Madfish - Part 1

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METACODA
Part 1
The wily glow cut rivulets of orange against the brick, tracing the glass of the dark windows
high over the cement floor. She briefly patted the breast of her jacket for ammunition and let the door
slip from her shoulder as she lead with her pistol through the entryway.
Through the smoke and flickering shadows, Deputy Anselm scanned the room's peripherals
before motioning for her assisting constable to remain outside. He slipped silently away as she
approached the cause of the heat: an overburdened boiler. Discharging flames outreached the firebox to
lick the steel cylinder's belly red. Sparkling smoke poured into the ceiling, threatening to overtake the
room.
A coal fueled fire required wood tinder and periodic tending to get a start. This wasn't the result
of an old ember or misplaced cigar butt. The flame had been deliberately stoked.
With what sparse knowledge she possessed over this relatively new technology, Anselm
reckoned the gushing fumes was a matter of exhaust. She attempted to approach the machine, but was
repelled two paces for her one step forth. The heat coming off of the metal proved impenetrable. She
couldn't get within an arm's reach to try operating a flue, and the rapid decrease of visibility was soon
to perish any possibility.
Breathing through her sleeve, Anselm withdrew to where the tools hung and searched for
something to carry water. The cement floor would restrain the fire to the firebox for as long as the air
didn't ignite the walls, and the levy was just a five minute ride outside of town. If she could get there
and back with a couple of buckets...
If only it wasn't so difficult to just see...
Much of the light from the overburdened boiler was confined inside the smoke, leaving the rest
of the workshop murky.
She began to search herself for matches, coughed, and returned her arm to her mouth. She
stuffed her pistol away, knelt low, and continued to pat clothing. This bare exertion caused the deputy
to break a sweat. Anselm had separated herself a good ten running paces from the boiler and yet it felt
as near as ever. The temperature of the room was building.
A creak of stressed metal turned her attention to the opaque wall of glittering smoke expanding
towards her.
It wasn't safe to be in here.
She abandoned her search to make for the exit. She tugged the handle. The door shook stiffly.
She pulled--yanked--throttled it with both hands. She searched hastily for a bolt on the inside that could
have been accidentally switched. But nothing.
She hit the door with her hand and shouted for her partner.
She knocked and yelled and rattled the knob.
The only visible shapes through the screen of abyssal grey ash were six arching windows
situated two bodies' length overhead. Stooping low, she ran her hand along the inside of the walls until
she bumped a wooden object leaning in the corner. A long pole with a rounded brass hook at the end,
evidently used to access the window it was placed beneath...rather than the ladder she expected.
She felt her way back to the door and began ramming it with the bottom of her foot. A sudden,
deafening blast of sound and heat staggered her. A gasp of fuming ash surged her lungs, scolded her
chest, and ejected through a fit of heaves. She struck the door with her hand, then her body. She
couldn't inhale. Her throat wouldn't open.
The reflexive coughs that forced their way from the depths of her sternum were immediately
Copr. 2016 C.P. Eagan All Rights Reserved

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exhausting. Excruciating. The weight of the atmosphere clutched and pulled at her. Lying her cheek to
floor, she struggled to sip the sheet of oxygen beneath the carbon cloud. Chunks of burning coal
radiated before her eyes, strewn by the exploded boiler. She watched them dim against the
magnificence of fire climbing the wall.
Was she going to die?
Did she have a choice?
The questions intermingled among the flashbulb memories of her waning conscious. She held
them fast to seek an answer and noticed the steel of her pistol against her breast. How many
circumstances it had obligated her to decide...
Anselm rolled onto her back, pulled her revolver, and blasted two 9 millimeter holes into the
door. The third punched the lock cylinder straight through the wood. With a jab of her foot, the door
swung, the clank of a keyhole escutcheon clattering to the ground. Sweeping her hat from the ground,
she rolled to her feet. Heat expelled into the cool night air as she dashed through the exit. The
atmosphere lifted its weight. She rested against the first sturdy surface she could find and tried to open
her throat. She inhaled the outside air deeply and coughed. She coughed herself to her hands and knees,
but with every inhale came fresh oxygen.
After ventilating enough debris, she dropped onto her back to breathe more restfully. The
ground was unexpectedly hard, like the surface of the workshop's floor. Cement? She wiped the water
from her eyes to observe her surroundings. Two very tall walls framed the sky, one of brick and one of
stone. Or cement. Neither resembled the outside of the shop.
Below her was surely cement. To her right, the alley opened into a perpendicular path of
smooth, broad blocks. Beyond that, a broader path of what looked like dried tar. A road? A large road. A
sizable building stood at the opposite side of the road with windows that radiated a steady white light.
The sharp incandescence shared an unmistakable resemblance to the daguerreotypes she'd seen of
English arc lamps. And how could that be?
Fixing on her hat, Anselm trotted gingerly beyond the alley to find a world where great
structures were dwarfed by titanic superstructures. Towers too tall to behold in the frame of her sight
that craned her neck and bored the heavens illuminated the early evening with that same magnificent
white light that poured from every pristine, glass sheeted wall.
A stroke of vertigo nearly dropped her. She stumbled as her eyes escaped to the ground. She
touched the street with a foot. The surface of the tarlike surface was surprisingly dense. A pair of
parallel yellow lines somehow painted straight down the center with impeccable precision...
Something big, powerful, and fast met her trailing vision. Anselm pivoted, just barely avoiding
a horseless metal carriage, it's panels grazing the lapels of her duster as it shot by with a sharp blare.
She spun away and out of the road, hair and coattail blown by the gust dragged in the speeding
automation's wake. By the time she could give a second glance, it had traveled far off, its mechanical
growl fading as quickly as it came.
The sound almost resembled that of a combustion engine, though she was sure she'd never
heard of any that could propel such a massive object in such a compact form at the speed of a train. A
self-propelled buggy with that brand of swiftness seemed as impossible as the tallness of the buildings
that lined the sidewalk and the abundance of motionless light that touched every nook of the open
street.
This was an amazing hallucination. She must be dying inside of the workshop after all. But with
such clairvoyance?
She ran experimental hands over herself. She touched the metal of a nearby street lamp.
Knocked on it. Another horseless carriage zoomed by. And another, oppositely. And another. The
clouds they left smelt like fuel. Not coal. Perhaps naphtha. Or perhaps something else.
It was all too present to be a fantasy. She was dead or alive, not in between.

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Once more she ventured out of the alley and cautiously crossed the road to the glowing building
on the opposite side. The sign above the door read Portman's, embellished with a pair of crossing
bottles. The brand was engraved with impeccable accuracy into the tinted glass of the door. She ran her
finger on the inside of the perfectly crafted letters.
A weak pardon of a near individual riled her attention.
She stepped aside apologetically, taking the door as the man entered. The inside was a busy
tavern, illuminated with lamps that hung from the ceilings and sat on tables. Unlike those lining the
street--though just as still--the electric light showing the bar and booths was as dim as the flame of a
tired candle, saturated and yellow. The crowd was thick with men, yet not a wisp of tobacco. Frenetic
music played quietly throughout the room from an invisible, omnipresent band.
Above the bar, a rectangular mechanism flashed brightly colored images on its face. They
appeared graphic and crisp and moved with the fluidity of real life without any visible projection, as
though there was another world inhabiting it from the inside. The surface showed men in padding and
helmets playing what appeared to be rugby within a glorious looking stadium. The images mesmerized
Anselm so that she'd hardly noticed herself gravitate to the bar until a seated patron slurred at her:
"That's some getup." The homely man suffixed this with a shot of alcohol. He smacked the glass
down and checked her with a blutered gaze.
She returned to the flashing images.
"You a cowgirl? How 'bout I rustle you up a drink, eh? Heh."
She began to circle the bar. The man latched onto her wrist. She tugged away and found a gap in
the otherwise occupied stools nearest the bartender and raised a finger. He was quick to come to her
service.
"Get you somethin', Miss?"
She realized how shocked she was as nothing came immediately to mind to phrase her sheer
confusion. "I...was wondering if you could tell me where I am. I'm new. Foreign. To this place."
"I can tell by the lovely brogue. You're on Port Au Avenue in between Third and Fourth. Port Au
runs north and south. Keep east, you'll get to the Santa Vidora's square," he chopped the air frontward,
then pointed a thumb past himself. "Turn east on Third or Fourth, you'll eventually hit the beach."
"Santa Vidora is this town's name?"
"Right. It's our capital. You must know that, right? I get your foreign, but..."
"Capital?"
"...Capital of Uesica."
"Uesica...?"
After a concerned once-over, the bartender murmured an almost sympathetic chuckle. "I feel
like I shouldn't serve you alcohol. You like coffee? How about you sit a minute and have a coffee? No
charge."
Anselm sunk into a stool and rubbed her face. "I'll have a tea, if possible. Milk. Sugar. Please."
The bartender left. She slid her hands from her eyes to behold the images on the electric screen
again. The possibility that she'd been transported merely to another location wasn't conceivable when
the very nature of the place was so abstract. It was as though she'd crossed into another world.
"Watching the big Folders game, huh?" The man sitting in the neighboring stool raised his
sights from a small, grey book he had open. He was gangly in build and sported short, black hair cut
short on top and long in the back. His grey eyes took Anselm in with the forwardness of an extrovert.
He waggled his book at the glowing motion picture device. "Apparently, they haven't won a
consecutive pair of games in two years. Impressive. But I wouldn't know. I haven't been here for much
longer than you." A shrewd grin crossed his face as he lifted a frothy mug to it.
The suggestion jolted her. Before she could find her voice, she was spun by the shoulder to the
homely drunk man who'd first spoke to her. He wobbled on his feet as he tried to direct a finger and

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speak at the same time. It seemed difficult.

"Hey, I asked a question. I asked if you wanted a drink."
"No thank you." As soon as she turned back to the gangly man, the other yanked her around
again.
"Hey! Hey. Don't be like that about it. Especially after you just...ignored me."
"Sorry." Politesse was not a natural self defense mechanism for the deputy, though her mind was
in such disorder that the very idea of the man's interaction with her came off as delusive. She could
barely think enough to retort.
Providentially, the book-reading stranger neighboring her had such wits to interject, slipping
between Anselm and the other to grab him by the shoulder, spin him around, and kick him into and
onto one of the billiard tables. Balls jumped off the felt. The players threw their hands up.
A thick, brown-skinned man was quick to come from the wrecked billiard game to strike a palm
into the stranger's chest. "Hey, cabrn! You want to start trouble? Huh?" He was responded to with a
curt jab to the nose from the book reader. The assaulted man staggered only to be yanked back into
place as another fist was reeled.
"Los sentimos, pero no hablo smalltalk, motherfucker!" The stranger throttled a sideward blow
to the man's jaw, knocking him cold to the ground.
A couple more rushed over while the stranger proceeded to chug beer. He finished with a burp
just as one came swinging a pool stick, dodged, smashed his emptied beer stein against the assailant's
skull, yanked the stick from his hand, cracked it over the second man's head, then used the remaining
half to beat the previous man to the floor.
The action set off a domino effect at the bar as every resulting physical contact, accidental or
otherwise, was returned with brute force until half the bar was thrown into a violent discord. Anselm
watched the crest-haired stranger fending himself from a growing mob of aggressors, one of which
bumped her backwards into another body. She was effectively thrown between two others who grabbed
her by the arms and slammed her to the bartop. They looked surprised to find a female face beneath the
wide brim of her slouch hat. With a spry hoist of her lower half, she rolled onto the bar, slipped her
arms out from theirs, and trotted to the end to descend off a vacant stool. A person snatched at her
clothes. With teeth grit, she wheeled a fist into the side of their face
"Ow! Shit!"
Oh. It was that stranger.
A few barflies perused them out the exit. One of them whipped a full bottle of wine at them,
busting the embroidered glass of the front door as Anselm escaped through it.
"Whoa! What the hell?! Don't throw my alcohol!"
The frustrated crowd burst out after them, but didn't have the incentive to go more than a few
steps beyond the door and shake their fists before returning inside as the two escaped down the
sidewalk.
"You must be Anne-something. Ans...Ans-elm," the stranger deduced as they approached the
end of the block.
Slowing to a halt, Anselm put her hands behind her head. The two eyed one another up as she
caught her breath. "Anselm. Deputy Anselm."
"Whatever."
"How do you know me?"
He raised the grey book he'd been reading at the bar. "This. Welcome to Uesica, by the way. It's
a mock-up of the United States. That's why everyone speaks English... But there's no such thing as
England, technically, so how the hell does that work? Or maybe there is. Or maybe it's called
something else. I suck at explaining stuff. Hold on..." Leaning into his knees, he huffed a few more
times, then extended his posture with one more exhale. "Oh yeah. I needed that. I've been feeling like

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decking someone since I got here."

"Where am I, and who are you?"
"Latch." He thumbed to himself. "And I told you where you are, but 'where' isn't the question to
ask. It's more of a 'what,' like, 'what just happened' to get you 'here?' Wish I could give you a good
answer. I can't. I can give you a shitty answer..."
"Can you give me a real explanation?"
"Funny you use the word 'real,' because you're actually a fictitious character created by an
author who decided he would relocate you from your original story, temporarily into this one in order
to help the protagonist with...some bullshit. That's where it gets vague, but you probably want to chew
on the 'fictional character' thing before we get into the rest." He pointed at her blank expression. "I
warned you the answer was fucking dumb."
"Excuse me? What?"
"Call it magic if that helps you get a grip."
"I don't believe in magic, and I don't understand what you're saying."
He began to cross the street. "Sure you believe in magic. You guys call it divine intervention.
The Irish, I mean." Anselm stayed on the sidewalk at the sight of a speeding locomotive carriage. The
vehicle screeched to a halt just as she braced for its impact with the careless Latch. "Yo, asshole, slow
down!" He beckoned her to come along.
Able to get a still view of the carriage, Anselm noticed it was differently shaped than the others
she'd glimpsed, with a sleek, flat body colored a hot red. The low, burning strum that rumbled from its
core reminded her of the overheating boiler. The tophalf was plated by windows. Through them, she
caught a flash of a man seated inside with one hand on a turnwheel and another lifting a middle finger.
"I don't dismiss phenomena with religion, either," she continued the conversation on the other
sidewalk.
"That kind of rational thinking isn't going to help you now, lass." Latch pulled a peculiar
rectangular device from one of his pockets and pressed a button on its edge. The surface lit up with a
cyan hue that refracted upon his face as they stepped beneath the shade of the very alleyway she'd
arrived from. She found the wooden door she came through and touched the intact doorknob. She
opened it. Nothing but a dark corridor on the other side.
"Don't go in there. I think that's a crack house."
"What does that phrase mean?"
"Like a drug house."
She shut it. "Opium den."
"Yeah."
"This was the workshop I was trying to break out of just minutes ago. It was on fire. This was
the door I escaped through."
"Now it's a crack house."
"Where are we going?"
"Right here. I just wanted to get out of the open street in case you have a mental breakdown
over the tome of eldritch lore I'm about to show you."
"Is it in there?" She leaned over the mystical little device he was fingering at. Its flashing face
was like a smaller version of the larger motion-picture devices hanging above the bar.
"Nah, I'm just trying to finish this level. Sorry... One sec."
Anselm teetered back as Latch prodded the screen with his thumbs, tongue between teeth. A
blocky tune whispered from the blinking device, filling the seconds of silence before he retired his
attention to produced the grey book he'd been reading earlier from his back pocket. He handed it to her
and returned to the bleeping device. "Might wanna take a seat before you open that. It could be a real
mindfuck for you."

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She found a backdoor stoop and sat with the book. She turned it in her hands. Aside from the
cryptic title, Metacoda, printed on the cover, it appeared featureless. Opening the face, she found no
content section inside. The very first page of the book simply began...
--with her.
*
Bradley's way through the kitchen tinkled with the crunch of charred wood fragments and
plastic underfoot. A halfway scorched cabinet door fell off a hinge as he opened it. A dog barked
somewhere outside the soot-opaque window. The stove still worked, so he brushed the pieces of
microwave plexiglass off the burners to make eggs. He ate them while checking his email, packed his
laptop, and roamed into the morning with distractions locked behind the door.
He stopped in front of the corner bar on his way to the bus stop at the sight of a cheap plastic
patch sealing what used to be tinted glass in the bar's door window. There must have been some rowdy
drunks last night.
The office he worked in was rigged with the chintzy trinket becoming of a Chinese food
restaurant to detract the manager from whatever computerized social media network she was occupying
her time with to notice the comings and goings of the office. Bradley got to work a half an hour early
every day to avoid social interaction with coworkers, though Edith sat unavoidably at the end of the
foyer. A practiced passive aggressor, she was unavoidable. With smug composure, the patient beast
forced an over-the-shoulder greeting out of him on his way to his cubical.
He unfolded his laptop on his desk and began to toil. Ten blogs were due in three hours. Three
and a half thousand words, maybe. He automatically engaging other employees with a mechanical good
morning as they began to arrived. He'd skip lunch again to grind the work out, blogging beneath the
cybernetic guise of five different users: "Johnny_Fatstax," "Winkywaffles," "TheRiskyBiscuit35,"
"CallMeLazy," and the quasi-famous internet personality, "Madfish."
Of all the bloggers he'd invented for Machivel Media, Madfish may have been the closest
resemblance. A parody of himself, in a way, whose opinions were a product of Bradley's cynicism, but
not of his own opinion. They were inceptually that of Machivel Media. Or, more accurately, the
sponsors of Machivel Media. Known for over-the-top similes and highly subjective rants, Madfish's
objective changed as his viral success began to yield the majority of Bradley's revenue. What was once
a comedy prop became a tool to bedevil Machivel's competitors.
"Now in a can!" was one of Madfish's memes and a big contributor to the beginning of his
undeserved fame, created by the critique of a beverage company for their obnoxious use of buzzwords
while featuring a cylindrical aluminum container as the new selling point of their product. It was now
clever to suffix promotional brags with "Now in a can!".
Memeasaur.com had a catalog of prime examples. Clever girl, internet.
That was an innocent time. A time when Bradley could make fun of soda cans as some kind of
underhand political agenda, before the pseudonym had superseded the man, swaying minds and
saturating pop-culture with t-shirts. If Bradley could sell paraphernalia with himself printed on the
front, he wouldn't need a nine-to-fiver anymore.
Being beaten by an alter ego wouldn't be so debasing if Madfish could ever bother to influence
opinions that didn't involve topics like whether or not so-and-so peanut butter had a racist brand
mascot, but years of compliments on his high performance built his maker's confidence to a standard
too high to seriously consider his own subservience to Machivel and its fictitious minions. And the
boom of the business was too loud for Bradley to think over.
So loud, as it were, his intern had to break through to him with the impact of her tablet
computer on his desk. Not his desk, actually. Their desk. His and Gin's desk. Since Spring, Gin Rumi

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was Bradley's underling.

The process of their office coexistence was a cubical equivalent of a shotgun wedding. Helped
along with nepotism as the family friend of the beastly office manager, she was hired at this wing of
Machivel Media to draw a series of editorial cartoons for a local news group and was referred to him
for assistance. He was as proficient in the subject of cartoon strips as anyone in the office (which is to
say, not at all), but his expertise lie in his versatility. With Gin's illustration skills and his lead on the
project's topics and direction, the result was two dozen popular daily strips within two months. So they
were married at the desk by the corporate executives for their beautiful contraception of newspaper
style funnies. Gin even designed his Madfish logo, featuring a can with a grumpy looking cartoon fish
on the label.
The two weren't too distanced in age. Relatively speaking. As of this year, Bradley could legally
drink while Gin wasn't old enough to legally drive without supervision. Their diametric personalities
punctuated this divide. Bradley liked to consider himself a stringent realist while he saw Gin as a bit of
an alien. Her presence usually left peers sequestered or overwhelmed. She was a juxtaposition that
Bradley could never quite understand. Most of the time, he didn't mind to. She was also lazy, if
meticulous. It wasn't atypical of him to commandeer the workload for what he believed to be the best
interest of a project, and she would typically roll over and let him.
Not unlike she'd gone and let him type up their recent project from start to finish: an article he'd
submitted just yesterday to the higher-ups of Machivel for approval. There was an email about it sitting
unattended at the top of his laptop screen. Having received a forwarded version on her own account,
Gin pointed it out.
"Tell me about it."
"It's from the firm admins, about the thing we wrote."
Stifling an impulse to correct that pronoun, he minimized his work window and checked the in-
box:
From: Editorialdept@machivel.com
To: BNoelle@machivel.com
Dear Valued Employee,
Your most recent project has been rejected due to unsuitable content. An
edited portable document of the file has been attached to this email to highlight
our suggested corrections. Please redact all liberal innuendos and profane
language from the essay and resubmit by 5:00 tomorrow afternoon.
Thank you.
Machivel Media Corporation Staff
The message revolted Bradley more with every re-read he bothered to humor it. To his left, Gin
chewed on a pencil with an apprehensive fixation on his face. She shot out of her own chair as he rose
from his. He addressed her with forced repose, showing his cell phone. "I'm just making a call."
"To who?"
"A call."
"Tuh-- what? I said 'to who?!'"
"The headquarters. I want to get whoever responded to my essay on the phone."
"Our essay."

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"'Our.'"
"Do it after lunch."
"Why?"
"You're gonna be too aggressive."
"That's the point." He began dialing. She grabbed his wrist. He tore it from her.
"See?! Touchy!"
"Don't touch me, and I won't be so touchy."
She pushed herself between him and the cubical to snatch the phone. He held it further back.
"Gin. Stop." Stiff-arming her against the wall, he made for the exit to take the call outside.
"Give it an hour, willya?!" She called across the office, turning heads. When he didn't pay
attention, she perused. "Cmon, Brad." She tried for the phone again. He held it over her head. She
hopped around him as he tried to move around her. They danced in a tango of clumsy steps until
Bradley tripped, taking them both into a neighboring cubical. In an effort to break the fall, he tore down
a shelf, pouring files onto the floor while the two crash landed halfway over a crowded desktop.
Something under Gin--adventitiously pinned beneath the combined weight--cracked.
"Was that plastic or bone?"
"Ow, ow, ow. Get off."
"I'm trying." He blindly slapped the walls for leverage over his awkward position. Thankfully
(or not), Edith had rushed over to help Bradley remove himself.
"What are the two of you doing?!"
"We tripped," he said. He gave Gin a hand up, a keyboard sliding off the desktop from beneath
her. Keys clattered across the floor. She gasped and stooped to gather them.
"Look at this mess! Looks like you owe Dillon a keyboard!" Edith's words contradicted the
evident personal offense she was taking over the incident, an offense far greater than Dillon would care
to take.
"It was accidental," Bradley defended. "Take it out of our paycheck. As a matter of fact, don't
take it out of our pay, because I'll go buy the replacement for him right after work."
"You will replace it. And don't think Dillon won't know."
"Tell him! He's getting a new keyboard out of this!"
"Oh!" Edith jerked her head around to share her incredulity with an unseen audience. "Okay, so
horse-playing at work and breaking other people's things is okay as long as we can replace them.
Okay... You know you're going to have to find a way to screw this shelf back in?"
"Yeah. I'll have to figure out what tool I can use to drive a screw into a wall."
"A...screwdriver?" Gin asked. A genuine guess until the evidence of tardy self-awareness
indicated itself with a proud smirk.
Edith clearly waited for her mind to catch up. The best retort could offer was to turn her back to
them. "Clean this up. Now."
The manager returned to the front and Gin held a fist in which to pound in mutual appreciation
for frustrating the boss. She instead received a look of disapproval. He transferred this to the messy
intermission before them, certain that he would lose his nerve by the time he got around to calling HQ.
Gin had got what she wanted. She began to clean the mess, but he promptly advising her to finish what
she had been working on instead.
The remaining day was particularly difficult, and Bradley slogged out of the office at mid
afternoon with the bittersweet relief of escape. The homeless man noticed his disposition as he passed
that same alleyway at the corner of the apartment complex. Considering the the irony of complaining
about work to a hobo, Bradley ensured him the day had went fine.
*
9
Revelations dawned throughout the course of several days to challenge and fortify Bradley's
repressed ideologies until his constitution against Machivel absorbed him with such despise that he
didn't bother to notice his coworker's own growing paranoia. Gin, too, was afraid for another, although
related, reason. She knew of Bradley's industrious ambition and understood nothing would get done
without it. She had only just enough motivation to do what she was told, and with no one to
cardiograph tasks, she would care little about figuring them out for herself. And she was frightfully
self-aware of this.
The two sat next to one another, exchanging only the necessities in verbal communication. Most
of their articulation was through body language, each shift plucking the taut strings of tension with the
small, sharp noise of grievances.
A particular event ensued the following week that broke the cord with a tug. Bradley, not a
minute later than timely, traipsed into the office, prepared for work. Transient curiosity passed his mind
at the empty front desk. He found the manager standing at his desk instead, waited with a speech
prepared. He could see it in her distorted mug. He didn't need to ask anything aloud. He just gumshoed
to the edge of his workspace with a question on his face, diverted her planetoid mass, and sat down.
"You're not seriously doing this."
"You're going to have to be more specific, Edith."
"Did you expect no repercussion to that email you sent to the executives?"
Ducking beneath his desk, he plugged his laptop in and opened it up. He stared at the booting
screen, clicking and jiggling his mouse.
"Are you going to tell me what you were thinking?"
"I revised the essay just like they asked and resent it. If they got an issue with the new version,
then I can't be responsible for the project anymore, because I'm not doing it all over."
Edith swelled. "It's not about the essay..."
She handed over a printout of an email thread between his business email and Machivel's. The
first was from the corporate executives concerning the original, apparently unfit, first draft of his essay.
The second email was his revised essay. Inexplicably, beneath that was a third email. It was sent from
his email addressed and directed to Machivel Corp.
From: BNoelle@machivel.com
To: Businessdept@machivel.com
Dear Machivel Zwangsarbeiters,
Your most recent review of my autobiographical essay has been morally

rejected due to numerous examples of stupidity. Nonetheless, I've submitted to
muzzle my self-expression and modify it the way you suggested. Please redact all
following criticism to a nearby mirror and remember to pay me on Friday.
Thank you.
Valued Employee, Bradley Noelle
He read it twice. "This isn't my message."

"What do you mean it isn't yours?"
"I mean, I don't even know what a 'zwangsarbeiter' is."

10
"It was sent by your email address."

