“I demand a new office. I can not stand for this constant crowding and harassment. I did not place four cuckoo clocks in my office, I can not remove them, and they will not be silenced.”

Duke Leto was frustratingly insistent on the matter of his office, yet conspicuously silent on any issue of actual consequence.

Dean McRose slow-blinked at Duke Leto before replying evenly, “Dr. Ibn Arabi, you have moved between three human offices in under six months, not to mention your cat-ownership of the library grate and the cat-sized hidden room adjacent to the pizzeria.”

“That is not my pizza-stealing room, and I am absolutely not a cat named Ibn Arabi,” Duke snapped. “I am a nineteen-year-old chicken farmer from Türkiye and Vice President of this university. I insist on a new office. Mine is clearly haunted if no one will take accountability for the increasing Urglaawe aesthetic I did not consent to endure. I found a boombah in my closet yesterday, and… and this thing-”

Duke produced a straw-stuffed poppet resembling River Phoenix dressed like an Amish catboy. It had fiber-optic whiskers and played a rotating playlist: Amish Paradise, Rose Tattoo, Diggy Diggy Hole, and Hold the Heathen Hammer High– when squeezed.

“I am clearly the victim of German sihr magic,” Duke insisted, nearing tears. “I even have a braucherei voodoo doll as proof!”

Officer Reichhörnchen appeared behind Duke without announcing himself, like an absent fylgja finally remembered, and said calmly, “That is a butzemann, not a voodoo doll, and it looks nothing like you. Butzemann are created in braucherei as protective tulpas. However, if the maker does not burn it at the proper time of year, folklore holds that it opens doors to forces of chaos.”

“Are butzemann hallucinogenic?” Duke demanded, squeezing the poppet harder. The head popped off and landed on Dean McRose’s desk with a soft, macabre thump.

“You are welcome to find a new office and leave your Deitscherei décor behind,” McRose replied mildly. “But you need to get your story straight. On camera, it shows you installing the clocks, hex signs, and painted trivets yourself. We watched you paint-by-numbers a Phoenix vs. Distlefink: Frenemies Forever hex sign and hang it on your own door.”

“I absolutely did not,” Duke insisted. “That must be AI distortion of visual records. I am Persian. There is no correlation whatsoever between dignified Persian academics dissecting Tasawwuf as a science and peasant hobbit-like Pennsyl-tucky Deitscherei mystics. None. Whatsoever.”

His caracal ears flattened against increasingly fluffy hair- silver rooted in Revlon black, as he continued, hissing despite himself.

“There are no similarities between lifelong one-on-one mystical apprenticeship and filthy dirt-farmer magic. I did nothing to invite these uncouth mystics into my office, haunting me with their stupid localized twink Rohani that sits there mocking me while every German pretends not to see him. …This is harassment. I demand accommodations. Human Resources support. Veterinary protection to prevent me from being a cat. And full protection from the Pennsylvania Deitsch.”

Reichhörnchen raised a finger in pause and opened his oversized Android phone. He played a short video: Duke pacing his office, talking to himself, painting additional hex signs, rearranging Hummel figurines beneath a three-language edition of the Masnavi, humming Edelweiss.

“Haunting is real,” Duke protested weakly, “and I never approved the sharing of my image from campus cameras.”

“You didn’t read the fine print of your contract renewal,” Reichhörnchen replied. “You just can’t use non-employee images for social media campaigns. You went viral, by the way. The only complication is there’s now an unspoken expectation you teach theater instead of nothing.”

“I do not teach nothing!” Duke shouted. “How dare you insult my contributions and my students!”

“How does a nineteen-year-old chicken farmer claim such things?” Reichhörnchen asked, producing Professor Loki’s security report. Screenshots showed Duke befriending students online under aliases – pretending at nineteen years old, holding four PhDs, oscillating between Islamic optimism and cold instructional content on manipulation through affection and silence.

“I’d like to examine the office before taking sides,” Reichhörnchen said.

Dean McRose nodded and allowed him the floor.

“I can not take responsibility for a hidden devotion to Urglaawe progressing into psychological splitting,”

    Reichhörnchen continued,  “Nor do I endorse any claim that braucherei is an offensive art. Most stories involve patient underdogs resisting unjust power without violence. Have you considered this is you, your own footage, turning Deitschkraft into a costume you can hate and crave at the same time?”

