Krik let the dramatic pause linger long enough for everyone to appreciate the magnitude of the insult she had suffered.

No one reacted.

So she wiped away another imaginary tear and headed for the table, where a glossy pack of multicolored sticky notes lay waiting.

“And that was only the warm-up,” she warned, casting Skriksi a sly glance. “You forced me to use Plan B.”

“I’m already afraid to ask.”

“All this time, my arsenal has contained a far more advanced instrument for unlocking creative potential.”

Krik peeled off the first note and sent it sailing toward the mirror with a practiced flick.

The bright square landed squarely over one of Skriksi’s reflected eyes.

“From now on, every note will be a neural marker on our map of adventure! We’ll create a psychovisual anomaly right here in the apartment.”

“We’ll create a reason to lose the security deposit.”

Krai lay on the sofa, hugging the pillow she had rescued from the bed. She had almost managed to disengage from the situation entirely when a pink sticky note settled on her forehead.

Krai slowly opened one eye.

“Just look, Skriks!” Krik exclaimed. “Now Krai looks like an alien emo.”

“I preferred nonexistence,” Krai said.

“Nonexistence photographs badly.”

Krik stuck another note to her own forearm and studied the effect.

“I need the emblem of a wandering philosopher.”

“That’s the price sticker from the salad container,” Skriksi observed.

“All the more profound.”

Krik reached for the notebook.

“Now we’ll give these dull notes the scent of adventure.”

Skriksi covered the pages with her palm.

“Don’t even think about it.”

Krik had already opened her mouth to defend creative freedom against repressive control when her attention abruptly shifted to the new shoes by the door.

The pack of sticky notes immediately lost all value and slipped from her hands. Colored squares scattered across the floor.

Krik went to the shoes and, with professional concentration, pulled them on.

“Now these feet are ready to dance at the opening of our sticky-note exhibition.”

She took a few experimental steps.

“They require musical accompaniment.”

Skriksi looked at the book, the notebook, the scattered salad, and the sticky note still covering half her reflection.

“No.”

Krik raised one finger.

“System, play the Synaptic Boom playlist.”

“Krik.”

“Music mode: Cyberviolence.”

The first bass hit struck the apartment so hard that a glass on the kitchen table began a slow crawl toward the edge.

Krik flung her arms up.

“Shut down your prefrontal cortex, Skriks! Time to give the limbic system a reason to party!”

She spun on her heels and nearly crashed into the shelving unit.

“Let’s rattle our axons into microtrauma!”

“I have no idea whether that qualifies as a medical threat,” Krai said.

Krik was no longer listening.

She moved through the middle of the room as though personally leading an uprising against coordination. Her shoes hammered out the rhythm, her hands traced invisible diagrams in the air, and the sticky note on her forearm fluttered like the banner of a creative revolution.

Skriksi tried to keep reading.

For several seconds, she even managed to look at the same line.

Then the bass traveled through the floor, climbed her legs, and set her fingers tapping against the book cover.

She put the notebook aside.

“Just one track.”

Krik let out a victorious shout.

A moment later, Skriksi was bouncing to the beat, trying to dance while preserving what little remained of her dignity.

“Oh my God, Krik! I can feel my neurotransmitters syncing with the bass!”

“See?”

Skriksi turned toward the sofa.

“Krai, don’t be such an amygdala. Relax! We’re all on the same dendrite!”

Krai pressed the pillow more tightly against her ears.

“Sorry. I left my synapses in another, quieter brain.”

“You’re not even trying.”

“I’m trying to protect my eardrums from high-frequency optimism.”

Filkis, who had been observing from a safe distance, flinched at the next bass hit.

His front paws slid apart.

The cat quickly recovered his balance and looked around to see whether anyone had noticed.

Everyone had.

Skriksi stopped.

Krik stopped dancing too.

Filkis regarded them with the calm expression of a creature that had no intention of explaining its movements to representatives of a less advanced civilization.

“I think the music has turned his spinal cord into a random-command generator,” Skriksi said.

Filkis slowly turned away.

Then he jumped onto the shelf.

On it stood a mug, a small syntek figurine, two spools of wire, and a container of fasteners.

Filkis looked at the mug.

He looked at Skriksi.

Then he carefully pushed the mug over the edge.

It landed on the sofa and miraculously did not break.

“Filkis,” Skriksi warned.

The cat shifted his gaze to the figurine.

“Don’t even think about it.”

The figurine went over next.

Krik planted her hands on her hips.

“Apparently, someone else’s disaster is the only tune his limbic system likes to dance to.”

Filkis turned his attention to a spool of wire.

“We’ll have to introduce a little discipline into this biochemical carnival!”

Krik lunged for the shelf.

Filkis still managed to knock down the container. Metal pieces scattered across the floor, adding fresh percussion to the music.

Krik caught the cat around the middle.

Filkis stretched out his paws and looked at Skriksi as though she were the final court of appeal capable of preventing a miscarriage of justice.

“His potential will be temporarily isolated until entropy subsides,” Krik announced.

“Krik, he’s just a cat.”

“That’s what people always say before civilizations collapse.”

She carried Filkis toward the bathroom.

The cat began to squirm, clawing at the air.

Krai lowered the pillow from her face for a moment.

“Given recent events, I’d put my money on the cat.”

Krik opened the bathroom door, carefully placed Filkis inside, and managed to shut it before he could turn around.

An indignant meow came from the other side.

Krik leaned back against the door.

“Order has reasserted its dominance.”

Skriksi picked the syntek figurine up from the floor and inspected it.

“My deepest apologies to the esteemed professor of couch studies. We never meant to underestimate his dissertation, ‘The Deconstruction of Domestic Anarchy.’”

A muffled thud came from the bathroom.

Then another.

“He’s filing an appeal,” Krai said.

The music kept thundering.

Sticky notes covered the floor. The book remained open to its first page. The salad was slowly wilting beside the refrigerator. A lonely piece of cucumber still waited for someone to acknowledge its existence.

Skriksi stood in the middle of the apartment, surrounded by the consequences of the morning, and felt an almost perfect balance between creative euphoria and domestic catastrophe.

Then one small, unpleasant thought appeared in her mind.

She tried to ignore it.

The thought returned.

Skriksi stopped moving.

“Wait.”

Krik kept tapping her foot to the beat.

“What?”

“I think we forgot something.”

Krai disappeared beneath the pillow again.

“I vote that we don’t remember.”

Skriksi looked at the notebook.

At the phone.

At the front door.

At Krik’s shoes.

Then, slowly, at the clock.

The music was still playing, but now it seemed to be coming from a neighboring reality.

“System, what time is it?”

The home system lowered the volume.

“Your workday began forty-three minutes ago.”

The room went silent.

Even Filkis stopped protesting.

Skriksi kept staring at the clock as though the device had just betrayed her personally.

Krai was the first to break the silence.

“I warned you the morning would try to destroy us.”

Krik adjusted the sticky note on her forearm.

“At least we’re practically ready to open the exhibition.”

Skriksi spun toward the bathroom.

“I need to wash my face.”

An immediate, accusatory response came from behind the closed door:

“Meow.”