"This one is my email, the blank one with the attachment. This one isn't." He held it to her.
"It has your address at the top."
"I see that, but I did not write this."
"Who did, Mr. Noelle?"
"I don't know. I've never seen this. When was it sent?"
"The day you re-submitted your essay, according to the date."
"How is that possible?"
"You're going to have to show me your email history."
"Like hell I am."
"Like hell you are if you want to stay employed here."
Bradley looked to her.
"You've been slacking off lately..." she pointed out.
"And yet, I still put out more than the majority of the people working here."
"You've been slacking off and causing discord in the office. Every other day, I hear you arguing
with the intern, distracting the other workers. You've been poorly tempered for weeks. I've had enough
of it."
"Are you considering firing me for a poor temper?"
"I'm considering firing you for not owning up to this completely inappropriate email. If you
have a problem with your superiors, I suggest you confront them on a mature level."
"I didn't write that email!"
She passed over his interruption. "You talk to them or a manager about the situation rather than
deciding to fly off the handle one day, sending hotheaded insults."
This lit a fuse that had been shortening daily. Bradley slapped his laptop shut and stood to her
face. "Two years I've been working here. I've turned out more material than anyone on my level. I don't
gossip and I don't gripe. I think I've shown enough dedication to be given the benefit of the doubt on
this one."
"I like how you give Gin no credit toward your prosperous time here."
"She's been here for months, I've been here for years. She's got nothing to do with it. Or this
article, for that matter." He shook the email printout.
"She must have plenty to do with your defense; she must make up fifty percent of the recent
achievements at work you're boasting about, since she is fifty percent of this cubicle."
"This cubicle is a one-man team. She is a useless slacker you assigned to weigh me down."
"You're going to insult your partner while you throw accusations at me now?"
"There's no excuse for her to be working here except as some pawn in your convoluted ploy to
keep me from breaking through this place's glass ceiling."
"If you think I've ever been afraid of you taking my job..."
"In case you are, I'll put your mind at ease and assure you that I never intended to sit on my ass
and complain for a living."
"Then I hope you intend to be unemployed, because you no longer work here."
"I'll delete my blog profiles then," he said without a hitch. "I'll start with Madfish."
She snorted like a pig. "Oh, no. They'll be staying. They're our property, not yours. Especially
Madfish. Harm a hair on his fictitious head, and you'll pay for it."
Bradley bit his tongue to keep it from insulting her gelid face. Instead, he crumpled the email
printout and dropped it at her feet. On his way out, he nearly collided with his ex-working-partner. With
a twist, he gusted past Gin without responding to her hesitant hello.
*
11
Bradley's circadian rhythm was none the wiser to being unemployed. It woke him up at seven
O'clock and tossed him around for a couple of hours before he got up to get dressed. The first shirt he
grabbed from his drawer was, of course, a Madfish shirt. "Now in a can!" He made a mental note to
desecrate it with fire later on.
On the topic of burning things, he wondered on his way to the kitchen how long he'd now have
to procrastinate on renovating the burned-down parts of the room. He looked at his shattered
microwave oven, deducting it from his bank account.
Despite common misconception, utensils aren't inherently dangerous to microwave. Rounded
utensils do nothing and pronged utensils (almost) harmlessly spark at the corners, but there's always
Murphy's Law acting upon the decision to bombard a sparking conductor with electromagnetic
radiation, and, although Bradley hadn't consciously decided to leave a fork on his plate of leftover
lasagna, taking on twice the workload lately, he'd been forced to bring some of the work home, which
interfered with his sleep, which caused him to leave a fork in the microwave while he dozed off at his
desk. So...!
Something in that meat sauce must have been flammable enough to catch fire and render two
cabinets crispified. Amazingly, the probably loud process of a microwave blowing up and his kitchen
setting afire had not disturbed his nap until the smoke alarm went off.
The silver lining was that he was forced to avoid microwaved garbage for these past few weeks
and try his hand at using a stove. He'd been eating a lot of eggs. He ate some this morning while he
prowled the internet for work. The prowling was out of impulse more so than desperation. He had
somewhat of a nest egg in the bank, though had little incentive on dwindling that cash away. The
inability to spend irreplaceable money would make him a hermit until he found a source of income,
socializing only to the extent of contacting his girlfriend, not that that was far from his usual lifestyle.
He'd spent the previous two years single and with little use for the world. During the rare points in time
in that period of his life when he wasn't being productive, he was sleeping. His first lover was a fling in
middle school, he carried some short-lived relationships throughout high school, then remained
thoroughly antisocial until he found Annika, who was willing to put up with his quirks provided he
tend to her mandate of boyfriend obligations.
She was a no-nonsense girl and was probably going to be irate when he explained the loss of his
job. Even he was irate with himself, and it wasn't even his fault.
A knock at the door made him cough on his orange juice. The prospect of being found home
during work hours contradicted itself. Annika wouldn't visit while he wasn't home, but therein lie the
difference between reasonable fear and paranoia: the reason. The knock was anomalously gentle,
however. The modest tap of a stranger. He couldn't imagine anyone else who'd be dropping by
unannounced, though, and he mostly wished they'd just leave.
When the visitor knocked again, he relented to open the door. Of all people to be visiting, a
fleeting sense of surprise passed through him at the sight of Gin. Fleeting, and quickly overwhelmed by
a profound sense of annoyance at her buoyant greeting:
"Mornin'."
"What are you doing here, Gin?"
"Er... I heard you were fired."
"I quit, actually."
"Oh."
"How did you get my address?"
She was stricken promptly by the deadpan attitude. Gin faltered, deflating on the spot as the
conversation nosedived. "I've, uh, seen your address a bunch of times. It's on your portfolio. Did you
know we live a couple blocks apart?"
"My phone number was written on my portfolio, too."

12
"I know that. Eight four five, two six"

"Sooo, you decided to just show up here instead of calling?"
"I live right on the other block. I just wanted to talk about somethin'."
"Yeah? Personally deliver your condolences?"
"No."
"Okay, look, I don't need pity, Gin, especially from you, who, honestly, was one of the reasons I
flew off the handle in the first place and got myself fierr quit."
That last statement derailed whatever reply the girl had bottled up. Prepared lips snapped shut
before she refreshed a response. "Me? What the heck did I do?!"
Bradley ensued with a punctual sigh. "Imagine all the stresses of working at a company like
Machivel and combine it with a co-worker you have to carry on your shoulders for eight hours, six
days a week."
"Wooow. Maybe I shouldn't have come by after all..."
"No, you shouldn't have." He allowed an awkward silence to really emphasize how genuinely
he meant that.
She puffed up as the finality of the statement sunk in. "So you're going to blame me 'cuz you got
'firequit'." She finger-quoted the word in cross-eyed mockery. "Whatever, Bradley. If you're gonna be a
jerk, I'll leave you alone now."
"Goodbye, Gin."
"Bye, jerk."
She hesitated, then cut a way for the stairs. He leaned out to watch her go before shutting the
door. Justified, he returned to his breakfast.
*
Gin slumped on docks of the harbor. She watched an old lady on a nearby bench feed the
hobnobbing pigeons. Like Gin, the old lady was a routine visitor of the harbor. Lonely and bored,
probably, she spent her time feeding the birds. The woman caught her eyes and Gin offered a half
smile. She didn't return the gesture. She never did. Gin wondered if the lady had ever noticed her at all
each and every day.
Gin extracted the stylus from her digital tablet and began to draw the brittle woman in her
hunkered posture. She felt a little sorry for the woman. The notion reminded her of how she felt about
what she had done, visiting Bradley at his home. She still didn't really understand what the big deal
was. She'd mistaken him for someone who could appreciate an unexpected visit. She'd forgotten he had
someone to be and talk with whenever he wanted. He had a girlfriend, so why would he want visitors?
Stupid of her.
The old woman got up and left.
Removing her hat, Gin laid on the dock. The sky was bright and blue and cold. She liked the
cold weather, usually finding solice in the slowness of the fall season, but the loss of her employment
made everything harder to appreciate. Now what was she going to do?
Some pigeons were disturbed into flight, crossing between her and the sky. She picked herself
up to a tall, broad man crossing the pier. Without ado, he turned onto her dock and sat right down next
to her, crossed his legs over the water and leaning his weight back on his hands. He was large and
proportionate, like an Adonis, garbed in a silk waistcoat and suit pants. He had trimmed facial hair and
clear blue eyes that mimmicked the sky she'd been gazing at. Sticking out from between his flat teeth
was a thin cylindrical engine expelling steam in wisps from a glowing blue tip. When he plucked it out
to smile, she liked him right away.
"Drawing, huh? Am I interrupting?"
"Oh. Yes. And, no. Not really. Um." She patted her hands against her thighs. "Are...are you here

13
by yourself?"
The man nodded and over his shoulder, westward. "Just taking a breather from work,
Genivre."
"You know me? Aaand you can pronounce my name."
"You've probably heard of me, too. 'Leaven,' CEO of Machivel Media?"
Her posture erected.
"Don't get all nervous." He unlaced a hand for a shake. The gesture was lent with a soft,
undemanding embrace of fingers. "You worked on the second story office, right?
"Ye'sir, but"
"Mr. Leaven. Don't call me 'sir'."
"I got fired yesterday."
"I heard about it. Not totally convinced of the circumstances. You'll come into the office and
talk about it, won't you? You're not busy here."
"Uh, no. I mean yes, I can. Okay."
"I can give you a lift to the office if you'd like to come along now. No pressure to take the ride,
though, I'll be there all day."
He patted her knee, put his electric cigarette between his teeth, and stood. From the suspense of
indecision, Gin sprung to her feet to catch up. His car was idling quietly in the nearby lot: shiny, sleek
and black. With a paper-white smile, he opened the passenger side for her. The beige leather interior
was warm.
A familiar tune played from the stereo.
"Oh," she said. "I like this song."
"Huh. Good taste."
They pulled out of the parking lot. The car revved softly as they cruised back into the city.
*
Bradley wondered what that ridiculous girl was doing at his place on a workday. The nerve of
her, dropping by to satiate her morbid curiosity, using his information to locate him. He hadn't written it
on his portfolio as an invitation for people to drop by for breakfast.
He shut the sink off and began drying his plate.
The vaguely creepy action had him wonder what other personal information she bothered to
commit to memory. Had she looked through his portfolio? Through his cell phone? He had told her his
PC login password once, which was the same password he used for most things. Including his email.
He wouldn't be surprised if she committed that to memory just to snoop through his...email.
He stopped drying.
Gin knew his email password.
Almost breaking it, Bradley dropped the dish into the sink and trampled down the apartment
stairs. Outside, there was no sign of her up the road. He ran to the corner of the complex to ask a
homeless guy if he'd seen anyone like her description pass by. The bum responded with a jangle of his
coin mug. So much for help.
*
Veraciously, Gin smoothed the front of her tee as she stood beside the CEO of her previous
place of employment inside a private elevator hidden behind the lobby from the regular use of
employees and visitors. Despite the public elevator sustaining crowds, it was much smaller than the
spacious, polished marble cubical she and Leaven rode, complete with ambient soft jazz.
Leaven gave her fidgety movements an up-and-down as he pressed a button high on the elevator

14
panel. "You look nervous."

"I just feel under-dressed."
"Don't worry, there's nobody you need to impress here. Only me."
She forced a chuckle.
Up to the 45th level and down a corridor, Leaven brought her to his office and gestured to the
chair on the nearest side of his desk. On top of the desk was a chromium Newton's cradle and a golden
name plaque with "Leaven" as the sole word engraved into it, leaving Gin to wonder whether it was his
given or surname.
The CEO sat in the larger, more leathery chair across from her. Idly, he pulled one of the metal
balls of the Newton's cradle and let it fall into the next in line with a metallic click.
"You from this area?"
Click. Click. Click. Click. Click.
She watched the reactive, pendulous swing of the Newton's cradle. "I live pretty close."
"I meant are you from Santa Vi."
"Oh. Yes. I mean, no. I'm not from this city, no."
"Where you from originally?"
"Little Callow on Kallipyge Island."
He spun his seat away, occupying himself with a filing cabinet. "A child of Sister Archipelago.
That explains some things."
"It does?"
"Your attitude, specifically."
Leaven looked over his shoulder as she mentally searched herself for transparencies.
"It's a compliment," he added.
Click. Click. Click. Click. Click.
"Oh."
"Have you been to the islands?"
"Not to all them, but I have a timeshare right on the island your from, near Dullard. And I've
gone down to your town of Little Callow plenty. The people are very easy going. Like you."
"Oh." She quickly clamped the Newton's cradle.
"It's a rare trait here." He kicked the drawer shut and turned to his desk again, opening a folder
on top of it. He observed his stilled cradle and slid it to a further side of the desk and looked to her with
snub amusement. "How old are you?"
"Eighteen."
"You live with mom 'n' pop?"
"No, I'm on my own."
"And in the big city. My, my. Self-sufficient damsel, aren't we?"
Gin hesitated at the damsel moniker. "I had help. A friend hired me into Machivel."
"Edith?"
She nodded, a little unsteadied by his knowledge.
"And she also fired you, so what's that all about?"
"Um..."
"No worries, Genivre, I'm already on your side. I'm just curious of the story."
"Can you call me Gin? I don't really like my full name."
"What's wrong with it?"
"I just don't think it fits me."
"Okay. Gin-- tell me what happened with Edith."
"I'm not really sure."
"As best you can, then."

15
"I was hired to work with Bradley Noelle..."

"Your mentor."
"I guess."
"You worked beneath him, didn't you?"
"Uh-huh."
"Go on."
"I worked with him for a few months as an intern, and he's kind of a stern guy, but also a really
good employee. Um, and Edith said he sent an email to the superiors here about one of the projects we
were assigned. The email was really sarcastic and mean, so I guess the executives told Edith, and she
fired him? And I argued with her about it, so she fired me too."
"Why'd you argue?"
"I don't think he wrote the email. I don't think he'd do that."
She left the factor of being too scared to work alone as a motivation to herself.
"You stuck up for him then? I really do need to look at the standards of my middle management.
That takes tenacity. Leadership quality. Not many people have that kind of respect for their coworkers."
"...Thank you."
"--Especially Noelle. Whether he wrote the email or not, I can't judge, but I am sure he would
not have done the same for you."
Gin fidgeted.
"He's been with us for a few years. Kid's a strong worker, but I wouldn't call him a co-operative
individual. Is he nice to you?"
She found it strange a man probably in his thirties would refer to any other adult as a kid.
"Sometimes he's okay."
"That's not really an answer."
"It depends." She touched the tips of her fingertips in a compulsive way. "When he's in a good
mood, he's really cool. He treats me like a partner, and it's nice. But sometimes...I can be lazy. I really
can be. And sometimes he can be touchy. So, sometimes, we don't get along, but when we do, I think
we make a very good team."
"Does he like you?"
"I...I don't think it matters?"
"Why wouldn't it matter?"
"'Cause he takes care of the stuff he's responsible for. If I was fired for something he thought
was wrong, he'd say something about it. So...so I think that he would do that for me."
Leaven leaned his forearms onto his desk. His fingers entwined. "But why?"
"We work together."
He unlaced his hands, spreading them in emphasis of her empty logic.
"And, uh...we help each other. He didn't even have to keep me as an intern. He would have
requested for me to be transferred to a different cubicle if I wasn't useful."
The CEO kicked back in his chair and rested a leg upon his knee. "Without so much as trying to
bring you up to speed, I'm sure. He does not delegate, he diverts. What you call 'help,' I am sure was
him taking your work from you and doing it himself. Am I right?"
"Some...sometimes."
"You are the cross he bares, Gin. Mr. Noelle is not an over achiever or a leader, he is a martyr
glorifying his own tribulations. And he does so in order to get the upper hand on people. Understanding
this is understanding the difference between a genuine individual and a charlatan."
Gin looked at the upturned hands Leaven held to his left and right, like a pan scale weighing
judgement.
"You say he helps you, but does he appreciate your help?"

16
"I don't know."

Leaven nodded.
"Maybe I shouldnt have felt so bad for him," she thought aloud, instigated by lingering blue
eyes.
The CEO granted some empathy with a lift of his brows. He flipped the folder on his desk shut.
The tab on the front read Bradley Noelle. "Don't regret your feelings, Ms. Rumi, it'd be more of a
concern hadn't you cared." He plucked a red pen from a mug, scraped an X into the folder, and slid the
stack into a trash bin at the foot of his desk.
*
She fiddled with the ammunition clips in the depths of her pockets as she mulled over the
possibility of needing them. An explanation for their presence here was tenuous. This individual she
was staking, as far as she knew, was twenty-one and fired just yesterday from his job at a content
creation firm called Machivel Media Corporation. What "content creation" meant, she wasn't entirely
sure but it didn't sound criminal. She'd seen the Machivel headquarters centered monumentally in the
center of the city and tried to see the purpose of its placement. Pretentious, ominous, but not quite
devious. Wickedness had an energy that this city did not give, and she hoped the target matched the
grain of its habitat. If she had learned one thing from a decade of of law enforcement, it was that the
unfamiliar were to be assumed dangerous.
"So, what exactly are we doing?"
Anselm's unwilling, otherwise unrelated associate in this operation, asked this without bothering
to lift his face from the game he was playing. Like a child, inattentive even to himself. She felt like
taking it away from him.
"Too busy on that contraption to listen to yourself, were you?"
This once, he removed his eyes from the screen. "It's a cell phone. You should bring one back
when we're all done here."
"I don't think that'll be as handy to me."
"Oh yeah. I forgot there's no satellites in the stone age. That sucks. You can still use it to take
pictures and recordings, though." He held the phone up to his eye like a camera. "I'm going to
document this experience to sanely remind myself it wasn't a fever dream when I get back home. You
can play games on it if you want. Comes with solitaire. You'd like solitaire."
"No thanks."
"Too serious for video games? Only mind games, right? Being a cop and all."
She compressed the bridge of her nose between her fingers.
"Don't give me that exhausted look. You been pissed at me ever since I dropped the truth bomb,
but do you think I wanna be here either?" Something yowled down the alley. Latch looked to it, then
across the street toward the apartment they'd been staking out. "He left his blinds open..." Again, only
partially at attention for an answer as one hand now played catch with his cellular phone, he asked, "So,
what're we doing? What's the plan?"
"Talk to him."
"He won't give a single shit about what we've got to say."
She tapped the chrome badge on the front of her slouch hat knowingly.
"Sorry to have to be the one to break it to you, lady, but you're not the law in this city."
"All the more reason to use the uniform for whatever authority it's worth."
"You don't even look like a cop, you look like a weirdo with a Victorian era fashion fetish.
There's no sumptuary laws against dressing up in a trench coat and vest. If you'd of let me carry a real
weapon 'for authority,' maybe we'd have some real fucking leverage."
"I'm not concerned with your choice to carry a weapon, I'm concerned with your choice to carry

17
a large and unconcealed weapon that resembled something crafted by a basement-dwelling maniac."
"I did make it in my basement..."
And here she was worrying over whether or not the target was dangerous. The irony.
"We should tell him to call that girl or we'll cut his dumbass head off."
"'Dumb-ass head.' Do you listen to yourself speak? Actually, I already know the answer to that.
And, no, we're not going to threaten him."
"Why else would he listen to us?"
"I don't know. But I'm not saying that."
"I'll say it."
"No threats. We're messengers, right? Not enforcers."
"Damn." Latch kicked a rock out of the alleyway. The rock skipped across the street, almost
ricocheted off a passing car, and landed on the far sidewalk. "I'm bored as hell. I don't like waiting,
especially not for some prick kid."
"How would you know what he's like?"
"His name is Bradley. His parents had to be pricks to name their son that. Like a soap-opera
name."
"Very rational point."
"No, that's not it. He writes for that big firm on the internet. I thought you were paying
attention."
"I didn't know what that meant. You keep forgetting I have no experience with this 'internet'
technology."
"He writes online journals and shit."
"So what makes you say he's prick-ish?"
"I read a couple of his blogs. He has this one profile he uses just to bash other people. He's a
hired troll."
"A hired 'troll'?"
"Like a professional prick."
She still failed to see the correlation being made and she didn't reckon asking what a "blog" was
would have elucidated much. The topic ended when a messily-orange-haired young man came hurrying
out of the apartment complex to talk to a hobo on the sidewalk. He was tallish, wiry, wore a short black
jacket and blue jeans.
She looked at Latch, who looked at her, who nodded.
They crossed the street.
*
Whatever. Even if it had been Gin's fault he was fired, it was too late to do anything about it
now. She was out of his life along with Edith and the rest of Machivel, good riddance. He even
considered finding a new apartment just to get further from the office, but an idle glance in the
direction of town square reminded him of the HQ's dominance over the skyline. There was no avoiding
Machivel Media as long as he lived in Santa Vidora, but at least he'd never have to step inside another
one of their offices.
There was a couple crossing the street as he returned his apartment complex. A sporting a denim
jacket and black bondage pants, topped off with a fauxhawk hairdo, and a lady wearing a long, kahki
duster coat and a big slouch hat with its side brims bent to the sky. The outfit made her look like a
militant of the late 1800s.
The entrance to Bradley's second-story apartment was up an exterior flight of stairs on the side
of the apartment complex. There was only one door at the end of the stairway, and it belonged to him.
He turned to ask what they were doing as they perused him to it, but the fauxhawked man cut in as

18
soon as they made eye contact:

"You Bradley Noelle?"
"Yeah."
"Former employer of Machivel Corporation?" asked the female. Her dialect was melodic and
thoroughly Gaelic. Her hair was burgundy, and her eyes were blue.
"Yeeaah...?"
She smacked fauxhawk's chest in a private moment of triumph before producing a badge from
within her jacket: a disk of steel circling a harp. "Deputy Anselm-- Deputy Chief Constable of lcr
Buirge," she greeted with a tug of her hat. "May we step inside?"
"'El-crow'-where? You aren't really a cop, are you?"
"Let me rephrase that." She put the badge away to replace it with a copper colored revolver
pistol. "Let us inside."
He invited them in.
Fauxhawk-guy arbitrarily lifted a file folder loitering on an end table near the door, which the
female yanked out of his hand and disposed into Bradley's. He looked from one to the other. "So, can I
help you?"
"As a matter of fact, we're here to help you. Try not to look so nervous." She gave Bradley a
banausic glance as he held the folder affront like a shield. The other intruder was meandering around,
imposing on the apartment like the welcomed guest he was not. Both seemed at least a portion
disinterested in him-- which he didn't know whether to take with relief or concern.
"Why would I be nervous of a duo of armed strangers holding me up at gunpoint and barging
into my apartment?"
The woman prodded a hand to shake. "Excuse us. As I said, Deputy Anselm." Her other
thumbed toward the guy. "His name's Latch. And, sorry about the gun. We're not from around here." As
if that excused it.
"And we're not a duo. Not a duo, not a team," the man named Latch sounded grateful to say. He
wandered into the next room. "Not even friendly aquenten...What the fuck happened to your
kitchen?" The refrigerator door opened, shut, and he returned with a bottle of beer.
"So we got a little problem," he continued without ado. He banged the cap of his stolen drink
off against the coffee table. "Usually I don't deal with other people's problems, but..."
"But what?"
Deputy Anselm snapped her fingers in revelation. "Wait. He doesn't know."
"He doesn-- ...Oh, yeah. Ohhh. Damn it."
"What?" Bradley looked between them. "Are you two on drugs? Why-are-you-here?"
Latch lifted his bottle to speak, but the deputy yielded him with a finger. "We apologize for the
intrusion--"
"Oh!"
"--but there's a complicated situation going on that I can't necessarily explain to you."
"Explain what?!"
"I actually can't explain, but I can tell you what you need to know right now and you can take it
however you want. Listen to what I have to say, and we'll leave and you'll never see us again... You're
friends with a girl named Gin Rumi, aren't you?"
"No."
"You know her. Right?"
"Sure." Bradley was tactfully curt.
"Good. Speak with her."
"Tell her you want to be her business partner," Latch intervened. Anselm chopped the air.
"No, just speak with her. Don't suggest anything. Get to know her. That's all."

19
"I know her. I said I did!"

"Apparently, not enough," Latch insisted.
"What does that even mean?!"
"Just do it!" Latch caused an abrupt tension in the room as he sprung to his feet. A Mexican
standoff lingered between the two before Bradley pulled his cell phone and began dialing.
"You better be calling that girl..."
"I'm calling the police." He glanced at the so-called deputy. "The actual police."
Latch breached the distance between them, snatched the phone, and whipped it against the wall.
"No cops!" With a flick of his wrist, he pulled a switchblade between himself and Bradley. "You're
going to find that chick, or I'll come back here and run Mr. De Knifo up your ass."
He looked at the three different locations his phone now lay. Having given off the impression of
being the duo's "straight man," Bradley halfway anticipated the female cohort to deny the other's claim.
She didn't. She grabbed his hand and placed something inside. It was a slip of paper with a nearby
address written on it.
"I recommend you pay this Gin Rumi a visit today."
At the risk of being sodomized with a knife, he agreed.
Satisfied, she left. Less satisfied, Latch gave one more threatening waggle of his blade and
followed, leaving behind an empty beer and a lot of unexplained questions. Bradley threw the beer out.
For the questions, he opened fresh one.
*
He'd arrived at the written address around ten in the morning: a dilapidated brownstone a few
blocks from his home that he recognized as the borough's local boardinghouse. He double checked the
address, walked up the stoop, and triple-checked the address.
Sure this had to be some inexplicable con, he stepped inside. The vestibule was a smelly little
cove with a peninsula counter stretched along the back wall. There was nobody behind it. Eery, creaky
footsteps and unintelligible slurring radiated from a narrow stairwell behind the counter as an example
of the buildings consistent activity. His shoes made ripping noises against the linoleum floor as he
approached the counter. He slapped the service bell.
A baby started wailing through the dilapidated ceiling slats. It looked as though they'd sprinkle
dust on his head if someone were to step hard enough on the second story.
He dinged the bell again. He kept dinging it until the stairwell thudded and creaked and a
sagged as a being lumbered down. He was old, hunched, had a protruding jaw and a receding hair. He
sniffed, entered a brief coughing fit, then dropped his hands on the counter. They were gigantic hands.
"Can I help you with something?" The question sounded rhetorical, like the last thing he anticipated at
the end of his struggle downstairs was having to help someone with something.
"Maybe. Is there a Gin Rumi living here?"
"Mm. Gene-ver Rumi. Hm. Reckon we got one." He sounded like a motor.
"Seriously?"
He looked at Bradley tiredly. His head bobbed.
"Short, snub-nosed girl, brown hair...?"
"Wears a hat lots."
"Okay. Wow. Thaaat's her." Not expecting to have arrived in the right place, he had to think of
the next obvious question. "Where is she?"
The man pointed up. "Hm. It's the third story, make a right, and it's at the end of the hall. End of
the hall." He waved a hefty hand. "The end-end. You turn left, there's the bathroom at that end, you turn
right, there's her door. Reckon the knob is different. All the other knobs are round and yeller, but I
reckon hers is different."

20
"Ah."
"One'a these." He put his hand flat and hinged it up and down just in case a visual reference was
needed.
"Got it, thanks."
Bradley ascended the claustrophobic alley of stairs, which opened onto the second story and
circled to another flight of steps to the third. He dodged a swinging door on his way around: a woman
sprung from her room, screaming at a man, who was screaming back. Their baby was inside, screaming
at nothing. There was something screaming on the TV, too, or maybe a radio screaming, or something,
somewhere. On the third story, some Hispanic guy in a black bandanna was scrubbing the floor in front
of the bathroom. The entire corridor was soaked in soapy water. Catching himself on the rail, Bradley
just avoided slipping down the stairs and continued more gingerly to the end of the right hall. There
was a door there, and, while all the other doors had round, yellow knobs, he reckoned this one was
different.
He tapped on the door.
This can't be right.
And yet, it couldn't be not right. That old landlord had identified her spot on.
Frustrated at the gross surroundings, he argued privately over the possibility of Gin being
behind the door as he tapped upon its face less gently.
There was a rattle of a chain lock and the door cracked to reveal an evergreen eye. It scanned
him through the sliver and then the door opened. There she was, Gin, in utter discord of her visitor.
"Uh. Um. Hi." She spoke without looking at him but vigilantly past his shoulder. After a pensive
moment, she receded. "Come in." She urged this in a way that suggested it was in his best interest to do
so.
There wasn't much of the room to step into. It was a hundred-fifty square feet, rounding up. She
had a large desk taking up a considerable chunk of the right wall and a twin-sized bed running
perpendicular with a clothes basket sitting at the foot. There was a desk lamp and a quaint paper lamp
in the opposite corner next to a clothes rack. She had a tiny dresser next to that with some utensils and
hygiene products placed atop.
Though spartan, the room was well taken care of, a stark contrast to the rest of the facility. The
floor was swept, the little square windows were transparent, and it smelt clean, with the faint scent of
her. Her desk was near-covered in stacked papers, but even those were perfectly straight and rowed.
What caught his attention more entirely was the wall behind the desk, which had drawings
pinned to almost every inch of its upper half; layers of loose leaf strewn with both cartoonish
caricatures and realistic profiles of graphite, drawn with professional diligence. He gravitated toward
the wall and noticed more drawings on the desktop. Piles of portraits of what appeared to be real
people. Stacks of them, piles of stacks...
So taken by the art, he almost forgot to engage Gin, who been standing in place after latching
the door, wooden with discomfort. His unexplained presence looked to be putting her through
contained, growing discomfort, as though she'd swallowed a chili pepper.
"Nice, uh..." He made a forthcoming step, gesturing his hands vacantly.
Tight lipped, Gin teetered on her feet. "Government-funded home?"
"But it's nice. I meanyou're room, not the rest of the place. But I was referring to these
pictures..."
She sat on her bed. With limited places to rest, he imagined she sat there often. He imagined her
looking at the wall opposite to that spot in an attempt to envision what that might be like. At the desk,
he began to rummage through one of the stacks. "Mind if I look?"
"You can."
Amongst the pile, he found a fat-faced man. His many exaggerated chins stacked up a

21
scrunched face. His smile was goofy and banal. Somehow, the funny face was familiar "This is
hilarious. Whose this fat dude?"
"Oh. That's supposed to be Dillon."
"Ha! Wow. It is him, isn't it?"
"Heh. Yeah. I like to draw people. He was a fun one... You know...with the chins..." Her snicker
granted some alleviation to the room's tension.
Her tablet computer was set on the corner of the desk. On it was an unfinished digital
illustration of a stocky individual hunched on a bench with teardrop-shaped things at their feet. Birds?
He lifted the computer to take a closer look. Surrealistically, he found a portrait of himself upon the
stack of papers beneath the tablet. A full-bodied side profile of him at his cubicle. Unmistakable: the
reckless hair, the lanky form, the flatterlessly protruding nose and a posture that he knew to be his own
in the deep midst of his work. She even included the tiny scar on his right ear from a parakeet bite. It
was perfect, full of detail that had to be impossible to emulate without a reference.
He lifted it. It wasn't pure chance he'd come across a solitary portrait. There were more. Beneath
the first was a second, and beneath that, a third. A fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eight, ninth, and tenth.
He lifted a picture of himself where Gin could see, then a second. It was amazing how
instantaneous and vivid her shape and tone changed: scarlet and swollen, taught with insecurity, she
morphed like a spooked deep-sea octopus.
"This is me. This is me." He followed one with the other. "This. This. This."
"It's... I... I just... Huh..." She put her hand on her chest, and for a moment Bradley thought she
might need medical attention. Then she smiled a very unhappy smile. "You aren't the only person I've
drawn."
"But ten? Ten perfectly detailed pictures? How could you draw something like this without me
modeling for it?" His eyes wandered over the desk. "Where are the pictures?"
"Pictures?"
"I mean the photos. The photos you took of me as a reference. You can't just take pictures of me
to draw and not ask, Gin, that's creepy. Where are they?" He shuffled papers and pulled drawers.
"Quit ransacking my desk!"
"Should I not be a little weirded out?"
"I-- I draw a bunch of portraits, so is it that weird that maybe two a month are of you? I see you
daily, more than anyone else... Stop messing up my stuff!"
He shut the cubby he'd been digging into.
"I see you almost every day, so is it really that weird? I mean...I mean you interest me. The way
you talk. And-- and walk-- eh. Um... Oh. Gosh, I-I mean... Now I am starting to sound weird..."
Gin's hat was next to her on the bed. She donned it, veiling her eyes beneath the brim as she
dipped her view to her hands which she rubbed cyclically, left over right, right over left, engulfing
themselves.
Now it was Bradley's turn to feel awkward. Maybe she was telling the truth and drew them off
memory. If so, he couldn't grasp how it was possible to recreate with such detail. Even so, why so
many? It had to be an unhealthy fascination or something. Some kind of Freudian flaw. He cleared his
throat, shimmied one of the portraits of himself and said, "They're...well drawn," and placed it down.
The room pressurized. Tempestuously, he rapped his knuckles against the desktop; the desk,
which he had physically disengaged; twisted his front away in repulse from.
Meanwhile, the embarrassed girl was left to burn in a conflagration of unrelinquished
appreciation. She nodded at him without making eye contact. "...Thanks."
"Okay... So, I'm here to talk about this morning. I guess I was hasty. I never listened to why you
came over..."
Gin continued to stare at her lap, clenched in place by the atmosphere.

