Shades of Wolves

Chapter 3: The Interview

November, 10th, 2100

Sammul

In the messy room of hers, Hoa closed her eyes to wait. Within 24 hours, WIC would respond to let her know if she got accepted or not.

Each minute passing by felt like a fire under Hoa’s seat. A couple hours ago, Mahoney told Hoa that she had received an interview letter. The letter stated that she would come tomorrow for the interview. Hoa, on another hand, still had no words and there was only five minutes left until the acceptance was close.

The second hand was moving a bit and a bit until the very last second of it. It was thought that there was no hope over it until her smart watch rang. Hoa swiped up. An infrared screen popped up with a face of a woman. She was smiling at Hoa, nodded as a hello.

“Congratulations on being a player selected for tomorrow's interview. Please arrive on time at location X, at 9 am.”

You are kindly asked to bring any pet that stays with you for more than three months. The closer you are to them, the more chance for you to be decided if you pass the interview or not.

May you have an interesting journey,

Kindly and best regards"

A beep went on as an announcement of the ending call. The woman’s image disappeared. Hoa was smiling full of joy. She called Mahoney immediately to announce the good news. At last, her stressed and tensed body finally dropped down on the bed, feeling the weight had finally removed.

Hoa looked at the candidate recruitment sheet. A hundred million and she only needed one percent of it to save her father. But hadn’t the woman just told her that she needed to bring a pet that was close to her for more than three months? Was there anyway that they wanted Hoa to kill the pet with a knife on her hand?

A chill creeped down her spine. She walked from the bed towards the food cabinet and took out a box of dog food. She poured the nuts out and Kiki ran up immediately. Kiki was a nimble and lovable dalmatian. She had raised him for more than five years now. He was a gift from her mother before she had passed away. Hoa considered Kiki as her younger brother who understood a lot of things. While she had been struggling in pain, it was him being there for her as her close friend and gave her the warmth she had needed. Really, if they asked her to kill him tomorrow, what was she supposed to do?

Kiki looked at her happily. He jumped into Hoa's lap and constantly licked her palm. Her heart ached with pain. An uneasy feeling was striking up inside of hers. But truth to be told that, aside from Kiki, she hadn't been close to any animal for more than three months.

…………………

The next morning, at WIC’s headquarters.

There were many people gathering here. Their pets were all with them. If what Hoa thought was true, there would be be barbaric animal s*******r here today. Would WIC be willing to tear down its own reputation this way?

"Hoa, I'm here!" Mahoney waved at her.

On Mahoney's back, there was the green parrot, Dodo. This parrot was a gift Hoa had given Mahoney the year before. She brought it with her, did she want to kill it?

“Mahoney, do you want to use Dodo as a sacrifice?” Hoa felt a little disappointed.

“But Dodo and I have a great connection. I don't know what to do either, I'm scared to kill it too." Mahoney’s voice was sad.

“What makes you think that you bring them here to kill?” A boy about their age interrupted the conversation. He held a white cat with heart-robbing sparkle eyes in his arms.

“Then what do you think it is? It's a survival game, they're going to test us on something." Mahoney countered.

"That's just your opinion. The competition is still ahead. Maybe those animals are just for companions!” He tried to argue with Mahoney to the end.

“Hey Russell, come here, what are you doing!?” A tall man shouted at them. A chameleon was in his arms.

“I'm coming, Ander! I’m not gonna talk to you girls anymore!" He disappeared into the crowd.

"He's right, if it's this easy to figure out their purpose, then what is the interest of this whole game?"

A girl with purple her hair tied up in a high ponytail approached them with a smile. She wore a short, tight-fitting T-shirt that evoked strong and sexy curves. But the loose jeans with tassel straps destroyed the bottom a bit. Hoa thought that her long legs must be deadly beautiful, but she didn't wear tight clothes to show them off, too bad.

“Hey. My name is Nabeya. Hope to see you in the round of a hundred players.”

She shook hands with them. And then left just like that. A blue parrot was on her shoulder. His mouth was constantly blaring, "Kill. Kill them all, Nabeya". She stroked his head. Then gave him a grain of food.

“Hello to all applicants, I am Malvis who will be interviewing you here. On hand, you will be given the interview number and the room number you will enter. Please look for the e-card in your hand to know your orders.”

“I am 012”, Mahoney moved her number around in front of Hoa.

“I'm 270. I'll probably wait for a long time. Hope you make it through!” Hoa went to hug her best friend. Little did they knew that, after this moment, their lives would change a lot.

Hoa sat outside of the room. She was really nervous. Her arms were around Kiki's body to give him a big hug. After finishing the interview, they would be led by the organizers to the back door, not knowing to do what. Hoa guessed that was to avoid the questions from those who were not interviewed yet.

Each beep beep went on was just having no end. Malvis's voice resounded over and over.

“Number 98, please enter room 1. Number 99, please enter room 2… Number 109, please enter room 20”.

There was total 20 interview rooms. The numbers changed on the electronic board constantly. The were rooms that completed the interview very quickly. People just went in as quick as how they went out and someone new came in to take place already. There were also rooms that took over 20 minutes for the same thing. What were they negotiating in there?

“Number 270, please enter room 7. Number 208, please enter room 9. Number 201, please enter room 18”.

