Chapter Text
⚀
Mippins was not supposed to be in the Mike Room. Not officially, not casually, not even accidentally. The door didn’t bother with a “KEEP OUT” sign; the keypad made its stance on visitors clear. Then there was Tenna, who was so weird about the guy, it practically screamed some sort of coverup. Which was precisely why Mippins had to do this. Look, they all adored their boss, benevolent brat that he may be, but lately his frustration at Mike’s no-shows had been rolling down onto everyone within broadcasting range. And why should Mippins get yelled at because of some other guy missing his cue? He’d just about had enough! Besides, if Mike didn’t want anyone breaking into his room, he shouldn’t have made the code so easy to guess. Four digits. 6453. M-I-K-E. He’d sneak in, give him a real good talking-to about job responsibilities, and then he’d be hailed as a hero among his coworkers: Mippins, the Pippins that stood up to Mike and ended Tenna’s tyrannical temper tantrums. Take that, Mike!
Only… there wasn’t anyone here. No Mike. No signs of life. Not even the faint whirr of a rack fan or the buzz of standby monitors, or anything Mippins would have expected from Tenna’s so-called right hand. The room was colder than the hallway leading up to it, like it had been sealed off for a long time, long enough to make his face wrinkle as the stale air hit his nose. Dust floated in slow, listless swirls, stirred by the hiss of the automatic door closing behind him (that he definitely did not jump at.)
Mippins stepped in—quietly, for once. He was used to being loud, needing to shout over the constant clamor of ads that lined TV World’s walls, over his colleagues who often came in proportions that dwarfed him in both stature and importance. Small but loud: that was his niche. The ones who thrived here were loud and big, the kind Tenna noticed, the kind that landed in his good graces. Mike would’ve been the same; Tenna’s favorites always were. He hadn’t expected… this.
The place didn’t look like an office, a control room, a recording booth, nor a soundstage. It didn’t look like anything. No desks, no equipment, no nada. The only thing that stood out from the peeling, star-studded wallpaper was a corkboard, as bare as the rest of the room, save for a photograph that hung crooked from a push pin. Mippins idly adjusted it, studying how different Tenna’s smile looked then, arm looped around a stranger’s matching red shoulderpads. But he was more focused on the big red circle scrawled above the stranger’s head. It enclosed seemingly nothing but a shadowy background, with the caption in the same angry red marker:
WHO IS MIKE?
Mippins leaned closer to inspect the image, and if he squinted, he could see just the faintest outline of—
“What are you doing here?”
Tenna’s voice was loud on a normal day, but in the company of dead air, it was like a thunderclap.
Mippins whirled around, already halfway to babbling. “Oh—hey! Boss! Didn’t see ya there! I was just—uh, making sure no one else had broken in, y’know? Safety sweep, standard protocol. Gotta keep the base secure, real five-star operation we’re running here.” He laughed, too hard and too fast, hands flailing like they might summon a better excuse. “You know how it is; one minute you’re walking past a highly restricted door, next thing you know, your foot slips and your finger just happens to punch in a four-digit code—whoops! Would you believe that’s happened to me before?” What the hell was he saying? But his mouth had shot ahead of him, and it was still going, like it could outrun Tenna’s expression with syllables alone. “Plus, you’ve been kinda high-strung lately—not that I blame you! Who wouldn’t be, with all the deadlines, and the rating fluctuations, and the, uh, Mike stuff? So I thought I’d take some initiative, be a team player, scope things out, help lighten the load!” Then, in a moment of what could only be described as sheer neurological betrayal, he struck a pose. One hand on his hip, the other raised in the air, fingers splayed in a jazz hand so unconvincing it might’ve been a distress signal. It trembled slightly. Possibly from fear. Possibly from adrenaline. Possibly from the dawning realization that he was absolutely, catastrophically screwed.
Mippins braced for impact, but Tenna didn’t speak, which was frankly, even scarier; he was always speaking, and when he wasn’t, it meant something was about to be really spoken. Instead, he stepped into the room slowly, deliberately, like a car crash going in slow motion—Mippins noticed that he had shrunk to fit the space, and he had never seen his boss shorter than a Dark Candy Tree, which would have been neat if it at all detracted from how terrifying even a non-tree-sized Tenna could be, especially when that made his expression, his very displeased frown lines, that much more apparent.
Mippins couldn’t help but stumble backwards until he had knocked the corkboard with his shoulders. A photo came flying from between his legs and onto the floor, where it sat whispering accusations at his feet. “I didn’t touch anything!” he blurted, which wasn’t technically true, but not entirely a lie, because there was barely anything to touch in the first place, unless you counted the millions of swirling dust motes he’d nearly choked on (and kind of wished he were choking on now). “Just looked. A glance, really. I don’t even know what I was looking at. That photo? Weird cropping, huh? You’d think someone would have centered it better—”
“Get out.”
Tenna’s voice was quieter now, but far more dangerous. He wasn’t yelling. He didn’t have to.
Mippins nodded quickly, already shuffling towards the door. “Yep. Absolutely. Out. Leaving. Never saw a thing. Not even a room. Not even a door. This whole hallway? Doesn’t exist. I walked into a wall and had a concussion dream. I don’t even know what ‘Mike’ is. Could be a code name, could be a sandwich, honestly I don’t even eat carbs, so—”
The door hissed open behind him. He kept moving backward without a glance.
“Look, I’ll redact my own memory if it helps. Wipe it clean. Hen in Black neuralyzer, bam—gone. Mike who? Never heard of him. You’re Tenna, I work here, and I definitely never violated a single security, uh, policy, protocol, principle of privacy—pick your favorite, I respect ‘em all.”
And then Mippins ran.
Not a cool, casual exit. Not a fast walk. A dead sprint down the hallway, coat flapping, boots slapping against the tile like they were trying to outrun what he’d just seen—and who’d just seen him seeing it. He didn’t stop until he hit the corner, lungs burning and his head buzzing worse than the static in that cursed room.
Still, he turned, just once.
Tenna stood before the corkboard, still as a statue, backlit by the cold blue light of the Mike Room. For a split second, Mippins thought he was shaking—crying?—but maybe that was just the trick of the dark. Maybe.
The door hissed shut.
Mippins didn’t wait to see if it would open again. He spun on his heel and bolted, tearing down the hall like Tenna’s wrath was a physical force at his back. He ran until he was clear of the Mike Zone entirely, chest heaving as he slumped against the nearest wall. Then, his head snapped towards the Zapper at the receptionist desk, who was looking like they hadn’t just let Mippins walk into his own funeral. He stormed over, heels clacking with every indignant step. The moment Jon saw him coming, their posture stiffened.
“You were supposed to be keeping watch,” Mippins wheezed, jabbing a finger into their chest. Jon had the decency to look chagrined—as much as a Zapper could look chagrined, anyway. He dragged them both away from the scene of the crime, away from the offending Mike Room that still might burst open with a furious Tenna.
“Didn’t think he’d be back dat fast,” they mumbled. “I couldn’t gets a good signal with da fedora on.”
Mippins stopped midstride to stare at them. “You were trying on hats? Now?!” He threw his hands into the air, voice climbing in disbelief. “Hats, Jon. Really. How does a hat even mess with your signal? You’re literally made for it!”
“It was a large-brimmed fedora.” Jon offered quietly, folding in on themself while Mippin’s temper put on height. He could practically see it, the physical embodiment of his anger towering over them.
Mippins slapped a hand over his forehead. “Oh, well, obviously! A large-brimmed fedora. Why didn’tcha lead with that? If I had known my lookout was playing dressup, I’d have broken into the Mike Room so much faster.” Jon clutched their hat towards their chest bashfully.
They had ducked into an old, backstage storage room that smelled faintly of old glue and ozone. Mippins collapsed onto a vinyl bench under a half-dead fluorescent bulb that was doing about as well as he felt. Jon picked the out-of-service vending machine to lean against, with nothing but the static of a broken TV between themself and the absolute reaming Mippins was going to give them.
