This Calculation {Kaden}

[WILLIAM DART]

There was a reason William Dart had chosen to have his corporate office in a place located a small distance away from the hotel. Perhaps it was a bit inconvenient, but he didn’t need to go to the hotel too often anyway – there were too many people there for his liking. The screaming children were one thing, because they didn’t really know any better, but their parents he could not bear. They let their offspring run rampant about the place, tearing around hallways on the luggage carts, or they talked loudly on their cell phones while trying to arrange a transaction. He could not abide it. Since beginning to remember the way things should be in society, he found most technology infernal, particularly when people misused it. So he had opted instead for an office in a building where everyone worked quietly and kept to themselves. No one came to bother him, because no one really knew he was there, except for one person. And it was that one person who he blamed when a visitor interrupted him in the midst of a stack of paperwork.

He looked up at the unwelcome intruder, not bothering to hide his annoyance. He scrutinized him for a moment. A young male with a sort of smug air about him, if he perceived correctly – a bit unusual, even inappropriate, for someone who was most likely here to beg for a job. He pursed his lips and looked down again at the form before him, apparently disinterested, and wrote something neatly. “I suppose Jenkins sent you,” he intoned. It wasn’t as if he needed – or wanted – the help, but Jenkins was getting old, and far too soft. He had worked for William’s father, William Sr., for many years, and it wasn’t as if the man could be fired.

Dart sighed. It hadn’t been too long ago that he’d been in this young man’s position, fresh-faced on the streets of New York City, perhaps unsure where his life was going. He liked to think that he’d always had things all figured out, but that probably had more to do with his family’s wealth than it did with his own ability to carefully plan the future. Of course he was confident, even condescending, on the surface, but he had to admit that he’d had a lot of help. Some of it had been his parents’ instruction, part of it was simply the family name, and then there was Lizzie. Well, she wasn’t here with him now, which was causing him more grief than he could say. But he couldn’t think about that, at this very moment; God knew he spent enough time thinking about it already, for it seemed he could think of nothing else. The point was, he ought to pay it forward. It wasn’t entirely unheard of for Fitzwilliam Darcy to be generous, even if it was unheard of for William Dart to be.

“Well, since you’re already here, you might as well have a seat. What did you want?” he prompted, not too unkindly.

[KADEN ALLINGHAM-HEMSWORTH]

Kaden Allingham-Hemsworth was absolutely certain that the fact that he’d never won an award in his life was only due to the fact that awards were not given for procrastination. You need to find an internship, his required Career Advisor had repeated to him over and over, an argument that Kaden, for all his cognitive capabilities, simply could not find an ounce of logic in. He’d survived for twenty-two years without holding a single one of these menial internship positions, so why in God’s name would he start one now? Internships, he’d heard, required quite a bit of time and effort, neither of which were things that Kaden was particularly fond of expending. Where, after all, was the reason behind pouring so much of his energy into an activity that was both of very little importance in the grand scheme of things (namely, of Kaden’s life) and of very little appeal to him? His Starbucks job was serving him just fine. Kaden simply harbored a great amount of disdain for humdrum, wasteful expenditure. It was why he’d never bothered to get good grades in school, after all.

Still, he supposed there was value in such an endeavor in that it would do the courteous duty of shutting his Career Counselor up. And so, after putting it off for as long as was humanly possible, he had finally embarked on the search for an internship upon his graduation from college. His sociology degree had opened about as few doors as would be expected, especially in a city as populous as New York. Still, he’d managed to land an interview at a corporation which he hoped was some sort of big name in today’s job market. Some hotel business or related operation, to which he’d been referred by a member of his university’s alumni network…Jolkins, was it? Jenkins. That was the name.

Kaden entered the establishment tentatively, feeling the marble pressing in around him like a coffin. ”Hello?” he asked, glancing around the office and seeing nothing but a tall stack of papers. Was this really what he was confining himself to? He could feel the aches coursing through his body already. The day had barely begun and his body was already itching for sleep. These next seven hours would be mountains to climb, as they always were. And what else was new? Kaden stood silently as he had for the majority of his life, waiting for something that imperatively required his attention to pop up before him.

“Well, since you’re already here, you might as well have a seat. What did you want?” he prompted, not too unkindly.

”Erm, hello.” It was then that he noticed the man behind the stacks. Kaden could barely see the face, and so was forced to exercise his deductive powers on voice alone. A bit absent, but not to brittle. Still substance. Something else is on his mind, but it’s not work. Though the work may be a factor, I suppose, he added, smirking at the stack of papers. ”Yes, I’m Kaden Allingham-Hemsworth. And you’re correct about Jenkins.” Jenkins. Kaden smirked again. Silly, dumb little man. Far too many substances in his day, judging from the pallid, paper quality of the sin. ”I’m here to inquire about the job opportunity you’re offering here? I’m afraid I…” He shrugged, glancing around the room. Goodness, it was posh. ”I haven’t got many qualifications. I have had a fair bit of schooling. If that would tip the scale in my favor.” Was that how one generally presented one’s self in an interview like this? Kaden wondered if there were some sort of how-to manual for this kind of thing.