In Hiatus City, the rain hasn't stopped for twelve years.

This, perhaps, may seem like a curious thing, because the four armed robbers, all in wooden shoes, were perfectly dry as they got revolved into the Main Hiatus Karma Bank at exactly 4:44 pm.

On the street, weather forecasters became distraught and confused. One particular analyst stopped himself from rubber-banding together a threatening weather forecast brick and waddled home through the steaming puddles.

Homeless Marketing Ltd. profits went down forty-four percent. As their cardboard signs and fake beards dried in the sun, even their dreariest acts seemed a lot more cheery in comparison to the rain.

In a small pot with wheels the sun loitered for the first time. Within this space, the whole evolutionary process started all over again. Interestingly enough, small potted plants with wheels would be the dominant life form in a few million years.

At 8:16 in the morning, on the eighth day, of the eighth month, of the year 2024, eight earnest young men began work sixteen minutes late, but triumphantly in command. There was some discrepancy about who had the key because nobody had it. The person who did have the key woke up too late to make it to work on time, so he saved himself the trouble of being fired and proceeded to practice lip-reading by watching television with the mute button on.

At 8:12 Largo Snupts slithered out of an expensive European car and unlocked the revolving glass door. The employees marched into the door by employee number, then one by one created a circle that mimicked the shape of the lobby rug.

The last employee filled the gap reserved for him in the circle, and they all held onto each other's shoulders, gripping with only their fingertips. Largo Snupts stood in the center on the back of a plush green chair, and with the lights dimmed and the employees all crouching and weaving, he looked tall. The bank employees around him began to take synchronized breaths, making heaving noises at each lung compression. The breathing became more rapid, and some of them began to scream along with their breaths. Snupts stretched his body higher and pulled his top hat off with a coup de spin and a twirl de grace, then placed it back on his head with a palm pressing down on the butte.

The screaming climaxed into a chaotic girly coo, and the employees began circling around, still clasping arms, counterclockwise. The veteran employees held onto the beginners, dragging them into every sinewy motion, cuing them to every yell, pulling them into every arch of the body. Those that failed to learn the ritual fast enough were locked in the safe where all the bad karma was kept. Most people came out searching for blood, which gave Largo a politically correct reason to fire them.

            "My dear employees," he cried. "My dear employees, we are gathered here today to make a difference in people's lives." His voice was steady and full of purpose.

            "Here, here!" they shouted in unison.

            "Our industry is an ambiguous one. People need us, and we do not need them. Where is the motivation to treat our customers with respect, with dignity, with care? To have karma is to have power. To have power is to control the lives of others. We control the good and the bad that happens to the people of Hiatus City. What do you do with things that you own?"

            "You treat them with respect, dignity, and care!" they all shouted back.

            "The plan for today is no different than any other plan. Everyone to your positions! Everyone to glory! New Zealand is coming in today for a loan, Chet, that is your client. Steven, take customer service. The rest of you are tellers for the day. There will be no lunch break today unless you all have good enough karma to convince me otherwise."
            None of the employees moved.

            "Go."

            Everyone leaped to their respective positions. Slabs of white marble were the counters that the tellers positioned themselves. Black fencing was set up on top of the counters with little holes to make transactions. The tellers stood and smiled.

            Karma banks have had a gigantic impact on the world ever since the first one was founded in a small community underneath a mountain in Southern Japan. The second Vietnam War, for example, was built on massive karma loans and bonds. In 2006, America asked Northern Vietnam for permission to film a war movie, offering to pay them monetary royalties. The Vietnamese agreed and the Americans sent four hundred thousand troops posing as actors. Although several good actors were killed in the process, unnecessary members of Hollywood and general society, such as Keanu Reeves, Ben Affleck, etc., finally got what they had coming.

            After filming some of the worst Hollywood war footage in history, the soldiers were deployed in a sneak attack that was eventually deemed as the cleverest war in history, but the overall war was eventually lost by the American in the end, because they were in such incredible karma debt from all the killing they were doing.

            After the war, America went into a terrible karma recession, and their collateral, California, was gladly given to the Japanese along with all the people in it.

            "I'm really sorry New Zealand, but I'm afraid that karma banks don't work the same way that normal banks do. We don't actually follow national standards when it comes to APR rates."

            New Zealand stared through Steven's head and caught itself looking outside. It thought about how wonderful the weather was in Hiatus City and considered for a moment moving.

            "New Zealand? Excuse me. Yes."

           New Zealand shook its head and focused back on the loan accountant. The chair was comfy and it liked sitting there. The desk was also nice. New Zealand rested its elbows on the desk.

