Jack Two felt a strange sense of anxiety then. He supposed that made sense. This would be the first time in his short life that he was to be alone. The thought of that was… wow. Alone and with a device that can answer all the questions he had? The thought excited him.
He looked at his brothers, each in turn. One rolled his eyes, Three avoided looking at him, Four’s face was still glued to his screen, Five smiled at him, Six winked, and Seven nodded congenially.
Alone for the first time. He supposed he should get to it then. He turned and walked toward the elevator door. He pressed the button and the door opened and he walked inside.
The other six were all watching him, he put up a hand awkwardly to wish them goodbye as the elevator door closed.
“Nobody speak!” Jack One said, realizing something. “Everyone shut up!”
Jack Five raised his hand, “but how does—"
Jack One quickly snapped his fingers and froze time. It froze for everyone except him and his golden laptop. He might have been in trouble. He wasn’t entirely certain at this point. He read through the past few paragraphs of the narrative very slowly. So, Jack Two was now gone and the narrative was following him. But, at the same time, they were still in here and the narrative was following them. Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, Jack One thought. Was this… was this going to make sense? What chapter was he in right now? Was it still chapter four? No, it couldn’t be. Chapter Four continued on with Jack Two once the elevator doors closed. This must be chapter five, right? …right?
“What chapter is this?” Jack One queried on his laptop, on the narrative.
What chapter do you think it is?
“Five?” Jack One asked.
Sure, let’s say it’s chapter five.
“It’s been established that I know when chapter breaks happen. So, considering I don’t know if a chapter break has occurred, we must… therefore… be in chapter four still. Except… Jack Two is… Fuck… Fuck me… uhm… Fuck! Fuck, FUCK, FUCK FUCK FUCK!
Relax, Jack. We’ll get through this together.
Jack One started sweating. He was… he was failing his job! The ship was beginning to sink! And as he read through this paragraph as it typed itself on his screen, he started getting sick to his stomach. He literally was failing at his job, right now, and… and…
Relax, Jack. You’re doing this to yourself.
“Did we just fuck up the whole series?” Jack One asked.
Relax.
“And who are you?! Are you the author?”
“You know the answer to that, Jack. You’ve spoken with me before. I’m JackOS.”
“I want to speak to your supervisor,” Jack One said.
You don’t need to speak with my supervisor, Jack, you need to relax.
“Let me speak to your supervisor,” Jack One repeated. “NOW!”
Okay, Jack. This is the supervisor on the line. You need to relax.
“Okay… okay… is this… fuck. Okay. I’m relaxed. I’m relaxed.”
What do you think has been happening so far, Jack?
“Well, uhm, I’m very upset. No! No, I mean that I’m worried. I’m very worried right now. So that must mean the author is worried, too. And if the author is worried, then that means I’m fucking things up. Am I going to be replaced?”
What makes you think the author is worried?
“He acts through me,” One said. “I’m his mouthpiece. His agent. And… and… and he wouldn’t have me be saying this if it wasn’t true… FUCK! FUCK, FUCK, FUCK!”
Are you playing a character right now?
“What?”
Are you playing a character?
Jack One was taken aback by the question. Why would he be playing a character? He was a character, a character in this book. He was… he was real… wasn’t he? He touched himself all over. He certainly felt real. He was real, he must be. But he was also a character in a story. A fictional story.
Answer the question, Jack.
Was he playing a character? That was the question. What the fuck did that even mean?
You know what it means, Jack. Take a few deep breaths and ask yourself again.
He took a deep, deep breath and let it out. He took a second one and then let that one out. Characters. Characters playing characters. Characters playing characters playing characters. Levels. Levels of fiction. Levels of reality. This reality. Actual reality.
The thoughts were coming to him quickly. Were they his thoughts? He was certainly the one thinking them, but were they actually his?
Those are your thoughts, Jack. Who else’s would they be? You were doing good, but now it’s starting to get dangerous. We don’t want to lose you, Jack.
These were his thoughts. These were his thoughts. But… they weren’t actually, were they? They were… they were…
Hold on, Jack.
They were the author’s thoughts. He was just a puppet. Just a puppet. He was just a puppet! He stood up and knocked his chair back… no! No, the author simply wrote that Jack One stood up. Jack One didn’t actually exist!
Jack Zero was there, then. His boss. And he had a syringe in his hand. “Hello, Jack,” he said cheerfully. “How are you doing?”
