By the time I made it back to the job board, it wasn't just a board anymore; it was an out-and-out brawl. A whole mob of toons had beaten me there, elbowing and hollering at one another. Birds squawked and flapped in mid-air, their beaks fighting over slips of paper. Land mammals wrestled each other, pulling limbs, tails, even hair to get ahead and grab any job they could manage.

At one point, someone’s hat landed on my head.

Too bad. I don’t wear bowlers.

I tossed it back in the fray, then jumped in myself, running along a few heads on purpose instead of sinking into the scrap. As I skittered, I pulled off a glove and stuck my sticky hand onto a promising piece of paper.

And then I hightailed it out of there, around a far corner, and off to the side where I could look at the job slip I had grabbed in detail.

═════════ ✦ ✦ ✦ ═════════

GIG ACQUIRED: SPLATTER GIRL

Skill Category Required: N/A (No Category Necessary)

Specific Skill Required: N/A (No Specific Skill Necessary)

Rank Required: N/A (All Ranks Accepted)

Location: Soundstage 5

SPP: Day Rate (Female)

Employer: MMP — Studio Management

Description: Clean up ink after toon takes on set.

Status: IN PROGRESS

System Says: Somebody's gotta mop up after the magic, Sally!

═════════ ✦ ✦ ✦ ═════════

Well, at least I grabbed one that I could do.

But clean-up crew?

“Haaaa…” I exhaled sullenly as I put my glove back on. “How inglamorous.”

“Maybe it’ll be a breeze,” Mr. Narrator said hopefully. “Most toons know to keep their ink inside ‘em.”

“Here’s to hopin’,” I agreed, snapping the paper taut between both hands.

Soundstage 5 looked like a noir murder scene. Blots of ink were everywhere: the floor, the walls, the model pirate ship under the hot lights; a good gallon of it had splattered clear across the painted backdrop of an open ocean.

The perpetrator himself was still at the scene of the crime, wrapped up in a rough robe with his name on it.

Octavius Octopus.

He stood off to one side, critically eyeing the mess he made.

“Are you sure we shouldn’t do it again?” he burbled to the duck-billed director nearby, wriggling four of his eight arms. “I could wrap myself around the ship and squeeze it to splinters.”

“Nothing doing, nothing doing! That’s a whole day easy, resetting a stage at this rate. Your performance pays scale; don’t push for overtime!”

The octopus sighed, shrugged in a continuous wave for a moment, then slid off, trailing more black squiggles behind him.

Most toons know to keep their ink inside ‘em, huh, Mr. Narrator?”

“Well, there’s always exceptions to the rule,” he replied with a strained chuckle.

As the duck director carefully waddled around the stains and out the exit, a stout beaver in suspenders and a foreman's cap came trotting over to me.

“You the new splatter girl?” he asked, thumping his tail. Before I could answer, he waved his hand, saying, “Good, good. C'mon, supplies are back this way.”

I followed him into a cramped little closet stacked floor-to-ceiling with bottles, tins, and boxes. “Everything you need is right here,” he added, waving a paw at the shelves.

Yet not one of the supplies was labeled.

"Now hold on," I said, catching a whiff of a strong solvent. "How am I supposed to know what's what?"

"Easy fix!" He plucked a box down from a shelf, uncapped a fountain pen from nowhere, and scribbled “Delux Soap Flakes” in a swooping, looping cursive across the front of it. As soon as he finished, the box began to glow with an angelic hum.

“What just happened?” I asked, blinking.

"Ladies, gentlemen—and Sally—you’ve just witnessed the modern miracle of Prop Labeling!" Mr. Narrator boomed in a tone of self-assured importance. “An Intermediate-level Active Skill of the GAGs persuasion, it's guaranteed to spare discerning toons everywhere from ever again settling for an inferior product!"

Trying to sell me soap? Aren't you supposed to draw me in, not knock me flat?

“Just having a little fun,” he said more casually. “Since you asked what happened, I figured you can’t see the skills sliding out his sleeve. But I can.”

Well, fancy that!

“Splatter girl?” the beaver asked, waving his hand in front of my face. “Anyone home?”

I flinched and shook my head. “Yeah, I just never saw such a sublime skill, that’s all.”

“I know what you’re thinking,” he replied, giving me a tough look. “But no, I can’t turn water into wine, on account of it being prohibited.”

Prohibition? Is that still in play here?

You’d think they’d learned their lesson as they did back home.

“I wasn’t gonna ask anything like that,” I said, my eyes darting away with the lie.

“Sure, sure—so feel free to get scrubbing, Ms. Salamander.”

He watched me work for a good while, arms crossed, his head nodding along with the rhythm of my mop. Thankfully, most of the ink came right up under the mix of soap and water I used. There was one stubborn black smear, however, seeming to have found its way deep into the hardwood floor. I swear I could hear it laughing off every bit of elbow grease I threw at it.

“Pppbbbbttt!”

It formed a mouth just to blow a raspberry at me!

“I’m gonna rub ya out, see, rub you out!” I shouted, smothering the face with the mop once more.

When I lifted the mop, it was gone.

“That’s right, stain!”

Then I looked close at the dark and dingy mop head.

The ink leaped straight at me from it, splashing across me and the same patch of floor.

