LotS/The Story/Puny Human Birthdays III/Intro

"Adnan Zebra, return to consciousness immediately or be violently reduced to your inferior human elements!"

The bellowing voice shattered into Adrian Zanfran's nostalgic dreams of a lost world of gloves and polite applause. He jerked awake abruptly, nearly toppling from his chair as he swung his head up from the surface of his desk. He must have fallen asleep in the office again, working late into the night on his latest research project for the Mighty Rylattu Publishing House of Ultimate Might.

He grimaced to think of the caliber and variety of doomsday weapons Kwix would unleash on him for missing another evening at home and tried to focus his eyes on the shouting red apparition projecting from the holographic screen in front of him.

"Uhm. Yes, Overlord, I'm awake" Adrian muttered blearily, "though I think my elements are the same as --"

"Cease your foolish mumbling, valued underling! Your mindless babble is as insufferable as your human stench! Focus your feeble attentions on my superior Rylattu conversation topic!"

"Er, yes Overlord, what can I do for you? The new manuscript won't be ready for -"

"Your puny excuses are of no interest to me, Aardvark! You will evacuate your office and attend to the overlords at once! If you are delayed by your inferior stink-beast listening comprehension you will be disintegrated along with your amusingly puny office!"

"Be right there."

The holographic face of Barp Sek Bul blinked out, and Adrian released a heavy breath. He stood and yawned, stretching his writhing tentacles overhead with a satisfying pop of his back. He plucked and pulled at the wrinkles in his shirt with his suction cups, and brushed down his hair, wondering what the sudden meeting was about. He hadn't been summoned to a full meeting of the overlords since the modest success of his birthday initiative, when they had thankfully decided not to do anything unpleasant or fatal to him after a long deliberation.

Since then, under Barp's sole direction, his modest contributions to the company had built into a satisfying catalogue of titles for the (inferior) human reader. Adrian glanced over at the wall of covers representing his legacy, a line of holographic images ending in his proudest work to date. The biography of a true human legend.

He smiled and stepped out from behind his desk, and the device on the floor caught his eye.

A number of individual elements of the device struck him at once. The squat and garish design of its casing. The abundance of wires coiling between canisters of colorful liquids. The crackling hum beginning to audibly fill the air. The glowing Rylattu numerals playing over its bulbous display, counting down to zero.

Adrian screamed.

He threw open the door to his small office with a snap of his tentacle and fled down the hall in a frantic burst of speed, making it twenty yards before the doomsday device went off.

A sound like the cracking of a whip snapped at the air behind him and the hair all over his body stood on end as a ripple of eerie purple light swept down the hallway and through his body. He spasmed, stunned, and dropped to his knees as a roar like crashing waves beat at his ears and his tingling skin attempted to crawl off his bones.

As his hearing returned, Adrian discovered he was still screaming in a high breathless wail. He snapped his mouth shut and stood up, turning to discover a perfect spherical void at the end of the hall where his office had once been. Purple energy was crackling and fuzzing over the crisp edges of the walls framing the void. In the very center, a purple globe of light was slowly fading away like an after image.

His little office was gone.

Adrian hadn't felt such hurt and indignation since his future wife had shot off both his arms and they'd been replaced with his admittedly superior tentacles. That office had represented his years of accomplishment, hard work, and success in avoiding senseless vaporization!

He sighed and stomped down the corridor, navigating toward the meeting room as he imagined all the mementos that had just been… he didn't know what. Imploded? Atomized, maybe? It was hard to say.

He reached the end of a passage, and a large door swept open to reveal the very meeting room he had been led to on his first day with the Mighty Rylattu Publishing House of Ultimate Might.

The chairs around the long oval table were occupied by the various overlords, with Barp at the head. Belligerent faces of many hues turned to glower and shout a chorus of insults and demands at him as he entered.

"There's the dawdling stink-beast!"

"Pathetic weakling! Perhaps his puny legs gave out on the way!"

"We should remove the disgusting appendages and replace them with superior Rylattu prosthetics!"

This was a fairly standard greeting. Adrian nodded to each of the overlords, making pleasantries that were lost amongst the shouts despite his raised tone.

"Antarn! Explain your wretched tardiness," Barp demanded from the head of the table, slamming a fist against its surface to silence the other overlords.

"Well, you blew up my office with me inside," Adrian pointed out.

"Your office was inferior! While amusingly small and appropriate for containing your unpleasant human odor, a disgusting employee of your caliber deserves a larger working space in which to destroy his subordinates," Barp shouted, and there was a chorus of agreement from the overlords.

"Of course Overlord," Adrian began, "it's just that my personal belongings… wait, larger space? Underlings? What underlings?"

"His feeble human mind can't understand the concept of an underling," a blue female shouted.

"Preposterous stink-beast!"

"No, no, I understand," Adrian assured them hurriedly lest they decide he needed an object lesson, "but I don't have anyone working under me. Or with me, I'm the only one in the human literature department."

"No longer!" Barp said, "Your laughable efforts to wring money from the miserable human species have resulted in a superior swell of profits! The Mighty Rylattu Publishing House of Ultimate Might has dominated the inconsequential human publishing market with our mighty products! The recent biography of the revolting ape %name% is dominating the human readership and crushing the insignificant human publishing houses and their foolish drivel. The stupid book you wrote is a supreme example of Rylattu superiority!"

Adrian's brow furrowed as he struggled to parse the strings of competing adjectives. He had the sense he was being praised, but it was sometimes hard to tell.

"So," he ventured, "the %name% biography is doing… well? You're happy with it?"

"We are satisfied to have again demonstrated our superiority in yet another field," Barp agreed, "your worth as a freelance human is evident."

"Thank you, I --"

"So, we have hired a second freelance human to assist you in continuing our domination of the stink-beast market. His name is Kek Jel Henderson. You will report to your new, superior office and begin training him to help you expand our line of ultimate human-crushing publications."

"There are other freelance humans? I'm... being promoted?"

"Silence Agate!" Barp screamed, "Report to your new office immediately or be disintegrated! Congratulations on the mighty success of your feeble human efforts!"

Adrian hurried from the room, trailing thank-yous as the overlords began brandishing various oversized weaponry and firing energy bolts and praise in his general direction.

A promotion! He couldn't wait to tell Kwix.