“Brey-BreLoak [cL^YoP***], if you would be so kind, can you show us the screen?”

The stone monolith of Cyclops matter. The man that for Pry contained everything that he thought was good, worthwhile, in discipline, in terms of his connection to an ancient and immeasurable tradition; that was Cyclops itself and what it meant to be one/to transmit that tradition, this was Brey-BreLoak - to Pry. - But perhaps nothing quite so imposing to Pheel and Clua. The massive Sly turned his head in such a fashion that, to the extent to which he knew only he could even observe it in the first place; observed the wall:

A black panel separated the room itself from non-existence. Brey-BreLoak's regarding it, it became not this, but instead a screen, of a map, that showed what to anyone else would appear merely a complex of passages; tunnels; corridors, incomprehensible in their scale; intricacy, in the tangle of their, for all intents infinite, interconnections.

This was the map of Old Works itself. As opposed to the corporation that shared this name; the separate entity in charge of the functioning, maintenance, and management of the system upon which... upon which everything depended.

Corridors, Pry saw now, stacked in three dimensions.

The map was not merely a flat page on a wall. Nor was it static. Old Works was still growing as he well knew, growing more and more mutually interdependent and – but he knew that and that, theoretically, as an individual mode of the entire - a mode in this thing, that he contained all of it within himself. Which was how he recognised that without the reinforcement that they were building, that they were fighting to manufacture again, this story, this artificially resuscitated story, that – Old Works, in this state - a strong wind would blow it over.

Not a hurricane; not a tornado; nothing so dramatically emphatic: strong, a wind.

“Please individuate the Cyclops, and the fantasy weight, currently running thorough them,” said Clua, still addressing Brey-BreLoak [cL^YoP***]

In every corner, in every angle, the screen revealed/displayed that relatively large sections could be run on one, a few, or only a couple Sly provided these sections were uninhabited, if the material exchanging between the worlds was merely information; only words or numbers, in the language of undisguised truth. Each of the merely 10, 038 working Cyclops left were now highlighted on the screen, the wall, really the right of him. A complex of tunnels as complexly interconnected as well-written scripture. He watched it too. Containing what he was containing, and transmitting, he watched it too. It saved him the energy - given Brey-BreLoak [cL^YoP***] was projecting it; regarding it within himself.

“The FWpC,” fantasy weight per Cyclops, appeared in the top right of the screen, this number, above his head.

The number was 31.

“Display the low.”

In one short corridor, way down almost behind Pry in the bottom right corner, there was a solitary young Sly, regarding, and by regarding it, fashioning it from the mysterious fundamental material of reality itself: a region that connected a specific kind of information, this was how it was described, between Hortag and Shensh. Low calibre; low f-dub stuff. Uninhabited, apart from the young Sly; 41 years old, still a child, in any functional reality he was still a child. The number above the young Slys head was 3.

Head hitting the desk again, Pheel sighed so loud it was almost screaming. Through teeth: “I need a story on his desk eight weeks ago.”

“Stay tranquil.”

“The only reason he hasn't de-balled my bag is: he's on Shensh – himself – official state visit, something – Queen Persh. For the record, so we're clear here, I disdain metaphors; I hate them, an unusual position for a writer, I understand. I prefer literal clear in the face un-Sly mediated final reality, thank you, and in that realm, sans metaphor, sans mediation, sans shit that ain't truth - maybe it's an image, I'm using a metaphor - I've got it, in that realm, it's a metaphor, I'm saying, there, a completed story-doc on his desk, replete, in fact - t's dotted/i's crossed, whatever it is. i.e. every variety of p52; p87; p91; etc., all angles covered by any kind of supernatural or simple human-natural relationship to reality itself in final-not-exactly-fun-time-reality; but that place, that place, as I said, in there; he has that story-doc eight weeks ago - eight long Hortag weeks ago - or I'm de-balled personally by the maestro, in this instance using his full title, refraining from employing the pretty fore-cult name that he uses to parlay for happy times among friends, no he'll be fully garbed and – he'll – fully-bagged - literally scoop the innards from my genital sack with the knife he keeps for that: the scene of the aforementioned de-balling, in that scenario. - Not so much a scenario as an inevitable event that will one hundred unavoidable percent occur in my life to me eight weeks ago unless - the future now, I think – in like, in, a half hour - unless I have that fully documented story-doc on his desk eight weeks ago, in that specific reality event I'm – I don't have any blood – in which scenario, it'd behove a conscious node of human perception to adopt his full title which is Demonlord. The official/traditional Old Works Chief Operating Officer title which is, of course, for some perhaps unspeakable reason, Demonlord. One word Demonlord.”