Peanut Gallery is a never-ending story written live on stream, with contributions taken from the audience.  New watchers become characters, and commentary can be integrated wholly or in part in numerous wild ways.  If you would like to participate, join us over on my Twitch channel and click follow to stay up to date.

Reconnaissance Cafe

A good deal happened, but it was all a blur to Par, up until the moment he took the first bite of his club sandwich. After his meeting, after shaking off its contents, he had hopped in the nearest taxi and returned to his apartment, on a respectable sixteenth floor, a good safe distance from the Twenty-Seventh.

He’d found it just as his fresh memories claimed he would. The maid had just been through, dusted all his books, but not the chalkboard where he kept many notes multifaceted and sometimes mathematical. Smudges would not be tolerated, not until it was all printed off a thousand times over, so no one could get rid of it. That was the permanence he strove for, now that he had been made permanent.

Unfortunately this now meant Biy knew where he lived, but he already sensed that he couldn’t be rid of the man, that if he so much as tried there would be an existential tantrum, at least in his thumb, resulting in countless button presses that could upend everything that was just getting started. It was impossible to finish any narrative when things just kept happening all of the time.

The stopover was not brief; he’d taken several hours to unwind, learn what his favorite drink tasted like, and make sure he had enough chalk and paper to really get the ideas flowing. A glance at his grandfather clock, the only grandfather he still had five encyclopedic novels into his career, told him it was still late afternoon. Then his stomach told him he was hungry. Par found it both extraordinary and irritating that he had been created hours prior and still burned through enough energy to be peckish.

Recognizing he was the sort of person who could work and eat at the same time, Par decided to hit the streets once again, already armed with the knowledge that right across from the ground floor of the Gollyblock building there was a cafe he’d been meaning to try. What a perfect opportunity for a bite and a light sampling of reconnaissance.

Biy joined him once again, showing no fatigue at all. Par tested whether or not he could annoy the man into leaving him be, joking that it wasn’t the button that expedited travel, but Biy’s strange and disproportionately long legs. The novelist was made to back off when he immediately threatened to hit the big button, forcing Par to keep to himself the nickname ‘Cricket’ that he was going to try out.

Both men sat at one of the outdoor tables of the Light Lunch cafe under an intimidating umbrella that at least hid the now much more intimidating skyline. Par asked if Biy had money to pay for his order, and got a most expected response.

“Money is for people who can’t push the buttons,” he gloated, rattling the chatterbox back and forth. Rattling too aggressively. Par couldn’t stop him, and this time it was the big button.

Big Button Press: duckyduck0k – “Ducky Dachuck”

At least nothing exploded, Par told himself, sighing with relief. Someone showed up alright, from out of the marginalia, but they were given a role that suited the situation, and suited them in a teal-striped waiter’s shirt and apron. They didn’t need introductions, for he wore a name tag that provided a ducky intro: ‘Ducky Dachuck’.

“That’s an unusual name you’ve got there,” Par said as the tall waiter ducked under the umbrella and brought out his jotting pad.

“Hopefully you have a usual order for me,” the young Ducky said in a voice a little too much like a quack for Par’s comfort. He had to be careful, or his mind would dive too deep into this corporate espionage business too quickly. Still, the thoughts were racing faster than Ducky’s pen as he jotted down their absent-minded orders: club sandwich for Par and bagel sandwich with duck fat fries for Biy.

What are the odds, Par thought, that I would run into a waiter named after a bird almost immediately? Can it be coincidence? Or is this intentional, an agent of the Twenty-Seventh Floor, making it clear they are keeping eyes on me at all times, from the sky and street level. Ultimately Par decided to not directly ask the question, instead observing the server’s behavior as subtly as possible.

That became impossible to do for the next ten minutes, as he ran off to the kitchen. Par tried to give him the benefit of the doubt. While he might not be a secret agent, he was almost certainly the person added to the situation by Biy’s bumbling button bash. An extra five minutes on the wait for their sandwiches was the least they could do while their waiter grappled with his responsibilities existential and occupational, probably crumpled next to a mop bucket, sobbing into it.

While he was gone they could peer over menus they no longer needed and watch the entrance to Gollyblock. Biy simply stared until Par swatted him and told him to be more subtle.

“Don’t be stupid, nobody’s going to notice me as long as something interesting is happening,” Biy argued, “and if it’s not interesting enough for you…” His eyes widened and his poised thumb threatened to depress the big button once more. Par didn’t even get a chance to formulate a response.

Big Button Press: lillette_ – “Hubert Loren” – big beefy bald man scared of women and bugs

Perhaps it was the press that made their food arrive a little sooner; it certainly was the cause of switching out their waiters. Ducky was gone, replaced by a tender brisket of a man over six feet tall without a single hair on his head, a trait waxed off him as he was ripped from the marginalia to make him a more sanitary, and thus effective server of food. His name tag said he was called Hubert Loren. Gently he placed their sandwiches and waited for at least a thanks, not getting it.

“What happened to Ducky?” Par asked. Keeping notes was going to be much harder if the chatterbox was more of a revolving door.

“He’s inside crying,” Hubert said, confirming Par’s suspicions. He knew all too well the sudden overwhelming rush, like a dunk tank, of a life haphazardly created by Biy Beforay. “He’ll get a hold of himself soon. For now I’ll be taking care of you fellas. Can I get you anything else?”

