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appeared and installed a fresh door while a mouth in the wall opened and sucked in the smashed trophy case—sound of imploding wood and metal—and then spit out a new trophy case. A SAMSA speedswept the floor, placed a receipt on Rabelais’s desk, and left. Everything was back to normal in under a minute.
    Massaging his knees, Rabelais said, “That expense is coming out of your ass. I don’t joke about doors. Here.” He held out the receipt. Prague took it and stuffed it in his pocket. “Trophy cases are another matter,” continued the Commodore. “Particularly when they’re decorative. Particularly when they’re for show. Doors have use-value. Doors open and close and so forth.”
    “I see,” said Prague.
    Rabelais huffed. “Do you? I wonder sometimes. I wonder if you see anything.”
    “Well, you know what they say about perception. Perception is a daunting mosaic of catacombs down which the hairy members of anonymity flow like a—”
    “Can the birdshit, Vinnie. No time. All told, I’m glad you’re here, even if you’re late.” He stood again and walked out from behind the desk. Rabelais’s attire surprised Prague. Instead of a standard-issue UMU (Upper Management Uniform), he wore a forgettable business suit. He almost looked like a SAMSA. But he looked more like a scarecrow with his big head in the shape of an overinflated paper bag. And Prague could still fit the little creep in his britches.
    “Somebody die?” Prague chirped. “What’s with the shiteating threads?”
    Rabelais smiled. “It’s Friday,” he said. He didn’t say anything else.
    Prague shrugged. “I was gonna dress up for you. But I got sidetracked. I don’t feel like dressing up anymore. Costumes dictate performativity, if only in spirit, and I’m just not in a performative mood.”
    “That’s magnificent,” he replied through a slit of mouth. “Are you finished? Have a seat. Talking to you is exhausting. A little bit of smartass goes a long way. Too much ends up nowhere.” A sentient chair crawled across the office floor and tapped Prague on the thigh. Prague rolled his eyes as the chair struck him in the back of the knees, breaking his stance, and cradled him into a sitting position.
    “There we are.” Rabelais returned to his chair and lit a cigar the size of a baby’s arm. Taking an egregious puff, he tapped a sheet of paper on the desk. “Congratulations Mr Anvil-in-Chief. This is your assignment. First, however, you’ll have to excuse me. It’s been over fifteen minutes. At least.”
    The Commodore uttered something into an intercom in a derivation of Noirspeak that Prague didn’t recognize. He spoke five derivations himself, but there were over sixty in City City alone, each as different from the next as apples and Agent Orange.
    Another mouth opened in a wall and coughed two zombies into the corner of the office. They were stock Romero zombies that smarted of wax figures more than the real McCoy: flashy glamrock makeup, jointless limbs, foam latex bite wounds and slash marks and rotting flesh…At first they petted, fondled and tapped each other, like wrestlers getting a sense of the opposition. Before long they graduated to cannibalism and ripping off limbs. Green slime sprayed out of one zombie, white mucous out of the other. The battle culminated with an exhibition of furious brain eating after which the victorious zombie tore off its own growling head and cracked it open on its knee. Stinking maggots, roaches and eels exploded from the rupture and the zombie’s body melted into a pool of hot sludge. Rabelais squeaked in ecstasy…
    As always, the slaughterhouse’s ardent janitorial lackeys cleaned up the bloodbath at record-breaking speed. They also provided Rabelais with a fresh pair of undergarments and suit pants.
    Prague looked on blankly, sighing and shifting in his chair as it all came back to him. Interviews with Rabelais were prolonged and tedious. What should have taken five minutes took