Ace 19 — Act I: House Lights
San Francisco didn’t look like it was hiding anything. It never did.
The fog rolled in with practiced timing, softening edges, turning straight lines into suggestions. Neon bled into damp asphalt. Somewhere uphill, a cable car rang its bell like punctuation nobody asked for. The city wore irony the way other places wore weather.
The theater sat exactly where Bright’s briefing said it would: not hidden, not guarded, not ashamed. An old marquee buzzed and flickered, letters rearranged into tonight’s promise.
LAUGH WITH PURPOSE
Shammy tilted her head, reading the air. “That sentence already annoys me.”
Ace stopped at the curb. The building pressed back at her—not with pressure, not with threat, but with expectation. As if the place assumed she’d play her part once she crossed the threshold.
Mai didn’t look up from her tablet. “Permit is clean. Renovation fund is a shell charity. Attendance is public. Nobody missing. Nobody hurt.”
A pause.
“Which,” she added, “means something’s wrong.”
They went in with the crowd.
Inside, the theater smelled of old wood, dust, and something faintly sweet—like burned sugar or applause that had gone stale. Velvet seats. Gold-leaf balconies dulled by time. The kind of place where ghosts didn’t haunt because they never bothered to leave.
People filed in smiling. Not euphoric. Not vacant. Just… aligned. They nodded at one another like members of a private joke that hadn’t reached the punchline yet.
Ace noticed the timing first. The way laughter rippled a fraction too cleanly. Not delayed. Not rushed. Optimized.
They took seats mid-row. Good sightlines. Bad escape routes.
House lights dimmed.
A single spotlight cut the dust above the stage. The curtain rose without music, without fanfare.
The man who stepped into the light did not look impressive.
No robes. No symbols. No theatrical scars. Just a tailored jacket, open collar, hands empty and visible. His smile was relaxed—confident, but not hungry.
“Good evening,” he said.
The room leaned forward.
“I’m glad you’re here. You chose correctly.”
Polite laughter.
Ace felt it then—not Violet, not resonance, not anything deep. Just a small, wrong hitch in causality. As if the laughter had been invited before the joke existed.
The man gestured gently, like a host welcoming friends into his living room.
“Some people think humor is about surprise,” he continued. “Others think it’s about pain. Timing. Transgression.”
He smiled wider.
“They’re all wrong.”
The audience laughed again. Louder. Warmer.
Mai’s eyes narrowed. She wasn’t looking at him anymore—she was looking at the room. Mapping reactions. Counting breaths.
Shammy leaned back, legs awkwardly folded in a space built for smaller bodies. “He’s not funny,” she whispered. “He’s… efficient.”
On stage, the man’s gaze drifted—briefly, casually—over the crowd.
It paused.
Just a hair too long.
Right on Ace.
His smile didn’t change. But something behind it adjusted, like a lens finding focus.
“Ah,” he said lightly. “We have professionals tonight.”
A ripple went through the room. Curious murmurs. Friendly interest.
Ace didn’t move.
She didn’t blink.
She didn’t laugh.
The man clasped his hands. “Don’t worry. We’re all here to enjoy ourselves.”
The spotlight brightened.
“And enjoyment,” he said, “is a system.”
Somewhere in the dark, someone laughed a beat too late.
The theater breathed in as one.
And for the first time that evening, Ace was certain of two things:
This man was an anomalia. And he had no idea what humor actually was.
The show had begun.
The applause wasn’t thunder. It was tidy.
Hands met hands with the same rhythm, the same duration, like the room had rehearsed what “appreciation” should sound like. Ace watched palms flash in the dim light and wondered, briefly, whether anyone here had ever clapped because they couldn’t help it.
On stage, the man soaked it in like sunlight. Not greedily. Not desperately. Just… as if it was his due.
“Thank you,” he said, and the clapping softened immediately—obediently—without him raising his voice. “Now. Before we continue, I want to do something rare.”
He pointed into the crowd. Not accusing. Not singling out. Just including.
“I want to meet you.”
A murmur ran through the seats. People smiled at one another as if this was the best possible surprise.
Mai’s shoulders lowered a millimeter, tension shifting into calculation. She leaned closer to Ace without looking at her.
“Classic engagement trap,” she murmured. “He wants proximity.”
Shammy’s eyes glinted, the blue in them catching the spotlight spill. “He wants the room to move,” she added. “Air’s tightening. Like a lid.”
The man on stage spread his arms. “Stand. If you’d like. Stretch. Breathe. Feel how alive you are.”
And the audience stood.
Not all at once—but close enough that it made Ace’s skin prickle. Rows unfolding like a single organism, rising in polite waves. The aisles filled. The theater became a gentle, shifting mass of bodies.
Ace stayed seated.
Mai stayed seated.
Shammy stayed seated—mostly because if she stood in that row, the person behind her would lose the ability to see the stage for the rest of their natural life.
The man’s gaze skimmed again, finding the three of them with unsettling ease.
“Oh,” he said, amused. “Look at that.”
Laughter.
“Resistance,” he continued warmly, “is a kind of devotion. It means you’re paying attention.”
Mai’s mouth twitched, the smallest hint of a smile that never reached her eyes. “He’s labeling dissent as engagement.”
Ace’s fingers rested on her knees, still as carved stone. Her katanas were not with her—by design. Foundation protocol for public spaces. Harder to explain twin emerald blades in a historic theater without turning the evening into an international incident.
Mai had her disruptor pistol, broken down into innocuous parts. A “camera battery” in one pocket. A “phone case” that was not a phone case. The kind of lie she wore comfortably.
Shammy—Shammy was the lie that didn’t fit any pocket.
On stage, the man stepped toward the edge, the spotlight following him like devotion.
“I can tell,” he said, “that some of you are here because you’re curious. Some because you’re lonely. Some because you’re tired of pretending you’re not frightened of the world.”
People nodded. A few laughed again, softly, as if embarrassed to be recognized.
“And some,” he added, voice gentle, “because you’ve been sent.”
The word landed like a pebble dropped into a still pond.
Ace felt it—tiny, clean—like a hook behind the ribs. Not pain. Not compulsion. Just invitation with teeth.
Mai’s eyes sharpened. She didn’t flinch, but her focus locked into the man’s pupils like crosshairs.
Shammy’s aura shifted. The air near their row changed density—subtle, a storm holding its breath.
The man smiled.
“I won’t embarrass you,” he said. “Not yet.”