Par considered asking this new one if he was an agent of the birds, but he had even less reason to think so. Hubert’s name wasn’t even bird themed. The smell of his food was most distracting, and not just to the novelist; a beetle scurried out from under the table. Its twitching antennae caught Hubert’s eye, startled the large man, who then yipped like a small dog and tiptoed backward.

Surely he can’t work for the Twenty-Seventh Floor, Par reasoned silently, not if he’s that skittish around bugs. Or… it could mean the exact opposite. He could be afraid of them because those very bugs coursing through those walls and vents were used as punishment for disobedience. Fail in an assignment? Five hours in the dark pool of the vengeful insects for you. Is that who I’m working for now?

Either way, the beetle, whoever it worked for, drove Hubert back into the restaurant. The two big buttoners could console each other over their new lowly positions, be they as corporate spies or ordinary waiters. What mattered now was quelling the rumble in his stomach, so he could get back to focusing on his reconnaissance.

Par raised his club sandwich and took a hearty bite, encountering, frustratingly, an oddly terrible taste. In shifting it to the other cheek he found no change. Biy spied his grimace.

“What?” It stalled him from taking the first bite of his bagel, which dripped cheese out its crevice. Rather than answer, Par held up a finger, if only to convince Biy to slow down and not use a button press to summon someone who knew the Heimlich maneuver. Cautiously, fearing poison planted by Ducky, or perhaps intercepted then delivered by Hubert, Par spat the foul bite into a napkin.

On examination of his sandwich, he found the middle slice of bread to be dark and discolored. He sniffed it closely. Closer. Too close. He wiped a blob of potentially poisonous mayonnaise off the tip of his nose. What was that taste?

“Let me smell,” Biy asked, leaning across the table prematurely. Par relented, tilted the bitten end. Biy inhaled like it was a bouquet of roses, leaned back, and took several seconds to process.

“Well?”

“Duck fat, except it’s gone off,” the man explained. He then sampled his own duck fat fries. “hah, not mine. You got part of a bad batch. Shame. Frying the middle piece in duck fat seems like a great idea.” He then tucked into his bagel so aggressively that the totality of the cheese slipped out the back and splattered across his plate.

“You don’t think those two… or one of them… are with… you know… what I mean to say is you don’t think they’re birds of a feather, do you?”

“Oh I see what you’re getting at,” Biy said, tapping his forehead with the edge of his bagel, spilling the lettuce, then the tomato, and then the bacon. “I have… no idea.” His second bite contained nothing but bread and a few poppy seeds, prompting a confused whirl of his head, as he searched the nearby crowd for the thief that had stolen the middle of his meal.

“And you’re the one who created us,” Par sighed. “Shouldn’t you know a little more about them. Can you tell me a single thing about Ducky or Hubert?” He was whispering, but the technique couldn’t keep the frustration out of his voice.

“Uhh, yeah, they’re waiters… aaaaaaand… they can’t tell when a fryer full of duck fat’s gone off. Ooh… maybe they don’t have senses of smell. That would be interesting, right?”

“I think you’ve discovered the least likely possibility,” Par sniped.

“If you don’t like it, maybe I can make it likelier,” Biy threatened, raising the chatterbox.

“You should limit yourself on that thing. How about, no more than three presses a day?”

“The number of presses is entirely on you buddy, and now Ducky and Hubert… and all the other people who dared try and tell me how to run this whole shebang.”

“How many are there?”

“At this point? Might be everybody on the planet.” Par would’ve spat out his latest bite, if it had been fit for biting. Somehow this notion struck so much harder than the idea that every big company on Earth was run by wheels both hamster and roulette. “What? It’s not like this is the only planet, the only time period, the only species.”

“What is the chatterbox? And how did you get hold of it?”

“What are we spying on me now?” Biy asked, sounding a touch frightened. “Suddenly I don’t like the air out here. You look over there.” He pointed at Gollyblock with his whole arm, making their target apparent to every patron and passerby. “I’m going to go see what’s up with the fat, maybe chew it with Ducky and Hube.” Finally, like the passing of a fog bank full of static electricity, Biy was gone. Par could focus; he made the doors on the opposite street the whole of his perception. Who entered? Who left? What state were they in?

Twenty people. Sixteen entering. Four exiting. Men and women in equal measure. Happy? Was Gollyblock a decent place to work? There were smiles, but they looked a touch fake. His few glances afforded when the doors were flung a little too open showed that the lobby was painted in bright colors, had places for children to sit and play with some of their products.

That might mean the smiles were false, as it was just part of the job description to not show the youngsters that a toy company was anything less than magical. Twenty-one. An exit. But not just. That is a pained exit. She wasn’t wearing high heels, so something else must have been bothering her foot.

The woman was short, wearing a dark pleated skirt. Her lustrous red hair was done up in two big curls, like the smooching necks of a pair of violins. All Par really noticed was the slight limp, the favoring of her left leg. While both his waiters, including the fact that there were two of them, had been plenty suspicious, neither set off the blaring alarm that limp now did.