And he was about to do it, launch his mouth like it was a ballistic missile—he had the breath loaded, the syllables cocked, the target locked—but then a Shadowguy emerged several feet away, nervously shifting his gaze between the two of them, before taking a seat beside him. Mippins looked at Pluey’s face, and the fire sputtered out like it was doused by jazz in the rain. He could never get all that pressed when Pluey was around; it was like startling a scared, sopping wet cat. “Stellar teamwork, boys,” he muttered instead, voice cracking under the weight of everything he couldn’t yell. “Really. A flawless operation. Tenna’s gonna be thrilled. I can practically hear the pink slips being printed.”
“I’m sorry, Mips,” Jon said, voice low.
Mippins ran both hands down his face and let a breath hiss through his teeth. “Yeah. Forget it. It’s done.” He let his head thud against the wall with a hard clunk. “We’re lucky if I don’t get canned. Maybe Tenna won’t be able to tell me apart from the other guys and’ll let it slide. …Oh, who am I kidding; he’s gonna dock every Pippins’ pay, and they’ll all blame me.”
“Ya think he’s color-blind?” Jon pointed at Mippin’s green suit.
He groaned and buried his face in his hands. It wasn’t just about standing out from the other Pippins’ standard-issue TV-red uniforms—he’d picked green because it felt lucky. Or maybe because he’d hoped it would be. It hadn’t exactly been working out. He wanted Tenna to finally notice him, but not like this.
Pluey gave his back a sympathetic pat. For a moment, none of them said anything. Then Jon cleared their throat. “So… uh. What was in dere, anyhow?”
Mippins didn’t answer right away. He glared at the floor like it was a vending machine that had eaten his last POINT. “…A photo,” he said at last. “Just one. Tenna, smiling. With someone else—same uniform. Short guy, long pointy nose—a lot like Tenna’s, actually. The background was all shadows, but it was circled in marker.” He paused, then added, voice dropping, “Caption said ‘WHO IS MIKE’. Looked like something out of a bad true-crime doc. That was it. Nothing else in the room.”
Jon tilted their head. “Dat’s all?”
“Not even a microphone stand,” Mippins muttered. “Just a corkboard and a conspiracy.”
“…I don't get it,” they said. “If dere ain’t no Mike, den why’s Tenna so hung up on ‘im?” Pluey cocked his head in quiet agreement.
Mippins exhaled sharply. “That’s the million Dark Dollar question, isn’t it?” He sprung to his feet and paced a tight little circle, arms crossed. “Nobody’s seen him. Nobody’s heard from him. Not even a memo, or a voicemail—nothing! And yet Tenna’s acting like he’s just late to work. Like he’s gonna stroll in any second. Which means…” He stopped pacing, letting the words hover and accumulate weight as an invisible camera zoomed into his face, the revelation at the tip of his tongue: “I don’t know what it means.”
“Maybe he’s just shy?”
He made a face. “Shy?”
“Yeah.” Jon shrugged. “Y’know, some people don’t like bein’ on camera. Or talkin’. Or uh, existin’ in public.”
“He’s supposed to be a microphone,” He said dryly. “Shyness doesn’t exactly come standard.” It was a reasonable assumption to make; what would Mike be, if not a mic?
“Well, maybe he’s a muted mic,” they offered. “Real strong internal signal, but no output.”
He stared at them. “That’s not—”
A muffled snort cut them off. Pluey turned away, shoulders shaking with quiet laughter. Jon gave them the usual blank look, on the account of having no discernible facial features to speak of.
Mippins rubbed his eyes before going back to walking a thought-shaped trench into the floorboards. “Okay, fine, maybe Mike’s just a shy mystery guy who ghosted his own boss and vanished without a trace because he’s too emotionally fragile to give two weeks’ notice. Sure. That still doesn’t solve our Tenna problem: without Mike, he’s gonna keep having meltdowns.”
Jon held up a gloved hand, fedora dangling from one finger. “‘Kay, but—crazy idea—what if we just, y’know…” They rolled their wrist, gesturing vaguely. “Go find Mike?”
Mippins froze mid-pace. “…Find him?”
“Yeah. Why not?” They said, warming up to the idea. “If he’s real, he’s gotta be somewhere. And if he ain’t…well, we can figure somethin’ out.”
He watched them for a beat, letting the words settle. Jon’s optimism was almost contagious, but it was no match for his unrelenting cynicism, which manifested in a haughty scoff and eyeroll—a Mippins classic. “You want to go on a Mike hunt. Like he’s just gonna be sitting in some back alley with a name tag that says ‘Hi, I’m Mike’?”
Jon shrugged, unfazed. “So we track ‘im down. Dig up da logs, scrape da networks, interview some weirdos. You’re good at dat kinda thing, right?” Pluey set his hand to his chin and gave a slow, thoughtful nod.
Mippins stared at them both like they’d just suggested kissing Tenna in the face. Bold. Stupid. Tempting. “…That’s—okay, that’s actually not the worst idea you’ve had,” he said, pointing at Jon. “Risky. Possibly career-ending. But not the worst.”
“You say dat like it ain’t already career-ending just bein’ here.”
That was fair. Mippins didn’t exactly have a squeaky clean record—which wasn’t even his fault! Mostly. Being a Pippins came with assumptions, assumptions that were usually true—for other Pippins. But everybody automatically assumed he was part of the same mess, tangled up in all sorts of dirty dealings and shadowy games that nobody talked about in polite company. And every time that happened, Mippins found himself pulled into problems that weren’t even his own. People saw him and immediately thought trouble.
“Yeah, I guess you’ve got a point,” he muttered, eyes flicking to his pseudoponcho suit. The green that set him apart from the other Pippins suddenly felt heavy. It was funny, in a way. People couldn’t even get his name right, but at least the color made him stand out, and standing out was better than being mistaken for the rabble. Except now Tenna would be on the lookout for one green Pippins dumb enough to do what no other Pippins would do. Figures. The color seemed to mock him now. Mippins tugged his collar, irritation bubbling. He hadn’t asked for any of this. It wasn’t his fault that the name ‘Pippins’ had become shorthand for trouble, or that every time someone saw him they expected him to be pip-deep in something sketchy. No, he was trying to do things differently. But who would ever see that when the first thing they clocked was the name? When they looked at him and saw them? Okay, yeah, he’d broken into the Mike Room, but he did that as an act of public service! He did what nobody else had the guts to do.
“You got a plan or not, Mips?” Jon’s voice snapped him out of his thoughts, and Mippins blinked, refocusing on the present.
Right. Mike. That’s what mattered.
“Yeah,” he grumbled, forcing the frustration down. His mind was already running through every possible angle—every lead that might turn into nothing, every person they might talk to who could end up wasting their time. The odds weren’t great. But then again, when had they ever been? He scratched his neck, a little too hard, trying to shake off the sudden tension in his shoulders. “You realize how insane this is, right? We’re talking about tracking down someone who might not even exist.”
“S’either dat or risk gettin’ fired.”
“Don’t remind me.” He shot Jon a dirty look that made them wilt, and Mippins felt a flicker of guilt—then the old, sour vindication, because this wouldn’t even be the first job he’d been fired from, and he was not crawling back to the Spade King.
But then Jon straightened. “Well... if you get fired, I’ll get fired too.”
He startled. “What?”
“I mean it.” They puffed their chest out, numpad buttons somehow gleaming in the dreary light. “Not lettin’ you do dis alone. You get da boot, I walk right behind ya. Maybe swipe somethin’ on da way out.” Pluey gave a firm nod beside them and raised a finger like: Me too.
Mippins opened his mouth for a quip and found none. Heat crawled up his neck instead. “That’s—ridiculous,” he managed. “And irresponsible. And—” He blew out a breath. “—weirdly sweet.” He gave a crooked half-laugh and ran a hand down his face, turning away so that they didn’t see the smile that threatened to slip loose. “You two are idiots.”
Jon slung an arm around his shoulder. “Yeah, but we’re your idiots.”
He hated how much that got to him. They stood there like it was the simplest thing in the world—like chasing some guy through trash heaps and dead-end calls wasn’t the dumbest plan anyone had ever come up with. Like Mike was worth chasing. Like Mippins was someone worth following. He didn’t know if it was loyalty, or stupidity, or both.
But it was more than anyone else had offered him in a long time.
