He had just finished writing about Blister Mooge and his run in with the Easter Bunny and The Fisherman, and now he was going to an older notion he had had about Gulliver Fist. His serialised fiction was popular with those who liked the Tuppenny Awfuls, and he liked to write for the pulps too.
Bikelock Foams, star of his defective fiction, and his companion Don Whichson, were a great hit. His fictional L’undone was able to conjure such dreams for its readers.
Burley Pock sat down in front of him, and made Darles Chickens wonder if he might indeed have stepped inside one of his own fictions. The man was carrying a case that had a typewriter in it, or something that looked like a typewriter; given the nature of the conversation Darles wasn’t so sure.
‘Look, Darles, I know that this may come as a bit of a shock, but this reality is currently undergoing an existential collapse. You may have noticed that there are causality irregularities and sequential paradoxes occurring.’
‘You mean time being somewhat out of joint?’
‘Yes, that – that exactly. Well, this will all cease to exist very soon. Knowledge Salmon are swimming upstream to gather all the data, and they will be spawning in some elsewhere. But you have been marked as a person of potential importance. We have a job for you, if you’re interested.’
‘The choice is oblivion or a job? Not really much of a choice, is it?’
‘You’d be surprised.’
‘What is the job?
‘Scenario Writer. I am what you call a Reality Engineer, and a lot of the time I would focus on maintenance and repair, whereas a Scenario Writer is used to program an area for a certain outcome. How does that sound?’
‘Interesting. I don’t fully understand, but I am interested.’
‘Great, take this.’
‘What is it?’
‘A wax tablet- distilled tabula rasa; it is a cross-reality interface.’
Darles took it and popped it in his mouth. For a second his spatiotemporal index destabilised, but not long afterwards he realised he was seeing the universe in edit mode. He wondered about really bringing some of his creations to life. Maybe. Maybe that would be a thing.
A writer launched out into the multiverse – soon to be trained to change things. Darles’ head felt like it was exploding.