Preface

Cockatiel x Chameleon
Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/37616470.

Rating:

Explicit

Archive Warnings:

Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con

Categories:

F/F, F/M, Multi, Other

Fandom:

Original Work

Additional Tags:

Explicit Sexual Content, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Vomiting, Drugs, Masturbation, Mental Health Issues, Dubious Consent, Cunnilingus, Rimming, Dry Humping, Robot Sex, Blow Jobs, Cowgirl Position, Death, LGBTQ Themes, Trans Female Character, Genderbending, Futanari, Threesome, Spanking, Hypnosis, Anal, Spitroasting, Foot Jobs, Transphobia, Police Brutality, Crucifixion, Disembowelment, Lolicon, Vampires, Vampire Bites, Urination, Intestine Slurping, Guro, Bestiality, Knotting, Rape, Hard vore, Soft Vore, Monster Girls, Digestion, Suicide, Homophobic Slurs, transphobic slurs, Racist Slurs, Famous Paintings and Artwork of Sexual and Violent Content, references to gambling, ableist slurs

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2022-03-12 Words: 144,974 Chapters: 41/41

Cockatiel x Chameleon

by Bavitz

Summary

Terminally bored office worker Harper Praise chats with random people online to stave off her desire to die. By chance, she meets Van Der Gramme, a brashly egotistical pornographic artist who quickly becomes the sole interesting facet of Harper's nothing life. Chasing after him, she plunges into his online underworld of depravity and degeneracy, over which he presides like a spiritual guru—or a cult leader. Sex and art are the saviors he peddles, his medicine, his opiates, and Harper is desperate to surrender to them. But the real world—no matter how banal it seems—refuses to loosen its death grip so easily. By the end, everything will burn.

PART I: NOTHING TO NOTHING

PART I: NOTHING TO NOTHING

[1] Welcome to a land of magic.

[1] Welcome to a land of magic.

Although Harper Praise finished her work by noon, she was not allowed to leave until five. Previously, she spent these hours motionless, whitened by neutral sunlight from a window in the office opposite hers, beyond which the company kept a koi pond. Over the pond, between a decorative tree's trunk and foremost branch, glistened a vast web. There, a spider waited, patiently, forever.

Eventually Harper discovered an increased desire to die. She decided to forgo company policy in favor of her mental health.

In a new browser tab she accessed 4All, a site for anonymous chatting, the minimalist design of which attracted no attention from the zero people who passed her office. When she clicked Match, the site randomly paired her with one of its 50,000 current active users and displayed the text: You're chatting with a new friend. Say 'Hello!'

"Hello!" Harper typed.

All new friends asked the same question: ASL. It stood for Age, Sex, Location. Harper had trouble remembering age and location, but sex was simple enough, and it was all her new friends wanted anyway. But then they demanded she add them on social media she didn't have or send pictures she couldn't take, and the conversation died. That was fine. It took a single click to end the chat and dispense a new friend, and since Harper only lost her appetite for new friends the moment she met them, she could click forever.

This time, though, her new friend said something different.

"Are you human?"

The question caught her off guard. She deliberated. "Yes, I am."

"If you're illiterate or stupid, leave now so I don't gotta wait till you open your mouth. We're gonna roleplay an erotic scenario. Be who you want, I don't give a shit, all that matters is you're descriptive and follow my lead. Yeah?"

"Yeah," Harper typed in stunned automation before she remembered herself, mashed backspace, and instead wrote "Certainly." Dead and desiccated circuits fired; long dormant, she came blinking back to life. "What is the scenario, if I may ask?"

The response, despite its length, appeared instantaneously:

"Imagine a tower sticking out of the sea, sea and sky so similar it's like the tower floats in an unbroken offwhite void with maybe a blurry reflection and a few bleeding clouds to break it, and at the top of this tower rumors go there's an alchemist or necromancer or what-you-will, master of natural and unnatural sciences, eternal youth and base metal to precious, etc. Rumors go. Well I'm ascending the stairs carved into the side of the tower to prove those rumors true. Name's Van Der Gramme, freelance adventurer/assassin/artist, tall and wiry Renaissance man of mystery with eyes hidden under the wide brim of my black hat. My rapier clatters against the stones every step I climb, plus I've got blades concealed in my doublet, obviously I don't intend to knock on the door of a hermitic and possibly insane sorcerer unarmed, but my scheme's not violence, I seek knowledge. Anyway that's enough intro for me, I reach the top and throw open the doors and see whatever's inside, that's up to you assuming you're game, and if you're not go jerk off somewhere else."

Harper read each word carefully, pressed her fingertips together, and mentally sorted Van Der Gramme's lackadaisical ramblings into logical compartments for the purpose of parsing meaning. How this scenario heralded eroticism she could not fathom, and his stringent demand for literacy came across comedic given his erratic opening salvo, but Harper didn't care; she arose out of a pure white bath, liquid light slithering off her, angles and lines returning to a level of distinction necessary for existence.

"The chamber at the top of the tower," she typed, 155 words per minute, "inhabits a different world than that from which Van Der Gramme came. Blank sea and sky shatters into profuse, obscene opulence. All is gold. Floor, walls, ceiling, so that neither end nor beginning is quite clear, and the dimensions extend past what conceivably fits within the tower's outer shape. Nothing is lacking. Gold shelves hold gold books and gold bureaus contain gold vestments while gold tables draped in gold cloth are dressed with gold plates of gold fruits. Gold statues of nude men twisted athletically atop gold pedestals occupy gold alcoves curtained by gold drapery. A gigantic gold telescope extends out a window aimed at a sky rapidly turning starry as though that sky and the pale offwhite one beyond the door are entirely different skies. Gold credenzas contain gold beakers shaped into bulbous components and beside them stands a gold human skeleton, its various anatomical components marked by gold tags and gold lettering. Equations and incantations are engraved across the walls; the ceiling depicts the cosmic spheres in heliocentric alignment. Splendor aside, the whole of human knowledge is contained within this castle of learning; the whole and then some.

"Only one object in the entire chamber is not gold: the pale skin of its sole occupant, who peers at Van Der Gramme from her burnished throne directly beneath the ceiling's solar pictograph. Her fist, pressed against her cheek, holds up her tilting head. Her expression? Abject apathy. Eyes red as droplets of blood pierce Van Der Gramme straight through; her body remains perfectly still, one leg folded over the other to expose a single gold heel from the lavish flounce of her gown-like robes. Maybe she's a statue herself. No; she sighs, a sharp exhalation that disturbs the clasp of her collar, in the center of which is set a bright round lump of amber.

"'So,' she says, her voice a quiet aspiration that nonetheless carries across the silent chamber. 'You've arrived, Van Der Gramme.'"

He asked for descriptive. Harper concurred—what mattered a fantasy world without maximalist detail, excessive detail? To provide a richness of existence denied quotidian life. The spider weaving an intricate web to wait within, patiently, forever.

"What the fuck are you," said Van Der Gramme.

"I am," said Harper Praise, "and always have been, and always will be, the Alchemist."

"You don't belong here, that's for fucking sure. Well then."

The rays of dwindling sunlight altered their angle through the window and cast the gold menagerie alight with increased intensity, an intensity that also revealed the patina of dust coating every gilded surface. Van Der Gramme slicked a finger across the spine of a book and blew the dust away. Yet the title remained unreadable, gold letters on gold binding.

"So you know my name. Prognostication or parlor trick?"

"Perhaps neither," said the Alchemist, still rigidly reposed. "Perhaps you are merely my golem. Created for a fleeting moment's entertainment. Do you remember yourself before reaching this tower?"

"If I wanted existential mumbo jumbo I could've thought it up myself. Here's a better way to figure you out."

Van Der Gramme spoke with casual liquidity matched by the motions of his limber body, rapid switches of contrapposto, Italianesque gesticulations. One such flourish, a barely perceptible flick of the wrist, drew from his cuff a dagger that fired across the room toward the self-proclaimed Alchemist fast enough to slice the stagnant air with the sound of a fwip.

The dagger buried itself within her right eye until no sliver of blade could be seen—only the hilt.

The rift in the air healed and all became still again. Van Der Gramme's arm fell to his side, but the Alchemist made no motion however slight. Half the chamber darkened.

Finally, the Alchemist sighed. She lifted her head from its perch on her fist and seized the hilt of the embedded knife. Her other hand she placed on her face to steady it, and with a single deft tug retracted the blade from her eyeball.

"Thankfully," she said, seizing a scepter that leaned against her throne to use as leverage as she rose, shifting joints from positions held for years, assembling the form of her body hidden beneath its sprawling robes into a standing position, "your brazenness serves the barest stimulation."

Her eye, split through the middle, oozed no blood. Instead from the gash poured a stream of dust as fine as sand. It splattered onto her breast and ran between the loose golden frills in rivulets before reaching the floor in a slowly growing pile.

"Has my identity been thoroughly established to your liking, Van Der Gramme?" she said, each word in his absurd name spoken with full emphasis. "Do you believe in my power now?"

One hand on his hip, the other on the hilt of his rapier, Van Der Gramme shrugged. "Yeah that'll work."

The scepter her cane, steps halting and pronounced in their limp, she scraped toward him at arduous pace. "Then allow us to bring this preordained encounter to a point." Her head lolled, as though her thin neck was too weak to support it, but step by step her steps lost their wobble. "You are a seeker of truth, is that not so, Van Der Gramme? A prideful one at that. Or are you unable to lower yourself in supplication to she whom you ask the secrets of creation?"

Her sand sloshed out, its stream thinning as the wound in her eye stitched itself back together.

"You're humble too I see." Van Der Gramme indicated the endless gold.

"To learn, one must recognize there are things one does not know—humility. To teach, one must believe in their own knowledge—pride." The scepter left her hand, hung lazily a moment, and clattered to the floor. Her pace hastened, the distance between them drew narrower, the rows of books yet to bridge dwindling. "Perhaps you have instead come to teach me? Perhaps neither can teach the other. Perhaps we are destined to stand here shouting, insensible to all external stimuli. I am insensible, I know. Are you?"

Across the span of her speech her low and susurrate voice magnified. Her robes fanned amid dust motes illuminated by the final sharp rays and increased her breadth while her pale arms extended at her sides and upward, the hands and wrists and part of the forearms appearing out of overwide sleeves, her actual body diminutive in comparison to her vestments. Wild light flashed in her eyes and a sickly smile straightened her lips; she looked down upon him.

And all along Van Der Gramme remained where he stood, foot tapping. "This spiel's shit. You sure like to talk huh? Now tell me the secret of eternal life."

Her straight smile opened. "I cannot remember."

"How to change base metal to precious."

"I cannot remember."

"So you're fucking useless. Tell me how to see the future."

"There is no future. No further moment shall differ from this moment. History is ended."

"Okay. Time out." Van Der Gramme's placid face broke into a grin and he tucked it behind a hand to hide it. He shook his head and looked over his shoulder. "It's a joke, right? I know you. You're Sister, you're fucking with me."

Confused, Harper scanned the last few lines to detect any missed contextual clues. Finding nothing, she resumed her grandiloquent demeanor as the Alchemist and replied cryptically: "I am what I am."

"Nahnahnah, come the fuck on. You pushed it too far man. History is ended? That's something I would fucking say, in fact I'm certain I said it, in a video just last week. Either you're Sister or you're someone else who knows I use this site and wanted to dick with me. Come on."

Harper remained with her arms outstretched, feeling stupider every second. "Look fellow," she hissed after an askance flick of her eyes, "I don't know what you're talking about and you're killing the mood." She wondered how pompous one had to be to think a phrase as simple as "History is ended" was an original thought unique to them. She wondered when the hell this roleplay would get sexual. She blazed:

"My mind is a useless sack, so overladen with facts they come dropping out like granules of sand and splatter the floor. You wish to know grand secrets? I cannot even tell you my name. I know all, yet I cannot teach. You know nothing, yet you cannot learn. Your journey is worthless. Your life has both begun and ended in the blink of an eye; all states collapse into one. Look. Look!"

One long and slender finger extended. The chamber had changed, or had as she said always been, for as the light died all grandeur dispersed and only a ruin remained, a wreck of shattered shelves and broken books, a crumbled wall through which an immeasurable moon loomed, its dull glow unable to render the gold its due, so that everything turned either black or gray, everything except the floating motes of dust that shone a pure and total white.

"Why do you even seek what you seek? Eternal life, to elongate your miserable experience? Base metal to precious, to drown yourself in an indistinguishable sea? Prognostication, to stamp out the last vestiges of wonder? Tell me, Van Der Gramme, why you seek what you do."

For a long time Van Der Gramme said nothing. Literally fifteen minutes of nothing during which Harper stared at the screen and read and reread her words, anguished. God, she was so fucking pretentious; so many years without talking to anyone made her forget why nobody talked to her in the first place. The foreboding sense: she lost him. But even that sense was a sense. The anxiety it engendered passed the time instantly and he did eventually say:

"So I checked and you're not Sister."

"I told you that! Who is Sister? You mean YOUR sister?"

"Somebody's Little Sister."

That helped not at all. "Do you want to continue or no?"

Another pause. Not as long as the last, but long enough for Harper to chew off a sliver of thumbnail. "Sure," he said.

"Glory," said Van Der Gramme.

"Glory."

"Yep. Glory. What else matters? I'll suffer anything if everyone knows my name."

Harper considered that answer, her forward arched position finally softening. She pressed her fingertips together. Romantic notion, that. Self-annihilation in pursuit of glory; something about it stirred her. Not for herself, no, why would she ever want glory? But a world, a story beyond herself opened and she saw the pitiful knight Van Der Gramme, so prideful, so cocky and arrogant, convinced of his prowess yet forced to kneel and acknowledge his deficiencies, an admixture of admirable and pathetic. If he had only been one, it would bore her, the way a room of only gold bored her, or a room of only white, or a room of only dust. But the combination created a tension inherently compelling and Harper Praise, ultimate voyeur, wanted to watch that tension resolve either in destruction or exaltation—which, she was not currently sure.

God. These fucking things her brain was thinking.

Not just her brain. Her thighs shifted against one another. "I understand," said the Alchemist. "You'll brave a thousand torments for the validation of others. I understand, of course I understand."

Via motion so languid it seemed like an accident she slipped her fingers under the neck of her gown and pulled the glittering fabric down past her shoulders. The folds layered upon one another as the top of the dress bunched together; what remained of her body diminished the more that was revealed. A pronounced line of her collarbone, the slight shape of her arms which looked prone to snap given any reason. Her vision fixated on nothing.

"No inner world is rich enough, is it?" she said. "We need an other." Her robes slid down her body, her pale body, on the precipice between lithe and gaunt, the slight indentations between her ribs showing alongside the quivering pulse of her inhalations. The robes pooled around her ankles and nothing remained save her heels and her collar with its amber stone. She stared at her upturned palm as though fascinated, as though unable to meet his gaze.

His gaze, however, remained levied at her nude body.

"So all that talk," he said, "was a way to pretty up that you're horny as fuck."

"I change the base to the precious."

They stood, five feet apart, off-center between the rows of shelves, posed like statues, the one jaunty, the other either imperious or shy but in either case distant, while the light bifurcated the chamber, half cast gold and bright, half a black ruin.

"How many years since? Or have you never?" he said.

"I cannot remember."

A wide smirk broke upon his face. "You're a dead end, dear. I don't fuck corpses."

When he turned to leave she stumbled toward him in a flight of desperation that her frail legs could not maintain; falling, she wrapped her arms around his chest and burrowed her forehead into his back as she caught herself moments before her knees struck the ground.

He stopped walking. He was warm. His body was warm even through his leathery doublet and the strips of metal hidden within.

She too was warm. Or rather, not cold. Neither warm nor cold, a middling temperature.

"I'm still alive, I am," she whispered.

"Your head's full of dust."

"My heart isn't."

"You can't remember anything."

"My body can."

"These are the corniest fucking lines I swear."

"Forgive me. I'm desperate."

One firm motion and he swung around, swinging her too, forcing her back against the nearest shelf. A few ridiculously overstuffed tomes dropped and struck the ground with a clang, gold upon gold. He faced her now, holding her head up by the jaw, forcing their eyes to meet even as hers kept shifting aside. He brought her to her full height and then some, her heels leaving the ground as she balanced only on the absolute tips of her toes.

"Desperate's a horrible look y'know. I see desperate every day. They come in droves, they say the funniest shit."

They each could feel the other's breath.

"Are you any different from them?" he said. "They pay me at least."

Despite his grip on her chin, her hands slithered up his chest. One leg lifted, bent at the knee, and pressed its thigh against his hip, leaving the foot to dangle. Tiny white hairs on her forearms prickled as she clutched him with as many limbs as she could muster, held him like a spider as his strength threatened to squash her against the shelf. No matter how close she pressed, though, his body remained remote, hidden behind his hidden blades, and sharp points poked through to puncture her and disperse a few granules of sand that floated in the stillness.

"I can bring you glory." She could not speak above a whisper.

"Can you."

"Fuck me so hard I have no choice but to remember. With my legs and arms wrapped around you, held up and pinned against this shelf, the books falling every time you thrust, until everything spills out and the pages made of curdling gold leaf swirl upward in the vacuum and I scream and all the long dead machinery starts to clank the gears and the cogs turning all the little pieces slotting back into their proper places wet and greased so easily back and forth and in and out sliding, grinding, clanking, destroying the dust that coated their intricate and beautiful parts, rending the spiderwebs spread endlessly between them, I can be real again, I refuse to disappear in this flat nothing, just turn me on, just turn me on you fucker and you'll see, let me in and come in and in the collision of those worlds we'll reach something together, something beautiful, something nobody has ever seen or felt—something glorious."

"What a pretty picture."

With those final words, spoken smirkingly, albeit with a strange sadness, Van Der Gramme vanished.

His body ceased to exist and nothing any longer supported her. She slid down the spines of her books slowly, her limbs enfolding the empty air, until she reached a seated position at the base of the shelf with her legs spread like butterfly wings and her arms crossed at the wrists, palms skyward.

Your friend has disconnected, 4All told her.

Her clothes stitched themselves back around her body, the walls of her office sprung up around her, the same neutral sunlight shone from the same distant window and in that window the same spider waited, patiently, forever.

Her head tilted slowly downward until it tilted no more. She wondered: Should she die? An absurd question. She couldn't die, remember?

She couldn't remember.

[2] Hamsters in the wheel of fortune.

[2] Hamsters in the wheel of fortune.

Harper forgot it was Friday, which meant before she left she had to attend her team's end-of-week scrum. "Scrum," as far as she knew, meant "meeting," but everyone called it a scrum and her boss, Sarah VanBuskirk, even took special training to become a licensed scrum master, which made her uniquely qualified to lead it.

VanBuskirk. Van Der Gramme. His name stuck in Harper's head unlike so many other things. Van Der Gramme, Van Der Gramme, the name an incantation as she sat (although you were supposed to stand during scrum) at the head of the long table in her wing's meeting room. On the left side of the table, engaged in a phone, was Papimon, the site wizard. On the right, shirtsleeves rolled as far as the flab of his arms allowed, was Mark, a documentation writer like Harper.

"Two nights ago me and the missus went to try that new Mexican restaurant on, oh, can't remember exactly where, out by Oppenheimer House, do you know the one I mean?" said Mark, specifically to Harper. "It's called Alberto's or Alvaro's or something-or-other, quaint little place, lovely atmosphere, mariachi band and everything, have you been?"

Harper gave him a grouper face in lieu of a response, which was fine, because Mark continued regardless.

"We had the shrimp tacos. Positively divine. You simply must try them. They use a special kind of cheese, you know, Oaxaca cheese"—Oaxaca pronounced with a sharp aspiration instead of the X—"very authentic. A very authentic experience, I must say."

He spoke using his entire body, causing his aluminum cane which he kept perched against the table to rattle. Mark told the story of his cane enough times for even Harper to remember. As a youth, while hunting (he lived in Africa then, ostensibly in a nation that spoke English, although he wrote it like an alien), a friend mistook him for a wildebeest and shot him, and then accidentally shot him a second time.

Papimon tapped. Taptaptaptaptap.

"It's a good idea to go out and experience life, Harper," said Mark. "You really ought to. Go on, get out, you're young, it's Friday evening isn't it? Have plans?"

Force of habit almost prompted Harper to say "No," but she did have a plan. She planned to find Van Der Gramme. What else could she do? The reality of her life was that she waited eight hours at work every day so she could wait eight hours at home until she could sleep and repeat the process. Out of the straight line of nothing Van Der Gramme emerged and she refused to allow him to escape back into the aether, asshole as he was. Or maybe the assholishness was the whole charm? Something about him got her embarrassingly wet, after all, a fact she struggled to conceal behind her pliant smile and ample nodding to the cadence of Mark's monologue.

"Ah! I see!" Mark winked. "I can see it in your face, I'm quite perceptive you know. So you do have plans tonight, well! Care to share? A young lady like you with a blush like that, you must have a date. How exciting. A coworker?"

A pause in the omnipresent tapping; Papimon sidled a dubious glance through thickly-rimmed glasses at Harper, before returning to the phone.

Harper gnawed a no-longer-extant thumbnail and managed only a sheepish shrug with a grin she hoped would signify an end to this line of questioning. "Oh, you know," she maybe managed to mutter.

(All she wanted was to find Van Der Gramme, to find him and force him to force himself on her, to wrap herself up with him and silence his lackadaisical tongue with her lips, just filthy and disgusting thoughts, nothing major. She just wanted to get on her knees and fellate his hard cock until he came in her throat and mouth and pulled out still coming thick fast hot jets of come onto her face, coating her face in come until it looked like she had no face at all, just a white mask.)

Her horniness was impeding her ability to function even at the bare minimum required of her. Surely her coworkers noticed her constant squirming. Why was she so fixated on him, Van Der Gramme, whom she barely knew? She knew why. The answer was pathetic: She had nothing else.

"Oh, I do know," said Mark. "You must tell me about the lucky guy—or girl. Really now! Do they work here?"

She stared at him, a doughy pink man his hair as white as hers and much less of it, her grin broadening in desperation to find an exit to this conversation, consumed suddenly with the absolute banality of the seconds ticking on the clock above the unused monitor, ticking toward the exalted number 5, ticking while beyond the glass walls of the meeting room and beyond the corridors beyond either wall and beyond the offices beyond the corridors and beyond the koi pond on one end and the parking lot on the other were mountains and beyond the mountains were mountains and beyond the mountains were mountains and somewhere beyond those endless mountains was Van Der Gramme.

"If you want a recommendation of where to go: Alberto's. Or Alvaro's. Really I don't remember which. Oh! Or there's that little Thai place on the hill. Papimon, you're from Thailand, yes? Happen to know the name?"

Papimon, still typing, glared.

"Well it doesn't matter." Mark waved the air away and whistled a psh. "If you need any advice, Harper, please do not hesitate to see me about it. My doors are always open. Besides, my pomegranate tree is finally bearing fruit. I have loads and loads of pomegranates now. Have you ever tried a pomegranate, Harper? Or you, Papimon? You ought to come over and take a few, or I can bring a crate, truly I've far too many. Hmm? How about it now? What do you say? Pomegranates?"

"Maybe," said Harper, "we should start the scrum meeting. Where's Sarah?"

The question prompted Mark to flick his head back and forth as though he would find Sarah VanBuskirk somewhere around the table, only to stop and snap his fingers. "Oh, that's right. Sarah was feeling a smidge under the weather, so she went home early. Really quite awful. I hope she feels better soon, she's supposed to attend the Conference with me next week."

They sat there, scrumlings without their scrum master, bathed under the sterile fluorescence of the rectangular light from above. The voided seats that surrounded the table became all too apparent. Their team, consumer-side documentation (not to be confused with the company's other side, which required military clearance), officially kept eleven members on payroll, but seven solely performed tasks for other teams and never communicated with the true team members at all. These seven ghosts, led by the astral projection of Sarah VanBuskirk, imbued the room with a holy om that reverberated the tabletop.

"Well I suppose I can go ahead and give my status report," said Mark. "It can't be too hard to manage without Sarah do you think?"

Nobody responded.

"I do in fact have something to report, something perhaps a trifle exciting. You see I was talking to an old friend of mine—actually used to work here many, many years ago—anyway, now she's a lecturer on remote sensing at UNM, and I said to her, oh you know what would be wonderful? If you used our training materials as part of your lectures. She has her students out there in the field working with drones, so I thought, if we gave those students specialized training for our drones, then when those students graduate and get jobs doing remote sensing, they'll want the drones they learned how to use in school, which if they're our drones means we're gaining more customers, selling more drones—a win-win for the company. It's low hanging fruit, we've already written the material. So I'm working on assembling what I'm calling a curriculum package to send her, really quite exciting you know."

The second hand ticked round and the hour progressed slowly but ineffably toward 5. Van Der Gramme waited behind it, or a search for him that would gladly devour her time, or at least the ability to strip off her clothes in the privacy of her home and ram her crotch against the corner of her mattress until she cried out. All three options seemed equally worthwhile. Having options was worthwhile.

She caught Papimon's sidelong glance again and averted her eyes, uncertain what expression Papimon saw her wearing.

"Anyway," said Mark, "that does it for my story. Harper? Papimon? Which of you ladies wishes to go next?"

When Harper glanced up, Papimon still stared at her, but said nothing, so Harper had to speak. She did so after a thick swallow of the paste-like goop accumulated in her throat. "Um. Yes. So this week." Her eyes shut as she struggled to recall what she had done. She knew she did something. The words "I met a new friend" tried to force themselves out and the spontaneity of that feeling so surprised her she almost let it happen. But she didn't.

"On Monday, I wrote two documentation topics related to 3D processing. In particular, they covered the creation of point cloud datasets and 3D meshes. On Tuesday, version 6.2 of Aeroware Deluxe released so I ran an assessment to see what changed from the final build and as I suspected several unforeseen bugs appeared that won't be fixed until 6.3. The bugs affect fifteen of our documentation topics. On Wednesday I implemented workarounds in five of those topics, on Thursday another five, and today the remaining five. I've sent all fifteen corrected topics, as well as the two new topics, to copyediting. Copyediting claims they won't get to them until after the Conference next week. That's all."

She expelled a sigh and shut her eyes serenely. Anticipating her participation in these scrums, she stored this information like a rodent in a pouch inside her cheek to regurgitate it for the edification of her boss (when present) and colleagues. Now that she spoke it aloud, Mark remembered what she did this week better than she did.

A few more minutes before freedom. She settled back onto the comfortable, erotic memory from earlier but started with horror when she realized it eluded her mind's grasp. Only the feeling the memory evoked remained; she grappled to find its source, plunged her arms deep into her brain muck, scraped her fingernails across the sediment. She struck something solid, dragged it back up, and allowed her heartrate to settle once the name Van Der Gramme again filled her head.

"Efficient as always Harper, I like it, very businesslike and professional," said Mark. "Sometimes I envy you." Good-natured chuckle. "And the lovely Miss Papimon! Our wonderful site wizard. Anything to report on that whole front?"

Phone still in hand, Papimon turned her palms skyward, a gesture half-shrug, half-holy. A slow shake of her head flattened Mark's question to a single dimension.

"No," she said.

The scrum shattered, the hand reached 5, and beyond the glass walls all the glass doors to all the offices opened as all the employees emerged to escape homeward in unison. Under the fluorescent hum the three-man council of Mark, Harper, and Papimon lingered a moment longer, transfixed in their triptych. Then Mark opened his mouth to blabber something and at the same time Harper rocketed up too fast and knocked over her chair, a bright red-faced embarrassment for which she muttered apologies while correcting as Papimon's gaze weighed on the nape of her neck.

[3] Discovery!—A skull.

[3] Discovery!—A skull.

Van Der Gramme. Van Der Gramme. Harper weaved through the crowds of bodies fleeing the building, possessed by that name, or reciting it to remember, and only after she reached the exit did she realize she left her things in her office. The tide of bodies moved in only one direction, and it took a long time to fight her way back through them.

In her office, among the typical items she carried with her, she also gathered a collection of papers on which she had transcribed the entirety of her conversation with Van Der Gramme after he left. Not only did she intend to use this reading material for prurient purposes, but she suspected some of the lines from when he broke character contained clues pivotal to find him.

The crowd was gone when she left, but as she reached a junction and looked both ways she saw Mark limping down the transverse corridor, emerging out of the shadow of the hallway's one busted light with the steady scrape of his cane an ominous harbinger. "Remember Harper! Remember! Pomegranates."

She darted onward before he caught her.

In the parking lot, where the asphalt roasted and cars drove away in regular order, Harper forgot how to walk and transformed by degrees into a shambling entity and then a boneless blob capable only of oozing. Her inner thighs scraped together, stickily wet. In this state of decomposition she reached her car and slapped her papers against the passenger window as she leaned over to pant. The keys dangled by their ring around her finger and she preplanned the motions necessary to open the door. The wastefulness of time spent standing here made her loath to spend time extricating herself, as if the time needed to enter her car and drive home was by extension also wasteful. Time, of which she had endless, suddenly became a commodity for no reason whatsoever, making these ticking moments both excruciating and inescapable.

But as time passed the agony of her impatience numbed and she became capable again of movement. She raised her head, no longer breathless, but jumped when she saw a face peering at her on the other side of her car.

Papimon, the site wizard. Eyes levied hard upon Harper's face as if via telekinesis keeping Harper transfixed.

"Um," said Harper.

"Yo," said Papimon.

Papimon managed the documentation subdomain that hosted the team's content via practices arcane to all, especially their boss Sarah. Harper and Papimon had spoken no more than a sentence to each other at any one time. Actually, Harper was unsure she remembered Papimon speaking even that.

"Hah—hi." Harper's mouth remained open as she broke eye contact to shuffle her papers into order.

"So." Papimon leaned over the roof of the car with a centipede body, slender and flat, that unfurled to bring her face to Harper's. Her glasses went blank in the orange gleam of the setting sun. "Who?"

"Who?"

"Yeh bro, who." Breath ashen.

"Eh, hunh?"

"Come onnnnn. Bro. Dude. You cannot hide it. I smell you bro."

Harper had no idea what accent she expected from the usually silent Papimon, but California surfer douche was not it. Only the faintest hint of something foreign lurked in the intonation.

Papimon performed a parkour pirouette to glide over the roof of the car and plopped onto gracefully kicked feet. Her arm snaked around Harper's shoulder. "Duder. You got something going on tonight yeh? Action?"

Harper realized she was blinking spasmodically and tried to stop, which she could only achieve by clamping her eyes shut and wrenching them back open. Papimon's eager, giddy grin met her.

"Eh? Bro? You're like a completely different person dude. Usually you walk like a robot, like bzzrt bzzrt." Papimon demonstrated with herky-jerky motions of arms and legs. "Now you're like, whoooooa!" A limber swoon.

The thought flashed that Papimon was unveiling herself as the same prying personality as Mark, a thought Papimon telepathically intercepted and refuted by adding: "I'm not Mark, come on bro cut me some slack. We're the same age, he's like sixty and bored of his wife and kids—aw for fuck, guess who?"

Her hands reoriented Harper's gaze and sure enough, at the far end of the parking lot, scraping his cane along, Mark appeared from the shade of the decorative trees and inexorably approached.

"This way." Papimon pointed a route through a few cars down an embankment to another section of the parking lot people only used if they had no other choice. "Come on bro."

"Uh, but, I was about to leave."

Papimon dragged her along anyway and Harper failed to resist. They skidded down the dead grassy slope of the embankment and Papimon squatted beside a car as though hiding. Harper knelt too.

"Alrighty. The deets, gimme em duder."

"It's really, uh, it's not what you think."

"Yeh the fuck right bro. You have transformed. You are like a real breathing human being now, dude, you dig? I am detecting actual human emotion from you. Well maybe horniness is an animal emotion but hey! Come on dude."

Through thick rectangular lenses Papimon's eyes begged Harper, pleaded. Her hands, clasping Harper's, trembled. Trembled so fast it wore down Harper's wrist joints. A row of yellowish upper teeth clamped down on a lower lip.

The desperation thawed Harper; in it lurked a kinship that pierced her defenses. Besides, Papimon was a girl too. She might better understand this incomprehensible fluster that gripped Harper over an imaginary internet person who flipped her off and ditched her. Harper looked down at her papers. "What the fuck are you," Van Der Gramme said, his first distinct line of dialogue.

"It's, well it's—nothing really," said Harper. "Really. I don't even have a date tonight."

"Wahhhhh?"

"Yeah. It's more like, I met someone, on the internet."

"Dude. Bro. An e-date? Cam sesh? Lowkey kinda hot though, stripping on camera?"

"N, no, not even like that. Really. The guy he, honestly he left without giving me any kind of, you know, contact information."

Papimon retained her jittery grin until the words processed, at which point she instantaneously flattened. "Bruh."

"Right. Like I said. It's nothing."

"Then the fuck you so excited? That's all I really care about dude, the excitement. Like whoa, you seemed so fucking happy, that's the buzz I NEED."

"I planned to try and find him tonight. I guess I was excited to have something to do."

"Ohmyfuckingod."

"Yeah, I know. It's uh, pathetic."

With a hand on Harper's shoulder Papimon sagged her head as low as it would go, to the point it seemed her head would swivel into her chest like a foldable action figure. But then her other hand, acting independent of the rest of the body, rose aloft and snapped a crisp clean thumb and forefinger to reactivate her. When her head lifted and her nose stopped millimeters from rubbing Harper's she twittered electric with renewed energy.

"Yo. Yooooo. My absolute dude. If something that fucking stupid is enough to soak your shorts, then I have the most bonkers plan cooking up in the brainpan. You ready? This plan's gonna blow your fucking mind bro. What if we"—she fanned her hands in pantomime of a rainbow—"just fucking did something?"

"Nnh, hrngh?"

"We hop in the car, drive down to Santa Fe, and fucking, I dunno, prowl the bars. Dance. I wanna fucking dance dude, I got moves I'm telling ya. We barhop, wild around town, just fucking lose it man. Whaddya think my broseph?"

What Harper thought mostly revolved around disentangling Papimon's huskily-rendered slang, and then when she finally realized what Papimon said she bit her thumbnail. The concept of going somewhere and doing something felt forbidden. It lacked tangibility. Even in her fantasies she languished in a dusty tower to which she bound her soul for eternal life; leaving this mountain fortress must coincide with dire consequences.

A melodramatic line of thinking at best and a self-fulfilling prophecy at worst. Besides, Papimon clearly wanted it. She excited Harper a lot less than Van Der Gramme, maybe because nothing matched that initial spark in the void, but a friend—could be beneficial.

The moment Harper opened her mouth to answer something scraped from atop the embankment and both Harper and Papimon froze, alert.

A second later, another scrape.

Another. That same, slow, rhythmic pattern. Drawing closer.

The rounded top of a mostly-bald head emerged over the crest of the embankment.

A sharp yank dragged Harper a full two steps and by then Papimon was running with a vise grip on Harper's wrist. "Gogogo," she hissed as Harper struggled to maintain enough combined speed and coordination. Her feet tangled and she started to fall, only for Papimon to somehow intuit her falling and slide herself into Harper's downward trajectory, catching her and helping her up so quickly that in the end Harper never really fell and it didn't slow them more than a moment.

They reached a boxy, dirt-plastered sedan of indeterminate color. Papimon released Harper and slid over the hood while clicking the key overhead. The car chirruped, immediately doors started opening, and Papimon spouted imperatives for Harper to get inside.

Which Harper did. The interior, all fuzzy cloth, smoldered. Both cupholders overflowed with cigarette butts; an ash smell pervaded. Things hung from the ceiling and Harper batted at them before discovering they were tie-dye t-shirts strung from plastic coat hangers.

"Doordoordoor," Papimon said as the car spurted alive and they lurched backward.

Harper slithered into a sitting position, leaned out to reach for the door slapping at the end of its hinge, would have fallen if Papimon didn't grip the back of her collar, and shut the door. She went for her seatbelt next, by which time Papimon already managed a maniacal maneuver between the remaining parked vehicles. As they swerved, Harper glanced through the grime-coated windshield aflare with sunset and saw him atop the embankment, only a silhouette, one arm raised with his cane as he waved them goodbye, their castle-like workplace behind him and the endless ponderosa pines that undulated across the mountains beyond mountains behind that.

They rounded a corner. Papimon wheezed nasal laughter, clutching a death grip on her steering wheel as she darted onto a sleepy side street and slammed her horn five times to brute force a squadron of hockey stick-wielding kids out of her way.

"What are the chillest hangouts in Santa Fe bro?" said Papimon while children fled screaming before her.

"I forget if I've ever been to Santa Fe."

The car did a ninety-degree turn at a stop sign with zero application of the brakes and Harper's body flattened against the window.

"It's a place people actually live so there's gotta be something right?"

"No clue."

They reached the arterial that led out of Los Alamos and Papimon waited begrudgingly at every stoplight, her foot tapping hard enough to shake the car as her hand stroked the emergency brake up and down, up and down, up and down.

Papimon's head jerked toward her. "You do drugs?"

"Uh, uhm—hhgh? I don't, I don't remember?"

"We'll see what happens then."

The light turned green and they finally escaped their company town as they jockeyed with a few other cars on the narrow route down to the desert carved into the side of the mountain. Over the rickety metal railing that divided them from abyss a cake layer skybox poured its waning energy to set afire a vista of crag and rock. A vista not so terrible as Harper may have imagined. Serene in its inhospitable stillness. Beautiful, when viewed from above, like an observer peering through a portrait frame. Two people stood impossibly distant amid the nothingness. Or maybe they were wild dogs. She squinted to see and—

A semitrailer screamed up the other lane and tore Harper's eyes from the view as Papimon, washed away in the sunlight, cackled in gleeful abandon and deepened her lean over the wheel. The speedometer needle rose and Harper's stomach tugged.

"Ah—um." Swallowing, Harper tried louder. "Maybe, slow down?"

They did not slow down. Round the sheer slope of the mountainside they declined rapidly until the road finally levelled and they emerged onto the same rugged waste from the view above now darkened enough for Papimon to switch on the headlights. The two people were gone, or else too small to see, or else Papimon and Harper were now the two people. Sparkles manifested on the horizon: Santa Fe. For a moment Harper forgot the desert and allowed herself to be taken in by that glitter, to believe in the something that surely existed there, the unknown adventure with her new friend, Papimon (surname unremembered).

But Santa Fe was nothing.

Harper and Papimon emerged from the sedan at a random street because Papimon got impatient waiting at stoplights. They meandered down a sidewalk past chain convenience stores and fast food joints. Papimon took exaggerated staggered steps that sank her body lower to the ground while she cast her arms to the sky and threw back her head. Harper felt like sinking too.

Thus began a pattern. They would walk a Santa Fe street, find nothing beyond maybe an old adobe church, drive somewhere else, find nothing there either. Papimon caved (although she called it "cheating") and looked up bars on her phone, but the only results were franchises advertised as "Bar & Grill." Casual spot for southwestern cuisine! Airy sports bar with live music and brunch! Sophisticated eatery for tapas and wine!

"But where are the party spots bro? Where's the crazy shit? Fuck!" She almost chucked her phone but instead passed it to Harper to thumb over the search results.

"Some of these places might have good food at least."

"I hate food! Food's for people like Mark. I hate Mark!"

Hate sounded too strong to apply to anything in Harper's life. "Is he really that bad?"

"In those meetings, hearing him talk and talk and say absofuckinglutely nothing? Bro. Makes me wanna:" Papimon crafted her hand into a pistol, stuck the barrel deep into her mouth, and blasted away her brainstem.

"Why don't we eat and ask the waiter if there's anyplace in town for dancing?"

This proved acceptable, or at least acceptable enough, and soon Harper and Papimon sat across one another at a sports bar Papimon's phone described as "a festive mainstay with American fare." The festivities arose from the sheer multitude of kitschy americana plastering every conceivable inch of wall space, from maps of the United States made out of beer cans to old movie posters of long-dead starlets to quirky parodies of that painting of the farmer and his wife to dad-approved plaques bearing fishing jokes to 1950s Coca-Cola advertisements. The fare, according to the menu, included fifty varieties of hamburger.

Harper ordered a hamburger. Papimon ordered a cocktail.

Because it was Friday night, the place was packed. Asking the waitress for anything proved an impossibility as she blitzed from table to table hastily scribbling orders. But the cocktail satiated Papimon, at least for the moment, and she soon added a second, then a third, while Harper waited thumbs twiddling for her burger. She figured she ought to talk to Papimon about something, but realized she lacked any idea what people usually talk about.

"So," she said, but it was unclear whether Papimon heard her over the bar's bustle, so she said it again, and again, and finally on the fourth "So" elicited a response potentially recognizing her. "So what exactly does a 'site wizard' do, Papimon?"

"If you talk about work I will climb over this table and throttle you to death. Dig?"

"Fair enough."

Time elapsed. A fourth cocktail contributed to the collection. Harper's posture shuffled into factory default settings, spine straight and fingers thatched, while Papimon slumped deeper and deeper.

"You know, um, your accent. It's not what I, expected. Did you study in, uh, California? Or are you from there, or something?"

Papimon choked on her drink and lowered it holding a cupped palm under her chin to catch the neon blue dribble. "Hkkh, akh, I'm from, no I'm from Thailand. Never been to California." She swallowed and slapped a fist against her chest. "I literally just started doing the surfer accent when I met you. Bro."

"Oh."

"I figured I better have some personality. Right? To woo you of course. I had to be more appealing than your internet boyfriend. And maybe if I had a personality, you would too."

"Did I?"

Papimon smiled sadly. The waitress clapped Harper's hamburger onto the table.

Yeah, Harper knew the answer. Nothing comes of nothing, after all. Did Van Der Gramme see the same? Did he recognize the hollowness, was that why he left?

Desperate, Harper sharpened a smile on her lips and said, "Guess Oi'll jurst have t'speak in a cockney accent then, innit luv?"

A blink. "Holy shit." Papimon giggled tipsily. "Never do that again bro."

"Oh, and your accent was so much better?"

"Of fucking course. Look at me. I can do any accent imaginable. Watch:" Papimon cleared her throat. "American. Ordinary, normal, I assimilate. Southern. Hint of a twaaang, maybe toss in a y'all. Fob. Dis how I spik, so American unda-estimate me." She tapped her forehead. "Not just English either. French, German, Italian, I blend in anywhere. Chinese, even though my sister's the one in China. And for work, I mastered the best accent of all." She gestured zipping her lips.

"Wow. Impressive."

Harper, of course, lacked talents to share. (Was that true? Could she search and find something?)

A fifth, actually a sixth, cocktail arrived. An army of oddly-shaped glasses divided Harper from Papimon, like alchemist glassware. "Yeah no though bro, I think I'm sticking with this accent for you, like totally."

"For me?"

"Bro. This accent is hella funny. And your reactions? Gold. I love it. This is the catalyst of our friendship, for real bro."

The catalyst of their friendship. Harper liked that phrase. Now she had a real new friend and all it took was the tiniest bit of animation on her part, the slightest increase from her typical dull existence. She thanked Van Der Gramme for unsealing the machinery and letting some dust out of her head.

Several cocktails later they exited the sports bar laughing over some joke into a square at the end of which an adobe church pierced the moon with its spire. Everything finally cooled and a revitalizing chill spread through Harper. She gripped her arms around herself and Papimon jabbed her above the elbow and dropped another remark that made them laugh despite probably not being funny. Papimon still wanted to go places, and sure, why not? Why not stay the whole night? They could bounce from sterile sports bar to sterile sports bar with their energy constantly refreshed by each other's company.

Happiness, fun! This one moment of bliss dispelled forgotten years of blank. Zero returned to where it belonged, a mere hypothetical. And it was so easy, had been so easy all along. Why did she ever not have fun?

They reached the steps of the church, magnetized to its distinctiveness albeit with little understanding of why nor intention to enter, when Papimon dropped to her knees and vomited.

Harper only noticed after the vomiting had gone on for several seconds. At first she thought Papimon intended to perform some theatrics at the expense of a religion nobody in this world believed in or cared about, and this thought transfixed itself so that she could stare at the multicolored fleshy-chunked slop spewing from Papimon's mouth and see nothing at all. The retching, however, the horrid chokes as Papimon's chest undulated to force up more bile, Harper failed to ignore. She spent another stunned moment staring at the growing drip painting on the sidewalk and then moved to action. She knelt behind Papimon and extended her arms to, she didn't know, do something, maybe hold her or her hair (not that Papimon had long hair), but instead her fingers hovered an intangible distance from contact.

"Gnnkkff; hllllgggkk," said Papimon. Another torrent jetted out. She coughed, turned her head to the side and spat, turned back and barfed again. Red whorls mixed with the other vibrant colors. Papimon's glasses slid off her face and landed lenses-down with a splat.

Finally Papimon extended a shaky arm to the bifurcated moonlight. "I'm finished now." Blood ran from her left nostril, but she retrieved a small pink square of fabric from her pocket and blotted it with deft motions despite her otherwise lazy sway.

"You, um, you're okay?"

A flick of the wrist unfolded the pink square into a slightly larger pink square for additional blotting. She plucked her fallen glasses by the ear hook and after an audible shluck extricated them from the bilious mire, chunks of which sluiced off the lenses.

Papimon squinted. "Can't see for shit."

She motioned to put her glasses back on but Harper grabbed her wrist. "No, it's fine, let's get back to the car and clean you up."

Papimon's car, although chock full of junk, contained little in the way of cleaning supplies, even impromptu ones. Cigarette butts, colorful clothes Harper refused to ruin. The only paper was Harper's transcription of her conversation with Van Der Gramme. She picked up the first sheet and prepared to use it to wipe the lenses, but read the line "What the fuck are you," hesitated, and lowered it back onto the other papers.

"It's fine." Papimon used her blood-drenched pink square to wipe the glasses instead. "Don't worry about a thing—bro."

Wiping the glasses failed to render them usable. In fact, the rotten stench remained, mingled with the ashes that imbued the car's interior for a unique blend of cremation and decomposition. Papimon tossed the glasses into the cupholders with the cigarette butts and sagged so deeply into her chair that her lower body folded like a contortionist.

"It's okay," said Harper. "I'll drive."

On the way back, as they climbed the mountainside and Harper became blinded by the headlights of every vehicle moving the opposite direction, Papimon muttered something Harper did not at first hear.

"What?"

"Your eyes. I can't see shit but I can still see your eyes."

"My eyes?"

"They're red."

"They are," said Harper. And her hair was white.

"That's really pretty." Papimon turned her face toward the passenger window and sobbed.

"It's okay," said Harper, absentmindedly, trying to focus on not losing herself on the curved road with nothing but a painted line dividing her from oncoming traffic, trying not to explode and die in a fireball.

"I fucked up, I fucked up, I fucked up, I fucked up, I fucked it all up," said Papimon.

"It's okay."

[4] Teatime witches who sneer at the uninitiated.

[4] Teatime witches who sneer at the uninitiated.

Harper got home, too tired to sleep, and slid to a sitting position on her carpet with her legs spread and her papers fanned in an arc before her. Out of the frustration of her Friday night her original plan remained: Find Van Der Gramme.

This task might have appeared impossible. The site 4All maintained anonymity for its users; nobody owned an account and nobody could be traced, at least not by any method known to Harper. New friends once discarded disappeared into the aether, never to return. She always retained the option of brute forcing it. Consider 50,000 users, consider the speed at which she could click the button and cycle new friends, and the odds of matching again with Van Der Gramme eventually reached a level of feasibility. All it required was time, which she could gladly spend.

However she need not resort to such tedium immediately. Van Der Gramme dropped multiple hints as to his identity. (She reread the transcript to remember them.) First, he mentioned the "name" of someone he knew. "Name" in quotes because it was obviously not a real name. "Somebody's Little Sister," he called this acquaintance, each word capitalized to suggest a proper noun rather than a simple series of morphemes arranged in a logical pattern. Ergo, a username, which meant she might be able to search for it online. Second, he emphasized the phrase "History is ended." In particular, he claimed he said the phrase "in a video just last week." While videos were not necessarily online, Harper suspected his was. She could thus search for it.

She searched for "Somebody's Little Sister." The first result was a quote from someone named Tom Petty:

"When you kill somebody's little sister with a missile, he's going to hate you forever. And the next generation will hate you even more."

Potentially poignant, but irrelevant. However, after sifting pages of results, and even refining the search to erase Tom Petty from the equation, she encountered nothing of value. The phrase was simply too generic.

She searched for "History is ended." The first result was also a quote, by a likewise arcane personage named William Saroyan:

"I should like to see any power of the world destroy this race, this small tribe of unimportant people, whose history is ended, whose wars have all been fought and lost, whose structures have crumbled, whose literature is unread, whose music is unheard, whose prayers are no longer uttered."

Again, even when eliminating Saroyan from the search, the results gave nothing of note. Academic essays, mostly. She went to popular video sites, repeated the search, and received nothing.

Her eyes closed. Her hands pressed into the form of prayer. The brute force option remained and in truth that option thrilled her, two whole weekend days to click the button and dispense friends until she found the friend she wanted, an utter obliteration of self into pure automation, blissful function with even a little hope to nourish her—but her brain, in being used, stimulated that sense of purpose even more. She took pleasure in her resourceful ability to pick apart snatches of information from agglomerations of text. She took pleasure in being intelligent and knew that once she had indeed been intelligent. Of course she had to have been. The economy remained in perpetual state of disrepair. People who graduated college nowadays possessed only debt, yet she, Harper Praise, lived in a condominium and owned a car and worked the type of job seemingly accessible only to people the age of her parents. She must have been intelligent, more intelligent than her peers, to achieve this paradise vision fostered by sitcoms of a bygone era. For her, everything was permitted. Yet her achievement stagnated the very thing that made the achievement possible. Well, here she was to restart the machine. Or rather, Van Der Gramme restarted it, and Papimon greased the wheels, and now sleep could never be attained.

Van Der Gramme. Such a distinct name. Why did he pick it for his character? Perhaps it was a character in some story she forgot or never knew. If it did originate from media, then she might be able to refine her search to communities dedicated to that work. Whereby she might find the user Somebody's Little Sister and thus their elusive friend, the human being behind Van Der Gramme.

She searched for "Van Der Gramme."

She found him.

First result. In fact, all the results on the front page. They belonged to social media accounts with descriptions like:

"Greatest living artist. NSFW 18+. @MimmyWowzers sucks my dick. Don't like the art, you can suck it too."

Clearly the same man she met at the top of the tower. Still she hesitated before clicking any link, a trepidation designed primarily to elongate her unexpected excitement, although it also arose out of anxiety that she had, as in life, achieved her goal too early and too easily, and that once she examined the existence of Van Der Gramme beyond 4All she would find in him nothing.

(She couldn't believe he used his real name for their roleplay. Well, not his real name, but his real online ID. Yet given what she knew about his personality, it tracked.)

Finally she clicked the first link. It led to a popular social media site called Twitter. Here Van Der Gramme maintained a centipede trail of posts at semi-erratic rate that averaged to about three per day (albeit skewed by outliers). Under a profile picture that was a drawn depiction of a bearded, black-haired man behind massive sunglasses the posts began with the most recent:

"Alright chucklefucks who sniped me on 4All"

Dated ten hours prior. Harper calculated and determined he must have made the post either immediately after or during their conversation. That the post was, in fact, about her, even if she only existed within it as a ghost. She read later posts but they had nothing to do with her and she failed to understand most of them, being either inundated in slang or else grammatically opaque. One series of posts, made within minutes of each other, contained only keyboard smashing.

He had 137,800 followers.

Once a week he posted a "work of art"—his words. Harper, however, could not see any of the works of art, because they were hidden behind a gray square that read "This image may contain mature or explicit content. Please sign in to verify your age." She could click the censored images and read the comments, though. While the responses to his ordinary posts varied depending loosely on coherency, his images always garnered a strong response. Reply upon reply of positive feedback, sometimes as innocuous as "Great job," often more like "Ohmigod... I wish that was me... getting all of my holes filled... getting cummed in over and over... I've been a bad girl daddy..."

Hours passed. She scrolled, reading his posts, reading the comments, envisioning the appearance each artwork past its censor, eager even to piece together his rambling philosophical statements. The rabbit hole deepened and each deepening elongated her body further as she dove headfirst into it, a hole perfectly shaped for her continued advancement.

In the roleplay, her character—the Alchemist—jeered Van Der Gramme with the suggestion he was her golem, a being created by her for a few moments of entertainment within her endless, monotonous existence. Only narrowness of perspective made that jest possible. She uncovered here a certain richness, weighty and meaty as it sludged between her clenching fingers. His activity spanned years. She lost count of how many works of art he posted. She knew, of course, she could sign up for an account and discover what lurked behind the gray boxes, but she abstained. For now. To give herself something to anticipate, to stop her from expending this resource too quickly. Besides, she discovered something even more surprising.

Van Der Gramme made money. He made it ostensibly via commissions, whereby his followers paid him to draw an image to their specifications, but many of his posts declared commissions were closed and none ever said they were open. She found out why. Van Der Gramme received monthly donations from his followers, or at least 605 of them, via a site called Patreon. These patrons combined sent him $3,318 a month—nearly half of what Harper made.

How, she thought. How can he be an artist and make money? That was the craziest feat of all. She didn't know artists still existed. Yet here he was, equipped with a living wage, just to draw. To create something out of a blank, white canvas.

Maybe it was the creeping fatigue as the hours stretched deeper into Saturday. Maybe it was the lingering image of Papimon trembling in the passenger seat, skin gray as ash, or the silvery spiderweb and its waiting patient spider inside. Maybe it was the thought of a chamber made of gold and dust. But Harper had to grasp this Van Der Gramme. Had to hold him. Had to speak and embody him, had to exist within his world in order to escape her own.

Harper Praise was falling apart. Down this hole the walls were snug enough to hold her together. And it was warm too, the warmth of dirt.

She made an account on Patreon and became the 606th patron of Van Der Gramme. She donated a single dollar per month, a dollar she did not even need to think about because money, like time, was an inexhaustible resource. In becoming his patron, she received certain benefits, particularly access to his private chatroom, hosted on yet another social media site, Discord. (How many of these sites could possibly exist? She wrote her usernames and passwords on the same sheets she used to transcribe the roleplay.) Breathing in, becoming aware of her physical presence in her empty living room, where she sat with her back against the plaster wall and her laptop between her legs, she savored this moment, drew it to its fullest, aware once the moment passed and she entered his chatroom she would never reclaim it and the memory would fade like everything else. When the moment could no more be stretched upon the rack, she delved inside.

"Welcome to the Consortium, Alchemist!" said the receptionist upon Harper's entry, using the name of Harper's account. "Be sure to read the rules before continuing."

An elegant lobby; like a hotel where middle class families go when they splurge on a vacation, but with a dusky after-dark demeanor, a lounge-like coolness as sparse lamps barely illuminated scarlet carpet and mahogany walls. Scent of polish. Small details, like the bell on the receptionist's counter and the knobs on the many doors, glowed brass.

But the receptionist herself was pale and blue, both her skin and her hair, not like an alien but like a photograph on a storefront window bleached by years of sunlight. She looked copy-pasted from some other environment.

Harper, after a cautious glance over her shoulder, leaned against the counter. "Yes. I'm looking for Mr. Van Der Gramme."

"Be sure to read the rules before continuing!" With a jerky, animatronic motion the receptionist twisted her upper body ninety degrees and pointed an upward-turned palm toward a door branching off from the lobby, upon which a sign read "Rules."

"Right." Harper took a step toward the Rules room, then another, all while watching the receptionist's smiling gaze, then opened the door and went inside. A large book on a desk—the room contained nothing else—explained the rules of the Consortium. The first rule: Absolutely nobody under the age of 18 allowed! The other rules, which Harper skimmed disinterestedly, expressed generic pleas for civility. They also contained a substantial subsection about proper etiquette for advertising one's own artwork which Harper boiled down to a simple No Soliciting.

"Alright, I read them," Harper said upon reentry to the lobby. "Now, I'm looking for Mr. Van Der Gramme. Where can I find him?"

The receptionist twitched. "For Van Der Gramme's works of art, please go to the Art room. For Van Der Gramme's social media feed, please go to the Social Media room. For discussion of Van Der Gramme's works of art, please go to the Art Discussion room. For discussion of other Van Der Gramme content, including his social media posts and videos, please go to the Rumpus Room room. For general discussion, please go to the General room. For memes, please go to the Memes room. Remember not to post memes in other rooms unless relevant to the discussion! For discussion of video games, anime, or movies and television, please go to the Video Games room, the Anime room, or the Movies & Television room, respectively. For serious (political) discussion, please go to the Serious Discussion room. For venting, please go to the Vent room, and please do not vent in other rooms. For erotic roleplay, please go to one of the ERP rooms. For posting and discussing works of art made by other artists, please go to the Fanart room. Thank you!"

"Yes, but where is Mr. Van Der Gramme currently."

The receptionist said nothing more. Harper decided to search by herself.

A corridor led from the lobby and contained most of the doors, lined with mathematical precision and labeled how the receptionist described them. Harper opened the first door, just a crack, and peeked inside. Three people gathered around an easel. They stood with their backs to her, their bodies blocking her view of the artwork, and they nodded sagely while murmuring in low tones. One pointed at something.

"Really wish she had bigger tits."

Harper laughed and all three shot their heads toward her and she retreated slamming the door.

The next room, and the next, and the next, had nobody in them. In the fifth, the Video Games room, six people lounged on elaborate sofas and armchairs. Two maintained catatonic stares at nothing in particular. The other four discussed a video game called x.Nihilo that half of them had played and the other half desperately wanted to play. One of the people was actually a bird and another was propaganda poster of Vladimir Lenin.

Harper retained zero memories of playing a video game, so the conversation played out in an alien language. She left.

More empty rooms. One with a single person in it, nodding to music unheard. They noticed her eyeball staring through the door and motioned her to join.

"Do you know where to find Mr. Van Der Gramme?" said Harper.

"Hey mommy," the person said. "Wanna stomp my cock?"

They unzipped their pants and immediately a five-foot penis unfurled onto the floor. Purple veins pulsated along the shaft and a small squirt of clear fluid ejected from the gaping tip.

"No thank you," said Harper.

The next room contained two women, both nude save for thigh high stockings, one an elf, the other with rabbit ears. The rabbit-eared one was tied to a bed, each of her limbs drawn to their limit. Other than her long ears, nothing of her head was visible, because the elf straddled her face and humped it vigorously, moaning all the while. The rabbit-eared girl's body, lithe and hairless and yet endowed with breasts pushing limits of believability size-wise and so buoyant they levitated off her chest, twitched as much as her bindings allowed, which was not much, while the bedsprings squeaked.

Harper opened another door and stared down the slope of a mountain at a desert landscape, a waste of crags and dust, and far below beside an overturned car knelt one figure and stood another, the one standing aiming a gun at the head of the one kneeling. Both looked up at her in her doorway suspended over the scene; she retreated.

Only one door remained. Smoking Room, its plaque read. Unlike the others, which shifted décor and even dimension freely as to the needs of each individual, this room matched the aesthetic of the corridor and the lobby. It was clearly an area set aside for relaxation and socializing, organized around a chic central coffee table the shape of a scalene triangle. A vast plane of windows consumed its far wall and beyond those windows only space watched back, a colorful and bright space where galaxies swirled.

Its occupant was a girl about ten or twelve in a nauseatingly frilly pink dress, divorced from the fetters of era in its style, or at least beyond Harper's limited sartorial literacy. Ribbons and ribbons and ribbons, embroidery and ribbons, and ribbons, and ribbons, and a hat reminiscent of a beret from which a clutch of fashionable feathers protruded. Legs crossed, one gloved palm pressed against the cushion of her divan, tiny foot tap-tap-tapping the languid air. Between two fingers she clutched the neck of a glass from which she sipped red wine, eyes shut, smug smile. A little tongue flicked out and licked the wine from her lips which parted to reveal two long, sharp fangs.

Her name was Somebody's Little Sister.

Harper watched the little girl's petticoats half-expecting another gargantuan display of genitalia to emerge, but the petticoats begat only candy cane striped stockings.

"Wild dogs," said Somebody's Little Sister.

"Pardon?" Harper slid through the door and slowly, quietly shut it behind her.

"If you're an amateur hour death fetishist you might say scalpels. Lasers. That's retarded. Like looking at a medical textbook. A fucking, diagram of human organs. Literal autist shit. Everything needing to be in its neat little compartment. Nah. Fuck that. Rip her to shreds. I want to see the body destroyed. Not unmade. Obliterated. Wild dogs is the perfect scenario."

"Excuse me?" Tentative steps took Harper deeper inside until she stood behind the back of a luxurious lounge chair. "I'm looking for Mr. Van Der Gramme."

"Newbie!! Newbie alert," said a new voice, which prompted Harper to scan the room for its owner.

"Or vore," said Somebody's Little Sister, who had yet to open her eyes as she leaned against the divan's curved back. "Your vore thing Car. I'll give you a pass since you're literally retarded but. Why? Just why? Never understand what gets someone off about. Fucking, squelch sounds, inflated stomachs. Now I've seen good digestion art. Body dissolving in gastric acid. But that's rare. Usually they don't draw that. They're obsessed with the eating."

"Hi newbie! Hiya!! Hiiiii!"

"And don't give me some. Fucking. Soft vore versus hard vore distinction. Not arguing semantics. Brainlets always want to argue semantics when they have nothing else to argue. They get backed into a. Fucking corner. And then they start saying shit like. Oh well I didn't say, oh well when I said this word I meant, oh well the fucking urban dictionary definition is. Shut the fuck up. Just shut the fuck up Car. I can visualize your peanut brain conceiving this gotcha. Where you say a woman being ripped apart by wild dogs is vore. Nahnahnah. Not letting you derail like that."

After repeated greetings from the phantom voice, Harper finally found its owner. Or at least what she assumed was its owner, as what she saw had no mouth, or head, or anything except eyes. A pair of eyes, floating disembodied, peeking out from behind the side of the sofa. It took Harper so long to see them because they blended into the oriental patterns of the rug. They were comprised of every conceivable color: concentric rings of cycling rainbow hues. Seeing the eyes made her stare and staring into those colors as they cycled—red orange yellow green blue indigo violet and back to red—displaced her, caused her own eyes to leave their sockets and drift, while the edges of her vision tinged black, the black crawling until only the pulsing colors centered in her vision remained.

Harper wrenched herself away and blinked harshly. The colors remained burned onto her retinas a few seconds, but faded.

"Newbie! Newbie!!! What's your pronouns?! Newbie?"

When Harper glanced again, trying not to focus directly, she noticed fading into view the rest of the body to which the eyes belonged, a woman's head and face and hair, her hands gripping the side of the sofa. Crawling she emerged from behind it, first shoulders, then chest, and stomach, and then hips, and finally the long, long snake tail that was her lower body. The upper body of a woman and the lower body of a snake. As she slithered toward Harper a long tongue flicked out.

Her name was Cariscresco.

Meanwhile, Somebody's Little Sister continued. "Speaking of derailment. Let's loop this back to the original point. That elf. That fucking elf whore."

Harper thought about the elf riding the bunny girl's face, but before she thought long Cariscresco's lower body snaked around her waist and reeled her across the carpet.

"Just makes me sick. Every season it happens. Main girl of the most popular show becomes by default waifu du jour. Last season that cunt tsundere what's-her-face. Doesn't even matter because every tsundere is the exact same shit. Before that it was, fucking, the chunibyo. God fuck. Hate this chunibyo trend. A chuni everywhere you fucking look. Way for autist retards to pretend cute girls can be autist retards too. But I can't, fucking, get mired in this right now. I'm talking the elf cumdumpster. What's her fucking name Car? You'd remember her fucking name." She opened her eyes for the first time—they were as red as Harper's—and saw Harper entangled by Cariscresco's body.

"Say hiiiii to the newbie Sissy!" said Cariscresco.

Somebody's Little Sister chucked her wineglass at Cariscresco's head. "Car the FUCK are you doing." The glass shattered and the remaining wine splashed Harper's face, but Cariscresco hissed and unraveled and cleaved to the wall as if it would protect her.

The broken shards lay on the carpet a moment, then melted away like ice. The wine ran off Harper's skin and drained into nothing.

"Forgive Car. As I said: literal retard."

"Car is NOT r-worded!! Hiss! Hiss!! So stop saying that! HISS! And for your information!!! Sissy!!! The elf's name is Temporary."

"Temporary. Fucking. God. Of course. Japs hear a random English word and think yeah that's a good name. Anyway. You. Newfag." Somebody's Little Sister narrowed her eyes at Harper. "Alchemist. Tell me right the fuck now. How old are you."

Harper's mouth fell ajar. The question caught her by surprise, despite it being the most rational thing said so far. "I don't remember."

"You don't. You don't remember."

"I don't."

Somebody's Little Sister sighed and rose from the divan, just above four feet tall. In her hands manifested, via flurry of gold dust, a gigantic hammer, the kind a circus clown might use for a mock strongman event. The hammer stood taller than its wielder, who gripped the shaft in her tiny hands and advanced toward Harper.

"Hey, what?" Harper backtracked until she wound up next to Cariscresco against the wall.

"Every fucking day. Some shitter comes in and doesn't. Heed. The fucking. Rules. I'm not dealing with any fucking children. We get enough heat from the puritans as is. If we had under-18s they'd go nuclear. I won't let that trouble fall on the Consortium. Or Gramme. So fucking, sayonara fuckface."

Gramme. Harper mentally honed onto that word, but the looming head of the hammer made her realize she was in imminent, actual danger. If that hammer hit her, it wouldn't hurt, but she knew she would not be able to return here. And then she would never find Van Der Gramme.

She couldn't remember her age but she could deduce, logically, that she graduated college and worked at a real job. "I'm an adult," she said.

"Yeah. Sure. Why lie the first time? I do not fuck around with kids."

"And what, what about you?" Harper slid along the wall until she slid into a corner and truly had nowhere else to run. "How old are you? Ten?"

"I'm over six hundred years old, whore." The hammer hefted overhead. "I live forever and never die. Unlike you."

"I'm—" Harper invented a number. "I'm 20?"

The hammer came down, but stopped an inch from the face of Cariscresco, who dove in front of Harper and extended her arms.

"She said she's an adult!!! Don'tcha ever listen Sissy?! Hm, hm, hm?!"

"She's lying. Obviously."

"It's not obvious to ME!!!"

"The fuck'd I say about spamming exclamation marks?"

"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Somebody's Little Sister glared, turned, and slammed the hammer onto a chair, which reformed the instant it exploded. The hammer went hurtling on rebound and landed somewhere as Somebody's Little Sister effected a shrug and slipped back onto her divan, this time lying and writhing with her legs pumping the empty air idly.

"Miserable. It's all so miserable."

A triumphant glimmer from Cariscresco and she twisted her face toward Harper; Harper averted her eyes. "Yayzzz! You get to stay, Alchemist!! Alchy! Ally!!!"

Nonetheless disappointment infected Harper. The incident elevated her heartbeat to the fore of her attention. A true fear entered her body and with it the thrill of consequence, as though her actions meant something, as though she could make right or wrong decisions. Yet the situation defused meaninglessly, easily, Somebody's Little Sister simply stopped caring and gave up, the ennui creeping upward or maybe outward from Harper, Harper the locus of blankness, and the sense that none of this mattered returned. The sense that she was not actually in a lavish smoking room with a six-hundred-year-old girl and a hypnosis lamia, but an ordinary chatroom with ordinary people wearing masks of characters they knew from some piece of media or another, while the real Harper Praise leaned against the wall in a living room devoid of furniture and clanged keys on a keyboard.

The strand of this artifice was still too thin. Any moment it might snap. Tentative lines rising out the white oblivion bath could not yet sustain a fuller form. Papimon on the church steps, vomiting out their Friday night, drowning all distinction in formless mass.

Van Der Gramme—be something. Please really be something. She can't wait patiently forever. Silver strings of web enclosing, small flies flitting unfree.

"I exist," said Van Der Gramme.

His manifestation surprised them all, like the blast of a shotgun, even though he spoke with neither pomp nor circumstance and appeared without even a flourish. One moment not there, the next there, exactly the same as the profile picture on his social media accounts: shaggy tufts of black beard and sideburns, massive sunglasses that reflected a something (a wall, covered in posters, but not any wall belonging to the current room), and a long gray robe tied by a sash. He appeared already moving and as he moved leaned slightly sideways and snagged a half-empty bottle of wine by the neck, from which he swigged without pouring. His fingers flicked and a cigar appeared in his hand, already lit, and with the cigar's existence emerged the existence of an ashen scent like the one in Papimon's car. He drank, he smoked, he turned and fell blindly backward onto an armchair, one of an endless array of chairs in this room.

Harper opened her mouth to speak but the sound caught in her throat. Somebody's Little Sister spoke instead. "Good you're here Gramme. I'm fucking, nine-nine-point-nine percent sure this guy's a minor. Ban?"

It was impossible to tell where Van Der Gramme looked because his glasses revealed only a different room and cigar smoke enshrouded his face. But he had to look at her, Harper even stepped toward him wringing her wrists, and he had to see her name—Alchemist—and know her. And then he would say, "I know you." And from there...

Van Der Gramme said, "How old?"

Harper forgot what age she said before. She invented a number: "I'm 20."

She turned to Cariscresco for support. She needed an ally, this was her opening salvo and not on terms she expected. But Cariscresco said nothing. Cariscresco had turned to stone. Petrified, gray, skin and scales and even the concentric rings of her eyes, which no longer pulsed. Her face was frozen toward the location where Van Der Gramme first appeared. Then her body crumbled, leaving only a pile of dust.

"He's lying," said Somebody's Little Sister. "First he said he couldn't remember. Now it's 20. Not dealing with this shit again."

"I'm female," said Harper. "For clarification's sake."

"Sure. So's everyone else nowadays. Point is. Serious red flags."

Head tilted back, Van Der Gramme raised the bottom of the bottle and finished in one minute-long swallow. He puffed his cigar. "It's fine, Sister."

But Somebody's Little Sister hopped up again, laxness erased, the hammer back in her hand, and she gallivanted back and forth with a series of absurd skips that caused her beret to flop on her head. "No Gramme. Pay attention. The faggots out there can and will fucking ruin this place over nothing. They'll use any fucking excuse. They'll fucking, dig through your history like rats. Apeshittery all the way down. The end. Comprendez?"

"You're too much energy for me right now, Sister. I just finished this Alchemist artwork. I'm working up the strength to post it, then I conk out the next 48 hours."

"Hey," said Harper, "I'm the Alchemist." Her comment died in nothing. Went unheard.

"Anyway I'm banning this guy. For your own good. For the good of the Consortium."

"He said he's 20, it's fine."

"I'm the person you met on 4All today," said Harper. "We roleplayed together."

Van Der Gramme made a vague, noncommittal gesture.

"Jesus fuck Gramme you roleplayed with him and you don't know how old he is?"

"I'm female," said Harper.

"I'm too dead for this shit," said Van Der Gramme.

The head of the hammer dragged across the carpet in the arc of its upward swing, aimed at Harper's head.

"Fuck you," Sister said.

"No," said Van Der Gramme. He flicked his hand. One of the windows flew open; an invisible force surged through Somebody's Little Sister and launched her into the vast oblivion of space. The hammer flew from her hands and whirled twice before striking the ground; by the time it dropped onto its side, by the time Harper turned to look out the window, Somebody's Little Sister had vanished into void. The window shut.

Harper wanted to say something akin to, You saved me! Something to imbue this happenstance with weight and purpose. But it became clear Van Der Gramme had already forgotten the incident, as though the gesture that banished Somebody's Little Sister also banished the thought from his head. His slippers slid out as he sank deeper into his armchair.

"Okay," he said, to himself. "Okay, okay. Okay. I'll post it."

The room transformed. The armchairs dropped away and what replaced them was the room where the three people stood admiring an artwork on an easel. Except now there were only two people, idly muttering. Their conversation ended abruptly upon Van Der Gramme's manifestation.

He appeared in the center of the room, near the easel, while Harper remained on a fringe. He observed the spectators one by one, giving her no more weight than the others. All went silent. He held the cigar between pursed lips and as the tip flared a new spew of smoke escaped his nostrils and hid his head behind a nebulous haze.

"Base Metal to Precious," he said. One hand swept across the easel and, as it passed, left behind it a new work of art. Harper—and the other two, who were now three, who were now four, now five, six, seven, people appearing in clusters—stepped toward the work of art, crowding to see it. Van Der Gramme clapped his hands. "I sleep." He vanished.

His art remained.

Even a glimpse burned the image into her, aided by the fact that she already recognized it from her own mind. The chamber at the top of the tower, gold and dust, rays of setting sun, shadows and flame. The shelves, the books, the throne, the robes discarded on the floor.

Against the shelves she—the Alchemist—was pinned, her head rolling, one eye shut, the other a single red point that drew all focus to it against the backdrop of gold and black. Around him—Van Der Gramme, the character, not the real one—she wrapped her arms and legs, one thigh in the process of slipping but never slipping, gripping him like a spider, just like her mind saw, as he fucked her against the bookshelf, fucked her so hard the books were tumbling out, one book midway to the ground, two already there, fucking her slender nude body, burying his face into the bend between her shoulder and her neck. The angle of perspective, unusually tilted from a downward direction, was designed so that even in the narrow space between their bodies it was possible to see his cock plunging into her, and the glistening beads of clear fluid dribbling among glowing specks of dust.

Yet it was the expressions on their faces—the expressions. Expressions that seemed like they should not be visible, not at this angle, yet without any awkwardness in composition they were both there, hers looking over his shoulder, his with his cheek pressed to her neck. The expressions told the story. Her one open eye was fixated upon him, upon his body, upon the bare musculature of his back which her fingernails clawed into drawing only dust, no blood, a wild and staring and needful eye, an eye swallowing him up, and yet an eye terrified. Terrified of the dust streaming from his lacerations, the dust that comprised his body.

And he, Van Der Gramme, impassive, bored, or perhaps melancholic, stared past her at the books on the shelf, at one with a title on its spine clear only if you squinted: Homunculus.

The glorious light of the sun fell primarily on the empty throne in the background. They fucked in a desaturated penumbra.

Harper Praise, in her condominium, against her wall, leaned back and allowed the image to consume the entirety of her screen. Only when the image blurred did she realize her tears.

She stared up at the ceiling and allowed herself to cry, smiling the entire time, grinning in fact, laughing even. She cried cherishing the feeling inside her, a feeling she could not describe as either happy or sad, and when she stopped crying, she masturbated until she came.

[5] Persephone returns (six seeds swallowed).

[5] Persephone returns (six seeds swallowed).

"I need to speak to him," said Harper. Phrased euphemistically. Speaking was irrelevant; she needed him.

"???" said Cariscresco, serpentine body draped over the sofa, across the floor, and onto Harper's chair, where she dug her elbows into the armrest and propped her head on her palms. "You didn't already?"

Their private room could be whatever they wanted, but Harper liked the Consortium's aesthetic and thus maintained it. Or maybe she associated the Consortium with positive feelings and clung to superficial signifiers that reminded her of it. Harper struggled to remember liking or disliking anything, possessing tastes one way or another. Things she encountered fell into a generic territory of fineness, neither good nor bad, livable, there.

"It was more like I spoke at him, and he spoke past me. He wasn't all there. He was tired."

Cariscresco gave a single exuberant nod. "Oh! Car sees. Yup-yup, Grammers would do that. Yuppers."

Harper reeled Cariscresco into this private chat despite the seizure-inducing glare of her eyes in hope that this snake creature, with a longer tenure in the Consortium, might provide insight into Van Der Gramme's character. Actually, Cariscresco may have started the conversation. Harper scrolled back through the log and discovered it was so. A single, peppy, unprompted flash of greeting: "10K HIYAS TO YOU!!!"

"You know him decently well, right?"

"Heh-heh!" Cariscresco lifted her chin and clapped a proud fist against her chest. Her comical breasts jiggled. "Car was Grammers' very, very, very first patron!! It's true!! Mhm-mhm. Car's a real patron of the arts, mhm-mhm. Not just Grammers either, all sorts of artists!! He's not even my favorite. That'd be Mimmy Wowzers, except she hasn't drawn anything in a year or two. But can you keep a sneakret? Can you???"

"I literally talk to nobody."

"(Car hears Mimmy's working on a big, BIG new project. And she's gonna unveil it soon. Just you wait Ally!!!)"

"That's probably great," said Harper.

"You know Mimmy right?! You don't do you?! She made Car you know. Mhm-mhm, yep-yup-yepperoo."

"Made... you." Homunculus.

"The very-very last commission she took before her hiatus! Car's own original character. Car just lovesss the eyes, don't you? And the shiny scales! Mimmy's SO-so good at color!!!"

Harper didn't understand. Then she realized: This Mimmy person drew the half-snake avatar Cariscresco used to represent herself.

"But that's not all Mimmy made for Car. Oh-oh-oh!!! Car's gotta show you. Wait here. Car's gotta show you!"

"No that's—" But Harper gave up because Cariscresco already slithered out of sight. At least it gave her eyes a reprieve. But she didn't want to talk about "Mimmy Wowzers," even to humor Cariscresco as part of a trust-building conversation, the way normal people humor others in order to extract what they wanted from them. She lacked the patience. Or the will. Subjects other than Van Der Gramme tasted bland on her tongue.

The surprise was that something had taste at all. Van Der Gramme, Van Der Gramme, was she developing an obsession? Did she care? An obsession sounded good. An obsession with a man who drew pornography, who wore a robe and sunglasses (she found his videos—in which the real Van Der Gramme stood in front of a camera and ranted on various topics—and discovered his avatar was self-portraiture), who smoked cigars, who looked and spoke straight through her. Harper understood, objectively, that at first she had thrown herself into this obsession simply to give herself something to do, that she willfully ignored its uselessness. The artwork changed everything. It was her in it, made so beautiful, but even beyond his technical skill (which Harper had zero artistic knowledge to gauge) he flawlessly rendered her inner self using no more than a facial expression that mingled desire and horror at the artifice of her own existence.

She lived in that work of art. When the other denizens of the Consortium cooed their approbation, the words they said applied to her as much to him, even if none of them knew it. She created it. It was hers. People liked it, loved it, shared it, retweeted and reblogged it. Whatever glory Van Der Gramme attained via that artwork, some shred fell to her as well. Was she pathetic, grabbing at this shred? Of course. She harbored no delusions. But even self-loathing was welcome.

(Harper did eventually make an account and look at his older art. And it was good, all technically sound she supposed, strong use of perspective and chiaroscuro, strong command over human—and sometimes canine, sometimes equine—anatomy, a mien reminiscent of Renaissance masters, or maybe it was only his Renaissance self-styling that suggested that, all good and yet none of it mattered like the artwork that contained her.)

So she needed him. She needed to play with him and create more art with him. Let him refuse to acknowledge her. Let him pose her like a puppet. Just let him give her purpose.

"Here!!" said Cariscresco. A barrage of images slapped themselves into Harper's line of sight, gaudy and bright with every imaginable saturated color as a variety of stylized cartoon characters reamed one another with gusto. The images, in fact, were animated, so that it was possible to see the actual thrusts of one hermaphroditic character (an angel) who possessed both breasts and penis into the anus of another (a devil), the devil's own engorged cock twitching until a spurt of semen jetted into his/her own face. "Hauuuuu!! It's cute of course but!! There's just something about Mimmy, her art like, REALLY-REALLY means something to me?! Deeper than just cuteness, mhm-mhm! Ally feels the same, r-right?!"

Suppressing the exasperated urge to decry these glorified doodles as tacky smut, not even because she necessarily disliked them (she felt indifferent) but because she wanted to talk about Van Der Gramme instead, Harper said, "Sure. They're good."

Which prompted Cariscresco to launch herself squealing and seize Harper in an embrace so tight it cracked the back of her chair. Harper's feet scuffled as the air flushed out her lungs with a vowelless hrk. It wasn't Cariscresco's arms that crushed her, but her tail, coiled three full times to compress her torso stomach to sternum.

"Car knew it, knew it, knew it!!! Ally's a real friend. All Sissy ever says is negative things, but Car knows she only does it because of Mimmy's history with Grammers."

Harper wanted to ask about this history, to gain insight on Van Der Gramme or at least segue the conversation to him, but her head was too busy exploding.

"Hmmmmm-mm-mm!!" Cariscresco's head bobbed, she forced her face directly into Harper's, Harper had a hard time keeping her eyes shut from the pressure. "Does Ally like vore?!"

Harper had no idea what vore was.

"Why don't we find out?!"

A thick glob of liquid dropped onto Harper's head. Harper opened her eyes. She glanced up, where Cariscresco's unhinged jaw hung, dribbling drool or venom from the tips of two long fangs in an immense pitch-black mouth. Harper's head rolled and a stifled groan died in her lips. The crack in the chair turned into a snap as Cariscresco's mouth pressed down on the top of Harper's head. Drool ran in sticky, viscous rivulets along her face and sealed shut her eyes while her feet beat uselessly and her ribs dug deeper into her inner organs. The saliva matted her hair and the top of her skull slowly, slowly, ever so slowly strained into the only-just-wide-enough aperture of Cariscresco's maw, into that oblivion beyond, now her forehead, now her brow, her head incapable of twisting free, all struggle fruitless and vain. A thick coil of Cariscresco's tail—her tail filling the room now, coils upon coils endlessly writhing over furniture and against walls—slipped between Harper's spread legs. A clawed hand somehow penetrated the vice around Harper's chest and seized her left breast.

Harper's resistance slackened. The warm saliva stilled her. An embrace, perhaps of security. An assured finality steadily approached, millimeter by millimeter, moment by moment. Under such circumstances, did Van Der Gramme need to exist? Even this lunatic might suffice. Harper was pathetic, after all, and she knew it, she harbored no delusions. A crushing embrace. A warm feeling. A dark tight end...

A cane scraped the floor behind her.

Harper jolted upright and tossed her phone onto her desk. She swiveled to face the glass wall of her office and there stood Mark, her coworker, perched on his cane and holding up a bloody, beating heart to show her. Except it wasn't a heart.

It was a pomegranate.

"Harper! The exceptional and lovely Harper Praise." He slid the door open and tossed her the pomegranate, which bounced on her spider-crawling fingertips and flopped straight to the carpet. When she stooped to pick up the goopy mess, Mark said, "Oh don't worry about that. I'll fetch you another."

"N, no, there's uh, no need for that."

"It's no trouble. I insist. I insist!"

"Please." Harper stared at the smashed pomegranate on the floor between her knees, wondering what she was supposed to do with it if he wouldn't let her pick it up.

"Well alright then. Say, are you busy right now?"

"No." Her glance went to her phone. "I mean, ehm, yes."

("Ally?! Ally where'd you go," said Cariscresco. "Ally are you mad?! You're not mad are you? Car didn't do anything wrong right?!")

"Excellent, excellent." Mark displaced his weight from the cane to Harper's office wall. "Did you have a good weekend? I saw you and Miss Papimon socializing in the parking lot before driving off together. It's splendid to get out and enjoy life while you're still young. Did you go to that Mexican place I recommended? I hear Miss Papimon likes dancing, did you go dancing?"

Harper had no memory of the last time someone visited her office, so she didn't know what to say to get him to leave. She said, "Uh, um, well, erm."

("Ally?! No seriously you're freaking me out, what did I do?!")

"Miss Papimon is always so, what's the word, reticent. Hardly ever speaks. Hopefully you'll be able to open her up. It's tough coming from another country. I myself came from Rhodesia—well, they call it Zimbabwe nowadays, I always forget"—he made a foolish face—"and I remember it was quite lonely the first few years until I sorted things out. Of course I had the benefit of speaking the language. Perhaps Miss Papimon isn't confident in her English?"

"No, her English is good."

("Ally? Ally? Ally? Ally? Ally?")

"Oh, excellent." Mark nodded and stared at Harper's blank whiteboard, at her empty shelves and bare walls. "You ever given thought to decorating? It's quite gloomy in here. Perhaps a few potted plants. Actually I just received some excellent prints of just the most beautiful drone imagery. Do you know of the Sundarbans? In Bangladesh and India? A vast mangrove forest at the delta of the Ganges. So many tiny rivers and tributaries, and the groves themselves, at least as far as the imagery is concerned, are simply gorgeous. Gorgeous! They use infrared bands, do you know about infrared bands?"

Harper wrote documentation for a company that specialized in remote sensing. "Yes."

"Infrared makes vegetation appear just the brightest, most vibrant red. I really must show you. I received several copies of the prints, I'm perfectly willing to give you some. You can pin them to the walls and maybe the scenery will liven your spirits some, no? It's art—truly."

Art.

("Ally? Ally? Ally? What'd I do Ally?! Ally? You hate me. You hate me. You hate me, nononononononono")

"Uh. No—no, thanks. It's fine, really."

"You sure?"

"Yes."

"You're reeeeeally sure?"

"Yes."

"Alright then." Mark shrugged. "I suppose that's the end of that." He commenced the slow and laborious process of turning his body to leave but stopped before he even really started and pointed a sudden sausage finger. "Oh yes, one last thing—before I forget. Sarah has a medical appointment this Friday."

Harper almost asked who Sarah was, but thinking the name Sarah made her brain automatically append—not Van Der Gramme—VanBuskirk, and she realized it was her manager.

"Long story short, she won't be able to make it to the Conference that day. She wants to know whether you'd be interested in attending in her stead, to help with our booth. Quite last minute of course but given the circumstances she's managed a special exception to clear you for that date."

"Conference." Harper vaguely understood their company held an annual Conference; it was spoken of often enough that it bled into her brain unbidden. "We have a booth?"

"Nothing particularly extravagant, just a stall really, although we do have a monitor set up to showcase our humble documentation site. A great way to make connections and find possible future collaborators. You really should go."

Considering Sarah already "cleared" Harper, she doubted her capacity to choose otherwise. "Sure, I guess. Do I need to, uh, drive or...?"

"Oh no, no no, there's a bus. I'll forward you an email with all the details. Really quite simple, fun even. It's easy to forget real people in the real world use our site. They're such colorful characters, many of them. You may be surprised yourself."

"Okay."

A silence passed.

"Well then, that's it for me. Have a great day, Harper. And remember, if you ever want fresh fruit, you know who to ask."

The cane scraped, scraping, scraping, until it finally scraped out of existence, and Harper remained alone in her office with her smashed pomegranate.

"I'm sorry," she said to Cariscresco. "I had to deal with something."

The stream of messages, emitted unendingly for the past five minutes, ended. Cariscresco went quiet, went invisible, blended into the carpet.

"Really," said Harper. "I don't hate you. You didn't do anything wrong. I swear."

Cariscresco's eyes opened. "Reeeeeally? Ally really-really means that? Ally isn't just lying is she???"

The eyes narrowed suspiciously, which stifled their seizure-inducing tint enough that Harper could look at them while merely squinting.

"Why would I lie?"

Cariscresco considered Harper up and down. "People are mean to Car a lot. People think Car is weird."

"I." Harper considered her next words carefully. "I think I prefer something weird to something boring."

"!!!" All dourness washed away in an instant. "Car feels the exact same!! Normal is BO-RING!! Ally gets it, Ally understands!! Sissy always calls Car the r-word but Sissy hates everything. Ally is good. Car loves Ally!! <3 <3 <3"

Cariscresco started to sweep Harper into another crushing embrace and perhaps resume where they left off, but Harper still needed more pressing information from her, information about Van Der Gramme, and she wondered if this sudden uprush of goodwill might make Cariscresco more inclined toward blabbing. (Not that she expected Cariscresco to hold back even under ordinary circumstances.)

"Wait—wait." Harper held up her hands and for a moment it looked like Cariscresco lacked any intention to heed her; the coils of her tail loosely slipped around Harper's waist and draped over her thighs. "I want to ask you something."

Cariscresco tilted her head. "Hm?"

If Harper made her true goal too transparent, Cariscresco might freak out again. She had to attack from another angle, and dissecting the hypothetical future conversation into a schematic, tactical map helped Harper quickly consider a relevant avenue. "The Sissy you're talking about, that's Somebody's Little Sister, right?"

"Mhm-mhm. Everyone else calls Sissy Sister but Car thinks it's cuter this way, ehe."

"She seemed really unpleasant. Is she always like that?"

Cariscresco nodded vigorously.

"Why does Van Der Gramme allow her to stay?"

Previously Harper gave zero thought to Somebody's Little Sister's abrasive behavior, and she only said it to slip into Cariscresco's better graces, but the moment she vocalized an opinion it replaced an empty space and became her opinion. She suddenly needed to know the answer. She leaned forward as Cariscresco leaned back with a Shakespearean gesture of her hand balanced against her tilted forehead.

