We walked in through the front doors of the Fortress of Bureaucracy and the first thing that happened was someone standing at the door handed us a stack of papers each. “Fill these out.”

They were a stack of forms for different purposes. One was a release form, clearing the Fortress of Bureaucracy and Hell of responsibility for any injury, death, boredom, or annoyance we may experience while inside. Another was a Non-Disclosure Agreement. I didn’t even know they could give Non-Disclosure Agreements to people who weren’t employees. But this was Hell. They probably didn’t have the same rules down here as they did up on Earth. Wait, why am I saying “down here” and “up on Earth”? Lucifer said this is a different dimension. That we aren’t underground. Probably just conditioning. Oh well.

There was also a questionnaire. There was one asking why we were visiting the Fortress of Bureaucracy and another one for why we were in Hell in the first place.

There was also a survey. It asked us how our experience was in Hell so far and how our experience was in the Fortress of Bureaucracy. There were a lot of “rate your experience from 1 to 10” sections and they were all measures of negative emotion.

“On a scale from 1 to 10, how annoying has your experience been so far?” One question said.

“On a scale from 1 to 10, how much do you want to punch someone in the face right now?” Another question said.

“On a scale from 1 to 10, how likely are you to rip all your clothes off and run away screaming?” Yet another question said.

I just circled “10” on all of them, on the off chance that they immediately checked these as a way to adjust your experience here. I figured if I circled “1,” they would ramp it up to become even more unpleasant than it already was. Meanwhile, Lucifer and Raphael gave honest answers, which made me feel like pulling out my hair. Did they not understand where they were? This was hell! The place where they torture souls! I was feeling tortured already by all these annoying forms.

The last page just said in big letters, “Deliver your papers to the front desk.” So that’s what we did. I finished first, so I was in front. I placed my papers on the counter. Sitting behind the counter was a short red demon with just enough cleavage showing to where it was inappropriate for work, but not enough for coworkers to call her out on it. She was filing her nails. She looked up at me, took the papers, and put them in a “To File” basket on her desk.

“Yes?” she said, smacking her gum. “How may I not help you today?”

“Wait, is it opposite day today?” I said.

“Every day is opposite day, except for the days that aren’t,” she said.

“That was illuminating and confusing at the same time. Good job,” I said.

“I aim not to please,” she said smiling a white smile with perfect rows of straight sharp teeth.

“Excellent. So can you not tell us where we can find Lilith, please, and no thank you?” I said. I wasn’t sure if talking in opposite speak would work, but it was worth a try.

“Absolutely not. You won’t be able to find her in the Department of Perpetual Processing,” she said smacking her gum louder somehow. I was feeling a strange attraction to this very annoying person, and I didn’t understand why.

Lucifer saw the look in my eyes, grabbed me by the shoulders, and shook me. “Don’t fall in! It’s a trap!”

I turned around. “What?” I said.

“That feeling you’re feeling. It’s a demonic lure. They use it to enslave the minds of humans to do their bidding. Don’t become a victim of it,” he said.

“Oh.” I shook my head, but the feeling didn’t go away. I could feel my attraction to her growing stronger by the second. Then I remembered my new power. “Uh, let me try something.” I tried to activate my karmic rebalancing ability. My bad luck was stacked so heavily on the scales that I bet the rebalancing would offer a great boon to me, which hopefully would help me out of this situation. I focused on activating the ability and I felt a weight slam onto the good luck side of the scales, restoring balance.

Then, suddenly, I didn’t feel the attraction any more. She seemed like an ok, if crappy, person, but I didn’t desire her the way I had moments ago. Huh. Maybe I became immune to it?

“Uh, I think I fixed it. I don’t feel attracted to her anymore,” I said.

“Good,” Lucifer said.

I turned back to the woman and said, “Where can I not find this Department of Perpetual Processing?”

“Up the stairs three times, turn left, then right, then right again. You can’t see it,” she said.

“Huh? Oh, right. No thank you,” I said and winked.

She winked right back and continued filing her nails.

We started to walk away when the woman behind the counter said, “You forgot something!”

I walked back to her. “What? What did I forget?”

“This,” she said. She handed me a form. It was a “Request for Romantic Engagement” form. She had already filled it out. It said her name was Margaret. At first, I was confused about how to respond to this, then I thought, what would a bureaucrat do? And it came to me.

I leaned over the counter to look at her desk. “Can I see your stamps and a pen?”

“You certainly cannot,” she said. She handed me a small bin of stamps and a nice black metal pen.

I looked at the stamps to find the one I wanted and said, “You’re not going to do this on the date, are you?”

