7

Emmett paced.

    “Mr. Payne!” He heard his secretary mincing up the steps. He snapped at

her about how he couldn't be bothered and listened to her totter away.

************************************************************************

    Emmet's eyes narrowed in realization.

    He blinked, considering. He could call Neric. Neric would answer

quickly, eager for news. He would turn sour just as quickly. Well? he

would say, exasperated. Get rid of her then.

    “My name is Emmet. Emmet Phemus.”

    She shook her head.

    “No... not your name... who are you?”

    He shrugged.

***************************************************************

    And he couldn't be bothered, he really couldn't. He sat at his

faux-mahogany desk, his back tense like a coiled tiger. His delicate fingers

tapped across the wood. The keyboard gleamed menacingly. His breathing

quivered and echoed. He leaned back in his chair. The chair broke.

*******************************************************************

    Neric scowled for the cameras, of which there were many. Looking

mysterious, foreboding, and of course very sexy (if he did say so himself

(and he did)), he leaned back into his plush Princess & The Pea Without

The Pea TM office chair and pondered upon his plans.

    “Oh, Payne, Payne,” Neric muttered inaudibly, closing his eyes and

putting his hands up in mock meditation. “The Payne, the pain...”

    He pretended not to notice the cameras because they were endlessly

amusing, and good for publicity. It was nice to have an appreciative

audience, and he leaned forward to put his fingers to his temples in a new

thinking position. “Ah, the tragedy of greatness!” But this was, he

suddenly realized, of course MUCH too over-the-top! he could slapped

himself. A moment later he did, just for fun.

    I should call Ranley, thought Neric, and ask if I can borrow his

watermelon. This reminded him of a childhood pet, and he sighed forlornly

for the cameras.

    Then-- Oh, god. I have to pee.

********************************************************************************

    He swore as he got up, and yelled downstairs.

    “Dawn! I need a new office chair!” Her flimsy heels clicked on the first

few steps. “I still can't be bothered!” he added hastily, and they retreated.

*********************************************************************

    Neric went to the bathroom whistling-- now that Emmet was involved in

his schemes, Payne would come into the net of his own accord, and

besides he liked to whistle. After peeing off his kitchen table because he

wasn't “in the mood” for toilets, he sat on his desk and ate thai food.

**************************************************************

    “What about you?” Emmet returned evenly. “And I am interested in

names.”

    “Myra,” she told him. “Myra Candleberry. You can look me up.”

    He did, though he didn't have to-- she wasn't lying. She probably

couldn't. She didn't seem able to do much.

    She was kind of interesting.

*****************************************************************************

    Payne lay on the couch, made himself comfortable.

    And inobservant-- this time he didn't catch the secretary on the stairs,

and she tripped in, greeting him with a fat collagen grin. How he hated her.

He issued a flurry of orders, most of them useless, and finally she swiveled

away again, her pink skirt rippling around her a*s.  He turned up to the

ceiling and closed his eyes. The light panels were red and cool through his

eyelids. He was still for a long time, in the half-lit place between

consciousness and dreams.

    It seemed to him his office was a glass house with a vaulted ceiling.

Vines spiraled over the broken chair, swarming with red, musky blossoms

from a picture book. The walls arched up and up, and past the glass was

nothing.

    He'd never seen nothing before, and was fascinated at the gleaming

familiarity of it.

    I'm dreaming, he vaguely knew. This isn't real, just neurons firing

randomly.

    He got up and walked to the door, which was not glass but some sort of

glossy obsidian. He knew what would be behind it, and he hesitated before

opening it.