Laughter again. Bigger. The audience loved it.
Ace did not.
The man’s hands opened, palms up. “Let’s make this simple. I have a rule.”
He paused, savoring the silence.
“If you laugh,” he said, “you’re consenting to the conversation.”
A ripple of delighted gasps ran through the theater, like he’d just explained a magic trick.
Mai whispered, almost without moving her lips: “That’s not humor. That’s a contract.”
Ace’s gaze stayed fixed on the man’s face. She watched the micro-movements—how the smile didn’t fade even when the room’s reactions lagged. How he compensated, adjusting timing like a conductor.
On stage, he pointed casually toward the balcony.
“Someone up there,” he said, “is thinking: This is manipulative.”
Laughter.
“They’re right,” he admitted cheerfully. “But so is advertising. So is politics. So is a first date. The world runs on gentle coercion. I just prefer honesty.”
More laughter. Applause, neat again.
Then his finger tilted—downward, toward the center rows.
“And someone here,” he continued, voice almost fond, “is thinking: If I don’t laugh, I don’t belong.”
A woman near the aisle flushed and gave a small, nervous chuckle.
The man snapped his fingers.
The house lights brightened.
It wasn’t a dramatic flood—just enough to reveal faces. Just enough to make people aware of being seen.
“Perfect,” he said. “Now we can begin properly.”
Mai’s tablet buzzed once. A tiny vibration against her thigh.
A text-only line appeared on her screen—no sender ID, no timestamp. Just a sentence, typed like it had been waiting.
HE IS USING LAUGHTER AS ACCESS CONTROL. DO NOT LAUGH.
Mai didn’t show it. She didn’t need to.
Ace had already made her decision.
Shammy, however, looked up toward the ceiling, eyes unfocusing like she was listening to something above human hearing.
“There,” Shammy whispered. “In the rafters.”
Ace’s gaze flicked, fast enough most people would miss it.
High above the stage, in the dim architecture of beams and cables, something moved—just a suggestion of motion against shadow. Not a person. Not an animal. Not a prop.
A shape that didn’t fully commit to being seen.
Mai’s voice stayed calm. “Animalia residue?”
Shammy’s lips parted in a grin that was absolutely not appropriate for a theater full of civilians. “No.”
She inhaled, tasting the air.
“That’s him,” she said. “He’s… everywhere. He’s wearing the building like a joke.”
On stage, the man spread his arms again, delighted.
“Tonight,” he announced, “we do something special. We do community.”
The audience cheered.
“And community,” he said, “requires volunteers.”
His gaze settled on Shammy—towering, obvious, impossible to ignore.
“Oh,” he said, voice bright with genuine pleasure. “And we have a masterpiece in the room.”
Shammy raised a hand politely, like she was in class.
“Yes?” she called out, sweet as poison.
The man laughed.
The audience laughed with him.
And Shammy—without even thinking—gave a single, sharp laugh back.
Not because he was funny.
Because the audacity was.
Mai’s head snapped toward her.
Ace went still.
On stage, the man’s smile sharpened for the first time.
“Ah,” he said softly, almost reverent. “Consent.”
The spotlight shifted.
It locked onto Shammy like a collar.
The room held its breath.
And somewhere high in the rafters, the shadow-shape twitched—excited.
Mai leaned in, voice icy and controlled. “Shammy.”
Shammy blinked once, then grinned wider.
“…Oops?”
The man on stage clasped his hands.
“Wonderful,” he said. “Our first conversation begins.”
He gestured toward the aisle.
“Come up.”
Shammy began to stand.
And the air around her—around all of them—tightened, like the theater itself didn’t want to let go.
Shammy rose like a weather front deciding it had done enough pretending to be polite.
The row behind them collectively inhaled as her height unfolded into the light—195 centimeters of “this room was not built for me” and I’m going to be in it anyway. A few people smiled like they’d just been handed the evening’s main attraction.
Ace didn’t move.
Mai did.
Not outwardly—no dramatic reach, no “stop” gesture—but her hand slid to her pocket, fingers finding the harmless-looking “phone case” that was anything but. The broken-down disruptor components were ready, nested in their lies.
On stage, the leader watched Shammy with the open delight of a showman who’d spotted a rare instrument.
“Take your time,” he called. “We’re all friends here.”
The audience laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because they’d been trained that this was the part where you laugh.
Shammy stepped into the aisle.
The spotlight followed her perfectly. Too perfectly. It didn’t wobble like a human-operated beam. It glided, smooth as thought.
Mai’s eyes tracked it. “It’s not a light,” she whispered. “It’s a lock.”
Ace’s gaze stayed on the man, but her peripheral vision measured distances: aisle width, rows, exits, crowd density. Physical geometry. A battlefield dressed as velvet.
Shammy turned her head slightly as she walked, her expression still bright—still teasing—but now there was a knife-edge under it.
“Hey,” she called up to the stage, voice carrying. “Just so we’re clear. I laughed because you have the confidence of a man who’s never been punched by reality.”
A ripple ran through the room. Some people laughed at that—real laughter, surprised and involuntary.
The leader’s smile held.
But something in his eyes tightened, like a program receiving unexpected input.
“I adore honesty,” he said. “See? We already have rapport.”
Shammy reached the front. She paused at the foot of the stage, looking up.
The theater felt different down here. The air was denser. Warmer. Like the room was exhaling directly into her face.
She put a hand on the edge of the stage.
The wood shivered.
Not visibly. Not theatrically.
Just enough for Shammy to feel it through her palm—like touching the flank of a living animal.
Behind her, the audience was quiet now, waiting. Hungry in that cheerful, well-fed way.
Mai leaned toward Ace, whispering without looking at her. “If we pull her back, we escalate. If she goes up, he gets a tighter grip.”
Ace’s voice was barely more than breath. “He wants separation.”
Shammy lifted her boot to the stage.
The spotlight intensified.
The leader’s voice softened. “Welcome.”
And somewhere above, in the rafters, the shadow-shape made a sound that wasn’t a sound—an eager twitch of presence.
Shammy stopped mid-step.
She turned her head, glancing over her shoulder toward Ace and Mai. Her grin was still there, but now it was aimed like a weapon.
“Okay,” she said brightly, loud enough for the front rows to hear. “I have a question.”
The leader tilted his head, amused. “Of course.”
Shammy pointed at him. “When you say laughing is consent… is you laughing consent too?”