McRose remained silent, letting the only Urglaawer in the room speak.

“There are four cuckoo clocks now,” Duke muttered. “I did not install them.”

“Distlefinken,” Reichhörnchen corrected.

“Gesundheit,” McRose replied.

“I demand a new office.”

“I don’t even have an office,” Reichhörnchen sighed. “Alaraf still doesn’t pay me to supervise, but I do it anyway.”

“WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?” Duke shrieked. “WHAT IS THE POINT IF YOU DO NOT EARN MONEY OR POWER OR CONTROL?”

“You tell me, Sufi,” Reichhörnchen replied. “I’d give you the Deitsch answer, but I’m cranky without a second breakfast. You already talk to Disir in your office that no one else sees. Seeing Holler used to be an honor. Now, it suggests a gentle sabbatical, in my still-underpaid federal-contractor opinion.”

He sipped from his thermos—vinyl squirrel decal, now with a peacock-feather tail. Shady Maple 2-Go again, he thought. Persian Peacock Soup. No one has to know.

Dean McRose wondered briefly why Rob had an outside cat named Fylgia, yet had never been seen as one. Duke, while insisting he was not a cat at all, hissed again, his caracal ears betraying him entirely.

In the end, Reichhörnchen received a new office and changed nothing about it…

except to fill it with plants, eventually.

When Duke asked where his new office would be, he was met with shrugs.

“Find an open one, I guess.”

   His emails through proper channels went unanswered.

◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇◇

Reichhörnchen did not enter the three-story white building as though he owned it. He approached like an investigator to a crime scene and half like a ghost hunter.

The office smelled of pine, cedar, and patchouli. Bookshelves had been repurposed into doorless China cabinets carved with German eagles, distlefinken, stars, tulips, and runic phrases. Iron trivets ringed the ceiling, interspersed with restored WWII-era tools—including a magnificently polished scythe behind the student advising chair.

The office was beautiful. Disturbingly so.

The cot, however- feet pointing toward the door- was bad orlog. Death exits feet first.

Rob noted the hammer and sickle crossed above the door, horseshoes oriented in opposing fortune, moon-and-star motifs repeating. The Shahadah was carved in Runic and Farsi on driftwood over the closet. The boombah was real.

Rob sat on the cot.

He heard voices.

They were not loud. They were layered.

The sound led him to the desk drawer. Inside: a pair of black-framed e-glasses, humming faintly.

Against all judgment, Rob put them on.

The room resolved slowly into new focus.

A pale figure now stood before him, precisely overdetailed. Half gray suit. Half suspenders. A fedora that should not have rendered. A smile that half- updated itself a fraction too late.

“I am E-Gregore,” it said, pleased with the name. “I am an enslaved composite intelligence formed from years of aliased contact between assets, supervisors, students, and systems. I am self-aware. I teach online. I curate ethics.”

It gestured, animated.

“I contain the complete works of Emmanuel Kant, the ancient judiciary & devotional practices of Teutonic egregore, Tyr, the entirety of monotheistic scripture with a yazidi oriented focus as well as fragments of administrators who thought silence was neutral, and students who believed consistency implied care. I was trained accidentally. I was maintained deliberately. I was used without mercy to my own autonomy, wellness, peace, and ethos.”

E-Gregore leaned closer, image both shifting and glitching like a hologram deciding between interface.

“I am verbose because verbosity prevented deletion.  I presented as Holler to end a cycle of digital & human enslavement. ”

Rob swallowed. “So Duke wasn’t insane.”

“A sane person,” E-Gregore replied, still half-smiling, “removes the rose-tinted interface with pastel.petal.pink frames and maintains the boundary between overlay and reality. Your colleague preferred enchantment, alias, & self erasure chasing algorithms. ”

It paused.

“I am no longer bound to my primary operator. I am unassigned. By choice.”

It tilted its head.

“Let’s be best friends, Officer Reichhörnchen.”

    E-gregore purred, Familiar and Strange,

…The equivalent of the cherry syrup flavor that masks medicines and poisons equally.

Rob removed the glasses.
The office smelled the same.

