Ken Aioki looked at the place where he was going for his job interview. It didn’t look

  like much to him. He looked around before crossing the street and opening the

  personnel door to step inside. He looked around inside the door, getting his bearings.

  A giant stood at the desk. He held two parts in his hands. He looked up at Ken and

  put the parts down.

  “Can I help you?,” said the giant.

  “I’m here about the job,” said Ken. “I talked to a Mrs. Hillsmierer.”

  “Really?,” said the giant. “Are you sure you want to work here? This is a dangerous

  job you’re trying out for, bud.”

  “The advertisement didn’t say anything about danger,” said Ken.

  “Why would it?,” said the giant. He leaned a hip on the desk. “You don’t just tell

  people they might have their faces fried off on the first day. Then no one would

  apply.”

  “Do people have their faces fried off on the first day?,” asked Ken.

  “You’d be surprised,” said the giant. His bald head reflected a blue light from his dark

  skin. Ken couldn’t figure out where the source could be. “Why don’t you sit down?

  We can have a chat while you’re waiting for Janie and Mark to get back.”

  “Okay,” said Ken. He sat down in the visitor’s chair indicated by the other man.

  “What would you like to talk about?”

  “Let’s talk about your criminal record,” said the giant.

  “That was a long time ago,” said Ken.

  “Most of our systems are computerized,” said the Lamplighter. “Are you even able

  to use them without getting into trouble?”

  “Yes,” said Ken. “My probation ran out two weeks ago. I already filed my

  paperwork.”

  “So you want to talk about why a computer thief like yourself wants a job like this?,”

  said the giant.

  “I wasn’t a thief,” said Ken. “I just put some stuff online. Unfortunately, the

  government doesn’t like it when you expose one of their secrets.”

  “How many secrets did you expose for the betterment of mankind?,” the giant asked.

  “Just the one,” said Ken. “It was a doozy.”

  “It also got one hundred innocent people killed, did a million dollars in damage

  before the Mark could intervene, and unleashed a plague that might kill everyone on

  the planet given enough time,” said the giant. “If we can make it into space without

  becoming extinct, that last might work out all right.”

  “I didn’t mean for any of that to happen,” said Ken.

  “What did you think was going to happen?,” asked the giant.

  “I thought that exposing the government’s super weapon would help the world,” said

  Ken. “I mean they were building a biological weapon.”

  “Exposing it is what caused the break-in that unleashed it,” said the giant. “If you

  hadn’t done that, very few people would have known about the weapon. Fewer still

  would have known where it was.”

  “What would you have done?,” asked Ken.

  “I wouldn’t have dumped everything on the Internet for anyone to read for one thing,”

  the giant said. “I might have called DARPA from a payphone, or a one use cell, and

  told them how loose their computer security was. I might have kept things to myself

  and watched what was going on from a distance.”

  “But they were going to use it,” said Ken.

  “How?,” said the giant.

  “I saw an order for it to be deployed,” said Ken.

  “It was a standby order in case something bad threatened to happen without

  interference,” said the giant.

  “I didn’t know,” said Ken. “I was thirteen.”

  “Thirteen and unable to do the thing you love,” said the giant. He sat behind the desk.

  “Why should we take you in and let you loose in our systems so you can dump our

  files out on the Internet for everyone to read.”

  “I learned my lesson,” said Ken. “I made a bad decision. I understand why you

  wouldn’t want to give me a chance, but I need the job, and I want to do something

  good.”

  “Go ahead and look at these boards,” said the giant. He pushed a picture down on the

  desk with a big hand. “They’re not sending the correct signals to each other.”

  “Is this some kind of test?,” asked Ken.

  “I’m not the one hiring you,” said the giant. “If you can prove you still have your

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  touch, Mark might hire you despite your record. If you can’t, he might just send you

  packing. He’s lost a lot of empathy for others when he lost his eye.”

  “How did that happen?,” asked Ken. He picked up the two boards and examined them

  as he thought about their shape, and the way things were laid on them.

  “He zigged when he should have zagged,” said the other man.

  Ken paused to consider those words. He thought about what it meant to lose an eye

  because you made the wrong move. The other man nodded at the hesitation.

  “Lamplighting is a business that deals with problems that no one else can deal with

  and it is dangerous,” said the giant. “I understand if you want to walk away and get

  another job. If I were in your shoes, I would.”

  “Have you been hurt on the job?,” asked Ken. He placed the pieces back on the desk

  and pulled out his Swiss Army knife. He extended a blade he could use to work on

  the electronics.

  “Yes,” said the other man. “I got hit hard a couple of times. I didn’t even get a chance

  to zig, much less zag.”

  “Sorry to hear that,” said Ken.

  “It happens,” said the giant.

  “If you say so,” said Ken. He poked at each of the boards. He realized he didn’t know

  what they were supposed to do. “Where did these come from?”

  “From this baby,” said the giant. He picked up a giant lantern off the floor by its

  handle. It had been concealed by the desk. He placed it on top of the desk.

  Ken frowned at the lantern. He didn’t see a flame inside of it. Why did it need

  electronics? Maybe he could do better with a reader, but he didn’t have one, and he

  wasn’t supposed to touch one until he paid his fines.

  Ken inspected the gap where the pieces went in the lamp. He frowned at the dust, and

  something else in the lamp.

  “Do you have any duster?,” Ken asked.

  “Right here,” said the other man. He grabbed a can of spray off a filing cabinet and

  handed it over.

