Roman stomped over. "That's the metaphor of the entire catering industry! We're all just macroblocks in Ron Donald's failed dream of a franchise!"
"I'm taking leadership initiative!" Ron announced, pressing every button on the encoder. The screen went black, then snapped back. But now the audio was out of sync. Nick's real voice—"And the tamale represents the self !"—echoed two seconds after his blocky ghost had already collapsed into a pile of green-and-orange squares.
Kyle raised his celery stick. "Does this count as a craft service credit?"
Nick forced a laugh. "No, no, it's a technical issue. I'm very together. Look—" He pointed at himself. But on the screen, his compressed doppelgänger split into sixteen tiny Nicks, each one mouthing a different, silent word.
Henry poured himself a ginger ale from the host's private stash. "You know," he said, "openh264 is designed for real-time applications. Low latency, high compression. But one lost packet, one corrupted slice... and you're not a person anymore. You're just an error."
Henry glanced up, sighed. "Not my department. I'm on 'emotional support ice.'" He gestured to a silver bucket of rapidly melting cubes.
Nick dropped his tray. The tamales scattered like pixel debris. He grabbed Henry by the arm. "How do I turn back into a person, man?"