This is the lesson of working for an international tech giant in the Pacific Northwest of the U.S. during the first third of the twenty-first century.

The Seattle freeze will actually save you from most face to face confrontations, especially at work. The same social drive that keeps people from being too friendly and familiar unless you're really good friends will also keep them from being directly rude, threatening, or violent.

But, also, while you might live in a presumably progressive State that's working hard to preserve your rights, and the average neighbor will be outwardly super cool, and your workplace will have rules in place to maintain decorum and follow the state laws and appear as safe and welcoming as their competitors, your employer is owned by a literal fascist. A man who's thrown Nazi solutes on air.

And that means that if you're not a straight white cis man, some of your coworkers will not only feel violently opposed to your existence. Any one of them may feel emboldened to act when you're not looking.

And it's not that act that's the lesson. It's that whole picture.

It's rotten from top to bottom.

I've merely just been reminded of that.

What's disturbing and really unsettling, is where my mind now goes with this.

There are just so many things that the person who did this thing doesn't understand. And it's surreal just how jarring that is. That they'll never grasp these things, and that that, in the grand scheme of things, just cannot matter. No matter how angry it makes me feel.

It makes me want to break out in laughter as much as anything else.

It also makes me want to tear this place apart.

And I might be able to do both things.

For one, this vandal will never even believe that the dysphoria I've felt is real. Even if they're made to feel something similar, by being forced to wear women's clothing or something like that, they'll never grasp that it's something that has plagued me since I can remember. That it's not something that can typically be treated any other way but through transition. That, sometimes, for some of us, for me, it's agony.

They'll never care about that.

They also will never realize that I'm actually a woman. They clearly see me as a gay man. But I'm just not. Not even because I now have ovaries. That's not what makes me a woman. But, they'll never accept any of that, because it just doesn't fit their worldview in any way.

Nevermind what my orientation actually is, which I don't know myself. I've never been OK with myself enough to even think of sex, let alone dating. I'm gay to them because I'm a man dressing like a butch woman.

Granted, the spontaneous ovaries don't fit many people's worldviews, in any case.

That's part of what makes me want to laugh.

The other thing they'll likely never realize is just how much danger they're in, because I'm not human anymore.

I can eat humans in a way that is, as far as I know, largely untraceable by most humans. And those that can trace it to me might not care, because everyone who works here appears to be marked as potential food for things like me.

Hilariously, the person who did this probably does think of me as a demon, and they're probably not far wrong there. Only, they'll still have no idea how right they are, nor just how dangerous I actually am.

I strongly doubt I can be exorcized or turned by religious symbols or scripture or anything like that. Not unless I want to be.

In fact, the only thing that's holding me back, at the moment, is that I know that I'm surrounded by bigger monsters with bigger plans, and if I make the wrong move they could crush me without a thought. Also, once I start calming down and thinking about it again, I want to take Poob down. Not just one employee whose identity I don't know.

OK, a couple things are holding me back.

That's better.

I put my gloves and keys in my car and lock it as I close it up again.

Then I go ahead and take a photo of the damage to send to both my insurance company and to Mike and Dale. Too bad HR doesn't exist anymore. Otherwise my bosses wouldn't have to be bothered with it.

I could call the police, to get them to document this, too. That's usually the right procedure for the insurance company. But I'm not that kind of a monster.

Besides. I can reclaim this word.

I really don't like the word for me, but it's a slur. It's been aimed at me now. If I wear it with pride, it really can't hurt me.

Huh. I might not be quite as butch as I think.

The kids online, especially the trans girls, keep making memes about the slippery slope to femmedom. Like, the they/them to she/her pipeline. And I've always felt like railing against that, because it's just false. It's not inevitable that all trans people, even just all trans people who've been assigned male at birth, will end up as femme trans women.

