"WHERE HAD MY ORCS BEEN?!" Just because I often leave my shop at the hands of Golnash doesn't mean he can skip work as much as he wants.

"I KNOW IT'S DAYTIME! YOU AREN'T AS WEAK TO SUNLIGHT AS YOUR ANCESTORS WERE!" I look under the shirts on display, carefully so I don't have to fold it back. I have fermented durian business to run too, and durian-scented shirts aren't in vogue since... First Age, I guess?

I found a snoring snaga curling peacefully under a mannequin pile. I flick her nose. "Wake up! Job!"

She yawns lazily as she extended her arms. The mannequins slide down, covering her again. She jolts, "Ahh! Avalanche!"

I pinch her nose, moving it side to side a few times. "Avalanche your head! Get up, and send these mannequins to the storeroom!." She quickly starts with her work, tying the same body parts together.

I look around, trying to see if any orcs and snagas are hiding around. "Hey, Trahan, where are the rest?"

She looks up at me. Her eyes are filled with fear. That's odd, usually their eyes are filled with mischief when they look at me.

"My Lord, they are having a holiday..."

"A Holiday? A HOLIDAY???!!!" My roar is befitting Morgoth's at Lammoth, if I may enter my basket and lift it myself. I bring out my mace and swing it around a few times. "Well, where are they holidaying? I intend to give them holidays, lasting forever!"

"My Lord, you don't know?"

"Know what?"

"Today's Friday the Thirteenth!"

My face loses its wrath, and now it is only filled with puzzlement. "Today's Saturday! Friday the Thirteenth's yesterday!"

"Our clock here follows Washington DC. It's 8.00 am Friday!"

I swapped my smartphone's screen. World Time... Oh yes, it's Friday. "Well, why are you not with the others? Don't you want to escape work too?"

"I want overtime. More money, can buy a Samsung android."

I clutch my stomach, laughing at her answer. "I haven't said today's a holiday!" I slam my fist at my chest, trying to stop my laughter. "You get paid your monthly wage. Unless you want to work past 5.00 pm?"

"Oooooh, yes! I get free lunch, right?"

I growl at her. "Don't empty the pantry."

She squeals in happiness and quickly cleans the shop, slapping an "OPEN" sign on the front door. I sit at the cashier's counter, throning with gloom as I wait for the first customers to arrive. This will be a long day, even with no ill luck.

Faolan flicked her wand, and yards of red sequined silk flew out of the bag and laid itself neatly on the floor. Another wave and the pattern laid itself on top, held in place with magic.

"So, after you're done with the Jessica Rabbit costume, we've got a Sixth Doctor order," Charlotte said, "Can't believe how hard it was to find all those different fabrics."

"That lining had to be specially made," Faolan said, nodding. Several quick Diffindos and the sequined fabric was neatly cut into pieces. "Glad we got these when we did, though. I was worried we'd have to start looking at letting the gas bill go."

Charlotte sighed and set her folder aside. "Hon, do you ever think about maybe going back to the PPC?"

Faolan paused, lowering her wand. "All the time," she said quietly. "Why?"

"Just, you don't seem very happy here," Charlotte said. "I know you were thrilled at the idea of retiring, but ever since it actually happened you keep eyeballing the beacon, waiting for it to go off."

Faolan glanced at the metal disc on the mantle and sighed. "I'll be fine," she said. "Once I get used to the full moon again. It's been ten years since I've had to deal with them, save for the odd accident on a mission."

Charlotte nodded slowly. "And the rough startup with the shop's not helping, either," she said. It wasn't a question.

Faolan shrugged. "I mean, we're making ends meet, and that's all I can ask for," she said, but Charlotte shook her head.

"We've already had to cut electricity," she said, gesturing around at the candles flickering from the tables and mantle. "Ix—Fwai, you're scared things will go back to the way they were before."

Faolan turned to face Charlotte. "As long as we've got a roof over our heads and food on the table, I'm not going to complain," she said, "but when I married you, I promised I'd give you a good life, one that you deserved. I thought... I was foolish enough to think someone like me could do that."

Charlotte opened her mouth to protest, but what came out was a shrill, "POLLY, NO!"

