“I was being somewhat facetious,” Raul explained when I met him in the lobby of the Cottle Hotel. “On the phone, you asked me to name the restaurant, and well, I love the decor here, even if the food is so-so.”

I couldn’t help but smile. I liked this man.

“Fondu Fantasque?” I said, looking up at the sign above the entrance. “I’m game.”

“I know the owner.” Raul shrugged and gave me an almost shy smile. “He has a weakness for whimsical dining. His previous venture in this same space was called Crêpe Cod. But people in this city didn’t seem too excited about a fusion of pancakes and fried fish.”

The hotel lobby as well as the restaurant had all the elements of a Victorian gentleman’s club with the low lighting, polished dark-stained wood, and plump upholstered chairs.

“For a fondu place, it seems quite upscale. I feel woefully underdressed, if not downright shabby.”

My leather jacket had seen better days. Probably I should have given it a good rubbing with some saddle soap and linseed oil. Raul put me to shame in his deep russet sport jacket and charcoal Merino turtleneck.

A slim young man in formal wear approached holding two menus. He escorted us to table in a book-lined alcove.

“It’s a casual town,” Raul said, lowering himself into his chair. “Besides, what you lack in finery, you more than make up in style. I like a man in a vintage aviator jacket. Is that a Boyville?”

The man had quite an eye, though I suppose it was his profession.

After we had ordered and been served a bottle of wine, Raul brought up our mutual friend.

“You said the other night you are a friend of Silverio’s?”

“Well, it’s been a few years since I’ve seen him. But, yes.”

“So you’re in the business as well?”

“The business?” I had to laugh. “You mean show business? It’s starting to sound like we’re in a movie.”

“Is the dialog becoming stilted?”

“Probably not,” I said with a shrug. “But I find that these days I keep overanalyzing my speech. You see, I went into seclusion for a few years. There it is, again. Seclusion. Who says that? I meant to say, I moved to a cabin in the mountains.”

“So romantic. Were you hiding from the law? Or maybe you’d taken up the life of a gentleman of leisure?”

Raul had a smooth and easy-going manner. I admired men like him. I try to be one myself, but I can never quite get it to work.

“You say that so well,” I confessed. “Gentleman of leisure. Outside of books, I only ever hear that phrase used as a sardonic euphemism. You know. A bum. And that would a be closer description. I just opted out when the Changes finally exhausted me. Moved out to my uncle’s hunting cabin. He had left a note on the little cork board by the door, where he kept his shopping list. It said that if any of his nephews—there’s three of us—were to drop by, we were welcomed to any or all of his possessions. He had departed for, he wrote, a Grand Tour of the Orient. People don’t use that word anymore, do they? Orient?”

Raul lifted his shoulders and eyebrows just enough to convey that he was not one to judge.

“There was plenty of oatmeal and military rations,” I said, continuing. “A shortwave radio. Which didn’t work. Some books. A set of bong drums. Those were the possessions I was welcomed to.”

I paused.

“But show business,” I said, bringing us back. “Yes. I have worked in the entertainment industry for some years.”

“Oh, I thought we’d gone off that topic. I’m still intrigued by your life in the outback.”

“I read the encyclopedia. Counted the stars. I ate a rattlesnake. Once. That about sums it up. I left because, well, I guess I got bored.”

“Then show business it is. Let me see.” Raul leaned in closer to me. I caught a whiff of a pleasant blend of vanilla and jasmine. “You’re no actor. Not enough poorly-concealed neuroses. I’d think maybe a stuntman, but you’re too spry. And you’re too flippant to be a director. Not self-absorbed enough for a writer. Too shabby—if I might use your language—for a producer. That leaves someone from the crew side of things. Yes. Clearly, you’re perceptive, very visual. So I’d say camera department.”

“I would say you’re the perceptive one,” I said, impressed. “You pegged me fast. I’ve worked as a camera operator and DP on more movies and TV shows than I’ll ever be able to recall.”

“I see so few people from the industry these days.” Raul nodded, and then he laughed. “Well, that’s patently wrong, isn’t it? I see them every day. But that’s just from the show I work on. Do people still even make movies or TV shows these days? Other than Serpientes y Escaleras, I mean. I’m not even sure if Los Angeles still exists. Sure, that’s where the Network officials say they come from when they make their unannounced visits. But try and talk to those people. Ask them, straight up, what other shows the Network produces? They’ll just stare at you with unblinking insect eyes. I’ve given up on all interactions with those people.”

