No good deed goes unpunished

Alright crew. It's time to fix this thing for real. The governor of Georgia thinks DST shortens the actual amount of night time, the guy who loaded mulch into my car decided i get black instead of brown, it's sleeting in April, some people still think killing each other is the best way to stop people from killing each other, and i don't have any more bottles.

Believe me, it hurts to exert this much authority, but...

Skip. Make the first book look like the second book. 11pt Palantino, odd pages on the right, quadruple check the final pdf for pagination errors. 

Compy. There's still false references in the first index, and the second index doesn't exist yet.

Sandra. First cover is fine, second cover gets a red and yellow color scheme, 'cause somewhere out there there's a Russian mouse who will get the Use Your Illusion reference and giggle.

Bridbrad. Stop pretending you aren't the narrator/writing writer of all this cosmic space fantasy war silliness.

GREGORY. Stop screeching for however long this takes. Hopefully only a couple weeks, but no promises.

Carl. Reset all the mousetraps.

Gladys! Flip on the "work happens" sign.

Did i miss anyone? Oh yeah, me. When it's all said and done, i'm gonna fork over the dough for proper ISBNs and make this double headed monster distributable to the world at large. 

What's our motto? "We're all dead on the inside, tee hee." Inflate the pig! Do do it! Release the beavers! Where's my coffee cup? Space cadets, i mean discorporate corporate functions, go!

---

Slowly the light filtered into Bottle's eyeballs. Too bright, too bright, he thought. Normally, Bottle would slowly will his appendages into action and reach the ceremonial putting on of the pants, but something was different this time.

Why bother? It's all still going to keep getting worse. There isn't a second direction for the escalator to travel, and there's nowhere to go if there were.

As he slowly acclimated to the light, Bottle made the face of someone recognizing the pointlessly familiar situation they found themselves experiencing again for the umpteenth time without a discernable reason to explain it. Checklist time: White room, check. Black curtains, check. Sappy soft rock... no? Uh oh.  Not good. Alright, i'm awake. What?

As he stared up at the vagueness, a circle of gray blobs intruded on his vision like that terrible nightmare where you wake up in a 1800s operating theater. Bottle licked his lips and smacked around to get the saliva flowing again.

What are you auditing?

There is nothing to audit. You have, as you say, poked a hole between the imaginable and the unimaginable, and we are for lack of a better term bored.

Schwa? You're not real.

But we are now imaginable, and therefore, we must have a function. We must be your enemy, we must be that unseen force that prevents you from exerting free will.

Guys, that's dumb. The universe doesn't run on me being mad at you. You don't have to do anything. Doing more isn't the solution to most problems. Sometimes you have to do less, choose to stop sort of thing. Be bored. You never were my enemy, so why would that be your function? Imagine something different.

We cannot imagine for ourselves. We live outside of the imaginable.

Yes, i know, and i poked the hole, so you're in my head. But you aren't real, you weren't real in the first place. Even Sandra understands that you can't actually invent something from nothing. You can't come into the bunker because there's no you to come in.

We must exist to be here.

No, no, no, and let me check just to be sure... ah, yes, NO! I, Bottle, am imagining you, the unimaginably discorporate personification of incorporation. You are not a corporation of Corporations, you are the empty shell that incorporates generic want. You aren't gods, you are not authority, you are the conglomeration of unconsequent wants. You might possibly be the inverse of gods, but that's complicated.

Tell us.

Why? It won't help. You aren't real, you don't exist, you can't exist. Sure someone can pretend to be one of you, but you aren't in control, they make it up as they go. You might look at it and think "hey, that's an impersonation of me!," but there's no you to think that.

Then why are we here with you? We must exist.

Guys, you're killing me here. I'm not a bridge to the unimaginable, i'm not a function, i'm not in charge of anything, i don't make the rules, i just point out that there aren't any rules before you invent them, but inventing them has consequences. It's imaginary, you're part of the part on the other side that can't be imagined. I can imagine what you're doing, but even i can't actually imagine you. You're gray blobs. You exist behind the behind the scenes, and the rabbit hole in front of you is infinite.

Then why are we here? Why were we invented?

You aren't. You weren't.

But we are legion.

So? It's not my fault that people decide there has to be a reason, or that that reason has to be the solution to a non-existent problem, definitely not my fault they imagine that someone made them do it. I'm like a bug zapper in a world with no bugs, only the idea that bugs should exist. You're the reason the bugs don't exist. You guys like money, right?

Money is auditable.

So, yes. Ok. Say i want a whatsamawhosit, but they don't exist. If they did exist, i'd be willing to pay 5 dollars for it. There are things that sort of seem like a $5 whatsamawhosit that cost $20, but i know they aren't real whatsamawhosits, so they aren't worth more than $0. With me so far?

Yes, that is all perfectly auditable.

Well, you're the reason why the actual $5 dollar whatsamawhosit doesn't exist.

That is nonsense.

No argument from me, guys. Nonsense it is. Nevertheless, here we are inside that Cream song. I didn't bring me here, and i didn't decide to use trains as a metaphor. Stop being the reason we can't have nice things. I'm going back to sleep. I don't care what you guys do, just don't bring me back here 'cause you're bored. If you need some raisins, try just being prepared to audit whatever might need to be audited should it occur. Until then, be bored. We'll collectively think of something eventually. Maybe try figuring out what bizarre malfunction is causing Elon Musk to be preemptively sad for all the people who will die along his quest to be guy who funded humans traveling to Mars. One of you things exists because of that mental paradox, audit yourselves until you find it.

Oh, you mean Narzon? Yes, we are deeply troubled by her. She shouldn't have a name or be a she. Perhaps you are correct. We shall wait and see. Thank you.

Did i help? Nevermind, don't care, just let me sleep.

But Bottle did not get to sleep. Instead, he spontaneously awoke to find himself fully panted and already in the middle of unboldening Skip's accidental boldification of the index page numbers.

Damnit, Bridbrad! Stop trying to be creative. You have no idea how hard it is to concentrate with you scribbling away up there!