The audience chuckled—confused, but obedient.
The leader’s eyes glinted. “An interesting thought.”
Shammy spread her hands. “Because I’m going to be real with you. I’m not against conversation. I’m against… whatever this is.”
She gave the stage a light tap with her knuckles.
The wood trembled again.
The leader’s smile faltered for the first time—just a hairline crack.
Shammy leaned in slightly, as if sharing a secret.
“And you,” she said sweetly, “are wearing this building like it’s a costume.”
A hush fell. You could feel the crowd reaching for the “correct” reaction and not finding it.
The leader laughed—one clean, bright burst.
It wasn’t warm.
It was automatic.
And the moment it left his mouth, the theater responded.
The spotlight snapped wider. The air pressure shifted. The velvet seats seemed to swallow the small movements of bodies. Somewhere, a door clicked shut without anyone touching it.
Mai’s eyes widened. “He just—”
Ace finished it quietly. “He gave himself access.”
The leader’s laughter faded into a smile again, but now it had teeth.
“Oh,” he said, voice affectionate and dangerous. “You’re wonderful.”
He stepped closer to the edge of the stage, looking down at Shammy like she was the punchline he’d been waiting for.
“You’ve brought a paradox into my house.”
Shammy blinked. “Your house?”
The leader opened his arms.
“This is my joke,” he said. “And you walked into it.”
Shammy straightened, utterly unbothered on the surface. Underneath, her aura shifted—stormlight stirring in her eyes.
“You know what’s funny?” she said. “You keep calling it a joke.”
The leader’s smile widened. “Because it is.”
Shammy’s grin sharpened. “No.”
She tapped the stage again—harder this time.
The wood gave a small, involuntary flinch.
Shammy looked up at him, eyes bright.
“This isn’t a joke,” she said, voice suddenly calm. “It’s a lever.”
The leader’s expression stilled. Just for a heartbeat.
And in that heartbeat, the shadow in the rafters moved—too fast, too wrong—like a predator startled awake.
Ace stood.
Mai stood with her.
The audience rustled in confusion. A few laughed nervously, trying to glue the moment back together.
On stage, the leader’s voice dropped, velvet-soft.
“Come up,” he repeated.
Shammy didn’t.
Instead, she took one step back from the stage and raised her hand again, as if asking permission to speak.
“Yes?” the leader said, indulgent.
Shammy smiled.
“Can I tell you a joke?”
The leader’s eyes narrowed in delighted curiosity. “I would be honored.”
Shammy’s smile widened.
And then—without warning—she snapped her fingers.
A tiny spark jumped between her fingertips.
Not lightning. Not a weapon.
Just a mischievous crackle of static that made the hair on the nearest audience members lift and their skin prickle.
A harmless, ridiculous sensation.
People gasped.
A few laughed—real laughter, startled and honest.
And the leader—
The leader flinched.
It wasn’t dramatic.
But it was unmistakable.
Like something inside him had just been touched by a kind of laughter he didn’t understand.
Mai’s eyes flicked to Ace. “That reaction—”
Ace’s voice was low, intent. “He didn’t predict it.”
The leader’s smile returned quickly, but now it looked… strained.
“Well,” he said, voice still cheerful, “that was cute.”
Shammy beamed. “Thanks.”
She leaned closer, lowering her voice like a conspirator.
“Here’s the punchline,” she whispered—still loud enough for the front rows.
“You can’t control what people laugh for.”
The leader’s eyes hardened.
Behind him, the curtain rippled.
Not from air. From something under the fabric shifting its shape.
The crowd tittered, uncertain. The trained laughter tried to restart.
The leader lifted a hand.
The room quieted instantly.
He smiled.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he announced, “we’re going off-script.”
The house lights dimmed further.
And the theater—this old, patient, hungry building—seemed to smile with him.
The leader’s “off-script” wasn’t a declaration.
It was a switch being flipped.
The theater dimmed again—deeper this time—until faces became pale islands floating in a dark sea of velvet. The spotlight stayed on Shammy, but now it felt less like illumination and more like attention made physical.
Mai’s hand tightened around the disguised disruptor shell in her pocket. “He’s narrowing the room.”
Ace didn’t answer. She was watching the stage curtain.
It breathed.
Not like fabric. Like lungs.
The leader stepped back into the center of the light and smiled as if nothing unusual had happened at all—like the building hadn’t just reacted to a single crackle of static with the emotional range of a jealous animal.
“Off-script,” he repeated softly. “Which is where the best moments live.”
A few people laughed. Weakly.
He nodded approvingly, as if they’d done the right thing.
“Now,” he said, “a question for our… magnificent guest.”
He turned his head toward Shammy with that same indulgent warmth. “What are you?”
Shammy’s grin returned instantly—bright, playful, weaponized.
“I’m tall,” she said. “It’s a condition.”
The front rows chuckled. This time it wasn’t fully trained. It was human.
The leader’s smile twitched—just the smallest discomfort—because the laughter wasn’t his.
He adjusted smoothly. “A condition,” he echoed. “Yes. And conditions can be treated.”
Mai muttered, “Nope.”
The leader’s gaze flicked—barely—to where Mai and Ace stood. It didn’t linger. It didn’t need to.
He already knew where they were. The building knew.
“Let’s make a game of it,” he announced, bright again. “A harmless one.”
He lifted a hand, palm outward, like a priest blessing a congregation.
“Everyone,” he said gently, “remember: laughter is consent. Silence is simply… anticipation.”
The audience shifted. People smiled like they were being included in something special.
Mai’s voice cut low and sharp. “He’s redefining silence as a delayed yes.”
Ace’s eyes stayed on the leader. “He wants forced participation without force.”
On stage, the leader snapped his fingers.
The curtain pulled itself open—smoothly, perfectly—revealing not a set, not props, not an altar.
Just… rows of empty chairs. Identical to the ones the audience sat on. A mirror of the theater itself, placed on stage like a joke about recursion.
A few people laughed, confused.
The leader beamed. “See? You get it.”
Shammy looked at the chairs, then at him. “This is your big trick? Chairs?”
He nodded, delighted. “Chairs are wonderful. They teach people where to put themselves.”
That line landed weird. It didn’t get laughter. It got a small, instinctive shiver.
The leader didn’t notice. Or didn’t care.
“Choose,” he said, gesturing to the chairs on stage. “Sit in one. Any one you like.”
Shammy stared at him.
