Bottom Feeders

The applicant pool stretched across Maya's screen—three hundred and forty-two resumes, reduced to pixels and desperation. She'd been reviewing them for seven hours, her eyes burning, when Richard's email pinged.

Drinks at the Oak Room. Celebrate.

She didn't want to celebrate. Richard had gotten the promotion she'd been working toward for three years. But Richard was also her oldest friend in the city, the person who'd held her hair back when she'd been ghosted by that architect in March, who'd brought her soup during the week she'd had COVID and couldn't taste anything anyway.

So she put on her black dress and the fedora she only wore when she was feeling particularly theatrical—a hat that said she didn't care what anyone thought, which meant she cared desperately.

The Oak Room was all mahogany and murmured conversations. Richard was already at the bar, nursing a whiskey, looking uncomfortable in his own skin. He saw her hat and smiled—that crinkle-eyed expression she'd trusted since they were twenty-two and both convinced they'd change the world.

"You're wearing the hat," he said. "Must be serious."

"Congratulations," she said. "Really."

"Maya—" He motioned for the bartender. "Two more. And bring those goldfish things. The ones with the caramel."

The drinks arrived. The goldfish—crackers shaped like fish, dusted with sugar and salt—sat between them like bait.

"I turned it down," Richard said.

She paused, her glass halfway to her lips. "What?"

"The promotion. I turned it down." He took a goldfish, crunched it. "They wanted me to manage the team that handles the applicant pool. That software you built? The one that filters candidates? They want me to oversee cutting twenty percent of the pipeline. Automate away the humanity."

Maya stared at him. The goldfish in the bowl-shaped glass caught the light, a tiny suspended swimmer in caramel.

"You've been complaining about that software for months," Richard continued. "How it reduces people to keywords. How you hate being part of it. I couldn't do it." He looked at her, really looked at her. "I told them I wouldn't take the position unless they made you the lead instead."

The ice in her glass melted. The fedora suddenly felt ridiculous.

"Richard—"

"I know. I know you're the one who earned it." He pushed the goldfish toward her. "Eat one. They're actually terrible. I don't know why I ordered them."

She took one. It was sweet and salty and strange, and she remembered college, when they'd shared bags of cheap snacks and dreamed of building something that mattered. The software had been her idea—her attempt to make hiring less arbitrary, less about who you knew. She'd never expected it to become a weapon.

"I'll need your help," she said finally. "With the team. I don't know how to manage people."

Richard's smile returned, crinkling around the eyes. "I'm not going anywhere, Maya. We're in the same pool. Just swimming different laps."

Outside, the city hummed. The applicant pool would still be there tomorrow—three hundred and forty-two people trying to find their way to something better. But tonight, she had goldfish and whiskey and a friend who'd turned down a promotion rather than become something he couldn't live with.

Some things, she thought, crunched another goldfish, were worth keeping.