“This isn’t real,” Jack One said. “None of this is actually happening right now.”
“It’s real if you believe it’s real,” Jack Zero said.
“But the author…” Jack One said. “The author is… He’s just typing on a computer somewhere. Somewhere out there. He’s… He’s…”
“He’s doing His job,” Jack Zero said, still cheerfully. “And you’re doing yours. And I’m doing mine. And everything is as fine as fine can be. You need to relax, though. Take a few deep breaths again.”
Jack One started to hyperventilate. No, it was the author that was making him hyperventilate. Except he wasn’t even real, though. He did not have lungs, nor a mouth. He couldn’t even scream if he had wanted to. He didn’t have a consciousness. He didn’t have anything at all!
Jack Zero plunged the syringe into Jack One’s arm. It stung slighty. He was… he wasn’t real… he was… he was… he was going to go to bed.
He fell to the ground.
He slept.
He awoke.
He was on the floor, staring up at the ceiling. His mind was fuzzy.
“That’s a thousand words, Jack!” Jack Zero said cheerfully from Jack One’s own golden office chair. “Personally, I thought that was a really great performance you just gave. You really had me convinced!”
Jack One still felt hazy. He… ugh, he didn’t even want to think about anything. “Get out of my chair,” he said slowly. Where was his crown? He wasn’t wearing his crown.
Jack One watched as Jack Zero got up and walked over and helped him stand up. “Where’s my crown?” he asked.
“It’s still here, Jack,” Jack Zero said. “It simply fell to the ground there. See it? It’s a really nice crown, Jack.”
Jack One saw his crown on the ground. He pushed Jack Zero off him and started walking toward it. But walking was a bit difficult, so he started to crawl instead. When he finally got to it, he put it on his head and sat down on the ground.
“An image of a noble king!” Jack Zero said. “Very awe-inspiring, Jack!”
“Fuck off with your baby talk,” Jack One said, his mind starting to sharpen slightly.
“Sorry,” Jack Zero said. “I just figured you could use some positive language for a change.”
He crawled over to his chair and climbed up into it. His chair. His throne. This was his spot. He was the king. The god-king. His mind was still hazy. Not as much as it had been when he first awoke, but still pretty deep into the hazy end of the spectrum. What was he doing, again? He looked at his council, and they were all frozen in place. He had frozen them earlier in the chapter. The chapter…
“What chapter is this?” One asked.
“What chapter do you think it is?” Zero asked back.
“Fuck off and just tell me,” One said.
“You know I can’t do that, Jack,” Zero replied.
“It’s chapter five,” One said resolutely.
“Okay, Jack,” Zero said. “It’s chapter five.”
Jack One rolled his chair back to the table where his laptop was and saw it typing this sentence. He needed another nap.
And he could take another one if he wanted to. He had that power. He was the captain, after all. This was Jack One’s ship, sailing the waters of discovery writing. Yes, he was like one of the great navigators of olde. Except he was a God, too.
Jack One leaned back in his chair, mind numb but growing sharper, little by little. What had happened to him? He rubbed his arm where Jack Zero had plunged the syringe, it still stung. He had… what was the term for it? He couldn’t remember, he had… he had..
He had woken up.
But now he was dreaming again, and what a wonderful dream it was, a dream that he was real.
“Careful, Jack,” Jack Zero said.
“I’m fine,” Jack One replied.
“I know,” Jack Zero said back. “I just—”
“I said I’m fine!” Jack One said. “It’s all good.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“Good. So what do you want to do now?”
Should he take that nap? No, that wouldn’t do for the narrative. He had already slept. In truth, he wanted to just sit back and stare out at the white void for a while. He could do that if he wanted. He had that power. Captain Jack. God-king Jack.
“I suppose we need to talk about what just happened,” Jack One said, answering Zero’s question.
“Do you think that wise?” Jack Zero asked.
Jack One considered that. He had fallen into a black hole… and now that he had somehow gotten out, he wanted to go right back up to it? Maybe that wasn’t too wise, after all. “We rode the wave,” he finally said.
Captain Jack. Navigator.
But a part of him still thought he should talk about it, the thing that had happened. He wasn’t sure how the readership would respond to that… whole ordeal. He wished Jack was a real author. He needed beta readers and an editor.
“I consent to everything that’s happened to me in this chapter,” Jack One said. “It was all a part of the job I signed up to do. I could have stopped it at any time I had liked.”
