CLOAK/1.115Archaic tricep of a palooka,chthonic aviator glasses with archetypal self-repair paperclip dangling like anti-redemption. States paint with men. |
| In the Office of the Director of Security |
| The hiring of bag-checking guards is a deep matter, man's work, and I work alone. I'm doing gene-spotting during the interview process, I'm practicing genetic science with no tools but my own intuition—searching out the members of the lost and scattered tribe with an hereditary gift for spotting thieves, the blood-borne power to know which bags need checking. These men are very elusive, the big libraries get them, keep them, pay them you wouldn't believe how much. I have to find the ones who don't know their own qualities. Because we can't check everyone, we don't have the resources of a private security force, wired to central control, uniformed in t-shirts. |
| But they've had me up on charges at the Affirmative Action Committee again, our mutual Uh-Oh society, chaired by Madame Underlip. |
| Differences can only be transcended, they cannot be erased— on this plane are barriers of many sorts of impenetrability— our politics delay their transcendence.     |