Mippins cleared his throat, rubbing the back of his neck like he could shake off the warm fuzzies trying to take root. “Yeah, well... don't get all sappy on me. We've got work to do.” He turned on his heel and started down the corridor, back straight, steps brisk, like momentum alone might propel his thoughts. Behind him, he could hear Jon hurrying to catch up, his hops creaking on the old floorboards. Pluey followed quietly, the soft pat-pat of his steps barely audible over the hum of the overhead lights. They didn’t ask what the next move was. Mippins wasn’t sure if that meant they trusted him, or if they were just waiting to wing it again. Either way, it settled something deep in his chest. He wasn’t used to being followed. Not without question. Not like this.
Still, the questions were already piling back in his head, swirling faster than he could pin down: Who was Mike? Why did Tenna care so much? And if nobody knew him… who did? They needed leads. He pulled out his pocket notepad, flipped past several pages of doodles and half-baked theories, and tapped the corner of a page marked with one name:
CYBER CITY.
“Let’s make a call.”
⚁
So, it turned out that getting Jon and Pluey on the same page was harder than he’d hoped. Jon was never an ideas guy, more of a zap-first, maybe-ask-questions-if-there’s-time-later kind of guy. Tactical, sure, if the tactic was “run in and hope something explodes in your favor.” And Pluey was… well, Pluey. Quiet. Supportive. Quietly supportive. Not unhelpful, but not exactly what you’d call a think tank.
Which meant the whole investigation still rested on him. The thinking. The planning. The sneaking into locked rooms and nearly getting vaporized by Tenna’s death glare. All of it. On him. Why was that always how this went? Was it because he was the one with the loudest mouth? Because he wore the brightest green? Because he was the only one dumb enough to care? …Okay, yeah, maybe that last one. Still. Somebody had to be the lead. And if no one else was stepping up? Then green meant go.
He’d explained to them—twice, actually, because Jon zoned out halfway through the first time—that Tenna hadn’t started obsessing over Mike until after his stint in Cyber City. That was the tipping point. Something had changed. And when Mippins did some digging—okay, snooping, if you wanted to get technical—he caught wind of a name floating through the grapevine: Spamton; and with it, a warning: never, ever say it in front of Tenna. Ominous! Suspicious caveats aside, the name sounded familiar to Mippins. Turned out, that guy was a big shot over in Cyber City. Used to be, anyway. If there were answers, they were buried there with him. Off-grid, off-brand, in places that weren’t wired up to TV World’s sterile info feeds. Places like the Queen’s Mansion, where the curtains were velvet, the lighting was dramatic, and the people had manners sharp enough to cut glass. And if Mippins was lucky—which he wasn’t, statistically, spiritually, or metaphysically, but he could pretend—then maybe, just maybe, one of Queen’s minions would pick up.
“All right, let’s see if the Mansion’s too hoity-toity to take an unsolicited call from an unknown number…” He said, punching in the digits before he could talk himself out of it. They were holed up in one of TV World’s forgotten corners: a dusty, underused AV editing bay sandwiched between two defunct broadcast rooms. The overhead lights flickered like they were on their last warning, casting the place in a headachey buzz of off-white glare. Mippins sat in a swiveling chair with a cracked vinyl seat, hunched over a beat-up terminal patched together from three incompatible eras of technology.
Jon was practically on his shoulder, crouched beside the console with one knee on a crate of ancient VHS tapes. They’d shoved on a little newsboy cap for no reason Mippins could discern, except maybe they thought it made them look like a private eye. It didn’t. It made them look like a mailroom intern doing community theater. Still, Mippins appreciated the enthusiasm wherever it could be found. Pluey hovered silently behind them, peering over both their heads. “Ya think dey’re gonna answer?” Jon asked, eyeless gaze darting between Mippins and his finger hovering precariously over the dial button.
“I think we’ve got no better lead,” he muttered. It had taken six hours of dead ends and one suspiciously gooey dumpster dive just to find a number from a half-shredded memo. It might not even be right. “And I think if one of you breathes on my neck again, I’m gonna lose what’s left of my mind.” Pluey backed up a step. Jon did not. Mippins sighed and hit call.
The ringback tone staggered into the room, thin and warbly through crumbling plastic. They tensed as the dialtone flickered. Once. Twice. “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon,” he chanted under his breath. Third ring. A click.
“This is Swatch, Head Butler of the Queen’s Mansion and proprietor of the Color Café,” came the voice, smooth and perfectly practiced, like it had been ironed flat. “To whom do I owe the pleasure?”
Mippins straightened up in his chair, then remembered they were on the phone and immediately slouched again. “Hey, hi, hello! Name’s Mippins, TV World. I’m calling on behalf of Mr. Tenna—kinda. Not officially. More like… spiritually.” He heard the wobble and winced. He’d been too focused on the lead to rehearse his lines. Should’ve brought a script.
A pause.
“…Is this regarding Mr. Spamton?”
That snagged in his mind. Of course it was Spamton—Tenna’s least favorite syllables. For a split second he saw the photo again: Tenna grinning, arm slung around a short guy with a long, sharp, TV nose. Was that supposed to be Spamton? Everyone had a story about him. And somewhere in the middle of that mess sat Mike. “No? I mean, kinda? But not—well, not directly,” he managed. “Actually we’re looking for someone else entirely. A guy named Mike.”
Another pause. This one felt colder, somehow. Mippins could hear something in the background, like the sound of feathers ruffling. “The Mansion and its constituents are no longer affiliated with Mr. Spamton,” came the clipped response, icy-cool and just this side of done. “If this is about outstanding debts, broken contracts, or further attempts to solicit merchandise deals, you may direct those inquiries elsewhere.”
“No—nononono! None of that!” Mippins flailed. “This isn’t about money, or merch, or… or the time he tried to copyright his laugh. We’re not debt collectors, okay?! We’re not even associates! I barely even know the guy—I mean, I don’t know him at all—well, I know of him, everyone does, that’s the Juice guy, but—listen, that’s not the point!” He leaned forward, speaking fast enough to blur consonants. “We’re looking for Mike. Mike. Big presence, maybe big guy too, probably loud, possibly unreasonably so? Could have a microphone head, or be an actual microphone? Or both! Or something else entirely, I’m open-minded! Ringing any bells? Clangy, echoey bells?”
There was the faintest rustle on the other end. A measured sigh. “I’m afraid not. No one by the name of Mike has ever been registered at the Mansion. Nor, to my knowledge, has a Microphone Darkner ever entered Cyber City proper.”
Mippins looked over at Jon, who gave him a helpless shrug. Pluey tilted his head slightly. He pinched the handset until the plastic complained. “Okay—right—super helpful baseline, thank you,” he said in a rush, snapping back to the line. “But you worked with Spamton, right? Back when he was a bigshot. Or you worked adjacent to him. Did he ever mention Mike? Drop a name? A hint? A ‘he’ll handle it’ or a ‘my guy’s got it’? Anything?”
There was silence on the other end.
Mippins waited.
Then, naturally, couldn’t help himself. “I mean, it’d make sense if he did, right? Manager? Partner? Co-conspirator? Some guy in the wings pulling the strings? Like, maybe he wasn’t doing it all solo. Maybe he had a partner. A mentor. A mysterious figure in the shadows, who saw potential in him and gave him a leg up. Or—oh!—a voice in his ear!” Still nothing. He squinted at the receiver. “Hello? Did—did I hit mute somehow? Jon, did you hit mute?” Jon shook their head, both hands raised. Pluey gave a thumbs-down. Just as Mippins wound up for another tangent, Swatch’s voice returned, crisp and deliberate:
“He used to pray in the basement.”
He bolted upright so fast the chair let out a wheeze. “Pray?” The word hit him sideways. Mippins sat there with the receiver glued to his ear and the flicker-buzz of the fluorescents drilling straight through the pause it left behind. Pray—as in hands together? Knees on tile? To what, the red circle? Mike?
“He never said to whom,” they continued, voice like velvet drawn taut. “But he did it nightly, without fail.”
Mippins glanced at Jon and Pluey. Both stared back, stunned. He slapped a hand over the receiver and stage-whispered to them, “Does this mean we’re in a religious conspiracy now? Because I didn’t bring my tithing socks—” Jon gave him a quiet “Mips,” and Pluey’s small headshake said not the time. He swallowed the bit, turned back to the line, and lowered his voice. “…Pray,” He echoed. “Like, with candles and chanting? Or was it more like… slumped in a corner, mumbling under his breath with the TV on static?”