There was a loud clunking noise and Faolan whirled around to see one of the candlesticks on the coffee table had been knocked over by the cat, landing on the stack of Sixth Doctor fabrics and setting it ablaze. A jet of water from Faolan's wand extinguished it, but the damage was already done.

"Oh no," Faolan whispered, staring at the mess.

"Hey. Fwai, don't worry, it'll be okay," Charlotte said, going over and wrapping an arm around her waist."You can just repair the cloth, right?"

Faolan shook her head. "If it was just torn, then yes, but it's not," she said. "And I can't conjure more, either, it would just vanish after a while."

Charlotte bit her lip. "How much would it cost to get more made?"

"Too much." Faolan slowly sat down on the floor, and Charlotte moved with her. "I—we're going to have to cut the gas now, too. Lottie, I..." She buried her face in her hands.

Charlotte rubbed her back, unsure of what else to say.

She was saved from having to say anything when the beacon on the mantle went off with a shrill [BEEEEEP!] She got up, silently cursing. If they were being called in, things were going to get ugly, and fast. Not exactly what they needed to be dealing with at that moment.

Faolan summoned her knee brace and slowly strapped it on, cursing under her breath at their rotten luck.

The PPC is the brainchild of Jay and Acacia; Ix and Charlotte belong to me. Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling, and Twilight to Stephenie Meyer.

Tom Andrews was not having a good day.

Picture, if you will, the inside of RC #65536+3i - a number that Tom was certain had been designed specifically to annoy him. Given that this was HQ, it was entirely possible.

The small room was neatly partitioned. One side was fanatically clean, with a carefully organized bookshelf and a neatly organized desk taking up most of the space. Well, most of the space that wasn’t taken up by a very large form that appeared to be sleeping. Tom was about 80% sure his partner wasn’t actually sleeping, but he was equally sure that making any deliberate effort to “wake” him was a bad idea.

The other side of the room was taken up by what was seemingly a swamp composed entirely of books, which seemed to have obtained their current placement when a hurricane blew through. There was a supply of Coke in the corner, from which empty cans had been strewn about carelessly. A small desk held a laptop, two precariously-stacked monitors, and a console. Not to be confused with the RC’s console, which was prominently positioned in the center of the room. This one was monochrome, text-only, and came straight from the 80s. And it was currently showing no text at all and beeping quite loudly at Tom.

*SMACK SMACK SMACK* “Work!”

The console refused to budge, even after being hit several times - which was surprising: this technique had been fairly effective in the past. Tom sighed and opened the thing up, jiggling about any components that might be loose. However, the console was still entirely nonfunctional.

And this was how Tom came to be carrying a very heavy piece of vintage hardware through the corridors of the PPC, in a vaguely DoSAT-wards direction. Probably. It was hard not to think of your destination when you were lugging something this heavy. After his tenth break along the way, he briefly considered working out how to summon some demons to do it for him. After the twelfth, he was halfway through the equations before he remembered why this was a Bad Idea.

In the end, it took him around 15 minutes to get to DoSAT, by which time he was panting like he’d run a marathon. He looked around for the nearest tech. “I’d like… this thing… repaired please…” he gasped.

The tech looked at him with a mixture of annoyance and bafflement. “That’s an Heathkit terminal from the 1980s. It’s ancient and not particularly good. You sure you don’t want to just chuck it?”

By this point, Tom had placed the console down, and was feeling a bit less winded. “I quite like it, myself. And I would like it repaired if you can do it.”

“Well, I guess I could try and find someone to- wait a minute. What continuum are you from?”

Tom glanced around awkwardly. “Weeell… um… you see… I can’t actually tell you that...”
The tech grabbed his CAD and pointed it at Tom:

Tom Andrews. PPC Agent. Continuum of Origin: Laundryverse. OOC: 3.127%. Error Margin: 5%. Suggested Action: Nothing.

“I knew it!” said the Tech. He glared at Tom. “Look, I’m not touching that thing until you clear it first. I happen to value my life.”

Tom rolled his eyes. “Look,” he said, “there’s nothing in there. But if makes you feel better, I’ll run scan on the thing just to make sure.” He ran his phone over to terminal.

His phone beeped.

Tom sighed. “Of course. Just my bloody luck today. Gloves?”

