Damn it! The Syndicate's been at it again. We had a neat, multi-page catalog of our mission, history, and everything else ready for you but they've all been replaced with copies of Dolly Parton's 1994 memoir Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business. Some are even autographed. Where do they keep finding these things?

Syndicate's been a pain in the butt since 2005, when a bunch of our colleagues rage-quit and formed their "radial revolutionary group" during the infamous Carrefoogle Corporation merger. They claimed our methods were "too slow," that we were too soft on corporations "Goodtimes-washing" their shady operations, and that we weren't responding aggressively enough to the rising level of Separatonin.

We get it, but try mass-producing Goodtimesium while following all 2,179 regulatory protocols! Far cry from our days as a humble municipal parks office. We've got quarterly glitter quotas to meet, surprise inspections from the Department of Just Making Sure You're Staying Hydrated Pal, and twelve signatures required just to make the disco balls spin the other way. So let us do our job in peace!

That being said...

It was Syndicate operatives who saved the day by smuggling in emergency supplies in a dangerous mission during the Great Separatonin Pandemic not too long ago, a time when we were severely low on our reserves. We shared stale banana bread and traded stories for those few hours, laughing like old friends, pointing at faded Polaroids and saying "remember when" with voices gone soft around the edges. One of them started humming Dolly Parton's 'Together You and I,' and soon we were all quietly singing along, forgetting all the triviality that set us apart.

Then the morning came, someone's watch beeped, and the walls went right back up. We started shuffling around papers, and the Syndicate drove away in their tricked-out modded tricycles, their pockets stuffed with unlicensed Separatonin detectors. I still reminisce about that day, time to time.

As I tossed the Dolly memoir aside, a gust of wind turned the last page of the book, revealing a clumsy, uneven writing: "Remember that day?"