“What.”
“Joey, why is there a pile of corpses here?”
“I dunno, none of us were doing this.”
Arsehole tentatively poked one of the bodies.
“Pretty fucking metal.”
“Well, yeah, but it's not really that clever.”
“So, what, get rid of them?”
“Nah, someone was working on this. We censor it, we're as bad as The Man.”
“Yeah, but at least, like, chuck a blanket over them or something, right?”
“No. We work around the corpse pile.”
“Fine, whatever.”
Arsehole tapped ash from the end of her joint onto the pile. Artists were still setting up their pieces in the series of courtyards and alleyways. Joey and Arsehole walked over to Overgang's collection of CRT screens and buzzing computer towers.
“Joey, Arsehole. Shouldn't you guys be getting ready?”
“I've got the food sitting out on tables already, Arsehole's waiting on Hiro.”
“Ah, cool. Joey, take a look at this. Whipped it up last night, thought I needed something new.”
Overgang tapped a few buttons on a mechanical keyboard, triumphantly hitting the Enter key. All screens displayed the same text: ‘To Joey, who taught me how to be cool, and Overgang, who almost made it out.'
“Joey as in me?”
“Well, yeah. And it only says my name there since I was the one who played it last.”
“I'm flattered. What does it do?”
“Keep watching.”
A scene appeared of an oil tanker, a pixelated captain watching out at the ocean as birds flew across a deep red sunset. Words scrolled up the screen, saying ‘The Book of Tamlin'.
“Damn, is everything in this game named after me?”
“Well, no, not unless you're the one looking at it. The name syncs to the players' surname at startup, it was ‘The Book of Dood' when I played it before.”
“So what does it do?”
“Play it and find out!”
“Dude, I don't have time, just tell me. I'll play it tonight.”
“Spoilsport. It runs through your memories, procedurally generates your life story and lets you replay through key points.”
“Sounds cool.”
“It is cool. Still getting a few more things ready, making sure these things aren't going to explode.”
“Is that likely?”
Overgang shrugged noncommittally.
“Not really, but you fuck around with computers as much as this thing does, you make sure you're ready for anything. How's everyone else going?”
“Well, Nibman's got his books up and running. Literally, I mean, his books are running all over the place, screaming out ‘SNAPE KILLED DUMBLEDORE', stuff like that. He was building a tower of cards when we left, I dunno if that's actually going to be something or if he was just bored.”
Arsehole interjected.
“Ah, I think those cards were just boredom, yeah. Nate and Kyle brought along Miley, too.”
“Miley?”
“Yeah, you know Miley, from the thing in Alaska?”
“Oh, that Miley. What are they working on?”
“I actually have no idea. They're hammering nails into the ground and wrapping a bunch of string around them, you know, like one of those kiddie craft projects.”
“Intriguing. Oh, can you give this to FTF when you see them? Candice asked me for some new synths and I had a bunch lying around from years ago.”
“Can do. See you tonight, dude.”
Arsehole took the CD case and shoved it in her back pocket, then walked along the sidewalk with Joey.
“So where to next?”
“Well, I think FTF's setting up in the south courtyard. Let's meander that way.”
“Meander? Joey, I love it when you use esoteric vernacular.”
The pair continued meandering. People were busy smearing posters over the walls, twisting space through impossible structures; it was indeed a wretched hive of scum and artistry. They were blocked by a giant crate being wheeled towards them, forcing to sidle against the wall. When they passed, they saw the person who had been moving it; a schoolgirl wearing a black dress and carrying a similarly dark parasol. She cheerily waved to the pair.
“Joey! A-hole! How's it going?”
Joey grinned back.
“Rita! We're good! What's in the crate?”
“Oh, you know, bits and bobs, this and that. Mostly spiders.”
Arsehole moved back from the crate, hearing scuttling inside.
“And what will you be doing with your spiders, exactly?”
“They do tricks. They're trick spiders.”
“Well. I've not seen trick spiders before.”
“Neither have I, they're invisible too.”
“Oh. Okay then.”
“Know a good place to set up?”
Joey scratched his chin.
“I think the west courtyard's pretty free right now, just take a left through there.”
“Thanks, Joey! Come check it out tonight, okay?”
“Sure thing!”
They walked away, the clattering sound of Rita's crate fading behind them.
“Arsehole, you're scared of spiders?”
“A bit. Creepy little fuckers, sticking webs everywhere. They're gross.”
“They are a bit gross.”
“My uncle had this shed just filled with ‘em, whenever I went out there he'd always-”
Arsehole's phone buzzed in her pocket; she pulled out the banged up Nokia and read the note on the screen.
“Alright, Hiro's here, we've gotta set up. Here's the disc or whatever. See you tonight!”
“Cool, see you then.”
Arsehole passed Joey the CD case, skipping off into the distance. Joey walked out into the south courtyard and was bombarded with a wall of sound. The members of Futanari Titwhore Fiasco had just finished playing their underground hit single, ‘Stereo Shenanigans and Binaural Bullshit', lapsing into the newly released ‘Laser Butt Disease Raptor Orgy'.
Lasers shoot into the sky
Farting is a way to fly
Raptors fuck they don't ask why
Clever girl, it's time to die
Your disease is my desire
Lasers refract and start a fire
Within my feeble raptor heart
Shoot a laser, release a fart
Endless cravings help me please
I've caught laser butt disease
Raptor butts light up the trees
What if everything is bees?
The raptors all retract their claws
The raptor orgy takes a pause
They realise that they have contracted a serious disease
And all concur that the best course of action is to seek urgent medical attention
The raptors approach an alchemist
He diagnoses them with laser butt disease
They ask, how did you know we had laser butt disease?
He says that it is because he is a medical expert and has been educated at Cambridge
Unfortunately he did not know how to cure laser butt disease
And they all failed to find a sufficiently experienced physician or doctor
As such, the laser butt disease raptor orgy continued
Until the end of the cretaceous period
And that was how the dinosaurs went extinct.
The scattered artists in the courtyard applauded the performance. The three girls on stage bowed in unison. The singer hi-fived the keyboardist and guitarist, then jumped from the elevated stage and walked over to Joey. Her vibrantly-dyed green hair shimmered as she moved.
“Joey!”
“Annie!”
“Didja like the song?”
“Yeah, it was pretty cool! Catchy, too.”
“I wrote the lyrics for this one!”
“Good job! Hey, Overgang gave me this. I think he said Candice wanted it, new synth settings or something.”
Joey offered Annie the CD case.
“OI! CANDICE, HEADS UP!”
Annie pulled the CD from the case and threw it discus-like to the girl sitting at the keyboard, who plucked it from the air and placed it in the laptop next to her.
“CHEERS, TELL OVERGANG THANKS FROM ME!”
Joey frowned at Annie.
“You could have broken it.”
“But I didn't. All ready for tonight?”
“Yeah, I think so. Everyone seems to be going well. Should be a night to remember.”
“Right, right. Still no sign from any of ‘The' people?”
“Nope. If they're turning up at all, they'll probably just charge in tonight.”
“Heh, ‘charge in'. You make it sound like a war or something.”
“Well, it kind of is. The war of who's cooler… the Cool War.”
Joey looked to the sky as it slowly turned from blue into orange.
“…that's stupid, forget I said that.”

Tangerine was sitting in front of his completed work, distributing business cards to passers-by who seemed interested. Agent Green approached him, clearly uncomfortable in a blue hoodie and sweatpants. Tangerine jumped on the chance to show off his finished product.
“Greetings, person I've never seen before in my life! Like the piece?”
He avidly gestured towards the slowly shifting wall. It was covered in aluminium foil, which had been treated with a heat and pressure-sensitive coating. The wall undulated and changed colours, sparkling with iridescent and entrancing hues. Occasionally, the foil bent slightly outwards, as though something were trying to break out from the other side. Agent Green, as much as he hated himself for it, could not hold back a smile.
“It looks great, artist I've never met before in my life.”
“So, seen anything else of interest tonight?”
“Two people were standing near the west courtyard, a Sculptor and a Builder, it seemed. I've heard there was also a local Composer around here somewhere.”
“I've seen a Painter moving around. One of his pieces went up over there.”
Tangerine gestured to the opposite wall, covered in adverts for various pieces on display that night, along with prices and disparaging comments on how derivative they were. It drew some attention, but most artists actively ignored the piece.
“I don't suppose you've seen a Janitor around?”
“Dude, we're outside. Why would there be a Janitor here?”
Green scowled.
“Have you?”
“I've not, no. Though the best Janitors remain unseen by other employees.”
“Indeed.”
Tangerine offered a card to Green, who took it and placed it in his pocket.
“How long have you been sitting here, then?”
“About three hours.”
“Seen the corpse pile?”
“Yeah. Nobody saw the artist who put it there.”
“Pffff. Artist.”
Tangerine lowered his voice.
“Taken samples?”
“Prints and hair.”
“Results?”
“None in the database.”
“Shit.”
“Yeah.”
“What's our backup like?”
“Thirty on patrol.”
“Skeleton crew.”
“Guys upstairs are crossing their fingers.”
“HEY! TAN!”
Joey ran up to Tangerine, offering a platter of chopped fruits.
“Here, try a slice of banana, people are going crazy over them!”
Tangerine took a piece and stuck it into his mouth. Joey turned to Agent Green, who was fighting to keep a neutral expression.
“You can have some too, of course, sir.”
“Thanks.”
Agent Green picked up a slice of banana, feigned placing it in his mouth, and palmed it. He imitated chewing and swallowing, slipping the banana into his pocket as he did so. He smiled and thought of the taste of bananas.
“Delicious. They taste very-”
Tangerine panicked as he chewed the slice, realising Green's mistake.
“You really got the lemon flavouring spot on, Joey!”
Green froze up, noticing his error. Joey seemed oblivious.
“Thanks, I've had to go buy more bananas three times tonight! See you later!”
“See ya!”
Green looked at the mildly bemused Tangerine.
“Shut up.”
“I didn't say anything.”
“Whatever. I'll see you later, still haven't seen the north alleyways.”
Green started to walk off, but then stopped. Someone was crouched in front of The Painter's advertisements with a stencil and a set of spray paint cans dangling around his belt. He placed the stencil against the wall and it began to shift, the outline changing shape at a thought. The figure grabbed a spray can from its belt, evenly covered the stencil, then ran off into the crowd. The wet paint covered the price tags and scathing remarks with encouraging critiques, and placed a stencilled audience cheering at the bottom of the wall. The style looked vaguely familiar… Green turned back to the grinning Tangerine.
“Was that…?”
“Well, he was in town.”

