Nigel lived in a respectable, uptown, London apartment that overlooked a quaint greengrocer, a video rental store owned by two generally happy East Indian fellows known as the Raja brothers, and a small pottery shop that no one ever entered. The apartment building itself had been built well over a hundred years ago, but due to fire damage had been renovated several times.
Nigel lived on the third, and best, floor. The ground floor was the lowest, and anyone walking by the ground floor apartments never fought the urge to look through the windows. Thankfully, the ground floor was occupied nearly entirely by exhibitionists and they loved the attention.
The first floor had been the residence of a very cunning and talented arsonist responsible for the fires in the building and several more around London until he was finally arrested and sent to a prison in the northern regions of England where he was re-named Snugglyboo by his large, yet well-mannered, cellmate.
It was rumoured that the second floor was haunted by a marauding band of sheep poachers who had holed up in one of the rooms back in the late eighteen hundreds in order to avoid the authorities. One of the sheep they had recently stolen from a nearby farm became violent and ferocious due to eating some bad fruit and ended up killing the poachers. The story related that their ghosts haunted the second floor looking for the one sheep that turned bad. And so not only was the third floor the highest, it was also considered the best, as there was no lack of privacy, no ghosts, and no prior history with Snugglyboo the arsonist.
Following Heinrich's orders, Nigel entered his apartment and checked his messages. He found three. The first was a telephone salesman offering fantastic rates on the latest and greatest edition of an encyclopedia that would no doubt transform even the dullest, dimwitted person into someone of magnificent intellect. Nigel deleted the message without giving it a second thought, or a first one for that matter.
The second was a message from his mother asking him to call and talk to his father who had, apparently out of boredom and old age, decided to start a Save the Ducks Foundation, after he read a report about how ducks were being used for nerve gas testing in Australia. His newfound passion for the feathered, quacking birds drove his wife up the wall, as there were regular shipments of nervous ducks coming in from Australia. Being that the Reinhardts lived in a one-story bungalow somewhere south of Essex, there just wasn't enough room for all the ducks and Nigel's mother was highly concerned about the state of her fake Persian rugs.
Nigel made a mental note to call his parents sometime in the near future and continued to the last message, which appeared to be a woman in some form of hysteria ranting about out-of-control cyborg elves at Majestic Technologies.
A thought at the back of Nigel's brain shifted slightly and peered around many other thoughts. The memory of Mrs. Jones mentioning that her cat Fuzzbucket, that had been possessed by the devil, had mentioned Majestic Technologies shifted nervously. It felt it was about to be disturbed.
Nigel had once read an article about the advancements in modern technology allowing robots to learn and solve problems. Japan was definitely a forerunner in the advancements, as they already had robots walking up walls, bringing the morning coffee, and completing simple household tasks. The leading American artificial intelligence research lab had the misfortune of being located in Texas. The most impressive thing the crack group of scientists at the Texas Institute for Technology, rather unfortunately abbreviated TIT., had accomplished was making a small robot dog belch the alphabet.
The Irish had managed to form a committee to undertake the research and development of artificial intelligence, they'd purchased the necessary equipment, built a laboratory, and then all gone down to the pub to celebrate and had been there ever since. All this Nigel knew to be true, as he'd read it in a popular and renowned magazine.
Cyborg elves sounded like something straight out of a bad science fiction movie. After all the goings-on of the day, this was the last thing that Nigel hoped for. Things had been entirely too weird, with people not dying anymore, getting fired, the disturbing flashback, not to mention the whole hanging upside down off a building incident. Although it went against every natural urge in his body, he decided that enough was quite enough, even more than enough, in some people's opinions. He would not respond to the crazed woman who had left him a message.
Probably just a prank, anyway.
For a while, Nigel had been receiving phone calls from a left-wing communist religious cult that had become convinced that Nigel's goldfish represented the missing link to the saviour of the universe. Nigel had received a total of three-thousand-two-hundred-sixty-three phone calls from the insane cult members before finally deciding that they were in fact a bunch of complete nutters and changing his phone number. What Nigel really wanted was some food, as he hadn't eaten since breakfast and—
"Food!" said Nigel.