Then she turned slightly, glancing back at Ace and Mai with exaggerated innocence.
“Should I pick the one that looks the least haunted?”
Mai’s jaw tightened. “Shammy—”
Ace’s voice came out quiet, steady. “Don’t sit.”
Shammy raised both hands in surrender. “Copy that.”
She faced the leader again. “I’m not really a sitting-on-command kind of girl.”
The leader’s smile held. It was almost charming.
“Of course,” he said. “You’re free.”
Then he added, still pleasant: “And yet you’re still here.”
The air tightened again. A subtle squeeze around the ribs. Not choking—guiding. Like the room was trying to gently herd Shammy toward the stage without anyone noticing it happening.
Shammy felt it. Her grin widened.
“Ohhhh,” she said, understanding blooming on her face. “It’s not about the chair.”
The leader tilted his head. “Isn’t it?”
Shammy leaned forward a little, voice lowering into a conspiratorial purr. “It’s about the choice.”
The leader’s eyes glittered. “Yes.”
“And if I sit,” Shammy continued, “I’m agreeing that you get to decide what ‘sitting’ means.”
The leader’s smile… sharpened. “Precisely.”
Mai whispered, “He’s building a semantic cage.”
Shammy’s eyes flicked up toward the rafters again—where that shadowy not-shape lurked, still excited, still hungry.
Then she did something very Shammy.
She picked up a program booklet from the front-row seat nearest the stage—one of the glossy ones with the marquee slogan—and walked back two steps into the aisle.
She sat down.
Right there. On the floor.
Legs folded. Hands on knees. Perfect posture. Like she’d just started a meditation class in the least appropriate place possible.
The audience stared.
A few laughed—real laughs, startled and delighted.
The leader blinked.
For the first time, he didn’t compensate immediately. His timing lagged half a beat.
Shammy looked up at him, bright-eyed. “I sat.”
The leader’s smile returned, but it was thinner now. “Not in the chair.”
Shammy shrugged. “You didn’t say ‘in the chair’. You said ‘sit’. I’m sitting.”
Mai’s mouth twitched—an involuntary, microscopic victory-smile.
Ace didn’t smile. But her eyes softened a fraction. Approval, in her language.
The leader chuckled—a small, careful laugh, like he was testing the water. “Clever.”
And the theater reacted—doors clicked again, softly, unseen. The curtain rippled. The lights adjusted by a hair.
Mai went still. “He used his own laugh again.”
Ace’s voice dropped. “He’s trying to reassert control through self-consent.”
Shammy, still seated on the floor like a smug thunder goddess, lifted a finger.
“Wait,” she said. “If you laugh, you’re consenting too, right?”
The leader’s smile froze for a heartbeat.
He recovered. “In my house, rules are symmetrical.”
Shammy nodded solemnly. “Great. Love symmetry.”
She took a slow breath in.
Then she did it again—another tiny snap of static, but this time not near the audience.
Near him.
A harmless crackle that kissed the edge of the stage like a naughty spark.
The leader’s eyelid twitched.
Not fear.
Offense.
He didn’t laugh this time.
He couldn’t.
Because he didn’t understand what just happened. It wasn’t funny in the way his system understood funny.
And the audience—seeing his pause—didn’t know what to do. They looked at one another. The trained laughter stalled.
For the first time, the room lost its unified rhythm.
The leader’s voice stayed soft, but it cooled by several degrees.
“Interesting,” he said. “You’re attempting to introduce… noise.”
Shammy smiled sweetly. “Nah.”
She pointed at the audience behind her. “I’m introducing humans.”
A murmur went through the crowd. Not laughter. Not compliance.
Confusion.
Reality.
Mai’s whisper was a blade. “He’s losing the room.”
Ace’s gaze flicked to the nearest exit.
It was still there.
But it felt farther away than it had five minutes ago.
The leader stepped forward, right to the edge of the stage, looking down at Shammy as if she were a fascinating bug that had started talking back.
“Let me explain,” he said gently. “You think humor belongs to people. That it’s theirs.”
Shammy tilted her head. “Doesn’t it?”
He smiled.
“No,” he said. “Humor belongs to structure. It belongs to timing. It belongs to control.”
And behind him, the curtain billowed outward like something was pressing from the other side—impatient now.
Ace felt it in her bones: the moment where “funny” becomes “incident.”
Mai’s fingers tightened around the disruptor shell. “We’re about to cross a threshold.”
Shammy, still sitting on the floor like she owned the aisle, looked up at the leader and sighed dramatically.
“Aww,” she said. “You really don’t get it.”
The leader’s eyes narrowed. “Enlighten me.”
Shammy’s grin widened into something wicked and bright.
“Okay,” she said. “But fair warning…”
She leaned back, put her hands behind her head, utterly relaxed.
“…this next part usually makes controlling people very difficult.”
And then—before the leader could respond—Shammy did the one thing his system wasn’t built to handle:
She started laughing.
Not at him.
Not with him.
At the sheer absurdity of the situation.
A laugh that was messy, unoptimized, contagious—full of warmth and disbelief and that very human feeling of we are in trouble but wow, look at this clown.
The front rows hesitated.
One person laughed—small, involuntary.
Then another.
Then a cluster.
And suddenly, like a crack running through glass, genuine laughter spread in pockets across the room—uneven, chaotic, alive.
The leader’s smile stayed on his face.
But the theater…
The theater didn’t like it.
The lights flickered.
The rafters creaked.
And the shadow in the beams moved at last—no longer hiding, no longer patient—sliding along the ceiling toward the stage like a predator finally given permission to enter the joke.
Mai’s voice dropped to steel. “Ace.”
Ace’s hand lifted—two fingers, a minimal signal.
Now.
Because whatever was coming down from the rafters wasn’t interested in punchlines.
It was interested in the moment after the punchline—when the room goes quiet and you realize what you just agreed to.
And the leader, for the first time, looked… genuinely irritated.
Not threatened.
Not scared.
Just offended that the humans in his theater had started laughing for reasons he couldn’t own.
The thing in the rafters finally committed to motion.
It didn’t drop.
It slid—like a thought deciding to become physical—stretching itself along beams, cables, old pulleys that hadn’t carried weight in decades. Dust fell in lazy spirals as it moved, but the thing itself made no sound. Sound was for audiences. This was backstage.
The leader didn’t look up.
He didn’t need to.
