The Labyrinth Index (Laundry Files, #9)

by Charles Stross

“I want a plan on my desk by the beginning of next month to prepare a framework for solving the Jewish problem. Mosques, mikvahs, Christian Science reading rooms: I want them all pinpointed, and a team on the ground drawing up plans to ensure the epidemic spreads no further!” “A, a final solution?” Vikram asks, utterly aghast. The PM looks primly shocked. “Absolutely not! What do you take me for? This is the very model of an enlightened and forward-looking government! The indiscriminate slaughter of innocents is wasteful and unappealing—although I’m sure there are some reality TV shows that could use a supply of Hunger Games contestants, ha ha! No, I just want the pernicious virus of the wrong kind of monotheism contained. Starve it of the oxygen of publicity and it’ll suffocate eventually, no need for gas chambers, what?”

Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn—in his house at R’lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming.

Cthulhu adds to all

Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn All Hail the New Flesh!

Regulatory capture is a management disease of task-focussed organizations.

How do you think He might punish me? Or you?” “You don’t think He’d—” A sick, ugly realization creeps over me. “Honey, do you really believe all the prisoners being executed to keep you PHANG people alive are guilty? Do you really think an ancient god-emperor who wants to build a fifty-story-high rack to hold His sacrifices’ skulls in the center of London will blink an eye at torturing our entire extended families to death just to set an example?”

“With respect, Mr. President,” he interrupts smoothly, “the Baroness started out human, and if a cure for her unfortunate condition becomes available I’m certain she’ll take it in a second.” I nod vehemently. “On the other hand, the Prime Minister role-plays humanity as his chosen character class. And the OPA threw away their humanity and never looked back.”

“Greetings from the Throne of N’yar Lat-Hotep to the Mouthpiece of the Lord of Sleep and Master of Nightmares, Dread Cthulhu. We take note of thy most excellent amusements and diversions, of the pall of forgetfulness spread by thy followers across this continent, thy plans for the sundering of worlds and the immanent return of thy true personage, the construction of the Dam of Dreams and the War against the Cold Ones. There is much that is debatable here, and some that is admirable. However, we feel that our purposes are best served by slowing thy headlong rush into war until such time as we have held joint counsel with all of our peers who are awakening in this epoch. So consider your chain duly yanked, motherfucker.” Without conscious volition, I punch the Mouthpiece in what is left of his face.