The Director snatched Spindle’s papers and inserted them into a datafeed that appeared suspiciously like a shredder, not least because the bright decal read “Troy’s Shredder Service – Please Keep Your Hands Inside The Tram Car At All Times.”  Within moments, the entire report was transformed into ribbons which wrapped themselves into a DNA strand, then a skeleton, and finally a full papier-mâché doll, complete with Barbie-proportioned breasts.  

“Speak,” commanded the Director.

Spindle audibly gasped, was shushed, and watched as the golem’s lips moved.  “Bad news.”

Blastulans had seven distinct levels of “bad” that worked on the same premise as the New York Stock Exchange.  So long as pork bellies weren’t in season, Spindle remembered the levels as follows:

(1)  I broke a fingernail bad.

(2)  I broke two fingernails bad.

(3)  Exclamation point worthy bad.

(4)  That wasn’t pudding I just ate bad.

(6)  Oops!  I accidentally skipped level five bad.

(6)  Each has a longer explanation than the previous bad.

(7)  I better get someone else to take this to the director bad.

Spindle watched as the golem uncurled fingers.  Two.  Four...  Six?  Eight!  When did it appreciate?

A stream of ticker tape shot from the looseleaf secretary’s mouth into Spindle’s outstretched hands.  Written in adolescent cursive (the font preferred by lecherous dictators everywhere), Spindle sorted through the heart-dotted i’s and the smiley-face filled o’s to read:

* * * Do U like me?  Check one: Yes.  No.  Maybe.  * * *  DETRIMENTAL CATASTROPHE STATUS * * * Denay Revolt * * * OMG! * * * Sabotage * * * Dairy Intolerance * * * URGENT FIX IMPERATIVE * * * Or URA Dead Man * * * For A Good Time Call Chase * * *

Heat emanated from the Director as his temper flared.  Literally. 

Spindle backpedaled from the room, tangled in the paper thread.  He needed a drink.  He found a jar of nicely fermented honey mustard and imbibed it.  Thankfully, Dr. Centrole consoled him with hazel blinks.  Maybe the doctor was being amorous?  Hell, another jar of honey mustard and Spindle wouldn’t care what gender it was.

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

Chase crossed his knees and pulled the hem of his one-piece lower to maintain some dignity.  The room where he’d been deposited was hospital white and sanitary, and it smelled like old people.  He half expected to find Werther’s hard candies stocked in a crystal dish, but the other half of him didn’t know what to expect.  No turtles, no penguins, no bubble wrap, no clue what was to happen next.  This place sucked.

To whittle away at the time, he reprocessed a conundrum asked by a recent midnight patron: Suppose a flatbed truck is driving down a highway at exactly one hundred miles per hour and a baseball pitcher stands in the rear and hurls a ball exactly one hundred miles per hour toward the back, will the ball hover?  Denny’s didn’t cater to physicists, and physical therapists weren’t apt substitutes to answer correctly.  Anyone Chase asked was too concerned about friction, vacuums, and how long before the pitcher was signed by the Yanks or Sox. 

“Pardon me,” came a nudge.  Which is to say the nudge spoke.  Or: nothing else was in the room, but Chase clearly heard the words “Pardon me” while feeling a nudgeworthy sensation.  

Chase inhaled deeply (was that creamed spinach?), and steadied himself for the first test.  Horrible and Debilitating Pain, was it?  He hoped horrible was the key word, like a “horrible haunted house” that wasn’t particularly frightening.  Except it was debilitating too.

A sensation crept into his nose that he hadn’t felt since he was seven years old and a compulsive picker.  The unreachable booger.  He wiped his arm across his nostrils, but the annoyance lingered.  Pushing one side closed, he blew hard out the offensive schnozzhole.  He tried to force himself to sneeze, hocked up a loogie, squeezed the bridge of his nose.  No luck.  Finally, aware there was another presence in the room, he chewed a corner of the white on his index fingernail and peeled across.  Scratching the inside of a nostril hurt; Chase wasn’t going to fall for it.

He cupped his left hand over his face and quasi-secretly mined for gold.  The tickle remained.  Another millimeter? 

“That is awful,” came the voice that belonged to the nudge earlier.  Which is to say nudges take precedence over voices, or else the nudge would have been the possession and the voice the owner.  Except this time, the nudge had a body. 

Chase would have removed his finger and offered to wave or shake the hand of the nudger, except his finger was in his nose.  Worse, it was stuck.  Yet worser, it was forging new depths.  This was painful!  Horrible!  Debilitating, even!  His first knuckle disappeared with a sucking sound, and the second knuckle was chasing it with a fervor he’d never associated with knuckles.  

“That looks horribly and debilitatingly painful,” said the body which deserved more description.  

Chuck couldn’t piece words together, as he was preoccupied contorting his body in new positions to keep the remainder of his finger free.  It didn’t seem to want to cooperate.  His right eye rolled up in his skull as he poked his brain.  

“Scientists claim most humans use somewhere between eight and ten percent of their brainpower.”

Chase wasn’t sure what triggered the memory of Mr. Heilenman, his sophomore biology teacher, but he suspected the digital stimulation had more than a little to do with it.  His struggle to yank his arm free ceased as the entire right side of his face went numb.

The body spoke again.  Which is to say the mouth on the body spoke.  “You have precisely three minutes to extract your finger before your mind literally blows.  Good luck.”