Werthers was sweating from every pore. In fact, he might have gotten some new pores just from the amount he had been sweating since the night before. Or, heh, the night be-pore. His sense of humor was already terrible, but staying up all night had really wrenched it up to twelve.

Then again, who could blame him? His first voyage as a skytrain conductor and they get robbed by skyrates. Every new conductor’s nightmare. It was the kind of thing they wrote books about. The kind of thing they told exaggerated cautionary tales about to scare all the new conductors in training, which was often laughed off as just some mild hazing. It was nothing to actually worry about, at least that’s what Lyle, one of his co-trainees had told him. Except now it had actually happened to him.

He remembered taking action as soon as the skyrates had left with his cargo, scurrying to his magickaphone like a (dare he think it) headless chicken and clawing at its mouth nozzle like his hands were made of melting butter. He remembered speaking into the mouth nozzle to the small green gremlin deep inside the magickaphone that then sent that correspondence telepathically to the small green gremlin inside the magickaphone inside the office inside the basement inside the castle inside the district of the local chapter of the Royal Gourd.

The first time he called, no one had answered. The second time, he got a gruff “Cluck off.” Third time was “Cluck you.” And fourth was “Cluck’s sake.” The fifth time they gave up and transferred him to the secret magickaphone inside the office inside the second floor inside the castle inside the district of the local chapter of the Royal Gourd, and that was when he was able to report that skyrates had stolen his first load of cargo, ever. Werthers considered using a fake name, but knew it was hopeless as small green gremlins knew everyone’s names already, and the one inside the magickaphone inside the office inside the second floor inside the castle inside the district of the local chapter of the Royal Gourd was surely a narc.

So here he was now, sweating bullet shaped piles of salty liquid as his skytrain docked in the floating station of Caldonia. Werthers did his best to distract himself with the pink fluffy clouds peacefully hanging in the sky, some above and some below him, and the shimmering beauty of the twin suns nearly searing his pupils to blindness as they rose higher in the sky. This only twerked so long before his eyelids got fatigued from squinting and a portly figured nearly rammed into him like a bowling ball.

“Pleasure to create an acquiessence of an aquaintance with you. Ronaldo Skripper at your service. The Syndicate is happy to have you.”

“W-w-werthers Wermswurth.”

Werthers stuttered through their ten minute acquaintancing ritual as best he could, only to then find himself introduced to Ronaldo’s string-bean-esque associate, Blithers Pripkin, affording them another ten minutes of introduction. Everyone’s tongues tired and memories well etched with their twistworthy names, they walked away from the skytrain and into a small control room nearby. Inside, lights flickered and a couple soul mosquitos drained Werthers of a bit of his life essence, adding a new wrinkle to his brows.

Blithers Pripkin lit a cigarette, then produced a cigarette holder from behind his back that was about as long as a pool cue. There was scarely room for the three of them to move once the holder was dangling from his mouth, and Werthers noticed with a sigh that cigarette ash was getting on his nickle loafers.

“So, Mister Wermswurth, here we are. Where we are, is here. Our present location is here, now, where we are,” as Pripkin muttered the ominous words his cigarette and holder bounced and seesawed around in Werthers’ face, almost poking him in the eye.

“Uhm. Yes.”

“Well, Wormy, if I might call youse Wormy—”

“I’d rather you not.”

“Okay, well, I’ll call you Wormy, anyway. I’m sure you understand.”

Werthers did not understand, but he went along with it. Truthfully, Werthers did not understand much about these characters or why they had taken such a decidedly aggressive stance with which to greet him. He knew his skytrain company would be devastated, but these goons weren’t anyone he’d met before and he’d of been shocked if they were considered ‘skytrain material.’ No, these fellows were from some other organization, but what, Werthers couldn’t say.

“Well, Wormy? Can the Syndicate count on youse?” the burning end of the cigarette glew with impatience, imprinting on Werthers’ vision.

Werthers had been so lost in his own thoughts he’d not even listened to a word that Pripkin had poorly enunciated in his general direction. However, the glassy look in Pripkin’s eyes made Werthers feel like he ought to just agree.

“Yes. I understand.”

Ronaldo chuckled and slapped Werthers on the back, nearly cracking it in the process.

“Excellent my chup excellent! Glad we see eye to eye!”

Pripkin tried to nod, sending the cigarette waggling around even closer to Werthers’ iris.

“I’d shake yer hand but I don’t wanna warp my gloves,” chuckled Pripkin, looking at Werthers’ fingers, which had pruned from sweat. “Anyhow, toodley-woodley and all that funk.”