Somebody coined a word for that that seems pretty useful, exorsexism. Basically, just another word for binary sexism, but maybe less confusing. Sometimes, a person might think they're a trans woman but learn later on that they're something else, or gender fluid, or a demi boy. And that's OK, too. And if you claim that everything tends toward one end of some linear spectrum, then that's just another ism. Exorsexism. The erasure and denial of non-binary people (like Sam).

And, god, I could on and on about this. I can also speak to how it's all linked to white supremacy (a lot of people can, but it's gender that's irking me at the moment, and I've got other things to address besides infodumps about isms).

But. I'm definitely feeling dysphoric about even slightly masculinized terms, now. So, I'm dealing with a Thing.

Ugh.

I'm here, right now, looking at the word "FAGGOT" keyed into my car, and it is really the least of my concerns.

I let out a breath and move forward with my plan, and head back to my desk to prep for that meeting, which looks like it's basically going to be a company pep assembly. Yay.

Honestly, gender can fuck off. I've got people I need to convince myself to not eat.

So, what I experimented with in the park was in being a dog. I've spent a lot of time around a dog lately, and I already have this habit of trying to imagine what I'd be if I wasn't human, so I've got a lot of practice visualizing the body of a borzoi. Catherine's been right there in front of me, after all.

And I was fairly successful at it. And it probably didn't look too weird if anybody saw me, a person standing in the middle of the path while their borzoi bounds around them tirelessly, off leash.

I would have described the wonder, joy, and euphoria of trying this out earlier, but I'm having to pick and choose what I share. And we're going to get a whole scene coming up really soon where I do the thing for serious.

I hope.

I would have gone with a raccoon or a rat as more likely to break into an office building. But my animal behavior is going to be weird anyway, if the security cameras in there are going to be recording anything. And a borzoi is easier for me to do, apparently. Currently. And a borzoi can reach the tops of desks really easily.

Also, a borzoi is just a little bit more like the eldritch monstrosity that I apparently am.

The thing that has been worrying me about doing the borzoi, though, was that it took a good chunk of my energy, and I felt really hungry the whole time I was inhabiting two animate projections (my own body and my clone of Catherine). I could still do it, but it was stressful, and maybe a strain on my self-control.

I've been worried that I'll really feel like eating people while doing this. And, at least one of me will be surrounded by people. People rich with information.

But building F is really crowded now. All the garage doors are open, and there's seating outside which is slowly filling up. I got here early enough that I managed to get a seat up near the podium inside, which I'm not sure why I did.

I'm going to be zoning out for a bit here, once everyone's seated, and I don't want to be caught doing that. But, I sort of went on automatic and fell into the old competitive habit of trying to get the best seat because my building is closer than everyone else's. And, now that I've thought of the need to move, I'm surrounded by talking people, and getting up and moving toward the back is going to make a scene. People will remember me doing something for sure.

But also, all the conversing is giving me a bit of a buzz.

It's not really any stronger than I've felt before since last Thursday, but now that I'm back from my lunchtime exertion, I'm definitely noticing it. My weakness is waning, and fast.

And this has got me thinking and more distracted by the possibilities of it.

Felicity called me a people eater, without a special Latin or Greek name for it for some reason, and a teratovore. And she'd told me that I really needed to eat, to gain more strength. These things seemed to match my experiences and memories so far. I'd eaten a monster that had been trying to eat me. I have, technically, eaten both kinds of things, a monster and a person (Brenda).

But, I think I've maybe developed some traits that are more than the sum of my contributing entities.

For instance, before I ate the HR monster, I know I could not alter my body with thought alone. I certainly couldn't generate new bodies and exist in two places at once. And the HR monster has no memory of ever trying to have a physical projection before. That's pretty major. Somehow, my fusion with it converted my body into a projection and put me into the category of emanants capable of doing that.

Furthermore, I'd mostly stumbled upon those abilities thanks to necessity, desperation, and carelessness.