Gollyblock was run based on pain, localized to the feet. There was a good chance she had, perhaps as part of her duties that day, strolled across a torture chamber floor flooded with Gollyblocks. That meant she knew, at the very least, suffering, of a type that could be very informative.

Despite her discomfort she was gaining distance fast. Par had to make a snap decision: follow a possible interview subject or remain to catalog other employees. In the end the awful taste still coating his mouth, like gamy motor oil, made the decision for him. If he couldn’t get a decent meal for his first, he had no reason to stay.

Testing his own subtlety, trying to award the silver and bronze to Ducky and Hubert, Par stood and dug around in his pocket for some bills, begrudgingly leaving a tip only because he couldn’t take the time to count exact change. Off he went, flying down the sidewalk silently, stealing glances at her between passing cars and buses.

If I approach I need a cover story. I’m a journalist. I do pieces on unions. I’d love to pick he brain about the labor situation inside Gollyblock, maybe over an early dinner? My treat. Just not the Light Lunch cafe.

Her path hooked down a less populous street. Even mirroring her, his pursuit would become more obvious as the crowd thinned. The street sign informed him she was heading down Loudnut Avenue, which rang a bell he’d just installed while looking at maps in his apartment. This was on the way to the other headquarters he was meant to remotely infiltrate, that of Solid Foundry Gravel and Sands.

He considered there might be much cross-pollination in the business of spying. Gollyblock could have enlisted her to pass by Foundry each day on her way home, keeping an eye out for anything suspicious. The triangle of streets between the three headquarters could have been little more than a thoroughfare for all their trafficking agents.

Eventually the paths merged and narrowed, putting him directly behind her. Either he retreated while he was still unnoticed or he went for his fraudulent approach. A tilt of her curls. Had she heard? If so it would be better to-

“Excuse me, miss?” Par blurted before he could stop himself, choosing to still his feet now that he’d already trapped her in an alley instead of powering toward her. The redhead stopped as well, twisted halfway. Her expression was blank, and he was keenly aware she was hiding her thoughts better than he did his own.

“If you try to mug someone who works for Gollyblock you’ll regret it,” she said plainly, fingering the clasp of her purse. With one click she could open it, spill out hundreds of blocks that might make it impossible to pursue her.

“I just wanted to speak with you,” he said, putting his hands up in case of a hidden weapon. “About Gollyblock actually. I’m a reporter; I do union pieces.”

“Why are you approaching me?”

“I saw your limp… workplace injury? I cover those too.”

“What paper?” Par wasn’t ready for her to beat him on the uptake. If anyone had experience in these affairs, it was her. Perhaps she had chewed up and spat out a handful of other attempts by the Twenty-Seventh Floor.

“Duh- Dachuck- Da Chuckler,” he said, suppressing a cringe. “It’s a comedy rag, but they use real journalism to tee up the jokes that come after the article. No funny business here though, that’s all my coworkers.” He chuckled for authenticity, failed.

“Gollyblock is no joke,” she claimed, narrowing her eyes, but her fingers left the clasp.

“Neither is Measured Wing,” Par said, testing the waters, or drenching himself, he couldn’t tell which. “They were my last target. I’m putting together a book, and I would love to get an interview with you.”

She didn’t immediately respond, staring intensely instead. Par straightened his posture, tried to make it look like he wasn’t still battling the foul taste in his mouth and a rumbling stomach. The discomfort of her gaze overwhelmed those sensations, might’ve cracked him and forced Par to spill his lies, but they were suddenly interrupted by the storming slap of three sets of shoes. Someone was coming. Par whirled around to the mouth of the alley just in time to see a knot of bodies veer around the corner and barrel toward him.

Once half the distance was closed he saw who they were, despite hoping to never see any of the trio ever again: Ducky, Hubert, and, perhaps inevitably, Biy. Tangled together, with Biy’s grasshopper legs in the mix, none of them had the efficient sprint of a secret agent, and were all too easily sidestepped by a mere novelist.

The ball of men went tumbling past him, right onto a clattering carpet of multicolored Gollyblocks that hadn’t been there seconds ago. They had taken the woman’s place, and she had vanished down an unknown avenue. Par was immediately furious, ready to skin them all to make the covers for his propaganda, but they wouldn’t have heard his tirade over their own howling.

Each had taken a back or a flank full of sharp corners, so much so that, had a qualified linguist been present, they could’ve plotted the rest of Gollyblock’s fiscal year. Hubert’s scream transitioned into yelling about bugs, Ducky eventually shushing him, explaining they were just blocks, not scorpions or centipedes. Biy got up slowly, except for the burst of speed where he snatched the chatterbox off the ground, snatched it by the small button.

Small Button Press: palaver89: “Champagne” “Foundation”

“Beforay!” the novelist couldn’t help but scold.

“Relax, it was just the little one,” the man said, waving him away as he tiptoed out of the minefield of toys. “I don’t even see anything yet.”

“I meant the interruption,” Par clarified, moving into the field while the others exited and plucked blocks from where they stuck to reddened hide as if they were cactus needles. “That was my first inroad for the book and you’ve gone and scared her off. She might warn them now.” He glanced at the other two sabotaging bumblers. “So which one of you was the spy sent by the birds to keep an eye on me?”

“Me,” Ducky claimed.

