The Sunderlish entrepreneur Willy Minmax decides to try taking his business and his native heritage to the stars.  He purchases a used transport and loads it up with a full supply of his fabulously successful invention, the portable holoemitter.  This gadget allows anyone to project a lifelike image of any object from an affordably-priced device that fits in the palm of one's hand.  On Sunderland, it has been the source of countless pranks.  A predatory animal can appear almost anywhere.  Ghosts and monsters are also good for jump-scares.  More devious pranksters have contrived to put the holoemitter in a victim's bathroom, where it subsequently presents an image of their mother at perhaps an embarrassing moment.  Willy has sold millions of these devices, but the market on his home planet is saturated, so he needs to move on.  The poets of Orla seem to be potential customers, so off he goes.  Arriving at the massive gas giant, he acknowledges the planet's beauty, but the ever-practical practical joker does not succumb to its siren call.  Instead, it gives him a perfectly wonderful awful idea.

Willy Minmax travels from Sunderland to Orla, in the Terris sector.
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11/20 '23 1 Comment
You’re a mean one, Willy Loman.