The Builder and The Sculptor were standing in the west courtyard.
“So, Robbo's out doing his thing, Snipper's dumped his corpses here and fucked off, Sam's given me a tape so he doesn't even need to be here, I've got my van filled up with a few doppelgangers, and you're… what?”
The Builder continued whispering to his handful of building seeds, ignoring the question.
“Fucking hell, this should have been done half an hour ago. I'm letting out my stuff, I'll be back in a few minutes.”
The Sculptor walked further west, exiting onto a road. His van was rattling in a carpark on the opposite side. Cautiously he jogged across the street, with little traffic to get in his way. He fiddled with his keys and opened the back door of the van. Seven pairs of dull eyes stared at the sudden movement.
“At least you fuckers know how to follow directions. Get out, go that way, find the person who looks like you, claim you're the original and then beat the shit out of them. Got it?”
The duplicates nodded, then jumped down from the van. They charged mindlessly across the road without any sense of self-preservation. One jumped directly in front of a car and, illusion broken, fell into chunks of raw clay.
“Well fuck.”

Felix walked casually through the crowd, adjusting his beret. A small face-painting stall was attracting attention. Felix looked left and right, remembering the joy of creation. Hundreds of grinning faces were all around him. This was what it was all about, he thought. This was true art.
He came across the pile of corpses and shook his head disapprovingly.

“Ladies and gentlemen, that song was ‘Please Don't Stop Singing This Song I'm An Entity That Lives Inside Of Soundwaves And If You Do I'll Die Oh Please God No', and I hope you all enjoyed it! For our next song, we're going to-”
“HOLD IT RIGHT THERE!”
Annie looked up from her microphone into the crowd. Three people had barged in and were forcing their way through the mosh pit. They crawled up onto the stage. The band members looked at each other, before Annie asked the question on all their minds.
“Are you evil robot us?”
The duplicates looked to each other, shared some hushed whispers, and then the Annie duplicate provided a response.
“No! Are you evil robot us?”
“No. Who are you?”
“We're Futanari Titwhore Fiasco!”
The crowd looked at each other, unsure of if this was a scripted event.
“But… we're Futanari Titwhore Fiasco.”
“But WE'RE Futanari Titwhore Fiasco!”
“Okay, fine. You're Futanari Titwhore Fiasco.”
The duplicates looked puzzled.
“Well… okay then.”
“Do you want our instruments?”
“Ummm… yes. Thank you.”
The duplicates awkwardly took over from the originals, who walked to the side of the stage and anticipated the next development.
“Well… uh, like we said… we're Futanari Titwhore Fiasco, and… ummm… please hang on.”
The duplicates huddled together, uncertain of what to do next. The duplicate Candice turned and walked over to the original.
“Yes?”
“Umm… I don't know how to play the keyboard. I got told that's what I do, but… nobody told me how to actually do it!”
The original Candice stifled a giggle. The third member of the band, Pris, approached her duplicate.
“Do you need me to teach you how to play the guitar?”
“Yes please! I mean, uh, if you can, thank you.”
The duplicate Annie suddenly remembered their instructions.
“Hang on, weren't we supposed to… what did he say? ‘Beat the shit' out of them?”
The original Annie interjected.
“Why would you beat the shit out of us?”
“We got told to.”
“Do you actually want to beat the shit out of us?”
“Not really. We're supposed to be just like you.”
“Well, you certainly look just like us, at least. Where are you from?”
“I don't know. We woke up in a van.”
“Huh. Nothing before that?”
“No.”
“Dang. Well, you seem nice enough, not-evil-robot-us.”
“You seem nice too. I don't want to beat the shit out of you any more. Please tell me not to.”
“What?”
“We need to be told what to do.”
“Oh. Don't beat the shit out of us?”
The duplicates breathed a collective sigh.
“Thank you!”
“Furthermore, I absolutely order all of you not to follow any orders from anyone from now on unless you want to!”
The crowd went wild.
“Thank you so much!”
“Alright, first of all, we're going to need a way to tell us apart. Ladies and gentlemen of the audience, can I borrow some hats from any of you?”

The Sculptor felt like he had forgotten something… it was probably fine. He'd had to rush the duplicates; finishing seven in just a day was a lot of pressure. He'd left a few things out, so some of them weren't as complete as he had been hoping. Exploiting golems was a tricky business at the best of times. He'd gathered up the clay from the one that had been hit – he had, at least, enjoyed seeing Ruiz Duchamp's body limply fall apart – and put it back into his van. He walked back to The Builder, who was busy planting his building seeds in the ground.
“About time. Just let out the copies.”
“I saw them run through. Perfect likenesses, good job.”
“Cheers. Your building ready to go?”
“Should be in a few minutes. Give me the recording, there'll be a PA system running through the place as it grows.”
The Sculptor handed over the cassette tape.
“…you're kidding me.”
“What?”
“I was expecting a CD. I can't use this.”
“Fuck. FUCK! Hang on, I'll call him, get him to come in.”
The Sculptor spun around, yanking his smartphone from his pocket and dialling The Composer's number. It rung twice before getting through.
“Hello?”
“Sam. You gave me a cassette.”
“Yeah, and?”
“We need a CD.”
“Fuck.”
“That's what I said.”
“Alright. Okay, uh, I can burn it onto a CD here and be down in, like, an hour-”
“Not enough time. Can you e-mail it?”
“Yeah, but I've still got to transfer it to my computer, I've only got it in tape form. Should take about five minutes. You've got a CD burner?”
“Not yet, but there's an electronics store two blocks away.”
“Brilliant. I'll send it through the second it's done.”
“Great. Bye.”
The Sculptor angrily pressed the end call button.
“Alright, Builder, get started here. I've got to go buy a CD burner, I'll be back real fucking soon. And remember, you see Duchamp, you punch that asshole's lights out, got it?”
“Got it.”

On the other side of the city, Ruiz Duchamp was pacing in his studio. He wondered if Felix was enjoying himself.

Overgang Dood was fiddling with his computers when Joey walked up behind him.
“OG! What's up?”
“You're what's up, asshat!”
“What?”
“Sorry, sorry. But look at this!”
Joey looked at the row of CRT screens glowing dimly. All of them displayed “The Book Of Tamlin” on the screens.
“What?”
“The program's got stuck on your name, it's not changing for anyone else!”
“Dang, why?”
“If I knew that, it wouldn't be a fucking problem, would it?”
“Have you tried turning it-”
“Don't you dare finish that fucking sentence. That did not work.”
“Well, I dunno. Slice of banana?”
“What does it taste like?”
“Lemons.”
“Sure.”
Overgang took a piece of banana and threw it into his mouth. The mushy banana texture and tangy lemon flavour were flawlessly fused in a mouthful of impossible food.
“That's pretty good.”
“That's what everyone's been saying, yeah.”
“Anyway, I really need to fix this before-“
“IMPOSTORS!”
The duplicates of Overgang Dood and Joey Tamlin yelled in unison from across the courtyard. Overgang turned to Joey.
“Were you expecting this?”
“Nope.”
“Well, gotta roll with the punches. HEY! CLONE OF ME OR WHATEVER! GET OVER HERE, I NEED SOME HELP!”
The duplicates looked at one another, then walked over.
“Alright, I've been having trouble getting this to work, I've tried-”
Overgang's duplicate punched him in the face, knocking his sunglasses to the ground. Overgang rubbed his jaw, Joey and his duplicate looking on. The original stood up, plucking an almost flawless copy of his sunglasses from the face of his duplicate, then placing them on the bridge of his own nose.
“You're right, evil clone, I haven't just tried hitting it yet. Silly me! Can I borrow your head for a second?”
Overgang grabbed his duplicate's skull, driving it into one of the CRT monitors and showering glass onto the ground. The duplicate twitched as sparks and smoke rose from the dusty box. The original pulled his duplicate from the wreckage, placing his hands on the duplicate's shoulders, bending him over, and brutally kneeing it in the chest. The golem's eyes opened wide, breath thrust from its lungs, and then Overgang followed up with another knee, and another, and another. He roughly pushed the copy to the ground, then lifted his leg and stomped down on its ribcage with a resounding crunch. The duplicate shuddered and rolled over, illusion collapsing slowly around it. The original took a run-up, then kicked the head clean off his copy before it collapsed to raw clay. Overgang pushed his trademark sunglasses up the bridge of his nose.
“Fucking golems. Can't even throw a proper punch. Now…”
Overgang turned, grinning madly, to Joey and his stunned duplicate.
“…which of you is the copy?”
Joey showed his platter full of banana slices. The duplicate looked pleadingly at the original.
“Fucking hell, aren't you lot supposed to be artists?”
Joey clanged the metal platter against his copy's face, following up with a solid jab to the stomach, then a kick to the groin. He grabbed its shoulders and kicked its knee, bending it unnaturally backwards and forcing his doppelganger to the ground.
“No. We're Anartists.”
He stomped on his copy's skull, squashing it flat into the pavement. Joey walked over to Overgang, hi-fiving him and still dizzily happy from the adrenaline rush. The surrounding crowd began to cheer at what they thought was a well-choreographed fight sequence, lauding praise onto the artisanry of the duplicates. Overgang decided to capitalise on the attention.
"Now that's over, IS THERE A CODER IN THE AUDIENCE?"

