As they left the Failure Room, Chili and the rest of the children were surprised to find grass beneath their feet. They were standing on a small hill.

The sky was cloudy but not gr[redacted]y as it had been when the children first entered the factory. The sun was bright and strong, and it hung over miles and/or kilometers of scarped forests. There were several mountains dotting the landscape. One was four times larger than all the others, and unlike them lacked greenery.

It was windy.

Chili turned around to find that the door behind him had vanished. He walked over to the spot where it had been and swiped at air.

"Now," said Mr. Bucket. "You are all great at solving intelligent riddles. But you are all still children, so I am expecting many bad questions."

"How are we outside?" asked Keerthi. "We have only gone down since the start!"

"In quality, yes," admitted Mr. Bucket. "And in location! But we are not outside. We are in the VIP Room. It is designed to make everyone inside of it feel like they are outside even though they are not. I am proud of it."

"This can't be a room," said Chili. "I know what a room is, and this is not that! A room has a floor! This room has no floor!"

"The ground is a floor," said Mr. Bucket.

"It has no walls!" said Chili.

"They are special walls," said Mr. Bucket. "You can't see them or touch them, and they move, and they also aren't walls. But they are there."

"It has no ceiling!" said Chili. "You have all the holes that are in a ceiling, sure. But where is the rest of it? You can't only have the holes!"

"I don't think ceilings are supposed to have any holes," said Keerthi.

"Shut up and die," said Chili.

"I'm sure it has a ceiling," said Lim. "We aren't outside. Here."

Lim pointed one of Taranturoo's claws at the sky and shot a bullet. It went straight up.

"Why did you do that?" asked Keerthi.

"In perfect conditions, Taranturoo's artillery fire can travel about twelve-thousand feet and or however many meters that would be into the air. The round I fired has a tracker in it. I'll know how high the ceiling is once it makes contact."

"How long will that take?" asked Keerthi.

"From the moment I fired, about one minute. But…"

Lim paused.

"JUROR," said Lim. "Move away from where you are standing."

"It would be more artistic if you didn't," said Chili.

JUROR moved.

"Farther," said Lim.

"Take another step," said Chili, "And you are selling out."

JUROR sold out.

Seconds later, a controlled blast no larger than a controlled blast that was no smaller than a comparatively small controlled blast blasted controllably precisely at the space where JUROR had been standing.

"You couldn't have used a bullet that didn't explode?" asked JUROR.

"I don't have any bullets that don't explode," said Lim.

"So there's no ceiling," said Tide. "Great. Good Ocean."

"There is a ceiling!" said Mr. Bucket. "But! It does not matter. No one should ever walk into a room and worry about the floor or the walls or the ceilings. You are in the most stuporbellowing factory in the entire world! There are much better questions to be asking."

Chili bent down and started eating the grass.

"This is good," said Chili. "I've never had St. Augustine this good. Better than Fescue."

"Oh," said Mr. Bucket. "A connoisseur!"

Keerthi reached down and plucked three pieces of grass out of the dirt. She gave them a sniff before tossing them in her mouth.

She immediately spit them out. "This is just regular grass!"

"Not any grass," said Mr. Bucket. "St. Septembertine, my own blend. Goes great with cabbage soup and lint."

"People can't eat grass!" said Keerthi. "It has silica! It'll destroy your teeth! Unless… did you remove it first?"

"Why would he do that?" asked Chili. "Silica is what gives it all the flavor! This moron finally shows us one good invention and you want to ruin it. Shut up and die."

"Grass," said Lim. "Not candy grass. Grass. You built this entire room for grass."

"Delicious grass," said Mr. Bucket. "And no. It is only a side project. The VIP Room is for VIPs."

"VIPs?" asked Tide.

"Yes," said Mr. Bucket. "How else would I make my delicious WonkaCoffee?"

"WonkaCoffee?" asked Keerthi.

"Yes," said Mr. Bucket. "My delicious coffee brand! It is the greatest coffee ever made and soon will be released to the public. I was inspired by Kopi luwak."

"Kopi luwak?" asked JUROR.

"Yes," Mr. Bucket said. "That is what I said. It is rude to hear a sentence and then repeat it back in the form of a question. It is plagiarism."

"It is plagiarism?" asked Lim.

"Yes," said Mr. Bucket.

"Yes?" asked Tide.

"Yes," said Mr. Bucket.

