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one of my dead-letter drops. (You'd
better not let the Audit Office catch you sending or receiving private
email from work, which is why I don't. As I'm the guy who built the
departmental firewall, this isn't difficult.) You slimy scumbag,
don't you ever show your nose round my place again. Oh yes, as if!
The last time I was round the flat she's staying in was at the weekend,
when she was out, to retrieve my tube of government-issue toothpaste. I
somehow resisted the urge to squirt obscene suggestions on the bathroom
mirror the way she did when she came round and repo'd my stereo. Maybe
this was an oversight on my part.
    Next message: a directive on sick leave signed
(digitally) by Harriet, pointing out that if more than half an hour's
leave is taken a doctor's note must be obtained, preferably in advance.
(Why do I feel a headache coming on?)
    Thirdly, there's a plea from Fred in
Accounting—a loser, basically, who I had the misfortune to smile at
last time I was on hell desk duty: "Help, I can't run my files
anymore." Fred has just about mastered the high art of the on/off
switch but is sufficiently proficient with a spreadsheet to endanger
your payroll. Last time I got mail from him it turned out he'd
reinstalled an earlier version of some critical bits 'n' pieces over
his hard disk, trashing everything, and had the effrontery to be
mailing virus-infested jokes around the place. (I bounce the plea for
help over to the hell desk, where the staffer on call will get to
grapple with it and curse me vilely for trying to be helpful to Fred.)
    I spend a second stretch of five minutes staring
at the chipped cream paint on the wall behind my monitor. My head is
throbbing now, and because of various Health and Safety directives
there isn't so much as an aspirin on the premises. After yesterday's
inane fiasco there doesn't seem to be anything I can do here today that
conjures up any enthusiasm: I have a horrible gut-deep feeling that if
I stay things will only get worse. Besides, I put
in two days' worth of overtime yesterday, regs say I'm allowed to take
time off in lieu, my self-help book says I should still be grieving for
my pet hamster, and the Beowulf cluster can go fuck itself.
    I log out of the secure terminal and bunk off
home early: your taxes at work.
     
    It's eight in the evening
and I still have a headache. Meanwhile, Pinky is down in the
cellar, preparing another assault on the laws of nature.
    The TV console in the living room of Chateau
Cthulhu—the geek house I share with Pinky and Brains, both of whom
also
work for the Laundry—is basically brain candy, installed by Pinky in a
desperate attempt to reduce the incidence of creative psychosis in the
household. I think this was during one of his rare fits of sanity. The
stack contains a cable decoder, satellite dish, Sony Playstation, and a
homemade web TV receiver that Brains threw together during a bored half
hour. It hulks in the corner opposite the beige corduroy sofa like a
black-brushed postmodern sculpture held together with wiring spaghetti;
its purpose is to provide a chillout zone where we can collapse after a
hard day's work auditing new age websites in case they've accidentally
invented something dangerous. Cogitating for a living can result in
serious brain-sprain: if you don't get blitzed on beer and blow or
watch trash TV and sing raucously once in a while, you'll end up
thinking you're Sonic the Hedgehog and that ancient Mrs. Simpson over
the road is Two-Tails. Could be messy, especially if Security is
positively vetting you at the time.
    I am plugged into the boob tube with a can of
beer in one hand and a pizza box in my lap, watching things go fast and
explode on the Discovery Channel, when there's a horrible groaning
sound from beneath the carpet. At first I pay no attention because the
program currently showing is a particularly messy
plane-crash docudrama, but when the sound continues for a few seconds I
realise that not even Pinky's apocalyptic