Tom tried to plug himself into the system like a normal Senior Manager Executive Personnel, but was horrified when he realized his plug didn’t fit the hole. Since no one could hear his cries, he had to research, & found that he had a rare V12 plug when almost everyone had a G7. Tom wasn’t so normal in the center anymo’.

Now Tom had no hope o’ trading MADSOQ pixels with Jones Jim pixels or to yell swear words & punch interns or jack off in front o’ the big screen when it gave the green or ran the red.

& there was no hope o’ crying to anyone else for help. They were already gone.

Tom was isolated & vulnerable in this empty, clean building full o’ snug pods, in a state o’ unnerving abnormality.

The young woman ventured through the rainy night, fingers freezing itchily red from constantly moving ice-cold, water-saturated leaves out o’ the way o’ her path.

Kilometers later, she ran into the tiny castle & knocked. A shadow opened the door & let her in.

The young woman stood on the welcome mat as the owner turned for the kitchen.

You must be Madame Solstice. I was told you wore a mask.

Please, sit & be comfortable, said the owner.

There’s no time for comfort; I need to learn, quickly.

We shall; but, please, sit. We must talk.

Knowing that arguing further would get her no further, she sat & waited. A minute after, the owner came in holding a steaming mug with a tea leaf dangling o’er the rim. She sat it on the table in front o’ the young woman.

Drink this.

The young woman looked up @ the owner, brows raised by the importance her tone gave to this tea.

She couldn’t see the owner’s expression ’hind that mask; but the young woman could tell by the cadence that she meant something when she said, It’ll make you grow.

’Twas a strange building — but not the strangest he’d seen: like pancakes, stacked on top o’ each other, ’cept ’stead o’ pancakes, they were magazines — magazines bigger than the average yoyo’s yard.

He stepped up to the front door, finding it hard to believe a front door could exist on a building that looked like this. He had a lot o’ time to think ’bout that as nobody answered. Finally, he had no option but to bust the door down using his office-supplied spiked shoes. It went down in a tinkle.

’Pon entering through the former doorway, he saw everyone inside, the receptionists & the men in suits playing plots, glare @ him. But before they could try anything, he reached into his pocket & pulled out a li’l audio device.

I have some recording that I think the Gearmother wants to hear.

I’m sorry, Sir, but ’less you stop fooling round, we can’t get you a doctor. Now, I’m going to ask ’gain, ‘¿What is you full name?’

Tobias Redden felt his arms shake with the urge to punch something; but he had to keep that down, or else they’d think e’en worse o’ him.

He shrugged, & then positioned his arm & pinched his index &amp thumb as if writing with an invisible pen on an invisible sheet o’ paper.

But the attendant simply said, I can’t help you if you don’t stop fooling round. God, ¿what is with all you clowns who always gotta do things differently just to be different round here — & @ a hospital, too. None o’ the customers @ the bank I used to work @ behaved like this.

That afternoon he went to a hardware shop to get a torch to burn that shithole to the ground, only to be stopped by the clerk there saying, Hold it, bub: we don’t have any ‘S boasdzbrh jfe’x xfrm’. Try the sex shop down the street.

She couldn’t believe her luck: they thought they were clever, but 1 slight flaw caused it all to crumble: a common virus that caused objects to get malformed attributes. In this case, it so happened that 1 out o’ the million cookies they spawned had a seriously malformed length attribute. ¿How malformed? Think thousands o’ meters.

So all she had to do was follow this particularly long, stretched-out cooking to find its origin, which was also where all million o’ those regular-sized cookies hid.

But what she didn’t realize was that someone else had seen her suspicious behavior in the nadir o’ night, & was following.

A young Oleta Deaton knew there was only 1 way to bruise & batter the market, & that was with ideas. She also knew there was only 1 way to cook up ideas, & that was by cranking up the head up in the ol’ noggin.

& she knew the color o’ heat — the true color. It wasn’t red, which had a bit o’ the coldness o’ ketchup, but orange as a sunset sun.

So she feasted on carrots, cheddar cheese, grapefruit, & oranges till she felt the heat grow in her forehead, causing all the gray cells to squirm like bacteria & the ideas to rise like yeast.

’Side the brittle anger that poured through their voices was a sweaty anxiety. There were 2 kinds: those who were in the right & were berating those who tossed the sprocket, & those who were wrong & were shakily shouting explanations that put the blame on others for too much pressure, too li’l help to e’en the field, “We’re s’posed to be working together, ¿aren’t we? ¿How could you be surprised what happened when you all kept your answers like a Soviet secret?”

But none o’ that changed the fact that the whole crowd screwed up. The godmotherboard had asked them 72,819 + 65,214, & the majority had said, “138,023” ( a tight 52% majority, to be fair, which should’ve made them skeptical ), making a fatal error on adding the 10s digit. The real answer was “138,033”, which they had later proven after deep analysis.

But ’twas too late to take back the original answer: the godmotherboard had given it & it had cost 10 lives who weren’t able to get lifeboats when the floods came in. 1 o’ those lives was their best captain — the captain always went down if anyone else had to. The same would now probably be said ’bout the godmotherboard & her audience.

When Abram Royer 1st entered the produce section o’ the local FredMart, it looked so small & innocent — he’d find his pickled mushrooms in minutes.

But the farther he ventured in, the mo’ it seemed to grow round him, till he was kilometers in & still couldn’t see an end in sight. ’Twas nothing but shelves o’ apples, oranges, bananas, & millions o’ other fruits, many o’ which he’d ne’er e’en seen before, on 1 side & refrigerated shelves o’ lettuce, cabage, cucumbers — an uncountable variety o’ light greens, dark greens, & purples — on the other. He kept looking back, only to see the sections he’d past stretch back as far as can be seen, turning break-neck just a few meters, but threatening kilometers mo’.

He had an ill omen that if he tried going back, he’d find that there was no back anymo’, but just an infinite produce section the stretched in the other direction.

Goduncle, ¿What’s going — ?

No time, the Goduncle snapped.

The Goduncle roamed round the small apartment building, picking up this & that — mostly clothes & bills in drawers — & throwing them into a briefcase while the Godnephew stood watching him in confusion.

Finally the Goduncle stopped back @ the briefcase & shut it. However, before he could move ’gain, the Godnephew put his hands on the Goduncle’s hands to stop him.

¿Who’s after us?

The Goduncle raised his voice. You know who — the only 1 who could scare me out o’ the entire county. The Goduncle shook the Godnephew off & stormed out.

The Godnephew blinked for a few stunned seconds, & then followed the Goduncle out.

’Twas a minor step — but all revolutions started with a minor step.

Yesterday Colton came to work in his customary white shirt, tie, & black slacks, but had on purple socks — purple being the universal color o’ the bottom-left; today he came in with the same, but the purple scarf round his neck. Piece by piece, he planned to allow his clothing to be devoured by purple, the only true color, & by the time they catch him, he’ll have already set the standard & they’ll have to change the standards.

There was no chance o’ failure. The clouds had foretold to him such.