The Ministry of SUITs (27 page)

“Any other reason?”

Grey looked around, checking that the corridor was empty. “What I told you is the official reason. The real reason is that Cthulhu…”

“Cthulhu,” repeated Trudy, “the ancient and evil being with unimaginable power, the one that longs to watch the world burn and send all its people into madness and insanity.”

“Yes, that Cthulhu,
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the one that works in the filing branch. He also designed the requisition system.”

“It nearly drove Jack crazy.”

“Mmmm. We rather think that was Cthulhu's intention when he designed the system.”

“Why doesn't someone just fire Cthulhu?” shouted Trudy.

“As I've said before, firstly, no one is brave enough to. Secondly, if Cthulhu can nearly send people insane with filing, imagine the havoc he could wreak if he was out in the world at large. Imagine what would happen if he got a job at a merchant bank, or an arms dealer, or something like that. To be honest, it's much safer to have him here.”

“Even when he nearly drives your coworkers mad?”

Grey laughed nervously. “You're exaggerating the risk. Only three or four staff go mad each year. And generally they recover after fourteen or fifteen months of rest and intensive therapy.… Of course, they're never quite the same again.…” Grey drifted off.

“Guys, I'm okay now,” said Jack. He seemed to have shaken off the horror of the infinitely long forms. “But we still haven't solved our problem. How are we going to save David? How are we going to get the kidnapped children up that wall?”

Grey shrugged. “Go to the store? Buy a rope ladder? Not everything has to be amazing, you know.”

“Oh,” said Jack.

“If you can get us a rope ladder, Jack and I will head to the headquarters of Chapeau Noir,” said Trudy. “Maybe we'll be able to find some kind of a clue there as to why Mr. Teach has been digging under the school.”

“Do we really need to do that? I don't want to leave David down there for a moment longer than necessary.”

“Jack, I know you're worried about David, but this isn't just about rescuing those kids. We've got to figure out what Mr. Teach is up to and stop him somehow. If we don't stop him once and for all, what would prevent him from just kidnapping more kids?”

“When did you start thinking things through instead of punching things?”

“I always thought things through,” said Trudy, playfully punching Jack in the shoulder. “It's just that before, you never thought to ask me what I was thinking.”

“So how are we going to find out where the headquarters of Chapeau Noir is?” asked Jack.

“Just look it up in the Yellow Pages,” said Grey. “You really should stop trying to make everything more complicated than it needs to be, Jack.”

“Are you trying to tell me that evil villains list themselves in the Yellow Pages?”

“Well, of course they do. They may be evil villains, but they still need to make sure they get all their evil mail delivered.”

“I'll get the address.” Trudy grinned. “Go home and make up some excuse for your parents why you'll be out late tonight. I'll pick you up in a Ministry car at seven thirty.”

MINISTRY
OF
S.U.I.T.S
HANDBOOK

EVIL VILLAINS

H
EADQUARTERS

A good rule of thumb is that villains almost never live in underwater grottoes, hollowed-out volcanoes, or ancient castles surrounded by gardens filled with poisonous plants. If you are a villain and you have plans of world domination, you'll draw attention to yourself if you live in that kind of flamboyant hideout. The kind of conversation that such a villainous lair will create is something along the lines of the following:

Local Policeman 1:
There have been a lot of murders around here lately. Do you think it might have anything to do with that scientist fellow who moved into the old abandoned missile silo?

Local Policeman 2:
Could be. He seems to have ordered a lot of equipment recently. One of his workers asked me if I knew where he could get weapons-grade uranium.

Local Policeman 1:
You know, I have a bit of a hunch. I think we should go up there and check the place out.

This is the stage at which the policemen go up to the lair and get suspicious because the “coffeemaker” in the kitchen looks an awful lot like a death ray. And there are also rather a lot of dead bodies stacked up in the cellar.

Policemen pick up on those kinds of clues.

Generally, villains are a lot smarter than this. And that's a pity, because if everyone who was out to destroy the world had a flamboyant lair, we would be able to catch them a lot sooner. For example, if only the big banks shunned skyscrapers and instead had their headquarters in orbiting satellites, bases at the South Pole, Gothic castles, and enormous floating antigravity platforms, we probably would have spotted what they were up to a lot sooner. Then we would have been able to stop them before the whole financial crisis thing happened.

 

40

SHATTERED

 

It was nearly six o'clock by the time Jack got back to his house. His parents were just sitting down to dinner. Jack took up his place at the table.

“You're late,” commented his father's mustache.

“Sorry, I was just helping … out with the … chess club.”

“You're a member of the chess club as well now?” his mother said, surprised.

“Yes, I am … apparently,” said Jack, who was almost as surprised as his mother was.

“Wonderful game, chess,” said his father. “You know the legend is that it was invented many thousands of years ago as a way for tribes to solve their disputes without having to resort to warfare. Now, the interesting thing is…”
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Normally Jack would have let out a theatrical groan when his father began one of his long, boring lectures about ancient history or legends. However, this time Jack nodded appreciatively and encouraged his father to talk about chess some more. Jack's mother was suspicious at this out-of-character behavior. The reason for it, of course, was simple: The more Jack's father talked, the less Jack would have to make up lies about the chess club and why he was late.

For once it seemed to Jack that having a boring and verbose father might actually be an advantage. Jack nodded and occasionally chipped in with a “That's very interesting; so why did that happen, then?” where it seemed most appropriate.

Time passed.

“… and so you see, that's why the Russians became such masters at the game. Fairly obvious when you think about it.”

Jack swallowed the last of his dinner.

“That's fascinating, Dad. Listen, I'm going over to Trudy's house tonight. Is that okay?”

“Trudy.” Jack's dad smiled at the mention of a girl's name. “Is that the girl you were talking to after choir practice?”