And that was how Tom Andrews ended up poking around the inside of his terminal, looking for and attempting to banish whatever minor demonic entity had taken up residence with a bin of electronic components, the scanner app on his phone, and a working knowledge of Old Enochian. After a few hours of careful work, he managed to trap the thing in an improvised circuit for examination or banishment. This circuit disappeared into a ziplock, which itself disappeared into another ziplock - touching it would be a Bad Idea now. However, his terminal was clean of any sinister influences now, so he could finally hand the thing over to a technician for examination and repairs.

By the time he got back to his RC (once again lugging his terminal), it was significantly later. His partner sat at the cleaner desk, reading through the Horus Heresy novels at an alarming speed. “I trust that you have taken care of the issue with your terminal device?” he asked, gesturing at the terminal as Tom set it back down on his desk.

“Yes, Thoth,” Tom said, irritatedly. “I took it down to DoSAT and… wait a minute. How did you… You could have helped!”

Thoth shrugged, a gesture that looked strange on a Space Marine. “You should have checked to see if I was truly sleeping. Besides, I had more important things to do than aid you.”

“You- you- you- you-” at this point, Tom made a shockingly creative word choice.

“I believe that was my original job in my home continuum, was it not? I am, after all, a Thousand Son.”

Tom sighed. “I’m not even going to try and argue.” He grabbed a can of Coke. “I’m going out.”

“Where?”

Tom grabbed a his laptop and some reading material (a tattered copy of Compilers: Principles, Techniques, and Tools) and stepped out the door. “Rudi’s!”


2017-10-13 06:16:00 [ecosystems3.rack5.qq45ld09β-tl1.routing] tty1: NO CARRIER
2017-10-13 06:16:00 [cisco2.rack2.rr12zh34ε-tl1.routing] eth3: link down
[55385 similar messages elided]
2017-10-13 06:16:15 [ecosystems3.rack5.qq45ld09α-tl1.routing] no route to host vault-tec1.rack1.qa01aa04ξ-tl1.routing
2017-10-13 06:16:19 [cisco2.rack2.rr12zh34ε-tl1.routing] no route to host console04ab9e221e44b490ff.rc112358.dms
[103287 similar messages elided]
2017-10-13 06:16:59 [monitoring13.dosat] Region qa01 probably down - sev2 ticket #23499101 logged

[BEEEEEEEEEEEEP]
Technician Tomash was startled awake by the console. He groped around for his glasses, put them on, and then took a look at the time.

"It's 6 in the morning, dammit." he grumbled. "What'm I getting woken up for?"

Tomash walked over to his console

2017-10-13 06:20:51 [ingress1.rack6.ra01aa07ν-tl1.routing] nlan1: link down (warp fluctuations)
2017-10-13 06:20:52 [tuberosum55.box2b.בc23ln43λ-tl1.routing] prot1: link down
[298232 similar messages elided]
2017-10-13 06:20:55 [console050102ky332761.rc007.dosat] no route to host monitoring.dosat
2017-10-13 06:21:01 [ingress1.rack6.ra01aa07ν-tl1.routing] no route to host console02.dosat
[408214 similar messages elided]

and started reading the logs. "OK, this'll be annoying. Let's see where that is..."

tomash@rc2718282 ~ 06:23 $ network-map qa01
Fatal error: Cannot look up room layout: no route to host

"The heck?"

2017-10-13 06:23:23 [aperture4.control.dosat] External corruption on link fib3, preemptive halt
2017-10-13 06:23:24 [monitoring08.dosat] Kernel panic: Core nyph14tnyd,eucrkaogutns1\2443h4prs^X@
[10 similar messaged elided]

Tomash leaned down to make sure his console's network cable was still plugged in. This was fortunate, as, about 30 seconds after that command had failed, the console's screen and keyboard started glowing green.

Bits bits bits said the thing in the console.

Tomash wasn't quite sure what was going on, but had a general sense of how to respond to this situation. He ran outside, without bothering to put on shoes first, and started heading for the main computing facilities. Headquarters, fortunately, was being cooperative, and he made it there rather quickly.