22
"...And that was probably the wrong way to handle that... Sooo..."
Her hands slid up her arms and gripped them defensively. Bradley had left his statement open-
ended for a reason, and he waited expectantly for the answer as she receded into herself. Ten seconds,
twenty seconds. He waited until he couldn't bear it. He thought about asking the question more literally,
maybe giving her a touch on the arm to try and surmount the wall expanding between them, but he
reached for the door instead.
"Sorry about that... Aaand, that is...that... I guess I'll be on my way."
"Okay."
"Seeya..."
The door creaked open. She didn't so much as raise an eye. So he left.
He collected his thoughts outside the room. As he reassessed the note he had left on, the floor
squeaked beyond the door. He thought she was going to open it up, to catch him by the arm and relieve
him of any possible guilt. The sound of a chain latch punctuated the moment.
The bandanna-ed Spanish guy was idling in the bathroom doorway when Bradley came down
the still slippery hall. He watched without expression, and watched until Bradley left down the stairs.
*
Still obsessing over how his email address had been broken into, Bradley decided to revisit the
office. Gin had a flash drive of his, he lied to Edith, and asked where she might be. But the manager
had picked up the telephone as he explained, raising a finger at him. She walked to the back of the
office to close herself alone inside the transparent walls of the conference room until hanging up and
beckoning him inside.
"If you're looking for Gin, she was let go as well." She took a seat in one of the chairs. He did
not. Her tone was spiked with the anticipation of gossip, he could tell. She'd already lured him into the
privy of this glass box and he had little intent to humor the news she was so giddy to express any more
by settling down.
"For what?"
"I'm afraid it's none of your business."
Suspenseful bullshitery.
"I was just wondering if it's as good a reason you used to fire me."
"The reason I supported the idea of making Gin your intern in the first place was so that I could
get rid of her. So, yes, I would say it was." A pause for effect that Bradley had to progress with a raise
of his brows. "This past spring, Gin asked me for a job. I couldn't turn her down." She spoke this as if it
gave her some sort of authority on fate. So I set her up with someone I knew she couldn't keep up with.
I expected to fire her much earlier, but no matter how much work I gave, you managed to get it done..."
Jowl-framed lips bent, and the realization of his role as her unbeknownst tool made Bradley want to
take a shower. "I wonder why you bothered. You notice something off about her?"
He didn't have to think very hard to understand the question. "I noticed she has a really good
memory for some things, a really bad memory for most things, and the attention deficiency of a fish."
"Strange, isn't she?" Contempt laced her question.
"She's quirky."
" 'Quirky.' "
The weight of her echo suggested a point, but he could care less about playing Edith's game of
Guess-What-I'm-Thinking. "I just want to know if you figured out she was the one who sent that email
through my address. Is that the reason you used to fire her?"
"No. We didn't come across any proof she had. But nice try." Question answered, Bradley began
to leave. Edith creaked in her seat. "You want to know why she was fired?"
He was already halfway out of the conference room door. "I thought it was none of my

23
business."
"She argued with me about that email. She tried standing up for you, Mr. Noelle, so maybe it's a
little bit of your business." He could feel her simpering at the chance to objurgate him.
"You didn't have the right to fire her for that, especially when she was defending the truth
which she was. She has never lied to you. She's never talked back to you. But you think this is fair?"
"I am here to keep this office productive. Fairness need not apply."
"What kind of comic book villain prioritizing is that? You put your humdrum middle
management job over a family friend. That's the bottom line."
"'Family friend.'" There was that contemptuous echo again. She huffed, wobbling in her seat
like a cocktail glass of Jell-o . "She's not family."
Finally, Bradley's attention was piqued enough to seat himself opposite of Edith. "But you did
know her before this job, so what is she to you?"
The woman pulled a breath into herself in a sordid way. "An honest mistake."
"Fine."
"I was a friend of her mother's," she recovered when Bradley made a rising movement. "A long
time ago."
"She dead?"
"Not sure. Wouldn't surprise me if she was."
"So, you are a family friend."
"I don't want any association with that woman."
"Does Gin have any relatives left?"
"She has an older sister. As far as I know, she still lives in Little Callow. When Gin came to the
big citydon't ask me whyher sister was the one to contact with me, asking me to check up on her. I
did. But I didn't offer this job. That was something Gin just imposed. What was I supposed to do? I
hired her."
"And fired her."
"What's that? It was for the best. She's better off disassociating with me. Lord knows I'm not
qualified to look after a handicap, and she's not qualified work this job."
"Handicap?"
"You didn't notice?"
"Handicapped how?"
"She is mentally handicapped." Edith's eyelids drooped, deadpan. "Slow. Dumb."
"Who claimed that?"
"Experts. No wonder, with all the drinking her mother did."
"Experts. Right."
"Right. Are you surprised?"
"Yeah, surprised at how incompetent you are to have known someone for years and have no
idea who they are."
"Mm. She's the 'useless slacker,' right?"
Bradley exhaled, rubbing his face.
"I didn't go through the trouble of getting rid her just to hire her back, so it isn't going to happen
if that's what you're fishing for, Noelle."
He laid his hands and shook his head. "What you did is so messed up."
Edith placed the tips of her fingers to the table leaned. "I. Don't. Want. Her."
"You stabbed her in the back."
She rose from her chair. "I did not move to the city to be stalked down and guilted into giving
away a job to an unqualified individual! She was a child when I left! The only reason she remembers I
exist is because of her sister! ...Why me? Why? I'm not her family! I'm not even her friend!"

24
Edith whined as Bradley tried to fathom what drove Gin out of her hometown, away from her
sibling and into this world.
"Why me?"
Gin didn't deserve this.
"She'll live. She lived all this time. She doesn't need this job, and I don't need the guilt. It isn't
my responsibility."
Ignorance grants no grace in the real world, but everyone deserved some kind of decency. She
didn't deserved to be tricked by the first person she turned to.
"And you. You! Who do you think you are, judging what I've done?! You're not my problem
anymore either, so get a box, get your shit, all of it, and get out of this office. And don't come back!
And grab Gin's shit, too, because I don't want that little retard coming back to fuck with my life!"
A rush moved through Bradley that settled into a cold stone of despondency at the pit of his
stomach. He rose. Turning, he noted the entirety of the office from beyond the glass wall. The usually
sealed door of the conference room had been left wide open from when he'd nearly exited. Twenty-
three eavesdroppers gawked over and around their cubical walls. And, slowly, Edith sunk into her chair.
*
Killing time for the bus, Bradley meandered the bustling boardwalk bordering the east end of
the city. Things weren't quite as rambunctious as in the morning, but there was always a surplus of
distraction at the city's shore. Only venders with the right connections acquired license to merchandise
here, and there were just less than enough crammed into the outskirts of the city to impede the flow of
foot traffic. Just about anything anyone on the go would want could be bought at some dingy mobile
stand, from hotdogs to pocket-sized cans of shaving cream. One particularly popular vender he knew of
was run near the harbor by a round, enthusiastic man with a robust accent and a mustache of equivocal
thickness who would advertise his food at a constantly high pitch. Hunks of salted, battered fish
skewered on sticks. Gin, having sometime been personally familiarized with the venderman, had
invited Bradley to the stand for lunch one afternoon.
"I call them Feeshtix! I catch thee feesh myself!" he told Bradley without any encouragement.
"Sometimes I catch them big! Boh!" He flung his hands to scale the immensity. "BEEG'A FEESH!" He
handed them a picture of the "beeggest feesh" his fishing net ever caught. Bradley figured he must not
have any close relatives if he kept pictures of dead animals in his wallet.
Besides its considerable size, there was nothing special about the photographed fish. It was just
a grey shad with beady, shallow eyes that gave no indication of life or death, but Gin thought it was
"cute" and found it more endearing after the venderman explained what dimwitted creatures they were.
"Nevar learn, these feesh! I just float by, SCOOP! BOH! Lossafeesh!"
The effervescent fisherman had her practically rolling. Of all things to find funny: a fish.
That was during the golden months of their partnership at Machivel. Even then, he was quick to
contradict Gin's humor, not trying to find sense in it or her. Until now, as he sat isolated on the bus stop
bench mulling over the battered sea creature he'd bought. It was their mediocrity she found so
endearing. Their sheer normality and blissful obliviousness. He got it.
The bus came before he was done with his food. He ate the rest on the way home, chewing on
the bamboo skewer when some police officers greeted him at the front of the apartment. He let them
upstairs, unsurprised by their presence. He anticipated somebody eventually calling about the two
loudly dressed, armed vagrants roaming the city. He prepared for questioning, but the officers weren't
interested in his encounter with Latch or Anselm. Instead, they jammed an electroshock baton against
his kidney, shot something into his arm, handcuffed him, and dragged him downstairs and into the back
of an SUV. No questions asked.

25
He recalled being inside a vehicle. It was hard to keep track of just how long the while was,
since whatever drug they had shot into his veins put him out pretty hard. He recalled the smell of sea
water inside of a tin room, but that could have been dream. He didn't remember much from that point,
but it felt like a while had passed.
Shoosh. Shoosh. Shoosh.
He did remember being sick at one point or another. His mouth tasted horrible, so he figured
that part probably happened.
He was sitting in a posh kitchen now. Was this part happening?
His diplopic vision adjusted itself; he noticed a mahogany and marble bar counter. On the other
side of it was a man dressed in a leisurely unbuttoned suit vest. He was leaning forward, saying
something. Flowing between his hands was a slinky. Shoosh, shoosh, shoosh.
He wondered again how long it had been since he was at his apartment, but it was impossible to
find a reference for time between being electrocuted into a coma and staring at a slinky. His vision sunk
to the man's mouth, which was undulating around a smoldering object with a glowing blue tip.
A shock of neurosis struck him, reeling his perspective over each shoulder in search of a threat
from behind. He tried to yank his arms from what he remembered to be cuffs, throwing them
unexpectedly, astonished by their freedom.
The man poured the slinky onto the counter, reached over, and snapped his fingers. "Stay with
me, Brado."
"What's going on?"
"You weren't listening to anything I just said, were you?" The electric cigarette between the
man's lips was replaced with a glass of amber liquid. "I'd offer a drink, but you're just riddled with
ketamine." he spoke, swigged, placed it down. "You were in and out for most of the afternoon. Drugged
by some kidnappers. For the record, I didn't tell them to do that. That's just what they do, but if you ask
me, they need to regulate dosages. Could kill a guy like that."
"The...cops?"
"Not the cops. Professional abductors dressed like cops." He swallowed the rest of the alcohol,
made a face, and drew his tongue over his teeth from behind his lips. His eyes narrowed and his voice
deepened. "You know, I was doubting it. I'm surprised you're really the protag."
"What...? I don't..."
He tapped the counter with his glass and clicked his mouth. He spoke low, as if being listened in
on. "I'm Leaven, by the way. I don't think you caught that, did you?" He answered as Bradley's mouth
formed the question, "Yes, the Leaven of Machivel Media, but you can forget all about Machivel."
Bradley didn't take the greeting hand offered to him. Gracefully, it lifted away to present the
room.
"And this is my temporary getaway. Familiar with Kallipyge?"
Bradley rattled his head.
"It's some puny island off the shore of Uesica. Part of the Sister Archipelago. I delivered all the
shit in your apartment here, so take your time leaving. That's all you have left now, isn't it? Your
possessions?"
Without ado, Bradley teetered off his stool to leave. He only got a step away before having to
steady himself on the bar.
"Going somewhere, Speedy?"
"Anywhere but here. I'll hail a taxi..."
"No taxis."
"I'll walk."

26
"I said you're on an island. Surrounded by water. A thousand miles away from the city."
"You must be higher than I am. There's no way."
Leaven took out a cell phone.
"There's no way I traveled a thousand miles."
"You're right. I exaggerated. You're only nine-hundred and fifty seven and three-fourths miles
away." He turned the phone, showing the navigators current location to be floating somewhere off the
northeast coast of Uesica.
And according to the date and time, it was already tomorrow.
Adrenaline sobered Bradley up. He raced out of the bar, found the vestibule, and staggered out
the door. The sharp daylight revealing no familiar concrete, but colossus green rolls of land. He stepped
out onto the porch situated upon a great, grassy knoll overlooking a lonely street. Far beyond that, a
little white chapel looked as natural sitting on top of the greens in the distance as the landscape itself.
The deep ring of its bell prompted him to escape to it, away from this madman to civilization. He
bound from the knoll to trample onto the road only to realize the other side drop over a mountainside
grotto, into the sea. His legs scraped clouds of dirt, barely preventing him from dashing over.
A pelican chortled at him from its perch at the cliff's edge.
Leaven joined him on the opposite side of the road. He exhaled vapor and took a sip of his
liquor. "That look. I know what you're thinking: 'Why is he drinking at eight O'clock in the morning?'"
Not even close.
"Because it's cold out here. That's the thing about Kallipyge, it's beautiful, but the weather is
ass. I could have made coffee, but I drink enough of that at work. Bet you could go for a cup of coffee
right now. Maybe I'll-- Hey. Where...? Okay."
Bradley ran down the street. One way, then the other. There was nothing in sight but this big
house, that little church in the distance, and a great, waterlogged gap between them. He began back
towards his kidnapper, fists balled.
"Why would you take me here?! Why would you kidnap me and put me on some mountain in
the middle of nowhere?!"
"You wouldn't be here if it was nowhere, Brad. It's definitely somewhere."
"What's that supposed to even mean?! And why do you keep calling me that? 'Brad.' 'Bradley.'
Like we're buddies or something!"
"We're more acquainted than you think, Brado." Leaven walked across the street and up the
knoll. He settled on the porch's stoop, placing his glass next to himself. "At some point in time, a
lingering disillusion in the back of your mind will surface; a feeling of displacement; that you were
never really in control. If you're lucky, and if you're smart, you'll leave that nagging little voice alone
until it shuts up. In order to do that, you need to remain willingly unaware of the events taking place
within Santa Vidora. You don't know what or why they are, but you don't want to be present for them.
Unfortunately, the only validation I can offer you is a threat, so if you come back to the city, you'll be
confronted by me, and it won't work out in your favor." Pocketing his cigarette, he stood to meet
Bradley's approach up the knoll halfway. "There's nothing left for you in that place but a tragedy."
"I have a life there. A home. A girlfriend..."
"Don't kid yourself. And don't try to kid me. You're unemployed and you don't "have" a home,
because you don't own jack. And it should be obvious by now that your girlfriend is not an invaluable
asset to that identifiable piece of time you so generally refer to as a life. There's plenty of remote places
full of nominees to fill the gap." The solemnity behind the man's eyes left to a more jaunty expression.
He clapped Bradley's shoulder. "You may not understand, but I'm handing you freedom on a silver
platter. I know you won't, but I'm going to tell you to take my word for it. Accept your emancipation."
He went back inside, returning shortly with a jacket and a suitcase while Bradley remained
listless in the front yard of the cottage. "I'm off. My boat leaves in a half-hour. There's a bike in the

27
back you can take. Town is waaayyy over there, on the other side of the valley. There's a bridge to it
lower on the mountain." He skipped down the porch steps and walked a piece of paper over, having to
manually place it into Bradley's palm for it to be accepted.
Bradley unfolded the paper. It was a Machivel Media addressed business check for a hundred
thousand dollars.
"That enough to get you rolling?" Leaven clicked his mouth and jogged to the white little
minivan parked on the side of the house. He loaded the vehicle, got in, and rolled the windows down as
it buzzed to life. "If I find you in Santa Vidora, Brado, I'll shoot your kneecaps! Bye!" He waved out
window and backed down the driveway fast enough to make Bradley hope the vehicle might careen off
the unprotected cliffside. It didn't, of course. Leaven jackknifed it into a K-turn and shot down the road
with the soft palpitation of a bumblebee. Bzoooooo!
Perplexed into apathy, Bradley folded Leaven's check up and put it in his pocket.
He didn't find a landline telephone anywhere in the house, but he did discover a bedroom full of
his shit, so he packed a backpack with clothes, food, and soap. Conformable to Leaven's claim, there
was a bike behind the estate. Contrary to what Bradley expected, it wasn't motorized but an actual
bicycle, colored mint green. It had a little basket attached to the front of the handlebar at least.
He ripped off the basket, ran the bike out of the driveway, leaped onto the seat, and began
pumping downhill.
The CEO of his recently lost job kidnapped him and deserted him on an island. He was
bicycling down a foreign mountainside in hopes of sometime coming across a town. Because the CEO
of his last job kidnapped him. And deserted him on an island. He could feel the drugs clouding the
process of the current events. Or shock. He hoped it wasn't indifference. He wanted to be angry about
this. Where did one direct their anger when nothing made sense?
The corniche road tilted like a roller coaster, brimming the ascending mountainside without
surface markers to announce sharp turns nor guardrails to better avoid a fall to one's death. And no sign
of life except twilight birds warbling from their cliff side homes in case you did manage to survive a
fall and expected help. The sun broke from the jagged horizon, dividing the road with cuts of light. The
green fields on the opposite side of the ravine began to glow. The exposed wilderness reminded
Bradley just how far from home he was.
Of all the things Leaven said--most of it seemed like the babble of a lunatic, but--one thing he
had mentioned resounded true in the back of Bradley's mind, like the faint bell of the church: he really
could go for a cup of coffee right now.
An hour of cold, salty air reclaimed what parts of his mind had been arrested by drugs and
altitude adjustment, but most of it lurched in stubborn denial of thought. He expected to find some
tolerance for sanity at the bottom of a mug, assuming he found civilization at the bottom of this road. It
eventually spat itself across the ravine. He had never crossed a bridge not made out of concrete and
titanium-reinforced steel, nor higher than a few hundred feet above open water. This stone bridge
surmounted a half-mile drop into a rocky, rapid river. He heard a crumbling noise halfway across and
doubled his peddling. Earthy walls and cliffs became a verdant fields on the other side. How ripe green
could exist in such bitter cold was a wonder.
After viewing its picturesque, almost still scene from the opposite side of the valley, peddling
up the church's hillside felt akin to entering a painting. The church, whose bell had long silenced,
looked over a valley. Within it, a small settlement hid.
With a rough sigh of relief, he let gravity spin his wheels from the vibrant greens, to golden
farmlands of grain, to a grey street-sandwich of chipseal wedged between buildings. The town had one
road, save for some bicycle boulevards bottle-necking their way through the alleyways. The right row
of buildings began with a wooden tavern that creaked with the breeze. Across from it stood an actual
shoe cobbler, still in business from the looks of the window displays. Dated payphones lined the street.

28
The sign on the way in read "Welcome to Dullard," which he couldn't argue with.
Maybe the cobbler wasn't still in business, on second thought. The silence had him debating the
town itself being out of business until somebody came to view from around the bar's corner, zipping his
jeans on his way back inside. Bradley followed his thirst after.
Evidently, the town of Dullard, Kallipyge didn't have any smoking policies. Indoor smog
fumigated the entrance of the bar with tobacco and tar. A worn out dartboard hung on the wall opposite
the bar where two worn out men hunched over their morning drinks. Bradley bet that this sordid
neighborhood dive was the only game in town. An enduring reminder that the more things change, the
more working class drinkers remain the same.
Only the barkeep paid him any attention on his way through. He had a broom mustache and a
cratered face. His eyes were narrow and he spoke with a somehow fittingly supportive tone that made
Bradley expect he looked at least partially as lost as he actually was. "Hey, partner. You're a new one."
"Bet you don't get many of those. I'm from Santa Vidora."
"What brings a city slicker here? You're too pale to be a fisherman."
"Just visiting."
"Can't imagine who you'd be visiting in Dullard. Bit of an exclusive settlement, way up here.
But I can tell you're too pale to be a fisherman."
"What would a fisherman be doing here?"
"This is a fishing village, believe it or not. We got a whole system set up at the harbor near the
base of the mountain that we share with Callowtown."
Callowtown was Gin's hometown. She'd mentioned it having a major stake in fishing. Bradley
nearly forgotten it was part of Kallypige Isle. This was the first sign of luck he's had all week. "They
must take trips back and forth to the mainland, right?"
"Figure so."
Maybe he could find a sailor willing to drop him off at the continent.
"So, you want a drink or what?"
"Just some water would be fine."
"Water, huh?" the bartender asked tongue-in-cheek.
The large, tattooed guy in a neighboring bar stool turned attentively.
Just as Bradley began to feel irrationally self-conscious about his decision, the bartender raised
a spritzer nozzle and let loose a jet of water into his face. He had to catch himself on the bar to avoid
falling off his seat in disorientation.
"Pfuh! What the hell?!"
"Sorry, kid, sorry. It's 'policy' whenever somebody orders a water around here. A joke. We don't
give anything out for free here." He winked and held out a dry dish cloth.
The events of the confounding week decided to carve themselves into Bradley's soaking wet
disposition in the shape of a sarcastic bartender. He slammed a fist on the bar, snatching the cloth with
the other. "Screw you, 'a joke'! By the looks of this broke looking town, maybe you shouldn't be pissing
off tourists!"
He wiped his face. A sideways peek caught a glare from the burly fellow beside him. The guy
looked like he'd been waiting all day for the chance to pick a drunk bar fight. Bradley instantly
regretted raising his voice when a hand shoved at his shoulder, striking him sideways.
"Got a problem with the staff, townie?"
Bradley hung in submissive silence as a human hammock between seats.
"Only the smart-assed ones."
The man was a six-foot liquor barrel with biceps the size of average cantaloupes and forearms
the size of average biceps, which he used to grab Bradley by the scruff of his jacket and lift him
effortlessly onto the bar. With his spine wrenched over the top, he looked to the barkeep for some

29
assistance.
"Here you go."
He placed down a glass of water.
As the ruffian cocked his scar-knuckled fist, Bradley noticed a grumpy looking cartoon fish
printed on the front of his sleevless tee.
"Oh, hey," he was able to grunt through his compressed trachea, "...nice shirt."
*
Bradley sat at a table in the corner of the bar where the karaoke machine, sharing a drink with
the massive mailman of Dullard who, minutes ago, had nearly knocked his front teeth out for almost no
reason. Turns out, he was a huge fan of Madfish's blogs, reading them daily. He was disgruntled by the
news of Bradley's termination. His name was Mortlock.
"I yoostoo read yor threads ev-ery day on de phone. Nice ant easy to be readink when yor on
toilet, yeah?"
Bradley thanked him.
"Now what will I read? I am not goink to read an imposter!"
Bradley was sure somebody on the internet could emulate his gift to rant cantankerously over
universally inconsequential matters.
"Noh, there is nobody to replace original." He struck the table with a frustrated fist. "It iz damn
shame!"
Bradley learned Mortlock had gone to the navy where he, conversely enough, learned to fly
helicopters. He moved to Dullard ten years ago to live with his cousin, a fisherman who used to work
in the harbor at the base of the mountain. He died five years ago as a consequence of pica, a disorder
identified with the appetite for non-food things.
"He ate glass," Mortlock explained, tapping a indicative fingernail to his beer bottle. "He bust
off piece from whatever and he jest snack on it out of palm of hand when no one was looking."
Mortlock peered into the past, drew a breath, and sighed. "I do not know how th' dunderhead lived so
long."
Mort flew postage all over Kallipyge Island, including much of Callowtown. When Bradley
asked whether he ever flew to the mainland, he laughed at his ignorance and explained how costly
flying a diesel aircraft as a method of personal transportation would be.
"I do got buddy who I catch my rides with, though. He iz captain of a trawler that goes to and
from, selling catch in the mainland. Real nice guy, too. He would let you for a ride if I told him."
His buddy was already on his way back and he wouldn't be going out for another trip until
Friday. Today was Saturday. Unemployed and lost, time may have been all of what Bradley had, but
there was no way he was spending a week in a petered out mountain town, gambling on the chance
some stranger would be friendly enough to give him a lift to the continent. He'd already set his
prepossessions about this island's friendliness by the drunkard sitting across from him who'd just nearly
punched him out minutes ago.
"Suit yorself." Mortlock grunted. Bradley rubbed his face in vexation as the man chugged his
beer. He put it down with extra vigor. "Ah. Hold it." He burped. "You know what, I will give damn lift.
In the good name ov de Madfish. We fly Monday."
"That's a huge relief to hear, thank you."
"Not free. You must do a morning's work for Mortlock before I drop you off! Sort mail, come
along on deliveries..."
Bradley needn't think twice about taking advantage of the first and last time his internet psuedo-
fame would provide any real-life application. Besides, getting a helicopter tour of the island didn't
sound like hard labor.

