"That's the best part!" said Stripes. "All of it, dude! Everything in here is junk, whole room's paid for, smash all you like!"

"Speaking of who's paying!" said Mess. "Turns out? Telev Overmind!"

"Telev Overmind!?" said Stripes, striking a shocked pose. "The billionaire slop profiteer of the Red Decades? That guy's bogus!"

"That's right, he's bogus!" said Mess. "And word just came down that Cicero won his lawsuit against that bogus guy! Verdict: Full. Liquidation!"

"No way!" said Stripes.

This was not the first time you'd seen this particular patter play out from the Dakinis. One of Sprocket's many core functions is the ability to prosecute mind-bendingly difficult legal cases involving decades old financial crimes committed during the Red Decades. The lead Aspect on these cases, the recreation Cicero, had famously won the new and dreaded verdict of Full Liquidation several times. This was something the Dakinis were always very quick to propagandize, especially because it came with -

"That's right," said Mess. "That means that they're paying out fifteen thousand dollars to [i]every single citizen[/i]! It's in their bank accounts already!"

"Gnarly!" said Stripes.

Some people found this kind of messaging ham-handed and annoying - though they rarely minded the fifteen thousand dollars. They had to sit through it anyway. The States of the early 21st century had promoted a doctrine of deliberate ineffectiveness that had helped erode the foundations of their support, but the new colossus of PanOceania and its intricate alliance with Sprocket very much wanted to be [i]seen [/i]as doing good things.

"But anyway," said Mess. "The break room. Way Titanomachia put it, we're going to be doing normal A! stuff in there, but you're gonna be stimmed up. You're not trying to break stuff, it's just feedback to help you dial in your muscles if things get weird."

Titanomachia had been silent for a long time. She suddenly spoke up, if anything more intense than her earlier declaration: "You've never watched a magical girl anime?"