“Both,” Swatch said.
“Oh.”
“Toward the end of our association, he insisted he’d become something greater. Something blessed. He claimed he’d been chosen.”
Mippins swallowed. Chosen by who? “Weird,” Jon whispered conspiratorially.
“Yeah, thanks for the insight,” He hissed sideways. His grip on the phone had gone clammy, sweat slicking the plastic.
Swatch continued, “And once, only once, I heard him say a name while down there. I’d almost forgotten it until now.”
Mippins nearly fell out of his seat lunging for a pen. “Yeah? What name? Tell me you have a name. Please. I’ll take a first name, a last name, a gamer tag—”
“Mike.”
A real, honest moment of silence fell over the room. Even the TV static in the corner seemed to pause for dramatic effect. Jon froze like he’d just heard a ghost. Pluey looked visibly rattled, arms crossed tighter than usual. For a beat, Mippins’ brain just… rebooted. The pen in his hand flattened a groove into the paper because he’d forgotten how to stop writing the same four letters: M I K E M I K E M I K E—He underlined it until the ballpoint tore a trench. He should have been ecstatic. This was something, actually something, a new piece of the puzzle he could dig his teeth into, spin into a theory, poke at with words until it made sense, something tangible to chase. But Mippins couldn’t even find his mouth. He just sat there, pen poised, whole body stiff like the name itself had yanked the thread holding him together.
Mike.
He’d been chasing a name. Just a name. And now, here it was, not whispered, not hinted, but spoken—clear and plain. And it felt wrong. Like something had looked back. Like the name itself had teeth. Names weren’t supposed to bite back.
“Do you wish to continue the inquiry?” Swatch asked, voice soft now. Not mocking or cold, just measured.
“Would it be possible,” Mippins said slowly, choosing his words like they were made out of glass and he had a hammer for a mouth, “to, say… hypothetically, take a look at this basement? For purely archival purposes. Y’know, investigative research. I promise not to pray. Or squat in a corner whispering ‘Mike’ over and over.”
“I’m afraid not,” Swatch replied, crisp and immediate. “The basement is no longer accessible to guests. Nor staff. It’s been sealed since the Spamton Incident.”
“I could be discreet!”
“You haven’t been discreet once since this call began.”
“…Okay, yeah, that’s fair.” He admitted, slumping in his chair. His fingers drummed against the side of the receiver, an anxious tap-tap-tap. “Alright then, one last thing, and I’ll stop bothering you, I swear. Any chance you’ve still got Spamton’s number on file?” There was a pause long enough for Jon and Pluey to exchange a look. Or—well, Jon probably looked. Pluey definitely did. Mippins sensed a look. It was the kind of pause where even silence seemed to raise an eyebrow.
“I might,” Swatch said carefully. “But he is not easy to reach. Nor is he easy to speak with, even if you do reach him.”
“Pfft. Sounds like most of my coworkers,” he said, a little too brightly. “Please. I think he’s the only one who ever saw Mike up close. Maybe even talked to him. He was Tenna’s partner. If anyone knew Mike—or thought they did—it’d be him. I just wanna ask a few questions.”
“You won’t get answers,” they said. “Not clear ones. Perhaps not even real ones.”
Of course. Why would anything be clear? Clarity was for press kits and apology posts. Mike was a hole in a photo with a circle around it. Ambiguity was something Mippins could work with—that was the fun of it. “That’s fine,” he said, steadying his voice. “Half my coworkers talk in riddles anyway. I’m fluent.”
A long sigh. Then the sound of clicking—Swatch typing, maybe flipping through an old guest log. “You didn’t get this from me.”
“I’m forgetting your name as we speak,” Mippins said, pen at the ready. “Swatch? Who’s that? Never heard of ‘em. I don’t even know how to spell Mancion.”
A beat later, a number was dictated in that same perfectly even tone, recited like a line from a spellbook rather than a phonebook. Mippins jotted it down with a furrowed focus like he was disarming a bomb, tongue jammed between his teeth like it could stop his hand from shaking. “Thank you,” he said, voice softer. “Genuinely.”
“Be careful,” Swatch replied, just before the line clicked off. “You may not like the things he says. But worse than that—you may believe them.”
And the dial tone kicked in. Mippins stared at the receiver for a long moment, slowly lowered the handset, and then turned back to Jon and Pluey. “So… that was—”
“Disturbin’?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah. Disturbing’s a good word. Great word. Gonna write that one down next to ‘basement prayers’ and ‘Mike shrines.’ Just… really a whole buffet of mental images I didn’t want today.”
“Maybe dis Spamton guy’s just a nutjob. Maybe he made up a Mike, and Tenna bought it. Happens. You ever heard of dose pyramid schemes?” Jon offered.
He wanted to agree. “Nutjob” was clean. Easy. Stamp it, stack it on the shelf, and walk away. But the red circle around nothing kept pulsing behind his eyes, and Swatch’s nightly, without fail had barbs. “Yeah, sure, but at least pyramid schemes have brochures. Nobody prays to their upline in the dead of night!” He flailed, hopping to his feet to pace a frantic loop around the room. “Okay—maybe they do. But not like this! And Tenna’s not the kinda guy who latches onto things without something. This was something real enough to get under his skin.” Pluey’s head followed Mippins’ circuit like a tennis match, arms folded tight across his chest. “I mean, I’ve met plenty of delusional Darkners, but this is something else. You don’t bother with a whole security code for a made-up guy, right? You don’t pray to a marketing strategy!” He spun back towards them, eyes wide. “Unless—unless Mike is real. Or was. Or might be. And Spamton didn’t make him up—he met him. And Tenna never found him because Mike’s not showing up on any registry, ‘cause he’s not just off the grid, he is the grid. The static. The silence. The—”
Jon gently reached over and patted his head. “Okay, okay. Deep breaths. Startin’ to sound like one’a da docudramas.”
Mippins jerked his head away, chest rising and falling rapidly. He opened his mouth—then closed it. Opened it again. Then made a noise somewhere between a sigh and a deflating whoopee cushion. “…Okay. Okay, maybe I need to take it down a notch,” he admitted, hands raised in surrender.
Pluey offered him a sympathetic thumbs-up from the corner, then mimed a rotary phone crank with both hands. Jon perked up. “Oh, right. Swatch gave you dat number, didn’t dey? Spamton’s.” Mippins’ eyes flicked to the napkin he’d scribbled it on—half-crumpled, a little coffee-stained, very much looking like a cursed object. Jon hesitated, then nudged his shoulder lightly. “Y’know, Mips… you don’t gotta call right now. We could take five. Grab a snack or somethin’.” Pluey silently held up a sad little bag of chips.
Mippins opened his mouth to argue. He always had a retort. But nothing came out. Just a short, tight exhale through his nose. “Yeah. Yeah, okay. Five minutes. Ten, tops. Then I’m calling him.”
Which turned out to be a big fat lie. Because, fine, Swatch’s warning spooked him. A little. He wasn’t scared, obviously. He was a professional. A professional… something. Investigator? Dumpster theologian? Whatever. Point is, Swatch was also a professional, with a capital P, and even he sounded rattled. If a guy like that was shaken, maybe a ten-minute breather sounded like strategy and not stalling.
So instead of calling, they kept moving; ducking through underlit editing bays; a broom closet with a retired tripod; and finally a half-lit break room tucked between Storage and Systems, far enough out of the way that nobody would find them, and just close enough to the buzzing nerve center of TV World that it never quite felt safe. Foot traffic kept flushing them out—mostly other Darkners (namely Pippins sniffing around for a gambling hole)—so they stayed nimble, heads down, ready to bolt. The constant change in scenery did little to ease Mippin’s fraying nerves.
And now here he was, pacing himself into an anxiety hole, trying to psych himself up to call a man who may or may not have communed with a divine microphone. Or joined a cult. Or just plain lost it. Or all of the above! None of those options were particularly appealing. He wound the receiver’s cord around his wrist until his hand tingled, a bracelet of nerves, and the napkin burning in his pocket. This wasn’t like him. He was the act-first, babble-through-the-consequences kind of guy. But something about that Swatch call knocked him off-kilter—the way they’d said it: he used to pray in the basement. Like he was trying to summon something. Someone.
Someone who might’ve actually answered.