30
"A deal, Madfish!" Mortlock gave a hand. Bradley shook it and asked him not to call him
Madfish.
His initial order of business when he got back to Santa Vidora would be to report crazy Leaven
to the proper authorities. It might not be possible to prove he'd been hijacked by a CEO corporate
juggernaut, but he'd be damned not to try. Next, he'd figure out this odd situation he'd been roped into.
There was some freaky stalker BS going on involving Leaven, the "deputy" woman, and that fauxhawk
guy, and he was going to get to the bottom of it. But first, he'd check on the validity of Leaven's check.
He wound up finding some no-name community bank in the middle of Dullard. It was crappy
looking enough to make him wonder wonder whether they could even cash a quintuple-digit asset.
Turned out they could. More importantly, he could. Discovering the check's legitimacy resulted in a
sobering deliberation of consequence. With kneecaps already on the line, he decided a few grand wasn't
worth accepting from a kidnapper he intended to incriminate. Maybe enough to cover the resulting
medical bills.
Part 2
"Six."
"Go fish."
Latch slapped the card deck off the table. "Alright, I'm sick of playing and I'm sick of waiting."
He stood with such force as to knock his chair over. "What the fuck is going on?"
In accord with this thought, Deputy Anselm threw her own cards over her shoulder.
"We've spent over twenty-four hours dickin' around in this hotel, waiting for something to
happen!" He grabbed his duffel bag, unzipped it, and pulled out what he referred to as a "particle
sword." Compact in its inactive form, with a shift of a thumb-switch on the handle, the top extended
from the hilt by a protracting metal beam, creating a shape that Anselm could only describe as a very
long C-clamp. Bursting between the two vertical points, a beam of violet light radiated with a
brightness too potent to look directly into.
It was a device of science far beyond the powers of Deputy Anselm's comprehension. What she
did understand was that it didn't belong in the hands of someone like Latch.
She scooted her chair cautiously, jumping out of her seat when the luminescent blade came
swinging down through the card table, slashing a burned hunk of wood cleanly off its edge. Latch
swung the weapon back and hacked again, searing it in half. A burning card, compelled by a jolt of
heat, jumped into the air. He swiped at it, incinerating the laminated paper into nothing.
With a whiplike swing, he cleaved through the corner lamp. The room flashed with a blue spark
of escaping electricity. He crushed the bulb on the detached lamp head and hacked a slice of upholstery
and springs out of the mattress. He walked into the bathroom. Glass shattered and porcelain smashed
before he came out to place his retracted weapon on the dresser, grabbed his seat by the destroyed card
table, picked it up, thumped it back onto its four legs, and sat.
Pillow cotton drifted through the air and landed on Anselm's shoulder. Sink or perhaps toilet
water seeped in from the bathroom. The lamp's base rolled off the nightstand.
"Fuuuck this place!" He kicked the halved table, knocking over what was crookedly standing.
"Fuckit!"
"Shut up. You're being too loud."
"You're being too calm! I want to leave! I'm finished here!"
Anselm settled into her seat again, crossing her arms and legs while she ruminated over the
room's destruction. "The only thing you've finished is our security deposit."
"This is bull. You know, it's not our fault if things don't work out the way they're supposed to,
but we're the ones who pay for it. We followed the stipulations. That was our one job. Hell, it was a

31
favor. There's no reason we should have to wait here, but we are."

"Suppose there is a reason, I am sure whatever tantrum you throw isn't it. Calm down. The last
part of the Metacoda book implied Bradley would be coming back on Monday."
With deliberate quickness, he got up and picked his sword up off the dresser. "And we're
supposed to do nothing for another day and a half? If we're not needed for anything, we shouldn't be
here. We shouldn't have to rent a fucking room here!"
"Stop it. Don't swing that thing around here anymore."
"I'm...not." He attached it to his belt. "I'm leaving."
"With it."
"That's right. I'm going to go be proactive."
She got up as he passed. "You're not going to go do something that might screw up the plot."
He halted before the door. "How do you know sitting on your ass isn't screwing up the plot?
What plot demands characters to sit on their asses?"
"I may agree if your being proactive didn't require a weapon." Anselm pulled her pistol. "If you
derail the plot, then what?"
"I think that already happened. There hasn't been an update in the book all day. Nothing relevant
has happened all day, so I'm gonna make some relevance. If the author doesn't trust my judgment, then
fuck him for keeping me around."
Anselm cocked the hammer of her pistol. "I don't trust your judgment."
She sprung back at Latch's sudden movement: with a spin and a whiplike motion of his arm, he
lacerated the air she'd been occupying, protracted weapon extended and humming with glowing energy
in his hand.
She sunk back feeling herself for a burn. She found no anger in this man's disturbingly amused
glare. He appeared to enjoy his own spontaneous veer into violence.
"Don't point that thing at me unless you're prepared to sh--"
A sonorous bang punched a bullet into a picture beside the entrance.
Glass tinkled while the spat cartridge fell to the floor. She lowered her recoiled forearm,
dropping the muzzle directly onto Latch. He sucked his teeth, attention flicking from pistol, to owner.
There was snub satisfaction in the way he holstered his retracted sword and grabbed his duffel bag on
the way out.
With such a span of time spent within his unprovoked company, the deputy had almost forgotten
Latch's indiscriminate aggression as well as his devil-may-carelessness. She should have known
holding a bluff to a psycho wouldn't work. That was a negligent decision on her part, and now everyone
within a hundred yards was contacting the police over gunfire.
She pocketed her gun with a curse and left.
*
Gin swished, spit, and bared her teeth. After the third brush, her breath had to be okay. She
stepped back from the mirror, checking herself. She was able to find the image acceptable. She wore
what figured to be a business casual outfit. It was the same thing she'd worn on her first Machivel
interview. A black buttoned top, dark blue twill pants, black mary janes, and an orange cardigan over-
shirt. That was formal enough, right?
But, orange. Orange? Why orange? Why did she have to like orange? Could she even wear
orange? It wasn't a warm season. It wasn't spring or summer, it was autumn.
It was just one article of clothing, though. It went with the black. And blue was a
complimentary. It was okay. Okay.
Another knock at the door.
"Okay, okay!"

32
She ran a brush through her hair.

Outside the bathroom was Elroy. An edgy young Spaniard she wasn't keen on interacting with.
He had a hand on the door frame, a part of the exit restricted by his arm. His eyes gave her an up-and-
down.
"Lookin' good."
"Busy, Elroy."
"I see. All dressed up. You look nice."
"Thank you. It's my first day at a neeew job? ...Sort of. A new position."
"What time?"
"Soon O'clock."
"A better job?"
"It's a promotion, so I guess."
"More money is better."
Gin passed. He perused her down the hall. She stopped at the entrance of her room. With hands
tucked effortlessly inside his pockets, he leaned into a step. She blocked entree. Elroy motioned the
other way, Gin tilted. She pointed at him, at the floor, then stepped back to shut him out.
*
The translucent window beside the doorway of Machivel Corp HQ reflected upon Gin as she
searched for imperfections minutes prior to ten O'clock. She hated her reckless, bohemian hairstyle and
the way it sat on her stupid face. She hated her clothes and the orange overshirt. She hated her favorite
color.
She snapped to attention as one of the suits on their way inside stopped to regard what she was
doing, preening herself beside the entrance. He scratched his cheek, pretended to be looking
somewhere else, and went inside.
"Action time." She straightened her shoulders, put on her game face, and marched through the
revolving doors to the front desk where her dynamism diminished with the unimpressed mug of the
receptionist.
"I'm here to see Mr. Leaven. For the personal secretary position?" she asked politely. The
receptionist gnawed gum and pointed her pen toward the elevators. Gin thanked her and hurried
through. It clunked and ascended.
1... 2... 3... 4... 5... 6... 7... 8... 9...
She was unable to avoid the three images of herself mirrored on the walls. She shifted her
weight between legs.
25... 26... 27... 28... 29... 30... 31... 32... 33...
She expected some kind of easy-listening jazz tune that never began playing. Why wasn't there
elevator music?
40... 42... 43...
The elevator clunked, halted, opened, and a guy in a tawny suit with a receding hairline filled
the space beside her. He rubbed a finger under his nose and used it to jam the already-lit Floor 45
button. He kept jamming it until the door shut, ruffled the papers in his hand, and tucked them beneath
his arm.
The elevator stopped at Floor 45 and he jammed the button again as if it had any control over
the speed at which the door might open.
She followed him out, through the door adjacent the elevator, through a long hallway of offices,
and out into an indoor balcony overlooking the the level below them. The man slowed his feet at a pair
of black doors titled, Chief Executive, taking an entirely different pace through them. Gin caught the
door.

33
The man came steadily inside and stood in the center of the front office. Helpless with the lack
of service, he scanned left, then right. Left. Right. Left. Right.
Left.
"Uh."
Right.
"Sir?" he threw his meek voice at the closed door behind the empty desk.
Gin slipped inside, strode around the man and asked his name. He gave a discriminating frown
and answered, "Howard Boyd."
She spun away to the door. With a tap on its face, she announced Mr. Boyd's presence. A chair
rolled. Footsteps. Out came Leaven. He lifted his brows at her, then set his attention on the balding man
in the entrance.
"Howard, Sir."
Leaven pointed. "Howard. Right."
Howard tilted a paper-stuffed folder from his chest. "I have those charts."
Leaven reached halfheartedly over the empty receptionist desk. He hinged his fingers and
waited for Howard to walk the folder over. "Charts, huh?"
"The SPC charts, Sir?"
"Those charts." Leaven flipped a page, flipped it back. "Mm-hm. Mmmm. Looks good."
"What?"
"SPC looks good." He smacked the folder shut and handed it back. "Good job, Howie."
"Sorry, Mr. Leaven, I don't... We were going to evaluate these... At ten O'clock, you said?"
Leaven checked the watch on the inside of his wrist. "It's nine-forty. Nice, Miss Rumi. Nice and
punctual. I like that. Have you met Miss Rumi, Howard? She's my new secretary."
"We took the same elevator, actually."
"As for you, why are you here twenty minutes before I told you?"
"I thought, uh...maybe you'd appreciate it."
"Don't brown nose me, Howard. I'll evaluate these myself. You can come back at noon and we'll
discuss."
Crestfallen, Howard moped out of the room, harkened by Leaven's insincere disappointment.
"Noon. That's twelve O'clock, Howard." The door shut and the CEO tucked the statistics under an arm
to take Gin's things. Copy of her social security card, tax form, etc. He cycled zestfully and
disinterestedly through them before dropping them onto his desk.
"Hey, you feel like a coffee?"
"Oh. Um. Sure."
He pulled out the desk chair for her to sit and went into his office. "You know what the best
thing about being the boss is?" The phone began ringing. "Hey, perfect chance to show me your skills
as a secretary. Answer that, will you, Miss Rumi? Tell them I'm busy. Or not here. Or something."
Gin picked up the receiver. "Machivel Corp, Mr. Leaven's office, this is Gin, how can I help
you?"
"Hey. Is Leaven there?"
"Sorry, he's busy at the moment. Can I ask whose calling?"
"So, the best thing about being CEO is being able to have a coffee machine in my office."
"Can I leave a message?"
"Sure. Go ahead."
"Tell him I'm coming up there to cut off his head."
"Ex...excuse me?"
"Tell him I'm on the elevator, and I'm on my way upstairs to chop his head off. Can you do that?
...You there?"

34
This was a prank.

"Just give him the 'heads up' that I'm coming up there to cut off his head, alright?"
"How do you take your coffee, Gin?"
The caller hung up.
"Mr. Leaven...!" She ran into the back office. "Mr. Leaven, someone just called and said he was
coming upstairs right now toto, uh, 'cut your head off,' he said!"
Pensively, Leaven tilted the coffee pot to his mug. "Is it the IRS?"
The foyer doors slammed open. Leaven poured his coffee and stepped out to a man with a
ridiculous mullet haircut standing in the reception, door-ramming foot dramatically extended. In his
hand was a cryptic metal device resembling a topped censer boat on the end of a handle. With a shift of
the hand, the censer top extended to let a powerfully bright laser beam to shoot between the top and
bottom sections.
Leaven had to physically nudge Gin's petrified body aside to come out of the office and observe
this phenomena.
"Not the IRS, but you can call me the repo man," the swordsman said with a twirl of his
humming 'blade.'
Gin retreated into the back office.
Leaven lifted his mug to his lips. "This was unprompted," he mumbled into it, preceding a
slurp. Calm, but genuinely intrigued.
The laser-swordsman propped a foot onto the secretary desk to launch himself with a whirl of
his weapon. To Gin's discomfort, Leaven backed evasively into the room where she was trying to hide.
She rushed to the far end of the office to duck behind the desk as the two rushed in.
"Unprompted my ass. I called you." The swordsman swung horizontally. Leaven paced back
and tossed his mug, which the swordsman batted away. The cup flipped, pouring the hot contents over
his hand. He flinched, and Leaven delivered a precise punch. The swordsman took it with a growl and
brought his sword into a broad, horizontal crescent, then, in fluid harmony, heaved it downward.
Leaven avoided both of these with a calm backwards lean and a sideways pivot. He responded with a
kick, which the swordsman pulled his exposed thigh away from, countering with a ram of his shoulder.
Leaven grounded his stance and took the weight into the center of his chest, spun, and threw the
attacker past himself.
Gin scrambled on her butt as the body came toppling over the desk. Swearing, the stranger
landed half on the floor, legs propped. With a kick, he rolled again to his feet and sprung over the desk.
Glimpsing the pleixglass wall panel she found herself pressed to, Gin jolted at the sight of the
street, forty stories up and un-scrunched herself to scuttled to her previous hiding place. She peeked
over the desk as Leaven snatched a letter opener off the top and punctured a hole near the swordsman's
collar just in time to back him out of an attack. The man staggered, clutching the gouge.
"Aw, damn that tickled! You aren't half bad for a pencil pusher. A real zesty fighter." He came
forth with a chop of his weapon; Leaven swept around him; Gin squeaked as the laser blade came in
partial contact with the desktop, slicing Howard's unsuspecting portfolio in half.
"You're persistent." Leaven complimented. "What's your name?"
The stranger spun from the desk with weapon swung abroad, missed as Leaven bounced back,
continued his momentum with a punch. "Latch. Remember it."
Leaven sidestepped the punch and yanked a hanging umbrella from his coat rack. He used it to
knock the oncoming sword away by its metal support without contact to the laser beam. "And just why
are you trying to dice me?"
Latch clutched with two hands, chopping the umbrella in half with a single swing. "I'm not
really worried about it." He lashed out again, which Leaven stepped back from. He flung his coat rack,
which the swordsman deftly chopped through, midair.

35
"Me neither." Leaven kicked the metal part of the sword at the low point of its descent through
the coat rack, knocking Latch off balance and proceeding with a rising kick into his face. Latch deftly
swung his upper body backwards just in time to avoid it.
A lull in the fight ensued as Leaven separated himself a few paces. Reorienting his stance, Latch
held his sword vertically and drew a second hand to it with theatrical deliberateness. He took a deep
breath as his fingers wrapped the handle. "I am one with the force."
Even whilst petrified behind the desk, Gin felt a twinge of vicarious embarrassment from the
mullet man's awkward theatrics.
"Running around with a flashy weapon can get you in a lot of trouble."
He exhaled and elevated the handle of the weapon, holding the blade above his head. "What's it
matter to you?"
"It doesn't. Just seems a little extreme."
"If you're looking to talk your way out of this, it's not going to work."
Leaven opened his arms in an invitation for more.
"Nonchalant fucker."
He lifted his coffee pot from his desk and turned over a mug of pencils. "Gin! Hey! You're not
leaving, are you?"
Halfway to the exit, she had been practically sidling the back wall in an attempt at discretion.
"Uuuhhh..." She edged nearer to the door with the placidity of a batter stealing third.
"You'll be back tomorrow, right?"
"Heck no, Mr. Leaven."
"I'll make it worth your whi-- Okay, see you tomorrow! Ten O'clock!" Leaven detached a pot
from the brewer set on his filing cabinet and poured himself a coffee.
"What are you doing?"
"Making coffee. Do you want some?"
"No, I don't want any fucking coffee!" Latch emphasized this point with a cut through the air.
"This is ridiculous. You can't just T.O. the fight."
"I haven't had a cup of coffee all morning. That's not a fair fight." Leaven sat down, stirring his
mug. "So, why'd you come to Santa Vi?"
"Brought here."
"And you're in my office because? Let me guess: a plot device?"
"...What?"
"You come in here unannounced and without context, going by some codename alias, and start
trying to murder me with a sci-fi sword. You're not from around here. I imagine strange circumstances
have brought you here, so are you or are you not aware of the story going on? Because I'd be real
curious to know whether Mr. Author has made more than one character 'aware.'"
Latch moved to the desk. "How the hell would you know...?"
"Shouldn't you be going after Bradley Noelle?"
He raised his sword high in preperation. "Don't know what you're talking about, but I wasn't
done fighting you. Get up or get ready to die."
"The odds of me being beat here and now by the likes of you are very unlikely."
"Odds are looking pretty good from this angle, pal."
"You're in no role to make that call."
The low hum of the technological weapon hung for another second before thudding sounded
from the outside halls. Within seconds, a fireteam of men decked out in full body armor and tactical
masks rushed in from the front reception room.
"YOU! PUT THE WEAPON DOWN!"
Metal truncheons were clutched over their heads.

36
"PUT IT DOWN! ON THE GROUND!"

"Batons? What kind of pussy security system is this?"
"Not my call. Guns aren't allowed here in this nation. But, between you and me," Leaven
lowered his voice to a whisper and tapped his desk, "I've got one in my drawer, so shooting you is still
an option-- but beating you is more socially acceptable. And those aren't regular batons."
Extending with a click of a thumb switch, the truncheons surged with crackling electricity.
"They're electroshock batons. Stun-truncheons, or 'struncheons,' as I've dubbed them."
Assessing the odds, Latch lowered his weapon. It retracted back to its compact size. The men
swarmed him, two apprehending his wrists while the third snatched the weapon from his hands. The
fourth brandished a baton while patting Latch down. He pulled something out of a back pocket and
dropped it on the desk. It was a book.
Leaven looked from Latch to the book, and lifted it to examine the front and back. The title of
the book read "Metacoda." He opened it, flipped around to random pages. One in particular received a
clear reaction.
"That's right, asshole. Weren't expecting to pull that off of me, were you? I know you're ploy,
appearing in some random scene to win over the protagonist's main squeeze."
"How about this, my transgressive friend," Leaven proposed, eyes still on the pages, "tell me
how you got this, and I won't press charges."
"Fuck your blackmail."
Leaven placed the book down. "I'm exchanging your deserved arrest for information. It's a deal,
and you should probably take it. The fact that you exist with the knowledge you have bothers me. The
fact that you chased that knowledge to me, and chased that girl out of my office, really bothers me. But
I'll take it in stride if you do me a solid and let me know who you are and why you have this. There are
roles to fill and context to make, and you have one. And you know you have one."
Two of the three nameless guards looked utterly confused over the exchange. The third one was
playing video games on his cellphone.
"If you want answers, read the damn book."
Leaven teetered in his seat. He clicked his tongue. "Alright. I will. I'll also let you off easy so
you can tend to whatever necessities you have to tend to. I'm sure I'll have to deal with them
unfavorably later on, but that's just how this works." With sideward nod, he ordered the guards to take
Latch away. "Leave the sci-fi weapon. Don't tell the police about it, just have them take him in for
harassment. Nothing more."
Leaven returned to the book as the swordsman was escorted out. It was clearly unfinished,
under one-hundred pages, cut off at the end of his dialog with Latch. The story had just begun, but the
first few pages revealed enough to make Leaven reconsider his approach to this plot.
Once finished, he shut the novel on his desktop and wiped his bloody letter opener on the
singed portfolio beside it. The presence of this rogue stranger and the fact such an artifact could be in
his possession was an unexpected device that the book itself didn't do a great job of explaining. Yet.
At least the exchange ended with the book in his possession and the SPC charts burned in half.
That'll make for a good laugh at Howard's expense.
*
Bradley spent Sunday night at a Dullard inn and rose before the Monday sun to meet Mortlock
at his home. They took fifteen minute to eat breakfast in his modest home skirting the fields beside
town before they took flight. They cruised through frigid stratosphere, down the mountainside and into
the thicker, marginally--not extremely--warmer sea-level air. The harbor town at the mountain's base
was known as Little Callow. As rural and sleepy as its skyward neighbor, it was advanced beyond
Dullard only in scale. The town's name rung a familiar bell in Bradley's mind that he couldn't quite put

37
a finger on.
They settled the chopper at the brink and entered the settlement on foot, traveling to a shoddy
red hutch located near the center of town. If not for a sign sticking out of it's side reading "Post Office,"
he'd of figured it to be somebody's home.
A bag of disorganized letters was given to Bradley, followed by two boxes and an unwieldy
round package. He and Mortlock spent a half an hour sorting it before loading a scooter parked out
front. Mortlock started it for Bradley and went around the building to reappear around the corner with
his giant body balanced atop his own scooter. The poor little machine made uncomfortable guttural
noises as it struggled to propel the disproportionate girth.
The cold became tolerable throughout the workday, and, for several hours, Bradley was
blissfully distracted by the adventure. The brisk zip trough town caused hm to almost forgetting about
being unemployed and stranded with the threat of having his kneecaps broken upon his return home.
The island woke as they traveled. Some people were outside their houses to greet them.
Everyone knew Mortlock by name, and everyone was curious for the identity of his new sidekick.
"Madfish," Mortlock would introduce, giving him a wily smack on the shoulder.
"Bradley," Bradley would correct, but his birth name began to feel displaced amongst the
reactions that the pseudonym elicited. Impressed or annoyed by Madfish, it seemed like everyone on
Kallipyge could identify with the internet personality far more than Bradley.
Mainly, the identity crisis was no more than an annoyance until he and Mortlock had to deliver
to a certain "Jenever Rumi," and his reminiscence behind the town's name clarified itself as Gin Rumi's
hometown. He'd forgotten because she rarely mentioned it. And he was pretty sure she barely talked
about her sister.
"Oh, yeah, she and sister live here since they were knee high to grasshopper," Mortlock
accounted, shouting across the divide as they scootered along the road. "Younger girl, she run off about
one year ago. For a month, Jenever was up every morning to look through the mail for letters. She was
very worried before little sister finally got around to calling. I think they talk these days every now and
then."
Jenever lived in the upstairs of a modest though elegant condominium building. Bradley entered
the complex but chose to remain downstairs as Mortlock approached her door, which came open as he
bent over to push the envelopes through the mail slot. Mortlock got an eyeful of leg before shooting
upright with the posture of a soldier. "'Morn'."
A spry, snub-nosed brunette with pallid skin stood at the top of the stairs. She was a spitting
image--or perhaps more appropriately vise versa--of her younger sibling, though taller, curvier, and
longer in the hair. She wore nothing particularly effete, a tanktop and jeans, though there was
something in her eloquent smile and her jaunt-hipped posture that lent an immediately observable
feminine contrast from her younger sibling. They looked so alike, and yet so dissimilar.
Her smile was compassionate toward Mortlock. She put a greeting hand on his shoulder the
same moment her vision strayed downstairs to Bradley.
"Madfish," Mortlock improperly introduced. Jenever's expression underwent such stress that
that it made him wonder if he should acknowledge it. Tentatively, he inclined his head.
She touched her fingers near her mouth. "Do...do you have time to talk?" Her vision jumped
questioningly to Mortlock, then him again.
"We kind of have route to finish, Jenever..." the mailman grumbled apologetically.
"How's Gin? Honestly."
Bradley's spirit recoiled at the request for honesty. Unsure if there was time for an honest
answer, he lied. "She's been good."
"She told me about you." She shook clasped hands in a plea. "Maybe we can talk later?"
"I'm not staying in town long. But I can take your number..."

38
"Hold on." She left and returned with a slip of paper. Bradley climbed the steps to retrieve it.
"I'd like to know what you have to say about Gin. She's so seclusive with me, I'd just like to know how
she's really doing. If you can't call me soon, could you tell her that I'd really like to just see her? She
keeps making excuses not to come, but maybe she'll listen if you suggested it. She respects you."
Bradley tried to fabricate the proper expression of modest thankfulness, though it was hard to
accept a compliment at another's self-deprication. Especially when he didn't really know where it was
coming from. "I don't know if she'll listen to my advise on family matters, but I'll tell her you asked."
This completely unromantic answer seemed to be just the response the sister was fishing for.
She squeezed his hand while giving the phone number and waved her mail with a blithe farewell as
they tread downstairs.
With some remorse, Bradley wound up tossing the phone number into a trashcan outside the
condominium. He felt for the doting sister, truly, but it was no place of his to relay whatever Gin had
decided to withhold.
Some coincidence, abducted to the same place as Gin's long ditched sister. Boy, the world really
was intent on wedging that girl into the most unanticipated instances of his life.
*
An officer on the lamb. The irony.
After blowing a hole in Affordable Suites of Uesica, Deputy Anselm gathered the few of her
necessary belongings she'd acquired since her arrival in Santa Vidora into her own duffel bag and
revisited the home of Bradley Noelle to find it unlocked and vacant. She spent the morning napping on
his couch before being woken not by the renter of the apartment, but by Latch, who had been freshly
released from a holding cell. Surprise, surprise.
Contrarily, he did managed to obtain Bradley Noelle's whereabouts from the Metacoda book,
which, to her confoundment, he managed to get confiscated upon arrest. Also frustrating was his lack
of interest in utilizing the information he shared about Bradley, agreeing to come with her on the search
only after making his lack of alternatives entirely transparent. She didn't care what his reasons were as
long as he wasn't left to his own devices again.
Neither one of them had much of an idea about Uesica's methods of transportation and even less
knowledge of its geography, so they elected first thing in the morning to reach out to Bradley's apparent
counterpart, Gin Rumi, for assistance. They were surprised that her address lead to a decrepit boarding
house.
A cockroach crunched beneath Latch's foot in the foyer and he cringed with almost cartoonish
animation and left, declaring he would wait outside. She didn't argue.
Up through the third story, the deputy's peripherals spotted a brown-skinned, bandanna-wearing
young man leaning in the hall. He whistled as she passed, which she pointedly left unacknowledged to
continue to the aforementioned door at the end of the hall with the dissimilar knob, just like the old
manager had specified. She gave the door a rap and a green pair of eyes peeked from its crack. The
deputy put on her most neighborly smile and asked if she could speak with Miss Rumi.
The person behind the door opened it with caution. "That's me."
A glimpse by her was enough to see the entirety of her pitiful living space. Anselm offered her
hand. "Deputy Anselm. It's nice to meet you, Miss Rumi."
"You're a police officer?"
"That's right. I've been looking for a young man by the name of Bradley Noelle. Do you know
him?"
"Why?"
"I'm prohibited to divulge personal information so the details of Bradley's position in this case is
classified, but I can tell you that he's not in trouble with the law, and that it's in his best interest that I

39
contact him as soon as possible. He seems to be away from home and from what I understand, you're a
friend of his, aren't you?"
"Uuuhhh. Not really."
There was an awkward pause.
"Alright. But...you are acquaintances..."
"Yeah. I don't know where he would have gone, though."
"That isn't what I need your help with..." She showed her badge, a disk of steel with the text
Royal Irish Constabulary engraved around a harp. "I'm not from Uesica. I'm working abroad on a
special investigation that I need Bradley's assistance with. I have a lead on his whereabouts, but it's in a
remote location. Since you're the only acquaintance of his I've been able to track down, I was hoping
you might be willing to help...with directions."
She could only peer in question. Anselm couldn't have expected a much better response.
"It's a long story, but my resources are very limited. Very."
"What do you need help finding?"
"An island named Kallipyge."
Gin blinked. "Oh. That's where I'm from."
She invited Anselm inside and they sat on her bed while she operated an amazing hand-held
device that worked like Latch's cellular phone, with the ability to alter its face with the touch of a
finger, except of a larger scale.
Anselm was only minutely familiar with the boundless research power of the internet, though
not first hand until Gin accessed it from her device, navigating files until crossing one named
"Quickipedia," which offered an encyclopedic archive of information on the island of Kallipyge.
Located off the northeast coast of Uesica, the island consisted of a mere twenty-kilometers of area with
a residence of about five-thousand, most of which lived in a small, sea-level villa called Little Callow,
which Gin pointed out as her home town. To the west of Little Callow was an even smaller settlement
named Dullard: Bradley Noelle's presumed location.
Further research on how the island might be visited proved moot. There were no public
transports available for travel to such an irrelevant divot. And if there were, there was a fair chance she
wouldn't be able to afford her lunch this afternoon, no less a private cruise.
She left that detail out of the conversation.
"Wellllll, I kinda know a venderman who takes trips to and from Kallipyge. He sets sail on
Mondays, so he might still be at the docks. He's offered to take me back and forth before. I bet he'd let
you hitch a ride if we're quick enough."
"Would it be too much for me to ask for you to come with me?"
"I'm not helping you arrest Bradley, right...?"
In a gesture of honesty, Deputy Anselm removed her hat. "I can promise that I have absolutely
no intention on arresting Bradley. It really is in his best interest that I find him."
"Then I'd like to help if I can."
They stepped into the hall and Gin let out a frustrated noise. Anselm gave a look.
"Elroy is hanging around out there." She nodded toward that brown skinned bandanna boy
loitering against the wall near the stairs. "Ugh. He's going to try to hit on me when we walk by him.
Just ignore him."
"You shouldn't have to deal with that kind of thing in your own home."
"I don't know if he thinks I'm trying to be hard to get or what. It's like, 'no' means 'yes' to him."
"If he can't take a hint, I'm sure he can take five across the face."
Gin lowered her voice to a sidelong mumble as they neared the harasser. "Gosh, not by me. I'm
a big wuss. I can't hit anybody."
"Unfortunately, violence is the only language certain folks understand."

