Ryan stared at the Value Meal #9 which was currently trying to crawl out of its cardboard box and bite his finger. “Nebula, I asked for extra pickles, not `extra teeth,'” he sighed, tapping his security flashlight against the tray.
They were at McDopplers in the Ontari-Ox Logistics Moon, a cratered shipping terminal in Dimensional Sector SE-6 that handled the Mall’s overflow of impulse-buy garbage.
“It’s the new Living Lettuce promotion,” Nebula said, her third arm emerging from her shoulder to flip a burger that looked suspiciously like a flattened lung. “The manager says if the food fights back, it burns more calories. It’s a health thing.”
Dover, Ryan’s sentient escalator friend, groaned as his metal treads vibrated against the floor. “Why even eat? We’re all just going down eventually. Life is a steady decline into a basement of disappointment.”
Suddenly, Mr. Meankinder’s angry head roared from across the court. “RANDOM! Why aren’t you guarding the Grav-Boot kiosk? I’ll have your skin for a rug!”
His kind head immediately interjected, “But do take your time, dear boy, digestion is key!”
His third head just blinked and muttered, “Where am I? Is this a shoe?”
Ryan looked at the burger. It hissed and grew a tiny, leafy eye. “You know what? I’m not even hungry.” He nudged the tray toward a passing four-legged tourist. “Hey, free sample!”
The tourist, a gaseous cloud in a suit, inhaled the burger instantly. A second later, the cloud turned bright neon pink and began screaming in high-definition French.
“Great,” Ryan muttered, pulling out his mall map. “Now I have to file a Trans-Dimensional Digestive Incident report. There goes my fifteen-minute break.”
Just then, the burger inside the cloud started singing the McDopplers jingle from within the tourist’s throat.
(This story created by a California earthquake on September 1, 2026. Magnitude of: 3.2. 6 km SE of Ontario, CA. URL: https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/ci41540608)