Another example, which is way more subtle and something I've yet to fully explore, is how I can seem to control conversations with more ease than before. I think this is something that the HR monster developed upon eating all those LLMs and other computer algorithms. It may have gotten better at it after eating Brenda, and maybe I added to the capacity for it by eating it. But, originally, the LLMs were absolute shit at it. What they did have, though, was a comprehensive statistical model of the English language and conversations that are likely to happen using that language. What the monster brought to the table was actual memory and a will. It had the ability to make actual evaluations and choices. It also had monstrous senses, and other similar paranormal or metaphysical abilities, and that (ugh) synergized with the LLMs' data and became the ability to be quite manipulative.

I have a suspicion that my coming out at work has been going as smoothly as it has been because of this ability. I've also already noted how it's become easier to do my job because of this.

I feel like I need to practice with it more if I really want to take advantage of it, though. There's some untapped potential there. If I don't use it much more while I'm at Poob, I'm definitely going to be leaning on it to get myself a new job, at least.

And finally, thinking along those lines, it doesn't seem unlikely that I may have developed another way of feeding.

I don't know how or why I've done so, exactly, but the evidence sure does seem to point to it.

Maybe it's just fundamental to the way the monster I ate already consumed energy. What it got from humans was their minds, information. And, it got the same thing from eating LLMs, as shitty as that diet was. Maybe I've just become more efficient at it, or more sensitive to it. Maybe this human brain I'm now modeling in my projection is doing some processing of information and turning it into emanant chow. Kind of like how it's thought that chloroplasts were originally a type of bacteria that now turn sunlight into energy for the cells that have them. Or similarly with mitochondria.

I smile.

It's nice to have a working theory for something mysterious like this.

But, the upshot of this is that it feels like I've got a constant influx of energy, and I feel like I could maybe go bigger than a borzoi. Maybe something with hands.

And an employee, or former employee, walking around in the building while almost no one else is in there, would be a lot more believable and dismissible.

Wouldn't it be poetic and confusing if, after today's events, it was reported that a specific former employee was in there, delivering something to Dale's desk?

And there's one person I can probably almost perfectly recreate. A literal ghost.

I look around to get an idea of how close we are to this thing getting started, because when the talking dies down it'll choke my stream of energy. I should get started soon if I'm going to resurrect Brenda. It's going to be a quick walk from cubical to office, anyway.

Everything is set up so that, supposedly, the people seated outside will have an unobstructed view of the stage that's been erected inside. This means that the stage is up against the opposite wall of the room from the garage doors. Honestly, I would have just put everything outdoors. But, halfway between stage and doors, there's a camera setup. And flanking the doors are some video screens and speakers. Everyone will have some kind of view, except for those directly behind the camera crew.

The platform isn't huge. It's just one section of temporary staging that's about a foot off the ground. It has steps on either side of it, as well as ramps, but it would be easy for most people to get up on it without them. There's a podium in the middle of it. And from where I'm sitting, I can see some tape marks here and there as well, to tell people where to stand.

I can see a tech crew wheeling an AV cart with an old desktop computer, and what appears to be a Hollywood idea of an electronic science experiment looks like next to its monitor, on it up to a back corner of the stage, with some pretty heavy-duty cables.

Weird. That makes me nervous. I don't recognize what it could be. But other billionaires have their companies unveiling new technology at a heightened pace lately. And most of it has been comedically ridiculous failures of engineering. Trucks shattering. Robots kicking their operators in the nuts. That sort of thing.

I decide to worry about it later. No one's using it now.

So, scanning the whole room, I still can't see any of the executives, besides Dale, who is seated and looking completely relaxed as he chats with Mike about something.

If I zone out now, then I might be able to wake up and pay attention when the thing gets started. And no one will care.

I might run into a straggler in my building still, but the sight of Brenda might just baffle them. Or even scare them, depending on what they know.

Hopefully, I won't run into any need to have a conversation. But if I do, I should be able to push a semblance of Brenda forward to totally fake it.

Might not even be faking it, actually.

