Meanwhile, the disappearance of Luke and Albert had not passed unnoticed. Old Nick was a good leader, as has been mentioned, and when two of his brightest young up-and-comers disappeared into thin air it was the type of thing he’d not only realise, but remark upon.
He remarked upon it at breakfast the day after Albert’s untimely death, much to everyone else’s surprise. They’d known, of course - as had he - that the pair had gone off after the interlopers who had so brazenly invaded Das Gleiche, but hadn’t cared particularly about their fate (being demonic cultivators and all), and that the demonic cultivator in chief should do so came as something of a surprise.
“But of course I should,” he said, frowning, as Judy asked this of him. “They’re my disciples as much as any of you are, but beyond that, they were engaged in sect business when they disappeared. That they should go and vanish calls for an investigation on our part, even if they died or deserted long before they met with their foe.”
"Would you like me to assemble a team, sir?" Mirabelle inquired stiffly. She had been subjected to a performance review after the homunculi - her project, propos, managed and defended by her, in spite of Old Nick's misgivings - were found crushed to smithereens, totally wasting their Research and Development Department's Investment Budget. Consequently she both hated and was eerily fascinated by the two interlopers who had subjected her to such humiliation. But Old Nick just waved her away.
"It's useless to assemble a team when we don't even know what we're fighting," he pointed out reasonably. "No, it's time to seek advice from #0003: Braun."
Instantly the room grew quiet, the gathered executives shivering. They didn't ever speak of Braun. Nobody did. His very name sent a chill down the spine of any who knew him.
Old Nick was not one to be daunted by a common spook, however, and after he'd finished his tofu eggs and vegan bacon he stood up forcefully, his tone clear. "We will seek advice from Braun; then, we will assemble a team following the advice he gives." And with that he clapped his hands, and directed #0002 and #0004 to follow him towards the special elevator. This was the private elevator of Old Nick himself, and only he had the key to access it, and to go to where it led - for it contained on its panel floors and dimensions marked on no other elevator.
Braun lived in the basement of Das Gleiche. Not the first basement, where dwelled the army under the command of #0005, Merida, but the second basement. Here it was that Das Gleiche performed its more dubious research - on humans, and animals, and innocent wee gnomes - and kept in secret caves projects too insidious to mention; but that was not why they were afraid of him.
They descended down the special elevator for what felt like an age, passing through concrete depths of corporate grey, until finally they came to rest in a cramped concrete laboratory. Rows of strange jars filled with pickled corpses surrounded them on every side, the bulging eyes and leering faces of a million dead things watching them as they passed. The room was lit only by a ghoulish green glow from within the jars, for no other light was permitted. Braun met them as they entered, having sensed their descent, and once more Judy felt a shiver as she craned her neck to stare up at the man.
"Man" is perhaps an overly genteel term, for Braun was no man. He was a spirit beast, an immense grizzly bear who stood on two legs, peering at them from burning eyes; but that was not why they were afraid of him. (Das Gleiche was an equal opportunity employer, after all.)
"Come, sit down - I know why you're here," Braun whispered, his voice no ursine rumble but the soft and limpid twisting of a fish.
They had not told him of their coming, but none of them doubted that when Braun said he knew the reason, he was telling the truth - for that was why they were afraid of him.
Braun was not, strictly speaking, a diviner. No, it would be far more correct to say that he was one who could see and devour the threads of destiny themselves. It is an easy feat to drain the energy out of others - so easy that many viciously toxic people who have never even heard of cultivation are practising (if not mastering) its demonic form without ever being aware of it - but to eat the destinies of others is quite another matter.
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To devour the destinies of others is to play at being a god - to gaze into the deepest fathoms of what makes someone a human, and to negate it utterly. No more can they hear and participate in the song of all souls; the Gate of Destiny is lost to them, leaving them adrift in an atomistic void forever.
