"More like I've been narratively cucked." Dirk doesn't quite spit the last word, but only just--this is not an impersonal matter for him. Quite the opposite: the narrative game of chess was fun* but his exile-slash-quarantine stopped being a legal move months ago, and until he finally gets the (occasionally literal) authorial pen back in hand, he regards his confinement as very, very personal.

*It was not fun. It was fucking stupid. Sure, he knew he was engineering his own downfall in the long term, and his victory was pretty satisfying, but she also made herself a real fucking nuisance along the way.

He scraps that train of thought and refocuses.

"Tyler? What does Tyler know?"