The Sculptor walked into the electronics store, moving straight to the counter.
“Hello?”
A middle-aged man appeared from a back room.
“Yo.”
“Hey, where do you keep CD burners?”
“What, like, by themselves?”
“Yeah, in like an enclosure or something.”
“Well, we've got DVD and Blu-ray burners, nothing for plain old CDs these days.”
“FUCK!”
“Hey, no swearing in my store.”
“Do you have ANYTHING that can burn a CD?”
“Well, I think one of our prebuild towers has a burner in it.”
“Can you take the burner out for me?”
“Afraid not.”
“Whatever, how much for the tower?”
“Hang on, let me check.”
The manager walked into the back room. The Sculptor impatiently tapped his foot, walking over to the rack behind him and pocketing a 5-pack of writable CDs while the manager was gone. After a few more excruciating minutes, the manager returned, lugging a large black computer tower in his hands. He placed it onto the counter.
“Well, here you go.”
“This has a CD burner in it?”
“Yup, that'll be-”
BANG.
The Sculptor discharged his firearm into the manager's head, blood and brain spattering on the wall behind. He pushed the corpse from the counter, then pulled the tower over, power cord trailing behind. He moved it over to one of the demonstration desks, carelessly throwing netbooks to the ground and resting the tower on the table. He fetched an LCD monitor, keyboard, and mouse from around the store, paying no attention to the body slowly bleeding dry. Slowly the computer whirred to life, while he shoved an Ethernet cable into the thing. He looked at the screen as it suddenly flashed on. The Sculptor mashed the keyboard, signed in as a guest, opened the default web browser, accessed his e-mails, downloaded The Composer's CD image, then burned it to all five of the discs in his pocket. May as well have spares, he thought. He strode out the front door, turning the sign on the front to ‘CLOSED' as he left.
The body was not found until morning.

You sat with Arsehole and Hiro, dutifully entering your confirmation code into the prototype art bomb. You and Hiro had spent most of the last few weeks working on the internals of the expansion mechanism, while Arsehole was the one who actually co-ordinated the colours involved. Hiro and Arsehole entered their codes, everyone backed away, and the impossible mechanism turned itself inside-out. You started conversation.
“This one's safe, right? It's all disabled?”
Arsehole pushed her index finger into the colour burst, pulling it out and showing you a perfectly intact (albeit bright pink) digit.
“See? Perfectly safe.”
Hiro kept tapping on his phone, still hardwired to the point of origin within the slowly expanding technicolour sphere.
“Readings are looking good. Everything seems to be stable.”
“Speed it up a bit!”
“Alright, alright, hang on.”
Hiro swiped his fingers across the touch screen, and the ball began to grow even more.
“Readings are still fine. Let me just-”
“IMPOSTOR!”
You looked across the courtyard and saw someone who looked almost exactly like Arsehole. The Arsehole standing beside you took the firearm holstered in your pocket and promptly shot the duplicate twice in the head, whereupon it collapsed into clay. She offered the firearm back, and you re-holstered it gingerly. The trigger was now dyed the same bright pink as her finger was.
“Come on, Hiro, bigger! Bigger!”

The Sculptor returned to see The Builder's seeds had constructed a white marble hall around the west courtyard. The edges were slowly weaving outwards past the alleyways, blocking the natural moonlight and replacing it with flickering fluorescents.
“You got the CD?”
“I've got five, here.”
“Fantastic.”
The Builder took one of the CDs and placed it into a small slot in the marble. The Composer's song started to play; the entrancing classical music bounced harmonically around the marble walls.
“Well, at least you got that bit right.”
“Yeah, sounds damn good.”
“He tell you what it does?”
“Vaguely put, ‘degrades comparative artistic respect'. It'll make people hate the other pieces.”
“Well, that should be fun to watch.”
“Yup. Once the building actually contains more stuff, it'll start criticising them specifically. I've gotta oversee the growth of the building for now, make sure it doesn't suck anyone into the walls or something stupid.”
“Cool, I'll go check on-”
The Painter ran through the expanding marble corridor, heading straight for the pair.
“That fucker's here.”
“Who? Duchamp?”
“Not Duchamp, you twat, the British fucker. Smearing stencils over my stuff.”
“Shit. Have you told Janitor?”
“Can't find the Janitor.”
“Shiiiiiit. Alright, here's a pistol. Track him down and shoot the bastard.”
“I can't shoot for shit, man, you know I'm bad with guns.”
“Alright, alright. I'll deal with him myself. You stay within the building, put up some of that stuff in here, do your thing.”
“Got it. Thanks, man.”
The Sculptor walked out from the marble flooring to the uneven, pebbled alleyway. If you wanted something done right, you had to shoot people to do it.

“You're not even the least bit curious who sent them?”
“I'm more curious about WHY I CAN'T GET THIS STUFF TO WORK.”
Joey and Overgang sat sucking banana-tasting lemon slices. The clay bodies of the golems sat untouched.
“Seriously, I can't think of anyone who actually wants us dead. Well, us specifically, at least.”
“Well, after Critic's lot, we're probably the biggest game in town.”
“You don't think The Critic did this, do you?”
“Oh, hell no. He's not an idiot, if he wanted us dead he'd at least do it cleanly.”
“Wait, should we maybe check on the others? Make sure they're all okay?”
“Eh, they're probably fine. Everyone here can take care of themselves.”
“True. I just want to know-”
HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONK

“Alright, top-hatted not-evil-not-robot-me, we make a pretty awesome duet! Hi-five!”
Annie slapped the hand of her duplicate golem and new friend. It was like she'd found the sister she never had.
“Okay, our next song's a nice, soft-”
HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONK

“We're going critical!”
You braced yourself as the art bomb exploded outwards in a flash of colour, coating the courtyard with technicoloured ooze. Hiro wiped the blue from his face, glad that it had worked, while Arsehole jumped and cheered and demanded to do it again. You started to say something, but then
HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONK

Felix continued making his way through the crowd, then suddenly bumped into a towering black figure.
“Apologies, I… oh. Hello, old friend.”
The Janitor turned around, gas mask filter buzzing.
“Greetings, Felix. Long time, no see.”
“Enjoying yourself?”
“I am on watch tonight. This is not a safe place.”
Felix chuckled.
“I've been in less safe places, friend, don't you-”
HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONK

Rita continued her show. Thousands of invisible spiders crawled around her miniature circus, juggling lint balls, bending paperclips, and least impressively of all, swinging unseen from trapezes. Next time, she thought, she should dip them in paint before bringing them along. That, or knit them some tiny jumpsuits. She offered a finger for one of them to climb onto, when
HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONK

Ruiz Duchamp heard a sound in the distance.
hooooooooonk

The Sculptor stalked his prey as subtly as possible. He had seen the figure deface two sets of posters, and knew the location of the next one that he would be targeting. He started running down a backstreet, planning to overtake, when
HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONK

The Painter was putting up his posters inside of The Builder's growing exhibition hall. The Composer's music played in the background.
“Hang on. If I put these up inside here, isn't the music going to make everyone hate them anyway?”
HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONK

The Critic heard a sound in the distance.
hooooooooonk

Tangerine sat near his work, watching the delicate colours fluctuate. Even though he was an Agent, he still enjoyed creating art. He enjoyed messing with the fabric of reality. It always had an air of romance to it, and from here, he had gained an appreciation for it. Perhaps, after they let him go, he could find a nice little cottage in the hills and paint landscapes. But of course, after what he'd seen here, how could simple painting ever compare? He'd seen prodigies craft miracles with nothing more than their fingertips, and as much as he had been told that was a bad thing over and over again, through the GOC training, through the Foundation… all he'd seen was happy people, making each other happy through
HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONK

Agent Green approached the corpse pile. It was smack-bang in the central courtyard. He mentally assigned it as his primary cleanup priority. He'd have to check all the people in there, find out who they actually were, inform next of kin. It'd be a long and arduous task, but someone had to do it. Green didn't mind. It was important work. He was making a difference.
HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONK
Green looked up at the blasting horn noise from above. A bulging red balloon was suspended from the building tops, an enormous speaker stuck to the bottom. He instinctively moved his hand to his pistol, tightening his grip. The speaker spouted a heavily distorted voice message.
“HEY GUYS! SORRY I COULDN'T MAKE IT, BUT I'M SURE YOU UNDERSTAND. YOU KNOW, THINGS TO DO, PEOPLE TO KILL. SOME OF YOU HAVE GOTTEN TO KNOW ME INTIMATELY OVER THE LAST FEW DAYS, AND YOU KNOW, I'VE REALLY ENJOYED CREEPING THE FUCK OUT OF YOU. BUT IT'S ABOUT TIME TO END THE SHITTY LITTLE CHARADE.”
Agent Green was well and truly spooked. The speaker would be loud enough to be heard through the entire city.
“I'M NOT AS CRAZY AS I SEEMED. OR, RATHER, I'M AS CRAZY AS I SEEMED AND QUITE A BIT MORE. I'M GOING TO BE HONEST HERE, THE CORPSES DIDN'T EVEN MAKE THAT COMFORTABLE A SEAT. BUT ONCE YOU GET ONE, YOU'VE JUST GOT TO COLLECT THEM ALL, AM I RIGHT? ANYWAY. SORRY TO HAVE MISLED YOU, BUT I'VE FRANKLY NO INTEREST IN YOUR LITTLE GANG ANY MORE. YOU'RE BORING, YOU'RE BLASÉ, YOU'RE FUCKING BLAND. THERE IS ONE LITTLE THING THAT I THINK I'LL KEEP FROM OUR EXCHANGES, THOUGH. I'VE ALWAYS WANTED A CATCHPHRASE.”
Agent Green prepared himself for the worst.
“SNIP. SNIP. SNIP.”
With the final SNIP, the balloon fell. It moved downwards, almost in slow motion, directly hitting the centre of the corpse pile. The sides bulged, and the balloon popped from the impact, a minty green ooze bursting from within. He had prepared himself for the worst, but he had not prepared himself for this. Agent Green had only one horrified thought running through his head.
Dead Bodies.