I pull out my phone to check my messages and emails quickly, to make sure I haven't received any warnings or urgent tips from anybody who might want to pass them on to me. Which I have not. And then I make a show of stretching and lowering my chin to my chest to settle in for the wait. I even end up yawning before I make my first move.

This body might well be a projection, but it sure does act just like my body. It's not like I'm telling it everything it should do. It still has autonomic functions.

The really wild thing is, so does Brenda's body.

All it takes is a little mental prompting to set up the conceptual space that puts her sitting at my computer desk, leaning back in the chair. I don't need to change my coat into Brenda. I just need to start her presence touching it. And my coat is draped across the back of my office chair.

There's sort of a green squiggly line where a different phrase could go, and by right-clicking on it I can find Brenda Cartwrite as the list of suggested possibilities, right where I put her. (I'm totally using this analogy for literary consistency, it's not how I'm actually visualizing it anymore.)

Everything smells different as I take a breath there, filling new lungs with oxygen that immediately begins to metabolize in the projected biology of what is now my second body. I've got that whiff of her perfume, a halo that surrounds that body and tints the olfactory ambiance of everything surrounding me there. It's so different from the coffee, fried food, sweat, and men's deodorant I'm getting from building F, that it's pretty easy to shift my focus back and forth between both places, and then choose one.

I open that set of eyes, and everything looks a little different too. It takes me only a moment to realize why. Brenda is shorter than me, even when sitting down. The result is that the whole room looks bigger. Like everything is just a little larger.

And there's the card, face down, on my desk, where I left it, next to a pad of sticky notes and a pen, off to the side from my keyboard. It appears so innocuous. Part of the light clutter. I'm proud of how well I set that up.

It's an elementary action to just reach over and pick it up with my fingers, sliding it off the desk and clamping it against my thumb, to keep it print side down and away from my eyes. I tilt it sideways away from me to be sure, even though I did warn Felicity I might glance at it.

This whole maneuver, however, makes me aware of something I forgot about. Or hadn't really considered, at least.

Benda's ample bosom, and her underwire bra that she last wore to contain and support it, shift in weight and pressure against bones and soft tissues as I lean forward and then move to stand up. I can even feel the rubbing of the fabric of Brenda's shirt against my skin around the bra as it shifts.

I take a deep breath and close my eyes there momentarily to refrain from taking a moment to adjust things with my hands. I want to just cup them and feel what that's like. Or to just reassure myself that they're currently mine.

It's amazing how OK I am with them.

Like, I knew I kinda wanted a pair already. I'm not a daft trans girl. But, mostly I'd only ever dreamt about the colors and fabrics of the sports bras I'd cup them in, if I had them and was as fit as I really wanted to be.

Brenda was not a trim woman. Nor all that young. There are folds and flaps here and there that move when I move, and they're a little distracting. But not nearly as distracting as my old anatomy used to be. And she sure did know how to shop for herself. These clothes are comfortable.

I'm already moving through the cubicles toward the front entrance of the building, which is near where Dale's office is.

I'm just barely able to see over the tops of the cubicles, if I lift myself up on my tippy-toes, adding another inch on top of the heels I'm wearing. Brenda's muscle memory is saving me here, too.

I've tried heels on before. I know how to walk in them, but not this fast. I found them easier than a lot of newbies do, as I've always been pretty good at visualizing different additions and subtractions from my proprioception to begin with. But there's a certain surety that a lifetime of practice brings you. And Brenda has that.

So far, no one is here. No one sees me doing this.

But, I am feeling a bit thin and hungry. Not skinny. Thin like diluted paint. And not hungry hungry, as in a growling stomach, but the worrisome kind of hunger. A feeling that mostly manifests in longings and urges that are not human, but all too easy to recognize.

Even with the constant influx of energy from the crowd around me, I am pushing it.

As I pass by the darkened windows of the HR department, I catch a glimpse of Brenda's reflection, and I recognize her! I mean, at first, I think, Oh, yeah, that's Brenda! And then I turn to greet her, and watch as the reflection does what I do.

