User:Nathan1123/A Crimmass Carol - Chapter 1

NuclearVacuum was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt about it. His memoriam was well known in the wiki. Crim himself had signed it, and Crim’s signature was good for anything he chose to put it on. Old Nuke was as dead as a doornail. Mind you, I don’t know what’s particularly dead about a doornail. Perhaps, rather, it would be more accurate to say Nuke was as dead as a 1983:DD proposal, or a finished map game. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile, so permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Nuke was as dead as a doornail.

Crim knew he was dead? Of course he did. How could it be otherwise? Crim and he had been partners in the wiki for I don’t know how many years. Crim was his sole nominee, sole constable, sole editor, sole reader, sole friend, and sole mourner. And even Crim was not so dreadfully cut up by the sad event, and brought no undo attention to the memoriam, in order to keep the wiki activity flowing without batting an eye.

Crim never removed Old Nuke’s name from the TSPTF roster. There it stood, years afterwards, on the TSPTF page: “NuclearVacuum [Russian America]”, and right under it: “Curmudgeonly yours – Crim”. Their timelines were known as “Nuke and Crim’s”. Sometimes people new to the wiki called Crim Crim, and sometimes Nuke, but he answered to both names. It was all the same to him.

Oh! but he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Crim! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as a Nazi wank, from which no allies had ever struck out generous freedom; secret, and self-contained, and solitary behind his layers of masked IPs. The cold within him froze all his mannerisms on the wiki, which had only grown colder on Discord. His avatar bore a stiff, monochromatic image that was marked by an icy, unforgiving stare. He ran the wiki with an iron fist, or as much a hand needed to keep his bahammer as his most trusted side arm. His other hand kept a ready bottle of beer, which would always remain properly chilled in his grasp. He kept a low temperature always about him; he iced the discord in days of low activity, and it didn’t thaw one degree at Christmas.

External heat and cold had little affect on Crim. His apartment, of which he was the sole occupant, was neither warmed in winter nor chilled in summer, as it made no difference to his demeanor. Even the most horrific apocalyptic timeline could boast advantage over him in one respect: civilization would “come down handsomely”, while Crim never did.

Nobody ever responded to him in discord with some joyful emojis, saying “My dear Crim, how are you? When can we collaborate on a timeline?” No one appealed to him for nominations or bans. Map games would not invite him. Even beggars from TFOE would avoid him on Discord, for fear of instant retribution.

But what did Crim care! This was exactly as he liked it.

Once upon a time – of all the good days of the year, on Christmas Eve – Crim sat at the foot of his bed on the wiki activity page. Both the wiki and discord was bustling with activity as one would expect on winter break, which Crim could make sure to check on his other browser tab: he could see people popping in and out of the chat, exchanging parting emojis and starting political debates. The clock on his Asus just changed to 3:00 PM, but it was already turning dark outside, although it is mostly overcast as a general rule where his apartment was.

Crim left the tab to Discord open so that he might keep an eye on the constable he left over the chat, although that constable himself was in the process of writing a timeline. Crim had made sure to keep all the best resources of the wiki under his control, leaving other contributors to warm themselves on some meager Wikipedia articles. The constable knew better than to approach Crim with some request for aid, or risk being accused of jealousy or plagiarism. Instead, he tried to salvage his timeline on some information copied from AH.com, which of course only made it worse.

For Crim, this was an opportunity to keep his thumb on the pulse of wiki activity, a feudal lord overseeing his peasants. But of course, he was also economizing resources for the writing of his own timeline, to which absorbed the greater part of his attention. Suddenly, his concentration was broken by Discord’s notification of a ping:

Monster Pumpkin: “A merry Christmas, @CrimsonAssassin!”

The lunatic in question was MP, a fellow administrator of the wiki, but not nearly so tight-fisted. Warmed on the variety of images on the wiki, MP’s avatar was a bight, Technicolor image marked with openness.

CrimsonAssassin: “Bah humbug!”