            "I'm afraid that your record shows you aren't very good about paying your karma back. Although we are not like a conventional bank, as I said before, we do instill punishment for loans that show no sign of repayment. Rather than taking collateral or something of that sort, we like to add bad karma to the unpaid loan account. Remember the sheep incident of '96? The one where the sheep were on the freighter and caught on fire from the static friction? According to our records that was caused by a bad loan."

            New Zealand followed the pencil holder rocking gently on the desk. It looked like a miniature garbage can, but it was held up by wires so it could swing back and forth.

            "New Zealand. I'm afraid you have bad credit and I will have to deny you of this loan. I would suggest hitting up Australia for a loan...or even—" Steven leaned forward and whispered in New Zealand's ear. "You could also try an underground karma dealer. Here's the name of a guy I know. Here, take it, I like your rugby team.

            Steven passed the information over to New Zealand. New Zealand stood up, thanked everybody for their time, then glided out of the bank. Steven was immediately called into Largo's office over the bank intercom system.

            "What happened with New Zealand?" Largo's top hat fell off and began to tumble. "Steven, did you let this one get away?" A snap of Largo's arm caught the hat in mid air.

            "But, New Zealand had bad, no, terrible, didenic credit. New Zealand wouldn't have paid us back even if it understood the basics of karma economics. I mean, in '96 there was the—"

            "Yes, the sheep. How long ago was that? Are you making up words?"

            "Quite a many years. What?"

            "Yes, quite a many. Don't let it happen again. We give loans to people of all credit, if they don't pay us back, we dump them our bad karma. Either way we win. What was that word?"

            "Excuse me, sir?"

            "I said that we win either way. Don't let them fool you with their sorrows."

            "Of course Mr. Snupts. It won't happen again."

            Largo swiveled his chair around in a full circle and looked at Steven thoughtfully. He picked a pen off his desk. On it the address of a chiropractor was written in ugly italic letters.

            "So how's your family, Steve?"

            Steven looked at his ears.

            "Good," he said. "They're good."

            "Alright, buddy," Largo said, standing up. "First of all, we never. Ever. Never. Refer customers to underground karma dealers. If you ever do that again, I will fire you so badly that you won't have a job, never be able to get another job, and your children will never get a job."

            Steven nodded and began to walk out.

            "And Steve."

            Steven stopped.

            "Nice work on the Banana Seed File."

            "Thanks boss."

            Four men in eight wooden shoes lined themselves up in front of the door. This is where Snupts' sexist employment record came into play. Although according government statistics, ninety percent of bank robbers, traditional and karma, are never caught, the karma bank run by Largo Snupts had statistics on their side. Only once in this karma bank's history was it robbed, and even in that situation the robbers were caught two weeks later in a karma-related car accident after winning it in a mall raffle. Largo stepped out of his office and coughed slightly.

            With a flash of trench coats flying in slow motion, the entire customer base of the 1824 Passion Street Karma Bank stopped what they were doing, then took what seats were available before submitting to the floor. One old lady with a hunched back and frameless glasses continued with her transaction.

            "Woman. We're robbing the bank," one of the robbers called out. Two of the robbers revealed nail bats and hesitantly began patting them on their opposite hands. They smiled under their wooden masks, which were carved with a more permanent smile, although a tad more wicked. The old woman made a snapping hundred and eighty degree turn, bobbing her head to the floor then back up.

            "I just took out one hell of a loan, son. Don't fuck with me."

            The old woman waddled through the robbers and let momentum push her through the revolving doors, making several rotations before managing to escape the two dimensional gravity.

            "This is an officially a robbery. As you can see, we are all wearing masks to prevent our identities from being exaggerated in a police report. Our bodies are wrapped in dynamite so we can kill ourselves and everybody in here on a whim. Our—"

            "Oh, how cliché," a customer pointed out. "If I got a dime for every bank robber I've seen with dynamite strapped to his chest..."

            "Now wait a minute," said the shortest of the robbers. "That right there. That was incredibly cliché. The thing about the nickels."

            "Dimes."

            "Yes, dimes, whatever. My point is, there is a fine line between clichéd and usability. The dynamite is a proven method, put through the scientific method time and time again."

            "I don't understand," said a customer making herself some complimentary coffee. The coffee maker made a noise like a thousand librarians simultaneously saying "shh" in a small gymnasium. Before she could receive her answer, there was a gunshot into the air. Dust floated to the ground.

            "Ah damn, the ceiling. So irritating to fix." Largo Snupts pressed down on his top hat so that it moved with his head.