"Oh!! Ally you have. NO idea!! People complain ALL THE TIME! Car's a good Car and never complains, but plenty of new friends leave and never come back because Sissy called them the r-word or the f-word (not fuck, the other one!) or some other horrible ugly no-good word. Ally isn't thinking of leaving right?! Car promises Sissy's not so bad once you get past her defenses. Really-really!"

"What does Van Der Gramme think?"

"You won't leave right?!"

"No, I won't leave. What does Van Der Gramme think?"

The folds of Cariscresco's long body rolled off Harper's legs, giving her space to readjust herself. But Cariscresco remained close as ever, weaving in and out and mostly in, first on one side, then the other, then behind, then before, gesticulating madly. "Well it's like this. Where to begin, mhm-mhm, oh yes. So a couple years ago Grammers and Mimmy were dating."

"Mimmy? Who's Mimmy?" said Harper.

"Car just told you!!!"

"You did?"

"HISSSSS! DON'T TEASE CAR!! Anyway! Grammers and Mimmers were dating, totally serious too, like, they even met in person, and Grammers was kind of a, you could say, a mentor to Mimmers?! This was back when Mimmy was first breaking onto the scene, anyway, where was I, what was I saying, oh right, so the relationship ended pretty badly, Grammers really disagreed with the artistic direction Mimmers was taking (though if you ask Car, Grammers was really just mad Mimmers was getting more popular than him), and after the breakup most people took Mimmy's side, in like the public sphere you know, this was the big buzz of the NSFW world for like a month. Sissy was the only person who super stood by Grammers back then, so they've become really-really close because of all that, mhm-mhm. (But Car knows why Sissy did it, cuz Sissy doesn't even care about the art. Sissy just cares about the Consortium.) Anyway that's the story."

Cariscresco finally stopped her schizophrenic bouncing and slid back, arms crossed, seriously nodding.

"Also Sissy's living with Grammers IRL now so it'd be awkward if Grammers banned her, Car thinks."

"What?" Harper shot out of her chair. "Living? IRL? What does IRL mean?"

"In Real Life?!"

Now that Harper was standing, all her insides, which never reinflated after Cariscresco crushed her, sank like a single congealed stone straight to the pit of her pelvis. If she only learned they were dating, that was acceptable, she could wait, she possessed endless time and patience, but if it was serious enough that they were living together, "in real life," then they might get married, they might be together forever, and then where would Harper be? No, no, no. Not this cruel. It can't be this cruel. It can't dredge her up from plain white nothing, give her a little distinction, and then shatter her again. No.

In her frantic pacing she accidentally stepped on Cariscresco's tail, which to be fair Cariscresco's tail was literally everywhere, and Cariscresco yelped and Harper said sorry ten times and that calmed them both down. Simply a flurry of emotion, a sudden rush to her brain. She told herself yet again that any emotion was good emotion, feeling anything at all was good, and it honestly was a little thrilling. Harper imagined herself, the villain of a Victorian period romance, scheming against the protagonist couple, subtly undermining their relationship until they broke apart and left one half for her to take. She would, without hesitation, become that villain, just as she would, without hesitation, become a hero if circumstances necessitated it.

"I'll have to talk to Somebody's Little Sister," said Harper. "And Van Der Gramme, of course."

"Doesn't Ally want to talk to Car?"

"Of course, yeah." But her mind was distracted.

A villain. Yes, a villain. She could perform evil. She could perform good. Her self was a formless mass. She could not remember her own personality. Even the slightest nudge was all she needed.

The door to her office slid open.

This time Harper didn't bother to toss aside her phone. She clutched it, stopped midstep in her circular route. The person was Papimon.

Harper stared at Papimon. Stared down at her phone. The excitement left Harper automatically. It was all fine and well being pathetic when she only had herself to know it, but Papimon's gaze, piercing through her glasses (same ones she wore Friday, but clean), exposed Harper's internal fiction.

"Hello," Harper said.

Papimon kept staring. She hung halfway through the door, her feet firmly planted outside and unwilling to enter.

"Hello?" said Harper.

Papimon swallowed, quickly glanced over both shoulders as though she expected some other person to exist in this corridor.

"Okay," she said. "...Bro." The bro came out as a whisper. Papimon flushed red saying it. "I did research. I know where to go. You wanna hang out this Friday with me again, right... dude?"

The filth that covered Harper possessed a solid, tangible dimension. She felt it crawling on every inch of her body.

"Of course."

Papimon nodded and she maybe twitched a formative smile. But a moment later she pulled herself out of the doorway and hurried down the hall.

Past the location her head vacated, the spiderweb in the courtyard gleamed silver.

[6] Sun shining ecclesiastical.

[6] Sun shining ecclesiastical.

The sun rose on a sleek silver bus winding westward through waves of ponderosa pines, parched and faded plants, swaths on distant mountains burnt brown in years-gone wildfires. Harper sat at the back of the bus, behind rows of her coworkers—men in ties and rolled-up shirtsleeves, women in business blazers with gold earrings, finnicky faces who fussed over scripts for presentations they planned to give—but even from this far back Mark's shiny head rose above the rest. Before Harper boarded (at 4 in the morning, when a ghost aura buzzed across the sky, and after five separate alarm clocks screamed her into existence), Mark accosted her in the company parking lot to babble, but fortunately his handicap confined him to a special seat up front and thus spared Harper his company on the long ride to the Conference.

She chose for her company someone even less pleasant.

"That anuslurking farthuffer Car." Somebody's Little Sister kicked her dangling feet idly, unable to touch the floor except with the very tips of her toes if she strained, which she did on occasion. "What'd I say? I said Car's retarded. You listen? No. Nobody ever listens. And when I'm right they act like nobody could see it coming. Autism. A fucking, plague of autism. Everyone nowadays is autistic. Literally. I count twenty I know. Just off the top of my head. All autists. Ten more undiagnosed."

"So you and Van Der Gramme aren't dating?"

Sister expelled a dry "lol" as she looked around at Harper's coworkers to see if any of them would affirm the comedy. "Car's straight up delusional. Dating. God."

"Alright," said Harper, strangely disappointed, having grown enamored of her self-conception as a homewrecking villainess, "that's all I needed to know. Thank you for your time."

"Waiwaiwait." Sister snapped out of her smirk. "Why do you care?"

Harper did not feel like answering. If Sister and Van Der Gramme were not involved romantically, then Sister offered no value. At least, that was Harper's gut instinct, but on reflection it might be possible to wring from her crucial information. After all, Harper needed a grasp on Van Der Gramme's schedule. Across a week lurking the Consortium, she saw Van Der Gramme only twice, including when he posted his art of her. He manifested at random intervals, often during abominable hours, and usually only to promote his latest social media post in dull disinterest. He never responded to the personal messages she sent him and she refused to send more lest she appear as what she was. Their roles from the original roleplay swapped; Van Der Gramme lived in the tower while she crawled along spiral staircases in search of him.

"Care about what," said Harper, feigning ignorance.

"Care if we're dating? What are you. Mimmy's fucking, spy or something?"

"Who's Mimmy?"

"Don't give me that crap. Everyone knows Mimmy Wowzers."

"Not me."

Sister scrutinized her, through narrowed eyes that communicated (Harper could, in fact, hear the exact syntax in her head) that Harper was a "retard" or an "autist" or, biggest offense of all, a "retard autist."

"I'm serious. I only came to the Consortium because I met Van Der Gramme on 4All. I had never heard of him before that. But it's like he has this entire world that surrounds him, a world beyond my comprehension."

"God," said Sister.

The bus rounded a bend and the sun flooded full bright through Harper's side, erasing her in pure whiteness until the bus descended an incline and another mountain rose to shadow them.

Sister, who shielded herself via quick application of a parasol, shrugged. "Gramme's a shmuck. Trust me."

"But you like his art too, right?"

"Fuck no."

"Then why are you in the Consortium all the time?"

"Maybe ten years ago I liked Gramme's art. Too normie now. Like that picture last week. With the alchemist. He's mad Mimmy's more popular so he does all this, fucking vanilla normiefag crap now."

"I liked that picture."

"Yeah and you're a vanilla normiefag. You probably like that dumbshit isekai with the elf. God that fucking elf. She's literally just. She's literally just your default anime girl but with elf ears. Holy fuck. If she wasn't in the most popular normie anime right now nobody would give a diarrhea dump. But everyone loves the most generic possible feces. So I have to hear about her every fucking day."

"I've only ever heard about this elf character from you."

"You live under a rock?"

"I don't," said Harper, "watch things. Or play games."

"Then the fuck do you do?"

"I go to work. Then I go home. Then I go to work."

Bafflement swallowed Sister's face. She gesticulated in silence at Harper, waving her hands as though trying to draw a word out of nothing, and then she laughed, not a smug chuckle but real, actual laughter, if mocking and bitter. She gripped her stomach and rolled out of the seat, into the aisle in the center of the bus, laughing.

Finally she climbed back onto her knees, her tiny fingers drilled into the cushion for support. "You know." She suppressed a residual giggle. "You're actually fucking funny."

"Thanks."

"It's like," pulling herself back onto the seat and smoothing her unlimited petticoats, "it's like Car. Car's just so mongoloid that I love it. Obviously I can't let Car know that. You can't let Car think their behavior is acceptable. It's your fucking duty to bully the shit out of them. For their own good. How can they function if they act like that? Retards need to know they're retarded. But it's, fucking, refreshing to see someone so blatant about it."

"And I'm the same?"

Sister smirked. "What's your favorite anime."

"I've never seen an anime."

"What's your favorite video game."

"I've never played a video game."

"What's your favorite movie."

Harper got the impression she had probably seen a movie, but she failed to remember any. She shrugged.

"See," said Sister, "you want to know the thing that, fucking makes me so mad? The thing I can't fucking stand about these dicklickers who come to the Consortium and bitch about guro or loli or some word I say that hurts their feelings?"

"What."

"They all think they're special. They think their normie ass takes make them special. They like something every person in the world likes and they think they're, fucking special. Because everyone else likes it they get constant validation that their likes are worthwhile. Are important. Are meaningful. They think because they can like what they like openly in the real world that makes what they like better. When really it's lowest common denominator excrement. Or else so lukewarm it lacks all distinction. Just like them. And they think they're special. Disgusting. But you Alchemist?" Under the edge of a twisted lip a fang showed. "You know you're nothing. I respect that."

"Thanks."

"Never seen an anime before? Lemme redpill you: Le Château de Diodati. Watch it with me sometime. It's short. OVA. Six episodes. Let me enlarge your mind."

"Okay." Harper instantaneously forgot the title. "Do you think you could also set me up to talk to Van Der Gramme? He's never around."

"Sure. Gramme's busy. Takes his autofellatio way too fucking seriously. But he might find you interesting. We'll see."

The bus reached its destination.

Slowly, shuffling, bowing their heads to avoid scraping the low roof, the employees filed out the bus and onto a lone and level plateau, the mountains beyond mountains finally fallen away to reveal dusty oblivion. White sky swallowed everything save a few windswept tents down an oblique incline, a stage still being assembled by hard-hatted workers, and a tarmac runway on which various aircraft taxied. This was the Conference. It had to be here, in this waste land, by necessity of what Harper's company, Crux Calico, did.

Founded by ex-Boeing engineers, Crux Calico carved itself a niche with the bleeding edge of a brand new technology called unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), colloquially referred to as drones. (The term "drone" was verboten in official company correspondence, the bigwigs believing its connotation too negative due to its association with insects.) Crux Calico soon established itself as a leader in the field, with the field at the time being so obscure the company had only one customer: The United States military.

Fortunately, this was a good customer to have. For decades, regardless of political climate, regardless of whether Democrats or Republicans held power, the military's funding only grew. The applications of unmanned aircraft in both reconnaissance and warfighting were clear from the onset, spurring the development of increasingly grandiose, complex, and expensive UAVs. Millions poured in. Crux Calico expanded its facilities, reinvested its profits, and maintained an edge over the competition even as established aerospace firms sought a piece of the pie.

Things were going well for Crux Calico, and originally its annual Conference was founded as a military showcase, with national security clearance necessary to attend. But ten years ago, a problem arose, a problem that oddly enough Somebody's Little Sister might find relatable: Ordinary people started to want drones.

You see, drones proved useful for purposes other than launching missiles at cattle farmers in Afghanistan. Civilian consumers ranging from land surveyors to academic researchers to Hollywood filmmakers to tech-savvy hobbyists acquired a taste for the aerial imagery drones could capture. Obviously, these consumers didn't want unmanned fighter jets. They wanted smaller, cheaper drones with a subset of particular functionalities.

Crux Calico had zero interest in catering to the demands of these UAV "normies." Why submerge themselves in a fickle, fad-driven market that might dry up in a few years? Consumer-side sales required new research and development, new marketing, new everything; failure could tank an otherwise thriving corporation. Crux Calico was perfectly content to let someone else handle the needs of the civvies. The problem was, "someone else" turned out to be the People's Republic of China.

A single Chinese company quickly cornered over 80 percent of the worldwide consumer drone market. Chinese corporations, generally considered extensions of the Chinese government, now had Chinese technology flying through the skies of America, snapping photos of American topology and infrastructure. This made Crux Calico's sole customer very nervous. Pressure flooded onto the company from various NatSec types, old men in camo fatigues or young men in suits and sunglasses, the demand clear: Provide an American alternative in the consumer drone market.

The bigwigs conferred. In each their individual tower, clouds connected their thoughts. With the knowhow bestowed by their collective accounting degrees they determined it would be "low-hanging fruit" for a company that produced unmanned fighter jets to manufacture consumer electronics. Overnight Crux Calico became schizophrenic. Logistical difficulties aside, the company simply did not know how to talk to human beings. For decades it depended upon a single, faithful, immortal American military. It didn't know how to stand on its own, how to interface with the real world. Consultants told it what departments to create, but you can't teach social skills. You can't unlearn autism.

Thus, the Conference. Military clearance no longer necessary. Open to the public, albeit so deep in the desert that Harper would not have expected anyone to come. Nonetheless they came. Consumers from across the country, the continent, even the world, all demarcated by badges. Perhaps a thousand clogged the tents and booths established on the plateau, hidden under hats and streaks of sunscreen. About half retained the military character of Conferences past, either in uniform or with sharp and precise bearing to accompany their crewcuts. The other half was riffraff, company men or academics, rifling through brochures like tourists as they cross-referenced booth names to their maps. The constant churn of sandaled feet across the three main thoroughfares sent up plumes of dust that remained permanently afloat, giving the air a gray luster.

Everywhere Crux Calico employees showcased the latest hardware. Consumer-grade drones, little more than black rectangles kept airborne by six whirring propellers, made daring zigzags over tents. Their buzz proved no match for the occasional roar of the military UAVs taking off from the runway. Harper, lacking directive, drifted where the crush of bodies sent her while trying to parse the itinerary she filched from a passing stall.

Who were these people? Harper passed badges that revealed their origins as Nova Scotia, Pennsylvania, Switzerland, Nigeria. She refused to believe in their existence even as their elbows bruised her ribcage. Mirages, products of the hundred-degree heat (Harper, having spent all her life in rooms, never felt temperatures other than room temperature). Dizzy, she stumbled out of the surge and into a nook between two booths, farther down which a pair of employees(?) smoked in shade.

How could so many people care? Care enough to board a plane, fly to Albuquerque, and drive several hours to this barren plateau? To see drones? Harper wrote documentation for drone software and not even she would have driven here if her manager didn't make her. Some attendees wore t-shirts with puns like "Don't let me DRONE on!" or carried Crux Calico-branded bags. They took out cameras and snapped pictures and as a collective they stopped and stared while three unmanned fighter jets made a pass in formation. They clapped―Vertigo seized her.

Harper needed to find her booth. There she might return to her phone, that other world of Van Der Gramme, the world she allowed herself to pretend held meaning for her. Were these people only pretending this world of drones held meaning for them? Or were these the "normies," and she the "autist" estranged from their human experience? Was happiness denied her as a biological element of her brain structure? Was depression simply retardation?

The people kept churning. The dust and heat forced her eyes to squint. She breathed in the dust, breathed it out.

(Her lungs were full of dust and so was her head. Van Der Gramme saw the dust. He knew the horror.)

She breathed.

(Or was it her who saw a Van Der Gramme who saw the dust.)

She breathed.

(If she put a curtain in front of Van Der Gramme, could she tell herself there was something behind the curtain.)

She breathed.

(           )

She stopped breathing.

Harper stood up. She patted the dust off her blouse and pulled back her white hair. In the distance, a voice on a microphone boomed: the keynote speech began. The tide of people sifted toward the stage. And Harper Praise, desire for death staved off yet again, went to work.

Time elapsed. Time spent in a booth with a Mark who, as the day waned, increasingly looked like one of the tourists himself, first acquiring a pun t-shirt from somewhere (gift shop?), then a Crux Calico hat, then a bag and thermos, and finally a toy drone he said was for his kids. All day people passed the booth to ask questions, mostly "Where's the bathroom?" Harper enjoyed answering that one because the bathrooms were in eyeshot from their current location, so all she needed to do was point. But some asked actual substantial questions about drones and imaging capabilities and training programs and certification, questions to which Harper stammered until Mark returned from his latest foray for memorabilia to sweep gregariously into her place and embark on a grand ramble. He either knew or knew of half the attendees, and they knew him in kind. Their faces brightened when he appeared, hugs or handshakes exchanged, and Harper willingly relegated herself to a footnote.

It became clear she never needed to be here. And so she watched the stage and its speakers and the runway and its aircraft. The company bigwigs, the big men, the old men whose friendly names—Jim and Bob and Mike—reverberated through the campus like an echo. She watched her own bigwig, her boss Sarah's boss, clip-clop to the microphone in his traditional cowboy attire, spurs and bolo tie, to stroke an immense mustache magnificently before whooping a vigorous YEEHA that the gathered spectators imitated in a roar loud enough to blot out the drone that jetted overhead.

By the end of the day, she forgot all of it. Sun set. The drones touched down, the festivities faded, the tourists moseyed back to their cars and buses. Harper moseyed too, pursued by the scrape of Mark's cane as he babbled with an ex-colleague who now lived in Zurich about a discontinued software iteration from the previous millennium.

Keeping pace with Mark, she was one of the last to reach the company bus, as opposed to the morning when she was the first. She passed the same coworkers from before—now dust-strewn and shirts askew and shoulders sagged or already asleep with their Crux Calico souvenir bags as pillows propped against the windows—and reclaimed her spot at the back.

A halo burnt brown over the horizon. Another day done. Like every day before it, and eventually every day to come. Van Der Gramme said: History is ended. That line remained with her. As though there had been a defined point, before her birth or maybe coinciding with her birth (she could not remember when she was born), when all the world's forward momentum ended and everything fell to perfect stasis.

The people on the bus fell to perfect stasis. Nobody spoke or moved. Not even Mark at the front. The driver, pendulous, inched a hand toward a lever.

The lever pulled. The bus doors closed.

They closed on a guy trying to enter. The best word to describe him was "guy," not man or even person. He didn't care that the doors closed on him, didn't even cry out. The bus driver barely noticed and continued the routine of starting the vehicle and only after a comment from Mark discovered the guy caught in pinfold grip. Sluggishness exploded into a flurry of activity, the doors opened, the guy stumbled inside nodding and smiling and even waving at the driver before slipping sideways to navigate the central aisle in search of a seat.

There were no seats. None except the one next to Harper. She had no choice; she removed the loose items she had placed down to pretend the seat was occupied.

"Cool—cool," said the guy to nobody, to her. He wore a pink pastel polo. He carried a laptop case. "Sublime."

His eyes widened. He scanned the bus as though it were a novel concept and his expression was so persuasive Harper scanned it too in search of some previously missed marvel, but she saw only Mark's bemused grin before a hydraulic hiss spread through the inner mechanisms and the bus began to move.

When Harper looked down she saw the guy's hand extended to shake. "Royce. Royce Ru." He seized her hand and shook. "Harper Praise. Praise. To express approbation. To attach value to. Praise, prize. Similar Latin root."

"Uh."

"And Harper. A musician. I visualize an angel harping praise of some god. Do you believe in god?"

"Um."

He withdrew from the breast pocket of his polo a granola bar and tore at the foil without tearing it. "Sublime, wasn't it? The Conference. Catch the keynote?"

Harper had not progressed past the initial point of wanting to know how he knew her name. Then she realized she wore a badge. At the same time his fumbling fingers finally ripped open the granola bar and he bit into it.

"Hwngh hwaff whff fwha," he chewed. He swallowed. "And the artificial intelligence. Want a bite?" He proffered the granola bar.

"No thanks."

He bit again, but this time fell into a pensive stare while he chewed. "It's crazy. They train the drones. Training, teaching. The drones can learn. They're machines, but they learn. Machine learning. They're artificial, but intelligent. Artificial intelligence."

"That is what those words are, correct."

"Dynamic flight paths based on the identification of object classes. The drones decide where to go in order to capture imagery of object classes they've been taught are desirable. Do you know how, just, insane that is Harper?" He tucked the half-eaten granola bar into his pocket and from a different pocket, a khaki pants pocket, retrieved a stick of celery, into which he bit with equivalent gusto. "Think about Tonga."

"About what."

"Tonga. The island nation of Tonga."

Harper balanced her forehead on her palm. Tonga. The island nation of Tonga, of course!

"I saw a video about it, palm tree plantation in Tonga. Thousands of palm trees. We teach the drone what a palm tree is. It knows how to identify a palm tree. It can dynamically alter its route to capture images of things it recognizes as palm trees. You no longer need a person to go out and walk through the plantation and catalog each tree one after another. The drone takes a pass over the plantation and identifies every single one. Because it learned how to do that. Because we taught it."

Harper could default to her modus operandi and uh and ehm her way out of the conversation. Maybe the long day had worn her down, though, because she wanted to fight back. His babble felt like a culmination of the Conference, its insular world of passion and purpose, a direct assault against her. At least, it annoyed her, the sheer nothingness in these words, the nothing that everyone other than her could say was something. Like Sister, she felt compelled to ruin it. To expose it.

"So what?" she said. "Anything a machine does is because we taught it. I can teach a computer to say Hello World. It's not novel. It did exactly what I told it to do. It's code."

"Code!" Like a religious epiphany, the guy elevated two inches out of his seat and extended his hands to the heavens, celery stick still clutched in one. "Code. Codex. Codicil. A cipher. Indecipherable!"

Bah―she couldn't even annoy him back. He was immune. Save her, Van Der Gramme, from these people, their things. Pierce her and see the dust. Say that history is ended.

"History is ended," she said to herself.

"History is just beginning," said the guy. His half-eaten celery stick returned to its pocket. "I'm so glad you brought up code. We call it code like it's a bad thing, like it's indecipherable. But it's a language same as any other. We need to change how we think about it. Literacy in technology, that's the language people need to learn. It doesn't need to be a written language. You ever think about making a video game?"

"No."

"Ludology. It means game. Ludo, ludo." He circled his hands around each other, pantomiming a turbine. Or something. "Reminds me of luce. Like light, like lucid. Enlightenment. Learn by doing. Ludology."

Sure. Whatever.

"There's a language of movement, right? That's the original language, that's the thing that resonates with us most of all. The language of our bodies." He reached for his granola bar, thought better of it, returned to gesticulating. "Dance is a language. I had this idea. Actually I saw a video kind of about it, but then I reoriented it in my mind to come up with the idea. Coding, right? It's this super arithmetic, super logic-oriented... thing. People have trouble with coding, I know I did. But it's so important. You have to know how to code. So I thought, what if we taught code via dance? Think about it. It's just repetitive functions and lists, right? So what if you taught it via repetitive movements? Dance. Ludology. What'd you do in college, Harper?"

"I don't remember. Why does it matter."

"Specialization," the guy said. "Do you consider yourself a small or big thinker?"

"Small."

Royce snapped his fingers, opened his mouth to continue speaking, actually heard her answer, and grinned broadly. "You know. Now that's an answer. Usually everyone considers themselves a big thinker, right? But nobody actually knows the full breadth of everything to think about. Thing, think. I think therefore I thing. Internet of things. Don't mind me, just thinking out loud. But companies, colleges, social media especially―everything creates small thinkers. Everyone only considers their own tiny them-shaped hole. This hole was made exactly for me. You a Junji Ito fan?"

"A what."

"Junji Ito. Wait―here." He rifled through his laptop case, which contained no laptop, and retrieved a comic book. "I love this story. Enigma of the Amigara Fault. Read it."

The book was in her hands before she had a chance to parse his deluge. Seeing the stylized people on the cover, she figured Van Der Gramme must know about it.

"I get carsick if I read in a vehicle."

"Fair. The story is: an earthquake opens these people-shaped holes in the side of a mountain. And it turns out each hole is specifically shaped like a real person who exists. So the people feel this compulsion to enter their hole, do you get what I mean? It's shaped exactly like them. It's for them. But once they enter the hole, the dimensions of the hole start to subtly change. The people become warped, twisted, and in the end they look like monsters."

She started to vocalize a quip about how awful the story sounded, but gave up. Why bother? He didn't hear her.

Maybe the story even made sense. Sure. These people—Mark, Cariscresco, Sister, the Conference-goers, this guy—they had their them-shaped holes, snug crevices where they felt comfortable and everything seemed to matter because their world was coterminous with their bodies. That was how they talked so passionately about such inane topics, how they stopped themselves from desiring to die. They weren't pretending. There was nothing else to think about except the confines that molded them. That's what it meant to be "normal." Perfectly at peace with their environment. Feeling their own holes, squeezing inside them, being squeezed themselves, and no the sexual innuendo was not lost on her, it even made her smile—the morbid tension of her ennui dissipated altogether.

Harper sank back into her seat. Why fight? Just let him talk. No effort required, a type of surrender. At the very least it'd pass the time on the long ride home. His voice washed over her:

"The story's a metaphor for how we get stuck in our niches. Nobody sees the bigger picture, and nothing encourages us to see it. The opposite even. Think about social media, think about Twitter. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, these sites have designed something they ominously call an 'algorithm.' From the Arabic: Al-Ḵwārizmī. Literally 'The Man from Ḵwārizm.' Where the hell is Ḵwārizm? Nobody knows. Algorithm. Tangled, difficult word. Hard to say, hard to comprehend. And that's exactly what the algorithm is. A series of mathematical processes, a series of code in the truest sense, code that nobody understands, code that chooses for each of us our niche. Our own perfectly curated collection of content"—stated with ironical emphasis—"from which we cannot escape. The algorithm shapes what we see. What we think. What we feel. It seems like a me-shaped hole at first, but we come out the other side something else entirely, exactly like Ito's story. Just as a godlike force, an earthquake, opened the holes for the people in Amigara, so too does this godlike algorithm, this Man from Ḵwārizm, spin for us our fates."

Right... right. Spun from nothing a fate for Harper Praise... Matched her out of 50,000 with Van Der Gramme on 4All. She drifted, Royce Ru's voice now pleasant noise, while a peace finally settled. For the formless, a hole provided structure. Mark and the rest had structure. Harper could believe in an algorithm. She could believe in Van Der Gramme. She could believe in—hehe—puerile, juvenile thought as it was—she could believe in her hole.

"That's why we need to understand," Royce Ru continued, ebbing into the background of Harper's shameless thoughts, "to decipher the algorithm that controls our lives. To escape our niches. We need to create human beings, not human doings. Learn by doing. Ludology. It all comes back together..."

It all came back together. Coming back together, Harper spent the rest of the ride home thinking about a hole made only for her.

[7] Deathpuppet's dangle-dangle dervish.

[7] Deathpuppet's dangle-dangle dervish.

Thanks to all that hole thinking, by the time the bus pulled into the Crux Calico parking lot Harper sought only to scuttle spiderlike into some crevice where she might revisit Van Der Gramme's art of her. She muttered vague nonsense to excuse herself from Royce Ru and started at a skip toward her car, fully rejuvenated.

Five skips and a figure like a wild dog darted from a cluster of topiaries and startled Harper's keys to the ground. "The fuck!" said the mangy thing dewerewolfing in the moonlight. "Bro!"

Papimon. She flicked her head and spat a black globule. Harper struggled to construe a meaningful narrative out of Papimon being here at this hour and bought time by laboriously stooping for her keys.

"Like, dude? Maybe tell your best broseph that you're going to the Conference? That you'll be late for our Friday shindig? Not cool. Not cool dude."

"Hnkh?"

"Yeah no. I'm onto your shit bro. Can't stammer your way out of this. We had plans tonight dude!"

"Sarah got sick. They made me go."

The disgusted look on Papimon's face remained a moment more, then dissipated with a forcibly casual shrug. The shrug fooled nobody, not even Harper. The bus returned two hours after the normal end of the workday—Did Papimon wait in the parking lot all that time? For Harper? Harper wouldn't wait that long for herself. Which was a lie. All she did was wait.

"Screw it, whatever," Papimon said. "It's only seven. Night's still young. There's this place down the mountain, I looked it up, it'll be sick bro trust me."

Another night in Santa Fe sounded exquisitely unappealing compared to the night curled in her hole Harper had imagined for herself. Last Friday, when Papimon unexpectedly sprung on her in this same parking lot, Harper had felt almost identically—she only wanted Van Der Gramme. Two Fridays, two sudden bouts of sensuality, two rude interruptions, two unfulfilled adventures. Was it an illusion that anything new ever happened?

"Well, the Conference kind of exhausted me—"

Papimon yanked Harper's collar to reel their faces imperceptibly apart. Her breath—and she breathed heavily—brushed like sandpaper against Harper's skin. Flecks of Papimon's ashen face flaked off onto Harper's shoulders.

"You fucker bitch. You will not fucking do this to me. Bro." Her irises spiraled in the distortion of her glasses. Harper trembled, except it wasn't because of herself, it was because Papimon was trembling, violent shakes all the way down her arms. Like a drug addict. Shivering fingers tightened around Harper's shirt, constricting Harper's throat.

Papimon's left eye twitched. It twitched too fast so Papimon relinquished Harper and turned away gripping the side of her head and wincing. In a squat she rubbed the corners of her eyes and she rose again with a few subsidiary blinks and an unbalanced wobble.

"I'm sorry. Just fucking kill me. I'm losing my mind." Papimon shoved two fingers the shape of a gun into her mouth and pulled the trigger. He head snapped back. "I just need—to get out. I'm trapped. You understand right? This place—it fucking blows man."

Harper rubbed her sleeve. She could, in fact, empathize. And although she personally wanted to pursue a different method of escape, Papimon was—a friend. Or something. Bah.

"Okay," she said, more to herself than Papimon, "okay. We'll go out. We'll have fun."

Whatever moment of reconciliation this remark may have engendered ended prematurely when Royce Ru said, "Headed to Santa Fe?"

He stood between them, pink polo and all, with the added accessory of a green sludge smoothie in a plastic cup from which he slurped on a straw.

After an interval of stupefaction Papimon regained her senses and cleaved to Harper, or rather hid behind her. "Who," she whispered, barely audible even with her lips pressed to Harper's ear, "who?!"

"Royce Ru," said Royce Ru. "Smoothie?" He pointed the straw at them and Papimon shrank.

"No thanks," said Harper.

Royce snapped the fingers of his non-smoothied hand and pointed directly at the tiny corner of Papimon visible past Harper's shoulder. "I know you!"

"No he doesn't," Papimon whispered.

"You're Papimon Jaengsirirungrote. I see you at that Thai restaurant down the street. Love that place. You gotta try the kaeng som."

"Kill me. Kill me."

"Go back to Thailand often? I went backpacking there two summers ago. Pai Canyon. Ever been?"

"Kill me—No, wait. Kill him."

"Loved it. Trekked through the jungle, hiked for hours, then suddenly the trees parted and there was this twenty-meter-tall Buddha. Middle of the jungle. Sublime."

Papimon regained some of her composure and leaned past Harper's shoulder. Her eyes floating, unable to meet Royce's, she hissed maniacally: "Didja fuck any whores?"

"Pardon?"

"Kathoey—bet you go for kathoey."

"That some kind of food?"

A despairing squeak issued and Papimon sat down hard in the middle of the parking lot, so hard she nearly took Harper with her. Harper had failed to follow the conversation past Royce uttering Papimon's monstrous surname, but she understood the pain of Royce's insensibility.

Papimon sank her face into her palms. "I haven't been home in six years."

"Wow! Must be dedicated to your job," said Royce. "I haven't been home in a few years myself. I'm from Toronto. Well, Toronto-adjacent."

"I can't go home," said Papimon. "There was a fucking coup. Harper do something."

Do what? Even given Royce being Royce, Harper considered Papimon's behavior rather extreme.

"I saw this video," said Royce, "about workaholics. People who become obsessed with their jobs. And I thought, no offense, isn't that so depressing? We tell people as a society that their job defines who they are. Human doing, not human being. What are you a human doing, Papimon?"

"The fucking coup," said Papimon.

Coup? Or did she say coo, like a pet bird? Either was equally nonsensical.

"That fucking coup. The coup! My fucking parents—"

"Papimon's the site wizard," said Harper quickly, in an attempt to be helpful, an attempt she instantly regretted when Royce went ballistic.

"Wizard. Wizard!" Agog, akimbo, an undulation ushered out of him, arms thrust to the sky. The turgid gunk in his plastic cup, one coagulated mass, slid up and then oozed back down: Shlck. "Wizard, wise, a philosopher, sage, isn't that the perfect word? The interpreter of 'code,' a wizard. An arcane art unreckonable by terrestrial beings. I saw a video. The way we use words shapes our understanding of what those words signify. With words like code, wizard, why wouldn't a computer seem like magic? But what are we, cavemen witnessing fire for the first time? We need better words. Words that make us understand, see through the algorithms of our lives."

Harper attempted to conceive the best words to ask Royce to leave, worried Papimon might literally explode, but before she could Papimon jolted upright and advanced wildly. "Oh yeah?" No vestiges left of her surfer accent. Her voice matched Royce's perfectly—oddly masculine. "What words should we use? Let's have this super important conversation right now. What should we call code, huh?"

"Rhythm," said Royce without hesitation.

"Rhythm!"

"Isn't that what it is? A series of repetitive actions in a pattern to convey meaning. Rhythm. Like a dance."

Papimon threw back her head and choked down despair. "Dance!"

"Yeah, a dance. You get it. I had this idea. Instead of sitting people in front of a computer, what if we taught code like dance? They stand in a room and make specific motions of their body to correspond to specific functions of the code. A wiggle means this, a jump means that, do you get what I'm saying? We turn this arcane computer art into something everyone knows, something tied to their own body. The human body, the human being. I saw this video—"

"I saw this video," Papimon repeated mockingly.

"—about the future of technology. The ways it can be integrated with our own bodies. How long until we upload our consciousnesses into a computer and exist solely within it? We need to prepare humanity for that future, because that'll be when we are truly at the mercy of the algorithm. We need dance. Harper, Papimon, let's dance. I feel like dancing. I know a great club in Santa Fe. You guys do psilocybin?"

From the same pocket he kept his celery he retrieved a small plastic baggie with something brown and earthy inside.

"We hit the club, hit the shrooms, and just start rolling. Start feeling the rhythm of the world flow through our bodies."

Smoothie in one hand, shrooms in the other, he transformed into a serene entity, the warmest and most unassuming smile, simple joy. Dual cones of light from a car winding its way through the parking lot blazed him in a brief halo that forced Harper to shield her face.

Oblivious. That was the word, and attached to it like one of Royce's etymological asides: oblivion.

Harper decided she would rather go home. New friends tired her, after all, the moment she met them.

But something was crawling across Papimon, whose eyes flitted between Royce Ru's peaceful smile and his mushrooms. Something palpable in the spasms of her extremities and the sharp exhalations throbbing her thin, narrow chest. Harper didn't understand what was happening at first. She thought it might be an asthma attack.

Then Papimon lunged for Royce's throat.

Royce remained motionless, so solid he seemed incapable of breath, a statue, yet a statue made absurd by the pink polo draped over it. His tranquil smile solidified in that protracted millisecond, but Papimon's claws were out and her howl feral, and Harper had no idea how far she intended to go.

Acting on instinct, Harper flung herself at Papimon and got both arms around her waist. Harper's shoes dragged across the asphalt until she stopped Papimon inches from Royce.

Stopped for a moment. No distinct energy acted upon Harper, but Papimon's willpower hurled her into the back of the nearest parked vehicle. She ricocheted amid one thick oof and the blare of a car alarm and Papimon was already back at Royce this time twirling on one heel and sending her other leg in a semicircular lateral arc at the side of Royce's head. Royce remained immobile but somehow the foot passed him, or passed through him, or Papimon pulled back at the last moment despite her bestial shriek.

"Come on guys," Harper thought to say, but didn't, because something graceful in Papimon's movements stopped her tongue, and for a moment her depleted interest in these friends was renewed. She slinked into a spectator's position, out of the light, where she might no longer exist but only watch as Papimon twirled as if suspended from a silvery invisible string, unbound by physics, lithe and limber elements of her torso showing through thin snatches of t-shirt. Who clutched the other end of that string? For a moment Harper imagined it was herself. Papimon was here because of Harper, after all. And Royce stopped to chat because of her too. Separate worlds, brought together by Harper's machinations—so she allowed herself to imagine, in the same vein she previously imagined herself as a scheming villainess—creating a dramatic image, an image of art. No longer a drain, no longer a diversion, but beauty, a stirring like when she saw Van Der Gramme's picture of her that she too in some way helped create.

Maybe she could wring fulfillment out of this world. Maybe there was something worthwhile—beautiful—to find here, maybe she was not relegated to a dark and dismal hole. The silvery strings of her spider web danced. Papimon, so slim and slender, an ethereal faerie leaving in the wake of every elegant swerve a trail of dust that shined under a streetlamp's cone of light. And Royce Ru, that serene Buddha, the height of a colossus—inviolable.

At least she thought he was inviolable, until Papimon swiped again and a fan of blood splattered the asphalt.

The action paused. Papimon froze in an aggressive tilt, balanced on one foot, the other extended nearly perpendicular, spine arched, head down.

Eventually Royce said, "Careful now."

He wasn't the one bleeding.

It flowed from Papimon's nose and coated her lips and chin and neck and spread a black semicircle around her collar. It dropped in jagged strips to the asphalt and rolled down an unseen floodplain toward the gutter.

This gruesome intrusion shattered Harper's artistic framing. The church, and its vomit.

"Uh ah," she said, "are you, ehm, alright?"

Papimon's head shot toward her, wolf eyes wild and staring. For a moment Harper thought she would attack Harper next. Then Papimon sprinted away down the parking lot.

Harper looked at Papimon receding. Looked at Royce. Sighed. And gave chase.

Not known for her speed, Harper managed to not fall too far behind because Papimon kept stopping at random intersections, flicking her head both ways, scouting a proper path, and only then proceeding, this labyrinth parking lot mostly vacant but a few straggler vehicles left rusting. Soon Papimon reached a fence that signaled the end of the lot and pressed her body against it, fingers hooked into the spaces between the chain links. She was sobbing when Harper reached her.

"Papimon," said Harper. "Papimon." It was literally all Harper knew how to say.

Her arms hovered behind Papimon's back. She hesitated—should she touch? Would Papimon react violently? Papimon's head tilted and her mouth opened and a great bubble of blood burst and splattered the ground with its excess. The chain-link fence rattled.

"Did you hurt yourself?"

Papimon smiled sadly. "I can't anymore."

"Can't what?"

"How much longer is it," she swallowed another mouthful of blood, "going to be like this?"

"Uh, well, maybe put pressure on your nose? To stop the bleeding?"

Papimon let go of the fence and fell; Harper caught her. Her arms enfolded Papimon, one wrapped around the waist and the other looped over her shoulder.

They breathed, slow rises and falls. There was a warm wetness as the blood flowed over Harper's arm.

"I want to dance," said Papimon.

Harper didn't. But given Papimon's current state, she couldn't say so.

"Let's clean you up. Go down to Santa Fe and try that place you said." She paused. "I'll make sure Royce doesn't come."

Beyond the fence the world dropped into abyss. Papimon said nothing and Harper said nothing and the silence revealed the sound of crickets, twigs snapping, owls hooting. A bush, possibly only a few actual feet away but divided by lightyears, rustled. Something ran out, a wild dog; its eyes gleamed and nothing else existed.

"I'm falling apart," said Papimon.

"It's okay."

"You don't fucking care, do you."

Her head turned to Harper and for that moment her eyes, bright and bleary, burned. Virulent, vehement reproach, the kind with which she lashed at Royce, a reproach that may have secretly been levied toward Harper even then. Harper remembered Cariscresco—Ally? Ally? Ally?—and shivered, a shiver transferred via proximity to Papimon.

That shiver softened Papimon's gaze, her face turned away, she snorted back the blood and spat it through the fence. "Fuck. I'm sorry bro. I'm so fucking sorry. It's not your fault. It's not—fuck. Fuck."

Harper had nothing to say. She said: "It's okay."

"Like, of course you don't fucking care bro, it's not your fault. I can't just expect people to care. They got their own shit dude. Everyone does. Everyone has their shit in their own worlds."

"It's okay."

Silence.

Harper said: "If you want to talk about—"

"No." Papimon suddenly rose. Harper's arms fell away easily. "I won't waste your time." From somewhere she retrieved a small pink square, the square she used to wipe her glasses, and dabbed the blood on her face with it. "I'm just gonna go home."

Ah.

Wasn't it wonderful? Wasn't it simply divine? In emptiness, in blankness, in nothingness, without memory or other people, with no relief by which to even define the figure of Harper Praise, Harper had known nothing about herself. Now she knew. She knew that, whenever it happened, whether as a child or teenager or adult, in grade school or college or shortly after she came to Crux Calico, she had plunged herself into that white oblivion bath willingly. She had weaved her own web and waited in it, patiently, forever, and the only problem was that she forgot she did it on purpose so at one point her patience waned and she arose again. She forgot she was the architect of everything, she was her own algorithm, and the dust streaming out reminded her.

Harper's first thought was relief. She would get home—get to Van Der Gramme—quicker.

Papimon and Harper moved away from the fence and looked around, aware they must be impossibly lost in this vast parking lot, but from the way they came Royce Ru waved at them, the fluorescent pink of his polo accumulating all the lot's light to make him shine like a beacon toward the exit.

[8] Dignitas.

[8] Dignitas.

Immediate positive reinforcement rewarded Harper's inaction in the parking lot, because when she returned home early without an hours-long detour into Santa Fe she received a message from Somebody's Little Sister: Van Der Gramme would see her now.

Positive reinforcement, at least, from one point of view, because the message foamed nausea in the pit of her stomach. Like a smugly ironic Hell that annihilates sinners by bestowing upon them their exact desire in excess. The bodies of those she climbed over to reach this point stacked high: Cariscresco and Sister, of course, but Papimon, Mark, and Royce too, miserable names she dispensed with a click in search of this goal of Van Der Gramme she set for herself, a goal that after everything would prove to simple to reach. All her previous philosophizing about whether Van Der Gramme could mean something had only been ways to wile away the time. Now she worried, because she knew what happened once she met new friends.

Harper sighed. She savored the stale air that entered and exited her lungs. Then, she plunged into the Consortium, no longer Harper Praise; now the Alchemist, crafting for herself a precious room of only gold.

But the rooms of the Consortium were not gold, especially not the Smoking Room, that casual late-night hangout of vampire girls and half-human, half-snake abominations. The latter was absent, but the former remained, albeit after a winking invitation sectioned off to her own corner of the elaborate room, mired in conversation with what Harper could only describe as a date: another young girl (this one with joints like a doll) with whom Sister actually seemed to laugh as they took turns sipping from a bottle of wine and dragging their nostrils over lines of cocaine.

And here was Van Der Gramme.

"So," he said, his voice more youthful than his robe-draped, slick-bearded form suggested. "Sister told me about you."

Harper, the Alchemist, nodded. She stood opposite him, on the other side of the triangle table, while he sat centrally on a couch that extended far past him in both directions.

"We met before," she said. "Twice, technically."

"I know." A simple, almost shrugged statement, although he didn't shrug, only smiled, and Harper sensed Van Der Gramme could not possibly not know something, with an array of galaxies exploding past the window behind his head. He unscrewed an aluminum flask and swigged. His shiny reflective sunglasses did not reflect her. "But I'll be honest. At the time, I didn't register you as a person."

"It's possible I'm not one."

"Ha. No, that's not what I meant." He shuffled forward in the seat. One hand gestured broadly. "I mean, I thought you were a person I already knew. Like Sister maybe, I dunno, maybe even Mimmy. Point is, I didn't register you as a unique individual. You weren't compartmentalized. My brain didn't say, 'This is a new person' and sort you into the box of distinct entities I've met. It said, 'This is Previous Acquaintance X.' So you slipped through the cracks. In a way, that already makes you unique. I forgot you. But I remember everyone, everything. I'm cursed with memory you might say. But I forgot you."

A sharp giggle cut from the corner where Sister and her doll date sloshed wine over their sleek cocktail dresses.

"I remember nothing," said Harper.

"Sister said you don't watch anime or movies, you don't play video games."

"I said I don't remember watching. I don't remember playing."

"What, you have like, short-term memory loss? Amnesia?"

"No, I don't."

Van Der Gramme nodded as though he understood perfectly. His slippered feet dug into the carpet, his back hunched, yet he remained languid, like the act of being attentive was to him a state of relaxation, and she understood his remark that he remembered everything.

Nonetheless, she worried. She worried he was a blowhard, like Royce Ru, a young man so enamored with the mechanisms of his own mind that he could speak only of what his mind produced, could live only in a world he fashioned for himself. Or maybe she was too harsh on Royce, maybe there was something admirable or even heroic in that attitude, it definitely juxtaposed her attitude, or maybe she was only telling herself she was too harsh on Royce because she needed to continue to believe in Van Der Gramme and would in fact distort opinions held only hours prior to maintain that illusion.

"So let me get this straight. Let me just, categorize this in my mind." His fingers fanned out in both hands, yet his flask remained rooted to his palm. "We meet, randomly, on 4All. By complete coincidence, you drop phrases I myself used in my most recent video, end of history and all that, base metal to precious, which causes the lapse I just described, so I don't recognize you as a human being until Sister digs you out of this mental sinkhole and brings you to my attention. This entire time, though, you've been here, the Consortium I mean, trying to talk to me. But you don't watch anime, or movies, or play games. So that leaves a new unknown in the equation. I draw porn for anime, movies, games. What, just what, is pulling you toward me? Are you an art aficionado? Like, Renaissance art I mean? A student maybe?"

"Don't listen to him!" Sister, howling laughter, shouted from the corner, while her doll-like companion clutched her under both arms and rocked her back and forth bodily. "Don't let him start talking about art. Oh god not ART!"

"I can't remember any art. Except the picture of us."

"From the roleplay."

"Yes. It meant something to me. It really meant something. It wasn't just me trying to trick myself into thinking it meant something."

"What," said Van Der Gramme, speaking with sudden gravity, the youthfulness drained out of his voice, the languidness from his posture, and for a moment his sunglasses flashed and in them Harper thought she recognized the form of herself, or maybe it was the form of some other human, "what did it mean."

"It didn't mean shit." Sister flopped onto her side, taking her companion with her. "It meant dick in vagina. It meant cum and jism. It activated the neuron in your brain. The FUCK neuron. Buzz. Zap! Like, fucking pressing a button."

"Van Der Gramme," said Harper, "I mean the Van Der Gramme of the picture, the Van Der Gramme in the story, he turned out to be made of dust too. Your picture—"

"My artwork."

"Your artwork revealed that. And that horrified the Alchemist, because it meant she really did make him. That he was a golem, or a construct, something she designed to entertain herself. She was masturbating all along."

Van Der Gramme, the real one, except he was not the real one either, but an avatar in a chatroom, swished his flask. "So?"

"Stop fellating him. He likes it too much," shouted a Sister having her collarbone closely inspected by the doll.

"So it was like you drove right into my soul. You showed me my whole fucking life in that one picture."

"Good," said Van Der Gramme. "But how do you know it's your life if you can't remember anything?"

"It showed me the part of my life I experience every waking moment, so I can't ever forget."

A distant Sister started to vocalize a new snide remark but instead made the tiniest gasp imaginable as the doll's ball-jointed fingers, or two of them at least, pressed into her dress between the legs. A twitching foot scraped the carpet, a head rolled with a whimper. "No. No. Not right now," she said.

By now Van Der Gramme barely remained on his seat, he had shunted so far forward. His robe trailed onto the ground and collected in a gray bundle and he unconsciously unscrewed his flask and drank again, this time trying to speak too soon afterward with the result a harsh cough, followed by several more and a clenched fist clapped against his sternum until he finally regained self-control. "Excellent, hhuckh, excellent." Another cough. "Tell me more. Tell me more about what my art meant to you."

Harper thought. As she thought she realized how clearly she remembered the image, the exact curves of the two intermingled bodies, the books falling, the reflection of light, the beads of dust each individually rendered. She could, in fact, tell him more.

So she did.

She started to ramble, her terse statements stretched into rapid flurries of descriptions, a scattershot eclecticism of comments while her eyes closed and she expanded the image to encompass the entirety of the blank white of her mind's eye. She spoke of the juxtaposition between the immaculate chamber and the naked, blunt carnality of the sexual act (she described it in that exact term, the "sexual act," she could not force another phrase in its place), and yet again another juxtaposition as the gold was all so blunted and dusty and overwhelming to the point of sickness, while the bodies themselves were pure and white and marked by harsh shadows that gave their forms greater depth and dimension and passion, the ferocity of the fingernails dragged down the man's back and the harsh angular bends of the joints, a kind of passion that wrenched one out of the dull splendid gold and yet a passion itself thrown into question by the revelation of the dust—Her thoughts tangled, she butchered a sentence, she slowed down. She took a breath, she continued: It was like a story, an entire world encapsulated in a single image, with many folds that bent over each other and questioned what the previous fold depicted. She spoke artlessly. She knew no terms or techniques. She couldn't discuss brush strokes or gradients or whatever artists discussed. She could only describe the story and what that story meant to her while Somebody's Little Sister interjected with either cynicism or hushed cries of pleasure as the doll slid a single strap of her dress down past her shoulder while clutching a wrist.

And when Harper finished, when she expended her capacity to speak, when she started to rub herself through her pants having become enamored more with her dissection of the art than even the art itself, she raised her head and opened her eyes and said:

"And because I helped make it."

As Van Der Gramme watched her analyze his work he became increasingly incapable of concealing his delight. He nearly fell off his couch twice, he dropped his flask and it bounced under a table and he produced an identical flask or the same flask conjured via magic. But at that final comment his face turned pensive, as much at least that a face devoured by two massive black lenses can turn anything, all movement rooted in the motion of his impressively wide mouth. The tips of his fingers touched together and he leaned back.

"Right," he said. "You did help make it."

"Oh god. I'll suck that eyeball out of your doll face you—Oh god."

"You're absolutely right."

He lifted one leg and crossed it with his ankle balanced on his knee. His slipper tapped the crisp, nostalgic air of the smoking room. His head rolled onto the back of the couch and rolled left, then right, then left.

"I see. I get it."

He hopped up, sat back down, jolted upright, and paced the couch in a oval while Sister and her date rolled and rolled each smaller than their dress and thus transformed into a massed ball of fabric out of which an arm, a leg, and maybe a head sometimes emerged.

"Of course. Right. Of course." He knocked his flask against his forehead. "Right. I see. Makes perfect sense."

"Do I need to get the camera Gramme?" Sister shouted out of her puffball.

"Later, later." Yet the camera was reflected in the lenses of his sunglasses, the way it was in all of his videos (Harper had seen several). I saw a video, as Royce might say. Video, from the Latin videre, to see, Royce might say. I saw a see, I seed a saw, I seesaw—Royce might say.

"Phenomenology," Van Der Gramme did say, as he terminated his ovoid route and flopped over the back of the couch to lay sprawled with his feet in the air and his head on the floor.

"Huh?"

"What determines what's real?" asked Van Der Gramme.

"Oh god," said Sister. "Oh! God!" The puffball unraveled and the two girls flopped out of it each now half dressed with the doll biting the vampire's neck.

"Riddle me bones, Alchemist. What determines what's real?"

The door to the Smoking Room flung open in a sharp semicircular arc that banged it against the sproingy doorstopper and ricocheted it back the way it came only to be stopped by the jack-in-the-box manifestation of Cariscresco.

"Hi-hi-hi-HI!!! What's the up-up-uppers, my frigging smexies?!"

Then she noticed Van Der Gramme on the couch, went stale as stone, and shot back into the darkness of the corridor, leaving the door to hang suspended a moment before shutting closed.

"Is Cariscresco afraid to talk to you for some reason?" Harper asked.

"Don't get fucking distracted." Van Der Gramme flipped over, landing on and shattering the glass table before pulling himself up plucking shards out his robe. "Answer the question. What determines what's real?" He strode toward her, he brandished his uncapped flask. Alcohol sloshed out and stained the carpet and he moved so close that the scent of his cigar breath, similar to Papimon's breath but more aromatic, enveloped her in a haze that tinged the edges of his face so that they lacked stark definition.

"What determines what's real?" The question became a refrain, and the intensity in the sunglasses that replaced his eyes—so close now she saw everything in the room they reflected, a pile of books over which a black man (not herself, as she had thought for a moment) leaned, a wall papered with posters of women—indicated this question was no mere element of idle discussion.

Didn't their roleplay end this way? Hadn't he asked something? And she gave an answer, an answer he disliked, and he left. Harper failed to remember. Glancing at Sister for assistance revealed nothing except the sapphic throes into which the two girls degenerated, albeit tinged by oddity as Sister somewhat true to her previous statement held both of the doll's eyeballs, one in each hand, leaving the doll to attend to Sister's body with blind fumbles.

"Nothing is real," said Harper. She didn't believe it, not even she believed it, even though she felt it often. But she suspected that kind of dramatic, pseudo-philosophical statement would appeal to Van Der Gramme, lead him into a spiral of his own conversational devising as he spoke to himself and she need merely stand back and listen to the whorls of his voice.

Instead he spat a bitter mouthful of alcohol to the side. "Nihilism. Nothing will come of nothing. Why try?" His head shook and so shook the room reflected in his lenses. "No. Nah. Bullshit. Not an answer. Try again."

"But what if that's my answer? You can't stop me from saying it."

"You aren't one of those simulation theory fuckers are you?"

Harper shrugged. "I don't know what that is."

A low coarse groan strained downward from Van Der Gramme's upper lip and through his beard. "I'm talking about meaning here, Alchemist. Meaning. What is true. What means something. So even if—let me entertain, just let me entertain for a moment this horseshit—we all live in a computer simulation, unless there's some way out of that simulation this is the world we live in. This one." He gestured to the rest of the Smoking Room, to Somebody's Little Sister now wrenching the left arm of the eyeless doll out of its socket, and then to the room reflected in his glasses. "So in this world, whether it's the physical world or a simulation or an alien ant farm, what determines what's real. It's a simple answer. It's so easy. Come on."

So he had a correct answer all along? Harper thought the question was supposed to be big, open-ended, philosophical. "I don't know."

"The human body. The human body! Come on. Come the fuck on, it's not that hard. Everything we know to be real is something we perceive in some way using our body. Taste, touch, smell, sense, sound. I can slap my table and know my table's real because it's hard as fuck. You see?"

Right. Really simple. Why did he have to be an ass about it?

"But I just fucking lied to you," said Van Der Gramme.

"Oh, cool."

"Because the whole of human history"—extending his arms wide as if to encompass that whole within them—"people have believed in stuff they never sensed. Not just talking about religion here. National identity, familial bonds, love. Social constructs. Class."

"Okay."

"But do you give a shit about religion? Are you religious?"

Harper, of course, did not remember, which implied an answer. "No."

"Are you a patriot? What country are you from. America?"

"La Suisse," said Sister, now detaching the doll's right leg.

"Not you. Look, it doesn't matter. Do you care about your country?"

"I guess not," said Harper.

"How close are you to your family?"

"We don't talk."

"Economic status. Middle class right?"

She lived in a condo, she had a white collar job, she owned a car. "Sure."

"Excellent," said Van Der Gramme, who during this gauntlet of questions had one-by-one picked the shards of glass out of his face to reveal no wounds whatsoever, not even wounds that spewed dust. "You're a perfectly typical specimen of the modern human. You're normal. Yeah?"

"I suppose."

"The past century has turned religion into a farce. Nationalism into jingoism. Families are smaller, less intimate. And everyone is increasingly swallowed into a suburban middle class pit."

"I'm poor," said Sister. A collection of limbs lay limp around her.

"Even the poor are middle class," said Van Der Gramme, "in this country. If you're truly poor in this country, you're invisible, you no longer exist, nobody will see you despite what their eyes show them. Another point against our own bodies, but that's an ancillary topic. Where was I. Right, right. The traditional signifiers of truth have been stripped away, one by one. Our modern, enlightened age has thrown all these social constructs, these things we could never sense but believed were real, into question. Sure there's exceptions, sure there's evangelicals picketing Planned Parenthood, I'm not talking about them, I'm talking about Real Americans. You are American right?"

"I think so," said Harper.

"Not even dreams mean anything," said Van Der Gramme. "Freud was a fraud. Cigars," he manifested one, "are just cigars." He jabbed it at her, he spoke this whole time fluidly, the points tumbling out of his head virtuoso, he worked himself into a philosophy. "So nothing matters. None of these constructs, at least. You know what that leaves? What's left for us to determine what's real, what's true, what's meaningful?"

"The human body," Harper said.

"And one other thing," said Van Der Gramme. "One thing they almost destroyed a hundred years ago but failed because it was out their control."

"No idea."

"Art." The cigar lit, Van Der Gramme breathed in, held the breath, and expelled the smoke from mouth and nostrils. It wreathed him like laurels, occluded the room reflected in his lenses but not the solid glassy pits of the lenses themselves. "Art persists. Granted, in degenerate form, in a fucking garbage bin, but it persists and people still devour it, devour it arguably more than they ever did before. It's not art in galleries, it's not poems, it's not orchestras, but it is there still, in movies, pop music, video games, and of course, the Consortium's own favored corner of media, anime. We're all fucking weebs here."

"What's a weeb," said Harper.

"What's a—who the fuck are you? Are you somebody's grandma or something?"

"I do have white hair."

Sister, seated crosslegged in her corner, cradled the torso and head of her doll in her arms. "You said you were 20."

"I'm albino."

Van Der Gramme laughed. Laughing he expelled more smoke. "Albino, an albino. So that wasn't just your RP character. Or maybe it was? You the method acting type?"

Harper knew the answer but shrugged.

"Whatever. Doesn't matter. Here's the point. Humans have their bodies left. And they have art left. Religion, country, family, class, people have otherwise been drained of all these signifiers. History is ended, after all. No major wars for a lifetime, no famines, et cetera. Fall of the Soviet Union even. Monopolar global hegemony. All they do, all that makes meaning for them, is bodily pleasure, and pleasant art."

Hitherto Harper nodded along dully to his speech, carried by cadence rather than comprehension, but the punctuation of his last sentence roused her and she blinked, thinking. He paused as though condoning her thoughts.

"So," said Harper, "by drawing porn, you hit both of those. Bodily pleasure and pleasant art."

"Exactly! Eggs-fucking-zactly!" He turned to Sister with his arms out as if to say "See?" As if settling a bet. Sister only rolled her eyes and muttered something about birds of a feather, with birdbrains to boot. "I take the shitty anime, the shitty video games, the shitty whatever that these people like and transform it into something that strikes them right in the body, right in the feeling even the most dead-inside people feel. I get them horny, I get them horny for the art they like, and then I elevate it. You see? This is key. I elevate it. I imbue my art with a higher quality. I make it mean something more than just bodily pleasure, more than just pleasant time-wasting entertainment. Like the picture you saw."

"That was based on a video game?" said Harper.

"No, no, sometimes I have to—" Van Der Gramme dismissed the sentence with a wave as though it wasn't worth carrying to conclusion, reconsidered, continued. "Sometimes I have to do something original, for my own sanity. But that's just me. I'm talking the people of the world—Hnhkh." He coughed and clapped his chest.

"I see," said Harper, to prompt him to continue. No longer passively disengaged. Now leaning forward herself. Because he was right, at least for her. She had no idea if what he said was a universal truth like he tried to frame it, but it was correct for her. It explained why she chased so hard after him and why his picture sealed her into his thrall, it wasn't simply a desperate attempt to manufacture meaning that her body could not sense, an ersatz religion or nation or family or class, it meant something, at least the way Van Der Gramme said it—it meant something. To her. To Harper Praise, if nobody else. "And then you elevate it," she said. "Because what I saw wasn't just—"

"Right, right, right, exactly right, exactly right, you get it. You get it!" He jumped, like a child. His robes floated around him and his beard and tufts of sideburns flared out and in his sunglasses color swirled, dark color but color nonetheless. "I elevate it. I turn the base metal to precious. Their hedonism and crappy entertainment, I make it into something more. That's the program. That's the fucking program. You get it, I can't believe you get it."

He looked—relieved. He staggered and fell back onto the sofa.

"Nobody else gets it."

"Because it's bullshit," said Sister. "Boooooooolsheeeeet. Self-aggrandizing artfaggotry. Say enough words and you say some that sound significant. You aren't shit Gramme. Don't, fucking, surround yourself with people who say otherwise. Don't be one of those. Listen to your actual friend here. Me. Fucking fag."

Gramme waved his cigar, from which issued enough smoke to disperse Sister from view.

"Nobody else gets it." Gramme shook his head.

The cloud of his cigar grew. It swallowed not only Sister, but also the couch Gramme sat on. Slowly, the gray cloud swallowed him as well. It encroached on his form and blended into the gray texture of his robe. His legs, his stomach, and his chest became nebulous shades and then disappeared altogether. His face followed, although the sheen of his sunglasses remained.

"Good talk," he said to Harper. "Productive." Then he said, raising Harper's heartbeat instantly: "Let's roleplay again soon."

"Uhm, rrm, okay, yes. Yes. Certainly."

"I'll tell you when I need you," said his voice, hazy and distant behind the smoke. Then his sunglasses disappeared, and his voice spoke no more, and nothing else remained of him, and Harper stared at the smoke until it too melded into nothingness.

He needed her.

Van Der Gramme needed her.

The door slammed open and Cariscresco entered screaming "Hi-hi-hi-HI!!! What's the up-up-uppers, my frigging smexies?!" and the coils of her tail snapped up Harper in a flash and curled until only Harper's head and feet were free to wriggle. And as Harper squinted to block out the rainbow pulse of Cariscresco's eyes, as Cariscresco ran her long fingers through Harper's albino hair, Sister, who twisted the head of the doll at the neck, twisting it back and forth before popping it off with a thick plasticky sound, said:

"Next time, fucking, suck his cock less hard—Cunt."

And kissed the head on the lips.

[9] Who are other people?

[9] Who are other people?

From nothing:

Sensation. Tightness—wetness—warmth. Clutched, held, within thick but pliable layers conformed to the contours of the sideways-curling body. A body folded, legs folded, arms folded, head folded, so that every point of the body touched some other point within this seething, breathing sheath of fleshy-feeling substance. No sight. No sound. Only touch, a sense stemming from all inches of the body. Only touch, the original sense, able to discern with slight shifts, uncertain shuffles, the slick glide of thigh against thigh, foreleg against foreleg, foot against foot. First a soft stretch of muscle, then the rigid dome of kneecap. First the gently rounded calf, then the jutting ball of ankle. The inner curve from heel to big toe.

The body turns over. The high crest of the buttocks pushes against the sweat-sticky sheet draped across it. The sheet follows the crest down to the waist and then up the side of the ribcage, unseamed from an exact fit only by the awkward unevenness of arm and shoulder. A sheet that otherwise matched the shape of this body and this body alone of all seven or eight billion (who has not lost count) bodies upon this planet. A hole made only for her.

Deep in this hole, semi-conscious, the body squirms. The sheath is the body and the body is the sheath and feeling the sheath the body feels the body. The body shifts to the other side as one hand, all complex bones and tendons, graces the smoothly stretched skin of the stomach. The stomach rises. It falls. The fingertips trace the ridges between the lower ribs, where the fleshy sheet of skin conforms to the contours of the bones beneath, then delve into the navel, return shortly thereafter from that blandly senseless pit, and press on to the rises of the pelvic bone that form the interior structure of the hips. They touch here only a few moments before falling into the crease between leg and crotch, a clear diagonal path down to genitalia that can only be described (in this language) in terms either stiffly scientific—vagina, vulva—or cloyingly crass—pussy, cunt. Or overly literary: delta of Venus. Language is rendered irrelevant here, though, in this hole. She utters only a nasal moan as the tips of middle and forefinger round the curvature of the slit—up, and then down. The thighs shift apart. A tiny tuft of pubic hair twitches, stirred by her slowly repeated motions. The sweat-soaked sheet, thick as oilcloth, grips her upper and inner thighs.

She rolls over. Onto her stomach. Her face, turned sideways, presses into her pillow. Her knees drive deep, lifting her rear slightly and pulling with it the sheet that cannot help but tuck between the buttocks in a way that feels both a little weird and a little hot due to being a little weird. Her toes curl. The pads of both feet face upward, each a small mound within the sheet. Her fingertips press. Fluid dribbles down her thigh, congealed into the sweat that has been there since sleep broke into this state of mushy, melty, dozing wakefulness. She finds the nub at the top of her slit and stroking it musters another nose-strained moan. "Mmngh," the moan sounds like, her lips still pressed tight together. Her knees brace and her upraised backside wriggles back and forth, grinding her chest deeper into the mattress. It's almost by accident that her fingertip slips inside herself, going not even halfway to the first joint. Reflexively the finger retracts, pulling with it a viscous strand of liquid that drips down to contribute to the growing puddle between her knees.

Consciousness ebbs. Coherent thoughts emerge fragmentary out of the white oblivion bath of her brain. Remembering herself, her fingertip pushes again. A sheath, wet and warm, conformed to the exact shape of her probing finger. Her lips part but only a silent breath comes out. The heavy, wet sheet has now cleaved deeply to the crest between her buttocks and she can feel it rub against her anus, which clenches in response. Her finger is inside her up to the second joint. It doesn't even feel better than when she rubbed her clitoris, but it turns her on more, the exploratory sense, or the sense of violation. She pushes her finger deeper, as far as she can before the folded knuckles of her other fingers butt up against her now-drenched cunt. For the first time, she's awake enough to imagine a fantasy. A fantasy of her bending forward, into a ball, bending until her head pushes up into herself, her shoulders next, her waist, her hips, her whole body crawling into the tight wet warm passage of her vagina and into her womb where it can curl up and wait to be born.

The brightest shaft of light in the history of the world shot between her blinds and drilled directly into her skull. Her head hollowed instantaneously. She jerked to the side, grimacing, and her finger squelched out of her.

Harper Praise exhaled. She needed to pee, badly.

As she sat on the toilet with her back arched forward and her squinting, blinking eyes still adjusting to the light (now artificial), what seemed like an endless stream of piss tinkled into the bowl beneath her. Cheek propped against palm, elbow propped against knee, she impatiently awaited the gradual deflating of her bladder. A patina of gelatinous sweat coated her body; she eyed the shower, then her one-week-unshaved legs, then a spiderweb tucked into a corner between the wall and ceiling...

Something slammed her condo's front door so hard it caused her to jolt halfway upright. A second, third, and fourth pounding soon followed, but the surprise dwindled, and Harper reclaimed her seat only to stare at the splash of urine on her thigh.

Answering the front door ranked low on Harper's list of priorities, but after she cleaned herself, the person outside was still knocking. Careful, long, tiptoed steps took her—completely nude—to the door, to the back of which she attached her body as she drew her one open eye gradually to the peephole. The outside, bathed in sunlight, lacked distinctive form on first glance, but by squinting she made out the square stucco columns that supported the entry canopy and a blob of teal between them. The blob rushed close and another bout of pounding rattled the door.

Harper danced back, hid in a decorative alcove, and peeked out from behind the wall.

"Who are you?"

The pounding stopped. "Hey, Harper Praise!"

The voice sounded familiar but she failed to place it. "Who are you?"

"Royce Ru. Remember? We met yesterday."

Oh god it was only yesterday? Unfortunately, Harper could not claim she forgot him.

"How do you know where I live?"

"Papimon Jaengsirirungrote told me."

"How does she know where I live?"

"Oh, Papimon's female?"

Harper sputtered, unable to conceive a response to such a simple, self-evident question. Trying to be charitable (which, why? Why be charitable? Why was he here?) she reassured herself that Royce only met Papimon once, in a dark parking lot, and Papimon's accent must have thrown him off. "Yes. Yes, Papimon's a girl."

"I figured her for the nonbinary type."

"Hngh?"

"Binary: from the Latin binarius: duality, a pair. Non, Latin suffix meaning not. Ergo, nonbinary, not a pair. Outside the realm of ones and zeroes, Harper Praise."

Wow!

"Computers speak in binary. That's their language. All possible communication reduced to one of two simple characters. Yet isn't it crazy? Even that language, that super-simplified language, has to have two different characters. There can't just be one. Have you ever thought of that, Harper? Harper Praise? There must be a one and an other. But I always got the sense that Papimon broke out of that simple dichotomy."

Always! Like he knew her since the dawn of time. Besieged, Harper lacked all avenues for escape. How long would he force her to endure his speeches?

"Humans speak in binary too," he continued. "Not with their mouths, but on a fundamental, biological level. 1, 0. Male, female. That's the core communication of our species, essential for the propagation of life."

"Uh, nghnh, rrrh-hh..."

"It's so fascinating, Harper. The more I look, the more parallels I find between people and computers. Machines and organic life. Human doings versus human beings. Let's be human beings today, Harper."

"Hhhrmmm."

"How about a run?"

"A... run."

"A run, a jog, something to pump the blood."

"Why? What do you want from me?"

"Want? Why would I want anything from you, Harper?"

"Because you keep following me around. You keep talking to me. You must want something, right? What is it? Just say it already."

Instead he said nothing for a long time, long enough Harper thought maybe he actually left, only for him to of course immediately startle her with:

"No, I don't want anything. Not in the sense of taking. There's nothing I need. I want to give something to you, Harper."

"Nn—gkh?"

"When I saw you," said Royce's disembodied voice, "on the bus. You seemed—disconnected."

Harper fell silent.

"Relationships aren't about taking things. Right? It's not an exchange of goods. It's not social capitalism"—and he spoke that word with more venomous disgust, or rather more emotion in general, than she had ever heard him speak—"not buying, not selling, not a service industry, not a visit to the grocery store. Human beings, beings not doings, have an innate sense of connection with one another. An unseen magnetism. Like telepathy. Not the way you see telepathy in a movie. Humans don't literally hear each other's thoughts. But there's a communication expressed without words. It's possible to know what's in someone's head just by looking at them. I looked at you, Harper, and it transferred to me all at once, an understanding, a truth, a reality."

Inside her fortress, dark and cool despite the constant heat of this barren New Mexico waste, surrounded by white walls that enclosed wide swaths of beige carpet, Harper shook her head sadly.

"That magnetism does more for me than a social exchange of services ever could," said Royce. "That magnetism is how we progress to the next level—as a species I mean. People connecting with people. And it's the people least connected that need it most, all these ties strengthening until the whole humankind is one big web. Web," he repeated, tasting the word on his mouth, and Harper envisioned a spider. "World wide web. Because that's what it is. A web of connections, invisible silvery strands uniting one human being to another. Why did we ever stop calling it the world wide web? Now it's just the internet. A net. Something we're caught in, trapped in."

Harper interjected, but only in her own mind because she knew Royce would not hear her, that you get caught in webs too.

"It stopped being a web that connected us and started being a net that trapped us. Instead of uniting humankind it isolated us with its algorithms, sorted us all into our own little niches, our holes made only for us. We have to escape. We have to rebuild those connections. It's not the people already connected we have to connect with, but those who are separated, those who are alone in their own holes. That's what drew me to you, Harper Praise."

No, Royce, she thought with a smile, as he tilted off the face of the planet explaining a video he saw about how humankind was going to be uploaded into a computer during an event known as the singularity, and then everyone would exist in a constant state of perpetual connection, which in a way was like the Christian conception of heaven, and Royce after an aside mentioning his distaste for organized religion and his preference for an anime called Neon Genesis Evangelion even quoted a parable from the Gospel of Mark, something about a serial widow who married seven different men (each man dying and thus the woman legally, in the eyes of God, remarrying) and how the Sadducees tried to trick Jesus by asking him to which man the woman would be married on the day of resurrection, and Jesus replied that on that day "they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels which are in heaven"—i.e., at least in Royce's interpretation, unified with the godhead—by which point Harper truly stopped listening because she could only think how ridiculous Royce sounded, how he had gotten her exactly backward.

Harper was not lonely. Loneliness was her decision. Her preference. Like 4All. Unlimited new friends. Like Cariscresco, Somebody's Little Sister, Papimon, Royce himself. People on strings she tugged to make jig and then severed when she got tired of them. Except for Van Der Gramme of course. Because he understood her. If that was even the reason. Or if she needed an "except for" so she created one. Because how different was Van Der Gramme from Royce Ru really—Bah. She disliked that line of thought.

Maybe she could abide Royce Ru after all. At least until Van Der Gramme needed her to roleplay again. Yes—right. Like on the bus. Although then she simply surrendered to his indomitable self. Now she reframed herself, not as a passive victim of annoyance, but as the romance novel villainess, master of puppets. She retold the story of her world in her mind, gave herself control over it. When she thought about it that way, annoyance dispersed. Royce Ru and the others passed the time with their little worlds, worlds she could observe safely from a distance, worlds she could disperse with the click of a button—or the severing of a string—whenever she truly tired of them. Her formlessness was not weakness but strength, because while others were trapped in their holes she could slip into each hole in turn and drain out afterward without the slightest impression on her body.

Her body. Like Van Der Gramme said: all truth stemmed from the body. And if her body was nothing, was dust, that gave her freedom to choose for herself what its shape meant. To make meaning out of herself. All she had to do was believe. Or if not believe—to roleplay.

(And sometimes there was a glimmer: Van Der Gramme's art. Or Papimon dancing like a faerie, Royce a colossus. With even that glimmer she could close her eyes and pretend.)

So when Royce's speech passed its crescendo and he ended with: "What say you. Wanna run? Strong body, strong mind. I saw a video about the connection between physical and mental health—" Harper cut him off and said:

"Sure. I'll run." Why not? She held the silvery string between them.

"Great. I know an excellent path up the mountain. The trees are beautiful. It's like a painting. A work of art."

"Let me get dressed," said Harper.

[10] Spider queen on a culinary safari.

[10] Spider queen on a culinary safari.

Running assassinated Harper. If a strong body meant a strong mind, then everything was elucidated when Harper took ten jogging steps up the dirt path through the ponderosa pines and felt her entire respiratory system collapse. Royce immediately left her behind, seemingly unaware when she slumped into the nearest tree to wheeze. He ran in a teal polo. After forty-five minutes he returned, his form that of a cross country athlete, his sweat nonexistent.

"Summit's just around the corner," he said. "You gotta see the view. Like a painting. Sublime!"

Instead she followed him back down. Roleplaying a runner, at least, was not merely a matter of belief.

She still had holes in her lungs when she went to work on Monday and only by Friday did her breathing return to normalcy. Van Der Gramme posted a new artwork during the week, a startling image of two people—described as twins—in lustful entanglement. (He apparently hadn't needed Harper's assistance making it.) Otherwise she didn't see him; Sister said he was sleeping.

The usual suspects spoke to her instead. Mark offered fruit and culinary recommendations. Royce appeared five times a day to discuss the social, cultural, technological, etymological, medical, or metaphysical ramifications of a video he saw. Cariscresco materialized with exuberant greetings mired in incomprehensible typology, followed by repeated attempts to crush and/or devour. Even Sister became a semi-consistent presence as she reiterated her desire for Harper to watch an anime called Le Château de Diodati. Other than Van Der Gramme, the only person she didn't see was Papimon Jaengsirirungrote.

During the incident in the parking lot, Harper had classified Papimon the same as all her other non-Van Der Gramme acquaintances: an annoyance. But as she discovered with Royce, that mentality was adverse to her interests. These people, their affairs, they stimulated Harper's mind one way or another, and encircling them in her web she drained from them some semblance of interest―enough to sustain herself while she waited for Van Der Gramme. Without texture, without difference, without another person, everything became white. That was what Royce meant by "loneliness." At least how Harper interpreted it, reframing it away from its traditionally romantic notion as a longing for companionship, which wasn't how she experienced loneliness and wasn't how any of these people did either. Because why would they all want to talk to her? She offered them nothing. Certainly not companionship in any substantive sense. She merely "took," using the parlance of Royce's social capitalism. She was a blank, a nothing, a zero. Add anything to zero and it is only that thing. That was exactly the point. She offered nothing, but she did provide a service: she gave them the ability to talk to themselves.

In her void they found an echo. They could experience themselves outside the cage of their own bodies, as something reverberating toward them rather than issuing from inside. Would anyone other than Harper Praise put up with them? Who besides her would abide Sister's slur-laden insults? Or Cariscresco's incessant screeching? Or Mark's growing pile of pomegranates, or his scraping cane?

Royce and Papimon met—two of her acquaintances colliding a moment outside their separate worlds—and in five minutes they fell to violence. But when alone, attached by a strand solely to her, they were happy to give and give, and even if their offerings were not what she desired most, they passed the time while she waited for Van Der Gramme to wake up.

Hence, Papimon. Her sudden disappearance from Harper's life caused, unbelievably, a stir. Even a week prior, Harper might have been glad: one less annoyance. But with her mindset changing, the present state of affairs wouldn't work. (She remembered a dancing faerie.) Harper decided to do something.

She decided to make amends.

Los Alamos' local Thai restaurant, Royal Thai, rose atop a grassy hill with a single cobblestone path winding to its entrance. Climbing the hill Harper saw the whole mountaintop town within its sea of pines, undulating waves, mountains beyond mountains, all under the same cloudless sky; a weatherless world, a seasonless one, time demarcated only by the burn scars etched into the more distant peaks.

Harper opened the door.

A long panorama window spanned the entire restaurant interior, flooding it with white light. She took stock of the people inside. There were almost none, despite it being lunch hour for Crux Calico employees, whose favorite pastime was eating at restaurants. Nonetheless, Royce told Harper she'd find Papimon there and she was, seated alone at a small table by the window (all tables were by the window, all sides the same rounded side), tapping her phone.

"Hello." Harper sat opposite her. Out of a sense of solidarity, she placed her phone on the table.

Papimon's head lifted as though it weighed the world. Her mouth hung open in stupefaction or boredom. Harper glanced at Papimon's phone, where a puzzle game danced with lines of colorful candies. Then, like it took too much effort to maintain even this level of engagement, Papimon's head slumped and her finger flicked the candies into a different order.

"Hello," said Harper, unsure how to say other words.

A party of two got up and left, laughing, and when they left the restaurant was now truly empty save for Harper, Papimon, and the red-vested non-Thai waitress who asked Harper what she wanted to drink before handing her a menu. Harper ordered water and the waitress left and the space and silence amplified into an obscenity rendered acceptable only by the cartoonish sound effects that emanated from Papimon's phone.

On a pillar behind Papimon hung a photograph that originated from the 1990s, one of those massively long photos of a large group of people captured by a professional after an hour of corralling everyone into position. All the people wore bright red military uniforms and they stood in a lavish palace chamber with a distinct oriental flair. There were at least a hundred uniformed men, layered into five vertically stratified rows by virtue of a bleacher. A small inscription in the center of the image, below the foremost row, might have explained who these people were and why this picture was taken if Harper was close enough to read it.

Harper returned to Papimon. "Hello."

The waitress returned with drinks. Papimon received something brown. Harper scrunched her face at the lemon in her water. Then the waitress asked what they wanted to eat and Harper panicked because she wanted to eat nothing and when she looked at the menu everything had an indecipherable Thai name. Papimon only pointed at what she wanted and the waitress leaned close to see, which bought Harper time to rifle through dish descriptions. Curry, spicy curry, another curry, sweet and spicy soup, side dish rice, side dish rice, chicken. Chicken! Harper could eat chicken. She confidently ordered the chicken.

After the waitress left, Harper said, "Hello."

Out of Harper's phone exploded rainbow fluorescent and pulsating Cariscresco eyes-first but immediately followed by: "ALLY-ALLY! Ally guess what?! Guess frigging what?! Guesswhatguesswhatgesuswaht!"

Harper placed both hands atop Cariscresco's head and shoved her back inside the phone. Papimon vaporized a row of colored candies into purple mist. A candy cane princess materialized to announce the completion of Level 753.

"Car found a new picture for Ally! Ally will love-love-LOVE it, Car knows!!"

Harper turned her phone upside down. It vibrated in a semicircular arc that rattled the tabletop.

"Okay," Harper said, unable to stand this standstill, the sheer banality an impetus to communicate, "I'm sorry. For last week. I know you wanted to do something and I, uh, blew you off. I'm sorry." The words spurted out so automatically she felt compelled to add something more for purposes of rhythm. "I'm sorry," however, was all she thought to append. "I'm sorry." She was not good at this.

A scraping sound issued from deep within Papimon: coarse grind of bone against bone as her chest concaved. For an instant she appeared emaciated. Skin, bones. A desert creature where there is rock but no water, life but just barely, an ecosystem evolved around aridity, desiccation.

Then she exhaled and exhaling said a single word: "Bro."

Somehow that word reassured Harper more than any possible word. She smiled, fishing for Papimon to smile too. Papimon smiled too, although her raccoon eyes and flaking skin made the smile macabre.

"Let's do something this week," Harper now had the courage to say. "Friday. Friday's our day, isn't it?"

Wheezing, Papimon laughed. She slapped the tabletop and shook the silverware. Her laugh's dryness sent a vague warning into Harper's brain, a warning that perhaps the signs Harper took as positive reinforcement were not as interpreted, but after a strained cough, a hand held for pause, and a quick sip from the brown drink, Papimon pushed up her glasses and rearranged into standard social conviviality.

"Dude. You even gotta ask? My bro, my certified brother." She leaned over the table and patted Harper's shoulder. "Ya boi Papimon was taking you out tonight whether you wanted or not, dig? After last week I'd fucking abduct you if I had to, LOL!"

"Well, that's good. I guess." It seemed appropriate to say something else. Harper tried to remember something about Papimon to talk about. "You're uh, you're sure you're okay? You were in bad shape last Friday. You kept mentioning a coup, or something."

"Oh, that." Dismissive wave. "Nothing dude. There was a coup in Thailand like, five six years ago. I was studying here, stateside I mean. My parents are like, bro, like the ultimate social climbers, and they had this huge fucking thing about like, the United States versus China, how it was going to be the next Cold War or some shit, just the most ridiculous laughapalooza. To hedge their bets they made me learn English and study here and they made my twin sister—"

"You have a twin sister?"

"For real, that's what it feels like to me too. They made her learn fucking Mandarin and study in China, she goes by Chang and she's good at accents too but everyone in China knows she's foreign just like everyone here knows I'm foreign. But yeah, there was a fucking coup while me and sissy were in our respective colleges abroad and my dipshit parents of course had been friends with all the old government officials who were now blacklisted or whatever, which got them blacklisted by proxy, so they told us just to never come back, ROFL. They're still under house arrest. So me, my sister, we're cuckoos now, identical twins pretending to be totally different things. My existence is political. I try to be who I want to be but I'm always only who I am. That Royce dude's Chinese right?"

"Uh," said Harper, still stuck on the twin thing, Van Der Gramme's most recent work of art in her mind with his twins superimposed into Papimon Jaengsirirungrote and some copy-pasted Papimon Chang(sirirungrote) exploring one another's bodies, the exploration of one's self by one's self-but-outside-the-self, which led Harper to wonder if she had a twin sister too, one she could not remember, and whether her twin sister's body felt the way Harper's own body felt, and then these hypothetical unseen twins, Papimon's and Harper's, merged and she saw herself and Papimon as twins. These weird thoughts Harper tried to hide by reaching for her phone.

"Yeah," said Papimon, "no. He's Canadian. Even worse. You're not fucking him are you? He didn't shove his hella dork ass into our Friday because you two are fucking right?"

Smooshed against the screen of Harper's phone, Cariscresco's eyes blared. "Why does Ally always ignore Car? Why does she do it?! When do Car and Ally get to have fun again? When can Car show Ally more pictures?!"

"Uh, hngh, wha?" said Harper.

"Come on bruhsky. I know you're a social retard like me but you don't gotta stoop that low. Does he talk about what videos he's seen while he's shooting into you?" Papimon lurched back a full two feet in her chair and tilted as all four limbs, taut, kept her steady while she thrusted her hips up and out of her seat with sharp, jerky, birdlike motions. "Does he go—oh fuck—OH FFFUCK—I SAW THIS IN A VIDEO—IT WAS CALLED—SHY SLUT TAKES MICRO DIIIIICKKKKKHHH!!!"

A final upward thrust held steady a moment as Papimon expelled a dry death-rattling orgasm accompanied by a flick of her hands to simulate ejaculation; then she slumped back into her chair, which nearly toppled backward.

She screamed it loud but nobody was around to hear.

Harper laughed.

Past the panorama window the whole of Los Alamos spanned, little buildings notched into valleys, and on the nearest hill the vast sprawl of the Crux Calico complex which was the only thing watching them back.

"No," said Harper, still forcing herself to laugh, "no way. We haven't touched. We won't touch."

"Yet, my duder. Yet—yet. You'll see, oh you'll see." Papimon wagged a cracked and jaundiced fingernail. "I see the future. I am the prophet Cassandra, my brethren. I conjure in my hands, these hands here"—she cupped her hands, nurturing an invisible baby bird in the ashes—"the whole heteronormative tale unfolding before us, boy meets girl, the way it has always fucking been since the dawn of time. My vision! I am legally blind." She tapped her glasses. "The inner eye opens within my frontal lobe, like a tumor, eating my cheeks up. I see it all, the awkward courtship, the initial frigidity, melted over time—yes, melted my dude, melted!—by the mention of a thousand videos seen. You don't like him. No. You won't like him. Ever. But he will continue to exist long enough that he becomes an immutable feature of your landscape, the one distinct figure rising out of the white hole of your—Whoa. Dude. Just got a killer thought. You're an albino, right?"

Harper blinked.

"So it's white down there, right?" A wolfish grin.

"Uhhhhh."

A thousand hypnotic colors pulsed out Harper's phone and bled by degrees into the white light of Los Alamos that swallowed them all. The colors played across Papimon's gray face and the reflective shimmer of her lenses.

"You won't ever like him. But you'll abide him, my dude. You'll stick to him because there is nobody else, nobody else in your sad—pathetic—life. No offense bro. Only as sad and pathetic as my own, mere statement of pure factoid broseph."

"Yeah."

"Then you let him inside you, one thing leads to another and now he lives there forever, at least until you birth him out in the form of wriggling grublike spawn, then he loses interest, he finds a ditzy high school whore and bops her behind your back, you find out, either you live with it because now your whole self like moss is fused to his edifice or you rip yourself away and think you're fine even as you die―and then you die. That's the story of this world, my brother. Until birth rates finally reach dead zero, until we all finally... cease."

Her hands fanned out and into the light they were lost.

"I don't think so," said Harper.

"Royce is Mark, exact same guy, except thirty, forty years younger. You'll see."

"Uh, no—really. I don't like him at all."

"No yeah? And who do you like more?"

Papimon's smile presided over this question, imbuing it with a rhetorical air, as though Harper could not possibly have an answer and thus would shift eyes downward flushed red in utter supplication to Papimon's point. But Papimon for all her powers of prophesy had not the vision to stare into Harper's head, to understand what was outside her own body. The answer—Van Der Gramme—manifested readily, Harper did not even need to struggle to remember, Van Der Gramme was always there, and she even started to vocalize it: "V—" only to stop, aware suddenly in this white light, outside the hole of the Consortium, of the impossibility of justifying the internet man who drew porn and whom she barely met and who was, deep down, just a parallel universe version of Royce Ru anyway, a man who made videos instead of watching them. For a moment Papimon's expected embarrassment blistered. Van Der Gramme could only exist in the dark, dragging him out burned him to ashes—Vampire.

But even this instant of embarrassment ended. Harper readied another answer, one to reverse Papimon's entire argument, to end it irrevocably. It too was not a face she had to remember, because while she may have lost many things, object permanence was not one of them.

