Item: We’re in CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN, and things that too many people believe in have a nasty tendency to come true; magic is a branch of applied computation, neural networks are computing devices, there are too many people and the stars are right (making it much too easy to gain the attention of entities that find us crunchy and good with ketchup).
Item: Who or what kind of uninvited entity might want to sit in on Kringle’s little pep talk…?
I’m halfway down the corridor through Mahogany Row, and I break into a run.
“Good afternoon, everyone.”
Kringle wrings his hands as he speaks; they’re curiously etiolated and pale-skinned, like those of a Deep One, but he lacks the hunched back or gills: there’s only the pallid, stringy hair and the thick horn-rimmed glasses concealing a single watery blue eye-the other is covered by a leather patch-to mark him out as odd. But his gaze…
“It will be a good afternoon, until I finish speaking.” He smiles like a hangman’s trapdoor opening. “So drink up now and be of good cheer, because this will be the last Christmas party held by the Laundry.”
Up to this point most folks have been ignoring him or listening with polite incomprehension. Suddenly, though, you could hear a mouse fart.
“You need have no fear of downsizing or treasury cuts to comply with the revised public spending guidelines.” His smile fades. “I speak of more fundamental, irrevocable changes.
“My department, Forecasting Operations, is tasked with attempting to evaluate the efficacy of proposed action initiatives in pursuit of the organization’s goals-notably, the prevention of incursions by gibbering horrors from beyond space-time. Policies are originated, put on the table-and we descry their consequences. It’s a somewhat hit-and-miss profession, but our ability to peer into the abyss of the future allows us to sometimes avoid the worst pitfalls.”
Kringle continues in this vein for some time. His voice is oddly soporific, and it takes me a while to figure out why: he reminds me of a BBC radio weather forecaster. They have this slot for the weather forecast right before the news, and try as I will I always zone out right before they get to whatever region I happen to be interested in and wake up as they’re finishing. It’s uncanny. Kringle is clearly talking about something of considerable importance, but my mind skitters off the surface of his words like a wasp on a plate glass window. I shake my head and begin to look round, when the words flicker briefly into focus.
“-Claus, or Santé Klaas in the mediaeval Dutch usage, a friendly figure in a red suit who brings presents in the depths of winter, may have a more sinister meaning. Think not only of the traditions of the Norse Odin, with which the figure of Santa Claus is associated, but with the shamanic rituals of Lap antiquity, performed by a holy man who drank the urine of reindeer that had eaten the sacred toadstool, Amanita Muscaria -wearing the bloody, flayed skin of the poisoned animals to gain his insight into the next year-we, with modern statistical filtering methodologies, can gain much more precise insights, but at some personal cost-”
Eh? I shake my head again, then take another mouthful from my paper cup of cheap plonk. The words go whizzing past, almost as if they’re tagged for someone else’s attention. Which is odd, because I’m trying to follow what he’s saying: I’ve got a peculiar feeling that this stuff is important.
“-particular, certain facts appear indisputable. There will be no Laundry staff Christmas dinner next year. We can’t tell you why, but as a result of events that I believe have already taken place this will be the last one. Indeed, attempts over the past year to investigate outcomes beyond this evening have met with abject failure: the end of this party is the last event that Forecasting Operations is able to predict with any degree of confidence…”
I arrive back in the Duty Officer’s Room with a chilly sheen of sweat coating the small of my back. The light’s on, casting a cheery glow through the frosted glass window in the door, and the TV’s blathering happily away. I duck inside and shut it behind me, then grab the spare wooden chair and prop it under the door handle. My memory of Kringle’s talk seems altogether too disturbingly like a dream for my taste: even the conversation with Andy has an oddly vaporous feel to it. I’ve had this kind of experience before, and the only thing to do is to test it.
I plonk myself down behind the desk and unlock the drawer, then pull out the phone book. Rain rattles on the window above my head as I open it, an electric tingling in my fingertips reminding me that the wards on the cover are very much alive. Come on, where are you… I run a shaky finger down the page. What I’m looking for isn’t there: the dog that didn’t bark in the night. I swallow, then I go back and search a different section for Andy’s home number. Yes, he’s listed-and he’s got a secure terminal. Time check: it’s twenty to midnight, not quite late enough to be seriously antisocial. I pick up the telephone receiver and begin to laboriously spin the dial. The phone rings three times.
“Andy?”
“Hello? Who is this?” It’s a woman’s voice.
“Er, this is Bob, from the office. I wonder, is Andy available? I won’t take a minute…”
“Bob?” Andy takes the receiver. “Talk to me.”
I clear my throat. “Sorry to call you like this, but it’s about the office party. The guy who spoke to us, from Forecasting Operations. Do you remember his name, and have you ever dealt with him before?”
There’s a pause. “Forecasting Operations?” Andy sounds puzzled. My stomach clenches. “Who are they? I haven’t heard of any forecasting… what’s going on?”
“Do you remember our conversation in the clubhouse?” I ask.
“What, about personal development courses? Can’t it wait until next year?”
I glance back at the phone book. “Uh, I’ll get back to you. I think I’ve got a situation.”
I put the handset down very carefully, as if it’s made of sweating gelignite. Then I leaf through the phone book again. Nope, Forecasting Operations aren’t listed. And Andy doesn’t remember Dr. Kringle, or his lecture, or our conversation on the balcony.
I’ve got a very bad feeling about this.
Like the famous mad philosopher said, when you stare into the void, the void stares also; but if you cast into the void, you get a type conversion error. (Which just goes to show Nietzsche wasn’t a C++ programmer.) Dr. Kringle was saying his department tests new policies, then read the future and change their plans in a hurry if things don’t work out for the best. Throwing scenarios into the void.
What if there was a Forecasting Operations Department… and when they stared into the void once too often, something bad happened? Something so bad that they unintentionally edited themselves out of existence?
I glance at the TV. It’s movie time, and tonight they’re running The Nightmare Before Christmas: Jack Skellington sings his soliloquy as he stands before the portal he’s opened to Christmas Town -