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Experience a membership that backs what you're building with American Express Business Platinum. Get 2 times Membership Rewards points per dollar on eligible purchases in key business categories, as well as on each eligible purchase of $5,000 or more on up to $2 million in eligible purchases per calendar year. American Express Business Platinum there's nothing like it. Terms apply. Learn more@americanexpress.com Business Platinum have you ever wondered why songs on the radio are popular? Why do certain movies get made even though the premise seems completely random? Why are concert tickets costing you $3,000 but nobody makes any money touring? Well, on my podcast Breaking down the Biz, we answer all those questions and more. I'm Seth Schachner. I have over two decades of experience in the entertainment and the music industry, and every week I talk to insiders that lend insight and expertise on the media you know and love past, present and future. Subscribe now on your favorite podcasting platform or watch us on YouTube so you never miss a beat. Let's make sense of this industry together. Hi, I'm Will, and it's story time. Every culture has stories about how gods created us. Epic myths developed and honed over millennia, passed down through generations, all told in service of understanding our world in the 21st century. We don't need those stories. We have science to explain and answer the big questions. But just because we don't need them doesn't mean they aren't important. What if nobody told the gods that humans don't really need them right now? If nobody believes in them or even remembers them? Do the gods even exist? Did they ever? And what does a God do anyway, when even their fellow immortals notice they are beginning to fade? The answer to all of these questions is deceptively simple. In fact, it is drawn on a Phoenix tile. Phoenix tile by Gwan Un, originally published in Correo magazine, issue 2.1 I take one more look at the mirror and check the angle of my pocket square. The suit looks good, but then it always does. One of the few perks I have left. One more admiring look before I pull the image from the mirror, ball it up, and put it in my pocket. I don't need Mira following me where I'm going. I light a cigarette in front of the no Smoking sign as the elevator begins to judder upwards. The smoke unravels towards the fire alarm in the ceiling, but with a finger, I beckon it back down. All I have to do is make everyone believe. Just for one night, I say to the smoke, and it follows my finger and curls around it before fading away. The elevator rings and I walk through, right into June, Lou's second least friendly bouncer. He glances at me, standing in front of the double doors that I need to get through. He's about two times my body weight, with more muscle than he knows what to do with, so I smile back, always smile, like they're the ones with something to lose. Not quite sure if he remembers last time, but let's just say he certainly isn't going to be giving me a red packet anytime soon. Bro, you expected? I spread my hands like, do you even need to ask? And I try to step past, but he steps in front of me. Nah, bro, he says. Well, June, I tried the easy way. Let the record show. His brow furrows while he tries to parse the individual syllables, and I lean in with my hands open like, no harm here, just a word in your ear. I whisper three syllables and his face goes slack, his eyes looking out at a constant nothing, his hands lower. I'm down to two coins in my pocket, but that doesn't matter for now. I leave June and push open the double doors like a dealer cutting cards. Inside, the sound of yum cha hits me like a slap. Shouts and laughter, tears and cooks, curses, waitresses announcing their cart's contents, calls from the tables, children crying and grandparents stories and others too, golf stories and career advice and restaurant suggestions, news of in laws and gossip about outcasts, all overlapping, each one louder again than the next. So they leap over the noise for a moment like a wave and then fall, become part of the sonic ocean, swelling out across the restaurant, across the white tablecloths and lazy Susans, across the bamboo steamers of food and tanks of fresh lobsters. It feels like home, albeit one from which I've been forbidden. Mostly not so welcome is the smell, flaky pastries and pork buns, steamed prawn dumplings and delicate tossed greens, a delight to the nose but a warning note to my stomach, reminding me how little I've had to subsist on recently. I hum the karaoke song looping on the screen, where a girl in a yellow swimsuit roller skates down a boardwalk and I trail a waitress pushing a cart through the maze of tables so Lou doesn't see me until I'm right there. Lou is sitting there with the usual hangers on, who take all their fashion cues from Chow yun fat and 90s movies and and laugh at his bad jokes. He's sitting there in a Hawaiian shirt with buttons that stretch around his stomach, a mess of gold chains around his neck and a beard as patchy as his hygiene. Lou is gossip. He exists on it and thrives on it, and in turn it feeds him. Here at the center of this world in Chinatown. He's not a God exactly, so much as what a God would be if they didn't bother to advertise. And as for me, well, I'm