Thea was running late. This was not an uncommon occurrence, but today was really, really, not the day that she wanted to be late.

She was up for an internship, a pretty prestigious one at that, and being late to the interview was certainly not going to be the way to get her through to the final round of interviews.

Cursing quietly under her breath, Thea tugged on one boot and then the other, and stared down at her bunching tights under a smart wool-blend dress and sighed. There really was no helping it. She didn't have time for anything more than this. She ran a hurried hand through her sandy blonde hair and tugged it back into some semblance of order before pulling a skull cap over it and sweeping her best blazer and pea coat from the bed and pulling them on in quick succession.

She slammed her apartment door and hurried down the five flights of steps and out onto the busy avenue. There was no time to try the subway, a cab was the only option to give her even a chance of being on time. One hand in the air, she waved at the first free cab she saw, and gratefully slid into the backseat when it rolled to a stop before her.

"Library please."

"What branch?" The Cabbie eyed her through his rear view mirror.

"The Main Branch." Thea sat back and tugged her phone from her purse.

"Sixth is backed up all the way through Chelsea. Construction by Macy's."

Groaning, Thea let her head tilt back against the head rest. "I've got an interview, can you try and go around?"

"It's your money," the cabbie replied. He signaled and turned out into the street, lurching forward and jostling Thea as he began the harried rat race that was the life of a New York City cab driver.

They took a weaving route down side streets and around much of the traffic that clogged the main roads. Thea checked the time on her phone with increasing frequency and sighed in relief. This route, while circuitous and costing her a fortune, would probably get her there right on time.

Thank God.

The cabbie let her off on the sight of one of the most tragic comic book movie murders that Thea could remember. She cut through Bryant Park towards the lower-level entrance and tugged at her jacket one more time before sighing. There was no helping it, she looked harassed and anxious, and she was just barely on time. She had to just go with it and hope that she wasn't the first person who was called in to the interview.

Inside the small conference room that a polite volunteer had directed her to, Thea took stock of her competition. She recognized a few of them from school and various job fairs that she'd been to around the city. They smiled politely at Thea as she shrugged off her coat and folded it neatly over her bag. She took a seat next to the one person in the room she didn't know: a tall guy with tight curls and a comb sticking out of his pocket. He was fiddling with a Nets knit cap, twirling it around and around in his hands, pulling at the beanie on the top of it.

Thea stared at him for a moment, before noticing the white strange of string that was starting to dangerously dip into his curls. She opened her mouth to point it out to him and stopped herself. He was the enemy until this interview was over.

Still, it didn't seem fair to not go in on a level playing field.

"You've got a string." Thea tapped the place on her head where the string was, and he started as if she'd given him a shock.

"What?"

"You've got a string, from your hat." Thea tapped her head. "Right here."

His fingers flew up and felt through the curls, disappearing for a moment before producing the starkly white string. He stared at it between his fingers for a moment before turning away from Thea. "Are there any more?"

She laughed and shook her head. "Nah, you're good."

"This thing sheds like crazy," the guy replied. He spun the hat in his hand again and stuffed it into his jacket pocket. His tie had cardinals on it. "Thanks."

Thea shrugged. "No problem."

Her companion tilted his head to one side. "Where did you go to school? I've never seen you before."

The community that they were trying to break into was tightly-knit after all. Theirs was a rare gift indeed, and the city did put top priority on those who had the ability. Well, that at least was the line that Thea had bought hook, line, and sinker when they'd discovered her ability in high school.

It wasn't all that uncommon for people like Thea, or anyone else in this room, to know everyone else who might be up for a reader gig in the city. New faces weren't that common.

"Oh, I went to The Reader School in Brooklyn." Sheepishly, or perhaps simply belatedly, Thea extended her hand. "Thea Chatterley. Well, Dorethea, but no one calls me that. This isn't the Forties."

He let out a low whistle, his lips cracking into a genuine smile. "The Reader School's exclusive, here I was thinking that NYU made me a big shot." He took her hand. "I'm Marcus Bronson."

"Nice to meet you."

The Reader School was elite, Thea knew this. It wasn't the sort of place that people got into easily, and their gifts had to be immense. Thea was all of fourteen when her skill at oratory had put her on a watch list, and sixteen when she'd been tested and found that she carried the gene.