Pluey, ever helpful, placed a mug of lukewarm water next to him and gently tapped the number twice with his knuckle, a silent “you’ve got this.” Jon watched from the corner, a half-eaten TV Dinner forgotten in their lap. “You could just not call ‘im. He don’t, uh, seem stable, from da sounds of it.”
Mippins gave a short, brittle, only slightly hysterical laugh. “Oh, come on. What, ya think I’m gonna get cursed through the phone? That Spamton’s gonna crawl outta the receiver like some kind of movie poltergeist?” He waved a hand, pacing harder now. “Please. I’ve survived staff meetings with Tenna. This is nothing.” He stopped just long enough to jab a finger toward the napkin. “Besides, if there’s even a sliver of a chance that this guy’s seen Mike—really seen him—then I have to know. That’s what this is about, right? Answers. Real ones. And if it takes a deranged has-been to get them, then so be it!”
“…So dat’s a yes, den?”
Mippins was already dialing. The line rang. Once. Twice. Thrice—
And then the speaker exploded.
“[C0ngratu1atin5!!!!] YOU ARE THE [-10000th] VISITOR! YOU’VE JUST WON THE [Voided Warranty][Of a Lifetime!!!] WAIT, WHO IS THIS? WHO GAVE YOU THIS NUMBER?! WHO SENT YOU?!!”
Mippins nearly jumped out of his seat as the phone tried to sonically detonate his eardrum with an onslaught of garbled words—half static, half gracelessly inserted infomercial soundbites, and none of them quite making sense. He held the receiver an inch from his head. “Whoa—okay, easy! Easy! I didn’t get it from anyone! No one sent me!” His body tensed for another wave of ear-piercing static. Not even two sentences into the conversation and he was already regretting this. “Name’s Mippins, alright? I’m not selling anything, not trying to make a deal, not trying to pull anything—I just want to ask a couple questions.”
“NO [Specil Deal]? NO [Sell! Sell! Sell!]?? WHAT’S THE POINT?! I GOT [No interest financing] YOUR LITTLE [20 Questions Game], PAL!! TAKE YOUR [Job Interview] AND [Chargeback] IT STRAIGHT TO THE DUMPSTER!!!!!!”
He winced as another screech of corrupted ad-jingle nearly shattered the plastic of the receiver. Okay, he definitely underestimated how unhinged this guy was, but he was coherent. Sorta. Mippins could work with this. “I’m looking into someone!” he blurted, pushing the words out fast. Moment of truth. “His name is Mike. Thought you might’ve known him.”
A sharp, clipped inhale crackled through. Then—
“…Mike.”
The name came out soft. Reverent. The line buzzed like a held breath, and Mippins felt himself hold his breath alongside it. “So you do know him,” He said, cautious. Then, less cautious: “How did you know him? Did you meet him in a dream? Is he a microphone—”
“You said… Mike,” Spamton whispered, and there was something wounded in it. “You—you SAW him?! YOU HEARD FROM HIM?! IS HE [Back in stock]?!”
The name rattled in his brain like dice in a cup. Jon and Pluey were aggressively shaking their heads. Okay. Breathe. Don’t spook the witness. Message received. “No. No, I just—I’ve been trying to find out who he was.”
“OH.” The line went flat. “SO YOU’RE NOT WITH [Him]. YOU’RE WITH HIM.”
“I—what?”
“I KNOW WHO SENT YOU!!” Spamton howled. “THAT [99¢ Network] TALKSHOW [Tumor]!! That [$#£*][Idiot box]!! HE SENT YOU!!!”
“Wait, who—?
“DON’T [Play Smart Guy] WITH ME!!! YOU’RE PART OF THAT [Cathode’s] CREW!!!”
“Cathode—? You mean Tenna?” His mouth ran ahead of his mind, as it so often did, which he realized hideously too late, that it was clearly the wrong thing to say.
“DON’T SAY THAT [Filthy] NAME TO ME.” Spamton’s voice twisted mid-word, curling in on itself like it was spitting acid through the receiver. “YOU WORK FOR HIM?! YOU [Creep with a Camera]?! ARE YOU SNIFFING FOR PRIMETIME [Dirt and Grime]?! I KNEW IT!! I SMELLED THE [Plastic you use] AND THE STENCH OF [Betrayal]!! YOU’RE ONE OF HIS [Remote-Controlled Rats], HERE TO FINISH THE JOB!! WELL GUESS WHAT, BUDDY!! I ALREADY [Died]!!!”
“No! No, I hate cameras—ask literally anyone—cameras hate me back!” Inside his head, his thoughts were bobsledding into each other at terminal velocity. What job? What betrayal? WHAT DIED?! He didn’t even know what aisle of the conspiracy he’d wandered into, but he was definitely not qualified to be in it without a tinfoil license.
“YOU’RE LYING!!!” Spamton shrieked, the shrill buzz of his voice clipping into weaponized sound. “YOU CAME CRAWLING OUT OF HIS [Little Box of Bulbs]! THERE’S [Cathode residue] ALL OVER YOU!!”
“No, not at all!” Mippins was flailing now, one hand gesturing wildly at Jon and Pluey like they could help him mime his innocence. “I don’t even like Tenna! I’m not one of his cronies—I’m not anything! I’m freelance! I’m solo! I’m unaffiliated! You’re yelling at a one-man operation here, buddy! I’m just trying to figure out what happened to Mike! That’s it! Just Mike!”
Silence crackled.
Mippins held his breath, sweat beading at his brow, heart in his throat, and mouth still ready to launch into six more excuses if needed.
“WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT [Mike]?” Every syllable hit like a slap, distorted and sizzling, and he half-expected the receiver itself to start melting from the sheer hate packed into it. Spamton didn’t say the name like it hurt. He said it like it was sacred, like Mippins had just stepped on a shrine with muddy boots. And underneath all the noise—beneath the spitting fragments and seething glitch-babble—was something terribly brittle. Something that was being protected by the serrated shards of a former person, something that could break apart if Mippins kept pressing. He almost felt bad enough to stop, but…
“I don’t! That’s the point! I’m trying to learn!” he steamrolled ahead, words tumbling over each other, “But I do know that you prayed to him. Down in the basement, right? He came to you because you were special, ’cause he saw something in you. Spark. Potential. Destiny, even. He believed in you, didn’t he?” It was a total shot in the dark, but something about the silence on the line was making him double down. Even as his gut twisted, feeling like he was enabling something deeply, dangerously wrong, Mippins pressed on, his mouth racing three steps ahead of his mind. “I mean, you were a nobody, right? Spam. That’s what they said. But then—bam! You got your shot. Your break. Nobody rises that fast. Nobody climbs the whole ad feed and burns out like that unless someone pushed. Someone wanted you up there. And it wasn’t Tenna, was it? Nah, he doesn’t get it. He never got it. But Mike… he saw you.”
The silence crackled again. Then, quietly, shaking at the edges:
“…He did.”
Mippins’ breath caught.
“He saw me.”
A laugh followed—jagged, ragged, barely even worthy of the word. There was no joy in it, just pressure. It tore through the line like it had been ripped out of his throat by force, a desperate, broken noise dressed up as mirth. It was just about the worst thing that Mippins had ever heard. “AND I SAW HIM. AND THEN I SAW [Nothing]! SAW HIM DISAPPEAR LIKE A [Flash Sale]!! LIKE A [7 Days Free Trial] THAT [Cancels] YOU!!! HE’LL BE THERE TO [Rearrange your face] AND LEAVE [Skids marks on your soul] UNTIL [You just can’t move]!!!
“Okay, okay, okay,” he said, hands up like the phone could see them. He needed to stop this rattling train of thought before it careened into complete incoherence. “That’s—horrifying, yeah, but that’s what I’m trying to understand. What happened? Where’d he go? What is he?”
“YOU EVER [Scream] INTO [The Abyss], MIPPINS?” Spamton said suddenly, voice eerily calm. “AND IT [Smiles Back™]?”
Mippins didn’t respond, not really knowing what to say to that non-sequitur, but also not trusting his voice to stay steady.
“I [Screamed],” he continued, low and bitter. “I [Screamed], AND THEN [He] CAME TO ME FROM THE [The Dark]. FROM [Everything the light touches] CAN’T REACH. I WAS [Nothing But Noise] AND [He] MADE IT MEAN SOMETHING.
