I push the door open. It’s yet another administrative annexe, presumably for the executives’ secretaries. One of the copiers has a print job stacked facedown in the output tray. That strikes me as odd: given the nature of our work here, Security take a dim view of documents being left lying around. But Security won’t be making their rounds for a few days. Probably best to take the printouts and stick them in the internal post to whoever ran them off-or in a locked safe pending a chewing-out if it’s anything confidential.
I flip the first sheet over to look for the header page, and do a double take. Buttocks! Pretty damned hairy ones, at that. So someone was enjoying the party.
The next page features more buttocks, and they’re a lot less male, judging by the well-filled stockings and other identifying characteristics. I shake my head. I’m beginning to work out a response-I’m going to pin them on one of the staff notice boards, with an anonymous appeal for folks to wipe down the copier glass after each use-when I get to the third sheet.
Whoever sat on the copier lid that time didn’t have buttocks, hairy or otherwise-or any other mammalian features for that matter. What I’m holding looks to be a photocopy of the business end of a giant cockroach.
Maybe I’m not alone after all…
After Kringle drops his turd in the punch bowl of seasonal spirit, the party officially ceases to be fun, even for drably corporate values of fun. My appetite evaporates, too: they can keep the pies for all I care. I grab a bottle of Blue Nun and tip-toe back towards my cubicle in the Counter Possession Unit.
Fuck. Mo isn’t here; she’s already headed off to see her mum. She’d understand, though. I’m on duty from tomorrow through Monday morning, and not supposed to leave the building. I was going to go home tonight-run the washing machine, pack a bag with clean clothes for the weekend, that sort of thing-but right now the urge to get blind falling-down drunk is calling me.
Because this is the last Christmas party at the Laundry.
I pull out my phone to call Mo, then pause. She’s got her hands full with mum right now. Why add to her worries? And besides, this isn’t a secure voice terminaclass="underline" I can’t safely say everything that needs to be said. (The compulsion to confidentiality runs deep, backed up by my oath of office. To knowingly break it risks very unpleasant consequences.) I’m about to put my phone away when Andy clears his throat. He’s standing right behind me, an unlit cigarette pinched between two fingers. “Bob?”
I take another deep breath. “Yeah?”
“Want to talk?”
I nod. “Where?”
“The clubhouse…”
I follow him, out through a door onto the concrete balcony at the back of the New Annexe that leads to the external fire escape. We call it the clubhouse in jest: it’s where the smokers hang out, exposed to the elements. There’s a sand bucket half-submerged in scorched fag-ends sitting by the door. I wait while Andy lights up. His fingers are shaking slightly, I see. He’s skinny, tall, about five years older than me. Four grades higher, too, managing the head-office side of various ops that it’s not sensible to ask about. Wears a suit, watches the world from behind a slightly sniffy air of academic amusement, as if nothing really matters very much. But his detachment is gone now, blown away like a shred of smoke on the wind.
“What do you make of it?” he asks, bluntly.
I look at his cigarette, for a moment wishing I smoked. “It’s not looking good. As signs of the apocalypse go, the last office Christmas party ever is a bit of a red flag.”
Andy hides a cough with his fist. “I sincerely hope not.”
“What’s Kringle’s track record?” I ask. “Surely he’s been pulling rabbits out of hats long enough we can run a Bayesian analysis and see how well he…” I trail off, seeing Andy’s expression.
“He’s one of the best precognitives we’ve ever had, so I’m told. And what he’s saying backs up Dr. Mike’s revised time frame for CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN.” (The end of the world, when-in the words of the mad seer-the stars come right. It’s actually a seventy-year long window during which the power of magic multiplies monstrously, and alien horrors from the dark ages before the big bang become accessible to any crack-brained preacher with a yen to talk to the devil. We thought we had a few years’ grace: according to Dr. Mike our calculations are wrong, and the window began to open nine months ago.) “Something really bad is coming. If Kringle can’t see through to next December 24th, then, well, he probably won’t be alive then.”
“So he stares into the void, and the void stares back. Maybe he won’t be alive.” I’m clutching at straws. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance he’s just going to be run over by a bus?”
Andy gives me a Look, of a kind I’ve been beginning to recognize more since the business in Brookwood-infinite existential despair tempered with a goodly dose of rage against the inevitable, dammed up behind a stiff upper lip. To be fair, I’ve been handing out a fair number of them myself. “I have no idea. Frankly, it’s all a bit vague. Precog fugues aren’t deterministic, Bob: worse, they tend to disrupt whatever processes they’re predicting the outcome of. That’s why Forecasting Ops are so big on statistical analysis. If Kringle said we won’t see another Christmas party, you can bet they’ve rolled the dice more than the bare minimum to fit the confidence interval.”
“So preempt his prophecy already! Use the weak anthropic principle: if we cancel next year’s Christmas party, his prophecy is delayed indefinitely. Right?”
Andy rolls his eyes. “Don’t be fucking stupid.”
“It was a long shot.” (Pause.) “What are we going to do?”
“We?” Andy raises one eyebrow. “I am going to go home to the wife and kids for Christmas and try to forget about threats to our very existence for a bit. You”-he takes a deep gulp of smoke-“get to play at Night Duty Officer, patrolling the twilit corridors to protect our workplace from the hideous threat of the Filler of Stockings, who oozes through chimneys and ventilation ducts every Dead God’s Birthday-eve to perform unspeakable acts against items of hosiery. Try not to let it get to you-oh, and have a nice holiday while you’re at it.”
My appetite for nocturnal exploration is fading, tempered by the realization that I may not be the only one putting in some overtime in the office tonight. I reach for my ward-hung around my neck like an identity badge-and feel it. It tingles normally, and is cool. Good. If it was hot or glowing or throbbing I could expect company. It’s time to get back to the NDO room and regroup.
I tiptoe back the way I came, thinking furiously.
Item: It’s the night before Christmas, and backup is scarce to nonexistent.
Item: You can fool everyone at an office party with a class three glamour, but you can’t fool a photocopier.
Item: Kringle’s prophecy.