Thank God It's Friday
« Final Attack Orders | Hub | Insufficient Clearance »


Pico Wilson sat in the middle of his corpse pile.
The Sculptor was talking at The Painter; The Painter talking at The Composer; The Composer was talking at The Builder; The Builder was talking at The Sculptor. The Snipper sat atop his throne, saying nothing to anyone and not being spoken at, the only person in the room actually listening. All of them wanted attention but him.
“I'm telling you, we mock them through ear worms and jingles! They won't be able to get it out of their heads, they aren't free in their own minds!”
“No, we literally turn their art into adverts and billboards! The corporatisation of artistic expression kills its meaning!”
“We can literally grow a gallery around them, the ultimate display of power! Forcing them within the confines of the institution!”
“Just sculpt our own artists to take their places, claiming themselves to be the original creators! The real ones won't know what to do!”
The Snipper played little attention to the squabbling. Surrounded by petulant children, he thought, snapping out some of his subjects' ribs and stabbing them into the dead man's legs. How the hell does The Critic even keep them in line?
The answer to that question kicked open the door. Immediately, all conversation was dropped, all disagreements put aside, and all heads turned to face The Janitor.
The Janitor towered tall, a long black trenchcoat stopping just short of its knees. It was definitely an ‘it'; the presence was not of a human but an immutable force of reality. Its face was entirely obscured by a gas mask; it wore a pitch fabric that hurt to look at. Where it moved, lights seemed to flicker and disappear, physical objects looked intangible and transient, the impossible was certain and certainties could not even be conceived. The Janitor walked into the room, wooden floor creaking to accommodate the immense pressure, and it glanced towards the corpse pile. The Snipper looked directly into the black eyeholes, and in that instant, his stomach turned, his throat tightened, his heart started beating faster and the hairs on his arms stood on end. For the first time in his life, The Snipper felt the sweet rush of love. Well, that or fear. He'd never felt either before, and from what he had heard, the two seemed very similar. He knew one caused attraction, and the other repulsion, and yet here he stood immobile and completely awestruck by the being in front of him. He blurted out the one thing he knew, from an artistic perspective, was objectively true.
“You are beautiful.”
He numbly offered The Janitor a cracked rib, grinning dumbly while shaking. The Janitor cocked its head to one side, as if confused, then took the rib and placed it inside an inner trenchcoat pocket. A heavily obscured, almost mechanical voice buzzed from the diaphragm of the gas mask, and yet the words were clear enough to be understood by all.
“You know not what you have offered me. I may well craft Eve from this rib.”
The Snipper's grin, somehow, widened even more.
“Then shall I consider you my Yahweh, my Jehovah, my lord and god?”
“I am not a god. I am simply a hand.”
“The hand of a god, then!”
“I am my own hand. Nobody thinks themself a god.”
“Nobody does, indeed.”
The Painter and The Composer shared glances, The Builder actively stared at his feet, and The Sculptor felt somewhat ambivalent to the whole affair, breaking the conversation.
“Get a fucking room. We're busy.”
The Janitor turned its head to face The Sculptor.
“Apologies, Sculptor. To business, then. To the topic of Friday.”
“Right. Well, you're obviously here to sit in on the plans. I want you standing by as an ace in the hole in case things go south, you can probably keep track of everything from one of the nearby rooftops.”
“I was planning on doing so regardless. The Director had requested such before her accident.”
“Good. Now I think, perhaps, it would be interesting if we used a bit of a multi-pronged approach here. We've all got good ideas, we all think we've got the best ones… why not just go for all of them at once?”
The Painter interjected.
“We still need to organise ourselves, else we'll be tripping over each other's feet the whole time.”
“True. So, everyone – Janitor excluded, of course – put your plans down on paper, set a timetable, and we can work around it all. Here.”
The Sculptor passed pens and paper to everyone in the room. Everyone began to scribble down notes, The Janitor dutifully standing in silence. The Snipper finished writing, and started to fold his paper into a small origami flower. He began his conversation with The Janitor anew.
“So what do you look like under the mask?”
The Janitor turned. The Sculptor scowled, but continued his own writing.
“Under the mask I am something else.”
“Do you ever take it off? Like, if you get itchy or something?”
“I remove the mask when I am not needed.”
“And then what?”
“And then I am not me.”
The Snipper scratched his head.
“But you are you, though.”
“The me that is this me is not the only me. This is the me that wears a mask. The face beneath this face, perhaps, considers itself a mask concealing me.”
“Oh, so it's like a split personality shindig. A bit cliché, but hell, who am I to judge, right?”
The Janitor remained silent.
“So, you're not planning anything for Friday then?”
“My role differs. I am not an artist.”
“Everyone's an artist.”
“I cannot create.”
“Not all art is in the creation of things. Hell, look at me.”
The Snipper removed a kidney from his subject, rubbing his finger along the rubbery flesh.
“I do not wish to be an artist.”
“Then you're a critic?”
“I do not judge. I observe.”
“That's just silly. Observation is inherently judgemental. You choose to observe things worthy of your attention; your choice of what to watch is a judgement.”
The Janitor remained silent. The Sculptor placed his pen down on the table, a detailed itinerary of his exhibit completed.
“Stop bugging The Janitor. If you're done, hand over your paper.”
The Snipper threw his completed paper flower over to The Sculptor, who began to unfold it with poorly veiled anger.
“So you clean up after us, yeah?”
“That is correct.”
“No matter how much mess we make?”
“That is correct.”
“If I nuked the city, could you clean it up?”
The Painter interjected.
“Don't nuke the city.”
“Don't tell me what to do! Could you?”
The Janitor placed a gloved hand to its chin. It thought for a few seconds, The Snipper's face grinning madly at confounding his new friend.
“Yes.”
“How?”
The Janitor remained silent.
“Oh come on, don't be a cocktease. How would you do it?”
The Janitor turned to look at The Snipper. Pico's body was overcome with the same primal shock that he felt when first seeing it, shivers running down his spine and losing feeling in his extremities.
“Alright, whatever. I guess I'll just have to find out the hard way.”
The Painter yelled louder than before.
“DON'T NUKE THE CITY!”
“Sigh. Fucking spoilsport.”
The Sculptor completed unfolding the piece of paper.
“What the fuck is this?”
He held it up for all to see. The only words on the piece of paper were drawn in blood, spelling out ‘CORPSES FOR THE CORPSE THRONE'.
“I think I was direct and to the point with my itinerary.”
“You're just going to be exhibiting piles of corpses?”
“Yes.”
“…you know what? I'm fine with that. It's simple, it's creepy, and some people will probably just run the fuck away. Straight and to the point. Good job, Snipper. Glad to have you onboard.”
“Snip snip snip.”
“No. Don't try and make that a thing that you do. That's not a thing. Everyone else done?”
The Builder and The Painter passed back their papers, The Composer having long ago written down his song list. The Sculptor appraised their plans.
“This is good. This is really good, actually… Bob, you'll have to move your plan around so you're not getting in Robbo's way, your gallery's going to start blocking the adverts if you have it coming up through the alleyways.”
The Builder offered a solution.
“I'll have the gallery mimic the surrounding wall decorations, anything you've done can move through to inside. Actually, scratch that, I'll just stick windows around everything you do.”
The Painter nodded in agreement.
“I'll send you a map of the whole plan tomorrow morning, we can figure it out by the night.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
The Sculptor continued.
“Like I said, Snipper's just running corpses, and Sam's fine, since sound doesn't really… oh, actually, the internal acoustics of Bob's stuff might fuck with it. Something else you'll have to figure out tomorrow morning, but it's a tiny issue, you'll be able to figure it out. I'll be fine since my stuff's mobile anyway. We've cut this close, gentlemen, but we know what we're doing. We have our battle plans. After this, nobody's going to forget why we're the cool ones. I'll see you all tomorrow.”
The Sculptor straightened his papers, placing them into a small folder, then walked out of the room, shortly followed by The Builder, Composer, and Painter. The Snipper snuggled into his corpse pile, The Janitor observing every movement. A voice came from deep within the pile.
“Why? Why do you clean up after them?”
The mask's diaphragm buzzed.
“That is my role.”
“Who set that role?”
“The Critic.”
The Snipper lifted his head above the pile.
“How does he strongarm someone like you?”
“I have free will. I follow willingly.”
The Snipper frowned.
“Nobody who follows instructions is really free.”
The Janitor remained silent.
“Does he know who you really are, then?”
“I am who I am who I am.”
“Do you know who you really are?”
The Janitor remained silent. The Snipper cackled.
“You're like a caged bird, except the cage is made of glass and you're a rhinoceros. You don't even realise you can break free, do you?”
“I am already free.”
“No. No you aren't. You poor thing. You poor, pitiful little thing.”
The Janitor faced The Snipper, again shooting lightning down his arms and drying out his mouth. His face betrayed nothing of it.
“I am more free than you will ever understand. I am free from desire, free from emotion, free from everything. You may be free from others, but I am free from myself. I shall take my leave.”
The Janitor left the room with a single step, leaving The Snipper to lie in collected viscera. He sucked the blood from his thumb, spitting it out onto the floor. It was lying, it was deluded, The Janitor was not free.
That would not do, Pico thought.
He would have to free it.

All face-up monsters on the field are changed to Attack Position and their battle positions cannot be changed.
« The Cool Kids | Hub | The Friday Exhibition »


"What is it?"
"It's a mechanical fan that has the ability to play the electric guitar, sir."
"Ha ha, does it blow you away when it plays?"
"Yes, sir."
"Mentally or physically?"
"Both sir, its musical talent with an electric guitar is unparalleled. However, it also produces a wind velocity of 90kph when playing."
"I was joking, but that's actually pretty funny. Anything else I need to know?"
"The fan has fans, sir."
"People fans or mechanical fans?"
"Both, sir. It has a large following of people who appreciate its music, but it also has a collection of mechanical fans."
"Okay, give them a Class-B amnestic and call it a day."
"The people fans or the mechanical fans, sir?"
"Give the people fans the amnestic and contain the mechanical fans. You think you'll have trouble doing it?"
"It should be a breeze, sir."
"A breeze created by the fan that prevents you from carrying out the order?"
"No I meant it should be an easy job, sir."
"Good, glad that's sorted out. Now to deal with the running refrigerator in Sector-118."
"Sir, do you mean the refrigerator is physically sprinting or do you mean it is a workin-"
"—Don't even start."