And so, about a minute later, a heavily breathing technician charged into a room full of routers, servers, and even more unusual equipment. Some of this equipment was glowing, and the fraction of eerily-green equipment was slowly growing. Tomash grabbed a nearby hammer, smashed some glass, pulled up a molly-guard, and slammed the big red button by the door.

2017-10-13 06:24:32 [panel.th02ln44μ.routing.dosat] Emergency shutdown logged

The blinking lights on the machines turned off.

The box of potatoes half a mile down the hall to the left stopped vibrating.

Everything was quiet.

Too quiet.

But that might have just been the fact that piles of technical stuff are always at least somewhat noisy under normal circumstances.

Fortunately, the glowing started receding out of the servers. Hungry hungry hungry it said.

Tomash looked at the diagram on a nearby wall and found out where qa01 should be. He started walking his way down the now emergency-lit hall, using a phone flashlight to check the door signs. Unfortunately, that was a rather theoretical diagram since HQ was back to its usual self. Now that the immediate threat was past, looking for a large bay full of equipment was a terrible strategy for finding it.

After a few increasingly frustrating minutes, Tomash made it to area qa01, where he started listening for eldritch muttering and glowing. He paced around the room, looking around every few steps, and didn't find anything. That was a bit concerning.

"OK, wait, the first thing that showed as down is in aa03 or so, hm let's see..." Tomash started walking over there, and then he looked around more carefully. "OK, so none of this stuff is glowy. Where the heck could that have been coming from?"

During all the staring, a faint blue shimmering from a cable run caught Tomash's eye. He went over to where the room's backup CAD was, and pointed it at the plothole in the cable run.

Natural portal to Laundryverse. Close? Y/n

Tomash hit the button to close the plothole, ending the shimmering. He then left and started heading for the main DoSAT labs.

Once he'd gotten there, he went through the Makes-Things Memorial Blast Doors (which were still named that even though Makes-Things had always been very alive) and called out. "Anyone know how to restart main routing? I got the scary green stuff out, but I can't find the startup docs."

"They're on the wiki!" said a nearby tech. A moment later, she'd remembered what was going on and added "Which is under that desk over there.", pointing towards said desk.

Tomash went over to the wiki server, turned it on, looked up the directions, and started the process of getting a good chunk of the network back up.

After the initial steps were dealt with, the procedure sped up significantly since it turned into something that could easily be split up among many people, and there were a lot of techs waiting around twiddling their thumbs (or other manipulatory appendages, if any) while waiting for the outage to clear up. Most of the work involved going to each part of the shut-down infrastructure, disengaging the emergency stop mechanisms, and turning certain supervisory computers on by hand, as they would restore the rest of the system automatically.

Even with all the help, getting everyone back online took a few hours, as there was a lot of infrastructure to restart. There were also the inevitable issues with bugs, such as the ones that got into the boxes of computational potatoes.

Once everything was mostly back up and running, Tomash went back to bed, yawning frequently along the way, since he really hadn't gotten enough sleep the night before.

He'd just about managed to settle into a nap when

2017-10-13 13:13:13 [aperture4.control.dosat] Emergency stop. In-progress canon integration detected.
2017-10-13 13:13:16 [monitoring01.dosat] Control AI unresponsive - sev3 ticket #23499666 logged

[BEEEEEEEEEEEEP]

"Oh, good, you're back," Inbal'l said. She sighed and waved the Reader over to the lobby sofa she was sitting on. "C'mere. I need you to explain me a thing."

The Reader obligingly sat down next to the New Earth native. She was on her seventh body by now, which had come out resembling nothing so much as an aging Silurian; she rather missed having hair, for very personal reasons, but she had quite enjoyed the one time she had run into a real Silurian while an outfit of the type her fifth self had once classified as "blinding, God, why did I wear that?!" Now, however, she was dressed far more conservatively in a comfortable skirt and a replica of a very, very old Arcadian 442 unit t-shirt.

Her newest companion was in her mid-thirties. Inbal'l had stumbled into the TARDIS one day as the Reader and her long-term companion had been heading out, and had been traveling with them ever since. She kept her hair in a lively mass of colorfully beaded braids, with little pom poms attached to the ends in accordance with a style that had become quite popular on New Earth in the last few years. Her clothing, by contrast, was off-white and had orange buttons and zippers to close the many, many pockets on it.