not quite on his level. But I also haven't quite faded yet. Ah, Locke. What you want? How did you get in? Lu says and peers at me through a pair of ill fitting stuff smudged glasses. I hear the hubbub fading out around me and I sense the muscle tensing around the room, the hangers on, reaching inside their jackets. I hold up my hands and smile, a smile like people are actually glad to see me, just everyone's uncle with a magic trick. Lou, you're too jumpy. I got in the same way everyone else did. I'm just here for a trade. He glares at me, mistrust brewing in his eyes like water in an old teapot. No trouble, he says at last. No trouble, I say. That one is a lie, but it's the kind that is half true. I won't be trouble for him, not if everything goes according to plan. Searching, he says. One of his goons pats me down while I grin and bear it. The goon spills the contents of my pockets on the table. What's there is nondescript. A transit card, three, no, two small jade coins with square holes, some string, my mirror image like a balled up piece of paper, a faded mahjong tile, the small bird perched on a bamboo stem, and a crumpled pack of cigarettes. It's not nothing for sure, but I don't much like thinking about how close it is. And a box, coffin black, the size that might hold a ring. The goon goes to open the box and I yank it out of his reach. I wouldn't do that. Did an auntie ever tell you not to poke around other people's boxes? I say. The goon is still trying to puzzle out the double entendre when Lou waves him away. Then Lou notices the tile. I put my hand over it too late. The bird on it has been half scratched off, the green and red flaked away. You can only work out what it is, what it was once. You stare for a while, looking faded, huh? How long you got? I do my best to smile. I have long enough. I'm an excellent liar, but this is not a good one. It doesn't start anywhere close to the truth and ends up running in the other direction. I slip the tile and my things back into my pocket and leave the box on the table between us. Lou sighs, gives me the same look you'd give to a crab the waiter is offering to cook. I know I'll regret, but hospitality is still hospitality. Sekma. Come eat. I try not to show how eager I am. The lackeys at the table move away and I sit with Lou and the mountain of food, as hungry as I am. I wait for Lou to choose a dumpling and then I take it before he can. I'm hungry but not stupid. It would be too easy for Lou to poison me here and leave me languishing in a back room until I fade. The truth is, I've got so close to the edge where I won't matter anymore and I'll come off the tiles. So what you want, Alok? I need safe passage, Lou. He begins to giggle enough that he begins to cough and a lackey has to come and thump his back. You going to try one more time, Alok? Why not just accept it, huh? It's probably not so bad. On the screen, a man and a woman spin on a deserted city street, fake excitement on their faces like they're in a 50s Hollywood musical because I'm not done yet. How could I deprive everyone of looking at this face so soon? I say. He swallows down a pork bun, Adam's apple bouncing. What do you want to trade for? I nod down at the box. His eyes narrow. What is? He asks, but his voice is low and I know I've got him. See, Lou is greed as well as gossip, and he can't resist the idea of there being one more thing, one more thing he can't have. What do you think? What's the one thing you want that would fit inside a box that size? He glances at me, his eyes bulging so hard that they almost collide with his glasses. Cannot be. You got it. My grin is sharp as a surgeon's knife. You know I have ways. He reaches out, but I put my hand over it. I need passage. He nods, and one of the lackeys puts a paper pawn ticket on the table bearing the number 44. Just my luck. I take it, nod my thanks, and toss the box up into the air so high it almost touches the ceiling. Lou flails up from his chair and almost falls backwards. He completely fails to catch it, so it drops under the table. He shoves aside the lackeys who try to dive under and get it for him, realizes he won't fit either, and shouts at the lackeys to get it for him. After all, that's what I imagine anyway. By this time, I'm down the elevator and far away. Far enough away that I also have to imagine the look on his face when he opens the box and finds it empty. This is how it happened. Your standard deck of cards, for example, has never just been cards. It's a system of belief. You do card tricks to sustain an illusion in something beyond understanding. You play poker to sustain a belief that skill will carry you through a future that is parceled out one card at a time. You play cards long enough, and tarot cards emerge. A material belief that a deck of cards can divine the inner workings of the world. Where we're from, we have Mahjong 144 white tiles, each the size of a matchbox. As with cards, they have suits, circles, numbers, and my favorite, bamboo. But they also have the special winds, flowers and dragons. Those tiles aren't a history, they're a reference point to reality. In the past, we had tiles for heaven, earth and Harmony, but nobody believes in any of those anymore, so those tiles are gone. Now we have Lou, the Green Dragon of greed and Gossip. Like a stock market