“Plech! Yeeuch!” I sputtered, wiping ink off my face. “Real funny, ya little—”

“Fine job, Splatter Girl, fine job,” the beaver said without a hint of sarcasm. “I’ll leave you to it, then.” He gave one last approving nod, then whistled between his buck teeth while wandering off, almost as if he was making sure I didn’t have any witnesses.

I looked down hard at the ink blot, which was doing its best to seep into the cracks of the floor while still staining it.

“Oh, don’t think you’re getting off that easy,” I muttered. “I’ll wash ya real good.”

As soon as my boss was out of sight, I went back to the supply closet. I grabbed one of the glass bottles and tried my own take, writing Ammonia in careful cursive.

Unfortunately, nothing glowed, and the bottle was still filled with water, same as always.

Mr. Narrator cleared his throat. “I’d think you’d need the card for it, Sally.”

“Can’t blame a girl for trying,” I replied. “But I was so sure I smelled it earlier…”

I wiped the label clean, feeling a little foolish, when a tickle entered my snout.

Something sharp hit both nostrils once I sniffed again.

═════════ ✦ ✦ ✦ ═════════

SKILL UNLOCKED: KEEN SNIFFER [BASIC]

Category: STUNT

Description: Enhanced ability to detect faint or hidden scents, even ones you wish you hadn't found.

System Says: "A nose for trouble, if there ever was one."

═════════ ✦ ✦ ✦ ═════════

The appearance of the new card just reaffirmed my suspicions.

“There it is again! Ammonia!”

“Ammonia? But Sally, that’s also prohibited here—”

“Maybe it don’t know that!”

I started rooting around in the closet, the smell getting even more pungent. “But why would it be prohibited, anyways? It’s a Grade A cleaning agent. Why, I remember using it to... oh....”

Wash cels.

“Whatcha lookin' for?”

I nearly jumped out of my skin. The foreman had come back, watching me from under his downward-tipped cap.

“Oh! Just, uh… tryin' to find somethin' for that last stain. Somethin' with a real kick to it?”

“Like what?”

I decided to tell the truth. “Uh… Ammonia, maybe?”

All the color drained clean out of his face. “Transfer, I’m warning you. We don't have that here,” he said, his voice wound tight.

“But I can smell it. Right about here. So uh, I won’t say nothing, if you don’t say nothing—”

Instead of agreeing or disagreeing, he just turned and started hollering for security. Within three heartbeats, Mack the Security Dog appeared in the doorframe, as if he had been waiting just outside the threshold this time.

But instead of throwing me to the dog—the foreman pointed to the supply closet. “My new splatter girl smells something wrong in here.”

Mack rolled one suspicious eye at me, then took a big snort of air himself, freezing at the end of the inhale.

“Ohh….” he said as he let it out. “Oh no…”

Then he shook his head and marched forward to the supply closet. With an absent, one-armed shove, he moved me out of the way like I was a dolly on wheels. He gave the front shelves a good sniff, then another, and then started pulling all the supplies out in waves. Then he reached back with his suddenly incredibly long arm and pulled out a tiny bow tie.

As Mack turned to present it to the foreman, the beaver slowly pulled off his cap. “Re-imagined…” he said with a long sigh. “Mrs. Mouse’s been asking about him for weeks, but at least now we have confirmation.”

Mack held the tiny bow with both hands. “I’ll deliver it to her, Benson. I know what it’s like to say goodbye to your other half.”

Benson nodded, putting back on his cap. “Say a little something on my behalf for good’ol Melvin—may he be the shining star he was always meant to be.”

Mack nodded and tucked the bowtie away with great care as Benson watched. They both nodded solemnly to each other before breaking their huddle.

“Let’s look at the stain together, Sally,” Benson said quietly. “If we go at it from both sides, I think we can give it a run for its money.”

“Er, alright,” I said, following him back to the set.

The stain formed an eye the moment we stepped on stage, then flinched. It swirled and whirled into a newly formed drain in the middle of the floor, as if it knew now wasn’t the time for shenanigans.

Mr. Narrator hadn't said a word since the bowtie. When he finally spoke, there wasn't a trace of newsreel bravado left in his voice. “I don't rightly know what to make of all this, Sally. Something about it just sits wrong with me, and yet, I couldn't tell you why.”

I didn't have anything rightly clever to say back either.

“Good job today,” Benson murmured as a receipt floated down from the ceiling. He caught it and handed it to me after glancing over it once. “And a little extra for your troubles.”

═════════ ✦ ✦ ✦ ═════════

MIRACLE IN MOTION PICTURES

PAYROLL RECEIPT — CARBON COPY

═════════ ✦ ✦ ✦ ═════════

Employee: S. Salamander

Gig: Splatter Girl, Soundstage 5

Status: COMPLETE

Rate: Day Rate, Female, Rank 0: 6 SPP

Completion Bonus: 4 SPP

Deductions: None

TOTAL SPP EARNED: 10

System Says: Every ending's just an intermission, Sally. Chin up!

═════════ ✦ ✦ ✦ ═════════

Just an intermission?

“We'll end today a little early,” Benson Beaver added, putting a hand on my shoulder.

Feeling a little raw from my own recent dance with death, I could only nod along to keep from raising a fuss. “Thanks for the kindness, boss. I certainly won’t forget it.”