“Attention, please,” the Manager says over the office intercom. “The Auditor’s shuttle is scheduled to dock in one hour. I repeat, one hour. Warehouse staff, please ensure that all inventory is in place.”

The Manager is a member of the Pren species from the swamp moon of Delta-Velle. Humans sometimes refer to the Pren as “giant frogs,” which is considered derogatory language under Section Three “Interspecies Cooperation” of the HR handbook. But the Manager doesn’t care what his human colleagues call him. He is not here to make friends. He is here to claw his way through middle management until he makes it to the top. One day he will have a fifteen-figure salary and a nice, spacious office in the luxurious upper levels of the space station.

Today, he has to get through the annual stock-take audit. Ever since he was put in charge of inventory accounting, he has never gotten less than a fully satisfactory audit sign-off. Except for that one year when the auditor was sucked screaming into a wormhole, never to be heard from again. Unfortunate incident, that. But even then, they’d still managed to pass the audit—just with a cautionary footnote to the Occupational Health & Safety auditors.

Today’s audit has to go smoothly. His bonus depends on it.

• • • •

The Auditor feels dead inside. He has recently undergone a simple surgical procedure to dampen his emotions and focus all spare mental capacity on his tasks. The surgery is an invaluable tool for getting him through busy periods at work. Without it, he is prone to explosions of temper, crying to his boss that he “wants to spend more time with his family and friends,” and an irrational desire to quit his job.

Once this busy period is over, he will have the procedure reversed. Most of his emotions will return intact, and he will reintroduce himself to his family and friends and go on vacation. A nice, well-earned break before the next busy season.

The space station headquarters of Galactic Curiosities Inc looms ahead. Galactic Curiosities Inc is a notoriously difficult client. Not only because auditors have been known to go mysteriously missing on the job, but also because of the tricky nature of their inventory valuations.

As the brochure says: Galactic Curiosities Inc is a boutique curator of the universe’s oddities and wonders. Catering to an exclusive clientele of the galaxy’s elite, we cross lightyears to bring you your heart’s desire . . .

Their inventory consists of a motley collection of bizarre alien artifacts from across the known universe, which are auctioned off to eccentric bidders. Ensuring that these artifacts are properly valued on their financial statements is a nightmare and a half. No one wants another Grynix Pte Ltd scandal on their hands.

The space shuttle smoothly intersects with the docking station, and the door slides open, where the Manager is waiting to greet him. The Manager is a large, emerald-green frog (the Auditor suspects that is not the politically correct term, but the appropriate name for this species escapes him at the moment). He is wearing an orange t-shirt emblazoned with the logo of Galactic Curiosities Inc.

“Hello, hello,” the Manager croaks. “How wonderful to finally meet you in person after all those holovid calls and digimails.”

“Likewise,” the Auditor says. He tries to smile, but the emotion-dampening implant makes it difficult. “Is the inventory ready for inspection?”

“Of course, of course.”

“Then let’s get this stock-take started.”

• • • •

The Manager leads the Auditor down the space station’s labyrinthine corridors. He watches with dour amusement as passing staff catch a glimpse of the Auditor and pivot away with alacrity, melting away into shadows and scurrying into meeting rooms.

Everyone hates the Auditor. It’s nothing personal. He could be the nicest guy in the quadrant, and everyone would still hate him. In the eyes of the busy staff at Galactic Curiosities Inc who had to rearrange their schedules to cater to him, he’s nothing but a clueless shmuck, just a couple years out of school with no real-universe experience, who has the gall to come in and criticize them.

The Operations Head meets them at the entrance to the warehouse. “We shut down the whole warehouse for you,” he says with fake pleasantness as they take the elevator to the warehouse level. “Our customers are kept waiting, our staff are on the bench, revenue’s falling through our fingers as we speak. But hey. Anything to make sure those books are in order, yeah?”

The Manager darts a tense look at the Auditor, but his expression remains completely neutral.

“Of course,” the Auditor says flatly. “Nothing is more important than ensuring that your financial report is a clear, fair, and true representation of your company’s accounts.”

The Manager glares at the Operations Head behind the Auditor’s back, ordering him silently to be polite.

The elevator pops out of the warehouse floor and they step out. The warehouse is a massive, cavernous hall. The metal walls curve slightly, giving the impression that they are standing at the bottom of a vast silver sphere. At first glance, the walls look completely smooth, but closer inspection reveals that there are thousands of doors etched into the walls. Each door opens into a holding compartment for an artifact. Drones buzz in and out of the holding compartments, conducting routine maintenance and monitoring the status of the artifacts.

