Chapter One

Recent college graduate, Linneah Mitchell, sat in the corner of a coffee shop clicking through online job boards. Most of the open positions posted were in engineering and medical with a few temporary agency ads and janitorial jobs for good measure. Sighing she put her tablet away. Maybe she made the wrong choice by getting a degree in education. And maybe she shouldn't have been sitting in a coffee shop where the cheapest drink was five dollars when she had yet to find stable employment. The clerks had been staring at her for the last fifteen minutes wondering if she would order something.

"Why are you staring at me so hard? I'm not the only one in here using the Wi-Fi without ordering," Linneah thought, then stood up and walked out of the shop without having ordered anything. It was the middle of winter in the Midwestern United States. She had only gone inside to get out of the cold for a moment and check her email. There was a bulletin board by the doors she had more or less ignored when she came into the shop. Linneah had almost walked past it again but the thought occurred to her that there might be at least one help wanted ad for a tutor on the board. Linneah backed up a few steps and carefully scanned the board. There were lots of ads on it alright, most of which were looking for customers not employees: guitar lessons, personal shopper, housekeeping services, computer repair, and the like on the off chance someone would give the board a look. Linneah debated on whether she should ask the manager about putting her own ad on it. Tutoring didn't pay much and wasn't consistent work, but at least it was something. Many of the ads overlapped each other and one was almost completely covered by an ad from a used car lot. Linneah lifted the used car ad to get a better look at the one it was partially covering. She was half expecting to see another service advertisement but was surprised to see it was actually a posting for a job. She had to do a double take. Was this for real and if it were, was she that desperate for work? The job was for a position in the Transmute Zone not too far from where she lived. The flyer said to call the number on it for more information. Linneah took a picture of it and went home. 

After some debate and seeing a couple of bills in the mail Linneah started to feel desperate. She had no idea what a job inside a Transmute Zone would entail. She didn't know anyone or anyone that knew anyone who worked inside one of them and she had never seen an Anthromorph before. Images of them, of real ones, on TV and even the internet were few and far between. Were they nothing more than tame animals in human form like they were portrayed in popular media? Would the job she was calling about be basically nothing more than a glorified zookeeper?

Before calling, Linneah decided to do a bit of research on the place. Going to her desk, which was nothing more than a small computer cart that was by the kitchen, she turned on her computer and typed in the name of the zone 'Safe Haven' and of course doing so yielded a ton of unrelated results. Taking a moment to face palm Linneah added 'Transmute Zone'. Although a few unrelated results still popped up she was able to find a small article on the facility. While somewhat informative it still told her nothing about what to expect as an employee there.

Nervously Linneah dialed the number from the flyer. She didn't spend five and a half years in college and getting into thousands of dollars in debt just to clean poop, but if it would keep a roof over her head and pay the bills she'd be the best poop cleaner that place had ever seen. 

“Hello, Adam Neuman speaking.”

Linneah's heart jumped into her throat. She wasn't expecting the zone's administrator to pick up. “Hello, my name is Linneah Mitchell. I saw the job flyer on the bulletin board at Star Mugs. Are you still hiring?”

“Right.” The man said. There was a bit of a pause. “We're looking for people to take on the stewardship of Anthromorphs here.”

“Stewardship? What does a steward do?”

“The stewardship program here sends Anthromorphs out to live with individuals that will be responsible for them until they are able to obtain citizenship.” 

“Like adoption?” Linneah asked, a little confused. 

“No, you'll be responsible for them in a power of attorney way. Since the goal of the program is to transition Anthromorphs into society at large stewards are also charged with acclimating them to life outside of the zone. Does this sound like something you'd be interested in doing?”

“Before I answer I have a question; how many anthromorphs would I have to steward?” 

“Each steward is responsible for one Anthromorph at a time.” 

“In that case, yes, I would be interested in the job.”

“I'd like to meet with you in person before I make my decision. Are you available to come in on Monday at 9am?”

“Yes.”

“I'll see you then. I look forward to meeting you.”

“Likewise,” Linneah said, then hung up the phone. Hopefully by the same time next week she'd have a job. 

Adam hung up the phone then propped his elbows up on his desk intersecting his fingers together as he glared at Jerry who was busy with a spreadsheet.

“What,” Jerry asked, not bothering to look away from what he was doing. He could feel Adam's cold and heavy gaze on him.

“You really put up flyers?”

“You mad?”

“Mad is too strong of a word. I'm mildly irritated because I just had a conversation with a woman who had no clue what job we are hiring for nor had any idea what would be expected of her.”

“The less they know the more interested they'll be.”

“Where did you hear that?”

Jerry merely shrugged. “It worked didn't it? Besides, I put those up months ago. It's not like you're all that busy right now and I thought you liked talking to women.” Jerry said, his gaze remaining on his work.

“What are you implying?”

Jerry smiled mischievously. “Nothing, just rolling with the 100:1 female to male steward ratio this place has.”

“Are you serious,” Adam asked. Although they had known each other for years it was difficult for even him to tell when Jerry was joking at times.

“You're the one that set up a job interview with a clueless woman.”

“Unbelievable.” Adam said standing up. 

“Eh? Where you going,” Jerry said, finally looking away from his work.

“I have a meeting with auditors today, the reason you're re-checking the accounts at the last minute.”

“Oh right! Almost forgot about that.” Jerry said sarcastically.

Adam sighed and left the room. He had not worried about things being in order however Jerry was another story. Even after triple checking the accounts he was still concerned something might be wrong. At first Adam thought he understood Jerry's obsession with making sure everything was perfect, but now he felt his friend's hyper vigilance was a mild form of OCD or perhaps he had just grown comfortable having achieved his goal of becoming a Special Zone administrator and that comfort was causing him to grow slack. Mulling over such concerns would have to wait until after his meeting with the auditors. 

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