Inbal'l might have mentioned wanting an explanation, but--as was frequent--she took her time getting to the question once she had the Reader's attention. "Hey, you get her settled in?"

"Oh yes." The Reader nodded, and leaned back against the sofa. She watched a pair of guests check into the hotel as she talked. "She's quite happy with the rooms. She's even looking forward to going swimming."

Inbal'l glanced at her sidelong. "You can't tell me you've never liked swimming."

The Reader smiled. "I could. Of course, it would be a lie, but that's life for you: liars all around." Her smile faded momentarily. "No matter, though, so long as she's happy. That's the important part, Inbal'l."

"Yeah, yeah, you're sweet and joined at the hip." Inbal'l rolled her eyes. "You're such a sappy old lady, Reader. I'm surprised she puts up with it."

The Reader kept smiling. "I've earned my sappiness by now, I think. So: what was your question?"

"Oh, that." Inbal'l sighed, and unrolled the tablet she'd been holding to show a paused video screen. "I was watching this--from Old Earth, you wouldn't know it, it's not your style--but it makes even less sense than usual. What's so scary about the thirteenth Friday?"

"The what?" The Reader frowned and peered at the tablet.

"The thirteenth Friday," Inbal'l repeated. "They're partaking in all kinds of weird superstitions to avoid trouble, because it's the thirteenth Friday."

"It could be something specific to the canon," the Reader suggested, tilting her head to one side, but Inbal'l shook her head.

"It's not fantasy. I checked. It's meant to be a sitcom about daily life in Old New York."

"Then it's most likely Friday the Thirteenth," said the Reader. "I couldn't tell you why, but some Old Earth cultures considered it unlucky. I'm afraid I never found out more."

"But you read it somewhere, didn't you? And you always read the whole book, even if it's boring. I've seen you."

The Reader shrugged one shoulder, looking away. "Yes, well. This is something I heard, rather than read; and the person telling me wasn't from Earth. That really is all I know."

"Rats." Inbal'l sighed and rolled the tablet back up. "I s'pose I'll look it up sometime, then. Come on!" She jumped up and offered the Reader a hand. "Let's go before we're forced to do something horrible."

The Reader blinked up at her. "Something horrible?" she repeated. "I thought we'd chosen well this time. No trouble. What horrible thing did I miss?"

"Swimming," Inbal'l replied, and snickered when the Reader sighed and took her offered hand. "There we go. C'mon, Reader--adventure awaits!"

"We're going to a museum," the Reader said. They began to walk towards the exit.

"A fun museum."

The Reader sighed, but her lips curled into a smile. "An interesting museum. Very quiet."

Inbal'l snorted. "Yeah, we'll see. Come on--TARDIS is that way!"


--

Are we doing disclaimers? Okay. This is PPC-related in that the Seventh Reader was once an agent (and still is in the present), but I don't see that it needs disclaiming. Uh, Doctor Who belongs presumably to the BBC, and Inbal'l (een-bahll) is my own invention. Her name apparently means both uvula and clapper of a bell in Hebrew (if you remove the second L, anyway); I chose it purely for the sound, though, which...is now feeling a little meta.

Also, canon-wise? I couldn't tell you for sure if I'll stick with the Silurian idea, but the situation makes sense for the Reader's future. So...consider it canon but with the Reader's appearance subject to change (though either the Seventh or the Eighth Reader is definitely going to look non-Time Lord, so that part won't change unless it goes to the Eighth in the end).

"Grumpyyy! Breakfast!"

Grmph. Really? I thought. Is it morning already? With some effort, I managed to open one eye, to glance at the calendar on the wall. Friday, October 13^th, 2017, it said in glaring letters. So, it was one of those days when you best just stay in bed. "Lemme alone, I’m sleep-deprived!" Besides, we never have breakfast in our RC, because we lack the supplies and kitchenware, and I didn’t feel like walking to the cafeteria. I closed my eye and turned around. But I wasn’t allowed to fall asleep again.

"Grumpy? I found you some coffee. And toast and butter."