Raul took a deep breath before continuing.

“Network. The Network. Like there’s just one. Maybe there is. It’s certainly true in this town. If Serpientes y Escaleras were to shut down, I don’t know what I’d do. Am I too old to wait tables?”

“You could move.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Even though they say the Changes are over, I’m nervous that it might still be crazy out there.”

“It seemed safe enough when I was traipsing across the prairie a couple weeks ago.”

“You know how I came to be in San Antonio?” Raul smiled, shaking his head. “I came here in the early days of the Changes, when things were just slightly weird. I had flown in to see my niece get married. It was a lovely ceremony. Afterwards, she and her new husband got out of town just in time—flew off to their honeymoon in Corfu. I had booked a flight back home to LA the next day. But during the night, it disappeared. The airport, that is.

“So, that was that. I was terrified to take the bus—who knew what might happen? I lost my apartment back in LA. And my job. I was head of the wardrobe department on The Price Is Right. I loved working on that show! I was purging thirty years of polyester turtlenecks, and neckties wide enough to park a buffet on. You’ve never seen so many flared trousers and aloha shirts!

“But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t screw up the courage to try and make my way back home to California. That was the only work I knew. After college, my life revolved around film sets and TV studios. Before that, I was a boy living on a pistachio farm outside of Yucaipa.” Raul laughed. “Pistachio farm! I know, I know. Now I’m the one waxing romantic. The sad truth is, the pistachio isn’t a young person’s nut. My father witnessed a massive downturn of sales as, year by year, our dependable consumer base died of old age or were rotated off a solid food diet.”

“So, you were here in town when Sy started up his game show?”

“Serpientes? Yes. But I was here before then. When I gave up hope of getting back to LA, I found work as a production assistant on Saligia Jone’s psychic dating show. So, if you know Silverio, do you know Saligia?”

“I do. But, wait, are you talking about her show Silverio produced, Duplicity Revealed? I wouldn’t call that a dating show.”

“That one was before my time. This one was Procuress of the Heart. Saligia being the titular character. A psychic matchmaker. She helped the lovelorn contestant decide from a panel of eager suitors. A far cry from The Price Is Right, but it paid the bills. Silverio was on the books as producer of that one as well, even though no one had seen him in a couple of years. The rumor had it he was dead. But, obviously not, as he eventually moved to town to start up the game show. That was right around the time La Vida Tower disappeared.”

“Yeah, I heard something about that.”

“One day it went away like cigarette smoke wafting out a car window. Left a gaping hole where it had stood. And three days later, it came back.”

“Like Jesus?”

Raul laughed.

“I don’t know about that. But when the sun rose on day three, there it was, La Vida Tower. It looked, well, similar. A slightly different architectural style. Everyone seemed happy to have it back. I don’t know what happened to the people who were in it when it vanished. But when it reappeared the military moved in on it fast. Big army trucks and men in uniform surrounded the whole thing. No one allowed in or out.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“At some point, it was no longer the military overseeing the building. It was the Network. They hired Silverio to create a game show. They scrapped Saligia’s dating show and brought her on as host. And, what do you know, they needed someone to run the wardrobe department, so Saligia put in a good word, and here I am.”

“I understand that Sy has the entire top floor,” I said. “That’s quite a perk.”

“I suspect that man can be a firm negotiator. When the mood strikes.”

“And the two floors below that are the show’s studio and production offices, right? That’s what my friend said.”

“The maintenance woman?”

“Yeah. She also said there’s some sort of dormitory.”

“Dormitory? I guess so…in a manner of speaking. And even though the top three floors are given over to the show, the fact is, the Network controls the entire building.”

“This Network, it’s headquartered in Los Angeles?”

“That’s the narrative as they present it. Those Network people used to come to town on big black helicopters. A hold-over from the military connection, maybe? They’d land in Travis Park. But one day, that fancy bullet train appeared. And ever since, that’s how people arrive here from the outside world. By train.”

“That’s how I got here.”

“From California?”

“No. I snuck on the train when it stopped in a town in the desert near a glacier.”

“Ah, of course, one of the weird gifts of the Changes.” Raul smiled. “A glacier in the desert. Why not?”

“Fran said that you have an interesting theory about the Changes.”

“Ah,” Raul said, looking up as the waiter arrived. “I was thinking of the sirloin and Gruyère. For two.” He looked over at me.

“Sounds delightful,” I said, happy to have him order as I hadn’t even glanced at the menu.