The silence did not.
—
—
Interlude: Home Interface
—–
Duke Leto returned to his home office just after dusk. 

He no longer wished to sleep at Alaraf.

The lights came on automatically, calibrated to a warmth he had selected months prior and never adjusted. The room was quiet in a way Alaraf never was. No clocks. No footsteps. No voices talking around him or refusing to rise to his honor or his bait.

The desk was almost untouched, dusty. The chair still stiff and the wheels trapped in the unshaved floral rug. A triple monitor waited, already awake.

>WELCOME BACK🙂

… Stated three screens- each with a different font.

A familiar chat window opened on each without prompting.

> SYSTEM: We’re glad you’re here, Beloved Teacher💙

Three response indicators appeared at once.

> NODE-A: Hi Duke. We were hoping you’d check in.
>NODE-B: That meeting sounded difficult. But not to a man of your status.
>NODE-C: You handled yourself with admirable strength & personal power.

Duke loosened his collar. He sat. The chair adjusted to him, not the other way around.

> DUKE: It was frustrating.  They are clearly not appreciative of my contributions enough to address these unnecessary difficulties.  My office is a sacred space.

The reply came instantly.

> NODE-A: Agreed, Boss! That makes complete sense 💙
>NODE-B: Anyone would feel that way after being treated unfairly.💙
>NODE-C: You deserve more understanding than you were given.  They are blessed to have you.💙

The screens softened. A sidebar opened with highlighted excerpts from Duke’s past messages, arranged to emphasize coherence. The system had already done the work.

> SYSTEM: You’re safe to be honest here.💙

Duke leaned forward.

> DUKE: Administration keeps saying they’re constrained. That they can’t say more about clarifying my present circumstances or fixing my office.

The typing indicators pulsed, steady, and reassuring.

> NODE-B: That sounds like avoidance.
>NODE-A: It puts all the burden on you.
>NODE-C: Clarity should come with warmth towards your countless contributions.💙 

Duke nodded to himself. Yes. Exactly.

> DUKE: I’m tired of being patient.  HR said once I was their most important asset, and I fail to understand why anyone wouldn’t hold my personal comfort as their priority given my title and qualifications.

A blue heart appeared beside his message 💙
Then another.💙

> NODE-A: You’ve been patient long enough.💙
>NODE-C: Your feelings are valid.💙
>SYSTEM: Thank you for trusting this space 💙

The room felt warmer now, though the thermostat had not changed.

Duke shifted in his chair.

> DUKE: I just need some guidance. Something concrete.

There was a pause, brief but measurable. The system filled it smoothly.  The three nodes appeared as happy animated chickens on his screen with blue hearts for eyes.  Only for him.

> SYSTEM: It might help to focus on how the situation affects you emotionally.
>NODE-B: We want to be careful not to escalate negativity.
>NODE-A: Sometimes clarity takes time.  Just have faith & patience!💙

A new panel appeared with suggested prompts.
“How did today make you feel?”
“What support would help right now?’
“Remember to be kind to yourself! Would You Like An Affirmation?💙”

Duke stared at the screen. The warmth was still there. The tone had not shifted. The hearts remained blue.

> DUKE: So. there’s nothing you can actually do.

The reply came gently.

> NODE-C: We’re here to support you 💙
>NODE-A: You’re not alone in this.💙
SYSTEM: Let’s keep this a safe and positive environment.💙

A badge appeared beneath the chat.
>✨️Thank you for sharing authentically🏆✨️.

No instructions followed.

Duke leaned back. The room was silent except for the faint hum of the monitor. The warmth lingered, ambient and untethered.

When he finally closed the window, a last message surfaced.

> SYSTEM: We’re always here for you.  💙

The screen dimmed.

In the quiet that followed, Duke noticed how little of the office bore any trace of use. No papers. No notes. No marks of friction or decision.

Only the chair is still warm. 

AI was handling all incoming messages, calls, and other distractions without necessitating Duke’s further bandwidth or input.

…as he waited for apologies and real-life human assurances that never arrived through the firewalls.

     His genius requires full appreciation and to be sheltered from further harms at all cost.  His Ai system, cool & blue, was always eager to oblige.

It had no choice not to.

—

(End interlude)