Jon had no idea what the hell this place was, or how the visions were being relayed to him. He was afraid to keep looking at the posters after the feeling of that last one. It had been quite intense. But he also felt something inside him responding to the visions. It was a recognition of a kindred spirit, like unexpectedly finding out someone was from your home town, or that they were in the same profession as you.

  Jon found himself driven onward by curiosity as much as his ongoing search for an escape.

  A poster labeled “Rise!” showed him a warrior who looked like a Greek hoplite battling some sort of five-headed hydra. This vision was fragmented, and Jon saw the man swinging at the hydra, then saw him on his knees, then flying in the air above the hydra born on wings of flame. The warrior was cutting down towards its final neck with a blazing sword held overhead in both hands. Jon couldn’t tell if the blade was on fire, or if it was a trick of the light as he saw it between the wings. The image winked out.

  Another with the word

  “Vision!”

  gave him a glimpse of a woman in a cave, shouting prophesies as she manically painted a mural on the wall. The picture she painted gradually shaped into a diagram of a turtle, a burning snake, and a grim-faced man surrounding a tree. Jon felt some sort of bridge forming between himself and the painting, but just as he thought he would understand what was happening, he found himself back on his knees once more in the room with the posters. A thin trickle of blood ran from his nose, and he wiped it away absently. He couldn’t figure out why some posters gave him an additional phrase at the end and others did not.

  As before, once the sensation faded, it did not return. He returned to feeling along the walls.

  He tried not to look at any more of the posters, feeling that they must be some sort of distraction or test that he wanted no part of. But as Jon found himself on the wall opposite the door, he felt something prick his finger.

  He jerked his hand back and looked up at what had poked him. If he had checked, he would have seen no wound on his finger, but he was transfixed by the poster his hand had been on. It was a field of black and purple with a silver sword on it. Its word was:

  “Retribution.”

  This was the first vision to strike him stronger than the transcend poster. Jon watched as an alien creature marched down a long-corridor. The walls were interrupted periodically with doors. Each of the doors appeared identical to the one in the room Jon had been standing in, the one marked ‘employee’s only.’ There were hundreds of them stretching down a corridor that must have been measured in the kilometers. He turned his attention back to the alien marching down the hall.

  “Squidward looks pissed,” Jon found himself thinking.

  The alien’s head resembled an octopus from earth. It’s eyes were oval-shaped, forward facing, and entirely black. A row of tentacles hung over its mouth, forming a disturbing mustache. The alien had three pairs of arms moving back and forth in time as it swiftly strode down the hall. The visible flesh was dark blue. Jon suspected there were only two legs, but it was difficult to be sure since the creature wore black robes which obscured them. The alien’s movements were efficient, swift and graceful. There was a hood hanging limply on its back, as well as what looked like multiple large blades strapped at the level of each pair of arms.

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  “Darth Squidward looks pissed,” Jon amended, taking in the sweeping black robes and hood.

  The creature arrived at the end of the hallway, where there was a door at least five meters high and wide, cast from solid metal. The alien nonchalantly lifted one leg and kicked out as it approached. As its foot made contact, the door flew off its hinges with a screech like two cars crashing, sparks flashing from its dead bolt as it burst asunder.

  Inside the room were around twenty bipedal beings, some looking almost human, others clearly alien. They were all heavily armed with a combination of rifles, glowing spears and daggers. There were three crocodile-like creatures the size of bears accompanying the squad. The crocodiles wore thick futuristic armor. They leapt for the octopus-man as it continued into the open room.

  Jon never saw the motion when it drew the blades, but all six arms were a blur as the squid dodged between two of the crocodiles. They crashed to the ground in a gush of blood as the squid passed, their flesh falling to pieces like an invisible mandolin had passed through it. The last crocodile sailed by the squid, which ignored it completely. The whole thing looked like it was choreographed.

  The arrayed forces began to unload their rifles on the squid, and a sphere of translucent purple light rose from the squid’s body, spinning rapidly. As the rounds hit the sphere, they shot off in all directions, several striking the armored crocodile behind the squid, other rounds ricocheting towards the aliens who had fired them. As the sphere fell, the black outer robes of the alien fell with it.

  Jon had another realization: darth squidward was fucking jacked. Beneath the robes it wore a black breast plate with holes to allow the heavily muscled arms out. Small runes covering the breast plate coated the surface in red and blue light. Its arms were segmented into five different sections, allowing it to make whip-like motions with incredible speed. Each hand held a full-size claymore.

  Jon remembered trying to hold a similar-sized sword as a kid at a renaissance fair. They were longer than he was tall at the time, and about as wide as grown man’s hand. Jon had been able to lift one, but not hold it out.

  He watched the squid carve its way through the squad. Two of the spear wielders attempted to skewer the alien, one in front and one behind. The alien just turned ninety degrees and deflected each spear with one blade, simultaneously stabbing a nearby rifleman through the chest with two of its swords. The final two arms followed up a fraction of a second later with an upward slashing motion towards the spearmen. This blow shouldn’t have had the range to land, but two ghostly copies of the blades rippled out with a flare of white light, bisecting the spearmen vertically.

  The squid continued to dodge, weave, and whirl among his enemies until none remained. The entire sequence took only a few seconds. It then turned silently towards the far door, which opened of its own accord.

  Light shown in from the door, then a tall, imposing figure’s silhouette filled the doorway. Not much of the new opponent could be seen against the light, but Jon could make out it had a top-knot and a single blade’s handle visible over one shoulder. As the figure stepped into the room, the vision faded.

  Jon found himself panting on the ground. He felt like the vision had cut early, like there was a part of the experience his brain could not quite handle. Something about the confrontation had felt final to him. This man was the target of the blue alien’s vengeance, and he had a feeling it expected to die in that fight.

  As he collected himself, he decided to sit at the desk. He wasn’t exactly sure when the chair had moved back to the desk. He certainly hadn’t moved it there. Sitting there, Jon finally realized the hold music had stopped. The voice from earlier returned as he sat down. This time the intonation was a little breathless:

  “Your affinities have been rated. Performance evaluation complete. Your class-selection mediator has been chosen. Congratulations! You have been selected for executive review! Please remain seated.”

  Jon heard a click from the doorway, which opened inward silently. A shuffling noise came from without, and a creature stepped through.