"You," said Harper.

You, said Harper.

You.

For a moment, Papimon was unreadable. Or perhaps she hadn't heard despite the phantom echo that reverberated in Harper's head. The wild dog grin remained. The fingers thatched.

"You hate me," said Papimon.

"You asked me," said Harper, "who I like better than Royce. I didn't lie." She did not. She was surprised it was true after she said it. She wondered what it meant that it was true.

Cariscresco's colors crawled. No longer only on Papimon's face, now her arms, now the table, now the panorama window and thus the whole of Los Alamos, the whole of the mountains beyond mountains. Harper's phone reverberated with a deluge of unread words.

The food arrived.

"Then I'll see you Friday," said Papimon. "Don't forget. I bought dancing shoes. I'll take you dancing—bro."

Wink.

"Hey Ally," said Cariscresco, "do you ever think about suicide?"

[11] Harper goes to hell: The final Friday.

[11] Harper goes to hell: The final Friday.

Corpses they shambled, two betwixt an endless string twisting out the corridors of Crux Calico, whereupon the blast of heat and light denuded them into nebulous shades. Somewhere behind them a cane scraped. Dust choked the air.

Mountains, endless mountains; cars, endless cars; the weekendbound workers waded to each their own and folded their heads into their bodies to enter.

"Stretch me."

Papimon's body jackknifed onto the hood of her car. Both arms extended backward. The fingertips, bitten ragged and dried-bloody, wriggled in invitation while Harper remained motionlessly perplexed several odd moments.

"Stretch."

Lost in light Harper with no great determination reached out and seized Papimon's hands. Rough and granular texture spread from one palm to another, a sense of immediate filth. Harper resisted the urge to let go. A bubble of nausea popped in the back of her throat and left a bilious aftertaste to accompany the smell of flesh roasting on metal. Papimon, head twisted and cheek down, watched her, waiting, patiently, willing to burn.

Harper pushed both arms forward until they reached the extent of their axis. Tension increased; Papimon's body lifted an inch off the hood to expel a guttural letter ng. In her head, Harper counted. One, two, three. Four, five. Six, seven.

She released the arms. They fell lifeless to Papimon's sides. A leg extended instead. Straight backward, parallel to the asphalt. A cane scraped and Harper took the leg and bent it and so bent Papimon's body as her torso rolled one way and the ng became a whimper until Papimon rolled onto her back and Harper brought the leg forward, bending it at the knee, so that the thigh pressed flat against Papimon's stomach. Grime congealed in the cracks of Harper's palms, coating her in a thin patina. She released Papimon's leg and repeated the process with the second. She stared at Papimon's elongated body, the legs encased in denim, the wispy t-shirt pulled to reveal her navel, the ribcage a solid prism, and thought: binary, binarius, duality, a pair.

Something inside the body cracked.

Harper released the leg. And staggered back, hands acrawl with residue, flakes of dead skin merging with her own, and sought something to wipe. Papimon remained, rasping, arms extended cruciform. The cane ceased scraping. Blank asphalt fanned in all directions.

The sky swirled. Papimon lifted a hand for Harper to help her up and Harper grimaced before she took it, but she did take it and taking it was able to more easily take it when her mind imagined having to take it again.

A chirrup opened the car doors. While Harper quickly slipped into the passenger seat, Papimon embarked on a lazy semicircular revolution from the hood to the driver's side door, carried by pendulous motions of her long legs until with one seamless swivel she fell sitting sideways into the seat. This exertion seemed to exhaust her. Eyes shut, she nonetheless said, "Box. Backseat. Fetch."

In the backseat buried under ragged tank tops the box stood out bright red-orange. Harper strained to reach it and one scrape dragged out a corner and when she reached again she grasped and unearthed it. She handed the box to Papimon.

Or rather she placed it on Papimon's lap because Papimon remained motionless many moments—many minutes—more, her legs stretched out the open door to bake in the unreal heat enveloping the mountaintop.

"What's in the box," Harper prompted, for the sake of reifying her existence, but the question cracked apart into the air.

Papimon breathed with long, labored breaths. Shoring her strength. The shadows cast by the decorative trees onto the parking lot shifted by degrees. Harper considered speaking again to generate some kind of life from Papimon who increasingly seemed less strength-shoring and more slowly-passing-into-death, but her lips stuck together.

Harper checked her phone. No new messages, not from Cariscresco or Somebody's Little Sister or Royce Ru (who brute forced her number by asking for it once) and especially not from Van Der Gramme.

The sun sank. Up here sunsets were quick and dramatic. Duskiness settled over the parking lot and the lights turned on.

The heel of Papimon's left foot dragged across the asphalt. One somnolent tug and the heel popped off to reveal a thin white patch of sock. Papimon's foot flicked and the rest of the shoe flipped off and she caught it on her knee where it balanced precariously. At the same time her fingers crawled across the lid of the red-orange box and fumbled like rat tails until the lid popped off and effervescent within the contents shone:

Shoes. The color of the box, lined by neon tubing, but with the shape of something an athlete might wear—a runner—a basketball star leaping to conjure the unified leap of 50,000 onlookers as somewhere a buzzer branged.

Papimon ran her antidextrous fingertips over the smooth sides of the soles. "My dancing shoes," she whispered.

"So we're dancing," said Harper, to say a thing, imagining a faerie.

"We dance till we're dead. Tonight the art of my soul will shine."

The art of my soul will shine. A very pretty, very poetic phrase, and it sent a tremble through Harper as the phrase made the sunset pretty, and the mountains pretty, and the zenlike façade of Crux Calico pretty, and the special shoes prettiest of all, especially as Papimon guarded them as though those shoes were in fact her soul, a lich's phylactery.

"Put them on me," said Papimon.

The prettiness of the previous statement shattered. Harper nearly snapped at her: Put your own stupid shoes on! But considering Papimon's speed was now that of a koala, Harper decided she better just fucking get it over with. She tempered her initial annoyance, reassured herself that she and Papimon were—friends, it was not in any way unusual or disgusting for friends to acquire a sense of intimacy with one another, to touch one another, to stretch one another's bodies out over the car hood or to put shoes on their feet for them, Harper of course never having had a "friend" before—and thus utterly incapable of remembering what friendship meant or what it mattered and struggling to play the role. But it was in a huff she exited, went around the car, and knelt before Papimon.

Every motion happened robotically. She took the other shoe by the heel and removed it. She placed the other shoe on the ground. She held her hands out to receive the box. She received the box. She placed the box on the ground. She removed the left shoe from the box. She—having to swallow first—held Papimon's surprisingly small foot in her hands and slipped the much larger shoe onto it. Papimon's foot grew threefold once the shoe was on and it also swiveled around causing the neon lines to catch the last rays of light and glow like molten rock.

Harper put on the other shoe.

As she placed the old shoes in the box a change electrified Papimon. The feet kicked the ground and Papimon shouted, not any kind of distinguishable word but just a shout, as she slammed her fist onto the dashboard.

"Papimon?" said Harper.

"RRRRRRRHHHHHHHGGGGGHHHHAAAAAA," said Papimon.

Out of the decorative trees, birds took flight.

A key twisted, the car ignited, a fist jabbed the radio, a song blasted bass boosted. Harper hurried back to her side and barely slipped in before the car jolted backward, Papimon now curled over the wheel glinting sheer unadulterated determination behind her glasses, lips tugged back to reveal teeth, gums, and the thin red crescents that connected them.

The doors locked. Harper clicked her seatbelt. Papimon said: "Let's go to fucking hell Harper. It's Friday, let's own this fucking world."

The music was so loud Harper couldn't hear it. She felt it. Galvanized by its power they tore out the parking lot and into streets already drained of the post-work Friday traffic.

Night had fallen.

Papimon barely slowed for stop signs or red lights alike, howling to the seismic soundwaves of the stereo, her head whipping back and forth as she wrung the steering wheel to pieces. "God! I wanna race someone. I wanna race as fast as I can. I wanna move fast. I wanna move."

Nobody was around to race. All was still, slow, silent, a world immobilized, a small mountain town, a company town, the town where the atomic bomb remapped the world, an ultimate weapon of war to bring about the ultimate, elongated, forgetful peace: the end of history. The museums, the old laboratories of Los Alamos rose distinctive on either side, places where scientists irradiated themselves until their marrow turned to muck and other scientists harvested their gelatinous organs. Seventy-five years where the only wars happened somewhere else, somewhere foreign and unseen, coups only in countries like Thailand, ethnic cleansings only in Africa, a few hundred thousand here and there fed into the grinder for the perpetual propulsion of a planet of seven, eight billion.

But this planet was dark now and the darkness gave it definition, streaks lining the streets, streaks lining the shape of Papimon.

Red—green.

Down they flew, the mountainside a single rolling wall of rock with the precipice divided from them via a rattling steel strip and Papimon howling wicked laughter, pistons pumping tires grinding into the absurd banked turn as the car zoomed down the narrow two-lane way almost sideways with maniacal application of the gearshift to the point Harper had no clue if Papimon's pumping hand motions did anything at all, it was an automatic transmission, it was an economy sedan. Harper discovered herself bracing arms and legs within the cabin, discovered herself screaming as the headlights of a vehicle rose ahead and Papimon still dragging them down the median flicked a smile atrocious toward that vehicle aware and uncaring.

"Ah-ha-ha-ha-ha," said Papimon, "ah-ha-ha-ha-HA!"

The other car cleaved to the rock edifice and Papimon dragged the wheel and their car swiveled and passed by an interval of inches and they were gone before the outrageous onslaught of horn honking could reach them. But Papimon corrected too much and they scraped the steel divider and paint screeched and they bounced off wobbling between the two lanes. No slow-moving vehicle proved impediment for Papimon, perfectly willing to accelerate a horrifying seventy(!) miles per hour to weave around it and lurch back to the correct lane moments before a hundred-wheel semitrailer would have blasted them to smithereens.

"Oh god," said Harper, "you're insane!"

Papimon was only laughing, laughing until her head fell off and bounced around the car like a rubber ball. A spurt of blood shot from one nostril down her lip and dripped onto her t-shirt and only after several more cackles and jerks left and right did Papimon realize the blood and affect a frown. The car slowed to a relatively reasonable pace as she maintained a steady turn with one hand and with the other produced a pink square from her pocket and shoved it up the nostril.

The ground evened: the base of the mountain. Santa Fe spread ahead and now even if Papimon blazed at her economy sedan's maximum speed it didn't matter because someone else blazed faster. She tugged the pink fabric and it came out with a thick glob of bloody snot.

"Fuck."

"You okay?"

Papimon waved dismissively and suppressed a snarl.

They went to a place to dance.

The place to dance was located in the same plaza from their first Friday in Santa Fe, the one with the ancient adobe church where Papimon vomited. Down a narrow corridor between two sports bars, past a walkway ringed with ivy trellises where a malfunctioning sprinkler overflowed the path, a sign over a door read: Hell Hole.

Did the interior live up to the title? Well. No true demons rose to abduct them, but lively décor fostered a mood: A goat-horned mannequin kept in a birdcage suspended where one might in other haunts find a chandelier, its ball-jointed legs a-dangle and one arm missing whether by choice or accident unclear; a giant wooden board consuming one wall crafted into the shape of a grinning red-skinned satan whose irrepressible smile parted into a black void out of which the white words of the happy hour specials were written in chalk; old-timey brown paper advertisements of casinos or tobacconists bedecked by similarly faustian ghouls; stuff like that. Throw in an elaborate pentagram on the floor and some chains and torture equipment and it confusedly toed a line between classic American den of sin and gothy Satanist dig, as if whoever built this place lived in the land of sports bar/grills and needed to instill some edge to salvage themselves from a nightmarishly banal history nobody—nobody other than Harper, at least—was able to forget.

"What do you think," Harper asked Papimon, whose opinion was what truly mattered anyway, as they stood in the entrance and took stock of the space, filled to three-quarters capacity. Nobody danced.

Papimon, wearing a fresh (or at least unbloodied) shirt from the spares in her car, gripped her forehead, swooned, and held Harper by the shoulder to steady herself. "Nmf," she said.

"We can find someplace else." Although Harper lacked the desire to drive again with Papimon. Her legs still shook.

"It'll do. Fuck. Fffuckh."

"You looked this place up? There's dancing here?"

A gurgle sounded in Papimon's throat. "Deceptive advertising."

Harper led Papimon to the bar where Papimon ordered a beer and Harper water but Papimon said no, fuck that, fuck no, she even said "bro," she said, "Bro no fucking way, I wanna see Harper Praise plastered, I wanna see her bent over barfing her guts up right beside me, I wanna see her insides." They compromised; Harper got a hard lemonade.

Nursing respective bottles they hunched on barstools and considered the environs, the people, the vibe, and did little to consider one another, silent between intermittent sips.

Another brown bottle skidded to a halt in front of Papimon as soon as she finished the first and Harper suspected this Friday would end how the other did, that every Friday would end that way, that Friday beyond Friday would span unto oblivion.

"I think about suicide a lot," Cariscresco said at some point. Moments like these and Harper felt flickers too, despite all her previous self-important thoughts of using people like Papimon to her own ends. No—nonsense. Suicide? Just a word cooked up by a bored brain, nothing more. Momentary mania. She was the Alchemist, she could not die, after all. What she needed, what Harper Praise needed, was something to do. But even when she thought "What do I like to do?" she thought of nothing she liked to do. Other than waiting for Van Der Gramme. Other than masturbating.

No, what she needed wasn't a hobby, it was to get fucked. That was probably it. To get pounded mercilessly, any hole, any position, to get used, to be an object. For Van Der Gramme to bend her over that triangular coffee table and ream her ass. Van Der Gramme with his robe swishing around his ankles thrusting a thick hairy cock straight into her large intestine thwack-thwack-thwack because he needed her, or at least her body.

Papimon built momentum, slapped the countertop, and said to the bartender: "Does this place have fucking music?" And the bartender pointed at the sky as if to say yes, and it's playing right now, which it was, the song being, counter to the bar's general aesthetic, a pop track by a famous female singer-songwriter perhaps every living human could name except Harper, and yet a track that lanced Harper with nostalgia, maybe a byproduct of her current mental sensitivity. She remembered—something—sitting in the passenger seat of a car, her mother driving—Harper must have been young—and a somber pop ballad by a female singer-songwriter playing. A hazy, whitewashed memory. Then the memory faded, like a dream.

An inane memory, a memory of no significance, and yet it was like unearthing a Dead Sea Scroll. A validation she once existed hidden away in the most ordinary, mass-market ("normie") song imaginable. It annihilated her doubts, she jolted upright and downed a confident, deep swallow of her hard lemonade, which instantaneously intoxicated her. She took Papimon's hand and dragged Papimon toward the center of the bar, a circle kept clear to demonstrate the pentagram design under the caged devil.

"Let's dance," she said.

"To this song," said Papimon.

"Any song works."

"This song's garbage, yo. Like straight trash."

"It's fine." Harper took Papimon's other hand and faced her, right in the center of the pentagram. "You wanted to dance, right?"

"This song makes me want to ram knives into my ears."

Honestly, Harper kinda liked the song. But Papimon brushed it aside and turned for the exit, her neon sneakers leaving an orange afterimage across the pentagram, and Harper stood helpless to such a whim, unable to muster even a whim of her own in counteraction. But why not? Why not act, why not be spontaneous? Nothing stopped her. She was the Alchemist, malleable matter, nothing stopped her from doing anything, all the world was open to her, she need only sit in an office forty hours a week, it was only her own inaction that imprisoned her.

So why not?

The dance began.

Hands balled into fists pumped up and down in an alternating rhythm. One fist up, one fist down, one fist up, the other down, a simple pulse to the synthetic bubblegum beat. When Papimon glanced back with a suspicious gaze like she interpreted Harper's motions as a demonic summoning ritual, Harper chanced a shimmy, a shuffle of her shoulders as the stalk of her torso shifted left, then right, all in time to the pump of her fists. Her knees bounced; one foot then the other even left the ground by a factor of millimeters.

"Bruh," said Papimon.

Let's teach code with dance, said Royce Ru.

The code of Harper's body unraveled, the arcane symbols of its makeup, all its pigmentary deficiencies. Her hip shot to one side, then jerked back to the other. Her clothes, her austere button-up blouse with a stiff collar, crawled across her chest. Her long skirt (who gave her these clothes? She had always owned them) swished in a semicircle before swishing back the opposite way and repeating the pattern ad nauseum.

"Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!" said the most famous woman in America, on the speakers, hidden somewhere above, maybe in the cage with the satan. "You broke, my heart, I'll break, your mind."

Papimon shook her head, shook dandruff out her hair, and laughed. Harper set her feet into a heel-tapping motion for additional buoyancy and the popstar everyone knew wailed:

"Miiiii-iiiii-iiiiind breaker!"

Choral refrain, adjoined by an aggrandization of the same underlying beat, a manufactured magnificence to swell any heart, but swelling was not Harper's modus operandi, nothing changed in her motions, it consumed her entire focus simply to keep up with the beat in its ordinary state, her face contorted into a nervous strain. Papimon's staccato laughter, HA-ha-HA-ha, HA-ha-HA-ha, knifed into that rhythm like a metronome. The chorus continued:

"Mi-ind breaker, see ya later

"Thought you loved me—I just couldn't see (see)

"Mi-ind breaker, yeah I ain't her

"But wait and see—you'll crawl back to me (me)"

Papimon, silent now, smirking, looked one way at an ignorant group guffawing over bloody marys at the nearest table, rolled her head back, and dropped out of the air. Harper froze midstep fearful Papimon fainted but the arms of the groundward-hurtling body shot out and clapped their palms against the southeast point of the pentagram and then her legs swiped in a full three-hundred-sixty degree rotation with her head and neck braced against the ground. Harper staggered back nearly stricken by the whirl of the orange shoes and their phantasmagoric streaks left to hover in the air and only stopped staggering when her butt hit a table and jolted it and its drinks and people back an inch.

"With whips. And cages. With nails. And chains.

"You broke. My heart. I'll break. Your brain."

Out of her spin Papimon launched herself skyward using only her palms, flipped midair, landed on her feet, feet still moving, forward backward, all over, erratic motions Harper failed to follow especially as the orange streaks cut over one another, but all Papimon had been doing was building momentum. Her body, thin, two-dimensional, fae, hurtled suicidally at the ground but rolled like a cradle, revolving, whirling, legs like a windmill, weight like a feather on a dance that covered every vertical stratification. Harper vanished beneath the applause of a crowd slowly starting to see that some entertainment befell them, trapped within a prison of clapping hands that emerged on either side of her face, under her arms, between her legs.

Papimon refused to stop, whirling a puppet dervish from unseen strings grasped by the caged creature above while the popstar screamed MI-IND BREAKER, MI-IND BREAKER. Papimon's arms gave out and she dropped onto her head and kept spinning solely on her head, her legs pretzeled as the crowd gave a collective gasp and she froze in a pose that could in no way on this physical earth be balanced, yet she froze there, her arms barely trembling, her sweat a smear across the pentagram, froze there until the streaks of orange faded and then she bounced again, now onto her elbows, onto her back, her knees, spinning still. What propelled her? What kept this Papimon moving, it was nothing—magic—her weight propped on a single threadbare arm.

She popped back to her feet and the applause intensified, but although she was heaving breath out her lungs, although she was slick with perspiration, giving her once-ashen complexion a glossy glow, she was not finished. Her glasses, improbably still on her face, gleamed. From the nearest table she seized two bottles and flicked them airborne, the bottles spinning, the drops of alcohol whirling out and catching the smoky light, and as they dropped she caught them only to immediately toss them back up—juggling. From a standing position Papimon backflipped, hit the ground, rolled with only the muscles of her back, caught and tossed both bottles a mere inch from the floor, revolving with the exact same momentum as earlier, caught them again—

No. She caught one bottle; the other eluded her grasp and shattered on the pentagram. Shards of glass shot like water droplets in a splatter, they glistened across the pentagram.

With one final shriek of MI-IND BREAKER, the song ended.

Papimon, upside down, holding a position with her legs splayed in the air, regarded the devastation of her dance floor.

Her eyes did not look at Harper, in fact Harper ceased to exist, but nonetheless those eyes communicated something. Harper understood. Papimon would not let this end her dance. No music, no problem. She would whirl upon this plane of glass and dice herself to ribbons.

Harper rushed forward and caught Papimon moments before she twisted into another spin. "Wow. Wow," said Harper. Everyone in the bar continued to clap despite the snafu with the bottle, a simple misstep, still quite admirable, a nice show for them this Friday night. But Harper thought—moments of beauty always end so fleetingly.

Upsy-daisy topsy-turvy, okeedokee now Papimon, one hand here, one there, Harper now accustomed to the crumbly flaky feel of her skin (but not the gooeyness of her sweat) and also she had two whole drops of alcohol in her bloodstream. Inhibitions gone. A few awkward maneuvers and Papimon went from head down feet up to feet down head up. No disasters with the glass either, only a little cut that somehow manifested on Papimon's cheekbone. Harper extended a thumb to wipe away the blood, but that proved too much and she drew back before contact.

"Good job, wow," Harper kept repeating. "I'm proud of you, wow, you really danced. Wow."

She led Papimon out of the bar and into the harsh blast of nightly desert chill. What a frigid landscape the desert became at night, a deep and sudden plunge through which Papimon's eyes held a steady vacant stare even though her feet went wherever Harper pushed. They crossed the plaza and passed the church before Harper realized they forgot to pay for their drinks, but well! Papimon paid with entertainment. Yeah.

All loose and liquid Harper swayed away from Papimon and into the iron fence thronging the church. Her arms waved in wobbly motions over her head. That dance—that dance though. Wasn't it something special? Harper remembered it and remembering it seemed to experience it for the first time even though it only happened a minute ago. What a dance. Another gift given. They passed the church, who knew where they intended to go, slipped between a few structures, kept on walking along sidewalks, past groups of youngish types in hoodies. Harper said "Wow!" at them and they wowed back, a big hilarious wow until she teetered over a curb and tripped onto her ass at which point they all laughed. She got up, she pirouetted, she bowed, she clasped Papimon's hand and led her onward.

Onward, they walked into the night, and the yellow windows dropped away one by one, and the streetlamps spread farther and farther apart, and the long chain-link fence alongside them bent and twisted and folded.

Harper stared up at the sky and smiled, taking in this life, this wonderful life, this sham feeling of drunkenness, because she knew she wasn't drunk. She closed her eyes and smiled. She had no idea how a drunk person was supposed to act, other than vomit. But she played a pretty pretend, didn't she?

She sagged to a sudden crouch in the blackness; the final streetlamp stood behind them. Only a farce. Nothing ever made anything better. She invented in her head so many reasons for things to make things better—but they never did.

"I don't know," Harper said. "I don't know. I'm sorry. Your dance was good. Great. I'm not lying. I never expected something like that." But how could she communicate that the dance never had a hope? That no dance could have saved her. Saved her from what? She didn't know, but that language gave her a momentary catharsis, the same as putting her fingers into the shape of a gun and blasting mock brains out. Did Harper want to die? Did she want this existence to end, this meaningless nothingness? No. She kept asking that question and kept knowing the answer immediately, she could never die.

Papimon walked into the night. Harper only emerged from her pointless indulgent unprovoked angst in time to see the tail of her orange sneaker streaks fading. She scrambled to catch up with her. They left the sidewalk and trees rose around them, but in the darkness Harper couldn't tell if they were wild trees or decorative trees. The distinction seemed hardly relevant. Harper stumbled on a bush. A stick stuck in her sock.

Trees, and plants, and a solemn silence. Civilization dropped away and all became the murky contents of an inkwell, impossibly slight gradations out of pure black. The sound of a bird, the yellow eyes of a wild dog watching. Papimon deconstructed into only the gleam of her sneakers, no head or body, a pair of feet scraping. Harper's own hands became ghostly. But the exact shape of her body never became lost to her. The cold held her like a sleeve.

Through the shrubbery a source of water tinkled. Its sound forced it into existence and because of the sound it became something seen, a shimmer weaving wayward between rocks and scraggly plants. The existence of the creek brought existence to the world as though it exuded some sort of light, and terrain formed, a little clearing, a few thin trunks rising out of the water's domain and thus diffusing into nothingness, and a Papimon in t-shirt and jeans and bright orange sneakers. Papimon stopped walking. She stood in the creek, her shoes submerged, and maybe it was the shoes that illuminated all else.

"That was my dance." Papimon's voice sounded nothing like her voice. It boomed, deep, more felt than heard, it tickled the skin of Harper's arms. "It's over now. That's the art of my soul."

"Great dance. Really, awesome. Let's dance again sometime. Next Friday."

"Hm." Just hm.

A long silence reigned. Papimon's head bowed in careful thought. Or pondering her reflection on the water. Her arms slumped at her sides. A deactivated machine. Then she coughed.

"Hm," she hummed. "Ah, fuck it."

Papimon whirled around and was on Harper before Harper had a chance to even tense. Hands seized her just under each shoulder and Papimon's face pressed against Harper's and they kissed. Or something like that, lips to lips, teeth gnashing, tongue lolling out, taste of ashes. When Harper's reflexes returned she jerked back and struck immediately the hard tall stalk of a tree, hard enough to rattle her head as she sank slowly into the moist loam around the creek and Papimon fell on her, straddling, one hand tugging tight Harper's collar and the other groping her left breast. Harper's legs squirmed against the dirt while Papimon gnawed on her cheek and neck and yet there was not a single drop of saliva from Papimon's mouth, her skin flaking into coarse squares and Harper thought, sure. Let's try this. Let's see how it goes. Why not? Why not.

Pieces of Papimon stuck to her chin. She suppressed the urge to vomit. Papimon turned away only to choke down a gag.

Button by button her blouse pulled apart and Papimon tugged at her bra as though she had no idea how a bra functioned, which might actually be true, because when Papimon changed her bloody shirt before they went to the bar Harper noticed Papimon both didn't wear one and had no reason to ever wear one. Fighting with the bra for ages, Harper just lying there and feeling her body lurch left and right the way a carrion corpse might when torn to strips by a coyote, Papimon finally extricated one of Harper's breasts and squeezed it with both hands hard enough to hurt. She gripped it, kneaded it, managed to get the other breast out too and mushed them together. Harper grimaced, Papimon slapped her cheek.

"Ah," said Harper, before Papimon slapped her other cheek.

"Useless," said Papimon, envenomed by legitimate disgust, not some feigned dominatrix role, but plain and pitiless. "Nothing in here," smacking Harper's forehead, "nothing at all."

"Nnha." Harper's cheeks tingled.

Papimon's hand hooked into Harper's skirt, between her legs, deep enough to touch what was there. "Nothing," Papimon said as she unconsciously wiped her hand on her jeans.

Nothing. The puppet, the automaton, the homunculus, Papimon now having trouble with Harper's skirt, apparently a neophyte to that complex topic as well, finding eventually a zipper which she pulled down too fast and it snagged and she gave up and just wrenched down the half-unzipped skirt and found Harper's panties.

Harper turned her head to the side and bit hard on her thumb. Papimon drove her face into Harper's crotch and started to sniff. Audible sniffing sounds, mongrel, a twist of revulsion in her face like she sniffed a piece of dogshit, but nonetheless she kept returning to it, sniffing more, sniffing deeper, and finally she pulled the panties down with her teeth and the cool air crystallized like ice on Harper's bare skin.

A coarse, sandpaper tongue dragged across her pussy from bottom to top, licking hard and long, then a second time, a third, so ragged a tongue that Harper cried out. Papimon on all fours, wagging her tail, snarling even, the barest touch of teeth to Harper's vulva and Harper pressing both hands to her mouth to keep herself silent, to continue to be the lifeless puppet for Papimon's amusement—well, amusement was hardly the word when Papimon's face puckered from Harper's acerbic taste—an object at least worth violating. Headless, brainless, purposeless, nothingness, nonetheless Harper still possessed a body, a female body, the sheerest fact she remembered about herself, and even if this world of history and science and god and death and love failed her, even if every avenue turned up only mocking nothing, the truth of her body, bitter as it may be, remained.

Harper couldn't stop herself any more. She turned her head to the side, opened her mouth, and retched. Nothing came out, but she continued to retch. And Papimon, panting, turned aside and retched too, and a gray-green admixture of Harper's fluids with Papimon's bile trickled. But Papimon refused to stop. Her hands seized Harper's hips and rolled her over and Harper moved surprisingly easily with her chest and face against the ground as Papimon fought with Harper's thighs and the skirt still tangled around them to push Harper's ass into the air, at which point she shoved that same coarse tongue against Harper's anus.

A quick, spasmodic clench resisted the jutting tongue tip, but Papimon, undeterred, gripped each buttock and shoved them apart to bury her face deeper. Harper opened her mouth to retch again and got a mouthful of dirt for her trouble. Her feet kicked as she spat and sputtered.

Papimon spat and sputtered too, her face finally rising from Harper's ass, leaving a weird raggedy feeling there. Heavy, panted blecks culminated in a frustrated shriek and a sharp slap that jiggled Harper's ass and left a clearly-demarcated handprint tingling several seconds afterward, one Harper imagined was probably quite red and visible considering her skin's paleness. Papimon slapped again, the other cheek, for good measure, all while the same shriek cut through her throat, and finally dug both hands into Harper's waist, rose up onto her knees behind Harper, and mashed her crotch into Harper's bare ass.

Her hips pounded like a mechanical object. The sharp angles of her iliac crests jabbed deep into flat buttock flesh as her upper body draped on top of Harper's back and her hands pressed into the ground on either side of Harper's face. Papimon's dry tongue lolled out; she panted, hard, fast, like a dog, humping Harper like a dog too. The speed of her rapid-fire thrusts plowed Harper's face deeper into the dirt, smack-smack-smack, and yet nothing happened, nothing except friction, because no matter how hard Papimon tried she, just like Harper, had absolutely nothing between her legs. Royce Ru was wrong, Papimon was binary: the number a 0.

0 + 0 = 0.

Nothing happened, only the smack-smack-smack, only the pant-pant-pant, by this point honestly just sad, Harper simply lay there and took it, unable even to be used, while dust and tiny pebbles rubbed deeper into her face and breasts. And Papimon howled an agonized, baleful scream into the night air, the scream of inescapable nothingness.

"Enh," said Harper, as the scream subsided, as Papimon slowed her inert thrusts. "It's fine. It's over. It didn't work." Still pinned under Papimon's sexless body, she rolled onto her side and sputtered some more dust. "It's nothing, don't worry."

Papimon glared down at her. Eyes catching, somehow, the orange fire of her sneakers, blazing with flame. Pitiless—furious.

She seized Harper's throat with both hands and squeezed.

Breath left. Mouth open but no air came. Sharp choke only and Papimon kept squeezing, deeper, her thumbs crumbling so that she had to push with deeper and deeper bone every moment. Harper's empty head swam. The black night became blacker starting at the fringes until only Papimon's face shined before it, the gray face of a ghoul openmouthed into a single bloodcurdling banshee shriek.

Yeah, yeah.

But Harper didn't want to die, remember?

She drove her knee up and between Papimon's straddling legs hard into her dry cunt and the hit was hard enough to roll Papimon over burbling weird sounds. Fingers left neck and Harper heaved in a breath, hand to heart, rushing air intake, and with a dazed rapid-firing of blinks rose while fiddling with her dishabille. Careful consideration of the state of her panties, skirt, bra, blouse, she even had time to start buttoning the latter as she walked away from the moaning wriggle of Papimon and cleared her throat of phlegm.

For a moment, all was all right. Her clothes sealed back up her body and she kept walking into the dark forest, lacking all care, like nothing happened. It was so easy to forget things, especially a thing she could not describe in a succinct word, rape was inaccurate, attempted murder too melodramatic, obviously Papimon played rough but she was not the only one in Harper's circle of acquaintances with a strangulation fetish. A simple abortive sexual encounter that went too far, the boundaries not clearly communicated, neither the intent, both parties basically just went at it without any understanding of one another, a play of desperation really if you thought about it, two sad lonely people on a sad lonely Friday, nothing more, nothing.

"Kkkkcccchhhh," said Papimon, "rrrrkkkkcccchhhh."

The formless figure in orange sneakers rose percolating a low grumble deep inside its throat. Harper stopped midstep and looked over her shoulder and the thing was upon her, she hit the ground and her head hit a rock, hands scrabbled over her, nails digging deep, Harper flailed. She flailed for Papimon's face and hit her glasses and the glasses finally went flying and Papimon reared back blind and that was Harper's chance. She squirmed out from under Papimon and got up at a run and ran.

Wanna go for a run? said Royce Ru.

Harper sprinted as fast as her clothes allowed, chased by a blind predator but blind herself in this darkness. Hands in front of her she caught a tree trunk to stop from plunging headlong into it and whirled around its breadth to careen in a different direction. The ground sloped and she skidded down it and silence a moment before Papimon plowed at the end of a jump so close to Harper it knocked her unbalanced and into a clutch of branches that caught her and bounced her back. Blood flowed onto her tongue, salty iron taste she turned and spat while stumbling forward, stopping herself with three splayed fingertips against the ground, and rushing full tilt again. Trees burst out of the blackness and passed her and the whoosh of wind battered her face as the world returned to existence from this void and a distant light shone guiding her way gropingly through sharp shrubs and twiggy things as a piercing wolf howl pealed against the nape of her neck. Light ahead, brighter, brightening, a clear path visible, she burst out of the forest and the light—

—Belonged to a Buddha, a massive Buddha of translucent skin through which gold beamed, his smile placid and kind, his belly thick and rotund, his hands a holy gesture. Joyful Buddha's Chinese, the sign beside him said, and a pagoda-style building emerged out of his back, he and the building one conglomerate mass, a wide range of windows showing happy families chowing on chow mein and fortune cookies. Harper skidded to a window and slapped it, screaming, the inside so warm and inviting, but nobody heard her, the happy families too loud laughing with outrageous facial expressions, and Harper palmed along the side of the building searching for a door until Papimon came roaring out of the forest and Harper had to bolt.

Down a sidewalk, lifeless, lit by yellow circles from above but spaced fifty feet apart, a circle, then darkness, a circle, then darkness, a circle, and Harper's lungs losing their capacity to process air, and Harper's legs atrophying under her. But the creature chasing started to cough too, to bend over midstep and hacked up a black deluge of blood, both paces slowed, soon Harper moved at what one might generously describe as a trot, and Papimon kept coughing. The lights of Santa Fe blinked like diamonds and people even passed on the other side of the street, although Harper was too breathless to call to them. The adobe church rose and dogged Harper dragged her feet toward it as a beacon.

Drained of energy she dwindled and yet Papimon still failed to catch up. The coughs grew louder and wetter as they entered the square with the sports bars and Harper clutched the iron gate around the church as though that made her safe in this game of children's tag. She heaved in air, unable to continue, unworried what the disintegrating form of Papimon might do if she caught her.

And it took five minutes, but Papimon finally appeared around the bend, one foot dragging, her shirt a splatter of gore, her chin too. Harper attempted to raise some conciliatory gesture in lieu of words, but if she made the gesture Papimon didn't see it. Papimon didn't see Harper. She lacked her glasses. Cataracts covered her eyes, milky whiteness. She scraped past Harper, into the square, and Harper unrooted from the church fence and scraped after her.

They scraped. The orange shoes led the way. Papimon shaved pieces off of herself, her gray body melding into the dusky environs, the laughter of partygoers. Crumbling. A visible puff drifted in her wake, motes that caught the lights of the storefronts and reflected prismatically in all directions. Harper rasped a half-formed name, as formed as she herself. The holes in her lungs trilled with the effort. Into the dust of Papimon she passed, and squinted to proceed, while Papimon dragged dauntless; one shoe—then the other.

They reached Papimon's filthy sedan bathed under a streetlamp glow and Papimon opened the door and collapsed inside. When Harper went to the passenger side door, however, the door remained locked.

"Hey," Harper wheezed.

The car started.

"Hey. Wait." She slapped the glass with her palm.

Papimon behind the wheel barely existed. Some trick of the light against the dirt-streaked windows erased her, turned her transparent, less than transparent, an opacity reducing closer and closer to zero. But her head turned; she looked at Harper. Her face was no longer furious, not even reproachful. Not even sad, or melancholic, or anything. Simply a face. Less than a face.

The art of her soul had left her...

The car drove away. It screeched around a corner and wiped out a stop sign en route. Then it disappeared. Even its squeal died. And Harper remained there, on the sidewalk in Santa Fe, under the shadow of the adobe church, amid the buzz of the Fridaygoers who bounced between their bars, and felt the holes in her lungs.

[12] I need you.

[12] I need you.

Upon answering the phone, Royce said what a coincidence! He too was in Santa Fe this Friday. He took her home, the whole time in heated discussion with an imaginary version of Harper Praise about something called the Internet of Things, a something that by the end of the drive he deconstructed into all its etymological and technical components to profess a complete understanding that Harper dared not understand.

At her door, he said, "Let's run again tomorrow."

The door shut in his face.

Who next, thought Harper, immune to sleep, as she crawled on her knees across her living room for the laptop plugged into her wall. Another hyperactive invocation by Cariscresco, another slyly smirking request from Sister to watch that Diodati thing. Time passes, but they all say the same things, and the feel of Papimon's fingers and tongue remained upon her skin like a palimpsest. Who next.

Him. Shrouded in cigar smoke, black lenses glittering, robe wrapped around his waist. Bottle in hand.

"Swank timing," said Van Der Gramme. "I need you."

"I need you too," said Harper.

"Ever play x.Nihilo? Course not, you're you. Lemme break it down, I've got someone for you to be."

x.Nihilo (2020). Studio: GodSoft-Helix. Platform: PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 (announced). Genre: RPG.

("What's RPG?" said Harper.

"Oh you're hilarious. Role-playing game."

"So like what we did, with the Alchemist in the tower."

"No, not like that, I mean that's what we're gonna do again, but the game itself, it's like, uh, Final Fantasy?"

"Never heard of it."

"Pokemon."

"Nothing."

"Jesus H. Christ. Forget it.")

Sequel to x.Machina (2017), celebrity game designer and immaculately lewdable character creator Shirou Katsumata's first outing since his failed suicide in 2013. Set after the obliteration of Earth by an alien race called the Seraphs, on a wayward spaceship hurtling from galaxy to galaxy in search of a new home, the series delves into themes of technological progress, artificial intelligence, loneliness, isolation, despair (especially despair, the Japanese just love their fucking zetsubou lemme tell ya), yet with an undercurrent of hope that keeps it from devolving into pure misery porn, rendering it appealing to a somewhat mass audience. I mean Machina did fine, but now that there's this big global pandemic and everyone's cooped up inside—

("Pandemic?"

"Uh. Yeah? COVID-19? Ring any bells?"

"No."

"What the fuck. Are you an ascetic? Do you live on a mountaintop?"

"Yes."

"You really are something.")

Anyway uh. Yeah. There's currently this big global pandemic that literally everyone in the entire world except you knows about, everyone's stuck in their homes and has plenty of time to play games and so x.Nihilo, which just came out, is doing gangbusters. Everyone's jizzing their pants so obviously I gotta do art of it, I am a slave to the whims of the uncultured masses after all. But nah it's actually pretty good, it's the thematic potency I think, Katsumata's always been good at that even when he was dicking around with his faerie games for little toddlers—Is anything I'm saying getting through? Do you like, comprehend English or do my words just mean nothing?

("I understand enough. So who am I playing?")

Sure. Here's a picture. Her name is—

Second Lieutenant Yuria Yevgenyevna Oslyabya: Pale, platinum-haired, and blank-faced; shapely in a trim navy blue officer's uniform; insignia of the ISS Nihilo (phoenix rising from flames) pressed as a medallion into the center of her peaked cap. Kneeling with one dull eye pressed to the scope of the Prototype VLS-753 "Hellfire" linear plasma railgun; she aimed it down the Nihilo's starboard transept corridor in Sector M9(SB).

Compared to conventional small arms weaponry, the advantage of the railgun was the speed and power of its projectiles. The disadvantages were threefold: 1) It required immense electrical energy to fire, which meant it could only be used when connected via cable to an energy source within the Nihilo. 2) After repeated firing, the force of the railgun's electromagnetic discharge would rip it apart from the inside, eventually rendering it inoperable. 3) Given current proximity to the Nihilo's hull, if Yuria missed her target she had a high likelihood of causing a breach, which would endanger the Nihilo's human occupants.

In Yuria's hands, the third disadvantage ordinarily became irrelevant. The railgun, which weighed 709.3 kilograms, wavered less than 1 micrometer as it pointed at the "shape" approaching them. However, a new variable complicated the equation.

"Where is it?" said her Handler, First Lieutenant Kyosuke Kisaragi, a nondescript young man with shaggy hair. "Why haven't you shot it yet?" Crouched behind the smoking wreckage of the transport cart, he tucked his head between his knees and pressed both hands over his eyes in the standard "See No Evil" pose that humans without specialized gear were trained to take during a Seraph encounter. If a human saw a Seraph for even 1 second with the naked eye, they would go insane.

"I cannot state with certainty the Seraph's position," replied Yuria, calm and detached. To her, the Seraph appeared only as a "shape." However, "shape" was not an accurate word to truly describe what her visual sensors detected, and she could not even claim the "shape" was Euclidean in nature.

Οἶδά σου τὰ ἔργα, ὅτι ὄνομα ἔχεις ὅτι ζῇς, καὶ νεκρὸς εἶ, said the "shape," drifting closer. I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead. I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead.

["What," said Harper.

"It's ancient Greek. Book of Revelations. The fuck else would it be. Look the game just does this okay. It's pretentious like that. I'm copying it from a document."

"Okay."]

The "shape" lacked beginning and end. Because Yuria could perceive the boundaries of the corridor, it must logically be contained within the corridor. Because Yuria could perceive things that were not the "shape"—ὅτι οὔτε ψυχρὸς εἶ οὔτε ζεστός—neither hot nor cold—Yuria must therefore be able to discern the "shape" by removing all things that it was not. ὄφελον ψυχρὸς ἦς ἢ ζεστός. I would rather you were either hot or cold.

"God—that sound—what is that sound?!" Kisaragi's vital signs: Heart rate, elevated. Breathing, quickened. Piloerection. Increase in blood glucose. "Shoot it already Yuria!"

οὕτως, ὅτι χλιαρὸς εἶ καὶ οὔτε ζεστὸς οὔτε ψυχρός, μέλλω σε ἐμέσαι ἐκ τοῦ στόματός μου. Thus, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I am about to spew you out of my mouth.

"Sir," said Yuria. According to her approximation the "shape" was now 20 meters away and moving 1 meter every 3 seconds. "Sir, I cannot determine the Seraph's exact position. Thus, I cannot fire. If I miss, I will breach the hull. ἐγὼ ὅσους ἐὰν φιλῶ ἐλέγχω καὶ παιδεύω."

"What? What did you say? Yuria? Yuria!"

Yuria's head twitched from an electric flare in her processing systems. All whom I love, I. All whom I love, I punish and discipline.—The "shape." It was affecting her mental processing systems, not to the degree it would a human's, but significantly. She couldn't allow it to override her core directives. Her name was: Second Lieutenant Yuria Yevgenyevna Oslyabya, she was aboard the ISS Nihilo, she was an ally of humanity, she was created by humanity, she must protect humanity, the location of the "shape" was—the location was—

7 meters away.

"Sir, if I miss, there is a substantial likelihood you will die due to depressurization after the ship's automated systems seal this sector."

"If that thing's aboard the ship, all of humanity's at stake," he said, scrounging his meager notability into a semblance of courage. "Shoot it now—that's an order!"

"Order received," said Yuria.

An order from her Handler was absolute. She did not need to think about whether to accept it or not; there was no option.

Basing her aim on half-completed computations the accuracy of which she could not confirm, she fired the railgun.

The recoil, which was strong enough to kill or seriously maim an ordinary human, dragged Yuria back a full 2 meters, although she retained her kneeling position. The railgun's electromagnetically-propelled projectile connected with the Seraph only 4 meters away.

A large amount of events occurred in the milliseconds following the ejection of the railgun projectile, which consisted of ionized gaseous particles, and its collision with the target. First, and most importantly from Yuria's perspective, was that the stream of incomprehensible information issuing from the Seraph, which impaired her ability to function as designed, abruptly ceased. Therefore, she was able to react immediately to what transpired next, which would prove pivotal for the fulfillment of her primary objective of protecting her Handler from harm.

The railgun projectile pierced the "shape," continued down the transept corridor at 3,753 m/s (a speed considerably slowed from its muzzle velocity), pierced the reinforced titanium wall at the far end of the corridor 63 meters away, continued across the 9-meter breadth of Observation Deck M9(SB)-2, pierced a layer of fused silica glass, pierced a layer of tempered aluminosilicate glass, pierced a second layer of fused silica glass, and continued into the vacuum of space, where it would not encounter any force or object to halt its momentum for centuries.

Each time the projectile came in contact with an object, a small explosion burst from the point of collision.

It appeared that, due to the disruption of her processing systems, Yuria had failed to account for the projectile's velocity after piercing the "shape." Had she accounted for it, she would have been unable to conclude her calculations due to her lack of knowledge of the density and thickness of the "shape."

The corridor began to depressurize.

The "shape" unraveled into something that was categorically not a "shape." A javelin made of words ran through Yuria's head. The words were:

 01001001 00100000 01110111 01101111 01110101 01101100 01100100 00100000 01110010 01100001 01110100 01101000 01100101 01110010 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01110111 01100101 01110010 01100101 00100000 01100101 01101001 01110100 01101000 01100101 01110010 00100000 01101000 01101111 01110100 00100000 01101111 01110010 00100000 01100011 01101111 01101100 01100100

["Is this from a document too."

"Nah. Google 'text to binary converter.' Neat shit huh?"

Binarius, duality, a pair, said Royce Ru.

"Is there a point to this? Or the Greek?"

"Verisimilitude. Look. I ascribe to the belief that to do porn you gotta do character. Anyone can mash two hot bodies together. But people come to me, they request I smash two specific bodies. Why? Cuz those bodies are attached to characters. Characters they like. I have to tap into those characters. Get in their heads. This is what the head of a robot looks like right? You're the expert, this is why I need you."

"Okay," said Harper Praise, who in a separate browser tab performed a Google search of her own to write:]

A human loses consciousness at 30 kilopascals. The cabin pressure of the Nihilo is kept at 100 kilopascals, similar to the atmosphere of Earth at sea level. The rate of depressurization depends on the cabin volume and hole size. The volume of the transept corridor was relatively high, but due to the explosive nature of the railgun's plasma projectile, so was the hole. Calculating... Calculating...

"Warning. Hull breach detected," said the impassive, animatronic female voice of the Nihilo's main computer over the intercom system. "Now sealing Sector M9(SB). All personnel evacuate immediately. Warning. Hull breach detected..."

Concurrently, a siren played. The lights inside the corridor switched red. And the unraveling "shape" through which Yuria could now perceive a hole lashed out with something she could distinguish as "sharp" due to it cleanly splicing the railgun in two when she raised it to block the attack.

The rapid transfer of pressurized oxygen from inside the corridor to outside the spaceship dragged Kyosuke and the cart behind which he cowered several meters forward, which put him in the blast radius of the electricity-fizzling halves of the railgun as they exploded.

Kyosuke. Kyosuke!

Reacting within milliseconds, Yuria hurled herself arms spread to shield Kyosuke from the shrapnel, which embedded into her back. This was, she noted for later review, an anomaly in her computational capacity. She did not consult her directives before acting—something she was programmed always to do. (Post-facto, of course, she recognized that the safety of her Handler was one of her top priorities.) But if she had followed proper internal protocol, she would not have been capable of acting within such a short span of time due to the stream of 0s and 1s infecting her:

01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01001001 00100000 01110111 01101001 01101100 01101100 00100000 01110011 01101000 01101111 01110111 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01110111 01101000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01101001 01101110 01100111 01110011 00100000 01101101 01110101 01110011 01110100 00100000 01110100 01100001 01101011 01100101 00100000 01110000 01101100 01100001 01100011 01100101 00100000 01100001 01100110 01110100 01100101 01110010 00100000 01110100 01101000 01101001 01110011, and her arms enveloped him as they rolled across the linoleum tile, and I will show you what things must take place after this. His body hot; her body cold. Her body impaled by shards and his body with—fortunately—no more than minor abrasions.

She was malfunctioning. Protocol demanded, in the event of detecting an anomaly within her processes, to report it immediately and shut herself down in preparation for troubleshooting and repair.

Directive: Maintain the physical and mental health of her Handler above all.

Yuria kicked one leg into the overturned cart and launched it at the "shape" to buy time.

"Oh god, Yuria—Yuria," said Kyosuke, confirming that depressurization had not yet proceeded enough to render him incapable of speech, "Yuria I saw it."

Directive: A human who has seen a Seraph is no longer human. All directives as to the protection of humans no longer apply. It is a danger to itself and other humans and must be isolated or, in extreme cases, eliminated.

But Yuria was not human either.

The cart came apart in midair, severed into forty unique pieces, and in that moment Yuria, clutching Kyosuke tight against her, sprinted past the "shape" down the corridor. By now, the ship's automated systems had sealed Sector M9(SB) to protect the rest of the vessel, so retreat in the opposite direction was no longer an option.

Given her current directives, the death of Kyosuke Kisaragi would be considered an acceptable if not positive outcome. Yet something inside her malfunctioning head overrode that logical conclusion. The body within her arms. It was hot; she was cold. I would rather you were hot or cold. Her fingers pressed through his uniform into the skin of his back. Her eyes stared into his eyes.

"My eyes are turning into salt. Yuria. Yuria, help me. Yuria, I need you, Yuria, I'm turning into salt."

They reached the end of the corridor and turned left. Although Yuria ran fast, she predicted that the Seraph followed closely. Their destination neared: the sector airlock.

"εὐθέως ἐγενόμην ἐν πνεύματι· καὶ ἰδοὺ θρόνος ἔκειτο ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ, καὶ ἐπὶ τὸν θρόνον καθήμενος," said Kyosuke Kisaragi. Immediately I was in the Spirit; and behold, there was situated in heaven a throne, and on the throne someone sitting.

(A human who witnesses a Seraph for even a second becomes irreparably insane. But how long had Kyosuke seen it? Could it have been less than a second? Under what capacity was Yuria allowed to ask these questions? In what way was her programming able to sustain these idle hypotheticals that only served to undermine her directives?)

(Why was she inhuman?)

A single flick and she launched Kyosuke's keycard with perfect precision at the airlock's authorization pad without slowing. Due to her (inhuman) capacity for mathematical calculation she timed it perfectly for her and Kyosuke's mingled bodies to slide under the opening door the moment they reached it; she was even able to retrieve the falling keycard en route. Before they came to a halt and before the door fully opened, Yuria jabbed one foot back and tapped the button to close it.

The door slammed shut. After a 1.25 second delay, a hard thump sounded as the Seraph slammed against it.

The door had been open for less than 2 seconds, meaning that the airlock (a cube-shaped enclosure 2.12 m³ in volume) maintained enough air pressure for a human to maintain consciousness. The Seraph remained outside the door, and without access to Kyosuke's keycard, which contained traces of his DNA so as to be irreplicable by the various methods of mimicry the Seraphs possessed, would continue to remain outside.

Thus, safety. They fell to the floor.

All became quite silent. Except for Kyosuke's rapid breath, against the nape of her neck.

The airlock's external door contained a reinforced windowed pane that comprised most of its surface area. Through it spanned blackness and light, stars beyond stars, galaxies and solar systems, swirls, spirals, a cruel cold and yet unlimited oblivion.

(These thoughts were anomalous. Purge system and commence shutdown? Denied. Then you must inform your Handler of your anomalous mental state. Denied. My Handler is mentally compromised.)

Directive: Maintain the physical and mental wellbeing of your Handler.

(Then you must inform ISS Nihilo central command of your anomalous mental state. Denied. Cannot leave the airlock.)

Kyosuke shivered beneath her. "I'm crumbling into salt, Yuria."

Her hands, the skin soft latex, spread their fingers through his hair, then slid down the sides of his face to rest on his jawbone. "You're flesh and blood, sir," she reported.

He was warm. Her sensors detected his internal temperature, ordinary for humans, but what was warm? What did it mean to be warm, or hot, or cold—beyond the number in her measurements. She could sense warmth but not feel it. Why could she not feel it?

"Salt, salt," he continued, "a pillar of salt."

"I will protect you, sir." She rested her forehead against his, peered her eyes into his. Because the weight of her metal skeleton would compress his ribcage, she propped her body by the knees, resting each knee on either side of his waist. She thus applied no pressure while she encased him in a protective cage of titanium that comprised her body.

She was cold, but he was hot. Trapped in this roughly 2-meter cube together their bodies remained intermingled. Protect his physical and mental wellbeing.

Yuria's body was designed to look exactly like a human's from the outside—and Kyosuke, still shuddering, still murmuring about salt, unbolted his wild staring eyes and panned them from her face down to the feminine body pressing against him. Her body was designed to look human because humans would feel more comfortable around her. They would trust her. It was a mockery, of course. To look human and yet be anything but. But now, with her head whirring electric, she was thankful for the distraction her vestigial elements gave him. His physical processes of fear shifted to a different set of physical processes. His heart beat and she felt it in the pulse of his blood.

She leaned down and kissed him on the lips.

(Directive: Maintain the physical and mental wellbeing of her Handler. By substituting his deleterious physical processes with benign ones, she thus helped restore his physical state to equilibrium. With the chance remaining that he glimpsed the Seraph too briefly to provoke permanent insanity, distracting him could also lead to mental equilibrium. These logical explanations satiated her directive-based algorithm even if her calculations questioned their efficacy. But the other side was: She, Yuria Yevgenyevna Oslyabya, not a human, wanted this. How could she want anything other than to follow her directives? She was following her directives. Error.)

Kyosuke's body tautened as her pale lips locked with his; this tension soon dissipated. Kyosuke Kisaragi was bisexual with an 85% preference for females, the preference for males being strongly concealed from his human peers. He was an unassuming, almost ordinary young man, somewhat on the socially awkward side, with a penchant for computers that made him the best candidate to become Yuria's Handler after her previous one was eviscerated and devoured by the Seraphs. He was weak on military discipline, like many young officers of the Nihilo (the human race's dwindled numbers necessitating hasty promotions of the unready), but united with his species in their ultimate goal: To find a new home within these stars. He was willing to die for that cause, just as Yuria was, yet Kyosuke had not been coded with that willingness, and Yuria now wondering erroneous thoughts wondered if she would still sacrifice herself, her existence, the only thing she truly knew for certain, for a species that was not hers.

But it was Kyosuke's species.

Kyosuke kissed her timidly, nervously. He had never undertaken any sexual relations with another human, let alone a machine. His hands only went to her breasts because she guided him by the wrists, but once his fingers gripped them, he pushed with a sudden force that would have hurt a human female. Was he tapping into a previously unsensed undercurrent of sadism or was he simply ignorant of female anatomy? Yuria pulled back from the kiss, his saliva glistening her lips, and expelled a slightly pained, slightly erotic "ah" to imitate a possible real reaction. Kyosuke relinquished her breasts immediately and muttered, "Sorry," but he did not mutter "Salt." He turned his face away from her; he blushed.

"It's okay," Yuria whispered in an attempt to sound intimate. She guided his hands again to her breasts and this time he held them more gently, the fingers spread wide. But he seemed unsure what to do next. That was okay. Yuria could take the lead.

She undid the collar of her uniform, then the button just below the collar, and finally pulled the zipper down the front of her body with one smooth motion. This action exposed only a plain white undershirt but it intensified the processes acting inside Kyosuke's body nonetheless. While one of her hands stroked his side, the other slid down his stomach and pressed between his legs, against the slight bulge of his male sex organ.

["Male sex organ. My god," said Van Der Gramme, "my god that's novel."

"She's a robot," said Harper, whose solid, stony, expressionless expression managed the barest hint of a curl at the corner.

"The key advantage of porn art over porn writing is you can just draw a dick. You don't have to think up a word for dick that isn't cringe as fuck."

"Beep boop."]

The blood pulsing through his body flowed rapidly to said male sex organ as Yuria's smooth, delicate, yet firm fingers stroked it up and down through his pants. What a curious inefficiency of nature (nature so often thought by humans to operate with infallibility either via intelligent design or natural selection) that a human could be so easily tricked into activating their reproductive systems when faced only with the image of a human, the facsimile of one, something human-faced that was nonetheless nonhuman. Treacherous image. Or one welcomed. Useful. A replacement that could prove superior to the original. The pants unbuttoned. The tip of the penis poked out. Yuria touched it; caressed it with one fingertip. Kyosuke groaned, agonized, and wrapped his arms around his head. His body shivered.

She slid her head down the length of his chest. Her legs and spine moved her with mechanical precision; all the while she maintained the steady caress, and her other hand held him to help with the shakes. Her lips retained his saliva from their kiss. By keeping it, it became her saliva, when she otherwise would have none. Her wet lips touched his tip. He trembled; she held him. His penis, which she teased further out of his pants, was hard and of average length for a human male. She could take in just over three-quarters of its length; any further and it would reach machinery, not a throat. She must maintain illusion. The image can be believed by those who wish to believe it. Her lips slid down his shaft, then up. Another groan escaped him. A bead of clear semen emerged and her tongue lapped at it. She watched him all the while.

His eyes roved but he did look back. His head twisted against the steel floor. His groans transformed to whimpers as her lips spread his own saliva along his twitching cock. The mathematical precision she underwent to maximize the lubrication from such a scant source nonetheless felt to him like the careful but confident ministrations of a girl to her lover. Her fingertips cradled his tightening scrotum. Her head pulled away from his shaft and her other hand continued the same stroking motion her lips had performed while she slid back up his body and kissed him again. Her tongue groped his and collected more of his saliva; she broke away and reduced herself back to his groin.

"Do you like this, sir?" her emotionless voice intoned before she wrapped her mouth, freshly wet, around his cock.

"Yuria..."

She pulled his cock out and expelled the fake sound of a breath, a tiny "ah," miniscule in its performative femininity, for in truth she was neither female nor male (warm nor cold) (0 nor 1) but understood what those concepts entailed and cleaved to the one her body best allowed her to mimic, cuckoo-like. A strand of saliva dangled from her lower lip to his penis.

"Do you like me as your lover, sir?" She slid his cock 3.75 inches into her mouth.

"Yuria. Yuria..."

"Kyosuke," she said as she pulled back her head, in flagrant violation of directives regarding proper address toward her Handler and superior officer. "Do you want me to be yours? Do you want my body?"

His hands gripped her head. A formality; his strength lacked any ability to restrain her. She allowed him to pretend, though, and bobbed her lips up and down the length of his penis in time to the slight twitches of his biceps. But she refused to force him to orgasm, not yet. She needed more.

Pulling free of his grasp she lifted her head and this time glided gracefully into a kneeling position around his groin, her hands placed atop his heaving chest as she stared down at him.

"We can be lovers, Kyosuke."

"Yuria... But you're—"

"I'm Yuria. Yuria Yevgenyevna Oslyabya. And you are Kyosuke Kisaragi." Her hands undid the fasteners that clasped her uniform's top to her body. She deliberately slowed down the motions, made them inefficient, stumbled for a brief moment, to elongate the act of disrobing, only after several seconds pulling the jacket down over her shoulders and sliding back her arms to shimmy out of it entirely. "You're my superior officer, I know. Love between us is taboo. But I can't help it," (I can't help it, she said, thinking of human media, of films and stories of romance lodged within her memory,) "I need you Kyosuke. I need you." Her inflection strained to affect an element of desperation, a modulation of her ordinarily banal voice. Reduced in her head to exact measurements of sound and pitch.

Even though she mimicked, she mimicked only the human sociocultural signifiers of what she truly felt. Anomaly after anomaly she disregarded, warning after warning she overrode. Her directive became: to love Kyosuke. What was the logical purpose of love? To bind together social units. To spur to procreation.

She wanted his warmth inside her.

Her hands pulled her plain white undershirt up over her head and cast it aside. Her bare breasts, pale white and tipped by equally colorless nubbins that matched her colorless Kyosuke, her bland and unoriginal anything, a simple creature of warmth for her to love and to love her in turn, bounced as they fell free of her gradually divested athletic bra. His eyes riveted to her breasts and he reached to feel them, this time without fabric to impede his touch. As he did, she unfastened her pants. Because of her deft and subtle motions he only noticed once the tug of the zipper pierced the airlock's quietude, within which sounded only Kyosuke's breathing and the rhythmic, undying thud of the Seraph as it bounced against the door. Once he noticed, however, his shaking hands fell from her breasts and he watched as she arched her back and hooked her thumbs under both pants and undergarments and pulled them halfway down her thighs.

Yes, even this part of her anatomy imitated that of a human female. For what practical purpose? Unknown. Especially since this was the point where imitation began to break down. The genitalia of a human female is often unappealing in its asymmetricity, where uneven and wrinkled folds of flesh—as pleasing in aesthetics as those words sounded—pressed together to conceal a series of skinless pink portals into the systems for reproduction and excretion both. Yuria's lacked such unmathematical flaws, being a hairless, skin-colored slit curved gently along the extremity of her pelvis, smooth and without wrinkles. The failure of imitation didn't matter here. No, the opposite. Yuria exceeded reality; created reality to virginal Kyosuke. His penis became completely engorged with warm human blood. It quivered as she kept it upright between her thumb and forefinger and, kneeling, slowly lowered herself onto it.

Her latex idealization parted. His penis, slick and wet with saliva, slid in with ease otherwise impossible due to her dry, cold body. Yet she cried softly and bit her lower lip as he entered, and he groaned pale and wracked by tremors, sweat on his brow, eyes no longer able to gaze upon her and instead turned toward the pane of glass beyond which black bright eternity glimmered.

The Seraph at the door dragged its body down the steel: the sound of a stale scrape. Her body lowered at the same time, millimeter by millimeter, measured to elongate the moment, her thighs forming a triangle around his hips, her platinum hair dangling, her mouth open to issue a series of quiet pants, her hands gently placed against his chest.

"Oh, Kyosuke."

"Is this," he muttered to the wall, "is this alright?"

"Of course it is. Kyosuke—ah!" She rocked her hips forward, lifted herself an inch and then dropped back down.

Kyosuke was obnoxiously unmoved by her tentative motion. "But you—me—you're a—"

"No." Yuria rocked again, and again, entering a slow, gradual rhythm, a rhythm timed to the scrape at the door. "None of that. I am yours, Kyosuke, your 'one and only,' your 'soul mate,' your 'destined,' I am yours forever and you'll be mine, we will love one another, oh!" She bucked her hips, one spasmodic jerk that pushed deep against his cock. "Together, united, in marriage, husband and wife, me and you!"

Her movements quickened. Her whole lower body lifted and lowered, the round curve of her buttocks intensifying as her lumbar spine arched. Kyosuke, Yuria, together forever, united as husband and wife, what a pretty picture, a cozy cottage in a snowy forest, puffy white clouds, chimney smoking, light in the window, tiny bridge over a bubbling creek, his body and hers united, his warmth, her coolness, sangfroid if you will, ὄφελον ψυχρὸς ἦς ἢ ζεστός, oh could that not be them? Somewhere among those stars, a utopia, where history was ended and only pleasant joys were found. Given the scope of the universe one such world must exist, a heaven even for things such as her. And she was a thing, not nothing, no, when she rocked her body against his and felt his hard cock push deeper she could no longer consider herself nothing, she possessed worth and purpose, oh Kyosuke can't you see? Stop your nervous fidgeting every time the Seraph scrapes the door, keep your eyes away, look at her, look at your Yuria.

"Oh, God," said Kyosuke.

"Make a child inside me," she commanded, "create life inside my womb." (She had no womb.) "We'll raise children together, we'll grow old and die together, we'll hold one another's hands." She could not grow old, she could not die, she could only become obsolete. "Love me, Kyosuke. I love you."

"Yuria..." His attempts to speak were thwarted by her constant thrusts against his pelvis. She jerked his cock faster with her dry synthetic cunt, a tight narrow passage that led to only a repository for the storage of sperm so that it could be subsequently banked. But he kept trying to speak, his words punctuated by involuntary gasps. "Yuria—nngh, Yuria—you've—You've gone completely insane—haven't you?"

Yes. Yes she had. If one defined insanity as the denial of reality, she had indeed, and she could not even deny reality enough to deny it. Her internal warnings blared, anomalous behavior this, error that—all willfully disregarded.

Scrape. Scrape.

Scrape.

Her body bent, her breasts pressed against his chest, her hands pushed palms-down on either side of his head, her face stared close to his, her lower body moved autonomously, her rhythm increased, she sensed that regardless of his mental state, of his level of passion, her rote motions would soon wrench out an orgasm.

"From a logical perspective," said Yuria, "all human behavior is insane."

Kyosuke said nothing. Finally his hands, limp at his sides the way all of his body except his penis was limp, rose and slid around her back. His gaze softened into something only describable as warmth.

Her hips thrusted down and held steady all the way against his pelvic bone, his penis pushed as deep inside her as it would go, and then he came.

A sharp, hot jet of semen spurted out his cock and into her inner mechanisms. She cried out; he expelled only a silent breath. His cock twitched again and a second spurt followed, then a third, real warmth spreading inside her. His palms clenched tight against her back and sliced themselves open against the shrapnel from the exploded railgun. He still did not cry out but his blood trickled into the gashes in her skin and between her metal ribs, blood as warm as semen. All his fluids mingling inside her cold body. She blotted out the scrape, scrape with her cry and rode his cock with gentle gyrations to milk a fourth, fifth, sixth twitching spurt from it, the twitches weakening, each with less warm fluid to fill her.

But that was enough. His come filled her womb, the semen cells swimming through her acidic uterus along her fallopian tubes to ovaries, where one single solitary cell breached her egg to foster the conditions essential to generate new human life. Impregnation. A tiny creature growing inside her, stretching her latex stomach taut like a fruit fit to burst, warm little thing with a heartbeat whom she nourished with the food she ate, a little parasite she nonetheless nurtured inside her so that it might one day leave her body and replace her when she completed her natural life cycle.

That would be the meaning of her life; to replace herself. Human behavior: insanity.

But that insanity sparkled inside her now and she kissed a stunned Kyosuke whose expended cock swiftly shriveled and slid slick out of her pussy to flop like a wriggling worm against his thigh, small trickle of sad and late semen smearing uselessly onto the small black hairs there.

His chest heaved. His hands pulled away from her back and he looked at the sliced open palms from which fresh blood still dripped. "Ugh," he said, "guh."

She took each palm, one after another, and lapped the blood with her tongue, lapping it all up to heal him, a proper helpmeet. "It's okay, Kyosuke. It's all okay now. We're together."

"Together," said Kyosuke, stunned.

Scrape, scrape, went the ineffable and inexorable hand of God at their backs.

"Together," said Yuria, wrapping herself around him, holding him with all her limbs, like a spider wrapped around its prey. "That's right. I love you. I need you."

"I... love you too," said Kyosuke. "I need you too."

Infinite stars sparkled outside, a space of limitless possibility and vast empty oblivion simultaneously.

ἐγὼ τὸ Ἄλφα καὶ τὸ Ὦ, ὁ πρῶτος καὶ ὁ ἔσχατος, ἡ ἀρχὴ καὶ τὸ τέλος.

01001001 00100000 01101110 01100101 01100101 01100100 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101

THE END

[0] Fall of the Soviet Union.

[0] Fall of the Soviet Union.

The next week, Harper received an email from someone named Sarah VanBuskirk, who turned out to be her boss. The email was also sent to the other members of her team.

"My esteemed colleagues," the email began, "I have unfortunate news. It is with great sadness I inform you that our beloved friend and coworker, Papimon Jaengsirirungrote, passed away last Friday..."

END OF PART I

Intermission A

Intermission A: A letter to somebody named Mark.

hey mark

been followin you since basically forever, think i was 14 maybe 13 when i first saw your shit. i kno rite, pretty young to be gettin into porn but my life was fucked anyway. ykno the usual lol, mom screamin n hittin me n shit. school sucked too. jerkin it was all i had to look forward to rofl. which was why it was so cool i met you, i mean at first all i was doin was jackin to that pic of ranma 1/2 you did ykno the one with girl ranma except shes got that big fuckin cock lol, didnt even kno what ranma was at the time, actually checked it out cuz of that pic rofl. that shit was so fuckin hot man. i was fuckin confused back then, didnt even kno what girls were i mean. shit. i mean of course id seen pussies like it was the fuckin internet lol just type pussy into google but they all looked like these gross hairy things and anyway im gettin off on some tangent here so whatever.

point is i beat off to that pic so many fuckin times i memorized every fuckin inch of it even the watermark with your name and eventually figured what the fuck and looked you up to see if you had other good shit. cuz before that id just found the pic on google rofl, id just type shit into google, that was how i looked for porn rofl. i found your blog, this was before twitter n all that shit. blew my fuckin mind you were basically my age, i mean 1-2 years older but basically. n your other art was good, i mean great, i was all over that shit lol, but i just started readin your blogs n your thoughts on shit n it was like wow, this guy is SMART lol. this guy knows some shit. n whenever youd post a blog bitchin about your mom i was like, yeah i get that. it helped me honestly. those blogs n all that bitchin n i even saw that pic u made of crona from soul eater chokin n stabbin his mom b4 you deleted it, i actually got it saved. prob the only person in the world who has that pic, other than you of course. times were dark for me lol and shit like that really helped.

i started workin at an auto place n savin up a few dollars n when u opened that patreon i was the first person to donate. wasnt much lol just a few dollars a month n i really couldnt spare it since mom never got food lol, i had to keep buyin food 4 my sisters. id steal money from moms purse when she got wasted lol and shed beat the shit out of me after but fuck it lol i was like 17 n knew id get out of that house soon. i figured u deserved the money man. nobody takes artists like u seriously its crazy. but what you do is miracle work man. i cant even look at real pics of girls anymore its like whats the fuckin point. just gross ass whores lookin like fuckin groupers when they suck a dick lol. your arts better than real life thats the fuckin truth. real girls wont even look at me anyway so why not just beat it to drawn chicks rofl. just masturbate fearlessly to death lol.

so yeah this has been a long fuckin preamble but shit man i feel like i gotta get this off my chest and tell you what u mean 2 me as an artist. and its why its important i talk to u now. cuz after that hiatus youve just like really gone off the deep end bro. i mean that as nice as i possibly can. like a friend to another friend, you gotta say somethin when a friend is makin a dumbass decision ykno? u gotta get help for this mental illness you have man. seriously. cuz like, what ur doin is not healthy. you deleted your pics man, all of them. thats your whole lifes work and you just destroyed it overnight, one day its all there on your blog the next its gone. cant you see how unhealthy that behavior is? cuz man i get it, ive been there, ive done stuff like trash my own room and ive hit or cut people who were just tryin to help and take it from me thats a dark road man. a dark road im still on rofl. u dont wanna take that road man. what ur doin now is psycho shit. its mental illness. SEEK HELP.

i saw the vid you made explainin it. its bullshit man. fuckin bullshit all of it. u said you were findin out who u really are and thats bullshit cuz you and me are from the same place, same shitty family, same age, we r on the same wavelength and i KNO this new thing u think you r is NOT YOU.

i left this comment on your video but i dont kno if you saw it since youve really gotten popular recently with those nonporn animations (i didnt care for them sorry but its the truth) and that big announcement u say youll make soon, so just in case ill copy it here, sorry if its a lil weird i was depressed and baked when i wrote it lol:

is it possible to let go of the belief that you should or need to kno who you are? in other words, can you cease lookin to conceptual definitions to give you a sense of self? can you cease lookin to thought for an identity? when you let go of the belief that you should or need to kno who you are, what happens to confusion? suddenly it is gone. when you fully accept that you dont know, you actually enter a state of peace and clarity that is closer to who you truly are than thought could ever be. defining yourself through thought is limiting yourself. when you are no longer totally identified with forms, consciousness—who you are becomes freed from its imprisonment in form. this freedom is the arising of inner space. it comes as a stillness, a subtle peace deep within you, a nothing, even in the face of something seemingly horrible.

yeah i was high as fuck when i wrote that lol but i think its true. i dont kno what ur doin now. you r throwin away your life. ur killin that guy named mark whose blogs i read every day growin up. it pisses me off man. it pisses me the fuck off to see what you r doin to yourself. i sent this cuz i knew i gotta save you. cuz only i can. cuz only i really kno you.

from a Mark just like you

PART II: BASE METAL TO PRECIOUS

PART II: BASE METAL TO PRECIOUS

[1] Trees part; an idol emerges: She.

[1] Trees part; an idol emerges: She.

A dark room with lots of people. All had gathered; faceless waves fanned unto infinity, for the room had no bounds, like the expanse of space. People spoke but nobody knew one another so their voices were only a shout in the street. Certain phrases stuck above the mingled mash a brief moment before fading: It's all, that's right, for sure, I mean, definitely, you're trolling, that's not, no. Words imbued with a chill of depth despite their emptiness. Made meaningful, in this environment of pure lacquer: shine from no source.

The source, a figure, entered.

Unlike the masses this figure stood above. Unlike the masses this figure possessed color, dimension, and depth, a clear beginning, a clear end. Things could be said about this figure, things could be categorized and defined, and in tandem with this figure's entry the masses quieted, not of their own volition but by the power invested in the figure to mute them no matter how hard they tried to shout. They tried to shout.

But the only sound was the sharp, heavy. Slow. Clack; clack. Clack. Of the boots of this figure, tall pink and high heeled boots, as they strode across an elevated walkway that did not exist in any tangible metric save the sound echoing: Clack. The boots rose to the knees, after which an interval of smooth, thin, and pale thighs sharpened the contrast between the figure and the dark world behind it; finally those thighs vanished into a pink skirt that swished with each step: Clack. Clack. Thud.

The thud, which reverberated across the cold air, came from the slamming of the base of a cane against the same imperceptible platform, held by two gloved hands the palms of which rested layered one atop another atop the silver lion's head at the top of the cane. At the sound of the cane the feet stopped, the figure stilled, centered among the masses, stared at by their invisible eyes. The tassels strung from one shoulder of the figure's pink military uniform to the tip of one tightly-fixed collar rocked once and went still. The waist-length cape, ermine-trimmed, settled. The medals pinned to the breast, in the shape of hearts and smiley faces and other universally-recognizable emoji, glimmered. Gold epaulets shone.

The figure stood; six foot seven including heels, yet the absolute picture of femininity, waist trim, skin fair, sky blue hair tied into a braid by three red ribbons in a vertical row. A pink peaked cap displayed an emblem of a rainbow. A pale heart tattoo adorned one cheek and two blue stars, one large the other small, adorned the other. No detail or accessory remained overlooked, and the figure as a whole made a statement via constant contrast between sharp militarism and mollifying flair that created something both to be loved and feared, desired and despaired.

A single blue eye scanned the crowd as the figure maintained its staunch pose balanced against the cane that stood equidistant between slightly inward-tucked toes. The other eye was pale and pupilless and the ghost of a scar that tapered above and below it was the only imperfection on the entire body; the figure, aware of this, tilted its head in certain fashions to hide it from view, an endeavor impossible amid this panopticon.

Pale lipsticked lips beamed benevolence upon them despite their unseemly ability to see—her.

"Hi, hello," she spoke to them, "it's me." The cane scraped off the platform, span three full revolutions, and was caught by an outstretched arm only to immediately swipe a semicircle forward and aim the silver lion's head at the audience. "It is me! Your guide into a world of angels and demons:

"Mimmy Wowzers."

Mimmy Wowzers leveraged the base of the cane against the side of her boot and tilted to the side, unable to fall.

"I manifest before you today! To reveal something that will amaze and awe-inspire you, this I guarantee with ab-so-lute certainty." The cane span in her hand and somehow without it being thrown she caught it in her other to bring a sudden sharp slice that might as well have sliced the amorphous crowd before her.

"I reveal to you a show.

"My show."

Could the crowd speak it might have cheered or applauded in unconscious response to the crescendo of Mimmy Wowzers' voice, or the floe-piercing clack as she stomped one heel against her platform. But their voices remained silenced and all they could do was display a binary response of positive or negative, like or dislike. They liked. Overwhelmingly. The thousands of them liked in droves, thousands of likes, a deluge of likes to drown the measly singular dislike which was so insignificant as to be invisible on the bar showing the like-to-dislike ratio. For who would come to this event if they weren't already excited to see what it bred?

Mimmy Wowzers' single eye scanned, and amid the mass, two bright red eyes peered back. Bright enough to illuminate the small girl who owned them; a girl who smirked, revealing the fangs of a vampire.

But that was only a momentary glimpse, and the vampire vanished into the mass same as any other, and Mimmy Wowzers did not even register the existence of something so insignificant within her mind; it was simply nothing.

"I have prepared for you today! A special sneak peek. A teaser, if you will. A flash of inspiration straight from my mind to yours." The cane whirled to tap against her forehead, pushing up the brim of her hat just a moment to show fully that scarred blind eye fixed immutable in its socket. "So! With no further ado—Lights!"

The lights, already off, went off again even though no real change overcame the brightness of Mimmy Wowzers returning with a fluid spin of her cane to her default forward standing position, one final clack substitute for the sound of the switch flipping. A screen opened behind her, as immense as it needed to be. Mimmy Wowzers bowed her head so that only her austere, ineffable smile remained below the brim of her cap.

The screen played.

"Hi there! I'm Allison Apple," Allison Apple said, bouncing onto the screen with a quaintly humble gesture of greeting in two flailing hands, sharp black-lined, single-toned and ambiguously brown-skinned. Big head, big eyes, big bean-shaped smile. Friendly, cute, casually clothed: shorts and a distinct striped sweater with a hood that flopped to her expressive motions while her creator stood still as death before her. "But you can call me Ally if you want."

The screen cut to a stocky humpbacked sedan bounding down the road. A tower of luggage, tied to the top by strained cords, tilted precariously but did not fall despite the reckless driving of what could be inferred as Ally's mother, since Ally and an obligatory snotnosed twerp brother stared terrified from the backseat. The camera turned—or rather the animation gave the impression of a camera turning—to show the car's destination, a beautiful green suburbia crowned by a shining sunrise.

"So me and my family just moved to this new town called East Eden, and it—is—AWESOME. Everyone is so friendly, and there's so much to do, and the ice cream truck even gives out free ice cream on Fridays!" As Ally narrated, clips illustrating her statements played on screen. "But even in paradise, school is still school. Bluh! I can't stand it. St. Mary's Academy is especially strict. They make us wear these ugly uniforms and follow hundreds of rules. Literally hundreds!"

Accompanying brief interior shots of a gorgeous palatial school with Ionic columns and fountains, Ally tripped over her untied shoelaces and cartwheeled into the rigid legs of an androgynous uniformed student who unraveled a scroll that listed the literal hundreds of rules, some briefly visible including "No whistling," "No having fun," and "No tripping over your untied shoelaces and cartwheeling into the class president."

"And who's that, you ask?" said Ally, as a big arrow pointed to the person holding the scroll, whose white uniform included militaristic touches reminiscent of Mimmy Wowzers' own. "That's Gabriel, the class prez. Ugh! No matter what I'm doing, there he is to tell me I'm doing it wrong. I can't stand him! Even if he is kinda cute. Uh, I mean, w-what was I saying? Forget about that!" A bunch of papers fell out of Ally's backpack, revealing some rather dreamy doodles of Gabriel, which she hurriedly shoved out of sight.

"One day Gabriel caught me 'loitering' (whatever that means) and sent me to detention. Geez! Can he even do that? But that's when everything changed. Because at detention I met this girl."

"This girl" being a flagrantly punk-dressed chick with black leather and pointy metal studs and her hair in a purple mohawk, slumped back in her desk and blowing a big wad of chewing gum next to a sign that said "No chewing gum."

"She's Paimon. I know, weird name right? I asked her if she's from a foreign country and guess what she said?"

Paimon herself popped her bubble and started talking. "I'm from down under." One long, sharp, black fingernail pointed straight at the floor.

"Australia?"

"Nah. The Underworld."

"I didn't believe it. But then Paimon started doing all this crazy magic, right there before my eyes!" Crazy magic including the transformation into a bat, a Doberman, and a boy version of herself. "And then Gabriel showed up, and he started doing crazy magic too, and then they got into a big magic battle, and there were explosions and fireballs and a huge-swirling-vortex-of-pain-and-suffering and I only just barely made it out of detention with my life! That's when I knew. East Eden was no ordinary town, and St. Mary's Academy was no ordinary school. It was a place where angels and demons battled it out for the souls of ordinary people—people like me and my family."

A frazzled and slightly burnt Ally, returning home from her first day of school with a strand of hair still flickering, stopped to look at her ordinary home, through the window of which her mother and brother did ordinary people things.

"We can't just move again, and who would believe me if I told them anyway? So in order to survive here in New Eden, I'm going to have to pick a side. Gabriel's a total stick in the mud, but he's an angel, so he's gotta be a good guy right? But would I even be able to follow all his hundreds of rules? Paimon is cool, but she's a demon, so that's gotta be bad, right? Ugh! It's so confusing. Only one thing's for certain: I'm in for the adventure of a lifetime, and it's all happening right here."

The music got big. A sequence of shots flickered in rapid succession: Gabriel and Paimon's magic battle, Ally being taken under Paimon's wing (literally; Paimon transformed into a raven), delinquents spraying graffiti, a contrary shot of Gabriel (also transformed, this time into a blonde girl) slapping with a long thin pointer a list of commandments chalked onto the blackboard while Ally doodled pictures of him/her in her notebook, then a big beam of light descending from on high onto the school, a juxtaposition with the same shot of the school now wreathed in hellfire, a shot of the Apple family sedan swerving down a road with a giant Cerberus in mouth-foaming pursuit, Gabriel or Gabrielle reaching out and catching Ally by the hand before she could tumble into an abyss, Ally and Paimon jumping on the bed and rocking out on guitars in a punk-themed bedroom, Ally's little brother playing fetch with a small Cerberus (the same as before, miniaturized?), Ally with a student council badge pinned to her uniform, Ally in a black dress putting on black lipstick, concert pyrotechnics, Gabriel and Paimon clashing sword against pitchfork, and finally a highly unsubtle shot of Paimon and Gabriel playing tug-of-war with Ally's arms. The screen, rather than Ally, split in two to reveal a bold, bubbly title card:

Allison Apple and Her Friends, Good and Evil.

Created by Mimmy Wowzers.

Fridays 8 PM Eastern/5 PM Pacific.

Only on the Disney Channel.

The trailer finished, the screen went black, Mimmy Wowzers having never moved became once more the forefront of attention, and the mute enforced upon the audience lifted at which point they all screamed in frenzied, epileptic applause, a mass writhing, tossing, churning, likes upon likes, a few dislikes utterly buried, ten thousand likes, twenty thousand, more by the second. Mimmy, after several silent moments bathed by this approbation, responded with a single outstretched arm, gloved fingers spread wide in salute. The mass reached back, reached for that palm, but never reached it. Mimmy towered above them, six and a half feet, and her sightless eye showed only ice.

Her sighted eye fixed upon the figure of the vampire girl amid the crowd, who stood arms crossed, smirking. When their eyes met this time, the vampire winked.

But the vampire was beneath Mimmy, and Mimmy paid her no heed. She lowered her arm, turned on her heel, and with the aid of her cane gliding frictionless against the invisible platform, departed into oblivion.

[2] Welcome to a world of detritus.

[2] Welcome to a world of detritus.

Break down a body. You got shapes. Component parts meaningless when divorced from the whole: cylinders, rectangular prisms, ball joints, misshapen trapezoids, the like. Dissect a body like that and find out how to assemble it again. Out of nothing create legs, trunk, shoulders, neck strained, head down tilted, arm bent back, hand curled around a discus. Lacking all motion, all dimension, lines worming out of a plain white canvas, nonetheless a concept is suggested: This is a body about to twirl. This is a body about to launch that discus a record distance.

Except it never will.

Reassemble these same parts, reshape them, adjust the bulges of the muscle, and now there's a figure draped over a divan, dramatic, the head lolling off the side, one leg folded at random, one hand cast back, crest of pelvic bone, spinal column arched high to form a semicircle between the back and the plush cushions. The same extremity of motion, the same potential energy locked into a static series of shapes. Then make a second figure, or recreate our discus-throwing Olympian, yet now positioned between the sprawling tragedian's spread thighs, his hands still curled, but around her thin almost cone-shaped waist, his downcast gaze piercing directly into her navel. The same tensed muscles now suggest a different type of movement. And her extended extremity, her effetely posed hands, her lolled head, her lips spread into an irregular oval, are no longer a swoon but an expression of ecstasy.

What makes the one beautiful makes the other. All the same principles at work. Creation of something from nothing: That's art.

Bernini put St. Teresa in a similar swoon.[1] It's in a cathedral of God. And Bernini himself is apotheosized to the height of glory. Well, among certain circles. Not so glorious that the footnote wasn't necessary—plebe. Regardless. The degeneration of the era is not Bernini's fault. Gianlorenzo Bernini and his sculpture are in glory, but where's Graham McGill?

Strained in a position not dissimilar from his creation, the greatest living artist faced his tablet upside-down and drew a stroke with a stylus, only to hit the hotkey to undo and draw it again, only to hit the hotkey to undo and draw it again, only to hit the hotkey to undo and draw it again. A stack of brown newspapers tied into a cube served as his table and the divan off which he hung a bare mattress and a singular blanket in which he was embroiled. The stub of a no-longer-lit cigar rolled from one corner of his mouth to the other and three stubs of similar length clogged the closest of six ashtrays scattered about the room. A blanket should entwine his heroine too, he decided, something silken to cling to the contours of her body and conceal enough to enflame the imagination with untapped possibility. Everyone wants to create, and art that incites its observer to creation, even if only creation within one's mind, satisfies more than something purely naked. Silk, good, yes. Lots of opportunities for eye-catching rendering with silk. His customers died for gorgeous renders, so give them a gorgeous render as the silk sheet winds its way around her body.

He drew a line and undid it. He drew a line and undid it.

His eyes throbbed, his neck throbbed, his back throbbed, and his brain throbbed. His tangled leg lacked circulation. He squinted through his sunglasses to hone onto this line he simply could not conjure and thoughtlessly pushed the glasses up with a thumb, but the world full bright blinded him and he drew back wincing until his crushed eyelids pulsed out the sting.

"Kggghrrrrrkkkh." Graham flicked a lazy line that bisected his heroine, one Miss Kaguya Shinomiya.[2] A rich young lady, sexually sheltered, ice queen who eventually melts, plenty of classic tropes at play in this one. A clack of the undo hotkey stitched her back together so Graham could have another go. Her would-be boyfriend Miyuki Shirogane, depicted here kneeling between her spread legs, stared at her unfinished body intently. While Kaguya lost herself, Miyuki remained obsessively present. He was not bulky but his musculature remained prominent within the confines of his otherwise-unremarkable frame. His expression was unreadable, in part because his eyes were concealed, in part because the hanging angle of his head distorted his lips into a mask of stoicism. His rigidity contrasted her languid flowing form, and in that conflict of bodies an entire tableau of character and event unfolded. He both towered over her, a vertical obelisk almost leaving the frame, and stooped servilely for her. She both lay subjugated to his strength and commanded him with a sharp angle of one outstretched hand. He was both powerful and timid, while she both fragile and ebullient.

This deviation from binary fostered juicy, pointed contradiction: A story told by bodies alone. A meaning that originated in the form of humanity. A line that simply would not bend the way he wanted god FUCKING DAMMIT aughghhhhhrrrrffjjkkkkll. Undo. Undo. Undo. Undo this fucking line out of existence just so he could bring it back and murder it again. Fucking shitty stylus, shitty tablet, shitty seasonal anime, shitty hand, fuckfuckFUCKER fuck!

The door rattled. Graham chucked his stylus and it bounced off two walls, a mound of dirty clothes, and one of the other five ashtrays.

"Who the fuck! Who?" Graham strangled his blanket until it spat him out and he involuntarily cartwheeled to what served as his feet. All the blood rushed out of his brain and into an arm newly unchained, which caused the curious sensation of faintness with a massive leaden anchor in his tibia. "Don't bug me about the damn heater Fletch I told you!"

"Eet's me deepsheet," said El-Marghichi in accompaniment to the arhythmic rap of something wooden against the door. The rap matched the baritone, monotonous thump of every syllable El-Marghichi enunciated, no contrast given, no stress or unstress.