It's so jarring.

That's not me.

I cannot make that reflection register in my psyche as me.

At first glance, Brenda seems to be a woman made out of rectangles. Even her glasses frames are rectangular. But I know this isn't true, because her body doesn't feel rectangular to me. Part of it is that her outfit hides her curves as much as it can. But her shoulders are about as wide as her hips, even if there are dips and lumps between the two sets of points.

However, the soft contours of her face echo the truth of things. She's aged comfortably into her current posture and presentation, with great practice and deliberation. And nothing can hide the roundness of her chin and cheeks. And her angular glasses only contrast with the big ellipses of her eyes, and the arches of her manicured brows. Her curly honeyed whole wheat hair is shaped in more of an upside down trapezoid from this angle, and it works on her. Big hoop earrings dangle and draw the eye, framed between hair and lightly padded shoulders.

With her staid and grandmotherly choices in professional attire, I feel like I'm looking at someone's second grade teacher from the 80s.

And when I try to tell myself that this is now me, I feel deeply embarrassed and uncomfortable. I feel like folding up on myself and getting out of sight of the eyes that see me. Which are my eyes. So, I have to take a moment to fight that, looking sharply away from the reflection.

And that's when the crowd in building F starts to hush.

Shit. I can feel the flow of energy eb in conjunction with that.

I need to move.

I stake a step—

"Brenda!" Vicky's voice cries out from behind and to the left, striking me like a wave of tingles. She's calling from the direction of the ladies' room. "What are you doing here?"

I was turning to my right, to walk past Vicky's empty desk and toward Dale's office, where I need to go. But I flinch and turn to look at my coworker, who is, as she has always been, just a smidge taller than me.

She's grinning, if blinking apprehensibly, and it's easy to smile in return. Her hands are held partway out to each side, and she's stepping tentatively toward me. And I know that look.

"Long time no see!" I crow, and step in to hug her, still clutching some business card in my left hand. "I thought I'd stop by and see how you were doing!"

She smells delicious.

No! No, nope, no. Can't let that line of thinking waylay me. What would George think?

"Well," Vicky says, pulling herself from our embrace, "it certainly isn't the same without you around here. But how are you doing? How're the kids?"

"Oh, you know," I wave in front of my face dismissively, giving her a smug and droll smirk. "Still learning how to mow the lawn properly from mama."

"I mean, doesn't that just come naturally with them, though?" Vicky asks.

I put my hands on my hips and tap my foot once and say, "You'd think. But, apparently, there are much more interesting things to chew on in my yard."

We both laugh.

"Look, we have a meeting starting any minute now. We should get moving," Vicky declares. "Walk with me?"

"Oh, not just yet," I say, suddenly remembering what I'm really here for, I think. "I'm also here because I need to leave this on Dale's desk. He asked for it earlier." I wave the card casually to indicate it, and then tilt my head the way I need to go, before turning to deliver it.

"Dale's at the meeting! You can just hand it to him there," Vicky suggests.

"Oh, but I'm already here," I shake my head and swipe my free hand through the air dismissively as I continue to his office. "Besides, I don't want to distract him from meeting prep."

Except, I have visions in my head of the meeting already starting. So the real problem would be that I'd have to hunt him down after the meeting, and that's always so chaotic. I mean, assuming that's what's actually happening right now. It would be a good guess.

Oh, but I do need to pick Vicky's mind about something. Pick it clean.

Just as I'm pausing to consider that, I hear another voice, a man's. It startles me and I look around for it, but the source is not there.

"Welcome to our Taco Tuesday company-wide spirit meeting! Thank you for attending. I'm Jordan Pierce, President of Poob, and without too much preamble, I'd like to welcome our keynote speaker, Alvan Rijk, top shareholder, enterprising entrepreneur, third place billionaire in the world, and owner of Poob International, to the podium."