“Actually, me,” Hubert said, raising a pudgy hand as if that made him more believable. They both engaged in a brief slapping fight which didn’t resolve the issue.

“Whoever it was I bet you weren’t supposed to interrupt me.” Par spotted something at the end of the blocks, just as small, but much flatter. Carefully he made his way to it.

“I wouldn’t have-” Ducky started.

“Clam up, you’re just a waiter!” Mr. Loren argued.

“I’ve seen this before,” Biy said, shaking a Gollyblock out of his pant leg. It struck a few others, seemed to start a chain reaction that Par barely escaped before the puddle of pain clacked back to calm. “When the buttons get pressed close together there can be some confusion about who was supposed to be who. That, or the waiter knows he’s the waiter, and is trying his hardest to get to be the spy instead. It’ll sort itself out eventually.”

“It’s your fault, got it,” Par muttered as he picked up a business card, a bright red that matched the blocks of the same color.

“No, the criticisms were too close together,” Biy insisted. “It’s the marginalia’s fault. if I could be blamed, I’d be the one chasing strange women into alleys.”

“You did!” Par spat, but then he saw the woman’s name on her card, and what she’d written on the back:

Tonya Lobck

Personnel

Champagne Foundation – 7:00 tonight

…

The hour didn’t matter to the many bronze trellises outside and inside the foundation building, on the most sunward side of downtown, just the microclimate: wind speed, humidity, and if they could be counted, the vagrants who occasionally ran by and tried to snatch bundles of grapes from between the vision cones of the many exterior guards like divebombing crows.

It mattered whether or not this one plot was like the Champagne region of France, as that was the only way the beverage of the same name could use that very name. Thus the supply of every celebratory business luncheon in the city was always limited by shipping and expense. The executive social clubs that made up the level below the non-human rulers, the magazine smilers and the hands that needed to shake each other, could not tolerate anything less than three bottles after pretending to secure multi-million dollar contracts.

So together, with authorization from above of course, they had banded their immense wealth into a single charitable billfold dropped into this building: gilded with text on onyx out front: Champagne Foundation. The pooled donations, mimicking a nonprofit, obscuring their true purpose, were used to build and alter a miniature copy of that very region across the greatest pool of all.

The grapes you saw, row by row, on the way in, throughout, and alongside your events and dinners like live music, would be used to create champagne that could just barely earn the name and remain cheap enough for the executives to drown in it if they so chose. Many events were held there, but the lowest level operated a consistent restaurant, and that was where Par Example assumed he had been invited.

“Yes, your table awaits Mr. Example. Please follow me.” Assumption confirmed. So too was the assumption that the serving staff would have exaggerated French accents. As he was led down the concrete steps, the restaurant being open air so the rows could go on enough to be called fields, he checked over his shoulder for any of the stragglers.

There was no sign of the trio, but they had to be somewhere in the Champagne Foundation, as they’d vowed to join him in pursuit of their shared job of surveillance. Ducky and Hube were still both spies according to themselves, and Biy was whatever seemed most entertaining in the moment.

Par had gleefully pointed out to them a likely problem. If he was to meet Ms. Lobck at a fancy restaurant she would most likely make a reservation, and it would not be made for five. That had flummoxed them, as if the experience of one spy really had been detrimentally torn in half and thrown over both their heads like a wet towel.

Once he had stopped laughing he also informed them that of course he would not be assisting in the issue in any way. After all, he wasn’t even supposed to know he was being followed. Helping them might raise the suspicion of another link in the chain of spies that could reach all the way to the Twenty-Seventh Floor.

The novelist’s mind was finally able to move back to his novel, and off cartoonish vignettes of the three idiots getting dumped out on their derrieres by security and landing in sour grapes, once he spotted Ms. Lobck, though he suddenly had a strong desire to call her Tonya.

Looking at her, for an impolite extra second, she was no longer just a limp and a purse full of rainbow caltrops. This was a woman, all her handwriting italicized, and all her statements bold, like the gold dress she was wearing, almost an exact match for the heavy grapes just behind her head, a sort of botanical luminescence. The satin patina of her large cube earrings drew the eye away, rolled six-sided fates beside her nocturnal expression.

Par knew right away that, whatever her aim, the flighty fright of her daytime persona was just that, a persona. That paint had been stripped, and now he ogled what she really was but couldn’t be once the elevator rose past a certain floor. Even the limp could’ve been fake, bait. If so he was happy to get hooked on her. He took the one seat across from her, ignored the waiter as he delicately placed champagne flutes, a bread basket, oil and vinegar, and a little dish in which they could mingle.

Without taking his eyes off her he dug into the appetizer speedily, worried his torso might deflate and collapse before their meeting could start. It was good, very good, but he spent not a moment dwelling on it, on her instead. Her hazel eyes. Her thin nose. Her fiery hair.

“Hungry?” she asked with a different voice than the one he’d heard earlier that day, eons ago, in a terrible famine.

“I always mean to eat while I’m working,” Par said once his throat was clear. “People-watching, talking, they’re big parts of it. So is thinking about how you’re going to talk to them. Use the wrong lingo, wrong tone, they clam up. Suddenly they own the truth, and they’re not selling for reasons of sentimental value. It’s hard to remember you’ve got a bowl of lobster bisque in front of you when you’re trying to pick that lock.”