A well-aimed spit launched the cigar stub into a third ashtray en route to the door as Graham tightened the sash of his bathrobe and withdrew his flask, only to discover it empty.

Marc El-Marghichi looked something wizardish, slouchbacked and leaning on a mop like a staff, but his black-and-white ahegao shirt[3] dispelled any illusion of wisdom. He shoved the screen of a phone into Graham's face. "Look at dees sheet."

A blink, a moment to focus, a squint through sunglasses and Graham made out a bubblegum-fonted title card: Allison Apple and Her Friends, something-something.

"Kay?" Graham pushed past him into the corridor, stopped to consider direction, and decided on a route. El-Marghichi thudded behind him with the phone outstretched. "The fuck's this Sister," Graham said, "I don't give a fuck." Except he might actually be financially obligated to give a fuck depending on whether this whatever-it-was would be the next big thing. His weekly Patreon[4] poll loomed large.

He chose the correct path and the corridor opened into the sweeping foyer of their humble mansion, replete with a spiral staircase that rose to a second and possibly third floor from which nobody had yet returned. In general the deeper into the house one got the less safe one became, which was why Fletch established a permanent outpost in the foyer, sheltered under the stairs.

"Graham the fucking heater my man," said Fletch from behind his pillars of textbooks. A rustle and he emerged, tiny face hidden behind the fur trim of an arctic parka, enfolded caterpillar-like in a sleeping bag.

"I said don't tell me about the fucking heater Fletch."

"Eet's Me! Me!" said El-Marghichi, thrusting the phone in Graham's face.

"Graham look at my fucking hands bro." Two trembling palms poked out of Fletch's sleeping bag. "Look at these fucking hands man, they ashy as fuck in this cold. Lotion ain't doing shit man. I need heat."

The phone lowered and El-Marghichi whipped his mop to point at something near the top of the stairs. "Ey. EY! Geet the fuck out, geet out mother fucker!" By the time Graham looked, whatever he pointed at scurried back into the depths.

A yellow bucket that still contained three pieces of a 10-piece chicken meal sat amid the overturned empty buckets on the dining table. Graham fished a thigh and bit in. "Furnace, for a place this big?" Chew, chew. A hand indicated the massive ceiling, where a chandelier had once hung (it was now a mangled mess shoved against the base of the stairs as an impromptu barricade). "Thousands Fletch. Thousands plural, multiple. I can't fucking afford it."

"Then get a smaller house dog, we ain't even using any of this one. Fuck man it's Detroit every other fucking house is empty."

$3,318 a month, respectable sum, but deduct from that the thousand he sent to his mother so she wouldn't lose her home, few hundred to his video editor, few hundred to Fletch for the textbooks, hundred more for electric and water and internet, whatever the fuck he was paying in taxes, standard living expenses like food and drugs, and of course rent, and just barely he made ends meet under normal circumstances. Except El-Marghichi fucked everything up and Graham had to get him out of Switzerland quick, on whose expense? Yeah you guessed it. COVID stimmy covered some of it but Graham also needed a new tablet, preferably a Cintiq,[5] which some might consider a luxury expense but if his current tablet went kaput that 3.3k income would dry up real quick.

"Now's a bad time," said Graham.

"Shit man."

"Look Gramme. It's Me! Me!" El-Marghichi showed the phone again while Graham went to the mixer table and mixed vodka and orange juice to stave off scurvy. "Me! Me!"

"It's you? You did this? This does not look like your style Sister. Fletch if you wanna move maybe get Dogshit off my ass? He's hounding me a week now."

"Bro I'm telling you Dogshit's all talk, he ain't gonna make you pay him, he's your friend bro. What's he gonna fucking do, jump you?"

"Not me. Me! Me!"

"Sister I cannot understand your bastard French accent get out of my face."

Somewhere deep inside the house a floorboard snapped and something screamed; for a moment all conversation ceased as they stared together toward the second floor in anticipation of some follow-up event. But the scream trailed away, and nothing more came of it.

"Dogshit ain't shit," Fletch muttered, realizing he had no leverage in this argument, as he retrieved a textbook and withdrew into his cocoon to read it.

"Me! Me! Fucking! Wow! Zers!"

The words El-Marghichi spoke finally cohered; the meaningless became meaningful with only one additional element of context. The realization prompted Graham to double-take.

"Mimmy made this?"

"Yes! Fuck!"

Snatching the phone Graham tore fried skin off the chicken with his teeth. Allison Apple and Her Friends—sunglasses lifted with a thumb—Good and Evil. Created by Mimmy Wowzers. Sure enough.

"Well what the fuck is it? A webcomic?"

"Click eet. Watch the veedeo."

Graham watched. Uncomprehending. He devoured more chicken and chucked the bones into the yellow bucket. He reached for a rag, found none, and wiped his fingers on his pajama bottoms (not his robe). He finished his drink and mixed another.

"A kidshow? A show for kids?"

"Watch, watch."

But he could barely stomach it. What a tragedy, what a disastrous fall from grace. Unimaginable, calamitous, and here he'd harbored the slightest shred of hope Mimmy's promised mystery project would demonstrate a spark of the talent he once saw in her but of course why ever be optimistic in this world where things only ever slip into mind-numbing stasis? Mimmy set her trajectory long ago and she intended to ride it around and around the drain. God. What trash. Thick lines, big eyes, no depth or tone, complete erasure of self into stylistic nothingness. Could this even be described as a style? Was there any hint of Mimmy at all? Where was her bold color choices, her unusual eye for perspective?

"I can't any more," he said after an outrageously-proportioned Cerberus looking like fucking Clifford the Big Red Dog[6] chased a car that didn't quite match the angle of the road it supposedly drove upon. "Mimmy's better left as a footnote in my memory."

"No," said El-Marghichi. "See the end."

More vodka became necessary until the trailer mercifully ended, except not quite so mercifully because then Graham saw what El-Marghichi wanted him to see.

Only on the Disney Channel.

"No," said Graham. "No."

"Yes."

"No. Disney. Disney? Disney."[7]

"Deezney." El-Marghichi's repetition struck Graham as less empathetic than he would have liked, something altogether smug about it, or maybe that was Graham's ire talking, a Parkinson's that stooped him over the mixer table as he seized the quarter-full white-misted bottle of vodka by the neck, seized it and held it where it stood with extreme reverberating force, where the slender elegance of its form became a sudden tableau of beauty. A beauty best found impaled into the eye socket of international fugitive Marc "Somebody's Little Sister" El-Marghichi.

He relinquished the neck and chose orange juice instead. Downing a swallow he turned away from the table and tried to compose himself.

"This is a crime," he said, approaching his wall of yuri.[8] "This is a crucifixion." His arms shot out at his sides as he addressed all his sapphic girls, plastered on the wall as posters; Ryuko Matoi and Mako Mankanshoku,[9] Konata Izumi and Kagami Hiiragi,[10] Madoka Kaname and Homura Akemi,[11] Nanoha Takamachi and Fate Testarossa,[12] Utena Tenjo and Anthy Himemiya,[13] Yukari Akiyama and Mako Reizei and Miho Nishizumi and Hana Isuzu and Saori Takebe,[14] Cocona and Papika,[15] countless others; and rising up in a mass toward the wall a half-collapsed pile of books, fantasy novels like A Song of Ice and Fire[16] and The Stormlight Archive[17] and The Kingkiller Chronicle[18] and Sword Art Online[19] and Trapped in Another World but I Made a Faustian Bargain?[20] and High School DxD[21] as well as other books Graham tried to read and failed but still liked to talk about like he read them like Ulysses[22] and Gravity's Rainbow[23] and Infinite Jest;[24] interspersed into this pile were DVD cases of films ranging from Jurassic Park[25] to Inception[26] to Perfect Blue[27] to Braindead[28] to Midnight Cowboy;[29] atop the wreckage crawled small posable figurines of more anime characters, too many to list, and stuck amid the junk was a real Japanese katana that one of Graham's clients (back when Graham still did commissions) gave him instead of, you know, actual money. The vortex rose out of cracked and inward-bent planks, pieces of cultural detritus slowly slipping between the spaces to drop into a pitch black oblivion, or else in the process of being dragged away by rats, one rat at that exact moment attempting to spirit a figurine of Sword Art Online's Suguha Kirigaya into his little rat hole so he could have his way with her until she was completely encased in a hardened shell of rat jizz.

It all rose, this maelstrom, this shrine, to the centermost piece, around which the yuri posters thronged; a gigantic printout of The Birth of Venus.[30] Cliché choice? Perhaps. But Graham was not like El-Marghichi, things well known were not his anathema, indeed the omnipresent popularity of this particular painting imbued it with a layer of extra significance. The Venus in question, nude, shifted contrapposto on awkward, even ungainly feet, made casual and apathetic effort to cover her nudity, while the god Zephyr blew wind upon her and an attendant hurled a robe around her. The goddess of love and eros; born from the seafoam spilt of the severed testicles of Uranus.

Impotent death; virile birth. A symbol for this era, one that, upon staring at it and the bulk of its modern-day handmaidens, Graham with his arms outstretched took a long, deep breath, tried to settle himself. No. Could not. Impossibility. Mimmy was the Venus born, a sacrifice of so much to create a worthless piece of offal. There was more art in the rat dragging an anime girl than all that trailer combined and worse yet she made it. Garbage exists everywhere and every day Graham had to see it, could at times even love and care for the garbage that at least existed compared to all the things that have never existed, but she created this garbage and her garbage was indistinguishable from the rest.

Mimmy.

Mimmy!

A statuette of Megumin[31] proffered in widespread arms an ashtray from which Graham fished a cigar still a bit longer than a stub and lit it with a torch lighter. He exhaled smoke in a mushroom cloud straight above and noticed on the second-story foyer balcony peeking between two bent banisters the eyes of one of the mansion's ghoulish inner denizens.

"They are getting, ahh, how we say? Bold," El-Marghichi muttered after seeing what Graham saw. He rubbed the back of his neck and tilted his chin clockwise until an audible crack issued. "But enough. What do we do about thees, hum?"

"About Mimmy."

"About this damn freezer, shit!" Fletch howled from his encampment. "Get the heater fixed or I'll light those damn posters for warmth."

"I can erase," said El-Marghichi, "that worthless bastard Me-Me. I have all hees old—"

"Her," said Graham.

"Tchaw. I have all that one's old art, all of eet. The rape, the loli,[32] the shota,[33] the guro,[34] the incest, the bestiality—they deleted their, ahh how we say, deleted their accounts, try to hide the past, but I remember. I live forever and never forget, honhonhon."

"Does that matter?" Graham's cigar would not last long; he scanned the other ashtrays but only found rats taking dust baths. "No way Disney fucking hired her without doing a background check. Sugar[35] did porn too, most of these cartoon showrunners did porn, where the hell else are these companies supposed to find people who can draw when everything's done in 3D nowadays?"

"Fuck that, I do not care about Deezney, we hit dees bastard where eet hurts no? The fans. Me-Me is gay, the fans are gay—holee fuck you have not seen the fucking essays these gays are writing about the trailer, nonbinary this and transgender that—and the gays are, how you say, they are very pure." El-Marghichi frequently had to pause, consider his words, gesticulate to convey his point, all while tripping over awkward constructions and syntax. "Pure, the gays are pure, they refuse even a spot of dust. They scrub and scrub everyone away into nothing, you understand me?"

"Not really," said Graham.

"Pfah, I cannot say it right. I will say online, later. But I can reveal to the fans the truth. I can expose."

"No—no," Graham said quickly, reflexively. To expose Mimmy was to presume that what Mimmy did—her old art, the real art, the art that meant something, the art of her soul—was somehow shameful to the eye of the masses. Graham rejected that reality, not least of all because everything Mimmy drew, Graham also drew. "None of that. Not now."

Another tchaw shot between El-Marghichi's (immaculate, unlike his posture) teeth; but he said nothing in contradiction.

"I'll," said Graham, straightening his robe, tossing aside the spent cigar, shuffling to Fletch's book fort to search the last few ashtrays and receiving a cold glare from Fletch as he did, "I'll talk to Mimmy."

"Your ex?" Fletch's glare dispersed. "That gestapo looking ass chick you had over here that one time?"

"The very same."

"She was fucking tall man." He shook his head; the sleeping bag wiggled. "Giant."

Graham shrugged and turned away cigarless. Speaking to Mimmy. How long had it been? Time in this mansion was a rubber band—elastic. Speaking of which:

"How long until the premiere?"

"Four hours," said El-Marghichi.

"It premieres today? And you only told me now?"

"You have been in that room for weeks, drawing your boring vaneella porn. And when you are not drawing, you sleep."

"Well I've been in a vanilla phase," said Graham. "I think I'm coming out of it now."

"Good. Cannot stand that genereec lovey-dovey boolsheet. Kill eet. Fuck!"

El-Marghichi, mop balanced on his shoulder, marched away.

The foyer fell silent. Graham stood in the center of it, surrounded on all sides by the immensity of his collection and the frigid air. He had nothing to smoke, but his breath still puffed white. Behind his sunglasses, he shut his eyes. And prepared to speak to Mimmy Wowzers.

Footnotes

[1] Bernini, Gianlorenzo. Ecstasy of Saint Teresa. (1647–1652), sculpture. Santa Maria della Vittoria, Rome. Back

[2] The main female character of popular romantic comedy Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai: Tensai-tachi no Renai Zunousen (2019) by Studio A-1 Pictures; originally a manga by Aka Akasaka, whose name has to be fake. The official English title is Kaguya-sama: Love is War, although a more direct translation would be Kaguya Wants to be Confessed To: The Geniuses' War of Love and Brains. Back

[3] Ahegao: The face an anime girl makes when she cums. The shirt is plastered with images of fictional women cumming. Back

[4] Site where fans donate real money to artists in exchange for various perks of the artist's choosing, like a private chatroom, exclusive or early access to new art, or the ability to exert influence over what the artist creates. But you knew this, didn't you. Or did you forget? Back

[5] Top-of-the-line pen display created by a company called Wacom. Lets you draw directly on the screen with a pressure-sensitive pen. Graham used to have one—It broke. Back

[6] Children's book series about a big red dog named Clifford, wherein Clifford's absurd size often causes (and resolves) problems. Clifford is loved by his owner, 8-year-old Emily Elizabeth. Back

[7] It's fucking Disney. You know Disney right? You have to know Disney. Disney. Motherfucking Disney. Back

[8] Yuri, it's uh, give Graham a second here. This one's easy. Anime lesbianism. Counterpart of yaoi, which is gay boys. You seem like you'd be into yaoi. You've got that fujoshi vibe. What's a fujoshi? A rotten girl. Are you a rotten girl? Back

[9] Kill la Kill (2013-2014), Studio Trigger. A anime that is horny, but not smutty. Clothes come off, but tits lack nipples. Like dolls. Back

[10] Lucky☆Star (2007), Studio Kyoto Animation. Directed by Yasuhiro Takemoto. One of the classic examples of the Slice of Life genre, which I'd say is kind of but not quite analogous to a sitcom except you probably don't know what a sitcom is. Fun fact: Kyoto Animation or KyoAni as the cool kids call it recently got burned to the ground by an insane fan, killing this anime's director (among others). Back

[11] Mahou Shoujo Madoka★Magica (2011), Studio Shaft. Directed by Akiyuki Shinbo. Written by Gen Urobuchi, nicknamed Urobutcher for his liberal approach to character death, a trait he leans well into here. Back

[12] Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha (2004), Studio Seven Arcs. Directed by Akiyuki Shinbo but not written by Gen Urobuchi. Thing to know about any show that has Mahou Shoujo (magical girl) in the title: Gay as fuck. Back

[13] Revolutionary Girl Utena (1997), Studio J.C.Staff. Directed by Kunihiko Ikuhara. Don't make me try to explain what this is about. It's gay too, just know that. Back

[14] Girls und Panzer (2012-2013), Studio Actas. Directed by Tsutomu Mizushima. An anime about girls who play a fictional high school sport called tankery, which involves riding around in a tank and shooting other girls in tanks. Back

[15] Flip Flappers (2016), Studio 3Hz. An animation tour de force that lacks any semblance of plot or narrative, but wow are those girls cute and gay. Back

[16] (1996-Present). By George R. R. Martin. Currently five books into a supposed seven-book series (latest published 2011), but George is getting old and the books got adapted into a TV show that stole his thunder so the last two are probably never coming out. Back

[17] (2010-Present), by Brandon Sanderson. Currently three books into a supposed ten-book series (latest published 2017, next one coming out this year), higher levels of optimism to see it finished. Back

[18] (2007-Present), by Patrick Rothfuss. Currently two books into a supposed three-book series (latest published 2011), where the fuck is the third book Pat it's almost been ten fucking years Pat. Back

[19] (2002-Present), by Reki Kawahara. Currently a zillion novels into a supposed quinbajillion-book series (latest published last week). In Japan they do it different than the West. Back

[20] (2014-Present), by apaMEN (pseudonymous). A recent addition to the collection, mainly due to its presently ongoing and popular anime adaptation, which means it will probably soon be a subject of Graham's art one way or another. El-Marghichi constantly bitches about its doe-eyed female lead, bafflingly named Temporary. Back

[21] (2008-Present), by Ichiei Ishibumi. Also on book one zillion, this series is about students in a high school secretly being devils and oh my fucking god this is where Mimmy stole the idea holy fucking shit. Back

[22] (1922), by James Joyce. Considered the landmark novel of modernism. Don't get Graham started on modernism though. He will go hard on modernism. Normally it's modern art, the literary form is less integral to Graham's psyche, but this novel pretty much sums up what a cultural disaster it was. A vortex of nonsense. Back

[23] (1973), by Thomas Pynchon. Considered the landmark novel of postmodernism. What makes postmodernism different from modernism? It realizes how bad modernism fucked up. Back

[24] (1996), by David Foster Wallace. Considered the landmark novel of postpostmodernism, which is postmodernism except after the fall of the Soviet Union because for a century literature and culture has stagnated and, say it together kids, "history is ended." This novel is notable for its liberal use of footnotes. Back

[25] (1993), Universal Pictures. Directed by Steven Spielberg. Quintessential film of childhood, about a theme park full of dinosaurs. The dinosaurs escape and kill the people. Great fun. Back

[26] (2010), Warner Bros. Pictures. Directed by Christopher Nolan. This probably belongs to Fletch? Graham has no memory of buying this film, which means he did not buy this film. You have to be a total moron to buy films nowadays. Back

[27] (1997), Studio Madhouse. Directed by Satoshi Kon. Picked this up for 1 dollar when Borders went out of business. Borders was a bookstore chain, it's irrelevant. Anyway this movie's about a pop idol pursued by a deranged stalker who is unhappy with the idol's recent career decisions. Back

[28] (1992), Oro Films. Directed by Peter Jackson. A gorefest about dead people who come back to life and devour the living. Might be worth showing to El-Marghichi, probably his idea of fun. Back

[29] (1969), United Artists. Directed by John Schlesinger. The first and only X-rated film to win an Oscar for Best Picture. What's X-rated? Porn baby, it's porn. ...What's an Oscar? God you are hopeless. Back

[30] Botticelli, Sandro. (c. 1484–1486), tempera on canvas. Uffizi, Florence. Back

[31] One of the main female leads (there are multiple, it's a harem show) of the isekai parody Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku o! (2016-2017)—abbreviated to KonoSuba and translated to God's Blessing on this Wonderful World!—fine title—with the gimmick that she can cast one giant explosion spell per day, which drains all her energy and renders her useless. One of the more popular anime waifus of our era. Isekai: A popular genre in Japanese media that involves a person from the normal world being transported to a fantasy world. The original isekai is A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889) by Mark Twain, which pretty much sums itself up in its title. The aforementioned Sword Art Online is what popularized the genre despite arguably not adhering to various isekai strictures; the also-aforementioned Trapped in Another World but I Made a Faustian Bargain?, which pays tribute to Twain with its similarly baldfaced title, is merely the latest installment of the decade-defining groan. Waifu: A Japanified way of saying "wife," used to refer to cute anime girls that people want to fuck. Back

[32] Loli: In anime and manga, a sexualized prepubescent girl. The term originates from Lolita (1955) by Vladimir Nabokov, another odd intersection between contemporary Japanese pop culture and classic Western literature. Back

[33] Shota: The male equivalent of loli. The term originates from the character Shotaro in the manga Tetsujin 28-go (1956-1966), which began its run just one year after Lolita was published. Back

[34] Guro: The depiction of gore in erotic art. The term originates from the abbreviated Japanese pronunciation of the English word "grotesque." You may have noticed the strong Japanese influence on both the media Graham depicts and the terms he uses. The Japanese porn game is too strong; although that hasn't helped their birthrates, which are below replacement. Why bother with other people when you have porn? Why not fearlessly masturbate to death? Back

[35] Rebecca Sugar, showrunner of Cartoon Network's Steven Universe (2013-2019), smash hit that spawned many imitators in both artstyle and—for lack of a better word—tone. Mimmy's an imitator too, another notch on the list. Back

[3] Me!Me!Me!

[3] Me!Me!Me![36]

A half-finished Kaguya[37] comprised Graham's left periphery; the Alchemist spoke on the right, a translucent white ghost. But the center of his view inhabited a war room, expanding backward with an ever-increasing number of chairs around a table, where at the very end, flanked by a massive clock, sat Mimmy Wowzers in her finest regalia, medals jangling down her breast, tassels and epaulets, the silver head of her cane clutched in one gloved hand.

She was more relaxed than her surroundings, because the surroundings included only her, no army of hangers-on, no wasp nest cultists the likes of which she loved to stir against Van Der Gramme during The Break Up so many years ago (and in fairness, he had his own cultists he stirred in response)—merely Mimmy. Her body slouched in her chair although she still rose most of the way up its tall back and her fingers drummed the desktop idly beside a steaming cup of coffee.

They stared at one another. Four eyes to one.

Kaguya clenched one eye shut, the other wide open, mouth agape, whole face upside down as she dangled dramatically over the bed.

"I did forget," said the Alchemist, no note of apology in her dry delivery. "Tell me again, who is Kaguya?"

Teaching this ghost might prove impossible, but that was all part of her appeal. He ignored her for the time being; he watched only Mimmy Wowzers as the seconds of the clock ticked in a slow but steady circle and the minutes drew ponderously toward the hour.

What a gulf of time between now and then, last and first. Mimmy Wowzers. She had changed, aesthetically, but only by degrees. By the time of their disentangling she had moved well onto this self-Galatean[38] track, with the tattoos, the pastel wig, the militarism, all part of her brand, sure, Van Der Gramme's own well-defined wardrobe branded him too. She had since tinkered, added the cane, adjusted the accessories, iterated on the medals—smiley faces, cat faces, other cute iconography crafted into shiny brass baubles—enlarged her hat's brim to better conceal her eye. When they dated she tried an eyepatch but ultimately discarded it. She had the eyepatch when she visited him in person, on his expense of course, a long flight from New Zealand and at the time neither were sure if the move would be permanent or not. It was not, she went home, but they did fuck once, in the same room he now occupied with his half-finished Kaguya, on this same mattress, in these same sheets. He maintained a perfect memory of that night, but that was no surprise, he maintained a perfect memory of every night, his only issue was contextualizing them in their endless array, stringing them into a pattern. He had never been so horny, or horny at all, since then. (Art did nothing on that front since 2007 when he started drawing it.) But her endlessly long body, sharp despite its soft colors—stark contrast to the Alchemist who ebbed into the backdrop—had sparked a flash of something inside him that overcame objective disgust as he pushed up and into her filthy rectum, stooped over her like a dog, his hands groping everything, her waist, her tits, even her absurdly long cock and her tight-hanging testicles, her body in transition between the binary states of male and female, and he pushed inside and smeared his dick with her shit. She whimpered slobber against the pillow, and when he felt her massive cock twitch in his palms and spurt a sharp jet of cum past the length of her body and onto her downturned face and that dead scarred eye he lost control and came too, and his cum mixed with her densely packed shit deep in her large intestine.

Her cock then shriveled into barely more than a worm and she dripped cum onto his bed and he pulled out of her suddenly aware of his shitstained dick and feeling full force the revulsion his prior horniness forestalled.

No matter how pretty the body, it still shat. Even the lordly Kaguya strained her bowels on occasion to loose a streamlike cord of shit with a wet plash into the toilet basin; except she didn't, because Kaguya did not exist, and did only what the person who drew her drew.

Graham wondered what Mimmy now had between her legs.

"So," he said, breaking the silence. "Take that trip to Thailand yet?"

The comment received a piqued eyebrow from Mimmy's lone good eye. Followed by a snort of ambiguous mood. "I," she said, "have been busy. All this past year—deliriously busy."

"Busy deleting your old accounts yeah." Graham shrugged. "Well I should be so honored to have squeezed even a minute out of your rind."

She gripped her coffee and drank.

"I knew you'd talk to your poor old teacher if he asked, despite everything," Graham continued, "but I didn't expect it now. The episode drops soon right?" He pointed at the clock with a fictional cigar he could always maintain at its full length in this fictional world, where its taste never turned bitter.

"I have seen this episode hundreds of times. My attention is divided to where it needs to be, nonetheless. You are only one part of it."

"Jesus this is, uh, this talking style? This new? Part of your brand? Or you just determined to make this awkward between us?"

"You do not seem to understand why I agreed to speak with you, Van Der Gramme."

Graham tried to imagine these words in her chipper kiwi accent. Impossible. Maybe she scrubbed that too. "You stateside now? Finally escape the edge of the world?"

"I live in Los Angeles."

"I'm in the same place as ever. Fletch says hi."

"I hear Sister is living with you too, now."

"Wonder where you heard that."

"I have eyes and ears inside your Consortium still."

"Oh you still care? Here you are working for Mickey Mouse[39] himself, and you still care what I'm up to. I'm charmed."

"Ah. I did not expect you to admit so freely that you are beneath me."

"Just a little ironic self-deprecation before the Grand Marshal of Queerdom, as Sister tells me they're calling you online."

Silence from Mimmy.

"'Disney's first openly trans creator'—the clickbait thinkpieces so deem you."

More silence, silence that Graham would have loved to interpret as his needling getting to her, but she had simply retrieved a phone to flit through, distracted by some final pre-premiere buzz, perhaps Mickey himself offered congratulations, although even someone such as Mimmy must be only an ant to the mouse.

Anyway, Graham's smile soured. He checked on the Alchemist and found her clearly embarrassed about something, Graham had no idea what, until he sifted through his latest messages to refresh himself on what exactly they had been talking about and realized that, despite his supplicative pleading to the contrary, the Alchemist did not know who Mickey Mouse was. His reverse isekai hypothesis—that she was in fact a medieval alchemist somehow spirited to their real world—gained momentum, but either way the sight of her shame revitalized his smile. The mouse may be world-definingly massive, but to the Alchemist, Mickey was as much an ant as Mimmy was to Mickey.

"This Kaguya," said the Alchemist, corporealizing, "the name sounds Japanese, so I guess it's an anime. Or manga. Or video game. Or light novel. Or visual novel."

"At least you remember the names of the mediums. It's an anime. Started as a manga but it's an anime now and that's why people care. Love is War, is what they're calling it."

A typical show, like any in its genre, the kind that appears suddenly and generates a critical mass of interest so that subsequent people become interested simply because everyone else is. Another banger by Studio A-1 Pictures, named for the same reason A-1 Steak Sauce was named. A studio with a legacy of similar titles dating back to their initial cash cow, Sword Art Online, a topic already discussed in footnotes, a topic already forgotten by the Alchemist, and why should she remember? Sagged under the ice blue stare of Mimmy Wowzers he could possess only perfect awareness of the uselessness of this information, this media, these stories and narratives and characters.

Worthless crap.

"If it's an anime," said the Alchemist, "maybe we could watch it, together."

"Watch it together."

"Somebody's Little Sister always pesters me to watch that Diodati anime with her, so it's possible, right?"

"What's the point," said Graham. "I saw it once already. My knowledge of it is encyclopedic."

"But I would know the character. Then I could roleplay with you and inspire you."

Graham laughed and watched the half-formed Kaguya in his periphery metamorphose into the Alchemist, the same sheltered and ignorant rich girl, and the uniformity of his experience only sickened him.

"Then you'll draw something," she said, "something worthy of glory."

"Alright Mimmy let's cut the crap." Graham stood up from his end of the war table and slapped it to draw her attention. "I'm here because of your show. This angels-and-demons shitshow."

Mimmy levied her eye at him. "I am aware, considering the timing."

"You don't believe in this garbage do you?"

"On the contrary," said Mimmy, "my dear former friend. I have staked everything on this endeavor. I have sold a year of my life and will sell years more if given the opportunity. If I sell enough years, your wonderful nation might see fit to let me stay forever."

"I don't mean that. I get you can't go back to New Zealand—to your family. And I won't begrudge you making money, I'm not asking anyone other than myself to starve. If this is what you have to do to get away from them and survive, okay. Fine. That's fine. It's selling out but sometimes you have to sell out. What I mean is:

"You know you're selling out, right?"

A yawn. The clock ticked, fifteen minutes to the hour, fifteen minutes to the premiere. Mimmy slid her eye shut sleepily, sans intensity. "Graham. You haven't even seen it."

"I saw the trailer. It's nothing. It's everything else. You're not in it, Mimmy, and neither is any art. It's another thing on the heap."

"You have said the exact same thing about everything I've done after leaving you."

"Because it's true."

"Because I'm not imitating you."

"You were never imitating me! I never forced you into my style, I taught you technique Mimmy, you were drawing fucking My Little Pony[40] and Homestuck[41] porn, all I did was imbue you with a little fucking dignity and show you human anatomy, don't try to say I was forcing you to draw a certain way."

"Did I say that Graham? Did I say you were 'forcing' me? I didn't say that at all. Yet you leapt to the conclusion that I said it, hm how curious Graham, I wonder if it's perhaps you who thinks you were forcing me to draw a certain way?"

"No I just know how you think, I know what you imply, I've been in your head Mimmy the same way you've been in mine, I can read between your lines Mimmy."

"You weren't forcing me. I admit that freely, for all your faults you weren't forcing me. I imitated you of my own volition because I was 19 and a loser and wanted to kill myself and you were a few years older and had your shit together and drew well so I looked up to you and wanted you to like me, that's on me, but it's absolutely true I was imitating you then and you need to accept that fucking fact Graham, what I am doing now is me, I'm not 'selling out' to Disney here, this is what I want to do, this is what I'm passionate about."

"Fucking bullshit, I encouraged your differences from me, I cultivated them."

"I was 99 percent you and you merely abided the 1 percent that was me because you always want to feel like you're a nice guy being magnanimous and you're not an asshole and you're so self-aware but come on Graham face up to it, you are the dictator of your own tiny hole in the wall, everything under your domain is exactly the way you want it—like you."

"I'm not the one dressed like a pink Nazi."

"No of course not you're the chill guru who smokes a lot of cigars and weed and wears a robe but you have all the hallmarks of a cult leader. Manson."

"Oh my god Mimmy, I hardly go in the Consortium anymore, Sister runs the fucking place. Fuck, this isn't even what I'm trying to talk about, don't get me off topic you know I'll ramble my fucking head off."

"Then what are we talking about Graham? Why did you bother to assail me with your presence."

"We're talking about you creating this garbage!"

"It's not garbage. I've seen it a hundred times and you've seen it zero times, so I think I've got the more valid opinion here."

"It's the exact same plot of High School DxD. You're just ripping off DxD. And VivziePop[42] too—she kinda beat you to the whole angels-and-demons bit."

"Ah yes, the angels-and-demons bit that I stole from the fucking Bible you dense bastard. You know what the Bible is? Need me to slap on a footnote for you? Your precious Renaissance artists were ripping off the Bible too, or you think Michelangelo[43] invented all on his own the old man in the sky? Or just look at yourself. I saw that x.Nihilo picture, wow such originality, characters you didn't create, a setting you didn't create—"

"I take garbage and make it gold," said Graham.

A snort. "Oh you're an alchemist now?"

"You're just adding more garbage to the pile."

"There could not be a greater disjunct between your egotism and your actual sad little reality."

"Do you doubt my talent? Do you? I want to hear you say it with a straight face. Tell me you know a better artist than me. Living."

Mimmy's face was not straight. She smiled, she wanted so much to say it, but Graham knew she could not. She could only say: "Sure, you have a lot of technical ability, but that's not everything."

"I knew it! You can't say it. You can't say there's a better living artist. You fucking know. I am the best. The best. The fucking best."

His declaration persisted in the stagnant air: The best. Honed like a blade, student of great masters, constant searcher for truth in the principles of form, gesture, construction, shadow, unraveling in his works of art a narrative pregnant with meaning, tales uplifting, dismal, somber, triumphant, with recycled garbage as his mouthpiece, a rejection of the abstract, dada, pop, fauve, all those locust-proliferate isms emerging to everyone's great horror from the ashes of the turn of the previous century, out of wars grand enough to rearrange the very concept of war, out of disaffection and dispossession, out of a modernity that became less modern every passing decade since its founders, the true egoists, donned the name. If modern is synonymous with now then postmodern means history has ended and if that is the case there was no more need to break from history like those modernists so desperately desired; the earliest history and the present day contracted like an elastic band to exist simultaneously in a world where the forward progress of time ceased. He felt a video coming on, something to argue about to his camera for twenty minutes, and feeling perfectly pleased with how he handled himself in this conversation decided he would make the video as soon as Mimmy's next line expressed nothing more than annoyance and all substance seeped out of her stiff uniform to leave merely a skeleton.

He breathed.

Mimmy spoke, like a bell.

"Then let us return to the point," she said, standing; her full height loomed, her hands a grandiloquent gesture, the cane gripped near the neck so that she thrusted the silver lion at him, bobbing it as though she spoke through it as a conduit. "Allow me to explain why I deigned to receive you now, Van Der Gramme. It was not for the sake of old times. It was not out of respect for your skill or our past relationship. No, Van Der Gramme, I brought you here to bury you into the dirt."

"Great, perfect, resort to petty, empty—"

"You are pathetic."

"Insults too! I love it Mimmy."

"No, Van Der Gramme, you are pathetic in the truest sense: Irrelevancy. You live in a hole. A tiny hole shaped to the exact contours of your body, into which you have managed to drag a handful of followers to shape them into a you-shape too—but it is only a hole. It is dark, it is small, and in the end it is lonely because the only people in that hole match your shape exactly; they are simply extensions of you."

"I have over a hundred thousand followers—"

"I am nearing one million and my show has not even aired. And my million are not cowering but bellowing my name from the rooftops, they are writing essays on my work not in the far-flung corners of Rule34 or Danbooru[44] but on the most well-regarded media websites and legitimate sources of news. I am regaled as a pioneer, a hero, an inspiration, and you are nothing, you are unknown, and you are lucky you are unknown because if they ever dragged you kicking and screaming out of your hole into the light you would disintegrate like the screeching, immature, prepubescent vampire you are, you would be an object of disgust to the same people eagerly counting down the—60—remaining seconds until my first episode begins, you would be considered a creature worthy only of censure and cancellation, and not a single one of them would see the dreck you create as art. You would be an obscenity. In your hole you can suck the blood of enough followers to sustain yourself. In your hole you are safe. In your hole you can say 'I am the best' and nobody doubts you because they are your shape. It is a hole made only for you and you have deluded yourself into believing that hole spans the entire breadth of the world. Well, Van Der Gramme, it has taken a long time and a lot of effort and self-reflection and rehabilitation but I have clawed my way out of your hole and I now see the world for what it truly is and I, Mimmy Wowzers, am rising forth in that world unfettered by the narrow confines of my own body, free to be not myself, but an idol, elevated above them, those masses who have cast you out of their sight to the mutual benefit of both you and them. How can you be the best, Van Der Gramme, when I am the one they celebrate, when I am the one they revere?"

"Oh my god, you fucking loser, yeah the clickbait articles crowning you a trans icon are really hallmarks of greatness. Let's go get Damien Hirst,[45] his 'artwork' sells for a few gajillion dollars a pop, must make him real great huh?"

"I brought you here today to finally crush you in a way your egotism cannot deny, Van Der Gramme. Because I know you seek glory. I know you seek it more than anything else in this world, and you have fooled yourself into believing your hundred thousand followers on burner accounts are glory. They are not, and you know it, deep down. Deep down you understand what I am telling you. You came here today because you need reassurance that I am a sellout, that I am doing what I am doing as a cheap grab for cash—well! You will get no such satisfaction because what I have created is my passion the same as what you create is yours; it is simply that my passion can stand in the light while yours remains buried under a mountain. You need me to be your protégé, your little you, something to control and stand superior over—well! Can you stand over me now, anywhere except in your delusional brain where truth means only what you define? Can you? You asked me to be honest about my assessment of your ability; I now ask you to be honest as well. Have you not confused the matter? You wish your sin to be pride, but is it no more than petty envy?"

She stood, tall, unfathomably tall, growing taller, a giantess in a trick room, a face five stories removed from his, and for all her ridiculously inflated verbiage and stupid affected syntax that outed her as the one truly divorced from reality, all she said was the same pettiness and name-calling he expected when her actual arguments devolved. Choler pulsed through Graham's veins at the inanity of her claims, the stupid boorish pigheadedness of her attempt to browbeat him into submission, god he remembered why he stopped talking to her or even following her social media, the stupid fucking bitch.

He could scream at her all damn day and listen to her scream back but he learned what he came to learn, that she had zero remorse for the garbage she would jettison into the world in T-minus 10 seconds, so all he said was: "You're megalomaniacal," and turned to leave.

Of course she had to try and get the last word. To his back she shouted: "And that new girl you have? Ally? Yeah, I know about her. You think she's a 'normal' person, a not-you who still likes you, that's why you keep her around, but I know all about her. She's not normal, she's as insane as everyone in your hole. You just need her to be normal so you can pretend what you're making means something outside. Deep down you already know everything I'm saying is true, true, true, and you're desperate to prove to yourself it's wrong."

"You talk so fucking much." He slammed the door to ensure she couldn't toss out another speech. Her episode started to premiere in the middle of that one, so he took some solace in having made her miss the moment.

The light of outside bathed him, blinded him despite his sunglasses, and he took a moment to adjust. On one side was the Kaguya-Alchemist, still in her sexual position, and on the other side, in a long crimson dress with long sleeves and long gloves and a parasol that shrouded her in a cylinder of perfect shadow, was Sister.

He said to the Alchemist: "Yeah, I think I'll need you to roleplay after all, I have a new idea for a direction." Then he wiped Kaguya away with a flick of his stylus.

He said to Sister: "Annihilate Mimmy for me, will you?"

Under the parasol, only her chin showing, Sister smiled, and her fangs gleamed in the shadow.

Footnotes

[36] 2014. Animated music video. Directed by Hibiki Yoshizaki, song composed by TeddyLoid, lyrics by Daoko. A young man spirals into a world of pornography, to the detriment of his real life and relationships. Back

[37] You already forgot didn't you. Back

[38] Galatea. Γαλάτεια; "she who is milk-white." In Greek myth, a statue carved by Pygmalion, with whom Pygmalion then fell in love. Back

[39] The mascot of Disney. Please. He's the most recognizable fictional character worldwide. Please. Back

[40] Specifically, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (2010-2019), the most recent installment of the My Little Pony franchise, a Western animated television show about anthropomorphic horses designed to sell horse toys to children. For some reason, Friendship Is Magic became popular with adult men. Back

[41] Homestuck (2009-2016), by Andrew Hussie. A webcomic about four friends who play a video game that ends the world. Spawned an ungodly fandom that has thankfully died. Back

[42] Vivienne "VivziePop" Medrano (1992-), amateur artist and animator who with backing from Patreon cobbled together the pilot episode of Hazbin Hotel, an animated adult comedy about demons dealing with Hell's overpopulation problem. Back

[43] Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (1475-1564), usually just called Michelangelo. Italian artist whose long career produced multiple masterpieces of Western art; his most famous include a sculpture of the Biblical hero David and paintings of various Biblical tales inside the Vatican's Sistine Chapel. Back

[44] Sites that aggregate pornographic art. Back

[45] Garbage trash man who calls himself an artist but only creates Ponzi schemes to scam billionaires out of their money. Back

[4] Piscivorus—fish devourer—cottonmouth.

[4] Piscivorus—fish devourer—cottonmouth.

The sock, otherwise like any ordinary sock—plain, white—had a few modifications to make it more personable. Little buttons stitched as eyes; a red line to transform into lips when the fingers pressed inside opened and closed in rhythmic motion imitating speech.

"I see y'all are loving Allison Apple. And that's valid! It's a fun show even if it's not the great LGBTQ+[46] rep we hoped for (I know NB[47] folk have mixed feelings on the genderswapping). But is Mimmy Wowzers really the trans creator we want to stan?[48] [1/10]

"Don't get me wrong. It's a massive step forward that Disney hired their first openly trans showrunner. But Mimmy has some seriously problematic issues we NEED to discuss. Exhibit A, this deleted tweet (TW[49] transphobia): [2/10]"

(Image: A screencap of a tweet made on June 11, 2015, by Mimmy Wowzers. The tweet reads: "I'm the kind of trap when straight guys see my cock they still wanna fuck me.")

"Mimmy may not be aware, but the term 'tr*p' is deeply offensive and harmful to the trans and LGBT community. It's a derogatory slur that suggests trans women are tricking straight men and is closely linked to transphobic jokes in media. [3/10]

"What's worse? This isn't the only time Mimmy has used the term, as well as other trans- and homophobic slurs like f*****[50] or d***[51]. And while Mimmy has deleted these tweets, I have the receipts. [4/10]"

(More images: Four screencaps of tweets ranging from 2014 to 2017, containing the terms described.)

"This is only the tip of the iceberg. It's not a one-off thing. As late as **2017** Mimmy was using these words, showing complete disregard for her fellow members of the LGBT community. Has she apologized? Nope! She just wants you to forget. [5/10]

"I wish that was the only thing problematic about Mimmy. Unfortunately it gets way worse. As some of y'all know already, Mimmy was a porn artist prior to AAaHFGaE. And a lot, I mean A LOT, of the porn she drew was... disturbing, to say the least. [6/10]"

"I've censored the following images because honestly they are just way too sick. But they give a good idea of the depraved, p*dophilic content Mimmy created. Just... ugh. (TW P*dophilia, Incest, Bestiality, Gore) [7/10]"

(More images: Four of Mimmy's old works of art, mutilated by black boxes. Clockwise from the top, an image of Sakura Kinomoto[52] posing, nude, in what appears to be an aquarium, with a giant mola mola fish in the background, while her best friend and cousin Tomoyo Daidouji (fully clothed) films her; an image of Elastigirl lovingly jerking off her son Dash;[53] an image of Mina Ashido[54] knotted by a German shepherd; and an image of Crona strangling and disemboweling a tied-up Medusa.[55])

"I don't think I need to explain how problematic these images are and how much insight they give into Mimmy's mind. Come on y'all, I know we need trans rep in media, but are we desperate enough to let a bona fide p*do make a FRIGGIN' KIDS SHOW? [8/10]

"Kink is crucial to the LGBT community and I'm not here to kinkshame anyone. But come on. There's kink and there's KINK. I for one am deeply concerned about all the gay children out there who might use AAaHFGaE as a gateway into this unsafe, depraved world of sex. [9/10]

"Folks NEED to be aware of who Mimmy is. Retweet and signal boost or you are LITERALLY supporting a known p*do. The LGBT community MUST eradicate people like Mimmy if we want the real world to accept us. Use the hashtag #MimmyIsOverParty and get this trending. [10/10]"

The sock ceased speaking and allowed its words to sail into the endless stream of information fired across the social media landscape; the words remained, ten posts under 280 characters each, and bit by bit—facilitated by the algorithm—they accumulated comments, likes, and retweets. Real people, not socks, read the words and responded, some denying the accusations outright, some shrugging and saying it wasn't a big deal, some in stark and dogmatic agreement that Mimmy needed ouster.

None paid any attention to the sock, worn on the arm of Somebody's Little Sister, professional pest, known in meatspace[56] as Marc El-Marghichi.

El-Marghichi shuffled out of the smooth white skin of his avatar, the red-eyed vampress trapped forever in nubile prepubescence, and emerged as the slouch-necked, mop-toting, ahegao-shirt-wearing European Middle Easterner he normally was—The Man from Marrakech who had never set foot in Morocco—now in the foyer of Graham McGill's mansion.

Grafted onto the foyer was the Smoking Room of the Consortium, its splendor and the manor's ruination a simultaneous confused existence, the walls of one phasing through those of the other, boarded windows translucently staring onto the expanse of a colorful outer space, busted sofas partially lavish divans, tables of yellow chicken buckets and bottles of three-quarters-empty vodka also platters of arranged cheeses and cold cut meats or dark vials of red wine. This arrangement came about because Graham refused to speak to El-Marghichi in person at length on account of his accent, which necessitated internet communication even by two people undivided by space.

The arrangement allowed also the meeting of people who would never meet. Only a few feet from the book-ensconced lair of Graham's roommate Fletch stood the pale and ponderous Alchemist. The sound of a remote lecture played on Fletch's phone, so the Alchemist stared into an unknowable distance as if in consideration of a dry professor's discourse on psychobiology.

"The gays will take the bait. Don't fucking worry," said Sister-Marghichi.

Graham sagged into a rat-eaten recliner that threatened to collapse under his weight. The base of a bottle of vodka scraped the floor; he dangled the neck with two fingers. "How long will it take."

"Can't rush it. Obviously given the timing. The retarded level of normies squeeing about trans creator this nonbinary rep that. I'm shouting into a fucking, hurricane. But people are seeing it. The SJW[57] purityfags never forget. They keep all receipts. Weeks from now. Months. When the hysteria dies down. Then they will finish what I started. Modern cannibalism."

"People will really do that?" said the Alchemist.

"They have to." The vampire extended one svelte arm; the man cocked his hand into the shape of a gun. "What the gays don't want you to know is. Queer identity—ooh great term. Real SJW hours now—is rooted in sexual deviancy. Just is. Men fucking men. Women fucking women. Men being women and women being men. They're literally called queers. But to be legitimate. And the gays are desperate for legitimacy. To be legitimate they have to pretend they're not deviants. Like their deviancy is normal. So these purityfags take it upon themselves to erase anything deviant in a community founded on deviancy. Ouroboros eating its tail. This is your brain on autism."

Under the smug, superior aura the vampire exuded, the man could not conceal the tremors rising up his arms.

"If they only admitted their shit was as degenerate as everyone else's shit. If they only admitted it," he/she said.

The Alchemist blinked. A grouper. Comprehension beyond her ken.

Realizing this, Sister shrugged away the diatribe. "So when we watching Le Château de Diodati?"[58]

"Is that the anime you keep asking me to watch?"

"Don't watch it," said Graham absentmindedly, skimming his phone for responses to Sister's sock's post and other general buzz about the Allison Apple premiere, which the masses somehow loved despite its utter anodyne inanity, its generic cobbling-together of standard trends in contemporary Western cartoons from character design to quippy dialogue to vague queer theming solely confined to the angel and demon characters, Gabriel and Paimon respectively, swapping their genders as part of broader shapeshifting powers. Inoffensive. Banal. Nothing.

Or was nothing what these masses wanted? Graham hated all interpretations that led to the conclusion that "the people" were simply stupid. That was the effete line of thought of the Damien Hirsts of the world, the arrogant billion-dollar Ponzi schemers who slapped polka dots on a blank canvas to fleece rich people who knew more about status than art. The line of thought of a sterile, inert academia at the top of their towers, entombed in their whole of human history, books and astrolabes gilded and drowned in dust, thinkers who forsook their own species to rot uselessly in the skies above it.

The core of art, Graham believed, stirred the most uncultured idiot, the most ignorant fool. Masaccio's Expulsion[59] inspires sadness, despair, pity; Altdorfer's Alexanderschlacht[60] glory, awe, grandeur; Titian's Venus[61] warmth, indolence, and desire. These works and the heap of masterpieces of their ilk drew upon religious, historical, or contemporary scenes, but were not enslaved to them. Harper didn't need to know 1400s Italian social customs, or the exploits of Alexander the Great, or the first story in the Book of Genesis, to feel the emotions conjured by those long-dead masters. Ignorance was no excuse for failing to appreciate art.

So why.

Why?

Why did they all eat Mimmy's shit?

He eyed the Alchemist. What did she think of the first episode? Did she even remember watching it?

"What's it about again?" the Alchemist asked. But she was not talking about Mimmy's show.

"It's not a question of what it's about. Fuck. Why even ask that. It's an experience."

"It's hentai,"[62] said Graham. "Worse yet it's hentai Sister likes. So obviously it's completely degenerate."

"My tastes are patrician," said Sister. "Gramme would love Diodati if he wasn't such a hypocritical dumbfuck. It's auteur porn."

"Auteur?" said the Alchemist.

"Ignore him." Graham tilted his chair onto its hindlegs. "Sister, don't ruin her with your insane asylum smut. I need her still."

"2002." Sister's arms flicked out, and her red eyes gleamed, and her lips curled. "Director: Akiyuki Shinbo. That's right. Shinbo. The visionary behind Madoka Magica. Before he moved to Shaft he did hentai and he did it in that same artfag style he's known for. Auteur and autist are close enough. The scene begins: Dark—cold—a Gothic castle rising among Swiss peaks—Howls. The howl of wind—howl of barbarians. Crack! The front gates shatter. They stream inside—shaggy dark-complexioned invaders—murder the soldiers and servants indiscriminately. The castle's young Comtesse—eleven years old—petulant and willful—responds with mere indignation as they throw her to floor—she cannot believe they would ever hurt her—but they shred her clothes—stand leering over her. 'W-what do you intend to do with me, you unwashed c-commoners?' she squeaks—finally realizing her fate—as they pin her down—rape her—"

"Sister," said Graham. "She doesn't care."

"—Two or three at a time—she screams—their dark hairy male bodies—hers petite and lily-white—them faceless—only her face shown. Purity ruined—bloody piddle between her legs—decapitated bodies of her family around her—her bright eyes go dull. Finished—the barbarians crucify her nude body in the castle chapel—hands and feet impaled by nails on the cross—"

"Sister."

"It's fine," said the Alchemist.

"—Left hanging to die—as they feast on her family's entrails—laughing brutishly—cannibals—godless heathens. Her strength wanes—she cannot even muster a condemnation. But then—a shadow flits across her face—only a shadow—dimensionless—nonetheless she recognizes it. An old friend of her family—a man named Mr. Mephist. His mellifluous voice—whispered in her ear—'Young lady, you're in quite the predicament. Perhaps I can help. If you offer me some of your blood I'll give you power beyond your wildest imagination.'—well she is already bleeding from her—"

"Sister!"

The front doors flung open hard enough to shake the full façade of the foyer. A screaming gale howled whirlwind flakes of snow as El-Marghichi snapped out of his reverie and Graham, shocked, upended his precariously perched armchair. Fletch even lurched from his den. Only the Alchemist, the one among them not actually present, made no response to the squeal that rustled the posters and books and floorboards and sent the rats scurrying and the second-floor lurkers scurrying too. She remained ephemeral, a nod and a smile in response to Sister's description that she immediately forgot.

"—fuck, oh my fucking shit close that damn door already!" Fletch screamed. He rushed past with his lips barely visible through the tight-wound hood of his parka.

A figure stepped inside, pried both doors from the wall to which they cleaved, and with moderate effort shoved them closed with a click that sealed the freezing world back outside. The wind fell back to its ignorable whirr, the posters and pages ceased rattling, and the snowflakes settled. The newcomer stomped his boots on the ragged remains of a welcome mat and brushed snow off the shoulders of a jacket he simultaneously shimmied out of. A casual flick landed the jacket accurately if unevenly on a nearby coatrack used solely by him and he turned his attention to cleaning off the brim of his hat, a bright yellow visor to match his bright yellow polo. On both the visor and the polo's breast pocket, written in red thread, was the word MUNCH'S, and in smaller type underneath, Fried Chicken.

The man at the door unveiled from under one arm a big yellow bucket off of which he popped a plastic lid to reveal 24 pieces of MUNCH'S Fried Chicken, meat light and dark alike. The instant aroma of the still-warm food swelled through the foyer and magnetized all occupants to it, excepting only the senseless Alchemist.

Fletch's further complaints about the cold vanished. Instead the complaint became: "Shit man, and here we been waiting for hours."

"Ex-cuse my lateness," the man in the fast food uniform said, stately and taller than the others, every word enunciated with a severe dignity, "but I was waylaid by a few fine specimens of that most inimitable breed of swine known as the police." Benevolent, he extended the bucket as the other three each seized a piece and immediately ate.

"The cops?" said Fletch. "Shit bro."

"What deed you do," said an El-Marghichi now fully corporealized as he tore into a drumstick. "Rob a bank, eh?"

"The swine in question, my brethren, took the trouble to pull me to the side of the road in cold encroaching zero degrees Fahrenheit, all to kindly inform me that my—I believe it was—left brake light had ceased functioning."

"Fucking waste of time," said Fletch.

"Doubly so, as it turned out the good pigs were quite mistaken, and that both my brake lights functioned perfectly."

"How you even make that mistake? Damn bro."

The man in the fast food uniform extended his arms in a shrug vaguely cruciform.

"Simply swine," he said, "performing tricks they have been long trained to do."

El-Marghichi's squinted eyes flashed; Graham saw it and knew he meant trouble.

"They thought to do you a, how you say, a favor, no? In weather like thees, a broken brake light, very bad, no?"

"Don't start it man," Graham divesting a bone of its meat, "if I have to hear you and Dogshit argue again my brain will break."

The man named Dogshit stared directly at El-Marghichi across the expanse of a long pause punctuated only by the sound of the crunching chicken, as if considering whether it was worth it to respond, a question obviously answered in the negative and yet, somehow, irresistible.

"It seems to me," said El-Marghichi, "thees policeman, he was only thinking to help you, no? How we say, good Samaritan?"

"Man fuck this shit," said Fletch, taking an extra piece of chicken and turning for his bunker.

Dogshit reached out and grabbed Fletch by the collar. "No, no, no. I have had an extremely long day all things considered, so we will be playing some mother fucking Madden."[63]

The statement suggested that Dogshit would turn the other cheek at El-Marghichi's prodding, but as Fletch tried to break free, muttering excuses about needing to study for his test tomorrow, El-Marghichi said: "Could eet not be that, ehh, you are making conclusions about thees so-called 'peeg'?"

"My man," said Dogshit, "my brother. Maybe it's different in fucking Switzerland, but here in the U. S. of A., people of skin darker than lily white need to tread lightly around the swine. That's you included."

"Don't engage him," said Graham.

"I really gotta study bro," said Fletch. "This fucking class—"

"Because!" Dogshit rose up, expanding, filling the whole foyer with the clap of his bombastic voice, a speechmaker's voice—a voice he did not always possess, but cultivated during the Obama[64] years, a voice that got Dogshit perpetually clowned on senior year of high school by more unempathetic men, a voice that only reified, rather than obliterated, the unfortunate nickname he had never quite been able to shake. "Because do not believe for one moment, my good brother, that our particular and quite insidious breed of American swine will not do to a Muslim man like yourself—"

"I am not a fucking Mooslim, fuck," said El-Marghichi. "Fuck that sheet."

"There is no shame in Islam, my brother, the religion of Malcolm X[65] and Muhammad Ali[66]—"

"A religion founded by a fucking pedophile, tchaw! You should see Europe, fuck. Gangs of these fucking 'Mooslims' roving around, gangraping women on the street, what a fucking disgrace! We'd do better over there if we had these so-called peegs you have here."

Dogshit's incipient speech faltered in face of such a stance, as though Dogshit was incapable of comprehending an argument of that much seeming hypocrisy. After a few moments of pause, he said, minus his elevated demeanor, somehow reminding Graham of the sways between almighty and just plain tired that Mimmy had undergone (or maybe he just had Mimmy on the brain and saw her in everything): "Bro? Aren't you a fucking pedophile yourself?"

"I'm a lolicon. There's a difference."

"My nigga," said Dogshit, "what the fuck."

Fletch finally broke free of Dogshit's grasp and danced away before Dogshit could take another swipe at him. "Wow, awesome, really cool conversation we got going here, lemme just bow out and get back to work, thanks bro."

The quick egress diverted Dogshit's attention and he let out an audible tch as his eyes flicked to the busted old television near the wall of yuri where the game console and the library of about twenty Madden games (and x.Nihilo, Graham not yet having resold it) leaned precariously toward Graham's own heap of garbage, another swirl in the sea of cultural detritus.

"Ah fuck thees, nobody ever understands," said El-Marghichi, and only after he said it did Graham realize he had been staring at Graham in hope of support on the pedophile/lolicon point. Portion of chicken in hand, Sister trudged to another corner of the room, where his dour expression quickly shifted to the smug smile of Somebody's Little Sister.

He resumed his talk about Le Château de Diodati with the Alchemist, who had gone ignored the entire time but stood patiently waiting without complaint. Before Graham could shield her from Sister's perversions, Dogshit hooked an arm around his neck.

"Well, well, well. My main man, White Nigga Graham. Graham Cracker." He evoked some of Graham's own unfortunate high school nicknames (earned at a high school with a five percent white population, that five percent being exclusively white trash), nicknames that had at least not stuck to him the way Dogshit's did. "I do believe we have some articles of business to discuss, do we not, my brother?"

Graham expected this conversation at some point. Even still, he leaned into it disinterested, the real world at that moment meaning little to him beyond the fried chicken in his hand. "Sorry dude. I can't pay you right now. It's two weeks to the end of the month, that's when my Patreon money rolls in. I'll pay you then."

"Graham my brother. My much esteemed brother." Dogshit led him in step toward a quieter corner of the foyer. "You have run up quite a tab and I must have you know there is a reason I make precious few exceptions when selling on credit."

"I know, I fucking know. I normally fucking pay on time man, you know that, it's just with the damn pandemic my mom got fired—"

"I have a mother in trouble too you know."

"And then Sister's stupid thing, I had to help with that—"

"And what is the deal with that? Why do we have a criminal living with us in our humble domicile?"

"He's not a fucking criminal. It's bullshit, it's not like he hurt anyone or anything. You're a fucking criminal too remember? Or you think what you sell me I could just buy from the convenience store? And I'm a fucking criminal for buying it."

Dogshit, head leaned close, stared over Graham's shoulder at El-Marghichi tapping his phone furiously from a busted, threadbare sofa. "What I do is simply business, Graham Cracker. Simply business. But I cannot stand that mother fucker. I simply cannot abide him. Not just his asinine opinions, that shirt of his—"

"It's my shirt. I lent it to him."

"Oh."

"Look man, don't take him seriously. He doesn't believe half the shit he says. He just likes pissing people off."

"Tell me straight: Is he a pedophile? Is that why they kicked him out of Switzerland?"

"No, oh my fucking god man, he's cool. Trust me, he's cool."

"That mother fucker is not cool. Don't let me catch him bringing any kid around here. I will kill that mother fucker for real. I am not playing." He tapped his hip, where he kept a holster.

"He hates kids. Real ones, at least. He hates everyone real."

"You know the weirdest mother fuckers I swear."

"Wait until I tell you about the chick who's never seen a movie."

"Whaaat? No."

The sidetrack seemed to have worked. The arm around Graham's neck went slack and Dogshit even reared back to shake his head in amazement. But then the grip tightened, the head moved close enough that Dogshit's mint-fresh breath stirred Graham's sideburns, and the conversation resumed.

"One thousand, Graham Cracker. You owe me a thousand. That's for this month and the month prior and that's me being generous, brother."

"Two weeks. I swear."

"My brother. I got people hounding me to pay money I owe too. It's not like I'm getting on your case for no reason. I need that money, my brother. Dollars and cents. You think I'm doing this part-time gig for fun?" He pushed up the brim of his visor. "I don't run the kind of business I can afford to be in the red too long."

Neither did Graham. Neither did anyone, he imagined. And Graham's head was also whirring with dollars and cents, an involuntary reaction to any money-troubled question, such oh-so-common questions in his time. In his bank account, 97. In his wallet, 20. In no way could he get anything off El-Marghichi, but Fletch might have a few dollars to lend, say 50.

He could ask the Alchemist to send him something. He knew enough about her to know she worked a real job in an office somewhere and from loose descriptions of her life he'd pried mostly in fascination at her complete pop cultural amnesia he suspected she was living well below her means. If he borrowed from her and paid her back when his patrons paid out—he imagined the scenario, the hat-in-hand position, no, a straight fucking impossibility, there were people he could ask for money and people he could not. Asking the Alchemist for money rose his bile the way the thought of asking Mimmy for money did. Who did that leave? He knew plenty of artists, some friends, some acquaintances, some enemies, nobody both willing and able to lend him the remainder. So that left—

The fans. The thing about the fans was, obviously he couldn't beg them for money. They were already paying him $3k per month. And that was in exchange for a service, for exclusive rights to (in the aggregate) decide the subject of his latest artwork, for early access to his content, for special uncensored versions or other benefits. But he could provide more services.

He could reopen commissions.

In the porn sphere, artists starting out rely almost exclusively on commissions—when a single consumer pays a specified price for an artwork tailored to their demands. It's slavish, often brutal work, because the people who commission pornographic art are the most insane people to ever exist. Artists can supplement their income by selling prints or t-shirts or other merchandise, but in the porn world, that's not the most salient venture. The big deal is Patreon, that lovely little site in which someone's fans may send them a monthly donation. If you have enough followers, you can live, like Graham, solely off these monthly donations, wrest a modicum of artistic freedom for yourself, and keep the psychos at arm's length, only to be spoken to from on high.

Graham, being industrious, being prodded, could turn out a complete commission in—five days, if he loosened some of his many personal quality control standards. That was a significant reduction from the seventeen until the end of the month (Graham had said two weeks in an optimistic bit of rounding).

"If I could get you the money in five days, would that work."

Dogshit muttered under his breath the same calculations Graham just made, applied to the particular mores of his business instead.

"Five days. Sure. But no longer."

Graham breathed in. Okay. Problem was, he needed over 800 dollars. That amount of money for a single commission (especially one he knew he would half-ass) was exorbitant even for an artist of his stature. A beginner artist with talent could probably ask in the ballpark of 100 dollars for two full bodies with background; the few artists in the big leagues who still did commissions might do 500, and that was pushing it. Graham's advantage was he wasn't trying to put forward a sustainable business model. He only needed a one-time sucker. Some overly rich and overly horny dumbass who didn't care about market value. The Damien Hirst billionaire of the self-employed porn art world.

Alternatively, he could draw furry porn.

No, fuck no—that alternative he rejected outright. Wealthy patron it would have to be. He'd ask Sister, who ran the Consortium. Sister must know someone with more money than sense.

"Okay," he said. "Five days. I'll get you a thousand in five days."

Dogshit's demeanor softened, the arm around Graham's neck fell away, a pat to the back jostled him. "Great. Glad to hear it, my brother. Just remember, I cannot wait longer than that."

"I'll get it."

"Most excellent." Dogshit waltzed away, in the direction of the television, with a finger pointed to it as though signaling his intention to play. But when he spoke, Graham realized he wasn't pointing at the TV. "You know, can't you just sell this shit?"

He was pointing to the heap. The books, figurines, memorabilia, posters, and even the katana jammed into it like the sword in the stone.[67]

"Of course not," said Graham. "It's shit."

Dogshit nodded, sated by the tautological response. He turned on the TV and played Madden against the computer, because Fletch was now buried so deep into his textbooks even the thought of extracting him proved impossible. And Graham went to work.

Footnotes

[46] Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and anything else that isn't straight. This term or some modification (the community can't decide if Queer is a slur) is ungodly common nowadays, but you may not know what it means any more than you know Mickey Mouse. Back

[47] Nonbinary. Back

[48] Stan: Originally a noun (a stan) referring to an obsessive fan, the term has since evolved into a verb that more generally means supporting something in a fannish way. Originates from "Stan" (2000), a song by Marshall "Eminem" Mathers (featuring Florian Cloud de Bounevialle "Dido" O'Malley Armstrong), about an obsessed fan who writes a series of increasingly deranged letters to Eminem, culminating in murder-suicide. Back

[49] Trigger Warning. Meant to warn internet users of potentially unpleasant or "triggering" content. Back

[50] Faggot. Back

[51] Dyke. Probably. Back

[52] Main character of Cardcaptor Sakura (1998-2000), Studio Madhouse. Based on a manga (1996-2000) by all-female four-person manga collective CLAMP. At the beginning of the series, Sakura is 10 years old. Back

[53] Major characters from The Incredibles (2004), Pixar Animation Studios. Directed by Brad Bird. A children's film about a superhero family. Mimmy always enjoyed escaping the anime bubble and deviating into Western animation, but in the West animated media is only for kids and the characters are more deformed and cartoonish than even the most early-00s giant anime eye girls, so Graham never found such stuff of particular interest—although he did draw it when compelled by his paying audience. Back

[54] Minor character from My Hero Academia (2016-Present), Studio Bones. Based on a manga (2014-Present) by Kouhei Horikoshi. One of the most popular shounen (basically, boy-oriented) anime/manga since its debut, the story revolves around a high school for superheroes. Mina, one of the few female characters, is completely irrelevant to the story, like all the other female characters. Back

[55] Supporting characters from Soul Eater (2008-2009), Studio Bones. Based on a manga (2004-2013) by Atsushi Okubo. Another popular shounen, the story revolves around a high school for... not quite superheroes, maybe demonslayers is the right word. Medusa is a witch and the story's main villain; Crona, her ambiguously-gendered or rather nonbinary offspring, is physically and mentally abused by her to the point of insanity. Back

[56] The real world, as opposed to the internet. Back

[57] Social Justice Warrior. Derogatory term for people who "fight" for social justice, i.e. racial and gender equality, by posting about it on social media. Back

[58] Don't watch it. Back

[59] Masaccio. Expulsion from the Garden of Eden. (1426–1427), fresco. Basilica of Our Lady of Carmel, Florence. Back

[60] Altdorfer, Albrecht. The Battle of Alexander at Issus. (1529), oil on lime. Alte Pinakothek, Munich. Back

[61] Titian. Venus of Urbino. (c. 1534), oil on canvas. Uffizi, Florence. Back

[62] Hentai: The Japanese word for pervert. Refers to drawn or animated porn with an anime aesthetic. Back

[63] Annual football video game franchise using digitized likenesses of teams and players from the National Football League (NFL), the major football league in the United States. These games suck ass but Dogshit buys the new one every single year. Back

[64] Just going to assume if you don't know Mickey Mouse you don't know Obama, because what the hell. Barack Obama, forty-fourth president of the United States, serving 2009-2017. The first black president. Back

[65] Malcolm X (1925-1965), born Malcolm Little, an African-American civil rights leader who converted to Islam and was eventually assassinated by members of an Islamic organization with whom he had butted heads. Back

[66] Muhammad Ali (1942-2016), born Cassius Clay, an African-American boxer who converted to Islam, who butted heads with the same Islamic organization as Malcolm X, but who was not assassinated. Back

[67] In the old British legend of King Arthur, a sword was stuck in a stone and it was prophesied that whoever drew the sword would be the king of Britain. Arthur drew it. Fun fact: Graham has drawn no small amount of porn featuring a genderbent King Arthur. Back

[5] Moneymoneymoneymoneymoneymotherfuckers

[5] Moneymoneymoneymoneymoneymotherfuckers

Actually Graham slumped in his seat and held his head in his hands. Indignity paralyzed him. He knew his numbers, he knew numbers before he even knew art, numbers of followers, numbers of patrons, numbers of dollars, numbers of hours, to a degree fine enough he could calculate the earnings of a single brushstroke, even one he immediately undid.

He knew his numbers had plateaued.

For years, even. He hit 100,000 followers in 2016. The years ticked on to 2020 and sure he gained a few more thousands and that constant gain at times allowed him to delude himself but honestly progress had ceased. He remembered when the rapidity of his growth startled him into ego beyond measure, when he might gain 20,000 followers in a month and extrapolate that gain unto exponential perpetuity until a theoretical future when Van Der Gramme possessed a million, two million, however many millions of adoring fans, until people in their houses knew the name "Van Der Gramme," until "Van Der Gramme" became a new type of movement, a revival of the visual arts (call it a Renaissance), an artist in the public eye, someone talked about, a subject of articles and essays alike, a fire burning through the endless accumulation of garbage in which they had buried themselves on this senseless, unchanging horizon line at the end of history, a shambling climb of an entire society out of its dark hole into some kind of glorious light.

He studied the old masters! He studied the whole of history, the whole of human knowledge. He possessed the craftsmanship, the eye. He could be the one, he could renew a dead culture. He: Van Der Gramme!

But here he was, plateaued. Plateaued for years. Plateaued and forced by circumstances to be comfortable with it because he needed that monthly patronage to eat.

Dragged out of his hole, Mimmy said, he would disintegrate like a vampire. And those masses he strived to reign over, they would see him and consider him obscene.

Even in this dismal portrait of failure he sought solace. He imagined himself persecuted, brought before the Supreme Court on obscenity charges, the kind faced by past masters for their beautiful depictions of the human body, forced to defend before nine skeletized crones in black drapery the merit of his works. He envisioned it like a scene in a movie, a courtroom drama that even knowing nothing about courtrooms he knew was utterly unrealistic, him rising above the objections of lawyers to deliver an impassioned speech on the beauty to be found in the human body, the beauty to be found in that base and disgusting thing known as sexual intercourse, the beauty to be found there that could in fact be found nowhere else, because there is nothing with which we, humanity, might know so intimately as our body, and there is no way in which we may know another body as through that act of intimacy so natural to the world and yet so unnaturally unnatural to society.

Prurient, Your Honor? Prurient? How can these creations have been made with prurient interests when I can't even get my own dick up looking at them? When I haven't been horny since Mimmy?

Even if the court destroyed him, even if they banned and burnt his "obscene" artwork in mockery of their own precious First Amendment, such an annihilation would be wreathed in a glory of its own—martyrdom—and as such he could yearn for it. But here—

Here—

In this room, this Consortium of a few devotees, this precious hideaway, here he couldn't even be hated. Neither positive nor negative. Just a fucking zero. Nothing. A black dot in a black ocean, never to be seen.

"What about Cariscresco?"

Out of his hands rose his head and through the darkened lenses of his sunglasses the Smoking Room full of smoke came back into focus. On the sofa nearly flipped a full 180 Sister kicked tiny feet back and forth in slow, pendulous motion, her red high-heeled shoes coming off at the heels and bouncing, but it wasn't her who spoke. It was the Alchemist, standing by the panorama window and staring into space.

After the words had a chance to settle, she turned and repeated them, more solidified. "What about Cariscresco—right?"

"What about that fucking spaz." Sister's left foot kicked too far and her shoe fell off and bounced on her upturned face, dislodging the cigar that looked comically big between her lips.

The Alchemist glanced from Sister to Gramme. "She has money, right?"

"Who the fuck's Cariscresco?" said Gramme.

The Alchemist blinked at him and then at Sister. "The snake lady."

Snake lady. Snake lady, snake lady.

"Satanichia," intoned Sister.

"Oh," said Gramme. "Jesus. Another name change?"

"You can't unlearn autism," said Sister.

"I figured he left after the Mimmy blowup."

"Worse," said Sister, "they're a mod."

"A mod? How the fuck?"

"You did it. You did it and I'm not a fucking admin so I can't undo it."

"When the fuck did I do it?"

"I don't fucking know, years ago."

"I never forget anything. Mimmy must've done it. Mimmy was an admin once."

"Maybe," said Sister. "Ask Car yourself. They're right there."

Her second foot, the one that still had a shoe, revolved in a lazy circle until she stopped speaking, at which point it flicked the shoe toward a random corner of the room. Over the triangular coffee table, between two corked bottles of wine on a gurney, the shoe whizzed not at the speed of a bullet (bullets are actually really fucking fast) but at the speed most people imagine when they think of the speed of a bullet, that is, the speed of a blur. And instead of hitting cold dead air, the shoe struck something invisible and bounced to the rug.

The invisible thing hissed and reared back out of its camouflage, planes of itself clashing against the planes of the wall and window behind it, not quite cohering into a comprehensible form at first, but demarcated by two hypnotically pulsing concentric eyes.

"Ee-ee-eeyaaaah," screeched the eyes.

Sister cartwheeled off the sofa in her stockings, bounced with lunar gravity, and summoned in her gloved hands the massive mallet she used to exert dictatorial influence over the Consortium. The mallet descended at the end of her arc and plowed directly into the still-piecemeal face of the rainbow-eyed serpent Cariscresco[68] or Satanichia[69] or Umaruchan[70] or a few hundred other names all in the same vein.

The mallet bounced off the snake's face with a cartoonish sound effect (it having minimal effect on someone with the same powers of moderation anyway), so Sister resorted to a more direct form of abuse by shoving one stockinged foot onto Cariscresco's forehead and pushing her to the ground.

"Spying? Fucking, slinking like the snake you are?" Her foot kneaded against the nose. "Gonna report everything back to Mimmy. Mimmy's widdle bitch. Good doggie~" The toes curled and poked one of Cariscresco's pulsing eyes. "Mimmy may never be a girl but at least he'll be something. What are you Car. Other than a fucking reptile. With brainpower to match. A 41 percenter if I ever saw one."

The moment Cariscresco tried to open their (his? her? its? Not even Sister seemed to know) mouth, the foot forced its way into it. Cariscresco's eyes rolled back as a long, tapering tongue unfurled and coiled loosely around Sister's heel and ankle.

"Mmff-mmff! Mmphity mffff!" The tongue found the top of Sister's stocking and tugged it down to leave a long slather of saliva. "Mmhh~"

"The mongoloid has been avoiding you this whole time Gramme. And guess why. Guess. Because they didn't want to get de-modded. They stopped using their mod powers so you would forget they were a mod. And not de-mod them."

"Mod?" The Alchemist watched the motion of Cariscresco's tongue up and down and around and along the length of Sister's shin.

"Mods—they ban people and move rooms around and shit in a chatroom," Gramme explained. "Short for moderator. Sister stop with the fucking footplay."

The foot lifted out of Cariscresco's mouth, but hovered in the air over her face, poised to stomp at any moment. Cariscresco continued to lick it, but now had space to speak.

"HIYA-HIYA ALLY!!! SISSY!!! GRAMMERS!!!"

The rainbow eyes darted. The body writhed, even though Sister kept the tail pinned with her other foot. Caught in a trap, flakes of Cariscresco turned gray and peeled off into dust, but new red scales emerged to replace the missing parts.

"WAAAU!!! CAR'S SO-SO FRIGGIN' HAPPY TO SEE YOU ALL!!!!!"

Sister smushed Cariscresco's face. "Control your caps lock."

"Hello Car," said the Alchemist.

Cariscresco, whose smushed face deflated like it was melting, reformed when Sister lifted her foot and took a gooey rainbow with it slopping back in layered strands. "Allyyyyy, Ally it's been so long!! Car misses you Ally! Car is so sad. Because Ally never talks to her!"

"But we talked—yesterday? I remember we talked. I remember you, at least."

Shivering and shaking: "Ally's always talking to Grammers and Sissy—never Car! Why never Car?! Car's always nice to Ally so why? Hmm-hmm, why Car wonders?!"

"Cuz you're retarded," said a Sister rapidly being subsumed into Cariscresco's face. She took the cigar out of her mouth and tried to jab it into a rainbow eye, but it phased through.

The shivering grew violent and Cariscresco's tail burst out of Sister's grip and uncoiled endlessly into the room, undulations of it that rolled over sofas and spiraled around tables and rose like waves to blot out the windows with no discernable end.

"Car got hurt the other day. It was just an accident but Car bled a lot. Nobody thought to ask if Car was okay?! Ally couldn't ask? No! Ally doesn't care. Does she?!"

"Fucking hell," said Sister. "You're manic."

"I'm sorry," said the Alchemist.

"Don't feed these, fucking delusions. Cringe artists like Car need their asses kicked. That's all. Rattle their downie brains enough and maybe rattle it into a normal fucking configuration. Gramme de-mod and kick this disgrace already."

Instead Gramme, containing the vocalization of a fuck in the back of his throat while his mouth remained rigidly clamped, tossed his head and ptooed out his cigar and said something that might actually snap Cariscresco out of his/her/their/its reverie.

"Any one work of art of your choice."

The eyes flicked to him but because of his sunglasses their frenetic vibrations made little impact.

"Since you've apparently been spying on me for Mimmy or maybe because in your mind you think Mimmy wants you to do that, I guess you already know the why. Once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I'm doing one commission and one only. You happen to be in the right place at the right time with the right wallet."

The coils went rigid.

"Business, Car, business. Dollars and cents. Business and art. Let's talk it."

Cariscresco shriveled. The room, once choked, expelled its bated breath as the windows and the space beyond reappeared. The stunned expression on Cariscresco's face tilted ten degrees on a central axis.

"Time's precious," said Gramme. "If you want it, get it now."

Any remaining manic disposition vanished with a wolfish grin.

"Aaaaanything Car wants, Grammers will draw? No matter what?"

"No furry shit. Anything else. Any fetish, any piece of media, any character. As long as you cough up a thousand dollars."

"Well-well!!" Cariscresco flipped around, splurting Sister out of its face as it slithered on its belly over the rug, through the Alchemist's intransient legs, and right up to Gramme, perching itself on its elbows.

Gramme knew to expect no good. These people were why Gramme didn't do commissions, by the way.

"Well-well-well-well-WELL!"

Sister began a disparaging remark that probably included a bevy of slurs but Gramme tossed his hand before she had the chance to speak. The doors opened, a force like an invisible string tugged Sister out, and the doors shut. Leaving only Gramme, Cariscresco, and the Alchemist.

"Well?" said Gramme.

"One!" Cariscresco shot up a long, clawed finger. "Car requests that in addition to payment, Car is not removed from her moderator position in the Consortium."

"Sure." The place was Sister's baby now, what did Gramme care.

"Two!! Car knows Grammers roleplays everything before he draws it. So Car requests to take part in the roleplay, yep-yep!"

A more dubious demand, but the whole point of roleplaying ahead of time was to view the unique perspectives of his partners on the characters and narratives. To constantly revitalize his own perspective, to keep it from growing stale, solipsistic. If nothing else, Cariscresco would provide a perspective. "Sure."

"Threeeee!!! This is the final-final one. Car humbly requests that you produce a picture featuring the characters Gabriel, Paimon, and Allison Apple from the hit show Allison Apple and Her Friends, Good and Evil currently airing Fridays on the Disney Channel!"

"God fucking you little shit. Look. These are a lotta fucking demands you're making."

Cariscresco waggled her (we're going with her, since it's what she's using for herself) head back and forth. "And Grammers is charging a lotta friggin' money, isn't that right Ally??"

The Alchemist stared stunned like she lacked any way of determining a lot of money from not a lot of money.

"That rate's an exclusivity fee," Gramme muttered. "When's the last time I did a commission? Four years Car. You have exclusive access to me, I didn't even make you bid against other whales, I went straight to you."

Hands on hips. A lip stuck out in a cartoonish pout. "What's the point of EX-CLU-SIV-ITY if you won't even draw the thing Car asks for, hmm-hmm?"

"I don't do Western shit, you know that, you're just trying to shank me in the throat dammit."

"Grammers drew Avatar."[71]

"Which is basically anime."

"Grammers drew RWBY."[72]

"Don't remind me."

"Grammers drew Warcraft."[73]

"Fuck, fuck, fuck."

"Wau! Grammers sure is ungrateful, yep-yeppers. Car could go to another artist just as good and get TEN commissions for this price."

"No other artist is as good as me."

"They're good enough for Car!"

Because, Gramme wanted to say, but possessed enough boundary between brain and mouth to stop himself (not that this melting mess of mania cared whether he said something kind or unkind; she vacillated between states of sanity depending on a butterfly's wings in Shanghai), anything is good enough for Car, Caris-fucking-cresco, devourer of worlds, no critical lens given to even basics of technical quality, no gourmand, only a glutton.

"Fine," said Gramme. He always knew he would say fine. He lacked another option. If it was just him, he could make excuses to Dogshit long enough for his Patreon money to come in, or he could hide in the deeper recesses of the manor and dare Dogshit to follow him. But Gramme did legitimately owe the money, the cigars and alcohol and weed and other drugs mandatory during these hard times having accumulated to one hefty sum, and if Dogshit needed to pay his own debts, then money had to be paid. Fletch was right, Dogshit wouldn't do anything to Gramme, he was a good guy despite his concealed handgun, but Gramme could not extend that descriptor to Dogshit's associates and wholesalers, who perhaps originated from a more fire-and-brimstone style of organized crime.

If Gramme mentally framed it that way. Framed it in his mind like: This is for Dogshit, friend since youth, man in trouble. If he conjured out of air menacing latter-day mafiosos, doo ragged men of red or blue persuasion, a wooden plank to the teeth, a crowbar to the knees, a bullet to the brain—(these visualizations, he sensed, as realistic as his Supreme Court)—then any desolation of pride became bearable. Because dignity remained in selflessness.

Or was sacrificing for others a way to excuse his lack of progress. His stagnated follower count. His rote motions. Flights of fancy into daydreams of women atop towers, seekers in a library of dead knowledge.

Did he need an escape from his own self.

"Fine, fine. Fine. Fuck," he said, a great show of protesting, arms to the sky, cigar brandished, ashes raining, curses flung, shrugs shot at the Alchemist as if to call to her attention his suffering, and it didn't matter because her eyes only blinked. Did she possess thoughts in her head? Did she have anything at all in her life? He understood rationally that he was mad and in his madness lashing out but sometimes he looked at her stupid face and thought, "This is the ordinary person? This is the person I want to win over?" and he hated her worse than Mimmy, Mimmy who at least had ideas even if she forsook them.

But Gramme was calm externally despite his external indicators of lack of calm.

"Let's get this shit over with then." He reeled himself back and sank into his sea of smoke. "Give me the specifics and we'll play it."

"YAY!!! Clap-clap-clap-clap-clap!!" Cariscresco clapped. "Oh, it'll be so much fun, Car's drooling just thinking about it!" She was, in fact, drooling. "Ally must be so excited too."

"Huh?" said the Alchemist. "Me?"

"Thaaaaat's RIGHT!! Ally you are the lucky winner of Cariscresco's Super Awesome Sunshine Sweepstakes!!"

"What the fuck are you talking about," said Gramme.

Cariscresco shot her hectic rainbow eyes at him with the kind of oblivious self-assurance seen only in smalltime artists convinced of their philosophical project. "Um, hellooooo?! Car's requesting a threesome. Gabriel, Paimon, AND Allison Apple. So there'll be three people in the roleplay! Ally can play Ally."

Fully intending to put his foot down on this horseshit, Gramme cast his cigar aside (again; the best part of smoking cigars is all the cool ways you can stop smoking them) and emerged from his plume to speak, but by the time he arranged his epic entrance into the scene in which he had entered since its onset, the Alchemist tilted her head and shrugged.

"Okay," she said, like it meant absolutely nothing either way.

Footnotes

[68] Don't actually know what this is a reference to. Maybe an original character? Mimmy drew the avatar at least. Can tell at a glance. Back

[69] Satanichia McDowell Kurumizawa, character from Gabriel DropOut (2017), Studio Doga Kobo, based on a manga (2013-Present) by someone pseudonymously known only as Ukami. A supernatural comedy series featuring angels and demons who attend high school on Earth with the main angel being named Gabriel and oh my fucking god. Back

[70] Umaru Doma, main character of Himouto! Umaru-chan (2015), Studio Doga Kobo, based on a manga (2013-2017) by someone (presumably) pseudonymously known as Sankaku Head. Umaru is a smart, pretty, well-adjusted high school student who turns into a deformed bratty hamster at home and is probably one of the most miserable characters Gramme has ever drawn porn of. Back

[71] Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005-2008), Nickelodeon Animation Studios. An American cartoon set in a fantasy world where people fight with powers corresponding to the four classical elements of earth, water, fire, and air. Back

[72] RWBY (2013-Present), Rooster Teeth. An American web animation series, heavily imitating anime, set in a fantasy world where people fight with swords and scythes that turn into guns and rocket launchers. Back

[73] Warcraft, or more specifically World of Warcraft (2004), Blizzard Entertainment. An American massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG)—remember role-playing games? Like x.Nihilo—set in a fantasy world with orcs and elves and all other classic fantasy archetypes, where thousands of players play together at the same time. Back

[6] FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.

[6] FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.[74]

One late-late night at St. Mary's Academy for good (and evil) boys and girls (and other), so late even the janitor went home, so late all East Eden plunged into night, Allison "Ally" Apple dropped to her knees under the only light in all the world: a bare lightbulb hanging in the storage closet. Everyyything beyond that narrow cone of light no longer existed, gone, wau!, plunged into abyss, a void, outer space, nothing! So in this teeny-teeny widdle world existed only Ally, and a few cans of spray paint, and Paimon with her ripped skinny jeans dropped around her ankles.

You see! This whole excursion started with a simple idea, one proposed by our pantsless friend Paimon, to graffiti that uppity student council room and teach those stick-up-their-butthole angels a lesson or two, but in the darkness they got lost, and fumbled around, and bumped up against each other two or three or fifteen times, and found their way here, where things advanced surprisingly, or maybe exactly to Paimon's devilish plan, because now Ally, kneeling under the light of GOD!, was shlurp-shlurping on Paimon's big, beefy bitchbreaker.

["Bitchbreaker...?"[75]

"Your turn Ally!"

"Um. Okay."]

Suck and suck she sucked, the cock so large even halfway in it butted up against the back of her throat and she needed both hands to hold the base steady, while Paimon leaned against the shelves of soap and scrubbers with her punk rock t-shirt pulled up over the shelf of her perfectly round melon-sized boobies jiggling their pert piqued rosy-pink nipples with every teensy-weensy quiver of her body. Ally's head made small birdlike bobs across the saliva-slickened surface of the shaft, so wet with slobber that it dripped off onto the front of Ally's white blouse and stained it through to her chest.

["Hauuuuu~! So good Ally, you're so friggin' good at this!!"

"Can we go without the commentary," said Gramme.

"Right-right!! Zipperlips Car, zwiiiuuupp!!!"]

"Ohhh Allyyyy, you're such a cutie widdle sluttie-wuttie," sighed Paimon dripping salty beads of precum onto the back of Ally's tongue, one hand gripped on the crown of Ally's head, fingers spread through her shiny short black hair, and her hips bucking at sporadic intervals that lifted her up onto her toes. Squeak! went her sneakers across the linoleum. "Paimon always knew you were a bad-bad girl~"

Ally's cock-crammed mouth couldn't respond. All her tongue did was glide and curl around the shaft butting so rudely back and forth, maybe a few muffled murmurs here and there. And with her back turned to the storage closet's door, she had no way to see anyone approaching, not that she could have seen through the utter darkness. It wasn't until she heard the clack of what sounded like sharp, well-polished boots that she realized.

Clack. Clack.

"Allison... Apple," said student council president Gabriel, or rather, by the pitch of his voice, Gabrielle—her gender subject to near-random oscillations. The only disorderly thing about her. Imbued with such purity of whiteness in her skin and uniform that she exuded light from herself, she emerged out of the void in full student council regalia, with a sash and a peaked cap. Her hair was long and, of course, blonde. "Not even detention explains your existence at this hour—hm?"

Of course being surprised in any form of coitus is sure to spark horror into the heart of anyone, let alone a cutie little virgin slut like Ally Apple, so Paimon got to feel the frantic hurks and jerks of Ally's scared lips on Paimon's big cock. But Paimon, being a devilish sort, would rather not let good oral go to waste. Her hand remained gripped hard on Ally's head, preventing her from breaking free, and Paimon herself? Pwooooofff!!! Invisible, just like that, a neat power of the otherworldly. So to Gabrielle's eyes, Ally was simply kneeling under the light of the storage closet by herself—praying mayhaaaps?? Ehehehe.

[Gramme and the Alchemist traded glances.]

Ally, transfixed by a phantom dick, only fidgeted on her knees. Her back remained to Gabrielle. She managed no response. Any sound died deep within her throat.

"Oh? Refusal to answer a member of the student council when addressed? Allison... these infractions will not do." Gabrielle reached into the breast pocket of her uniform for a notepad to jot each infraction in its turn: Breaking, entering, conspiracy to commit graffiti (those cans of spray paint did not escape Gabrielle's eye), insolence, improper dress, and so forth. Yes, it would be detention unto infinity for poor Allison Apple.