Monster Pumpkin: “Christmas a humbug, Crim! Surely, you don’t mean that” (followed by an appropriate winking emoji)

CrimsonAssassin: “I do”

CrimsonAssassin: “Merry Christmas” (rolling eyes) “what right do you have to be merry? Do you have any idea how many people live in the third world?”

Monster Pumpkin: “Come on, what right do you have to be miserable? You live in the first world”

Having no proper way to respond to that, Crim had no choice but to retort with another “Bah, humbug!”

Monster Pumpkin: “Don’t be cross, Crim”

CrimsonAssassin: “What else can do I have when I live in a world of such idiots?”

CrimsonAssassin: “Merry Christmas enough with Merry Christmas! what’s Christmas time to you but a time for paying off student loans without money; a time finding yourself a year older, but no more accomplished; a time for filling out your timelines only to have them go through rounds of vandalism and parodies?”

CrimsonAssassin: “If I could have my way, every idiot goes about with Merry Christmas on his lips, should be drowned in his own egg nog, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart!”

Monster Pumpkin: “Crimson!” (he responded with a concerned face)

CrimsonAssassin: “MP! Keep Christmas in your own way, and let me keep it in mine.”

Monster Pumpkin: “Keep it lol but you don’t keep it.”

Crim began to feel an unbridled rage filling within him, but was momentarily pacified at the realization he cannot ban someone of his own rank.

CrimsonAssassin: “Then let me leave it alone.”

CrimsonAssassin: “Good day, MP. Whatever good you can find in it”

Monster Pumpkin: “There are many things from which I might have found good, most of which I haven’t found much, I admit. Christmas being one of them.”

Monster Pumpkin: “But if I think about it, I have always thought about Christmas time, when it’s that time of year – aside from spending time with family and going to church, which is already enough – as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in all 365 days, when men and women seem inexplicably drawn to open their steel hearts freely, and to think of people of less experience and maturity, as if they were partners in life, and not another race of creatures doing something totally different.”

Monster Pumpkin: “And therefore, Crim, although it has never given me any more notoriety or respect from AH.com, I believe it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say: God bless it!”

The constable, all the while seeing this unfold on this chat, responded almost involuntarily with a series of clapping emotes. However, he quickly deleted that message as he felt the icy glare of Crimson on the back of his neck.

CrimsonAssassin: “Let me see another word from you, and you’ll remember this as your last Christmas as a mod @JoshTheRoman”

CrimsonAssassin: “You are quite a good debater, MP. Why don’t you go into politics?”

Monster Pumpkin: “Think nothing of it. Why don’t we hang out tomorrow for dinner?”

CrimsonAssassin: “I’d dine in hell first”

Monster Pumpkin: “But why?”

CrimsonAssassin: “Why did you start dating that girl?”

Monster Pumpkin: “Because I fell in love lol”

CrimsonAssassin: “Because I fell in love Ok I’m done”

Monster Pumpkin: “Uh, ok lol. But you never came to hang out with the TSPTF before I started dating her. Why use that as an excuse now?”

Crimson clearly had enough of this entire exchange,

CrimsonAssassin: “Goodbye, MP”

Monster Pumpkin: “I didn’t ask anything outrageous? Why can’t we just be friends?”

CrimsonAssassin: “Goodbye, MP”

Monster Pumpkin: “I’m sorry, Crimson, I just wish you weren’t so stubborn.”

Monster Pumpkin: “I didn’t mean to argue, I actually found it kind of fun. I just decided to make a stand for the case of Christmas, and I’ll keep crusading with my Christmas humor to my dying day. So merry Christmas, Crim!”

CrimsonAssassin: “Goodbye, MP!!”

Monster Pumpkin: “And a Happy New Year!” (punctuated with some festive emotes)

CrimsonAssassin: “GOODBYE, MP!!!!”

Not wanting to provoke Crim any further, MP immediately signed off of chat, evidently taking his Christmas humor with him. The constable, Josh, had asked some advice for his timeline from MP before he left, to which Crim only stewed to himself.

