Wow, that was a neat trick! It's closer related to bowling, anyway, I see where you're going with it.

[ Bill thinks about it. Catbug's so eager to assist, it's hard not to want to find a way he can. ] I bet it'd glow a different colour under a blacklight!

Lemme see! [ Bill floats forward, peering down into the bag after Catbug removes his head, then chuckles, pulling a little penny from somewhere and dropping it in. Listening patiently for the splash, endlessly satisfied when he gets one. ] Nice one, Toebeans.

Alright, alright, let's get serious about Mission Formal Neckwear, shall we? If you've got weaponry, we're set to party. There might be a crystal lifeform in there, [ A backward thumbjab toward the main 'storage area' of this dimension, where there are sure to be batteries, lightbulbs, the napkin of turin, and an entire pristine collection of Slammer Jammer 90s pogs, mint in pack. ] Exponentially multiplying itself all over my stuff. So if you gotta, you should hit it with the mallet.

Go get em, killer!

...Huh. [ This kid's worth an entire cadre of henchmaniacs. ...Says more about the henchmaniacs, actually. But still. ] Guess I better back him up, huh. [ Bill draws back the 'sleeve' of his arm, revealing just bone and no muscle underneath it, cartoony as hell, and then floats on after Catbug mildly. ] You're doing great!

[ The crystal lifeforms initially circle the wagons around the batteries and pogs, but after a few persuasive thwacks, ebb backwards to cover a bookcase that serves as a wall in the nebulous herespace, flickering all sorts of colors in disco irritation. ] That's fine, I don't do a whole lot of reading in here.

Couldn't have done it better myself. [ Bill picks up a box, opening it up and peering inside. The bottom has several batteries, including that old jar thing from Baghdad that conspiracy theorists on the internet say is also a battery. Bill picks that up, looks at it, and then chucks it to one side with a fun bottle crashing noise. ]

I hope not. Can't stand sledgehammer narrative where it's obvious what the writer wants, when what he needs is to decant his big feelings somewhere private.

[ Bill hands down a fistful of batteries. ] Here, can you see if any of these fit?

[ Here's a paradox: is the place still considered total chaos if there's an order that Bill and Catbug can interpret to find things?

That hollering from the light switching makes Bill crack up helplessly for several seconds, it's great. Five stars. ]

Great! I feel like... [ Bill thinks back. ] Cigarette Smoking Man? Did that guy not have a name? Wow. That show got weird.

Alright, Special Agent Mulder, let's see if we can find this tie-needle in the carpet haystack. The last thing we want to do is resort to having to clean up.

Ha, exactly! They should remake that show, but as a mockumentary, more like the Blair Witch or War of the Worlds, you know? Or an ARG! You like ARGs? I love those.

Not since the Incident?

Pirate cat! Swashbug.

Yeah! The people who don't pay enough attention think it's real, like stage magic.

[ Bill ruffles Catbug's head between his ears. ] Alright, Nugget. We mostly got the stains out though. Maybe we should burn that rug.

Do you know 'squiffy'? Means you're walking funny. Pirate talk is great. And 'hornswaggle' means you cheat somebody!

[ He's a good little creature, Bill's exceedingly fond. ] Yeah we do. Oh, hey, speaking of rugs. I got this neat trick I can do where I can look through things that look like me? And rugs are one of the best things to do that with. Nobody really looks at what a rug looks like, it just blends into the background, you know?

Smart money's on --

Wait, what? No? Should I be seeing them?

Interesting. I should look into that more. Where'd you hear about nanites? Beth's dad?

Mostly I call it magic. [ Bill offers: ] Imagine if the whole universe was really just one thing. A blob. You can pick out bits of it, but they can't be separated for real! Blobjectivism. Division is an illusion, a hologram you imagine, to make sense of things. Really there's no time, no space, no people, no stars, no light or dark.

I found out that I was really good at being birch trees, for example. I can treat them like eyes, because they look like my eye, and I can see through them. Tuning in to the Blob.

It's okay if you don't get it, it's hard to explain. You kinda have to feel it.