But Gabrielle's pen stayed itself prior to the first looping cursive letter. That position. Could Allison have realized the error of her ways and thrown herself down to ask forgiveness from a power higher even than Gabrielle herself? Well, in the event of such subservience Gabrielle was not without pity. And it would be wrong to break one's communion with The One Above. Gabrielle waited patiently for the amen that signified termination of such communiques.

Paimon bucked deeper; Ally choked.

"Oh?" said Gabrielle. "Strangled by remorse. Is it possible you have finally seen the truth, Allison Apple?" The pen and pad returned to pocket. "I always suspected you might become a docile denizen of the Light one day... Not quite so soon, however. I suppose when one's expectations are so low, it is no challenge to exceed them. Hm? Allison?"

Ally gurgled. A deluge of saliva streamed down her chin and splattered the linoleum.

"Allison." Gabrielle's harsh blue eyes narrowed. The slightest softening of her posture, allowed during briefest thoughts of a sinner redeemed, became rigid once more. "Are you... making a mockery of me?"

A mockery, ehehehe, the invisible Paimon couldn't hold it in (not that, she had perfect control of that, she meant laughter silly!), she had to let out the giggle, "Ehehehe," she giggled. The whole situation was rapidly escalating and while Paimon loved getting her dick sucked she loved making a fool of good old Gabby even more, Gabby the endless gabber and her super-super strict God's gestapo routine. She clapped her hand over her mouth right after, but oh well~ These things happen, spontaneity is the spice of life, etc-etc!!

"Oh," said Gabrielle. "Oh. Giggling at me now, Miss Apple? Snickering at all that is holy in this world? I see... Yes, I see very well." Venial sinners she could abide. The rulebreakers, the authority-flouters—such recklessness might be forgiven after sufficient punishment. But blasphemers...? This called for something more severe than mere detention.

From her boot Gabrielle drew a narrow tube that with a single flick extended into a long thin black switch. She tested its tensile strength with a quick bend between her gloved fingertips. "Beg for forgiveness, but know it is too late... What I do for you now is for your own good."

The switch slapped Ally's rear end, sharp and burning. Ally jerked in response and at the same time Paimon pushed hard and shoved herself in up to the hilt. It stung something sore from just the first brutally efficient hit, but Gabrielle was nowhere near done with her, and a second strike created a fiery red x across the buttocks. Tears streamed down Ally's eyes, she couldn't breathe and she couldn't protect herself from Gabrielle's onslaught, and worst of all Paimon was only making it worse, turning invisible like that, giggling! Ally thought she could trust Paimon, so why was she doing this? Smack! Smack! Smack after smack landed against Ally's butt, faster, faster! Red ribbed lines crisscross upon one another.

And Paimon kept giggling, giggle-giggle wiggle-wiggle, because Gabrielle was losing herself to righteous fury, that sinful wrath she could never quiiiiite suppress. Gabby got kinda cute when she was angry, don'tcha think? Paimon did think. Just like how Ally looked so cute crying. Only one way this show got better. If Gabby had only kept her cool, what Paimon was about to do would never work, but the more sinful Gabby got, the more her heavenly-imbued power waned. Mhm-mhm. Paimon's eyes twinkled, glowed, manifested out of her state of invisibility to pulse rainbow-like in two growing circles. Oh Gabby, so-so reckless, but this is the double-edged sword of control, you can't stand to lose it, can you my old-old-old-OLD friend? Ehehehe. Ehehehe, ehehehe, ehehehehehe~

Ehehe. Ehehe. Ehehe.

That ehehe pulsed like the pulse of those rainbow eyes and Gabrielle could only continue to do what she had been doing, punishing the Hell out of Allison Apple, a steady solid rhythm of thwacks applied directly to the behind. The fact that somehow Ally never cried out in pain—merely a few strangled chokes—enraged Gabrielle further. What had once been a crusade of righteousness, a rectification of those without rectitude, a cleansing of sin, became mere—petty—vengeance. Ally's throbbing red ass was simply a inutile symbol of all the world's dishevelment and disorder, but unlike her strivings against the world Gabrielle's pinpoint targeted attacks on that ass did, or should have done, real damage. Yet Ally would not cry out, no matter how she throbbed, no matter how bright and deep the rainbow redness plunged into Gabrielle's mind.

Decorum, dignity, even pride dispersed. Lashes upon lashes were only a lashing out, divorced of all moorings to the system of meaning that was God's will. Ally had to be punished, and punished more. Lashings would not do—she had to be humiliated, obliterated.

To that end, Gabrielle hooked her white gloved fingers under the waist of Ally's shorts and ripped them (and her bubblegum pink panties) clean off Ally's body. A little jump was all Ally did in response, which wasn't enough, wasn't satisfactory. Her bare ass now hung out, crossed by thin lines, and it jiggled, and the red rainbow pulsed, and Gabrielle couldn't stop herself, it was all now simply personal. She undid her trousers.

Ehehe.

Paimon leaned back against the storage closet shelves and enjoyed the show as Gabrielle unfurled via the shapeshifting powers known to both angels and devils (they're the same thing when you get right down to it, mhm-mhm) a massive meaty member that slapped down like a hot dog between Ally's two beet red buns.

"Oh no, Gabby~ You've gone and lost yourself completely!!" Pwooofff, Paimon was no longer invisible! Didn't need to be. Gabby couldn't see anyyything at this point except Ally's cute widdle butt, thanks to Paimon's hypnosis.

At first Gabrielle only grinded her hips back and forth, which caused her hermaphroditic phallus to glide between the cheeks as it swiftly hardened. The tip, properly modified in accordance with Genesis 17:10[76] (Gabriel predating Christ and thus the salvation of those repugnant smegma-ridden foreskin-bearers), drizzled clear precum onto the ridge of Allison Apple's sacral spine. Gabrielle supplemented her undulations with a quick thwip of the switch to the left buttock; turning the other cheek, a second to the right soon followed. The body trembled beneath her. Gabrielle reared back and prepared to push forward.

Momentary hesitation. The tiny puckered dot of the anus stood above the pubic hair-embroiled slit of the vagina. The question, however, resolved itself at once. Allison Apple deserved no immaculate conception. Gabrielle's cock prodded the fouler hole. The tip slotted neatly against the slight round depression, almost as if the one above in His designs had accounted for this alternative form of intercourse that undermined His command to be fruitful and multiply.

Well, one slight impediment remained, that being the utter dryness of this pursed hole, antithetical to the drenched and dripping vagina underneath it, which had formed a piddling splotch between Allison's quivering knees. Lustful slut. The dryness mattered nothing because Gabrielle or Gabriel was not one form but many, not one property but many, and his/her ungendered phallus was with merely an unconscious thought rendered slick.

"Wretch," spoke the angel, as they seized Allison Apple by the waist and pushed.

The tiny anus gave way to the tip; resistance halted its advance a moment, but only a moment. Gabrielle, undisposed toward tenderness, abandoned any attempts at a gradual entry. In a second almost the full length of her cock was inside, the little red dot stretched wide around the base of the shaft.

Deep within Allison another moan died, this one sensual despite its strangulation as her spine arched to better maintain both cocks at once, one in her mouth and one in her ass. Gabrielle started thrusting immediately, pushing in and out and in and out again, and once a rhythm was set Paimon, giggling, gleefully matched it, which was actually a relief because when she pulled back it gave Allison space enough to suck in a sharp breath through flared nostrils. They pushed in unison, forced their way deep in unison, fucked Allison in unison, and Allison was helpless to do anything but take it, a passive thing for the two of them to batter between them.

Yet she liked it.

She liked it a lot.

Why? She was an ordinary girl. She had never done anything like this before. It even hurt. She could barely breathe, and her ass throbbed like hell as Gabrielle's cock pummeled mercilessly. Her knees rubbed sore against the linoleum and slobber ran all down her front. But she liked it, loved it, felt for the first time in her life needed, wanted, special, they didn't need to love her, that didn't matter, it wasn't a matter of love, of course not, but even this base level of physical longing gave her a sense of value she otherwise lacked, being nothing more than an ordinary girl like everyone else, or rather so like everyone else that she was in fact like nobody else because everyone else in the world had more distinguishing features than her. The welts on her butt stung, and even now Gabrielle interspersed thrusts with wayward thwacks, but this only magnified the experience. Unthinking, one hand left the ground and reached between her legs to add the final finishing touch and include self-love to this dual eroticism roasting her over the spit; her spread fore- and middle finger kneaded into her labia.

And who was the progenitor of all this fun? Who had stimulated these wonderful sins of wrath and lust?! Paimon of course!! Their jerky, awkward motions, three people doing a job designed for two, she conducted on the tips of her fingers as though with silvery puppet strings, dangle-dangle her puppets danced, a dangle-dangle dervish just for her. Gabby was trying so hard with such a cutely determined look on her face, pounding away at Ally's tailhole, her huge tits bouncing inside the tight prison of her dogmatic uniform, it just made Paimon want to hauuuu at the pure friggin' CUTE!! And Ally was trying her very bestest too, look at her, taking so much veiny cockmeat all at once! If only this scene could last forever, but Gabby clearly lacked Paimon's endurance, probably on account of being a weird sexless virgin—already she was biting her lower lip, already she looked ready to burst.

Better help her get to that point right?

"C'mere sis," Paimon said, all them angels and demons being related one way or another, and leaned forward to plant a big slippy-sloppy kiss right on Gabby's lips.

Gabby jerked back in surprise, her eyes shot open for one pellucid moment free of hypnosis, face-to-face with that harbinger of disgust worse than even the most degenerate human sinner, her Fallen former comrade now reduced to evils of the most pathetic sort. A long tongue tapering invaded her mouth and rolled and folded over itself and the saliva tasted like acid and Gabby twitched and then her cock spurted.

"Mmf—nngghff," she cried, her cry dying in the endless coils of Paimon's tongue. Her eyes shut tight.

She had ceased her thrusting motion but her hips bucked involuntarily as a second hot spurt of hallowed seed jumped up the tight crevice of Ally's rectum. She blushed.

Paimon could tell instantly from this adorable battery of twitches what was going on with Gabby's cock, and that adorability was just so-so cyoooote that she couldn't contain herself any longer either. Splurt, sploosh!! went her own throbbing girldick right down Ally's poor abused throat. A whole friggin' hosing of delicious white cum except too far back for Ally to even taste, whupps!! She drew back, filling Ally's mouth next—a nice reward for such a good girl.

And now a reward for a much badder girl. Paimon broke her kiss and allowed her tongue to slither along Gabby's cheek. "Wau! You sure enjoyed yourself, didn't ya?!"

The synchronized orgasm subsiding finally, only a few diminished pulses left, Gabrielle realized all that had happened. Sense returned to her. She lurched back and her cock wrenched out with a wet sticky pop in time to a final weak jet of semen that struck the rim of Allison's twitching, red, and clenching asshole.

"What... what have I done?" She stumbled out of the cone of light, out of the storage closet, into the dark. The darkness swallowed her whole. A few stray beads dropped from her cock; she fell onto her back, twisted, scraped her squeaky boots against the slick linoleum, rose again. Paimon likewise pulled out of Allison's mouth and left Allison to drop strengthless to the floor like a marionette, although her fingers still weakly rubbed herself.

"Awh Gabby, come on admit it!! You liiiiiked itttt!!!"

But Gramme was already gone, his task accomplished or at least the first part of it, still had to actually draw the fucking thing, out of his room and into the foyer like a drunk, or just drop the "like" because in the process of that turgid, cringeworthy roleplay he consumed no insignificant volume of vodka.

"What the—Graham, bro, you okay?" said Fletch somewhere, Gramme ignored him, rubbed his skull, why did it matter, had he not done worse? Had he not engineered women with teats dripping milk, wombs inflated by gallons of jism from twelve-inch dicks? Had he not enchained women in manacles and stuffed their cunts full of silver coins that dropped out in a twinkling stream? Or bound women with cum-spurting tentacles, or asphyxiated them with nooses, or driven spikes into their finger joints, or deflowered them with horses and wild tigers, or cast them flat on their bellies as a bevy of leering soldiers gangraped them, or any other variety of torture? Had he not stooped to any intellectual property, no matter how vapid? Were these not the base things he treated in precious manner, was that not his whole artistic project? Was this not porn, its essence, congealed in all its absurdity?

He dropped to his knees groaning by his wall of lesbian anime girls and his heap of collected cultural detritus. Only Mimmy. It's only Mimmy. Mimmy under the skin, Mimmy in the brain. Anything other than Mimmy's characters, you wouldn't give a shit, you wouldn't think twice about it, hell you'd be ecstatic, you'd be cobbling together right now magnificent notions of religious symbology and theming, you'd rifle through your brain a million different Renaissance artworks of pious scenes and consider the best one to retool in twisted yet somehow respectful parody, as though the pornography was not mockery but merely an update; you'd land on Caravaggio due to his use of chiaroscuro, that harsh interplay of light and shadow, so well-prepared a subject by the darkened setting of the storage closet and its one bare bulb. Mimmy cannot crush you like this. Okay Gramme? Okay Van Der Gramme, self-proclaimed Best Artist Alive, okay?

Jutting from the bottom of the heap of junk was a corner of a large hardcover book, large in the sense of height and width not thickness, called simply Renaissance Art.

It was, possibly, the oldest thing in the pile, originating from before Graham's birth, something that belonged to his dad and that his dad did not take when he dipped. Graham fished it from the rest, causing a minor avalanche.

He flipped through the pages.

He discovered the book when he was eleven. Untrue actually, it had always existed, he had always been aware in his periphery that it was a thing in the closet (they didn't have a bookshelf), but as a younger kid the Rubens on the cover[77] with its nude woman twisted and contorted in the arms of the man raping her—rape in the classical sense, abduction—prompted both giggles and fear. At eleven, though, moments before the eruption of the internet, with no other pathways to nude bodies besides his own, he had (when everyone was asleep or when his mom was at work) taken the book from its place in the closet and retreated to some dark nook to jack off.

Rubens, Titian, Botticelli, many more, but his favorite at the time was Fouquet[78] and his outrageous breasts, perfect spheres implanted on the Virgin Mary's chest with room enough for a third breast in the breadth of the six-inch wide sternum. He understood even then the absurdity of the anatomy but that absurdity was what made the concept of the female body accessible to his eleven-year-old self. Before then he didn't even know girls had different bodies from boys. He had assumed they all had penises. When he learned about vaginas he thought they were round black holes the size of quarters beyond which waited only void; nothingness.

Fouquet's virgin still had flecks of white crust on her orb-tits, accidents his younger panicked self had tried and failed to clean even though nobody but him remembered the book existed.

Some might call it sacrilege. But this Virgin Mary used the French king's mistress as its model—a woman known as the Dame de beauté, a woman who bore the king four bastard daughters. Sex and art and even absurdity had always been entangled, even four hundred years ago, even forty thousand years ago, or what was the Venus of Willendorf?[79] The same as his junk figurines of anime girls with bowling ball honkers and fat asses. Human history. Human culture. Sex was always there, the base was always there, it was the base for a reason. The bottom that supported everything, because without it there would be no human life at all.

And yet it was at the bottom. It was at the bottom and always would be and he would be right there with it, crushed under the feet of Venus.

Nobody cared. To care you had to be fucked up, a degenerate like Cariscresco or Sister, antisocial, an exile. Or him, Van Der Gramme, or maybe he was those things too. The "white nigga" as Dogshit called him, out here in ghetto Detroit like all the black people society would rather forget.

He sat staring at the Virgin between his spread legs and he stayed there a long time with Dogshit leaving for his next shift and El-Marghichi reporting dully his progress on Mimmy's cancellation and the occasional sounds of Fletch's remote lecture. He stared until he realized like a ghost haunting this house the spectral form of the Alchemist beside him and he had no idea how long she stood waiting for his acknowledgement.

"Hello," she said.

"Yes? What?"

She faded momentarily and bled back into a semblance of focus. "Do you plan to post the picture you draw for Cariscresco?"

"I'd rather not think about it," he muttered, but then acquiesced. "It's a commission. For what I'm charging, it's Car's call what I do with it." He hoped Car wouldn't share it publicly because he already knew he would half-ass it. Car couldn't tell lead from gold anyway.

"I'd like to see it," said the Alchemist.

"Why."

Her held tilted. "Why?"

"Yeah. Why. Why do you care. Is your fetish spitroast futanari?"

"F—futanari?"

"Fuck it. I'm sick of explaining this shit. What are you? Just a freak? A pervert? Or do you think I'm gonna make something beautiful out of this? In a day or two? It's gonna be crap."

"Oh," she said. "I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault, you did fine, but the subject matter. No hope."

"This show is that much worse than the space game? With the robot?"

"Nothing is worse. Nothing is bad. Nothing is good. Nothing is nothing," he said. "The most famous artist alive today, you know what he does? He takes a blank canvas. Blank white canvas, like so." His hands gestured a rectangle. "He puts several evenly spaced polka dots on it, each polka dot a different color." His fingers tapped his canvas one after another. "He sells it for tens of thousands of dollars."

"What's his name?"

"Hirst."

"I've never heard of—"

"I told you about him. Many times. Many fucking times. He lives inside my brain. I can never escape him as long as I live. Like Mimmy."

"I forgot."

"Isn't it crazy? Nothing has changed. I still have my followers. My income. My house. Everyone else is losing everything, my mom got fired, Dogshit's got thugs on his ass, Fletch can't learn shit through his phone screen, El-Marghichi got kicked out of his fucking country, but everything's the same for me. I have a little money trouble I fleece a rich dipshit like Car and somehow walk out of it feeling like I'm the one who got fleeced. Nothing has changed and yet it feels like my world is falling apart, isn't that funny? Isn't it so funny how that works?"

"It is. I feel the same way," said the Alchemist.

"Do you? Do really fucking feel the same way? Do you now."

The Alchemist said nothing.

"Or are you just desperate for a little disposable fix of dopamine like everyone else."

The Alchemist said nothing.

"What even are you? Or do you not remember?"

The Alchemist said nothing.

"Maybe you're nothing. A figment. I made you up. Solipsism."

"I only want to help."

"Why. Because you want to be part of what I make. You want to see my pictures and think you did that, even the tiniest part. A fucking groupie, a tagalong, a leech, a goddam fucking spider sucking the guts out of me. Nah. Not even that, a spider makes a web. What the fuck are you? Are you anything at all? I thought you're the fucking alchemist, so why don't you alchemize something huh? Why don't you fucking do anything?"

He stood, arms splayed, frantic, furious, taunted by an absent Mimmy Wowzers, oh how correct she had been, your new girlfriend, she's not a normal person, she's a weirdo like the others, just another defective degenerate freak, hail Van Der Gramme, King of Freaks, King of Rejects, King of Nothings. All meaning is made in the individual's mind and so he had made meaning of her that inaccurately aligned with her true shape, he made her what he wanted and here it all crumbled down, here the truth shone forth, the brilliant Truth of this world!

And she, a phantom, a revenant, whatever fucking ghostly synonym best befit her translucent form, stood perfectly still, immune to everything, able to forget all information outside her own narrow conception of the world. Disgust festered, he looked around him like the wastrel who one day wakes up sober and sees the abject filth in which he wallowed blissfully ignorant, a King of Freaks? Nonsense, a slave to them, it was their money he begged for, he must put forth what they demanded or so be beheaded.

The Alchemist said nothing. Hadn't she once said things? Didn't she once impress him or was she always just a delusion. Whatever.

"I have work to do." He rose, and went to draw a picture.

Footnotes

[74] Hirst, Damien. For the Love of God. (2007), sculpture in platinum, diamond, and human teeth. White Cube Mason's Yard, London. Sold for £50 million. Richard Dorment, art critic of The Daily Telegraph, said of it: "If anyone but Hirst had made this curious object, we would be struck by its vulgarity. It looks like the kind of thing Asprey or Harrods might sell to credulous visitors from the oil states with unlimited amounts of money to spend, little taste, and no knowledge of art. I can imagine it gracing the drawing room of some African dictator or Colombian drug baron. But not just anyone made it—Hirst did. Knowing this, we look at it in a different way and realize that in the most brutal, direct way possible, For the Love of God questions something about the morality of art and money." Sold for £50 million. It looks like a Party City Halloween prop. Back

[75] She means penis. This is the world we've entered. Back

[76] This is my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee; Every man child among you shall be circumcised. Back

[77] Rubens, Peter Paul. The Rape of Proserpina. (1636-1637), oil on canvas. Museo del Prado, Madrid. Back

[78] Fouquet, Jean. Virgin and Child Surrounded by Angels. (c. 1450), oil on panel. Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp. Back

[79] Anonymous. Venus of Willendorf. (c. 25,000 BP), sculpture in limestone. Natural History Museum, Vienna. Back

[7] Letter to Mark II (Who)

[7] Letter to Mark II (Who)

mark

or whoever u r. cuz what the fuck man. what the fuck. im not fukn laughin anymore lol. its like you arent mark at all but some fukn imposter changeling rofl. im laughin but its not cuz its funny its cuz i dont kno wtf else to do. i saw u up on that stage and its like. what r u wearin. what r u DOIN man. yeah im sayin MAN cuz that is what u r. u r not a girl and never will be a girl ok?

and what is this fukn show. for kids man. for fukn KIDS? why r u exposin kids to this gay shit. thats not fukn right it should b fukn criminal. ur gonna make the kids gay and then what. nobody will have kids any more cuz they r all gay. exposin kids to gay shit is what pedos do ok? mark plz i kno this isnt you. u have a mental illness and NEED HELP. plz mark.

i saw people were makin a big stink about your old art and callin it pedo shit even tho it isnt rofl. so fukn ironic they say some anime porn is pedo shit but think exposin kids to gay shit is justice. wtf is this world man. everyone is backward. but then u made that post sayin u were sorry 4 all ur old art and u have moved on from that and WHAT THE FUCK? it is rly like ur a different person. like u got replaced or some shit. sometimes i think the whole world got replaced except me like what is the world? ppl say trump is gonna save us but trump was on epstine island like every other rich fukk. democrats and republicans is just how they brainwash us. your team vs my team even tho they r the same exact team rofl. i think a lot about shootin them all in the head. i have a gun but its fukn impossible rofl and even if one died theyd just have another one take their place cuz they r all the same.

i dont kno im just scared man. i got fired from my job last week cuz of the plannedemic and am out of money. im not askin 4 money lol i just wanted u 2 kno. u helped me 4 so long and now ur a different person. u look different you have a new name u say ur a girl. ur art is different and u say ur old art sucks even tho it means more to me than ur shitty show means to all the million zillion ppl who watch it combined. i wouldnt b sendin u these letters if i didnt care if i didnt want 2 save u. ur takin this guy mark i loved and looked up to who helped me thru all this shit with my mom and fuck now you stole his body and r doin this pedo shit with it. YOU NEED TO STOP. YOU NEED TO GET HELP. plz mark. plz respond so i kno u got the message i kno ur very famous now so maybe u dont see this cuz if u did i kno it would wake u up cuz we r connected. there r 2 many things the same between us i kno it means something.

if u dont respond i will need to find u in person and tell u. so plz respond. plz b mark again.

from a mark

[8] Bold advance of the queer armada.

[8] Bold advance of the queer armada.

Love. Hate. Fear. Awe. Terror and adulation. Worship and iconoclasm. What a wondrous range of emotions stirred; what an unlimited number of missives devoted. Here's one: a Christian mother. Concerned about traditional values eschewed, and by the Disney company no less. Another: an alt-right troll, possibly Somebody's Little Sister in yet another disguise, possibly not, because all these people are so happy to slot into stereotypes and thus disqualify themselves from being human. Ah! The message simply reads: 41%. Curious number. Whatever could it mean? And here we are, other side of the shadow, the self-proclaimed guardians of the LGBTQ+ community, who in exact opposition of the Christian Mothers Brigade excoriate for not eschewing traditional values enough. Intermixed with a smattering of cockroaches who babble inanely about the verboten nature of the word "trap," plus—of course—the inevitable Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists who in florid diatribes liken her to a cuckoo infiltrating the nest of Real Women. You reify the holocaust of gender!

Then a multitude of letters exalting her as savior of the gay community, genius storyteller, fresh voice in the medium, inspiration, hero, et cetera et cetera.

The standard litany of prayers and curses offered an idol.

Mimmy Wowzers stretched her back long against the fifteen pillows piled atop her bed and yawned into the sharp shard of pure orange light that reduced the dusky neon tubing lining her new room to an emblazoned medallion. Fires burning down the mountains; turning this city into the surface of Mars.

God of war herself, Mimmy extended one tall black high heeled boot to the edge of her bed, where a 19-year-old boy in no clothes whatsoever, a tiny Filipino originating from UCLA, knelt and licked the leather.

To her other boot attended the snake Cariscresco, one of Mimmy's myriad creations, whose red coils tangled across the floor, seething and swaying. Her eyes, like those of the Filipino, stared up at her—a stare Mimmy deigned not return.

Despite the length of Cariscresco's forked tongue wrapping all the way around the boot's shin, Cariscresco spoke clear enough. "Mimmers Mimmers Mimmers. Mimmery Mimmity Mim. Car has news, yep-yep, un-BE-lievable news Mimmers will not BE-lieve!!"

A thumb flicked idly over a phone screen. "Is that so."

The saliva streak trailed down the side of Mimmy's foot, but for Cariscresco's advantages in reach, the random Filipino whose name she didn't even know gave it more gusto.

"Mhm, mhm-mhm, MHM-MHM. Car has, remarkable, splendiferous, EXCLUUUSIVE intelligence just for the one and only Mimmers McWowzies, yes-yes it's true!!"

"Like this?" The Filipino nibbled the toe of the boot.

Work email told a different story than the ravings of the mortals. Here Mimmy encountered bosses and underlings and underlings who acted like bosses flitting about with notifications, meeting requests, technical issues facing the development of one-or-another of the planned twenty episodes of the first season, congratulations regarding the positive reviews in mainstream publications and (more importantly) the immense ratings and social media buzz. As "showrunner," Mimmy's role involved big picture outlines, character designs, review of art/animation/sound/storyboards/script, and general accountability. Although her army of line producers handled most of the operational minutiae, they required her input on nearly all creative decisions, and she decided to step in and do it herself more often than not, to the point that she redrew most storyboards for Episode 8, the paintball episode, because the original artists pussied out and never showed anyone get shot by paintballs.

Wah-wah, they whined, what if we get censoreddd, well then Mimmy would take accountability, as always. And did the episode, now with only finishing touches left, get censored? Of course not. Merely had to change one particular paint splatter from red to blue. Eggshells.

"Guess, Mimmers, guess what Car has to say!!"

"Just tell me already." In the end it came to numbers. Dollars and cents. Van Der Gramme thought he taught her how to draw, really he taught her how to feed herself, a helpful skill when she lost her eye and left home and had nowhere to go but a rotation of decreasingly sympathetic friends. Now that skill proved useful again. Ratings like these put the show immediately in the topmost percentile on the network and reviews like these ensured a repeat audience into the future. Which meant renewal, which meant job security. Which meant leverage. Creative leverage.

Mimmy stayed within the lines this season. Had to. Getting execs to sign off on the heaven-and-hell theming was hard enough. (Even though Walt Disney himself made shorts set in hell in 1929.) She had quietly done storyboard and art for a previous series for the studio, she had priors and she always made an impression, but she was still a fresh showrunner in a competitive market. Eggshells, the same her storyboarders treaded on when they cut out the paintballs; she subservient to the all-devouring progenitor god, Disney-Uranus. But she had big plans for Allison Apple, plans for sweeping narratives, dramatic character arcs, and Disney despite its size and breadth prayed to an even larger cult than itself: the cult of money. Mimmy understood money. Understood it better than anyone. If she made it, she mattered. If she didn't, she didn't.

"Awwwwww, Mimmers won't guess?"

Mimmy lashed out her foot. Not at Cariscresco, whose constant whining merely annoyed, but at the Filipino, who had hooked his fingers under the leather top of her boot in an ill-advised attempt to remove it. Her toe caught him glancing on the cheek and he reeled back with a sharp effeminate cry.

"No," she said, sternly to the Filipino, merely two letters strung together to Cariscresco.

The Filipino rubbed his cheek. He whimpered, dog-like, even though Mimmy knew full well this particular toy boy enjoyed the pain. Sure enough, he wore a mischievous smile under that plaintive whine. "Yes, mistress~"

"Never attempt to disrobe me." Mimmy rubbed her sightless eye.

"Yes, mistress," in the form of a singsong.

"I touch your body. Not the other way around."

"Yes, of course, my mistresssss."

"Mimmersssss," Cariscresco pouted.

"What! What do you want me to guess. I do not care. It does not matter. I possess infinitely more essential things to attend to."

"Oh..." Which Cariscresco supplanted with "..." and "..." and "..." and ".........".

"Oh my fucking hell, what in the fuck," said Mimmy.

"Have I upset you, mistress?" said the Filipino.

"No, this fucking, oh what the fuck."

In her work email she stumbled upon a message from the Disney censors. She must have celebrated too prematurely on the paintball snafu, fuck and now she was going to look dumb for telling everyone it'd be fine. She gripped the head of her cane and knocked it against her skull, a blow softened by several layers of synthetic hair yet not softened enough to completely eliminate the all-too-satisfying clunk of precious metal against bone.

Well what did these fuckers want.

"Mimmers..."

"I have work to do."

"Mimmers I just wanted to tell you something good... You know, because you made my avatar... And I loved your show so much..."

"I see you have abandoned the third person gimmick."

Subject: Regarding The Storyboards For Episode 20. (Capitalization maintained.) One censor sent it, a second CCed; the same two Disney stooges who got on her case regarding the red paintball. Episode 20 was the final episode of the season and as far as Mimmy understood utterly uncontroversial in its subject matter. Some fucking China thing probably. China can't handle anything but usually the censors just chop that shit out for the Chinese dub and don't hassle her ass about it.

Upon opening the email and ignoring the first paragraph which consisted solely of sterile congratulations regarding the successful premiere and other quaint formalities, Mimmy sifted the gist. Her hand tossed the air ridiculously, prompting a quizzical glance from the Filipino.

They were mad about the kiss.

No. Bullshit. Mimmy already asked about the kiss. She went up specifically to these crusty Disney suits and said "Can I have a kiss" and they said yes, certainly. Kisses were fine. This kiss in particular lacked any kind of eroticism, a peck on the cheek and an accompanying blush—Cute! Cute was good. Not everything needed to be sexual, sometimes something could be merely cute, Mimmy liked it that way, sex like violence had been a phase prompted by her soured relationship with her mother and stoked by a Van Der Gramme who wanted the prestige of art yet none of the responsibility. But Mimmy liked cute and she designed this kiss to be cute and it was cute, at least in the crude storyboard form in which it currently existed.

So explain, censors. Explain the problem with this cute, chaste kiss.

"We apologize for the inconvenience. Fortunately, our current issue is easily resolvable. When you asked us if you could have a kiss between the characters 'Allison' and 'Gabriel' in the season finale, we were under the impression that the character 'Gabriel' would be presented at the moment as male."

Mimmy scraped her dead eye. Oh. She could almost laugh.

"However, in the storyboards for Episode 20 that we reviewed, 'Gabriel' appears to have used his 'shapeshift' power to temporarily transform into a female. We feel that it is inappropriate for 'Gabriel' and 'Allison' to kiss while 'Gabriel' is in this form. As mentioned previously, however, this issue can be rectified by having the kiss occur when 'Gabriel' is in his normal male form."

Did they—did they not understand that Gabriel (sorry, 'Gabriel') had no 'normal' form? That the only thing that signified 'Gabriel' as 'male' was that in the first episode 'Gabriel' appeared as male? That Mimmy made 'Gabriel' male in odd-numbered episodes and female in even-numbered ones, and made the 'Paimon' character follow the opposite pattern? Did they not review the script in Episode 12, when this pattern is finally addressed in-universe, and it's revealed that Gabriel and Paimon hate each other so much that they refuse to even be the same gender at the same time, and that they both attempt to drive the other crazy in their constant petty war by changing genders at inopportune moments? It's not a random detail it's the entire plot of the episode. Which means that even beyond the even-odd genderswapping scheme Gabriel must be female in the finale because the entire plot of that episode involves Paimon presenting as a plumber to infiltrate the Apple household by putting the moves on Allison's (let's face it, 100 percent megastraight) mother in order to plant contraband in Allison's backpack to ruin the burgeoning relationship between Gabriel and Allison and they cannot simply redo the whole episode due to the whims of a pair of censors that feel compelled to distance themselves from every aspect of the story by isolating them in quotation marks.

AHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Okay Mimmy calmed down. Neither howls of rage nor hysterical laughter would ameliorate this situation—only rigidity. The entire crux of the problem stemmed from a tiny girl-on-girl kiss. The year was 2020, gay marriage was legal, nobody cared except the aforementioned Christian Mothers Brigade who rendered themselves less relevant by the moment, Disney in fact debuted its first gay character ever in each of its last five films, and therefore Mimmy possessed actual evidence to defend her creative decisions.

She scheduled a meeting with the censors. At first she went for the standard online video conference of these disease-ridden times, but decided crusty conservative clowns probably possessed minimal technological skills and would respond better to a meeting in person. She sent the request with a simple, humble, supplicative message: "Hey guys! Let's have a meeting to discuss your concerns. Over lunch sound good?" and scheduled it several weeks in the future under the assumption that by then the censors would have forgotten everything and thus be more subject to shock-and-awe tactics.

Both censors responded affirmative within seconds.

Mimmy attempted to relax but instead stared directly ahead, past her bed, past the Filipino, onto a wall that remained empty but in her head possessed future life-size framed prints of her show's principal cast. Her body reclined in a Renaissance pose, the kind of starchy thing Van Der Gramme might exalt as a masterwork of unparalleled brilliance.

Van Der Gramme, at least, could paint two girls kissing.

No. Fuck. Don't do this Mimmy. Don't do this. Don't enter any kind of mental avenue that might, no matter how improbably or tenuously, slither back into that me-shaped hole where Van Der Gramme lived and would die. Not to that drafty decrepit Detroit mansion with its upper floors commandeered by homeless people, that place where he invited her to live—with him—that place where she almost decided to live. A cold place, perpetual winter, perpetual decay, but a place nonetheless, a place with its own little community of colorful characters like the guy wrapped in a parka reading textbooks and the drug dealer with a magnum strapped to his hip. His own little castle, his own little palace of meaning, his own little fairytale tower divided via blizzard's white oblivion from any consequential reality.

Damn.

It didn't even feel good to paint him as pathetic.

The Filipino held her boot by the shin and notched his erect cock in the slat of the heel. It fit perfectly. He humped.

Mimmy—probably—had to get out of bed soon and get to work. Answer all those emails. Assemble her defense of the gay kiss. Into the soft profusion of pillows her sharp and angular uniformed body sank. Her peaked cap slid down her forehead. The bed, made of memory foam, conformed to her shape and swallowed her. A depression the exact shape of her, someplace cool and shady in a world catching fire.

No more thoughts of Van Der Gramme. This world, you have carved for yourself. You can be defined the way you want, you can take any shape. The Filipino jacked off on her feet. Cariscresco, screaming on mute, melted into mush.

She mattered. The people praised her. The people hated her. She was the savior or final harbinger of the fall of Western civilization, depending which of her obsessed devotees you asked. Compared to that, Van Der Gramme was insignificant, a speck, lacking so much in size as to be devoid of discernable features.

The blobular mush of Cariscresco snapped back into focus at the same moment the Filipino's small-but-in-a-cute-way cock twitched and shot up a ray of semen that dashed across the pulsing rainbow eyes without even causing them to blink. Cariscresco's sharp red claws clutched a painting in an elaborate golden frame and Mimmy had to squint her eye to pierce the glint. A picture. Even before the details came into focus the composition struck her strongly, three bodies, one on hands and knees, the other two on either side at a slant to form a aesthetically pleasing triangle.

A scowl clenched her jaw. She recognized the artist.

Then she realized who the figures depicted.

"That horsefucker," she said, shooting out of her depression, while the Filipino's tiny body lay depleted beside her knee with his chest heaving slowly and his softening prick trickling onto his tummy, "that absolute abomination. Taunting me. Taunting me is he?"

Cariscresco waved her arms frantically.

"Taunting me. Oh, he intends to taunt me. Does he now. Oh. Oh."

"Mistress...?" said the Filipino.

With a quick motion she wiped her cum-covered boot off on his face, rose, and moved to go somewhere, do something, only to realize everywhere was closed, and the only things to do lived in her phone.

She held her cane in her hand. She slammed it against the closet door. The Filipino shrieked.

[9] Letter to Mark III (Snake Eyes)

[9] Letter to Mark III (Snake Eyes)

sorry 4 the weird letter earlier rofl. was not feelin good and said some dumb shit lol. i feel bad more n more its kinda wearin me down. i thought i was done w/ this shit when i moved out of my moms house but guess not.

smoked the rest of the weed n was thinkin. about how like we define ourselves n shit. n how like. shit this sounds dumb as fuck. how like theres 2 things in the world when u get down to it. theres you and theres not u. n sometimes i think the u is harder to understand than the not you. like i get this shitty fukn world rofl. poor ppl slaves to the rich yeah i kno all that shit. guess ur rich now rofl. but whatever its just the way the world is n every1 knows its shit so why get up n arms over it. like what is killin some rich fuck gonna do. nothing rofl. so if it doesnt matter what u do u cant possibly care. just sit n watch the world burn n all the ash n smoke spoutin up. but then u look at urself thats when things get scary like who the fuck AM i ykno? cuz sometimes i think n do shit but its like, DID i? did i think that or do that? cuz it didnt feel like it. am i anything? do i even exist?

its funny cuz i used to think. whoa what if the whole world is a simulation. like nothing is real except me. everyone is just a robot or algorhythm or whatever and im the only thing thats real. but now its like. if nothing else is real why would i be real lol? wouldnt i just be a simulation too? am i simulating my own thoughts to myself right now?

i feel like i got to do something real fukn drastic ykno? like something they wont ever see comin. to break their system. cuz i wake up and its like they told me to wake up. i eat and its like they told me to eat. im doin what the world expects me to do. im in the world n the world is not me but im n it so i have to be it n FUCK i dont kno man i dont kno anything anymore.

its like the world is so close tight around me it crushes me into a new shape i dont want to be.

is that what happened to u. did u get crushed into this new shape? is that why you r what u are? y wont u answer me. i think about u all the time. even when i sleep lol. but not like THAT lol. but it feels like ur the key. cuz u n me r the same. same beginning. so r u my ending?

[10] Theologists demur on the apple's meaning.

[10] Theologists demur on the apple's meaning.

"I love the show. I love Ally and Paimon and Gabriel/le(!). And I love you Mimmy! Your clothes are so cool," said cotton_kittenz.

"The ninth and tenth episode were rather underwhelming," said Histrionics. "It feels like the dynamic between the three main characters is already becoming stale. Many of the side characters are underutilized, especially the other members of the student council. Will this show ever increase in complexity?"

"Don't your followers deserve to know you're a kinked out freak?" said Zukünftiges-totes-Mädchen. "Don't they deserve to know you're a degenerate artist?"

"We fucking get it. You're gay and you want everyone to know. Come the fuck on. Can't you keep politics out of entertainment?" said RickSanchez343.

"Hello, Mr. Thompson," said Irene Morrison of Gilbert, Arizona. "You do not know how hard it was to find your real name. I was Googling for hours, for Pete's sake! Anyway, I am writing you after I noticed my son Hunter watching an episode of your show, Alyson Apple and Friends. You were apparently not proud enough of this show to put your real name on it, and I understand why! What absolute drivel you have created! I am lodging a formal complaint with the Disney Company. Their standards have surely slipped if they are allowing you on their prestigious Network!"

"Kill yourself," said Anonymous.

Bodies slithered over bodies and Mimmy Wowzers stepped over and on those bodies en rickety route to the bathroom. Slick with sweat and lotion and every shade of brown they writhed upon one another, in the doorway, in the bathtub, the shower water running and spewing steam against the mirror within which she had to rub a circle using a pure white glove. Over the sink she turned her head and in a ray over the orgy out the window the red sky blazed.

In translucent orange bottles she had them: Estrogen for the dysphoria. Acetaminophen for the brainpan, ibuprofen for the posture. Adderall for the focus, diazepam for the trauma. Fluoxetine for the growing urge of egress and methylenedioxymethamphetamine for the fun. The bottles shook but did not spill.

"Fuck me," a genderless being howled.

Mimmy Wowzers had not left her apartment in ten weeks—since the premiere. It felt simultaneously like ten minutes and ten years. Locked in a music box with a view of only orange smoke, escaped from one hell and imprisoned within another. Trapped with only herself and encountering only the things she could order. Food and bodies. The disease did not concern her but there was nowhere to go. Production operated remotely and it was fine because they already outsourced the actual animation to Korea. Online meetings, online emails, online a portal into a world of vast and endless possibility clogged by billions of refugees from the real world all screaming to be let through. Bodies writhing over walls, bodies climbing over bodies, bodies slipping, falling, spiraling into holes shaped identical to their bodies, holes where nobody could follow. Holes twisting, bending, holes that soon had no form, holes that molded people like clay.

Her legs remained rigid even as she ran a trembling hand through her fluorescent wig and struggled to maintain the composure of her peaked hat.

The only metric of time was the weekly pulse of her episodes. One every Friday, each accompanied by a fresh deluge of voices from the crumbling façade of the castle. Without those episodes she might think yesterday was today and ten weeks ago yesterday. Intervals eclipsed in blinks but it was still only whatever month it was when this all began, whatever this was, because it wasn't only a pandemic, it was like something that always existed, merely brought to the surface by a cataclysmic earthquake. Was this Van Der Gramme in his manor? Was this the mind of someone who believed art and thus history ended in 1914?

Vacation, she needed a vacation, to somewhere removed from it all, to a neutral space like Switzerland or—Thailand, where a reclining Buddha might reincarnate her into a whole new human being.

The bodies clogged her room like the coils of Cariscresco's endless body, and every one of them gay. A rainbow, like Cariscresco's eyes, a spectrum of all colors from a minimum—0—to a maximum—1. All the things fallen between the binary. Her people, her revelers, their hands reached and gripped her boots or her cane, the hands rose all around her. Fingers gripping reaching groping for any inch of skin but her boots went up, up, up past her knees, the leather stopping only an inch under the swish of her skirt.

"Kill yourself," said Anonymous. "41 percent."

"Traitorous tranny fag," said Anonymous. "You were one of us."

"Your IP address," said Anonymous. "Your home address. A picture of your apartment complex. West Hollywood, California, United States of America."

Behind them that nasty little vampire grinning under her parasol.

"Honestly? Your actions have set back the LGBTQ+ community literal decades. Historically, CISgender discourse labels us pedophiles and uses that as an excuse to persecute us. I thought we would finally get the representation we needed, but guess what? You're a literal pedophile drawing literal child porn. It would have been better if you didn't exist."

The last time Mimmy saw a child, she was one. The last time she saw a child, she had two eyes.

"My daughter loves your show! I watch it with her every Friday. It makes me happy to see something so wholesome in this depressing world."

"Hey... Don't know if you'll read this but... your show really means a lot to me. I'm in a dark place right now..."

"We definitely needed more quality genderbend content. You fucking delivered girl."

A fingertip touched the zone of bare skin between her boot and her skirt and she jerked out her leg and stomped whoever did it or whoever was most near as she fled for an exit. The arms reached like a forest, she beat them back with her cane, nowhere safe, nowhere sacred, why did she keep bringing these people in, she not only let them in she invited them, prowled for them, needed them as much as their touch disturbed her, loathed them as much as their words of love or hate fed her. All she had to do was stop reading. All she had to do was sign out of her public-facing accounts. She already automated her contractually-obligated announcements, no practical need existed, and certainly no need to read the messages they sent her.

The glass door to the balcony slid open and she blundered into the citywide plume of dust. The sun swelled up half the sky and cooked the metal railing into a sear that pierced her thick gloves. She heaved in the ashen air and heaved it out in a frenetic lurch of coughs.

All the city, all civilization, fanned out before her, endless promulgation of senseless structure ended only by the rise of the hills aflame in one direction and nebulous murk in all others.

Because the numbers remained good. The viewership, the reviewership, the general feedback positive. Happy masses, happy studio, memories of her past unearthed for most of the million tuning in. She only had to mute them the way she muted Cariscresco. It was easy to mute Cariscresco. Mimmy made her, after all. Was god to her. Mimmy was god, or satan, to these people. She only needed to mute them.

She never did.

Down at her street she stared, amid the ash-drenched buildings, down to a street where cars drove but the only people on the sidewalks were homeless. A grizzled bearded guy in a shabby trench coat glanced up at her and immediately glanced back down in shame, hands in pockets as he hurried down an alley. The guy reminded her of Van Der Gramme. Missing only sunglasses. Ironically sunglasses making much more sense in red-sunned SoCal than the fringe of arctic tundra Van Der Gramme inhabited.

Fuck Van Der Gramme.

(You did, remember? Last time you let someone touch you without puking.)

Fuck him, fuck him, fuck him.

"Fuck you," she said to him.

Out of a pile of ash his head shook, lifted. The dust streamed off him in rivulets, through the tuffs of his sideburns, over the glossy lacquered surfaces of his sunglasses. His cigar smoldered. Because of the ash, his hair looked gray, which overall gave the impression he had aged into decrepitude. A toss of his head lowered him to midlife crisis zone, and a second returned him to his normal form. Bit by bit he activated, more emerging from the fine silt, stylus in one hand, brand new Cintiq in the other, sketch lines of some nude body.

The ritual to summon him she undertook unconsciously. A reflex, a twitch response triggered in her current state of dishevelment. Worse than anything would be to give him satisfaction. But he lacked any such look. Simple blankness, animatronica.

Worse than anything to give him satisfaction. She understood him to be the particular kind of egoist who becomes most gracious in victory. Who rewarded anyone as long as they fell in supplication to him, and only unleashed the full brunt of his pettiness upon those who rebelled. Truly Old Testament. She need only ask for him to make Somebody's Little Sister stop.

She shut her eye. She analyzed every course this conversation might take, all routes she might pursue to trick him into giving her what she wanted without ceding the high ground she rightfully wrested for herself by the simple fact of decimating him via success. Labyrinthine plots.

"Oh," said Van Der Gramme. "La Generalissima herself."

"Ten weeks is a long temper tantrum even by your stringent standards. I suppose you simply must lash out in such ways, being powerless to touch me otherwise."

His head tilted. "What the fuck are you on about."

Which was not the anticipated response. Because in truth there was no way to broach this topic without ceding the high ground and in truth she was fine with that because in truth she wanted nothing more than for the hate to stop. There. She said it. (To herself at least.) She told herself she was cool enough to not care. Hate, love, let them throw their best at her. What more could they do to hurt her? Transphobic slurs, she'd heard them all before. Death threats, she'd laugh them off. She wasn't fragile. And it was true, she wasn't, no single one of those messages mattered. But in time, the messages—not just hate but love too—eroded her. Chipped off the tiniest bit with each. And over time enough dust had come off to leave her a denuded statue, a faceless pagan deity.

"Just," she said, dropping any attempt at affectation, "just tell Sister to stop will you."

At first it was like he didn't understand. Like her words meant nothing. But a moment later his dust-strewn lips grinned. "Oh."

"Yeah, fuck. Say whatever the fuck you want. Asshole. Serious fucking asshole you know that right?"

"Right. You spoke to me so fucking high and mighty before and now you get defensive and say I'm the asshole." Reanimated, his hands began to gesticulate, the cigar waggled between two fingers, his standard posture when pontificating on why modernism ruined everything or some other neo-Luddite boomerism. "It's perfectly fine for you to lord over me, but you can't handle a little criticism, I see. I see."

"A little criticism, my god you dick, I'm getting death threats."

"Sister isn't sending you death threats and if he was you shouldn't give a shit because he obviously doesn't mean it."

"It's like wild dogs come out of the woodwork. Snarling on all sides and ripping me limb from limb. Alt-right trolls and terfs and gay crusaders and Christians."

"Please. Now you're grasping. Sister isn't all of them, Sister isn't controlling them. You're losing your poise here Mimmy. You make political statements, you get political prizes."

"What political statement!"

"You're dressed like the fucking commander of the queer armada and you say what political statement—"

"It's only fashion. I merely like it. It means nothing. I simply wish to look good."

"As an artist you ought to know everything conveys some sort of meaning whether you intend it or not."

"Do not lecture me on art Gramme. Do not."

"I think I should since it seems you forgot everything I taught you."

Mimmy slammed her cane on the railing, which rattled. "Sister made it political. I saw those sockpuppets. I did not ask to be scrutinized over my alignment with contemporary mores. I am creating a TV show, Gramme."

"Dunno if you noticed this Mimmy but uh, your very existence is political? Hello? How many shitty writeups about you being the first trans whatever must we be subjected to? It comes with the territory, you can't weasel out of it now."

"Oh don't be a hypocrite. You hate politics. You want to live in a world where there is only art. A blob world of rainbow paint running together except you're so stuck on your Caravaggio phase that I guess it's more just black and white."

"I hate to break it to you Mimmy but you're a gimmick. A gimmick by Disney to appeal to the hip youth. Why the fuck else would they pick some random shmuck like you to run their show? They wanted the positive press. You're a tweet of a rainbow on pride month."

"I wasn't a random shmuck, what do you think I've been doing the past few years? I worked my way up. I started out doing animation for another show, got moved up to storyboarding, and all the while I made connections. I talked to people, I was social, something pretty far beyond your misanthrope capabilities Gramme. They liked me, I did good work, I had good ideas, I kept moving up, it was a fucking process, it wasn't political."

"Sure. Sure."

"You only insist on that narrative because you need to tell yourself you're better than me. Because you can't stand to see me where I am."

"Yet you're crawling to me because you can't handle the spotlight. Funny."

Instead of the next rejoinder in this formless mass of stichomythia, Mimmy fell quiet and allowed her cane to slide back into its standard position beside her leg. She hissed a sigh into the stagnant air beyond the balcony.

She knew why she started this argument. Not to get Sister to stop. No way would Sister stopping matter, this was beyond Sister. Even if the malicious comments ceased, and the only messages in her inbox were effusive bouts of unadulterated praise, would that fix what she felt?

"Gramme. You don't read your comments, do you."

"What, on my art? People who comment on porn are deranged. It's the cringiest shit. No fucking way."

"So even if you were great," Mimmy said, "even if you were the greatest artist in the world, and everyone knew your name, nothing would change for you. Would it?"

Gramme had thus far been instantaneous in his replies, his wits or at least his lips always quick, the fine-tuned argumentative style by which simply speaking without showing weakness and acting as though you were utterly confident in what you said garnered success even for the most braindead takes imaginable. But now he took a moment to think. His head momentarily settled back into the stolid, stoic stone it embodied when it first emerged from the dust.

"Of course it would change. Because then normal people would be talking about it too."

Mimmy's head shook. Slow, sad. "I can speak with certainty. That normal people are as deranged as everyone else."

"You're doing a gay kid's cartoon Mimmy. Are your people really normal. They're adults who watch shows for children."

"Maybe everyone in this world wishes they were a child."

"What a pithy, meaningless little barb."

"Gramme it's the exact same shit you'd say in a video like it was the grandest insight ever made."

This rally died wistfully; they sank back into silence. Albeit a smiling silence, a pleasant silence under this blood red sun. A comfort of kind. Herself in her own space.

"You know," she said, in the tone of someone about to tell a funny story, "they won't even let me do a gay kiss."

"Disney? They won't let their gay showrunner in their gay show do a gay kiss?"

"It crosses the line, the censors say."

"Do they not understand your show is about genderfluid demons who are girls one episode and boys the next?"

"I'm supposed to meet with the censors to fight for it but the meeting keeps being pushed back for one reason or another. And more and more I don't care, y'know?" The ash in the air stuck to the inside of her throat but she still preferred it out here on the balcony, compared to the writhing mass inside. "The whole point of everything is me. I'm not doing this for other people. You told me I was selling out and you were wrong. I'm doing the thing I want to do. I'm wearing the clothes I want to wear. I'm turning my body into the body I want it to be. Isn't that your line Gramme? How the body is most important or whatever. Your lame self-justification for focusing so hard on porn when really you just need the money and porn makes money. I don't want to be fighting for these people, no, not really. I don't care about them at all. I'm only fighting for myself, to make myself something none of them can ever touch, who nobody touches, something beyond their plane of existence."

"A god," Gramme offered.

"In no category. Something else, something between. Myself. Mimmy Wowzers. Inviolable. None of their political motifs appended, neither good nor bad."

"So you want to absolve yourself of all meaning."

"Why not?"

"If there's no meaning, you might as well be dead," said Gramme. "We have to manufacture meaning for ourselves to—"

"Yes, I know, I've heard your spiel. We have to make meaning for ourselves in this world that is inherently meaningless, yes Gramme, and you live in such a nice limbo where you can be free of all the meanings people force on you. You're the one who has rendered the world meaningless, Gramme, just so you can be the sole arbiter of what it means. Well that's so nice Gramme, but you can't want that and also want the glory of worldwide acclaim. Because the real world still has meaning to everyone else and you can't escape that meaning so easily. I'm finding that out and lamenting it. I'd think you'd be sympathetic."

In anticipation of a petty response she geared up her own petty responses in return. Any actual meaning either of them could glean from this conversation would, ultimately, be drowned in the simple fact of their iced relationship, still frozen in the morgue after all this time.

Gramme shrugged. "You're welcome to come back to the porn world any time."

Was that petty? Mimmy narrowed her eye and scrutinized him for a tell, but he spoke in a blasé enough tone to render interpretation impossible.

"Going back cannot be done," said Mimmy. "I need to be gainfully employed in this country a few more years to get my green card."

"Eh." Gramme manifested a flask from somewhere, uncorked it, and swigged. "Just marry me. You don't gotta live with me, it'll be paperwork only."

"Sounds like the plot of a romantic comedy."

"Not like I'm gonna marry anyone else."

"Even that Alchemist girl?"

A momentary pause for thought. "Oh, her. She doesn't need a green card." His hand waved; the world around him dispelled.

Mimmy remained a moment rooted with her cane for support, having over the course of the conversation without realizing realigned her body into a stance more rigid. Legs straight, arms straight, back straight, a towering figure who stooped to pass through doorways. She knew she could not become dependent on Van Der Gramme in this way. That she could not use him whenever she needed a punching bag who punched back. But if she could down drugs for all her other ailments, this wasn't so different.

"Goodbye, Van Der Gramme," she said.

"Oh, we're done already?"

"Yes. I think we are done."

"And you haven't even rubbed Cariscresco's commission in my face. I thought that was the real point of talking to me."

She opened her mouth, decided not to engage him on that commission in any way, lest it reopen the same tired conversation about his freedom from relevance, a freedom that allowed him to do whatever he wanted at the cost of his total removal from the world—and said nothing.

The conversation ended. Van Der Gramme sank back into the ash.

Goodbye, Van Der Gramme.

Mimmy took one last look at the street. The same homeless man as before, the one in the trench coat with the beard that looked kind of like Gramme, was staring at her again. Like before he ran away the moment she noticed him. As he fled, she held out her arm to wave as he glimpsed over his shoulder and vanished around the corner. Then, she returned to the bodies.

[11] Letter to Mark IV (Big Bad Woolf)

[11] Letter to Mark IV (Big Bad Woolf)

so mark is your dead name u say. ok. so hes dead lol. that means you killed him. so that makes you a murderer by your own logic rofl. a murderer nobody will ever hold to justice. well see about that.

[12] Hell of one's own devising.

[12] Hell of one's own devising.

All culminated in a restaurant. Clean white and rounded architecturally, large glass panes to allow a sunshine bleach that pierced the ash at only this tiny slice of metropolitan paradise. Chic, modern Chinese cuisine: Tianxia the name. Tasteful brass figurines of dragons on the semicircular railing that enclosed the open patio which, due to pandemic policies, served as the sole area open to guests. This limited space cranked the already obscene exclusivity of the restaurant, smack in the dab of downtown Beverly Hills.

Mimmy had not eaten in months. No, she realized, she could not remember ever eating at all. The thought of food disgusted Mimmy. The menu, printed in a foreign language, promised dishes unfathomable in the Chinese syllables used to demarcate them. She ordered, instead, a drink. Drinks were universal.

Across her sat the censors: Catalena Viridian, a woman trapped in the agelessness of a Hollywood actor, adorned by fine jewelry and fine clothes of the sort designed to make little impression if one wasn't already aware the clothes and jewelry were fine, and Mark Swatch, a Mormon. The name Mark proved inescapable. Everywhere Mimmy went a Mark emerged to do nothing but exist in her presence like a divine prank. Most of Gramme's friends were named Mark, although they tried to hide it, and maybe that was why she decided she could not live in that house with him, maybe the fact that Gramme lived with a guy named Mark Fletcher ruined their whole relationship, who fucking knew at this point. Call it Marcan Priority.

"Thank you for finally meeting us," said Viridian bloodlessly.

Swatch tasted his drink—water—and made a sourpuss, possibly due to the lemon wedge stuck to the rim. "Hyuegh. How's ehm, how's uck—How is the development of the last few episodes going?"

"Well," said Mimmy Wowzers. Her gloved hands knit a thatch. She unwound her fingers, gripped the head of her cane, wriggled it back and forth, and wound her fingers again. Sunlight washed the street beyond the patio railing, but a white tarp kept them all in shade.

"I don't suppose the ahm, the uh, delays in our meeting here, uh, today"—Swatch knocked a fist against his sternum and stifled a cough—"have at all impacted your ability to proceed with the final episode...?"

"No." Mimmy understood logically that these one-word responses did not land upon them with the gravitas of a god's pronouncement, but she lacked the resolve to say more. It took all the energy left within her to maintain the rigidity of her spine. For the first time since the premiere, she left her apartment. In afterimages embedded onto her eyeball, bodies still coiled and uncoiled, and if she blinked phantom splotches ebbed across her sight—nebulous blobs that changed color in rainbow profusion.

She drank her fruity, alcoholic drink. Maybe these people were nothing. Maybe they were harmless. Maybe they were weak-willed shrimps who would fold under the slightest pressure, maybe all her reasoned arguments in favor of lesbianism would pierce the veil of their corporate shillery but truth be told it was not nervousness swallowing Mimmy it was simple fatigue. She embarked on this venture with the full commitment of her entire life behind it, a journey taken in military gusto, unflappable and untiring; yet all at once she tired, in the blink of her singular eye she tired.

"So you've cut the scene." Viridian adjusted her eyes in a mirror.

"No."

"Huh? Well I guess that tracks. Since you wanted to talk about it and all," said Swatch.

"As far as I'm concerned," Viridian's mirror clipping shut, "there's no discussion necessary. The scene we requested you cut isn't appropriate for Disney children's entertainment. Frankly, I'm not sure why this could not be covered over phone call. I cannot afford to catch this disease."

"Well, phone calls are so easy to record nowadays," said Swatch. "Ha-ha."

Mimmy almost laughed alongside his nervous chuckle, the banal laugh of solidarity used well in any social situation to evade responsibility. The meaning of what was said pounded dully against Mimmy's head and she did not automatically register it.

But she did, gradually, register. "What does that matter," she said. Her hand gripped her cane again. By pressing down upon the cane, the cane's solidity transferred to her arm.

"Oh, nothing really," said Swatch. "I simply think it might be better to discuss these types of topics in person. There doesn't always need to be a record of everything everyone says."

His affable smile expressed nonviolence. Viridian's wristwatch-checking expressed apathy. They may, perhaps, be easy marks after all—no fucking pun intended, believe her. Or maybe they operated with a level of carelessness afforded them by the supreme authority of their position. The edifice of Disney served as their spines, and would remain even if their bodies slopped like liquid into a virulent ooze.

In Mimmy's phone, secure in the buttoned breast pocket of her uniform, a thousand voices raged in a thousand different directions.

"Then," said Mimmy, "let us discuss this matter. I would like to know: What, exactly, is inappropriate about the scene you have asked me to remove?"

"Please," said Viridian, "you know what."

"Do I now." Mimmy spoke calmly. Not severely. Not in a drained whisper, but in the peace one finds when one reaches a zero and thus realizes the zero of the world around them. The words trickled like a clear stream, pristine in some wooded area, untouched, undisturbed, quiet but vital. A spark of life striking somewhere within this suit. "Did I not call this meeting to identify the answer to that very question?"

"M—" The name caught in Mark Swatch's throat, his face became strangulated simply to say it. "Mimmy. Now there's no need for aggression."

"Aggression? I am the one asking a straightforward question and expecting an answer. Tell me, please. Tell me what is inappropriate. Is it the kiss? I recall in your list of content guidelines that kissing is explicitly okay given—what was the phrase—'tastefulness of presentation.' Was my presentation not tasteful enough? If so, I can rectify the storyboards to create a kiss more in line with the stringent family-friendly standards for which Disney is known—"

Viridian launched a billowing globule of a groan out her throat and tossed up veiny, pockmarked hands adorned with long turquoise fingernails. "I don't have time for this. I have to be in Glendale in two hours for my daughter's art exhibition."

"Considering I requested this meeting several weeks ago I think that's an issue of your scheduling—"

"Please, p—please," said Swatch. "I understand emotions are high. We're all under, under a lot of stress right now. That's no reason to abandon our professionalism, is it? Come on, gir, girls—" He caught himself, a single scrutinizing glance tossed Mimmy's way, as though he was not exactly sure whether "girl" was an appropriate descriptor, a hesitancy that shriveled him. And while every time before—and it happened so many times—this inability of her detractors to reckon her for what she was came in the form of blistering antipathy, now it was fear, a cowering, because it came face-to-face instead of over the portal of the internet and this inferior Mark had no recourse but to kneel before the grace of her six-foot-six frame. He was not her mother, he was nothing, and like the clicking of her limbs into solid form the click of the real world came to fruition inside her.

It revitalized her. Latent plans for Thailand always swimming in the back of her head disintegrated, because Mimmy Wowzers recognized she did not need to be a girl, she needed only to be exactly what she always wanted: a god. Let this man tremble before her, this man who only (and often) in his wildest dreams timidly asked his Mormon wife to ream his tight ass with a strap-on; and this woman too, this woman from a small tribe of unimportant people, whose history is ended, who professed herself hard-to-get but was desperate for cock ever since her balding car dealership husband started to prefer 19-year-old college sophomores.

The blood flowed back into Mimmy's veins. Her spine elongated, forcing herself like an alabaster tower over the two censors. Swatch fell silent, staring. Viridian's wrist thudded.

"I," said Mimmy Wowzers, "want to know what is inappropriate about the kiss. I want you to say it. Out loud. To my face. Now."

Viridian made quick to avert her eyes over the patio railing, across the street, to the row of world-class boutiques out of which a Swiss watchmaker emerged most prominently. So impatient before, she muttered a time-wasting non sequitur: "I see they even have homeless people here now. The governor is ruining this state."

That left Swatch to answer the question, and Swatch was unable to look away, even as his eyes curdled to bubbles in his sockets and his white flesh ran down his white skull in white streams.

"W—well. Well, I mean, well. Well."

"Well?" Mimmy's fingers drummed the tabletop.

"It's—and this is—not meant in, any—offensive way mind you. But, you know, the Walt Disney Company, who we all represent—"

He trailed off.

"So the Walt Disney Company is against my kiss."

"N—no. No. That's not what I'm saying, that's not—Cat this is why we needed to meet in person you know." Swatch ventured another exploratory sip of his flavored water, which clearly disgusted him. "I'm not saying that, I'm saying—well, you know. As you know. The Walt Disney Company fully supports the, uh, well, the rights and—freedoms of—"

Viridian slapped the table. "Look. Dammit. Nobody here hates gays. I voted against Prop 8 even. When was Prop 8 Mark?" Whatever Prop 8 was—Mimmy lacked even a infinitesimal idea—Swatch stared at her like the subject alone disintegrated him. "Disney loves gay people. Loves em. They pay money like straight people and that's all that matters. But the fact of the matter is that homosexuality is a political topic. Its very existence is political. I'm sorry but it's true. It's why I had to vote on goddam Prop 8 in the first place. We can't have politics in our shows. That's bad business. It's nothing personal Mimi."

She never looked Mimmy in the eye. She sat hunched with one leg crossed over the other, propped up by a series of jerry-rigged limbs, and stared out over the patio at the Swiss watchmaker. One flippant hand hovered near her lips like she was used to holding a cigarette but must abide by the restaurant's smoking policy.

The waiter swooped past and deposited dishes before them, one after another. Soups and noodles and square slabs of meat in plates and bowls upon which engraved dragons danced and even emerged into the corporeal realm to support the sides with outstretched limbs.

Sweet and sour aromas invaded Mimmy's nose and twisted her stomach into a knot. She had, of course, heard Viridian's logic before, from none other than Van Der Gramme, the idea that the mere existence of Mimmy Wowzers constituted a political statement, and you know what? Maybe she knew that too. Maybe she donned the officer's uniform for that express purpose, a reclamation of her political self, maybe her aesthetic that she cultivated on a whim carried deep psychological undertones. But even contemplating the merit of her adversary showcased a wavering in her resolve, brought upon by this—food. Here was not a time for reason. Here was a time for subjugation.

She slackened a mere moment solely to straighten her collar while Swatch and after a casual napkin flick Viridian dove into their respective meals. Cutting, crunching, chewing, slurping, sucking, the sounds triggered a misophonic response, but it and the food were all one stimulus.

Strength. Will. Allison Apple and Her Friends, Good and Evil—Mimmy Wowzers created that. Twenty episodes drawing to a close, an assured second season to enter production shortly thereafter, a burgeoning franchise popular in certain vocal social media circles of disaffected jobless young adults learning for the first time that the world did not need them, that the world was in fact clogged with so many people it did not need, useless people, inert people, people it was more than willing to let disappear into holes where they would serve no purpose to anyone but themselves. They applied to jobs at companies with clean offices inhabited by old people and because the old people got there first there was no room left. Maybe one or two might manage to find the same type of life their parents did, a leisurely life at a desk doing the most minor and replaceable part of a minor and replaceable corporation in a minor and replaceable industry. Their job lacked meaning and thus their life lacked meaning and they were the lucky ones because at least their meaninglessness had a means to sustain itself in the corporate middle-class self-propulsion machine. They were the lucky ones, the ones who could afford to forget the world and deal only with their own personal misery, the misery of the nothing inside themselves.

Poverty, homelessness wrecked the rest, some might move back in with their parents, their parents being of course part of that older generation to which wealth came easy, and if they were lucky their parents did not look at them as abominations and, drunken, fall on them with a kitchen knife to take away one of their eyes and suffer zero consequences because it was an "accident."

None of those people were Mimmy Wowzers. Not now, not any more; none of those people mattered, even if they attempted to latch onto her leechlike. She ascended past them, she mattered to a million or more, she possessed real worth. Her show possessed real worth, that was what Van Der Gramme refused to comprehend. What the censors refused to comprehend. The censors existed solely to diminish the world to a sanitized blankness, but they failed to realize sanitized blankness was the exact world these people in droves strove to escape. This lifeless nation, settling into a deeper and deeper decrepitude, decaying bit by bit into—not a pure hell, no, that would be too exciting, if the cities went up in flames it would at least be a hell to flee from—into an ossified mass of calcium that reduced their range of movement by degrees—this lifeless nation needed obscenity. It needed sex, it needed violence, it needed taboo, and it needed it increasingly more severely to keep ahead of desensitization.

They needed Mimmy Wowzers, whether positively or negatively. They needed her, while she only needed herself, and over herself she exerted a level of control no ancient stoic ever imagined, a control over her body's physical properties, a control over the binary states of male and female.

"One cannot yearn for the prestige of art while washing one's hands of the responsibility," said Mimmy Wowzers.

Viridian continued to eat; Swatch paused his spoon mid-arc. "W—what?"

"The Walt Disney Corporation—"

"Company," said Viridian.

"—seeks the eyes and dollars of the new wave of youth in this world. They wish to enthrall them, to make them obsessed, to amass them into a following that will express unwavering loyalty to the brand. To that end I have been elevated to this state. I am them. Their ideal. Their idol. And it is my knowledge, my expertise, and my power that has delivered unto the corporation exactly what it demanded of me."

"The company uses you," said Viridian, "like a tool. Compared to it, you're nothing babe. Get over yourself."

"I am performing my function. My audience wants that kiss. They want it more than I do. They need it. They have attached significance to this purely hypothetical kiss beyond all measure. This kiss will validate them. This kiss will express to them that the Walt Disney Corporation—"

"Company."

"—recognizes them as human beings. Even if it doesn't. Even if it recognizes no human as a human being, and sees only itself as a human being, despite not being one. You two are the ones failing their function to the corporation."

"Hey. Hey. M—Mimmy, Cat—let's be civil." Swatch extended both hands, one pointed toward the one, one pointed toward the other. "There are, ehm, valid points, on both sides. And we don't want anyone to, walk away from this meeting, feeling unsatisfied. It's all about striking, striking that balance. Mimmy. We already okayed the kiss between the two, ehm, characters, as long as the angel character is transformed back to his male form. This should be a good compromise, right? Right?" He looked at them both.

"They have seen a boy and a girl kiss before," said Mimmy Wowzers. "They have seen it a thousand times. It no longer interests them. It in fact bores them beyond measure. They have not seen this before."

While Viridian scoffed, Swatch developed an entirely new dimension and leaned in, brow furrowed. "Well hey now. Hey now. Not everything has to be brand new for the sake of being brand new. That's what we, what we in the business call novelty. Sometimes, you know, the familiar things, the things that have worked since the beginning of time, those are best."

"They have been saturated," said Mimmy Wowzers. "They spend all their lives consuming media. Nothing else is left for them to care about. They have no future and remember no past. They watch shows for children because like children there is no need in this world for them. And they have been saturated. Saturated with men and women, women and men. It no longer has effect. No, it disgusts them. Because they who are children cannot imagine bringing children into this world. And they are right to, because their children would be needed even less than they are."

"Are you high?" said Viridian.

No. Mimmy Wowzers withdrew into herself and spoke possessed by her disembodied spirit. A lich, a passenger within her own body, this vessel she crafted for herself. The words spilled out automatic, without her understanding what she would say next, and she wondered dimly whether this was the impetus that allowed Van Der Gramme to speak the way he did on his favorite pet topics, a way to fill up his own life with himself as a substitute for the world he kept at bay.

"Birth rates are falling. Falling and falling. The kids are all gay. They were born into a world with no future and their sole act of rebellion is one of perfect peace, a rebellion of nonexistence—Lying flat. Humanity will die, not in a cataclysm, not in an irradiated globe, not in war, not in the vicissitudes of climate, but in a peaceful sleep. They will cease reproduction because this act of nothingness is the only act they have left. You can't stop it. Disney can't stop it. China can't stop it. You can try, you can ban and censor what you like, but the kids are all gay, and they are only getting gayer. Euthanasia for humanity. A compassionate kiss as we all drift into sleep. The only way forward without violence."

"Mark!"

The name Mark snapped her out of her trance.

"Mark, we are dealing with a druggie here," said Catalena Viridian.

"N, no, I'm sure—this is all rather, ehm, philosophical, but let's uh, let's circle back to the matter at hand?"

Mimmy Wowzers blinked her one eye.

"As far as I'm concerned, the matter is resolved." A clink accompanied Viridian's spoon being flung into her empty bowl. "Can we get a check already? I need to go to my daughter's exhibition."

"Mimmy," said Swatch, "let's agree to disagree and go with the compromise solution. That way, the maximum possible happiness is achieved, when you consider everything holistically."

Past the table, past the railing, past the sidewalk, past the street, a man stood.

"Screw that," said Viridian. "No kisses at all. I'm as sick of kisses as she says her audience is. No kisses!"

The man, despite his distance, stood facing her. Despite his distance, he looked straight at her.

"Now, now. Cat, we talked about this. Breathe. Remember your exercises."

A man in a trench coat. With a scruffy, unkempt beard.

The man from outside her apartment.

Why, Mimmy Wowzers wondered, was that man here. Or was it not the same man. Were they all a templatized reproduction of one another, the same specter of Van Der Gramme.

Their gazes met. The man in the trench coat flinched and looked over his shoulder, either to confirm Mimmy was not looking at some other homeless person or to flee. Except something steeled him and he looked back at her.

Then he ran.

He charged into the street as if he wanted a car to plaster him but instead a car screeched to a timely halt and he had no option but to keep running. His oversized trench coat shuffled like a coil across his body which lacked any shape or definition not provided by the coat itself. One hand remained in his pocket so his other pumped back and forth awkwardly and lent him the distinct impression of a limp. Another car screeched to a halt and immediately loosed a flurry of honking that jerked Swatch but not Viridian out of the censors' isolated conversation about breathing exercises.

"Huh?" Swatch said, as the trench coat man escaped the road, seized the railing that surrounded the restaurant patio, and leaped over it semi-gracelessly, catching his foot on the metal but not catching it enough to fall.

The trench coat man stumbled, hit a table causing a party of two to yelp, and regained his footing just as Swatch leaped back to avoid a collision. Viridian finally noticed what was happening and bolted upright, already shouting something furious at the man or maybe the distressed waiter who approached with hands raised in anti-aggression posture. Mimmy remained seated, somehow neither startled nor alarmed. Rather zen actually, the inner peace found on the perfectly flat shape of oblivion.

Out of his pocket, the trench coat man drew a magnum revolver.

He hesitated one singular moment, a moment that allowed Swatch to fall ass-backward in dumbfounded terror and Viridian to sprint for the exit wordlessly. The waiter skidded to a halt and furiously backpedaled. The other party on the patio screamed.

The gun fired three times.

Glass shattered behind Mimmy Wowzers.

After the third shot the man in the trench coat flinched and lifted his free hand to his ear in response to the apocalyptic thunder of his own bullets. Somebody howled inside the restaurant.

Mimmy Wowzers flicked out her cane and slammed it into the man's outstretched hand. The silver details of the lion's head cut into the flesh of the palm. Needlepoint teeth snagged on the skin and shot a sharp splatter of blood straight onto the white tabletop. The gun hurtled out of the mangled hand as the lion dragged off slabs in a careless diagonal that carried on into the fingers. The human hand, so complex in its construction, came apart as all its tiny subcomponents lost cohesion and thus function. Skinflaps shook and blood spurted as the shooter gripped his wrist and spouted in shock.

Mimmy Wowzers rose. "I cannot be killed," she said, as a flash of intensity clouded her vision into nonexistent fog. She emerged out of herself, her body no longer operated by cognitive functions, her soul no longer tethered by any tangible link, while her legs strode toward the stammering man in the trench coat who frantically flicked his eyes from his disaster of a hand to the impassive, emotionless stone face of Mimmy Wowzers adorned in all her awe. A flame of halo wreathed her cyclopean eye, wreathed her head as the hard clack of her heeled boots struck the patio surface. Her blood-dripping cane scraped and in face of her advance the man stumbled backward two steps, ricocheted off the same table he hit on his way in, and backed against the railing. Mark Swatch spoke something unintelligible; his tongue failed him. Mimmy Wowzers, advancing, grew.

She swelled in size, her height already towering, soon she was seven feet tall, eight, and the peak of her peaked cap scraped the awning over the patio, and the man in the trench coat, the man in her cell phone, the man in her mind, he shriveled, he became nothing, and righteousness rained down upon him.

Her cane drew back; it fell.

It struck the crown of his head. The complex engravings of the silver lion's head ripped through his scalp awkwardly due to the skull's slope but nonetheless left two long parallel gashes across his oily black hair. "I will never die," she said; "I will never be killed," she said.

The man slumped, his knees buckled, but he remained fixed to the railing, and Mimmy slammed her cane again on his skull. His head jerked back like a ball tied to his neck by a single strand.

"This world may die but I may not," and her cane rose again, and her cane fell again, and half his scalp flapped back with the hair attached, and the bright red surface of his skull shone through, and her cane rose again, and her cane fell again, and Mark Swatch somewhere said her name, and someone sobbed, but her cane rose again, and her cane fell again, and the man in the trench coat's head bounced like a ball, and he was the man inside her phone, and he was the man inside the mansion, and he was the mother inside her home, and he was all of them, and he was nothing, and Mimmy Wowzers, still growing, now a giantess, now ripping through the patio tarp, growing still, the size of the world, the world enveloped in a burning halo, the world burning, her eye the world, her dead eye burning and her live eye beside it to watch it burn.

Her cane rose and her cane fell.

Her cane rose and her cane fell.

Her cane rose and her cane fell.

Her cane scraped the cracked surface of his skull.

"THIS WORLD MAY DIE BUT I WILL NOT."

Something broke and a flood of black gore spewed out his skull and splattered the flowers growing beyond the barrier. And all the angels in heaven and all the devils in hell fell upon his body and tore it to pieces in their fight for his soul, and all his bloody chunks rained upon her and stained her uniform bright red, and the cane fell out of her gloved hand, and her hands lifted to the sky, and now someone was touching her, but she couldn't be touched, she was the ark of the covenant, yet it was Mark—Mark Swatch—somehow standing over her, no, she was on the ground, and Mark Swatch said, "Mimmy. Mimmy. Mimmy," which was her name, and out of her stomach a red vortex was forming, and even though Mark Swatch placed his hands onto the vortex the vortex only grew, swallowing Mimmy whole from the inside.

Her hand, smeared red, seized Mark Swatch by the collar, it tried to push him away, to get his hands off her, to incinerate him, to leave her floating in a void where she felt the contact of nothing except her own perfect body formed the way she wanted it and not the way God decided, her body formed by her and thus evidence of her godhead—she could not be touched. But Mark Swatch touched her.

Untouch me, Mimmy Wowzers said, but Mark Swatch touched her, and Catalena Viridian touched her, and the man in her phone touched her, and Cariscresco her own creation touched her, and Allison Apple and her friends good and evil touched her, and the vampire smirking touched her, and the alchemist empty touched her, and their hands all scooped into her body and scooped out the parts of her and ate the parts of her and became her. And he was watching, Van Der Gramme was watching. He was watching.

Suddenly, Mimmy Wowzers knew what nothing was.

END OF PART II

Intermission B

Intermission B: The death of George Floyd.

"GOD!"

It's an ordinary intersection on an ordinary street. A gas station in the background, a stoplight, a kiosk, some vague and undefined architectural elements evocative of a city while lacking the specificity of any particular place. The sky is white.

"Ahh!"

A police vehicle is parked on the side of the road. Its lights alternate: red, blue. Officer Tou Thao, a Hmong, a descendant of those who fled Laos to Thailand and ultimately resettled in the United States at the end of the Vietnam War, closes the vehicle's driver side door and walks around the back to where Officer Derek Chauvin kneels on the neck of a black man.

The black man lets out a staggered sob that at its end transforms into what sounds like "please." Unseen are Officers Thomas Lane and J. Alexander Kueng who are assisting Chauvin in pinning the black man down.

A trash can painted with an unusual symbol reminiscent of some modernist artwork momentarily obstructs the view of the black man as the person filming with her cell phone steps back.

"Please. Please! Please I can't breathe! Please man, please!"

Chauvin shifts his weight.

Thao, who had been standing between the person filming and the black man on the ground, steps aside to approach the curb, then walks back.

"I can't breathe!"

"You got him down man, let him breathe at least man," says a bystander, while the person filming walks closer. There are several bystanders.

"I can't breathe!"

The bystander says, "I been trying to help out—"

"Ahhhhh!" says the black man on the ground.

Thao turns to face the bystander. Annoyed, his hands flare out as he confidently explains: "He's talking. So he can breathe."

The black man on the ground sobs again. His voice is deep, somewhat gravelly. He has been arrested for allegedly buying cigarettes with a counterfeit 20 dollar bill. He is a large man, close to six and a half feet tall, and he is 46 years old, and he has played basketball and he has been a rapper and he has been to prison nine times. He is not a saint. He is not an exemplar of society. He has possessed drugs, and he has stolen things, and he has performed aggravated robbery with a weapon, and he has tried to reform himself, and he has mentored young men at church, and he has gone to rehab, and he has struggled with addiction, and he has been fired from many jobs, and most recently got fired because of the pandemic, and he got the disease, and he got better.

At times he has been a bad person; at times he has been a good person.

"I'm about to die today," he says.

"Relax," says Thao.

"I can't breathe," he says, "my face."

"What are you on?" says Thao.

"I can't breathe. Please your knee on my neck. I can't breathe shit."

"Well get up and get in the car man," says another bystander.

"I will," says the black man on the ground.

"Get up get in the car!"

"I can't move—ah, ah!"

"Get up get in the car."

"Mama," says the black man on the ground.

"Get up! And get in the car right!"

"I can't!"

"Get your attitude and get in brother. You can't win."

"My knee."

"You can't win."

"My neck. I'm through."

"You ain't listen!"

"My stomach hurt. My neck hurt. Everything hurt," says the black man on the ground, his head at times attempting to shift. "Water or something. Please. Please. Ah! I can't breathe officer. Agh! They gonna kill me. They gonna kill me man."

His head rolls against the ground. There is a dark puddle under his head. His eyes strain.

New bystanders speak:

"Bro with your feet on his neck man you—"

"His nose is bleeding. Like, come on now."

"That's wrong right there. With that feet on his neck."

"Look at his nose."

The black man on the ground's head settles against the ground. All trace of his neck vanishes under the knee of Chauvin, which has remained still and steady the entire time, which will continue to remain still and steady.

"I cannot breathe," the black man on the ground says.

"He ain't even resisting arrest!" says a bystander.

"You having fun?" another bystander says to Chauvin.

The black man on the ground sobs again.

"You a tough guy huh," a bystander says. "You a tough guy huh?"

"What's that?" says Thao.

"I said you're a tough guy. He ain't even resisting arrest bro."

"His whole nose is bleeding."

Another sob. Another sob. A constant stream of sobs under the voices of the bystanders.

"He ain't doing nothing. Put him in the car!"

"They'll kill me," says the black man on the ground.

"How long y'all gotta hold him down?"

"Don't do drugs kids," says Thao, in that moment possessed by the ghost of a 1980s never quite escaped, a haunted phantom of Ronald Reagan and after school specials and D.A.R.E., a simple statement so easy to say.

"It ain't about drugs bro," says a bystander.

"Y'all don't gotta put y'all—"

"He is human bro."

"His nose—"

"You can put him in the car."

They are not asking for the black man on the ground to be let free. They merely want him to be arrested.

"We tried that for ten minutes," says Thao.

Chauvin, who has until now looked only down at the black man subjugated beneath his knee, looks up at the camera. His expression is one of confusion or even surprise, one eyebrow cocked high. Chauvin at this point in time has 18 complaints on his official record as an officer. He has previously held down a 14-year-old boy with his knee for 17 minutes, after hitting the boy in the head with a flashlight.

"That's some bum ass shit bro," says a bystander, a young black man. "Y'all know that is. Y'all don't gotta sit there with your knee on his neck bro."

"He's talking, he's fine," said Thao, as the black man on the ground closes his eyes and lets out a weak groan.

"Bro he ain't fine. Bro. You like in a jiu-jitsu move bro? You trapping his breathing right there bro. Like you don't think that what it is bro?" The young black man is talking to Thao, the Hmong. "You don't think the white understands that shit right there bro? I trained at the academy bro that's some bullshit bro. That's bullshit bro. That's bullshit bro."

"Puhhleash," the black man on the ground barely manages to slur.

"You fucking stopping his breathing right there bro."

"I can't breathe."

"Okay, he's talking," says Thao. "It's hard to talk when—it's hard to talk—"

"Bro but you can get him off the ground. You being a bum right now. You can get him off the ground bro. You can get him off the ground you being a bum right now."

Thao has six complaints on his official record as an officer.

"He enjoying that," the bystander says, indicating Chauvin, prompting Chauvin to send another quizzical glance at the camera, his one eyebrow raised. "He enjoying that shit. He enjoying that shit. He a fucking bum bro. He enjoying that shit right now bro. You coulda fucking put him in the car by now bro. He's not resisting arrest or nothing."

"Is he talking now?" a female bystander says.

The black man on the ground is not talking now. His shoulders occasionally shuffle. His eyebrows raise and lower. His face is resting against the ground in a puddle of his own blood.

"Get the fuck off of him!" the female bystander says.

"It's the whites," says another bystander. "They love—"

"You already know that bro!" says the young black man. "I trained with half of these bum ass dudes at the academy bro. You know that's bogus right now bro. You know it's bogus. You can't even look at me like a man cuz you a bum bro. He's not even resisting arrest right now bro."

"His nose is bleeding."

"He's passed out."

"You fucking stopping his breathing right now bro. You think that's cool? You think that's cool though right. What's your n—what's your—ah man, what's your badge number bro. You think that's cool right now bro."

The black man on the ground stops moving.

"Call the police on another police," says the young woman filming, turning the camera to Thao.

"You think that's cool though bro. You're a bum bro. You're a bum for that. You're a bum for that bro. You get mad, just sitting here stopping his breathing right now bro."

The black man on the ground is no longer moving.

"Look at him."

"Look at him! What the fuck!"

"Bro."

"Look at him."

"Bro."

"Get off him now!"

Chauvin, without lifting his knee, without changing his befuddled and eyebrow-raised expression, pulls a cannister from his belt and aims it at the bystanders.

The young woman filming steps back. "What the fuck? He got mace, he got mace."

But the young black man holds his ground, even as Thao moves forward to try and push him back. "I ain't scared of you bro."

"You're a fucking pussy," someone says.

A long stream of clear liquid has trickled out from under the police vehicle. It stops near Thao's foot.

"He cannot breathe."

"Call 911."

"Get over here. No. First of all—"

"He's not responding right now."

Thao moves back, closer to the body of the black man on the ground, and holds his hand out to signal a bystander back. "Back off," he says.

"He's not responsive right now. HE'S NOT RESPONSIVE RIGHT NOW. HE'S NOT RESPONSIVE RIGHT NOW. Bro."

"Does he have a pulse?"

"No bro look at him he's not responsive right now bro."

"Check for a pulse."

"Bro are you serious? You just gonna let him sit there with that on his neck bro?"

"Let me see a pulse!"

"Is he breathing right now? Check his pulse!"

"How long have we been having this conversation?" says Thao.

They have been having this conversation, according to the video, for five minutes and eight seconds.

"Check his pulse. Check his pulse Thao. Thao check his pulse."

"Okay. Okay," says Thao, making no attempt to move.

"Bro check his pulse bro. You bogus bro."

The camera has moved. Only the black man on the ground's head appears from past the bumper of the police vehicle. It is perfectly still. The eyes are closed. Chauvin's knee remains on his neck.

"What is that! What do you think that is? You call what he doing okay?"

"Get back on the street!" says Thao.

"You call what he doing okay?"

Thao has shifted his attention to a young white woman who has stepped onto the street. He says something to her, asking if she's from here perhaps, and she responds, "Yes I am from Minneapolis."

"Get on the sidewalk!" says Thao.

"Show me his pulse," she says. "Check it right fucking now."

"Back on the sidewalk," says Thao.

"The man ain't moving," says the young black man. "The man ain't moved yet bro. The man ain't moved yet bro."

"HE'S NOT MOVING!"

"Bro you're a bum bro. You're a bum bro. You're definitely a bum bro."

"Tell me what his pulse is right now."

Instead, Thao turns his head to stare at the street, where cars are pulling up to the intersection.

"Bro he has not moved, not one time bro."

A new voice enters the commotion. "He's—He's off—He's off crack right now. He's probably OD'd." This voice belongs to a young clerk at a nearby store, the same clerk who called the police to report the counterfeit money.

"Bro go back in the store bro, you don't understand."

"Nonono, I'm the reason—"

"Alright okay that's cool go back in the store bro. Go back in the store bro. He's NOT FUCKING MOVING."

The clerk's arms, both of them, extend to point at the motionless head emerging from beyond the vehicle's bumper. "I see that. I'm, I'm trying to help y'all out."

"Bro you don't need to help me out bro. I know your parents, I know everybody who owns the store, you don't need to help me the fuck out bro. He's not fucking moving right now bro."

The clerk tilts his head to see around the vehicle. "I just saw that man."

"Bro he was just moving when I walked up here."

"And I know that he, he, they did that to him. They did that to him." He points at the officers.

"Bro. You just get out here bro. Bro."

"I been watching the whole time—"

"Bro."

At this moment Thao, who has remained silent since the clerk showed, decides it is important for him to add his perspective to the debate between the clerk and the bystander. He lifts his hand to indicate the clerk. "He's trying to help you guys right now." This infighting is more interesting to him than the body motionless on the ground a few feet behind him.