Jack had forgotten that he had told his father that.

“Umm, yes, that's her.”

“Are we going to get to meet this Trudy sometime?”

Jack blushed and went a lovely shade of bright red.
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Jack started spluttering a few words, unsure as to why he was quite so embarrassed. To be fair to Jack, it would have been difficult to explain to his parents that Trudy was not, in fact, his girlfriend but rather was his partner in a secret government agency whose job it was to investigate and stop things that were too weird for the average person to imagine.

Jack couldn't figure out a way of achieving this without causing his parents to worry about him, and so he spluttered some more. In fact, he spluttered to such an extent that there seemed to be a realistic chance of his choking to death.
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Luckily, his mother saved him from this ignominious fate by cuffing his father around the head with a tea towel.

“Leave Jack alone. He's allowed to have a friend.”

“Thanks, Mum,” said Jack as he ducked out of the room.

Jack ran up to his room to think about getting changed. But what would he choose? Just what was the well-dressed burglar wearing this season? After going through his closet a number of times he came up with a pair of black tracksuit bottoms, a black T-shirt, and a black sweatshirt. It seemed appropriate.

Jack was standing outside his house when the Ministry car pulled up. He scrambled into the back beside Trudy and was greeted with loud laughter. “Why are you dressed all in black?”

“Isn't it obvious? We're burglars. We're going burglaring.”
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“I don't think burglaring is a real word.”
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Jack looked at what Trudy was wearing. She had on a light blue polo shirt and a pair of navy tracksuit trousers. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail.

“You don't look like a burglar.”

“That's the point. I tried to dress like an office cleaner. That way if someone sees me in the offices of Chapeau Noir, they won't give me a second glance.”

“Oh,” said Jack. Realization dawned on him.

“Yes.
Oh.
If we're in the offices and they see you, they'll realize you're a burglar. Because you look like a burglar. In fact you could only have made it worse if you'd brought along a black eye mask and a bag marked ‘swag.'”

“Sorry,” said Jack. “This is my first burglary.”

“It shows. Hopefully you'll improve.”

*   *   *

Jack was slightly disappointed when they arrived at the headquarters of Chapeau Noir Enterprises. He had been expecting a skyscraper of black glass, black stone, and silver metal. In point of fact, the building was red brick with ordinary windows and a welcoming-looking foyer.

“What were you expecting?” asked Trudy. “A hollowed-out volcano lair?”

“Well, no, but I was hoping that it would at least be a little sinister.”

Jack and Trudy clambered out of the Ministry car and stood in front of the building.

“Since you're the expert, how do we get in?” asked Jack.

Trudy pulled a rucksack off her back and rummaged around in it. Jack was expecting her to take out a lock pick, a grappling hook, or perhaps a magical collapsible ladder. He was therefore surprised when she took out a clipboard.

“Follow me.”

Trudy walked confidently through the office's sliding doors. She strode up to the reception desk as Jack hurried to keep up.

“We're here to check the air vents on floor eight,” Trudy said to a bored-looking security guard who sat behind the reception desk.

The security guard looked skeptical at first. After all, why would a child be sent to look at air vents? “Really, look…” Then he caught sight of the clipboard. “Umm, okay, the elevators are over there.” He pointed.

Jack was astonished and followed Trudy over to the elevators. “How did that work?” he asked her once they were safely inside one. “Is that a magic clipboard?”

“Perfectly ordinary clipboard. But it works like magic. You see, people assume that if you have a clipboard, then you also have some documentation attached to it. And they then imagine if you have documentation you must have offices somewhere. And they then imagine at the office there are lots of people working. And they then imagine that you must be a person in authority if the imaginary people at the imaginary office gave you a clipboard. So then they believe anything that you tell them. It's the power of the human imagination coupled with the authority of the clipboard.”

“That doesn't sound like it could really work.”

“Oh, it does,” said Trudy. “In fact, I've got a survey saying it does right here.” She tapped the clipboard.

“Oh. Okay then,” said Jack, who found himself strangely convinced by this argument.

“Now what we need is to figure out where we want to go next.”

Jack pressed the highest-numbered button in the elevator. “Up. We want to find the office of Mr. Teach himself. And the best offices are always at the top of buildings.”

*   *   *

In one corner of the tenth floor there was an enormous office with a nameplate on the door, “Mr. Teach—Chief Executive.” They could see inside the office as one of its walls was made entirely out of glass. It was sparsely furnished, with only a few filing cabinets and an enormous oak desk at the far end. Unlike normal office furniture, the desk was made of rough, worn planks and Jack could have sworn that the decorative studs along the sides were made from barnacles.

Trudy tried the door handle. “Locked.”

Jack looked around other offices and picked up a heavy glass paperweight. “I'll use this to smash a small hole in the glass wall and then we'll be able to reach inside and open the door that way.”

“I'm not sure that's a great idea,” said Trudy. “If we smash a hole in that window, they'll know we've been here.”

Jack thought. He saw a potted plant in the corner of the office. “We can just move a potted plant in front of the hole. Then, hopefully, they won't notice.”

“Do you think that'll work?”

“Do you have a better plan?”

Trudy conceded that she didn't.

Jack went over to the glass wall and looked through it. He could see the handle on the other side of the door. He aimed with the paperweight so that the hole would be right beside the handle. The paperweight made a loud crack as it made contact with the wall, which shuddered but didn't break. The paperweight hadn't even chipped the surface.

“I'm going to need to hit it harder.” Jack pulled his arm back and hit the wall as hard as he could. An enormous crack appeared in the glass wall. It started spreading outward from where Jack had struck, looking like an enormous spiderweb.
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Jack nervously took a few steps back from the wall. Trudy hid herself behind a desk. There was an ear-splitting shattering noise and the wall collapsed into a million shards of glass.