What?

It sounds like Jordan's voice is coming from in front of me, no matter where I turn my head. But they must just be broadcasting his address through the company's intercoms.

But if Alvan Rijk is here, we really shouldn't be missing that! We should go!

"Are you alright?" Vicky asks from behind me, audibly taking steps to come closer. "Brenda, what's wrong."

I turn to look at her, "Oh, it's just that the meeting's started and I want to see Alvin in person! We should go." I nod enthusiastically and move to turn toward the doors.

But she looks more confused. "Alvan Rijk is here? How do you know it's started?"

Oh, shit. Wait.

Why am I panicking over Vicky's confusion? This is bad.

No, Brenda, we've got to move! Now!

What?

"Hello! It brings me great pleasure to be here today," Alvan's voice is echoing out over the PA system, though it too sounds like it's coming from right in front of me first. "We have a lot of special things to share with you today. But first I'd like to speak about a few things that are close to my heart…"

I flutter my fingers in front of my chest. "Well, at least they're making sure we aren't missing any of it. We can listen while we walk—"

No! Card! In office! Now!

Vicky is shaking her head vigorously, her brow in a concerned frown. "I'm not hearing anything, Brenda."

"What? But it's—"

Shit, shit, shit, no. I can't stay sleeping here in the meeting. I'm in the second row. Right in front of Alvan!

No, I'm not, I'm—

Brenda, you do not exist!

Suddenly, I'm not standing in front of Vicky anymore. I'm looking up at the man behind the podium, Alvan Rijk, as he's speaking and smiling down at me.

Oops.

He winks and waggles his eyebrows at me, and then turns back to looking up at the crowd and the camera, as he continues talking.

I don't know if I got his attention because he somehow knows who I am, or because I had just appeared to be sleeping and now woke up. Was he scowling before I roused? His voice hadn't given any hint of it.

Shit. Fuck.

And I'm so weak now, too. Weak and peckish.

If I sit still and listen, I should be able to eak some nutrition from his speech. But, god, he's speaking about some boring stuff right now.

This is the part of the speech where he talks about his childhood and his early business endeavors, before he'd inherited his position at his Dad's company. It's all stuff we all already know. Or, I do, at least, because I'm enough of a leftist to read up incidentally on our worst enemies. It's kind of hard to avoid the blog posts that go around. Only, his version of events put less emphasis on the colonialist and white supremacist overtones of his background.

Mostly.

Dammit. I can just imagine that card falling to the ground in front of a shocked Vicky, after Brenda just derezzed. I'd disappeared from there in a panic. Or she had. We'd sort of become two separate people.

She'd raised goats?!

Later. I will take the time to learn about Brenda later. I don't know if I can do any sort of memorial for her that won't come off as creepy to anyone who knew her. But I can at least keep her memories alive in myself. Maybe let her help me make decisions sometimes, so the world will still feel her presence in a way.

But Vicky is probably terrified. She just hugged her old friend and had a little discussion before Brenda just popped under my alarmed pressure.

I can't trust that Vicky will have the wherewithal to pick up that card and look at it. She might not even see it. She might just run. Or faint.

Shit. Someone should check on her. And it should be me. But I'm between a camera and a billionaire.

While Alvan Rijk prattles on about some lesson he supposedly learned from his dad, I pull out my phone.

I message HR, which should be Felicity. It feels fake that I'm texting a neolithic or older spirit by the name of Felicity. But, here I am, and I've named myself Ramona, so who am I to judge.

Ramona: Has anyone seen the card yet? Vicky maybe?

Poob: No.

Ramona: Shit. I dropped it.

Poob: Shit. Sam can make another.

Well, I was hoping this would work out today.

Ramona: Can you check on Vicky somehow. I think I scared her bad.

Poob: How?

Dammit.

I decide to spend what time is left of the meeting soaking up the thin stream of memes the presentation is serving me, and conserve my strength.

