Conversation · Novelty Dicemaker

"The bear was scary. Every time I saw that bear I felt scared, like it could become alive any moment now."

"The taxidermist who made it said it was his vision beast. He said he met his vision beast while high on desiccants. He called it 'Megatherion'."

(Nod solemnly.) "It's the market doing its job."

"Maybe. Because the taxidermist who made the bear definitely wasn't. Doing his job, I mean."

"Alright, what about the other ideas?"

"There was really just one, and it involved picking out the prettiest girls in the neighbourhood and paying them 20 cents per hour to man the booth."

"And by 'man the booth' I mean 'slump behind the counter with a face that could maim you if you ever dared to disturb their bored magazine-browsing.'" She leans back, disapproving.

Sounds like she really didn't like those girls.

Sounds like she really doesn't know how to be a female ally!

Frittte does the same thing.

"I know a girl just like that. She works in Frittte as a cashier and she's not particularly friendly."

"Employing sulky teenage girls is a widespread practice, yes. Unfortunately they always come in packs -- I'm talking about acne-ridden girlfriends and gorilla-like boyfriends loitering near the shop. At least that's what happened with Revachol Ice City."

"And they already had the bear..." She closes her eyes as if remembering something painful.

"What about the bear?"

"The bear..." she repeats, pressing thumbs into her temples, like trying to suppress a headache.

"It didn't work out?"

"You should learn how to support other women, not bring them down."

"I'm not talking just about women. There were also men -- miniature gorilla-like boyfriends loitering near the ice cream stand."

"That's an award-winning idea! How else do you choose people around you?"

"Yes, some people spend their whole lives chasing the 'hot one'." She makes quotation marks with her fingers. "You should have joined the gorilla-like boyfriends loitering near the stand, ready to scare off customers and hit on the girls."

"As if they didn't already have the bear..." She closes her eyes as if remembering something painful.

"I don't have an opinion on employing teens, I just want to know -- did it work out for the business?"

"It didn't. Occasionally the girls had their friends over, which doubled the amount of hairspray, skin problems, and mood swings behind the counter."

"What did they expect? Twenty cents per hour is dog's pay. I'm surprised they showed up to work at all."

"Oh, but they did -- they did show up to work, and not alone. There were also acne-ridden girlfriends and gorilla-like boyfriends loitering near the ice cream stand."

"I found a strange machine..."

"Fortress Accident, the radio game studio..." She closes her eyes as some remnant of a memory lights up her face.

She liked them.

"They were an interesting bunch. We talked about role-playing systems every now and then. Once I even saw two of them get into fisticuffs over Wirrâl..."

That's understandable. Fantasies are serious things. The mind is the drawing board of history.

"They certainly took their work very seriously. Even if they seemed to be... chronically liberal with their schedules."

"I heard that they ran out of money."

"Money and time," she nods. "The usual."

"What went wrong?"

"Well, I did hear them talking at times..." She looks at the hallway, as if she can still hear them chit-chat behind her curtains on a cigarette break.

"They seemed to believe they were historical individuals on some grand quest."

She sounds almost mocking when she says that.

"Really? They must have been on a gigantic ego trip."

"That's what I thought. Because when the money started to run out they just began to complain a lot about capitalism. You know, how the markets are rigged to keep out new businesses, and so on."

"In the end they just didn't get it done. They didn't have enough willpower to produce something truly historic -- and to show up to work on time."

She's right, showing up to work on time is important.

Showing up to work on time is hard -- no, scratch that, showing up to work at all is difficult (especially if you've been drinking).

"You're right, they should have just tried harder. They had everything needed to succeed."

"Still, not everyone is going to make it." She tosses a pair of dice on the table; one of them stops near the edge of the metallic desk. "That's the nature of the game."

The result is 1. On a 20-sided die.

The dice is black and filled with little silvery flakes, like snowfall.

"That's too bad. I would have supported them -- the project looked great."

"Not the wisest decision: You would have lost all your savings." She tosses a pair of dice on the table; one of them stops near the edge of the metallic desk.

"Well, showing up to work on time is incredibly hard."

"And so is producing something extraordinary." Her eyes wander to the shelves full of die prototypes and discarded models.

Something strains her face, before she looks up again:

"From what I've seen so far the project did look quite impressive..."

"Yes, but when the money started to run out they just began to complain a lot about capitalism. You know, how the markets are rigged to keep out new businesses, and so on."

"I met one of their investors. He said they lacked the will to finish anything."

"Ha, the salty investors..." Something green sparkles in her eyes. "Well yes, they couldn't get the project done on time and thus lost the funding."

"They had some kind of an accident with the backup copy, right?"

"An accident? I wouldn't know anything about that. I just heard they ran out of money and couldn't get the project done on time."

"What do you mean liberal? What happened?"

"The usual. They ran out of money and couldn't get the project done on time."

"I found the building's intercom, but it's not working."