“Mr. Snake, should I call you Snake? I trust your accommodations are to your liking?” His voice is kinda oily. Like a high class car salesman or something.

I’m in jail. I don’t know why I’m in jail. There’s only one answer I can think of, “I didn’t know she was your sister, man.”

The guy spocks up an eyebrow. He’s about my height and thin, but not quite as thin as me. He looks fifty-ish, with salt-and-pepper hair, and he’s wearing a suit and tie. It’s the first suit and tie I’ve seen in the new world.

“I began my career as a forensic accountant in the office of the prosecutor in Chicago. We were required to have our senses of humor surgically removed as a condition of employment.”

“Did it hurt?”

His missing sense of humor shows itself definitively. “Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Charles Billingsworth, and I’m here to discuss your options.”

“Is one of the options getting out of here? I think I’d like that one.” He’s really good at ignoring me.

“Choice one,” he leads, “is to opt out of this silly game. You say you don’t want to play any more, and we ease you out of this painful existence. It will be painless so long as you share all the information you have about this world, but it reduces your future options. Whatever thaums and such you’ve acquired across your last couple years, along with an appropriate amount for your bodily enhancements, will be available to us as a fee for assisting you with your suicide. ”

“Keep Sue on your side. What else?”

“Choice two is that you volunteer to cooperate with us. Before her tragic death last week, your friend Randi let us know that you were blessed with the ability to improve thaum regeneration substantially.”

I interrupt, “Randi was fine yesterday. She ran with me up to that hill.”

“That's right. Sorry. I forgot about that. That wasn’t Randi. That was one of our associates, with the ability to take on other appearances. Randi died of a sudden bout of stubbornness en route to the gate last week.”

“That’s why her voice was off. Wait. You killed her?”

“We do offer several choices. Her duplication capabilities and insistence on trying to escape, along with her uncooperative nature led to a very limited set of options for her.”

He killed Randi. He’s not lying either. “I thought you were a prosecutor. Isn’t that the good guys?”

“I started in the prosecutor’s office. The money is in defense, and I did study accounting."

He continues, “As I was saying, Miss Beekin suggested before her untimely demise that you have an unusual skill that would be most beneficial to our cause. If you were to volunteer to cooperate, we could come to an arrangement that would be extremely beneficial to both you and us.” He doesn’t seem to be lying.

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“We have several associates who work with us. Currently they are able to produce about thirteen red thaums a day meditating. Not being monsters, we permit them to keep one of those, so long as their twelve-thaum daily taxes are paid, and they don’t misbehave. According to our dear departed debutante Randi, your assistance could increase that by a factor of forty. Instead of a dozen thaums per day per person, we could increase to five hundred. This would let us reach our goal of a green thaum before zone two far quicker.” He’s telling the truth again. Some words like associates have some room for imperfect honesty. The guy is good.

“Once we reach our goal of a green thaum, we can move on, and so can our associates.” Now he’s lying.

My answer slips out before I think very much, “Dude. I’m not all that into slavery.”

“Snake. Friend. I’m not ‘all that into’ slavery either.” Dude’s lying. “But the world is what it is, and in the dog-eat-dog world we find ourselves trapped in, it is certainly better to be eating than eaten.”

I watch. Does he have more to say?

He continues, “There are other options besides the two we’ve discussed. Unfortunately, they are a great deal more painful, and I’ve not heard that you’re a masochist, so I’ll assume that you don’t want anything to do with those.”

“Pain hurts, man. We can skip those.”

Slenderman asks, “Very well, then, do you understand the offer? Do you have any questions?”

“Lemme see if I’ve got this right. You want me to help your slaves generate more thaums. If I don’t help, you’ll kill me. If I do help, I get some thaums, and I drum for the slaves. You’ve also got a torturer somewhere.”

The accountant agrees, “As it just so happens, we also have a healer. Yours is a rather inelegant way of explaining the situation, but there are no factual errors.”

“Dude. That’s a lot of words. Was that yes?”

“Yes, Snake. You are correct. Death, torture, or cooperation.”

I sit there, thinking.

The mob lawyer here is good at asking questions, “Would you like some time to think about the options?”

“Yeah. I don’t really like any of the choices, man. I mean, you killed Randi.”

He pauses and looks at me oddly. His voice changes a bit. Maybe it’s anger? “Very well. I’ll be back tomorrow. Have a nice rest.”

I feel myself slumping and getting fuzzy headed for a second.

Then I wake up, back on the floor, ready with a most excellent comeback, but the asshole is gone. Frodo tells me it’s been a bit more than an hour since I was talking to him. I have no idea what happened there. I was sitting on my stool, and then I was waking up on the floor. Hey, that's the same thing that happened when they caught me.

Decisions suck. Especially big ones. I’m a drummer, not a decisioner. Is that a word? Is it decisionmaker? That’s not a very good word. It’s too big and clunky to sing. Can I do it?

Who’s the barber, who’s the captain,

Who’s the chef and who’s the baker

Everybody does what I want,

‘cause I’m the decisionmaker

It’s a stupid word: bad for lyrics. How do you even handle meter for that? Maybe it would work with "undertaker".

Oh, right, decisions. The problem is that death is bad, and so is torture. They have a healer. I bet torture can get really bad. Pain isn’t my friend. I don’t want to hurt the people who are here. They’re probably fucked enough, without my help.

Shit. I don’t know what to do. I have to clear my head. The lawyer probably isn’t coming back until tomorrow, and I’m stressed. I set up my real kit, and prepare to drum until I’m swimming. I’m gonna go all Whiplash on this shit. No punching the drums, though. That’s bad. And my hands stopped bleeding a long time ago. It only happened once really. Tore a blister that I’d made the same night. It wasn’t pretty. Battle scars rock though, so I wrapped it, and kept drumming. Speaking of drumming, it’s time to drum now.

Rudiments. Double Time Swing.