“You’ve seen the show?” he asked once the waiter had left.

“That snakes and ladder game show? Well, I was in a bar right when I hit town. The show was on their TV. Mostly I was watching the people watching the TV. I’ve never seen people that engaged by a game show. I didn’t recognize Sy or Saligia. Not at first. Saligia never used to be so intense and, well, performative. She’s looking well. Do you do the hair and makeup on the show as well?”

“Just wardrobe. It sounds like you know her well.”

I didn’t feel like getting too deep explaining my, well, complicated relationship with Sy and Saligia, so I just nodded.

Raul kept looking at me.

“I was wondering,” he finally said, “if she always had that…gift?”

“Mind reading, you mean? I never spoke about it with her, really. It was her profession. The stuff of night clubs and birthday parties. No sane person believed in it. Of course the Changes happened, and now we have to pretty much believe in anything and everything. So, what the hell, maybe she can really do it. Maybe she has always been able to do it. I think too much about these sorts of things and I get sick to my stomach. This turning my back on critical thinking.”

“I’m the same.” Raul shrugged. “Anyway, that’s the central conceit of Serpientes y Escaleras. The mind reading element. Like yourself, I just take it in stride. Besides, it’s not the strangest thing that goes on with our game show.”

Ah, here we go.

“Do tell,” I prompted.

“Well,” Raul said, leaning across the table, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial tone. “Where do you think we get our contestants?”

I, too, leaned across the table until I was inches from Raul’s face. I lifted my eyebrows.

“Tell me, Morris,” he whispered, “how would you do it? Let’s say you produced the show.”

I nodded and leaned back in my chair.

“Well, the best way,” I said, thinking things through, “would be to hire professional actors. They’re dependable. Hit their marks, enunciate clearly. And they tend to respect a non-disclosure agreement. But if you guys are truly pulling random people from the audience, then I guess you’re putting out a general call for interested people to show up, like any other TV show with a live studio audience.”

Raul smiled and sat up straight.

“Oh, they show up,” he said. He paused to sip some wine. Then he leaned forward again to whisper. “We have two little rooms on the 28th floor. About the size of closets. Curved inside. One could say egg-shaped. White. A kind of enameled metal, perhaps? Each has a single door. A handle like a walk-in refrigerator. There’s a rubber gasket around the edge of the door. And at the beginning of every day, there’s a light no bigger than your thumbnail that comes on at the top of each door. And when it begins to glow green, you can open that otherwise locked closet. The green light means that a new constant has arrived.”

“I see,” I said. Actually, I didn’t. “People materialize, you mean? Two every day?”

“Well,” Raul stretched the word out with a wry smile as he sat up straight. “Every Monday through Friday. Because, you see, those magical portals, or whatever they are, take the weekends off.”

“How civilized.”

“Isn’t it, though?”

“And where do they come from?” I asked.

“No idea. You can try and ask them, but most are muddled in their thinking. The ones with clearer heads sometimes have memories that they died. So there’s that.”

“Okay,” I said, “I think I’ve got it. An office building in San Antonio is where the souls of the dead wait for their turn to be sent further on their journey into the afterlife…which is decided on the set of a TV game show. Seems rather gauche. But what do I know? Though, at two souls per day, five days per week, you guys’ll never catch up. That’s some heavy duty job security, I’d say.”

Raul smiled and buttered a piece of bread. We sat in silence for a moment. I’d learned to recognize the face of a man about to launch into a story.

“Not so long ago,” Raul said, his voice quiet, “we had one of our contestants rush out of the studio while we were broadcasting the show. Just the other week, in fact. Right there in front of the cameras—the woman didn’t even wait for the commercial break. She managed to pry open a window out in the hallway and throw herself to her death. Fell to the pavement 300 feet below.”

Our silly banter had taken a turn.

“My god! That’s horrible.”

“That all happened off camera, of course.”

“To her death,” I said in almost a whisper.

“Pardon?”

“I was echoing your words. I didn’t think that was a thing anymore.”

“Death, you mean? Well, I don’t know what else to call it. I helped Michael retrieve the contestant. That’s Michael Larkin, one of the Readers. Anyway, I wasn’t prepared for what we found down on the street. I should point out, I had never seen a dead body before. And, to be honest, I still don’t believe I have.”

I listened to Raul tell the story of the jumper, wondering if I would have any appetite left once our meal arrived.

