Death, the Devil, and the Goldfish (19 page)

Life continued as it normally did and Nigel ceased to dwell on the subject. Day in and day out, he came home, and happily cooed at the fish, tapped on the bowl, and sprinkled tiny flakes of food into the water. However, this time Nigel did not make it to the sprinkling part, as a wave of shock passed over his face, spread right across his head, and proceeded down the length of his body. The words
beware the elf,
nicely arranged out of colourful rocks in the bottom of Jeremiah's bowl, stared right back up at the shocked Nigel.

Jeremiah happily blew some bubbles, as the dark shape outside his bowl seemed to fall over and vanish from sight.

Once Nigel regained consciousness, he fed Jeremiah and ten minutes later was in a taxi on his way to Majestic Technologies.

A taxi driver named Rupert manned the cab that Nigel had the misfortune of climbing into. It took him twenty-three minutes to convince Rupert that Nigel wasn't even slightly interested in Rupert's collection of hotel soaps from around the world. Disgruntled, confused, and slightly pissed off was the state of Nigel's mood by the time he managed to tell Rupert where exactly he wanted to go. It took an additional hour and a half, including two stops, one to pick up cigarettes and another for Rupert to write his name on a wall in an alleyway, which apparently was something he liked to do all over London, to finally reach Majestic Technologies.

A light drizzle began to drop itself toward the ground as the almost non-visible sun dipped toward the horizon and Nigel, very much relieved, exited the confines of Rupert's cab. The two dark grey towers of Majestic Technologies rose up behind a tall security fence, looking angry and lacking in light against the dimming backdrop. The drizzle suddenly changed temperament, decided to quit with the light rain, and resolved to throw itself down instead.

Instantly soaked to the skin, Nigel made his way toward the entrance.

Celina sat in the corner of the dining room and rocked back and forth like a little girl lost. To her left lay a very shiny and obviously sharp kitchen knife; to her right was a mess of empty yogurt cartons.

In the space of a day, her world had been tipped upside down. She had woken up, the same as any other morning, hair a mess, breath that would stun a donkey, and the distinctly optimistic view that this would be the day she would come up with a solution that would make the whole Santa Claus Project fall into place. As it turned out, this was actually the day when the elves would revolt, take over the building, force Celina to hide out in the company dining room all day, and live in a perpetual fear for her life, as she really had no idea what the elves were capable of.

A creak off to the corner made her lunge for the knife and roll sideways, ending in a poised crouch that she'd seen action heroes and heroines do in movies all the time. At this point, she felt something tap her on the back, making Celina jump, let out a small yelp, and turn to come face to face with an extremely short, pudgy elf with a round and very red face.

"Hullo," said the elf and grinned.

Celina made a sort of
hulmph
sound and passed out.

The plane taxied to a stop at Heathrow Airport's Terminal 3, Gate 25.A small contingent of frustrated airport security guards waited to meet the plane. Close to the end of their shift, they had received a message from an incoming flight from the Bahamas. Apparently an elderly gentleman who didn't listen very well, and couldn't really see much, had attacked one of the flight attendants under the misapprehension that she had been pelting him with packets of peanuts for the duration of the flight. Several passengers had to pry the gentleman off the stewardess but not before he sank his false teeth into her upper arm. The airport security guards escorted the subdued gentleman off the plane despite his protests and claims that he was provoked into the attack.

The plane slowly emptied until the final two heavily inebriated passengers who had no luggage staggered out of the gate, completely oblivious to the fact that they had both completely lost all feeling in their legs. The passenger wearing the black robe and pale complexion headed for the nearest airport pub while the other passenger who had previously been a penguin relieved himself into a fake potted plant, much to the distress of the Skipton Women's Sewing Group who sat waiting for their plane to Paris.

Big Ernie sat at the round poker table in the basement suite of his employer's apartment concentrating hard. In order to concentrate hard, Big Ernie had to screw up his face; it looked like he had tried to ingest several sour candies all at once. For ultimate concentration purposes, Ernie would also stick the tip of his tongue out of the left side of his mouth. The whole scene of Big Ernie trying to concentrate would very likely have scared any small child and caused nervous glances from any adult, young or old.

The door behind Big Ernie began to rattle, followed by some
clicks,
before finally swinging open to reveal Itch, standing in all his smallness with an angry smirk on his face and several boxes of cereal in his arms.

"This isn't good at all, Ernie, not good at all!"

"Uhh, Itch?" said Ernie.

"Not only did you almost drop one of my customers today while holding him over the edge of a building."

"Umm, Itch?" said Big Ernie again.

"Not only did you eat all my cereal for lunch."

"Well," began Ernie, to which Itch held up a hand.

"Not only did you put a nice scratch down the side of my car, but you also locked me out of my own house while I was out buying more cereal. Now, my large, none-too-bright associate, care to explain?"

Itch moved out of the doorway and dropped the cereal boxes onto the couch. He swung around, planning full well to fix a mean and frightening glare straight on Big Ernie, but his facial expression never made it. Instead, he half smirked, raised an eyebrow, frowned, and then creased his forehead.

"Ernie?" said Itch.

"Yes, Itch?" said Ernie.

"Ernie, why is there a cat sitting at my table?" asked Itch, somewhat bewildered.

Sure enough, the black cat formerly known as Fuzzbucket sat in the chair opposite Big Ernie, his yellowish green eyes fixed upon Itch.

"He'd like to talk to us," said Big Ernie, "about some lemons."

Jeremiah swam around his bowl as fast as possible; the sheer exhilaration of the water rushing past his gills felt most satisfying to him. He stopped for a moment, struggling to remember what it was he was doing and why he was doing it, when all of a sudden, a rush of energy surged through his tiny brain, causing electrical sparks to flash around his bowl. Jeremiah mustered all his strength and flung the unknown force out of his bowl, out of the apartment, and away from London at an astonishing speed.

The unknown energy slowly began to take physical form as it raced across the sky before finally crash-landing and skidding some thirty miles to a halt somewhere to the south of the Himalayas. A light breeze floated through the air as an Entity which had not been seen on Earth in over two hundred thousand years stood up, dusted itself off, and proceeded to walk in the direction of London.

Model#2984739 clicked to life and looked around before realizing that its eyes had yet to come online, which would explain the blindness he currently experienced. He, if he was in fact a
he
, ran a diagnostic check. A series of ones and zeroes ran instantly through Model#2984739's computer processor mind and formulated the result
yes
, his body seemed to be in working order; he wiggled his fingers to prove it. His personality files suddenly sprang to life and began to feed personal information into his memory banks, which, for space-saving reasons, were located in his left thigh.

A minor ache formed behind his left eye, then just as quickly disappeared. Model#2984739's onboard scanning software dismissed the ache as non-threatening and he flicked on his eyeballs to prove it. Model#2984739 blinked a few times and zoomed his vision in and out before finally bringing his surroundings into focus. A sharp
ding
signaled the completion of the upload of his personality files; he could proceed with mission parameters. This time, an excruciatingly sharp pain slapped him across the back of his head, causing his circuit boards to jump and the little bells on the end of his shoes to dingle.