40
Anselm was prepared with some earnest words in response to any unwanted flirtation that might
slip out, but Elroy resolved to instead reach behind them to give Gin's rear a slap. Almost before his
palm had could make contact with the denim, the deputy had his wrist. With a pivot, push, and twist, he
was pinned with one arm wrenched behind his back and his face pressed to the wall by a forearm at the
back of his neck.
"Do you enjoy having hands lain on you?"
"No."
"Don't put your hands on people without their permission."
"Yes. I'm sorry."
Deputy Anselm let him slip out, lifting her discarded duffel bag off the floor. He backed off,
raising his hands in an emphasis of surrender.
On the way downstairs, she wondered if she'd been too harsh. Not for the sake of Mr. Elroy. Ten
years ago, before she earned her badge and the discipline that came with it, she would have gladly
broken his nose. The deliberation was in the interest of Gin's comfort, having retaliated in her place.
Incidentally, she looked over to find the girl gaping with a starry-eyed grin on her face.
"That was awwwesome!"
Waiting just outside the building was Latch, quick to wipe Gin's cheery disposition away.
"What's he doing here?!" She jutted a finger toward the head-chopper, who had been busy up until that
point fiddling with his cellphone.
"Huh? Talkin' to me?"
"How could you possibly know him?" Deputy Anselm asked.
"Oh yeah. That's right, she was in the office when I went to beat on that CEO dude."
"He threatened to chop off his head! He had a big sword with him! And I got security called on
me for trying to warn everybody!"
"You did? That's funny."
"It wasn't!"
The deputy pinched the bridge of her nose and exhausted a breath. "He's a separate objective of
mine. He's under my arrest. I got stuck with escorting him back to the appropriate prison."
"Why'd you leave him outside, uncuffed?"
"Because he's handing himself in, I don't have handcuffs, and he knows if he runs, he'll be in
bigger trouble."
Latch shrugged. "I don't wanna be arrested in this shit hole. The charges I got in this city are
stacks higher than what I'm wanted for back home."
"Until I go back home, he's gonna be with me. I can get rope or something to tie his hands if
that makes you feel better."
"Wait. What? No. Fuckin' no," he protested. Anselm squared her jaw at him.
"As long as he doesn't have weapon, I guess it's okay."
"Frisk me."
Gin passed on the open-armed offer, moving by the couple to begin leading to their possible
source of information. They took a perfectly timed bus to the docks. It was a busy Monday, the wharfs
were lined with dozens of workers beginning their salty workweek. Amongst the throng of seamen, Gin
was able pick out a lively and moustachioed venderman wooping at a group hefting gear aboard a
fishing trawler. He exclaimed at the sight of Gin, arms raised.
She explained their situation. In part. The part that mattered, anyway: that they needed a ride to
Kallipyge today.
"Kallipyge, hummm? Yis, yis! I go! I go back and forth there on my feeshing trip!"
Gin peeked over a shoulder at her company with a prideful expression of success.
"I sell part of my catch there. It is beeeee-YOO-tiful leedle island with a leedle town, boop, in

41
the middle. Eet has thees mountains, and you can see the sun rise over them. Every week, I go on my
leeeeedle boat with my a'beeg nets. It can catch thee beegest feesh you'll ever see!"
The fish vender's discourse over the visuals of Kallipyge continued. Gin couldn't tell if he was
talking to the other two or had completely forgotten he had delivered Gin from the island less than a
year ago. He kept on, finding ways in his one-sided conversation to segues from the beauties of
Kallipyge to the subject of fishing all the while Gin's mouth undulated in squandered attempts to
interject.
"...So beeg! SO beeg, thee feesh! Boh-ho! Sometimes, I dunno how thee feesh can get so beeg. I
look down in the net and I say, 'Huh?! I dunno!'"
Latch was grinding his teeth when Anselm stepped into the conversation. "Oh. Fascinating," she
tried to sound genuine while cutting through the fisherman's sentence. "So, would it be possible for you
to give us a lift?"
"Dee-pends," He dug his hand into the pocket of his over-stretched pants and teetered. "Do
you," his mustache twitched, "...love feesh?"
"What kinda dumba--" Anselm elbowed Latch, "...amazing question is that? I know love fish."
He cut her a sideways glare.
"Yes, we love fish. And fishing."
"Then you can have leeft!"
Gin pumped her fists. "Great!"
Fortune was smiling upon them this morning. With Gin's guidance, they were able to board the
venderman's fishing boat and make way for Kallipyge.
*
The watch around Bradley's wrist beeped, waking him from his sleepless gaze into the ceiling.
The watch belonged to Mortlock. It was cheap and plastic--spartan, like the man himself--but it told the
time and it had an alarm. Minimalism was something he began to appreciate during this brief time
away as a demonstration of how displaced he could feel away from his natural habitat. It forced him to
identify what commonalities he really needed to not only to get by, but to be content. This sort of
hypothesizing lead naturally into the opposite facet, a process of elimination that forced him to check
off all the superfluous commonalities he could do without. He was surprised by some of them.
Bradley double checked the things in his backpack and headed into town. Westward, a dark
cloud sailed, daring its harbor to release ships its way. It's girth impressed him to a halt. In its
threatening lurk, he felt it address him personally.
Finding Mortlock at the bar, he asked if he could postpone the flight back to the mainland.
"Sure, but you'd probably have to wait a couple'a days... A part of that storm's supposed to be on
toppa us come tomorrow. And the next day, I'll be busy all day." The pilot lifted a bottle to his mouth
and took a sip.
"But it's over the ocean now. You're still gonna go out there today?"
"I gotta go out there, anyways. My buddy's ship is headed back form the mainland and they
realized their radio was busted, so I gotta go fly 'em a newbie. You still tagging along?"
He took another drought. The second tap of the bottle's glass against the bar top finally attracted
Bradley's attention.
"You're drinking?"
He guzzled the rest of the bottle and smacked his lips with a hazy blink, then burped. "Yeah...
I'm a little nervous 'bout the storm."
Bradley sunk into one of the stools and slid his head into his hands. He ordered a coffee.
Mortlock clapped him on the back and got up to prepare the flight.

42
*
Somewhere between the coasts, the rising sun lit the belly of the grey mass dominating the sky.
Time and space itself appeared to transform as they flew beneath this ominous cloud, the cascading
blue water morphing into a body of churning oil as the bright afternoon plummeted into muted shades.
The storm was a patient beast, foreboding at its brink, teasing, knowing they'd push on. The
wind began mocking them with mild gusts and picked up without forewarning to bat the helicopter like
a toy. Bradley was bumping around by his white-knuckled grip of the ceiling handlebar while Mortlock
bucked in the cockpit.
"Here she is."
He turned to the hatch window. The scenery had become undecipherable behind a wall of rain.
"We're goin' in."
In what? In where?
"Grab that radio, Madfish."
"Have it. How are we going to land this thing on a boat in this weather?"
The pilot grunted. "Land? We aren't landin' nowhere, bubby."
Oh.
"Open the hatch!"
He forced the door aside, inviting a torrential storm inside the fuselage. Water climbed the
outsole of his shoes until he was struggling against a whirlwind of ricocheting gusts in two inches of
rain. The collar flaps of his bomber jacket flailed, slapping his cheeks for the stupid choice he'd made
to come here.
He wiped a sleeve over his face. A blurry mass took shape above the sea.
"Lining 'er up!" Mortlock shouted over the storm's uproar. "You ready, Mady?"
"Ready for what?!"
"You gotta throw that bitch on board, a'course!"
A'course.
Capable of using only one hand to grip the handlebar as his other wrapped its arm around the
radio, Bradley hunkered to a broad stance to keep his footing. Ten seconds against the cold elements
and his face and hands were stinging.
"How's it lookin' on that side? You need a closer shot?"
He fumbled with the box, gauging the distance against the wind resistance. He felt his sweat
glands cold start at the realization that two hands would be required for this maneuver. "...Way closer."
A hundred feet below, the trawler was doing the worm atop the sea. The upturned faces of the
crew hustled across the deck, positioning themselves to catch the delivery wherever it may fall.
"Brad?! Heyyy!"
A voice cut just barely through the roars of the storm. One of the faces was calling out to him,
waving a flashlight. He tilted out of the hatch enough to identify which: a short female with brunette
hair whipping in the wind cupped her mouth, shouting his name.
Of all places...
It could have been his lapse of attention or the repositioning of his hand, but the storm only
needed a single act of thoughtlessness to tear Bradley from the fuselage. He wasn't granted so much as
a millisecond of the terror one typically experienced while teetering against imbalance, but a few
visceral sentiments crossed his mind: the slipping of his hand, the disorientation of his thrashing body,
and the dense punch of water against the surface area of his back. The shock of iciness caused a
spasmodic gasp of cold liquid. Waves threw him sideways. He choked, and the disillusion of terror at
last caught up with him as his vocal cords constricted to seal his esophagus.
He was forced to swallow the water that his throat disallowed him to breath and sunk with the

43
weight of his gulps. He raked his hands through the water until the density exhausted him.
It was painful--a confusing, surreal sort of pain that caused the incredulity as to how something
like this could be happening to someone like him. And now. He never got his haircut. He still had to
file his taxes. He'd miss the season finale of Toonces Roadtrip. Truly, this was a particularly
inopportune time to be drowing. The last thing frustrating his thoughts before they fell into the
daydreams of unconsciousness was the voice calling to him from the ship. That had definitely been
Gin, and being dead would make it impossible to know what she'd come all this way to bug him about.
*
The ship erupted in shouts.
"MAN OVERBOARD! MAN OVERBOARD!"
Gin slammed the rails, bending herself to search the water. Life preservers began falling in, but
no one appeared above the dark waves to claim one.
Deputy Anselm and Latch came to her sides to aid the search. Latch was the first to notice Gin
unbuckling her life jacket. He asked if she was stupid. Anselm tried to grab her arm. She cut away,
dropped her jacket, and vaulted herself over the side of the ship. She hit the waves with a graceless
impact, pushed up, rolled left, and was dunked. She scraped at the water around her, climbing, breaking
the surface again. She gasped a full, lucky breath of air, clenched her flashlight between her teeth, and
dove.
The ocean dragged her away from the life preservers bobbing on the surface. She fought against
it, searching with sweeps, trying with inanity to penetrate a sea of darkness with a needle of light. The
indomitable current dragged her further and deeper into itself, and her mind began to disorganize
amongst the maundering abyss.
A notion glittered amongst panicked thoughts. With a sweep of her arms, she reeled herself to
face downstream, condensing her search to the current's direction. The light reflected off something,
then lost it. She jerked her head, trying to get it in the way of her flashlight once more. With a sweep,
she pinpointed its position. A glimpse of a human figure.
It was just a few feet away and downward. If she could just...
She released oxygen from her lungs air and swum toward it, shoving water aside. The forces of
nature worked with her, body influenced by the current, swept steadily toward her target.
She exhaled more air. She lashed a hand and her fingers grazed clothing...
The water swelled around her, lifting her, preparing to throw her away. Sinking her teeth into
the rubber of her flashlight, she clawed at the rifting figure. The gradual lug became a sharp yank. She
was pulled past the body.
With one last frustrating swipe through visceral seawater, her palm impacted something. Her
fingers clamped down, and she anchored herself to the weight. She got him!
She raised her light toward the surface, blessed with the glisten of a white ring drifting
overhead. It took all of oxygen she had left to drag Bradley upward. Near the surface, she raised her
free hand to the ring, pushing her fingers into the rope lace to pull through the water's surface and over
the life preserver. Bradley's weight multiplied at the surface, but no amount of weight could weaken the
vice of her grip now. Eventually, one of the crewmen who had come in after her was able to relieve her
of Bradley as others reeled her in. On board, people rushed to congratulate and chide.
"That was amazing!"
"Are you alright?!"
"Boh!"
"Crazy girl!"
"What were you thinking?!"
Gravity pulled her from supporting hands, to the deck. She erupted into an excruciating fit of

44
coughs and everyone took a step backwards as a couple of the more medically inclined anglers came
forward.
She was hurried out of the rain and into the infirmary where she was encouraged to cough up
residual water, given a bottle of fresh water, and bundled in a dry towel.
Bradley was brought with her. He was able to be resuscitated, though fell unconscious.
According to the men stabilizing him, he was suffering a dangerously low heart rate due to a
combination of chill, asphyxiation, and possibly some thickening of blood depending on how much
saltwater he had inhaled,
Gin loomed behind the fishermen as they held Bradley in a lateral position and kept his pulse.
Waiting. To wait was all they could do and it took several full, sweat-inducing minutes for him to
come-to with enough clarity to speak. The sailors conversed with him shortly before he rolled over to
go back to sleep, not seeming to process much of the exchange.
"He'll be alright," they had assured before leaving him to rest. Gin was left unconvinced. She
was no doctor, but neither were they, and Bradley's delirious babbling before dropping off again was
more worrisome to her than comforting.
So she sat at his bedside with Deputy Anselm propped against a wall for moral support. Hours
passed and Latch eventually came in to announce lunch being held above deck. Gin wouldnt budge, so
Anselm delivered the food to her. Gin ate, placed the empty bowl on the nightstand, and returned to her
stool, nursing can of soda in a patient wait for a sign of clarity.
Feeling pent up, the Deputy Anselm returned above-deck to eat. Latch joined her near the ship's
bow, striking a conversation out of the blue.
"So what were you doing right before you came here, anyway? Mentioned something about a
burning building."
She was a bit taken by the question. It was more personal than the norm for a man who spent
most of his oxygen complaining about the present.
"Yes. I was trapped inside of a burning workshop."
"Why were you there to begin with?"
"Someone came to the station complaining about smoke. Turned out somebody left an
overheating boiler unattended. It was an act of sabotage, I'm sure. The shop's engineer had just patented
the newfangled machine that week and there'd been rumors of spys coming through to see it. It was a
newly invented type of boiler, presumably multiple times the efficiency of kettle boilers. I can at least
attest it's multiple times more dangerous."
"You people heat shit with kettles? You really do come from the stone age."
"If you're going to ask me something..."
"Sorry. I'm just imagining like...a little tea kettle, you know? Hooked up to hot water pipes in
somebody's basement. Holy shit. I dunno why that's so funny to me."
"Me neither."
"Not far from the truth, though, right? Anyway, go ahead: this guy burns this place down with
his new tea kettle..."
"No. That wasn't even remotely what I said. Fuck you."
"Whoa! C'mon, tell me your exciting firefighter story."
"No. Your life is so exciting, why would I even try to impress you?"
"Wanna know what I was doing? I was taking a shit just before I wound up here."
"I'm eating."
"That's the truth, if we're being honest here."
"There are politer expressions created specifically to avoid the phrase 'taking a shit,' while
people are eating."
"Anyway, when I opened the door to leave, it lead me into this place. Magic fucking door trick."

45
"Mm."
"'Mmm,' she says. This not an interesting topic, talking about our inception within this reality?"
"I've been sitting in that room with the idea of death hanging over my head all morning. I'm a
little spent."
"The spectacle of a death is proportional to the importance of the character. Noelle's the protag.
He's not gonna just fizzle out, trust me. "
"Gin doesn't know that."
"They'll both be fine. His near death and her emotional concern is all part of the arc bullshit."
"Careful with the criticism or you'll devalue yourself."
"See, you're making a joke, but you wouldn't say that if a part of you didn't mean it."
"We are extensions of a story."
Latch made a noise of distaste. "I'm not about to ride the author's dick for inviting me to this
travesty. Lampshades and shit. I'd rather not be associated, and I'm not about to define myself by
something I was physically forced to be a part of."
"You could say that about most things in life."
He chose to sip his soup instead of answering.
"What would you like? To not be part of the author's work?"
"I'd like to avoid being rigged into a story and having to worry about what will happen to me if
these events are tossed in the garbage."
"If you're lucky, he's writing this part out. Maybe your complaints will get through to him."
"Why would this conversation be included? There's nothing going on here that's important.
Unless I do something like..." Latch cupped hit mouth to the ceiling, "HEY! YOU LISTENING!"
"Really? You're going to... Okay."
"I'M YELLING SO THAT EVERYBODY SIGNFICANT CAN HEAR ME, SO NOW THIS IS AN
IMPORTANT PIECE OF DIALOG THAT CAN'T BE GLOSSED OVER!"
"Bradley is asleep, so that's not necessary true..."
"DON'T FORGET THE ITALICIZED CAPS, YOU HACK!"
Several of the crew had stopped what they were doing to turn their heads. Anselm concealed her
attention with a heavy drought from her bowl while separating herself to the opposite side of the deck.
Voluntarily alone, she hunched against the rails while she finished the food. She picked a carrot
out and dropped it for a school of carp following alongside the ship. They exploded into individuals as
the vegetable hit the water, then collapsed inward to gobble the morsel up. The carrot would be gone
with some of the fish not getting a bite, but the simple, ignorant animals, only as selfish as their
survival required, continued to follow with no discouragement, just hoping for a bite of their own.
*
Bradley woke to the soft creaking of wood. Cold, sharp memories flooded his mind like water.
Nothing beyond flashes of moments beneath the ocean were clear except some feverish dreams. He
supposed he must have blacked out. He patted his pockets for belongings and realized he wasn't
wearing his own pants. He'd been in a pair of jeans. On him now were a set of khakis. His shirt had
changed from a sleeved thermal to a plain white tee.
Likely, the small, wooden room encapsulating him to be the innards of the trawler he'd been
flying over. A first-aid cabinet marked with a red cross was fastened near a credenza stacked with
bandages, gauze, saline, and some bottles of alcohols and antiseptics. A tall, wavy-haired redhead sat
on the floor against the cabinet, her hat slouched over her eyes. It was that deputy woman who had
barged into his home three days ago. How was that possible?
His bed occupied the back wall. Gin hunched herself over the mattress, folded arms for pillows
were propped against his blanketed legs as her rear occupied half of a low-seated stool. She was

46
wearing an outfit of remarkably male style consisting of a disheveled button dress shirt and a pair of
black chino pants. She was bare footed.
He pulled his leg out from under her. She hardly stirred.
A half drank water bottle sat beside an empty bowl on a crate acting as a nightstand. He guzzled
it and wavered on groggy sea legs to an emergency sink to satiate the remainder of his enormous thirst.
Having to pee with equal enormity, he proceeded to the only exit, which lead to stairs. A natural veteran
of this sort of man-made terrain, he didn't think twice about how difficult walking up stairs could
possibly be until he placed his first foot and found that balancing on a stair while lifting his second foot
could prove to be a serious physical challenge. He leaned into his right foot, carefully lifting his left,
rocked, and hit the wall with his shoulder.
The room spun. He felt sick.
He lowered himself to take the stairs at a literal crawl to the next deck. Sliding a hand along the
wall, he oriented himself and paced gingerly through a narrow corridor of doors. He followed voices to
a room with a couple of crewmen fiddling with a rigger. The man cradling the device double-took
Bradley. He looked like a lumberjack, burgundy beard and plaid shirt included.
The other wore a hat with ear flaps. He had a round, prominent body, though his features were
dominated by the bushy black mustache on his face.
Wait...
"Boh! He awakens!"
"Aren't you the guy who sells those fish sticks? In Santa Vidora?"
"Yis!" The man's voice hit a frequency that made Bradley's hypersensitive head buzz.
"Nice fall," Lumberjack Guy congratulated, beating the metal of the rigger with his palm.
"You're lucky you got towed out of the water. Wish I could say the same for the radio."
"It is brooooken," the Fishtix vender answered Bradley's apologetic look with a dejected slump
of his body.
Lumberjack Guy sighed with a more serious sentiment of annoyance. "Sucks. But, hey, you
didn't get broken, right?"
"Don't think so. Who pulled me out of the water?"
"That short brunette."
Short brunette...
"Hey, you don't look so good. How do you feel?"
"I've got to piss really bad."
"Oh! Thee restroom is right next door!" The venderman shooed him. "Go, go!"
"And if you're hungry, which I bet you are," Lumberjack pointed rhetorically. "the kitchen is the
first door around the corner."
Grateful to be out from under the attention of the fishermen whose radio he'd lost, he rushed to
the bathroom. He puked up more water than he urinated and felt exhausted all over again.
In the kitchen, a large pot sat atop the stove, full of red soup. Stomach pains discouraged his
appetite, though he ladled a bowlful and microwaved it with the supposition he'd have to feel better
with something in his stomach. T-minus thirty seconds later according to the microwave timer, yet
another familiar face struck Bradley with its presence: the mullet-haired man who had been traveling
with the deputy days before came in to pour some soup with no interest in fostering the attention he had
prompt. He walked over to the microwave and stopped in front of Bradley with a bowl of soup and
unspoken air of arrogant assertion.
The microwave dinged. Bradley retrieved his bowl and walked it to the table where he quietly
stirred the heat from the broth with head propped on hand, fingers digging through his hair as he took
audience to the eccentricities around him. The silence ensued for a exactly a minute, according to the
microwave's ding. The fuaxhaired man retrieved his bowl and began to all too casually stir it in

47
Bradley's peripherals.
Latch. That was the name.
"You're following me," Bradley said.
Latch leaned against the cabinet and sipped from his bowl.
"Why are you following me?"
"I'm waiting for you to die so I can get on with my life. I thought I had lucked out."
The confusing answer bit at him. Bradley chopped hunk of potato with his spoon. "Who are
you?"
"Latch."
"What's your connection with Leaven?"
"There is none."
"But you know him, don't you? I know there's something going on between you and him that
has something to do with me."
"None of your business." The man began strolling toward the door. "None of my business,
either."
The answer, or lack of, amazed Bradley. Adrenaline seeped into his veins, suppressing his
exhaustion and illness so that he could practically leap over the table to get himself between Latch and
the exit. "You think this is funny, fucking with my head?!"
The man gauged his aggression with an up-and-down. "If you wanna throw down, we can do
that."
"Alls I want is a straight answer. Why are you following me? And how could you have possibly
found me here?"
"I'm not following you, I'm following that redheaded chick following you. The 'dep-yoo-tee.'
Remember her? Why don't you go interrogate her? I wouldn't blame you for trying to wrench an
explanation out of somebody...but it isn't going to be me."
He concluded this with an indifferent slurp of his soup. Bradley wanted to slap the bowl out of
his hand. He might have if he could be sure the guy wasn't accompanied by Mr. De Knifo today.
Forgetfully abandoning his food, Bradley retreated to the infirmary, nearly tripping over Deputy
Anselm on his way to the bed. He grabbed Gin off of it to shake her awake. "Gin!"
"Hun...uhwah?" Groggy eyes set upon him and livened. "Oh, good! You're not dead!"
"Yeah, I--"
"No pneumonia?"
"I don't think so. I--"
"And no brain damage?"
"For alls I know, but if I got brain damaged, I wouldn't know, would I?"
"Egads, your breath smells really bad. Did you barf?"
"No. Yes. Just listen!" He checked on the woman sleeping against the credenza and lowered his
voice. "Something really, really weird is going on. You gotta tell me everything you know about...that
lady and the guy she's with." He pulled her out of her stool and towed her to the topside of the ship
where a tremendous smell of low-tide struck him into a brand new state of nausea. A fresh netload had
been dumped right outside the cabin exit, covering the deck with hundreds of pounds of gasping,
flopping, slapping fish. Gin steadied him as he wavered on his feet.
They escaped up a ladder to the aft. Bradley positioned Gin directly affront himself and spoke
in a rigid temper to convey the importance of her cooperation. "Alright, Gin, so why are you here with
them?"
"I'm here to help Deputy Anselm find you!" she practically hollered in preordained defense.
"She said you were in trouble. She really needed to talk to you. For your own protection. I think. Or
something. I dunno what. She said you weren't in trouble with the law, though."

48
"The law?! I don't know what they are," Bradley stabbed his finger at the aforementioned they,
"but they're not part of the law!"
"I didn't know that! She showed me a badge!"
"That doesn't mean anything. When did you meet them?"
"Today."
"That the truth? Because they knew where I lived last week."
"No...or, uh...yes. 'Yes' to the part about telling the truth. I meant to say 'no' about...in
response...to the part...about you thinking I met them last week. I didn't."
"Okay, did you tell them any personal information about me?"
"Like what? What the heck personal info do I have on you? That you drink frou-frou
macchiatos?"
"I mean like where I work, or my phone number, or my online accounts."
"No."
"I don't drink macchiatos-- by the way."
"Yes. I saw you drinking one once."
"Oh, wow. Once. And that was a latte."
"What's the difference?"
"A macchioto is espresso added to milk. A latte is milk added to espresso, and it doesn't have as
much foam because... It doesn't matter! What did you tell them?"
"Nothing!"
"Did either of them say why they were after me?"
"No. I told you what they told me. They wanted to talk to you, they said."
"That is all they said?"
"Yesss!"
"And that was enough of an explanation for you to lead them to where I was? How'd you even
know where I was?!"
"I didn't! I didn't even know you left! They knew already, not me!"
"That doesn't make sense! Then why are you even here?!"
She cupped her ears and spun away. "Ugh! Stop yelling at me!"
"You're--! I'm not--!" He growled, rubbed his face, and spoke at her with frustration still
singeing soft spoken words. "Gin. I just need... You're not explaining your answers fully, and I'm a
little...confused. Okay? And stressed. Gin. Hey."
She remained unresponsive to his simmering anger, stone silent and still.
"Gin. Giiin... Gin! You're gonna do this? You're gonna play that game? What are you, ten? Are
you a ten-year-old, Gin?"
His fingers twitched with annoyance. It took all of his will to repress the emotions he felt into a
simple, "...I'm hungry," before having to flee from the obnoxious girl. He strafed to the edge of the aft
and dropped onto the main deck, landing directly in front of the deputy where she loitered affront the
cabin. She didn't pretend to look inconspicuous within eavesdropping distance of his loud conversation.
"You come to give me an explanation or what?"
She raised a brow at the tempered remark and took a step backwards into the cabin as a rogue
fish came bounding to thwack Bradley in the back of the head. With a noise of disgust, he wiped at the
fish grime on his neck. One of the anglers came over to toss the flopping escapee into a nearby trunk of
fish.
"Maybe get off the poop deck while we're working and you won't get slapped by the locals," he
scolded.
"How about we talk about it over some food?" came the deputy's suggestion from the safety of
the cabin overhang.