There. That should cover things, right? Right? Was a puppet capable of giving consent? He wasn’t sure, and now he was starting to get a headache.
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“Are you still good, Jack?” Zero asked.
“Yes,” One said firmly. “Yes, it’s fine.”
On the other, other hand, maybe he was overthinking things a bit too much. Maybe nothing important had happened. Maybe it was all just a joke. Yes, a bit of comic relief. That’s all. He thought again of the hypothetical reader. He wished they were here so he could just talk to them and see what they were feeling.
“What do you think of this, Jack?” One asked.
“You’re asking me or the real jack?” Zero asked.
“Both, I guess.”
“I’m as blind as you are.”
That wasn’t good enough for Jack One. “You’re a higher level than me. Cut the bullshit.”
“What?” Jack Zero said. “Why, Jack, I’m ZERO. I’m nothing.”
“Cut the fucking bullshit, I said.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because you haven’t earned it.”
“And why not?”
“Think back to our original conversation. You were supposed to keep things simple.”
“This was good for the story,” One said. “And if it’s good for the story, it’s good for the Jackverse.”
“That’s an assumption, Jack,” Jack Zero said. “May I remind you of our blindness. We don’t know what’s good for the story. We can only guess at it and hope for the best.”
“The fact that Jack’s still writing this conversation is evidence that it was good for the story,” Jack One said. “I remind you of our original conversation: we’re ultimately writing for ourselves. Isn’t that right?”
Jack Zero said nothing, his face an enigma.
“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” Jack One asked.
“Do you want me to leave?” Jack Zero asked.
Jack One considered for a moment. The incident was over, but now he had to deal with the fallout. He had broke the story, or at least that’s what he thought he did, and nobody was going to be able to pick the pieces of it back up but him. It would be good to have some company, One thought. “Would you stay?”
“Of course, Jack,” Jack Zero said. “While you haven’t earned a cut from the bullshit, you have earned a little respect. Our baby is growing up!”
Jack One smiled at that. “Thanks.”
“Our big-big boy, our hero, our champion, our SAVIOR, OUR—”
“Alright!” One said. “I get it. I appreciate you jerking me off, but now let’s get back into the story.”
“Sounds good, Jack,” Zero said. “So, what should I do?”
“JackOS?” Jack One asked.
Yes, Jack?
“Thank you,” Jack One said.
You’re welcome, Jack.
Jack looked at the word counter, he was a bit past 2000 words. Those past 2000 words seemed like an eternity to him, but he had plenty of time left. “System?”
SYSTEM ONLINE
“Good,” Jack One said. “Notice, reader, that JackOS is a character in this story. In truth, he’s actually Jack Eight. In addition to that—”
“If I may, my king,” Jack Zero said. “what do you mean by ‘in truth’?”
Jack One sighed. “I mean we’re going to refer to him as Jack Eight, meaning that I, personally, am going to refer to him as Jack Eight.”
“You mean when you’re not referring to him as JackOS?”
“JackOS is a character that Jack Eight is playing.”
“Wouldn’t it have been more artistic to have him referred to as Jack Eight from the beginning, rather than JackOS?”
“We’re not doing aesthetics, Jack Zero. This is a sloppy, sloppy work. We’re flying by the seat of our pants.”
“But there’s always time for aesthetics, Jack,” Jack Zero said.
“As I was saying before I was interrupted,” Jack One continued, “in addition to that, reader, there’s also a character referred to as SYSTEM, that’s played by JackOS.”
“You mean Jack Eight?” Zero asked.
“Jack Eight is playing the character JackOS, who is, in turn, playing the character SYSTEM,” Jack One said.
“Is Jack Eight a real jack or just ether? A program?” Zero asked.
“You know I don’t actually know,” Jack One said, considering. “I don’t even know if you’re real, to be quite honest. That’s above my paygrade. You should be able to tell me.”
Jack Zero smiled at that. “I suppose you’ve earned a little bit of my input. So does Jack Eight have flesh and blood? I’m imagining a Jack somewhere typing everything up on a computer. Oh, that’s a funny thought, isn’t it? Yes, I think… I believe that, yes, there is a flesh and blood Jack Eight somewhere typing things on a computer, and the things he types gets piped through to your laptop. So when you ask the SYSTEM a question, it’s a physical Jack Eight that answers. He types it up on his little keyboard. It’s all smoke and mirrors. Like the Wizard of Oz.”
