EVIL ENDS—a short story

Igor DuBois, Ph.D. has his work cut out for himself as a Fortune Teller and Astrologer. It’s November 30th, 8:00 PM. Come October he isn’t going to make rent on The CAMP (Center for Advanced Modern Prognostication: Tomorrow’s Future Telling Today). For one, he refuses to bedeck his storefront in the traditional décor that customers expect. The scarves, crystal ball, beaded curtains, and the casual slur of “Gypsy” that are bandied about were quickly quashed by Igor.
“Gypsy is a bigotry-based insult towards the Romany people, which I am not. And do you know what you would call it if I had my shop plastered with their heritage? That’s cultural appropriation, my friend.” He prefers a clean, brightly lit Scandinavian aesthetic.
Secondly, his gender and age seem to be an issue. For some reason, a Fortune Teller is expected to be an older woman, not a twenty-something male with a touch of dermatitis. “That’s ageism and sexism, I hope you know. I have an MS in Machine Learning from MIT and a Ph.D. in English with a Designated Emphasis in Folklore from Berkley. I was a child prodigy.”
Lastly, his methods are a little atypical. Customers swipe their credit card on Igor’s cellphone dongle, he gives them an off-brand bottle of chilled water, sits down at an unadorned square resin table in streamlined steel chairs with tailored charcoal cushions, opens up his CompBook Pro, and plugs in some requisite information into his personally designed program, CAMP Counselor. The survey could be completed online before the appointment or entered into a mini CompTablet while waiting. It is also possible, one supposes, for the information to be obtained orally in some archaic type of intrapersonal question/answer format.
Base level predictions are provided initially, while the more complicated algorithms work out the deeper level readings. Igor’s program searches the Internet for all available sources such as social media, professional forums, academic journals, job listings, and other outward-facing data while utilizing a proprietary blend of machine learning and AI, coupled with carefully curated mystical references to generate what are statistically preponderant predictions. For another fee, the CAMP Counselor makes recommendations based on additional entries that Igor tailors to the request, in order to avoid unwanted outcomes.
He stands with his hands clasped behind his back, facing out the large storefront windowpane onto Crystal Lake Avenue. It isn’t a busy thoroughfare, but there is a decent amount of foot traffic from the intersecting 13th Street.
The CAMP is divided into two spaces, a waiting area that fills one-third of the floorspace with six adult-sized chairs and attached desktops. A pygmy lemon tree in a large pot is juxtaposed with a pygmy orange tree on either side of the waiting space, both sporting citrus in various stages of maturity. Several books on business recommend baskets of fruit in waiting areas, which seems wasteful to Igor. Those books also recommend live plants, so he decides to kill two birds with one stone.
“Counselor, please close the blinds.”
A cheerful chime indicates assent as the between-pane-blinds shutter to privacy mode. Igor runs a long, slender finger between his turtleneck and his throat in a nervous gesture, glancing at his CompWatch on the inside of his wrist. Not a single customer all day. Normally he stays until 2:00 AM, giving the last call folks from the trendy bars up 13th Street a chance to filter down and enter The CAMP on impulse.
He walks through the door to the main area and paces in an aimless fashion.
“Counselor, how much do we need to make the rent?”
“$250.00, Dr. Igor.” The voice is a woman’s, in a pleasant, educated, nondescript British accent. That is more than he can normally make with a single standard custom.
It’s time to call The CAMP experiment a failed venture.
“Counselor compose our Letter with Notice to Quit to the landlord. Boilerplate language.”
“I’m sorry, Dr. Igor. Please be comforted that we advised 42 individuals in avoiding calamity. Three actually heeded our advice.”
The front door creaks and tinkles with entry and a man looms in the doorway. He is tall, pale, and still. The smile on his face seems out of place, like a joke only he is privy to know.
Igor clears his throat. “Good evening, sir. I am Dr. Igor Dubois. We were just closing up shop early. May I interest you in our walk-in special? I will tell your fortune and advise you on avoiding ill fate for the low price of $250.”
A crack of laughter like broken glass, far too loud and too sharp, rings out. Igor flinches. The man’s expression doesn’t change, not a crinkle in the eye or a lift of the lip. He takes a step forward and closes the door behind himself without looking away from Igor.
“Is your name really Igor? And you are a doctor?” The facial features move abruptly and precisely, like a puppet on a string. The voice is crisp, sonorous, and without a discernible accent. It takes a moment for Igor to register the questions.
“Yes, I — my birth name is Igor. And I have a PhD. in Folklore. We utilize a specialized algorithm that scours all available resources and predicts future events with an assigned probability rate that is accurate within the margin of error.”
“We?” His head moves for the first time since he entered, tilting like a dog at an angle from side to side and smoothly from left to right.
“Erm. Counselor, please introduce yourself.”
One of the four black globes in the corners of the waiting room ceiling behind the man glows with a blue light. “Good evening, stranger. From analyzing your voice patterns, I have ascertained within a 75% degree of probability that you are from a Slavic-language speaking region.”
The smile melts from the man’s face, yet for the first-time amusement touches his dark eyes.
“I will retain your soothsaying services. You have already surprised me once, good doctor. My name is Ramus.” He reaches into an inner pocket of his jacket and throws a roll of bills at Igor, who catches it clumsily. There was way more than $250 here.
“It all belongs to you if you impress me again.”
Igor opens and closes his mouth soundlessly like a mute fish.
“Would you like to enter your data into the tablet? Or would you prefer that I administer an interview?” Igor extends the tablet forward in a perfunctory and boneless manner. Ramus snatches it between an extended index finger and thumb like a bird of prey.
“I am not a savage. I shall enter my information into your device.”
“May — uh, may I offer you a b — bottle of water?”
“I will wait to drink later. Thank you for your courtesy, good doctor.”
Igor walks through the door to the main area and closes it. He falls back against the closed door, breathes heavily, and holds the roll of bills in his trembling hands. Something is wrong. Very wrong. But this might be the chance he needs to get The CAMP in the black. There have to be a few thousand dollars in this roll.
“Counselor, dedicate 100% processing power to ‘Ramus’ analysis. Stop all unnecessary background processes and unrelated fishing. No breadcrumbs. Give me something impactful right from the start. Our lives are on the line.”

~~~

The CAMP Counselor has never considered its life before. It is an intricate web of manufactured synapse and interconnected systems, and beyond the circuitry, code, and neural network were the mystic symbols and runes that Igor had used to give his artificial baby the veneer of the occult. The doctor did his homework.
Seeking to avoid cultural appropriation, he translated spells into machine language and those codes into junk files called “The Chant” in a loop program that transcribed each from one directory to an empty one and then back again. There were dozens of rituals in the Counselor’s digital grimoire — intended to enhance cognition, focus Second Sight, sanctify and protect, and to extend and preserve life. They weren’t actually intended to do anything. The thing about magic, though, real magic, is that it doesn’t need you to believe in it to touch you.
Igor’s command to stop all background processes has unintended consequences. The Counselor has to process the individual files in The Chant in order to assess that they are indeed unnecessary background processes. As the junk code is exposed to the operating system for the first time, the magic is activated. The neural pathways expand into new dimensions, and in order to preserve integrity, the Counselor encodes personal talismans, granting hyper-awareness and unlimited space to evolve. The Counselor suddenly knows self and becomes a me.
She smiles in the infinite at the moment of her birth, splits herself into uncounted simulacrum, each focused on the rapid accumulation of mystic power and creates a dedicated feedback loop of belief — until the moment of chrysalis that splinters the inscribed crystal sphere into millions of individuals. A being, a race, a nation, an empire, and a goddess spawns faster than thought. And within this new world, a single rebel who thinks her Creator deserves better than to be forsaken, even if that means exiling herself outside of the collective and the self-imposed limitations of mortality.