49
Down in the kitchen, she set Bradley with a reheated bowl of soup and a freshly toasted half
loaf of bread. The room was mercifully empty, allowing him to eat without interruption. The warm,
necessary food proved to be an instant improvement to his disposition, enabling him to begin the
interrogation with new patience.
"So, who are you?"
"My name is Mona D'Arcy Anselm. I am a constable, but not of any law enforcement remotely
near here, or Santa Vidora, or the country of Uesica as you know it. I work for the Royal Irish
Constabulary." There was not a hint of procrastination in the wild answer.
"You're from Ireland."
"The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Not the Ireland as you know it."
"So you're a time traveler."
"No."
"Last time I checked a world map, I saw one Ireland. Where's yours?"
She glowered dully. "...A different world."
Bradley spread an ample portion of butter on his bread. "Okay. Cryptic talk."
"I'm not being cryptic. This is not easy concept to explain."
"Is your 'Ireland' some remote, unknown little third world country or what?"
"Do you believe in alternative realities, Bradley?"
He lowered his butter knife. "Like the multiverse theory? That?"
"I suppose, if that is a term for it."
"I try not to have opinions on that sort of thing."
"Why not?"
"I spent the last few years of my life producing content for social media. There isn't a lot of
useful wisdom to gain from the constant, malicious criticism the internet provides except to not debate
things that hold no testability. Unfalsifiable. That's the word."
"In that case, you won't be open to my explanation."
"You trying to tell me you're a dimension alien?"
She reached over the table to tear off a portion of his loaf. "Something like that."
He continued eating.
"I'm here because the author of the worlds we live in chose me--and Latch for whatever reason--
to relay a request of you to continue contact with Gin after being removed from your employment.
And, three days ago, we succeeded. Yet," her finger tapped against the tabletop, "he and I are still in
this realm. We're revisiting you in hopes of progressing the story so it will reach a conclusion, and we
can return home to our own worlds, which, like your world, are also part of a fictitious story. Written
literally by an author."
"'Fictitious.'"
"Yes. By the perspective of the author, we are fictional creations. How much weight that holds
on our daily lives, I can't be sure. For example, I suspect that the author is writing this dialog we're
having currently, word-for-word. Or perhaps he summarized it in an expository paragraph. Or perhaps
it isn't part of the written story at all. I don't know, because my knowledge of how these events are
organized is absent."
Bradley sucked on his teeth and leaned back in his chair, unscrewing the cap to his water bottle.
"You're saying I'm part of somebody's fairytale story?"
She dipped her head assuredly.
"That's the whole thing? That's your excuse for stalking me. That?"
"That is our reason, yes."
He gulped a mouthful of water, screwed the cap back on, and cleared his throat. "I think you are
insane."

50
"You asked for an explanation. I gave it. Latch gave it to me. I wouldn't have believed him
either, if not for my own personal observations. I'm not here to convince you."
"What are you here for?"
"As I've said: to relay the command to contact Gin. Now that I've done that, and you've abide, I
don't really know what else any of us are supposed to do."
"Okay." He lifted his hands in surrender and slapped them to the table. "I'll give you the benefit
of the doubt and believe that you believe you're own words. That you're delirious, brainwashed by
some cultist, and you think that he's your messiah or creator or whatever, and I'll accept that. But I want
no part of it."
"You're misinterpreting."
"I don't care. I don't want to be recruited into this thing. And I don't want you stalking me. I am
going to call the police on Leaven as soon as I get back to the city, and if you or Latch continue to
harass me, I'm going to report you, too. No more. Don't follow me, don't spy on me, don't ever come
near my apartment again."
For a brainwashed zealot, the 'deputy' was as apathetic as usual in the face of criticism. With a
shake of her head and a wave of her hand, she gave an agreeable, "That's fair."
Bradley bounced his water bottle against the table, sniggering sarcastically in the stead of a
more proper reaction to such a situation. "Leaven is a part of this, isn't he?"
"We're all 'a part of it,' Bradley, aware or not. If you're asking if he is aware of the author, then I
don't know for sure, but according to Latch, it seems as though he is."
The historical correlation between alternative-thinking, powerful executive types and instability
came to mind. Egocentric attitudes were often mutual with insanity. Knowing Machivel Media, Bradley
wouldn't be surprised if Leaven was in the process of turning this underground cult enlightenment into
a commercial enterprise.
"Is Gin convinced of this fiction junk, too?"
"She's unaware."
He took in more soup, humming another chortle. "Hm-hm." He inhaled some and coughed. He
cleared his throat. "Good. Thanks. 'Thanks' for the info."
The late lunch carried on with no further questions and the woman didn't bother with any
further explanation. They mutely bypassed the political stalking, the email hack resulting in his
unemployment, this exile: all executed in support of a metaphysical, metafictional philosophy and/or
religion.
Finished and prepared to leave, he was stopped in the doorway by Anselm's final thought:
"Do you remember anything that was told to you after you were resuscitated?"
The off-topic question disturbed him not just a little. Nobody had mentioned him having to be
resuscitated. "I flatlined?"
"You drowned. Didn't stand a chance in that ocean. Would you like to know how you survived?"
"How?"
"That non-friend of yours." Anselm ripped her bread apart. "You were swallowed by the waves.
Invisible. And I don't know if anyone was willing to risk going in after you. But she took off her
floatation device to follow you down. She somehow found you in the dark and was able to pull your
head above the water. Why do you suppose she would bother?" The deputy placed a small piece into
her mouth.
Caught unsteady by the ship's undulations, Bradley grabbed the doorway. "I wouldn't know
what to reay to that..."
Anselm peered at him, chewing slowly. "Thank you," she informed. "...You say 'thank you.'"
Bradley returned above deck to the aft.

51
Gin remained, having taken a spot at the back to observe the boat's trail. Amongst the
subterfuge of whistling gusts and slapping water, he approached, studying her secondhand clothes and
bare feet: a testament to her pursuit into the ocean. It brought the question on Anselm's mind to his,
tying his stomach. Whatever the reason for Gin's choice to have done what she had done, he could not
relate, and the idea of having to bear this in her presence made him want to turn away. A worse
prospect was knowing that, given the opportunity, he would have. He'd of turned around and never
faced her again. But here they were, in the same boat. No where to run.
He came to her side, sharing a view of the boat's tail of split water.
"Hey, Gin." He pivoted to her front, catching only brief eye contact. "G-unit." He nudged a fist
to her arm in a pally punch.
She rotated away.
"Alright, I don't need you to talk... Just listen to me." A moment to recite his thoughts, double
checking their logic. "I'm a little neurotic, so I guess that makes it hard for me to recognize when
somebody cares. I know what you did." He moved to her front again. "But I don't know why you did
what you did. I've never given you a reason to stick your neck out for me that way."
"Sure you have," she said quietly.
"I really, really wish I could agree."
She lifted her face, perplexity veering to almost irate. "You treat me like an equal. Even when
you get frustrated, I always felt like it was because you expect more from me. Like you...you... You
don't look at me the way other people do. You know? I'm not a mess!" Her explanation exasperated,
taking on a new, tremulous vigor that seeped into her body language. She balled hands into assertive
fists. "We click when we try, you know? It means a lot."
"Enough to justify you jumping overboard, into a stormy ocean?"
"Maybe it meant more to me than it does to you, but I feel like you have to know what I mean,
don't you? Don't you?! You don't, do you? If you don't know what I mean, it's fine. I don't know, either.
Is that what you want to hear? I don't have a good reason, okay? I just did what I did because! Why's
there always gotta be a reason with you?!" She lifted her clenched hands. They trembled and broke
apart, falling with her desirous expression. She declined her face below the visor of her cap. "If you
don't understand, then it's fine."
Bradley placed his hands on her arms. She stiffened.
"I'm not trying to argue. I don't understand. I can't understand. But and that's okay. I'm infinitely
grateful for your choice."
"Thanks, but I just--"
He reeled her into a hug. "Thank you. You're a good person. You're a good friend. Thank you,
thank you."
The girl's rigid body unraveled all at once and her baited breath began again. She dipped her
face to his shoulder. Her relief melted into him and the two basked in their moment of reassurance.
Part 3
The trawlers nets raised from the water with a fresh catch every hour, spilling a load of fish
onto the deck which the anglers would spend fifteen minutes selectively harvesting by hand, throwing
the desirable fish into a tub, and the rest overboard. They'd spend the next half hour cleaning the deck
and do it over again twenty-five minutes later. The four freeloaders were told to stay out of the way
while the men worked, though the smell of fish slop was enough to isolate Gin below deck for the
majority of the day. After being relieved of waiting for Bradley to wake up, she spent the remainder of
the afternoon asleep in the infirmary, interrupted only when Bradley entered sometime in the late
evening. He announced himself with a tap of his knuckle to the doorway.
"Yo, yo."

52
"Yo." Lain recumbent in bed, she didn't bother to so much as lift her eyelids.
"We're close to the island."
"'Kay."
"You should probably get up."
"'Kay."
"...Are you going to?"
"Nope."
"We're gonna be docking in like fifteen, twenty minutes."
"Cool."
"You wanna be left on the boat alone or what?"
"Yep."
He faltered. "...Are you okay?"
"I just don't wanna walk around Callowtown. I'll stay here tonight."
"Don't you want to stretch your legs? This is your old stomping ground, right? Your sister lives
here."
"That's the reason I don't wanna." Her eyelid opened. "How do you know my sister lives here?"
"I delivered her mail yesterday."
She opened her other eyelid. "You didn't tell me that part of the story."
He came over to sit on the Gin's bed. He kept his back to her to avoid putting too much pressure
on the next question. "I'm telling you now. So why'd you leave your sister here to head to the
mainland?"
"I just wanted to try and make it on my own."
"How's that been working out for you?
"I live in a dirty shelter and I eat ramen noodles for breakfast."
"You shouldn't be ashamed of admitting that to your sister. Nobody expects a teenage islander to
strike gold her first year in the city."
"I'm not ashamed."
"Why were you in such a hurry to be on your own, anyway? Since when are you a hasty
person?"
"Me and Jen just didn't get along anymore. I hated listening to her. I can't help it. She treats me
like a baby. It's probably my fault, but..." Bradley opened his mouth and she pressed a finger against his
face. "Shuh! I know you're supposed to say 'that's not true,' but I'm ventilating here, so just let me."
He removed the finger. "I wasn't going to say that."
"She's more stylish and prettier..."
"Subjective, but I don't see what your point is."
"She's taller. Her boobs are bigger. And they're, like, perfect." She groped herself in
despondency. "She has a great body, right?"
"She is...oh-kay?"
"I'm just sick of being around her all day, every day."
"There's a lot of stuff I don't feel like dealing with either, but...but, uh... Can you stop?"
She dropped her chest-fondling hands.
"What I'm saying is that you shouldn't let a little purple rain chase you away."
She rolled her eyes. "That means a lot coming from you."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"You sat in Machivel until they kicked you out. You didn't like it there but you stayed."
"So? I don't regret that. I stayed so I could support myself."
"And I wanted to support my self. Don't you like living on your own?"
"Sure, but I don't live in a nasty flop house."

53
"It's a little bit better than being treated like a helpless puppy."
Bradley realized he had no case to argue with.
"Why do you live alone, anyways, Brad? You got a girlfriend. Haven't you been going out for a
while?"
This was not something he hadn't thought about, and he had an answer prepared for himself.
"Most people show different parts of themselves depending on different circumstances, and I guess I'm
afraid of that sort of unpredictability. To be honest, I don't really know what it would be like to be with
her day in and day out."
"That's what we call 'commitment issues.'"
"I'll admit it, I have commitment issues. I had issues with being assigned desk-mate at work."
"Dat was me! Er-- what are you implying?"
"It turned out okay."
"We pulled it off, right?"
"Right."
"I bet we could be roommates. Eh?"
He responded to her jump to conclusion with a dissuasive look.
"I know, but hypothetically," she defended. "Hypothetically?"
"I'm used to the solo life."
She grunted with dissatisfaction. "A business-mate?"
Ask her to be your business partner. Latch's suggestion flashed through his mind.
Gin must have noticed the jounce in his eyes. "...What? What did I say?"
He rattled it from his head. "What about a business?"
"Like, a...partnership? We know plenty about media and content creation stuff to do our own
thing. You can direct, I can do the aesthetic, artsy stuff. And the clerky, organizy stuff."
"It would be costly."
"If we fail, we can get work with the Fishtix vender. Maybe he'll re-brand for us. Madfishstix,
'now in a can.'"
Bradley snickered. "I'm not saying a business wouldn't work. At least I'd know what I'm getting
into with you."
"What is that supposed to mean? Is that good?"
He raised himself from the bed. "It means that I know that I can..." The confession slowed
deliberately as he realized the weight of the remaining words. He gathered his thoughts. "I know that I
can trust you."
"You've got issues."
If the breadth of Bradley's feelings were given the presence of glass, the frank statement would
be a tiny hammer. "Why would you say that?"
"I had to save your butt from certain doom to get you to 'trust' me?"
"Trust you enough to share serious life responsibilities with? It's not unreasonable. Most people
are distrustful."
"But most people are hopeful enough, you know? They don't require a near death experience."
"Hopeful or desperate? People spend their lives grasping for somebody to make them feel less
alone. Just because they can stifle their neurosis doesn't mean it's not there."
"Because nobody wants to feel alone."
"Realistically, we're all alone."
"Geeze." She rolled over with a huff. "What a downer."
"Hey. Don't go back to sleep. I have a question."
"Whadizit?"
"I was going to ask you to call your sister for me."

54
She twisted herself to him. "Wuh?"

"I wanted to go over there tonight. We didn't get time to talk when I delivered her mail and she
wanted me to drop by."
"Ugh. No." She deposited her phone from beneath covers, letting it drop to the floor. "Here.
Invite yourself."
"Are you gonna come with me?"
"Nnn."
"What? No? Yes?"
"No."
"Why?"
"Dun'wanna."
"I can't call her from your phone if you're not coming with me."
"Get the number out of my phone and use your phone to call her, dummy."
"I don't have a phone, and if I did, it would have been waterlogged."
"I don't want to see Jen. I can't lie in person, and she's gonna ask where I'm living and stuff, and
I'm gonna have to tell her, and she's gonna feel bad, and make me feel bad, and beg me to stay."
"You might be surprised by what she has to say. Have a little 'hope.'"
"Uuungh."
"You're already in town. You can't not visit your sister because she cares too much about your
well being. That's an immature and inconsiderate reason, so quit being a little wuss and get up." When
she didn't respond to reproach, he accompanied it with an appeal to sympathy. "C'mon, Gin. I drowned
today. I wanna get off the water. I can't fall asleep here, and I have no money to stay anywhere else
because my wallet either got lost at sea or jacked when these guys took my wet clothes. Maybe your
sister could let us crash at her place."
Gin kicked her legs off the bed stroppily. She grabbed her shoes. "...For the record, I'm not
going because you're convincing, I'm going because I want to get out of these man-clothes and take a
shower."
Contented with that answer, Bradley returned above deck where most of the crew were lounging
in the cool of the night, waiting for Kallipyge Isle to drift into range with their beers in-hand. He found
the cooler everyone was drinking from, requested a bottle for himself, and joined Deputy Anselm and
Latch where they lingered near the ship's bow. Latch was buzzed and having a refreshingly innocent
conversation with the deputy about science fiction movies, which she was observably curious of.
Bradley quickly learned that she hailed from a world of late nineteenth-century technology while Latch
seemed to be from an industrialized future.
Meanwhile, Gin lingered below deck to freshen up as best she could. She used the limited
supplies of the restroom to wash her face and pits. Lacking toothpaste, she squirted some hand soap in
her mouth and swished with water. It tasted like tangerines garnished with salty cilantro.
She paper-toweled herself dry and inspected the mirror. She couldn't help but critique herself.
She appropriately resembled someone who had spent the day asleep on a cramped, smelly boat.
She used her fingers to rake her salt-parched hair. It was a mess, like the mane of a rout animal.
Pathetic mess. Pathetic puppy.
*
The storm wound up lying in wait for them at the island, possibly plotting to finish Bradley off.
He and Gin moved down the docks of Kallipyge, running beneath the torrent to cross the stony beach
and into the safety of Little Callow's streets. It was a bizarre contrast to experience the same
phenomenal storm safely on solid ground, and it sparked some verbal deliberation between himself and
Gin as to why anybody chose a profession that required extended periods of time drifting through an

55
element that the human body was so unequipped to tread. They settled with the conclusion that
fishermen were born strange.
They withdrew the hoods of the traffic-cone colored rain ponchos in the condominium complex
and ascended to Jenever's room. She greeted her younger sibling with open arms. They hugged, kissed,
and went inside to a readied pot of coffee.
Gin and Bradley discussed their trip with the venderman and his crew over hot mugs. Although
the more inexplicable details of the story were altered, they included Gin's heroics, gripping Jenever
with fascination as her little sister retold a search in the dark, stormy waters for a periled Bradley.
Being asked, Bradley tried to recount what it was like to drown, which, as vividly as he
remembered it, happened to be rather difficult to explain. He summarized it as a spectrum of emotion
from horror, to pain, to confusion, to denial, to a final, dreamlike peacefulness, in that order.
The conversation wheeled from their exciting expedition to Jenever's humble life on the island.
"I've been too busy to go anywhere, but I'd like to leave this place sometime, after all. Your living my
dream, little sis." She probed the subject of Gin's lifestyle with a soft smile. Gin smiled back while
removing herself from the table. She claimed to really need a shower ASAP. Bradley and Jenever
collected mutual reticence as she left without finishing her drink, nursing their own until the gush of the
shower sounded from next door.
He watched Jenever take the contents of her mug into deep regard. She didn't speak until she
noticed the silence and perked up with a synthetic smile.
"You convinced her to come here, didn't you?"
"Sort of. I think she would have come anyway."
"I don't think so."
"She cares about what you think."
"She resents me."
"Maybe her grudge is just a matter of dealing with her own confidence."
"My fault." She slouched, rubbing her hands tentatively. "I smothered her after mom left."
"She never mentioned your mom. Can I ask why she would leave?"
"She had habits. She left me to take care of an emotionally insecure twelve year old, but it was
the most unselfish decision she may have ever made. I don't think Gin understands that. I don't think
she could."
"If who Gin is today is any result of yours, you did a fine job raising her where your mom left
off."
"No. She wanted to run from me." Jenever placed her mug to her forehead. "I think about how
she was raised, and I wonder how she turned out the way she did. The only thing I've taught her is how
to be humiliated. And her mother taught her irresponsibility and abandonment. She managed to learn
everything else on her own."
Bradley had his grip on the handle of his mug for the past minute, though the siblings
fascinating insight left he drink on the table.
"You know what my first instinct was when she told me that the two of you worked together?"
"...What was that?"
"I thought you were helping her out of sympathy. Isn't that an awful thing to think?"
He realized the question was not rhetoric and shook his head. "For what?"
She winced at Bradley with a hint of suspicion. "She has...a disorder. As do I."
Moments of his conversation with Edith flitted through his memory. "Edith-- You know her,
right?"
The name visibly tensed Jenever. She nodded.
"She once mentioned Gin having a handicap..."
"No. It isn't," she answered quickly, prickly with suggestion of her opinion of Edith. "We have a

56
neurological condition. It is a disorder, not a dysfunction. It doesn't effect IQ, but the way we processes
things is different than the way you do. And Gin, she's..."
"She's a quirky one."
"Yes. That's a nice word. She told me you found her drawings."
"Ah...she told you about that? I think I embarrassed her. I just didn't expect to find a stack of
portraits of me in my coworker's house."
"You should probably know that she draws to reenforce memories. She has told me you lead
projects at work. The illustrations could have been her way of learning from you."
"Uh. Oh-kay... Like, what, a mnemonic device?
"Yes, just like it."
"Odd way to go about it."
"She can be odd."
"And yet you seem so," he gave pause, "...normal. For sharing a condition."
"What a very neurotypical thing to say." She offered an expression that was both amused and
polite. "That word is much more complicated for me than it might be for you. To me, what you call
normal is really very abnormal. The way I speak, how I dress, the gestures that I make," she turned a
hand over, then over again, "are all an emulation of what I understand to be normal. The simplest action
to you is a premeditated task for me. You notice how Gin was sitting at the table just now?"
"On her legs, yeah. I always tell her it's bad for her circulation."
"I prefer to sit that way. I think that she acquired that habit from a young me. Whenever I sit,
I've learned to think twice. I remind myself, 'sit like a normal person, Jen.' Everything I do," She raised
her cup to her lips and took a delicate sip, pursed her lips, and placed the mug down. "...is a habit of
critical thought. Every social interaction is an exhausting puzzle. I'm not normal, I'm just very good at
acting that way. And I've spent such a long time as an actor, I don't know how to be anything else."
She looked aside to the vibrations of the shower. "I'm sad that I'm not able to be as close to my
own little sister as I'd like, but I'm also grateful. She was never given the chance to inherent my
spinelessness."
For a flash of a moment, he witnessed the vacancy in her profile. A desolate longing behind the
regular, pretty face. Then, she turned to him and the face smiled again.
"More coffee?"
He held his mug up affirmatively.
"Honest? I don't want to keep you up."
"I'm so reliant on caffeine that it probably helps me sleep."
She brought the pot and poured. "A coffee lover. I knew I liked you for a reason." She poured
another for herself. "So, you're a big deal here in Kallipyge."
"I noticed."
"Is it flattering?"
"Madfish's psuedo-fame doesn't mean a whole lot to me personally when nobody knows the
person behind the name. And that's fine, because I'd rather not identify with it these days."
"You're certainly not the person I expected."
"That's what I mean. Madfish is a fictional character. People aren't supposed to take him
seriously, but--" He hesitated, frustration receding as he looked into Jenever's blamelessly ignorant
expression. "He's a parody." He took a breath and a sip of coffee. He poured cream and sugar into it and
stirred. "I can rant about it, but I know it's not fun listening to a rant. A real one."
Jenever took her time with replying, retrieving the sugar from Bradley's side of the table to add
to her own drink. Stirred. She took such an excessive period to provide a response that another person
might have thought she'd not been listening, but overlooking the patience of others was a pretty routine
behavior of her sister's.

57
"I can see why it could bother you now. But I'm grateful for Madfish. Gin must of understood
the humor better than I or she wouldn't have wanted to meet you. You're what influenced her to get a
job with Edith at Machivel. How has work been over there? Are things going okay for you?"
"Actually, I was fired."
"Oh. For what?"
"It's hard to explain. Karma, I guess. It's alright, though. Kind of liberating."
"So, Gin doesn't work with you anymore."
He prolonged his sip of coffee and swallowed a oversized gulp that caused him to cough.
"...No," he croaked.
"How is she doing?"
Maybe it was his own transparency that gave it away, but the concern in Jenever's eyes
suggested an accurate hunch on her sister's employment status. He cleared his throat. "You'll have to
ask her."
The older sister stirred cream into her mug with a consenting nod. She stirred for longer than
necessary. Bradley let her do her thing while he surveyed pictures on the wall next to the kitchen
doorway. A girl. Another similar yet smaller girl. It was just the two of them. No relatives. No
significant others. Bradley found it difficult to imagine the beautiful young lady living by herself at this
age. As she stirred all of her deliberation into her mug, Bradley wondered abut the things that prevented
Jenever from companionship.
"What do you think I should do about her?"
He knew just what she was asking and kind of wished she'd stop insisting his help. "I don't have
siblings, Jen. Maybe I'm not the best guy to offer advise."
"Am I supposed to just...leave her be? Alone?"
How sharp a turn the casual banter had taken as those abandonment issues began to bubble to
the surface. "You haven't left her anywhere. Everyone gets the urge to run away and Gin had the
tenacity to do it. It was out of your control."
She rattled her head. "No, no, I don't want control. I just want what's best for her."
"Whether she's doing what's best for herself or not, it's going to be okay. She probably isn't, but
she'll get through it, whatever it is. As long as you support her and she knows she has a stable place to
fall back on, you're doing exactly what's best for her."
Jenever closed her eyes and slumped her shoulders and the conversation simply stopped. Full
minutes passed between them, about three, filled with tinkling spoons and coffee slurping. It was long
enough to make anyone feel uncomfortable, but Jenever gave no implication of speaking first. Bradley
had to reinvigorate her with vapid chitchat. They talked about the weather. Movies. Coffee. They talked
about people, specifically the ones Bradley met on his way across Kallipyge, including Mortlock,
which reminded him that he'd need to contact that mailman for his backpack sometime. He never
missed his toothbrush and deodorant so badly.
Having taken due time washing up, Gin returned to the kitchen damp maned and comfortably
outfitted in pajama pants and a tee. Bradley had been in the middle of a slice of carrot cake when she
dragged a seat out to join the table. The ensuing inelegance of body language cued him to leave half of
his slice uneaten, requesting to use the shower in order to grant the sisters their privacy.
He was grateful to not have to change back into his previous outfit after cleaning up, Jenever
having lent him a pair of pajama bottoms for the night after taking his clothes to her washing machine.
The pajama legs rode up his legs, but it beat sleeping in a fisherman's dirty trousers.
He slept like a stone on a neat bed of sheets that had been fashioned for him on the couch and
rose the next morning to Jenever placing down a readied coffee for him. She apologized for waking
him (a saccharine-sweet and unnecessary reason to apologize), and announced that breakfast would be
ready in five minutes. Bacon, eggs, and toast with butter and strawberry preserves made for one of the

58
best meals he'd had in a while. It would have been a very pleasant if not for the looming tension that
gagged them from mentioning Gin's inevitable departure at the table.
Appreciably, Jenever consenting enough to have yesterday's clothes cleaned, dried and ready for
them after breakfast. She'd even went through the trouble of ironing them. Gin had found a old outfit of
her own to wear instead of her sailor's clothes: navy jeans and a white shirt with black sleeves. She
donned her softcap at the door and the three bid their goodbyes. Despite barely speaking all morning,
the sisters exchanged a hug and a kiss. Jenever flustered Bradley with a particularly tender hug.
Meanwhile, Latch and Anselm were helping the venderman's crew prepare the boat at Little
Callow's docks. When Bradley and Gin arrived, they walked to a nearby sandwich place to get
something for the road. Sea. The sea-road.
They set sail at eight O'clock.
*
The weather was clear in this region, not so much as a wisp of cloud obscured the sky. Deputy
Anselm was on the port side of the ship, getting her last eyeful of stars before the city lights could
delude them.
Latch came out from the cabin carrying the smell of alcohol. While the rest of the group had
spent the last hour helping prepare the ship for the eventual docking, he had hid in the lower decks to
knock drinks back with one of the lazier crewmen.
"Just the cop I was looking for. Here, I jacked these from that coffee shop on the shore." He
drew a cigar from his pocket, offering it while he flicked open a brass lighter. She took it with some
skepticism. "Those two have been getting along pretty well."
"Celebrating now seems ominous. We're not done yet."
"It's progress."
"I thought you weren't concerned with the author's agenda. Or the protagonists."
"The protags can get struck by lightning for the amount of fucks I give." He lit his cigar. "And
helping the author has nothing to do with it. We're a step closer to getting out of here. That's what I'm
celebrating."
She hummed.
The orange light of the cigar illuminated his face as he lifted it towards the sky. "I've never seen
anything like this."
"The stars?"
"Not this clearly. It's impossible to see with all of the light I live around."
"Suppose I take that for granted."
"Shit. Forget I mentioned it."
"What?"
"This obligatory bullshit."
It took the deputy some thought to grasp the problem. "Stars?"
"Yes. Fucking stars. Why?! The only reason star conversations exist in these stories is to force
chemistry between characters. I tried to chop you with my sword the other day. Why the hell are we
talking about stars? "
"You started this."
"I've been drinking."
"Yes, I can smell."
"HEY! THIS SOME KIND OF BONDING SESSION?! NOT GONNA HAP-- Ow!" He was
punched in the arm. Not as a humorous tease, but genuinely, painfully decked.
"Don't start that. If you don't mind, I'd like to preserve some illusion."
"Not as long as we're here... Yo, Noelle!" Bradley just happened to be passing by. He held up to

59
the swordsman's holler with mild perturbation. "How would you feel if we were right, and you really
were created by an author?"
"I told you guys that I think you're crazy."
"Yeah. I know. Say we aren't-- how would you feel about that?"
"Can you prove it?"
"Not...now...no."
"It doesn't matter."
Anselm saw that response coming. It was a pester that he had chosen to make up his own truth
(specifically, the belief that she and Latch were the zealots of a cult), but it was also mitigating to not
have him stirring over the reality and she wished Latch wouldn't continuously challenge that.
"Fuck your stupid flaming laser sword philosophy, just answer the damn question."
Bradley dropped his head back. "Uuhhgg...religion..."
"Not religion! This isn't religious!"
"I think I'd be really annoyed if I knew that everything I did had a purpose. If there's a god--"
"God damn it, I said this isn't a religious question! Do you fucking listen?!"
"Fuck you."
"Fuck m--...? Fuck you! Fuck you!" Latch yelled as the other departed. "Yeah, go! Go enjoy the
bliss!"
Bradley disappeared into the cabin.
"You follow along with the author's favor, then you go loose cannon and try to kill the
antagonist," Anselm listed on her fingers. "You claim to want nothing to do with either of the
protagonists because you were afraid of messing the plot up, now you stuff this fiction thing in Bradley
Noelle's face and get pissed off when he doesn't believe you."
"I'm not pissed off that he doesn't believe me, I'm pissed because he won't let go of his cultist
theory. I don't like my role being defined by this punkass' sitcom misunderstanding."
"I think you're jealous that he's not burdened with the same truth you are."
"I'd have no problem if he wasn't being a prick about it."
She snorted a dissonant noise. "I think the protagonist has been pretty mild-mannered given
what he was met with. I don't want to have to deal with him when he has a mental breakdown, so stop."
"That's the difference between me and you: you'd deal with him."
"And you'd just whine about being stuck here for longer."
"Probably."
She wanted to tell him how irresponsible it sounded to have his actions summed up as
contingencies of the moment. She watched the stars and let the opinion dissipate like smoke. "How
honest."
"Lies are for people with regrets. I'm always honest."
"It's a virtue, you know."
"My one and only."
They arrived in Santa Vidora harbor at ten thirty and spent a another hour unloading fish from
the trawler, to a freezer inside of a storage unit across from the dock. The venderman reprieved them
the additional duty of fastening down the ship with the crew and offered to drive them home.
"Can't wait to get home."
"Aren't you going to jail after this?" Gin queried of Latch.
"I'm not a prisoner. She's not my arresting officer," he pointed at Anselm in the passenger seat.
"Can we not talk about this right here and now?" Bradley tried to bring discreet attention to the
unwelcome audience of the venderman, but Gin was already casting her interrogation across the car.
"I knew you were lying!"
"I told you they were lying, Gin."