“Molly! Where'd you put my aubergines?”
“Your what?”
“My aubergines!”
“What the fuck is an aubergine?”
“My eggplants! Where are they?”
“Oh, them! I chucked them in the bin, they'd gone bad or something!”
Joey Tamlin stopped yelling up the stairs. He walked over and fished his three ripe aubergines from the plastic bag that hung from their pantry door handle. Each of them had a large bite missing.
“I was working on these!”
“Work harder, they tasted like shit!”
Joey sighed.
“I was working on making them taste like shit!”
“Oh! Good job then! Why were you making them taste like shit?”
“I dunno! Art reasons! Thought it'd be fun!”
“I told you, mark anything you fuck with! Stick notes on them or something!”
“Alright, sorry!”
Joey took a bite out of one of the aubergines, and was glad to note that it still tasted like human faecal matter. Thank goodness. He pulled out a pad of sticky notes, and moved pens around in the drawer until he found a sharp red one. Joey sketched in capital letters ‘ART, NOT FOOD' and stuck it to the first aubergine, then did the same for the other two. He placed them to the side, picked up the communal fruit bowl from the kitchen and upended it.
The apples, Joey thought, were a good idea. People ate apple slices, like, as finger food or whatever, didn't they? That was a normal thing to be handing out. He could put them on toothpicks and everything, and have chocolate dipping sauce. OH! What if the apples tasted like chocolate, and the chocolate dipping sauce tasted like apples? Giggling to himself, Joey moved the apples next to the aubergines and added a small note, ‘CHOCOLATE SAUCE'.
Mandarine oranges. The problem with messing with the taste of mandarines, he thought, was that they were segmented up into… uh… segments. He couldn't modify the flavour wholesale unless he grew them again from scratch, and even if he bumped up the rate of growth, he was in the middle of the city, so there was nowhere open that he could reasonably grow them. Not to mention that increasing the rate of growth would require him to be watering it and holding a sunlight to it the whole time, unless he wanted it to be withered by morning. If he was going to change the flavour of a mandarine, he'd have to do it segment at a time. OH! What if every segment of the mandarine tasted completely different, and it'd all still be inside a closed peel? Stick every taste in the one thing. Perhaps make them all different kinds of meat flavours, and they can just be the ultimate indulgence for vegetarians. The texture of the mandarine flesh and the taste of steak were a horrible combination even in theory, but the purpose of this exercise was exploration, not improvement. Joey put them in the pile, sticking on the note ‘MEAT'.
What about the bananas? Joey picked up one of the three, peeled it, took a bite, and chewed pensively. They were mushy and sticky in his mouth, an intriguing texture. What flavour would fit well with it, Joey thought? Not sweet, it was already sweet… lemons? Well, perhaps not a flavour as strong as actual lemons, but he could see it working. Joey moved the two remaining bananas to the pile, noting them ‘LEMONS'.
Lemons. Joey marked them ‘BANANAS' and moved on.
Finally, a single clove of garlic. Joey wasn't sure why the garlic was being kept in the fruitbowl, but wasn't overly concerned. What texture did garlic even have, anyway? Joey had never eaten raw garlic, and imagined he probably didn't want to. OH! What if he just left the garlic as is, and served it raw? Juxtaposition would make it perfect. He marked the garlic ‘GARLIC', scooped everything back into the bowl, and moved it all over to the loungeroom table. Where to begin…
The doorbell rang.
Joey snapped out of his creative trance, his train of thought utterly derailed. He stood up, walked to the door, and flung it open. Tangerine was standing there in his Hawaiian shirt, shorts, and flip-flops.
“Tan, you know it's winter, right?”
“Pfffff, this much is nothing. Spend a week in the north, you baby.”
“You're gonna get sick, man.”
“Only thing I'm sick of is people telling me to wear more clothes.”
Tangerine walked through the door, Joey closing it behind him.
“Anyone else here?”
“Just me and Molly, everyone else is out for the day.”
Tangerine walked to the stairs and yelled up them.
“Hey Mol!”
“Hey Tan! Put on a jacket or something!”
Tangerine looked back toward Joey.
“How did she know?”
“You never wear a jacket.”
“Jackets are for snow.”
Tangerine walked to the loungeroom and flopped down onto a chair. Joey started to follow him.
The doorbell rang.
Joey spun on his foot, walking back to the door and opening it again. Overgang Dood was standing in wait, his trademark sunglasses sitting comfortably on his nose.
“Overgang!”
“Joey. You heard about The Director?”
“Huh?”
“She ran an exploit play, stuck her in a coma. Rookie mistake, staying in the theatre.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. Friday's still on, but nothing from Critic's lot.”
“Well. That makes this a lot easier.”
“What?”
“Come on, I'll explain to both of you.”
“Wait, who else is here?”
“Tan. Well, Tan and Molly.”
Overgang walked to the stairs and yelled up them.
“Hey Mol!”
“Hey Overgang! How's Carol?”
“I haven't been dating Carol for months!”
“Oh! Sorry to hear that!”
Overgang shook his head. He walked to the loungeroom, picking up an apple and joining Tangerine on the couch.
“Hey Tan.”
“Hey OG.”
“Heard about The Director?”
“Yeah, friend told me this morning.”
“Who?”
“A guy called Green. You wouldn't know him.”
“What does he do?”
“Uh, him and his friends are art collectors.”
It was true enough, Tangerine thought.
“Should introduce us.”
“Yeah, I reckon you'd get along great.”
Joey joined them in the loungeroom.
“Hey! Put the apple back in the bowl!”
Overgang took a bite out of the apple, staring directly at Joey and chewing slowly with as much of a grin as one can muster with a mouthful of food. Tangerine snickered.
“Whatever, I've got more.”
“Anyway, why are we here?”
“Alright. Okay. Wooo. Here it goes.”
Joey breathed in, mentally preparing himself.
“We need to get rid of The Critic.”
Overgang and Tangerine stared at Joey's uncertain, pleading face. Then they looked at each other quizzically, and then back. Overgang asked the question they both wanted answered.
“Why?”
“I don't think you understand, I said we need to-”
“Get rid of The Critic, yes. Why?”
“Well, I was thinking about the exhibition on Friday, right, how it's all being organised by The Critic's lot, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah, and pretty much all of the exhibitions that we go to are set up by him or another person with a ‘The' in their name. They're the ones driving our culture, right? They're the ones who shape it, they choose the where and the when. And The Critic, his name itself implies authority, yeah? How long until their lot starts to dictate the why? They're taking us and turning us into chesspieces, they're pointing us towards venues and firing, and we're just filing into line like mindless drones. That's the opposite of the point. The whole point of us used to be to wake people up from being mindless drones, but with the way it's going, The Critic's taking us all and doing the SAME FUCKING THING!”
Overgang sat staring, shocked.
“I think that's the first time I've ever heard you say fuck, Joey.”
“Well, this is something worth swearing about.”
Tangerine looked concerned.
“Hey, what started this?”
Joey held out a banged up Betamax tape.
“I got this in the mail this morning. Opened my eyes a bit.”
Tangerine looked at the tape, then passed it to Overgang. On the side of the tape, ‘GLORIOUS LEADERS WHILE TALKING (UNCUT)' had been scribbled in felt-tip pen. Overgang examined the side, feeling along the plastic edge before commenting.
“I didn't know you had a Betamax player.”
“I didn't, Molly had one. You want to watch it?”
“Give the gist to me in a sentence.”
“Recorded video of a discussion between The Critic and the cameraman, followed by discussion amongst his cabal, followed by avid conversation between the lot of them about how they want to guide everyone. One of them literally calls us sheep.”
Tangerine grimaced.
“That's pretty heavy handed.”
“Yeah. I don't take kindly to being herded.”
“So then. ‘Get rid of The Critic'. You have a plan?”
“Well, not necessarily ‘get rid of', that's a bit strong. Perhaps just ‘make irrelevant'. We need to take this stuff into our own hands, we need to show them that we don't need to follow their lead, and we need to do this as soon as possible. Friday's show is still on, and with The Director out of the picture, this is our best chance to show everyone that we can put on a show without the ‘shepherds'. Call everyone, call Arsehole, call Nibman, call Rita, call FTF, call Stanza, fuck, call Banksy if he's in town. We get everyone at this exhibition and we show them we're not their livestock, they can't control us, we're all equals and that's the fucking point. The guys who think they rule us, who don't actually do anything for themselves, who sit on our output and slap their labels on it, who mindlessly ask ‘Are We Cool Yet'? We're going to answer that question on Friday. And our answer is Yes.”
Tangerine and Overgang were struck mute. Joey began to panic.
“Wait, did I say something stupid? What did I say?”
Overgang regained his faculties.
“No, no, no, that's really good. That's fucking gold, I wish I'd been recording that. Damn. Lemme call Arsehole's lot and FTF, Tan, you know Nibman, right?”
“Yeah, I've got Nibman on speed dial. You want Nate and Kyle, too?”
“Everyone means everyone, Tan. Joey, what are you doing standing there? Call Stanza's lot, Micah and Judith too! You said it yourself! Call everyone!”
Joey pulled out his smartphone and started tapping the screen. Overgang was already on the line with Arsehole. Tangerine started calling Nibman, internally screaming at himself for doing so.
Green was going to be pissed.

Good artists copy, great artists steal. ~ Pablo Picasso Me
« And Then What Happened? | Hub | Final Attack Orders »