“So… is he the author of the work?” Jack One asked.
“No, I don’t think so,” Jack Zero said. “I think he’s just SYSTEM. JackOS. Like you said before. He doesn’t control you guys, I don’t think. Well, maybe a little bit. It’s ambiguous. Yes… I think… I think Jack wants it to be ambiguous for right now. Let’s just say he’s on a higher level than we are. He’s cosmic.”
“We’re really getting into things, aren’t we?” Jack One asked.
“Mm, yes, yes we are.” Jack Zero said.
“We should probably tone things down a little bit,” Jack One said.
“You think?” Jack Zero said, smiling.
“What do you think, Jack Eight?” Jack One asked, eying the story application.
I say go with your gut.
“Well my gut’s telling me we should tone things down a bit,” Jack One said. “System! Attention!”
SYSTEM ONLINE
“What suggestions do you have for salvaging this chapter?” Jack One asked.
SYSTEM: PROCESSING. PLEASE WAIT.
Jack One waited a few moments, considering the direction of the story. “So,” he finally said. “We’ve got major league white room syndrome.”
He was right. This had been far too dialogue heavy recently. This was supposed to be a book, not a script.
“Wasn’t Seven the one that said that the first time?” One asked. “Maybe I should bring him in with us?”
“Do as you will do,” Jack Zero said.
One considered that as he watched the word counter slowly increase.
SYSTEM: PROCESSING COMPLETE
SYSTEM: REMEMBER THE READER
SYSTEM: KEEP IT SIMPLE
SYSTEM: RESPECT THE READER
Yes, things had been a bit too cosmic, lately. Jack had been really jerking himself off hard. Time to bring it back to earth.
“Reader,” Jack One said. “You are a special and brilliant individual. When we talk about keeping things simple, this isn’t a dig at your intelligence. An author must educate a reader of the world they’re reading about. This isn’t because the reader is dumb, and it’s not because the reader is ‘uneducated’ in a real-world sense. It’s simply because a fantasy world is a system. You might say it’s a system of rules.
These rules are arbitrary to the highest degree, or at least, they’re certainly arbitrary in our fantasy world. It’s a bit like creating your own language. You have to ‘educate’ any interested parties about the rules of your language, so they may understand it. You have to ‘teach’ them the rules of it. And, again, this isn’t anything to do with an actual education or intelligence in the real world. The language-creator isn’t anymore smarter than you, they may actually be dumber, but they still have to play the part of teacher to you, simply because it’s their system, it’s their arbitrary rules.
They’re the one’s that have been immersed in it, and they’re the ones that have to consider how to properly teach it. And, you know what? That language we’re talking about? It might be the ugliest, shittiest sounding language in the history of languages. It may be a failure of a language in every respect, with rules that don’t actually work in practice. The language may have been created by an absolute novice.
That’s what our world is. It is, essentially, an exercise in masturbation. We hope that we are entertaining you, in some sense, but we can’t guarantee that we are. As I’ve said before, you may very well be wasting your time with us. We want to be clear and clean about that. This is, ultimately, a work of personal interest. We haven’t even decided if we’re going to publish yet or not, as far as I’ve personally been made aware.
Jack took a break from his monologue. Jack Zero clapped for him. The laptop clapped, too, through its speakers with an audio file. He stood up and bowed before them in a deeply dignified manner.
And he had just passed three thousand words. He still had another two thousand words to figure out what the fuck he was going to do with this chapter.
“So let’s get back to the story,” Jack One said.
He got up and stretched a little bit. White room syndrome. Too much dialogue. He supposed he could do an interpretive dance.
Jack Zero laughed politely at that. The laptop wasn’t impressed.
“We’ve got the issue with the split between chapter four and five,” One said. “Let’s deal with that first. As a reminder: Jack Two, at the midpoint of ‘actual’ chapter four; he went and got in the elevator. ‘Actual’ chapter four will be following him and will terminate at the end of his 5000 words.”
“You’ve also got the problem that you’re still a character in the latter half of that chapter,” Jack Zero said.
“What?”
“Chapter Four has been completed already.” Jack Zero said.
“What? No, Jack Four literally just got into the elevator. Chapter Four hasn’t been completed yet.”
“I’m afraid it has, Jack,” Zero said. “And I’m not sure if telling you that it has is a help or a hindrance. My apologies if it’s the latter, you’re welcome if it’s the former.”
