Sonny said with a nod.
"I have a question or two for you, if you will indulge me, Sonny." Visuveus said, causing the others who were present to take a deep breath.
"Go ahead." The pot-bellied man said as he looked up at him.