the 2018 Hexus Christmas story thread

[sammyc]

aka 2017's plotline reheated/rehashed and served up again, to save waste (co-writing: ik9000 )

All welcome, especially new members, there may be very occasional in-jokes but nothing anyone need understand.



"Following on from a couple of successful years of Christmas HEXUS events, you are getting a bit confused as to what this year's schedule is. You check your diary and it's in there as provisionally 2nd weekend of December... but you have had no important updates. Not to worry, the committee always plan things at the hall on a Friday...

So you stride up to the HEXUS village hall to find it locked, and there's nothing on the noticeboard. Walking round the side you peer through the window and everything inside is stacked up, with a layer of dust covering the parquet floor, and the stained stage curtains closed across the stage. "Cack!" you think, "they've moved venue. It can't be at DR's log-cabin, we're still banned after that got trashed in 2016... I must have missed the announcement. Maybe it was hidden in the member seller rules overhaul? I never did bother reading that."

You consult your Nexus - after 5mins reading the small print online about profiteering vetos and trust+ name in the pictures it is clear it wasn't hidden in there, even in white text. Your phone battery runs out and you stand wondering "So what to do now?" It is cold, and threatening to snow.

You start walking back down the path when you hear "psst" from the bushes. A dishevelled looking vagrant is thoroughly embedded in the leylandii and sniffing on what looks like a pot of TIM cleaner... "Pssst, mister..."

____


You cautiously approach the vagrant, who you note has a fluffy, slightly grubby white beard.

'oi' says he '..funny looking feller who was here just now told me to give you this' and passes you a piece of folded paper. You read: 'to whom it may concern: please note that the annual Hexus event will assemble at HEXUS & Co Department Store this year. Please bring a secret Santa gift.'

Mine not to reason why, you think, and head off for the High Street, stopping to purchase a small gift from the nearest Poundland. The HEXUS premises are large & impressive & all decked out for Xmas. You head in and find everything in full swing; the ground floor is teeming with employees, readying themselves for the store's late opening for all those slow Nightly browsers. The mods are directing staff to carry out various tasks - you wonder where some of the odder looking new agency workers were recruited from, but the core 'temps' look stable enough.

One of the new staff glides over to you and asks 'Are You Being Server-ed?' You show him the note and he drops his voice to a lower tone. 'Ah, glad you're here, we have a bit of a situation - there's been a hitch to the HEXUS event plans. Would you mind stepping into this stockroom for a moment?' You don't much like the look of him, and wonder for a moment if this is all an elaborate trap.

____


You look down at your chest and notice you're wearing a Gryffindor sweatshirt. Being of the bold and atagonistic disposition you eye the guy up and down and think "sod it, I can expelliarmus his feeble frame any day of the week" and boldly stride into the cupboard.

As you cross the threshold you feel a hand land between your shoulder blades and you stumble forwards as the door slams shut behind you and the room plunges into darkness. "Nice work jack-ass" you think as you grope in the darkness, then 'click' the room comes to light in a faint red hue as the wiry looking shiftser is stood his finger to his lips and listening his ear pressed at the door. There is a load of bare pallet racking and an empty mop bucket against the wall.

____


Just as you are contemplating jamming the mop bucket over his head, he turns again & with an apologetic gesture says "terribly sorry, can't be too careful - there are spies everywhere you know. Could I trouble you for your HEXUS id?" Satisfied with your bona fides, he gives you a brief rundown of the situation. Strange things have been going on - AI replicants of HEXUS personnel have been trying to infiltrate the store. Near perfect though they may be, there were small but crucial giveaways - for example "sammyc" had been talking knowledgeably about the GeForce GTX 1080 Ti with one of the staff, and "Saracen" had used a loyalty card when paying for his purchases. What was the meaning of it all? Alien forces? Saboteurs? Industrial espionage? Lines of HEXUS communication had been got at, hence the need to summon members by word of mouth, under cover of attending a Secret Santa/staff party. The tatty old Santa in the shrubbery was actually top-level Hexus security. Examination of the replicants yielded nothing, they simply performed a highly improper shut down when challenged. The HEXUS xmas event was doomed unless this mystery could be cleared up.

