Free The Ministry of SUITs by Paul Gamble Page A

pirates in Piratoriums, we hide the dinosaurs. Of course they aren’t forgotten entirely, so they’re remembered as fairy tales, myths, or legends.”
    â€œAnd it’s dangerous?”
    Grey shrugged. “Well, yes, but aren’t dangerous things always the most fun? 29 And, more importantly, we get to laugh at the ‘normals.’ All the stupid people who don’t realize that the world is literally chock-full of danger and fun … So do you want to join up?”
    Jack thought about this. He wasn’t naturally inclined to danger, but the thought that there were things happening in the world that he knew nothing about frustrated him. If he refused the offer to join up, he would never find out about thousands of other secrets. “Okay. Count me in. It seems slightly clearer now,” said Jack, thinking that slightly was the most important word in that sentence.
    Grey clapped his hands. “Wonderful! Then you’ll be wanting to meet your partner.”
    â€œPartner?” said Jack. “No one said anything to me about a partner.”
    Grey looked at him quizzically. “Yes, I did. I just said it there now.”
    â€œWhat I meant was…”
    â€œEnough talking. Follow me!” Grey spun around on his shiny, polished shoes and started striding down the corridor. Jack had to almost run to keep up with him.
    The corridors were becoming more and more full of people—and not just people, but also things . Jack noticed a very odd one walking down the corridor dressed in what looked like a dark blue monk’s robe and carrying a large accordion paper file. It was a strange humanoid creature with enormous folded batlike wings on its back and a head that looked like a squid. Its skin was gray and decaying, oozing with green pustules. It looked as though lumps of it would come off if you touched it. Of course, you would never have touched it, precisely for that reason. Jack blinked—he couldn’t believe that creatures like that existed. It looked horrifyingly real in exactly the same way that cheap special effects don’t. Jack shuffled over to hide behind Grey while trying not to look like he was hiding behind Grey.
    â€œThat is the ancient Cthulhu, an evil being with unimaginable power. It longs to watch the world burn and send all its people into madness and insanity,” Grey said. He paused for a moment. “Cthulhu works in the filing branch.”
    â€œYou have an evil being with unimaginable power working in the filing branch?” Jack thought that if he ever had to conduct a job interview one of the first questions he would ask would be “Are you an evil being with unimaginable power?” If they answered yes, he almost certainly wouldn’t employ them. Unless of course they promised to bring doughnuts into the office on a Friday. Because everyone knows that jam-filled doughnuts cancel out evil.
    â€œWell, apart from being impossibly evil he’s also very efficient. Anyway, it suits everyone, really. We can keep an eye on him, and since he wants to drive the world mad, working in bureaucracy is pretty much his ideal job.”
    â€œThis place is crazy!” said Jack.
    Cthulhu stopped walking down the corridor and stared at Jack. He seemed to realize that they had been talking about him.
    Jack was understandably nervous. “Umm, Grey, I think he may have heard us talking about him.”
    Grey nodded. “Yes, it seems that he did. He has very good hearing. I’ve noticed that before. It’s especially strange because he has a squid head. And ordinary squids don’t have ears.”
    Jack really didn’t care about the problems that squids had because they lacked ears. He was rather more concerned that there was a creature starring at him who had recently been described as “impossibly evil.”
    Cthulhu made deep breathing noises and his batlike wings unfolded from his back. When opened, they