“Do what?” She said, looking hurt.

“The whole opposite speak thing. Like I get you doing it here, but on the date, I feel like communication would get really confusing, and don’t even get me started on how awkward it would make consent,” I said, smiling, but also kind of serious.

“No, I will not. That stays at work,” she said.

“Ok, good.” I grabbed a stamp and stamped the word “APPROVED” on the form and then wrote my phone number in the margin. I didn’t feel an overwhelming lust for her anymore, but that didn’t mean I didn’t think she was cute or potentially interesting. Even if the date turned out horrible, I’d at least have a story to tell at parties.

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I handed her the form. She looked at it and squealed. I didn’t expect that much enthusiasm from a bureaucrat, but maybe I was better looking than I thought I was.

I left her to do her job. We took the directions she gave us and arrived at our destination. The Department of Perpetual Processing. We walked inside and were faced with endless rows of cubicles as far as the eye could see. Which made no sense, considering the outside of the room that we walked into wasn’t that large. It must have been one of those ‘bigger on the inside’ sort of things.

Inside each cubicle was someone filling out forms. Every time they would complete their forms, someone would come up to the cubicle, take their completed forms, and hand them more forms to complete. And on and on into infinity. I wondered if this was a sort of prison. Something that could be bureaucratically explained as just being “part of the procedure,” but the procedure was meant to hold you up as long as they wanted you to be there. This made sense as a place to imprison Lilith if she’d gotten too close to figuring out the demonic plot.

Technically, they probably couldn’t imprison her because she was in too high of a position of authority. She was a queen, after all. But they could effectively imprison her here as long as they wanted. What a truly diabolic mechanism they had constructed here.

We walked up to the front desk. “Are you here for processing or to de-process someone?” The guy behind the counter said without looking up.

“We’re here to de-process someone,” I said.

“Who might that be?” He said. He still hadn’t looked up yet.

“Lilith,” I said.

The man looked up. “Do you have the proper forms?”

I turned to Lucifer and Raphael. “Punch me in the face.” I looked at Lucifer. “Make it hurt.”

“Sure,” Lucifer said.

“Why?” Raphael said.

“Just do it. He probably has a plan,” Lucifer said.

“Ok,” Raphael said, winding back.

He slammed his fist into my face on one side and then Lucifer hit me on the other side. I fell to the ground and slid across the floor until I hit the wall of the front desk. I felt the scales of luck and karma tilt in one direction. I lay there for a while before getting up, brushing myself off, putting my hands out in front of me, and pressing the internal button to rebalance my karmic scales. The scales snapped back into balance and a stack of papers fell into my hands. I looked them over and they were signed by myself and several people. They detailed the process of releasing Lilith from this hellscape.

I turned around and put them on the bureaucrat’s desk. “Here you go. The proper forms signed by the proper people.”

He looked over the forms, and an expression of shock formed on his face. “How did you get these? These are designed to be nearly impossible to fill out and get approved all in one day. You have about a 15-minute window to do it and only I know when it is. And you don’t get them all approved in one day, they become invalid. You’re not supposed to be able to do this! Only I get to decide when people get de-processed!”

“Why don’t you calm down there, buddy? If they’re all signed and properly filled out, don’t you have to do what they say regardless of whether the process is designed to allow it or not?” I said.

“Technically, yes, but I’m not happy about it. I’ll be filing a complaint through HR against you, uh…” He looked at my shirt trying to find a name tag but I didn’t have one.

“Dave,” I said, putting my hand out to shake. “Nice to meet you.”

“Paul,” he said, shaking my hand. “Nice to meet you too, I guess. Why aren’t you wearing your name tag? Regulation states that everyone has to wear their name tag while at work.”

“I don’t work here, that’s why. I’m a visitor,” I said.

“You’re telling me a visitor filled out all these forms and got them all signed by the appropriate people in one day? I don’t believe it,” he said, looking defeated.

“Believe it or not, the evidence is right in front of your eyes,” I said.

“I suppose it is,” he said. He dropped the stack of papers into a bin marked “To be filed” and stepped out from behind the desk. Stepping out from behind the desk made him lose a whole foot in height and I looked down at him when he said, “Follow me.”

We followed the short red demon through the aisles of cubicles as he turned left and right and left and right again. We eventually came to a cubicle with a pale woman wearing a black and red pinstripe pantsuit with her black hair in a bun behind her head. She was filling out paperwork faster than I’d ever seen. She saw the processing employee and said, “Can I go home now? I’ve been filling out paperwork for hours!”