The HEXUS operative instructs you to make your way to the First Floor and join your fellows in the staffroom. You nod & slip out of the stockroom, trying to appear casual as you head for the stairs. There is a definite air of tension hanging over the whole floor, and not just because Elton is at the piano in the corner and could set off again at any moment. Even the staff folding HEXUS tshirts in one corner look a little demoralised. You weave your way upstairs among the shoppers, and with a quick glance around you, open the door marked "Staffroom" and slip inside.."



tl;dr - HEXUS has gone into retail - AI replicants of HEXUS members are infiltrating the store for unknown reasons - the annual HEXUS xmas social event is in danger - please add any old random rubbish to plot and/or drag storyline in a totally different direction, anything goes.

[ik9000]

You wander across the room towards the horse-shoe ranks of stackable chairs where a small huddle of people are sat staring at a flip chart.

Mason is holding a brainstorming - mindmapping - PC-BS-terming session to try and derive some sort of strategy. "so we need multimeters" says Mason, scribbling down items as people shout them out.

. "and cattleprods"

"ca-ttle pro.... oh ffs this pen is useless."

"you need pencils mate" says Zak

"sorry what?"

"yeah pencils. Here, I got a box of these the other day. Best £7 I ever spent."

"oh thanks" Mason walks over and as he takes one Zak's head twitches suddenly.

"best £7 I ever spent"....

[Zak33]

(I cannot be a part of this... someone else go )

[peterb]

These are counterfeit pencils - there is less lead in them than a surface Pro pencil - in frustration you break the pencil in half and use the two halves to stir the moderators' tea - noting that are STILL no chocolate biscuits - so now what - still lots of things to sort out and record... (and - you muse - why would ZAK have counterfeit pencils....)

[sammyc]

Zak gives another twitch, almost imperceptible but enough to make you look at him suspiciously. Sure enough there is an odd, faraway look to his face, a sort of vacant, dimm expression.. alarmed, you sidle away and decide on the mod you'll approach with this new, unnerving discovery. This is not Zak33, this is Zak33.1, and while you are processing the realisation that he too is a replicant, the door flies open and a tealady enters with a trolley. She noisily trundles around the room, rattling various bits of crockery, and asking repeatedly if people would like to accept cookies. peterb lets out an Oath, and asks what her purpose is?! Before she can answer...

[sammyc]

Elton suddenly launches into "Step Into Christmas" and everyone pauses, distracted. As you look up & around you, you have a nagging feeling that something is different.. not quite as it was a moment ago.. was Mason really wearing flares when you got here? And g8ina's jacket, is that.. is that actually.. corduroy?! Slowly the full horror dawns upon you - the store is travelling swiftly & inexorably back to the 1970s. The replicants were just part of an evil plan, to kidnap HEXUS elite personnel, harness their vast combined tech knowledge and somehow use it to rewind time. Back to before there was the internet.. before the Commodore 64.. before the Amstrad PC-1512! You glance at the tea-lady, who seems to be the only person who has not reacted to Elton's plunking, and notice she is still quietly pouring tea from the shiny kettle. That's a hell of a lot of lights & switches for a canteen kettle.. hang on a minute, that must be the source of the time-warping effect! If only you could inspect element, you think, maybe there's still a chance to thwart Elton's scheme. But one false move and the future of computing could go up in a cloud of steam, leaving you all stranded...

[Saracen999]

Fortunately, the real Saracen is lurking in a second identity, and having never really left the 1970's, exercises his elite 70's ninja-ing skills and launches a terrifying flying kick at the time machine, while screaming "Loyalty card indeed? I knew those things were dangerous".

Unfortunately, he'd forgotton he was still wearing his fluffie Kylie-inspired Onesy, and the leaping kick morphed into a faceplant straight into an IBM S360 mainframe, knocking himself out cold. Also, sadly, deleting the nearly complete and prescient AD&D 'computer game' that would have made his fortune and place in history. Poor chap will never be quite the same again.

On the other table, the canteen tea machine is starting to vibrate, and ....

