"In the southernmost part of the supercluster of cosmic islands in Euphros, lies a small group of islands interconnected by fine ice, rock, stellar dust, and gas, in outer space; A place every person born in Euphros can breathe in."
"This is The Golden Ridge; home to tens and thousands of people, and a giant ridge of golden stellar dust piercing through the heart of the cluster, visible to the skies of every island in the region."
"...and Little Farmland is one of those islands!" Pickle says.
Iggy, with his eyes wide open, looks at the scenery; golden mountains touching the night sky.
"...A real beauty, huh?" Pickle adds.
"Yeah... it looks beautiful..."
A purple cosmic cloud bears close to Iggy from the table...
"Boo."
Iggy looks back, his eyes dilating in amusement.
"P~ Pickle? Is that you???"
The cosmic cloud begins to talk; mouthless, he opens his white eyes.
"You bet it is! How do I look?"
"You look... cosmic-y."
"This is what I look like in The Industry and Outer Space. Pretty cool, huh?"
"I love how simple your character design is..."
"Supposed to be, until some crackhead decided I should do a stupid form change."
"Haha, at least someone can bring you back to the station every time now." Iggy replies.
"Bet. Anyway, I think we're close..."
"Close friends?"
"No, I mean close to our destination."
Iggy looks back at the window.
"The Industry's Golden Ridge Headquarters." Pickle says.
Iggy and Pickle are greeted by a humble modern building the the middle of the cosmos. Its Cream White colors bouncing off the stars' rays. Golden Apple-bearing trees are everywhere in the island.
"Welp, get ready to open the train door and jump!" Pickle says as he floats away from Iggy.
"Wait. what?" Iggy replies.
Seconds later, Freefall...
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA~"
A hundred decibel sounds coming from Iggy's mouth.
"IT'S FUN, RIGHT!?" Pickle asks as he freefalls with him.
"WHY IS THERE GRAVITY IN OUTER SPAAAAAAAACE!?"
Pickle changes his shape into that of a cushion and lands on the ground to catch Iggy.
He fails.
"Whoops."
Later on, Iggy and Pickle arrive on the doorstep of the Headquarters. Mossy as it seems, the see-through windows suggest that the interior is highly-maintained.
Three knocks on the door by Iggy. An awkward pause follows.
"...So, about that down bad guy with the AI~"
"Shut up." Pickle says as he shuts Iggy down.
Footsteps from behind the doors. The footsteps get louder...
The door opens.
"A woman appears, her hair as maroon as cherry, her eyes as brown as almond. An envelope in hand..."
Pickle freezes.
"My, my. What a good description of me. But I'm afraid your word usage is a bit... underwhelming." She says, smiling.
"Okay." Iggy nonchalantly replies. "...You alright there, Pickle?"
"What is she doing here..." Pickle says to himself.
"I'm here for official business... involving you two."
"For starters, My name is Aria, You can call me The Director. I'm the head of The Industry's Foreign Affairs."
She picks up a pen from her pocket and twirls it.
"18-time award winning, by the way." She adds.
Pickle unfreezes and uncomfortably snickers.
"Hahaha, Director, what are you doing here? Hehe, last time I was with you, you told me to follow my directive." Pickle expresses with a scripted voice.
"Follower, your directive. Follow that monster." She told me when I left.
"Oh, she's THAT person!" Iggy says.
"So, Iggy, right?" The Director asks.
"Right... You know my name?"
"How else?" She replies.
She gives the envelope to Iggy.
"I have your chat logs."
Iggy blushes.
"So, invasion of privacy?" Pickle interrupts.
The Director replies in detail.
"I don't have his personal life, all I have is this script autowritten to your perspective. So if this new friend of your were to, let's say, wander off and do something without you... The autowriter wouldn't know."
She draws closer to Pickle.
"All it would type is your question... "
The director taps Pickle's forehead for each word she says.
"Where... did.. Iggy... go?"
Pickle, horrified, gulps.
"Anyway, quite the introduction, huh? Come in, both of you." She says, walking into the headquarters.
Iggy and Pickle, both with dilated eyes, walk into the headquarters.
"So she knows about the AI..." Iggy shakingly delivers.
"God, not that again..." Pickle says, shivering.
As they go through the corridors, Iggy's curious eyes wander about the premises. Hundreds of sticky notes are everywhere. Dozens of typewriters of different models are scattered across one room, while a few creatives are having a discussion inside the conference room.
"This looks like an animation studio..." Iggy remarks.
"It's because it is. The meeting over there is all about Golden Apple's new project, an animated adaptation of a sandbox game." The Director replies.
"This island wanders about in The Golden Ridge, making it a perfect candidate for headquarters and for surveying of locations for the studio's projects." She added.
Iggy, Pickle, and The Director enter the studio's oval office. Thousands of drawings are on the walls, and the yellow dawn color of the wallpaper gives off the fresh scent of home.
"This is the oval office. Only the HQs have oval offices, and of course, a head of local affairs."
An old man in a suit is sitting on the office table, his hat and posture concealing his face."
His name is naGran.
"...So that kid's the one you've been talking about, director?"
The mysterious man lifts his chin up.
"Doesn't look like he's quite capable to me." He says.
"His script says different, naGran." The director takes a few of the papers on the envelope and tosses it to the mysterious man.
"Wait, you have a copy of my rabbit script?" Iggy asks The Director.
"You made Follower read your script; Natural for me to have a copy of it down to the last word."
The Director looks back at naGran.
"So? what do you think?" She asks him.
"An eight." naGran says, lifting the script with two of his fingers.
"That's the same rating you gave me..." Iggy tells Pickle.
"Interesting rabbit story. Those animal-experimenting companies can learn a thing or two." naGran adds.
"Told you." The Director smirks at naGran. "Weird as it seems, this kid has chances to be really capable for 1KX." She adds as she strolls to the couch.
"1KX...?" Iggy asks himself.
"If I were you, I should bear no confidence in that. That script could just be a one-off incident..." naGran replies.
"...A fluke."
"If you have doubts... Why don't you test him out?"
Pickle interrupts the conversation.
"Uh.. Director, you don't mean... a test subject, right.?"
A few minutes later...
Iggy is sitting in a room with naGran. The room is well-organized. A hundred books, a dozen pens, two typewriters, and a ream of A4 papers are in the table.
"Twelve hours. Make me a ten-paged script for a ten-minute episode." naGran says.
"...Any prompt?" Iggy asks.
"Five characters. No antagonists. A chain of messages started by one of those characters results in a muffled title for a gossip: Greg's pregnancy."
?????
The Director and Pickle's broken faces from behind the room's window.
A little giggle from Iggy. "Oh, that sounds like fun!"
naGran starts walking away.
"You have all the reference media you need. You can come out of the room for food if you want." He says.
"Again, you have twelve hours."
The door closes.
"Hey! Old dude! You can't just give him a hard prompt like that!" Pickle angrily remarks.
"Actually, it's pretty easy..." Iggy interrupts, raising his hand.
"I WAS DEFENDING YOU, YOU KNOW!"
naGran walks away from Pickle and The Director.
"It's a simple test for a simple kid like him." He says.
"...But if he can't get higher than an 8, then 1KX is going to be in the wrong hands."