“There’s a chef’s special this evening. I already ordered for us; I hope that’s alright.” Ah, he recognized, this is a fencing match.

“Perfect, but in that case we should talk quickly. I’ve been-” He had to pause, as someone three tables behind Tonya was waving, under the table, but not with any subtlety. Hubert was too big for that. Then the other two leaned past her and waved as well. How did they even get reservations!? Can Biy manifest suit jackets out of the marginalia as well? “Ahem… I’ve been thinking about when I first saw you.”

“Normally people forget about that by the second time they see me,” she posed with a tilt of her head.

“Yes, ha, well, I noticed your limp remember. Was it a workplace issue? I’ve heard a rumor that Gollyblock does not supply employees with safety footwear when walking in areas where the product might have spilled.” The waiter glided in, poured some champagne. Briefly its settling bubbles were the loudest sound.

“Were you led to my company by those cockamamie ideas about the corners of our toys getting progressively sharper?”

“Your company?” Par thrust, skewering the phrase right out of her question and pinning it against the cool porous concrete wall. “You’re in personnel, aren’t you? Not an executive… although… this does look like an executive’s restaurant.”

“You don’t have to be an executive to have one of their wallets,” she said, cracking open a smile. “You just have to let them invite you to dinner every once in a while.”

“So the blocks aren’t getting any sharper,” the novelist parried.

“Of course not. Think of the children.” Par stopped himself from saying that, perhaps, the top brass of Gollyblock were not thinking of the children, or of anything, as the odd gears of their upper floors lacked such capacity.

“That’s someone else’s job. I think of the working men, and women. Of the unions. Let’s cut to the chase… is there a worker safety issue on the lowest floors, the factory floors. I know you make the most expensive Gollyblock sets there, in small batches. Are your personnel taken care of, or do they, in the process of trying to climb the stairs to chat with the bosses, find them strewn with their own hard work?”

Par’s heart was working. Not beating faster. Not harder, exactly. Stronger, more passionate. This was what he felt when researching and writing his other books. He’d only forgotten it because of his bout with Biy Beforay and that nattering chatterbox. Before he knew it, his whole mind would be living in these skyscrapers, running their stairs up and down, in search of the truth: the narrative obscured by his wobbly human lens. It was always in there; he’d dug it out of his own eye jelly several times before. When he’d done it enough times he would probably stop being human.

“Yes, they’re taken care of, but who couldn’t be taken care of… better?” The waiter arrived with his own answer, down came two large plates that landed silently despite how heavy they must have been. The scent speared Par up through both nostrils, cost him his composure. He had to look down: Pikeperch in a white wine sauce, swirls of butter painting themselves seductively across the surface. They could talk and dine, he convinced himself, at least enough to grab a fork and begin shoveling.

“We don’t have a union,” she continued while he undid the hollow Beforay had stuck him with. “I’m not against one starting up, but our superiors, they wouldn’t approve.” She took a single bite to alleviate his embarrassment. Tonya didn’t appear to swallow it, yet she kept talking like it had dissolved. Perhaps this was a fine woman the way this was fine dining, with no hitches in the process and elegant silent transitions.

“Your board of directors?” he probed, ignoring the thumbs up from Hube after he asked the question. The big guy seemed slightly better at this spying business, at least keeping his mind on the task at hand. Ducky was talking with Biy, pointing at the chatterbox, practically poking it.

“No,” she said idly, staring off into the rows, “the biggest hurdle would be our house doctor. He handles any of the employee injuries you’re trying to get me to talk about.” She wiggled her head cheekily. There, that’s when she swallows. Who knows what else she can hide. “Although he is more like three doctors…” When she trailed off Par stole another glance at the fools’ table to make sure they weren’t causing trouble. Trouble is, they were. Ducky’s pointing grew too enthusiastic, and he practically smashed the big button on the chatterbox.

Big Button Press: duck12121212: “the character is a trinity. they were a scientist who tried to upload their mind. it went wrong and right. they did upload their mind but something when wrong and the energy from the machine made their body comeback as a zombie and there spirt a ghost. so there are three on them. mind, body and spirit“

“Oh my god,” Tonya gasped, transformed once more into the nervous woman in the alley. “He’s here!” She cringed into herself and turned away, toward the concrete wall.

“Who’s here?” Par asked, dreading the button press and her recognition were the same entity. At least he now knew that people other than Biy were capable of using the chatterbox. That tidbit might come in handy later. Aside from waiters, a perfectly ordinary-looking diner was being escorted to an empty table with three chairs. Once he sat Par could see his bald head, an immaculate gray beard like a dog’s weathered claw, and the pair of glasses he held steady in one hand, though he never put them on.

“Those are our house doctors,” Lobck hissed, grabbing his shirt and pulling him toward the wall. She awkwardly shifted some of the overhanging vines and tried to disguise the side of his face with a large bunch of grapes. Then her own. Par felt foolish with the fruit on one cheek and the cold rock on the other, but he kept still. There remained more control over this situation than was had in the birds’ deathtrap office and their surrounding bug pipes.

“Doctors? There’s only one.”