indicator, the tiles tell you how you're doing. If, like me, you exist in between. In between humanity and the cosmic tycoons. If reality were a casino, I would be neither the boss nor the ordinary people who come in by the dozen. I'd be a croupier or a dealer, someone who can shift the odds a little in my favor. If nobody important is looking. I'm a demigod, if you want to use the crude name for it. Things fall my way. I have friends in low places and IOUs in high places. I'm the smoke, but not the mirrors. I'm the smile that tips the scales, the person you meet once who you've known your whole life. Except. Except. Judging by the way I'm fading from the tiles, my time is coming up soon. No one's noticed me for too long. My existential stock is dropping, and the tycoons may decide they no longer need my services unless I can fix it by the end of the night with one more deal. I'm really excited that Quints is sticking with its story time. If you've seen me on your television, probably figured out that my uniform is a black T shirt, black jeans, and Converse. I'm very predictable in what I wear. Ann, my wife, is far more stylish and put together. I love the clothing from Quint's so much that when it was time to buy Ann some clothing for the holidays, I went to Quint's and got her cardigans and T shirts. And I can tell you that it did not cost what I thought any of it would. Here in Southern California, winter is really on its way out. So I walked outside this morning and realized it's spring and it is time for your spring wardrobe staples. And this is where Quince shows up to take care of you. Think 100% European linen shorts and shirts from $34 Clean 100% Pima cotton tees with a softness that has to be felt. Quince works directly with ethical factories and cuts out the middlemen, so you're getting premium materials without the markup. Refresh your everyday with luxury you'll actually use. Head to quince.com storytime for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. You get to have this thing for a year and if you're like, you know what? It's day 364 and I've decided I really don't like it, send it back and Quince will be like, I got you, Boo. Now available in Canada. Hi Canada. I love you. Elbows up. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com storytime. The train smells of fast food and body sweat, the carriage empty apart from me. I drop into a seat and Mira appears in the reflection of the window. Locke, what are you up to? You can never look at Mira head on, only out of the corner of your eye in the window's reflection. I can see her next to me, but if you looked at the seat itself, you'd see nothing. Mira is the daughter of the White Dragon. She is images and mirrors, and because every cell phone and computer has a camera, Mira looks out from them, as many as she can, always watching, always a little distracted. Mira, I say, choosing the smile I save for problems. To what do I owe the honor? When I glance at her, she's outfitted in a golden halter top and tight leather pants, but it won't last long. She is dressed in something new each time. I glance away and look again. Different hair, different makeup, different outfit. It used to be a thrill. Now it gives me a headache, a gut sensation that reality is unraveling in a way I can't profit from. People are talking, Locke. People are discussing. Not many photos. Her voice has an echo of feedback, a ringing loop that gives the words a rough edge. But people are talking they say you conned Lou out of passage. I made a deal, that's all, I snap. I tell myself that it's just this one night, that I wouldn't have done it if circumstances didn't demand. But the only person I've never been great at lying to is myself. What are you going to do? Is it true that you're fading? She asks, circling around me in the reflection, this time in a backless purple cocktail dress, her lithe arms raised in matching glow. The problem with giving her an answer is I need to let everyone know I'm coming, but without signaling how bad things have gotten. I need Mira, but I don't need her to know that. Well, between you and me, Mirra, the tile is a little faded. I need to make this run at passage, but maybe you could keep it between you and me. For old time's sake. Remember? The harbor steps. I smile my second most winning smile. For old times sake. Her eyes widen. She bares her teeth. She rounds on me in the reflection, her blouse fiery red, so angry that she forgets to change clothing for two blinks. What I remember is that you had eyes for everyone else. What I remember is that you cared about being seen with me, not being with me. For old times sake. She's shouting now, in a voice only I can hear, the feedback screeching like a wounded beast under her voice. I'm going to tell everyone you're coming and how close you are to the edge. I'm going to tell them the wonder boy Alok dies tonight, and I'm going to take a thousand photos of the place you die and tag them. Good riddance. With a sound like shuffled mahjong tiles, the train clatters into a dark tunnel that shudders out the reflections. Mira is gone. She doesn't reappear. Now Mira will spread the word out of spite, and I can sneak in through the chaos, my natural element. If I had the time, I'd almost feel bad about it. I get out at Central and walk the couple of streets to