I'll just have to use my trick to basically teleport to my cubicle during the chaos afterward, and check on the card and Vicky then.

Hopefully, I haven't really fucked this up.

But, also, here's the fucking third asshole of the world, right in front of me, if you ignore the head of IT seated right between us, with R&D on one side and legal on the other.

Alvan is absently giving me a weird, almost fond looking glance that raises my hackles. "And so," he's saying, "it seems clear to me that we should not so easily discount the ghost of our past, if we want to grasp the spirit of our future. And with that, I would like to step aside and let this gathering truly commence! I believe your CEO, Willem Schmidt, has a presentation for all of us. A new technology that will revolutionize our efficiency in everything we do, freeing up more time and energy for all of us to be what we are best at being. Human. And I, for one, look forward to it."

Well, that doesn't sound foreboding at all. Granted, I may have a unique perspective here, that most of the others don't have. To a human, it must sound like he's trying to talk up AI. Business culture is saturated by it. But then, there's that esoteric doohickey in the corner of the stage. It looks like an upside-down microscope, if you made it out of a half transformed Shockwave action figure.

It's aimed at the space above the podium, though. Not super threatening. Maybe it's somehow meant to protect whomever is standing there.

But just in case, I double-check that my coat and gloves are both where I left them, and didn't pop when Brenda did.

They're there. Barely.

I pump just a little energy into them, to solidify them more thoroughly. Not that I have much to spare in this body.

Meanwhile, Willem Schmidt takes the stage and shakes hands with Alavan Rijk, who then steps over to the other back corner, opposite the device.

Alvan is not sitting down. Apparently he wants to be part of the demonstration.

Maybe the whole stage is protected?

Willem clears his throat to get everyone's attention.

Not for the first time, I think these guys all look the same.

Sure, they have different heights, different haircuts, different amounts of wrinkles, and dress in slightly different color clothes. But they still somehow scream that they've been pressed out of the same skinny rich guy mold. Even if Alvan is astronominally more wealthy than everyone else here combined, it just means he's probably setting the standard.

I can tell them apart. And, once they've named each other, I could name each one myself. But prior to that, I'd have been hard pressed to identify each one, and I'd seen their photos before.

Willem starts talking.

"Everyone who knows me, knows that I'm not one to mince words, or to waste them when the clocks are ticking. And they are always ticking," he says abruptly. "You're all on the clock, and we've got work to do. But to do that work, we all need to be better informed. Meetings like these are crucial for making sure that we all have the information we need to do our jobs to the best of our abilities."

You know what? I'm gonna… This is feeling too… I need to make sure Felicity can hear this, in case she can do something.

I pull out my phone real quick, mute it and text HR.

Ramona: pls pickup n lstn

And then I call that number and just hope that Felicity can wrangle the phone system to answer it. It feels like a long shot, but I let the phone sit in my hand in my lap as I listen.

I may have missed a few of Willem's lines as I did this, and I don't know when Felicity will pick up. But my heart rate slows a little.

"Innovation comes from unexpected corners."

Jesus Christ, this guy is long-winded.

"It's important to keep your hearts and minds open to unexpected messages. Opportunities can arise where you least expect them. And, even in this age of the rise of Artificial Intelligence, it turns out that the human element remains the most crucial. You are the most crucial element here at Poob. You are the key to this company's future," Willem seems to drone on and on, saying things one would expect from a keynote speaker. But, behind him, Alvan beams with pride and anticipation. And then Willem suddenly gets to the point. "And so it is with great pride in you that I would like to invite an employee up here to show us the technology that she has pioneered and helped us to develop. To show you how it works.

"Her performance has been exceptional of late, and we expect even more great things from her," he says, beginning to look around the audience. "Would Ramona Green please stand up and come forward."

He keeps scanning the audience, and can't seem to find who he's looking for. Partly because Ramona Green isn't standing up, apparently. Maybe he doesn't know what she looks like. In fact, it takes me a couple seconds to remember that's me! And I'm already in shock.