His irritation sharpened into focus, and with it the building responded. The theater adjusted posture the way a host straightens when a guest becomes inconvenient.
“Enough,” he said mildly.
The laughter faltered. Not gone—but stumbling, uncertain where to land.
Shammy stopped laughing on her own terms, wiping a nonexistent tear from her eye. “Oh come on. That was a great bit.”
The leader’s gaze fixed on her. “You are destabilizing the experience.”
“Yeah,” she agreed cheerfully. “That tends to happen when people start having their own reactions.”
Ace moved.
Not fast. Not dramatic.
Just one step into the aisle—close enough that Shammy was no longer alone, close enough that separation was no longer clean.
Mai followed half a step behind, presence snapping into place like a missing brace in a structure.
The audience noticed that.
Three figures now, not one. A pattern.
The leader exhaled through his nose, almost amused. “Ah. The support act joins the stage.”
Ace didn’t look at him. Her eyes were on the shadow above, tracking its path with predator calm.
“It’s feeding on synchronization,” she said quietly. Not a question. A statement.
The leader arched an eyebrow. “Very good.”
Mai’s voice cut in, precise. “Not laughter itself. Uniformity. You don’t care why they laugh—as long as they do it together.”
The leader smiled again, pride creeping back in. “Unity is beautiful.”
Shammy snorted. “That’s not unity. That’s a metronome.”
Above them, the thing in the rafters twitched, annoyed. The laughter pockets had broken its rhythm. It wanted the beat back.
The leader lifted a hand.
The audience felt it before they understood it—a gentle pressure, like the moment before applause starts at a show everyone agrees was good. That anticipatory itch in the palms.
“Please,” he said warmly. “Let’s finish this together.”
Some people laughed. Nervously. Habitually.
Others didn’t.
The gap between reactions widened.
The shadow shuddered.
Mai’s eyes flicked to Ace. “He’s pushing.”
Ace nodded once. “He’s running out of time.”
Shammy rolled her shoulders, stormlight humming just under her skin. “Okay, buddy,” she called up to the rafters. “You’ve been very patient. Gold star. But you don’t get to eat the audience.”
The leader’s smile vanished.
Not cracked.
Vanished.
For the first time, what stood on that stage looked unmistakably wrong—not monstrous, not transformed, but misaligned. Like a human-shaped answer to a question nobody had asked correctly.
“You misunderstand,” he said softly. “This isn’t eating.”
The shadow above stretched, its outline briefly resolving into something like too many limbs trying to agree on a joke.
“This,” the leader continued, “is participation.”
The thing dropped.
Not onto the stage.
Into the space between reactions.
The air folded. Seats groaned. A few people screamed—not loudly, not dramatically, but the kind of sound that happens when your brain can’t find the right category fast enough.
Ace moved first.
She didn’t draw blades—there was no room, no need. She cut with motion, with presence, with the sharp certainty of someone who knew exactly where to stand.
The shadow recoiled, not from pain, but from interruption. Ace had broken its line.
Mai was already working, her tablet discarded, hands moving with surgical speed as she assembled the disruptor in pieces that no longer bothered pretending to be anything else. She spoke calmly, voice carrying just enough to anchor.
“Listen to me,” she called—not to the entity, but to the people. “If you feel pressure to laugh, don’t. If you feel like you should, pause. Breathe. Look at someone next to you.”
A woman in the third row did exactly that. Her laugh died in her throat. She looked at her husband.
The shadow convulsed.
Shammy stepped forward and clapped once—hard.
Thunder cracked through the theater. Not destructive. Not violent.
Disruptive.
Every light flickered. Every trained response shattered.
People gasped. Someone swore. Someone laughed—short, shocked, real.
The leader staggered a half-step back.
“What are you doing?” he demanded, anger finally bleeding through.
Shammy grinned at him, eyes bright as a summer storm. “Teaching them the difference.”
She turned, arms wide, addressing the crowd like this had always been her stage.
“Hey!” she called. “Quick poll. Did any of you come here tonight because you wanted to give up control of your own reactions?”
Silence.
Then a laugh—small, embarrassed.
“No,” someone said.
Another voice: “I just thought it’d be funny.”
The shadow shrieked—not audibly, but the pressure spike hit like a headache across the room.
The leader snarled. “Stop interfering!”
Ace looked at him then. Really looked.
“You never learned the punchline,” she said.
He froze.
Mai raised the disruptor—not firing, just present. “Humor isn’t control,” she added. “It’s consent that can be withdrawn.”
Shammy tilted her head. “And the moment you try to automate it…”
She snapped her fingers again—static dancing, chaotic, joyful.
“…it stops being funny.”
The shadow thrashed, unraveling as the audience’s reactions diverged—some laughing, some crying, some just staring in stunned clarity.
The building groaned, offended, confused.
The leader looked around wildly, his house no longer obeying.
“No,” he whispered. “No, no, no—”
And for the first time all night, he laughed.
A sharp, broken sound.
The theater recoiled.
Ace felt it like a door slamming shut.
Mai exhaled. “He just—”
Ace nodded. “Consented.”
The shadow screamed and collapsed inward, folding into itself like a joke told too many times, until there was nothing left in the rafters but dust and old wood.
The lights steadied.
The audience breathed.
On stage, the leader stood very still, smile gone, confidence evaporated like mist under real sunlight.
Shammy looked up at him, hands on hips. “Wow,” she said. “You really hated that.”
He swallowed.
The building did not respond.
For the first time, he was just a man-shaped anomaly standing on an old stage with no laugh track.
And that, more than anything else, terrified him.
Shammy leaned closer and lowered her voice, friendly as ever.
“So,” she said. “Ready to hear the real joke?”
The leader looked at her.
And nodded.
Slowly.
Because for the first time, he wasn’t sure what would happen next—and that uncertainty?
That was human.
—
(We’re closing in on the resolution. When we land it, I’ll ask you about that continuation idea you teased. But for now—onward.)
The leader nodded like a man agreeing to be executed politely.
It wasn’t fear in the usual sense. There was no sweat, no trembling hands. It was a deeper kind of discomfort—what happens when a system built for predictable input suddenly realizes the audience can improvise.
The theater, too, had gone… quiet.
Not empty. Not dead.
Just no longer his.
Mai kept the disruptor raised, angled low—non-threatening posture with a very clear subtext. Ace stood slightly off to the side, not in front of Mai, not behind her. A wedge. A pressure point.