“Yes, you can go home. Thanks to these people. You should be thankful you’ve only been filling out paperwork for hours. Some people have been here for years!” He said.

“That’s disgusting,” I said.

“It’s not disgusting. It’s bureaucracy,” he said.

“Same thing,” I said. I looked at presumably Lilith and said, “Come with us. We’re here to bust you out.”

“Ok, thanks,” she said. “I suppose introductions will have to wait until we’re outside?”

“It’s probably safer that way,” I said.

We began to walk away from the bureaucratic employee. “You’ll be sorry! Bureaucracy could save your life someday!”

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” I said dismissively.

We walked back the way we came, and I received a text on my phone. “This is Margaret. Is this Dave? I can’t wait to go on our date!”

Aww. She was cute. I liked it when women were eager. There’s nothing worse than an unenthusiastic date. Why did we go on a date if you were going to play with your food and complain all night about your ex?

I was about to type out a reply message when we passed the front desk. She peeked her head over the counter and said, “Did you get my text?”

“Yes, Margaret. I look forward to our date too. I was just about to text you back,” I said.

“Oh, good! Let me know when you’re free this week,” she said.

“Will do!” I said as we walked out the front door.

“When did you get her number?” Lucifer said.

“Earlier,” I said.

“Ask her if she likes devil’s threesomes,” he said.

“I am not asking her that!” I said. I texted her, “I might be free tomorrow. I’m doing this whole saving the world thing right now, but I should be done with it by tomorrow.”

“If tomorrow doesn’t work, can you do later in the week?” She replied.

“I’m not sure. I may or may not be dead later in the week. The devil is supposed to kill me at 7 tomorrow,” I said.

“Ooo ouch. Yeah, that might hinder us a little bit. 7 am or pm?” She replied.

“PM,” I said.

“I can do 4 tomorrow. Early dinner, late lunch?” She replied.

“Sounds great! Where do you want to go?” I said.

“You pick! XP,” she said.

“I’m from Earth. I don’t know Hell restaurants,” I said.

“Ok, how about the IRS Cafe?” she said.

“The IRS has a cafe down here?” I said.

“Different IRS. Its full name is The Infernal Restaurant Service Cafe. XD,” she said.

“I see. That makes sense. Sure! It’s a date!” I said.

“Ok. Meet me outside of work at 4 since you don’t know where to go and I assume you don’t have a hellphone,” she said.

“No, I do not have a hellphone. Not yet at least,” I said.

“Ok. See you soon!” She said.

“Are you done texting? We have a bank to rob,” Lucifer said.

“We’re not robbing the bank! We’re unrobbing it. I think,” Dave said.

“I don’t care what we do as long as we save the world at the end,” Raphael said.

“Introductions, please! I want to know who I’m traveling with before we teleport somewhere,” Lilith said.

“Fine! I’m the Devil! Nice to meet you! Again!” He said exasperated.

Lilith’s eyes went wide, and she fell to her knees and bowed her head to the ground. “My lord! I’m so sorry! I didn’t recognize you in your human form.”

“It’s ok. I can understand the mistake,” Lucifer said.

Lilith turned to me. “Hi. I’m Dave. I’m in a bet with the Devil that he can’t kill me at 7 pm tomorrow, but in the meantime, I’m helping him save the world.”

She shook my hand. “Nice to meet you, Dave. I’m Lilith. Demon queen and all-around bitch. I hope you win your bet, though I don’t think you will. No one beats the Devil.” She turned to Raphael. “And you are?”

“I am the archangel, Raphael,” Raphael said, bowing his head. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Nothing good, I hope,” she said. “Nice to meet you too, Raphael. Ok, now that we’re all introduced, can we have a team meeting?”

I looked back at the Fortress of Bureaucracy and noticed some demons come out of the front carrying weapons. They pointed at us and started running toward us.

“Hey, guys, I think we’re about to be attacked,” I said, pointing at the demons.

“I’d say that’s a fair assessment,” Raphael said, looking.

“Where can we go that’s safe? My place is probably crawling with demons,” Lilith said.

“Mine too. Now that they know, I know about their plot to end the world,” Lucifer said.

“Let’s go to my place! I’m a nobody! No one will expect it,” I said.

“Sounds good, buddy,” Lucifer said, putting his hand on my shoulder. He snapped his fingers, and we disappeared.

We didn’t appear in my apartment. We were falling through a dark space, but I could see everyone else in the group falling next to me.

“Where are we?” I yelled.

“I don’t know!” Lucifer yelled back.

Well, that wasn’t good.