Two thoughts crisscrossed his mind and then collided somewhere in the middle. He'd forgotten to feed his pet fish. Nigel was immensely obsessed with his pet fish, Jeremiah, for reasons of which he himself was completely oblivious. He never really had any pets growing up and, as a consequence, was no great lover of animals, although he did feel a small twang of grief about the bird that had been crushed inadvertently by his falling desk earlier in the day. Nigel could never understand the human fascination with keeping animals in their house, the comfort that they allegedly provided, and the amount of waste that they excreted in a one-week period: it none of that balanced correctly in his mind. It all seemed rather bizarre to him, and so he had never really ever thought about getting a pet until one day, while visiting his Great-Aunt Margo in Birmingham, he came across a small pond located somewhere in an obscure piece of countryside where Nigel got himself completely lost. Every time Nigel tried to recount, even to himself, the events that brought about the consequence of him owning a pet goldfish, everything seemed to blur and he often blacked out. He remembered leaving London in a rented car, he remembered getting lost somewhere after Essex, he remembered the pond, and Jeremiah staring innocently up out of the green goo, and then he was back in his London apartment looking for something to put his new fish in. As far as he remembered, he never made it to a visit with his aged relative. What was even stranger was that he later discovered that he'd never had a Great-Aunt Margo in the first place. The whole trip seemed like some sort of deranged dream.
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.
Twenty-One.
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 l
acking 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.
Twenty-Two.
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 resultyes, 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.
His onboard scanning software tried once again to load the mission parameters. The pain was so extreme that Model#2984739 gave out a slight yelp. And then, without any provocation whatsoever, Model#2984739 started to dance; it started as a slight wiggle of the hips, and then an occasional head jiggle, before blowing up into a full-out groove.
There was no music, no band or DJ, just a half-empty warehouse and a robotic elf dancing to the sweet rhythmic tunes of silence. As Model#2984739 executed a lovely sideways shimmy, a string of letters ran through his mind, formed words, and promptly spelled out:
Model#2984739: aka: Eggnog
Mission Parameter Files not loaded.
Error! Error! Error! Error!
The dancing came to a stop as quickly as it had begun. Model#2984739 stared inwardly at his name until it faded away.
Obviously, there is something wrong here.
His system administration software immediately recognized Eggnog's self-awareness of the problem and advised him to seek technical help from the nearest technician. Eggnog examined his surroundings and decided that there were no technicians in the immediate vicinity and that he should go and look for one. He straightened his little elf hat, which had become dislodged while he danced, and wandered off across the warehouse floor toward a red exit sign that emitted an annoying sort of electronic buzzing sound.
After exploring several hallways, visiting more than one bathroom, and climbing up several flights of stairs and through a rather nice ventilation shaft, Eggnog found himself in some sort of cafeteria. He
walked around the perimeter of the dining room before noticing a woman sitting by herself in the far corner; she seemed to be rocking back and forth in a distressed fashion.
The memory banks in Eggnog's upper left thigh told him that she was indeed a technician. He walked under several of the tables and brushed against one of the cheap plastic chairs that creaked slightly, causing the technician to grab a nearby knife, leap to her feet, and awkwardly roll sideways. Eggnog hurried over to her and tapped her on the shoulder. She spun around with a terrified look on her face.
"Hullo," said Eggnog.
The technician made a hulmph sound and passed out.
Eggnog hopped back, obviously startled, and looked around, trying to think of what to do next. A computerized feeling, very comparable to confusion, washed over him. At this point, his onboard computer came up with several error signals and his body broke into a sort of Funky Chicken dance.
The cat formerly known as Fuzzbucket sat at one side of the table, a dark glint in his eyes, tail swishing ominously.
Itch and Big Ernie sat at the other side of the table, looking confused. Itch couldn't figure out why a cat would want two tons of lemons, or why they should steal them for the cat, or even why this cat was talking in the first place.
"I'll explain it again," said the cat coolly. "This body I am in is that of a cat, as I'm sure two smart gentlemen such as yourselves have already realized. My intention was to fall into a much nicer body, a body I had picked out myself. He was once a swimmer, actually, but for some strange reason the opportunity was stolen from me, and I ended up inside this ridiculous feline."
Death, the Devil, and the Goldfish Page 12