"Yes?" asked Chili.

"Yes," said Mr. Bucket. "I am glad that the three of you can understand what I have said. Please explain it to JUROR if you can."

"That isn't," said JUROR.

"But!" said Mr. Bucket. "Yes! Yes! Kopi luwak. Do any of you know what that is?"

Nobody did.

"Ha," Mr. Bucket. "I cannot blame you! If you asked me not more than a short time ago, I would have said that children and babies and vaping teenagers should not be drinking coffee! It is gross."

"I vape," said Mahuika.

"Of course you do! When the alternative is coffee. Coffee is for boring people who hate fun. I tried it in all the ways that you can try to drink it! I tried it black! I tried it roasted! I tried it together with every drink I could think up! With milk, and with wine, and with gasoline, and even with…"

Mr. Bucket's eyes met with Chili's.

"It doesn't matter. I tried it with everything, and it was all terrible! I decided it was awful and I would never make it inside Wonkaland. But one evening I was reading a book, and it told me all about Kopi luwak."

"Who is that?" asked Keerthi.

"What! A what, not a who. It is coffee! A special coffee! Before the babies blew up Indonesia, there was an animal species there called the Asian Palm Civet. They loved coffee fruit!"

"Coffee isn't a fruit," said Tide. "It's a bean."

"Wrong!" said Mr. Bucket. "Coffee is a fruit from our planet. Coffee beans are not true beans. They are seeds found inside coffee fruits. When coffee is made ordinarily, these beans are collected and dried and ground up and mixed with hot water and drunk. But not with Kopi luwak!"

"How do they make it?" asked Keerthi.

"Shit!" said Mr. Bucket. "Shizzblotting grunkbutting asswalloping shit! The Asian Palm Civets would eat the coffee fruits and poop out the seeds! People would go and take the seeds and make coffee out of them like it was normal. They said it was delicious! They said it tasted like fresh fruit!"

"No," said Keerthi.

"Yes," said Mr. Bucket.

"No," said JUROR.

"Yes," said Mr. Bucket.

"No," said Tide.

"Yes," said Mr. Bucket.

"No," said Lim.

"Yes," said Mr. Bucket.

"I vape," said Mahuika.

Mr. Bucket laughed. "Okay," he admitted. "Nothing can get past you, Mahuika. I was making that all up. Of course coffee beans are real beans from this planet and of course no one was ever going around making coffee out of poop. I did read that in a book, but it was science fiction. Still! I did think it was worth trying!"

"So this room is filled with civets?" asked Lim.

"Not exactly," said Mr. Bucket. "Come. I will show you."

W

Mr. Bucket led the children down a hill and through the forest. Chili peeled small pieces of bark from the trees he passed and ate them as they went.

They reached a small clearing on the side of a river surrounded by bushes. In the middle of the clearing there was a large metallic cylinder partially covered by a round magnetic strip. The cylinder was hollow.

Mr. Bucket crouched down beneath the bushes and instructed the children to do the same. Everyone who was not a baby in a Taranturoo suit did this.

"Mr. Bucket," said Lim. "My Taranturoo is eleven feet above three feet beneath the ground and as wide as something that is one meter wider than an object with no width. I cannot possibly hide like this."

"So take the suit off," said Mr. Bucket. "Chili will hold you."

"I can throw him," offered Chili.

"To safety?" asked Mr. Bucket.

"No," said Chili.

For some reason Lim would not step out of his Taranturoo suit, and the rest of the children and Mr. Bucket had to disguise him as a tree. Leaves were tossed around his feet and each of his claws were given a long stick to hold.

After they finished the rest of the children sat in the bush closest to him and waited. Everyone was silent except for Mahuika, who helped pass the time by sharing a fun fact about herself. Before Chili could inform her how he felt about it through the creative medium of physical violence the sky began to scream.

"There they are," said Mr. Bucket. "Look! The VIPs! All one hundred of them!"

One hundred VIPs flew out from the clouds and began to swarm above the cylinder in a tight circle which began to come closer to the ground. As they slowed down it became possible to see them individually. They were shrieking and filling the air with high-pitched loud screechscrotches.

They were birds, but not like any bird Chili had ever seen or read about. They were as tall as Mr. Bucket with wings twice as long as half his height. They had white rings around their long necks and shiny black feathers. They had long antennae on their foreheads and two small pincers coming out of their chests and giant ears and long ugly beaks and teeth as sharp as teeth-shaped knives.