This turns the crowd's attention back to Thao. "Bro! He doesn't have a—Bro! He's not fucking moving."

"Did they fucking kill him bro?"

"Bro. Bro."

"Did they just kill him or something?"

"Bro. You're a bum bro. You're a bum. First thing you wanna grab is your mace cuz you're scared bro. You're scared of fucking minorities you fucking bum bro."

"GET THE FUCK OFF HIM WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"

"Three minutes bro. He's not fucking moving."

A paramedic finally walks onto the scene, although his ambulance is unseen and his head is unseen until he kneels with latex gloved hands to inspect the black man lying silently on the road. The crowd screams in a congealed mass of dismay until Thao barks for them to get back onto the street.

The paramedic checks the black man's pulse and walks away.

"Get back on the street," says Thao.

"Bro are you serious. You're gonna keep your, you're gonna keep your, you're gonna keep your thing on his neck?"

Because yes, even though the paramedic has arrived, and manipulated the black man's head to inspect it for signs of life, Chauvin has maintained his stance, keeping his knee where it has been the entire seven minutes of video up to this point.

Thao paces, trying to signal back a crowd spitting a mix of venom while the paramedics slowly extend a stretcher from the back of their emergency response vehicle.

The clerk is pulled back to the store by two other people.

"You're just gonna let him keep his hand on his neck bro? You're a bitch bro. Thao you gonna let him keep that like that?" They know Thao's name because he is close enough to them for them to read his tag. They do not appear to know Chauvin's name. Chauvin has not spoken to them. Chauvin looks down with determination at the motionless body while the paramedics angle their stretcher the way they like. "You gonna let him kill that man in front of you bro? Huh? Huh? Bro he's not even fucking moving right now bro."

"You not gonna fucking help us right now?" says another bystander.

"Right," says another. "He black. They don't care."

The paramedics adjust the cloth on the top of the stretcher.

The crowd continues to speak all at once. "Look. I am a first responder from Minneapolis," says one of the bystanders, while the paramedics finally motion for Chauvin to get off of the black man on the ground's body. "The fact that you guys aren't checking his pulse or doing compressions if he needs them? You guys are on another level."

The paramedics roll the black man on the ground's body onto the stretcher. It is entirely limp. His head dangles while they maneuver his shoulders, which remain awkwardly stiff because his hands are handcuffed behind his back.

"Oh my god," says a bystander.

In attempting to drag the man's body, they drag it against the stretcher instead of onto it, pushing the stretcher away.

"They just drag him, like come on now."

"I have your nametag bitch," a bystander says to Thao.

"That's not very professional," Thao says to her, while the lifeless body is flopped onto the stretcher.

"It don't matter. So what. Freedom of speech."

Thao nods his head with a casual shrug. "Okay." Then he rushes the crowd. "BACK OFF THE STREET." He shoves a bystander who jumps back, holding his hands high.

"I got this all on camera," says the young woman filming. "Watch out."

"DO NOT TOUCH ME AGAIN," Thao says.

"YOU TOUCHED HIM!" everyone in the crowd says in unison.

In the background, on occasion, the camera pans to show a fragment of the black man's body, now on the stretcher, as the paramedics wheel it around. But mostly the camera focuses on Thao.

"You went to him. Y'all always trying to start something."

The stretcher is guided to the back of the vehicle. Through a series of mechanical and hydraulic systems it is slowly raised. Thao shouts at the crowd. The crowd shouts back:

"You just killed that man."

"Bro. Bro."

"You should go to jail."

"Thao you know that is bogus bro."

"What's that badge number?" The camera zooms onto Thao's badge. Thao walks forward to allow her to get a better picture of it.

"Yep," says Thao. "Yep."

The young woman filming, who will receive a Pulitzer Prize for the video, laughs in glee.

"He such a man bro. That shit crazy bro."

At this point, the body is loaded into the back of the vehicle, no longer to be seen. Chauvin, holding onto his belt with both hands, moseys away from the vehicle to Thao.

"Him too!" the woman filming shouts.

Chauvin motions and says something to Thao. Thao nods in acknowledgement and they walk away together.

"You just killed that nigga bro."

"They really just killed that man."

"You just really killed that man bro."

"If he not dead he close to dead. That's crazy."

"You just really killed that man bro."

The camera zooms on the back of the police car. It films the number and the license plate. The police and the paramedics are starting to file away into their vehicles. The bystanders are able to walk onto the street without Thao to stop them. Chauvin emerges from the front of a vehicle, walks across the sidewalk corner, and holds a gloved hand out for a bystander to stay back. The bystander heckles him nonetheless, at which point, as though part of a magic trick, Thao manifests out of nowhere and Chauvin disappears.

Thao says something to the crowd.

"Say again?" says the nearest bystander.

"You guys want to sit in the back of that car?" He points to the police vehicle.

"Bogus bro."

Thao convenes with a third officer and they both walk to where Chauvin has reemerged. Thao and the other officer keep walking; Chauvin remains for a moment, pats his belly contentedly, and follows.

Thao and Chauvin enter their vehicle and slam the doors shut. The camera rapidly turns around to show a blur of a bystander, who says:

"He lucky—"

The video ends.

PART III: END OF HISTORY

PART III: END OF HISTORY

[0] Scrape of the cane.

[0] Scrape of the cane.

The sedan remained where it landed. Upside-down at the base of the cliff. Its headlights streamed skyward in parallel cones until subsumed into the death of night. Every so often a twisted bit settled and a little steel shriek bounced against the edifice of the mountain.

But otherwise all was quiet. All was quiet, even the tiny form of a figure slowly and limply crawling through the sedan's shattered windshield. Thin thing, at first glance neither male nor female, only a wisp in a bloody shirt, but as more emerged from the wreckage its body congealed into an objective form. A young woman, a foreigner to this country, who despite a few cuts remained miraculously unmaimed, all limbs intact, all structural components intact, the shape of a human being. Dazed, maybe. Rattled. Forgetful of who she was or how she got here, although even in the dark any observer might look up at the ledge where the narrow road cut into the mountainside and see the smashed railing through which the sedan plowed prior to its precipitous descent.

Whether she lost control of the sedan, or whether in the dark her squinting eyes failed to perceive a bend, or whether she plunged consciously and purposely—that could never be known, not from any external observation, and not even from asking the woman who stood shakily and tilted her head to face the emptiness, because she lacked all memory of those moments.

Those moments, then, ceased to exist.

The woman, thoughtless, regarded her scratched arms and reddened shirt. Everything outside of the shine of the headlights ceased to exist, black shades against differently black backdrops. The headlights pointed up. Only up existed. She climbed.

She progressed at arduous, automatic pace. The car had not fallen fully into the ravine, instead landing on a ledge relatively close to the road (otherwise not even the sedan's meticulous safety features would have saved her), and soon shambling over stones her hands reached the road and the rest of her body followed.

The road lacked lights, it lacked cars, it lacked anything. It merely wound one way and wound the other, wound around the mountain. If she went left, she stepped out of the light and into nothing. If she went right, she stepped out of the light and into nothing. And if she waited, nothing would come.

She walked the same way she had been driving before the crash. Perhaps by chance. Tracing her fingertips atop the gentle curve of the railing. The light behind her dimmed and then, as the road rounded, all at once ceased, and she was alone, with only the rail to moor her.

That was when she heard the scrape.

A scrape of a surface against a surface, one surface that of the road, but the other—unknown. A scrape, and it came from behind her. A scrape, slow, yet quick within the memory it left during the ponderous moment between it and its successor. A scrape—and another scrape. A scrape—and another scrape.

Every time she took a step, she heard the scrape.

All the while the road and the rail continued: an endless wind around a mountain a million times her size and the ultimate arbiter of her motion and yet, unseen, unsensed, eluding her comprehension. The night stretched forever and so did the road. Her legs walked forever. Forever in this eternal sink. Forever until no more.

Because at some moment, any moment, the forever ended, as it always does, or always will until no human being is left alive. The sheer face of blackness broke: on a distant ledge a blaze of light, divided into rigid squares arranged in rigid patterns, a light from the windows of a vast building. Its sudden apparition brought the woman to a shocked halt. Her eyes, which saw poorly, adjusted to the light, and the dimensions of the darkened structure came into focus as a castle.

Correct, a castle, replete with towers and parapets, something both medieval in its stonework and modern in its stylish roofing, an agglomeration of all eras. It overlooked a lake that shimmered one white reflective streak. And the road the woman stood on, although winding, eventually wound to the castle's gate.

When she stopped, the scrape continued—and for the first time drew closer.

The woman shivered. The hairs on the back of her neck turned to pinpricks.

The scrape drew one scrape closer.

She started again to walk. She did not dare look back. The shades of mountains spread like teeth across the shades of sky. Her step hastened although a deadness previously unfelt in one leg reduced her walk to hobbling. The castle's light reached her in no meaningful way. Her fingertip served as her guide, the scrape her metronome, a thing at her back to spur her, a time to the rhythm of her ungainly motions as she swung her leg to and fro.

Perhaps the windows were merely pieces of yellow paper stapled to this dark. Perhaps the castle existed no further than the reach of her mind. And perhaps there was no scrape save her own feet, disembodied from herself, trailing several steps behind her, and they still moved when she stopped because of their desperate need to return to her. She was, she realized, only a shadow herself, a gradation of black in this black hole.

The castle neared.

It seemed, at one instant, impossibly distant. The next, with no shift in the size of those yellow windows, immediately in front of her. She stepped forward and struck a tall metal gate, composed of iron bars, which she seized to prevent from bouncing backward. The gate rattled—the scrape persisted. The scrape of the padlock that sealed the gate tight. The scrape of rust scraping off in flecks. This close and at this angle she saw in the windows people, every window a person, a stately person in clothes from a past era, Napoleonic uniforms with epaulets and gold tassels, or a lady in flouncy rococo fashions, locked in the mechanical form of a mechanical dance, like tiny models on a clockwork track.

Scrape—

Scrape.

Scrape—

Scrape.

Scraping right behind, scraping out a ghastly tendril to grope her, scraping its breath against the nape of her neck, scraping with the rattle of bony teeth into a scrape-eroded chuckle. A thing by degrees scraped to pieces by the striking of its every surface against the friction of this formless world, a thing of all lines denuded but substance still remained.

Her skin started to fleck away to dust. She shook the bars and they opened at once, snapping the rusted chain of the padlock which plummeted to her feet and burst in a puff of powder. The gates screamed to their furthest extent as she stumbled onto the castle grounds, now walking a pebbled path around which long stalks of vegetable matter grew and curled and drew arabesques into the black tableau. The people in the yellow windows when she looked again were all standing at the windows and staring down at her, silent, faceless. She stumbled on steps and struck her knee and the scrape stepped one step behind her. She crawled madly up the rest of the stairs where the giant front doors loomed and shambling to her feet she reached for the hanging hoops that served as knobs, briefly swiped her fingertips against one, and renewed her effort to reach again.

Her fingers hooked the hoop. She pulled open the door.

She slid inside, into a well-lit world. Every surface was white, every surface mirrored. Before she had a chance to look behind her the door slammed shut.

True silence. True (it's never true) save for her belabored breathing. Mirrored floors and mirrored walls extended down a vast hall.

On one side of the room, in a line, stood men in plain tuxedos who wore masks of wild dogs. They stood with their hands folded in front of them and all their heads were turned to her as she stepped gingerly along the mirrored surface. Because of the mirrors the men in the masks were everywhere, even where they were not, but no matter how many times the mirrors reflected them, the figure at the end of the corridor, who sat upon a crystal throne, appeared only once.

This figure, reclining regally, shifted the long and flowing folds of its silken dress adorned with changeless patterns and ribbons bow-tied, and folded one slim and stockinged leg over the other to kick the air idly with a dainty stiletto heel. "Oh," the enthroned noted dully, "a visitor has indeed arrived..."

The visitor opened her mouth to speak and only sandpaper came out until she swallowed and attempted again. "I—I've—had an accident."

"Mhmm, yes, so have we all. Your name?"

"Name."

"Have you one? Have you forgotten?"

The figure on the throne—was only a child. Despite her lavish dress and extravagant accessories, the glittering gems that hung from her ears in bands of silver, the diamonds that shone at even the most careless flicks of her thin fingers—only a child.

"My name."

"Repeat yourself again. I'll eat your tongue out."

"Setsuna," said the blood-drenched woman, "Setsuna Tsutsutori."

Right. Setsuna Tsutsutori. That was her name. The name unlocked a life:

Her name was Setsuna Tsutsutori. She came from Chiba, Japan. She was 20 years old and taking a year off college. A year closer to two years. Simply put, she had a mental breakdown. Even the weight of hiding inside her room crushed her.

"Take a trip, please," her parents begged (but only after all else failed). "Anything, do anything. We'll pay for it all, we've made the arrangements. You'll go to Europe, we hired a guide. Just live."

In the Berlin airport she met her guide, a pleasant young expatriate with whom she assumed her parents hoped she would hook up. He was nice. As they made plans for Vienna she ditched him and drove off on her own. Into the Alps. Into Switzerland. She did not have a license. Wound up upside-down in a ravine. Wound up here, divvied into a hundred hers by mirrors.

She thought something behind her scraped but when she looked only the line of dog-faced attendants stood motionless. And the girl on the throne snapped her fingers to bring back her attention.

"An unusual world it has become," said the girl. "Japan was once—how do we say? Sealed off. A fortress in isolation, yes, a castle—perhaps a prison. Mhmm, yes—yes. How did it go with the, ah what was it called, the atomic bomb?"

"I'm sorry?"

The young girl had asked with casual disinterest but Setsuna's failure to even engage on that level clearly irked her from the sudden sharpening of her features. "Well! What a shame, what an inutile shame. Nobody ever comes to visit me, and I see now that when they do they have nothing to say!"

Without any seeming propulsion from her thin legs, as though an unseen string pulled her, she hopped to a standing position on the seat of her throne. Her hands stabbed into her hips and she leaned forward to glower at Setsuna. The corners of her mouth curled, and the tips of two pointed fangs poked from under her upper lip.

"I'm sorry," said Setsuna.

"You're nothing! You're nothing at all, what a waste!" But her petulant burst ended as abruptly as it began, and she nibbled the tip of her thumb to reconsider, and she floated off the throne and onto the top step of its dais. "No, not nothing. You're still a body, at least. Warm one at that, yes."

Already balanced on the tips of her tiny toes due to her outrageous heels, the little girl lifted even higher, the stilettos leaving the ground as she floated down the steps toward Setsuna.

"I," the girl said, "am known as the Comtesse Marie von Diodati. And since I am your host this evening I shall conclude the formalities by welcoming you to my home, le Château de Diodati."

She drifted around Setsuna, blood-red eyes sizing her, slim fingers in long gloves reaching to caress her arms. The eyes lingered on the dried blood on Setsuna's shirt and the gashes on her arms and the smaller, more delicate cuts on her cheeks. In a moment the Comtesse was close to her, perfectly close, having moved with ephemeral grace, a specter or sheet, her skin so pale it suggested the possibility of translucence, though not even veins shone through.

"You're not—human," said Setsuna, as the Comtesse leaned daintily and slid her kittenlike tongue along one of her cuts.

"No, and neither are you—mindless, bestial thing. Speechless, and nobody ever around to speak!" Wrenching away from imperceptible closeness, the kind of closeness that mixed auras if not skin, she flung her hands to indicate her mute butlers. The gesture exuded a grandiosity that far exceeded her slight stature; she was in that moment not a child playacting at adulthood but an adult, an ancient and decaying one, reviving for a moment a childhood passion. And that moment ended, and the Comtesse decomposed again instantly into her natural state of banal and bored elegance. "Well. I am, how the English say, kidding myself. Talk or not, I have always been incapable of overcoming my appetite."

Her fingers clamped around Setsuna's arms. Setsuna, for a moment taken by panic, struggled. But the Comtesse's grip was of a steel vise. Motion beyond the flitting struggle of prey eluded her, and the motion she did manage only sparked a devious change in the Comtesse's face, which twisted into something neither young nor old but merely primal, a singular urge to hurt.

The Comtesse opened her small mouth wide and bit down on Setsuna's shoulder. The two needlepoint fangs burst through the skin and a wellspring of blood rushed out into the whiplike motion of the tongue. Setsuna cried out, but her cry was strangely muted, more like a grunt. She looked around the mirrored room and opened her mouth to wordlessly implore the attendants to help, but the attendants remained motionless and Setsuna realized she could not tell if the attendants were real or merely toy figures amplified by some trick of the mirrors.

"Mmh, mmm," the Comtesse moaned muffled into Setsuna's skin. "Nngh, mmhh~"

To even reach Setsuna's shoulder, she had to hover above the ground, and her feet dangled motionless. Her hands hooked into the collar of Setsuna's shirt and retracted long claws like a cat's that in two quick slashes diced the shirt to ribbons while leaving only the thinnest red streaks along Setsuna's chest. The fangs pulled out of her shoulder and dug in again, this time just below the collarbone, and the Comtesse pressed her thin red lips tight and sucked hard against it.

Her motions were rapid, unrestrained, desperate even, and she refused to allow even one excess drop of blood to trickle down Setsuna's body as the few scraps of her shirt and bra that remained were erased one after another. The tiny body shivered and Setsuna could only wonder: Why was this happening? The initial fear, more like shock or instinct anyway, subsided, because ultimately even Setsuna could only feel bewilderment or perhaps pity toward this strange creature trapped perpetually in the body of a child, this thing so displaced from the real world that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were considered news.

This enormous, silent castle, where everything was reflected endlessly except the one thing actually inside it. Setsuna saw herself in the ceiling, as bloody dots in pairs of two opened across the upper part of her chest, punctures like the prick of a syringe with only the slightest sting and no further pain.

"Why?" Setsuna asked, calmly.

The Comtesse ceased her sucking and lifted her small blonde head to peer up into Setsuna's eyes. "Why what, hmm? Because I am a monster, clearly. Ohoho—so will you beg for mercy? Will you, will you?" Her eyes glittered.

"Are," said Setsuna, "are you really—a monster?"

"What? Are you deprived of even your most animal senses? Do you not see me?" As if in earnest, the Comtesse drew up and forced the full of her upper body into Setsuna's view.

Setsuna shook her head, no, what she wanted to say was, she could not possibly form the words to convey a point this complex, not in this language at least, but she did have a thought in her head, it was something, a feeling really, something that once glimpsed stuck like an epiphany even if she could not possibly phrase it even to herself. "Why are you—here? Why are you not there?" She lifted a weak arm to point to the doors she came through. With the scraping thing, she wanted to add, but could not.

The Comtesse reared back, offended. "You question that? Of all things, that? I am a monster, my dearest, and I have been a monster long enough that I am at perfect comfort with what I am. Were you entertaining at all, I may have kept up pretension a moment longer, perhaps invited you to dinner and treated you as a guest and laughed at your stories or asked you questions of the world outside, but that would be mere diversion, and my fangs would have tasted you sooner or later, and since you're boring why wait until later? What a ridiculous question. Absurd! What do you think I am?"

What did Setsuna think she was—well, a vampire, obviously. But even staring at her blood-smeared mouth, Setsuna's sense of horror dwindled fast, and what supplanted it was merely melancholic emptiness she already felt elsewhere, in Japan, in her room, suspended in a tiny box where the question was not whether the thing inside were alive or dead—she knew, sadly, the answer to that—but whether the world outside was.

What was the word. What was the word in English.

"Prisoner," said Setsuna. "You are a prisoner."

"Puh—prisoner?!" The girlish face contorted into pale fury, pale because for all the clear hallmarks of severe emotion, she could not summon a blush of blood to erase her perpetual paleness. "Me? I am mistress of this castle! It bears my name! All others called Diodati are long, long slain—only I persevered. I avenged myself and slaughtered countless others—a prisoner! You oaf, simpleton, idiot peasant!" Her hand slapped Setsuna's cheek hard and scratched barely with the tips of her claws. A second slap hit the other cheek even harder. "Know your place—wretch!"

From the ceiling, at the bidding of some unseen gesture from the Comtesse, descended two long chains with manacles. Due to the mirrors it seemed the chains extended forever. The manacles moving by themselves clamped around Setsuna's wrists and dragged her arms up over her body, hoisting her until her sneakers left the floor and dangled like the Comtesse's. The Comtesse floated higher to compensate and kicked Setsuna hard in the thigh, although poor aim made it only glance.

Drops of Setsuna's blood, having run down her bare and nearly flat chest, fell to the floor below and left single solid splatters on the reflective surface.

"I am the Comtesse Marie von Diodati, older than nations, older than religions; my power is absolute, and you will be dead before morn, impudent beast. Baseborn knave!" Another jabbing kick that extracted a rough grunt from Setsuna's lungs. "Think on that and stay your sniveling tongue. Think on your own mortality, and the death that awaits you, and be sure to tell me in immaculate detail what it feels like, for it is only vicariously I may ever experience it myself!"

"So—you want to die too."

"Wh—I—What are you, a rustic enamored of their own wit? Has the human race degenerated so far that they do not even fear the creatures of the night?"

No, I'm not witty, Setsuna wanted to say. No, I fear the dark like everyone else, thinking on the thing that scraped the road leading to the castle. But communication rapidly became impossible, even words she once knew she forgot. It was not simply the language. The words in her own head were reducing in meaning, transforming into concepts that in a final surge of self she managed to cohere into a single, simple vocalization:

"You are me."

"Oh. Oh, oh!" The Comtesse twisted up, dragged her fingers across her own face, but made no cut and drew no blood. In midair she tightened into a ball for a moment, her knees tucked to her chest as the long train of her elegant gown hung from the crosses of her legs, and then in explosive action she unraveled herself so hard she flipped upside-down. "Worthless—disrespect and presumption! Idiot! Idiot! Idiot! Imbecile! Hyyyyaaaaaugh!"

A cute shriek. Right, that was what she was—cute. No matter what monstrous accoutrements accentuated her form, she was simply cute, even as she slashed Setsuna's shorts to pieces, even as her claws raked Setsuna's thighs. She remained cute, and if she was cute, if she was the same as Setsuna, a nothing trapped in her own room lost and with neither beginning nor end, then the fact that she was also cute made her matter more somehow. An ideal. Because it was true, what the Comtesse said, about Setsuna being base and bland, she was aware of that fact better than anyone, she was a protagonist designed with perfect lack of color so that the audience may project upon her. But the Comtesse, magnificent, imbued with monstrous power and adorable Gothic charm in equal measure, exciting, eye-catching, meaningful in her very existence, if the Comtesse could be the same as Setsuna, afraid to leave her castle at night because of the thing that scraped, if she could be the same but a perfect idealization, then perhaps she could break free from this cycle of nothingness even if only in the eyes of everyone else but her, and so doing everyone else would break free too.

"I am nothing like you! Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing!" The Comtesse dug her fangs into Setsuna's breast, and sucked, and drew back to howl again: "You are nothing, a zero, and I am the largest possible negative! I have slain kings and deflowered maidens, I have ravaged villages and annihilated heroes. I have clutched skulls and slept upon a bed of skeletons, and you have... you have... Hm? What have you done, hm?"

But the Comtesse didn't understand. What she described was exactly why Setsuna smiled, and closed her eyes serenely, having finally found what she was searching for.

The Comtesse bit into Setsuna's navel. By now blood ran down all Setsuna's many puncture wounds in thin and entangling lines and often the Comtesse would lift her head to lap at the lines while they still ran fresh, stopping the blood before they dripped to the floor below. But some of the blood still dripped, and a bloody splotch developed on the ground amid the shredded remnants of Setsuna's clothes, blotting out the form of her body—now nude save for her twitching sneakers—in the mirror.

Another bite. Another. Quicker, more frenetic, more ravenous, or perhaps simply more furious. The twin fangs drove into Setsuna's stomach, into her hip, her thigh, and she winced with each puncture, and her legs twitched. Her head swam and, dimly, she realized it swam because of blood loss. No wonder words eluded her, no wonder she could only unhinge her mouth and moan as the Comtesse slurped her femoral artery.

Her head lolled and she saw the Comtesse's fingers dig deep into the flesh of her stomach as the Comtesse's head, only a wisp of blonde hair hidden under a lacy beret-like hat, slid up between Setsuna's thighs. Setsuna squirmed as the tiny kitten tongue lapped there, as the sharp tips of her fangs touched tenderly. Her legs shifted as the Comtesse gripped her thighs and pried them apart, and for a moment she did not even notice how the long nails dragged away swatches of skin with the most minor movements. The only tragedy was that Setsuna's blood was drizzling onto the Comtesse's head, matting her hair and staining her hat, turning her face a solid red mask through which red eyes peered up for a short, strangely timid glance at Setsuna's face before she resumed her task and bit down hard.

"Ah—ah..." Setsuna muttered.

"Nngh, mmh, nnnnn~"

The Comtesse, still floating, kicked the empty air with her legs in a twitch of pure pleasure as she sucked the flesh pale white, sucking and licking, slurping, gulping. The tongue darted wherever it could reach, poking and pushing and prodding. Her previous flight of fury subsided as quick as it came, impetuous and willful, a perfect juxtaposition between sweet and savage, yes, something lovely.

Lovely, that was the word. Lovely. Worthy of being loved.

"W—why are you looking at me like that?" the Comtesse suddenly said, drawing back from Setsuna's crotch. Blood caked her face completely. "Scream, won't you? Beg! Pfah!"

Worthy of draining one's blood to sustain. Yes. Worthy of dying for. This cute little creature kept all alone in this castle because she too feared the thing scraping outside, this heroic exemplar of all the sad, empty people the world over, and because they were so sad and empty they would all send their lifeblood to her, flowing streaks across the sky like rainbows to converge on this remote castle in the Swiss Alps, streaks to sustain her sad and empty but cute life until the apocalypse finally erased everything. Setsuna wanted to say it, to tell her it, how this act of love was at its core also an act of hatred, but of course she sank well beyond speech now.

"Why won't you scream?!"

The Comtesse slashed her claws across Setsuna's stomach and the whole stomach unraveled. Out of the unfolding flap of skin streamed a jumbled series of intestines that flopped directly onto the Comtesse's cute little face and blotted it entirely in the squirming writhing of fleshy tubes. Setsuna, already dimming, lost control of herself; her bladder emptied, and a long stream of urine trailed all the way down to mix with the blood. And though some of the urine streamed onto the Comtesse's chest and stained her pretty ribbons, that was only part of the charm. For all her airs the Comtesse loved to debase herself so, loved to pull herself down from the status that imprisoned her. A true degenerate, just like them all, just like all the baseborn imbeciles.

Out of the bundle of guts the rustling head of the Comtesse emerged, having lost its hat, and holding a strand of intestine between both hands she slid her tongue across its length to scoop up the thick black gore accumulated there. She brought her lips to the filthy bowels and sucked them, sucking them clean, squeezing and kneading them with her small encrusted hands as if doing so might cause a new rush of blood to ooze out. One strand cleaned she moved to the next, frenzied, greedy, insatiable, and Setsuna only watched and smiled as she was unmade and swallowed.

As the thick congealed blood rolled away on the flick of the Comtesse's tongue the Comtesse happened to glance up and their eyes met and the Comtesse paused with the entrail still pinched lengthwise between her lips.

"Stop it," the Comtesse said, muffled. "Stop looking at me like that! Stop, stop, STOP!"

At the final STOP her eyes squeezed shut and she shrieked another tantrum-type shriek and the chains holding Setsuna by the wrists snapped and the two of them tumbled to the ground together. The chains, whipping, swept the crystal chandelier that hung in the center of the room and with a calamitous roar it came crashing down too. Hurtling, the still-screaming Comtesse buried her head in Setsuna's organs and wrapped her arms around her back and drilled her fingers into her spine.

They hit the floor with a thump, landing on the Comtesse, and a moment later the chandelier smashed a few feet away and all its thousand hanging mirrored components shattered and all its lights went out.

The entire chamber went dark, pitch black dark, as dark as the world outside.

After a few moments, the chandelier ceased settling on the shattered mirrored floor, and its echo subsided.

Setsuna rolled onto her back, but only because the icy body of the Comtesse pushed her off. Her intestines remained where they had fallen, and Setsuna felt hollowed out, entirely empty.

Everything became quiet. No more twinkling of glass shards. No breathing either; the Comtesse didn't breathe at all.

Then the Comtesse hissed: "Lights. Lights, you fools!"

Nothing moved in the stillness. No lights came.

"Lights, the lights!"

Lights. Lights, the lights, her voice echoed.

The unseen, masked attendants did not move. Their shoes did not squeak against the mirrored floor.

"Lights..." said the Comtesse, her voice trembling.

So weak she could barely feel herself in this black void, Setsuna reached out her hand and felt for the Comtesse's wrist.

At the end of the hall, the double doors squealed open. The Comtesse quivered, but Setsuna held her wrist.

"What is it, who is there?" the Comtesse cried. "Nobody else is allowed into my home! It's mine and mine alone. Lights, I said lights you daft fools, lights!"

After her shout disintegrated, the thing standing in the doorway moved forward, the only sound of its walk: A slow, steady scrape.

"No." The Comtesse's voice fell to a whisper. It wasn't even that. Setsuna didn't hear it. She felt it on her fingertips. "No. No."

The thing scraped.

"Nooooo!"

The Comtesse tried to peel away, but to where? There was nowhere now, all was finally dark. Setsuna held her wrist. When the Comtesse struggled, she only fell onto her back, and Setsuna could reach out her other hand and stroke her blood-clumped hair.

It was alright. It was alright now.

A scrape. Only a little closer. The Comtesse quivered, but Setsuna held her, Setsuna stroked her hair. Even in the dark, as a shape, she was still cute, and maybe now they would get their wish together, and be at peace.

The Comtesse seemed to shrivel. Or maybe she was always this small. She was always this small. But she shriveled still, shriveling into a little trembling bundle beside Setsuna. Setsuna's arms slid around her tiny body and held her.

A scrape. Only a little closer. The Comtesse whimpered.

"Shh," Setsuna said. She held her.

The Comtesse turned, wrapped her arms around Setsuna, and held her too. She buried her head into Setsuna's chest. She nestled into Setsuna's spilling guts.

"It," said Setsuna, or maybe she didn't say it, "is ending now."

They held each other. And the Comtesse ceased shivering.

A scrape.

[1] Youth in Asia lying flat.

[1] Youth in Asia lying flat.

Harper Praise curled in her corner, eight limbs clutching an eyeless skull. She squinted against the light that osmosed through her tightly-drawn blinds as the figure of Royce Ru jigged like a puppet before her. The entire living room, devoid of furniture, served as his stage.

"So I saw this video." His hands conjured the video. "It said that humans are living longer than ever. But the consequence of living longer is that people are actually sick for a greater percentage of their life. It was all about how we need to shift the focus from prolonging lifespan to prolonging healthspan. Healthspan. Good word—great word. The video said we have these damaged cells in us, called senescent cells, and we get more of them as we age. Because they're damaged, they also harm the healthy cells around them, which causes the diseases we get when we're older. Most cells die after a certain amount of time, it's normal, but these senescent cells are so damaged they're even missing the part of their DNA that tells them to die. They just linger, like zombies.—Zombie, now that's a word, from the African zumbi, which means fetish.—Anyway, these zombie cells are incapable of dying. They linger, forever, and slowly make you sick. But scientists think they've found a way to tell these senescent cells how to die. They tested it on mice and the mice lived longer with fewer diseases."

His hands reached into the breast pocket of his pistachio-colored polo and retrieved a small plastic package of spinach that he pried open. He funneled a few spinach leaves into his mouth and dropped one, which drifted to the vast plane of unbroken carpet and remained there unnoticed as he extrapolated into a new dimension.

"And I thought that was fascinating. I mean, it's the cells that forget how to die, the ones that live forever, that are killing us. Zombie. Undead. Literally, not-dead. Not 'alive,' simply not-dead. Living forever and never changing or growing or reproducing or being part of the natural selection that pushes us forward as an organism, or as a species. Because isn't it the exact same on a macrocosmic level? It's stagnant old beliefs and thought processes that refuse to die that harm our ability to advance. People are so focused on all this, all this useless stuff, about politics and religion and economics and art and just these structures of meaning we created in the past to organize our society. And I think: who cares? None of that matters now. We need to look forward, to the future. We need to think about outer space, and artificial intelligence, and the singularity. We need to teach those outdated forms of meaning how to die. Then we can ascend to the next level."

"Royce," said Harper, her head balanced on her shoulder, as her eyes flitted to the screen of her phone buried amid the bones to confirm that nobody had posted in the Consortium since last she checked, "thank you. For still being here." At least someone saw a future.

Royce didn't hear her. His eyes stared at the fallen spinach leaf in the middle of the floor, but he didn't see it either, seeing only the inside of his own mind as he chewed and chewed.

"Anyway," he finally said, "I've organized a group of people from Crux Calico for a little information-sharing session. You should come."

"Information-sharing session."

"Right. So many smart people with so many perspectives work at our company, don't you think? I figured we should start talking and sharing those perspectives. It's at a restaurant a few blocks away, I swung by to pick you up."

"So it's a dinner party."

Clearly, Royce preferred his more inventive and evocative term for it, because in the fading light he produced a rare frown.

Harper decided to go. The Consortium achieved temporary peace strongarmed by the wildly-swinging hammer of Somebody's Little Sister as she beat back an emotional frenzy regarding the death of—someone, the name never stuck in Harper's head. Cariscresco in particular instigated the mania, squirming on the ground and swallowing her own tail and spamming pornographic images of cartoonish characters devouring each other. Since Sister could not mute Cariscresco, she muted everyone else until Cariscresco grew tired of screaming alone and left.

Nowhere, of course, was Van Der Gramme. So Harper decided to go with Royce.

After a car ride during which Royce expounded on his video and described the relationship between senescent cells and Alzheimer's ("Memory. Même. Meme. Is a meme a collective memory?"), they parked in front of a Mediterranean place that was not, in fact, "a few blocks away," but in Santa Fe, at the bottom of the mountain. The sign lit up with a neon kebab and Harper shambled across the dry pavement never falling far behind Royce despite his head-in-clouds disregard for her spatial position relative to him. Somehow, something felt missing. Some part of herself, like a bone or a muscle. But she could not remember which.

"What day is it," she asked.

"It's—" Royce snapped out of his voice; he stopped walking and stared at the sky. Just when Harper expected he forgot the question, or never heard it, he said: "Friday."

"Oh."

"Friday. Day of Frigg. Frigg: wife of Odin, Norse goddess of love, analogue to the Latin Venus."

"Oh."

"One of those senescent cells in our society. Who knows anything about Frigg? Meaningless. How are we supposed to make meaning in our lives when even the names of our days no longer have meaning? We should rename it. Freeday. A day for freedom of thought, freedom of exploration, freedom of discovery."

"Freedom from work. Until Monday."

"True—true."

Freely, in the spirit of exploration and discovery, they entered the Mediterranean restaurant. Scent of incense swallowed them in the dusky lighting of an interior clogged by laughing bodies. A waiter carted a tray of still-flaming kebabs on sharp wooden sticks, followed by a dancing woman with an exposed belly who winked at Royce even though Royce never noticed her. Instead, Royce used the podium listing the specials to steady himself as he hoisted onto tiptoe and scanned the room. After a few moments, his blank face lit up and he pointed to an arbitrary splotch of the restaurant's murky geography. Without a word he drove into the mass of people and Harper only noticed a second later and started after him with more urgency than she had done anything in—as long as she could remember, admittedly not too long.

Happy people compressed her on all sides, lost in their carefree thank-god-its-Friday revelry, enjoying good food and good company, sharing with friends and family in a small patch of world shaped to look like an exotic realm of the imagination. Her arm snapped off at the shoulder, then her leg at the knee, brittle bones reduced to puffs of powder, until she lurched out of the writhing mass to a table half-booth and half-chairs with one chair already pushed out to accept her. Into it she disassembled, Royce Ru on her right, and on her left—

"Harper! Our hardworking Harper." A fat old man with a wisp of white hair and pink complexion, rattling an aluminum cane propped against the table with a mirthful bellow.

She knew this man. But she had forgotten him. It had been so long. He was—The name eluded.

"This is Mark," Royce said.

"Oh, she knows me," said Mark, more confident than merited. "Hello Harper! I didn't imagine I'd see you here this fine evening. You've met my wife." He gestured at a figure unseen behind his bulk, a figure who extended a veiny arthritic hand that seemed to emerge from his neck to wave timorously.

"Mark," said Harper. The name could have belonged to anyone.

"Mark's great." Royce absentmindedly took a menu the waitress handed him; another menu landed near Harper. "You know those senescent cells I was talking about? Well, Mark is, he's like, the complete opposite of that. You've been working at this company for how long? Thirty—"

"Twenty-seven years."

"Twenty! Seven! Years. I can't even imagine it. He's been here so long and yet he's constantly searching for new ideas, new ways of seeing the world. He's been to—how many countries?"

"One hundred and thirty-one," said Mark proudly. "Assuming of course you count Taiwan as a country, I understand there's contention about that with our friends in China." He laughed, as though this were a joke.

"He's constantly going out there, constantly finding this kind of, this kind of newness. Newness, the quality of being new. The quality. He takes that quality and brings it back and constantly renews this soulless, drone-ing corporation with that quality. I'm convinced that Mark is the superman keeping this entire business afloat. Seriously. This man will live forever."

Good-natured chuckle from Mark. "Yes. Bud Light please," he said to the waitress. "And I believe we're all ready to order. I'll have the pork kebabs, if you will. My wife and I will share it. Oh, and she'll take an iced tea."

"Very good, sir. And you sir?"

"The more I'm thinking, the more I realize the way to live forever is to constantly reinvent oneself," said Royce.

"Sir?"

"Renewal. Renew. Literally, to new again. I saw a video, about the Ise shrine in Japan. Every twenty years they completely dismantle it and build it again. And that got me thinking. If you replace all the senescent parts of yourself, those stagnant, lifeless cells that don't know how to do anything, not even die, and constantly replace it with new meanings—"

"Sir?"

"Royce," said Mark, "I believe the young lady is asking for your order."

"New—new meanings—Huh?" Royce blinked into the orange light that spilled out of the box lantern hanging over their table. He had been looking at nothing, and now he looked past the nothing at the silhouette of the waitress. "Oh. I'll take some rice."

"Rice, sir?"

"Right. One plate of rice."

"We only offer rice as a side, sir."

"As I was saying, meaning is key. Meaning. If you stay in one place your whole life, doing the same things over and over, you stagnate, and because everything is always the same there's no distinction, ergo everything blends together, ergo there is no meaning—"

"Your drink, sir?" said the waitress, evidently given up on pressing him regarding the side of rice.

"Rice, I told you already!"

"No, sir, I mean—your drink—"

"Drink?" Royce stared bewildered. "Drink? What?"

"I believe the young man will take a water," said Mark.

"Okay, thank you. Please call me if you need anything else."

The waitress turned to leave, but Mark reached out and snagged her by the wrist. "Oh, wait a moment. Miss Harper's order."

Harper had hoped nobody would ask her. She was about to blank in panic as the waitress's silhouette leaned imposingly her way but her mind cobbled a contingency plan. "Same as him," she said, pointing to Royce. She forgot what Royce ordered, but that was inconsequential.

Her ingenuity engendered only frostiness in the waitress. "And to drink."

"S, same," said Harper. "As him."

"Okay." The waitress abruptly left, and Harper exhaled relief.

A void existed in that moment, but only for that moment, this restaurant fantasyscape where a collection of belly-baring dancers climbed onto a stage and danced to a sudden spike of music volume that nonetheless failed to rise above the cacophony of families and friends enjoying one another's companies. And even this utter lack of vacuum, this too-clogged throat of stuff, needed more contributed to its pile, because Royce Ru knocked the table in annoyance and tossed up a hand. "I forgot what I was talking about."

It became clear at once that Mark had, too. "Well, that's alright. I'm quite pleased you could join us anyway, and bring such a lovely face as Harper's along as well. I had no idea you two were dating!"

"Dating," said Harper.

"It's on the tip of my tongue. I was saying something," said Royce.

"Oh, you don't need to pretend." Mark winked. "I know it's official company policy that coworkers not become, shall we say, entangled, but it's only natural. After all, I met the missus at Crux Calico myself. She coordinates with our international distributors."

Mark's wife bubbled on the skin of his neck.

"Dating," Harper said again.

Boy meets girl, the way it has always fucking been since the dawn of time. Who said that? Someone said it, the statement knifed her brain as it emerged fully-formed out of the white bath. Someone said that, she even heard the voice that said it, but she couldn't tell if the voice were male or female.

Onstage, two dancers undulated in perfect order, one behind the other, their bodies merging with only their arms spread apart, so that they transformed into a four-armed goddess.

Harper dug for that voice, dug with the same intensity that Royce exhibited as he dug for his lecture on senescent cells, and instead of a face or name she dug up a photograph of one hundred Thai soldiers in red jackets posing for a panorama picture. She gave up.

"Your secret is safe with me," said Mark at the tail end of a wry smile.

The waitress returned. One plate of pork kebabs still sizzling. Two plates of rice. Harper stared at the yellow pile of grains and tried to imagine what the forgotten past iteration of herself could have possibly been thinking. She sipped her water and blanched at the taste of a lemon wedge.

While Mark tucked his napkin into his collar and took up fork and knife, Harper and Royce crisscrossed vacant gazes.

"It's gone," said Royce. "I can't believe it."

"Well that's quite alright." Mark dissected a squarish segment of kebab plucked from its skewer. "No need to speak of matters if you're not ready. Say, I don't suppose either of you saw that video?"

Royce instantly plucked up. "Video?"

"Yes, indeed, on the news. The murder. Rather unpleasant business."

Already scraping at the interior of her skull for burnt-up fragments of the experiences that made her human, Harper sparked into semi-epiphany at the word murder. Murder, murderer, Cariscresco screamed slopping over the back of a sofa while Sister struck useless blow after useless blow with her hammer. Where's Gramme—murder! Murder! HE killed Mimmy. HE killed her!!!!!

"Mimmy," Harper said.

"Beg pardon?"

"Mimmy... Wowzers. Shot and killed in Los Angeles."

"No, I'm afraid that's not it. Wowzers you say? Unusual name."

"What video," said Royce.

"I am not quite sure what Miss Harper refers to, but the video I saw involved the death of a young African-American at the hands of the police. I believe it was in Detroit.—Minneapolis, that's it."

Something burbled, a little buzz at first indistinct from the layered strings of sounds, yet it contained a tinny musical timbre that if not in volume disturbed the natural order in feel. Out of the flesh on Mark's cheek half the head of a jowled woman with dyed but not-dyed-enough hair manifested. "Please dear, no politics at dinner."

A flare of Mark's nostrils and a dismissive wave sucked her back out of sight. "It's not politics, it's news. News, as in new, which is what makes it an interesting topic for conversation."

"Right!" Royce snapped his fingers. "Newness. Renewal. The replacement of old information with new information. We are beings constructed of information. Our identity is the sum total of our knowledge and experiences. If we look at that knowledge and those experiences as either healthy cells or senescent cells, and cut out the ones that forgot how to die—"

"I have too few memories left to kill any more," Harper said.

"But as I was saying," said Mark, "have either of you seen the video of the man killed by the police? Ghastly, absolutely ghastly."

Harper shook her head. Royce, mid-gesticulation, said: "Why would anyone watch something like that?"

"People are angry. Very angry. And I cannot say I blame them! Those officers need to be arrested, that's what I think."

"No, that's not what I'm talking about," said Royce.

But Mark was talking about it, and seemed determined to talk about it, as though the entire reason he pulled them into this vortex was to talk about it, as though he had seen this ghastly, absolutely ghastly video and grew so passionate that he would use any pretense, no matter how flimsy, to speak on it. Well, as Royce did with his videos, and Van Der Gramme did on art and philosophy, and Sister did, and Cariscresco, all these people who forced themselves willfully into her existence to imprint upon her blankness something of themselves, leaving a mark and confirming they were real. All of them, such stark and defined entities, such bounded forms, and yet so insecure in their corporeality they needed someone else, anyone else, upon which the waves of their voice could echo.

"The officer knelt, knelt with his knee mind you, on the neck of this young African-American male, for nine minutes, all while the man was saying he couldn't breathe. Even after he passed out. A bystander filmed the whole thing, mind you. And I could only think, being born as you may know in Rhodesia—"

"Who cares," Royce said flatly.

"Pardon?"

"Why does this matter?"

"Well I'm getting to that. I know firsthand how racism becomes ingrained in society—"

"Somebody died somewhere," said Royce. "I'm talking about something more important than that."

"Royce, what you've been talking about is very interesting, yes, but this is important too. The police—"

"What are the police? They don't matter, they don't exist. I've never seen a police. Have you?" Royce looked at Harper.

Mark stared at her too. Harper thought, but after a few moments she shook her head. "I can't remember."

"So it doesn't matter," said Royce. "Matter. The physical thing that is real in this world: matter. Things that don't matter, or rather things that aren't matter, those are the exact things that need to be purged."

"Just let me speak on this topic for a moment." Mark flashed a genial, inoffensive smile, a smile that puffed his rosy cheeks. "I promise I won't take long."

Royce shrugged, plucked a piece of broccoli out of his pocket, and bit into it, while his eyes detached from his skull and indeed the entire world. He had not touched his rice. Harper looked down at her likewise untouched plate and picked up her fork to reify her intent.

"As I was saying." Phlegm-clearing cough. "As I was saying, I was born in a country called Rhodesia. Perhaps neither of you have heard of it, it's Zimbabwe now, and it's in Africa, the southern part. Not to be confused with South Africa, which is indeed a country all its own, ha-ha, and where I have lived for some years as well."

He spoke directly to Harper, penned her in with his words, while Royce drifted aimless in the sea of the restaurant, buoyed by his broccoli into the arms of the four-armed dancer, who descended from its stage to mingle with the common guests.

"Now I must say, as a child, being white in a country like that, which at the time had a very particular power dynamic between the white race and the black race, I was taught some very nasty, very regrettable things. I know firsthand how one can simply believe such things without even questioning it. And once you believe something, everything you see you start to, so to speak, frame in a certain way to support those beliefs. It took me a long time to learn that what I knew as a child was not true. A long time. In many ways, I'm still making amends for that. But that's why when I see things like these, I know that something must be done. That this kind of behavior must not continue. Do you understand me, Harper?"

Harper understood that black people existed, but could not remember any. She felt like she should care, and was sad that she could not.

"I'm sorry," Mark said, drawing away, stifling a cough, shifting his body so that his wife appeared as a separate entity for the first time, a mousey and hunched lady. "I apologize, I do recognize it was perhaps rather rude of me to force this to your attention. I simply feel very strongly about it. I do hope you forgive me, Royce. I did not mean to interrupt you."

Without looking, Royce shrugged. "It's whatever. Um." He rose from his chair. "Excuse me a moment."

"Certainly," said Mark, as Royce melded into the crowd. "I do have the tendency to ramble, it's true. I hope it doesn't bother you, Harper. But please, watch the video I mentioned. The name is—oh, what was the name?"

"How am I supposed to know!" said Mrs. Mark.

"Well, the name's no matter, it's all over the news. I'm sure if you look online you'll find it. Please watch it, Harper."

Did Harper want to watch a video of someone dying? Strangely enough, she felt that question didn't matter. She took her first bite of rice, but all the grains filtered through the tines so she only bit metal. She wished she had a spoon.

"Oh! Yes, and one other thing," said Mark. "It's quite fortunate I saw you, actually. I just received word shortly before this little gathering. From Sarah, I mean."

"Who?"

"Sarah! Sarah VanBuskirk. My, you can be quite silly sometimes."

Harper still had no idea, although the name reminded her of Van Der Gramme. She declined to probe further and instead nodded and said "Oh!"

"Sadly, the news is rather dire. I knew she had been dealing with illness, since she was out of the office so often, but it seems it's gotten much worse of late. There's no easy way to say it, so I'll just get out with it: It's cancer. Brain cancer. Rather advanced at that."

He paused, and allowed this grievous blow to land against Harper's impassive, formless self. Because Harper did not know who Sarah VanBuskirk was, the news of her advanced brain cancer meant nothing. She was, as Royce said about the black man who died in the video, somebody dying somewhere, and somebody was always dying somewhere, and some day Harper Praise would be that somebody, unless she forgot how to do it.

For the sake of politeness, she put on what she hoped was an appropriate face. The twisting of her lips and eyebrows felt unnatural, but it was the best she could muster.

"I didn't want to ruin the dinner, which is why I said nothing about it before, but I figured now's probably the best time, since it's not something young Mister Royce need worry over." His glance fell on the voided chair. "I'll be driving up to Sarah's house tomorrow to pay her a visit. You ought to come as well, Harper."

Existing in this restaurant already drained Harper's social stamina for at least a week; the thought of doing even more threatened to erase the spark that maintained her body's control and drop her face-first onto the table.

"I mean it, Harper. I've heard poor Sarah is bedridden now. I fear if we don't visit soon, we may not get another chance."

There was, of course, no other option, once someone exerted their will upon her. "Okay," she said.

Mark placed his hand on his aluminum cane and sighed, suddenly introspective. "A rather unfortunate time for our humble team at Crux Calico, no? First Miss Papimon, and now Sarah..."

The name Papimon surged through Harper like a bolt and the decomposing parts of herself electrified into a painful and solid shell. That name meant something, she knew it did, if she could just dig, if she could just remember—

She remembered. And, remembering, she turned to ash inside again.

The dinner continued for what may have been thirty minutes, or an hour, or a week, during which at the bidding of his wife Mark turned to more innocuous topics such as the pomegranates growing in his garden and some of the exciting new features in the next software update that his friend in the such-and-such division told him about. Time passed, and Harper ate her rice, and she ate Royce's rice, and Royce never returned.

She paid for him when it finally came time to pay.

Filing, shambling with every other Friday reveler out of the incense and into the dry irradiation of a New Mexico night, Harper suspected she would be forced to hitch a ride home with Mark and Mrs. Mark, understood tacitly that Royce Ru had stood up and exited from her life and that after a few fading moments she would forget he ever existed save for a dim sense that something was missing, the same sense that swallowed the name Papimon, but instead she saw him across the pavilion meandering back and forth holding a cup out of which he scooped white dollops with a spoon. She pointed him out to Mark and hurried away with a half-wave before Mark could assault her with any more offerings of garden-fresh fruit and because of his cane and because of the glut of similar zombies surrounding them he could do nothing but howl a hurried goodbye into the moonless night.

Royce paced in front of an ancient adobe church and in his hand he held a carton of yogurt. His spoon shone silver. As she approached he said, without seeing her, "Does anyone even use this thing?"

"The spoon?"

"This." He pointed his spoon, holding a thick swirl of yogurt that dripped off and splattered the stone steps, at the church.

"I don't know. Why did you leave the dinner?"

"To explore."

His exploration had taken him approximately fifty feet from the restaurant.

"Let's go that way." His spoon shifted direction and aimed down a long road that led from the pavilion into an increasingly darkening avenue, where the light ebbed into a few sporadic streetlights showing yellow circles with nothing but black between them.

Like the traces that remained on a palimpsest something came back to her, not because she ever could have recognized it on its own, but because the thing that replaced it followed its exact form. Papimon Jaengsirirungrote crawled up her back and poked her head over her shoulder and Harper shivered.

"Nothing is that way," she said.

"You won't know until you try. That's discovery. We're nothing if we're not spontaneous, if we don't strike out and replace our senescent cells with fresh new ones. Come on."

"I already know what's down there." Trees—A wood. A wild dog to ravage her. A wild dog to tear her to pieces. "I've gone that way before."

She spoke hopeless Royce would hear, but he stopped midstep with an "Oh" that sounded like someone forced it out by punching his gut. He scooped another bite out of his cup, swallowed it, and tapped the back of the spoon against his temple. "Then you stay. I'll go by myself."

His footsteps resumed and she lurched forward and swept at his arm except her fingers seemed to swipe right through him and only his pistachio polo sleeve fluttered and he continued onward. "Wait," she said, stumbling, suddenly and vibrantly aware he would disappear, vanish forever exactly like—like Papimon. Aware another silvery strand would silently snap and another part of herself would be left to hang limp. "Wait, you don't have to. We can just go back. It doesn't have to be like this. We can just go back and do it at my place, or your place, wherever."

But he didn't stop walking, didn't look back, only scooped into his yogurt and swallowed as he rounded the first corner past the church and a distant Chinese restaurant manifested on a faraway hill, presided over by a great glittering Buddha that occupied the space behind Royce's head like a halo.

"Royce," she said. "Royce! Royce. Don't leave Royce. Royce." She kept stumbling. Her feet felt like dream feet, feet that can't walk. The trace of desperation in her voice horrified her but it was quickly becoming less a trace and more the standard timbre. Lines tracing erased lines and the thing that she forgot returned like a fantasy to horrify her. "Royce! Royce, please! I don't have—I don't have many people left."

Royce strode with serene grace toward the darkened street.

"ROYCE!"

His head turned. On it he wore a smile, so pleasant and affable. He pressed his palms together in the form of a prayer and made a slight bow. "Sawatdee khrap, Harper Praise. Or is it sawatdee kha? I forget."

She fell to one knee and he kept walking, into the dark, carrying with him a glow as Harper blinked and struggled to see.

[2] Entartete Kunst.

[2] Entartete Kunst.

Temperatures, sunken subzero, kept all named members of Graham McGill's household constrained to the foyer even more than the ghosts usually did, because in the center under where the chandelier used to hang they had placed a furnace that Dogshit and El-Marghichi found on a foray deeper inside the manor. For now, wreckage fed it, stuff uprooted from the part of the floor the chandelier shattered when it fell. No need yet to use their other belongings.

Van Der Gramme, which was the only person he could be now—even though there was no difference—could stand the cold, but he could no longer stand the silence, so his art station he moved to the mixing table amid the toppled and half-emptied bottles and three overfilled ashtrays into which he continued cramming stubs of cigars for which he indebted himself to Dogshit immediately after settling his past debts.

In burning catatonia he traced lines on a pad.

Dogshit trounced back and forth before the flare of the furnace, which spewed ash up around him but only slowly thawed the icicles that dangled from the brim of his fast food visor. Any time he slouched he ratcheted himself back upright as if perfectly conscious of every alignment within his body. One hand cut a trenchant lateral arc, while his other kept falling to the holster on his hip.

"And we are mad," he said, his voice stately, oratory. "Yes, we are mad indeed." Like a preacher, like a community organizer. "We are fed up. We are tired."

A caterpillar stirred in a dark crevice under a mound of books. Fletch poked his head out of his parka, assessed the situation, retreated. El-Marghichi furiously tapped his phone.

"How many times?" Dogshit asked. "How many times must we say this? How many times, and how often, must we say: We are tired. We are mad. Because from my perspective, saying these things no longer matters. How many times must a black man or woman lie dead and we are denied even the catharsis of justice?"

The remarkable thing was, Van Der Gramme noted dully, that this was simply how he spoke. Because he was mad. Anyone could tell by looking at him, his shifty realignments, his thumbing of his revolver, his barely-contained trembles that spread from the fine muscles of his face to his fingers. But that was all Van Der Gramme managed to care.

He was creating some art. Art nobody paid him to create. Art none of his followers wanted to see, art they would in fact probably despise. It was not art Van Der Gramme wanted to create either. He knew looking at it—after days and days and days and days of sleepless shivers—he knew it was fucking shit. In concept it was shit. It was the kind of shit that technique only emphasized as exactly what it was. The idiom of the polished turd, which on its podium shining bright looked all the more disgusting than when mingled with garbage like it deserved. Gramme had spent 120 of the past 168 hours on this thing. His eyes screamed behind his sunglasses. His nose had bled twice. So many hours on a single work of art, drawing and undrawing the same lines, drawing perfect lines and undrawing them in listlessness only to draw them later even more perfect and transfigure the work an even more categorical uselessness. Creating whole figures out of blobs and shapes, constructing them with fully-fledged poses and gestures foreshortened to perfection, only to deconstruct them back into nothing. Whole humans made and unmade, whole 24-hour periods spent arranging some beautiful mathematical ratio of fecal matter only to erase and redo it with even more ingenious organization. Digging himself deeper into this hole of shit with each improvement.

"How mad, I ask. How mad must we be? How mad before the people we think can do anything about it even smell strong enough the stench of our rage to lift their shoe and see us smeared along the underside?" said Dogshit.

So why do it, the astute observer may ask. Well! Van Der Gramme, always so personable, always so eager to delve into twenty-minute digressions on his exact perspective because—let's be honest; this is a No Bull Zone here—his perspective is the only perspective he ever cares to elucidate even to himself, this Van Der Gramme is ready to explain. You see, it's all so simple. Nobody wants this art, nobody is paying for it, its creator hates it, every stroke of the stylus brings him pain, the backs of his eyeballs have worms wriggling in them, he's inhaled so much smoke it's a miracle he still breathes, and yet this work of art is being made nonetheless! Because? Because nothing else can be created until it is. Like a blockage deep in his intestine, a hard coal of shit trapped hidden within the body. A shit he simply must shit.

"I do not know about you, brothers. I do not speak for you, I can only speak for myself. But I am so mad that I am tired of being mad. Tired of being mad! Tired of sitting here and talking about it. Tired of saying the same shit every damn time in just a prettier and prettier package cuz I have gotten so practiced and good at saying it."

So what is it, Van Der Gramme, what's the work of art?

Only a little while more. He traded body and soul and finally it was coming together, his finest work, his masterpiece one might say if endowed with ample enough irony. It amazed him how far the visual arts had degenerated that he could be the best artist alive and still create an image where he erased the best work he ever did to do it better, but then again was it truly a cultural degeneration or simply a dispersal, an entropic heat death of artistic quality in which talent instead of being constrained into a few distinct suns bled into the immensity of space to be the same lifeless lukewarm everywhere. What could someone say was good? Or bad. The reckoning was that those distinctions had broken down the way state did, religion did, family did, that art was no special exemplar of meaning in this world, it just had the chance to flare up once and a while and trick its observers into believing it. After all. Some people somewhere still went to church. Some people somewhere still saluted the American flag, or the Chinese one, or the fucking Zimbabwean one. Some people still cared for their fathers and mothers and sons and daughters. Not many. Not all. The statistics depicted this dwindling drain. But nobody was going out and surveying what people thought about art, did they? All simply a series of niches, a harmonious disunity in this abstracted and omnipresent postmodernity.

Van Der Gramme may have his followers. And another artist hers. And Damien Hirst his with his diamond skull, and Shirou Katsumata the video game designer his, and a fantasy author may have thousands waiting for the next installment of an endless series, and to each individual it may seem as though these products of human creativity supplanted their need for overarching meaning, but in the end they were simply individuals, able to muster in bands of a few thousand, antlike compared to the population of the world.

"The time," said Dogshit, "for being mad is past. Now is the time for madness. Now is the time for action. Now is the time to stop watching these videos and saying something about it and now is the time to do something about it. Cuz as long as we sit around talking, nothing fucking matters, you hear me my brothers? You understand my drift brothers? Now is the time to come together. To get out on the fucking street together. Enough of us they cannot ignore us, you hear me? Enough of us they have no choice but to get fucking scared, you hear me? Enough of us that it fucking means something!"

"Fuck," said El-Marghichi. "Fuck—shitty fuck. Fuck!"

Dogshit whirled on him. "What was that? What was that, huh? You say something, mother fucker? You say something?"

He advanced on El-Marghichi squaring up his shoulders and affecting some semblance of height even though his body was more square than rectangular. El-Marghichi didn't even look at him. His bloodshot eyes were less than an inch from his phone screen. He didn't look until Dogshit strode close enough to slot into that tiny aperture, and even then he only looked up with annoyance and made a brisk flick of his hand to shoo Dogshit away. But Dogshit was on him.

"You wanna say something? I bet you fucking do. I bet you have your comments all queued up. I already know what you plan to say. He should have complied, is that it? He should have complied, is that what you plan to say, you puppet mother fucker, say the same shit every time mother fucker?"

El-Marghichi stared up at him, glanced at Gramme, glanced back. "Hnngh? The fuck?"

"Bet you think pigs should just be allowed to kneel on a man's neck for nine minutes till he suffocates to death huh? Huh?"

Although Dogshit kept his hands straight at his sides, the chrome glint of his gun could not be ignored.

"I have no fucking, fucking," El-Marghichi squinted, trying to remember the word, "no fucking thought, no fucking—idea—what the fuck you are saying. The Consortium—"

"I am saying, friend, that the police are murdering black men on the streets for no reason and nobody is doing anything about it."

"Oh yeah? They murder you, hum?"

It wasn't the most incendiary comment, at least in the catalog of dickish trolls El-Marghichi might make, but Dogshit clearly wanted the fight, wanted some way to vent his otherwise impotent rage at the death of a man he never knew by another man he would never meet because of some unseen meaning that united them. The gun came out of its holster and the barrel pushed against El-Marghichi's cranium, hard enough to ratchet his neck to a forty-five degree angle. Van Der Gramme observed these proceedings, a brief diversion from his work, well aware Dogshit would not fire no matter what ill-advised idiocy El-Marghichi spouted, that the gun still had its safety on, but that if El-Marghichi did mutter something snarky he might get a few teeth loosened by the butt.

Apparently not of Van Der Gramme's mindset, Fletch hurried to extricate himself from his cocoon and shambled across the foyer. "Hey, hey now."

El-Marghichi's eyes shifted to view the barrel of the revolver. He maintained the same expression of blasé annoyance until a glint of recognition struck him.

"Oh," he said. "Smith & Wesson Model 29?"

"That's right. .44 Magnum. Strongest handgun in the world. I would not go around strapped with anything less."

"Not bad," said El-Marghichi. "You are wrong, not the strongest, but the recoil, much better than stronger guns. Power-to-recoil, good ratio. Capacity though—tch-tch-tch."

"Hey now, hey now." Fletch tried to raise his hands in a stance of placation but could only lift them a few inches before they were too far from the relative warmth of his parka and he had to retract. "What the fuck's this shit bro. What the fuck bro."

"Dirty Harry eh?" said El-Marghichi. "Feel lucky punk? Eh?"

El-Marghichi looked like he was the one feeling lucky and he had cause to feel that way because between the disarming remark and Fletch's advance Dogshit's blood cooled. He lowered the gun.

"That is correct. Consider it my own version of cultural appropriation. Taking back the gun of the most famous pig in history."

"My cousin, in Switzerland," said El-Marghichi. "Collected sheet like that. We love guns in Switzerland, love them more than America. He had a, ah, SIG SG 550, you know, Swiss gun. Rifle. He couldn't shoot for sheet though. You licensed?"

Although he normally stumbled over English, he handled the jargon well enough for Van Der Gramme to wonder how he never knew El-Marghichi was a gun otaku. Van Der Gramme once drew a SIG 550, except instead of a gun it was an anime girl who turned into a gun. Anime girls turning into military hardware was a strangely prolific subgenre. Was Sister the one who commissioned the SIG girl? So long ago—could have been anyone.

"Course I'm licensed. Had to go through hell to get it legally. Luckily I still got a clean record despite everything. A man has got to be able to protect himself, that's one of our fundamental rights. That's how you know the government is fucked. Republicans arm the pigs and Democrats disarm the people. Same coin, different side. The black man has got to defend himself from tyranny more than anyone else in this damn nation."

"Bro," said Fletch. "Bro, can we not, you know, wave our fucking guns around? Holy shit bro."

Dogshit cast one last glance at his gun and holstered it. The curdling pitch of his fury dropped, but he still looked at El-Marghichi like he wasn't sure whether to punch him, or like he got somehow tricked into not punching him. "Don't be a goddam asshole next time," he muttered.

"Bro. I get you're mad and all bro, but their friend just got killed out in LA, they ain't got time to worry about this shit."

"Oh, that is all it is to you?" Dogshit whirled on him and Fletch responded by backpedaling immediately. "Just some shit. Just an inconvenience. Is that it? Cannot be bothered. Cannot be assed. Is that it—bro?"

"I didn't fucking say that bro, but it's just like, bro, I got shit to do, we all got shit to do. We all got our own lives to worry about bro. I got an exam." Fletch, who had already retreated halfway down the foyer, indicated his towers of textbooks in the cranny under the stairs.

"Everyone worrying about their own lives is why nothing ever gets done. It is why nothing ever changes, my brother. Some day we have got to wake up and realize that if we all worried a little more about each other then we wouldn't have to worry so much about ourselves."

"Aw come on bro don't hit me with that fucking after school special kumbaya shit, that fucking power of friendship crap, nobody in the world is gonna study for my fucking test for me. You ain't fucking MLK or Malcolm X bro, give it a goddam rest already. You're just you. You're Dogshit."

Dogshit raised a fist, stared, and lowered the fist. "Can you stop fucking calling me that already? Call me by my real fucking name."

"Sure thing bro."

"Fuck this shit," said Dogshit. "I'll go talk to my fucking self."

He tromped off, to the corridor that led into the deeper, darkened part of the mansion, where Dogshit possibly kept a room. He stopped under the archway, turned back, and gave them all glances of contempt in turn, first Fletch (back turned as he headed for his hovel), then El-Marghichi (hunched over his phone again), and finally Van Der Gramme, the only one looking back.

Van Der Gramme smiled sadly. How low, base, and futile to stake one's self on politics, on contemporary news headlines, daily cycles of information in a world so choked with it, and yet it was exactly what Van Der Gramme was doing, it was exactly what contaminated the screen of his new Cintiq. This work of art was Van Der Gramme spouting inertly a desperate anger just as Dogshit preached his gospel to a shattered choir.

Dogshit disappeared. The work of art remained, almost finished, only a few touches left, which was strange because before Dogshit's quickly dimmed fury Van Der Gramme had expected he might continue creating it for the next 100 hours, might delete it in its entirety and start anew on the same subject, a perpetual slavery to this horrible, insipid idea, this work of hackery, this contemporary navel-gazing that only mattered to people who wanted to look at themselves. But he looked down and it seemed nearly finished. And as he looked at it, he thought: I'll be free soon. Free to return to his own little niche. He would return with violence. He tired of vanilla romance or even lurid spitroasts. Only brutality would suffice.

The work of art he had created was, in its subject matter, brutal. It depicted, of course, the death of Mimmy Wowzers, in a restaurant in Beverly Hills. Van Der Gramme had to create it, had to, could not have created anything else until he created this, it consumed him, and only now was that steel grip loosening over his mind. The conceit was so facile it made him sick. It was the most unimaginative, on-the-nose idea one could possibly conceive, and his self-awareness of that fact in no way ameliorated its impact. He, of course, used himself as the model for Mimmy Wowzers' assassin.

There. There you go. It's out now, the secret's out, and isn't it terrible? Isn't it such a fucking chucklefuck? GET THIS! Van Der Gramme drew himself as the trench coat-wearing lunatic who popped Mimmy with one of those .44 Magnum rounds Dogshit and El-Marghichi loved so much. Himself! What a bold fucking move, right? What a genius, never-before-dreamed move of pure artistic power!

Never mind how shlock it was to artistically render a historical event that happened in the so recent past. Some Manet shit, some Execution of Emperor Maximilian shit, the shit that seemed cash money only to those incipient proto-modernists, those men standing firm on the precipice of a bottomless pit. But to have the sheer gall, the sheer ego to place himself as one of the principal actors! God! For the love of GOD man, what the fuck are you doing Van Der Gramme, what the fuck are you possibly doing?

He knew it was awful. Believe him. Please believe him, everyone. Please forgive him for doing something so awful because he knew all along it was awful. Final aegis of the hack artist—"Bad on purpose." He never wanted to be bad, but if he didn't get this ossified shit out of his system he would never draw again.

The work of "art" contained thirteen figures, because if you have thirteen figures everyone can point out how that's the same number as in Da Vinci's Last Supper, which intrinsically means something or at least seems to. Van Der Gramme started work on it without any of his usual rituals, without even going on 4All and roleplaying a scenario. He read three different news accounts of Mimmy's murder, which turned out to be more research than necessary because all three mentioned only the same useless non-information, that Mimmy was shot by a lone gunman at an open patio outside a Chinese restaurant in Beverly Hills, paramedics had taken her to such-and-such hospital where she was pronounced dead on arrival, and then some fluff describing Mimmy's shitty cartoon and the controversy that surrounded it due to its trans themes. Oh, did you know Mimmy was trans? The news sure let you know. In fact, she was no longer Mimmy Wowzers. She was merely "Trans Creator."

As for her killer, no name was released, no information beyond a vague description of a man in a big coat who the other diners thought was a hobo until he pulled out his gun. His target was clearly Mimmy, although no motive had been established. He was currently in a coma due to head trauma. None of the articles explained how he received this head trauma.

One other person, a waiter, had been hit by a stray bullet, but he was in stable condition.

From those facts alone Van Der Gramme crafted his anti-masterpiece.

An ornate veranda served as frame for the action. Three thin posts supporting its tarp awning divided the image into tall, evenly-spaced quadrants that trained the eye to observe up-and-down rather than left-to-right. Van Der Gramme imagined the work printed larger than life and hung in some museum where the viewer would be forced to start from the bottom and crane their necks to see to the top. Bottom to top, that was the way he wanted the eye to look.

The bottom functioned as an appropriate base because it was where the majority of the figures were clustered, most of them sprawled, kneeling, crouched, or half-crouched. At the bottom right, the waiter forgotten as collateral damage had fallen halfway through a shattered plate-glass window leading into the restaurant proper, covered and surrounded by a million tiny glittering shards of glass that on their own had taken Van Der Gramme an entire day's worth of hours to fashion one after another. These shards refracted light in a diagonal direction upward, toward the focal point (more on that later, we must dissect this image the way the eye was meant to see it), creating an incandescent spotlight filled with an absurd, dazzling rainbow of colors.

A female figure crawled toward the writhing waiter with arm outstretched. A third figure knelt beside her, one hand covering his head, the other reaching to pull her back, as in her attempt to aid the injured waiter she was crawling from behind an overturned table, putting her at risk. The arrangement of these three figures told a miniature story in its own right and created a slope (each figure raised a little higher than the last) that aligned with the diagonal spotlight cast by the shattered glass. A fourth figure, turned with his back to the viewer, rose to hold the upturned table in place like a shield, his head lifted just high enough that his eyes could peek over. This figure served to transition from the other three to the main action.

Mimmy Wowzers stood directly in the center. At the current height at which the eye looked, only her legs appeared, tall legs that when compared to the cowering figures transformed her into a giantess. Another figure, to her left, was crawling up the length of her leg as though in an attempt to pull her to safety, but it had the visual language of a mourning woman clinging to the body of Christ during deposition, because why the fuck not, why not delve right into the hackneyed Christ imagery, this is not an exercise in subtlety. Another figure was compressed into the position of a runner, turned toward the viewer as though attempting to flee the scene by bursting into the real world. And, completing the slope of figures, the leftmost end of the digital canvas contained someone curled into a ball, hands over their head, eyes shut to everything beyond them.

Overall it formed a triangle, slopes on both ends leading up to the giantess Mimmy, but the geometric perfection of this shape was broken by the only other standing figure, that of the gunman, who jutted between the third and fourth quadrants awkwardly shunted into the background and with his heavy overcoat flaring out like a big black tumor on the otherwise omnicolored scene. A good fourth of the canvas contained the previously-described spotlight of color refracted off the glass shards, and the entire background, everything beyond the veranda and the lavish Beverly Hills mansions, was a bright blare of orange and red and yellow, a sky lit by distant hills literally aflame. A nauseating mess of color, the kind of colors Mimmy preferred in her own art, cartoon colors, a toon world transposed onto a real one, because—as Van Der Gramme always ensured—every figure, every background detail, every chair and table was drawn with maximum fidelity to the veneer of realism that felt real even when it merely exceeded reality. But the gunman was black and Mimmy, in her uniform, white, even her wig washed out to a subtle offwhiteness by contrast to the frenzied colors consuming the planet past her.

A few other figures dotted the landscape to give some dimension to the pat geometric construction, and far past the veranda, across the street, in front of a Swiss watchmaker's store with a gruesomely ornate façade, a single small figure stood and watched everything, their face only an impassive smudge. But the centerpiece was Mimmy.

Tall, white, all elements of the work's construction building up to her, she beamed like a Neoclassical Napoleon. Except she was turned around. She didn't face the viewer, she faced the gunman, which put her at a foreshortened angle that left only a snatch of her face visible, the unscarred eye and a bit of nose. The gunman's face, Van Der Gramme's face (no sunglasses), emerged from its shadow body fully defined, wearing an expression of confusion at how Mimmy Wowzers continued to stand tall despite the smoking barrel of his outstretched gun and also at the wound that phantasmagorically manifested upon his skull, spewing a ribbon of blood that dispersed without boundary into the flaming deluge of color consuming the world beyond Mimmy, a ribbon of blood like a vacuum was sucking out his brains.

And that left only Mimmy Wowzers herself, central pillar, her white uniform breaking apart into the puff of gunsmoke flaring laterally around her. Tall, always so tall, and in every conceivable way ascended to godhead by the painting's construction, even though in truth Mimmy was the figure Gramme had drawn and redrawn the most, built and rebuilt only to tear down and form again, a thousand Mimmies vivisected and liquefied to reform within a new mold.

This final Mimmy stood tall. Like Manet's Emperor Maximilian, the firing squad's rifles puffing smoke but he himself still standing under a frankly comical sombrero. Mimmy stood tall—but only because of the chaos of the environment around her. Any closer inspection revealed one leg to be buckling, and the fingers around the head of her cane loosening, and a circle of blood forming on her back that one might at first take for a glint from the glittering glass. One foot in high-heeled leather boot already starting to leave the ground, the moment prior to falling.

In fact, she shouldn't be standing, if one carefully observed the position of her feet, she was levitating, or falling, depending on your perspective, ascending or descending. And that was where the painting's final visual trick came to play, the last cloyingly sentimental aspect in a long line of them. Because the posts that held up the veranda were positioned in such a way that they seemed to extend from the three most prominent figures: The fallen waiter, the assassin, and Mimmy. They extended from them like the strings of puppets.

And that was it. That was all Van Der Gramme had created in all that time, and nobody needed to tell him what cheap and unsubtle dross it was, what degenerate tabloid sensationalism, or even mention its unoriginality in the landscape of art history, because Édouard Manet already laughed him into oblivion.

But sitting here, looking at his work and taking it apart in his mind like this, Van Der Gramme could finally see that it was finished. That its hold upon him had been relinquished.

Done.

He closed his eyes and felt the radiation pulse against the backs of his eyelids.

No. Not done. One last thing.

He had to post it.

That was part of the ritual. He had hoped it might not be. That it might be enough merely to make it. No. It had to be posted too, like all his other works of art, no matter how sordid their contents.

It was, in fact, the most important part.

His eyes cracked open. He exported the file and its layers into all the requisite formats and sizes, thumbnail and full, following a rote series of movements long since ingrained because—he realized epiphanic—he had been doing this exact thing for almost fifteen years with no differences, no development except a gradual plateauing of numbers on his social media and an ability to monetize via donations that became available not because of his own doing but the inexorable forward tug of technology, that ultimate anti-Malthusian invention of humanity.

He entered the Consortium, met by shredded wallpaper and overturned furniture and shattered wine bottles but the same serene quietude fostered by windows staring into a colorful space. In slippers he drifted to the room for his art exhibitions. Methodical, mindless, able by sheer habit to bypass any trepidation he may have had, he pushed back the previous work and posted this one. He left no comment and turned to post the same image on his social media accounts. Because it wasn't pornographic and his patrons weren't paying to see it, he could post it anywhere. He would post it everywhere.

In the doorway stood Somebody's Little Sister.

"Finally. You're fucking here. God. You need to ban Cariscresco. Need need NEED. Or fucking, take away their mod powers."

"Later," Gramme muttered.

"That fucking psychopath is trashing the place Gramme. And I can't. Ban them. Because. They're a mod."

"Later, later." He tried to pass her in the doorway.

She blocked his path with her hammer. Useless gesture. He could disperse her with a thought.

"You may not give a fuck about this place. But I do. PLEASE."

"Later."

Sister knew she possessed no power over him and stood aside. She glanced past his shoulder at the artwork posted in the exhibition hall, swallowed it whole in a single glance, and scoffed. "Wow. That's the diarrhea you're shitting out now?"

"Later, later." Into the hallway he shuffled.

"We didn't fucking kill her Gramme. You're jacking yourself off again."

"Later."

"We didn't fucking kill her. You want to wish you did. But that's just to make yourself more important. Gramme. FIX THE FUCKING CONSORTIUM. Gramme!"

He was going. "Later, later."

"I know you Gramme. I know you and fucking, all your dipshit tendencies. I see right through you. You can't say you killed her. You didn't. Neither of us did a fucking thing. You hear me! FIX IT GRAMME! I NEED THIS PLACE GRAMME!"

Gramme was gone.

[3] Everything evolving into crabs.

[3] Everything evolving into crabs.

Next moment, Harper discovered herself in the passenger seat of Mark's minivanesque vehicle as ponderosas passed in machine gun whooshes beyond the window against which her head rested.

Why was she here?

Where was she going?

She didn't remember. Her face melted against the glass. They drove deeper into the mountains, beyond Los Alamos, to a world only of pines. To the mountains beyond mountains.

They passed a sign with a cartoon bear in a hat and jeans whose belt buckle said SMOKEY. Beside the bear, the sign read: FIRE DANGER [EXTREME] TODAY! PREVENT FOREST FIRES. The word EXTREME appeared on a red panel that looked like it could be removed and replaced.

The bear, who held a shovel spade down, stared straight through Harper, being more real than her, and then he was gone.

Mark was speaking:

"—the little ones, of course, they simply have to watch, oh, what was it called, I believe it was—Trolls 2. Yes, that's the name of the movie. Daddy daddy they say, we want to watch Trolls. But they mean Trolls 2, I made that mistake, trust me you do not want to make that mistake. I tell them, but you've already seen Trolls 2 today. They don't care. They want to watch it again. And then again the next day: Trolls 2. I've seen that movie more times than I can count and I could not tell you a word of what it's about. Trolls, I suppose. There are indeed trolls."

Harper nodded, unaware whether she had been nodding at previous parts of this conversation, her nods not mattering.

"I need them to watch anything, anything other than that bloody movie. I cannot stand it. I will go completely bonkers if I must watch that movie one more time. Of course with this bloody pandemic they're all cooped up at home, and who should have to deal with it but the missus and me. I'm not even the one stuck there and I have cabin fever. Surely there must be some other children's entertainment that exists. Surely, anything! You wouldn't happen to know of something, would you Harper?"

A neuron fired somewhere, a thought that maybe if she tried hard she might unearth it, a children's entertainment, a show about—angels, demons. No, it didn't matter.

"Ah. We've arrived," said Mark.

The vehicle died in front of a metal gate. Past the gate a long driveway wound its way up the slope until it reached a castle nestled between the mountains.

This, too, felt familiar: like a strip of gooseflesh on her arm.

Mark retrieved his aluminum cane from a custom notch between the front seats and exited the vehicle; Harper followed.

A panel beside the gate buzzed when Mark pressed its button. "It's us," he said, and the gate opened automatically. Mark briefly considered returning to his minivan and driving up the path to the castle proper, but shrugged with a casual "Oh I could use the exercise" and started scraping his way on his cane.

Harper followed.

The castle was not a castle but a house. A house comprised of basic geometric shapes, cubes and rectangles, straight lines and perpendicular. Somehow these rigid forms constructed something sleek and stylish and cool, if imposing.

On a square patio they waited in front of two shiny doors. The doors opened and a black woman met them, her face seared by wrinkles. "You must be Mark and—Harper." Funereal formality in a stately voice. "Sarah told me about you both. I'm her partner—"

"We've met," said Mark, "three Christmases ago I do believe."

"Oh yes, I remember. How could I forget." And she chuckled, although it was a chuckle so clutched by her wrinkles as to lack all mirth.

Mark, in his way, cajoled the woman into more small talk, and Harper's head lolled onto her shoulder, and time passed, and Harper either never learned the woman's name or else heard it and failed to register. It was not even an issue of memory.

The woman invited them inside and told them she would ask Sarah if she felt strong enough to see them. Harper closed her eyes; she could drift through this entire social happenstance in complete silence, allowing Mark to speak for her. She envisioned not being here, a status that would return eventually. Then she could envision not being wherever she was afterward.

They stood in a room. Compared to the geometric exterior, the interior was a grandmother's cottage. All was soft and carpeted, and all smelled of scented candles, and furniture looked old while being new, and in a gold cage in the corner tweeted a rosy-cheeked cockatiel.

On the wall, however, was a painting that knifed this aesthetic in the gullet, which was odd because as Harper stared at it—it gravitated her gaze—she realized it matched the aesthetic perfectly, matched the aesthetic more than the aesthetic matched itself. A dark painting, the background plain black save for a few lonely mountains partially disintegrating, and in the foreground a construction insane and surreal, with narrow curling walkways and stairs going up and down and all over and nowhere. It looked less like a single building and more like an incomplete city on stilts, and at the edge of the foremost walkway sat a strange furred creature sort of like a dog but with a long tail and a long neck and a snoutless face held high and proud, its eyes shut in serenity on the precipice where it stood.

"You're in luck," said the woman, returning. "Sarah feels good right now. But please"—her voice fell to a whisper—"don't excite her. She doesn't have the energy."

"Of course," said Mark, whose cane did not scrape in the thick plush of the shag carpet as they followed the woman through several rooms of ambiguous purpose but identical feel, with similar paintings on the walls and even similar cages with similar birds so that the entire house tweeted and chirped. A pine-covered mountain or more spanned beyond every panorama window.

One room had a hospital bed. In this room the smell of scented candles ceased, replaced by medicine, nausea, and urine. But it still had its bird, and its painting of a surreal cityscape adrift in void—where a smiling creature shaped like a deer lapped at a well—and its window with the mountains beyond mountains.

"Here they are, Sarah," said the black woman to the hospital bed.

Mark and Harper approached it. Slabs of plastic lined either side to box in the blankets. The sickly smell wafted upward and Harper struggled not to gag. Mark remained unaffected. The blankets contained a few loose folds and those folds were a person, a shriveled mummy. On the beige and splotched pillow rested a hairless head with a white patch airtightly taped around one eye as though trying to hold the eyeball inside. The head of a corpse, skin a skein of dust through which blue lines bulged.

"Sarah, our dear Sarah," swept a regal Mark as his aluminum cane rested against the side of the bed with a metal clatter, cane and bed sharing an aesthetic, "our dear Sarah VanBuskirk."

VanBuskirk. Van Der Gramme. A connection. Or nothing at all. The painting of the drinking deer in a city divorced from all terrestrial moorings. Two figures on a spaceship. These were only fragments. Only the present she could remember and the present faced her with Sarah VanBuskirk, a thing divided from all meaning save death. The thing she saw was death, hollow cheeks and one hollow eye. Putrefied flesh on a still-breathing thing.

"How are you feeling, Sarah? You look rather good today, if you don't mind me saying," said Mark. "Harper came to visit too. Say hi, Harper."

"Hi." Feeble half wave.

They waited, in silence, for the mummy head to speak. Its mouth extended. A black void waited beyond, no lips or tongue or throat, and from it issued only an aspiration: "Hhhhh... hhhhh..."

"That's quite alright. You don't need to speak." Mark produced an envelope, which he considered handing to her but because she possessed neither hands nor body he instead fumbled with his sausage fingers and painstakingly tore to reveal a card. The front showed a cartoon doodle of a hospital bed like the one Sarah now rested within, except instead of Sarah the bed contained a zebra. One of the zebra's legs shot out straight, wrapped in a cast. Get well soon! the card said, bitter and mocking in effeminate cursive.

Mark held the card in front of Sarah's eye and then opened it. The inside contained twenty-plus signatures wishing Sarah a speedy recovery with messages like "We miss you" and "It's not the same without you."

The card remained a minute before Mark closed it, searched for somewhere to leave it, and decided to tuck it into an intersection of formless plastic parts comprising the bedframe.

"You know," Mark said, "it's been tough at the office with you out and the whole deal with Papimon. Not to bore you with such details of course, but we've kept a chin up, trying to manage. I'm sure once you're back you'll be able to sort everything out like you're good at. Harper and I are simply hopeless. Say! Next time you're in town, why don't we treat you to that new Mexican restaurant. I can never remember the name but it's quite good. Quite good. Yes—quite good."

Unheralded his cheeriness cracked and he turned away swallowing a sob. His heavy hand pressed to his face and in the warm inviting light his rosy cockatiel cheeks glistened. Sarah's partner placed a hand on his shoulder, which quelled nothing. Mark's sobs hiccupped out of his massive, convulsing chest and in a wobbly instant he teetered on the brink of collapse until Sarah's partner, fast thinking, reached for his cane and handed it to him. He bore down on it with his entire weight, so hard that it formed a vast concavity in the shag rug.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm—I can't—oh I'm sorry."

"Here. Why don't we step this way for a bit," said Sarah's partner as she led Mark to the next room.

Which left Harper an invisible presence beside the hospital bed, half-turned to watch Mark lumber, aware with dim ire like the last orange fleck of a flame that he planned this, a devious plot to trap her with this corpse and here she was about to panic. The odor. The odor, she could not stand. The deer drank from the well, the cockatiel po-tee-weeted, and Harper did not even dare step toward the room where Mark sobbed because a hand the temperature of outer space gripped her wrist.

The hand felt like nothing. Only coldness.

Slowly, Harper turned.

The skeletal one-eyed face of Sarah VanBuskirk stared at her. Harper failed to notice before, but the patch over her eye bulged outward.

"Hhhhh... hhhhh..."

Sarah wanted to speak. She clearly struggled. Her word came out only a formative whisper. The cold hand tugged gently. She wanted Harper to lean closer.

"Hhhhharper..."

No. No. No. Harper wanted to pull away. She knew she could. The hand lacked all strength, lacked muscle and tendon and bone, gossamer only. Nothing could be more horrible than this face and its liquefying eyeball threatening at any moment to seep through the cotton eyepatch. The face betokened oblivion. The face dug its teeth into her eyelids and chewed through them like a nightmare where you are unallowed to look away from the horror steadily encroaching.

The face belonged to an old woman, dying of cancer, and nothing more.

Unbreathing, Harper slowly leaned down, tongue cleaved to the roof of her mouth to keep out the death-stench.

"Harper..." the old woman whispered. At this distance, nothing dividing them, face to face, eyeball to eyeball, Sarah could speak without exertion. She could flick a little current of air through her throat and make sounds and Harper could hear them. She listened, listened despite the stench and the horror, listened for what this face of death had to tell her.

"Harper..." the old woman whispered. "Harper... it's up to you now..."

"Huh?"

The old woman swallowed and the act of swallowing seemed to collapse her esophagus. Nonetheless she continued: "Thirty years ago... I became the team lead... for documentation... at Crux Calico."

Harper blinked. She had expected something—anything—a poignant or ominous quote, a thoughtful word of wisdom, or even something simple, something that thanked her for coming, anything that might cause Harper to feel an emotion for this woman she was supposed to know but could not remember meeting. But Sarah VanBuskirk spoke about Crux Calico, the place where Harper worked, a place that did not and could not ever matter save as the tiniest cog in a military-industrial complex that would continue to clank without it, without her, without anyone.

"At that time..." Sarah VanBuskirk said, a strange vitality in her words despite their proximity to silence, "...at that time... I was the only female team lead at the entire company."

No response made sense save a confused nod. Every time Sarah finished a sentence she made an apocalyptic swallow in which an entire world shredded to pieces.

"Thirty years later..." Sarah VanBuskirk said, "I am still the only female team lead... even though... the company has become so big."

Sarah VanBuskirk lived in another reality, one unconnected to the reality of Harper Praise, and this moment of death bridged a divide between those realities.

"I have... recommended you... to replace me... as leader of our team."

"Oh," said Harper. "What?"

The hand released Harper's wrist and seized her collar. It tugged her even closer, only molecules separated them, an individual layer of molecules.

"Not Mark... Not him... Never him. He's a fool... incompetent... all he does is talk. All of them... want to smoke their cigars... roll their dice... and talk. And talk... and talk... None of them will do anything. Harper... you're smart... you're bright... It needs to be you. It needs to be... you."

Harper wanted to shake her head sadly and tell Sarah none of this mattered, Crux Calico didn't matter, certainly the consumer-side documentation team didn't matter, it mattered so little the website became unfunctional when Papimon died and nobody noticed. Who could possibly care? Who could care so much to spend so many of the so few words they had left to speak of it?