Those with a good memory may recognise this as the raison d'etre of Das Gleiche, given back in chapter twelve, and the reason for its infernal assault upon the Spirit of Christmas: and sure enough it was Braun who, more than anyone else, had given the corporation its mission and structured its practise. But as he was the master who had architected the destruction of fate, so too was he the master of the destruction of fate, and for this he was treated with fear and awe.
They sat down at a small, cluttered metal table in the corner of the basement, ignoring the cryptical glyphs carved on the papers before them and the vacant stares of some sort of fish man, floating in a cask beside them. Braun clattered around in a kitchen off to the side, collecting glasses and heating some sort of drink. He returned, pouring the three visitors a mulled wine, whose crimson contents were not all grape, and proceeded - without being told anything of the goings on - to inform them precisely what they had done wrong.
"You have messed up," he informed #0001, his nominal superior, categorically. "You knew what a threat Santa posed when we chose to anger him, but over a day has passed since agents acting on his behalf broke into our sect, and yet I see nothing but fractured and arbitrary attempts at tracking him, by isolated individuals.
"Those individuals have already lost and been lost to us: Albert is dead, and Luke worse than dead, for he has ventured down another path."
Here Old Nick winced. He had suspected something had gone wrong when he failed to hear from them, but to hear it confirmed so starkly was another matter. Braun saw, and softened his tone slightly.
"You have treated this seriously and for this you should be commended, but you cannot continue to treat this haphazardly. I do not utter this warning from mere Pontifical fervour: I see nothing but annihilation on our current path. We must change our approach and, like the serpent, strike from a different direction."
"Can you see into the fates of Santa's agents, and tell me how best they might be made to disappear?" Old Nick asked hopefully.
But Braun shook his head and it was then, for the first time, that Old Nick felt fear. They were no normal cultivators, then, but ones who had harmonised with their own destiny - among the worst they could handle, outside of angering one who was near immortality. No wonder Like and Albert and the homunculi had failed: outside of the core of the executives, there was nobody who had the slightest chance of succeeding. He had to admit, Santa had gumption: rather than keeping his best agents back, protecting the weak and adorable elves, he had risked it all on one throw of the dice.
"So what should we do next?"
Braun peered into the air, examining the skeins on which the fates told their tale. His face was intent, his eyes burrowing into the mists of the future. "I can perceive, dimly, the threads of fate connected to the men; and can tell you where they are, and with whom they are connected. This, then, is what you must do: make not one, but two teams. Place the two people whom I see wreathed in the fire of battle in charge of the first, but make the second their subordinate. Then, direct them as follows…"
***
"That's quite the story," Anna drawled, as she took it all down in shorthand. Judy nodded happily.
"We have all the advice from Brau- err, him - in note form, but it needs to be compiled into formal documents and sent to the relevant parties."
"The 'relevant parties,' if I understand correctly, being every department in Das Gleiche?"
Judy acknowledged this cheerfully, utterly failing to comprehend the sheer scale of the undertaking she had just place on Anna's plate. Braun had been quite specific on this - only if the whole corporation and every demonic cultivator in its chain worked together as one would they have any hope of ending the agents Santa had hired. (The Fat Man must be really desperate.)
***
"Who keeps belittling me?" Santa cried in annoyance, as he painted the stripes on candy canes. "I can understand disliking me - plenty of self-obsessed megalomaniacs have sought to defile all that is Pure on this good earth for their own power hungry antics - but must they mock me while they do?"
Doubtless he would have said more, but at that moment the door burst open and Arius ran in, covered in pink glitter and panicking. "Father, help! The elves are putting sparkles on the princess dresses."
Santa spit out his hot cocoa. "What?! I thought I told them they were banned from ever touching glitter again!"
***
Anna kept her face neutral as Judy dictated the dozens of people, departments, and subdepartments for whom she had to compose letters, only letting her expression naturalise when her superior was gone.
"Well," she sighed, looking at the literal mountain of notes swaying on top of her desk, and knowing it had to be collated, redacted, formalised, and sent out by midnight tonight, "at least they pay good overtime."