It's finally her turn. Malvis called her name. Hoa went into the room with Kiki. It was a transparent glass room, Hoa could see what was happening on the other side, but she couldn't hear. In room 6 next door, there was a girl who was reacting quite strongly to something. She was angry. Her body language seemed like she protesting something quite horrible. She pushed the door open, walked out in anger with a short-haired British cat in her arms.

In room 8, there was a guy who was dressing in black. Sunglasses were on his face. He looked cold and cool. No warmth was detected on his expression. The interviewer said something and he just nodded gently in response. He brought his eagle close to Malvis's eyes. That robot girl smiled and said something. He kept his silence the whole time. About two minutes later, the glass above his head opened. The eagle soared into the big wide sky. He got up and opened the door to walk out.

“Hoa, come and have a seat please”

Malvis used a standard gesture. In this age of time, artificial intelligence had been super advanced. There were many things that had had been programmed more delicately. For example, at WIC, there were hundreds of Malvis like this.

“Thanks”

The yellow-eyed interviewer sitting in front of Hoa was scanning her with them eyes:

“Can you mortgage property over one million US dollars?”

Hoa shook her head. If she had had that much of money, what’s she doing here then?

“If not, then I guess we have to skip that part”. She put a warm smile on her lips. She probably did that with everyone. It’s like to say that this whole thing was not really difficult or anything and worries were unnecessary.

“Your academic performance is quite normal, nothing special. So that is quite hard to be used as a bet item”.

“I know”, Hoa responded as if she had the knowledge about this interview already.

“Then what’s the most important thing to you?” the secretary didn’t bother to look at Hoa, hands were busying writing something.

“My father”

That simple word itself made the interviewer stop what she’s doing and look up at Hoa. The woman gave her the bright smile full of sunshine. Hoa clearly knew what was behind that smile. Hoa’s answer was just exactly what WIC was most looking for.

“May I check to confirm your info?” Malvis moved closer to put her eyes on Hoa. Hoa did the same thing. And for a second, she felt like being hypnotized. It felt like her mind fell in to an intense force.

“Oh, what a great touching feeling!”

Woof woof.

Kiki's voice seemed to pull Hoa back to reality. She startled and woke up from a weird daydream that lasted for a second.

“This is your pet! I have to check him too.”

Just like last time, Malvis brought her eyes close to Kiki's. Kiki was gradually frozen. This was a state proving that WIC was penetrating deep into the brain of an individual. It was a method to test one’s memory domain.

“90% of his memories are you. His whole life must have been only you,” Malvis said with a smile.

“Are you going to tell me to kill him?” Hoa silently asked.

Malvis shook her head. She explained to Hoa.

“If joining the game, you must bet something. If you have assets over 1 million dollars you will have one bet, the other is your memory. In case your assets are not enough, you only have one bet on your own memory.”

Then what's the point of bringing Kiki along? Malvis did not wait for Hoa to question, she continued.

“Under the US law, once someone bets their mind or body on a game, they must be fully informed of the risks they will take. To assure of your health, as well as to avoid future unexpected lawsuits, according to article 22, players will have a trial on animals. Participants can choose pets that they have close relationship with more than three months for indirect testing. The pets will lose their memories of their owners. Players will observe the behavior of pets and decide whether to participate or not?”

"Is there any way that they do not need to go through this? I have seen too many people that have lost their memories already”, Hoa looked at Malvis asking for a favor.

“No, it must be a pet with a close relationship more than three months. That's the law. The deeper the relationship is, the more you trade, the more likely you get accepted into the next round.”

Malvis stood up walked around Hoa. She was trying to convince her.

“Compare your urgent situation with your pet and make a decision. Should it or not?”

Hoa turned to look at KiKi who was looking up at her expectantly. She really didn't want to use him as a test subject at all.

“If you win, you can save your dad, and even can access to the advanced library. Hoa, your intelligence is not low, and you need to upgrade yourself more and more. That way, you can soon become a superior. And only when you become one, you can escape your miserable situation that you are in.”

Hoa bowed her head down in hesitation. The image of her mother's death, her father's face contorting in pain from all the treatments showed up before her eyes. If she did not participate, she would forever be in the middle of this hell hole where her life kept on spinning around being poor and sick and losing and trembling at the bottom of this society. Hoa looked over to the next room. The girl from earlier had returned. She was crying and putting the cat close to Malvis' eyes. Reality was absolutely cruel. The little love between her and the cat, no matter how deep it was, would be suffocated from now on.

"He is not gonna die, is he?" Hoa looked up at Malvis with watery eyes, looking for her confirmation.

"He’s certainly not. But if you don't participate, your father will die. And sooner or later, you and him both will also." Malvis bent down to look at Hoa. From the previous scan, she had seen all the worries and emotions in the little girl's heart.

“Then… then…”, Hoa began stammering.

“Think about Stacy. She's as small as you, but smart. And look at how she is now.” Malvis again evoked Hoa’s ambition.

“I can be like her?”

“Why not? Your friend, Mahoney has sacrificed DoDo. And you can do the same thing.” Malvis' words were like a spell, motivating Hoa non-stop.

“Then…let's do it!” Hoa looked over at KiKi before hugging him tightly dearly one last time. She kissed him on the head and he licked her face in response.