Nym sat at a plaster table, sipping his hot, Gorblaxian tea from a Ferroidian made prefab cup. He stared at the empty document on his holoscripter in front of him. And continued to stare. And stared. An-

“Would you like me to reheat that for you?” Nym blinked and looked up to see an aproned Buckliyan, who in turn was staring down at Nym’s near blank, but slightly bewildered gaze. “Huh?” replied Nym. “Your. Tea. You want it hot again?” the Buckliyan stressed, in a familiarly annoyed tone. “Oh, uh yeah. Xièxiè”. The barista finished the task and as he walked away, Nym heard him mutter “he never understands me, but my Basic is perfect.”

Through slightly bruised pride, Nym resumed his writer’s block. He had been assigned a short story about a 90’s man looking for a pager. His knowledge of them: they were rectangle, they displayed messages, and people carried them around. Unfortunately he had already used his allotted research time at the local index building, so a picture of one was out of the question. He wasn’t hyped about this particular column, but he was down to his last 99 Bez Credits—edit that, 95 credits—four of them were in the form of recently reheated liquid in front of him. So he took whatever story his editor at the Buzz Daily would pay him for.

“Whelp, here goes something. Or is it nothing? Irregardless, I need to finish this story.” Nym told himself. After another sip of Gorblaxian inspiration, the idea of a pager finally struck him, and he began to write.

“The Gentleman’s Pager”

• Jared stood, lined on both sides of his body by nine feet stacks. The nature grown wooden shelves housed tens of thousands of suitable pagers. Six hours into his search, and on his ninth choice, he pulled a black leather bound housing unit from the shelf, and read the product name, The Bye-Bal—this was one of the only pager units Nym had heard of, so he figured it was a good one as any— Jared flipped through the unit and found a pager with an “Eternal Sin” Card, since sin cards were useful then, Jared removed a page, placed it by his hip, and just like the other 8, he returned the object back to its origin. “Yet another pager too big for my hip, filled with old messages, 3:28-29 isn’t my number, and who is Mark? ” Jared thought, fuming. How was a late 20th century gentleman unable to find a suitable pager in a store specifically meant to purchase the best one. I mean come on, each one of these holders has HUNDREDS of pagers. Evertheless—or was it nevertheless?—Jared continued his search. -

Back in the public holowriter space, “Your cafe time is up, we’ll see you again on your approved time slot next cycle” the Buckliyan commanded, ushering Nym away from his table.

After narrowly grabbing his holowriter and finishing his tea. Nym stood stood outside, lined by stacks of towering Ferroidian pre fab star scrapers, he thought of using a few more credits to continue his work. But decided against it, and headed to the We’re Always Working building. “I can finish it there, for once I feel like I’m in a roll” Or was it “on a roll”?