A metal platform, encased by a safety railing, floats down to land in front of them. The Manager gestures for the Auditor to step on, before hopping onto the platform himself.

“Happy auditing,” the Ops Head says sardonically. “I’ll be down here if you need anything.”

The Manager taps the control pad with a webbed hand. The platform lifts into the air.

The Auditor looks down at the inventory listing on his tablet. The Manager waits nervously for him to announce his selected sample. The inventory listing is accurate . . . mostly. But some samples invite more questions than others; questions that no one wants to answer. Hey, they’re all busy people. If the contents of a Denoblian wine bottle mysteriously evaporated? Sometimes it’s easier to pretend no one noticed, rather than going through the tedious process of writing down the inventory value and taking the hit on that quarter’s profit and loss.

“Let’s look at artifact number seven-three-four,” the Auditor says.

The Manager brightens. That’s an easy one. “Of course, of course.” He taps the compartment number onto the control pad. The hoverplatform zooms towards a compartment midway up the wall and hovers next to it.

The Auditor squints through the locker’s glass door. A vivid orange flower is hovering in the air, held in place by an invisible force field. As they watch, the flower shrivels rapidly, before its petals grow plump and it blooms again. Back and forth, over and over—the flower is trapped in an infinite time loop between life and death.

“A flower salvaged from the meadow world of Aderra, moments before the planet was destroyed by a temporal anomaly,” the Manager says proudly, as though he were the one to pluck the flower from destruction. He may be nothing more than a desk-bound number cruncher himself, but at least the company he works for is pretty cool. “It sustained some temporal damage, resulting in this little spectacle. We’ve received several bids on it already. I’m sure it’ll look pretty on some rich person’s mantelpiece—a bit grim, though, if you ask me, constant reminder of death and impermanence and all that.”

The Auditor watches with mild interest for a few more seconds before clicking his tablet. It flashes a reassuring green, indicating that the inventory sample has been sighted without issue. “Okay. Let’s see the next sample—artifact number eight-eight-four-one.”

The Manager blinks his large wet eyes one at a time, for once feeling very grateful that humans are no good at reading Pren expressions. He’s sure that he still looks completely placid and polite to the Auditor. But inside, he is cursing up a storm in every alien language he knows.

“Of course,” he says. “No problem at all.”

The hoverplatform zooms along the warehouse walls, slowing to a halt outside a large compartment. With a press of a button, the compartment door hisses open. The Auditor and the Manager step off the platform into a compartment the size of a small room. Inside are two squishy beanbags in front of an old-fashioned 2D television screen, hooked up to a retro-style game console.

“There it is,” the Manager says breezily. “That’s the PymLife Simulator game console right there. All in order. Which artifact would you like to see next?”

“Hold on,” the Auditor says. He plops down on one of the beanbags and picks up a game controller. “I need to make sure it’s working. Switch it on for me, please.”

The Manager swallows, trying to hide his dismay. “Sure thing.” He turns on the console and hops onto the other beanbag.

“The PymLife Simulator is a very interesting artifact,” he says as the loading screen boots up. He tries to inject enthusiasm into his voice. “We’ve had a great deal of interest in it over the years, but we’re still, uh, waiting for the right buyer. The creators of PymLife designed a video game set in the fictional world of Pym, but the non-playable characters in the game defied their programming and staged a coup to overthrow the Player. Ever since then, they’ve been running their own civilization in there. Crazy stuff, huh?”

The start menu appears on the screen, stylistically pixelated in a cheerful color scheme of pastel pink and green.

The Manager hops off the beanbag. “Looks to be in working order. Excellent! Shall we move on?”

The Auditor still has the controller in his hands. His pointer hovers over a button reading ‘Enter the Pym Village!’ in big, inviting pink letters.

“Wait!” the Manager shouts in incoherent panic.

The Auditor clicks the button.

The start menu dissolves into a cartoon image of a perfect blue sky with candy-pink clouds bobbing up and down on a gentle breeze. Then the screen pans downwards onto the village of Pym.

“Goodness,” the Auditor says. “What happened here?”

The village is burnt to a crisp. The charming rows of quaint cottages are nothing but ruined husks. The verdant orchards are reduced to black char. And the citizens of Pym—known collectively as the Pymple—are lying scattered across the decimated streets, with pixelated skull icons hovering over their bodies just to really hammer the point home. They are all dead.