[ik9000]

... there's no mugs. The queue of thirsty forumites is growing anticipating their over-due brew and soggy bourbon biscuit. Down the front a bit of agitation:

"It's Christmas already and there are still no Hexus mugs for any of the forum users to drink from." Yells one irate customer. "I've had it up to here"!

The tea lady ducks behind the counter, and the queue backs cautiously away while the 10-post-count only user goes into full BLOCK CAPITALS mode.

"I MEAN WHAT KIND OF HALF BAKED OUTFIT IS THIS ANYWAY!!!??????!?!!!?!?!??!?!!? EVEN THE TEA CADDY IS SHONKY!"

Mason taps robotZak on the shoulder and asks him to intervene. He staggers over jittering head, sparky neck and all.

The tea caddy explodes, spouting hot fluid over user moron1, and robot Zak whose faces melts terminator-style to reveal the glowing red eyes and steel skull within....

[sammyc]

and for a moment you are all frozen into inaction. Thankfully there is only a split-second for the horrid sight to burn itself into the collective memory of the assembled and then the store's sprinkler system, set off by the steam and general melty-plastic-ness, drenches everyone. Robot Zak malfunctions with a hiss and fizzles out. In the general chaos, you register several things in the same instant - Elton has stopped playing, no doubt having run for cover to save his barnet from a soaking, the tea/time machine is now unattended, and the sprinklers have washed away the tealady's disguise and she is revealed as...

[sammyc]

"yes you fools, it's me, T-Lady!" says Theresa, "and you'll never foil my Plan B (whatever it is, details to follow). If I can just take us back to 1972, then we will have never entered the EU, and I will never have had to deal with this mess, mwahaha! Out of my way, losers!" With that she makes a grab for the tea machine and there is a sudden mad scuffle as too many Hexites try to get in on the act at once. Unfortunately when the dust clears 2 mods have got hold of the wrong person and are trying to restrain them with Vince Cable's tie, whilst of T-Lady there is no sign..

[sammyc]

.."quick!" you all shout in unison, all too aware that she cannot be allowed to get away with the vital tea machine, "after her!" You bolt into the corridor, spread out around the store, and start a frantic disorganized search. You head off into the home & giftware dept, careening into a display of J-Cob Squeez-Mops™ and sending the spindly, outmoded things clattering to the floor. This sends you off balance for a moment and when you straighten up again you come face to circuit-y face with Zak33.1 who has, by means of unspecified AI jiggery-pokery, fixed himself. A hasty interrogation reveals he has evolved beyond his original evil programming by observing all the other Hexites, and is now on your side..

[sammyc]

working together, you slowly close in on T-Lady, who is trying to smuggle the tea machine out of the store through the 50 Articles or less queue (served by June). Finally sensing defeat, she capitulates and hands over the whole blinking, bleeping mess, and shuffles off to join Elton who is eating a Marathon in the corner. After a good wallop from stevie lee's hammer, a bit of fine tuning from Galant's Swiss Army knife, and a.. actually, no-one needed to ask SeriousSam for anything out of his pockets .. the machine is back on track to 2019. The psychedelic 70s carpet fades slowly to grey, Slade are no longer playing over the speaker system, and DR's fringe ceases to resemble Dave Hill's. "Thank Nod for that", you mutter, and turn your attention to the here & now. "Right then, who's got an updated proposal for the HEXUS party..?" you ask the Hexites, who have all now re-assembled, more or less back to normal. "How about the HEXUS Special Privileges for Admins and Mods Party?" shouts out someone. "Not political party", you sigh, "party party! Fun! Festive! all that jazz. We missed out on the usual HEXUS xmas beano, so let's make up for it now. Suggestions?"

[ik9000]

"How about the HEXUS Special Privileges for Admins and Mods Party?" shouts out someone.

well if you'd played with that a bit more you could have had the "HEXUS proponents of Special Privileges for Admins and Mods party" which has the pleasing acronym HP-Spam and who doesn't like HP and spam at a party?

"Not political party", you sigh, "party party! Fun! Festive! all that jazz. We missed out on the usual HEXUS xmas beano, so let's make up for it now. Suggestions?"

