“O o o yes the normal event parameters do not apply I see—”

“ROCK IT MADAME initiate this magnificence—”

And she does.

Purple smoke floods the plateau.

The fireworks start going off in all sorts of directions up above like a kind of air war and they are all pink and purple too and then the lanterns go dark as Rex trips the cutout, which means that the green clothes we are wearing all become remarkably hard to see.

All around, invisible, Saul has been dropping little doodads the size of croissants and all of these right now start hissing and letting off something Doc makes in a cauldron that she claims is an alembic but clearly that is a lie.

Ten seconds later people start to choke.

“OH BANJO THIS IS NOT GOOD AT ALL—”

“Trust me Madame Director you’re gonna love it.”

But I don’t honestly think she will.

—

People are choking and now they are scared and they are looking at me and I am smiling. The smoke is harmless but Doc’s brew is just a tiny bit caustic and right away everyone is assuming that the smoke is the issue because you can see it. In fact the gas is not going to do anything worse than give you a sore throat most especially on an open plateau but that doesn’t matter. The security team does not know that so they will go with their existing protocol and they will put on their gas masks. That is going to look absolutely motherfucking terrifying to the guests and they will assume it is either a terror attack or part of Banjo Telemark’s amazing art and that will make them considerably less biddable. Half of them will want to get the fuck out and half of them will want to find the best place to sit or test the limits of the scenario because: assholes. So someone will make nasty and get smacked down and the other guests will see that and that will take the whole is it a game or is it real thing up a notch and that will happen more and more as three more events occur, which are that they will stop coughing because there’s basically nothing wrong with the smoke, and then the next round of fireworks will start and then finally the security guys will start to fall over unconscious because—

“Charlie you can say it now.”

“I can really?”

“Yes Charlie but only once. Here have a microphone it will be really loud.”

Charlie says:

“I am root!”

But the sound system makes it loud enough to cause avalanches. Plural. It sounds like a jet landing.

“I AM ROOOOOOT!”

And she is. She is indeed.