“Isn’t the whole concept of a muse a pretty thin sham?” says Konigsberg. “It’s a tissue of precedent over the sharp fact that old men will always try to impress young women–“

“I use my muse all the time,” says Vanessa, sipping PBR. “He’s a seed.”

“What?”

“Specifically, the seed for a linear congruential generator, which generates pseudorandom numbers. I compare those against the lookup tables in old RPG sourcebooks. That’s where I get my ideas.”

Konigsberg snorts, not taken in. “And what happens when you’ve used up all the tables?”

“Dump him,” says Vanessa, with a melancholic smile. “Move on.”