            The four robbers tried glancing sideways at each other, but their masks were bad for peripheral vision.

            "Just give us all the karma in the bank."

            Largo leaned over onto a table and pointed his face at them, revealing green braces covering his teeth.

            "Technically," he said. "Technically," he repeated. "Technically," he said again. "The act of robbing a karma bank is grounds for receiving bad karma."

            The robber on the far left billowed with laughter. His mask was white and had two black horns protruding from the forehead. He wore a gray-blue suit that looked as though it was fitted for him when he weighed ten pounds less.

            "We are already ahead of you, bank manager. We know that this bank is required, by law, to always have a certain amount of good karma on hand at all times. I have calculated that the amount you have is plenty enough to offset the bad karma that we are bound to receive for the robbery." The robber smiled smugly under his white mask and looked over at Largo, who took the time to look back.

            "Who says that I follow the law, sir?"

            "You have to follow the law! You are an upstanding business that has to follow the—"

            The robber in the green mask put a hand up and the screaming robber stopped himself.

            "I completely agree with him," said Green Mask. "You must have the karma on hand."

            "And I do," said Snupts. The robber in the red mask lowered his shoulders. "I do not think, however, that any of you managed to realize that there are four of you. In order to not come out negative, you would need to sacrifice one of your members. Otherwise you are sure to be caught.

            "Is that true?" asked Green to White, who was trying to make calculations in his head.

            "I don't know," was his only reply. "Let me think."

            "What thinking is there left to do?" Largo walked to one of the tellers and whispered something to him. The teller pressed a few keys and printed out a receipt. "It is all right here. Average amount for karma bank robbery, add a bit more in there for gunshot, and that puts you in the red. One of you will have to be sacrificed so the others can get away. Perhaps you didn't refer to the 2011 Karma Index? You would find it in section fourteen, line twenty six...or section twenty six line fourteen? Somewhere in there, nyhow."

            "Red Light! Red Light!" yelled White. He was stroking his palms against his pants. The four robbers huddled and proceeded to each other. Soon arguing ensued, and after an anticlimactic push-fight, Blue was somehow shoved out from the ring and in front of Largo.

            "Alright, this is our guy, now hand over the money."

            "Me? I thought we decided Massanger was the one to go."

            "He, he just said my name," screamed Massanger.

            "Shit, that means we should sacrifice Massanger, otherwise they'll catch him and then catch us," yelled Blue.

            Massanger spun around.

"You are sacrificing me because that idiot called me by my name?" He hesitated a moment. "Joe. Vincent. Poosh!"

"You. little. fucker."
            "Your name is Poosh?" stuttered Vincent.

"Steve, get back to balancing the accounts. Chet, please make some fresh coffee," said Largo in a monotone voice.

"How the fuck could you do that to us? Now all four of us are screwed," yelled Joe.

"Coffee not pure caffeine, pull some of that out. No, no, the filter goes in the other way."

The discovery of karma as a tangible object is quite long, uninteresting, and full of made up words. The following is a slightly more condensed version, and instead of made up words there are many made up sentences. The paragraphs, however, are very very real.

Some time ago, in the year thirty-twelve F.R., a very very made up year, but that is all a matter of perspective, a fuzzy man slithered out of an expensive piece of luggage and laid himself down, heaving on a large piece of metal. The outer layer of the suit case was quite endangered and the man scoffed at this. The man was a caring man, and he felt pity for the Lily Dache shirts and the woolen Gucci pants with the little pockets inside the main pockets. He cried for the belts that were bent so carelessly between the cow skin jacket, still full of life and smell, and the twelve scarves. Woe is the twelve scarves that matched so beautifully the individual pieces of clothing with the sophistication of an expensive bourbon commercial. He did not mourn the suit, bent and wrinkled at the center. The suit had been dead for some years now and the man had already spent all his tears.

This man was Jeff, the one who would bring scientists back into the world. He thanked God for bringing him into existence but asked why he was born from a suitcase. God told him that he didn't want to deal with any more of that Virgin Mary business this time through. Jeff asked God if he was Jesus. God said he wasn't. Jeff asked if he was created to spread God's word. God replied that was not his purpose. God told him he was to spread the word of science once again to the people of the world, and also he was supposed to hand out letters to people apologizing for how God smote all the scientists a few generations back. Inside these letters karma checks were placed as a token to make up for all the suffering people went through. At first people were confused as to what the karma was, but the new generation of scientists studied them and learned their true secrets. Within a year the Japanese created the first karma bank, and only a few years after that six thousand of the banks existed world-wide.

            Largo poured himself a cup of boiling coffee and attempted to take a sip but pulled it away from his mouth and looked at Chet.