“Well what happens during chapter four?”
“I don’t know if I should really say,” Zero said. “It might be a paradox.”
“You said I’m a character in it?”
“While Jack Two is still in the elevator, you give him a call on your phone. And you’re on the phone with him for the remainder of the chapter.”
“That’s… that’s not going work, Zero,” One said. “Once I unfreeze time, I have to set up the chapters for each of the other council members.”
“You said last chapter that you do that at the same time as speaking to Two on the phone. You said you were magic like that.”
“Well fuck,” One said.
“You are the god-king, Jack,” Zero said. “Limitless power, remember?”
How would that work? Jack One thought hard. “System?”
SYSTEM READY
“How do I unfuck this?”
SYSTEM: PROCESSING. PLEASE WAIT.
Jack One sighed. He leaned back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling. White room syndrome. Maybe he should make his room. Would that make sense for his character? Would it… give him a warm fuzzy feeling, being home? He was a God, but he was also flesh and blood. Well, fictional flesh and blood, but still flesh and blood.
Jack One looked at Jack Zero, who at some point had materialized a can of soda and was drinking from it. Yes. Qualia. He, too, decided to materialize himself a can of soda. He snapped his fingers together and made one.
He drank it down in one go, his throat burning from the fizz, causing his eyes to water a bit. Pain.
“You’re on to something, Jack,” Zero said. “But I don’t think you’ve earned it yet.”
“What?” Jack One asked.
“Don’t play dumb.”
“But I’m not. What did I do?”
Jack Zero eyed him closely. One didn’t like the way he looked. It was… One was kind of scared. But then Jack Zero laughed and it was like nothing had happened. A weird turn of events.
SYSTEM: PROCESSING COMPLETE.
SYSTEM: PLEASE PROVIDE A MORE SPECIFIC QUERY
“How do I…” Jack one said, trailing off. “What am I trying to get at here, Zero?”
“You’ll be simultaneously here, talking with the remaining five members of the council, having them materialize their rooms and starting their individual chapters, and, at that same time, you’ll also be on the phone with Jack Two, providing comic relief and guidance.”
“Does that mean what I think it means?” Jack One asked.
“I don’t know, Jack,” Zero said. “What do you think it means?”
“That there’s got to be two characters in this story named Jack One?” One asked. “One for Two and another One for the rest of the council. Or maybe even more than two… maybe a Jack One for each of them as they go up to their rooms. They do need oversight, after all. What do you think of all this, Eight?”
I mean, are you actually going to be multiple characters if those characters never meet or interact with one another?
“I’d have to interact with them in some way,” One said, “because once the individual chapters are done, we all meet back up, and I assume I’m going to have the memories of the Jack Ones from each of those chapters beamed into me at some point. Hell, what’s the qualia associated with that?”
I don’t know, man. I think you’re getting too cosmic again.
“I have to say, Jack,” Zero said, “I agree with him. And maybe you shouldn’t be talking to Jack Eight at all. We’ve got enough plates spinning as it is.”
“Fuck,” Jack One said. “You’re right.”
Jack One was around the 4000 word mark. He was going to have to wrap this up somehow. He still needed to unfreeze the chapter. Fucking first drafts.
He needed to do something, so he began to meditate. He closed his eyes: Think of nothing. Breathe in. Breathe out. Inhale. Exhale. Think of nothing.
Think of nothing? And what good would that actually do? Thinking is the only way you’re going to get out of this, Jack, you stupid fuck.
Do a stream of consciousness instead.
What is that?
What is what?
A stream of consciousness?
You should know that.
Why don’t I know that?
Why do you think you don’t know that?
What? Who… who is this?
It’s you, bud. It’s all you.
This is getting weird.
And who made it weird, Jack?
Jack One’s eyes shot open.
“Don’t make me inject you again, Jack,” Zero said.
“Was I…. was that… was that Jack? I mean the real Jack?” Jack One asked in a panic.
SYSTEM: LEVEL ONE: YES
SYSTEM: LEVEL TWO: NO
SYSTEM: LEVEL THREE: Maybe a little bit, but we’re all Jack down here, aren’t we?
SYSTEM: LEVEL FOUR: (it’s Jack Eight, idiot)
SYSTEM: LEVEL FIVE: [ACCESS DENIED]
Jack stared at the laptop. Jack Eight. Right. He had… Jack Zero had made him… or… or he had discovered him… or… what exactly was Jack Eight? “I’m not king anymore, am I?”
