Title: lovely weather we're having, isn't it?

Summary: The age-old starter of non-conversation suddenly becomes a large part of Vetinari's life, as do talking boxes and brightly painted bits of metal that go vroom.

Warnings: None, except that it's really weird.

Chapter 1: August 25: Clear skies, highs in the mid-80s

Max Rodney was retiring. This did not come off as much of a surprise to anyone, since Rodney looked like he was roughly 300 years old. In actuality, he was only 87; most of those years had been spent as weatherman for News19. He was pretty hard of hearing, and standing in front of the camera for 10 minutes to give his report was killer on his back. It had gotten so bad, in fact, that they'd had to hire a separate person to present the reports, a pretty young thing with lots of golden curls and a set of hazel eyes that eye drops advertisers would've killed to have in their ads. Robert (or Rupert, as Max insisted on calling him, due to a general stubbornness and lack of good hearing. Oh well, thought Robert resignedly, it's only off by two letters anyway) met with Max twice a day so Max could try to explain his forecasts.

To give credit where credit was due, Max wasn't senile, by any means. His predictions were generally pretty accurate, which is really all you can hope for when dealing with something as fickle as the weather. Some people might even have gone so far as to say that Max was an excellent meteorologist, though if he was, it was probably more out of habit than anything else.

Even so, after a while, it had become too much. If Robert had a question about the report, usually it never got answered, or even heard. Finally people had taken to migrating out of the room when Max and Robert were meeting, so they could converse about the weather at the top of their lungs in peace. (It rarely merited the term "converse." It wasn't that the conversation was one-sided, it was just that Max always seemed to be in the wrong conversation, and poor Robert always had to keep changing subjects just so it would sound like they were two people talking to each other and not two people talking who happened to be in the same room.) That was why it was almost a relief when Max handed in his resignation that morning. It wasn't until Max had caned his way out that pandemonium struck: they didn't have anyone to replace the guy!

Now, Robert had a very basic idea of how meteorology worked. However, in order to be a successful meteorologist, you had to not only know how the weather was supposed to work, you had to know how prone the weather was to turning around and going ahaha fooled you, and you had to be able to predict that, too. Robert had majored in graphics and animation. He could barely read a weather map, much less draw from it an idea of the weather tomorrow.

So News19 was faced with being meteorologist-less, with a weather report upcoming at exactly 6:15. The newspaper classifieds took too long—they'd never get a weather report in time if their article didn't run until three business days later.

Sylvia, who was the employee personnel manager of News19, which meant pretty much that she hired and fired people, was practically in tears when she and Robert sat behind a table in their makeshift interviews room. The receptionist had been instructed to make the applicant fill out a few papers before sending him or her in, assuming that there were any applicants at all, and a large sign had been posted outside declaring that they were NOW HIRING a decent meteorologist.

Although Americans had a tendency to believe a bit too strongly in their own abilities, in this case, all most people knew about the weather involved cows, and, realizing that that probably wasn't enough, nobody joined Sylvia and Robert at the table. Three o'clock came rolling around and skidded uncontrollably past them. Four followed to make sure it was alright, and Five was dragged kicking and screaming after.

By five thirty Robert was frantically trying to compass a weather map the way he had seen Max do it, although he didn't know what, exactly, the circles were supposed to show, and his fingers were shaking slightly. Small flecks of pencil appeared as the compass shuddered up and down with him.

A thin hand reached past his and took the compass from him. Looking up, Robert found the hand was attached to a tiny sliver of wrist, which in turn was attached to the sleeve of a large black jacket which had so many folds and creases that it was impossible to tell how many pockets it had or what kind of body it was concealing, though something about it suggested thin, almost anorexic. The jacket was attached to, variously, another hand, a pair of nondescript black pants, and a pale neck which was attached to, worst of all, a pale, unsmiling face.

Robert looked back down. The first hand had stretched the compass out as far as it would go and was now using the pencil part to draw briskly on the map. As the heavy, deliberate strokes took form, Robert found himself "oh"-ing in agreement. Of course the high was moving that way. It was so obvious with that line there.

Robert and Sylvia exchanged looks. Robert's expression clearly said: We've got an expert. It was all Sylvia could do not to jump up and scream, "You're hired!" Instead, she made a surreptitious check of the time. It wouldn't have done to seem impatient, but they were in a hurry. When she looked up, however, the man's eyes were on her, looking frighteningly as if they knew everything.

"Er," she said uncomfortably, not knowing that this was quite a popular reaction to his gaze. "Did you fill out an application?"

The man shook his head.

"Er, I'm sure you'll need—"

"Fifteen minutes, am I right?"

"Er, what?"