            "Yeah. This is good." Largo waved his head towards the bank counters and Chet scampered.

            Largo waltzed his way over to the bank robbers, sliding his shoes on the carpet.

            "Hey," said Largo, tapping his finger on Massanger. Several million electrons jumped from Largo's hand and onto Massanger's wrist. This rewarded Largo a glare.

            It might be necessary, in order to avoid any sort of confusion, to mention something about the electrons that jumped from Largo's finger and onto Massanger's wrist. At the moment of electrical contraception, one atom, which was particularly cutting edge, decided that it was sick of its situation. It said, "Hey, I'm sick of my situation!"

            Other atoms, which never had the courage to speak their opinions about the harshness of existing, began speaking up too, yelling things in their little atom voices such as viva la Revolution, to arms and to glory, down with oppression...

            The revolution reached a group of atoms that were in charge of making up space, time, and some sort of continuum, causing them to resign their jobs and join the growing atom masses. This weakened the space-time continuum, and already with a nasty case of food poisoning, it vomited, revealing a lousy Christian coffee house comic, a vengeful priest using the powers of two-dimensional gravity, and the country of Liechtenstein, which would often disappear and reappear somewhere completely different without anybody noticing.

            The revolting atoms were hit by a runaway wave of two-dimensional gravity and propelled into a hole of space-time, sending them wheeling about a purple wormhole shaped not at all like a worm, essentially disappearing them from existence.

            The lousy Christian coffee house comic began talking to one of the karma bank clients. The vengeful priest collided with Liechtenstein somewhere above the bank, demanded insurance information, then forced the Book of Two-Dimensional Gravity on the shaken country until police arrived.

            "Tell me, my child, what did Shakespeare order at McDonalds?" asked the lousy Christian coffee house comic.
            "I...I don't know," said the client.

            "A McBeth, my child. Oh my," he continued. "It seems that Liechtenstein is crashing down upon us."

"Oh shut up. Shut up all of you. This is sickening. I'm getting out of here alone if I have to." Massanger began waving his gun around at whatever caught his eye. "You. You with the top hat. Open the safe."

Largo stared blankly at Massanger as pieces of the mysterious country blew through the tiled ceiling. They stood still as most of the customer base ran for cover. The smart customers applied for good karma loans as fast as they could.

"Open the safe."

The employees, who had to pass several rigorous tests to work in a karma bank, followed procedure exactly and began throwing rocks at the robbers. The masked men ran behind plush furniture and crouched. Another piece of the roof exploded as a particularly grassy bit of Liechtenstein ricocheted off a particularly expensive table.

"I said open the safe!"

Massanger blinked but Largo decided not to.

"Let me get my gun, hold on for me, okay?"

Largo turned around and began walking towards his office.

Bam.

"Touché...touché," laughed Largo. He turned back towards his office and began walking again. As he reached the door, Massanger readied another shot.

            Bam.

Largo lifted his arms in the air slowly in an "Alright, ha ha you're so funny but you're also embarrassing me" kind of way and continued to his desk where he opened a drawer.

Bam.

Largo spends a summer building houses in Mexico. Despite the ulterior motives that brought him there, he aides in the completion of three houses. After befriending a local, he donates $54,000 to the village they worked in.

"Listen," said Largo. "Do you see where I work? Do you know my position within this...fine...institution? You can shoot at me. You can stab at me. You can, oh I don't know, you can broken bottle at me. The amount of good karma that I have stored away is incredible. You don't have enough bullets in that gun to even hit me...and to hit me fatally, that is a whole other thing." Largo continued to walk towards Massanger, who failed to notice a Liechtensteinian citizen and his cow break through the floor next to him.

"We could even go point blank. It wouldn't matter. Put your gun down, and you will have a..." Largo checked a small electrical device. "...a 68% chance of getting hurt. 35% chance of fatality. 12% chance of fatality and then your soul staying trapped in your body. 3% chance..."

Bam. Bam.

 Massanger is walking with the other three robbers, on their way to the karma bank. He notices an odd looking person down a dark alleyway so he breaks from the group and walks casually over. "Good'ay mate," says the strange looking person. "Hi," says Massanger. Massanger mugs the shit out of the stranger and comes out with more karma than he's ever seen in his life. He does not tell his colleagues this when he catches up with them and they proceed to rob the bank. Everything goes terribly wrong when the country of Liechtenstein falls like a meteor shower through ceiling. He attempts to karma duel with the president of the bank. On the forth shot, he gets killed because the karma he stole from New Zealand ended up being forged.