Shammy was doing the exact opposite of a tactical stance: relaxed, open, smiling like she’d wandered into a weird open-mic night and decided to adopt the host.
“Okay,” Shammy said, voice bright. “Real joke. Ready?”
The leader’s jaw tightened. “Yes.”
Shammy leaned in, stage-whispering like the first rows were her best friends.
“The real joke,” she said, “is that you tried to own laughter.”
A few people in the audience—still standing, still unsure whether to run or clap—let out small, nervous chuckles. Not obedient ones. The kind you make when the tension finally has somewhere to leak.
Shammy gestured at them. “See? That. That right there. That’s the stuff you can’t bottle.”
The leader’s eyes flicked to the crowd. There was calculation there, still. But now it was messy. He was trying to rebuild a model while the experiment was still ongoing.
Mai spoke, calm and surgical. “What are you?”
The leader hesitated. “A curator,” he said, after a beat. “Of collective experience.”
Mai’s expression didn’t change. “That’s the nicest possible phrasing for ‘memetic operator.’”
The leader’s mouth twitched. “Memetics are just language with consequences.”
Ace finally spoke again, voice quiet enough that it felt like the theater itself had to listen.
“And the consequences,” she said, “are people.”
That landed.
Not as a moral lecture—Ace didn’t do those—but as a fact. Like gravity.
Shammy clapped her hands once, gently this time. “Okay! Great. We’re doing honesty now. Love that for us.”
She turned, addressing the audience with the casual authority of someone who absolutely should not be given a microphone.
“Hi,” she said, waving. “Small question. When you came here tonight, did anyone tell you that laughing was… a contract?”
A man near the aisle blinked. “No.”
A woman behind him frowned. “It was just… supposed to be fun.”
Shammy nodded sympathetically. “Yeah. That’s how they get you. In fairness—San Francisco does this all the time.”
A ripple of real laughter, this time a little warmer. A little relieved.
The leader flinched again. Not physically—internally. His eyes sharpened at the way the crowd was starting to bond without him as the hub.
Mai took advantage of the opening. “You don’t want violence,” she said. “Good. Neither do we. But you’re going to release the building.”
The leader’s gaze snapped to her. “The building is part of the experience.”
Ace’s eyes went to the curtain—now still, finally just fabric. “It doesn’t want to be.”
That made the leader’s expression flicker.
A tell.
Shammy noticed immediately. “Ohhh. Wait. Wait wait wait.”
She pointed at him like she’d just solved a riddle. “You didn’t build it.”
The leader’s smile tried to return. It failed halfway. “I—”
“You moved in,” Shammy continued, delighted. “You squatted in an old hungry place and thought you could train it with applause.”
Mai’s voice went colder. “You bound it.”
The leader lifted his hands, as if to calm them. “Bound is a harsh word.”
Mai didn’t blink. “Accurate, though.”
Behind them, the audience shifted—unease returning, but now it had direction. People weren’t laughing because they were told to. They were listening because something real was finally being said.
Ace took one step forward, gaze fixed on the leader. “Unbind it,” she said.
The leader swallowed. “If I do—”
Shammy finished for him, cheerful as ever: “—it’ll decide what it is without you. Yep.”
The leader’s eyes flicked upward, to the rafters where the shadow had been. Empty now, but not truly. The theater still felt like a presence… just one that was no longer wearing his smile.
He hesitated.
And in that hesitation, Bright’s voice crackled through Mai’s earpiece.
“Status,” Bright said. Dry. Almost bored. “Tell me you didn’t start a riot in a historic building. San Francisco is already allergic to paperwork.”
Mai didn’t respond aloud—just tapped her earpiece once to open the channel.
“We have the anomalia,” she said evenly. “He’s not violent. But he’s bound the building via memetic laughter protocol.”
A pause.
Bright, sounding far too pleased: “Of course he did.”
Shammy, hearing enough to be dangerous, called out: “Hi Bright!”
Ace didn’t look away from the leader. “Do it,” she repeated.
The leader’s eyes narrowed. “You think you understand humor.”
Shammy pointed at herself. “I mean… yeah. I’m hilarious.”
Mai’s tone was flat. “We understand people. That’s enough.”
The leader’s smile returned—small, bitter. “People,” he said softly, “are easier to move than you think. All it takes is a rhythm they want to belong to.”
Ace’s voice was quiet, cutting. “Then you never met the wrong rhythm.”
Shammy snapped her fingers—tiny static. Not a weapon. A reminder.
The leader winced.
He exhaled slowly, as if making a decision he hated.
“Fine,” he said.
And then he did something that looked, for a moment, almost human.
He stepped away from the spotlight.
The light did not follow.
It stayed where it was, shining on an empty patch of stage like it had suddenly remembered it wasn’t his leash.
The leader swallowed, eyes flicking to the crowd, then to the velvet seats, then to the high balconies.
He spoke—not loudly, but clearly.
“I relinquish the laugh.”
The words were strange. Wrong grammar. Like a machine trying to form a prayer.
The theater shuddered.
Not violently—more like a deep muscle unclenching after years of tension.
Dust fell in soft curtains. Somewhere, a door unlocked with a simple, mundane click.
A collective breath moved through the room—people didn’t even realize they’d been holding it.
Mai lowered the disruptor a fraction. “Good.”
Shammy smiled. “See? That wasn’t so hard.”
The leader stared at the empty spotlight. His voice went thin. “Without the rhythm… what am I?”
Ace stepped closer, gaze level, mercilessly calm.
“You’re just you,” she said. “And you have no idea how to handle that.”
That line—uninvited, unoptimized—made someone in the audience laugh.
A real laugh. Soft, surprised.
Not at the leader. Not with him.
At the sheer absurd truth of it.
The leader flinched, but this time… he didn’t seize it.
He just stood there and took it.
Bright’s voice crackled again. “Mai. Ace. Shamaterazu. Extract the target if you can. If you can’t, keep it talking until I arrive with people who actually enjoy theater.”
Shammy perked up. “Are we getting snacks?”
Bright: “No.”
Shammy: “Cruel.”
Mai’s mouth twitched.
Ace didn’t smile—but her shoulders eased, a fraction, like the room had finally become a room again.
The leader looked at them, then at the audience, then back.
“You came to stop a cult,” he said softly.
Mai nodded. “Yes.”
“And you did,” he murmured, almost dazed. “By… ruining the joke.”
Shammy beamed. “We’re professionals.”