You see, I have a reputation to hold up. But then, disappointing Androia, when she tries to be nice, would be a bad thing. I jumped out of the bed, my head barely missing the upper frame, and bumped into my girl, who had just entered the bedroom, carrying a mug of deliciously smelling coffee and a dish. Brought to such a sudden halt, the toast promptly slipped off the dish.

Well, you know what always happens when a buttered toast is dropped. The thing is, it didn’t happen. In one swift movement, like it had been choreographed, Androia shoved the mug in my hand, dived for the toast and caught it on the dish, just before it could hit the floor. Also, the toast had performed a perfect somersault; the buttered side was up again.

"That was amazing", I said, lending Androia a hand to help her get up. Apparently, she had dismissed her ugly black uniform in favour of the blue novice gown I liked so much. And from the corner of my eye, I noticed that something was off with the bunk bed. There had been no blankets on the upper bed since I-don’t-remember-when. Had she decided to move in again while I was asleep?

"You are amazing", I said. "Where did you find this coffee?"

"In the locker we never bothered to open. And did you know that there is a small fridge under our console? There I found the butter."

I took a sip from the mug. "Ah, it tastes as delicious as it smells."

"I guess you have to let go of my hand if you want to eat your toast." Androia presented the dish to me, smiling.

"Actually, I’m not that hungry right now." Not for toast, anyway. Your lips, on the other hand ...

Of course, the console decided that this was the right moment to interrupt, and we had to run to cut the annoying beep off. Well, maybe I should be glad about that; playing it too fast might have gone terribly wrong. While Androia checked the Intel report, I quickly looked to the far corner, where she had set up camp. There were definitely no blankets on the floor anymore.

"Somebody must have made a mistake", Androia said, looking up. "We are in the Harry Potter division; this is My Little Pony."

"What! Are they kidding me? Will this be Neverfree all over again? I’m not made to walk on four limps! I even kept the brace and the crutch for evidence!"

"There is no sense in fretting, and complaining to Upstairs would not be worth the paper work. We should just roll with it." Androia had already started to fiddle with the console.

"Wait, I’m still in my pyjamas."

"So what? Earthponies again?"

"At least let me be a unicorn. I need some replacement for my hands."

Well, the adventures of the pyjamas-striped unicorn are for the mission report. Suffice to say that Equestria is beautiful, I didn’t sprain my ankle again, we flawlessly mastered unicorn magic, and the OC was actually a decent character who could just be left alone.

We didn’t even stumble when we stepped back into our RC and became bipedal again.

"This is weird", Androia said, pointing to the console’s calendar widget. Usually, we skip months whenever we go on a mission, but this time, we had returned on Friday, October 13^th, 2017, and it was not even noon.

"BEEP!"

"This is weird, too. What did we ever have to do with RWBY?"

"Uh, I watched it, and I’m looking forward to Volume five premiering tomorrow?"

Beacon Academy is gorgeous, Sun Wukong dropped banana peels on us, but we never slipped, and we didn’t even bother to take notes, because the evil wraith fled on seeing us although we aren’t even exorcists.

"BEEP!"

"Doctor who?"

He’s hilarious, by the way, and the TARDIS is just indescribable. So that’s what it came down to: On Friday the thirteenth, we kept getting short, easy missions to worlds I like, and nothing ever hurt. Eventually, the penny dropped.

"Uhm, Androia. There’s something I must tell you. That guy who created you while playing World of Warcraft, that – uh, that’s me."

"Finally opening up, Hieronymus? I figured this out ages ago, and I forgave you. After all, I would not even be here if it were not for you."

Because apparently, unlike a common believe elsewhere, in PPC HQ Friday the thirteenth is the day when nothing can go wrong.

But now I’m wondering why we never bothered to open that locker, and how we didn’t notice the fridge earlier. And why would we have a tear-off calendar on the wall of our bedroom? If the timeline didn’t go haywire again, today should be Saturday, October 14^th, 2017. I may have been woken by a noise from the upper bed; I guess I should just check whether she’s there. But I don’t even dare to open my eyes. What if there is no calendar on that wall?

How were you imagining that number being said, hS?

I was a bit thrown by that since I would've written "N+1st", that is "N plus first", as in "first, second, third ... Nth, N plus first, N plus second, ..."

- Tomash