"Okay, explain to me how this whole plan works" Hallie requested.

"Well, people show up and they see that subject title" Visionary began proudly. "Being naturally inquisitive, they open the post, upon which they find that there is no awesome news at all and that it was all an elegantly laid trap to have them set off the story's page-counter, thereby giving us an accurate recording of how many lurkers we have out there."

"And this profits us... how?" Fleabot asked.

"Well, um... then we know. And that's the first half of the battle, as our elite special forces units are so fond of saying."

"I'm pretty sure only 80's cartoon writers said that" Hallie offered. "And they apparently believed it was reasonable for terrorist organizations to build elaborate, robotic, carnival ride death-traps inside of their hidden and remote secret bases. I wouldn't exactly put them on par with Sun Tzu."

"How does the page counter work, anyway?" Fleabot asked. "If people open the same message twice, does it count it twice?"

"Do you really think people are going to read this more than once?" Hallie scoffed.

"I'm pretty sure people aren't reading it now" Fleabot shrugged. "I mean, once the page opens and they get a brief story instead of the oh-so-skillfully-teased bait promised them, they're likely to get bored and wander off to play Minecraft or something. I just wonder how you check the trap without adding to the page count and messing up the accuracy of your results."

"Wait... so I can't open the trap to see if any lurkers got caught?" Visionary asked.

"Smooth move, Schrödinger."

"I'd have to look into the counter thing... or wait until the site's administrator chimes in" Hallie answered. "To be honest, I had forgotten that counter even existed."

"Okay, so there might be a few hiccups in it... but this plan will work!" Visionary insisted.

"At the cost of your credibility" the holographic woman reminded him.

"So it comes pretty cheap then" Fleabot said.

"People will click on it. There's a sucker born every minute. I would click on it" Visionary reasoned.

"That only proves that there was a sucker born 39 years ago" Hallie noted.

"39? Cripes, weren't you in your late 20's when you started here? Shouldn't you have found a new hobby by now?"

Visionary eyed him darkly. "Persistence is a virtue."

"Tell that to cartoon coyotes."

Hallie rolled her eyes. "How long were we intending to draw this whole thing out?" she asked reasonably. "Couldn't all of this effort have gone into a story that actually advanced the plot of the board in general, thereby giving readers an incentive to willingly check out the posts here?"

The Regular rubbed the back of his neck. "Well, see... I kind of forgot where we left the plot."

"Have you checked all the pockets in your laundry?" Fleabot asked helpfully.

"It has been a while..." Hallie noted. "Have you even done anything as leader in the year and more that you've been reinstated? Or progressed our halting romantic relationship? Or followed up on that whole Artificial Rights subplot?"

"I'm pacing myself."

"Hard to imagine why you'd need to fool people into reading what you write, isn't it?" Fleabot asked. "So what happens now?"

"Now we wait for the trap to be sprung!"

"And then?" Hallie asked mildly.

"Er... I'm sure something will come to us."