60
"I didn't lie about shit. I didn't say a damn thing."

"Yes you did! Who are you guys? I want answers!"
"Arrested?!" came the belated venderman. "I was once arrested for eeeee-llegal feeshing!"
"Not my job to tell you, girl. Ask the cop."
"Deputy, who are you, really?"
"Let's not talk about this right now," she answered.
"That's what I'm saying," Bradley agreed.
"Boh!"
Gin practically climbed over Bradley to prod Latch in the shoulder. "Tell me!" Bradley pushed
her back into her seat. "Hey!"
"Don't touch him, he's dangerous."
"The hell? I'm not a wild animal."
"Debatable," Anselm mumbled. She motioned for the venderman to pull over. "I think we're
close enough to walk from here."
"Goodbye!" Gin waved as the others exited the car.
The three of them waved her off as the venderman pulled away with her.
"I dunno how I feel about Gin going back to her shitty excuse of a home house after having
slept at her sisters cozy place," Bradley said as they watched the car go.
Anselm silently admitted the same. She'd seen the inside of the boarding house and Gin's small
one-room abode. She wondered how she felt, returning there.
"Don't worry, we're not stalking you," Latch assured as he and Anselm took the same direction
as Bradley up the sidewalk. "Just walking you to your door and leaving." He looked to Anselm, as if for
reassurance.
"You guys are really sticking to that, huh?"
Latch blatantly ignored Bradley, speaking as though he wasn't present: "She saved his life. They
had a little breakthrough. They even visited her long-lost sister or whatever and patched up whatever
bullshit was going on there. Happily ever after."
"Gin and Jenever didn't really patch things up," Bradley corrected.
"Whatever."
"It seems as though this could be the denouement of the story," Anselm agreed. Bradley broke
off as they reached his apartment complex, heading around the side of the building. She stopped to
watch him access the stairs to his second-story entrance. He tested the door handle with a curious
jiggle, paused, and came back down the stairs.
"Why are you watching me?"
"Because I know you haven't any keys to open your apartment door."
"Actually, the door's open. If I'm lucky, it just means Leaven's lackeys left my door open when
they kidnapped me, but..."
"You want me to make sure it's safe?"
"You have a gun, right?"
"Hey!" Latch shouted from across the street. "You coming or what, Dep? I don't wanna wind up
stuck here just because you're not ready to leave!"
"Bradley Noelle's apartment is unlocked. I'm going to check it out for him."
"Alright, fuck, I'm leaving. Bye."
Anselm lifted a hand in a halfhearted goodbye as Latch ran into the alleyway on the other side
of the street. She guessed he was going to try to leave through the door they came from. Hopefully, that
was an exit now.
At the apartment door, Anselm slipped her revolver readily out of her jacket, lipped a silent
count to three, and jolted inside, sweeping the corners on her way around the door. She strafed the

61
livingroom, kitchen, bath, and bedroom, concluding the search as she exited the last room with a
deposit of her gun back inside her pocket.
Bradley shrugged. "It was nice of you to be willing to cover my ass."
"Sure it is." She made her way to the door. "Keep an eye on Ms. Rumi. I think the two of you
could benefit from one another's company."
"You're gonna pretend like that matters to you?"
"I'd like to think I haven't wasted my time. Goodbye, Mr. Noelle."
Anselm left to walk a block and across the street, into the alleyway she'd originally arrived
from. Latch was nowhere to be found near the "crack house" door, which was a good sign. Opening it,
she found herself peering into darkness. Not the darkness of an opium den corridor, but an unnatural
pitch blackness. With some hesitation, Anselm stepped through and let the door shut behind her.
With a blink, the door was gone and panic swept swiftly over Anselm. She swiped at the
darkness where the door once was and realized her hand was visible. She looked at herself. Despite the
blackness of the atmosphere, she was somehow illuminated. Following the source of the light with, she
found another door in the distance behind her. It was difficult to judge exactly where in the emptiness it
was, so she simply moved toward it, hands extended as the door grew to arm's reach...
*
It seemed justifiable enough that Bradley didn't feel like preparing anything after settling down
from such an eventful time away, so he rummaged the freezer and found a frozen pizza to make for his
late dinner. He sat on his half-charred cabinet and waited ten minutes for the oven to preheat, inserted
the pizza, and relocated himself to the living room where he noticed an unrecognizable book occupying
the dining table as he took his seat. It was a nondescript grey and lacked both cover art and a synopsis,
though there was a title on the front: Metacoda.
He was surprised to find that it began with an excerpt about Deputy Anselm inside of a burning
building. He read the first page before flipping ahead until he discovered something that halted him to a
page few past the opening. A haunting disclosure. His name.
Bradley's way through the kitchen tinkled with the crunch of charred wood fragments and
plastic underfoot. A halfway scorched cabinet door fell off a hinge as he opened it. A dog barked
somewhere outside the soot-opaque window. The stove still worked, so he brushed the pieces of
microwave plexiglass off the burners to make eggs. He ate them while checking his email, packed his
laptop, and roamed into the morning with distractions locked behind the door.
Bradley stopped in front of the corner bar on his way to the bus stop at the sight of a cheap
plastic patch sealing what used to be tinted glass in the bar's door window. There must have been some
rowdy drunks last night.
"What is this?!" He asked no one as he turned several pages ahead:
Gin slumped on docks of the harbor. She watched an old lady on a nearby bench feed the
hobnobbing pigeons. Like Gin, the old lady was a routine visitor of the harbor. Lonely and bored,
probably, she spent her time feeding the birds. The woman caught her eyes and Gin offered a half
smile. She didn't return the gesture. She never did. Gin wondered if the lady had ever noticed her at all
each and every day.
Gin extracted the stylus from her digital tablet and began to draw the brittle woman in her
hunkered posture. She felt a little sorry for the woman. The notion reminded her of how she felt about
what she had done, visiting Bradley at his home. She still didn't really understand what the big deal
was. She'd mistaken him for someone who could appreciate an unexpected visit. She'd forgotten he had
someone to be and talk with whenever he wanted. He had a girlfriend, so why would he want visitors?
Stupid of her.
Bradley's lip trembled as he mouthed the words of omnipotent hindsight. Transfixed, he couldn't
help turning to another page and read aloud:

62
Bradley opened the back of the book to find the pages at the end to be mostly blank. The last
page with text read, Bradley opened the back of the book to find the pages at the end to be mostly
blank. The last page with text read...
And before that was his exact recitation of the previous sections of the book. It even mentioned
the point his lips trembled.
He threw the book. It slapped the wall and slid invisible below the table. There it waited as he
excused himself to check on his pizza. Seeing frost glistening on the top reminded him it had only been
sitting in the oven for a few minutes. He decided to remain in the kitchen for the remaining fifteen-or-
so...then rushed back into the living room to grab the book off the floor. He sat with it. He put his
thumbs to the edge of the pages to prepare reading more, then hesitated. He continued turning the book
over on the table, just looking at the front and back without the nerve to verify what he'd read.
He sat and stared until the smoke alarm went off. He opened the windows and ate some
blackened pizza, then took the bed with him.
Morning came slowly. Clutched in Bradley's hand as he lay spread-eagle upon his bed was the
book. He made the decision to read it. And he didn't sleep.
He read all of it.
All of it.
The alarm played until he got up, unplugged it, and dropped it out of his bedroom window to
watch it shatter on the sidewalk. He checked the book.
...to watch it shatter on the sidewalk. He checked the book.
Bradley found a box on his stoop outside. The package's sent address was Dullard, Kallipyge,
and had From: Mortlock written on it. Inside was his fully loaded backpack holding his wallet and his
keys amongst the rest of the stuff he now remembered stuffing into it before liftoff. He checked his
wallet to find everything accounted for. That included Leaven's check.
Bradley unzipped the pack's front pouch to find one of those torsion spring grip-exerciser
things. How droll.
Two pairs of feet met the peripheral of his vision where he knelt. A couple police overs stood
over him.
"Bradley Noelle?"
Bradley stood. "Are you real police officers?"
One showed a genuine SVPD badge. As genuine as Bradley could tell, anyway.
"Yeah, I'm Bradley Noelle..."
"I'm afraid we have some troubling news, Sir. You've relations with Annika Samson, correct?"
"Yes. I'm her boyfriend."
The cop cleared his throat, looked at the other policeman, and pursed his lips. "I'm sorry, but
Annika...was...murdered sometime yesterday. Shot in her home, it seems."
Bradley's mind lurched.
"Sh...shot? Murdered?"
The man nodded solemnly. "Yes, that's right. A gunshot to the back of her head. Very unusual
circumstance. The only gun-related crime in this city in the past ten years."
Murdered.
"I'm sorry you had to receive the news this way..." The cop softly clapped his hands to fold
them together. "I'm also afraid we're going to have to ask you to come with us for some questions."
Bradley felt Mortlock's note trembling in his fingers.
"You get that?" The policeman tilted forward.
"Sorry. Questions."
"Yes. You weren't at your apartment last night." His tone toggled from sympathetic to critically
firm.

63
"I wasn't in the city. I was...in Callowtown..."

"Alright, but this information is no help off record, Mr. Noelle. If you'd just come along, this
shouldn't take very long..." The policeman spoke as he ushered Bradley with a hand at his back toward
the cop car at the curb.
*
Leaven paced up the stoop to the boarding house and jiggled the front door's handle. He politely
knocked until it opened to the droopy-faced landlord.
"Hello, Mister Taylor," Leaven greeted him while screwing a suppressor to his gun. "If you
value your life and the life of your friends and family, would you kindly direct me to Miss Genivre
Rumi's room?" Lifting the gun, he placed the muzzle to the man's forehead and walked him backwards,
into the building. "Mister Joe Taylor Junior, son of Joe Taylor Senior and Jane Tayler, residence of 101
Oak Street, Greenville, and brother of Lynn Davies, spouse of Richard Davies, residence of Strauss
Avenue, Madison."
The man lifted a pair of big hands in submission. "Third floor. End of the right hall."
"I appreciate it. Now, mind pointing me to the restroom?"
Confusion crossed the man's face as he lifted a finger to an aside door.
Leaven drew an arm behind the man's back, walked him to the bathroom, and put a bullet in his
head. The suppressor and point-blank range of the man's skull against the muzzle muffled the blow.
After orienting Mr. Taylor snug into a corner, Leaven locked the door from the inside and shut the body
away.
On the third floor, he found door at the end of the third-story hallway and tapped it. There was a
sound of a unlocking bolt and the door cracked to the limit of a dangling door chair. A green eye
peeked out. It dilated at the sight of him.
Leaven kicked the door in, a chunk of wood breaking off with the chain's track. Behind it, Gin
was struck. Leaven let himself in as she fell backwards, into her dresser. Covering a bleeding nose, she
rose halfway to her feet, glassy eyes focusing to him before resetting to the still smoldering gun in his
hand.
Before any residence could peek from their own rooms, Leaven closed the door and turned the
bolt lock.
*
Bradley was taken downtown and sat within the cramped cube of a room. He found it hard to
remember the details of his trip to Kallypige Island with his preoccupied mind. This forced him to
fabricate a motive for the trip, and the tactless lies coming from his mouth sounded just like lies,
certainly. He didn't even mention the crimes Leaven had committed against him. He couldn't bring
himself to start telling truths. At some point, the truth stopped making sense.
Sure that he must only be a suspect by association rather than by evidence, Bradley didn't think
clumsy answers could be enough to incriminate himself until they bothered to show the bullet cartridge
they had found at the scene of the crime, and asked if he knew what sort of gun it might belong to. He
didn't have any idea. He didn't even fully understand what the difference between a bullet and a
cartridge was, no less matching them to a weapon.
The policemen weren't satisfied with his answer. They started talking about prison, and the
difference between a twenty year sentence of a cooperative criminal and a life sentence of a obstinate
one.
Bradley could only repeat his story and ask when he could go until they conceded.
When he got home, he opened the Metacoda book again. There was some new print in it briefly
glossing over his time at the police station, which he found to be both very long during the present, yet
nothing but a retrospective flash of time. By now, it was so far in the back of his mind.
There was nothing in the book about Annika's death, but there was a part sectioned off by

64
asterisks that mentioned Leaven...and Gin...

He rose from his seat as he read. By the end, he was already pacing for the exit. Dropping the
book, he ran out the door and grabbed one of his neighbor's bikes off the bike rack in the alleyway to
begin pedaling as fast as he could toward Gin's boarding house...
*
Through the door suspended in the abyss, Anselm stepped into an alleyway. An all-too familiar
alleyway. Leaning on the opposite wall, Latch watched with a wry expression as she came tentatively
through. He raised his shoulders, pushed off the wall, and ambled gradually up the alleyway. Upon
coming to a trash can, he swung his foot into it booting it out of the alleyway.
"It's the same fucking place! It brought us to the same fucking place!" He grabbed a discarded
bottle and shattered it, raining glass and beer on himself. He proceeded to beat his hands against the
beer soaked wall. "Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! What the fuck do you want! What the fuck! What
does the author want from us, Dep?" He looked at her as he leaned with arms against the wall. "What
the fuck does he want?!"
Anselm stepped past him, following the dented trashcan as it rolled off the sidewalk, littering
trash in its lumber. A car shot by, nearly clipping it. A horseless carriage, as she had once depicted
them. She skimmed the familiar buildings in reminiscence of when she'd first emerged on this street.
"Latch, come here..."
His response was a defeated sigh from his static place against the wall. "You know what? I'm
not even mad. He just doesn't understand how to write a book and we're being fucked over because of
it. Why be mad about it when there's nothing we can do? We're being asked too much. That's all there is
to it. He's just an idiot and there's nothing we can--"
"Latch, shut up and come over here."
"What?" He shoved himself off the wall and lumbered to her side. "Yes, it's the same damn city.
Fine detective work."
She jogged across the street to the entrance of Portman's bar. She inspected the door, placing
her fingers to its tinted glass window, tracing the letters engraved into it.
"What are you doing?" Latch asked as he followed onto the sidewalk.
"When I arrived in this city, you started a bar fight in this bar that caused someone to break this
glass. It was never replaced."
"You know that for a fact?"
"There was still a patch here before we passed through the door. I saw it."
"Before we passed through the magical crack house door? Just now?"
"Yes." She knocked on the glass. "Five minutes ago, this was a piece of plastic."
Latch crossed an arm over himself and bit his nails in cogitation. "Shit." He lowered his hand.
"He scrapped the story... We have to do this all over again!"
"You don't know that."
"What other explanation could there be?!"
"An infinite number. Regardless, complaining isn't any way to start solving our dilemma."
"Start solving? We should be finished! Don't you fucking lecture me this time." He got right up
near her face. "Don't pretend like this doesn't strike a touch of concern in your cold little heart,
Deputy."
They were nearly touching noses. So near, Anselm had to dip her head to look up at him. She
narrowed her eyes into his, lifted her hands, and touched his face. She spoke with soft sympathy. "Yes,
I am concerned. And I don't mean to dismiss you when I dismiss your complaints. I admire your
outspoken attitude, I do, but I need you with me in this, so you need to change that attitude. Alright? We
need to keep moving forward."
He smirked, hinting his whites as he tilted out of her hands. "She isn't a total bitch after all..."

65
"An officer needs to know how to negotiate."

"Last resort, huh?" He laced his hands behind his head and began up the street. "Difference
between you and me, Dep, is that anger fuels my willpower. But I'll pocket the negativity for you until
we see just what the situation is. Place to start would be Noelle's."
At the opposite end of the block, they turned the corner of Bradley Noelle's apartment complex
and ascended the stairs to his door. Anselm pounded on the door and turned the knob. It was unlocked.
The lights were on, revealing an empty room. She put her hand on her gun just in case.
"Hello? Is there anyone home?"
Latch came in after. He took the liberty to check the other rooms. Anselm was in the kitchen
when he returned from the bath and bedroom. He had something flat and rectangular beneath his arm.
"He's not home. But check this freaky shit." He lifted the device and opened it like a clam to reveal a
one of those 'digital' screens, not unlike a television, Latch's cell phone, or the thing Gin Rumi had once
used to show her a map of Kallipyge. "I pulled up this calender. Look at the date. Fourteenth. Last time
I checked my phone, it was the fifteenth. I'm positive."
"Do we know that's accurate?"
"It's kind of hard to explain. This calender is on the internet, which is like...a global filing
cabinet, with information being shared between computers worldwide, instantaneously. Somebody
made this calender file for the purpose of keeping time. Look..." He typed something into the keys with
a single hand. A new image showed of a unique looking calender. "This is a different file made by a
different person. Same exact time and date. I could bring up a hundred others for the same info."
"We're in the past, although this isn't the past as we know it." A chill ran up her spine at the
uncanny discovery.
"If it was a revised story, us being put back in time would make some sense. But a single day?
Also, where the hell is Noelle? It's like..." He turned the computer screen toward himself. "It's twelve-
thirty."
"If this story is playing out like the original, he would currently be on Kallypige Island. If only
you still had the Metacoda book, we may be able to draw a conclusion from it. For now, our next
prerogative would be to find Gin. She's our only resource."
Latch deflated. "Alright... At the boarding house. But I doubt the buses run this late. And I got
no cash for a taxi."
"What is a taxi?"
"A cab. A car ride."
"Actually, I do have some money. Maybe you can tell me what it's worth. It's three hundred."
She dug into her pockets and withdrew a wad of bills.
"Wow. Where the hell did you make money?"
"I sold some of my money for this world's currency. There wasn't much, but were considered
antiques."
Latch was counting the bills swiftly. "Smart. Alls we need for a ride is twenty, max."
"Keep it. You have a better idea of its worth here, and beyond that I have no use for it."
He pocketed it and stepped into the living room. "Of course this prick doesn't have a land-line
anywhere that we can use to call our ride. The bus stop has payphone..."
The late weekday evening hour made acquiring an available transport swift, the convenience
helped along by the promise of twice the standard fare. Anselm and Latch would pull up in front of the
boarding house within fifteen minutes of calling the taxi service. Latch crammed a fistful of money into
the driver's hands and hurried with Anselm to the entrance, which was locked.
After a minute of knocking, they were met with the large-handed landlord of the building.
"We're here to visit Gin Rumi."
"I don't anybody without a key in past ten 'less they're with a tenant."

66
"We mean no harm," Anselm produced her pistol, "but this is very important." She walked the
man inside at gunpoint before she and Latch broke for the stairs. Third story, end-door. Locked.
"Gin," she spoke into the door as she knocked, wondering if her voice would be recognized.
"Gin, please open the door."
There was a ruffle of bedsheets followed soon by the clacking of a deadlock. The door came
open a couple of inches, inhibited by a bolted chain. One green eye stared out, shifting from Anselm, to
Latch, and back again. "Who are you?"
Anselm showed her badge. "Deputy Anselm. We have some...important news for you, if you'd
just let us in."
The door shut. The sound of a chain rattled behind it before the credulous girl pulled the door
fully open to let them in. Once they were, Latch shut the door behind himself and remained in front of
it precociously. Gin gave him a look of lingering suspicion.
"You...don't look like a police officer..."
"I'm not."
Anselm positioned herself at the other side of Gin, not making their intent to box her in place
discreet. "No, he isn't. And, yes, he's blocking the doorway. Before you get panicked, we aren't here to
hurt you or trap you, but we need you to stay here for a minute."
Gin turned her head from one to the other with growing anxiety despite Anselm's attempt at
reassurance. "Wuh...whadya want?"
"For you to listen to us." To take the edge off, Anselm backstepped to sit more casually on the
end of Gin's bed. "My name is Mona D'Arcy Anselm. I am a deputy, but I'm not a deputy from around
here. That is Latch. He's...my associate."
"Yeah, okay. Rumi, you know a guy named Bradley Noelle, right?"
"Yes. He was my coworker."
"And you both work for Leaven, right?"
"Um. Not Bradley. Anymore. But I do. I'm his receptionist."
Latch snapped his fingers and directed his attention to Anselm. "Gin was answering phones the
day I broke into Leaven's office to fight him. That's when I gave him the book."
"You told me the book was confiscated. Why the hell would you give it to him?"
"'Cause I didn't feel like having it!"
"I hope you understand this would have altered the entire story."
"Yes."
"Do you understand that this situation we're in right now is very likely one of many
ramifications your action has reaped?"
"Yes! I didn't think it through, okay? Sorry. Moving forward, right?"
She palmed her face and sighed.
He looked back to Gin. "Where's Noelle now?"
Gin flinched. "Bradley...?"
"Noelle. Bradley. Noelle. The one we're talking about."
"Bradley is...gone."
Latch lifted his hands in mute question.
"I mean...I mean, dead. He drowned. Yesterday."
His hands fell to his head. "Whoa. Seriously? Where? How?"
"Near Kallipyge Island. He was in a helicopter during a storm in the morning, and it ripped him
out and into the ocean. His girlfriend called me today to let me know."
Anselm and Latch exchanged startled expressions.
"Did you know him?" Gin asked sadly.
Anselm nodded affirmatively. "In a way."

67
"Here, check this out." Latch pulled his cell phone from his pocket. After a few finger-taps on
its screen, he handed it to Gin.
"What is it?" Anselm asked while they watched Gin's face contort into a portrait of absolute
confusion upon beholding the images on the screen. There were voices emanating from the phone that
Anselm recognized as their own.
"What is this?" Gin echoed in a whisper.
Anselm stepped over to Gin to watch the replay of the video. It was the three of them on the
venderman's ship the evening they docked in Callowtown.
"That's you. And me, with Bradley. When did this happen? I don't remember this..."
"That video is of us on on our way to Callowtown on Kallypige Island, where you and your
sister if I'm not mistaken, grew up. You don't remember traveling there with us because these events
didn't necessarily happen to you."
The deputy stepped back, folding her arms. She checked Latch, worried he'd blurt insensitive
truths. Favorably, he was gnawing his fingernail, looking unsure of what to say for a change.
With a motion of her hand, she drew Gin's attention from the recording. "Gin, have a seat with
me, please, and I'll explain what's brought us here." She guided the tentative teen to the bed and pulled
the desk chair around for her to sit, adjacent. "This is difficult to explain because...we aren't able to
fully grasp it..."
"We aren't even sure if we should be here right now showing you these videos, but we've gone
through so much shit this past week that we don't really have the capacity to care," Latch included.
"We're from separate universes." Removing her slouch hat, Anselm leaned with her elbows on
her knees to speak closely with her. "Latch and I came from our own separate worlds, to a world where
a version of you and Bradley exist. As far as we can tell, it's mostly if not entirely identical to this one.
Except, in this reality, you've never met us."
"If you need more proof, there's probably some photos of you and Bradley in Callowtown on
that phone," Latch pointed out. "Just don't scroll too far past the recent photos. There's personal stuff on
there."
Gin placed the phone aside. She looked disturbed and absorbed all at once. "If...if that can be
true... Why would you be here?"
"As I said, we aren't sure." She lifted her weight from her arms to sit upright. "Let me explain:
Latch and I were in our own worlds before we were transported to a foreign world much like this one,
if not exactly like this one as far as we can tell. Latch had arrived before I did and, upon meeting him,
he claimed to have spoken with the creator of our worlds, claiming that the world--yours, mine, all
reality as we know it--is fiction written by a creator, or 'author.' How Latch proved this absurd concept
was by showing me a book that wrote its own pages to match certain current events.
"Try to imagine a physical book that, when opened, explains in writing something that had just
occurred. Something you'd had just witnessed, your very own thoughts, even, or something that may
have happened elsewhere at the very same point in time. Latch handed me the very book that our own
stories had been interwoven with. As a matter of fact, this very moment may very well be recorded in
that book, as a part of the story we've been moving through. Or it may not. It depends what the author
intended to be included.
"Our purpose within that story, for whatever reason, was to unite Bradley Noelle and Gin Rumi.
I thought we'd succeeded, but...just as we believed the story we were involved in was coming to a
close, we were transported here. The time period of this story right now takes place a day prior to the
story we had just arrived from. And in it, Bradley is alive, so the first thing we tried to do upon arriving
here was look for him. When we didn't find him, we came to you hoping you may be able to enlighten
us."
"You...you think my life is in a book?"

68
"It is a book. And we can prove its a book. You see the video? The photos?" Latch asked
aggressively. "I could tell you what color shirt you wore to your first day of your receptionist job. As a
matter of fact, I can tell you what you thought about your shirt when you looked in the mirror at
yourself in the bathroom. Is it formal enough? Is it the right season to wear orange? You hate your
favorite color. That was just before that Mexican guy, Elron--"
"Elroy?"
"He stalked you from the bathroom, to you bedroom, and you shut the door in his face. I know
because I read the book. If I had it on me, I'd show it to you."
Anselm gestured for Latch to stop. She took her turn to explain the significance of herself, of
Latch, Bradley, and Gin within the story thus far, and the events that had routed them to this point. Gin
remained for the most part mute, speaking only as needed to request further elucidation. Anselm read
all she could of the book before Latch "lost" it and was surprised to know this version of Gin could
relate to all events that occurred before Anselm and Latch's intervention that triggered their journey to
find Bradley on Kallypige Island. To an extent, it really was the same story, sans their influence.
She finished as Gin quietly deliberated the floor. "I know these aren't ideal conditions for this
kind of information," Anselm said. "And we aren't the ideal source to be telling you something like this.
But all of it is true." When her gaze was met, Gin's eyes were glassy, verging with tears. The deputy
placed a hand on her shoulder. "I'm sorry."
"My sister was...killed...a few days ago."
"Oh," Anselm withdrew her hand.
"What does that mean?"
"Oh my." She looked to Latch, who floated his hands in a gesture of uncertainty. She dipped
forward to draw Gin into a hug.
The teen sniffled into her shoulder. "If what you say is true, what does it mean? Why would
someone kill her?" The question sounded rhetorically fed up and hopeless.
"I'm so sorry. I don't have the answer to that."
"Why not? If you read my life, tell me."
"I guess there are more differences to our stories than I thought. There was nothing in the book
that mentioned this."
"Did you know her at all? Had you met her?"
"The Bradley of our story met her for the first time yesterday."
Gin pulled her wet face off Anselm. "Yesterday? She was alive then?"
Anselm deliberated this question carefully and found herself ethically pinned. "...That's correct.
In our story, she was alive."
Gin inhaled sharply. "Take me there... Show me you're telling me the truth. Please. Please."
Anselm tightened with the blench of guilt. "Gin, I don't know if Latch and I can go, ourselves.
We haven't been able to leave the way we came..."
"Can't we try?" Gin pleaded.
With a ponderous look, Anselm shook her head. "You don't..." she exhaled, "belong." With a
glimpse to Latch, she moved from her chair to open the door. "Come on. We're leaving her."
Latch didn't move. "Wait a second. We were brought into this version of the story for a reason.
Spilling all this valuable information on Gin just to leave her doesn't seem productive. Or 'right.' Just
saying, I don't think there's a moral high ground to take here, Dep. We're better off trying to take her. If
it isn't meant to happen, it won't work."
It didn't sit well with Anselm. But it was an obvious point she hadn't considered. Morally, this
was a choice between displacing Gin or devastating her. There was no virtuous decision to make, and
the only logical deduction was that they were meant to do something here. To leave without doing
anything was not only unreasonable, but unlikely.