The leader stared at her a second too long.
Then, quietly: “Teach me.”
The audience went still.
Mai’s eyes narrowed. “What?”
The leader’s voice was strange now—no longer performance, no longer control. Something raw slipped through.
“Teach me,” he repeated. “If humor isn’t a lever… what is it?”
Shammy opened her mouth, ready to be shamelessly dramatic.
Ace spoke first.
“It’s what people do,” she said, “when they’re scared… and they don’t want to be alone.”
Silence.
Then someone in the back row whispered, “Yeah.”
Shammy’s grin softened. Just a little.
Mai exhaled through her nose, as if annoyed at the sudden sincerity.
Bright’s voice in the earpiece went quiet for a beat—rare.
Then: “Okay,” he said, a touch less flippant. “Bring him out. And somebody get me that marquee slogan. I want it for my office.”
Shammy looked up at the buzzing sign through the theater doors, smirking.
“LAUGH WITH PURPOSE,” she read aloud.
She glanced at Ace and Mai.
“Next time,” she said, “we make it: laugh on purpose.”
Ace’s eyes flicked to the exits again. They were open now. Real.
“Move,” she said.
And the triad did—together—leading an anomalia who had just lost his stage, out through the foggy San Francisco night, while behind them the old theater settled into its own quiet, finally free to just be what it had always been:
A place where humans came to feel things— and sometimes, to laugh for reasons no one could own.
Kun tämä “keikka” on täysin paketissa (eli jälkipuinti Brightin kanssa + Foundationin leima “Handled”), kysyn sulta sen jatkoidean minkä mainitsit.
Outside, San Francisco greeted them with fog like a bouncer.
The cold hit first—salt, damp concrete, and that particular coastal bite that makes you feel awake whether you consented or not. The theater’s marquee buzzed above the doors behind them, struggling to keep its letters straight, as if the building itself was still embarrassed.
The leader stepped out last.
For a second he paused on the threshold, looking back over his shoulder like someone leaving a party he’d hosted for years and only now realizing he’d never actually tasted the food.
Shammy nudged him with a shoulder—gentle, but unmistakably “keep moving.” “No lingering. The building’s allowed to have its own feelings now.”
He blinked at her. “It… had feelings?”
Mai’s voice was flat. “Everything that holds enough people long enough develops something adjacent to feelings. The Foundation calls it ‘ambient imprint.’”
Shammy smiled. “I call it ‘the room remembers you were weird.’”
Ace didn’t comment. She was scanning the street: parked cars, intersections, sightlines, the way the fog swallowed distance. The physical world had its own kind of metaphysics—geometry and chance.
A block away, a black SUV idled at the curb with lights off. Too clean, too still, too uninterested in the nightlife.
Mai angled her head slightly. “That’ll be ours.”
The leader looked at the vehicle as if it might bite him. “You’re taking me in.”
Shammy’s grin returned, bright as a knife. “Welcome to the afterparty.”
They crossed the street with the crowd dispersing behind them—people laughing, talking, trying to glue the night into a normal memory. Some would tell the story as a funny show. Others as a bizarre near-panic. A few would wake up tomorrow and feel strangely embarrassed without knowing why.
That was the best possible outcome.
Halfway to the SUV, the leader stopped again—just a fraction—his gaze catching on a group of followers spilling out of a side door. They were looking around now, disoriented, like someone had turned the music off and left them holding drinks they no longer wanted.
One of them—young, glitter under her eyes, scarf too thin for the weather—spotted him.
Her face lit up. “There you are!”
She hurried toward him with relief, not fear.
“We lost the rhythm,” she said, voice trembling. “Are you okay? Are we okay?”
The leader opened his mouth.
And for the first time, he didn’t have a line ready.
Shammy leaned in, whispering loudly enough to be basically public service. “Careful. If you start preaching, I’m going to laugh at you again.”
Mai’s eyes narrowed. “Shammy.”
“What?” Shammy said innocently. “It works.”
Ace stepped forward—small body, massive presence—and addressed the follower with a calm that didn’t invite argument.
“You’re okay,” Ace said.
The girl blinked, thrown off by the certainty. “But—”
Ace nodded once, as if confirming a simple truth. “You’re allowed to go home.”
The girl hesitated. Behind her, other followers hovered, watching. Waiting for someone to tell them what to do.
The leader finally spoke, voice low.
“Go,” he said.
The word landed strangely—like he’d never used it before.
The girl’s brow furrowed. “Go… where?”
Shammy tilted her head. “Anywhere that doesn’t have a rule about laughing.”
A small, shaky laugh escaped the girl. Real. Surprised.
She looked around at the others, then back to the leader. “So… it’s over?”
The leader’s mouth twitched. He tried to smile and failed.
“Yes,” he said. “It’s over.”
The girl stared at him for a second longer, then—without ceremony—turned around and walked away. Others followed, some quietly, some arguing, some laughing as if the laughter could keep the night from feeling too strange.
Shammy watched them go, then sighed. “That felt… weirdly wholesome for a cult.”
Mai’s tone stayed dry. “San Francisco.”
They reached the SUV.
The back door opened before Mai touched the handle.
Bright sat inside like he’d been there the whole time, coat collar up, expression halfway between amused and exhausted. He looked at the leader first, then at the triad.
“Well,” Bright said, “you didn’t burn down a historic theater. I’m impressed.”
Shammy climbed in without invitation and took up most of the back seat. “I almost did, but then I remembered you’d whine.”
Bright looked at her. “I don’t whine.”
Mai slid in on the other side, compact and composed. “You absolutely whine.”
Ace got in last, silent. The door shut.
Bright’s eyes flicked over Ace and held there a heartbeat longer than necessary, as if checking for fractures. Whatever he saw—or didn’t—seemed to satisfy him.
Then he looked at the leader.
“So,” Bright said pleasantly, “you’re the comedian.”
The leader’s posture stiffened. “I am not—”
Bright raised a hand. “Save it. I’ve met prophets, parasites, gods, and one sentient Ikea. I don’t care what you call yourself. I care what you do.”
The leader swallowed. “I make people… align.”
Bright leaned back, folding his hands. “Cute. So does propaganda.”
Mai’s eyes narrowed. “Bright—”
Bright waved her off. “No, no. Let him talk. It’s good for him.”
Shammy grinned. “Therapy car ride!”
