Daddy's Lounge Zone.
To his surprise, the little hole in his neck didn't hurt at all. Not a single drop of blood leaked out either, because it was immediately obvious the blowpipe or sarbacane had been fired by a certified professional.
The dart — now resting on a beanbag with Dua Lina's face (hell knows — maybe in some alternate Universe her lawyers will eventually stumble across this book and try to ban it, so I'm tweaking her nickname now just to dodge that cosmic lawsuit) printed on it — had been carefully coated with all sorts of anti-allergenic and anti-conception substances, killing bacteria and any memories of their grandpa at the root.
The Worker-Man twitched once. Then again. He exhaled — and immediately had his mouth covered.
The enormous, gloriously muscular brute — Casey, of course — hissed:
– Don't you dare disturb the Master's meditation.
And Stacey, scratching her bitten ear, added:
– Don't you dare disturb the Master's meditation.
Then they glanced at each other, realized their ovulation cycles had synced, bumped heads, and collapsed unconscious.
So now he had to look around silently, peeling off all the neon lanterns they'd hung on him while he'd been knocked out.
The plexiglass walls were decorated with the very same lanterns — and with postcards sent by children to their new post-apocalyptic Santa: Maiji Kuiper himself.
He — or It — or They (depending on your philological preferences) sat right on the fireplace, assumedly in the lotus pose (because in yoga all poses are lotus, right?), warming up his chakras.
His niece Veronica kept tossing coal into the furnace and occasionally consulted paleolithic Instagram guides on how to maintain a dying flame using flint and stone.
– Great One! — the newly rehired employee whispered reverently and very cautiously. For some reason they'd knocked him out right after his first appearance in the book: "Nothing Personal. Just Business."
– Am I supposed to keep being you? And if so — can I expect, if not a raise, then at least some sort of minimal salary? Doesn't have to be money — maybe a benefits package in the form of Costco coupons or lactose-free burgers?
Veronica lowered her garden-watering ladle, brushed a lock of long hair from her forehead, and ran her hand across her shaved head:
– Uncle, your duplicate woke up. Are we renewing his license or tossing this demo out?
The Maestro didn't answer.
Silence is the key to understanding silence.
Only with a nod did he indicate the complicated mechanism nailed to the wall — something resembling an android wearing boxer shorts. Only once the Worker-Man had examined all of its… merits… did the Maestro condescend to explain:
– Heard about those damn Chinese robots that'll start working in factories instead of humans now? Anyway, one of my chufuses sent me a prototype personally approved by the head of the Communist Party. I have big plans for him, my rotting octopus.
His listener's eyes widened — and even fell out for a moment. He had to quickly pick them up and blow off the non-existent dust from this immaculate room (your cleaning company ad could be placed here, homies).
His voice trembled with excitement:
– Wow! But why is he cuffed to the wall? What did he do to deserve that?
– We need the right setup. — The Master waved him off lazily. — If we were all sitting in a basement holding hands and discussing some bullshit, such a cute gathering could be held on the planet of my late Pekingese. But this? This is serious. Horror-esque. Very 80s low-budget.
And, most importantly — gentlemanly, with a personally-selected metallic…
– Victim?! — gasped the Worker-Man.
A paid subscriber of my social media — the one who donated regularly back when he lived in Gong-Kong.
Don't offend the fucking robot just because he's tied up in a basement with a flashlight up his ass. That's blatant racism toward the flashlight.
– But… why do you even need him?
– Valeria, explain it to him. And toss some more coal into the furnace — I'm getting chilly. My ass hasn't heated up or exploded even once today, sweetheart.
Instead of a thousand words, the Maestro's niece simply approached the Worker-Man and shoved a tightly rolled papyrus into his hands — written in Verdana.
Removing the wax seal and postage stamps, he read:
"All the contents on these sheets — you'll have to burn. No need to memorize anything.
Then, once you finish doing that, retransmit the memorized material to the robot. I read somewhere that soon everything in this world will be replaced by some kind of artificial intelligence or something like that. Well, whatever — it's definitely connected to this robot.
So read him the excerpts from my works and force him to store it in his memory.
If he asks, you can feed him a little. Hazelnuts will cost extra.
After you complete all this, you will be fired. I myself and Valeria, along with Casey and Stacey, as well.
We'll all go lie in the grass and gnaw on it, and instead of me, this still-brainless machine will perform on stage for the audience.
Thus begins the era of Technological Maiji Kuiper.
And simultaneously, Act Two of this Dorama.
Now you may summon the audience.
Although, they'll teleport in anyway the moment you finish reading."
Barely had the Worker-Man's eyes stopped racing across the letters, when Christmas gnomes began crawling out of the fireplace chimney one by one, sitting neatly in a row, ready to hear another motivational speech from Maestro Maiji Kuiper's hired employee.
The cybernetic organism held its breath.
The Maestro flushed from the heat.
Valeria clinked shot glasses with one of the gnomes who had just turned 21 and could finally smuggle booze into the party.
And the Worker-Man solemnly began proclaiming the new maxims of the universe.
All while trying not to think about any remotely decent compensation for his labor — and mourning the untimely death of the Labor Code, which didn't give a damn about him anyway.
The Maestro's whisper to himself:
"T'fucking hell! My Mother?
So yeah — I've run dry, and now I had to sink to outright theft from the original thief, C.J. Night, whom we, thank God, sued together with Doña Juanita and forced to write more books about us.
Anyway, that talentless clown wrote a hell of a lot of little notes that could, in principle, fit into my material. Valeria spent about a minute and a half doing a quick CTRL-C — CTRL-V from his social media into my papyrus.
I hope that by the time he reads this book, I'll be well-camouflaged in the grass, which will conceal my loins and my immortal mind from his sly disgusting little eyes.
Yes-yes, I mean YOU, you miscreant!
If we end up in the same prison cell, you'll be the one tattooing me, calling me your bitch, feeding me your pay-per-view shows — and you'll do it for free, you son of a bitch!"
Tss… guys, it's me, C.J. Night.
So, Maiji seems to have shut his mouth because he choked on a can of barracuda-piss energy drink, and while there's a window of opportunity, I'll dare to jot down a little of what the Worker-Man will be dictating — to the Robot — before the Maestro regains consciousness and kicks me out of this book again, since the last lawsuit cost me a fortune and now I live on the balcony of his apartment.
Though, to be fair to the Maestro — he did give me an excellent idea: just shove in here all my random thoughts I had been writing down purely for myself, the ones that never made it into any book.
So I'll toss in some stuff that has absolutely nothing to do with each other, and that's wonderful.
Good night, Winnie-the-Pooh.
Would you like a bag?