Chinatown. Outside, dusk is pushing its way through the cordon of clouds. Day shops are beginning to clatter their security doors down, and restaurants are beginning to light up, signs advertising Hong Kong Special and Famous Chinese Cake. In between are the neutral zones, the stores of endless souvenirs and knickknacks that are at once too strange for tourists and too kitschy for locals. The vaguely named business centers. The less impressive these places look, the more power that resides in them. I light up a smoke and signal it to mask my face just as I pass two more goons, no doubt looking out for me after Mira's call. The smoke obeys, but there's a pause before it does. I take the tile from my pocket to confirm, and sure enough, the bird is almost completely gone. Now just the bamboo underneath is visible and one claw holding on for dear life. I make one stop on my way to the pawn shop, which is in an alley off Chinatown's main mall. Its sign declares in gold SI WONG HAO de. The English underneath it translates to Death so fine. Usually that kind of humor is a comfort, but right now it feels a little on the nose. I push open the door and the motion sensor beeps its warning in a pitch that makes you want to leave the shop. Smell doesn't help either. Vintage dust, decaying plastic, and burning incense. Somewhere an air conditioner chugs like a tired dog. Around me are shelves reaching up and up, filled with the detritus of the 90s, outdated technology, GPS systems, cathode ray TVs, computers that aren't old enough to be valuable or new enough to do anything useful. The shop doesn't so much move with the times as it does 20 years behind them, a time capsule of obsolete items that are past their heyday. In 10 years time it will be full of chunky video game consoles and mobile phones with actual buttons, and Yin will still be here, presiding over it all. As I walk through to the back, I can't help glancing at the door on the right, half hidden behind tubs of pink cleaning fluid with its handwritten out of order sign written in English and Mandarin. Straight ahead of me is the glass counter, and behind the counter is Yin. Yin is a small woman made to look smaller by her voluminous red hiking parka, two sizes too big. Her haircut is terrible, an off shape feathered pixie cut that somehow looks essentially the same, yet slightly worse every time. She nods to me, glancing up from the small TV on the counter, playing the same soap opera on a loop. Her eyes glint despite the tv. Yin doesn't miss a thing. In or out of her store, Yin is a passage keeper, one of four, and lets just say she's the only one of them who still tolerates me. You making trouble? Yin says. I smile, all innocence, doing my best not to. Auntie. She snorts. Ha. I know what I hear. What you need. I thought you might like a present, Auntie. I proffer a white cardboard box bought with the second last of my coins. Her eyebrows rise. Custard tarts. Fresh. All for You, I say. I put the box on the counter and lay the ticket from Lou on top of it. I have passage, Auntie. Could you open it, please? She looks down at the box of custard tarts again, then back to me. You may not come back. You want to spend the last of your life in there? I'm not sure I have a choice, Auntie, if I want to live much longer. She snorts again. We always have choices. Me, I choose custard tarts every time. Yin takes the piece of paper, puts it to one side and opens the box to check the tarts. Then she bashes a key to open the beaten cash register with a bing, puts the paper into the register's drawer and tilts her head toward the door at the side while she pulls the first golden custard tart from the package and takes a loud bite. I open the door and what's behind it is not a bathroom but the impossibly wide street of a city that doesn't exist. I look back at Yin, knowing this is the last time she might see me, and half wonder if she has any parting words. Bye bye, she says, each word enunciated, and her eyes are back on her soap opera, watching the artificial lives playing out on the small screen. On the other side of the door. The sunlight hits my face. There is a cycle to the time here that I've never been able to work out. It doesn't seem to correspond to any earthly time zone from the look of it. It's late morning. Grass lines the wide paved boulevard on either side. A Chinese ceremonial arch rises above me. A group of elderly men bicker politely yet loudly on one side. On the other a group of teens is practicing the latest dance meme, and they hold up mobile phones when I appear. The hall is up ahead. When I glance back, the door is already fading from view. See, Chinatown has always been a stage show, a place to gather and a place to be seen gathering, a place to offer a version of ourselves that's fit for polite company, the takeaway box version of the ethnic experience. And if Chinatown is the stage show, then this place is offstage, some sort of collaborative illusion of the best parts of our memories and realities. It's peaceful and agreed upon, quiet place where the gods can sort out their business, so you can probably tell how they feel about me coming to mess all that up. East's goons meet me halfway down the boulevard, walking five across, strutting like the part in an action movie after someone says suit up. The one in the lead looks