Readers were rare, and in high demand in big cities and as a part of university and state library systems. There were certain books that were simply meant to be read by readers, for it was only with a reader's understanding and ability to bring the words to life that they could carry any meaning at all. The Reader School was the top institution in the United States for readers, third in the world behind the schools in Nigeria and Iran.

"When were you tested?" Thea asked. It was the sort of question that readers often found themselves asking each other. They were an odd bunch. Their mutation and ability were only starting to be understood by science, but everyone knew that they were different. They saw things differently, and the way that they were able to manipulate the written word was almost unparalleled.

A skilled reader could charm Bahgera directly from the pages of The Jungle Book, they could conjure up Cujo and wish for the raven, only to see it perched upon a bust of Pallas above their door, speaking nevermore. Because of this ability, they were closely monitored, and because of their oratory skills they were not allowed to hold public office. That had been a law put into place after Abraham Lincoln had admitted that he'd had the ability - even if his voice was apparently so shrill at times that he was unable to hold an audience's attention.

Marcus shrugged. "I think I was... maybe eight? I was at church and I was reading from the Old Testament and all of a sudden I was the one that was standing before a burning bush, not Moses. My mom and the preacher got into a fight that day." He heaved a long-suffering sigh. "A reader is a devil who can sing the words into truth. He wanted to try and get my mom to admit that she was a sinner. We switched churches after that."

Sucking her lower lip into her mouth, Thea nodded slowly. Despite the fact that readers were well known and well accepted within many circles, there were still some who viewed them with a great deal of suspicion. They were able to charm up temporary images, fleeting flashes of books and words on pages, after all. It was because of readers' abilities that moving pictures had come into existence. People had wanted to use photography to recreate the experience of witnessing a reader in action, because they were so rare. "That musta sucked."

"Oh, it did, but mom was real nice about it. My great-grandma was a reader too. She was a teacher at an all-black school in Virginia near DC."

"I'm the first one in my family."

"Weird."

"I know right?" Thea leaned forward. Readers tended to run in families. From what geneticists who studied the abilities, they all seemed to have originated from the same core group of people that had lived in the Fertile Crescent thousands of years ago. The Babylon gene it was called. "So weird."

"Have you applied for this position before?" Marcus sat back in his chair, tugging awkwardly at his tie.

Thea shook her head. "I just finished school. It's hard to find a position until you prove yourself."

Marcus nodded. "True." He looked up, eyeing a woman who had appeared in the doorway, a clipboard in her hand and a scowl at her lips. "Well, good luck," he said.

"You too." Thea answered.

She didn't want to wish him good luck, even if she did like him.

The wait between interviews was long and anxiety-inducing. Thea fiddled with her phone, with her scarf, with the way her tights sat on her legs and went into her boots. Nervousness wasn't a trait that was commonly associated with readers. They were supposed to be calm, quiet, and cool under pressure - everything that Thea was not.

This position, apprentice reader at the New York Library, was coveted in the field. Everyone wanted it. Everyone was desperate to land such a gig. It was a pipe dream for Thea, something to stave off the strange shame that her family felt over her ability as a reader.

Marcus came out of the interview room looking harassed, but he flashed Thea a friendly smile and bent to speak to her as he walked past. "You're next," he said in a low voice. "I'll wait for you outside."

Thea started, her cheeks coloring. "I hardly know you."

"Yeah, but you're the most interesting person here by a long shot. And besides, if we don't get this job I know another place that's looking for readers." He pressed his finger to his lips. "On the down low, you know?"

She didn't know, but nodded her agreement. "Grab at table in the park."

"It's freezing out there."

"I won't be long, you weren't."

Marcus shrugged, raising a hand to scratch at the back of his head. "Okay then." He pulled his hat from his pocket and tugged it over his head before vanishing out the door.

Thea was alone in the room, the last interviewee, the last one to have to go. She tilted her head back and stared up at the ceiling, counting down the seconds until doomsday.

Once, before Thea's abilities had been discovered, she'd read a book about a house with a clock in its walls. For weeks afterwards she could have sworn she could hear the ticking the walls. Tick, tick, tick. It fell in line with the clock on the wall.

"Dorethea?" The sour-faced woman who had come to fetch Marcus and all the others appeared in the doorway once more. She had on glasses now, and they were slipping own her crooked nose. She was ancient, wizened and with frizzing curls that looked more like a perm than natural hair.