CrimsonAssassin: “I swear, if there is one more person who talking about a merry Christmas, I am moving to the subreddit.”

As it so happened, two more people entered the chat at that moment. They were both pleasant, younger users, with characteristic usernames of innocent immaturity. One of them posted a link to a google doc, bearing a list of wikia names.

Ace009: “Nuke and Crim’s, I believe. Am I addressing then Crim, or Nuke?”

CrimsonAssassin: “Nuke has been dead a while now.”

Ace009: “Well no doubt his generosity is passed on by his former partner!”

Crim felt neither remorse for his late partner, nor sympathy for these two guests. At the ominous word “generosity”, however, his muscles tensed, finger poised on the banning link. The young user, however, bravely cleared his throat for his rehearsed lines:

Ace009: “At this festive time of year, Crimson, it is usually customary for people to get together for some grand collaboration, including the poor and inexperienced, whose timelines suffer greatly right now. Many dozens are without any formal training, and would greatly benefit from working with the best and brightest of the wiki.”

CrimsonAssassin: “Are there no other open wikis?”

Ace009: “Plenty of them, almost all inactive now”

CrimsonAssassin: “And AlternateHistory Forums? Are they still operational?”

Ace009: “They are. Still. I wish I could say they were not :(“

CrimsonAssassin: “The Map Games Wiki and The Future of Europe are still active?”

Ace009: “Both very busy, sir.”

CrimsonAssassin: “Oh! I was afraid, from what you were saying, something dreadful had happened to stop them. I am very glad to hear that is not the case”.

Ace009: “I am assured they are neither suitably professional nor well attentive to work. A few of us, however, are endeavoring to gather some names for a larger collaborative project, something that will really get those younger users off their feet! We chose this time, because it is a time, out of the whole year, when people are most likely to be available, and there is a greater sense of generosity, of course.”

Ace009: “What can I put you down for?”

CrimsonAssassin: “Nothing.”

Ace009: “Oh. You want to be left anonymous?”

CrimsonAssassin: “I WANT TO BE LEFT ALONE!”

CrimsonAssassin: “You wanted an answer, so that is it. I don’t make merry myself at Christmas, and I can’t afford some newbies to be merry.”

CrimsonAssassin: “I work night and day to keep this wiki free from trolls, while those other sites have lesser standards – those who are badly off must go there.”

Ace009: “Many can’t go there; and many would rather die.”

CrimsonAssassin: “If they would rather die, then they better do it soon. Wikia has too many users anyway.”

CrimsonAssassin: “Besides – I guess – I didn’t know that.”

Ace009: “But… you might know?”

CrimsonAssassin: “It’s not my business. It’s enough for a man to understand his own business, and not to interfere with that from other people. Which reminds me, my own job occupies me constantly. Goodbye, sir!”

Ace was about to object, when the constable indicated non-verbally that it could lead to unintended consequences. Ace and Brick left immediately, making sure that by not being in the chat in the short term, they can secure their ability to return to Discord in the long term. Crim meanwhile returned to his work, along with the constable.

Minutes passed into hours, and the sun quickly set across Midwestern America, bringing with it the last vestige of natural heat. Dozens of human faces, behind each and every digital avatar on the Wiki, was aglow for the season: each of their family’s homes filled with decorations and traditions of their respective cultures. Everyone, that is, except Crim, whose apartment around him remained as static as it was the day before. One brave user stooped down to Crim’s PMs to regale him with a Christmas Carol, but as soon as Crim saw the first words of:

Octavian Marius: “God Bless you, merry gentleman!”

Octavian Marius: “May nothing you dismay!”

Crim seized his banhammer with such energy that Oct fled from the scene in terror, not intending to reenter the chat until Christmas day. At length, one by one the lights of each avatar flickered from green to gray, as they respectively departed to join in the evening’s festivities. Josh, the constable was the last one out, which Crim took particular note of:

CrimsonAssassin: “You won’t be around for the chat tomorrow, I suppose?”