familiar. His hair looks like he spent a lot of time and used a lot of moose to recreate a style called bedhead. As they approach, I raise my hands and when they're close I lean in to say something, but Bed Head backpedals and scowls. No a lock. None of your whispering here. We've been warned. Rude. And here I was about to offer you boys some cigarettes, I say in my normal voice, proffering the pack. The four look at Bedhead, who eyes me up and down, but even here he can't resist the offer of a free smoke. Bed Head leans forward and selects one and I pass the pack around. They're already off balance, hearing that I was coming in ready to raise hell and being confronted with the opposite. And that's good. Off balance is where I like to keep people. Here's what I'm thinking, gentlemen. I don't have a weapon on me and I'm guessing you guys are packing. Am I right? What have we got? The one on the left pulls his jacket open to show the black pistol at his waist, almost sheepish, a child showing off a toy until Bedhead gives him a look and he lets the jacket fall back into place. Guns work here. They won't kill a God or even someone like me, but they will slow me down. And healing from bullet wounds is not on my list of things I'd like to do before I cease to exist. Me, I'm unarmed, I figure. You escort me inside and shoot me if I try anything, right? Tell your boss you captured the golden boy and shut him down. I raise my hands and turn slowly so they can see there isn't anything on me big enough to spoil the lines of my suit. No tricks, Bedhead says. No tricks, I say, and really, if he believes that, it's on him. Bedhead clamps down on the cigarette in his mouth, then nods to the others. They form around me in an escort and I wink at Bedhead as he lets me move past him. As I pass, he punches me hard in the small of the back. The pain burrows inside me and I drop to one knee. Get up. That's for last time. I stand, wondering if I've misjudged, if more is coming, but he seems to have got it out of his system, and I try to remember what I did to him last time. When I do remember, I realize I probably did deserve it. They march me to the Eastern Pagoda. Inside there's the hundred beatles, sound of 40 mahjong games going on simultaneously. Cousins, aunties, uncles glance up at me as I come in. There's a change to the tone of the chatter, a rise in volume and tone, people talking louder to try to cover the fact that they're watching me or starting to film me with their phones. And not just me. They're watching to see what east will do to me. East is seated at the table in the center, a wall of mah Jong tiles and a pile of chips arrayed in front of him. He's a big guy, broad shouldered, wearing a tailored pinstripe suit almost as nice as mine, silk shirt and a thin black tie. His eyes are the color of wood before it burns. He nods at the plastic chair opposite and signals to the guards to wait outside. Hey, wait. I toss the cigarette pack to Bedhead. He catches it and glances at east, unsure whether to accept, but east just waves him out. Come sit. You want tea? He gestures and two blue and white cups appear alongside a white teapot, steam threading from its spout like a stray thought. He pours. I tap the table, two fingers to the side of my cup, a sign of respect. About as much respect as I have left. He takes his cup, pauses to peer at me over it, and sighs. Alok, what are you doing? Everybody's been talking. A lot of chatter about how you're going to come up here. I take the cup and sip. It's bole. The rich, earthy flavor swirls in my mouth. No matter how much I don't want it to, it still tastes like hope. But there's something else that he's added to the mix. Something new. Is this new, Uncle? I'm not sure I've had this one before. He ignores the question like I'm trying to distract him from the conversation, which is especially rude because I am. Why do you think this is all about you? It's the way of things, the rise and fall. Sometimes you must decrease, Sigma. I take another sip and give him a look. Easy for him to say. For as long as I've been around, he's been one of the four winds. Each one, North, south, east, and west, takes a turn once a year to run things here. The others have been replaced one by one in their internal power struggles, but east has remained. Sometimes we must withdraw, like the flower that hides from the winter season. We need to be still and look beyond our feelings to what is greater and more substantial. Look to the lesson inside rather than lashing out in anger. He says, like a long ass fortune cookie. I go to say something, but he raises a finger and keeps talking Sometimes the wisdom says we need to flow like water, let the trouble pass by us like the mountain stream, and I lose focus and tune out for a little bit as he rambles on. When his mouth stops moving, I speak. That's all well and good, uncle, but I have places to be. I know, I know, he says. Everyone is saying that you are going to come at me with something. You have some plan to put yourself back on the tile. What you going to fight here? You know you cannot win. He puts his teacup down and gestures, and that's when the poison in the tea takes hold. The guards from outside come in behind me. My body is as still as terracotta. It takes everything in me to roll my eyeballs at him. So what was it, young