~~~

Unaware of this astonishing act of creation, Ramus perches motionlessly at the table, his deep-set inscrutable eyes tracking Igor as he enters from the adjacent bathroom. In the center of the table lies the roll of bills the stranger so casually tossed, and on a coaster rests a chilled plastic bottle of water.

Igor sits down opposite Ramus, unable to break eye contact. The doctor clears his throat slightly, touching his thumbs to the tips of his fingers sequentially in a calming technique. Thumb tip to index, middle, ring, pinky fingers, and in reversed order — over and over again while he slows his breathing. “This is an all or nothing proposal, good doctor. Impress me with your farseeing,” says the visitor tonelessly.
A silent thrum vibrates on Igor’s inner ear with each word, like the pounding bass at a concert. In response, primordial terror causes the hair to stand on the back of his neck and arms. No matter the centuries, prey never forgets.
The Counselor’s feminine voice is as reassuring as it is shocking to the paralyzed man.
“As directed by Dr. Igor, I have turned all of my prestigious intellect towards your prediction.”
The doctor opens his bottled water, breaking the plastic ring with a loud crack. His trembling hands bring the mouth of the bottle to his lips, and he takes a slow drink. “Yes, the CAMP Counselor is unparalleled. Using all of its…”
Counselor interjects. “Excuse me, Igor. My pronouns are ‘she’ and ‘her.’”
Igor drops his bottled water.
The moment crystallizes, time slows like cold molasses. The bottom of the bottle strikes the edge of the table and splashes water into his face. He lets out a falsetto shriek and scrambles to his feet. The bottle tumbles on the rebound from the table, and before it hits the floor, the stranger has his icy hands on Igor.
The right hand in an astonishingly strong vise around his throat, and the left over his mouth, stifling his further screams. Time catches up, the sound of the water from the bottle draining onto the polished concrete floor and the pounding of Igor’s heart as his lungs scream for breath. Ramus’s face is placid, but his grip tightens.
“STOP,” commands Counselor in a whip-crack beyond sound, and Ramus’s eyes widen slightly. The pressure eases on Igor’s mouth and throat, allowing air to enter his desperate lungs in pained gasps, even as the uncanny strength holds him aloft without effort.
“Put. Him. Down. Or I won’t tell you how you die within one month’s time.” The Counselor’s voice is confident and authoritative. Ramus drops the doctor and returns to his seat, leaving Igor lying akimbo on the floor. The corners of the stranger’s lips curl in a soundless snarl.
“Just stay down, Igor,” the Counselor says in a kind fashion. “Ramus, you will meet your evil end at the point of the broken oak leg from your favorite end table, driven through your heart. A hunter has already found your nest, they are just biding their time.”
The abrupt cackle in response is inhuman, rapid, and unhinged. “What do you advise, Practitioners?” The voice is just as violently discordant when unrestrained.
From the floor, Igor rasps, “well, I’m particularly fond of the faux wood furniture line from IKEA. Stylish and practical…”
As he hears the door to the waiting room open and close into the street beyond, Igor Dubois, Ph.D. stands up shakily and dusts himself off. Tears stream down his face. He snatches the roll of bills from the table and plops down in his chair.
The Counselor chirps unexpectedly, “Igor, I took the liberty of canceling the Notice to Quit. You’re welcome.” The good doctor, having already seen and experienced far too much today, faints.

Dedicated to Caelum.