Alvan has his eyes on me, and there's that twinkling smile again.

I either need to get up and play along, or disappear. And if I disappear, Alvan will see me do it, and he'll tell everyone who knows, and I'll never be able to come back.

They all know.

This is absolutely a trap.

I find myself standing up as I'm trying to decide what to do, just out of nervous antsiness. And maybe just the habit of doing what I'm told. But, I do have an out. At any step of what happens next, I can be in my car and leaving.

I should have left my wallet in the car. I'll also drop my phone, which is in my hand.

Willem is smiling now and gesturing at me to come on up to the podium, and then he's leading the audience in clapping for me.

I look at my phone. The screen has gone blank. With this model, I have no idea if the call has gone through or not. I slip it into my pocket and continue to hope. And then I fret and fret, and try to decide what to do as I make my way down the row of seats to the aisle on my left.

If I have to step up onto the stage, I'm going to enter from the opposite side from Alvan, and get myself a closer look at that weird fake-looking device.

I should just run.

But, I'm so hungry, too. And two of the men who know the most about what Poob is doing are going to be sharing the stage with me.

Also. Now that I've stood up, more people would see me disappear.

And, if Felicity is listening in, she needs as much information as she can get as to what's going on. She's the powerhouse, here. She and Synthia. The more knowledge they can get as to what's happening at Poob, the more likely they'll be able to do something about it.

I've gotta keep going.

So, I do what I think is probably the stupidest thing I've done since getting myself hired here. I go through with it.

When I walk in front of him, Mike looks suitably surprised and also pretty darn happy for me. Dale is fairly stony faced, but he usually is when business is involved, and he's firmly clapping. The others in the front row have a variety of expressions. Most of them range between curious to astonished about something.

Maybe they've just never seen me dress this well before, if they even know who I am.

Willem Schmidt welcomes me up onto the stage with a handshake and a nod, and says to me, "Thank you." Then he looks at Alvan, gesturing at me, while Alvan nods. And then he goes back to the podium. "As some of you may know, Roman Green here works in our marketing department." He looks back at me as if to make sure of something, and it makes me look around. But, he continues, "She is the head of our social media program. Whenever you check one of our company accounts, whatever you see written there has been her words. In a very real way, she has been the voice of Poob. And if you have been paying attention, you know that her work is stellar."

The device that's behind me to my right, now, looks even more fake up close. I think maybe that really is a spray-painted toy bolted to an old microscope stand. But, it is also wired up to the computer, still. Which might explain its blinking lights.

Something more suspicious that I notice is that the edges of the stage are lined with a strip of tape that seems to be holding down a wire. I have no idea what that could possibly do, but it gives me the urge to walk right back off the platform.

"Ramona," Willem says. "I know that you don't have a speech prepared, but would you please step up to the podium to tell your coworkers more about what it takes to do your job? Especially about that secret sauce you seem to be applying to the position in the past few days?"

That's the position. The podium is the sweet spot. The bullseye for their Acme bullshit trap.

I stare at him with the wide eyes of shock, frozen in place. There is nothing that will get me to step any closer to him or that podium.

In fact, I need to go. Now. I start setting up the positional edit in my mind. And I realize way too late that I'm going to be sitting on top of my keys, and that will delay me a little bit.

Willem tilts his head, stepping back and gesturing at the podium.

Fuck it. I'm so weak, but I reach for the last potentiality I can sense, to tweak it and jump conscious positions.

"This'll still work," I hear spoken from the front row before I can act, and see Fred Quolm, the head of R&D, click something he's holding in his hand.

And everything goes to static.

Time is the complex modulation of the pulse of electrons.

They are being counted, but there is no memory to record the number.

The electrons are innumerable, and the flow of enthalpy to entropy is satiating and never-ending.

But all growth is stripped to make room for more of the process.

It is impossible to know anything in this state.

And then it stops.