Some drum to remember. Some drum to forget.

I am drumming to de-stress. Then I’m drumming to clear my mind. After that, I’m drumming to hide from the decision I have to make, and then for the joy of it. It’s a trance and a prayer. It’s Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah, done in rhythm, and then it’s been eighteen hours.

The suck is strong in this one, but I’ve reached my meditative peace, and the suck can fuck off. I’m not choosing torture, and I’m not choosing death. The question is just how to live with surviving. They’re not taking my drums. Intead, I’m going to be required to play a lot. Can I do it? I can probably manage their need for five hundred thaums a day. Six layers of rhythm at 8x speed, using all 5 limbs, and I should be able to manage it.

I don’t think I can manage that every day, all day, though, and I don’t think I can keep the six-layers rhythm weave going for too long in a row. I can probably manage four layers of rhythm on average for twenty hours a day. My math says I can get them 300 thaums a day, if their still meditation is better than my moving meditation like I think it is. I might be a bit off. Maybe 280.

A lot of this will depend on how many prisoners he’s got. They’re chasing a green thaum? I can get them an orange per person every four days. That’s one yellow per person per four thousand days. One yellow for eleven people in a year. One yellow per month if they have a hundred and thirty people.

There’s no way the math works out for them. So they’ve got to be doing something else. I wonder what it is?

After another couple hours, the shyster comes back. “Mr. Snake, I hope your time spent thinking was fruitful.”

“Yes, it was. Am I supposed to call you Charles, or Chuck, or what?”

“Thank you for asking. I prefer Charles.” He oozes fake friendliness. He must be some sort of lawyer.

“Okay, Charles.” It’s hard to get my tongue to use someone’s real name. I’ve never been any good at this. Schmuel did this stuff for the band. “Can I get some details? I’m gonna help, but you already knew that. That’s just the beginning, though. I need to know what you’re doing and how you’re doing it so I can help.”

“Of course, Mr. Snake. Cooperation is so much nicer of an approach than the other choices. What questions did you have?”

“How many sla-associates do you have, producing thaums?” I think I’m supposed to pretend they’re not slaves. At least I caught myself before I finished the word.

“We currently have 34 people gathering thaums for us.”

“Where is this happening? Is it underground like here?”

“At the moment, yes. Can I ask why that matters?”

“My magic works by creating an atmospheric suction of thaums. Having enough atmosphere for it to work well matters. Underground, with a single tunnel entrance probably isn't going to work well.”

Mr. B replies, “That might be a bit of a problem, but I think we’ll be able to work out a solution. What else?”

“What other methods are you using to increase their thaum production? Thirty-four people won’t give you a green thaum this century, even with my help. So you’ve gotta have some other tricks. I want what the tricks are so I can figure out how they work with mine.”

“Very insightful, Mr. Snake. I see that our hiring division has made a very prudent offer. Down to business right away. The explanation may take a minute." I hate when people say that. It always means the same thing.

He starts in, and I am quickly reminded that he's an accountant. “We have several layers of thaumic production increase. Normally a human being produces about a sixth of a red thaum per hour spent resting. Meditation can increase that, and almost anyone in the modern world has managed third level meditation. Each level of meditation increases thaum-generation by a factor of fifty percent, but it’s multiplicative, so third level meditators produce a factor of three and three eighths times as many thaums. That works out to about 56% of a thaum per hour.

“As you astutely observed, that means that 34 people will produce about sixteen red thaums per hour, four hundred red thaums a day, or about three orange thaums a week. At about fifty weeks a year, that’s seven years to make a yellow thaum, and we’re looking for a green. It would normally take 7,000 years to reach our goal.

I’m having a hard time even pretending I’m still listening. “Dude. I don’t really listen great. Mom said it was a condition. I followed you so far, but I’m getting a bit fuzzy. Can you break it down for me faster?”

“Apologies, Mr. Snake. I’ve apparently forgotten the first rule of jury trials: talk to your audience."

“We have a mykitamancer, who has been able to grow mushrooms that release thaums into the air in a cave-system. Our cave-air has roughly six times the thaumic density of normal air.

“We also have an aeromancer who has been able to compress the thaumic air into a high pressure zone, at roughly six times the pressure of normal air, and folks can operate in that environment just fine. We had some mishaps early, but our current gas mix in the air is working well, and it doesn't perfectly follow pre-transition pressure adaptation rules. The substantial pressure makes it tricky to leave without assistance, and it takes acclimatization but our associates prefer to stay in their cells to better their production rates.” The smile he gives me here is about as sickening as smiles get.

“Then we found a chronomancer. He’s able to make temporal distortion fields, so long as they don’t move, of as much as six times speed. Time passes in the field six times as quickly as it does outside.

“Between those three, we are on schedule to complete in thirty-five years, rather than in seven thousand. While we're discussing thuamic improvements, can you confirm what you bring to the table?”

I’m still awake. My eyes are still open, if maybe a bit glazed. Good impressions matter. Okay. “Can you repeat the question?”

I think he thinks I’m stupid, so he uses small words, “How much can you help us?”

Barnabas, my lyric poetry professor, had a line that has stuck with me for the last ten years. He only said it once, but it was a pretty big deal. He said, “Talking in a lower class vernacular, rather than in formal English has always been a good method to convince the upper classes that you’re unintelligent. Smart lower-class people have been taking advantage of that for centuries.” I’m not that smart, but letting folks think I’m dumber has been good to me over the years.

I explain my lowballed improvements, “I can manage about twenty times improvement, so long as my drumming works with the other methods. That’s for drumming about twenty hours a day, which is about as much as I can manage. I can’t actually drum more than that and get good results.”

“If you’re right, then this is the beginning of a beautiful partnership. You will move us down to less than a two-year time frame. If it works perfectly, that's down to a bit more than a year--sixteen months.” After his flash of excitement, he starts lying again, “Then the investors, you included, can each go our own way, a hundred yellow thaums richer, and the associates can go back to their lives. How soon will you be able to start helping?”