"What does VIP stand for?" asked Keerthi.

"Very Intelligent Pheasant," said Mr. Bucket. "I made them myself. Each VIP is sixty percent pheasant, twenty percent vulture, five percent bat, and five percent prawn."

"What about the other ten percent?" asked Keerthi. "That only adds up to ninety."

"I can't tell you," said Mr. Bucket.

"Why not?" she asked.

"Because," said Mr. Bucket. "If I said that the other ten percent came from the most poisonous snake in the world, one of you would say something very anno-"

"Venomous," said Lim. "Not poisonous. Snakes are venomous, not poisonous, since they bite."

"No!" said Mr. Bucket. "Not the Crying Mamba, which cries tears of pure poison."

"But why would you use DNA from a poisonous animal if you are going to use them to make coffee?" asked Keerthi.

"Because," said Mr. Bucket. "They are emotionally intelligent, and that is the section of their DNA that I used, not the poison tears. Emotional intelligence is rare in reptiles. All other snakes are corrupted by a horrible snake culture that forces them to hide their sadness behind false bravado. It's the same with sharks."

Tide frowned and nodded.

"That isn't a real animal," said Chili. "It would have been in National Geographic."

"Harrumph," said Mr. Bucket. "You should read Wonka Geographic instead! But we cannot discuss it now. Prepare yourselves for the vomiting!"

"The vomiting?" asked JUROR.

"Yes! The vomiting," said Mr. Bucket. "I found out that with the right combination, you can make a stomach environment that tastes even better than the make-believe civet coffee might have. But the best stomach coffee comes back up from the front, not from out the back. Vultures are excellent for this, since they are the best vomiteers nature has to offer."

One of the VIPS separated from the group and flew to the middle of the circle. He flapped in place, pointed his head down, and regurgitated a blob that shot down into the top of the cylinder in a quick blur.

"This is ridiculous," said Lim.

"It is," said Mr. Bucket. "That shot only clocked in at 1400 miles per hour. On most days they fire at much higher speeds, and not one at a time."

After the bird fired at the cylinder it pointed a wing at the ground and shrieked. The other VIPs shrieked too.

"Do they always shriek so loudly?" asked Keerthi.

"That is how they speak," said Mr. Bucket. "I am sure they are having a conversation about how great of a boss I am. They are having a grand old time."

"No," said Tide.

"Fine," said Mr. Bucket. "A whale of a time."

"They are talking about Lim," said Tide. "They know he isn't a tree. And they know we are beneath this bush."

Everyone vaped or looked at Tide in confusion.

"How the fuck would you know?" asked Chili.

"I can speak to animals," said Tide. "I stay away from the ones that don't have anything to do with Ocean, but I can understand or talk with any of them. Including the VIPs."

"Animals aren't smart enough to talk," said Lim. "Maybe these abominations that Bucket cooked up, but not normal animals."

"Not with words," said Tide. "Some speak with snips, or snaps, or echolocation, or by mauling an igloo full of your nicest followers and drawing pictures with their blood. Whenever I hear those signs, they turn into words in my head, and it's like I'm speaking to a human. It is the same in reverse. When I speak to them, they hear my words like they are snips or snaps or echolocation or mauling an igloo full of-"

"Shut up," said Chili.

"If you understand them, what are they talking about now?" asked Keerthi.

"Most of them think Mr. Bucket invented Lim's suit to kill them," said Tide. "Moreover they are arguing about whether it is a spider-kangaroo or a cricket-kangaroo."

"How could they possibly think cricket?" asked Lim.

"Now they are saying they would rather die in a futile quest for freedom than die as vomit slaves," said Tide. "They can also hear me speaking to you."

"You are silly," said Mr. Bucket. "The VIPs love me and would never want to leave. They are not slaves! Our relationship is different than that. I see them as living sapient creatures that I own and who work for me and who are not allowed to leave or stop working for me, not slaves."

Keerthi leaned over to Mr. Bucket and whispered something in his ear.

"Oh," he said. "Are you sure?"

Keerthi nodded.

"Hmm," said Mr. Bucket. "Well! It does not matter. Children, I will not allow the VIPs to harm you as they are sure to do in order to take revenge on me, even if the Wonka Security System does not work in this special room, since it does not have normal walls and floors and ceilings. It is dirty of them to try that! Especially since it wouldn't bother me at all."