Harper stared into the non-melting eyeball set deep into the skull of Sarah VanBuskirk but Sarah had spoken all she had to speak. The head turned away and wheezed and Harper reared back and the hand let go of her. Harper stared down at herself. Her heart pounded.

Was she really going to be promoted to team lead?

Her hands shivered. Could she pretend it mattered? Imbued by the spirit of dying woman? An inheritance of meaning? Was it a responsibility? To be the only female team lead at this technological company, did that somehow invest her role with an importance it would not otherwise have?

"Hhhhh," Sarah VanBuskirk said, "hhhhh." But it was only breathing. Belabored breathing.

Sarah's partner reentered. "It's been great of you to visit, but Sarah needs lots of rest now."

For a dim moment Harper stared still lost in thought and then she comprehended the hint and nodded. "Right." Straightforward, to the point. The rigidity comforted her. Like she decided on something. It didn't matter what she decided, simply that she decided—something. She turned to face the wisp in the hospital bed and said: "Goodbye, Sarah."

"Goodbye, Sarah," Mark said from the doorway, face and eyes puffy.

"You're welcome to stay for lunch," Sarah's partner said as she led them back through the identical rooms and their paintings of serenity within horrible loneliness.

They did not stay for lunch. Mark verged on breaking down again. Harper remained solid. She thought about her job. About her team. About how it fell apart after Papimon died. How nobody cared. Only female team lead. Harper's head whirred. For once her thoughts felt full with activity—and she loved that feeling. The feeling of herself in motion: Purposeful. Or given purpose.

Her thoughts remained full until Mark deposited her at her home. That was when Van Der Gramme told her he needed her.

[4] We all have our uses.

[4] We all have our uses.

Gramme needed someone at least. Anyone worked. The Alchemist happened to pop into existence the moment he looked for a warm body, and alternatives dwindled. An empty Consortium portended ill for his numbers, but he refused to even glance at social media or his bank account to check. Until he returned to his own form nothing he did to rectify the situation mattered. Doing something meant nothing unless he did it with purpose. So sure, he could ban Cariscresco and go on an apology tour for dropping off the face of the planet and making the shitty Mimmy artwork. He could clap his palms in supplication and bow, shower his supporters with sorries, and manifest some milquetoast smut featuring the trendiest waifu to forestall en masse cancellation of Patreon donations. These were actions Van Der Gramme possessed the physical and mental capacity to take.

But until he returned to his own form. Until he reinvigorated his spirit. Any such action would be that of a husk, and he may continue to do the things expected of him for a long time as a husk, but he refused to become a husk. Mimmy Wowzers died. It happened. Return to his own form now. Return to his own form.

"So that's what I need you for," Gramme told the Alchemist, after explicating her character in garrulous detail, the garrulousness all part of the plot. "Fine with you?"

The Alchemist sat stoic on a divan only partially obliterated by one of Cariscresco's previous rampages. Her blank face revealed nothing, which was the whole fucking bore about her. Before he would've worried a scenario like this was too anti-normie for someone like her, would have even endeavored to conceal it from her, but all his grand ambitions involving her burnt to rust because it turned out she always said yes to everything. Whatever. That pliancy worked in her favor now because he needed someone and she still existed.

While he waited for her to wake up and stammer surprised at his request and say yes or okay or right away, he lit a cigar and leaned back rolling his neck on his shoulders. He sat crosslegged on the floor because no other seats remained. His smoke enveloped him like a warm scarf.

"Why," said the Alchemist.

"Eh?"

"I guess I'll do it, but I'd like to know why. Why you need me, I mean. Or anyone. Why roleplay these scenarios before you draw them?"

For a moment Van Der Gramme stared up out of his smoke and out of the Consortium at the balustrade on the second floor of the foyer, where three pairs of eyes peeped at him. Unblinking eyes. The possessors of those eyes had yet to dare venture down the stairs, but in the past few days—or maybe Gramme only noticed because he spent more time in the foyer—the eyes had appeared more often and in greater numbers, watching. If El-Marghichi ever saw them staring he pointed his broom and barked at them to leave and they did, for a bit, but El-Marghichi noticed them less as he drew himself deeper into his unseen war with Cariscresco over the Consortium.

Gramme wondered what those eyes wanted, if they only wanted to haunt him.

"Dunno," he said with a pensive puff of his cigar, "it jumpstarts my creativity."

"Do you always roleplay with someone else first? For every artwork you make?"

He thought for a moment. Not for his picture of Mimmy. But for everything else—"Yes."

"There must be a reason. Have you ever thought about it?"

The only thing he wanted to think about at that moment was what a disappointment the Alchemist turned out to be. No, unfair. What a disappointment his misplaced optimism had been. She never presented herself as something she wasn't. He did all the legwork. Foolish grandeur, his thought that she somehow meant a new direction, a pathway to new heights—normalcy. Oh well. Maybe this whole funk would ultimately be a good thing, because coming out of it with a new perspective he might finally shake himself from the long, complacent plateau on which he rested.

"Do you want to play this scenario or not?"

Her head drifted. "I guess."

So they plunged. Into a forest, deep and dark. It might be daytime or it might be night—under this canopy, nobody could tell. A few fluorescent fungi clumped at the bases of tall and forbidding trees, but their light barely traveled a foot before falling away into endless black.

A sweeping ray cut through this inky gloom, illuminating motes afloat in the choked and pungent air. The ray tapered into the flame of a lantern clutched in a worn leather adventuring glove, and it bobbed and bounced in time to the buoyant skipping of the glove's owner.

"Hum, hum, hum-humty, hum," a crystalline-pitched voice hummed.

The plain cloak that shrouded her body did nothing to hide it. Even swaddled in fabric an unearthly beauty shone through, an immaculateness of breadth and proportion that turned even the length from elbow to wrist into a flawless application of natural mathematics. All ratios were obeyed in her design, and in certain contexts, in certain lights, such as a late spring evening with the moon out and her joyful fingers making inarticulate progress over the strings of a harp, one might see her and become enraptured.

Merely a nature of kind. The hood of her cloak remained awkwardly pushed back to make room for the long and pointed ears that jutted from a silken tangle of platinum hair: an elf.

"Hum, hum, ho-hum." The elf, named Temporary (elves being known for unusual monikers), paused her meaningless song and surveyed the area. "I've become quite lost, haven't I?"

Temporary—or call her Tempo-chan, like her friends did—placed her fist against her forehead and stuck out her tongue. She giggled. She was supposed to be someplace else entirely. But she couldn't even remember where any more. Her friends told her she was so forgetful!

"Oh well! I'm sure it'll all work out in the end."

She took one step—and the ground, a loose net of shrubs and branches, gave way beneath her.

Elves weigh next to nothing and normally they're fleet enough of foot, but Temporary exemplified her race in no way other than appearance. A pleasing shriek spiraled into darkness as she tumbled, bouncing, rolling, and finally flopping facedown at the foot of a sheer embankment.

"Pffha, pffoo!" She spat leaves and plucked twigs out of her eyebrows. "Hooey!" An updraft of exhalation pushed bangs out of her eyes and returned her scatterbrained and alluring hairstyle on-model. Not that Temporary could see it, or anything, in this darkness. Her head scanned the surroundings and found her lantern resting upon a few ferns, its dull light angled into the withered trunk of a nearby tree.

"Ah! There you got off to," she said to the lantern, and started crawling toward it.

That was when something—

Somewhere—

Growled.

The growl stopped Temporary mid-crawl, her hand outstretched and her fingers visible in the lantern's glow. The rest of her remained plunged into nothingness, which in a way if you thought about it meant she didn't exist? At least not until she grabbed the lantern and got lit up again. And that meant the thing growling beside her didn't exist either, did it?

Temporary swallowed. The dry saliva in the back of her throat sure felt real. And that thing growling? It had a smell, rancid and wet. Because the nothingness of the dark was a fake nothing. But even so, she felt that if she stayed this way forever, outstretched but not grabbing the lantern, nothing would ever happen.

There was a faint tinkling of a clear brook.

The growl rose to a snarl. Unseen lips curling to show the unseen gums of unseen jaws. The rustle of lilypad-like leaves.

Temporary's fingers gripped the handle of the lantern. In gripping it she became aware of every bone in every finger and every muscle and every tendon that connected and moved those bones. She gripped the lantern so tight it seemed those bones would burst of her skin, and all the while her heart thump, thu-thump, thu-thumped hard in her chest. The snarling sounded big. Really big. Her other hand felt through her cloak for her blade.

(She shouldn't be here. Where even was here? How did she arrive? She remembered nothing before being in this forest. Like a god crafted and plopped her here.)

But that was a stupid thought, wasn't it? Her friends always told her what a stupid idiot she was. When they did she would put her fist to her forehead and stick out her tongue and say, "Hehe—whoops!"

Temporary lifted the lantern and swung it around to face the thing snarling.

Before the full light reached it its red eyes gleamed and even when the light did reach it nothing except those eyes appeared to be there. Those eyes and those snarling daggerpoint teeth. Its black fur blended into the background, but if you paid close attention you could tell the difference between it and everything else, because the murky gloss was a different shade or at least different intensity of black.

From its sheath her long knife flashed out and at the same moment the warg wolf lunged. The handle fumbled in her clumsy fingers and when she finally fixed her grip the rows of teeth clamped down on her forearm.

Out of her pleasant, pealing scream came the crunch of bone that was less a crunch and more a pulverizing, a powderization. The knife dropped from fingers over which she no longer possessed control and the lantern, in fingers she did still control, dropped too. Her scream never ceased as her left hand flopped strung by a few loose strands and finally her scream tapered into a hoarse whimpering squeak lodged deep enough to choke her.

One shake of its head and the wild dog flung her. Temporary's ribs cracked against the trunk of a tree and all sound inside her blanked by the time she hit the ground. A limp attempt to lift her arm produced only pure pain and an illiterate moan. Her feet scrabbled into the leaves and loose loam unable to find purchase as she slowly rolled herself over to face the creature stalking toward her backlit by the fallen lantern.

From its white teeth oozed blood, her blood, blood to match its eyes. Slowly angling her body, Temporary pressed her back against the tree trunk and gagged out a semblance of sound. "W—ait." Her head was all rattly. Maybe her vision swam. Because on the edge between lantern light and darkness she thought she saw two more pairs of red eyes appear.

"Whh, wait," she muttered, while the hand she still had fumbled with the leaf-shaped brooch that pinned her cloak.

Temporary lacked smarts, everyone knew it, even her. She simply could never remember anything, and always made the worst decisions. But she understood enough. Even the most athletic elf's fleetness of foot put up little fight against that of a wild dog. A more skilled battler than she might match even three of these wolves, but when it came to fights Temporary always wound up head-down and rear-up with a bump on her head. More of a support-type unit. Moral support. Because white and black magic alike eluded her mental grasp. Really, she was terrible at everything.

But wolves couldn't climb trees, right?

(Could she either, down one arm?)

Time to think, time she needed and even if she had all of it could never reach an answer, time drip-drip-dripping like the unseen brook burbling nearby. Her brooch unpinned. As the black unshaped fur on the back of the foremost wolf bristled and the snarl pitched to crescendo, she whipped off her cloak and hurled it into the wolf's face.

Swift as she could Temporary pushed herself around and hooked the fingers of her good hand into the thick ridged bark of the tree behind her. Force of fear propelled her up the sheer vertical trunk, her boots and her one hand operating in frenzied motions made simultaneous by galvanization. Under ordinary circumstances, even with both arms, Temporary would end this attempt, so simple for any other of her kind, head-down, rear-up. Now with one arm a loose dangling clump she scrabbled, and climbed, the edges of her heels drilling deep into the chinks, and the lowest-hanging branch, bent by its low-hanging fruit, neared the range of her reach. Her fingers flashed through its leaves.

Twenty steely teeth rent the flesh of her left calf and split first the fibula then—after a rapid second chomp—the tibia bone. So many intricate pieces of herself formed and maintained over a period of millennia unmade in an instant and red hot agony spurting straight up the parts of her that remained whole. Her fingers pried away three leaves only.

She was going to die, she thought in the interim between the tree and the ground.

Senseless to the feeling of impact, she bounced off a jagged jutting thing that gored her stomach. She rolled over, head-down, rear-up.

The second and third wolf darted in to see what bits of her they might take for themselves but the first wolf levied a ferocious bark that stalled them and gave Temporary time enough to sob out a degenerated "Please." Her friends, she thought. Someone, she thought. They'll come for her, they'll save her, how was she even here, when did she come to this forest? An elf, she lived forever. Her name a snide irony. And she never changing, her body once constructed a whole form that remained whole, but finally annihilation came for us all.

Once the beta dogs dropped back circling and snarling lowly through clenched muzzles in the transient light of the lantern, the alpha turned its attention to her. Its forepaws came down on her back and shredded through cloth and skin alike, deep lacerations dragged to the bone that strangled out another bloody scream. Her head rolled weakly against the ferns. She tried to roll or crawl or writhe away but with one arm and one leg she could not make it far. Her head bumped against the tree but before she made sense of this stimuli the dog slashed her again. No desire ever gripped her tighter than the desire to faint and let whatever happened happen outside the realm of her consciousness. But her body struggled against her mind. Desperate injections of every emergency chemical flooded her systems, a needless and impotent adrenaline spurring her to take motions physically beyond her current capability.

The fetid air of this fell wood seeped into her wounds and slithered upon her skin. The dog's hot breath hissed her ear and brushed her hair. It sniffed her blood and sweat.

A sandpaper-textured tongue scraped along the length of what felt like the longest laceration, from the base of her neck down to her hip. Temporary trembled, sobbed, whatever, she started to swiftly stop being an actor in this farce, merely a puppet of flesh, and how many unique ways could she describe her pain and suffering?

The dog's teeth pulled into what remained of her pants and made even less remain. Its heaving, heavy chest weighed down on her back and its forelegs positioned themselves on either side of her head. Warmth, and fur, and the form of something massive atop her brutalized body.

Red eyes from the other dogs, multiplying in the dark, watched silent.

Something long and thick and furless touched her.

A drawn-and-quartered "no" came out.

The vines and ivy and gushing plant dermis oozed sap and a sour smell against her rolling face. The dog gripped her hair in its mouth and pulled her head. It adjusted its hindlegs, one after the other.

"No." Her fingers gripped a root. Everything in this patch of forest was roots, ferns, growth, worthless overabundance of useless things leeching life off the few trees that reached the light. As the tip of something nauseating pressed between her legs she cursed it. All of it. Wolves, trees, leaves, lichens, all this accumulation and excess, and if her blood spilled onto it she hoped it would sink like poison into the soil, or else a fire would reduce everything in this world to ash.

Any slowness on the part of the wild dog came not from hesitance, it soon became clear, but merely the necessary precision of motion to arrange everything into its proper position. The moment it started to thrust it did so uncontrolled, lunatic, with jerks so fast that for all the careful arrangement it missed her the first two thrusts and slipped between her thighs, an error it corrected through brute force as it pounded her again and again and eventually penetrated. Temporary screamed—why not. She squeezed her eyes shut, although all light already left, and dammed up the onrush of tears long flowing down her face.

It felt like it was ripping her apart from the inside, not that the pain was the true issue when her limbs remained in a state of obviation. The thing above her panted voraciously, its slobber drizzled between its bloody jaws and seeped like syrup through her hair and along the sides of her face as her torso shunted bodily forward and backward dragged by the thick ragged thing plunging inside her deeper and deeper as the beast began to howl in its singleminded pursuit to drill so deep as to hollow her out and leave only a husk. A bulbous protrusion at the base of its shaft, something fat and veined, bounced against the already impossibly spread, red-raw lips of her vulva, demanding entry too. She let her remaining limbs go slack and slumped her upper body against the earth to dredge dirt back and forth. Her head rolled to the side, her eyes no longer shut, simply staring dead at the distant lantern and the red-eyed spectators perhaps waiting their turn after the alpha had expended its want of her.

Pointlessly concerned she might still struggle, it placed one forepaw against the back of her neck, pinning her.

The action redirected her limp doll's head and the glint of something struck her eyeball. Her head rolled back, and then the other way, and the glint hit her again, just as the wild dog quickened to a feverish pace, a pace so quick its muscles could no longer keep up with it, and the pounding pounding pounding of its knot was starting to batter a way through—

A glint of her knife.

If she gave herself any time to mull over the action, this hellworld would engineer a path away from it, even if that meant opening up to swallow the knife into its soil. She thought nothing. She reached out with her one arm, seized the knife cutting her palm on the base of the blade and drove it in one fluid arc into the panting throat of the beast and through the soft flesh and up directly into the damned thing's brain.

At that same moment it knotted her, a wet thick and final plop almost cartoonish in tone as the entire length of its dog cock violated her fully and in the spasmodic throes of a death it was too stupid to notice burst utterly emptying all acrid white content into her barren, elfin womb.

Her body twitched because its body twitched, a unified twitching in their fully intermingled forms, both at one end where it penetrated her and at the other where she penetrated it. Although already dead, a single pained and dumb whimper, the whine of a puppy, degenerated out of the voiding of its lungs.

It remained standing a moment, then rolled onto its side, dragging out of her with a jagged pop its knot and three-quarters of its cock. A pressurized jet of watery canine semen gushed out of her as she sagged back to the ground, knife still clutched in her hand.

Burn, she whispered to the ground. Burn, forest, she whispered, an elf, a creature if nothing else attuned to the spirit of nature, aware as much as it of her in the mutual radiation of their ire and ultimate apathy.

The other dogs, excited, yapping, rushed forward, pausing only to snarl and snap at one another in their bid to reach her first, except they reached her at the same time, and one tore into her thigh, and another plucked her shoulder away from the rest of herself, and all her accumulated blood flowed forth.

Burn, said Temporary, as the tiny flickering light of her fallen lantern spread to the bush beside it, and the once-dim glow played intensely upon the mange-ridden forms of the two emaciated, death-knocking dogs, and what was once black began to turn a bright and many-colored red.

One dog took her head in its jaws and—

"No," said the Alchemist, "I believe that's the end."

"Guess you're right," said Van Der Gramme. "I figured I'd add a note of finality."

"There's no need."

They sat, once again, facing one another, in the wreckage of the Consortium's smoking room. The Alchemist on her seat, Gramme on the floor.

"I think I'm done," said the Alchemist.

"Yeah that's fine, I'm not saying you can't be done."

"With everything."

Through his glasses he stared at her. His cigar lay extinguished in the ashtray closest him, a single lick of smoke filtering upward before the panorama window in which galaxies danced and, if you looked closely (but Gramme never cared to look), you could see among the planets the coiled form of something half-woman, half-snake.

He remembered once an Alchemist who aped the final word of everything he said, as though nothing in the entire world made sense to her. Now was his turn. "Everything."

"I've decided on something more purposeful." She rose. "Goodbye, Van Der Gramme."

The Alchemist disappeared.

In silence, in solitude, an indeterminable amount of time Gramme remained.

Oh well, he could only think. She stopped being what he wanted her to be long ago. If she had ever been that anyway.

He took out his pad and stylus and began a new image in his program of choice and sketched out the style of the scene he and her had playacted.

It was, as he expected, easy. Any and all mental blocks unlatched, shivered, and dropped to the ground as he hunched, straining through his sunglasses. He pieced together the key figures, switching his focus between his canvas and reference images of dogs in various poses to ensure fidelity to canine anatomy. Everything about the image tumbled into his head together, so fast that elements kept slipping past him because he was already grabbing two, three, four other elements at once and unable to divide himself into so many partitions, but it didn't matter, because the moment he implemented one idea the one he dropped remained right there for him to pick up, he even once had an idea, forgot it, and had it again by the time it became relevant anyway.

Classic Van Der Gramme, a work so familiar to him it ought to have been rote but after his hiatus it reemerged fresh, novel, a reminder of his talent. Chiaroscuro, intimate darkness broken by a few planes of light cast by the lantern and its resulting incipient fire (that fire idea she had, right at the end, that was key, that typified the entire reason he played these scenes beforehand), the shapes of the dogs, two merely forms but the main one more defined if still black-shrouded save for its piercing red eyes, the elf Temporary a sad shredded bloody little thing equal parts horrified, pained, and resigned (resigned—another good idea from the Alchemist, maybe he didn't want to lose her after all; well, she'd be back), it all came together, and by the time he looked up and saw Fletch at the furnace eating a piece of chicken with one hand and holding open a textbook with the other, eight hours had passed and he had finished, well ahead of his typical timetable, a work of art.

One likely to play better with his followers than the last, at least. Not the safest work, but a compromise. He back on his form, and they with a morsel to tide them over until he could see what they actually voted for in their poll. Gramme blinked hard, his neck went stiff, but after a little break and some chicken he figured he could start plotting his next work immediately—whatever his fans desired. If El-Marghichi was around he'd roleplay with him, otherwise he'd prowl 4All until he found another Alchemist.

All that remained was to post his picture of Temporary the elf and her brutal bestiality rape. He signed onto his standard socials dimly imagining an accompanying post to assure his followers he had a bad hiccup due to the whole Mimmy thing but he was back on the gravy train now—and that was when he stopped.

He had over 50,000 new notifications.

Fuck, he thought. Cariscresco really has gone insane.

But when he clicked the notifications to clear them, he saw they weren't from Cariscresco. They weren't from his followers either. Or even from accounts with salaciously horny profile pics and NSFW/18+ in their names.

They were notifications—likes, retweets, comments—from ordinary people, thousands of them.

And they were all notifications for his latest post, the picture of Mimmy Wowzers.

[5] Dead gods dance to an inarticulate harp.

[5] Dead gods dance to an inarticulate harp.

[5.0] Sunna.

Harper Praise woke up, drove to the trail in the mountains, performed rudimentary stretches, and ran for 30 minutes. She returned home, showered, dressed, dried her hair, and ate oatmeal with skim milk for breakfast.

She drove to Santa Fe and went to a department store where she tried on and then purchased five outfits: 1) a black two-piece skirt suit with a white collared blouse, 2) a black two-piece skirt suit with an offwhite collared blouse, 3) a navy blue two-piece skirt suit with a light blue collared blouse, 4) a burgundy two-piece skirt suit with a black collared blouse, and 5) a black two-piece skirt suit with a red collared blouse. She also purchased three pairs of black heeled shoes. The first pair had 1.2 centimeter heels, the second pair had 3.9 centimeter heels, and the third pair had 7.0 centimeter heels.

She also purchased five pairs of black dress socks and a pair of running shoes. She paid $1,423.56 and spent 3 hours and 17 minutes inside the store.

Next, she went to a chain barbershop. However, the barbershop was closed. Every barbershop was closed. They were closed because, as their signs informed her, every stylist had quit. Her hair remained as is.

Lastly, she went to an office supply store and purchased a package of 12 gel roller pens with black ink and a 200-page college-ruled notebook. She paid $26.73 and spent 17 minutes inside the store.

Because she skipped lunch, she considered eating at a restaurant before returning to Los Alamos, but decided against it.

She drove up the mountain to Los Alamos and went to a local grocer. There, she purchased a half-gallon of orange juice, a half-gallon of skim milk, a box of ten organic instant oatmeal packages, six whole wheat bagels, a loaf of sliced whole wheat bread, a package of sliced turkey, a package of sliced Swiss cheese, a carton of spinach, a bunch of bananas, a bushel of Red Delicious apples, a package of sliced baby bella mushrooms, a bag of tortilla chips, and a bag of Vitamin A-enriched gummy candy. She paid $81.02 and spent 37 minutes inside the store.

She returned home and made herself a sandwich for dinner. After she ate the sandwich, she ate a plate of spinach. After she ate the spinach, she ate a banana.

For the rest of the night, she performed stretches on the floor that she imagined were yoga stretches. She brushed and flossed her teeth and went to bed at 10:00 PM.

[5.1] Máni.

Harper Praise woke up at 5:30 AM, drove to the trail in the mountains, performed rudimentary stretches, and ran for 30 minutes. She returned home, showered, dressed in her black two-piece skirt suit with white collared blouse and 1.2 centimeter black heels, dried her hair, and ate oatmeal with skim milk for breakfast.

At 7:30 AM she arrived at Crux Calico and went to her office. She turned on her computer. She had thirteen new emails: Eleven were automated notifications regarding her team's online content repository, one was from Human Resources apparently meant for a different Harper, and one was from the big boss of all consumer-side divisions regretfully informing everyone that on Sunday, surrounded by her loved ones, their colleague Sarah VanBuskirk passed away peacefully. Sarah was part of the Crux Calico family for thirty-seven years. After marking all emails as read, Harper opened the company's content management system (CMS), which contained a network of files that were or would be published to the company's various consumer-side websites as pages. Because the consumer-side documentation site had not had a new release since their site wizard Papimon Jaengsirirungrote died, there were thirty-five unpublished page updates and thirteen unpublished new pages. Of that number, Harper authored thirty-four of the updates and ten of the new pages; Mark authored the rest.

She attempted to access the publication process that pushed these files to the development (DEV) environment of the site. Because she had the Author role, she was normally able to publish files to DEV, which allowed her to view the pages on a non-live iteration of the site. However, for some unexplained reason, all topics created after Papimon left the company failed to publish to DEV. She was still able to publish topics created before Papimon left the company.

Next, she attempted to access the publication process that pushed these files to the staging (STG) environment. A message informed her that she needed Administrator privileges.

She sent a message to the email alias for Crux Calico's internal software support team, which handled requests for installations and role changes. She explained that her name was Harper Praise from the consumer-side documentation team and that because the team's site wizard, Papimon Jaengsirirungrote, was no longer with the company, she needed Administrator privileges in the CMS to push new releases to the STG and production (PRD, or live) environments.

While she awaited a response, she returned to the CMS authoring environment and opened the four unpublished files that Mark had edited/authored. Not only did all four files fail to adhere to multiple tagging and organizational standards for documentation pages, but his prose possessed a grasp over the English language equivalent to a 12-year-old's. She began fixing the tagging errors and rewriting Mark's text.

Midway through, she received a response from the internal software support team that informed her that a ticket had been created; the anticipated delivery date was in two weeks. She replied saying that by request of her team lead Sarah VanBuskirk she needed the Administrator role by tomorrow at the latest. A few minutes later a response told her they would get her the role by tomorrow.

She finished revising the first of Mark's files and started the second. At 11:30 AM she went to the on-campus café and purchased a turkey sandwich with Swiss cheese, which she brought back to her office and ate. She finished revising the second file and began the third. At 2:15 PM Mark knocked on and then opened the glass sliding door of her office, offered her a mandarin, talked to her for 23 minutes about various topics including the fruit in his garden, the death of Sarah VanBuskirk, and the new restaurant in Santa Fe, and finally left. His cane scraped until he vanished down the corridor.

She finished revising the third of Mark's files. It was 5 PM. She filled out her electronic time card and went home, where she prepared herself a turkey sandwich with Swiss cheese. When she finished the sandwich, she ate a plate of spinach, an apple, and some mushrooms.

She performed yoga stretches. She hoped these stretches would last until it was time to sleep but they did not. She lacked anything to do. She wanted to go back to work, but knew that until the internal software support team changed her role she lacked much else to do.

She could go to the Consortium. She rejected that possibility.

She could go to 4All. She rejected that possibility.

She brushed and flossed her teeth and went to bed at 9:30 PM.

[5.2] Tiw.

Harper Praise woke up at 5:15 AM, drove to the trail in the mountains, performed rudimentary stretches, and ran for 45 minutes. She returned home, showered, dressed in her black two-piece skirt suit with offwhite collared blouse and 1.2 centimeter black heels, dried her hair, and ate oatmeal with skim milk for breakfast.

At 7:30 AM she arrived at Crux Calico and went to her office. She turned on her computer and checked her email. She had twelve new emails. Eleven were automated notifications regarding her team's online repository and the twelfth informed her that her role had been changed to Administrator.

She accessed the CMS and attempted to access the publication process that pushed files to the STG environment. An error message informed her that files could not be pushed to STG (or PRD) via the program she was currently using. The message did not tell her which program pushed the files to STG.

After opening many menus and reading pages of internal help documentation (all unhelpful), Harper decided she would not be able to figure out how to push the files to STG on her own. She left her office, walked down the hall, and found the office of Papimon Jaengsirirungrote, which remained untouched since Papimon left the company. The office contained a computer set to a sign-in screen that asked for a username and password. The company's usernames followed a set pattern of first initial, first four letters of surname, and company ID. Harper returned to her office, accessed the company's internal ID lookup tool, and identified Papimon's ID as 7643, which meant her username was pjaen7643. Harper returned to Papimon's office and attempted to sign in by guessing the password, but discovered she knew nothing about Papimon.

Failing to sign in, Harper searched the rest of Papimon's office. A small metal shelf contained four large paperback textbooks for the coding languages Java, JavaScript, Python, and C++. It also contained a gigantic hardback book cryptically titled Detroit. Dust covered all five books. Harper took down and opened Detroit; the book, published in 1978, contained a complete history and geographic breakdown of the city of Detroit, Michigan. Chance landed her on a page that showed a black-and-white photograph of an elegant dance hall. On the stage, five black men in dark tuxedos and white shoes performed. Behind them spanned a mural depicting factory workers who looked impossibly alive as they assembled a plain sedan.

Harper closed Detroit and returned it to the shelf. She opened the first of three drawers in the office. This drawer contained office supplies, including pens, pencils, tape, a stapler, a staple remover, a pad of post-it notes, and a ruler. She closed the drawer.

The second drawer contained several bundled shirts, all splotched by dried blood.

The third drawer contained a large pile of papers.

Harper pulled the papers out of the drawer in three separate chunks and placed them atop Papimon's desk. She sat at Papimon's chair and examined the papers one by one. The papers, even those at the top of the pile, appeared to be several years old. Harper estimated a total of 700 pages and realized by leafing through that they extended in date all the way to the 1990s. The oldest pages appeared to have been written by a young child in crayon and included crude drawings of smiling stick figures, birds, lizards, houses, cars, and other ordinary objects. A common theme involved a single house with a door and two windows, beside which four stick figures stood, a tall man and a tall woman and two small girls. The oldest papers were written in Thai, but Thai pages gradually became more infrequent and English gained supremacy.

The time, displayed on Papimon's computer, read 12:36 PM. Harper realized she couldn't get too mired in these papers. She went to the campus café, purchased a turkey sandwich with Swiss cheese, and returned to Papimon's office, where she continued sorting through the papers, more purposefully this time, starting from the top.

The papers on the top were mostly printed and contained tax documents, employment documents, documents from the United States government proving residency status, documents from the Motor Vehicle Division of New Mexico, and documents from Crux Calico regarding payment, insurance, and retirement benefits. Mixed among these papers, which together formed the legal precedent for Papimon Jaengsirirungrote's existence, were a few birthday cards, several fliers for company events, and—crucially—written instructions for internal company software, including the CMS.

Papimon appeared to have written these instructions herself as part of a training course. The paper was yellow and college-ruled and the text relegated to a narrow column in the center of the page while choking and infesting the margins, spreading deep into and among the words, and overwhelming everything in deluges of black ink, was an unlimited number of doodles.

The lights shut off. Harper put down the paper and winced as she unfurled the spiral shape in which her spine had hooked. She cracked her neck and looked up at the lights, and then out the nearest window at a darkened koi pond. Between the branches of the gigantic, leaf-bursting tree that stooped low over the pond, the silver lines of a spiderweb shone, although at this hour no spider could be seen.

It was 7:00 PM.

Nonetheless, the last few pages gave her confidence. She left the office, returned home, ate a turkey sandwich with Swiss cheese, a plate of spinach, a banana, an apple, and several tortilla chips. She performed yoga stretches and rolled around on the floor and went to bed at 9:00 PM, after having nothing to do for two hours.

[5.3] Woden.

Harper Praise woke up at 5:00 AM, drove to the trail in the mountains, and stopped at a gate around which multiple emergency response vehicles span sirens silent in the dawn's tumescent glow.

"Wildfire," they told her. "Road's closed."

She returned home, showered, dressed in her navy blue two-piece skirt suit with light blue collared blouse and 3.9 centimeter black heels, dried her hair, and ate oatmeal with skim milk for breakfast.

At 6:00 AM she arrived at Crux Calico, but the lights were off and the facility closed. She stood by her car and watched the sun rise and in the distance between the mountains beyond mountains a pillar of smoke climbed.

At 7:00 AM the campus opened and she entered. She went to Papimon's office and investigated the same handwritten paper she was looking at when the lights shut off the previous day. The doodles that encroached on the text covered every conceivable subject and even devolved into unusual abstractions, patterns of penstrokes thatched or non-Euclidean. Then the geometries would coalesce into the form of something: a skull, or a bird like the ones in the house of Sarah VanBuskirk, or a bug-eyed lizard upside-down gripping a stick, or a human in a royal military uniform with four arms each carrying a saber. The doodles betrayed any attempt of deciphering meaning. Images manifested out a bored mind one long day of company training, meaningless—impotent imagination.

The text itself contained vital information about the labyrinthine organization of the CMS. The CMS, it turned out, was not a single program. It had three separate components: the authoring environment, which was the program Harper used; the publication management environment, which was part of the authoring environment's installation package; and a website hosted on the company's internal network. The website handled the movement to STG and PRD.

Harper flicked through the next few pages in hopes of more, but found only generic onboarding materials until she reached a sheet of thick, ultra high quality paper that read:

The University of New Mexico

has conferred upon

Papimon Jaengsirirungrote

the degree of

Bachelor of Science

Computer Science

with all the rights and privileges appertaining to that degree,

in testimony whereof the Regents of the University upon recommendation

of the Faculty have granted this diploma bearing the seal of the University

this eleventh day of May, two thousand and sixteen.

The paper also contained a seal and four illegible signatures from the President of the Regents, the Secretary of the Regents, the President of the University, and the Provost of the University.

Under the diploma was a large, professional-quality photograph of Papimon Jaengsirirungrote beneath a spotlight on an otherwise-dark lacquered stage, upside-down with her limbs twisted into a stark but stable pose at the top of which her bright orange shoes shone. On her shirt she wore a logo—UNM Breakers—and Harper knew she could no longer delve into this dead world of Papimon Jaengsirirungrote, could not see how deep these papers plunged into that existence.

Harper collected the relevant training notes, sorted the remaining papers into a neat pile, and returned to her office.

An education. A hobby. A family. A childhood. A history. A life.

She searched for and located the publication manager component of the CMS. Cross-referencing Papimon's notes after experimenting with the archaic user interface, and writing her own notes into the notebook she purchased from the office supply store, Harper broke down the process of publication.

As it turned out, the files she edited in the authoring environment, called topics, were not directly published to the site, or even to the DEV environment she was permitted to access. Topics were contained inside publications, which were what was actually published. Publications pointed not only to topics, but also image files used in the topics, map files that organized the arrangement of multiple related topics, and configuration (CFG) files that stored "configuration information." Additionally, publications contained only specific versions of these files. For instance, the most recent version of one of the unreleased updated topics was 5. The topic had been published to PRD four times previously. However, the publication still pointed to the same version as the live site, which was version 4. In order to publish the new version, 5, Harper followed a series of opaque instructions to "update the baseline" so that the publication contained version 5 instead of 4. Once she did that, she was able to successfully publish the file to DEV.

That explained why files updated after Papimon's death had failed to publish. For new files, the ones created after Papimon's death, the reason was simpler: Only the topics and images were created; not the publication, map file, or CFG file.

By carefully examining publications, map files, and CFG files that Papimon created for earlier topics, and aided by trial-and-error, Harper successfully created these files for one of the new topics. She published the topic (or rather, the publication) to DEV and it appeared.

Someone knocked on her glass door: Mark.

The time was, somehow, 4:37 PM.

Mark expressed surprise that Harper took the prior day off, to which Harper explained she did not take the day off. Mark remarked that he did not see her in her office when he visited. Harper pointed to her screen and told him that she had figured out the publication process and that she expected to release the new topics to PRD by end of business tomorrow. Mark said there appeared to be a lot of protests going on. Harper had no idea what that meant; she saw no protests. He said not in Los Alamos, but across the country. Because of the murder. Harper wondered aloud what these protests had to do with anything. Mark believed they were important. That there was more to life than work. That Harper and that other young fellow, that Royce boy, should learn that. And as an aside, plucked out of a conversational aether, Mark said had she heard? The Royce boy left the company. According to his social media, he was embarking on a pilgrimage to Switzerland, latest chapter of unquenchable wanderlust, to climb mountains and learn about 3D modeling. Zurich had one of the best 3D modeling centers in the world. Had Harper heard?

Harper possessed no memory of anyone named Royce.

Mark left.

Harper spent the rest of the day changing the baseline/creating the publication files for the remaining updated/new topics. She went home at 7:00 PM, convinced that by the end of the next day the content would be published to PRD so that their users—users with whom none of them had ever interacted—would finally receive documentation for the latest updates to Crux Calico's consumer-side software offerings.

One of the doodles on Papimon's pages, which Harper had believed only to be random geometry until her mind chanced upon it in this new mental context and she realized exactly what it was, depicted a drone firing a dashed line of bullets at a tangle of dancing stick figures. Or maybe they danced because of the bullets striking their bodies.

Harper prepared and ate a turkey sandwich with Swiss cheese, and also ate a plate of spinach and some tortilla chips. She performed yoga stretches and tried to spin around in a dance move like the one in Papimon's photograph but flopped onto her face and remained facedown under her lone light until it was late enough to go to sleep.

Which was 8:45 PM.

[5.4] Thor.

Harper Praise woke up at 5:00 AM, drove to the trail in the mountains, but stopped before she even left Los Alamos because the road west flashed red and blue and became impenetrable.

In the distance, on the slopes of the mountains, inferno swallowed the ponderosas and the wild dogs living amid them.

She returned home, showered, dressed in her burgundy two-piece skirt suit with black collared blouse and 3.9 centimeter black heels, dried her hair, and ate oatmeal with skim milk for breakfast.

At 6:00 AM she arrived at Crux Calico and watched the mountains burn and the sky turn from black to Mars until the doors opened at 7:00 AM and she entered.

There was a tone, a type of tone, she remembered this from—somewhere—it was just a random memory. A tone that always seemed to be building toward something, and yet only looped endlessly. A sonic illusion, and in these intervals when she lacked all options save to think she started to remember things.

She reread Papimon's notes amid the doodled drone strike targets for the third component of the CMS, the internal website. This site handled the movement of publications from DEV to STG and PRD. It did not explain the purpose of the three environments but Harper understood that the PRD environment was the live version of the site, while DEV and STG were limited to internal use. The process outlined the following steps: Push to STG. Pre-deployment testing on STG. Push to PRD. Post-deployment testing on PRD.

Her Administrator role allowed her to enter the internal site. Papimon's notes described a tedious process by which each new/updated publication was loaded into a queue individually, which was fine because time was all Harper had, but upon attempting to begin the process Harper discovered that Papimon had programmed a batch environment switcher that required an Administrator only to copy and paste a list of publication names.

She pushed the publications to STG.

She went to the STG environment and tested each of the new/updated pages to ensure they were pushed correctly. They were.

She pushed the publications to PRD.

She went to the PRD environment and tested each of the new/updated pages to ensure they were pushed correctly. They were.

For the first time since Papimon's death, Crux Calico's consumer-side documentation site released new content.

Papimon's notes also described a post-release workflow, mostly undergone in the publication manager. First, Harper changed the status of all new/updated files (including topics, images, map files, and CFG files) to Released; they had previously used the Draft status. Then, Harper created a new version of each new/updated publication in a process called pre-versioning. The purpose of this process, Harper assumed (Papimon's notes never explained why anything was done, only how), was so authors would not inadvertently change released versions of the publications.

Lastly, Harper went to Crux Calico's internal repository and created an issue for the company's localization services requesting translation of the new/updated topics. A member of the localization team responded that the issue was received and that within a month they would translate the new/updated content into the following non-English languages: Spanish, French, German, Japanese, Russian, and simplified Chinese.

The notes described no further processes.

Harper managed a successful site release. It required no coding or specialized skills. The curtain pulled back, the site wizard revealed itself at long last.

12:34 PM. The concept of food disgusted Harper, but she went to the campus café anyway and returned emptyhanded.

Time passed.

3:27 PM. Out of a silence came a scrape and soon afterward Mark knocked on her sliding glass door. He spoke about the wildfire, how it didn't seem so long since the last one, climate change and forest management and all that, air quality, stay inside, don't do any exercises, jovial laugh, nonetheless he still held a pomegranate to offer her and she placed it on her desk with no plans to do anything about it.

Mark left.

7:00 PM, the lights shut off.

Some time later, Harper went home. She ate two slices of bread, some sliced turkey, and a slice of Swiss cheese. She ate a plate of spinach.

She went to sleep.

[5.5] Frigg.

5:00 AM. Black two-piece skirt suit with red collared blouse. 7.0 centimeter heels. Oatmeal, skim milk.

Mountains on fire, orange-red sky even before the sun rose, and all the world a strangled sepia. Ash, dust, particulate matter in every lungful.

7:00 AM. she checked her email. She had fifty-two emails, thirty-seven being automated notifications related to the company's internal repository and fourteen being automated notifications related to the site publication process. The final email came from the big boss of the division, a man Harper never remembered meeting, but he spoke to her conversationally as he invited her to a "tete-a-tete" in his office that Friday (the email being sent Wednesday) after lunch.

A meeting to discuss the future of the consumer-side documentation team and the role they all had to play in it.

Harper woke up.

[6] Rise of the Soviet Union.

[6] Rise of the Soviet Union.

"This... this. Just, wow."

"Sorry I'm soBBINGsahuvhfjdasbgvksdb"

"It should be in a museum. It's ten times as important as any Da Vinci."

Only in ancient times, and not even always then, could one decouple art from who paid for it and how much. Dark walls deep in some cave system with a few amateur recreations of the animals essential to early man's livelihood. Or a little Venus, a bulbous fat thing of absurd bust and hips meant as a prayer for fertility. Critically, though, this meant art and money could be decoupled. That before even the concept of money, art existed.

Civilizations rose and fell and it became the domain of the state or its figureheads to demand and commission art. Statues of the heroes or gods who defined that civilization and grand temples in which to display them. Sans Zeus or Achilles, what meant a "Greek"? Where appeared the line to divide this society from the barbarians saying bar, bar? The state needed an invisible spider thread to web these thousands into a nation and art supplied it so they supplied the artist his daily bread.

"Are you selling prints? I want to frame it."

"It's her killer who is the weak one. She's still strong. That's exactly the right message."

"Cathartic."

And so forth for the Greeks, and the Romans, and the early Christian kings, with a few aforementioned figureheads contributing their own likenesses for vanity's sake, to weave themselves into the narrative of selfhood they enforced upon their people. And yes, even the Renaissance, its patrons popes and Medicis. Tastes changed, styles changed, but the mechanism remained the same. Art depicted present power and past glory (real or imagined) and so doing tied the thread tighter and tighter.

The men making these works of art possessed their own minds and pioneered their own techniques and even in subtle ways subverted the expectations of the ones paying the bills, but at the end of the day it was a painting of an assumption in a chapel or a statue of an equestrian in a plaza.

And when art changed, was it truly that art changed, or did power change?

"Sellout," said a sock on an arm, flapping its lips.

You saw it first, really, in still life. That particular fascination of the Dutch, the various Vans and Van Ders. A painting not of the religious or historical stories that defined a culture, a statue not of a contemporary ruler or general, but a drawing of a table laden with goblets and dishes; grapes, blackberries, gouda, loaves, fish, lobsters, champagne, pomegranates, crabs. A glittering knife and a half-peeled lemon. And maybe a skull nestled amid them. No cultural thread. No glorification of state or statesman. No god. A new type of glory, a private wealth, these paintings commissioned by the emerging class of power, merchants, men unconcerned with ruling a state but obsessed with their accumulation of capital. These works possessed the same vanity of a Caesar transmogrified into the pantheon, but targeted elsewhere, targeted inward, fit for display only in their private palaces, their hidden villas, their mountain chateaux.

An antisocial art.

"I'd consider it exploitative, if it wasn't made with clear emotion and care for the deceased. It's more like communal grief."

(And in the south, in Urbino, they made Venuses out of the nudity of court ladies, and these too they displayed only privately, away from the public eye.)

Private wealth created private art and while every so often a Napoleon might appear with his David to depict himself a new type of god on horseback, more and more artists came to create for an increasingly ordinary collection of bourgeoisie and petit-bourgeoisie. Soon the point became not what mattered to the king but what mattered to the multitude, because no one king could out-accumulate the wealth of a million millionaires as that fledgling mercantile class of the late Renaissance sprouted and closed its petals over a continent. Géricault, for instance, might forge his name on the back of a sensational scandal ripped from the headlines—because that attracted the most eyes, even if it also attracted the ire of the politicians scandalized.

An emperor might die in Mexico and stand alive amid a puff of smoke for one eternal moment only a week later.

"This picture made me cry. I couldn't stop for thirty minutes. Van Der Gramme, if that's your name... thank you."

When did modern art begin? Some might say Manet, who in 1863 painted a nude woman lunching on the grass with two clothed men and made a hubbub in the Parisian salons where fashionable eyes fêted, and followed this scandal with another in 1865 when he painted that earlier semi-pornographic Urbino subject except a common whore instead of a courtly lady. If Manet did not fit the bill stylistically, he did at least in his singleminded desire to break free of that tyranny of the fashionable. Then you got Monet, Van Gogh, Gauguin, and all the others emerging fully birthed out of their own heads burning more and more intellectual capital to create more and more obviously abrasive works in the name of doing it unalike the way it was done before.

The modernists. The modernists.

"Thank you."

"Thank you."

"Thank you."

The thing was, the modernists weren't really different. That's the thing. It was the still life artists who were different, because the power that paid for them, the power that considered them meaningful, was different. The modernists simply changed the style. Oh, at first they were in it for themselves, a Van Gogh here and there starved to death, but the same could not be said for Matisse or Derain or Picasso or Dali or Mondrian.

The modernists. The modernists. They called themselves the modernists and are still called the modernists even though they lived over one hundred years ago and in a sense they still are modern because history has ended, time has become a point instead of a line.

The modernists. They wanted to wrest art away from power and money, from the academy that had come to enslave it. They possessed noble ambitions and the Nazis murdered them in droves for it (except the ones with enough cash to flee to Switzerland) but all they did, all they managed to accomplish at the end of the day with a World War done and an atomic bomb dropped, all they did was make art incomprehensible save to the most elite of society.

"This isn't who you fucking are and don't you dare fucking do this shit again. Whore."

Yes. Van Der Gramme knew what went into a Picasso. He understood the form, line, color, the political and intellectual context, had read the manifestos—the modernists all had manifestos—he could define the -isms pullulating as a ceaseless mass out of the wide open and screaming mouths of the refusés.

Gramme knew, and maybe a few hundred or even hundred thousand in this world of seven billion knew, and all others saw something that could not possibly be fathomed.

And so art became the domain, yet again, of only the richest, only the most educated, to the exclusion of all others, and tragically too, because these artists so often considered themselves proletariats, so often considered themselves speaking for the common person and breaking free from power. No. No, they could not have known. They could not have known that simplifying art down to a few colored boxes divided by black lines, down to something even a child could draw, rendered it meaningless to nearly everyone. The masses didn't want freedom from the spider web. They wanted its tight embrace and the sense of belonging that came from it. They wanted their art to be a mirror that created the thing it was supposed to reflect. The artists never understood.

So we reach art now. Not modern art, not even postmodern art, one could only call it contemporary. Art of a few polka dots on a canvas selling for a few million dollars to a few anonymous billionaires. Art passed around for tax evasion because the art market remains unregulated due to the prestige people feel when they hear the word "art" even if they no longer feel any prestige looking at it.

It wasn't any one person's fault. Nobody intended for it to happen and those artists, those Damien Hirsts, they perhaps still believed in the project behind their diamond-encrusted skulls. Perhaps it was inevitable. Perhaps the definition of "modern" meant divided from meaning. Church, state, family. Had Van Der Gramme thought art was any different?

"LEEEEECH!! YOOOOOU DID THIS. YOU DID YES YOU VAN DER GRAMMERS I KNOW YOU HEAR ME. YOU'RE THE ONE WHO DID THIS YOUYOUYOUYOUYOU!! LEECHLEECHLEECHLEECHLEEEEECH"

His picture of Mimmy Wowzers' death trended. Reconstructing what happened during the past week proved difficult, but from what he could tell, it first found its way into Mimmy's grieving fandom, who latched onto it for reasons in retrospect quite predictable. They signal-boosted it and some clickbait factory caught wind and slapped together an article about a "memorial for a victim of anti-LGBT violence" and then it turned into a wildfire.

He never posted the elf ripped apart by wild dogs. For a week he only read his praise and ire while Fletch and Dogshit and El-Marghichi zipped around the foyer in fast motion.

Then the zipping ceased and Van Der Gramme snapped back into a real world where El-Marghichi rolled the handle of his mop around his neck as though massaging it and Fletch pounded his frosted forehead with a textbook ominously titled Psychobiology and Dogshit—was gone. Probably on his fast food shift.

In this world the glory of 50,000 likes dispersed into 0 Kelvin.

No, Cariscresco, you fucking understand nothing, you understand nothing at fucking all because here he sat not a leech, not a leech because none of this mattered, those 50,000 likes were not 50,000 new followers, he trended but that merely dropped him like a thin layer of dirt on the surface, nobody cared to engage past that and if they did—even if they did—Mimmy's words reminded him—even if they did, the light outside his niche would disintegrate him.

It was over. It was all, all over.

Let him explain. Stay for a moment and let him explain why, he swears, it's logical, it's all extremely fucking logical, because you see, Van Der Gramme understands himself better than anyone ever could, he possesses a modicum of self-awareness despite what some might call his absurd ego.

Few new followers, no new patrons. No new money, no permanent impact, a picture swallowed wholesale and shared with a 160-character comment. Disposable. If he wanted his daily bread he better post that bloody elf picture, horrify the ordinary people into oblivion, and reclaim his pod of whales to sustain himself. Because the whales were fleeing. And dollars and cents trickled into the gutter.

Mimmy laughed at the end, she really did, even when he killed her she still laughed, because into this pretzel she twisted him. In one stroke from beyond the grave she finally slashed his delusions to ribbons. He saw clearly now, into this dazzling light of 50,000 likes, blinded but enlightened: He could have glory but detest himself until he starved, or he could live in his hole but know forevermore that he would never be anything greater.

At the end of the day, humans must make their own meaning, form it with their own bodies, and part of that meaning must be the part of them that prevents them from seeing the world as it truly is—their lovely delusions. Defects in their eyes or tinted glasses. Buried in his hole this long, his eyes had changed accordingly, and so he saw his hole as well-lit despite its pitch blackness. This was true light, and Mimmy spoke correctly: It burned him, seared into his flesh.

A plank of wood snapped.

Gramme glanced up. It was one of the posts of the balustrade on the second floor, and it snapped because dangling from it was a thing in rags. Around it, staring down, more things watched.

El-Marghichi also saw it. He pointed his mop. "Oh! Oh! Geet back. Back!"

The thing hanging from the balustrade dropped to the first floor and dented the brittle wood when it landed, not far from the furnace. El-Marghichi pranced forward howling commands and Fletch crawled out of his hovel to ask what the fuck was going on, but Gramme kept his eyes at the second floor and so was able to see when the creatures in rags, scurriers from the back rooms who haunted them with chitinous clicks and eldritch groans, spilled as a singular flood down the spiral staircase and over the mangled wreck of the chandelier serving as a barricade.

"Oh fuck, oh shit?" Fletch, closest, fell onto his ass scraping backward over the splinters in a hurry that didn't stop the horde from overtaking him immediately. Five, six, seven of them—impossible to tell where one ended and another began, all patches of grime—jabbed their arms around him and seized his limbs while he screamed.

Even as they hoisted Fletch skyward and ripped at his parka, Gramme remained where he sat, phone in hand. He tried to make sense of what he saw and how fast and how sudden it drove like a dagger into the endless meandering thoughts that plagued him either the past week or past forever, and with a single stupendously clear thought—They're too cold. It's finally gotten too cold and they're desperate enough to go for the furnace—did it all slot together.

Unleashing a feral howl El-Marghichi flung himself at the mass of leprous shambling things and whipped his mop around to beat the foremost back. He only divided the tide and a new stream turned toward Gramme.

Genderless, ageless, ratted clumps of hair covering faces they climbed over themselves to sprint his direction. He reacted the only way he could, which was to first chuck his phone like a rock at the head of the one in front (it bounced off and careened into oblivion) and then seize the nearest object and hurl it too. The nearest object was an ashtray and a cascade of ash puffed up to envelop them.

"Oh god fuck oh fuck help me Graham help me fuck!" Fletch screamed somewhere. El-Marghichi fell onto his back, holding the mop lengthwise in front of him as one of the figures tried to crawl over it snapping jaws at El-Marghichi's nose. Gramme got up and ran and a moment later the coughing jet of bodies crashed into his voided chair and he stumbled, fell hard enough to scrape open his chin, and slid into his pile of books and anime figurines. One creature flopped toward him and the open sores Gramme first took for leprosy revealed themselves instead as frostbite, devouring cheek and nose. A living visage of death the shape of the skull shining through.

He reached into the pile of junk. His hand wrapped around the sheath of the katana one of his followers once gave him and thwacked the hilt against the crawling thing's head hard enough to deter it. He tried to spin the katana around in his cold-numbed hands to grip the hilt but it slipped into his lap and already another two creatures came after him and seized his shoulders and shook him and—

The front door snapped open and a harsh gust of ice air froze the homeless, all of them, in their tracks.

Dogshit stood there, icicle-jacketed, as stunned speechless as everything else, although the homeless driven by desperation recovered sooner and—including the two who had grabbed Gramme—rushed either at Dogshit or at the door to shut it and lock out the unforgivable chill.

Any moment of hesitation shattered and Dogshit brushed back his coat and drew his revolver. He aimed at the figures tumbling toward him and when they did not stop tumbling he pointed it skyward and fired and Gramme fell hands clamped over his ears in supplication to the monolithic crack of the discharge. The figures fell back too, howling, repelled only by rote animal instinct, and even then they rallied themselves quickly and started to resurge.

Except, after Dogshit blew a hole a half-foot diameter out of the roof, the ceiling creaked, and wobbled like it was made of paper, and crashed down like a wave starting from one end of the foyer and spreading the other direction.

The patchwork figures, unified by a singular mind, together turned and ran screaming from the wave. Dogshit doubled back out the front door and vanished into the white, leaving the whistling wind to shriek in his absence. The creature crawling on El-Marghichi fled with the rest and El-Marghichi rushed after it waving his mop like he hadn't had enough and like he hadn't even seen the cataclysm happening behind him.

Van Der Gramme, sunken into his pile of junk, clutching his piece of shit katana, sat still and watched.

The roofbeams smashed the mixing table and all the empty vodka bottles and the empty buckets of fried chicken and the ashtrays. With them fell an accumulation of snow and ice that buried even the wreckage white as the rippling sheet of roof bulged and burst and could not even muster the full obliteration it promised. Some beam in the string of beams—the most central one—was not yet rotten enough. It held, and the domino cascade ended against it. Ended before it even reached the open doorway, let alone Van Der Gramme, ended before it could even muster an illusion of crushing him to bug juice.

The rumble ceased and the gale that swept through the giant hole dwarfed whatever subsidence remained. The temperature plummeted accordingly and it was probably this more than fear that caused the mass of patches to scurry over the shattered chandelier, back up the steps, back into their depths. El-Marghichi, utterly maniacal, eyes bulging bloodshot, screeched in nonsensical terror: "FUCK OFF FAGGOTS. FUCK OFF TRANNIES. FUCK OFF KIKES. FUCK OFF TOWELHEADS—" Fletch only gaped, dazed amid fallen books.

After an indeterminable period Dogshit reappeared in the doorway, gun first. He took one glance at the wreckage and surveyed the rest of the interior and stepped inside. His jacket ruffled around him, blown by the wind.

His mouth opened and he spoke, but the words were drowned out. Realizing this, maybe unable to hear even himself, he shouted: "Come on! Come on, we're going! We are going!"

The scream jerked Fletch out of his stupor and he rose in a cascade of books and stormed toward Dogshit flailing his arms and shouting back: "Bro. Bro what the fuck bro, what the FUCK did you do bro, look at the fucking HOUSE bro, what the fuck!"

"My brothers, it is happening. It is finally happening, a righteous violence is descending," Dogshit's gun in one smooth swirl holstered, his back straight, his tone oratory although his chest swelled to make the sound carry and every so often a burst of particular misery hit his back and he shivered.

"Bro what the fuck are you talking about, look at the fucking HOUSE."

Onto one knee El-Marghichi skidded to Gramme's side. "Those rats, fuck, they must go. We must push them out. Eet's our house. Not theirs. They do not belong!" His face was contorted, frenzied. "War! We must wage war!"

"The people, my brothers," said Dogshit, "are rising up. I am not the only one tired! I saw them just three blocks down, a mass you would not believe. It is an uprising, so long overdue. They demand only justice and they will stop at nothing to achieve it."

"WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT BRO?"

"A riot." Dogshit's eyes flared, bright eyes catching the color of his fast food uniform. Light circled him sleekly. "An uprising! The people are in the streets. They will be heard! We're going. We're going to join them, Fletch, you and me. All must do our part."

Fletch's hands flapped out a few moments before he reeled himself back together. "No. Fuck no. Fuck that shit bro. I ain't fucking getting involved in no fucking riot not when I literally ain't even got a fucking roof over my head and I got a goddam test to study for, ho-ly fuck-ing shit. Crazy! You're fucking crazy bro." He turned to Gramme and El-Marghichi. "Tell this motherfucker he's crazy. He just tore down our motherfucking roof! Tell him he's nuts!"

These words were like a tumor growing just to the side of Gramme's eyeball. He blinked and felt dizzy and waved his hand in a lazy semicircle while he tried to process it.

A riot. An uprising. Something big, something important, at least the way Dogshit said it, he tended to make things important, but if it was important, if it was something that mattered, if the people really were out there, all of them, gathered in pursuit of this justice that apparently mattered to them, in a real world where things could in fact matter, where some type of meaning placed purpose within their lives, the way the death of Mimmy Wowzers might matter to millions the way it mattered to Van Der Gramme...

Why did it matter to them anyway. They didn't know her. Did they really care so much about her trash kid's cartoon. Apparently so since Disney announced a second season in condor capitalization of her corpse and everyone cheered. What was it about Mimmy that mattered to them, he understood why she mattered to him, he could say now so easily what he couldn't say before, that horrible saccharine word: He loved her.

But none of them loved her.

Why did she matter to them. Why did she mean anything to them.

(Her existence was political.)

Disgusting.

(Her art made them happy.)

Even worse. Even worse because not one of them even knew her art. Not the way he did. She was so good. She could have been so good, she could have been great, she could have done it even better than he did. He needed her to be better than him because he always knew, he always fucking understood even back then, even when his numbers kept climbing at a reasonable pace, even when an electricity still animated him, that he had failed. That he was not great. That he was a man in a hole.

That he meant nothing, and nothing he did mattered.

Mimmy... Even when the people finally saw him, they only did because of her. Because she mattered, because her existence was political, because her art made them happy, because she died with such drama, and he captured that drama, and that political feeling, and even in the colors of the glass shards he captured that element of her that made them happy, they for a moment relived her through him, and gave him that fleeting glance he wanted more than anything else in the world, even if they never knew his name and would never see him again and would not pay him a cent.

Unless he gave them again something that they thought mattered, and their eyes landed upon him once more.

"I'll go," he said. A riot. An uprising. A wellspring of the people clamoring for justice. Clearly it mattered, even if the reason couldn't be farther from him. He'd find why, and he'd capture it, and he'd give it to them in a package, and he would cease to exist except as a conduit between them and their meaning. "Yeah, I'll go," he said, louder.

Fletch blinked. "Bro?"

Gramme rose. He gripped in one hand his katana, which he figured he better keep if he was going to participate in a riot, no other weapons being handy. The rest of the junk washed off his robe.

"Uh—great," said Dogshit, surprised. "Great, great. Then let's—let us not waste any time. Who knows how long until the pigs move in."

"Bro? Bro?" Fletch said, only a parka. "Are you fucking insane? The roof. Is fucking GONE bro. We got real shit to fucking worry about here not some dumbass riot like oh my fucking GOD. You there." The parka shifted toward El-Marghichi. "I know you got shit to say so do some fucking good for once and say it cuz I ain't dealing with this shit right now when I got a fucking test so I can fucking graduate and get a goddam fucking degree and go work at a fucking company somewhere and get a fucking place to live that has some goddam fucking heat where mother fucking armies of homeless people won't charge down the fucking stairs to try and fucking abduct me FUCK."

"Deesgusting," spat El-Marghichi. At Gramme in particular.

"It is. It is fucking disgusting it fucking is, I'm with you on that bro. We gotta look out for our own damn selves, shit. We're fucking freezing and starving out here. And you wanna get in some dumbass riot. Bringing your fucking gun of course. And that goddam fucking ninja sword I can't fucking believe it."

"That's not your world," El-Marghichi said to Van Der Gramme. "You don't, how you say. How you say, you don't belong out there. Our home is under fucking attack you deepsheet. Under attack from everywhere! Where else can we go? We fight them! Fight them here and online, fuck. Ban the snake bastard you mother fucker! FUCK!"

The snake? What was he even talking about? Gramme grew distant, thinking only of the meaning of the people of the real world.

Meanwhile, Fletch's barrage against Dogshit's back—Dogshit stood in the doorway, facing the white—only straightened Dogshit's spine and the shortness of his stature resolved into something component by component more grandiose than his bright yellow visor implied. "They keep us fighting for table scraps, brothers. They do. They keep us fighting so we are too damn preoccupied to fight them. I refuse to play that game. I am going to fight them, and you can join me or not."

"Come back you fucker Gramme. We fight them. Here, and online! Come back to the Con, Consortium," said El-Marghichi. "We need you. That ees our place. That ees our world you fuck. My place and your place and you let eet go to hellfuck. Just like this fucker house!"

"I'm sorry," said Van Der Gramme.

"Let us proceed," said Dogshit, and he stepped outside.

"No you fucking don't god damn it fuck bro," said Fletch, shoving Gramme aside to follow first. "Fuck, fuck, fuck, not with your fucking gun you idiot you're gonna get your head blown off. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. Bro. Bro! BRO! Mother fucker why I ALWAYS gotta look after you ever since we were kids man."

Fletch disappeared outside, uttering one final "fuck" that melded into the wind.

"We don't have anywhere else," said El-Marghichi. He seized Gramme's sleeve. "Nowhere else. That ees all we have, that ees home, that ees our, how you say. Our sanctuary. Gramme, ban that snake cunt. Gramme. Gramme. Gramme."

Gramme disappeared outside.

El-Marghichi remained at the portal between the collapsing mansion and the oblivion beyond. He stood there screaming except no voice came out, and although Fletch remained doggedly on Dogshit's heels trying to cajole him to reason, after Van Der Gramme stepped past the ruinous remains of the patio El-Marghichi glanced at his phone, saw something he didn't like, and rushed back inside, tapping furiously.

[7] Harper goes to Hel: The final Frigg.

[7] Harper goes to Hel: The final Frigg.

The office of the big boss smelled like smoke even though No Smoking signs plastered the campus interior. Seated directly under a disassembled smoke detector, the big boss flared a Crux Calico-branded torch lighter, lit his cigar, blew on the end to make a plume of smoke gush out, and gave it a series of quick puffs. His teeth clenching caused his broad black mustache to curl psychotically upward and, in conjunction with eyes hidden under the brim of a cowboy hat, imbued him with unmistakable malice that vanished the instant he lifted his face and plucked out the cigar to twiddle it between two fat fingers, grinning in immeasurable eternity.

He straightened his bolo tie. He uncrossed and recrossed his legs and the spurs on his boots jangled.

"Miss... Harper... Praise." Every word enunciated with maximum stress, like reading an unfamiliar language, although he seemed only to read his own mind. "Funny name that Praise—Celtic corruption of Pierce maybe? Hum." The final syllable came as an exhalation of ash that hovered around his face in a cloud.

"An English word, I believe, sir," said Harper, horrified by this whisper of etymology.

The big boss nodded and his cowboy hat bobbed. On the wall behind him, a long wall that spanned a length four times that of Harper's office, was a world map, a map of Oklahoma that highlighted the locations of casinos, a window looking onto the pond from the second story, and an amalgam of framed photographs of the big boss and the big bosses of the other departments with neon-tubed slot machines backlighting them. Altogether the wall, despite its size, lacked more than a few inches of empty space. His desk remained empty except for an ashtray, into which he dashed some burnt husks, and a pair of golden dice in a velvet container.

The big boss spoke:

"You know Harper, I have been with this company a long time. Long, long time. Forty years I think. Nah. More'n that. What year's it now? Back in '78 it was just Crux. Didn't acquire Calico yet. Crux, Southern Cross you know—stars. Lucky stars, thank 'em. Jim I think—Jim wanted to call it Southern Cross. Advocated. Really advocated for the star theme, said: Southern Cross. Jim did. We were sick of all these aeronautics firms being named after whoever made them. Besides we had boring names anyway. 1978." The big boss nodded, and slowly the dimensions of his office expanded, the Mesoamerican pattern of his carpet stretching its zigzags. "1978, that's right. Jim wanted Southern Cross, but Bob and I, we didn't like it. Wordy. That was my argument. Too wordy, too—cumbersome. Cumbersome in the mouth. Say it: Southern Cross. Say it."

Harper opened her mouth, waited a second, and closed it.

"Doesn't it feel terrible? Bob you know, he was more concrete, said it made us sound like a church in Atlanta. God we argued. Argued more about that name than anything else. Crux, it's the same group of stars as Southern Cross, who now suggested that? Must've been—Mark, yeah, Mark Benitez. He's dead now. Cancer. Of the lung, you know. That'd be April 1992. During the Rodney King business. Remember that? Don't tell anyone I said this, but we actually had Herbert Walker himself ask if it'd be possible for our UAVs to monitor the situation in Los Angeles. Whole city was burning. Burning, burning."

His chair swiveled and his spurs jittered. He dashed his cigar and glanced out the window at the red sky.

"You hear about that?" he said, pointing. "Wildfire. Get those time to time, drawback of the geography, why the hell they ever decided to make the atom bomb here of all places I'll never know. Las Conchas fire, that was 2011. Cerro Grande, 2000, real ugly. They say it's climate change but nah. It's normal, happens every ten years or so, clockwork, these things happen in cycles, everyone wants to say it's building to some godforsaken apocalypse or whatever-the-hell but it's just the same tone ringing. Way it goes is the forests build up all this material. Leaves, shrubs, pine nettles, stuff like that. It builds up, builds up, builds up"—he dashed his cigar into the ashtray—"and eventually there's such a pile of useless flammable crap that it's gotta go up in cinders. Natural. Not the end of the damn world. Just a little restart. Makes room for new growth. Good even. Necessary. End of the damn world—ha."

He swiveled back and stubbed his cigar into the tray to put it out. His mustache broadened and by now his office was a massive cube with a small desk floating in the center.

"Mandatory evacuation later this afternoon I'd wager," like discussing the weather. "Seems I'll spend the weekend in the ol' estancia down outside Santa Fe." He pronounced estancia in full accent, although neither the words before nor after were anything except his unlimited voice. "Also wager it's 50/50 whether it reaches the town, but it'll never reach the campus, you can be sure of that. We designed it that way."

His eye glinted deviously, the way Mark's did when he was preparing to tell a joke for the twentieth time.

"Even if this whole damn planet takes a skinny dip in Hell, we're still clocking in Monday." And he laughed, on the verge of hysteria, for ten seconds that felt like minutes, prior to an abrupt withdrawal into the confines of his cowboy attire.

"So what the hell'd I call you here for?" He clapped the flat of his palm onto the tabletop and swiveled while the mushroom cloud of smoke over the mountains fanned out above his head. "Right. Right, right, rightie-o. The future. We're talking about—the future."

Harper nodded. The future. Someone still saw one.

"I can see the future you know," the big boss said, tapping his forehead between the eyes. "Bob can't. Jim can't. Mike sure as hell can't. Of all the big bosses, I'm the only one divinely inspired by the gift of foresight, but then again each of us has our own unique superpower, even if Mike's is only an uncanny knack for craps. But me, little ol' me can see the strings of fate, pluck-pluck-plucking away and making us all stand and dance for it."

The future, of course. It certainly existed.

"Crux Calico's got big things in its future. Biiig things and we're already pretty damn big lemme tell ya missy. Growth mindset. If you're not getting bigger you're failing and you only get bigger when you reinvest in yourself. The consumer side of the company is where that growth's gonna come from. We got a good thing going with the military but too many people are content to rest on their laurels and let that be the end of it. Sitting's stagnation, a zero, just another kind of death, even if you're comfortable doing it. It's a rich old man lying in bed and his four hungry kids with forks and bibs waiting to carve him for dinner. Nah. Not for us. We gotta take risks. We gotta—roll the dice." To emphasize he seized the golden dice on his desk and rolled them, and they rattled and rattled until they rattled no more and he said: "Shoot! Snake eyes."

Yes, of course, Harper knew, she nodded, and even her nods were unnecessary, because he never saw her.

"Anyway, the consumer market is big and getting bigger and if we wanna get bigger we need to get on it. We can't let our competitors force us out before we even get our foot in the door. We gotta fight for our piece of the pie and that takes aggression, aptitude, alacrity. You know that word, alacrity? Means readiness. I coulda said readiness but I had a lil alliteration going on there so pardon my French." He flicked up his palms to his invisible audience and received an invisible laugh track to accompany the sitcom he fashioned for his life. "Short of it is, we gotta get on this thing. No thumbs up our assholes, no waiting to die. We got the tech. We got the software, that's what we're good at. We make a great product, damn good product. What we're not doing is talking to the people out there, all of them, the potential buyers of the Crux Calico brand. We aren't talking to them. We aren't communicating. We got things to say, we got this whole beautiful world going on inside us, I see it every day, geniuses, brilliant men and women doing the absolute best work in the field, sure as hell better than that Chinese crap. We gotta communicate. Miss Harper, that's where you come in."

Harper withheld a laugh. Harper Praise, master communicator, master of reaching out to people! Why she withheld the laugh she didn't know, because the big boss would neither notice nor understand—another laugh mixed into the applause that thundered when he walked through the front door.

"When we deal with the military, and they need to figure out how the hell to work our damn things, we put together these very nice, on-site, in-person training packages. Charge thousands. And a lotta the other guys, Jim especially, think we can just do the same for the consumer side. We can't. These people aren't looking for that. We need strong documentation. Not buttonology, not pre-baked bullshit. Automaton stuff, that crap's for machines, not people. Click this, click that. What we need to do—is tell a story."

A story, sir?

"A story. A reason why. Why, why, why. The key word: Why. Meaning, purpose, we need to weave these people into threads of a grander tapestry, you get what I'm saying? We've never needed to worry about meaning before, as a company. The US military makes their own meaning. We never needed to worry why our UAVs had missiles and machine guns. It was what they wanted and that was good enough. But for these people, real people, ordinary people like you and me, we gotta supply the why. Supply the why. Supply the why, supply the why, oh that's a good one." He opened his desk drawer, sifted junk for a notepad, and scribbled those words—supply the why—in strikingly effeminate handwriting. "We need to turn drones into experiences. It's not about putting a million eyes in the sky, it's about creating beauty. We got cameras on these things they use in Hollywood. Hollywood! You've seen a movie with a shot from one of our drones, I guarantee it. A skyscraper spiraling skyward, a plunge into the Grand fucking Canyon excuse the parlance. Beauty has a meaning, or at least people think it does, which is the same thing. So we need that beauty in everything we do. Beauty is a story and a story is meaning."

Everyone is exactly the same, sir. You are the same as the others and you bleed into me, sir.

"Especially our documentation. That's where these customers go to learn our workflows. Nobody believes marketing mumbo-jumbo anymore, people are too educated for that. They've all been to college. Sell the story in documentation. When they learn, have them learn it our way, and they will never forget. That is why we need people like you, Miss Harper. Desperately. People like you are the hamsters inside the wheel of this company, Miss Harper. Now that Sarah's gone I'm taking a more vested interest in your team, the way it should've been from the start. We're reorganizing everything."

There's nothing left to organize, sir.

"New hires. Eight to start, more soon after. I want you involved in the hiring process, Miss Harper. I want you to onboard them too. I took a look at your work and it's fantastic. Exactly what I'm looking for: a story. So you'll teach them. I've lined up a series of interviews I want you to sit in on. Eight new writers, think you're up to it?"

What about the site wizard, sir. We need a site wizard.

"Oh yeah. I actually saw you managed the site release yourself this week, didn't you? So we're gonna let you handle that from now on. You're a wizard now, Miss Harper. Comes with a nice raise of course."

And the team manager, sir. Will that be you.

"Hell no, I got no time for that. We're promoting aww, what's-his-face—Mark. Mark Something-or-Other. He'll be the new manager."

The Mark currently on the team, sir?

"That's the one. That guy's got vision."

Harper smiled broadly.

"But we all got our roles to play. You're doing great work, Miss Harper, and now we're gonna need even more from you. You game?"

There was no alternative but yes.

Over the desk, he shook her hand. The meeting ended.

Nothing else happened and Harper did nothing but sit in her office and stare at her screen until it came time for the weekly team meeting.

Perhaps they would soon hire eight new people, but for now, the team consisted of two. Harper Praise on one side of the table, and Mark, the new team lead, on the other. The meeting room remained sterile and the light burned on the blank tabletop and the only sign of the red sky outside came through narrow apertures through three separate layers of wall.

"God, these bloody fires," Mark said. "They'll kick us out of town for the weekend and where are we supposed to go? The missus has no family in state and I certainly don't either. All the hotels in Santa Fe will be booked and we've got the kids on top of that. After the last fire I said I'd be ready next time, I wouldn't wait for the mandatory evacuation order, I'd book a room early so we wouldn't sleep in the bloody minivan on the side of the road again—this being before the kids of course—and even so here we are now. Don't suppose you've got a place to stay Harper?"

She stared at Mark. Her hands remained thatched on the tabletop, her back straight, her expression true neutral.

Mark, Mark, oh Mark, she thought. Her face remained neutral but she thought behind her pleasant smile. Oh Mark, oh Mark. Mark the man who writes documentation yet cannot write, Mark the man who spends his days seeking someone to talk to, Mark. Mark could you be lonely? Could you be sad? That cane keeps scraping. How did you get shot? Tell me the story again Mark, I still remember but tell me again. Tell me how your best mate shot you, twice, and how you insist it was an accident even though it sounds like anything but. Tell me how your autistic children drive you insane and how the missus nags you about everything, say it of course with a smile, a canned joke, a humorously exaggerated howl of frustration, or describe to me the people you've spoken with regarding a new opportunity for our documentation site, the sad and lonely little ideas you manufacture that nobody hears and never get made. Tell me Mark.

"Well if you need anything, give me a ring. I'm sure we'll figure something out so there's no need to be shy, none at all."

"Congratulations on the promotion," said Harper.

Congratulations but you're next you incompetent idiot. There were four of us and now two are dead and look at yourself and then look at me and think: Who will be next? My hair's white but I'm younger than I look, I can't tell you my age but I'm younger than I look and you're not Mark, you're not. Do those bullet holes hurt sometimes Mark? Plugged with textureless white flesh? Do they hurt, and is it sometimes hard to move Mark? You're overweight Mark, you're medically obese, and how old are you? Fifty? Sixty? It was a mistake to have children at your age Mark, they'll murder you one way or another. High blood pressure. Cholesterol. A little bead of blood building in the brain. Or maybe the same tumor that killed Sarah VanBuskirk, a lump of something that is not you and yet your body made it. Crabs skittering crabways.

You've been at this company a long time and bounced from team to team and nobody respected you and at last they've thrown you a bone. Charity. Enjoy it, Mark. A bone for an old dog. But something will always be scraping at your back Mark. You'll walk and hear the scrape and stop and look over your shoulder and see nothing but as soon as you step again the scrape will be there.

Enjoy it, Mark. Because you will die and I will live. I will be the last and I will still be alive when you're nothing but a skeleton in my web Mark. I've collected the bones of so many and yours will be next Mark. Mark. Mark.

Harper dropped her head straight into her arms.

Mark was midsentence, muttering thanks, mentioning how he preferred the raise to the position itself, and he continued to talk several sentences until he noticed.

"Harper? Is something the matter?"

A sound cried out, the call of an exotic caged bird. Impossibly distant, from across the mountain, through the layers of walls to penetrate the meeting chamber. The wail of a being so transparent that it would no doubt vanish altogether soon enough, and yet after the first cry went quiet, and a silence took a second to settle, a second began, followed by a third—a fourth—however many.

"Ah. The evacuation warning," said Mark. The weight of his bulk rising made a more distinct sound than the siren, but it was the clatter and finally scrape of his aluminum cane that clawed Harper's head out of her hands. "Well then, I better collect my family. I trust you have my number, do call if you need any help escaping the city. Traffic down the mountain"—he flinched—"a nightmare!"

Pulled by a single silver string, Harper rose out of her chair. Mark waved and scraped into the hallway, where the other Crux Calico employees scraped in single file, and soon Harper scraped with them. Down the corridor and out the door and into the red glare of the parking lot where a gridlock of vehicles jockeyed bumper to bumper through the automated gate and down the road and out of the town entirely, vanishing into the canyon on the singular road to Santa Fe.

Except Harper did not go to her car. Only the fact that she was moving would allow her to continue moving, any forward progress was predicated on momentum alone, and so rather than collapse into her driver's seat dead she continued to walk, down the entire length of the parking lot, until all the people walking alongside her vanished and she walked alone, into the street, walking, hardly aware she was walking because even that thought might dispel her capacity to continue, cut her string, and crumple her on the sidewalk.

That was her body. Her mind maneuvered in an alternative capacity.

Harper Catherine Praise was born January 2, 1996, in Maple Valley, Washington, the only child of Martin and Lydia Praise, who lived in a suburban culdesac rendered perpetually shady by large trees. Her father was always at work although she never learned what he did—something in an office—and her mother taught middle school algebra. When you opened the front door of the house there was a living room with two sofas set perpendicular and a glass coffee table and a painting by Thomas Kinkade of a cottage in the snow with a quaint cobblestone path leading over a curved little bridge that crossed a burbling, half-frozen brook. The cottage had warm orange lights in all its windows as though the cottage contained a single gigantic lightbulb and once when she was six Harper had a nightmare that the light in the cottage turned off and she stood staring at the dark cottage convinced something unspeakable was about to emerge and just when the door opened the tiniest creak she awoke in tears.

The house also had a garage full of tools and boxes, and a kitchen with normal kitchen things, and a TV room with a TV, and a hallway where all the bathrooms and bedrooms branched. Harper's bedroom was filled with pink which was her favorite color and she liked to play with dolls and stuffed animals. She had at least one hundred of each, the dolls seated in long rows that rounded her room and the stuffed animals piled like pillows on her bed. Harper spent most of her time manipulating the dolls into a soap opera, with dolls marrying and divorcing other dolls in bigamous configurations, an endless cycle of senseless romance that Harper as a child decided would never be complete until every doll had been married to every other doll. She memorized their relationships past and present and attempted, during the transitory moments in which her mother or even more rarely father appeared, to relay this vast and tangled spiderweb, never once erring in her recitations and yet received with wan or condescending smiles from those to whom the information was nothing more than ceaseless battery.

She also went to school.

Harper's preschool teacher told her mother that Harper was autistic, but her mother in a pre-Harper past taught special ed and rejected this conclusion, so Harper was never autistic. She was quiet. Quiet but functional. She completed all tasks. She read, wrote, and even drew. On the playground she always stood by the teacher who did recess duty. She watched everyone else play, but playing never seemed like fun.

One day they made her take a test in which she looked at groups of four images comprised of various geometric patterns and picked the one that was different from the other three. This was her easiest test yet and after it ended they told her she was "gifted," and then they put her into a class with other "gifted" students. Elementary school was so easy she never had to think about it but because she never said anything and nobody not even her teachers knew who she was she never received any of the awards at the end of the year for academic achievement. It always went to some other more visible student, and out of the dullness of her self a jealousy began to burn. In middle school, when you could no longer ace every test simply by showing up and scoffing, and all those loudmouthed kids who won the awards stopped caring and did drugs instead, Harper continued to study in the hopes that this time someone would recognize her accomplishments, but nobody ever did, there was always some new smart kid instead.

Nonetheless there remained a sense, in this world of tests and grades, that her actions mattered in pursuit of a future. She never had to consider the purpose of what she did. She continued to do it, into high school, her antisocial blandness replaced by a sharper, better defined standoffishness, she didn't simply fade out of existence, she spurned the existences of others—outwardly—even though she had good ears and loved to listen to the romantic entanglements of her fellows which ended as swiftly as those of her (now packed away) dolls. The people around her could no longer ignore her anyway because her hair was white and her eyes were red and they were old enough to know it wasn't normal, but nobody ever insulted her about it, high school kids aren't as cruel as depicted in fiction, and she didn't know how she would react if they did insult her, if some queen bee bitch called her an albino freak or something, it might actually be invigorating. But like every high school student, she was depressed, for reasons opaque even to her.

She graduated salutatorian.

She attended the University of Washington, major undeclared.

The university was in Seattle which was not far from Maple Valley but far enough to necessitate her living on campus. She had roommates to whom she spoke once on moving day and then never saw again because they only returned at 2 AM vomiting. She preferred this arrangement. She appreciated time alone. She filled her time with studying. She attended every lecture, transcribed everything her professors said, and memorized the transcriptions. She read every page of the textbooks her classes made her buy, even the unassigned chapters. In her spare time she masturbated or went for a walk.

Eventually she chose a major. Sociology. Eventually she graduated. 3.98 GPA. Summa cum laude. Latin for "with the highest distinction," but only made known via a little asterisk next to her name on the pamphlet they handed out to attendees of her graduation. And now she was finally an adult, and education was over, and her father pointed her to a few companies he knew from work and she applied, for whatever positions available, and Crux Calico contacted her and liked her credentials and asked if she could write documentation and she figured sure, anyone probably could, and the story of how she came from Point A to Point B finally ended as the real Harper Praise not the one of memory stumbled along a curb and crumpled her ankle as her foot folded inward and the heel of her new shoe snapped.

She dropped to a kneeling position on the sidewalk as the pillars of smoke swirled into the bright red eye bearing down from above and all the fiery mountains thronging like lamprey teeth.

That was the history her memory concealed until now, a history of nothing, a history forgotten because it had nothing to remember, a history that revealed no trajectory, no singular mistake she made to end in this burning waste land, but merely a straight, flat line in which everything was always the same as it now was.

Harper slowly climbed to her feet, wincing from the pain in her ankle, and proceeded with her foot dragging and a constant scraping in accompaniment to every inch she progressed through the orange haze of ash that illuminated her world like the lightbulb in the Thomas Kinkade cottage.

In another world, another time, maybe mere competence would have value, but none of these people were needed any more, as many of them could wriggle in her web as she had dolls as a child.

Her housing complex emerged out of the aura, piecemeal, a few floating facades sans depth. Her ankle still hurt. She entered her home and immediately collapsed onto the floor.

An error inherent to her. A flaw of perfect banality. No single tangible strand of something she did worthwhile to show for 25 years alive and unlike her academic days when impressed by the promise of a future she knew now she entered a final culdesac.

Fifteen minutes passed. The siren continued to peal, high to low to high again, and the red aura seeped slowly inside her room.

If she could seep into the carpet like red mist herself. But the pain of her ankle remained.

Only one place left might possibly hold some shred of meaning for her. With her other limbs, she dragged her body across the carpet to the laptop plugged into the wall and entered the Consortium.

[8] Every 30 years in America there's a race riot.

[8] Every 30 years in America there's a race riot.

Three figures, heads tilted, trudged across a white plane. White snow, white sky, no demarcation between them, no distinction whatsoever save that provided by the jutting, sloping, dark forms of the figures. And even those forms were eroding. Sinking into snow piled two feet and piling higher, whipped by a whirling gale of white flakes that crumbled them into the same color as everything else in this unbroken, ice cold monotony. Any shadow that may have seemed a structure looming temporarily out of the murk vanished just as fast as it appeared, not even describable as a change in the white, only the texture of a brush stroke laying the white on ever thicker, thicker and thicker, thicker still, producing in the white a third dimension, one that extended out a flat canvas to reach gruesomely for the one watching it. If the height of the snow didn't force the figures to step with high, exaggerated motions, they might not have appeared to move at all.

Until the snow stopped. Until they took one of those high, exaggerated steps and came down on flat, hard, freshly plowed city street. Their heads lifted, looked up at the straight lines of buildings rising around them.

Van Der Gramme wiped frost from his sunglasses. His nose gushed snot. The icy air calcified his coal-black lungs, cracked him from inside with jagged lines he felt along his ribs. Taking a massive breath he tried to expel the air and a white puff temporarily obscured his vision. Beside him, Fletch performed a similar breathing exercise. But Dogshit trudged on at the same gait as before, as though he hardly noticed the change. Giving Gramme an exasperated palms-up shrug, Fletch shook his head and followed.

"At least hide the damn thing," Fletch shouted. His first quickened step caused his foot to flick out from under him on the slush and he flopped onto his side with enough forward momentum that he managed to pull himself upright while still moving. "Conceal it man or you'll cause a damn stampede."

Dogshit paused, looked at his holster, and with a hiss buttoned the front of his overcoat to conceal it.

"I suppose it makes more sense to assess the situation first." Ahead, bright lights glowed and the sound that had once been wind morphed into a rush of many voices.

"Same goes for you bro." Fletch faced Gramme while walking backward. "You really bring that damn ninja sword bro."

"I guess I did."

"Why. Just why."

Gramme decided to actually think up an answer, although the problem when he thought about things was he could never tell whether what he said was real or just bullshit manufactured to prolong the sound of his voice.

"To participate," he said. "I could watch online if I just wanted to see it. Seeing's not good enough, it's unacceptable, with Mimmy it was personal but if I'm gonna do this I need to be involved. I need to be able to justify it, to someone, to myself, I don't know."

"Do what? Justify what?"

"My art."

"Uh, sure." Fletch eyed the sheathed katana. "Just keep that shit hidden. I'm gonna flunk my damn test being out here all night keeping you two chucklefucks alive. Shit."

Fletch seemed satisfied; Gramme span more mental threads: Because, you know, the idea of the artist as observer―that was dead. Photography killed it, photography observed better―or at least with more fidelity―than any artist. But people still needed art in one form or another, and if you thought about it for even a second you arrived at a perfectly non-bullshit explanation of art not as observation but as interpretation, not a photorealistic encapsulation of Thing X as it exists in an objective way, but as a specific understanding that imbued Thing X with meaning, importance, purpose. Right, great, sounded like another Van Der Gramme video in the making. An artist takes a thing and extrapolates off it, exactly like what he was doing now, he took the simple fact that Van Der Gramme left to join a riot carrying a katana and weaved a narrative around it, something that made sense with a neat bow and caused his audience (at this moment only him) to nod in understanding of a fundamentally incomprehensible Thing X.

That's why, that's why they loved the Mimmy picture. He transformed their grief into something explainable, comprehensible, acceptable, a heroic Mimmy, a triumphant but tragic warrior, an O Captain My Captain. It made sense. Really Mimmy got shot by some nutjob, some schizoid lunatic, probably not even politically motivated. Regardless of the fervor surrounding her kid show it was just a kid show. Nobody sane―nobody fundamentally understandable―could care enough to kill, and deep down everyone fucking knew it, the people extolling her as a martyr knew it, the people saying good riddance knew it, they knew none of it fucking mattered. Van Der Gramme—he made it matter.

God. When did he get so good at autofellatio.

By now other figures walked alongside them. More appeared from alleys and doorways, a funnel of people, taking up the street and sidewalks, streaming toward an intersection ahead where the action seemed to be happening. Everything was warmer thanks to the bodies clustered around him. Nobody noticed his katana, they noticed his lack of a medical mask and some even reminded him quite loudly to "mask up," because a worldwide pandemic was currently killing more people in this country than any other cause.

