"This is a lot of shit," Harris Klein said to the empty room. It was 10:20 AM, well before the reading was scheduled to begin, and Klein had been one of the first to arrive, as per usual. Remarkably quiet for such a fat man, he had slipped past both Zolner and that woman Matthews without being commented upon and snatched up one of the scripts. Might as well look through the script, get a few quick impressions.

And so, script tucked under his arm, he had skulked off to an unused common room, along with the bucket of fried chicken and liter bottle of Coke he had brought from home. Well, mostly Coke. About 3/4 of the dark liquid in the bottle was soft. The rest was Myer's Rum, the dark color blending perfectly with the soda. No one would suspect a thing, Klein assured himself. He had this down to an art, and art was a thing at which he excelled.

"This is so much shit," he repeated, dropping the script on the couch next to him. "They expect my character to win a fistfight against a younger man? Have they seen me before?" The fat man sighed melodramatically for an audience that did not exist, fishing for another wing out of his bucket. "I hope the incidental music will cover my wheezing. Perhaps I could just fall on him." Harris was disappointed to discover he had finished the wings unconsciously while perusing the script. He wiped his fingers carefully on a napkin, then dropped the bucket into the nearest wastebin. Taking another sip of his enormous rum and coke, the fat man ambled back to the conference room, taking care to snag a couple of Danishes from craft services before dropping his considerable bulk into a deep chair, ready to wait patiently for the others. He didn't bother with a nametag. People knew who he was.

"Good morning," he said in greeting to Zolner and Matthews. "I took the liberty of looking through the script briefly, and I regret to inform you that my first impressions are mostly negative." He sighed deeply, took a swig of his cocktail. "I mean this not as an insult, but as a challenge to you. Weak scripts can be compensated. Bear that in mind." He leaned back in his chair, stuffed an entire Danish into his mouth.