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Letharia sighed.
She'd done the math, and she was running out of money. It had been a couple of months since Cisthene had appeared in her cabin, and in that time she learned that Thene would eat anything– which meant that, unless Leth kept a very close eye on it, it would eat everything. Thene was the kind of person who didn't just eat when it was hungry, but also when it was bored; and it never seemed to be full. Leth was lucky she owned the cabin; if she'd owed rent payments on top of the rapidly rising grocery bills, the scant pay from her “job” of researching moss in the woods would certainly have run dry.
At least Thene was relatively easy to distract. It had seemed drawn to Leth's computer, to a degree that was almost concerning; and Leth was only just able to convince it not to try reprogramming the PC entirely. She had since dug out her old laptop from college, and given it to Thene, who promptly broke it, fixed it, disassembled it, reassembled it, and then installed Linux on it. When asked how it knew anything about computers, Thene simply replied “I just asked the laptop what to do.”
Leth wondered if she could get the angel a job. Something computer based. Anything to get a second stream of income into the household.
“Grab your things, Thene. We're heading into town. Time for you to go job hunting.”
—
As Leth drove the 1999 Toyota Corolla down the winding, wooded road out of the forest, she explained what a “job” was to Thene. That if Thene was going to live in the cabin and eat all of Leth's food, it would need to earn some money to pay her back.
This was followed by a much longer explanation of what “money” was, and why it was necessary; Thene had a lot of trouble with the concept, but seemed amenable enough to the idea of working a few days a week.
As they exited the woods and began to see the outskirts of Holylujah, Cisthene suddenly and sharply plastered herself against the window, seemingly in awe. In a voice that was simultaneously too loud and too quiet, it asked,
“Who is that?”
Startled, Leth stopped the car, and looked in the direction Thene indicated. There was no one out there. No person, no animal, nothing alive.
What was there, a short distance away, was W-OLF “the Moon”’s broadcasting center, and radio tower; a building Leth was quite familiar with.
“Oh!! That's the local indie music station! You remember Quincey? He and my other cousin Taylor run the place.”
Thene didn't reply; it seemed completely enraptured at the sight of the building. Leth wasn't entirely sure what the “who” it had referred to was, but whatever it was, it had Thene's full attention.
“Uh… Do you want to take a tour? I bet Taylor would let us in.”
Thene's sudden snap back to reality and the resounding YES confirmed Leth's next course of action, and she turned the car into the radio station's parking area.
The “who” turned out to be the radio tower; no sooner had Leth stopped the car then Thene had teleported directly out of her seat and inside the radio station's fence.
Leth cursed, and quickly exited the car, running to the fence. Through the chain links, she shouted “Thene, wait-”
-and a gunshot rang out, causing the pair to both freeze where they were.
Eric Warden, a self-proclaimed “insurance agent” who assisted with Quincey's show (and, notably, performed the ad reads), had exited the station and run into the fenced tower area. The gunshot had only been a warning shot from his handgun, and neither Thene nor Leth was hurt; however, Eric was still brandishing the weapon, intent on getting Thene away from the sensitive radio equipment.
“Eric, wait, it's me!” Leth hollered from outside the fence. The armed man turned at hearing the voice, and lowered his weapon at seeing the familiar face from which the call emanated.
“Leth? What the hell are you doing here? And who is this, and why is she inside our goddamned fence?”
“It– she's my roommate, she's really interested in it and she just wanted a tour.” Leth pleaded, her voice wavering. “I was hoping Taylor and Quincey could show it– her– around the station.”
Reluctantly, Eric unlocked and opened the fence gate, allowing Thene to pass back outside. Leaning close to Leth, he whispered “Next time, use the damn door. And you owe me an explanation as to how she– it? Did you say it?”
“Yeah, it doesn't really understand gender like we do. At least I don't think it does.”
“Okay, well, you owe me an explanation as to how it got inside the fence.”
—
It didn't take much convincing for Quincey to hand the station over to Hibo Salah, the eccentric DJ of W-OLF, for a musical interlude. Quincey, Taylor, Eric, Leth, and Thene all sat in the library, going through introductions. The three men all knew Leth was a lycan; Quincey had explained that to Eric and Taylor during his rather long stay at the hospital. However, he had excluded Thene from his story, at Leth's request. It wasn't until it manifested its divine power in a way Eric could notice that it really became relevant, anyway.
Afterwards, Eric went back into the studio for his regular ad break, while Taylor and Quincey showed Thene around the station. The tour was short; the only rooms of note were the office, the archive (where all of W-OLF's physical media was kept), the studio itself (which was locked, and the “On Air” sign was lit), and the rack room, where Hibo was seated, operating the sound mixer.
No sooner had Thene entered the rack room than it moved to the various mixers and started rapidly moving sliders, turning knobs, and flicking switches. Quincey, Taylor, and Leth all immediately reached out to stop it, but it moved with an inhuman speed; and by the time the group could reach it, it had fully stepped away from the racks and out of their range.
Now it stood in the middle of the room, a fire in its eyes; and in a deadpan voice just said “it was yelling at me.”
Quincey, Taylor, and Leth all began speaking at once. Taylor chastising Thene, Quincey chastising Leth, Leth blubbering out an apology on Thene's behalf, everyone questioning what all it had done.
Suddenly, Hibo shouted over the din “HEY. Everyone shut up.”
A moment of silence passed, and Hibo spoke again.
“She fixed it.”
Taylor, Quincey, and Leth all turned, dumbfounded.
“Fixed… what?” inquired Quincey, the only other person in the room qualified to even touch the mixers.
“The interference. We've had weird interferences in the recordings for a couple of months now, and I've tried everything to fix it. I couldn't figure it out, but whatever the hell she just did, it's gone now.”
Quincey picked up the other headset, and put it on. “It's… really clear. Like, the sound quality is really good. Better than twenty minutes ago, for sure. Hell, I could actually listen to Eric's ad reads if it sounds like this.”
Hibo turned to Quincey. “Give her that headset. I want to put her on the mixer, see what she can do when she actually hears the output.”
Taylor protested, but Quincey held up a hand. “Come on. Let it try. The worst outcome is that Eric's ads get fucked up.”
“Eric's ad reads are what keep our station funded, Quincey.” Taylor spoke sternly, but relented. “Fine. Give it the headset.”
—
Five minutes later, Thene had reworked the entire audio setup, tuning everything just right, such that the broadcast was crisper, cleaner, and stronger than ever. Leth didn't have a clue what was going on, but everyone else marveled at the accomplishment.
Hibo whistled slowly. “Alright. We're hiring her, right?”
Four heads perked up in unison. Thene, Leth, and Quincey all looked at Taylor hopefully.
Again, Taylor protested. “Come on, you guys. That was a neat trick, but we can't just hire someone on the spot like that. There's paperwork. There's a process. And as far as I'm aware, it doesn't even have a legal identity.”
Leth turned knowingly to Quincey, who met her eyes, and responded.
“I can fix that.”