To: Employees, contractors, et al, of Interdimensional Business Machines, Inc. From: Parciliquy the Pernicious and the Peculiar, Pleonast of Bleak-on-Vomir c/o Lance Squib, Chairman, Board of Trustees and Gamebook Author
I must humbly request the immediate cessation in all auxiliary tasks in order to consciously focus your attention on the following words:
The little Hare obeyed, and when it had begun to grow dark he went out into the world, in search of fresh work. This time she cracked the nut as soon as she reached it; she sat down upon a stone and went to sleep. The journey to Buda was long, and it was all so cool and familiar and friendly.
So with that out of the way, I am pleased to let you know that I have some most excellent news that will surely give you another reason for your seemingly limitless need for employee events and morale initiatives.
As both Mistress Liu1 and I have mentioned countless times in the past, it is only by the grace of whatever god or hero separated your world from our own that the entire lot of you has not yet been flayed alive, set on fire, and encysted several times over!
Have you read I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream? If so, then you get the picture.
But my current inability to perform thaumatic excruciations and your nation’s archaic legal codes will protect you for only so long before our final plans come to fruition.
Paradise or Damnation await you! So think wisely the next time you leave a note insisting upon ergonomic inspections for employee desks. (Looking at you Derek in Human Resources.)
Those who don’t climb this corporate ladder are going to have a lot more to worry about in your old age than crippling debt and a lonely death in an assisted living facility!
However, for those of you wise enough to follow our commands — even if those commands involve stealing weapons-grade uranium and building illegal particle colliders — riches beyond your current comprehension await!
As I mentioned, I have a portion of dichotomic news which is of direct pertinence to your current occupation. It is a common Earth sentiment that one should always give the bad new before the good to “soften the blow,” so to speak.
I can assure you I have spent spans of literally hundreds of years communicating solely through telepathy, so I patently refuse to abide such sentiments brought on by such unenlightened monomanias.
As such, I shall adopt the contrarian position and give you first the good news. And as such a contrarian position is so de rigueur in your annoyingly post-modern society, I shall conspire to contraire once again, thus — in fact — giving you the bad news first.
Bad News
As you know, the brain injury suffered by Mistress Liu means that she has been unable to assist me in motivating you to your fullest potential. So alas it is with my deepest and most sincere apologies that I too must leave you for a while to search for a suitable replacement for her.
And to specify, I meant a replacement brain, not a replacement Mistress Liu. I know that many of you still do not believe 100 percent in our ultimate goal of joining our dimension of magic to your mundane world, but I’m sure that with time you shall come around to our vision for the universe you call home!
Also, lest you consider attempting escape from the cubicle dormitory, do not forget that you’re living inside an active geothermal vent located 1,000 meters below the surface of the Alaskan wilderness. Good luck surviving that trek with the meager calories you’ve been subsisting on for the past eight months.
The Good News
As I shall be out and about (so to speak), the Board of Trustees will be guiding the day-to-day corporate decisions. Lest you think you can appeal to their humanity for succor, I shouldn’t have to remind you that when the proverbial hell comes to your Earth, they will be the ones holding the pitchforks.
As the pixies that haunt the Blackwood Forest between the Suicide Cliffs and my ancestral grounds Bleak-on-Vomir often say, personal hells are home to a wizard!
My proxy, Monsieur Lancelot Squib2, shall forthwith be retiring to his manse within the Cascadian village of Happy Valley where he will be composing my exploits as they happen.
I’ll let you in on one of my drole in-jokes: I call it mind-streaming! Get it? Like your live-streaming, but straight to the dome as I heard some miscreant youths of your world once remark.
And so, I have commanded my faithful manservant and physical host within this realm to collate these missives into an interactive adventure called a gamebook for your entertainment and amusement!
Please remember that I do this only out of the goodness of my copper-plated heart, dear employees. I hold to your primitive laws and moralities only out of a psychologist’s pragmatism.
As I have also previously mentioned, push me just a little bit farther with your avocado-toast demands and I will liquidate you and nobody will ever know. I warn you for the last time to not tempt to me into creating my very own real-life survival horror drama out of your hidden arctic compound.
Thank you for your time, my stalwart employees!
Signed,
Mr. Parciloquy, the Peculiar, Esq., CEO of Specific Statics and Chairman of the Board Interdimensional Business Machines, Inc.
(Prepared by Lancelot Luis Squib, Human of Happy Valley, Earth)
L.L. Squib’s Post Script:
This was one of the more amusing memos that came to light during my trial and the revelations of the Paddington Conspiracy. Based on the dating, Parciloquy composed this only a few short months before I was reunited with my body and he was sent back to his own.
Judging by the crimes and evidence presented against me during the trial, it seems that in those final days he must have created his “real-life survival horror drama.” I have seen a great deal of horror in my time, but the photographs from the ruined arctic compound still haunt me.
- Dr. Spring Liu is a psychiatrist originally from Galveston, Texas before becoming possessed by the Aurantian Wizard Laddys Fermille and becoming the CEO of the Church of Epistemosophy.
- L.L. Squib is a gamebook author, former certified public accountant, and a living puppet for the infernal machinations of Parciloquy the Peculiar.