Lock? What was your plan? How are you going to win at the game this time? I choke in a breath and put everything I have into two words. Already won. He blinks at me, perplexed, and gestures again, releasing me, my throat, my mouth. I slump back in my seat and haul in a ragged breath. My tile was fading. I needed everyone to talk, to believe in me again. And now they are. Everyone's wondering, wondering what I'm going to say to you. Everyone's watching. Everyone's be leaving. Around us the activity of the mahjong games has slowed. Phones are out, people are whispering to each other. This will travel through the gossip network faster than an anime meme. He stares at me, perplexed. Then why play this game, Lock? I smile, a genuine smile. Because the game's more fun when I play according to my own rules. East frowns and folds his arms. He doesn't like that answer. But you also know I can't let you leave. Otherwise everyone will do the same, will come here and cause a ruckus when they start to fade. I have to teach you a lesson, he says, and he raises his fingers again, but this time I'm ready for it. I move faster than east and pull at the smoke, all the smoke from the boys smoking my cigarettes, and I yank it inside and pull it open to expand into the hall like a gas grenade. As the last coin disappears from my pocket. It's like being inside a storm cloud. The smoke is everywhere. East doubles over in a coughing fit. The guards eyes water and nobody sees as I roll from my seat and run low through the door. On the way out I almost bump into Bedhead who is gawping at his cigarette and the thread of smoke streaming horizontally towards the door. Here, hold this, I say, and I take the balled up mirror image and toss it. The image hits him in the face and splashes, rippling down over him. A moment later, his face distorts his suit smooths out into a facsimile of mine, and then the mirror image sticks for a few crucial minutes at least. He looks like me, the lucky bastard. Looking good, I say before I run. He's looking down at himself, wondering what's just happened, when the guards from inside emerge from the smoky hall like bees from a beehive and grab at him. The door opens long enough for me to stagger back through the passage. Yin doesn't look up, so she can honestly say that she didn't see me leave, and I make it back to Central and the safety of the train. As the train gathers speed, I glance back over the roofs at Chinatown and its false facades and communal hope. I take the tile from my pocket and turn it over in my hand. On the face of the tile there's a picture of a bird on bamboo, but the bird is on fire, a phoenix staring back out, beginning to raise its wings, and if you tilt it one way and then the other, it glitters just like gold. Gwan Un is an Australian Chinese writer based in Sydney. His work has been featured on Levar Burton Reads, nominated for the Aurealis award, included in Year's Best Fantasy Volume 2, and translated into Estonian. He has been published in many places, including Strange Horizons, Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, and is forthcoming in Reactor. He lives with his family, a dog named after a tiger, and too many things that have keyboards. You can find him@thisisguan, bsguy social or guanun.com it's time for me to say the thing I keep forgetting to say. If this is your first time here, thank you. Welcome. I very much hope that you will come back. If you have been here before. Thank you. Thanks for coming back. Would you consider liking, rating and reviewing us wherever you get your podcasts? It is the best way for us to grow. It is the best way for us to reach audience that I cannot reach on my own. You are helping me and you're helping authors and you're promoting the arts and I would be ever so grateful if you could like and subscribe, rate and review. Tell everyone you know until they say please stop telling us about the podcast we have finally subscribed to. So I read this thing where a girl in college said, you know, I listen to a podcast is like a huge red flag. And like I get it because most podcasts are dudes being awful. There needs to be a different name for what we do. I don't know what it is, but I see people when I'm like, oh, I do a podcast and they look at me like, oh, are you one of those guys? No, no. I narrate audiobooks and I tell you short stories. If you would like to experience that without ads and if you would like to experience it with a whole bunch of behind the scenes stuff, conversations between me and the director, original scripts, chats with the authors, ama's with me about my career and what we're doing here. You can find all of that at our Patreon. We start at 5 bucks a month and it is at patreon.com storytime. It's Storytime with Will Wilson Wheaton was produced in 2026 by Traveler Enterprises Incorporated, who holds the copyright. Our producer is Harris Lane. Our story producer and director is Gabrielle Dacre. Our content editor is Michael Thomas. The podcast is edited, mixed and mastered by Alex Barton of Phase Shift av. Special thanks to Wes Stevens and Christopher Black. Recorded at Skyboat Media right here in the beautiful San Fernando Valley, home of the Valley Relics Museum and more Baskin Robbins ice cream parlors than you can shake a cone at. Thanks so much for listening. That's all for.