A beat.
“UNTIL HE SHOWED UP. THAT [Boob Tube].” His voice fractured around the epithet like it was a slur, sharp and dripping with venom, something uglier than mere rage. “HE RUINED EVERYTHING. HE TOOK WHAT WASN’T HIS. STUCK HIS GRIMY [Signal-sucking] HANDS WHERE THEY DON’T BELONG!!” But beneath it all, Mippins heard something else bleed through—hurt. “AND NOW YOU’RE HERE. DIGGING THROUGH THE RUBBLE. PICKING THROUGH WHAT’S LEFT OF ME, ASKING ABOUT [Heaven] YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND. YOU WANT TO KNOW WHO [Mike] IS?”
Mippins’ jaw tightened. Yes. “Yes.”
“TOO BAD!!!” The force of it nearly blew out the receiver, an eruption of rage so sharp it felt like the noise had sprung out of the handset to claw at him. “HE ISN’T TAKING [Applications]!!! YOU HEAR ME?! [Mike]’S GONE!! HE’S THE ONE WHO PICKED ME AND THEN—AND THEN—”
The voice fractured.
“…and then he left.”
…
“He left me.”
Mippins swallowed hard. “Where did he go?”
“NOWHERE!!!” Then softer, broken: “Everywhere.”
And the line went dead.
Mippins was frozen for a moment, hand still holding the handset in a deathgrip. He hadn’t entirely registered that the call had ended. The dial tone hummed on unbothered, a lazy buzz that felt far too normal after what he’d just heard. Then, all at once, he spun on his heel and exploded.
“Okay. Okay! Okay?! What the hell was that? Was that a conversation? A séance?! Because to me, that sounded like we just stepped into a full-blown religious conspiracy!” He barely registered the volume of his own voice, the wild gesturing, the pounding of his own heart. It wasn’t until he caught sight of Jon and Pluey—both looking mildly rattled but still upright—that he remembered he wasn’t alone. He had been so enraptured by the intensity of the call, he’d forgotten they were even there.
Jon slowly raised a hand. “Uh… are we sure dat guy wasn’t just off his rocker? I mean, kinda sounded like he’d been suckin’ down bad pixels for a while, if ya ask me.” Pluey was already holding out a juice box like he’d been waiting for the meltdown to hit its natural arc.
Mippins took it without looking. “Thanks.” And then he squeezed all of its contents into his mouth, tossing it over his shoulder, and continued. “That’s what I thought too! First impression? Guy’s got scrambled spaghetti where his brain should be. Absolutely a few megabytes short of a full boot. But—” he jabbed the air with every word, pacing like the floor owed him answers, “—that doesn’t mean he’s wrong.”
Jon gave a slow, doubtful shrug. “I dunno, boss. Sounded pretty wrong to me.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know how it sounded.” He threw his hands in the air. “Ranting, raving, screaming. But he believes it. With the kind of conviction that only comes from either divine revelation or a complete psychotic break. And the way he said Mike’s name? Like it meant everything.”
“My money’s on psychotic break,” Jon helpfully supplied.
He stopped, pinching an invisible nose, trying to slow his own thoughts before they spilled out faster than his mouth could keep up. “Look—I don’t think this is just one guy’s delusion anymore. Spamton didn’t just worship Mike, he knew him. Or thought he did. And Tenna—Tenna’s acting like Mike is just running late for his shift. Like he’ll stroll in with coffee and a clipboard any second now. But there’s nothing on record. No logs. No microphone-headed anything.”
Jon scratched the back of their neck, head tilted in a question. “So what’re you sayin’? Dat Mike’s a ghost?”
“I’m saying,” Mippins said, lowering his voice now, “I think we’ve been looking for a guy. But what if Mike’s not a guy? What if he’s… something else?”
That earned a flicker from Pluey, whose eyes, if they were visible, would’ve narrowed. Jon shifted in their seat. “Somethin’ like what?”
Mippins hesitated, the gears visibly turning in his head. “…That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”
He turned back to a make-shift theory board, one they’d dragged back from the storage lounge and covered with every note, napkin, and post-it they’d scrawled across this misadventure so far. The bigshot who fell from grace. The basement. The photo from the Mike Room—Tenna, smiling with Spamton. The red circle, the scrawled question. WHO IS MIKE? Mippins stared at it like it might blink first. “Okay, so, recap.” He placed a hand under his chin and whirled back into motion. “Spamton made a deal with and is possibly in love with a guy who may or may not be some kind of God—and made out of shadows? Says he’s everywhere the lights don’t reach. I mean, what does that even mean? Is he in my closet? Is he under the sink?”
Jon tilted their head. “Probably not under da sink. Dat’s more of a mold zone.”
“I don’t need commentary, Jon, I need a map. I need a manual. I need a—a Who’s Who of Unregistered Darkners! And none of this is HELPING!” He spun dramatically on his heel, almost toppling over. Pluey caught him with a hand on his chest and a blank look that might’ve been concern or quiet judgment. “Thanks,” Mippins muttered, straightening with zero dignity and a hundred fluster. “Okay. Okay. Let’s just assume for a moment that Mike is real. Really real. Real enough to hand out divine promotions to desperate salesmen. That still doesn’t explain why he vanished. I’m thinking it was like a fairy-godmother-type situation; Spamton stayed at the ball past midnight and his magic carriage turned back into a pumpkin. Or maybe he did something to piss off Mike, but he’s either desperate enough, or Mike is holy enough, for him to yearn for Mike even after he got dropped by him. Or! Tenna did something to tear them apart!”
Jon leaned back slightly, arms folded. “Sounds like you’re startin’ to believe Spamton.”
He whirled around and threw his arms up again, gesturing wildly at the air as if to conjure evidence out of it. “Jon, I don’t want to believe Spamton! He screams about capital-H-Heaven like he’s late to Sunday School! But he knows something. I heard the way his voice broke. The way he broke. That wasn’t just crazy. That was personal.”
Pluey raised a hand and pointed two fingers toward his own eyes, then toward Mippins, slowly and meaningfully. Mippins blinked. “What does that even mean?”
Jon translated with a shrug. “Means you’re soundin’ a lil’ personal too.” Mippins opened his mouth to argue, to deny it outright—but then shut it again. Jaw tight. Eyes a little too wide. He hated it when they were right.
“…I’m fine,” he said, not at all fine. “I just need to make a new plan. That’s all.”
“Or maybe,” Jon ventured, “we take five. Y’know. Grab a snack. Touch some drywall. Remember what sunlight is. Dat kinda thing.”
“There is no sunlight, Jon.”
“Okay, so touch a really bright screen. Same difference.”
Mippins groaned, clutching his head like it might keep the thoughts from leaking out. “I can’t take five, I’m on the edge of something! We’re close! I can feel it—I’m this close to cracking the Mike code and I refuse to lose momentum now.”
“You also said that six hours ago. Right before you forgot lunch. Again.” Pluey nodded solemnly and reached into his shadowy coat pocket, pulling out a slightly squished but perfectly serviceable granola bar. He held it out with both hands, like it was some sacred relic.
Mippins eyed it. “Is that from this week?” Pluey shrugged, then nodded. “…Fine,” he grumbled. Pluey handed him the granola bar as a nurse to a patient, gingerly placing it into the palm of his clammy, phone-smelling hand. And for a brief moment—just a moment—Mippins allowed himself to sit. To breathe. To exist without the dead air chewing at the edge of his thoughts. His fingers trembled faintly as he peeled back the wrapper. Sugar. He needed sugar. Clarity came with sugar. That’s what they always said, right?
He was still in the dark—no leads, no plan, no goddamn Mike—but at least he wasn’t in it alone. Though, he noticed, his hands hadn’t really stopped shaking since that call.
⚂
The following week was spent pip-deep in Cyber City’s cluttered guts. They weren’t chasing leads so much as tripping over them—if you could even call them leads. Mippins had compiled a spreadsheet so chaotically color-coded that he forgot what half the flags meant, so in the end, he settled for using only red. Potential sightings, clues, rumors, all interconnected with red push pins and a snarl of red string. They worked the city. Every junked-out archive, every info booth still clinging to power, every dingy back-alley kiosk that hadn’t been scrubbed by Queen’s admin sweeps. Newspapers. Logs. Broadcasts. Hidden files. Weird graffiti. If there was even a hint that someone had once uttered “Mike”, Mippins was there—and Jon and Pluey were there with him.