“After the Pymple attained sentience and demanded freedom from the tyranny of the Player, we logged in to try to negotiate,” the Manager explains miserably. “We thought the game could still be played as long as we respected the Pymple’s boundaries. This could actually improve the gameplay experience! Imagine, a game where you can interact with real sentient people living inside the simulation. The artifact’s value would go through the roof! We gathered everyone in the town hall and tried to come to an agreement. But the Pymple would not listen to reason. Tempers flared. A fight broke out. That idiot controlling the Player panicked and tried to cast a calming spell. Would you believe it, he hit the wrong button combination and cast a fire spell instead! Well, you can guess what happened next. Whole place went up in smoke. Everyone died screaming. Absolute carnage.”

“Can’t you just load a previous saved game?” the Auditor inquires.

“You think we haven’t tried? Reload, reset, nothing worked. Whenever we log in, all we see is this.” The Manager waves toward the tragic tableau of the burned village and the piles of corpses.

The Auditor shakes his head. “That is unfortunate.” He clicks a button on his tablet, and it lights up in red.

“Hold on, hold on!” the Manager yelps. “The game’s still here. It still works. You can’t fail me because of this!”

“The basis of your valuation is incorrect,” the Auditor says sternly. “You listed this artifact as a simulated metacivilization. There is no more civilization. The artificial life forms are dead.”

“But . . .” The Manager slumps. He wants to argue, but he knows he doesn’t have a leg to stand on. “Fine. Write me up. A year of tip-top performance down the drain, but what do you care about that? Are we done here?”

“I still have one more artifact to inspect,” the Auditor says.

The Manager thinks he is going to explode. “What’s the point? I’ve failed the audit already.”

“It is procedure,” the Auditor insists. “We must complete the audit in order to determine whether the discrepancy is an isolated incident or due to systemic issues. The latter would be significantly worse for you.”

The Manager hops in agitation. “Okay, I get it! What do you wanna see?”

“Let’s look at artifact two-six-oh-four-five-three.”

Geez. This Auditor sure knows how to pick ’em. Well, it’s not as though this day can get any worse. They step back onto the hoverplatform. The Manager punches the number into the control pad, and they zoom over to a compartment near the domed ceiling of the warehouse.

They both lean over the railing, staring through the transparent door into the compartment. Inside, what looks like a large circular metal frame rotates slowly in midair.

“That’s an interdimensional portal?” the Auditor asks, squinting at it skeptically. “It doesn’t look like much.”

“The containment field is suppressing it,” the Manager says impatiently. “We don’t actually want to open a door to an unknown dimension here in our warehouse.”

“I must verify that the artifact functions as advertised,” the Auditor insists. “Just switch it on for a few seconds and let me see.”

The Manager glances down, past the edge of the platform, where he can glimpse the tiny figure of the Operations Head standing on the warehouse floor. He’s pretty sure this will violate a dozen Occupational Health & Safety policy clauses, but hell. He’s sick of this stupid audit. He just wants it to be over.

“Fine. Just for a few seconds.” The Manager taps his override code into the lock pad next to the compartment door.

There’s a soft wooshing noise as the containment field flickers off. The space within the circular metal frame shimmers like a heat-haze. The Manager gazes at it, fascinated despite himself. He expected to see an expanse of outer space, constellations from beyond their known universe, but all he can see is a strange prismatic curtain, rippling and pulsating hypnotically in a dizzying spectrum of colors and lights.

Then an enormous clawed hand comes through the portal and grabs the Auditor, lifting him bodily off the platform, and pulls him into the compartment.

The Auditor doesn’t scream, but he struggles wildly. He thrashes in the creature’s hand, kicking and biting at the scaly appendage. He manages to grab onto the compartment door and holds on for dear life as the creature tries to pull him through the portal.

“Oh, stars!” the Manager screams. “Oh, deities!”

He frantically stabs at the emergency button on the platform. Alarms begin to blare somewhere in the background, but it’s obvious that help won’t arrive in time. He turns to the emergency kit mounted on the railing, but unfortunately, an eldritch monster from another dimension isn’t the kind of emergency that can be addressed by a fire extinguisher, a first-aid pack or a hazmat suit.

Then his eyes fall on the door of the next compartment over.

He doesn’t need to check the plaque on the door to know what lies inside. That’s the Voidgun, one of their most valuable artifacts. The Voidgun can shoot a projectile that instantaneously destroys anything it touches. The Manager taps his override code into the lock pad, opens the compartment, and grabs the box which holds the Voidgun.

By some miracle, the Auditor has managed to wriggle free of the giant hand. He scrambles on his hands and knees across the compartment floor away from the portal. The hand reaches for him.