"That's me," Thea said, getting to her feet and following the woman out of the waiting room and down a small hallway to a second room. The low florescent lights and blue-green tiles that rose up to Thea's nose around the wall reminded Thea more of an interrogation room than the site of an interview. She sat down in the chair that was offered, back straight and hands clasped neatly in her lap.

The woman introduced herself as Noelle Laux, one of the search team. "I understand you went to the Reader School in Brooklyn?"

Thea nodded. "I completed my studies in May.

"It's November, what have you been up to since then?"

"I worked for a while as a clerk for my father's law firm," Thea admitted. "I have a lot of debt to pay off because I'm first gen; there aren't really scholarships to a place like the Reader School for kids like me."

"For one so gifted," Ms. Laux flipped a page in her notebook and Thea caught sight of the familiar report of ability that had plagued her throughout her teens and into her twenties. "That seems surprising."

Thea shrugged. "I thought so as well, but it's alright. I think I needed to spend some time just barely scraping by to teach me the value of work."

Ms. Laux smiled slyly at Thea, and she mentally fist pumped. Score. That was exactly the sort of answer that Ms. Laux was looking for, apparently. A small smile cracked at Thea's lips.

"What got you interested in the apprenticeship here?"

"As I mentioned, I'm first gen. Readers usually are established within a community, they have the ability to network with other readers, with their parent's peers and through that there's this whole extended list of contacts that they have access to, I want to build that for myself. The library is a great place for that, not to mention that you guys are seriously some of the best in this business." Thea swallowed nervously and shifted forward. "Readers are so unique in this world that it seems a shame to waste anyone's talents working for the state or private enterprise. I want to be where I can do the most good."

Ms. Laux's face was impassive, her hair frizzing in the humidity of this basement office. She shifted, looking over Thea's resume. "The library does not take on many new employees who complete the apprenticeship. You'd still end up working for the state, most likely, or for the courts somewhere. There isn't anything wrong with that kind of work."

Thea shook her head, feeling as though she'd been drastically misunderstood. "No ma'am, I wasn't saying that at all. I just want to be the best. People have been doubting me for so long that I want to be able to prove to them once and for all that I am a reader."

"Your marks should speak for themselves."

This was an old argument, one that Thea had had many times with her peers and teachers. She was the top graduate from the Reader School, not just a student there. She had some of the highest reader ability of anyone in her entire graduating class - and yet, because of the lack of legacy, no one took her seriously. She wanted to change that, to make it right. This job was a stepping stone.

"They should, but you know how people are."

Ms. Laux nodded and the interview continued on. Thea answered the questions well, but she could not stop the sinking feeling at the pit of her stomach. She had messed things up, this would not be her apprenticeship.

After the interview was over, Thea slowly made her way up the steps and out into Bryant Park. She spotted Marcus sitting with his hands cradled around a steaming Starbucks cup and slid into the seat across from him. "Well that sucked," she announced in lieu of greeting him.

Marcus grimaced. "Yeah. I don't know what their criteria were, but I don't think I've got what it takes. They didn't like my answers."

"Same."

"And you went to the Reader School." Marcus shook his head. "Guess we gotta try somewhere else."

"Guess so." Thea picked at the chipping paint on the table. "She didn't ask me to read."

"She asked me." Marcus leaned forwards, fingers curling around the chair edge between his legs. His shoulders hunched under his black coat and he looked even taller than Thea knew him to be. "Weird."

"Yeah." Thea looked away.

Marcus stood, awkwardly tugging his coat back around his shoulders. "Look, I know you don't know me from Adam, but I really do have another gig lined up. And they're looking for a second person to work with me." He plunged his hand into his pocket and sipped his coffee before setting it down on the table. "So what do you say? I could introduce you and at least you'd be able to say that today wasn't a total waste of your time."

"You'd do that for me?" Thea tilted her head to one side. "You really don't know me from Adam."

"Shouldn't matter. We get on pretty well, I think."

"True." Thea got to her feet. "Let me get a coffee and then lead the way." She paused, "Where is it?"

"Queens." On her way to work then.

Thea threw any bit of caution that still remained with her away to the wind and nodded resolutely. She didn't have anything else going on today, after all. "Okay, let's go."