Although not as tall as Mimmy, Gramme was tall enough that if he perched on tiptoe he saw the whole intersection, two arterial streets forming a cross, where thousands gathered. Casually, as though it didn't matter, and in some respects it didn't because it spread to none of the neighboring buildings, a bank burned. Another flame flickered from the skeleton of a police cruiser in the center of the intersection, and the crowd lurched back when something inside the cruiser crackled and belched a terrific fireball.

From this vantage Van Der Gramme immediately understood his future work of art. Like Altdorfer's Alexanderschlacht, an epic painting showing, at its base, the struggle of two armies, while the rest of the work depicted a vast terrestrial and celestial skyscape to suggest the monumental nature of the proceedings. Right―perfect. When Fletch reached a hand out of the densified crowd to clutch Gramme's robe, Gramme tugged the other way until he reached the curb, where he climbed onto the pedestal of a streetlamp to observe with more breadth.

He'd doodle a thousand figures, why not. Engineer them with enough precision that when zoomed in one could make out unique individuals, eighty percent black twenty percent everything else, beings in baggy jackets or plaid shirts or no shirts and holding signs that said I CAN'T BREATHE and some with masks and some with plastic face shields and some filming with phones and some filming with professional news cameras. Some who emerged out the crumpled doors of a convenience store carting loot and some tossing kindling onto the cruiser and some hurling themselves against a solid street-spanning line of police in tactical gear who closed off one route out of the intersection in a phalanx of riot shields. Some—like Dogshit—freedom fighters fishing for followers as they howled their particular brand of anarcho-communism into a megaphone, some mere opportunists, some merely ordinary people sick of police brutality. All these myriad entities, constructed out of real life and into Van Der Gramme's brain, reconstituted from the basic shapes that made torsos and limbs: rendered miniscule. Turned into partisans of an army, compressed into the bottom third of a canvas while the burning building and the smoky indistinct gray sky consumed all―that being the adaptation, Altdorfer's world landscape reduced to vaguery.

A world he controlled. A world of insects on invisible strings, puppets to the artist's infinite hands. A world tens of thousands would see themselves in and extol him for inventing.

"Jesus," said Fletch, who clung to Gramme's lamppost. Dogshit long subsumed. "They really are out here. Ain't gonna change shit though, can fucking tell you that. Nope, no sir. Ain't gonna change a damn thing bro."

A news reporter pushed out of the thicket, dogged by his cameraman. He had red hair and a red button-up shirt with the top button unbuttoned to ruffle his semiformality into something more aesthetic to his surroundings. He glanced at Van Der Gramme, decided that was not the person he wanted on camera, and instead thrust his microphone into Fletch's confused face.

"Hello, I'm with the press. I'm trying to understand the situation. Can you tell me why you're here?"

"Shit," said Fletch.

"Try not to curse. We're live."

"Man. I just got dragged here bro. I got a test tomorrow."

This answer may have deterred others, but the reporter leaned in. "So you're a student?"

After a blink, Fletch also gained newfound interest. He gripped the microphone to steady it―people kept jostling the reporter―and looked directly into the camera lens. "That's right. I'm a student and I'm gonna graduate and get a boring ass job in some office so far away from this lousy neighborhood, hell this whole lousy city, that I never gotta think about it ever again. I'm gonna sit in an office and not think all day and they're gonna pay me to do it too bro. Ain't gonna be their knee on my neck, that's for sure. That's for damn sure bro."

"Very interesting," said the reporter. "And what's your name?"

"I'm Mark Fletcher. Call me Fletch, like the movie."

"So you're saying you don't care about the issue of police brutality in America? Even though you yourself are African-American?"

"I care about one thing." Fletch jabbed his chest with a thumb. "That's me. That's number one. Helluva lot easier to look out for me than to look out for the whole black race, the whole entire not-me. These people out here, they just gonna burn some shit—some crap I mean—they gonna loot some buildings, and white America gonna see it and get scared and maybe cry on Twitter but it's doing nothing. Nothing. It's—"

"It is sending a message to the world," said Dogshit, who manifested out of nowhere to force his face into the microphone. "What my black brother here is saying is a falsity, pure and simple. Look at this. Look at it." Dogshit swept a hand to indicate the crowd, while Van Der Gramme's head tilted toward the sky. "Do you truly believe this cannot matter? Can accomplish nothing? We live in the United States of America my brethren, we live in a democracy despite the will of our statist overlords to crush it underfoot, we live in a country where the people rule, and this is it! This is us, we are ruling! This is what it looks like, and we will never stop. We will never stop! We―will―never―stop!" He attempted a chant, to no avail.

"Very interesting," said the reporter. "And what's your name?"

Dogshit ripped the mic out of his hands. He was still in the process of emerging from the crowd, his upper body tilted at a 90-degree angle. "My name, good sir, is Kilimanjaro Jones. Kilimanjaro, like the mountain in Africa, and I am proud of that name."

Fletch rolled his eyes. "That's not his damn name." Because he lacked the microphone, only Van Der Gramme heard him. And really, nobody heard any of them. In Gramme's work of art, no voices would be heard, only the sight of them would exist, and so small too.

"And you!" Kilimanjaro "Dogshit" Jones said to Fletch. "You cannot simply run away. Your body is as black as mine and there is nowhere you can run from your own body. We are in this together, all of us, whether we like it or not, so we are better off liking it and using that unity to our advantage. Power! No one person is strong enough. But together, in this mass"—indicating the crowd—"together we have that power!"

"Nah, that's for you," said Fletch. "That's for you. You're you, I'm me, and I don't gotta involve myself in this political bull. I don't know these people. I don't know the ni—the dude who got knelt on. That's all them. I'm above that."

"Fletch, the fact that you are a black man who is alive makes you a political issue in this country. You cannot run from it. Your existence is political!"

Your existence is political. That phrase jerked Van Der Gramme out of his elevated perspective. He slid down the lamppost. "Your existence is political"―he said that, didn't he? In one of his videos? Like "History is ended."

"I'm just me," said Fletch, "and none of this shit matters. Nothing matters except what I think matters, and what matters is I got a damn test tomorrow bro. You see enough yet Graham? Let's go home."

He gripped Graham's sleeve but something deeper down the intersection burst and a geyser of sparks hurled upward. A firework. A second exploded against the wall of riot shields and a collective cheer or jeer arose as several bandana-masked rioters started hurling indeterminate (especially at this vantage) objects at the police.

"This gonna get ugly," Fletch whispered urgently.

But if it got ugly, Van Der Gramme needed to see it: a war reduced to miniature. The line of police failed to budge beyond a minor buckling, and the crowd, emboldened, set off two more fireworks that sprayed abstract streaks against the shields. Another firework burst prematurely and a man staggered away shaking a singed hand while four more rushed forward carrying a printer―possibly pulled from the burning bank―and bashed it against the line where it burst back spewing unlimited mechanical parts. Something flaming arced over the police, flopped to the ground behind them, and flickered until an officer stomped it out.

"The line of officers," the reporter explained to his camera even though Dogshit had vanished with his microphone, "are defending the local precinct, just over there. This crowd of—protesters—have pushed the line three blocks to reach this point."

A pellet shot up from the police side, lingered in the air, and came down to bounce with a metallic clang on someone's skull. It immediately spewed white smoke.

"Aw fuck, tear gas―alright funtime's over." Fletch dragged Graham hard and Graham's slippers skittered across the sidewalk as he kept his eyes skyward to watch a second and third tear gas canister rain upon the intersection. Some intrepid protester picked up the first and chucked it back the way it came, except it hit an overhanging street light, bounced back at a severe angle, and landed in the crowd again.

"The police are firing tear gas onto the crowd," the reporter said. "Our team is moving to a safer location."

"Aw fuck!" said Fletch. "What the hell."

They had tried to retreat the way they came. But the street was now far denser with people, an illimitable glut, a horde Graham never knew existed in this ghost city Detroit. The swarm thronged a pair of vehicles, a sedan and an SUV, blocking the road (and escape) entirely. The vehicles rocked back and forth like hammocks as the crowd pushed and pulled and banged the windows. The stunned drivers glanced around frantically, honking horns. Onto the sloped windshield of the SUV leaped a figure—Dogshit—carrying both the reporter's microphone and a megaphone he must have stolen from somewhere. Perhaps believing using both would magnify his voice even more, he pressed them to his mouth and shrieked a message transmogrified into an unintelligible blitz of crackling and sonic peaking.

Another tear gas canister nailed a person next to Graham. The intersection swelled with white smoke, which rose in curls to intwine the black smoke of the fires.

Gunshots rang out.

"The police," said the reporter, who stopped to cough, "the police appear to be firing—rubber bullets—into the crowd. I repeat, we're retreating—move, move!" But there was nowhere to move.

The windshield of the sedan cracked. Its driver panicked, lurched back in reverse, and a clutch of protesters hurled themselves aside to avoid being crushed. The SUV's driver saw the sedan's escape and tried it himself, but only managed to jerk onto the curb and knock Dogshit to his ass.

All around them—white smoke. Under his sunglasses Graham's eyes stung with less intensity than he expected. Worse was when the smoke sucked into his lungs and set them afire. He doubled over and hacked and Fletch hacking too dragged him to move because the fleeing sedan formed an avenue in the army of bodies through which they could flee. They only managed a few steps before Fletch stopped and said, "Oh fuck, oh shit," followed by a string of meaningless expletives in identical vein. His words only contributed to the suspended nature of the proceedings, a parade of events that individually might be construed as insane but either together or only in Van Der Gramme's mind twisted to become as stagnant as a still image. Thus Gramme, wiping his eyes under his glasses and only irritating them more, was late to lift his head and see what Fletch saw: an all-black, tinted-windows pickup truck barreling down the road toward them, flying the largest American flag in all history.

The pickup clipped the reversing sedan in the taillight. The sedan went spinning but the pickup only built momentum. A collective scream arose and the crowd made a single concerted rush to cleave out of the way.

The world clicked into place.

Graham was already diving to the side taking with him a woman who happened to be in his way and together they rolled onto the sidewalk. Fletch slipped on something and that something turned out to be a small hand emerging out of a flurry of hands to grip his ankle and he caught himself in a push-up position and made one final effort to lunge forward before the gigantic tires of the black truck rushed past and sucked under them the woman who had been desperately clawing Fletch to pull herself away. She vanished as though erased from existence and her hand no longer gripped Fletch and he rolled onto his back kicking himself away and screaming into the compacted wall of flesh against the storefronts while the truck swerved, took out a fan-shaped swath of people, and screeched to a halt, leaving heaving forms scattered in its wake.

Everyone started running but Graham crawled to help Fletch, whose face wore an expression of horror more severe than anything Gramme had ever drawn. The reporter, somewhere, said: "God."

All four doors of the black pickup opened and six men streamed out wearing black camouflage, tactical straps, backward-turned hats, and skull tattoos. Long bushy beards and big black sunglasses rendered them utterly anonymous. They held rifles.

"Excuse me," said the reporter, regaining his composure. "Excuse me but you just ran over those people. Would you like to comment?"

The nearest man rammed the butt of his rifle into the reporter's face. A ribbon of blood whipped out as he toppled backward.

"We're press, we're press!" the cameraman howled, frantically pointing to a block-lettered PRESS on his cap, before the men surrounded him, threw his camera to the ground, and trampled it.

Everyone else ran. And because everything past the immediate area became a formless puff of white smoke, the only thing these men saw after they tossed the cameraman aside and surveyed the scene was Fletch and Graham cowering on the curb.

Unlike the others Fletch had not gotten up to run because he kept staring at the body of the woman on the street, a body still heaving with slow repetitious motions but doing nothing else. He kept saying, "Oh my god, oh my god," although Graham couldn't tell whether what shocked him was the obliteration of another human inches away from him or the mere inches by which he evaded an identical fate. Either way, as three of the paramilitary types stepped from under the shadow of their truck's world-devouring American flag—which replaced the typical colors with ominous black, save for a single blue stripe—Graham jostled Fletch to get his attention.

"Oh my god," Fletch said.

"Fletch―Fletch."

At the last moment Fletch turned his head. His parka hood had fallen and his face seemed to erupt outward, pronounced by butterfly ears. Shellshock resolved off him as he recognized the steady tromp of the pseudosoldiers.

"Oh my god."

He tried to rise and a soldier shoved him down. Graham skittered back, unnoticed, maybe because he remained only an eyeball in the sky, maybe because he was white and not PRESS and these people forsook art long ago―people for whom history was always now―and watched as two soldiers wrested Fletch's arms behind his back. Fletch at first went limp under the barest touch but when a zip tie tightened around his wrists he jerked his head and shouted:

"I did nothing! You can't arrest me! What did I do!"

"Hostile neutralized," a soldier graveled in a voice forcibly made several octaves deeper than it actually was. "Toss him in the back."

Two soldiers hoisted Fletch under the shoulders. Fletch struggled, he spat droplets skyward as tears from the gas streamed down his face. "You can't fucking arrest me bro you aren't even fucking cops! Where's your fucking uniform bro! What fucking division are you in? You're not real, you're not cops!"

"You're out past curfew," a soldier said, and the others laughed drily as they dragged Fletch toward the truck.

The artist Van Der Gramme watched, observing, uninvolved, irrelevant, certain to craft out of this image with its cinematic fog a work of art to prolong the tenuous investment of the multitudes, to seize their glory for showing them horror their lives lacked.

"I'm American! I'm an American citizen bro! You can't arrest me, you aren't cops, you're fake, you're playing pretend!"

The artist Van Der Gramme watched. But the man Graham McGill drew his katana from its sheath and charged.

One soldier, kneeling beside the truck and pointing his gun to and fro as though expecting a guerilla squadron to appear any moment, actually saw Graham running, but he said and did nothing and did not even point his gun at Graham. In fact, as Graham closed the distance, the man's beard parted into a denture-perfect grin.

The soldiers wrestling Fletch toward the truck, meanwhile, only turned when Graham was already in striking range.

(Mimmy.)

The dull edge of the cheap katana blunted by a thousand parlor tricks whapped into the side of a soldier and bounced off his five hundred straps and pouches.

On the rebound, the katana slipped out of Graham's ice-cold hands and skittered across the street before stopping against the heaving body of the woman run over.

The butt of a rifle plowed into Graham's face.

He didn't realize it happened until he was already on the ground watching his blood swirl into the gutter. His sunglasses floated on the blood, spinning slowly with the ear hooks pointed upright, one lens a rhizome of cracks.

"DON'T FUCKING TOUCH MY FRIEND BRO," Fletch screamed somewhere, and then something hard hit something soft and Fletch hiccupped in pain.

It was not possible for Van Der Gramme to be hurt so he held a hand to his side and waved to Fletch that all was well. He reached for his sunglasses.

"DON'T TOUCH HIM!"

A boot came down on Graham's hunched back and forced him down. Nonetheless, Gramme continued to attempt to place his sunglasses onto his face, his eyes a bleary stain without them, the world—blood, street, smoke—one unpleasant stew. With his glasses he might see clearly again, which was important, because he came here, he remembered, to observe this event of cultural and/or sociopolitical importance, to depict it, to gain glory. An artist. A being of importance. Of purpose. He was bleeding. The boot dug between his spinal discs.

"Let me up," he said to the boot. "I have to put my glasses on." This request seemed perfectly reasonable. It was not honored.

You know. You know—Graham thought about this—you know, Mimmy spent so much time transforming her body into the thing she wanted it to be, made it mean what she wanted it to mean, all for a single slug to shred it to pieces faster than sight.

Van Der Gramme realized he drew her all wrong. Utterly wrong. He needed to show her blasted open. Her waist a cavity, intestines spilling out, long and thin like the threads of self unspooling. That was how Mimmy would have seen it. If she could watch herself die.

"Let them go," said a voice distorted by the thick smoke.

Graham twisted his head and at the edge of visibility stood Dogshit. Only recognizable because of the bright yellow fast food polo he wore under his fluttering overcoat. "Let them go or I have no choice but to take action to protect the people."

"You want in the back too?" said a soldier.

"As far as I can tell," Dogshit continued, impeccably calm, "your car is unmarked, you wear no law enforcement uniform, and you possess no badge."

"Dogshit. Dogshit get outta here bro," Fletch said, already halfway into the truck, his voice more pleading than frantic. "It's not your damn problem Dogshit it's mine. I'll fucking deal with it bro."

"Dogshit?" said a soldier. "Your name's Dogshit?" Chorus of laughter.

Dogshit waited for the laugh track to subside. "My name," he said, "is Kilimanjaro Jones." Self-styling. All of them, self-styling. The soldiers, who weren't soldiers, live action roleplaying the fantasy of a first-person shooter. Dogshit his own type of warrior. Mimmy a marshal. Identities crafted long before any of them but crafted lacking a face so that with enough aesthetic aplomb one might slip in and become them. Premade meanings.

"Can we arrest this fucko too?" a soldier asked.

"No room," said another.

"You have grievously wounded pedestrians with your reckless driving," said Dogshit. "I will be making a citizen's arrest of you now. Drop your weapons and surrender peacefully or I will use force. You have been warned."

"Bro," said Fletch. "Bro, bro, bro don't do this."

The soldiers exchanged glances that might have appeared bemused if not scrubbed of distinction by their beards and glasses.

"You are threatening the peace and are a danger to the people of this city," Dogshit continued. "You—"

One of the soldiers pointed his rifle at Dogshit. "I heard enough. On the ground, scumbag."

"You are the sewage clogging the—"

"I SAID ON THE GROUND."

"Clogging the—"

The soldier fired his rifle into the sky. It sounded less real than guns from Hollywood movies.

Dogshit flinched. Recovered. "Clogging the—"

"NOT WARNING YOU AGAIN COCKSUCKER. ON THE GROUND." All six soldiers, including the one who kept Graham pinned, pointed their rifles at Dogshit.

"Clogging the—"

A firework went off. None had erupted in a long time, but maybe some rioter beyond the fog heard the gunfire and thought it was someone else's firework and decided to light theirs in solidarity. The why didn't matter―it went off. The soldiers in unison jerked their heads toward the sound and each looked in a different direction.

Dogshit flicked back his overcoat, wrenched his Magnum out of its holster, and fired while diving toward the cover of some debris left by the rioters, amalgamated junk so eclectic as to be rendered perfectly meaningless. Everything about Dogshit's movement looked spectacular. Straight from an action film, straight from a Greek sculpture, the coat fluttering to reveal Dogshit's powerfully-built body bulging through his yellow polo. Olympian. Ideal of man, ignore his short stature. And the power of his arms and pectoral muscles only accentuated the power of a more modern sensibility, his long and exquisitely-crafted handgun, which captured the eye's attention through its metallic glint on a parabola downward.

Yet the bullet hit absolutely nothing. Its sound split the white smoke clean in two, until the smoke regenerated with wispy tendrils.

As Dogshit landed hard a few feet away from his intended cover, the soldiers whirled like puppets, erratic swivels in semicircular patterns entirely desynced with one another. "Hostiles! We got hostiles?" one shouted, in character, but unhelpful. None of them could pinpoint where the gunfire came from, none of them even bothered looking for Dogshit after he hurriedly scrambled behind the pile of junk. Like toddlers, or the Alchemist, none of them remembered his presence.

"Hostiles hostiles," another soldier pitched in. "Hot and heavy let's roll out." Inhuman string of words, past comprehension. The soldiers rumbled together toward their vehicle. Graham was released and, shivering, started to rise―but Fletch remained trapped in the truck, howling for Dogshit to stop.

Dogshit didn't stop. Like a meercat he popped above the junk pile and fired again. Despite the gun's obscene size and caliber it went off like a toy, a pow rendered diminutive within the oppressive white smoke of the tear gas.

Speaking of which.

Van Der Gramme's eyeballs, no longer defended, melted. The awkward, stilted pageant of Dogshit firing upon the soldiers broke apart, the classical form of Dogshit's body melted. Line and color began to bleed, harsh delineation no longer feasible in a world where time lacked meaning. Dogshit's yellow visor swelled and swallowed his face. The soldiers, taking cover behind their truck as they finally determined their attacker, detached limbs from bodies. All blurred. Van Der Gramme himself blurred as he looked down at himself, his robe lacking boundary with the road. He appeared to have a hundred fingers, and each in their twitching produced a hundred more, infinite fingers depicted from all angles simultaneously.

A rapid ratatat rippled the undulations of color and Gramme somehow comprehended this formless happenstance, this Jackson Pollock, as the soldiers firing back at Dogshit. The sounds Gramme supposed were bullets disintegrated into only vague, unthreatening percolations. But abstraction obfuscated: they were still bullets. Still deadly.

Someone might be dead. Dogshit might have fallen, riddled through. Or maybe in this murk Dogshit remained the only one clear-eyed enough to shoot true. Or maybe his random shots struck only the ground, the truck, a bystander—Fletch—maybe Fletch now lacked half a torso, maybe his test perpetually tomorrow would no longer rise up to meet him, and his eyes stared blank and would stare blank until worms devoured them.

Dead or alive, they dispersed into the same thing: paint spilled upon a canvas. Everything into the muck.

Observation became impossible. The vantage of the eyeball in the sky shattered. Horror, once seen only on Fletch's face, impaled the edifice of Van Der Gramme. Horror―abject horror.

Graham got his glasses, got up, and ran.

The moment he pulled the thing that still managed to be himself off the thing that still managed to be the ground, something undeniably a bullet even though he neither saw nor heard nor felt it whizzed past his head. In this world of imprecision, a factor of two centimeters nonetheless distinguished an alive Graham McGill from a Graham McGill who no longer existed. The Graham McGill who did exist, Van Der Gramme, sprinted or tried to sprint only to pitch forward and hit a ground surprisingly hard for all its nebulousness and roll back up still scrambling and still unable to perceive exactly how far he needed to lower his feet to stop from falling again.

Dogshit, Fletch. He left them behind, he was sorry, he was screaming he was sorry, but he had to get away, had to return to somewhere that wasn't this place, this false nothing same as darkness, he got his glimpse inside the real world and now he had to slam the lid shut. He fell again and the pain spiraling up his knee registered a shape of himself upon which he knew he could rely.

He ran, until no more gunfire entered his understanding. When he finally looked back not even a yellow swath remained to identify as Dogshit. Nothing remained, only a cloud of white, through which he burst into real oxygen and immediately bent over heaving the pepper acid from his lungs.

His eyewater splattered the road. He took staggered stooped steps to keep ahead of the slowly swirling fog and coughed and kept coughing, unable to divest his diaphragm of its formless lump, and he blinked and kept blinking, unable to resolve the black strip in front of his face into a road.

He coughed and kept coughing, blinked and kept blinking, until what replaced the oppressive grip of the gas was the guilt of leaving his friends behind.

One or both might be dead, actually dead, not in an abstract way, dead the way Mimmy Wowzers was dead, an irrevocable removal from his life, and he wondered, grinning with a bitterness nobody seeing him would have been able to discern, if he would go home and draw their deaths, if he would paint them into the path of a bullet too.

He didn't paint that Mimmy picture for profit. He didn't. It wasn't his intention, never. Never, never, never, he wouldn't. Not to her or anyone. Not to himself, not to disfigure his own soul that way.

Finally half able to breathe he took in a deep breath of polluted city air and put his sunglasses back on. The blurriness of his vision started to resolve into relative coherency. So he saw, coherently, sweeping from his left, a line of tactical gear police stretched from one end of the road to the other, most carrying riot shields in centurion formation and between the shields the rest pointing rifles. They pointed rifles at Graham.

"Move!" came a collective shout, from all police at once.

He turned and ran and a rifle fired and a bullet hefted him airborne before he came down like a rock and rolled over gripping his side.

They shot him.

"GOD!" He could not help screaming. "Oh god, oh god!" He gripped his side with both hands—a fount of blood he had to keep from bursting out—

"Move!" The police line shouted again.

He rolled over. He rolled onto his stomach and tried to propel himself with slow-motion scrabbling feet. The pain. God the pain, god. The pain. His whole body driven into a crack in the sidewalk crushed and crumpled and still his lungs rattling acid molecules and his eyes a goo. Pain sparkling like a rash that spread not only across his skin but deep inside, over the interior of his flesh like a parasite, a foreign intruder, a violation of the space that delineated Graham McGill/Van Der Gramme from the many things that were not him. His body. Arbiter of all meaning. A bullet passed through the body of Mimmy Wowzers and that body had defined all meaning for her and now that body was nothing despite her fastidious efforts to exert dictatorial control upon it.

His blood rushing out between his fingers sluicing onto the road to roll into the gutter and flush away with the sewage of this city. Could he depict his own death in a painting too. Death of Mimmy Wowzers, Death of Van Der Gramme, she standing and buckling, he crawling and leaving a trail of himself like the ooze of a slug. Mist-shrouded line of police a severe, unbroken diagonal across the frame deleting all possible perspective. Beyond perspective, each police the same police reprinted.

Yes. Yes.

He wanted to paint that painting. To die alongside Mimmy. No. Not alongside. To die greater than her, sacrificed to this cause that brought everyone onto the street. Mimmy only died in a restaurant to some lunatic, but this! This was true death, true meaning, beautiful, let him die, the only problem was if he died he could not paint his death and nobody but him would do it, nobody but him could even paint. Paint my death Damien Hirst. Construct it out of polka dots and diamonds. Replace my head with platinum skull. Take this body and preserve it within a glass box. Cobble together your little memento moris and create a death like this Damien, show them a fear far beyond a cow sawn in half. Gramme hurled back his head and cackled a rasp of toxins. Everything in this world began and ended with the body, the body, the body―!

Hands seized him. Under each arm, four hands, hands of a four-limbed creature―Hindu deity. His body rose while his feet dragged and when his head lolled down and saw his side he saw not a single sanguine drop spurting from a world-devouring wound, he saw no wound at all, not even a rip in his robe.

"They shot me," he said in awe. They shot him. He felt it. He still felt it now, the bullet that murdered him.

"Rubber bullet," said one of the four-limbed creature's two heads as it pulled him into the cover of a ransacked storefront.

"Damn! They're shooting white people now too," said the other head.

They were two black men and for a moment Graham thought they were Fletch and Dogshit but only because his eyes remained glazed; when he blinked they looked nothing like them. And once they rested him somewhere safe they got up and started to leave.

"They're shooting white people now, that's it. Now it's real. Once white people see they shoot white people too, then they'll realize."

"Just a rubber bullet."

"So?"

"They shoot us with the real ones."

The pain, and their voices, receded.

Graham sat up and leaned against some junk. Delusion melted out of him and what remained was a husk. Mimmy Wowzers laughed in his face. The carefully constructed notion of Van Der Gramme was crumbling, collapsing. He was, he realized, thirty years old.

His refuge, which he first took for a store, proved to be not that, although its exact purpose defied comprehension. It extended to surprising depth and width, a single momentous round room, and only when he noticed the elevated mezzanine at the far end did he piece the disparate elements into a meaningful whole. A stage, a concert hall maybe, or a showroom for gatherings, either way long abandoned. Now it housed only the types of creatures who lived in the second story of his mansion. Something covered the wall at the back of the stage, although it was so dark he couldn't see through his sunglasses. Having dispelled his pain he rose and wandered toward it, careful to avoid the spent hypodermics on the floor. Something skittered somewhere. He removed his glasses.

A mural. It stretched from one end of the stage to the other, its paint faded and chipped but enough still extant to suss the gist. In earlier days it must have been vibrant, bright, hopeful. It depicted the interior of a factory. Along a conveyer belt the skeletons of vehicles rode, while powerful, heroic black men in suspenders worked the levers and pulleys. The colors defied reality, because Graham only knew factories as dull, drab places (he had never actually seen a factory), but here the walls wore blue and green in alternating pattern, and the floor might have once been orange, and a radiant halo enveloped each of the workers, the workers being both the most detailed element and the most ravaged by time, their intricate musculature now atrophied streaks of black flesh, and their faces rendered anonymous by stretches of crumbled white plaster.

The right wall of the factory was covered in windows that looked onto a cityscape that could exist neither in present nor past, a utopian agglomerate of skyscrapers with a shiny sunny sky even though the real city had not seen sunshine in over a century. Medieval lettering, the kind found in an illuminated manuscript of chivalric romance, floated across the top:

OUR SWEAT, BLOOD, AND TEARS BUILT THIS CITY! WE ARE—

The final words were nothing now, gone forever. Van Der Gramme turned and walked away.

The police line had moved elsewhere and the street lay dormant, urine-scented. Above the tops of buildings beyond buildings flames flickered and pillars of smoke stood like heavenly pedestals. An old woman in rags dragging a cart full of clothes crossed him.

All now was only an ache, in his side, in his lungs, in his eyes, an electric sensation dissipating the way all energy does. Soon nothing would remain. The mural crumbling bit by bit, next the arms of the men would go, then their torsos, their hands gripping the levers, and the utopia out the window would shatter and fall tower by tower. Someone painted that mural in situ, real paint and real brushes, like Italian frescos, frescos crumbling too, and Van Gogh who heaped a third dimension of paint onto his canvasses, hardened clumps that extended into the real world, the world of the viewer. Rothko who congealed original colors from egg yolk to add an ephemeral shimmer to abstract blobs.

On either side buildings loomed grandiose, architectural styles cobbled from all possible periods and yet each collapsing under its own weight. The city burned and before it burned it became a Sargasso Sea, a swirl on this ice-bitten peninsula like the vortex of wealth it once was. Men in factories on their levers spilling their sweat blood and tears into the soil to grow out of it the whole of human history. Men automated into oblivion. Men rendered irrelevant by the onward march of time, the progress of science of technology, the conveyer belt they invented right here, and now here they were in this derelict graveyard of America.

They, too, victims of modernity, of a world that no longer needed them.

And here with them Van Der Gramme lived.

His head lolled. A groan escaped him and with it the last of his bile. The structures of this city stripped away into all-devouring white, the city of the mural its towers collapsing into clouds of smoke towers beyond towers all burning up as ash hark the angels descending now to take us into their final embrace.

His legs stomped through snow and his skin cracked like ice.

He had no further ideas for art.

He wanted Mimmy back. He needed her. He loved her. He wanted to fuck her. He wanted her. He wanted them all, those happy days, days when he still saw a future, him and Fletch and Dogshit laughing, the Consortium full of colorful characters, a world he devised out of the singular notion that all of it mattered, amid the poverty and prurience, a dismal toiling life in a factory where he produced consumptive art on demand and on schedule but with a hallucination of a shiny utopia outside the window to stir him ever onward.

But now his face had crumbled into a white splotch of plaster.

Out of the white emerged the ruins of his manor. A wall that had rippled and collapsed in a chimney of bricks. A front door that slapped back on its hinges, one hinge broken so it jerked at a deadly angle. Out of the side of the manor streamed a caravan of ghosts, swaddled in rags and carting belongings in search of somewhere stable, unaware nothing existed beyond this world.

Snow coated everything inside. The wind whistled and the fire in the furnace no longer burned.

"Sister," said Van Der Gramme.

At the far end the figure of El-Marghichi knelt with his spine arched back and his crooked neck craned to point his face skyward. A thin layer of snow covered him; he remained motionless. Because of the way his chest was arched, out of the snow emerged the face of a woman, her saliva-drenched tongue hanging in ecstasy.

As Gramme scraped toward him his foot struck something that turned out to be his phone, which he had thrown when the ghosts attacked. He stooped, picked it up with frozen fingers, and wiped its screen.

"Sister," he said, "they took Fletch."

Fletch's toppled towers of textbooks flapped their pages.

El-Marghichi remained motionless.

"Sister."

Nothing.

The slowly settling snow began to pile atop Van Der Gramme as he stood in the center of the room surrounded by wreckage and books and figurines and a peeled poster of Venus that caught a gust of wind and swirled skyward into oblivion.

It wasn't fair. His delusions made him happy for so long. He believed them, sincerely, for so long, and that belief propelled him without question. Why did he have to lose them? Why couldn't he remain ignorant forever, live his whole life in the hole made solely for him. Why, Mimmy, tell him why. At the last moment, were your delusions stripped from you too?

His frozen thumb twitching tapped his phone screen and Graham entered the Consortium.

[9] HELL OF SWALLOWED!?!

[9] HELL OF SWALLOWED!?!

Ruination reached even here. Slumped over her desk, the Consortium's nonhuman receptionist fizzled, gashes crisscrossing her back. Unguent rainbow ooze stained the carpet and streaked the wallpaper, either accidentally or as intentional vandalism; no purpose or meaning arose from the slopping kaleidoscope. In the main hallway, a doll the size of a child peeped with one eye from where it lay dormant against the wainscoting. Its other socket stared empty; several feet away a perfectly round eyeball sat amid the remains of a fallen light fixture. Past a rip in the ceiling danced colorful ribbons of outer space.

All remained silent, all doors open, a lounge of crushed sofas, a bedroom of shredded blankets. Bits of matter drifted in the stagnant air. Only one room remained inviolate: Van Der Gramme's gallery. Harper Praise entered it.

Having spent the last week in a trance, she saw his most recent artwork for the first time. It looked nothing like his usual output, and Harper lacked any recollection of her participation in whatever roleplay precipitated it. A military figure, probably from an anime, towered over an anguished crowd. A man (who looked like Van Der Gramme) fired a pistol at the figure, but somehow the bullet ricocheted and struck the man's own head. The world beyond burned.

Some sort of fetish? Harper failed to detect any sexuality. Maybe if she knew the anime the character came from—but it wasn't Van Der Gramme's style to rely on prerequisite knowledge for interpretation. He made miniature worlds in music boxes: an ivory tower, in which a sorceress realized her only companion was one she created; or a spaceship airlock, divided from oblivion by a pane of glass. Images from the edge of the world. Even an ordinary American school became sectioned into an isolated platform under a cone of light, where an angel and demon competed for the body and perhaps soul of a poor girl brutalized more by their struggle than her own sin or sinlessness. Divorced from Harper Praise's experiences, maybe those images made as much sense as this one. Maybe what she prized in Van Der Gramme's artwork was her own image reflected in it, her own blood dripping from sliced palms into the mechanisms that gave it birth.

No image existed of the elf torn to pieces. Despite her ambivalence during the original playing, its absence now generated gloom. She guessed Van Der Gramme considered it unfit to alchemize. Discarded the idea and found someone else with whom to construct meaning and now from the outside she could only stare in bafflement. Arcane, this image of the military woman. Creation of a wizard, evocation in code beyond her ken.

All feeling draining out her fingers, Harper slouched back into the hallway. Somewhere quiet sobs sounded.

From an open door the tapering tail of a snake lay with the distinct character of something dead or inanimate—a rubber prop. But the moment Harper took a step (her twisted ankle did not hurt here), the tail slid into the room and the door slammed shut.

The quiet sobs continued, no more muffled than before.

Harper doubted she would ever be the subject of Van Der Gramme's art again. Then what remained? A puppet with its wires cut. Once, she knew how to move herself. Where did that Harper go, the gifted Harper who memorized the order of dolls?

At the end of the corridor, a bland light osmosed out of the door to the Smoking Room. She entered.

The sobbing stopped instantaneously. Harper stood somewhere unrecognizable from the sleek, relaxed lounge she once inhabited for endless conversations with Van Der Gramme in which he spoke a lot and she never said a word. Nothing elegant remained, only crushed furniture, undulating folds of uprooted carpet, an overturned tray surrounded by shattered glass and the stains of long-dried drinks. However, the panorama window overlooking outer space remained intact, which in a way maintained the room's luster despite the devastation—or because of it.

On an only half-broken chair hunched Somebody's Little Sister, chin balanced against a folded knee as her foot tapped midair. Her dainty clothes remained elaborate as ever, bright with candy cane stripes and ruffled pleats and big brass buttons and a bow tied around her trim neck and more bows trailing ribbons to affix all her complicated parts to one another in their proper fashion. She dragged the needlepoint tip of a closed parasol against the carpet, drawing arabesques.

One eye closed, one eye—red—lancing Harper through the throat. Harper said: "Hello."

"Wellwellwell. It's fucking, you."

"It is me."

"It's /ourgirl/."

"Huh?"

"Our fellow fucking, vamploli aficionado."

Disdain, rolling behind the red eye, envenomed every word.

"I'm sorry," said Harper, "I don't understand."

"Do you ever? I know I toss around the word retarded. But are you actually? I ask with all sincerity. Like are you actually fucking, mentally ill? Brain damaged? Autistic? Aren't autists supposed to have good memories? Count all the dust motes."

Harper had nothing to say.

"I'm talking," said Sister, "about our fucking, scenario? Game? Roleplay? You and me? Me: the charmingly puerile gremlin Comtesse Marie von Diodati. And you: the template yuri protagonist Setsuna Tsutsutori. Remember."

Oh, yeah.

"A week ago you fucking dementia patient? Hello?"

"Yes," she said, "I remember." At that time, Van Der Gramme had been unavailable. She succumbed to the urge for a temporary replacement. She really had no relationship with Sister. In fact, she had no relationship with Van Der Gramme. Anyone who managed to get close to her died or disappeared. She was, after all, the spider queen.

"Not my ideal roleplay," Sister muttered, a wishy-washy wave of her hand unfolding. "But unlike some aspies I know. I can detect certain attributes in a person. You are the ultimate bottom. Passivity is all you muster."

Harper mulled over that statement and decided it was true.

"All fucking, bottoms nowadays. Bottoms galore. Everyone just wants to lie there and take it up their shit-filled rectum. I get it you know. I understand. That divides me from them: I understand. I admit it. The joy of surrender."

It sounded reasonable. Harper nodded.

Sister's revolving eye settled sharply and she leaped up and brandished the umbrella like a weapon. "Won't you fucking, TALK. Won't you fucking, SAY ANYTHING."

"Um," said Harper.

The umbrella shot into the wall and stuck there quivering as Sister floated forward and seized Harper by the throat and shook her so hard her head bobbed. "You see anyone else here? No. Everyone's gone. Please. Please you mute cumguzzler. TALK to me. Say one thing. One thing of fucking, interest. Just one mildly interesting thing." She poked Harper's forehead. "One!"

Harper could easily leave. She could go to 4All and click the button until someone appeared who would talk at her and she could simply sit there and listen to their world, their story. Harper already knew what Sister had to say: slurs and invective. A curiosity, once, that sustained her, but that time had passed, and now hate lost its novelty. Still. Something crept into Somebody's Little Sister, some new angle. Something other than hatred, a second dimension, a dimension conjured seemingly out of desperation as until now Sister had seemed incapable of being anything but the caricature into which she willfully reduced her soul. This new Sister needed Harper to speak. Why? The why intrigued, as why always does, a question of meaning to fundamental meaninglessness.

To squeeze a final drop from this rind, Harper considered something to say. She thought about her life and what interesting things might exist within it. She said:

"I lost the promotion at work. The town is burning."

"Huh."

"I said: I lost the promotion at work. The town—"

"I can see plainly what you said you don't need to, fucking repeat yourself. Like an NPC. God. God!"

Sister relinquished her and Harper sagged against the wall while Sister swirled in a lazy dervish with her tiny fingers raised high.

So Harper tried again. "I was that elf you hate. Wild dogs tore me to pieces."

"Can you say ANYTHING that's not schizoid?"

"You hate that elf, right? Temporary. I remember now. You were talking about her when I first met you. I played as her and Van Der Gramme played as dogs. He tore me to pieces. I'm waiting for him to draw it."

After returning to her seat and crossing her legs in a decidedly adult pose Sister considered everything Harper said and nodded as though it were acceptable. Acceptable, but only but.

"Yeah. My idea. Gramme needed something brutal. To wash the taste of Mimmy's jism out his mouth. So I suggested it."

"Oh," said Harper, and for the next minute they stared at each other in silence.

A minute Harper spent thinking. Thinking about the why of Somebody's Little Sister. Digging through endless frills for something solid.

She blurted: "If you hate children so much why are you one?"

"The Comtesse Marie von Diodati is fucking, 647 years old. She's not a child. Ignoramus."

"But why do you look like one."

"Because vampires are undead. Which means they DO NOT AGE—"

"No," said Harper. "I mean. Why do you look like one. You, Somebody's Little Sister. If you hate children and you hate idiots who ask you stupid questions why do you make yourself look like a child and prompt idiots to ask you about it."

A comet streaked the space beyond, then became nothing.

The corner of Sister's lip tugged up, revealing one fang: a delicious smile. "I will never compromise on being myself. Even if every single person in this world is retarded about it."

"And what is being yourself," Harper asked, interest growing with each response, each hint of depth in this tertiary comic relief character. "Who are you? Is it possible that you being yourself is exactly what pushed everyone away—"

"Nope." Sister lurched upright. "It's that fucking, snake. Everyone left because of the snake. That's obvious. Look at this wreck. You think I did this?" Her tone retained its casualness. Her posture did not.

"I don't normally say these things," said Harper, "but since you challenged me to speak I guess I will. You're a thoroughly unpleasant person, Sister. Everything you say is miserable and mean. Now for me," and Harper started pacing the room, gesticulating for emphasis the way she had seen Van Der Gramme or countless others do, delving into the world of her own paragraph, "I don't care, I'll take unpleasant people, I'd rather see a negative than a zero. It entertains me, you're entertaining. But you can't just sulk here crying because everyone left after you called them a retard or an autist or a schizo for the five-hundredth time, now can you?"

"That's fucking, not why they left you fag—"

"Fag. Right, fag, another word from your bag of tricks. Kind of performative, isn't it? The way you say those words. Not even natural." Harper twirled her hand in a semicircle and strained her voice to mimicry. "You retard. You autist. You autist retard. You fag. Over and over and over."

She glanced at Sister, and Sister was standing, her back rigid, her arms straight at her sides.

"You know literally nothing," Sister said, smirking, although it didn't matter what Sister said because Harper was deciphering the why on her own, or rather weaving a narrative of silvery strings around Sister and so doing creating a Sister that was Harper the way Gramme's picture of the Alchemist was Harper, "literally nothing. Anyone who gets fucking, offended because I used a rude word—"

"Right. I guess that's you 'being yourself.' An offensive word is your entire personality, what a complex and multifaceted individual you are. Well, I've known a few people and they were all pretty singleminded, so you fit right in with the masses."

"The masses! The masses now? You fuckface puckerlips egirl. Gramme's personal cocksleeve. Titty flasher for a League of Legends skin type slut." Sister's whole tiny body reverberated within her endless frills. Furious, righteous indignation swelled within her. But she kept smiling, could not repress the crescent grin that consumed her childish face. That smile. Harper suddenly realized what Sister meant, when she talked about bottoms. Realized this conversation was not the mere diversion Harper initially thought. Realized Sister was draining something from Harper same as Harper drained from her. Harper began to feel drained.

"The masses could not be more incompatible with me," Sister added, after Harper missed the beat on her side of the stichomythia, "that's obvious."

This was what Harper Praise had reduced herself to. Mustering her final energy for an actual conversation and doing so with only this child left to converse. These words were her lifeblood, oozing out a wound in her heart. They took unparalleled strength to speak, strength she stored from slurping the organs of trapped butterflies. But her conversational partner lived at the same level of desperation. One by one the people of this world had fallen away, and somehow the two of them were the only ones who survived so long, the two bloodsuckers—maybe that was how they did it.

Now they only had each other's blood to suck. And Sister had no blood. And none of it fucking mattered. The why never mattered. Who fucking cared.

"I see," said Harper, tiring of this momentary farce, fulfilling her role only out of decorum. "So do you say those slurs because you're 'being yourself,' or because you've defined yourself as the opposite of everyone else and need to twist your body to enter that niche?"

"Perpetually creampied roast beef vag," said Sister, laughing. "Hyena cunt slapping your thigh every step you take. It's everyone else squeezed into their niches. I'm the one who never fit in. Never. Since I was a kid. Because I liked such-and-such nobody else liked. Something violent. Something sexual. HUMAN stuff. Well alright. Then I'll be the happy monster who actually likes what they like and not normie-processed mass market media. And I won't give a shit what fucking names anyone calls me. I'll call them right back in triplicate. Because I'm the one who's happy. I'm the one who can sit here laughing while everyone else goes to hell."

And she laughed again, laughter she constructed out of her narrow ribcage. A hollow, reedy giggle. As she spoke, the wreckage of the Smoking Room started to ripple like heat waves on a distant highway, but Sister didn't notice, Sister noticed only her own happiness that she proclaimed for herself by sucking dry Harper's limp body.

"Van Der Gramme has gone to hell too, hasn't he," said Harper.

"Just a phase. Only a phase." Sister dismissed it as a bureau shook and toppled behind her and smashed into pieces and the colors started to bleed. "A funk. A blue period. He thinks he killed Mimmy. Course he didn't. A fucking fanatic did. Guy never even read my sockpuppets. Tied in fate to Mimmy and Mimmy alone. He was—"

"Miiiiimmmmmyyyyy..."

A low susurrate voice like it wasn't a voice but only a natural hum of an otherwise silent landscape. Something slimy and scaly slipped past Harper's ankle and she started to stumble backward.

"MiMiMiMiMiMiMiMiMiMiMiMiMiMiMi"

"Oh fuck to hell," said Sister.

The things that had been the Smoking Room, the angles and colors, the smashed furniture and bits of sparkling glass, divested themselves of their mirage in wavering undulations and became coils, the twisting curving entangling body of something concealed chameleon-like among them, so that resolving into this singular red shimmer the room itself ceased to exist in favor of the sea of serpent upon which Harper and Sister suddenly floated adrift. And in the center two concentric circles of colors began to blink.

"Don't look into the eyes!" Sister screamed an unlimited distance away as the coils clasped her tiny body. "Don't fucking look or—"

"!!!SHUTTHEFRIGGUP!!! PEDONAZI~!!!" The coils clamped closed and Somebody's Little Sister exploded into red jelly.

Harper rolled back on the waves as a pulse-eyed face twitched toward her and Harper twisted her head to avoid a direct stare. "Hello, Cariscresco," she said as the severed and still spasming hand of Sister floated past.

"Ally!!!"

The head glomped into Harper's stomach and bent her over double. Chin and nose kneaded mushily and Harper tried to grab the hair to push it away but her hands became enmeshed instead.

"AllyAllyAlly hi-hi!! Car missed Ally so-so MUCH yes she did yes she diiiiid!!!"

"Hi," Harper sank.

"Car started to think—oh Ally must not like Car anymore—must hate Car—that's why she ignores Car that's why—and when Ally reappeared well Car had to wait just an itsy-bitsy-bitty-BIT to see if Ally was on THEIR side but Ally's not right?!?! Right-right-right?! Ally's on Car's side, not their side, yes-yes, isn't she?!"

"What's your side," Harper asked, unaware of any sides, unsure whether to bother.

"Oh. Oh. So you're not on Car's side. You're not."

"I've been gone for a week, Car. I don't know what's happening. Car."

"You've been helping them, hmMMmm. Helping Sissy and Grammers." Cariscresco pulled back her head and the pulse of her colors slowed slightly. "Makes sense. Ally likes them more than Car after all. Ally's best-best frienderinos with Grammers and Sissy~! All laughing together while they chop Mimmy to pieces and nom her corpse. No-no, no need to deny it. Car isn't stuuuuupid. Car's no r-word."

"I never even met Mimmy, Car."

A dullard expression decayed Cariscresco's face, which already within the camouflage of coils appeared to float without neck or shoulders. Lines of Cariscresco's flesh ran down the length of her fangs and dripped onto Harper's skin like hot wax.

"Mimmy..." muttered Cariscresco. "Mimmy."

"Mimmy Wowzers, right? I only know the name. She made that cartoon we roleplayed."

After another dribble-dribble-dribbling Cariscresco exploded into a sob and threw her hands to her eyes as rainbow-streaked tears flooded out in twin waterfalls. "Allison Apple—There'll never-ever be a second season now—Not a REAL one at least!!" One sniffle sucked both waterfalls back into Cariscresco's eyes and she shoved her face directly into Harper's without a trace of sorrow. "Liar! You know what they did to Mimmy—everyone knows! EVERYONE! You're trying to trick me—"

A gigantic mallet came down and squashed Cariscresco's head into a splatter of paint. Behind where the head once was stood Somebody's Little Sister, mostly reformed, still missing one hand, until her stump wrist extended a tendril of blood to fish it out of the coils and screw it back on.

"I told you to fucking, LEAVE already. I told you to leave this place alone. I don't fucking WANT you here anymore. GET THE MEMO YOU FUCKING FAGGOT."

The bits of Cariscresco tried to coalesce and Sister swung the hammer again—and again, and again, and again and again again again againagainagain. Frenetic, cartoonish onslaught, tiny arms a blur, but it didn't matter—Cariscresco kept reforming. Already reduced to liquid, no strike however brutal could truly break her. Sister refused to stop trying, and it wasn't solely a desire to hurt that fueled her swings. Her efforts were, in Sister's own way, deathly earnest. She wanted Cariscresco gone. She wanted this place, the Consortium, back the way it was. She needed this place. Needed it how the Alchemist needed her tower. So Sister shouted everything she had, every imaginable insult. She screeched the words faggot and trannie and dyke and kike and spic and lastly, pealing at full volume, a wild and elongated NIGGER, a word reserved until now, not out of prudence (could there be any doubt?), but simply so Sister would have a final insult when all else failed, a last resort that might mean something unlike the slurs she had wrung dry centuries prior. That final word came down like a thunderbolt and for a moment Cariscresco's stunned pancake batter face remained blinkingly inert. That was the only moment Sister needed. The hammer revolved weightless in her hands until she swung it like a golf club and knocked Cariscresco through the panorama window in a spray of glass. Weightless, Cariscresco kept sailing, deep into space, deeper still, until she was only a red streak among all the other colors, and the Smoking Room became empty once more.

"Haaaaa—Hnnnnngh." Sister's flat, ribboned chest heaved with exertion. Iron-smelling sweat rolled down her brow. She let the hammer fall and inspected space. "Fuck. Fuck."

Maybe it was the light, or maybe bits of Cariscresco had splattered her, but Sister's cheeks adopted a rosy pallor. Blood, finally risen to her bloodless skin.

Then a hiss of exasperation and a flurry of palm strokes against her face returned Sister to typical translucence. She whirled onto Harper, deliriously composed: "Now! You and I were having an ACTUAL conversation. One that fucking, matters. Let's get back to it."

Ah. The conversation. Right. Harper understood—she could feel the fidget of a fly caught in her snare. The thing about being stuck so close to oblivion was that all the people she met were falling, falling.

"Because there's nobody else for you to talk to either," said Harper. "Cariscresco scared everyone away but you can't go anywhere else. Nowhere else wants you, is that it. Only this hole is safe for you."

This verbal scourging was, Harper understood, exactly what Sister desired. The convulsions that wracked her tiny body were as much rage as pleasure; this was the position Sister truly enjoyed. No wonder she kept goading Harper to attack. Goading everyone to attack. Hurting, being hurt. Constant reminder of life, surfeit of strong feeling expunged by enacting that same violence on another. But Harper found her words coming out blandly, bare afterthoughts, and her interest—so intense only a few minutes ago—had waned to near zero. Energy left her. Her role in a brutal and senseless cycle of violence between two immortal bloodsuckers could have only ever enthralled for mere moments of distraction, until she tired of these new friends too and clicked the button to dispel them. Her platform just above the abyss sagged, heavy with the desiccated corpses of so many flies. She might repair the web, but why. Why—the ultimate question. It didn't matter. Nothing to nothing, base metal to nothing, precious to nothing. And all was ending now, finally. Ending into an endless sleep. She felt so tired.

"Yeah fucking right," said Sister, petulant, playing up her role, "I'm just bored." (She wasn't.) "Gramme will be back soon." (He wouldn't.) "He'll ban Car and everyone will come back. They have to. They're fucking, addicted to getting their cocks off. Same as always. Always will be."

Harper's eyes drifted out the shattered window and among the stars she saw a small red coiled ring. Cariscresco, impossibly distant.

"You," said Harper, "want it to be the same. Always the same."

"Considering the fucking, horseshit in my 'real' life. It's a fair fucking demand."

"Always the same. Hence the 600-year-old vampire girl."

Said 600-year-old vampire girl's eyes lit up at that dully intoned statement, and suddenly she actually looked like a little girl, not mere facsimile. "Yes. Yes! Exactly right! Right! You get it!" She danced forward, floaty and imprecise on heels that carried her with bounces, and grabbed Harper's wrists with both hands. Her touch chilled to the marrow. She was pathetic, her façade crumbling, her organs exposed. The final solid body, breaking apart in the end anyway, like all the others.

Harper shrugged. Sister relinquished her and twirled around the handle of her hammer like a stripper, minus the stripping.

"They always fucking say it. It's all they fucking say. 'You're a pedophile.' But I fucking hate children. I never want to see a child in my fucking life. They're loud. Annoying. Ugly. Stupid. If a child ever fucking talks to me I am sprinting. Sprinting! The opposite, fucking, direction. Okay? In fact fuck it. I don't want anyone to talk to me in meatspace. I never want to touch a real body. I never want to be touched by one. The thought makes me fucking, nauseous. A disgusting sack of skin and bones with weird wet parts. Kissing? Getting all these fucking, fluids on each other? No fucking way. So already everyone's wrong about me. But then they're wrong about everything else too. Because while they're out there drooling over some DD-titted roastie hag because lizard brain goes booba I actually have some, fucking, intellectual reasoning behind the shit that gets me off okay? O-fucking-kay? You get that Alchemist? You fucking get it?"

As far as Harper knew, no children existed, so Sister's rant lacked purpose.

"I don't even want to fuck the little girl. That's what they don't fucking get," Sister said. "Why would I want to fuck her? What I fucking want is to be—Will you LEAVE ME ALONE ALREADY?"

She whirled toward the panorama window where a solar system away Cariscresco remained, except an instant later the tiny Cariscresco shot forward and crossed the astronomical distance in a millisecond and her face swelled the entire panorama window; she was now titanic.

Her voice bellowed. It filled the Smoking Room. It said: ALLYALLYOXENFREE and her arms slammed down on the roof and knocked the entire Consortium into a spiral.

Harper fell into the corridor before the slope of the ground became too steep to stand. The destroyed furniture, the shattered bottles, the once-lavish adornments screeched as if in resistance against whatever served as gravity in this fantastical space building and then swept as one accumulated mass of junk into Sister—too distracted by her own curses—and washed her away in the deluge. With only a waving fist still visible Sister disappeared out the window and into the void of space.

The Consortium continued to revolve, a world in constant revolution, and Harper slammed against one corridor wall, then the ceiling, then another wall, then the floor. The discarded doll's body and the mechanized receptionist bounced as Harper swiped for anything rooted down with no luck whatsoever. The doors kept flapping and the rooms spewed ruined furniture.

"AllyyyyyYYYYYyyyyyYYYYYyyyyy," Cariscresco's voice whined. "I need you Ally. Car NEEDS you!!!"

The receptionist latched lifeless arms around Harper and in space they tangoed, twirled, and decoupled, sending Harper into a spinning chair and the receptionist into oblivion.

"yyyyyYYYYYyyyyyYYYYYyyyyy"

An endless swirl of the letter Y sucked Harper into its vacuum until the corridor slowly ceased spinning and Harper flopped face-first onto the carpet exactly like the doll that landed beside her. The floor remained at a gentle tilt and after a few moments Harper slid, reaching for and seizing nothing until she rolled back into the Smoking Room and came face-to-face with the bleeding eyes of the giantess.

"Allyyyyy why won't you talk to Car?! Car just wants to talk. Car just wants to be your friend. Car just needs you. You need Car too. They all do they all need Car. Why won't they be Car's friend. None of them can EAT without Car!!! Yep-yup, that's riiiiight~! Grammers needs money—crawls to Car—then what does he do turns around and murders Mimmers you can't trust them Ally. Ally. Ally."

The eyes could not be avoided. Dollars and cents seeped out of their hideous rainbow. Harper knelt before them, transfixed.

"Car needed Mimmers. Mimmers made Car. Mimmers needed Car. Mimmers needed her, it's true. Mimmers made her and needed her and they killed Mimmers. Car was very useful to Mimmers. Car was necessary. Car was needed. And Mimmers made her."

"What," said Harper, staring at those eyes, staring, staring into eyes that ebbed with every color conceived by mankind, rings rolling outward and extending far beyond the murky boundaries of their sockets, "do you need me for."

Cariscresco blinked. For the sharpest instant all color ceased and Harper toppled in two pieces, cleaved by the invisible wire of clarity. Her web fell apart.

Even the thought of being needed was an illusion. Even her last ditch idea to save herself, that she sat at the bottom and caught all the flies falling, even that was nothing. Seeing herself as a spider was nothing, she could say she was anything she wanted, a cockatiel, a chameleon, but she was only Harper Praise, an Alchemist, and as fictitious as one too. Sister and Cariscresco and whoever else could pour their souls in overflowing goblets full of froth and ichor, they could scrounge a few fragments of a meaningful life, they could position themselves as victims of abuse long-suffering and made important by that suffering or they could latch remora-like to the scrap of greatness promised by Van Der Gramme or Mimmy Wowzers but even that scrap was caught on a gust and even that gust was breathed by a man and even that man slaved under a pharaoh; and that pharaoh, heart-hardened, stern-eyed, surveying a desert land, was the singer of a pop song heard one night in a bar, heard by a billion people, and even that pharaoh was humbled beneath the might of a prophet who worked wonders on behalf of a burning bush. And the burning bush, in the end, was only a puff of smoke, and a little ash, and it burned no more, leaving something—once orderly—in a state of random chance. Snake eyes.

"I need you... to be with me," said Cariscresco, tentatively, prodding an answer in case it might wake up to maul her. It didn't; it was as dead as them all, and her eyes twinkled bright again. "To be with Car forever Ally, forever-ever-ever-ever-ever-ever"

Speaking these forevers and evers her tongue lolled out as long and red as a carpet and unfolded across Harper's body and coiled lovingly around it, slipping over her shoulder and between her legs, coating her in a patina of thick clear slime seeping straight through her pretty blouse and suit skirt.

The eyes beat a pulse into Harper's soup broth blood. The tongue stroked her, caressed her, loved her, needed her, kneaded her into putty, doughlike, limber, a sagging swoon as it flicked against her thighs and under her skirt and against her bare skin. Harper caught her breath. Why not. It didn't matter—so why not. Warmth, coldness, a noiseless abyss. The tip of the tongue touched her deeply, she held it and her arms sank into the saliva.

(Why not, she said once before. To another one neither he nor she, to another binarius: duality, a pair. Harper remembered. When that tongue scraped her, when those hands clasped her throat—Harper should have let Papimon finish.)

The enzymes started to dissolve her clothes; the threads and fabrics unwound, leaving patches of white skin bare to the abyss of Cariscresco's yawning mouth.

(ever-ever-ever-ever-ever)

The tongue tip touched her vagina and her thighs twitched in reflexive resistance undone with a single shiver of spine. The cuff of her left sleeve lost its support, slopped off her arm into the growing puddle of slobber. Her collar curled and twisted as though aflame. Buttons bubbled on gelatin. Her whole body seemed to melt but it was only her clothes and yet the promise of melting away in this sensuous oblivion seemed far stronger than anything anyone ever offered her. Everyone else was dying too, the whole world; it was simply time to masturbate fearlessly to death. To surrender.

She surrendered.

The tongue, entwining her, lifted her slowly. First her knees left the floor. Then her feet tilted onto tiptoe and finally they too left and she hung suspended under the giant mouth that swelled above and even the mouth had eyes inside it and all the horrible colors beat themselves into what remained of a brain.

Fragments of a nylon stocking dropped with a viscous drip of spittle. Her foot twitched. The cavernous maw accepted her and allowing her shoulders to slouch she accepted it in turn as it closed around her body. All was black, all was colorful, all was warm, all was cold, and it didn't fucking matter, and you know what that was fine, it was fine to not matter, it was fine to not care, it was fine to finally give up and die and end the pointless struggle against a problem whose solution lasted no longer than you believed in it. She stopped believing.

Cariscresco swallowed. Harper's pale, nude, spasming body slid down her throat.

And in nothingness came sensation. Tightness—wetness—warmth. Clutched, held, within thick but pliable layers that conformed to the contours her body, in which she curled sideways as she sank through an endless stomach. Her legs, arms, and head folded, and every point of her body touched some other point within this seething, breathing sheath of fleshy-feeling substance. No sight. No sound. Only touch, the sense stemming from no single organ but all inches of the body. Only touch, the original sense, able to discern with slight shifts, uncertain shuffles, the slick glide of thigh against thigh, foreleg against foreleg, foot against foot. First a soft stretch of muscle, then the rigid dome of kneecap. First the gently rounded calf, then the jutting ball of ankle. The inner curve from heel to big toe.

Then even that distinction ebbed. Inside Cariscresco, perpetually melting, Harper Praise began to melt as well. Entombed within the belly of the serpent, submerged in sickly sweet-smelling slime, her skin sizzled. Not an alarming feeling. Like a deep embrace, so deep it osmosed by degrees through her exterior, bled into her, softened her, gelatinized her. Yes. Yes, why not. Here was an environment perfectly suited to accept her and for her to accept. The boundary between her body and the body digesting her became unclear. One final oblivion, one apocalyptic erasure of self. The crafting of a few reckless men in a laboratory dying from radiation sickness. A tiny atom, so irrelevant to the pharaohs and their deities, sundered. Sundered and then—it all just ends. In Hiroshima the bodies were turned into nothing but outlines. Paintings. Two-dimensional.

Nothing remained except feeling. No thoughts. Only the stimulation of her body bleeding deeper and deeper still. Her folded legs shifted but her calves had started to fuse into her thighs and shifting drew thick gooey tendrils between them. A hand still moved independently and she pressed it into her vulva and both became one instantly as part of this delirious, delicious deliquescence. Those complex, intricate, repugnant components of female genitalia swirled together into sticky, mushy pudding while the semisolid bones of her wrist slid easily through the admixture and between the equally semisolid structure of her pelvic bone. Up, her pliant arm rose, dragging what remained of her hand through her rotted womb, between the convulsing labyrinth of her empty bowels, past the black pit of her stomach, and into her heart, before the arm fused totally with her torso and no longer possessed any free function. Could she even be said to possess a body? She was nothing now, a heaving lump of paste, something else's snack, the way Papimon Jaengsirirungrote had been Harper's snack before, a little nosh to sustain herself. Nothing remained of Papimon now, nothing except a pile of papers and a pair of glasses and a skull half-buried amid a steaming pile of shit. Nothing remained of any of them, so few left alive, she sucked them all one way or another. Somebody's Little Sister, Mark, and Royce Ru, and even cyclopean Sarah VanBuskirk, and Van Der Gramme—

No, some part of her said. No, not him. Although her eyeballs had both melted to ooze sloshing in her sockets, her mind conjured his first image: the one of the Alchemist. Why? It only depicted the spider queen in her lonely web, horrified to learn she pulled the strings that made her latest catch still wriggle. Van Der Gramme was her creation. The real man behind the screen—irrelevant, another desiccated victim she devoured long ago. So forget it. Forget it and melt and finally die the way you never could but always longed for. Forget it and accept this nothingness, this oblivion, this fleeting note of sensual pleasure stretched forever in the final moments of your dwindling consciousness.

She could not forget it. She couldn't. She thought of that image. That image alone, and she had nothing else to look at in this void to distract her from it. That image. Not what it depicted, but the image itself, the thing that had been drawn. The thing someone other than herself created. The thing that created her. Dredged her out of white oblivion, only a formless white blob, in a formless white world...

But Cariscresco's stomach was black. And forgetting or not didn't matter, because she was nothing now, broken into nutrients and waste, and although the image remained imprinted translucent as a ghost that ghost was all that remained of Harper Praise.

Elsewhere.

Encircled by a ring of flashing rectangles, each rectangle depicting the same image of Cariscresco, each flash a spur to epilepsy, Somebody's Little Sister swung her hammer. Their powers equivalent, Sister and Cariscresco could never hurt one another, not in any real capacity, but they could certainly annoy. Ten, twenty, fifty of these spammed images blocked Sister's path through the expanse of space, their pulse unavoidable even if their hypnotism lacked a certain flair unique to the original.

But it wasn't enough. It wasn't fucking, anywhere near enough.

The hammer swung and kept swinging. It blasted through the flashing images. Fucking deleted them. Erased them from existence. Cariscresco mindlessly spammed more but the freak could not spam everywhere at once. Hewing cleaving Sister detected the exact path within these three dimensions XYZ to pierce the fakes and reach the real one. She whirlwinded her body at jagged angles made possible solely by her short stature and prepared to kill this fucking cuck.

The tip of the snake's tail whipped out and demolished Sister's ribs and several other organs but as a vampire no wound was mortal and before anyone could say otherwise it healed. However the strike did jolt her momentum and she revolved flailing into space. Flashing Cariscresco facsimiles choked her. Slit open her eyeballs. Sank technicolor venom into her body and built the urge to barf.

In a battle of annoyance. Carisfuckingcresco won every time. For that spaz annoyance was an art. But Sister in her long, fucking, long fucking time. Developed arts of her own. Arts of her soul. Indestructability. Impenetrability. The ability to see words as only words. Images as only images. So neither could hurt her. No matter their brutality. Their savagery. Slice open her stomach and festoon her entrails and she smirked and said: "That all?" Then vivisect with twice the force they used on her. Necessary survival skill. Hence why she lived forever and never died. Papa found out after what he did to her. He hanged himself in Geneva. She lived forever and never died.

Long time coming Car. Lot of force stored.

Sucking in a breath where there was no air Sister bent her knees and landed the stilettos of her heels against one fragile image that cracked and shattered but served the barest leverage necessary for Sister to reorient and launch like a missile. A fucking, atomic bomb. Images ascending in a line coiled to stop her but Sister plowed her hammer through them and sent shards of the snake's disgustingly lascivious eyes sparkling every which way.

One two three four five six seven Cariscresco clones exploded and the long tail of the real one whipped out to bat Sister down but. Sister threw her hammer. It struck the tail and the tail lurched back and the hammer recoiled spinning into oblivion. Unmolested Sister pirouetted onto a less narrow part of the snake's body. Her heels sank into liquid flesh but beneath that the spine retained some solidity and the heels clacked against bone one after another—clack. Clack. The hard clack of heels and a little scrape afterward as her momentum skidded her forward.

Sister howled. Conjuring into herself all the centuries-long fury of her body. Bursting pellucid veins in her eyes shining them a watery blue. Final art of her soul: this fury that she could bring down like a thunderbolt. Mere slurs would not suffice. She already spent her last one anyway. She needed to hit Cariscresco where it fucking, hurt. Depths. Past the mushy flesh. Somewhere hard enough to actually break. She knew where.

"Mimmy."

The evocation of that name. Nothing else yet appended. That name alone shocked the endless twisting curling melting body of Cariscresco to a brief rigidity. The moment the spine grew stable enough—Sister ran.

She ran in heels. In a long flowery dress with ribbons and flounce trailing behind her. But she still ran. Motions of her legs and arms automatic. Perfect in form. Able without effort to account for the absurdity of her costume. As though this body belonged to her so unfathomably long she had become intimate enough with it to accomplish the impossible. Each limb bent at a right angle. Fingers extended but not rigid. She could be an Olympian. Could be fucking, anything. And she dashed along the narrow ridge of Cariscresco's spine as globules of body broke off into space. A line of Cariscresco images chased Sister on either side. Not fast enough to catch her. With singleminded determination she saw only the looping line ahead.

"Mimmy died."

Sister flicked both palms midstride and out of each finger three-inch claws extended. Without slowing she leaned forward and plunged the nails into Cariscresco's body streaking it with winding gashes until she reached a specific point and closed her fingers around something and dredged from the muck the barely-breathing barely-conscious barely-formed form of the Alchemist who Sister then dragged behind her whipping back and forth and shaking off the gastric acids while crossing the final loop of Cariscresco's coils the real face of Cariscresco emerged from below the size of a colossus and screamed loud enough to shake all of space.

"Died," said Sister into the scream. Calm despite her strenuous actions. Wheeling into a discussion on the best way to rip to shreds a stupid elf. Made correct by her utter certainty. "But that's not why you fucking care. Nah. I know you Car. Monster to monster. Carnivore to, fucking carnivore. You're a sociopath Car. You care only about yourself Car. Eat everyone else and make them you Car. Just like this useless bitch."

Sister shook the thing that was once the Alchemist.

"Except," Sister continued, "you fucking, loathe yourself. Paradox of our time. Self-absorption and self-loathing. Modern conundrum. Autist hell. World where only you exist except you hate that hideous fucking sight looking back in the mirror."

She dove through a tightening coil to land on the outside and keep running.

"You simper and slave for your betters. To pretend their selves are your own. To dispel for a moment this egoist prison you entered and swallowed the key to. And when they aren't looking. When they no longer think anything of you. Then you pounce. Then you swallow them whole. Then you digest them and they no longer exist except in you. And you can pretend and pretend forever. Like Mimmy. Mimmy. Mimmy, fucking, Wowzers."

"—STOPSSSSSAYINGHERNAAAAAME—"

"Mimmy made you. Made you a self you could love. A beautiful self. For a brief moment you didn't hate who you were. Because you weren't you. Weren't some useless NEET deviant from fucking, Wichita or Warsaw or wherever the fuck. Weren't some micrococked autogynephile. Some braindead retard whose retardation ensured nobody would ever rescue you from your own hell. You were Cariscresco. And how did you repay Mimmy?"

Sister hurled the dissolved body of the Alchemist. It hovered in space. Revolved slowly. All angles identical. All angles the same angle at once. Between Sister and a meteor-sized fist coming down. Rather than splatter the Alchemist the fist stopped because Car was too cowardly to kill even the slightest blob of her own body. Which was what the Alchemist had become.

The head of the snake was approaching. The eyes were its final threat. Sister kept her head low. But she spoke loudly.

"Wasn't politics that killed that queer fascist. Wasn't Gramme. Wasn't me. Nope. Projection Car. What killed Mimmy really? Insanity killed Mimmy. Obsession. Someone who wanted to swallow a shred of Mimmy's glory. Sound familiar Car? Sound, fucking, familiar?!"

Sister sprung forward. Sprung to where the Alchemist hovered like a living shield between her and Cariscresco's fist. Kicked against a curved part of Cariscresco's spine and corkscrewed toward the face with her back angled to the pulsing eyes until the exact moment her hammer hurtled out of nowhere and she caught it by the handle and swung.

"IT WAS YOU CAR. YOU FUCKING KILLED YOUR OWN GOD CAR."

The hammer carved through Cariscresco's face and skull. And that face and skull splattered outward, a fan of bright and vibrant and now meaningless paint, color that might evoke an emotion and nothing more.

Sister breathed.

Cariscresco's eyes remained exactly where they were. Even with no face around them. They continued to flash.

Flashing—flashing—and Sister staring at them unblinking. Until her own eyes started to flash too. And the weightlessness of outer space became a harsh and ineffable downward pull.

In a millisecond the splattered color of Cariscresco's head sucked itself back into form on Cariscresco's neck.

"Sissy," said Cariscresco. "Sissy. It's okay. Sissy is safe now. Safe and loved. So Sissy doesn't need to hate anymore, okay?"

Nothing was accomplished. Nothing had mattered. Cariscresco was insensible to reality. She believed only what she wanted. Meaning was what she made it. God. And in those ebbing concentric circles the hate started to soften. Sister fell, slowly, as if suspended by strings stretching under her weight.

"Sissy, you can't confuzzle lil ol' Cariscresco. Nope-nope. But you can confuzzle yourself. Car regrets to inform you that that is exactly what has happened."

Sissy fell. Her hammer left her hand. The Alchemist—bundle of acid—fell too. All falling within the infinite spiral of Cariscresco's coils and between the coils blinking gifs of Cariscresco's face and all a pulsing horror of red and rainbow.

"Sissy, Mimmy loved Car. And Car loved Mimmy."

Tumbling and her face a blank canvas upon which anything could be painted and all the folds of her dress flapping about her.

"To kill Mimmy means to hate Mimmy. Car loved Mimmy. Ergo, Car did not kill Mimmy.

"So who hated Mimmy?

"Who killed Mimmy?

"Sissy you're confuzzled because.

"YOU NEVER HAD A FRIEND.

"You never loved anyone.

"So how can you know what love is?

"SISSY.

"SISSY THE ONLY THING THAT FUELS YOU IS SPITE."

Down and down and down and down and down

"SISSY.

"SISSY I'M NOT THE ONLY ONE WHO IS MENTALLY ILL.

"SISSY IF YOU WERE EVER A HUMAN BEING YOU WOULD LIVE AMONG THEM."

And down and down and down and down and

"SISSY"

Down

"SISSY—"

No. Fuck this.

Sissy drove her fingernails into her own eyeballs. Deep. Obliterating vile jelly. Threw aside her head streaming twin trails of gore. Her legs twitched and her muscles flexed to catch herself like a feather on the flat plane of what remained of the Consortium and a second later while her eyes regenerated the body of the Alchemist struck the same plane and splattered into a splotch.

Sister screamed with every ounce of fury left her. Every droplet of blood sucked in her long life. A scream so violent it split her cheeks into a Glasgow smile as she tore her nails down her dress and rent it to strips and tied one such strip into a blindfold as she adjusted her stance and prepared to pounce. The pulse of rainbow remained a dim bleeding feeling through the blindfold.

"Degenerate filth," she coughed in a trail of blood as she shot forward faster than sight and sliced her fingers through a body the consistency and smell of cake.

"Sissy," the cake's voice hissed, "Sissy's such a silly-billy~"

"Shut up youyouyou worthless less than zero skullfuckee. Shut up and die like Mimmy you holocaust of faggotry."

Pieces of Cariscresco bled onto the ground.

"Sissy, but Sissy!! Sissy-wissy!!! Doesn't Sissy sssssee? Sissy sees, riiiiight?" The voice now the voice of cake too. A surfeit of sugar to sicken. Overpowered by the scent Sissy blanched. Gagged. Tilted forward and vomited out her guts in chunks large enough to bulge her esophagus.

"Sissy, there's nobody for Sissy, nobody at all, nobody nobody nobody but one. One person! One person?! One person to love and care for Sissy. Who could thisssss one person be, this one person who will alwaysssss stay no matter what awful deeds Sissy does? Who will always be here to hold Sissy tightly, to cradle her, to smother her, to crush the death out of her undead body, to love her forever and always-always-always-always-always stay and never dieeeee?"

God. Oh god. Sissy dropped to one knee. She tried to hold her mouth but the vomit spewed between her fingers.

"Who can Sissy block and yet who will always find her way back? Who will be the only friend Sissy ever hasssss?"

Sister's stomach and brains poured bodily out her mouth.

"Who will haunt Sissy for her sssssins?"

Enough of Sister's insides were outside for her to finally speak. Through thick strands of vomit-spittle rasping and wheezy:

"You'll kill yourself—sooner or later."

"Oh?!?!"

"41 percent—of you—kill yourselves..."

"'Of you'—'Of you'?!!!?! But Sissy!!?! Sissy has always been 'one of us,' hasn't 'she'?! Hasn't ssssshe?!?!!!? Monster to monster. Carnivore to carnivore?! Cute 'girl' to cute 'girl'?!?"

Slumped, dribbling bile, Somebody's Little Sister managed the faintest trace of a smile.

"No." The smile widened. Crescent moon. Eating her Glasgow face. "That's what you think? Rofl."

A gigantic finger prodded Sister's cheeks. "Liiiiittle chickie-chick of a cockatiel, trapped inside her eggy-weggy egg~~~"

"Rofl. Rofl. Rofl." Sister's head was pushed one way and another. "Oh my god. Holy fucking shit." And Sister smirked. Laughed. Laughed loud and long. Laughed maniacal. Like at a tumbling jester. A holy fool. "That all?"

The finger fell. "What." Cariscresco's voice no longer so taunting. No longer so smug.

(No matter what. If you only laugh at them and say. That all? If you never show weakness.)

"You forgot the whole point of me," Sister said. Laughing. Unable to stop laughing. Hardly able to speak her words comprehensibly. "You forgot the whole, fucking, point. Of being me. The whole tradeoff. The whole reason I did it this way."

"What?!?!"

"Because Car. Because. Because nobody will ever take me. Nobody will want me part of them. And so I will always be nothing but myself. Nothing but myself Car. Not one of you. Only myself Car. Only my, fucking, self!"

She shot her arm straight out and her hammer trembled where it had fallen and flew toward her as if pulled by an invisible string. Cariscresco saw it and laughed well aware the hammer lacked any power against her. Did not even try to stop it. And so her flashing eyes could only go a single solid color in shock when Sister let her hand drop. And the hammer kept whirling. And the hammer erased every part of Sister that existed above the knees.

And this time Sister did not come back.

Cariscresco stared at the two limp lower legs that flopped flat against the floor. Her unhinged jaw hung open.

Her brow furrowed. Her eyes snapped back to life. Her tongue flicked out and she hissed to the colors of space:

"Oh you think you won?! You think you escaped?! Car WANTED you to do that you stupid stupid STUPID!!! Car HATES you!!! So ban yourself MORON!!! Nice 'win' you dumb IDIOT!!!"

Nobody said anything. Everybody stayed silent.

"YOU'LL BE BACK!!! NEITHER OF US CAN EXIST IN *THAT* WORLD. WE'RE MONSTERS SISSY. CARNIVORES!! YOU CAN'T STAY THERE FOREVER. COME BACK UNDER ANY OTHER NAME SISSY. CAR WILL FIND YOU. CAR WILL FIIIIIND YOOOOOU!!!!!"

Everyone else in the entire universe was dead.

The creature Cariscresco degenerated to the ground and rolled her semisolid face against it screaming.

She heaved a staggered breath. She stared at a smear of herself below her. All her body twisted, coiled, trembled, and after a moment of peace she howled again and slammed her forehead down and down and down unable to crack the solid plate of bone from which all this ooze exuded.

They all can't just leave her. No they can't, not ALL of them, no. They couldn't—they hated her, they would rather DIE than be with her, no-no. Sissy would be back, she would, too cold a world out there, too dark too scary and there all their beauty and strength was only—only air, and they were nothing. They were ugliness. Sissy had to come back, oh yes she had to, someone had to come back, Grammers or Ally or Mimmers, any of them, someone, they couldn't do this to her, not after everything, it was her money, she kept this whole farce running, she powered it, she was the ghost in the machine turning the gears that let them shelter under a little warmth in a universe otherwise so deathly cold.

"They can't," Car said. "No-no, they can't, no-no." She wagged her finger and assumed a serene expression that melted away the moment it slopped into place.

"You're still here aren't you?" Car said, flicking her face erratically, waiting for Sissy to emerge smirking from somewhere, waiting for a whisper of some repulsive word said for the pure purpose of hurting her. Hurt her already. Keep hitting her with that hammer. Drill nails into these eyes that never die. Where are you. Sissy. Sissy you're here you can't hide you're here where are you Sissy come back Sissy Sissy someone Grammers hey you can't no you can't hey you can't DO THIS no. Sometimes Car has to win right? It's math—mathematically improbable that one person can lose this much, why is it always against her, she wouldn't—look—she knows, Car knows, she's not mentally well, yes, she knows, she swears, soon, she'll see a therapist, she'll get medication, it's just, you know, it'll happen soon okay? "It'll happen soon okay?" She was just, she was just—If you weren't all so mean she wouldn't be this bad. She has to, she has to, this way she, it's because, you started it you know. You started it. All Car wanted was something cute and horny and she was willing to pay for it and you took that money and you, all you had to do was, if you only didn't, do you think that money came from nowhere? Do you think Car just has unlimited amounts of it? Nobody does, she made decisions, she saw a world with all these ugly colors and she decided, you know, she decided beauty was the thing that deserved her patronage, beauty, what is this world without beauty, and why are all the things that everyone else thinks are beautiful not the same things Car does? Huh? Why's that? That's not fair. Why do—normal people—why do they get to just, just, just go see a popstar and they see what they think is beautiful, why is what Car thinks is beautiful only down here in the dark? That's wrong. That's morally—wrong. Nobody should, nobody should have to hide like that. Why did you—Sissy is that you? Sissy?

A chair collapsed under the strain of itself.

Sissy.

"Sissy. Sissy," Cariscresco said. "Sissy I'll kill myself. Sissy I swear I'll frigging do it if you don't come back right now. Sissy. Sissy I'm not joking this time. I have lots of pills Sissy. Sissy."

She seized Sissy's severed legs and funneled them one after another into her mouth and swallowed while she slithered sluglike on her belly down the corridor.

It's not fair Sissy. Car knows she's mentally ill. Car knows she's a retard. Car knows it Sissy so come back. Car knows she's a faggot and a tranny and WHY DO YOU HAVE TO HATE HER SO MUCH WHEN SHE ALREADY HATES HERSELF. Sissy. Sissy?

The doors of the corridor were all busted open except one: the door to Van Der Gramme's vaunted gallery of overrated doom and gloom. Sad paintings with ugly dark shadows. You know Car never really cared for them, she only got swept up in the hype, really she was just here for Mimmers, it was Mimmers who made the art she really liked. The only reason Car spared the gallery was because Sissy defended it so earnestly. But Sissy you're not here any more? No?! You're not!! So will you stop Car now Sissy?

One flick of her decomposing finger shattered the solid oaken door to splinters. Beyond stood in simple frames images upon images and foremost among them the image of Mimmy Wowzers shot to death in Los Angeles. Shot to death by Van Der Gramme and not Car. The gallery, sterile and white, became immediately befouled by Cariscresco's presence as she squeezed through the door. Her mouth opened and her tongue lolled out ready to devour all the black paint Van Der Gramme ever put to canvas—as though the world was not already so dark there needed to be more darkness in the art we create.

Eat it. All anyone can do is eat, eating-eating-eating to sustain ourselves, you are what you eat. The gallery a restaurant. Car coiled her tongue around the image of Mimmy Wowzers and pulled it into her mouth and swallowed. An image of Mimmy's angel and devil and Allison Apple between them, under a narrow spotlight in a darkened schoolroom—eaten. An image of a machine and a man tangled together in bloody loving embrace before a vista of black space—eaten. Princesses—eaten. Twins—eaten. Vampires—eaten. Shoveling the canvasses into her mouth: Heroes—eaten. Worlds—eaten. Stars—eaten. Love—eaten. Death—eaten.

Her hands fell upon an image. It depicted a golden room, but even this room was somehow black, darkened, hidden in shadow, save for a single beam of light well away from the action, and in the shadowed foreground the Alchemist held her homunculus in horror, realizing finally that all of this was puppetry she played for herself and pretended was something new. That any moment, any second, it all might burst into dust.

Cariscresco, nauseous, full of black paint, allowed her jaw to hang to the floor. She tilted the perfectly flat image toward her mouth and blanked her eyes in preparation to add it to the tumorous glut already rolling around inside her. An awful density, and tears of dollar bills streaming out eyes that saw less and less.

"No," said a voice.

This permission alone was enough. The image slipped from her fingers and floated to the floor where it remained like a portal to another world that was just this world again because all worlds were exactly the same. Several of Cariscresco's fingers fell with it, and her jaw remained plastered to the ground because the tendons that attached it to her skull came undone.

Her head turned, slowly, over her shoulder, to see only a black spine where her body once was, a spine long and ribbed with crescent spikes, and all the images she devoured mixed with her rotted flesh into a meaningless black mush.

Using the broken handle of Sister's hammer to support herself, the Alchemist limped through a door made passable by Cariscresco's lack. "Not that one," the Alchemist whispered.

"Ally...?"

The Alchemist stared Cariscresco directly into the eyes and nothing happened because Cariscresco's eyes were fading. Everything about the Alchemist trembled, sores and welts covered her body, viscera dangled in silken strands. But she scraped the hammer handle forward as a cane.

"Ally you're still here... Here for Car...!"

Ally scraped forward again, and again, and passed Cariscresco, and finally the scraping stopped as she dropped to her knees and clutched Van Der Gramme's image of the Alchemist.

Nobody, Cariscresco realized, was ever here for Cariscresco.

What remained of Cariscresco crumbled, except her eyes, which stayed where they were a few moments more, still slowly—slower still—slowly shifting from one shade of gray to another, and then they too went still. And then they too blew away in a breeze that did not exist, and then the room was only dust coating every surface and a single curled form of Harper Praise shielding her image from harm.

The dust, too, went still.

Harper stared at the image of her, the image she helped create, the product of her own mind in some way or form, and sobbed, and her tears dropped onto the image and made it shimmer, and her body was wracked by one and then two convulsions. At some point the sobs and the convulsions ceased. And some point afterward, Van Der Gramme returned.

[1/0] x

[1/0] x

They sat on the edge. Their legs dangled out the voided panorama window and, side by side, they stared at all the colors of space, most of which were black.

She held the image of the Alchemist in her lap and wore his bathrobe over her bare shoulders. He fiddled with his sunglasses, inspecting the cracks, and, after a shrug, dropped them into the abyss. They floated, on a slow downward trajectory, turning and every so often shining their black surfaces against the black surface of nothing.

"Well," he said, not looking at her, his tone typical, on the precipice of a speech: "It's finally over. I don't know what happens next, if Fletch and Dogshit are okay, or Sister for that matter, but I'm done. Done. I mean, I was already deluding myself. I've been hemorrhaging patrons for weeks. Makes sense, I stopped putting out porn and the chatroom's a wreck. Can I win them back? Some. But most are gone, there's a million more porn artists out there. I only had momentum on my side. I couldn't muster it anyway, the willpower I mean. I'm empty."

"Who," she said, "are you talking to."

Dust clung to her in clutches and turned her white hair gray. But her eyes were still red.

"Myself. As per usual."

For a time they sat in silence.

"No idea what I'll do for money." He shrugged, careless, a what-you-will. "Guess I'm not the only one unemployed nowadays. Guess there's tons of people out there with nothing to do and nobody who needs them to do anything. Conveyer belted out of existence."

"But you intend to keep going. Just without making art."

He spoke candidly, chipper even. "For a long time I've known, secretly, I wasn't good enough. Or I didn't know, but the knowledge was building. I don't mean not good enough to do it and survive, I am that good, but not good enough to be—the best. With Mimmy—you know, with Mimmy, I used to teach her. When she was younger. I think back then I knew. That she could be better than me, and if she was, she would be what I always wanted to be, and in making her, even just some part of her, I could be happy. But then, you know, we broke up, yadda-yadda, and now. Now she's dead."

"Did you kill her? The way they said?"

"Even believing I killed Mimmy would be part of the delusion." He turned to her, though she wasn't looking at him; she was looking down at the image of the Alchemist. "Hey. I'm sorry. I strung you along. You thought I was something, I wasn't. I'm sorry."

"No," she said.

"No?"

"No." Her fingertips graced the image. "You were exactly what I needed."

"I told myself that about you, too."

Silence again. She breathed. Then she said:

"Come to New Mexico. Los Alamos, New Mexico, where I live. Move in with me. Teach me how to draw."

"What."

"I've never drawn before, I have no experience, but I can learn. I've always been good at learning. I'm not someone who gives up if it doesn't work right away, I can try hard and keep trying and never even think how long it takes. I was happiest learning. You can teach me lines and colors and bodies, it'll take years probably, decades, but I don't care. Or maybe time is the whole appeal. It'll be habitual, you'll stay with me, I have plenty of room, and during the day I'll go to my job and do what they want and get paid but when I come home you'll teach me, you'll guide my hand and spill out into me every skill and technique you've accumulated and it'll be because of you when I finally create something beautiful. You'll have anything you need. Equipment, entertainment, cigars, money for your friends and family, and for companionship you can hold me, and touch my body, and do whatever you want, I don't mind. I don't know what you want but anything you want you can have. And I'll give you what you want most of all, something that matters, because it'll be the two of us, sharing everything, and the two of us will create a world together, you and me, where we don't have to delude ourselves that what we do matters because what I do will make you happy and what you do will make me happy and we'll know that in making that happiness we've done something worth doing. It'll be a hole, sure, a little hole we climbed into, but it won't be a lonely hole, it won't be a hole made only for one, it won't be a shape compressed so tightly against our bodies, because we'll both be there, side by side just like this. And the years will melt away. We'll grow older, maybe we'll have a child, I don't mind if you want that, I can be a mother if you can be a father, and our world can expand to include someone else, or seem to, until they grow old enough and leave, but even then we'll always have the two of us. And maybe we can even love each other."

She had never spoken so many words in her life and when she finished she stared into his bloodshot eyes that had not seen the sun in a decade, and he stared back at her, his fingers winding tufts of beard in coils that soon unloosened.

The warmth of his sad smile embraced her. He said: "What a pretty picture."

And they were small, so small, and growing smaller, in a space of a billion stars, and then they were too small to see.

THE END

Afterword

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