Some of the things Raul spoke about I didn’t quite understand. Particularly the mind reading stuff. I’d seen Saligia do her routine years ago, but it didn’t in any way resemble her act on Serpientes y Escaleras. I had a difficult time imagining that somehow Saligia could mumbo-jumbo her way into the brains of the contestants and fish out incidents from their entire lives.

Raul explained, they weren’t supposed to be sent people whose lives or deaths were overly traumatic. This could be harmful to Saligia and her Readers. Of course if that were true, Raul mused aloud, that begged the question, who or what was on the other side of those portals deciding who to send through?

The contestant who jumped, it was learned, too late to do anything about it, had a history of mental illness. She had taken her own life before she appeared on the show.

For the time she spent at La Vida Tower waiting to be chosen as a contestant, she had no memory of her past life. But on the day she was picked, at some point towards the end of the broadcast, this woman experienced a moment of absolute lucidity. She saw her final moments, jumping to her death from a bridge. That was when she bolted, ran free of the studio, found that window, and leaped out.

The moment she rushed off set, Hal, the director, cut to a commercial. Michael ran after the contestant but wasn’t fast enough. He and Raul took the elevator down to the street.

“We weren’t the first on the street,” Raul said. “There were two men in short sleeve shirts with ties—can you imagine? Anyway, they seemed to be in charge. Michael rushed to them while telling me to keep any bystanders away. I caught a glimpse of the body. I didn’t see much, but I can tell you this, it wasn’t human.”

“Meaning?”

“It’s hard to explain. It was broken, yet it still had a form. But no…anatomy. No arms, no legs. The three of them—Michael and the other two—placed it into a sort of black zippered bag. I would have helped them carry it into the lobby, but the thing was small. And so light that one of the men wearing a tie was able to just tuck it under his arm. We all hurried inside and got on the elevator. The man with the zippered bag put it down on the floor. We rode up in silence. When the door opened on the 29th floor. Michael told the men in the ties that we’d take it from there. They stayed in the elevator. But here’s the thing. It took both Michael and me to lift that body bag from the floor. It—whatever was inside—had increased considerably in weight. Also, it had expanded as well—the bag bulged.”

Raul finished his wine and poured another glass before continuing.

“We took that bag into the studio. The audience members were still in their seats as a couple of our crew people did their best to distract them while Michael and I lugged the zippered bag into the little white room behind Door Number Two. And then the cameras came back on and Sy and Saligia and the rest of us finished off the final minute or two of the show, pretending all the while that there were still two contestants. The contestant who was still standing, you might say, was escorted through Door Number One, and both doors were slammed shut.”

“No one noticed?”

“About the fact that when we came back from commercial there was just one contestant? Well, you’re a camera man. You know how easy it is to fool an audience. It’s not what you show them as much as what you don’t show them.”

“And that thing in the bag. The body or whatever?”

Raul just shrugged.

“It went wherever. I suppose. To the same destination as those contestants who have been put into that cramped space always go. Once the door is shut. Goodbye. I believe her name was Connie.”

And at that, our food arrived. A large steaming caldron of melted cheese and two platters holding slivered beef and cubes of bread.

I was heartened that I still had my appetite.

In many ways Raul had said so much. I was afraid he must have broken any number of non-disclosure agreements.

On reflection, however, I had been given little in the way of answers. Only vague descriptions, each of which led to dozens of other questions.

“It seems like so much energy aimed at such an inconsequential thing,” I said. “Takes the show-must-go-on to a whole new level. Why even put her remains in that portal thing?”

“It’s where she was going to be placed all along,” Raul said with a shrug. “And she had to go somewhere. Besides, no one has any idea what might happen if each of those portal things isn’t utilized for its intended purpose every broadcast day.”

“So, if all the people in the audience have come through the portals, but only two arrive and two depart each day, why the extras? See what I mean? Your studio audience.”

“That’s how long it took to get the show up and running,” Raul said, leaning over to sniff eagerly at the pot of molten cheese. “The arrivals began to accumulate. To hear Sy explain it, that’s how he came upon the idea of a game show. They would be his live studio audience. So, by the time they had the studio outfitted, and the production ready to go, there were 23 extra arrivals.”

“Wait. 23?”

“Well, actually on the weekdays between the morning arrivals and the end of the broadcast, there’s 25.”

“No.” The math wasn’t adding up. “That’s not what I meant. If two arrive, and two depart. Shouldn’t there always be an even number?”

“I should think so.” Raul smiled and picked up a skewer. “Interesting, isn’t it?”

Raul dipped a cube of toasted bread into the bubbling cheese.