Bright ignored that. “Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to come with us. You’re going to be evaluated. If you cooperate, you get a relatively comfortable containment arrangement. If you don’t—”
He smiled, mild as a knife.
“—we put you in a room with people who laugh at the wrong moments for the rest of your existence.”
Shammy raised her hand. “I volunteer.”
Mai: “No.”
Ace: “…”
Bright’s eyes glittered. “Ace?”
Ace looked at him. “He doesn’t understand people.”
Bright’s smile faded a fraction. He nodded once, surprisingly serious. “Yeah. That’s the danger.”
The leader stared at them, then at the fogged window, then down at his own hands like he was seeing them for the first time.
“I wasn’t hurting them,” he said.
Mai’s voice was calm but unyielding. “You were converting them into a mechanism. You didn’t need bruises to do damage.”
The leader’s jaw tightened. “Humans do that to each other all the time.”
Bright chuckled softly. “And that’s why the Foundation stays employed.”
The SUV started moving, gliding into the fog, city lights smearing into watercolor streaks.
For a while, nobody spoke.
Then the leader asked, quietly, almost like a child asking a question it’s embarrassed to have.
“Why did she… laugh like that?” he said, looking at Shammy. “It was… not timed.”
Shammy’s grin softened again. “Because it was funny.”
He frowned. “But—there was no structure.”
Shammy shrugged. “Sometimes the structure is: we’re alive and this is absurd.”
Bright hummed. “That’s actually not a terrible definition.”
Mai glanced at Bright like she’d just seen a pig do calculus. “Did you just agree with her?”
Bright pointed at the window. “Don’t make it weird.”
Ace’s gaze drifted to the fog outside. San Francisco slid past—wet streets, distant sirens, a city pretending it was normal.
She spoke, quiet and decisive. “He can learn. But not here.”
Bright nodded. “Right. Not in the field.”
Shammy leaned toward the leader, eyes bright again, playful. “Listen. If you want to understand humor… step one is easy.”
The leader looked at her, tense. “What?”
Shammy smiled sweetly.
“Stop trying to win.”
The leader blinked.
And, painfully, he nodded.
Bright sighed dramatically. “Great. We captured a self-help anomalia.”
Mai’s mouth twitched. “San Francisco.”
The SUV disappeared into the fog, headed toward somewhere official and fluorescent, while behind them the old theater settled into quiet, its marquee still buzzing—letters rearranging themselves for the first time in years, as if the building was trying out a new joke of its own.
The camera in the streetlight above blinked once.
And somewhere, deep in the city’s layered weirdness, something else noticed that laughter had become unpredictable again.
Which meant, in San Francisco terms…
…things were finally back to normal.
Kyllä — epilogia vaille. Ja tämä ansaitsee rauhallisen, lämpimän uloshengityksen, ei pauketta.
Epilogue — After the Laugh
The Foundation facility was aggressively beige.
Fluorescent lights. Linoleum floors. Walls that had never heard a joke and would immediately file a report if one tried. Somewhere deep in the building, something hummed with the reassuring boredom of machinery doing exactly what it was told.
The leader sat behind reinforced glass, hands folded, posture perfect in a way that no longer looked confident—just learned. A technician finished calibrating the containment field and nodded once to Bright.
“Stable,” the tech said. “No memetic bleed. No resonance spikes.”
Bright smiled thinly. “Good. Let’s keep it that way.”
On the other side of the glass, the leader looked up. His eyes followed Shammy as she leaned against the wall, arms crossed, radiating the kind of presence that made even reinforced architecture feel underdressed.
“You’re not laughing now,” he observed quietly.
Shammy tilted her head. “Nothing funny happening.”
He considered that. “Yet.”
Mai stood with her tablet tucked under one arm, posture relaxed in the way that meant mission complete but brain still running. “Your followers are being processed,” she said, clinical but not unkind. “Most will walk out with mild embarrassment, a headache, and an inexplicable aversion to theater seating.”
The leader winced. “I never meant to harm them.”
Ace stood a little apart, near the door. Small. Still. The room bent around her presence without realizing why.
“Harm isn’t always loud,” she said.
The leader met her eyes—and for once, didn’t try to perform. “Then what is humor?” he asked. “If it isn’t control.”
Shammy answered before anyone else could.
“It’s what happens when control fails,” she said. “And people survive it together.”
Silence settled. Not heavy. Not tense.
Just… honest.
Bright cleared his throat, suddenly uncomfortable with sincerity. “Right. Philosophy hour’s over. Paperwork awaits, and I refuse to be trapped in a room where an anomaly is having a breakthrough.”
He turned to the triad. “You three did good work. Minimal damage. Zero fatalities. San Francisco will write this off as ‘experimental theater’ and move on.”
Shammy grinned. “I want that on a t-shirt.”
Mai exhaled slowly, tension finally draining. “I’m filing this as ‘non-hostile memetic misuse with architectural complicity.’”
Bright blinked. “You’re making that a category?”
Mai didn’t look up. “I am now.”
Ace watched the leader one last time.
He sat quietly, no spotlight, no audience—just a man-shaped anomaly in a room that refused to applaud.
He looked… smaller.
“Learn,” Ace said to him. Not a command. Not encouragement. Just a statement of possibility.
He nodded. “I will.”
The triad turned away.
As they walked down the corridor, Shammy stretched, arms over her head, static crackling faintly. “You know,” she said, “for a cult-busting mission, that was surprisingly wholesome.”
Mai allowed herself a faint smile. “Don’t get used to it.”
Ace paused at the exit, glancing back once more at the bland hallway, the closed doors, the quiet hum of containment.
Then she stepped out into the real world again.
Outside, the night air was cool. Somewhere far away, someone laughed—not because they were told to, not because it meant anything.
Just because something felt absurd and survivable.
Shammy inhaled deeply. “Yep. That’s the good stuff.”
Mai tucked her tablet away. “Next assignment won’t be this polite.”
Ace nodded. “They never are.”
They walked off together, shadows stretching under streetlights, leaving behind a theater that had remembered how to be a theater again—and an anomalia who had finally learned that the punchline was never supposed to belong to him.
Not everything that laughs is dangerous.
But anything that tries to decide why you laugh…
…needs to be stopped.—
© 2025-2026. “World of Ace, Mai and Shammy” and all original characters, settings, story elements, and concepts are the intellectual property of the author. All rights reserved.
Non-commercial fan works are allowed with attribution.
Commercial use, redistribution, or adaptation requires explicit permission from the author.
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