“It appears so, yes, but in actuality that is a tripartite man. Notice the three chairs?” Par had, and he couldn’t shake his head to indicate he didn’t understand the significance without dislodging his grape camouflage, so he chose to stare all the more unblinkingly. “You can’t see the other two, but the physical one treats them with respect. Those glasses aren’t for him, but his spirit.”

Par couldn’t look again without upsetting her, so he searched his recent memory. This ‘doctor’ had been holding them level, as if an invisible person was sat next to him, looking through them.

“And what does a spirit need with glasses?”

“To see of course. Even without eyes it spent so much time in the main body that it’s accustomed to them. He’s psychosomatically blind without them.”

“Can’t the flesh and bone man wear them, as normal?”

“Yes, but it gives the spirit something to do. It’s part of the respect. They’re all in it together.”

“And somehow those are the men that hate unions? They are one!” In frustration he plucked a single grape, inconsequential he thought, since it was below his chin, and popped it in his mouth. Before it was swallowed the waiter reappeared, leaning at almost a ninety degree angle to meet Par’s gaze.

“Please don’t do that,” the man requested.

“My apologies.” He was still frustrated, but he said it to send him away, to get another look at Tonya, since she was the only avenue from which he was permitted to draw information. “So what about this third one? Is he underground!?”

“Don’t mock; you know such things are possible,” she scolded. “You’re working for a bunch of birds after all.” The jab struck more like a lance. If he hadn’t had a decent amount of pikeperch in his stomach it might’ve gone all the way through. He considered denying it. “It’s not your fault. You could’ve been anybody, but your ‘waiters’ reeked of Measured Wing. If they would learn that the tails on their tails cause a lot of tripping they’d have brought down Gollyblock already.”

“Is this some sort of trap?”

“Not if you don’t make it so,” Tonya insisted. “I’ve no allegiance to any company, only to their money. Everything was fine for me at Gollyblock, until they started bringing in lower employees for the puncture parade.” Par put two and two and a limp together.

“You mean that floor strewn with sharp blocks that allows the decisions to be made?”

“Yes,” she confirmed. “Those bastards don’t get to do that to me. It’s a sore spot I’ll never be rid of.” She slipped out of a high heel under the table and rubbed one of her soles. “It’s why I didn’t rat you out for a bonus immediately. I’m thinking Measured Wing might have a bigger bonus in mind for me.”

“I promise I’ll consult them on your behalf first chance I get,” Par offered, “if only for you to keep quiet about all this. I’ve still got an entire book to write for them.”

“Your concern should be on Dr. Intrin,” she reminded. “And to finish the introduction: the body portion is called Bintrin, the spirit Sintrin, and the mind Mintrin. Simple enough to remember. Together you can just call them Intrin.”

“I saw no floating brain. Where is the mind?”

“Uploaded.”

“What?”

“Updrawn, uptaken, altercarnated… I don’t know what the process is called and I don’t even know if anyone else has done it before. He tried to become part of Gollyblock itself. It’s a sort of machine, when you think about it.

The blocks are strewn, the sacrificial grunt makes the walk, the interpretations happen, and then they’re applied to market information. Over and over again, an engine firing its cylinders. Somewhere in there is reaction. Response. Anticipation. I see it as an artificial mind, and so did Intrin. Whatever he did, he only succeeded in part. He helps make the decisions now, on our secret floor, while the other two parts that got left behind keep living his life.”

“And that’s why he wouldn’t want Gollyblock to fall. A piece of him would die if it did.” She nodded. “Fascinating.”

“If he recognizes me through the spirit glasses, we’re done before we’ve started,” she warned anew. “We’ve got to get out of here somehow.”

“Are you sure he doesn’t already know? What are the odds he’d even be here?”

“Not that poor. All of us at Gollyblock eat here. There are maybe three other restaurants this good in the whole city.” Par’s brief obsession with the woman’s beauty cooled. Here was an actual person’s flaw. She was so accustomed to luxury that she would risk discovery to make sure she wasn’t eating burgers or griddlecakes. No wonder she had fled that alley at lightning speed.

“I assume you’ve noticed my entourage,” Par said as suggestion.

“The two idiots behind us.”

“Three.” She allowed herself a brief escape from the grapes to check.

“So there are. Who is that long-legged one?”

“It’s better if you don’t learn his name, which I’m confident he would agree with. What matters right now is that he’s holding a small device that could potentially get us out of here unseen. I’ll ask you to stretch your imagination now. What he holds is like the Gollyblock machine, only portable and much more powerful. What it thinks up it can outright create, perfect for distractions.”

“Perfect for everything!”

“Afraid not. We have no say in what manifests from it. For all I know it could be a rampaging elephant that stomps us all along with the grapes, thus making a great wine for our funerals.”

“So what’s your code for communicating with them?”

“At this point in our detestable relationship, obvious hand signals. And I think it would be better if we could get them to press the small button, not the larger one.” Her eyes asked why. “The larger one seems to produce or… introduce people. It might be why Intrin is here.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, I was introduced to him years ago. He and I would’ve been collaborating if he didn’t start doing it with himself!”