Pripkin and Ronaldo nodded. Ronaldo opened the door and watched as Pripkin lifted his cigarette holder up with his jaw up, almost touching the ceiling, and then maneuvering it out the door like an electrician with a magically floursecent bulb. Ronaldo smiled at Werthers then ducked out the door himself, slamming it ceremoniously.

Werthers listening to them murmuring to each other as they left him in flickering darkness and prickling soul mosquitos.

“Cockhamn it Blithers, why are you always smoking out of that thing?”

“I like it. It’s intimidating. And it helps strengthen the jaw.”

“It’s muddy ridiculous is what it is! What the clucking hen do you need a strong jaw for anyhow?”

Their voices faded into the bustling crowds of the floating skytrain station of Caldonia, and Werthers felt a ball of concern grow in his gut. What on Gurth had he just agreed to?

Werthers creaked open the door of the control room to come face to gut with a blubbery armor clad officer of the Royal Gourd. Looking up at his face Werthers noticed bits of food caught in his dense mustache that walrused its way into mutton chops.

“Ah! Wertherford! I’m officer seargant Seargeant Officer Jarmish!” jiggled the jowls of the officer. His deep voice was muffled by the muffins in his mouth. He looked strangely familiar for a reason Werthers could not place.

“Actually it’s Werthers, officer seargant—”

Officer seargant Seargeant Officer Jarmish pulled Werthers aside like he was a dog on a lead and lead him into the crowds, this time heading towards the train station exit gates.

“Excellent, Werthings, excellent! Glad to hear you made it out okay after losing all that cargo! What a dreadful sort of thing, absolutely dreadful, but don’t worry I’m here to help! Come, come, let’s not flippy flap around now, tell me everything.”

“Oh. Uhm. Well as I said in my call—”

“Yes, yes, I know you lost everything, you had it all, all that precious cargo, and now it’s all gone, poof, just like, well, just like magic!”

“Actually that’s not necessarily what—”

“Say! You don’t think it could’ve been a wild pack of wizards with magic-rabies riding around on broomsticks dressed like women calling themselves witches that robbed you, do you?”

“That doesn’t even—”

“Yes, it must have been! How else would you be so unable to keep blarthering on about how shocking the whole thing was to me as you continue to do? Why, I can see in your eyes as we speak that indeed it must have been crossdressing cross-magical magic-rabid wizards that did it!”

“But—”

“But nothing! I can assure you, Werthenberg, my contacts in the Royal Gourd will spare no expense at catching these witchy man-woman wizards, and magic vaccinating out all of their hamned magic rabies! Yes, I can assure you, most assuredly, that we will surely succeed!”

“Can I please—”

“And one more thing before I leave you be. Your employer asked I present you with this here, um, this here, um, oh dearie do, where did I put that now—Aha! Here you are sirrah!”

Officer seargeant Seargeant Officer Jarmish handed Werthers a greasy, crumpled up slip of paper.

“This is a receipt for eight blueberry muffins over at the floating bakery?”

“Oh measley mumps, one moment, uhm, let me have that back though, want to, uh, to hold on to my muffin points of course, thank you, uhm, hmmm, oh here we are.”

Officer seargeant Seargeant Officer Jarmish handed Werthers another greasy, crumpled up slip of paper. When he unfolded this one, it was not a receipt for eight blueberry muffins over at the floating bakery with muffin points. It was instead a letter written in flimsy Caldonian shorthand on branded stationary from the Sincerely Skytrain Society. It read roughly:

NICE JOB, YOU COLOSSAL CLUCK UP. PLEASE SEE REVERSE SIDE FOR INVOICE.

He swallowed down his pre-vomit as best he could, and then, emphatically prespiring, peeled the invoice from the back of the letter and turned it around. He grew pale and faint. He could feel the blood rushing to his head. Or from his head. That he could feel blood rushing was the important part. And he couldn’t feel much else. For, taped on the back of the invoice on stationary from Gigglesberg, Wigglestein, Figglesfeld, and Sons and Uncles and Other Men of Minor and/or No Relation that was taped on the back of the letter written in flimsy Caldonian shorthand on branded stationary from the Sincerely Skytrain Society was a small, pink slip barely the size of a thumbnail. There was no writing on it. It was thin to the point of being nearly translucent, not unlike Werthers’ skin at that moment.

And so he stood in the crowds like a gawking alien, frozen in fear as he realized life as he’d known it had ended. From first time skytrain conductor, what he’d thought to be his life’s dream, his only dream other than owning a magical goat farm in western Caldonia in a glorious mansion with some concubines and maybe even some bovines, to being ungainfully unemployed and in the red for more money than he’d ever seen in his life.

Officer seargant Seargeant Officer Jarmish had already disappeared. Disappeared meaning walked back over to the floating bakery for some more muffins.