The NCPF Annual Christmas Party

Christmas parties. Hate 'em. Free booze is nice, but it just doesn't taste quite as good as it does late at night, at my desk, alone, pulling my hair out over some case. That's a lie, I'd never pull my hair out, these long luscious locks take forever to grow out. Where was I? Oh right. Christmas parties. You'd think one in a room full of near-strangers would be even worse, but that actually made it easier to plant myself on the wall, eat some "stuffing" that looked and smelled vaguely of manure, water myself with wine, and protect my flower from any potential ravages during the- evidently- scheduled hookup time. Though the offer of a threesome with Holly and Linklyssa was tempting.

There was one strange occurrence though. Well, there were many. There was a strange occurrence potentially pertinent to the case at hand. While enjoying a relatively pleasant game of Twelve Dimensional Twister, I was approached by someone I did not recognize. We were, of course, quite alone at the time as the 27 other players were tucked into the many folds of the Calabi-Yau manifold playmat. The stranger was male-presenting, youngish, no obvious cybernetic enhancements. Medium height, average-toned, and of average attractiveness. Almost... too mediocre.

"Awfully sedate game, huh?" he said. "Yeah, but by the fifth inning there should be three or four trap cards in play. Law enforcement games tend to escalate fast," I said. "Tell me about it. Say, has the coffee tasted funny to you lately?" he said. "It's tasted like crap ever since I got here," I said. "Huh. Could have sworn it changed recently. Sure would be a shame if it were laced with irony-activated nanobots," he said. "...yeah," I said, right as the mat caused our positions to never have been adjacent.

Puzzling stuff for sure. And now I have to figure out if those nanobots exist, and if they do, whether or not such ham-handed "acting" would be enough to activate them or if my reading hobby has saved me yet again. I'll send a blood sample to Central soon to get it checked out.