“Yes, and a button press might bring out someone a thousand years old. I’m saying that box is an act of desperation. Do you have one less desperate?” Tonya took a moment to search her memories, not just of the Champagne Foundation’s layout, but also its staff and regulars, and who had or had not been approached with sly remarks or flirtation. Ultimately, the restaurant had to give her a reminder itself. The misters came on, watering the grapes as well as filling the rows just beyond the open dining area with an ethereal fog.

“The gardeners aren’t patrolling when the sprinklers are on,” she remembered with a whisper. “If we can get over this ledge here we can sneak out through them, if we go in the next few minutes. As soon as we stand on our chairs everyone will be looking this way. We might need that button-whatsit after all.”

“No, I think I can do better,” Par said, committing to developing his own strategies for sabotage and escape entirely separate from Beforay’s box of bungling bafflement. As soon as the waiter glided by again, the novelist got his attention with a wave of his hand. Ninety degrees once more. “Sorry to bother you, but I thought you’d want to know that the gentleman at the table over there,” he pointed at his own tripartite tail, “is a waiter at the Light Lunch cafe. I hardly think he can afford to eat here on the regular, so he’s probably here to poach one of your jobs.”

“Thank you sir, we’ll handle it,” was all he said, and despite his flat pupils, Par thought he saw a hostile streak of light across them: a white fox leaping between bushes to approach the coop. So the novelist’s instincts were correct. The Champagne Foundation was considered quite the cozy gig, and whether it be in the charity office, the concert hall, the spiraling gallery, or the restaurant underneath it all, positions were coveted and competitive.

That’s just the way the 27^th Floor wants it, and all these other things. If these people are at each other’s throats, and throats are in such copious supply, they never have to wonder what abstract concepts would have to be pieced together just to find a throat analogue on the entity that employs them.

I bet the Champagne Foundation has one of its own. They seem to always be in the headquarters, not factories, not distribution, so if it does, it’s here, above us somewhere. Also above them was their escape route, just a couple feet up, and now was the time.

Five of the serving staff and the hostess, who left some affectionate tuxes to wait at the threshold of their reservation, had surrounded Biy’s, Ducky’s, and Hubert’s table. They tried to make a discreet wall, a screen of bodies to invisibly escort the men out, but they couldn’t go quietly, as Misters Loren and Dachuck had already boorishly turned on each other.

“No, he’s the waiter,” Ducky insisted. “I’m just a patron, and I’m out of bread.” He tried to shove a basket empty but for crumbs into the gut of one of the waiters who was not plain clothes and undercover. Hube snatched it from him and turned it over onto his head as a foolish helmet; he didn’t have time to spit out the napkin before the larger man grabbed him and tossed him into the staff screen.

What tumbleweed of bodies formed then Par had to miss, a shame, but there was no knowing how tall of a window this had opened, only that Bintrin had his glasses arm raised as high as he could send it, lenses aimed at the scuffle. Tonya was already up, having chosen to leave her shoes behind before they became a problem in the mulch and soil between the trellises. She didn’t offer him a hand up, so both of his own clamped onto the now-moist concrete and threw his mildly unfit academic body over the lip.

The fleeing pair kept hunched over, but the robust plants, always grown to impress, made the angle quite tenable. Par had no idea where they were going, was more than ready to follow Tonya over everyone else he’d met in just his first day of a life actually experienced, but panic set in when he saw the aggression of the misting fog.

Scolding himself for not remembering that every aspect of the Champagne Foundation was needlessly showy, which would of course include watering the plants with miniature rolling fog banks like those of the distant French hills they mimicked, Par picked up speed so as not to lose her.

Silence would have settled his nerves, but there were people everywhere, on every floor, and every spot that should’ve had a window was wide open to the chilly night air. Every conversation overheard that wasn’t about them was a blessing, yet their content convinced Par he was in the world’s most treacherous and hostile den of symphony-loving vipers.

“Sell it man, just sell it. That yacht is so big nobody will even notice the rotten smell until after it has changed hands.”

“If it was me I wouldn’t dare being seen with the same personal trainer the Secretary of Defense uses.”

“Do you think the children are alright? We only left them Sergeant Woofy and five hundred for take-out. They’re probably bored already.”

“-So I told her if the government wants to inspect it so badly they can buy their own radio telescope.”

“Is that a fight down in the restaurant? Who is it this time? My money’s on Moore. Actually, where’s Fleming? I want to actually put my money on it.”

“You can’t say we’ve rushed to prototype if there wasn’t a prototype in the first place. The designs came straight off the napkin, just as I doodled them.”

“As I always say, give a little Champagne back to Champagne, for luck!” There were more horrifying things to overhear, but that last one presaged a dumped stream of champagne that struck Mr. Example right on the scalp and drowned out everything else. All he could do was cringe and lunge out of the way, still not finding Ms. Lobck in the process.

Elsewhere, Biy Beforay was losing a fight, throwing a punch that missed, which was just as well, because it was only strong enough to accidentally press the big button clasped in his fist.

Big Button Press: Justintoonz: ‘a nerdy librarian who writes as a hobby’

Instead of Lobck, Example’s outstretched hand found someone else’s, who grabbed them right back. They didn’t seem hostile, Par more so, because he was developing a sense of what was added by the chatterbox, probably from prolonged exposure, and this person set off that particular alarm bell.