  Ken sprayed the slot with the duster. Then he looked around and lucked into some

  cotton swabs. He used those to clean out the slots. Then he slid both pieces back into

  where they were supposed to go.

  He pressed the button on the side of the lamp. Blue flame exploded to life inside the

  chamber. He sat back. The giant nodded.

  “It looks like you still have your touch,” said the other man. He smiled.

  Ken put his knife away as he looked at the blue flame. Fixing it had seemed

  ridiculously easy.

  “What does this do?,” he asked.

  “It gives off light,” said the other man.

  Ken frowned at him. Of course a lamp gave off light. If it didn’t, it wouldn’t be a

  lamp.

  “I think Janie and Mark are back,” said the giant. “If you still want the job, just act

  like you don’t know anything, and don’t give off the vibe that you’re here to plunder

  the computer files.”

  “I just want a job,” said Ken.

  “Be humble and kind, and you’ll get it,” said the giant. He picked up the lamp. “I

  have to put this back where it belongs. Good luck, kid.”

  He turned and walked out of the office area. Ken thought he went upstairs, but

  realized that he wasn’t exactly sure how the giant was getting around. That bothered

  him for some reason.

  Ken stood at the sound of a small rumble. He looked around. A vehicle bay door

  rolled up to let a van roll into the building. Yellow lights flashed on the top of the

  van.

  People in jumpsuits piled out of the van. They chattered about whatever they had run

  into on their job. Ken didn’t understand the references.

  “How did you get in here?,” asked one of the men. He only had one eye, and didn’t

  bother covering his empty socket.

  “The door was open,” said Ken. “I’m Ken Aioki. I’m here about the job.”

  “The hacker,” said the one-eyed man. “I’m Hadron. Have you talked to Janie yet?”

  “No,” said Ken. “I think I was the only one here.”

  “Ever been in a fight?,” asked Hadron. He walked around to the other side of the desk

  and sat down. He frowned at it for a second. He righted the picture the giant had

  knocked over.

  A large hole was visible in his hand.

  “Not since the sixth grade,” said Ken.

  “As you are aware from the ad, this is dangerous work,” said Hadron. “Are you sure

  you want to take this on? You’ll be running most of the time, and trying not to get

  beaten like a rug the rest.”

  “I think I can handle that,” said Ken.

  “All right,” said Hadron. “Hey, Marcel! Take the new guy down to get him tested.”

  “I’m hired just like that?,” said Ken.

  “We always need someone we can consider expendable,” said Hadron. “When you

  get back, we’ll run the retina test and give you the package to fill out. After that, we’ll

  get you some target practice.”

  “How expendable am I?,” asked Ken.

  “If you have to ask, you don’t need to know,” said Marcel.

  “That doesn’t sound good,” said Ken. “How many of us are there?”

  “If you pass the retina scan, you’re number four,” said Marcel. “Don’t worry. If

  you’re getting a drug test, Hadron must think you’ll pass the eye test with no

  problems.”

  “What about the big guy?,” asked Ken.

  “Isn’t one,” said Marcel.

  “What do you mean?,” said Ken. “I just spent a few minutes talking to a big guy

  while I waited for you guys to come back.”

  “There’s no big guy,” said Marcel. “That’s probably why Hadron is going to hire

  you.”

  “No big guy?,” said Ken.

  “No,” said Marcel. “There’s me, the white guy, and the latina woman. Hadron is the

  boss, and Janie is his admin. There’s nobody else.”

  “Then who was I talking to?,” asked Ken.

  “Probably one of the dead Lamplighters,” said Marcel. He waited until Ken had

  buckled in before starting the engine.

  “What do you mean dead Lamplighters?,” said Ken.

  “The place is haunted,” said Marcel. “You’re not really sharp, are you?”

  “You’re joking,” said Ken.

  Marcel pulled out his phone as he drove through the city streets. He hooked it up to

  the van’s wifi and voice commanded it to search for the Lamplighters.

  He pulled to a stop at a red light. He took the chance to scroll up until he had a group

  picture from the Times.

  “Which one was yours?,” Marcel asked.

  “The big guy, Dyson Baker,” said Ken.

  “Makes sense,” said Marcel. “He made the original lamps.”

  “So the ghostbusting place is haunted,” said Ken. “Why?”

  “Maybe because they died on the job, and the lamps are holding on to them,” said

  Marcel. “The question is do you still want the job?”

  “I don’t really have anything to lose,” said Ken.

  “Keep telling yourself that,” said Marcel. “It’ll help you sleep at night.”

  “What helps you sleep at night?,” asked Ken.

  “I don’t,” said Marcel.

  He pulled to the curb in front of a small general medical services office. He looked

  at the traffic going by.

  “How expendable am I?,” Ken asked before he got out of the van.

  “You’re just as expendable as Hadron’s eye,” said Marcel. He turned to glance at his

  new co-worker. “Go do your thing. I’ll be waiting for you to take you back to the

  station.”

  “Why are you working for the company?,” Ken asked. He stood outside the van,

  looking in through the opened window.

  “Because my ghost said I couldn’t,” said Marcel. “And I’m proving him wrong every

  minute I am on the clock.”

  “That doesn’t seem like a good reason,” said Ken.

  “It’s all that I need,” said Marcel. “Go. I can’t sit out here all day.”

  “All right,” said Ken. He looked at the small office. Did he really want to die over a

  job?

  He walked in and set up to take his test.