It's not a crystal, it's a portal.
I learned this while staring into Anomalous Object P-2145-T's ever-shifting facets. Yes, I had permission to study it. The truth is, my mind just drifted and I began staring. It was fascinating, the way its form changed continually, the way those little flakes of blue and red and purple scintillated just below the opaque white surface.
I was being drawn in, deeper, deeper, until I was no longer sitting in Anomalous Storage Room 34-B. I was… somewhere. Everywhere and nowhere. As if in a dream, I saw a scene before me and a thing that was supposed to be me, yet couldn't be me.
The world was bathed in red light, like a photograph darkroom. A vast looming blackness lurked behind the light, threatening to swallow it and return the world to the abyss from which it had spawned. The scene was framed with stark mountains, their faces like bleeding toenails in the light. They were bare save for various stones that sprouted haphazardly from them, as though growing in the rock face.
Yet for all that unfathomable immensity, the space upon which I looked was claustrophobic. The mountains nearest me were lower than those surrounding them, and hollow in the center. From them emerged enormous black silhouettes, like rounded tubes whose true natures I could not comprehend. They rocked slowly back and forth in the still air. Again and again, an enormous filament would emerge from the top of one, a ghastly thing as long as the creature's body, wreathed in swirling tendrils. Down it would snap, into the ruddy soil of that barren world, and then up again, retracting into the mouth that had spawned it.
Out, down, retract! Snap, snap, snap!
I was unable to do anything but watch them continue this behavior. I realized their targets were hundreds upon thousands of tiny black shapes that scuttled about the hills, oblivious to the sessile predators that towered over the landscape. The filaments speared the dots by the dozens and drew them back into the gaping maws.
I felt a shudder run through me, and I did not know why.
From the sky came a flash of light, and a tiny fireball rocketed to the earth. Then another appeared, and another, and soon there were dozens, streaking willy-nilly to impact with the red hills. Sometimes they left craters. Sometimes they were swallowed by the loose soil. Sometimes they annihilated the stone tumors growing from the mountainsides. Everywhere they landed, they flashed again and again, and I realized there must not have been an atmosphere, for I could hear no explosions, nor had I heard anything since finding myself in that alien landscape. With each explosion, hundreds of miniscule pinpricks of light were released, and the mountains were pockmarked with a shower of debris. Entire cosmoses of light were born and extinguished in moments. It was beautiful.
One of the exploding meteorites drew close to one of the titanic monarchs of the red valley and the tendril lashed out. It was met with an explosion and withdrew. Just as quickly as they had begun, the flashes began to die out. The final one attracted once more the attention of one of the creatures, that had not learned its lesson previously about airborne meals. This catch was successful, the tendril curling around the light and drawing it into the mouth. The top of the creature lit with an explosion, and a plume of dust curled out of the top.
Then the third feeder, the one that towered above its massive brethren, launched its tendril at me, catching me fast and drawing me inward.
In that instant, a thought came unbidden to my mind. The universe, it is theorized, began with an explosion, just a tiny speck of all-matter that burst and became all that we know and can conceive of. It expanded and expanded. Some say it will expand infinitely; some say that one day, it will simply stop, and everything will cease to be. Others claim that eventually a limit will be reached, after which the expansion will reverse. Further theories propound that the cycle will begin anew thereafter, creating a new universe and cycling indefinitely.
As the thing-that-could-not-be-me was dragged helplessly into the mouth of the thing-that-could-not-be, I knew what I would see. There, beyond the toothless maw, down the stygian esophagus to the incomprehensible depths of that being's stomach, lay a panoply of lights, uncountable by the human mind.
This creature, this mammoth tunicate whose existence was nothing more than an endless cycle of feed and feed again, had gotten lucky. It had plucked a star from the sky and taken it into itself fast enough to escape detonation, and now held within itself an expanding collection of stars, and I was being hurtled right into their center.
I know where these anomalous objects come from. I know why the Big Bang happened. I know that there will never be a Big Crunch.
For within that being's stomach, we all exist. We expand and expand, and eventually our existence will be ripped apart. There will be no repeating cycle. In our future, there lies only digestion.

Researcher Mayhew was granted a leave of absence for psychological evaluation on ██/██/████. Attempts to corroborate his statement about Anomalous Object P-2145-T have so far provided no results. However, reclassification as an SCP object is currently under consideration should testing prove productive.


Agent Tangerine sat listening avidly to Agent Green's tale.
“And then what happened?”
“Well, apparently she went to school with Duchamp.”
“Seriously?”
“Yup. Hell of a coincidence. The boys drugged her and verified it all.”
“Huh.”
Tangerine sat and sipped his mango juice. His Hawaiian T-shirt and sandals matched his vibrant red hair, as though he were a living explosion. Agent Green was wearing his customary black-tie suit. While neither of them should have attracted much notice in the busy city, as a pair sitting at the same table they were drawing more odd looks than Green was comfortable with.
“So how are things on your end?”
“Well, I'm busy working on something for the exhibition on Friday.”
“Keep it smaller than last time.”
“Of course, of course. Most people are keeping it pretty small this time around, as far as I can tell. The age of explosions and fireworks is winding down. ‘Loud and in your face' has been done a billion times.”
“I doubt there won't be a billion and first.”
A waitress walked over and placed a tea tray on their table. Green pulled it to his side, pouring hot water into a clinking china cup.
“Gotta admit, I'm enjoying playing the artist here. Bumming around all day and getting paid for it. Much better than having giant monsters trying to eat your brains, glad to be out of there.”
“I'll drink to that.”
They tapped their glasses together, Tangerine downing the last of his juice as Green took a careful sip of hot milk tea.
“So what did you do with this girl afterwards?”
“Full course of amnestics, induced coma, stuck her in the hospital. Should be out of the picture for a month or two and no one knows we did a thing. Didn't really need her for much else, and we've gotten rid of one of The Critic's big ones.”
“Yeah. Makes things complicated for us, of course.”
“Hm?”
“Friday's thing was her exhibition. Whatever it was she had planned, she'd hyped up a lot of people about it. If she's out of the picture, then the exhibition's got nothing from The Critic's clique.”
“Surely that's good for us though, right?”
“No. Definitely not. See, it was just going to be The Director's little dance number or whatever she had planned, but they aren't just going to cancel it. That would make them look like they only had the one idea, they'd seem imaginatively sterile. They'll be pulling in something else to make up for it, and whatever they do will almost certainly make a bigger bang.”
“Shit. Planning crowd control for these things is hard enough as it is.”
“Indeed. Glad that's not my problem.”
“Any chance we could block the venue?”
“Do it in advance and they'll move it, and once they're there they won't budge.”
“What kind of turnout are you expecting?”
“No idea.”
“Ballpark it for me.”
“Pfffff… a thousand or so? Maybe two?”
“Shit. We can't bar that many people without creating more problems.”
“Could get lucky, might not be that bad.”
Green downed the rest of his tea.
“Could we try and split the group? Set up another exhibition at the same time?”
“If you'd asked me a week ago. Your only real option's to ride it out, I think. Have some guys attend as casuals in case someone pulls something stupid.”
“And how likely is it someone will pull something stupid?”
“I'd put odds at fifty-fifty, but everyone I know's playing it safe. Basic stuff all around. The only real unknown here is Critic's lot, but they don't normally leave stuff lying around. Shouldn't be any problems, don't worry about it. If we make it through, cleanup should be trivial.”
“That's a big if.”
“Don't worry, seriously. Nobody's going to start anything in the middle of an exhibition this big.”
They stood up, tossing change into a tip jar as they left.
“Hope you're right, Tan. Good luck on your end.”
“Good luck yourself, Green. You gonna be there yourself? Take a gander at the impossible made real?”
“Of course. Wouldn't miss it for the world.”
“Brilliant, I love seeing you in plainclothes. You always look so uncomfortable.”

The Sculptor sat listening avidly to The Painter's tale.
“And then what happened?”
“Well, that's what we don't know, since the cameras were cut. Looks like the play itself might have been an exploit.”
“Seriously?”
“Yup. Made by a genuine anartist from the 17th century. That's my guess, anyway.”
“Huh.”
The Sculptor sat and sipped his banana milkshake. Unfortunately, the hospital cafeteria didn't have a particularly wide variety of beverages, and even then the banana was the off kind of false, artificial banana flavouring, too sweet to be genuinely palatable, not to mention that the milk was skim. The Painter took a pause to swig his pocket flask of whiskey.
“So what are we doing about the exhibition?”
“No idea. Worst case scenario we just pull what she was working on.”
“What was she working on, anyway?”
“Well, it was a pretty standard exploit acrobatics show, from what she told me. You know the stuff, leaping tall buildings in a single bound, trapeze stuff, doing flips and shit. Not really what I'm into, but I can appreciate it at least.”
“Sounds decent.”
The Sculptor continued drinking. Seeing The Director's body lying comatose with an oxygen mask had not been enjoyable.
“So. The Director turns up to her play that she's been working on for two months, talks to all her actors, and then five minutes before showtime that asshole turns up and asks her to stop the performance. Then this. The question, then, is who actually made it happen.”
“You know as well as I do it was Duchamp.”
The Painter pensively considered the thought. He had previously dismissed it as being too obvious, then reconsidered it as being deceptively obvious on purpose.
“Well, he's certainly the only lead we have.”
“The only lead we have? This is the same fucker who nicked Felix, you know! This is the stupid asshat who mailed you a painting that makes you shit yourself, this is the idiot who outright declared war on us, and this is his pre-emptive strike!”
“Could be. But probably not.”
“Hm?”
“Think about it. Everything Duchamp's done until now has been absolutely safe. Sure, he made me shit my pants, he sent stuff to everyone, but none of it was harmful. Duchamp might be an arrogant asshat, but this hurt the audience. People died. If I've got this right, and I reckon I do, Duchamp wouldn't so much as hurt a fly. He'd harass us, yeah, but he wouldn't pull something like this. It's too much escalation, it doesn't mesh with what he's been doing. I really don't think it was him.”
“But that's surely exactly what he'd want you to think.”
“No. He wants to enact a cultural change, and as childishly as he behaves, he knows that something like this just gets him nowhere. What incentive would he have?”
“To weaken us.”
“If he'd wanted to kill us he would have done a cleaner job.”
“But that's not what he was trying to do. He made it look as though Sandy did this on purpose, and the only thing that can possibly do is bring up our visibility in a bad way. The Man's going to crack down on us if this goes on, and they will crack down hard. He's poking a lion and a tiger with a pair of sticks to make them fight to the death.”
The Painter considered the implications.
“It's certainly an interesting hypothesis, and if you're right, it's a clever strategy.”
“I'm right. It wouldn't have been any of the Suits, weaponising exploits isn't their style. He's played it safe til now to get our attention, and pulling this is his way of letting us know he's not messing around. We've got to do something.”
“What do you suggest?”
“He targeted Sandy because she was showing on Friday. That's our chance to go big and show everyone we're cooler than them. He wanted to break us down, to distract us from the community, to tear us from the audience and destroy us as artists. Well fuck that. Come Friday, we throw out everything we've got.”
They stood up, walking to the lifts.
“I'm guessing you'll be wanting to call the shots on this one?”
“We don't need to concern Critic with something like this. We're not children, we don't need him to change our fucking diapers.”
“No complaints here. I've been working on a piece that should suffice.”
“I'll call the others, then. See you on Friday.”

