Follow the exit signs

QT sat slouched on the couch by the bar considering whether it was an angina attack or indigestion as he watched the colloidal mixture of alcohol and company staff at the Laugh Hotel slosh about the room. It was, of course, the Unlikely Solutions Ltd Christmas social. Christ knows, they were horrid affairs, whose only saving grace was that they came but once a year. He eyed his eggnog: the glacé cherry myocarditis heart pierced by the precision stake of a cocktail stick and partly submerged in a foamy sea of sweet luminous yellow puss.

Hi, I'm Ramona.

QT.

As in cute, extremely?

No, more in the vein of "on the quiet" – hush, hush.

Intriguing.

Only in so far as the dark allure of the hidden is often more intriguing than the shallow profundity of the known.

Sounds like serious business.

Excuse me a moment. Paddy?

Yes?

Who's been wearing Miranda's clothes?

Miranda.

Ask a silly question. So where were we?

Don't you want to know what I do?

Well Ramona, on the off-chance you are versed in the the dark arts of enhanced interrogation techniques. No.

Okay, so let me try a different tact: how do you know Alpha-Alpha?

He's my boss, as I presume - yours?

Would you describe your relationship to him within and without the formal structure of contractual employment as intimate?

No.

Could you introduce me to someone who could?

Oh Ramona, if there was only some kind of future.

I take that as "no" then.

Oh Paddy, I think I've lost my way.

What a fantastic death abyss!

Tell the others.