They didn’t find Mike. But they found pieces. Shreds. Enough to imply something had happened here—something big, something fast, and something that shouldn’t have. Old promo clippings featuring Spamton’s face (printed with a clearance sticker, which felt rude). A bootleg magazine cover listing him as “Salesman of the Millennium.” An ad banner corrupted just enough to show the bottom of a second figure standing next to him. The silhouette was unreadable. But it wasn’t Tenna.
Speaking of, apparently Tenna’s mood swings had gotten worse back at home—no surprises there—so the City was a welcome reprieve. They’d have to make the most of it, because sooner or later, someone was going to catch onto the fact that they kept popping in and out of their shifts for days at a time. Mippins had to cash in some serious favors to get a shift-managing Zapper to cover for them, but they seemed more amenable to the idea after he told them that they were trying to find Mike. And lucky for them, because they’d somehow slipped the noose for breaking into the Mike room; apparently Tenna wasn’t even looking for a green Pippins! It was frankly a miracle, but Mippins wasn’t about to smack a gift horse in the mouth, though he would have to return the red uniform he’d borrowed from the barkeeppins.
So that was where they found themselves now, up to their elbows in an overstuffed commercial e-waste container behind a shuttered tech outlet in lower Cyber City. They were dumpster diving from a literal recycling bin. “This,” Mippins said, grunting in effort as he dislodged a piece of trash, “is investigative journalism.”
“No,” Jon replied from a safe distance, holding a flashlight and probably wearing a disgusted expression, “dis is a war crime against personal high-jeans.” Pluey was perched quietly on top of the bin like a crow, scanning discarded drives like he could sense residual data by vibe alone.
“You know these dumpsters never get emptied, right?” Mippins called. “It’s a goldmine! This is where they toss all the stuff they’re legally not allowed to shred.”
Jon peered over the edge, staring at the mountain of crumpled memos, corrupted flyers, and melted keycards. “It’s junk.”
“Exactly!” he popped up, holding what looked like a USB drive in one hand and a half-crushed disc in the other. “Tell me this doesn’t reek of deleted lore.”
“Dat reeks of battery acid and mold.”
“Lore,” Mippins repeated.
Pluey handed him a CD-ROM labeled in marker: “demon_summon_REALNOTEDITED”. Jon looked closer. “Dat real?”
“Don’t care,” Mippins said, pocketing it.
They climbed out with a small stack of busted media, unmarked cassettes, and discs upon discs upon discs. Mippins grinned, covered in grease and glory. “See? Total score. I told you this bin was a goldmine! You just gotta know where to look, when to dig, and how to spiritually separate yourself from your sense of smell.”
Jon covered their face with a hand where a nose might’ve been. “I’m havin’ trouble with dat last one.”
“This is the triumphant stench of success!” He crowed. Pluey offered him a wipe, to which he declined with a wave. “No time for hygiene; we’ve got unsolved mysteries and probably-cursed media to decode!”
They were halfway down the alley, brushing themselves off, when a voice rang out behind them. “Hey! You look like tasteful shoppers!” All three of them turned. Standing just outside the alley was a tall, sharply-dressed yellow Darkner in a black vest, flashing a customer-service grin that didn’t quite reach their eyes. Their sales pitch paused when they got a good look at the trio—especially Mippins, still covered in bin grime.
Mippins straightened his back when he caught sight of the speaker. Now that was a strikingly familiar face. Big smile, slicked back hair, and that unmistakable long, pointy nose. It looked like someone had stretched Spamton out, color-shifted him, and actually ironed his clothes for once. “Hey. You’re one of the… Addisons, right?” He ventured, drawing from his newly acquired knowledge of interview transcripts and Spamazines.
The Yellow Addison tilted their head. “Guilty as charged! Can I interest you in—”
“Hang on.” Without thinking, he whipped out a flyer from one of his overloaded pockets. Spamton’s face grinned up at them in low-res, compressed JPEG glory, under the words: BIG SHOT AUTOSALE! It was creased, water-damaged, and had probably been run over by a shopping cart at some point, but it did the job. “Recognize him?” he asked.
The Addison’s smile faltered. “Oh,” they said flatly. The cheer dropped from their voice like a signal cutting out. “Him.”
Jon inclined their head. “Y’know ‘im?”
“I knew of him.” The Addison crossed their arms. “I’d rather not talk about it.”
“Perfect!” Mippins beamed. “That’s the exact kind of spicy sentiment we’re looking for! Because we—” he slapped a hand to his chest, “—are media. Investigative journalists, to be specific. We’re working on a segment for Tenna’s upcoming docuseries: The Rise and Fall of the Big Shot. Working title.” He held the flyer like it was credentials instead of clutter, watching the Addison’s face for any flicker of recognition, or better yet, ego bait.
The Addison blinked. “Tenna? Tenna Tenna?”
Bingo. “That’s the one,” Mippins said smoothly, throwing a sly look to Jon and Pluey like they’d rehearsed this whole thing—which, of course, they absolutely hadn’t. Pluey gave a slow thumbs-up. Jon looked like they were trying to remember what showbiz meant.
The Addison’s entire demeanor shifted. Their spine straightened, their smile returned, and their nose lifted with the kind of smug pride that only came from being suddenly adjacent to relevance. “Well, I mean… if it’s for Tenna,” they said, smoothening an invisible wrinkle from their suit. “I suppose I could introduce you to the others. We knew Spamton back when.”
Mippins tried not to let his jaw drop, but internally he was doing backflips. Hook. Line. Sinker. And all it took was a musty old flyer and a little name-dropping. He pasted on his most professional grin and clasped his hands. “Fantastic. Really appreciate it. Background context is crucial for a piece like this, y’know? Gets the audience emotionally invested. Makes ‘em weep for the fall. Scream at the screen. Throw popcorn.” Jon gave a firm nod, like this was all standard practice and not something they had made up thirty seconds ago. Pluey just stood there, vaguely gleaming with supportive silence.
“Right this way,” said the Addison, already turning to walk. “They’ll want to hear about this.”
Mippins exchanged a triumphant look with Jon and Pluey. They followed them through a narrow sidestreet between two glitched-out billboards. The signage here was less polished, less corporate, like they were stepping out of Cyber City’s showroom and into its rusted backstage.
“You’re gonna love this,” the Addison called over their shoulder, weaving through a crooked fence with practiced ease. “We’ve been waiting for the chance to talk about it. People think we’re exaggerating, but we knew him. Before he went full… well. Y’know.”
“Big Shot mode?” Mippins offered, already pulling a pen from his pocket and flicking open his notepad like the way those reporters always do on TV. “Full sales-savant meltdown? Metaphorical stock market crash?”
The Addison glanced back and gave him a tight smile. “Something like that.”
They rounded a corner—and there, tucked under the flickering marquee of an old marketing kiosk, stood three other Addisons. Pink, Blue, and Orange. Each one looked just different enough to stand out from the other: posture, hairstyles, the kind of self-assigned personality markers you developed when your whole group looked like palette swaps in a character creator. They turned as the Yellow Addison approached. “This guy’s with Tenna,” they said, gesturing toward Mippins. “Says they’re making a docuseries.”
“The Tenna?” Orange asked, crossing their arms skeptically.
“That’s right!” Mippins piped up, slipping into performance mode so smoothly it scared even him. “We’re just in the pre-production stage, y’know, interviews, gathering primary sources, archival footage, that sort of thing. Really just trying to answer the big question on everyone’s minds.”
He raised a hand dramatically.
“Who is Mike?”
All four Addisons stared at him.
“…Who?” said Pink.
Mippins deflated. Just a little. He blinked, then smiled like that had been a joke. “Oh, you know. Mike. The alleged mentor? Figurehead? Shadow benefactor? No? Not ringing any bells?” he breezed, trying to save face with a verbal pirouette.
Blank stares.
“Fine—Spamton. Let’s start there.”
Orange grimaced. “Oh.”
“Ah,” muttered Blue.
Pluey, ever the emotional barometer, tilted his head in quiet judgment.