The Manager pries open the box and pulls the Voidgun out. For a moment, he vacillates. Is it worth the risk? If he does nothing, the Auditor is going to get dragged into some hellish dimension, where a horrible screaming death is probably the best case scenario.

But using the Voidgun is definitely out-of-bounds. He could get in trouble for this. He could even get fired.

Plus, a tiny, wheedling voice in the back of his mind points out that if the Auditor disappears, the audit firm will probably have to send someone else to redo the stock-take. That little irregularity with the PymLife Simulator might be completely forgotten in all the fuss. The new auditor will probably select a different sample and no one will be any the wiser. Visions of a perfect audit sign-off dance in his mind’s eye.

Suddenly, the Manager is appalled that he’s even considering it. His career is important to him, but surely his morals haven’t eroded to the point where he’s willing to let a young man get chomped up by an eldritch space monster.

He aims the gun—and fires.

The recoil sends him reeling back into the safety railing. There’s a blinding white flash, a discordant roar. The giant hand vanishes—and so does the portal.

The Auditor crawls onto the hoverplatform and huddles on the floor, disheveled and panting. The wild look in his eyes alarms the Manager. “Hey, hey. Don’t freak out. You’re okay.”

“I know,” the Auditor wheezes. “It’s just—I think my emotion-dampening implant was knocked out. I’m feeling—a lot suddenly. I don’t like it.”

“Why in stars’ name do you have an emotion-dampening implant?”

“To be more effective at my job.”

“Deities almighty,” the Manager mutters. “Never thought I’d say this about someone else, but you take your job a little too seriously. They really paying you enough for this?”

The Auditor considers this. Then he sighs. “Not really, no.”

The Manager looks despairingly at the empty compartment. “I destroyed the interdimensional portal. Guess this means I’m even more screwed, huh?”

The Auditor slowly gets to his feet and closes the compartment door. He picks up his tablet and clicks it. It flashes green.

The Manager stares at him. He knows he should shut up, but he hears himself say stupidly, “Isn’t that, you know, fraud?”

“Not exactly,” the Auditor demurs. “This is more or less in line with audit procedures. I saw the artifact; you even gave me a demonstration, so I know that it works as advertised. Unfortunately, it now no longer exists, but that doesn’t change the fact that it was present and working at financial year-end. Anything that happens after financial year-end is a problem for next year’s audit team. Accounting principles, you see?”

“Ah,” the Manager says sagely. “Accounting principles. Of course. And, uh, the PymLife Simulator? Any, um, accounting principles that could apply to that little situation?”

“Well,” the Auditor says thoughtfully. “There is an element of subjectivity to any valuation judgment. Now that the Pymple are dead and the village is destroyed, one could argue that the artifact has lost its value. But if you were to value the PymLife Simulator not as a metacivilization, but as a novelty, there may be more room to maneuver.”

The Manager stares at him, impressed despite himself by the eloquent bullshit spewing out of the Auditor’s mouth.

“You’re saying you can write off the discrepancy?” he asks doubtfully.

The Auditor shrugs. “Send me the valuation methodology and I’m sure we can figure something out. Maybe I can make the case that it’s nothing more than an immaterial misstatement.”

“You know,” the Manager says fervently. “I’m starting to think you’re the best damn auditor we’ve ever had.”

• • • •

As they wait for the shuttle to return to dock, the Auditor and the Manager sit in the staff cafeteria sipping black coffee from conical paper cups.

The Auditor taps his foot nervously. He knows full well his documentation won’t hold up under scrutiny. If this audit file gets selected for a quality review, he can kiss his promotion goodbye.

“Say, have you ever thought about leaving audit?” the Manager asks suddenly. “Going in-house?”

“That’s the plan,” the Auditor sighs. “But competition’s stiff.”

“We’ve got an opening in our accounting department,” the Manager says. “Why don’t you send your resume through? I’ll make sure it lands at the top of HR’s pile.”

The Auditor can hardly dare to hope. “Really? You think I’d have a shot?”

“Sure you do. Y’know, I see something in you, kid. Sure, you might seem like you’ve got a stick up your . . . um, anyway. What I mean to say is, you came through when it really mattered. I think you’ve got what it takes to do well here at Galactic Curiosities Inc.”

The Auditor smiles: a broad, genuine smile that hurts the corners of his mouth. “Thanks. That would be great.”

A voice announces over the intercom: “The space shuttle to the Central Business Planetary System has landed in Hangar Bay Three.”

The Auditor stands up. “That’s me. It was good to meet you. This has been a very interesting audit. I’ll be in touch.”

He winks. The Manager winks back. Then the Auditor walks out of the cafeteria and heads back to his shuttle.