Felix Cori sat listening avidly to Ruiz Duchamp's tale.
“And then what happened?”
“Well, after she tried to stab me I just left.”
“Seriously?”
“Yup. I knew she wasn't going to listen, I'm good at picking up subtle hints like attempted homicide. Best I could do was get the hell out of there.”
“Huh.”
Felix sat and sipped his green tea. Ruiz was soldering a circuit board to some mechatronic actuators, occasionally flicking switches to check that all was well. He pulled a multimeter from his workbench and probed the currents. Satisfied with the results, he stood up, grabbed an apple-flavoured juice box, popped the straw in, and sat down next to Felix.
“So who do you think did it?”
“Well, it wasn't an accident… I'd put money on the Suits. They've been pushing the bounds more and more lately.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know how they used to charge in guns blazing? There's none of that anymore, and it's not because they've ‘given up'. I reckon it's a shift in strategy, but I don't have anything solid to back it up.”
“Well, maybe. Can't see them using exploits as a weapon, though.”
Ruiz sucked his juice box dry and started methodically unfolding it. Felix blew his tea, then took another tentative sip.
“So. What have you been up to, old man? Diving into the retirement fund?”
“Quite. I'm still working on things, just more traditional materials. Nothing out of the ordinary for a while at least. Time to eke out a bland and plain existence.”
“How profoundly boring.”
Ruiz had folded his juice box into a small aeroplane shape. He threw it across the room, landing it neatly in a garbage bin near the door.
“Will you be taking time out of your busy schedule of bland and plain for Friday's exhibition?”
“I might, I might. What are you doing for it?”
“Oh, I won't be going. Gotta finish all of this stuff. The last of my materials came in this morning, so it won't be long before I send out the invitation.”
“Well, you'll be missing out, I think.”
“Hm?”
“Sandra had a big show planned. The guys – well, whoever's left – they won't just cancel it. They'll have to show the Suits that they mean business, that they aren't intimidated by this. They'll be going very, very big, pulling out all the stops. Yep, it should be quite a show, methinks.”
“See, that's the kind of childish bullshit that solves nothing.”
“Yeah. Honestly, they're a bunch of kids. No idea what they're doing.”
Felix sipped the last of his green tea and placed the cup at his feet.
“Glad I don't have to deal with it any more. Hell, glad I don't have to deal with you.”
“I'm not that bad. I'm just riling them up, really. It's like kicking a beehive, but all the bees are artists and the kick is mailing out butt jokes. Butt jokes and poop jokes.”
“The pinnacle of comedy.”
“Quite. I just wish they'd lighten up, you know, not take everything so damn seriously. They're not taking it the right way. Neither did you, to be honest. Retiring, bah. Scuppered all my plans, how dare you be unpredictable!”
Felix chuckled at the faux outburst, taking his cup and standing to leave.
“Well, good luck with this stuff, at any rate.”
“Don't need luck when you've got talent, Felix.”
“Quite right. That's why I wished you luck.”
“Hah. Get out of here, old man.”

Snip. Snip. Snip.
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<< Act II, Scene II: Negotiation
The universe, as it is currently defined by humans, began and will end in ways that are inconceivable to any iteration of humankind that currently exists or will exist. At a time when a "descendant" race of Homo sapiens sapiens gains an understanding of cosmic genesis or eschatology, it will be a group of organisms so totally separated from the human race that there will be nothing between humanity and this species that can be adequately described as a "relationship." This group of organisms will also not be a "species" in the taxonomic sense, nor "organisms" in the biological sense, nor a "group" in the sociological sense. At the moment they gain this knowledge, I was watching. I believe they perceived my existence at that time and place, knew that I would be in that place at that time, in the way a human knows a spider's web is in the same corner of the same room for years without truly considering the existence of the spider. They knew of my presence and knew how powerless I was, how devoid of relevance to their lives and purpose. Their lack of regard for my existence made my existence less real. They frighten me.
I am not one of them. I am one of you. I do not know who, of the two of us, is more frightened by this concept.
I am Intruding and this is the concept by which you understand me. It is the concept by which the author writing this work has chosen to define my existence. I will not bother attempting to define myself in other terms, as this distracts from my purpose at this time. I have selected thirteen excerpts from events that occurred in several relevant universes. I shall present these excerpts as a completion to this story. They are ordered in a fashion that I understand will reveal the selected events in a plot-relevant fashion and build anticipation towards what should be a climactic ending, though this will not necessarily resemble "chronological order" as you understand it. I apologize for the inconvenience.
The purpose of these interludes is to provide a feeling of satisfaction upon their eventual discovery. Any other purpose is coincidental.

A man begins writing a story. He is trapped in a loveless relationship and builds components of his life into his work in a desperate attempt to make it relevant to somebody, anybody, even himself. He builds me as his deus ex machina and will forever doubt the validity of his decision to create me. The recursion does not end.
And I created him, just as he created me. The recursion never ends.

David Eskobar was expelling copious amounts of blood onto the floor of a structurally-sound but aesthetically-unpleasant concrete structure when the thermobaric warheads struck nearby. This was the ending David Eskobar anticipated, and it did not disappoint him. One warhead detonated less than thirty meters away from his location; no traces of his body were found by the investigators who arrived later. He laughed as he died.
Of course this is not the end of his story, but you knew that.

Olympia's synthetic muscles were still burning by the time she reached Alexylva. Dr. Crow either had not thought to redesign the development of lactic acid in overexerted muscles or had not found it possible to eliminate the pain. Or he hadn't concerned himself with minutiae like this.
The roads of Alexylva, as with most of the cities of this civilization, were designed in concentric circles around a central acropolis. The origin of this was an attempt to integrate Greek worship of Apollo with one of the indigenous religions' creation myths. Neither of the religious practices were legal in the Novomundan state, though precepts of both remained throughout the society, a fact virtually unknown to the vast majority of the nation's citizenry. Olympia approached the large exterior street of the city, marked clearly as "CIRCLE CXLI", and she could see a cross-street nearby marked "RADIUS PARMENIDES". Alexylva University was seventy circles farther inward and five radii clockwise, Olympia knew. She continued walking.
All of the first houses she came to were unoccupied. The city was clearly planned out to an extent that was never necessary for its population; these houses were old, smelled old. Likely never lived in. She continued inward and found houses with slightly more signs of life, but still empty. Abandoned. No signs of actual battle; the citizens were afraid of something more abstract. Sheer political uncertainty can have that effect. As she drew closer to the university, she heard shouting and sporadic discharging of some kind of weapon, a staccato rhythm that is recognizable in any environment. The buildings of the University were only slightly larger than the houses immediately surrounding it; this universe was unfamiliar with zoning regulations as such. She passed a series of houses, another radius ("RADIUS HERACLITUS", she saw), and was immediately on the Alexylva campus. The Natural Philosophy complex was nearby.
Entire military units were engaged several blocks away, Olympia heard. Whatever weaponry they were using, it was energy-based; toroids of violet plasma blasted down the street and scorching the pavement as whichever army was coming toward the University missed their target. Screams came from the same direction. She continued toward the Natural Philosophy building. Due to what she would call luck if she didn't know better, the most immediate armed guard was distracted as she approached; she died immediately, and Olympia was now armed. She proceeded inside the building.
You have already forgotten about the guard. She lived a dark life and died with no meaning.

Two individuals survived the destruction of Site 38, rescued by Rho-1 and helicoptered away before the bombs began to drop. Commander Lopez looked at the two, both sleeping. The researcher had awoken by the time Lopez and his men had gotten there, and she and the prisoner were crying in one another's arms when the soldiers came into the room. They were in each other's arms on the helicopter as well; they were virtually inseparable, and Lopez didn't have time to argue with them. It was some kind of sweet, and Lopez couldn't deny it was a little refreshing after the hell he just pulled them out of.
Though he couldn't help wondering what made these two so goddamn special in the first place.
It is a dark world. Lopez knows this. Isham Harris taught him this, and it would not be the last time he remembered it.

Jaime MacGilligan looked at Greg Eastman, as well as she could. A grazing shot to the head had split her skull open, and her eyes were not working exactly as they should have been. But the pain was keeping the microchips at bay, and she saw him nevertheless.
Of course she had always loved him. Nothing romantic; he barely registered as a man in any kind of romantic sense. No, Greg had always been…had always been some kind of a brother to her. Worked together ever since initial training. Spent more time together than most romantically involved opposite-sex couple in human history in all the years since, let alone two friends. And now they would die together.
Eastman looked at Jaime, seeing much the same thing. He would have been crazy to have never felt anything sexual for Jaime over the years, as she had for him, but they were both professionals—and smart enough not to get involved in that kind of thing. They were comrades, tovarischi.
They heard the planes overhead, heard their erstwhile superior cackling like a madman to their side, but all they saw was each other as the bombs hit.
The author demanded a sacrifice. I could not save them all. Their stories end here. I am so sorry.

There is a detailed story to be told of Olympia's seizure of the Natural Philosophy building, but it has little purpose here. Suffice it to say that a combination of stealth, overwhelming strength, and literal foreknowledge of minute details of personnel movements gave Olympia an insurmountable advantage over all opposition within the building.
Olympia reached the bottom floor of the building. The counterform reactor was enormous, an experimental prototype; the chancellor of the University, Anaxagoras, had been rather insistent that Alexylva remain relevant in the scientific advancement of the nation. Nevertheless, given the rather horrific potential consequences of the possible release of the reactor's energy, certain precautions were simply obvious. Putting the reactor underground was one of them. Not that that's going to help them much now, Olympia thought grimly as she made her way across one of the catwalks.
She was suspended midway in the air above the reactor when everything happened very quickly. A chuffing, a shrieking sound. A bright light rushing from her peripheral vision. A groaning sound as a plasma wake melted and ripped the catwalk apart directly in front of her, destroyed the supports for the stretch of catwalk she was standing on. A rush of panic as the metal beneath her feet fell away from her, as she felt herself plummeting to the solid glass floor of the reactor chamber. The wet thunk of her own skull slamming against the floor.
Footsteps walking towards her. A quiet growling speech, in a language Olympia didn't fully recognize. She could pick out a couple of words; a couple of Greek, one of Arabic, but nothing coherent. Finally, the voice (male, she recognized) began repeating one word. Slurring it at first, but as his pronunciation grew sharper, she could make out what he was saying.
"Fun…funshen," he said. "Founshen. Foundashen. F…Foundation. You…Foundation."