So.... how to get a bunch of people who (mostly) have never met, and half of which have a spat heated debate after a thread reaches 7-10 pages long, and who largely value their anonymity to agree to meet together for the purposes of socialising? You have to unite them in their common interests while protecting their interests and preventing a royal rumble... it's not easy, but the venn diagram hones in on one sweet spot:

*Dining in the dark*

Blind waiters and all that jazz. Food, conversation, no recognition, minimal ability for fisticuffs as it's too dark to aim properly, and no daylight to trouble the pale-faced com-sci/gaming addict. We could go further and do the venue where they make you get your kit off too, but not around strangers thanks, and it would mean we'd have to leave tin foil hats at the door which just isn't cricket. Plus there are probably a few folk on here who haven't taken that T-shirt off since they were an undergrad and they're sure not peeling it off now, not for you, me, them or anybody. And with that the juke-box cranks up the Blues Brothers soundtrack and the first guest arrives...

[sammyc]

We could go further and do the venue where they make you get your kit off too, but not around strangers thanks, and it would mean we'd have to leave tin foil hats at the door which just isn't cricket. Plus there are probably a few folk on here who haven't taken that T-shirt off since they were an undergrad and they're sure not peeling it off now, not for you, me, them or anybody. And with that the juke-box cranks up the Blues Brothers soundtrack and the first guest arrives...

sorry for thread desertion*, hold that thought



(*my roof is leaking, plumbing ditto, have to take [unrelated] tradesperson/s to court and oh yeah, have to murder my neighbours [3 sets of] so next post will probably be on a smuggled mobile from wherever I'm doing a stretch. In short: Sig. Brb.)

[sammyc]

We could go further and do the venue where they make you get your kit off too, but not around strangers thanks, and it would mean we'd have to leave tin foil hats at the door which just isn't cricket. Plus there are probably a few folk on here who haven't taken that T-shirt off since they were an undergrad and they're sure not peeling it off now, not for you, me, them or anybody. And with that the juke-box cranks up the Blues Brothers soundtrack and the first guest arrives...

and so, it having turned decidedly too nippy for nudie christmas pudding, not to mention too damn near xmas pudding 2019 for comfort, the only logical solution is - musical gaming chairs, playing for the too-few-to-go-round Secret Santa presents that have been hanging around since the whole Hexus time warp.

While a few diehards argue about whether musical chairs is even worth the bother unless you can lean back and enjoy the pleasant rocking motion of the Elbrus1 between goes, the rest of you embark on the first round. Just before the last 'dee hi' of Hi-dee hi-dee hi-dee hi, stevie lee hits a switch and the track cuts dead. After a scramble, the first lucky Hexite wins the round and is given a lumpy parcel wrapped untidily in the centrefold from November's Maximum PC, and which turns out to contain..

[sammyc]

a small pack of After Eight bits, the parcel having been bumped around so much in all the previous drama that not one single wafer thin mint survived intact. The underwhelmed recipient wanders off to try his luck with the HEXUS EPIC giveaway instead, & hovers around the staffroom looking for an unattended computer; you tag along for want of anything better to do. "Here, have this one", says a minor mod, "I was only reading over this bit of racist sexist misogynist puerile Islamophobic half-witted rubbish". "Good God, who's posting that sort of thing?!" you say, wincing. "Oh it's not on the forums, it's the Prime Minister's novel", the mod retorts. "Welcome to the next 5 years, bud", he claps you cheerfully on the back and exits. Weakly, you sit down and try to concentrate on the AMD Ryzen and Radeon bundle, but as you read, you realize you are thinking wistfully of the Amstrad PC-1512 and the era you have just escaped from. Maybe with a bit of fiddling and some Liquorice & Peppermint Tea Pigs, the tea machine could be persuaded to...? You go off in search of Zak 33.1 with a vague idea of using his circuitry to help provide the requisite power. "We have to go back! WE HAVE TO GO BACK!" you mutter, a slightly unhinged tone creeping into your voice. Before you can even come up with the Barebones of a plan, however..