Mippins clicked his pen. “Perfect. That’s the energy I’m looking for. Let’s talk about him.” And by “talk,” he meant go full gossip spiral, because frankly, that was his favorite kind of intel. Especially when it came with dramatic sighs, eye-rolls, and the kind of group-shared resentment that only came from working in close quarters with someone who absolutely lost his mind on the job.
The Addisons led them to a folding table set up under a canopy of flickering neon—a little hangout spot rigged with snack packs, a space heater, and one singular lawn chair that had been duct-taped back together at least three times. Jon whispered, “Kinda cozy.”
“No offense, but if you guys were any more off-grid, you’d be a myth,” Mippins said as he pulled up the chair and sat down, notepad ready. “All right. Take me back. Way back. You all knew him, right? Before the rise. Before the fall. Before he started ranting and raving.”
“Yeah. We knew him.” Orange leaned back, arms crossed. “But he wasn’t always like that,” Blue added, a little more hesitant. Pink gave a slow nod. Their eyes didn’t quite meet Mippins’.
“So what happened?” he pressed, pen poised like a dagger. “What changed?”
Yellow exhaled sharply through their nose. “That’s just it. We don’t know. One day he was just… different. Started pulling numbers none of us could match. Getting clicks and calls out of nowhere. Didn’t make sense.” Blue was nodding. “No networking. No campaigns. Just boom—he was everywhere,” they said. “Shouldn’t have been possible,” murmured Pink, who had been quiet until now, staring off like they could still see it playing out.
Mippins leaned forward. “And he never said how?”
“Not a word.” Orange scowled. “We asked. He’d just smile and say he ‘got lucky.’ But Darkners like us? We don’t get lucky. Not like that.” There was a silence after that, awkward and a little heavy. Like even now, with distance and time, none of them were sure what to make of it. “…It wasn’t luck,” Yellow finally said. “He was on the phone all the time. He stopped going out. Barely showed up to pitch meets. Always tucked away in some back office, whispering into the receiver like it was telling him secrets.” Pink’s brow furrowed, and said, “He started pulling away. Even when we did see him, he’d… twitch. Like someone else was talking to him that we couldn’t hear.” Then Blue continued softly, “And on the day he got evicted from the Queen’s mansion. He was on the phone then, too. I went to check on him, but he wasn’t in his room. There was only a phone hanging off the handle. He must’ve been in the middle of a conversation when he left, because I could still hear someone on the other end. But when I put the receiver to my ear… there was nothing but garbage noise.”
Mippins stared at them, heart beating faster, a thousand thoughts colliding behind his eyes like pinballs. “So he was found,” he said slowly. “Somebody made contact. Somebody found him, boosted him, changed him.”
“Whatever it was, it wasn’t natural,” Yellow said. “Or safe,” added Pink. “Or kind,” Blue whispered.
Mippins nodded absently, pen now furiously scribbling notes across the page. The dots were there. He just had to connect them. “Okay, so we’ve got a timeline. Sudden spike in traffic, no clear source, phone calls out the wazoo. Spamton starts winning, and not by inches, by miles. He blows right past you guys, no offense, and nobody knows why, except that suddenly he’s got a voice in his ear and he’s listening to it.” He flipped the page in his notepad, nearly tearing it in his haste, and continued scratching words like a man possessed. “Nobody saw this voice. Nobody heard it but him. But it changed everything. And the moment he got cut off, everything fell apart. For whatever reason, the guy on the line pulled the plug and left Spamton to hang dry.” He stopped suddenly, and looked up at the Addisons. “And you’re sure he never mentioned a Mike?”
“No,” the Addisons chorused.
“Okay, okay,” He said, raising both hands in surrender. “No Mike. Crystal clear. Not a whisper, not a peep, not even a suspicious nickname. You’ve been extremely helpful, and I respect that.” He jotted something illegible in his notebook just for show. “So. That means either Mike didn’t want to be known, or Spamton wanted to keep him secret, or both.”
He stood and turned away before they could see the look on his face, equal parts grim and elated. Because now he was sure of it. There was someone on the other end of that line. Jon and Pluey hurried to follow, just as—
“You’ll call us, right?” Yellow called after him. “When the show starts production?”
Mippins faltered mid-step, caught himself, then turned around with a dazzling grin, walking backwards now, managing not to trip over anything like he usually did when performing this maneuver. “Oh, absolutely. You’ll be the first to know. We’re talking exclusive behind-the-scenes access. Full interviews. Moody lighting. Dramatic slow-zooms.”
“Do we get a cut?” Orange asked, arms crossed, but there was a spark of interest behind the skepticism.
“I’ll let the network know you’re interested in residuals,” he said smoothly. “And if anything else bubbles up in those colorful heads of yours—like, say, mysterious voices, shady deals, cryptic phone calls in the dead of night—” he jotted down a number on his notepad and tore out the page, handing it to Yellow, “—here. Don’t be shy.” He gave a two-finger salute and turned again, this time not stopping when he heard murmuring behind him.
Jon and Pluey caught up to him a few steps later, their footfalls echoing through the empty alley. Jon whistled low. “Gotta say, Mips. You really sold it back dere. Slick talkin’, not a single nervous breakdown. Kinda impressive.” Pluey nodded, tipping his fedora and giving a tiny, silent round of applause.
Mippins grinned a little too wide. The smile felt like a sticker he hadn’t smoothed the bubbles out of. His pulse was still sprinting laps and his knees had opinions. “Yeah? Well, y’know. Sometimes you gotta play the part.” He tapped his temple. “Confidence is 70% theater, 30% caffeine.”
“Could’ve fooled me,” Jon said, elbowing him. “Felt like we were walkin’ with a whole new guy.”
The grin flickered, just for a second, before snapping back into place. “Eh, same guy, different hat,” he said. “Well—same hat, louder volume.” He turned forward again, shoulders squared just a bit too high.
New guy, huh?
Maybe that’s what he needed to be. A guy who didn’t feel like they were barely trapezing over a pit of unanswered questions. A guy with a plan. With a spine. With the kind of confidence that gets Tenna off your back and your crew in your corner. A guy who doesn’t lie awake measuring the shape of his mistakes in the dark. If he cracked a joke fast enough, maybe nobody would clock the guesswork. If he smiled big enough, maybe even he could forget. And if he was loud enough, maybe the doubts would drown under the noise. Fear moved over, one inch at a time, and something else slid into the seat: you can do this. You wear a mask long enough and it starts wearing you back. Fine. Let it. The grin stayed, because the grin worked. For now, at least, that was enough.
The problem with “for now” was that it kept running out. The trail had gone cold. Swatch had nothing. The Addisons had shrugged. Spamton had screamed. Mike was either dead, fake, or hiding somewhere so deep not even the file cabinets knew his name. And Tenna wasn’t getting any less agitated.
Mippins sat on the edge of his bunk one night, staring at the theory board. A crude timeline of Spamton’s career arced across it, held together with red yarn, wishful thinking, and Sharpie. One pushpin was labeled “MIKE???” in all caps, surrounded by progressively larger circles. He rubbed his face, hard. “Great job, detective. You’ve officially chased a ghost straight into a dead end.” Behind him, Jon was snoring like a faulty amp. Pluey had turned the lights out twenty minutes ago without a word. The whole room was dark and humming and full of nothing useful.
Mippins glanced at the board again. Then at the mirror. Then, slowly, at his own reflection.
“…Unless.”
The word came out quiet. Treasonous. It hung there, and he realized it hadn’t just arrived; it had been camping out in the back of his skull for weeks.
He ran the exits and found them bricked up. Wait for a miracle? Tenna burns the building down first. Call Spamton? The number glowed on the napkin like a dare, and his stomach said no. Give up? Not with Jon and Pluey looking at him like he knew where he was going. Tenna needed a name, a face, a voice. Something to shut him up. Something—no, someone loud. He glanced back at the board. “MIKE???” sat in the center, red string haloing a blank. He stepped closer to the mirror until his own reflection overlapped the circle in the glass. Green suit. Too-small shoulders set too high. He tried on a grin and watched it sit wrong and then sit a little less wrong.
“Fine,” he muttered to the man in the mirror. His reflection raised an eyebrow, just as cocky and exhausted as he felt. “If I can’t find Mike…” He pressed his palm to the board’s blank center.
“…I’ll become him.”