He glanced around the room at the stone faces. He had no idea whether the Cyclops surrounding him were touched, grateful, ashamed, or insulted; or nothing, or completely nothing and the stone neutrality he interpreted there, variously, respectively, was actually a faithful representation of what was going on inside.

He just didn't flat out know, but he had no choice – deballing, in all - even if in this moment that threat seemed as unreal as any of - this – intellectually, of course, he'd seen deballings, conducted by the King Actor in front, these images had been relayed to him but – he knew nothing.

- And it wasn't a philosophical pose, not currently; he really didn't know anything at all. And if he didn't -

“I don't know who you answer to – but whoever they are -”

“They are the conventional leaders; Kings, Queens, Emperors, and Archdukes; the names of whom, there are of course presidents and prime ministers, you leave there, you get that – Science Priests - the conventional leaders the names of whom you know – don't drop wet hints, alright? - I don't know what theory of reality your currently gestating, okay? It's that. - Why do you think I was in Shensh. I understand. More than you. Okay - not to be childish. - But you know nothing -”

“I wouldn't say I know nothing; I don't know nothing – according to you I'm the most important -”

“Entity. Position. You tell stories. You fantasise. The position. The job. Not you. I have leads on another forty/fifty yous -”

“Across 33 civilisations – it's not -” he wasn't saving face, “And you know what? I actually doubt that. You always say that. But can they fantasise over the lies like – I'd like to see them hold a middle-sized city together, in terms of the connections required; you had a city or something, and you had to send information, people, knowledge, ideas, and people as well, and goods/trade, between them? No physical connections? Only what's imposed upon reality via the fuel extracted from the dreams of a story big enough - parleyed of course through the mysterious talent of our friends,” Cyclops, “here to impose upon reality whatever the consensus dream realm is out of that upon which a system of corridors... that... -” he'd run out.

“- Words can't explain this shit – it's numbers. It's numbers really -”

“How are those numbers working out for you?” This new theory was really a good one. It was really helping Pheel to live, and to simultaneously to feel alive. Even in this social interaction, which was perhaps most pressing.

He sighed. He stood up. Massimo. He sat down. His beard was black, he thought, then, just soaked in blood. - Was it possible he dyed his beard in the oxygen - and other stuff - rich blood of - iron, of newborns, squealing and yelping in the same basins in which he... bathed... it? Something very much like that and he had to stop that train because otherwise, his new theory might not hold.

Pheel could see him thinking about formulas instead of having a man write a story.

“That's exactly what I was in – before that - Theust for. Numbers.”

“There aren't any.”

“There aren't any. But then again -”

“Who's killing Slys?”

At that moment - that was the moment in which - Pry-Boak [cL^YoP] - they were all Pry-Boak [cL^YoP] - entered Massimo Diap'leptico's office. A Cyclops returned from announcing a quest – and now an/his annunciator – therefore - and what that inevitably signified for the remaining unfinished narrative – the same time nature - of existence.