PROLOGUE

"Let me just say, sir," the god Eddwode gushed, "what an honour it is to finally shake your hand."

Chuck looked around himself in bewilderment as he strove to extract his frail appendage from the god's firm grasp. "This, ah..." he said uneasily. "This isn't Heaven." The floor was far too crunchy.

"Well, no, it sure isn't, but at least the price is right," moped Solipsos flatly, slouched on a beaten and battered couch nearby, with a bruised and violated remote in his hand, idly flipping between Ragnarok and the heat death of the universe. "We hijacked you en route, bee tee doublyew. We're all just such big fans."

"Big fans, huh?" Chuck fought down the rising panic. "W-where am I?"

"This, my fellow polymorphously precocious and yet highly budget-minded auteur, is none other than the Cori Celesti Guesthouse and Storage Facility! Is that a trip and a half or what?" Eddwode grinned hugely and wrapped a strong arm chummily around the nonplussed prophet, shedding angora hither and yon. Chuck sneezed.

"Bless you," chittered some...one...in the vicinity of his knees, and a handkerchief was proffered from down in the same locale. "I'll be wanting that back when you're done," trilled Merisu. "For my collection."

"The what?" sniffled Chuck.

"In the butt," sniggered Syggar, breath hot on the back of his neck. Chuck squeaked.

"Oh, come now," Eddwode boomed. "Look around. No doubt you will recognize your surroundings from such fine if unfinished fanfictional fare as Gods! Gods!, Vampirates, and, um, that one where Hurley was a janitor on Coruscant."

"I'm afraid I don't read fan fiction," said Chuck.

Eddwode's powdered face paled noticeably.

"We've done a couple of Nanowrimos as well," Solipsos offered tiredly. "To pay the rent, you understand."

"Sssh," Eddwode hissed at the lesser god, then turned back to Chuck and pinned him with a smile that made him really need to pee. "Whaddya mean you don't read fan fiction, Chuck? You write the damn stuff!"

"I do not," Chuck responded archly, crossing his legs as discreetly as possible. "I write meta."

"Your mom writes meta," Syggar murmured moistly in his ear. Chuck swallowed hard.

"Well, it's always a pleasure to...meet...you...people, but, uh, they're expecting me in Heaven, so-"

"Not so fast." A heavy well-manicured hand fell on his shoulder as he was attempting to remove himself from the narrative. A smaller, damper hand fell on his knee, while a third-well, but that's for a different sort of story. "You really think we just brung you here to dig the digs? Oh no no no. No no."

"No..."

"Dig the digs, that's pretty good," said Solipsos, still on the crusty couch.

"Nope. We've got something to show you."

"We made it ourselves!" chirped Merisu.

"And I 'helped'," Syggar quotatiously purred.

"You see," said Eddwode, "I thought to myself-"

("Out loud of course," interjected Solipsos)

"-'Self,' I thought, 'how better to honour the genius of my most esteemed fellow weaver of reasonably-priced dreams than by melding-"

("Hur hur," said Syggar)

"-his vision-the most popular one in its category over on fanfiction dot net, I might add-"

("Forty four thousand two hundred sixty one," Merisu enunciated, awestruck. "Compare for instance just randomly Blakes 7's three hundred twenty eight. Of which only twenty-three are smut.")

"-with that charming literary subenclave's second most favouritest universe," Eddwode concluded. His blinding white smile did not reach within a mile of his eyes.

"Oh, God, please, no, please-" Chuck peered desperately over his shoulder at Solipsos, hoping to see some glimmer of compassion, but there was only resignation in those infinite eyes, aside of course from the reflected apocalypses.

"All right, fellas," Eddwode said. "Let's go."