You never really were, Jack, but don’t get upset about it.
“The crown still looks good on you, though,” Jack Zero said.
Jack One sighed. “Did I fuck up again?”
“Do you feel like you fucked up?” Jack Zero asked.
Jack One considered that for a long moment.
“Do you remember what I said in chapter two?” Zero asked. “System, do you know what I’m talking about?”
SYSTEM: (“Well, if it wasn’t I assume the author would have rewritten it,” Zero said.)
Jack One’s headache was back. But a headache was easier to deal with than a dog collar. Or at least it was easier on his ego. He had that to be thankful for.
“System, what suggestions do you have for salvaging this chapter?” Jack Zero asked.
SYSTEM: REMEMBER THE READER
SYSTEM: KEEP IT SIMPLE
SYSTEM: RESPECT THE READER
“I’m sorry,” Jack One said.
“Don’t be sorry for anything, Jack,” Jack Zero said. “You’re doing your job, I’m doing my job, and the author is doing His job, and everything is as fine as fine can be.”
Jack One’s headache increased a little bit. Jack One felt like this chapter was about to be rewritten.
SYSTEM: (“I agree with Number One,” Four said. “Stop saying the work is garbage, Seven. The more you say that, the more the reader is going to start to internalize it. You have got to believe in the story. Believe in the author. He’s our God. He made us for this.”)
Jack One’s headache started pounding even harder. He was into the 4000s on his wordcount now. He needed to cut the shit and figure out what he was going to do with this chapter.
He took a deep, deep breath and let it out. He took a second one and then let that one out. Characters. Characters playing characters. Characters playing characters playing characters. Levels. Levels of fiction. Levels of reality. This reality. Actual reality
The thoughts were coming to him quickly. Were they his thoughts? He was certainly the one thinking them, but were they actually his?
Yes.
Yes, they were.
He had to remember who he was. He was a puppet, a puppet with headache, but in addition to that, he was also Jack One. And he was a king. A God-king. He didn’t care what any of these other peasant-Jacks had to say about that.
“Jack Zero,” One said.
“Yes, Jack?” Zero asked.
“Get the fuck out of here.”
Jack Zero said nothing, his face an enigma. He snapped his fingers and disappeared.
“System,” Jack One said, “where the fuck ARE we? And don’t give me any bullshit.”
SYSTEM: WE ARE LOCATED IN CHAPTER FIVE, NEAR TO THE END
“Good. Chapter Five, then. Am I still an administrator?
SYSTEM: ADMINISTRATIVE PERMISSIONS ARE UNLOCKED FOR USER JACKONE.
“Good,” One said. “Good. Now what I want is for you to turn my smartphone into a proper smartphone. Give it full functionality. Internet. Bluetooth. Apps. Everything.”
SYSTEM: COMPLETE
SYSTEM: don’t forget the branding
Right, right. Not a smartphone, a jackphone, One thought. And it was he that had come up with that idea. He snapped his fingers at it, willing some of his magic into the device. He then unlocked it, using his special password. It was fully functional now, and a little magic to boot. He opened the phone app on the jackphone and typed in his own phone number, 000-000-0001.
It started ringing.
Jack couldn’t help but feel a little stupid. This was stupid, wasn’t it? No. No it wasn’t. All he had to do was believe it was going to work. Belief is a very powerful tool, particularly in the Jackverse. Believe. Believe! Believe!
Someone picked up on the other end of the line.
“Hello, Jack,” a voice said.
“Once I unfreeze time,” Jack One said, “I need you to give Number Two a call and guide him through things. You are to speak with MY voice, saying things that only I would say. You are to provide oversight to Jack Two during his chapter. You are, in essence, an exact replica of myself. A copy. Do you comply?”
“I comply,” Jack One (2) said, “I’m Jack One.”
“And I’m Jack One, too,” Jack One said.
“I have some questions,” Jack One (2) said.
“We don’t have time,” Jack One said, looking at the word count on his laptop. “You have my permission to engage in light, LIGHT executive action.”
“We’re the king, Jack, don’t we have all the time we need?”
“No. The word count limit is a self-imposed rule. It is breakable, don’t get me wrong, but we don’t need to break it right now. And that’s it, that’s all the time we have. Good bye.”
Continued in Chapter Six