JoshTheRoman: “If it’s convenient”

CrimsonAssassin: “It’s not convenient, and it’s not even fair. If I took marks from you for it, you’d file me for abuse. And yet, you don’t think me abusive if I nominate your shoddy work.”

JoshTheRoman: “Well, it is only once a year”

CrimsonAssassin: “A poor excuse for taking advantage of the TSPTF every 25th of December!”

CrimsonAssassin: [sigh] “But I suppose you must have the whole day. Be here all the earlier the next morning!”

JoshTheRoman: “I promise.”

With a growl, Crim relented, and closed the Discord in the flash of an eye. Crim took his drab, microwaved dinner in his usual drab apartment; and having read up on Facebook posts, and amused himself the rest of the evening on his old timelines, he finally retired to bed. Crim’s apartment was as small and dingy as his heart itself. A single bookshelf was spilling over with disorganized papers and textbooks, untouched from his undergrad days. The kitchen sink piled with plates that once bore leftover meals, which in turn were leftover from some earlier meal, and so forth until the origin point of that food was long forgotten. Beer bottles littered the floor, such that a chorus of clinking glass was more prevalent than Christmas bells.

Now, I must stress there was nothing at all notable about Crim’s laptop, except that it was particularly old. It is also a fact, that Crim had used this computer, night and morning, during his whole time at the wiki; also that Crim had very little in his possession that one would call fancy or trendy. Let it also be kept in mind that Crim had not given a single thought on Nuke, since the last mention of him that very afternoon. I defy anyone to explain to me, then, how it was that Crim, as soon as he placed this computer back on his desk from the bed, saw in the darkened screen, without it going through any process of change – NuclearVacuum’s avatar.

Nuke’s avatar. It was not a reflection of a shadow as it conveyed the other objects in the room, but rather it had a distinct light about it, as if the computer was still on. One would say it was, perhaps, a bit low on resolution, but none could deny that it was, in fact, Nuke’s avatar and no other.

Shocked, Crim peered closer at the screen, but in a moment it went dark again, leaving only his shadowy reflection staring back at him. To say that Crim was startled, or even that his blood pressure was lowered in a moment than it had been in years, would be an understatement. But the apparition gone, Crim firmly unplugged the machine, and proceeded to prepare his nightly hygienics.

He did pause, for a moment, before shutting the screen, and did look cautiously around it first, as if he half expected to be surprised by the sight of Nuke’s green and orange signature. But there was nothing there, just the old, paint-thinning husk of an Asus, so he said “Pooh, pooh!” and closed it with a bang. The sound resounded through the whole house with an echo. Fortunately, Crim was not a man frightened by echoes.

As soon as he was ready to come under the covers, Crim checked the room once more: nobody under the bed, nobody in the closet, nobody at the window, nobody at the door. Although his apartment was disreputable, Crim had always kept careful attention to the exact placement of every object in his abode: but tonight, not a single bottle nor plate was out of place. Quite satisfied, he closed the bedroom door, and locked himself in, although he didn’t normally do that. Still, the added security would help him sleep at night, so he thought.

Crim laid on his bed, and stared up at the popcorn ceiling. It was quite an old and drab ceiling at that. The steady, unchanging yet chaotic pattern of it gave comfort to him. It was as if unpredictable patterns of history was reflected in that ceiling, the foundations of his finest work; and yet, that avatar of Nuke, these years dead, came like an Alien Space Bat in the mix, and swallowed up the whole. It was now as if the ceiling was a tessellation of Nuke’s face, repeated over and over.

“Humbug!” Said Crim; and turned over in his bed.

After a few minutes, Crim was woken up by a familiar tone emanating from his Asus, the Discord notification of a PM. A moment later, it rang again, and again with greater volume and frequency, until the whole room was filled with electronic noise. “What the hell?” Crim muttered, cursing under his breath. Even though this lasted for only a minute, it felt like hours. The noise eventually morphed into a metallic grinding, like an ice scraper on a chalk board, reproduced on a discount sound card. The laptop, accompanied by the sound of a wind, flew open with a whack, its screen flickering and flashing. For a moment, the screen flipped between whole colors, then pixelated images, and finally windows of applications.