Still, better not to spook them, so hand in hand the pair shuffled on, through the mist, until they finally broke free, to a thankfully isolated corner of the exterior where many expensive automobiles were parked. Together they picked a pair of bulky black ones, crouched down between them and got their first good look at each other.

This new person out of the marginalia, who had of course lived in this world all their lives, was a bookish sort of man: eyes squinting even behind his glasses, uncomfortable in his ochre suit jacket, and smelling of old bindings.

“I’m sorry,” Par sighed, unsure if he should apologize or be apologized to, “your hand wasn’t the one I was looking for.”

“You’re all wet,” the man said, watching a single drop of champagne roll down the novelist’s face.

“No, I’m Par Example. You are?”

“Justin Tomes. Normally I’m a librarian, but now I’m just fleeing, so maybe out here I’m a deserter.” He paused for a wave of remorse to wash over his face. “Definitely didn’t get my dessert.”

“So you fled your dinner as well; then we’re the same sort of failure this evening.” He poked his head up in search of Ms. Lobck, found the second best result, which was no one at all. “What were you trying to escape?”

“Oh you don’t know him,” Justin said, almost amused, though that could have been fear. His fingers trembled, but after the misting they both realized how chilly it was outside the building. “Just a boss of mine, I have more than any one man should. This one’s called Mintrin.” More alarm bells.

According to Tonya, that was the one aspect of the doctors Intrin that was not supposed to be present, restricted to the mechanism in Gollyblock headquarters. How was he here? Why wasn’t he with the other two? Or was he, and neither Example or Ms. Lobck could perceive his presence. If there were answers, only Tomes could provide them.

“That might be…” Par struggled with phrasing “A partly mutual acquaintance of ours. Do you work at Gollyblock?” A lie came to him, and it wasn’t a struggle thanks to a grain of truth. “I’m new there.”

“Oh yes, I’m the librarian. I love to organize almost as much as I love to read.”

“What does a toy block company need with a librarian?” Example quietly hoped that lower level employees did not pass through this library when heading to their offices and stations. It wasn’t a good omen for his infiltration skills if he couldn’t fool this timid librarian for more than thirty seconds.

“For all the instruction booklets?” Justin said, suddenly unsure of his own position, perhaps a little fog in the mind, not from the misters, but the chatterbox. His answer made some sense though. Every Gollyblock set needed an instruction manual, something step by step with pictograms for the children to follow.

Keeping them all in one massive library could make them easy to reference whenever designing a new set, and somebody would need to man those shelves and catalogs. Par took note that, as a man of the written word, Justin, despite claiming to love reading, was something of his opposite, as his stock and trade was a series of instructional pictures.

Then something else occurred to Par, more devious. Here was a man who could sneak any number of documents, like his latest book, into Gollyblock in significant numbers… but only if it was formatted like the instructional booklets, to deter external curiosity. Justin might be a better collaborator than the greedy spoiled Ms. Lobck, whom he had already tipped off to his intentions.

“And why were you trying to escape?” Par asked next.

“I did escape… but it wasn’t really impressive. I just said I was feeling sick and ran for the bathroom, then I, you know, ducked into the vines. Then you held my hand.” He blushed, despite the complete absence of any implied affection. The color vanished the moment he mentioned Mintrin again. “Mintrin’s expanding his offices, downward, right into the path of my library. He doesn’t want me to move or anything, but he wants me working under him, and that guy gives me the creeps.”

Example was stuck, the sliver of the chatterbox lodged in his reasoning brain. Tomes had come from the marginalia, like himself, did that make him aware of everything that had happened up to that point? It seemed to vary, and the way he now spoke suggested he wasn’t aware of Intrin’s divided form. Perhaps he had only been meeting a puppet of the doctor, an employee using his name. Mintrin’s position inside the mechanism allowed him invisible tendrils, only now they seemed more like roots, creeping further and further into the building, spreading his influence.

He thought he felt that influence, on his shoulder, whipping around. It was just the delicate hand of Tonya, who did not bother to crouch, and looked more bothered that the both of them did.

“You didn’t follow me,” she chastised, hands on her hips, bare legs sparkling with dew.

“I did, just poorly,” Par snapped.

“Intrin’s not in the parking lot, so stand up!” He took her advice, mostly because his back was getting sore. Mr. Tomes took it alongside, and only then did Tonya seem to notice him.

“Oh hello Justin,” she greeted sweetly.

“Ms. Lobck,” he muttered back, holding his own hands now.

“Oh good, we all know each other,” Par grumbled. “Shall we adjourn to a much better meeting place?” His eyes shot daggers at Ms. Lobck, but her molten aura melted them before they could do any damage. Taking them to his apartment this soon seemed foolish, but where then?

Ducky, Hubert, and Biy limped away from the Champagne Foundation, battered, cracked rather than broken. Biy knew he had been sacrificed at the altar of progressing Example’s mission, which he did not appreciate. It was still entirely too much focus. In spite, he jabbed the little button.

Small Button Press: graph0601: ‘surface of the sun’, FS_Rhaine: ‘dangerously heavy rain’, and Justintoonz: ‘blinding sunlight’

…

He had found the perfect location not on any map, but in his memories, which he was getting better at searching whenever he needed something, just like a real boy.

Peanut Gallery is ongoing, remember to check back for updates!