His mood changed when he saw the table of analysts glaring at him for keeping them waiting. “I was on the phone. Any of you who can beat me arm wrestling, feel free to complain. Otherwise, stow it, and let’s get going.”

“Arm wrestling, no. Sudoku, yes,” said Liora.

“Beautiful. That will come in handy when we have an enemy we can defeat only with brute puzzle power.”

Liora rolled her eyes. “Leave it to you to miss my subtle way of saying that while you may be stronger than me, I am much, much smarter.”

Dafna nodded. “He missed it because, despite his being stronger than you, you truly are much, much smarter.”

“You’re smart, huh? How about I show you my Trivia Crack record?”

“Oh good,” Dafna said. “It’s 2015 again.”

“And apparently he’s 13,” Liora added.

“You’re never going to win with these two,” Nicole said to him. “Just admit defeat and move on.”

Nir pointed to the two younger women. “This is not a defeat; it’s an armistice for the sake of time. Now, I gave you guys a task. For almost a year we’ve been calling this room team headquarters, which is boring even for a mental Neanderthal like me. I asked you to come up with a new name that’s catchy and fits what we’re doing here. So what is its new name?”

Once again, a drum roll sounded on the table. Then Dafna pressed the remote, and Nir read the name.

“Carl?”

Four of the analysts yelled “Carl!” while Nicole just smiled and shook her head.

“What does it even mean, and why are you yelling it that weird way?” Nir asked, but the analysts just kept calling out the name.

“I think it has something to do with The Walking Dead,” Nicole said. “It’s a TV show. You’d like it. A lot of people die…and un-die.”

“But that’s shtuyot bamitz.”

“Okay, you lost me on that one. Something about juice?”

Dafna explained. “It means ‘nonsense in juice.’ It means something is total nonsense. Which Carl is not.”

“But why is it in juice?”

“Who knows? That’s just the expression,” Nir said. “It makes as much sense as this stupid name.”

“You told us to come up with a name, and we did,” Liora said.

“Is it an acronym?”

“Nope. It’s just Carl,” she answered, causing Dafna, Lahav, and Yossi to break into calls of “Carl!” again.

Looking across to Nicole, Nir said, “What were you saying about burnout?”

Nicole winked at him, then said, “Okay, everybody, rein it in. The boss has a point. It is a bit obscure. So let’s spell it in all caps so everyone will think it actually means something and they’ll be frustrated when we don’t tell them what it is.”

Cheers of “Esh” and “Sababa” sounded all around.