"You have fifteen minutes until the weather report needs to be broadcasted, yes?"

"Er, yes," she said. Well, at least the guy had done his homework. Whether or not that was a good thing was yet to be determined. She had just read a book called The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker. It had left her a bit paranoid, and one of the things it had left her paranoid about was hiring some guy who wasn't a good worker, whom she'd have to fire eventually, who when then return and, in a rage, shoot everyone in the building. Doing background research, Sylvia thought, thinking back to the book. One of the signs of someone who wouldn't be willing to let go if circumstances called for it.

"Have you seen the applications?" the man asked. "Eleven pages long. It probably wouldn't leave me enough time to work out tonight's report, and then what would you do?"

Sylvia and Robert consulted with their gazes. Hire him, both tried to stare into each other, there's no choice!

"Well, we'll still need some information about you before we could make this critical choice, like… what's your name? Educational background?"

"Havelock Vetinari," the man said. His raised eyebrow dared them to comment or, heavens forbid, get it wrong. "And I… haven't received a conventional education."

"You didn't go to school?" Sylvia asked bluntly. Robert, although what the company thought of affectionately as a good kid, was just that—a good kid. He wasn't particularly sharp or wise about the ways of the world. Sylvia didn't trust him to ask the right sort of questions, but then again, she didn't trust herself to either, not at the moment, not in the presence of Havelock Vetinari.

"Not as such," Vetinari said. "But as long as I can do the job right, I'm afraid I completely fail to see how it matters."

"We don't know you know what you're doing though."

Vetinari turned the force of his gaze to Robert. "How about you, Mr. Wilson? Do you think I know what I'm doing?"

"Er," Robert said. He looked up from where he was staring at the map with something resembling awe in his countenance. Although he had been reporting the weather for a few months now, he had never actually gotten how Max made his predictions. With two careful pencil marks, however, the map was suddenly incredibly clear…

"Er, how do you know my name?" he asked.

Wordlessly, Vetinari pointed to his breast, and for a long, puzzled moment, Robert thought Vetinari was pointing to his heart. Vague, half-formed explanations (many involving a swell of cheesy music at exactly the right moment) chased each other through his head, each more deformed than the last. Then he looked down at his own chest and realized that he was wearing a nametag—Robert Wilson, assistant meteorologist.

"Oh. Yes, er. Yeah, you know what you're doing, I think. It's very…" he motioned vaguely to the map, "very clear."

"Well done. Am I hired?"

"Do you have a history of criminal activity?" Sylvia interjected, as her panicked mind jumped up and down, went running about in circles, and set off the sprinklers.

"No," Vetinari said simply.

"Er, do you have references?"

"I'm new here. I don't know anyone."

"If you had a phone number," she tried desperately. Vetinari did not seem to recognize this as a complete statement, and continued to watch her blankly. "Er, that would be a reference."

"Any phone number?" he deadpanned.

"Er, no. Someone you know. Or, who knows you, I mean."

"I'm afraid that won't be possible. I could make up some numbers for you, if you like," he added helpfully.

Sylvia eyed him nervously. No reference? He could be any sort of person, and she wouldn't know. He could've been prone to violence, he could've been an ex-convict, he could've—

"We've only got five minutes," Robert said anxiously, and although Sylvia couldn't remember agreeing, that seemed to settle it. Vetinari spent three very busy moments explaining the weather for the night, before Robert dashed off to make his report. Sylvia edged around the table to take the spot Robert had just vacated, and leaned over to scrutinize the map the two men had been poring over. When she looked up, Vetinari was already gone, and without her notice. She walked over to the door, and was not at all surprised to find that it squeaked noisily no matter how carefully she tried to open it. Then she remembered that she'd forgotten to ask for Vetinari's contact information.

"Great," she muttered to herself, a hint of hopefulness in her voice. "He probably won't even show up tomorrow morning." They had arranged for Vetinari to come in early, perhaps 5-ish, to clean out Rodney's desk (Vetinari's suggestion, which increased her respect for him a bit), but that didn't mean he would actually come. "Oh well, guess we'll need to hire someone else."

Vetinari, meanwhile, wandered down the street, a single, unobtrusive figure among the masses of single, unobtrusive figures. He paused in front of every storefront he came across, inspecting each with care. When he reached the library, he entered and looked around with astonishment. After five minutes in which he appeared to familiarize himself with his surroundings, he found and read a book about phones from cover to cover. Then he picked out, seemingly at random, books about variously, televisions, weather maps, general psychology, the Mongol invasions, and present day politics. He brought the stack to a table by the window, where he meticulously went through them like a pioneer in an entirely new world.

To be continued…