Potas sat in the dirt, contemplating the apprentice sitting in the dirt beside him. This was how the ritual went now; similar to the way he had ascended into the rank the apprentice now sought, adjusted at the will of Potas. Sammart had taught him the value of tradition, of learning the way things were done in the old times, of honoring the paths walked by the ancestors. Potas respected this, and acknowledged it.
At times. Other times, there were other lessons to learn.
The apprentice, her name was Haimak. Potas was present at her birth, and considered how pleased he was when her mother asked Potas what her name should be. From the ashes of a dead world (was the world Sammart spoke of dead? Was it once dead? Did the tellers of tales give it new life with the words?) a dead woman's life had new meaning. As Jaime MacGilligan died smiling, a girl named Haimak was born crying.
"I am satisfied," Potas said, the words echoing deep into the cave they sat within. Potas reached almost from instinct for the Abirtian amulet that he had discarded years before; Haimak would not be required to pledge allegiance to the gods of the Espy Fonshun of the old world. She could come to those conclusions on her own if she wished. "Rise and assume your position."
Haimak, small and shaking from fear and anticipation, nevertheless rose to her knees and presented her Baj. The tattoo beside her neck rested on the dark, taut skin of the young. Potas might have felt lust if Haimak's sex were to his taste; as it was, he considered how loose his own Baj now seemed, decades after the last of his insignia were added to it. He lifted the stick from the ground between them, dipped it in the small pot of ink, and began to work.
"Haimak of the Twenty-second Cietu, you are trained and knowledgeable in the histories of our people, in the tales of the Old Ones, and in the lessons of our tribe, the lessons our mothers learned from their mothers, and that our grandsons will learn from our sons." Potas continued poking the stick into Haimak's skin, ignoring her flinches just as she did. "You are now a Novice Librarian. By tradition, you are permitted to ask of me three questions. Would you like to do so?"
"Yes, Over-Seer," Haimak said, wincing. She looked down, watching the third line being added:

ESPY FONSHUN
HAIMAK NAME
LAVAL ||| RASHAR

Haimak looked away. "There are many questions the Cown Sil has, questions they wish to learn the answers to," Haimak said. "Are there any of those questions that you know the answer to? Answers you have…decided not to share?"
"The answer to that question," Potas said, concentrating as he completed his work, "is 'yes'."
Haimak frowned. "No, I mean—"
"I know what you mean, girl," Potas snapped. "This should serve as an adequate lesson. Given an opportunity to access information from a source such as myself, in an opportunity you will never receive again, and you waste your first question on a simple 'yes' or 'no'. Discipline your questions and you discipline your world. This is your duty."
Haimak shrank for a moment. Potas paused and wiped the sweat from his forehead. "Two questions left, Librarian. Choose well." He lifted the stick once again and continued his work. Haimak thought.
"What wisdom did the Unwelcome One give you?" Haimak finally said.
Potas smiled, not even pausing his work. "Both cunning and ambitious, your choice," he replied. "A rumor spread around the young that I was seen walking with a being with no firm shape. A demon, some said. I am not as young as you, perhaps, but I hear the clucks of the gossips. Given this opportunity, you risked wasting yet another question — and further derision from an elder — on the chance that the rumors were true," Potas continued. Haimak sat quietly, patiently waiting the more complete answer she knew he was bound to provide. "I was in mediation when I heard an intruder within the cave, perhaps a month ago. Just as I heard its footsteps, it…it heard me hearing it. This is part of the magicks it possesses, to know when it is perceived. I did not open my eyes, but merely smiled. It saw me, or whatever it does instead of seeing, and spoke to me. We discussed many things. I gleaned part of its life. It too had grown old, grown weary. It too had seen much, perhaps too much, and far in excess of that which I had seen. It was ready to lay down its burdens. I believe it told me many things it perhaps did not intend to, some secrets I will take to my funeral pyre, some secrets I will distribute when and where I feel appropriate.
"But you asked me what wisdom it gave me. Using my person conception of what wisdom is, and basing the idea of 'giving' on the deliberate providence of things or knowledge unto another, I would say it gave me wisdom about my elders."
"Sammart? Your mentor?" Haimak blurted, then immediately recoiled. Potas chuckled.
"There, you see? That is the flaw of the elders. You fear even to speak to me in a manner that I might find disrespectful. For me not to be challenged, from time to time, by those beneath me…this fosters the greatest sort of weakness in me. Complacency, perhaps you may call it. For me to dare to enforce this fear, to promote it in those younger than myself? This fosters the greatest sort of error: presumption. And this is the ultimate flaw of the Alexylvae, of the Wayward Prince. The founder of the religion they call a society, the original conceiver of their nightmare republic, placed too much faith in his own knowledge. In his ability to understand the way that people should be treated, and should be governed. His acolytes supported him, not necessarily because they embraced his vision, but because he was an elder. Once a growing empire found his teachings, he was embraced not as a thinker, but as an elder thinker; not as a statesman, but as an elder statesman; and with this to his name, he was now beyond reproach. He was also too dead to argue with the ruling."
Haimak giggled at this. She was well enraptured, as people often were when Potas told a tale.
"Sammart had this failing to himself; I respect him for what he was, but abandoned that which he clung to from pure fear of the unknown. Anaxagoras had this failing to himself, expecting obedience by virtue of his age rather than wisdom. He placed too little pride in righteousness and far too much in self-righteousness. And when given the opportunity, Milephanes, the Wayward Prince himself, demanded the trappings of age, the respect befitting an older person, without concerning himself first to see if he was a better person than they. He was right and wrong at the same time, Haimak. You want wisdom gleaned from an intruder to a cave on a mild spring day? His wisdom is that he has no wisdom. Go find your own truths and watch your children ignore them; no better inheritance exists."
Haimak was in a virtual state of hypnosis now, her mouth slack. Potas paused, looked closely at the tattoo, and jabbed the needle in one last time, harder than before. Haimak jumped, her face cross. "Is there anything else, sir?"
"Sit, sit, child. Let me finish the story."
Haimak considered the matter briefly, smiled, then said "I'm sorry, sir, that was my third question," and walked out of the cave. Potas smiled as he had not done in years, and did so for much of the rest of the evening.

There is a remarkably climactic scene that occurs when Anaxagoras arrives in the counterform reaction chamber. Milephanes is still there. Olympia has lost consciousness, regained it, and is pretending to be asleep. Anaxagoras sneaks up on Milephanes and disarms him. The two battle hand-to-hand using a variety of arcane martial arts techniques; the former using an incredibly well-crafted and honed skill with older, traditional school of combat, the latter using a less-disciplined fighting style whose unpredictability catches Anaxagoras off-guard at many times during the fight. A symbolic metaphor is played out rather graphically, written on the glass floor in blood and sweat. This is the battle between old and young, between progression and reaction, between Zeno's arrow and the man duped into holding the target.
When it is done, when the hourglass of this eternal dance runs out of sand, Olympia kills the survivor and takes the plasma weapon. I will not tell you which one of them won, because as I watched them fight, I watched them die, and I watched them dissolve into gamma rays and dust a bare half-hour later. Death transcends all victories.

A small quantity of motile self-propagating rock has been placed a very specific distance outside of the city of Alexandria. It is growing into the shape of a small animal and making haste away from the city as quickly as possible. It will not be seen again until it wishes to be, and until its master wishes it to be.

I had shown Olympia what the correct sequence of controls would be to overload the counterform reactor. She remembered very well. She carried out the sequence and left the building as quickly as was possible, and began running again.
She would not have survived. Less than a second before the reactor detonated, there was one more flash of light.

So much variety with assassinations. I think it is why I interfere in so many of them. I do not wish to give the impression that I am omnipotent; I have limitations the same as any being, when viewed from an objective standpoint. I cannot see everything, and I cannot see all possible futures. With assassinations, the futures take very concrete forms. Once the redundancies work their way out of the system and the bands narrow into stronger paths, there will be perhaps a dozen possible futures for they, the living, to inhabit. I believe this satisfies a still-beating primitive urge within me for cleanliness.
I had never deliberately converted a power generation facility into a weapon of mass destruction while enabling a sentient, warlike telepathic imperialist to begin infesting a planet. I never went on to perform such an action again, either, and unique actions are so rare for me. When the reactor fully destabilized into a matter-antimatter explosion, I saw all of the possible futures. Never before were the worlds so bleak, so devoid of hope.
I saw the detonation, the energy and matter being ripped apart and blasted across the landscape. It was so near to sunset, too; the view was magnificent. Hundreds of thousands died; the voluntary evacuation of Alexandria of Forests had allowed the number to be so low. Those that died had entered the city armed and intending to kill one another. They burned together.
I saw the beginnings of the swarm. The rock soldiers and their master had learned from the previous encounter with humans, and became smarter. The rocks bred new armies and attacked piecemeal. The attacks picked up, killing a few more here and there, destroying more properties, building new outposts for their own reproduction. When the true battles come, they could hardly be called that. The rock armies of Anesidora are legion, they are perfect of allegiance as they fight the philosophically fragmented human enemies. No mercy. No retreats. Prisoners only for food; by the end, Anesidora must breed humans as cattle to keep herself fed.
There were deviations from this, from time to time, but this was the overarching future of Novomundus. Alexylva University burned and fell, barely ahead of its patron city that burned and fell around it. The nation that housed the city burned and fell before one of Alexylva's creations, writ large and filled with rage. A timeline that should never have happened drifted into the ashheap.
It was a sloppy job. It will do.

A man sits in a recliner, sunset-orange cat purring directly to his left. A laptop is the only source of light in the room. He considers the amount of time he has spent working on the project he is completing, the amount of time spent considering, writing, rewriting, editing, opening and altering only a few words before closing it again, and falling asleep before the project. He has an anxiety about showing his work to others, the anxiety he always feels. He is always afraid of rejection. He faced quite a bit of it over the year and a half since he started the project. He dismisses those others who take too seriously the opinions others have of his work, but deep down, he will always see everyone who doesn't take away from his work exactly what he anticipated them to take away as a failure. A personal defeat. He considers erasing the whole thing, leaving the story unfinished. So few people are left even to care, now.
He considers his wife in the bedroom next door. Some rejection over that year and a half, yes. Some things lost. But so, so much more gained. He smiles, publishes his work, and closes the circle.

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