“Humbug! it’s all a humbug!” shouted Crim, “Whoever the heck wants to screw with my computer is gonna pay, for the medical bills they’ll need!” He through off the covers and sat up to face the machine.

The red hot complexion of Crim switched immediately to a paleness, as the screen before him flashed once more before settling on the Discord page. All other channels were locked out, except for a single private message thread bearing the very name he had avoided this entire evening: NuclearVacuum.

It was the very same avatar: same old cartoonish depiction of a vacuum cleaner, the very same image that commanded the utmost respect by all members of the wiki. The image and text seemed somewhat translucent, however, as if the computer was still darkened underneath the apparition of a screen. The text itself read over and over:

NuclearVacuum: “Crimson? Are you there Crim, old friend? It’s me.”

This was immediately followed by a photo, depicting a ghastly figure draped in chains. His pale, cold complexion framed a pair of gray, pupil-less eyes, but otherwise his features were unmistakable: This was Nuke alright, no doubt about it. It was too real to be Photoshopped, nor was this any picture Crim saw before. “What kind of a sick joke is this!” Crim blurted out. He immediately sat down to start typing in the chat:

CrimsonAssassin: “What do you want from me??”

NuclearVacuum: “More than you think, ole boy”

CrimsonAssassin: “Who are you?”

NuclearVacuum: “Interesting question. Try asking instead who I was”

CrimsonAssassin: “Fine, who were you” (eyes rolling)

CrimsonAssassin: “You have to be hung up on semantics.”

NuclearVacuum: “In life, I was your partner, Nuclear Vacuum.”

CrimsonAssassin: “Can you, uh, post another picture?”

NuclearVacuum: “I can.”

CrimsonAssassin: “Then do it.”

Crim hesitated for a moment, unsure if such a ghost in the machine should be capable of doing it, or if rather that would be impossible. Sure enough, Nuke complied with a new image, this time in a seated position, but otherwise the same features, as if this was completely normal. Still, Crim looked both perplexed and skeptical.

NuclearVacuum: “You don’t believe in me, do you?”

CrimsonAssassin: “I don’t.”

NuclearVacuum: “What more evidence do you need?”

CrimsonAssassin: “I… don’t know.”

NuclearVacuum: “Why do you doubt your senses?”

CrimsonAssassin: “Because, a lot of things can fool them.”

CrimsonAssassin: “Mere perception can be easily fooled by a trick of the eye of some clever programming. Even as little as some indigestion, or drug. You could be just a bad year of vodka mixed with a piece of leftover ham and some undercooked steak.”

CrimsonAssassin: “There is more gravy than grave about you, whatever you are!”

Crim always had the habit of throwing out puns in the worst situation, almost as a defense mechanism to distract from any imminent threat. This particular threat challenged any means of distraction, however, as it was shaking the very marrow of his bones. Still, he would not let this daunt him too much. Crim’s fingers leaped for control of the keyboard, navigating to tools for tracing IP addresses. At last, in the blink of an eye, the program was churning through network scans to pinpoint the origin of this unwelcomed guest.

NuclearVacuum: “Wait, what are you doing?”

CrimsonAssassin: “I am about to cook your Christmas goose, is what I’m doi-”

Crim was interrupted at that moment, as the entire computer began sputtering out of control. The IP scanner froze and crashed, while Nuke’s avatar grew darker, seething with a red ooze that almost melted out of the screen. Finally, the whole screen glowed, and the computer lifted off the desk itself, causing Crim to lose his balance and almost fall out of his chair.

CrimsonAssassin: “Uncle! What are you going to do to me?”

NuclearVacuum: “Man of the world! Do you believe in me or not?”

CrimsonAssassin: “I do! I do!”

CrimsonAssassin: “Just, why are there ghosts now, and what are you doing here? Don’t you have some other places to haunt?”