The VIPs shrieked all at once.

"I don't think they understand exactly what you said but they picked up on the tone," said Tide. "They said they know that we are innocent children and they only want you."

Mr. Bucket frowned.

"Are you sure?" asked Mr. Bucket.

"Yes," said Tide.

"It could be a translation error," said Mr. Bucket. "Those happen sometimes. Once I knew an Oompa Loompa named Roy, I might have told you about him once. He kept telling me that he wanted to die, so I brought him as many dice as I could, but it turned out-"

One of the VIPs fired a blast of projectile vomit at Mr. Bucket's top hat. The speed of it blew all the leaves off the bush everyone was hiding behind and disintegrated his hat.

The VIPs began to lower and encircle the bush.

"Please tell them to stop," said Mr. Bucket.

"You used prawn DNA, Mr. Bucket," said Tide. "Everyone knows you can't stop prawns once they get going."

"Chopin baby," said Mr. Bucket. "You are my favorite. I told you that? I told you that, I am sure. Please capture the VIPs in a way that makes it so they cannot hurt me. I will give you a chocolate bar."

"A factory," said Lim.

"That would fall under an unreasonable request," said Mr. Bucket. "Remember? We discussed this some time ago-"

Another VIP vomited, and the blast chopped some of Mr. Bucket's long hair off.

"They are missing on purpose," said Tide.

"Instead," said Mr. Bucket. "I can give you a bottle of good taste. You won't have to like terrible musicians anymore. Does that sound good?"

"He'll die before he gives you the factory now," said JUROR. "And if the birds take him we're trapped."

"Yes!" said Mr. Bucket. "Good point! What a good point that is. My factory is large and difficult to navigate! You need a tour guide if you want to leave safely! In most of the rooms where it works, the Wonka Security System instantly choco-vaporizes unattended noncitizens."

"Sounds fair," said Chili.

Lim sighed. "Fine," he said. "I don't care to argue the point. But I don't have any nonlethal methods."

"What!?" exclaimed Mr. Bucket. "You can't kill them! They're too valuable, and poaching and hunting birds is always wrong! Always! Always! I will never contradict myself on this specific topic!"

"It isn't poaching," said Lim. "You would be giving me permission. You are a king."

"But, but-"

The VIPS landed on the floor and began walking towards Mr. Bucket, who backed himself away into a circle that closed in on him. Some of the VIPs used their chest pincers to help the children stand up and move out of the circle.

"Okay! Baby! I changed my mind! Shoot! Sizzlefire! Cannonload! Inboomerate! Hurry!"

Lim dropped his sticks and aimed his arms at the VIPs. They shrieked and began to fire ninety-eight blasts of projectile vomit at Lim, which covered the Taranturoo from head to toe in vomit. The machine quickly stopped moving, glued in place.

The VIPs shrieked.

"Lim," said Tide. "They want to know if you're okay. They didn't want to hurt you."

"Okay is a relative term," said Lim. "Even with the self-cleaner, it's going to take the machine a long time to get all this off. It's strong."

The VIPs shrieked in relief and then again in anger.

One VIP, larger than all the others, grabbed Mr. Bucket and held him against his chest with his pincers. It looked angry.

"Ha!" said Mr. Bucket. "Your bodies only produce one blast of vomit per day! You can't do anything to me! Not now!"

"They could drop you," said Chili. He picked up a nearby rock and dropped in front of the birds, demonstrating his idea.

"No," said Mr. Bucket. "They can't! They're prawns!"

"Why would that matter?" asked JUROR.

"Prawns only like to kill people using the most ironic methods available to them," said Tide. "Everyone knows that."

The largest bird shrieked and pointed a wing in the direction the children had come from. Then it slowly flapped its wings and took off from the ground, the others following it.

"Children!" shouted Mr. Bucket from the air. "The Very Intelligent Pheasants are only emotionally intelligent! They should not be difficult to outsmart! They live in the cave inside the biggest mountain and will have no vomit until tomorrow morning at the earliest! Come and save me and we can continue the tour!"

"We will!" said Keerthi.

"Shut up," said Chili.

Mr. Bucket was dragged into the clouds with the VIPs.

The children continued to stare at the sky without saying anything.

"It's a test," said Keerthi. "He isn't really a slave owner. He is a good person who is testing us. That is all this is."

"I vape," said Mahuika.