Zeke ran for several blocks and then ducked down a side alleyway and paused to catch his breath. He was greeted by the sight of two strange looking men in identical blue suits and hats climbing on top of a grand piano. 

"Uh oh, Bill," one of the men said. "We've been spotted. What do we do?" 

"We'd better bring him along," the other man said. "The boss will know what to do with him." 

They hopped off the piano and grabbed Zeke under his shoulders, hoisting him on top of it. By this point he was too worn out and inebriated to put up a fight so he laid limply across the lid of the piano as the two men climbed back on. "Let's get out of here before anyone else sees us," the first man said as the piano began to lift slowly off the ground. 

"What in the hell is going on?" Zeke asked. 

"We're flying," the second man replied curtly. 

"On a piano?" 

"Yeah. We used to use the standard flying carpets, but they wore out too quickly so we switched to flying grand pianos." 

"Is this safe?" Zeke asked as he looked over the edge cautiously. The ground was beginning to recede quickly beneath them and soon they were rising over the tops of the buildings. 

"Perfectly safe," the first man said. "In fact in the entire time we've been flying the pianos we've only had one accident. That was when Peterson fell asleep at the wheel and crash landed into that Morton the Mystic guy." 

"Killed him instantly, poor sap," the second man said. "Of course Peterson walked away without a scratch, but the boss man wasn't too pleased. Fired him the next day." 

"What became of old Peterson anyway?" the first man asked.  

"I heard he got a job as the warden at the jail," the second man replied. "Of course he wouldn't remember any of the accident now, what with the memory wipe and all."  

The piano continued to rise and soon they had broken through the clouds. The night sky was cool and clear at this altitude, and Zeke noticed for the first time that there were two moons, one bright red and full, the other a slim blue crescent. There were numerous stars in strange and unfamiliar formations. 

"Where are we going anyway?" Zeke asked holding his head. It was tingly and swimming oddly, not quite like the usual drunken spin. 

"We may as well tell him," the first man said. "He's going to find out in a minute anyway." 

"We're going to the top secret headquarters of the Roto-Bus drivers," the second man explained. "From there we control the movements of all the Roto-Buses in the city." 

"I see," Zeke said as he laid his head back against the lid of the piano. Overhead the stars were spinning rapidly. The strange tingling sensation in his head seemed to be spreading and he felt as if he were about to float right out of his body. 

They approached a large cloud embankment and suddenly in the midst of the swirling white wisps a tall stone building appeared. 

"Here we are," the first man said. "Time to get off." 

"Are we on top of a mountain or something?" Zeke asked as he pulled himself to an upright position, still feeling dazed. 

"Nope, this puppy's built right into the clouds. Quite a marvel of engineering she is." The two men hopped off the piano and looked at him expectantly. "Well? Come on." 

Zeke eyed the nebulous puffs of clouds uncertainly. "What's going to keep me from falling right through?" 

"Don't be afraid. We're walking on it, see? And besides, if they'll support that big building, they'll support you." 

"Well, okay," Zeke said as he edged off the piano cautiously. He set one foot on the clouds and found that while they gave a little, they held him up. He lowered himself down completely and took a few steps. It felt somewhat like walking on a giant waterbed. 

"We'd better get inside before the boss man gets mad at us for being late. He's already probably going to chew us out for bringing an outsider." 

They approached the building and the first man placed his face in a scanner. The door swung open revealing a spacious control room with many giant screens on the wall and numerous men in blue suits sitting at controllers. A tall pockmarked man with a headset around his ears looked up as they entered. "Ah, Jenkins, Fairweather, there you are. But who's this?" 

"We couldn't help it, sir," the first man said. "He saw us boarding the piano. We didn't know what to do, so we brought him along." 

"Well, we're going to have to give him the memory wipe," the boss said as he looked at them sternly. "What's your name, son?" 

"Zeke," he slurred. His head felt like it was going to detach from his body and float off into space. 

"Well, Zeke, I really hate to do this to you, but nobody's allowed to leave this place with their memory intact." 

"It's all right," Zeke said slowly. His eyelids were drooping, but he couldn't help but stare at one of the giant screens nearby. It seemed to consist of crappy pixilated graphics, not unlike old outdated videogames. In fact, the screen looked quite a bit like a video game as numerous boxy characters were running around some sort of maze chased by spinning circles that seemed to be controlled by the men in the blue suits who sat around staring at the screen and holding joysticks. The whole thing was accompanied by some tinny electronic music. 

What seemed especially odd was that all the characters on the screen had names underneath of them, some of which were familiar. A little boxy green smiley frog face had the name "Max" underneath it. Elsewhere, a pink face with bright yellow hair was labeled "Sarah." Zeke, spotted Vance, Sweaty Jim, Michelangelo, Dr. Octavius, Trevor Mastodon and several other familiar names scattered about among numerous other ones. 

"What the hell is that, some kind of game?" Zeke mumbled as he fought a yawn.  

"As a matter of fact, it is," the boss said. 

"How come a lot of the characters are named after people I know?" Zeke asked. 

"As long as you're here I guess we may as well explain it to you," the boss said. "You won't remember later anyway, so what's the harm? See, you've been participating in our latest video game entitled 'Roto-Bus!' The joystick controls the Roto-Buses which are those circular objects you see on the screen. The object of the game is to pick up as many of those characters as you can. Different characters are worth different point values. The 'Sarah' character, for instance, is particularly elusive. If you can manage to get her on board you score ten thousand points." 

"What?" Zeke asked. "Wait a minute, if we're all just characters in some crappy video game how come we have all these storylines going on? Why aren't we just mindlessly running around all over the place trying to avoid getting captured by Roto-Buses?" 

"We don't think this game is 'crappy.' We think it's fun," the boss sniffed. "And who says you're not running around mindlessly? The characters are all governed by a series of complex algorithms that keep them maneuvering about in unpredictable patterns. You probably experience this as personal motivation and events in your 'lives,' but it's really nothing more than some clever programming." 

"Then what's with the traveling here on the grand pianos? And how the hell did I get here?" 

"Sometimes bugs emerge in the game and we have to send technicians in to fix them. The pianos are how they manifest themselves within the program. And occasionally a crossing over effect occurs and a stray bit of data such as you makes its way over here. It's no big deal, really. Hell, Reilly over there claims to have even crossed over once himself into the great video-game in the sky called 'Control Room!' wherein all of us in this room were characters in a game who were being maneuvered around by joysticks for some purpose. Of course Reilly was hitting the cough syrup pretty hard at the time, but it sounds strangely plausible." 

"This is really weird," Zeke murmured, feeling increasingly overcome with sleepiness. 

"Yes, it is," the boss said. "Well, it's been lovely talking with you, Zeke, but we've got work to attend to, so I'm afraid we're going to have to administer the memory wipe and return you to the game. You'll wake up with a dim recollection of this that will slowly fade and you'll dismiss it all as a dream. Good luck, son." 

Suddenly the drowsiness that Zeke had been battling for awhile now became overwhelming and he blacked out.