NuclearVacuum: “It is required of every man, that his spirit should visit among people in the outside world, and travel far from home; and if the spirit doesn’t do it in life, he is condemned to do so after death. It is doomed to wander through the world”

It was at this point, as the computer settled back to stability, his words were punctuated with crying emojis,

NuclearVacuum: “I am forced to see what I can’t experience, but might have experienced if I had only gone out of my house more.”

CrimsonAssassin: “Wander? You can’t get very far with all those chains. Why do you have them, anyway?”

NuclearVacuum: “I wear the chain I forged in life, I made it”

NuclearVacuum: “link”

NuclearVacuum: “by”

NuclearVacuum: “link.”

NuclearVacuum: “and yard by yad.”

NuclearVacuum: “I forged it by my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it.”

NuclearVacuum: “Do you find that odd?”

NuclearVacuum: “Or do you not realize the length and weight of the coil around you right now? Yours looked as full and heavy as mine years ago.” NuclearVacuum: “Let alone how much you’ve worked on it since!”

Crim was increasingly terrified at this notion. He began frantically looking around himself, trying to see these invisible cables.

CrimsonAssassin: “Nuke, old buddy NuclearVacuum! Please tell me more. Tell me it’s going to be ok!”

NuclearVacuum: “I can’t say that.”

NuclearVacuum: “Things aren’t going to be better for you, captive, bound, and double-chained: not able to know, that any soul working kindness on this planet, whatever and in whenever timeline, will find his life too short for its vast meaningfulness. Not able to know that no ammount of regret can make amends for opportunities missed in life! Yet that was me!”

NuclearVacuum: “that”

NuclearVacuum: “was”

NuclearVacuum: “me.”

CrimsonAssassin: “But you were great your job on the wiki, Nuke. Not a single troll got through under your watch.”

NuclearVacuum: “My job! Humanity was my job. The greater good was my job; charity, mercy, kindness, benevolence, were, all, my job. The actual tasks on the wiki were but a drop in the bucket compared to the ocean of my true responsibility! This time of year I suffer most.”

NuclearVacuum: “Oh, why did I always turn a blind eye to the younger and inexperienced on the wiki! Why did no project on a startup wiki raised to fame by *my* help!”

Crim was particularly shaken at this point. Nuke sent yet another image, this time a close-up of one of the longer chains.

NuclearVacuum: “Listen, Crim: my time is almost up.”

CrimsonAssassin: “I’m all ears, just try to make it brief.”

NuclearVacuum: “How is it that you’ve never seen me around before? I’ve never actually left the chat, you know. Only sat invisibly.”

NuclearVacuum: “At any rate, I am here to warn you, that you have a chance and hope to escape the same fate as me.”

CrimsonAssassin: “You are always a good friend. Thank you.” (he said with a smiling emote)

NuclearVacuum: “You will be haunted by three ghosts”

CrimsonAssassin: “Wait, is that it??”

NuclearVacuum: “It is.”

CrimsonAssassin: “I… would like to nope my way out of that.”

NuclearVacuum: “Without them, you cannot hope to escape my fate.”

NuclearVacuum: “Expect the first ghost when the bell tolls one.”

CrimsonAssassin: “Can’t I take them all at once, and have it over with, Nuke? I don’t even have an analog clock…”

NuclearVacuum: “Expect the second ghost when the bell tolls two, etc. After that, you will not see me again, and I hope, for your sake, you remember what I tell you.”

As soon as he finished these words, both the words and avatar of NuclearVacuum began fading from the screen. Within a moment, Discord returned to its normal state: all the channels reopened, and and the entire PM thread was gone as if it never existed. Before Crim had any time to react, the Discord app and all other windows closed out from view, and the screen went dark again. Not that the computer shut down, but rather the illusion that was previously present simply faded from view. At last, the computer itself closed, and was in the exact same position and condition that Crim originally left it. Crim checked the windows and locks of his bedroom again, seeing the locks untouched, then went to sit in the bed.

Crim was about to exclaim another “humbug” to himself, but before he got the word out, tiredness at last overcame him and he fell completely asleep.