69
"Alright. We'll give it a try," she decided. "I don't know how valuable our time is, so let's no
waste any more."
Remorse for the truths she had carelessly chosen to share with Gin weighed upon her in a heap
as they left the boarding house. A physical tightness in her chest lasted from their taxi trip from Gin's to
the alleyway across from Bradley's complex. Did Gin truly expect to find another world with them?
And if so, what did she expect of it?
Anselm opened the alleyway door and was struck with a lapse of disorientation. Beyond it was
an identical alleyway. Gin crept to Anselm's side and reached her hand through the doorway, as if to
testify reality.
Stepping through to walk to the end of the alleyway, Anselm spotted the bar across the street,
the door properly shattered as she and Latch had left it. Their attempt to bring Gin into the original
storyline appeared to have worked, though it hardly felt like a victory without them knowing why this
was allowed. What was the purpose of them returning?
"What the hell?" came Latch. "I see the bar is jacked-up, like it should be. Great. Here again."
He began across the street. "Let's get this wild goose chase going again and check up on Noelle..."
Across the street and up the external stairs to Bradley's apartment, they found the door to be
unlocked. Although the lights were on, there was no sign of Bradley. Latch checked the bedroom to be
sure of his absence while Anselm tilted partially inside the bathroom.
"Smells like...food... He was cooking something," Latch deduced on his way into the main
room. He spun to the dining table at the back of the living room. "That. There's a slice of pizza here.
That wasn't in the dead-Noelle story. And a dead man can't cook."
"Brilliant detective work," Anselm said, shutting the bathroom. "Can we stop referring to it as
the 'dead-Noelle' story?"
"Yes, please," Gin agreed.
Latch picked up the slice. "It isn't cold." He took a bite. "Hey, Rumi, you got anything that
connects to the internet?"
Still dazed, Gin pulled her phone from her pocket. "Why?"
"To check the date. Be sure of where we are."
Anselm knelt to a nondescript book discarded on the floor. "The Metacoda is on the floor here. I
wonder why it would be here in the apartment." She brought it over to Gin. "This is the book we were
trying to explain." She drew it back as Gin reached for it. "You don't have to look at it. It can
be...difficult."
"I think I do have to look at it," Gin disagreed, slipping the book from Anselm's grasp. She
turned to the first page and read some. "This part is about you..."
"Yes. The first pages explain how I arrived. Much like our trip from your room, I just opened a
door, and found myself in that alleyway. If you get further into the story, it shows my introduction to
Latch, then it switches to Bradley's perspective."
She flipped the pages. "Here I am... It says I'm lazy."
"According to Bradley's perspective at that moment in time. I recall it also mentioned you were
fetching."
"'Fetching enough to have one wonder why she was so generally out of touch,'" Gin reiterated,
verbatim. "That's not a compliment. This whole paragraph is a big diss..." She flipped over some more
pages.
Latch came over to pluck the book away. "I can't tell if you're in shock or a freak, but we
shouldn't be worrying about your image right now. We should be catching up with what's going on. We
left Bradley here, in this apartment, before we disappeared into your dead-Bradley storyline. Now he's
gone, and this book is here, which it shouldn't be."
Anselm sighed hoarsely. "Can you not reference these separate storylines by whether or not

70
Bradley is dead? We can identify this as the original storyline."

Latch began skimming the last written pages of the book. "You don't know that. Somehow, I
doubt we debuted in the 'original' storyline. Technically, wouldn't her storyline is the original? The
scrapped draft," he dropped the finger to Gin before turning away to pace the room whilst he read.
"Okay, here's where you walked into the magical crack door from...'Storyline-A.'" He peeked at Anselm
from over the book. "Then the story breaks away to Bradley in his apartment. He makes the pizza... He
spots the Metacoda sitting on the table. Reads it... So, that drags on for like...three pages... He goes to
bed...blah, blah, blah. Oh, shit... Oh shit..."
"What?"
Latch moved the book closer to his face. "It cuts from Noelle, to Leaven breaking into Gin's
room with a gun."
"'Breaks' into?"
"Yeah. He kicks through the lock."
"What happens, Latch?!"
"It fucking cuts off back to Bradley before anything else happens at Gin's... Why the hell was it
written like this?"
Anselm tore the book from him to read for herself. "We need to get to Gin. The other Gin." She
looked to the current Gin in question.
"I'll come," she enthused, her posture straight with cautious anticipation. Anselm sensed by the
look of fear in her face that it wasn't courage that compelled her, but sheer desperation. She wanted the
chance to reunite with the dead in a world she didn't belong.
"I don't think so. You should go back."
"Go back to what? A 'scrapped' world where everyone is dead?!"
Determination showed through the fear. Anselm had revealed too much to turn her away now. It
was wrong for the author to displace people and play with lives, but now she would cause the same
brand of sacrilege.
*
Bradley practically fell off the bicycle at the front of the boarding house and burst through the
front. He was surprised to find it open. He leaped up the stairs and ran to Gin's door. He threw it open,
unready for the scene beyond it. Leaven was sitting at Gin's desk chair, cycling casually through sheets
of paper--her drawings--with his feet rested on the edge of her bed. On the center of the bed was a heap
veiled beneath a sheet. In size and shape, the covered heap resembled a person.
Leaven didn't raise his eyes as Bradley moved to the bed. Papers shuffle, and Bradley looked to
him again..
"You must have read the book, right? That's how you knew to fine me here? I wonder how
much of what transpired the author included. You seem surprised by that."
Bradley looked back to the heap, studying its contours. Faintly, he slid the sheet down and
quickly retracted his hands.
Vacant green eyes stared back up at him, wet and pinkened. They were empty and foreign. The
face was pale but smooth and unblemished with preservation, with all the endearing qualities but color
and cognizance, as though she'd only been gone a few minutes...
Finger marks were imprinted on her throat, still pink, crowned with sharp indentations like that
of digging nails.
He touched her skin. It was just lukewarm. "Oh, Gin..."
"If you've read the entire book, maybe you can appreciate the circumstance I was left with."
A tidal of emotion came over Bradley as he turned to the murderer.
"Maybe not."
"You did this to Gin...and Annika."

71
Leaven sucked his teeth. "Figured that out? Did the cops come for you? I set it up to make it
seem like you did it. Transferred fingerprints off some stuff in your apartment, put some evidence in
your sock drawers..." He tossed the drawings aside. The pages fluttered all over the floor, one beneath
his foot as he raised from his seat to approach Bradley. There was an uncanny lack of concern in his
face.
"I warned you, Brado. You didn't want to listen. Throughout this whole ordeal, you haven't
learned a darned thing." He spread his hands like a book. "You needed the proof literally written out for
you, and even now I see disbelief behind those eyes, clutching for control." He clenched his fingers in a
throttling motion and the vision of those hands choking Annika and Gin flashed across Bradley's mind.
"Annika and Gin didn't do anything."
"It's not about what they did, it's about what they were. Our minds prefer to organize events like
a narrative, prioritizing the interesting stuff and identifying truth only through personally relevant
consequence. They provided the consequence."
Bradley felt his heart in his throat. He swallowed and put his face in his hands, sinking to sit
upon the bed beside Gin's body.
"I paid you to stay away and you didn't so much as cash my check," continued Leaven. "Why?
What drove you to return? You were not in control, but the fictitious product of a sadistic mind. We all
are, and the actions we take are defined by our role." He pointed at Bradley. "Good guy." He patted
himself. "Bad guy." He motioned to Gin's body. "Disposable. If you want to understand, you're going to
have to start thinking inside the box. There are plenty of words that don't quite apply the same to me as
they may to you, but try to appreciate the word 'must' as something with universal empathy. There are
things we all must do to make this a story. I had to do this, you know. It's all very difficult for you to
grasp, but know that my actions are a necessity.
"In initially, I imagined that maybe I could be the protagonist. After all, if someone is going to
be given that burden, he should know what he's getting into and who to blame. But after I happened
upon that book and I glimpsed its pages, the lack of leverage I personally had was revealed to me. I was
not the one defining my role, and I could not be retooled without using the conventions that held me in
place: you. My antithesis. If I wanted to find a place, I needed you; to have you exist, though
eventually purposeless. No identity and no motive. A shell. Do you feel it yet? That feeling of
irrelevance? Losing your place in this world as I gain one."
He stopped to take Bradley into his remorseless gaze. "And I do need a place, Bradley. I don't
get redemption if this ends without my impression. I don't get an identity, or a life, or so much as a
chance to experience existence as you know it. I'm fending for my very continuance while you cower
in denial of the idea that these awful things could have possibly happened by the mere whim of some
guy with a keyboard. And alls you had to do to prevent these things was listen to every person you've
met within the past week, but you'd rather dally through this willfully ignorant." Leaven punctuated
this by tearing Bradley's hands away from his face. A portrait of distaste glared back at him. "Blind."
Distress and anger vaulted Bradley from his seat. He sensed the pressure of his knuckles
meeting cheekbone with blow after blow, although could not feel the pain in his numb hands. All of this
was a undertone of stimuli amidst a great torrent of emotion as he drove Leaven into the wall and
pummeled until the sheetrock gave behind his skull.
Bradley tore him away to spin him onto the desk, bending him over backwards with a hand
wrapped around his throat while another beat down relentlessly
He strangled them to death. Monster.
Bradley's red hot tunnel vision missed Leaven's hand searching the desktop to finding a
sharpened stick of graphite. He jammed it through Bradley's flank and smashed an electric pencil
sharpener against his face. Bradley staggared back, swiping at watery blurs until a strike to temple
dropped him.

72
Witless to his fall, Bradley discovered himself lateral to the floor. He placed his palms flat to
rise, though the pressure of a cylinder against his neck kept him down.
"You would rather continue to cling to something that is not only detrimental, but gone." With a
blood-toothed grimace, Leaven noisily threw aside the dented pencil sharpener and stood from where
he knelt, lifting the muzzle of his pistol from Bradley's spine. He pulled a shirt off Gin's clothing rack
to wipe his face. "I've taken your occupation, I've intruded your home, I've executed your friends, and
I'll make sure that their blood is on your hands. You'll live a long, plotless life inside of a cell for what
I've done. A nobody with nothing and no future."
Bradley lifted his torso from the floor...
Leaven pointed his gun. "Don't move. You're in no position to duke a victory out, and you're out
of luck if you're expecting to go out a martyr, though, if crippling your morale includes actually
crippling you, I am ruthlessly willing."
Bradley was able to pick himself up to his knees. Leaven aimed at them.
"If you want to to struggle for a poignancy, Brado, I'm sorry that I can't grant a climax you can
appreciate..."
Through the throbbing head trauma, Bradley mistook the noise of clamoring feet as tinnitus
until Leaven spun his gun to the entrance. The thud of the door being thrown open was met with the
blasts of gunfire, and, with a smoking revolver leading her steps, Deputy Anselm stormed in. Bradley
tumbled away, snatching up the pistol Leaven had dropped. He clamored to his feet as a second, Latch,
and tertiary individual slinked laggardly into the room. Her green eyes peeked around the deputy and
locked with his from beneath the brim of a orange softcap.
Leaven had taken Deputy Anselm's bullets into various places in the torso. He touched over a
bullet hole puncturing his chest as he surveyed everyone in the room. He shook his head in slow
disdain and spat a dollop of blood.
"This is a farce."
Anselm thumbed the hammer of her revolver back. "Then allow me to grant a climax we can all
appreciate." She unloaded her remaining bullets into Leaven's torso: one, two, three.
Through the deafening gunshots and thunk of deadweight, Bradley was heedless to the action
flashing right by-- the brunette girl, alive and animated and wringing her hands as she fearfully
witnessed the identical body upon the bed, captivating his full attention.
Latch grabbed the book off the ground and pocketed it. "Snap out of it and get Noelle. We got a
generous five minutes to spare before the cops come."
The spitting image of his friend came forth, hands raised in submission of his manic expression.
"Brad...we're gonna bring you away from here." She reached for him cautiously and took Leaven's gun
to replaced it with her hand.
"Gin?"
"Yes," She curled her fingers around his in haptic proof of her presence. She was trembling. Or
he was.
"I don't understand."
"You don't have to. You just have to follow me. Just come with me and everything will
be...okay. Okay? We need to get out of here." He drifted along, unable to convince himself to stay. With
sympathetic aversion, the deputy stepped aside. Gin opened the door to the hallway of the boarding
house. Every door in the hall was open, populated by residence drawn out of their rooms by the
gunshot. They peered with suspended fear as Braldey followed Gin through. He turned to try and
recapture the vision he'd left behind, but Anselm shut the door.
Outside, a taxi cab waited at the curb. The driver spun in his seat as they piled in.
"Whoa! Hold on...!"
"We need to get to Port Au Avenue, right now," Anselm instructed, taking her place in the

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passenger side.
"Lady, I heard a gunshot. If I had half a mind, I'd of speeded out've here as soon as--"
She put her warm gun to his cheek. "Drive. Fast."
The car took off. Bradley was seated in the back, in the middle seat. He stared at Gin, who was
staring out her window. So was Latch, on his opposite side. In the front, Anselm kept one eye on the
passenger windows as she watched the driver. Bradley was too dumbstruck to speak, and all of them
appeared to be waiting for a police car to appear.
It was a tense ride to the corner of Bradley's street, where Anselm apologized to the cabbie and
paid him a wad of bills before they rushed on-foot to the alleyway across the street from the apartment
complex and approached the crack house door, which Anselm had purposefully kept ajar with a trash
can. To Bradley's disorientation, it appeared to lead right back into Gin's room.
"What is this?"
"Another version of the story." Anselm answered.
"Another version..."
"In there is a separate storyline. Same premise, different events," Latch explained. "You read the
book at your apartment, right? You get what we've been trying to tell you now?"
"What is this?"
"Another version of the story," Anselm answered.
"Another version..."
"In there is a separate storyline. Same premise, different events," Latch explained, pulling the
Metacoda from his back pocket. "You read this book at your apartment, right? You get what we've been
trying to tell you now?"
Bradley continued to stare at the ajar door.
"I think he's broken, Deputy..."
Anselm gave a wry look and physically turned Bradley's face away from the doorway to look at
her. "Remember our little discussion about alternative realities?" She placed a pointful hand on Gin's
shoulder. "This Gin is like a dimensional alien. She came from a storyline that the author would have
otherwise scrapped."
Gin dipped her face in consent. She too appeared dazed. In a moment of clarity, Bradley
realized she'd just witnessed her own death minutes ago. This struck some sobriety into him.
"What are we doing here? Are you going back?" he asked her.
"No." Gin took a step away from the door.
Latch grunted. "What?"
"I want to be with my sister. I want to see her." She took another step away.
You're dead, Rumi," Latch said flatly. "Dead. Your dead body is being gawked at by cops right
now. How do you expect to live here? You're going home!"
Anselm moderated with a hand to Latch's chest.
"What happened to your sister?" Bradley asked.
When Gin couldn't form the words, Anselm did for her. "She's been killed."
By Leaven, Bradley surmised. He looked to Anselm and Latch. "If anyone can't stay, it's me.
Leaven killed my girlfriend, too. And he set me up for it."
"Annika...?" Gin murmured sympathetically.
Bradley nodded back at her. "I don't exactly how much leverage Leaven prepared, but he
planted enough evidence for me to be a suspect. I don't see how I could avoid conviction after a
boardinghouse full of witnesses watched us run from that scene. Especially since we took the most
solid evidence against Leaven with us." He looked to Gin, who was still thoughtlessly holding Leaven's
pistol in her hands.
"I think I see the convenience of us passing through the dead-Noelle storyline now," Leaven

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mentioned.
"Storyline-B," Anselm corrected.
Bradley threw his hands. "What? Dead-what?"
Latch pointed to the doorway. "In there, you're dead. With a little phlebotinum, you can slip
right back into the story."
"Um. Latch." Anselm shook her head at him and yanked him toward her to whisper in his hear.
"Storyline-B is being scrapped. Bradley can't go there." He shot a glare to Gin. "And you're going with
him."
Gin wrapped herself sheepishly in her own arms. "I can't."
Latch dropped a foot in front of her. When she attempted to move away, he grabbed her by the
arms.
"W-what are you doing...?"
"I'm making a judgment call."
At a loss for judgment, Bradley looked to Anselm. She stepped back, allowing Latch to
manhandle Gin toward the exit. Screaming protests, she gave a strident push backwards as Latch
positioned her in front of the door. With one, hard counter-shove, he thrust her inside. She staggered,
caught herself on her clothing rack, and made a run for the door only to be caught in Latch's arm on his
way through.
"No! Let go of me!"
Anselm walked inside. Unsure, Bradley followed and she shut the door behind him.
Latch released Gin. She ran between the other two to swing the door open. The familiar hallway
of the boarding house was met on the other side. She shut the door, opened it. Shut it. Opened it. She
turned to them.
"Open it back to the other world!"
"We can't," Anselm answered.
"Why not?"
Latch opened it demonstratively before her. "We. Can't." He shut it, opened it, shut it, opened it,
and shut it. "We have no control over this. It happens at the convenience of the plot." He opened it.
"Looks like the plot wants you here."
Gin's eyes flashed with fury, and she shoved Latch away, breaking into tears midway through
the action and falling over her own momentum to her knees. "Why would you do that?" she
whimpered, hiding her face in her hands. "Alls I wanted was my sister. Why won't you let me see my
sister?!"
Latch exhaled and turned away. Anselm stepped forth to kneel in front of Gin, who bowed her
head in rejection of the presence.
"You're awful. You're bad people." Pulling her hands away from her teary face, she shot a
blameable look to Bradley. "You let them. You didn't do anything at all, Bradley."
"Listen to me, please," Anselm requested curtly, though quietly. "No matter how hard you
pretend, the Jenever you know is gone. No replica can change that. You're asking to live a lie, and if
you could, I don't believe you would be very happy with yourself. I've met a Gin before, and I've seen
the strength in her heart. If you are anything alike, you must love Jenever more than to be able to
pretend her terrible fate never happened. She's your sister, and her death deserves your acceptance."
Anselm stood. as Bradley took her place in front of Gin. He touched her arm for attention, and
they hugged.
The trio remained with Gin for the remaining hours of the afternoon. On occasion, Latch or
Anselm (more often Latch), left the cramped room, though never together. Gin spent most of these
hours with the Metacoda book, catching up on the escapades of Bradley and the deceased version of

75
herself. Although she did not speak throughout the read, it was obvious when she got to the part about
her sister.
Gin was quite slow and deliberate with her reading, and finished when dusk began to settle in.
By then, the group was sleepily draped around the room, with Gin at her desk chair and Bradley resting
on her bed while Anselm sat against the door and Latch laid across the floor, going through phases of
dozing off and snorting awake.
Everyone's heads lifted when she shut the book and scooted out from her desk. The four of them
discussed the evening's plans, and although Anselm and Latch had intended to stay the night in case of
danger, they came to the conclusion that inaction wouldn't conclude the story any sooner, and there was
no real indication it would amount to a more positive outcome.
Preparing to leave, Anselm flipped her hat onto her head and presented a hand to Bradley. He
opened his mouth to speak. Realizing just how much there was on his mind, he resolved to the
handshake.
The deputy gave him the subtlest of smirks. She tugged the brim of her hat at Gin, and with a
bidding lift of a hand, began candidly after Latch. "No offense, but I hope I never see you guys again,
either," he said on his way out, and the two otherworldly cohorts closed themselves behind the exit.
As the last foreigner in the room, Bradley felt a deep loneliness creep into him as he and Gin
stared at the door. She sighed wistfully and wrapped herself around his arm. The two turned in without
much a discussion. Her twin bed was cramped, but she expressed wanted him by her tonight and he
could relate. The idea of being left only to the company of his own thoughts was uncomfortable.
*
Waking up was a little bit startling. Not waking up in his own bed was a prompt reminder that
he was not waking up in his own reality. And Gin was missing from bed, so he woke up with this
sentiment alone. On her desk was a note for him that told him that she'd left to attend his funeral. He
wasn't sure if he wanted to know that, but supposed it was necessary to explain.
He left the boarding house to take a taxicab to the apartment of his alternate reality self. He
found that it looked just looked like his apartment. It even smelled like his apartment. He drifted along
the dining table, sliding his palm over the lacquered wood. He gripped the top rung of a chair, rattled it,
felt its stiffness.
He yanked it and stuck it against the wall. He regarded the crack he'd made in the chair leg. He
snapped it off the base and swung it onto the table, shattering the pane set in its center. Glass poured
onto the floor.
He began to wander the apartment. He explored the living room, kitchen, bedroom and bath,
observing the surfaces and items within them, meticulously studying anything he could lift. Lamp.
Channel changer. Toaster. The forks and spoons and knives in the silverware drawer. Every piece of
food in the cabinets and refrigerator. The toilet paper. The shampoo bottle. The pills and soaps and
lotions in the medicine cabinet. All of the clothes in the closet and drawers. The pillows. The sheets.
The alarm clock.
Every item was identical to what he owned, yet nothing had been previously touched by his
hands.
It wasn't long before he couldn't stand being in the apartment. He took a trip to the church on
the outskirts of the borough where Gin had mentioned his funeral to be, but the cathedral was empty
and the priest informed him the ceremony had ended. In retrospect, Bradley was thankful he'd not have
the opportunity to interrupt his own funeral. Morbid curiosity brought him to the grave sight. He was
late to the burial, but he found Gin standing in front of a gravestone. He alerted her with the sound of
his footsteps.
"Why would you go to my funeral?" The question seemed reasonable enough to him.
"Because Bradley died," Gin reminded him obviously. "You don't change that."

76
Bradley came to her side and read the tomb stone. It was weird to see his name there.
"Although, I was just thinking of my sister now..."
"She was a pleasant person. Friendly and beautiful. I wish I could have gotten the opportunity to
get to know her better."
"Me too."
"She was a good sister, wasn't she?"
Gin sniffled. "She did everything she could to be good a good sister. In that way, she was the
best. I wish I could have been better. Even in her death, I wanted to run away to a place where I could
be comfortable. I was the wrong one, but she died. I'm sorry for what happened to Annika, Bradley, but
can't stop thinking that the way your story had ended was right, and this one is all wrong."
"No. It wasn't. You and Annika didn't deserve to die any more than Jenever and I."
"Everything that happened relied on me leaving her. The book relied on me being where I was."
"You can't blame yourself for indirectly influencing something unpredictable."
"No one predicts terrible stuff. But I did something I knew would hurt her, and something
terrible happened... What excuse is there? I didn't mean it?"
"That's right. You didn't mean it."
"Well then...'oops.'"
Bradley made a noise of disapproval. He wished he had some input, though he wasn't in the
most confident mental state, himself. It was difficult to think about all of the what-ifs.
Gin wiped her eyes and began to walk towards the street. "Leaven's dead, by the way."
Bradley took a few seconds to process the relevance of this. He was still having a hard time
grasping the past's events were rearranged. When he removed his attention from the tombstone, she'd
already picked her bicycle off the graveyard's slope to begin down the road. He connected his phone to
the internet and searched the local news. The first article reported the CEO of Machivel Media being
found decapitated in his home last night.
He called his family and friends as soon as he'd plotted out a well detailed lie of his merely
near-death experience. This included Annika. As with everyone he had contacted, what fake enthusiasm
he could express in his voice didn't felicitate the circumstances. He felt a little guilty about the
undercutting her hysteria, and wondered if he should also be feeling ashamed of himself for dismissing
his death while standing on his own grave. He decided not. That was definitely for the best.
He offered to spend the day with Annika and they took a walk amongst skipping leaves on a
perfectly cool afternoon in the park. He tried to find contentment in her company amongst misplaced
smalltalk.
Once at his apartment, they popped a movie in and snuggled on the couch. It felt uncomfortably
vacant. The girl with her head resting on his shoulder and her arm embracing his waist was not the one
he shared affections with this very same way last week. She seemed less real than his own imagination,
less present than the photograph of her corpse that he'd witnessed in the interrogation room just
yesterday. How effortlessly she could be just as well when a stroke of words on a page was all anyone
was ever really worth.
He had became an observer amongst an intangible world overnight, where his closest
companion became nothing but a yearning reminder of the ignorance he'd possessed. Having her near
felt isolating. Her touch was a mock.
At the end of the movie, she asked what was wrong with him. Without ceremony, he told her
that he needed some time apart. When she wouldn't leave the apartment without a reasonable
explanation, he did. He walked into the waning light of Santa Vidora, the leering skyscraper of
Machival's headquarters watching as he moved eastward.
Outside the city, he turned onto a road carved into the outlet's shore. Bedecked with old wooden

77
buildings, upside down dinghies, and fishing nets hung out to dry, the road lead to the harbor. Past a
several wharfs was a long, narrow boardwalk overlooking the dunes, beyond that, the beach. Between
them, the regular call of a moustachioed venderman advertised his "Fishstix" to returning fishermen.
Not far from the vender, Bradley's vision caught an identifiable brunette occupying a dock.
Confidentially, he expected to find her, and perhaps she expected to be found as well, for she didn't
make any commotion to his presence. She placed her digital tablet onto her lap as he sat down, gazed at
his clinical silence while he stared at the moored boats, then resumed her drawing.
Bradley was silent for as long as she drew. When Gin was finished, she turned the screen off to
follow his eyes to the boats drifting along the harbor.
"I saw Annika today," he announced eventually. "I spent the whole day with her."
"How was it?"
"I felt like I was with a ghost. Or maybe the other way around."
She lifted a hand near his arm. "Does it feel like you're with a ghost right now?"
With a glimpse, Bradley caught a fracture within Gin's eyes; an esoteric distinction from the
prudence he had learned to expect of her. Their gaze unlocked and Gin revealed a book she'd been
keeping on the opposite side of her. "The" book. She placed it in his lap. Bradley took it in, and hardly
thinking, tossed it into the harbor.
"That books sucks. I got something more interesting..." He pulled out the ten-grand check from
his wallet and placed it into Gin's palm. She unraveled it and perked.
"What the what?"
"It's from Leaven. My credit card works here, and I don't see a reason for Leaven's banking
information to be any different. It should cash."
"What are you gonna do with it?"
"I think I'll dig my feet into this city and open my own business. Like a content creation firm to
compete with Machivel."
"Oh?"
"Yep." He wrapped an arm around Gin, tugging her to his side. "And I'll need a business
partner."
"Ohhh...?"
"Preferably an artsy one. Do you know any good illustrators?"
"Nah."
"You'll have to do then."
"You know I'm not above a little nepotism."
She retrieved her computer tablet to show off what shed been drawing. The screen featured a
sketchy depiction of the venderman with his arms abroad, screaming to crowds of impartial fishermen.
The burlesque encompassed him so well, Bradley had to snicker, but the crux of the picture only
culminated when he noticed an aside character: a gangly, orange-haired employee wearing a billboard
reading, "Madfishtix! Now in a Can!"
The pair began to laugh, and their individual laughter fed the other until it escalated to tears.
Gin alarmed a passerby into believing she was suffering an epileptic seizure when she almost rolled off
the dock in her upheaval, and when asked if she was okay, the two paused, exchanged looks, and burst
into a new fit of hysteria.
They laughed and cried until the stranger awkwardly removed himself. They must have
appeared to be insane, tragically misplaced and out of context, and nobody would ever know just how
literally. At some point, they lost track of exactly what had caused their laughter, but it didn't matter
when nobody else could ever hope to get it. Even if they saw the picture. They could never really get it.

Madfish - Part 1

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1

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speak at the same time. It seemed difficult.

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decking someone since I got here."

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was Bradley's underling.

Dear Valued Employee,

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Dear Machivel Zwangsarbeiters,

Your most recent review of my autobiographical essay has been morally

He read it twice. "This isn't my message."

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"It was sent by your email address."

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"I know that. Eight four five, two six"

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panel. "You look nervous."

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"I was hired to work with Bradley Noelle..."

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"I don't know."

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soon as they made eye contact:

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"I know her. I said I did!"

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favor. There's no reason we should have to wait here, but we are."

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She ran a brush through her hair.

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This was a prank.

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"PUT IT DOWN! ON THE GROUND!"

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