Chapter 3 November rd.

Dear diary.

I kissed Maurice this morning. He found the phone number of one of the guys for the shutter and conveyor belt problem!! The bleeping thing had given me a bad dream all night long.

Marcus, the repair chap, got to work on it but he couldn't get the shutter to work by himself. He had to go out and collect a few of his mates, he said. He's probably from Australia, judging from his funny accent. But his mates were from Ireland, so I should be careful calling his accent funny. As soon as Maurice told me that Marcus was on the job, I headed over there to supervise the entire affair. After all, you have got to show some interest in what's going on there, and showing up when things are turning to the better is the best public relations a devil can get, right?

Marcus and his mates worked hard, I have to give them credit for that. They were on the rig all day. Humphrey (thankfully he was back) kept bringing drinks for them. These Irish... are amazing. Their humour is only exceeded by their thirst. And their humour is endless. Go figure that one out.

They got the shutter working again, so that bit is good. They had to order a few parts for the conveyor belt though. There was a... an... well, there was something broken that they couldn't mend. Oh, right, gear wheel, that's what they called it.

While they were doing what they could, Michael called and asked if I had time for coffee. Sure thing. I mean, don't think that supervising the repairs of the soul devouring machine is just standing there and look as if you know what the heck is going on. It's standing there and... ehm... well, I really needed some coffee too, so I met Michael at the house.

Always good, meeting up with Michael. He is always current on the latest goss news and interesting facts that go on in his neck of the woods, and then it is my duty to bring him up to date on the latest that is going on here.

He was a bit worried about the shutter and conveyor thing. "Do you know when the contraption will be operational again?" he asked. He was seriously concerned about the reputation of the Christian section, and with reason of course. It's his business as well. I assured him that we're doing everything we can to get the thing back online again so the inflow of souls is not hindered anymore. To show him that I meant business I called Humphrey, the manager on duty there. Humphrey told me that things were looking good, which I told Mike. Humphrey then told me that the broken thingamabob could not be delivered until tomorrow, which I did not tell Mike. No need to worry him with stuff he can't influence, right?

So I wished the guys at the pit all the best. Michael was relieved to hear that things were going ahead well, so that was a good thing.

"I am glad no gear wheels got damaged, " he said, "those things are really hard to get. Once you get into that kind of mess, you'd be out of business for a long time." Did my best not to follow him down that road, and succeeded.

Mike then told me about a new release of the software that will be implemented on the Sky Lan network. Heavensoft 2007. Figures, as the last one was Heavensoft 2006. It seems to have a lot of new features.

I mentioned that to Maurice after Mike had left, and Maurice was not a happy camper. He wondered how many new bugs we would be facing this time. The crappy thing is that their network and ours are still linked, so everything they get is what we get also. Maurice then said he'd get in touch with Beauregard, to see if we can split off our network segment. So I said 'by all means, whatever'. Network segment. I doubt you can eat that.

Anyways, Mike hung out for a while longer as we discussed all kinds of neat things, but then he got a call from his boss so he had to fly. (Haha, that's funny.)

Before I could head out to the Christian pit again, a message came in. From the old eastern block place. Running extremely low on oil, coal and tar, it said. Damn, I ordered their stuff two days ago, so why are they complaining? Usually these deliveries are near instantaneous. Maurice was not there, so I called the delivery place myself and they were really surprised. They told me that they had delivered the order first thing next morning, so their end of the deal was all covered.

I asked them who had signed the receipt, but the man could not read the signature. Too smudged, he said. Bugger. I hate it when things go bad like that.

Managed to chase down Ivan the Terrible and told him to investigate this case. He will do his best for that. After all, it is the hell-section from his former empire. He hasn't gotten back to me about it though, which is a bad sign. Note to self: ask Ivan why he is taking so long to recover the shipment.

Then I went over to the guys who were still slaving over the shutter problem. Marcus and Stanley had gotten in some welding equipment and they were trying to fix the busted gear wheel. I got up close to see what they were doing, but "hell, that's hot!" (Haha, isn't that funny.)

Somehow they got the wheel parts together again and when they stuck it in the system seemed to work again. They manually cranked the shutter open and secured that. It is still not synchronised with the conveyor, but at least that bit of the soul devouring machinery is working again, so we fired up the special effects, took the ladders down and tossed a few test-souls in. As that went well, Humphrey and the Dud-man were satisfied and confident, so with one of the repair chaps on standby they started up their business again.

I guess we are in the clear with that for now, as long as the wheel holds. When the new one comes in, Marcus told me, they need a few hours to replace it, but then things should be "on fire" again. But it is good to see the souls fall down again, engulfed with the screaming, the fire and the smoke. Not really my cup of tea, but that's what they want, so that's what they should get.

Some more nice things happened today.

A busload of lawyers came in. I don't understand why everyone living is so worked up about lawyers. We have a nice collection of them over here already, and they are sooo convenient! Whenever there is a contract to be drawn up between Hell and Heaven, I have the edge. I have so many lawyers to scrutinise the paperwork that the Heaven guys go nuts over all the amendments, clauses and appendixes. Hah, they almost never get away with anything that way. Yes. I gloat. Tell me I am wrong for doing so and then try to prove it! How many lawyers can you afford? (Haha, that's funny!)

It's interesting to get so many of them in at once. They had been in a bus, on their way to a convention of sorts, when the bus driver had gone slightly off his rocker and taken the bus down a ravine. It struck me that we never got that bus driver in. Apparently he went to the other place, which is odd. And can we spell meaningful? Hah.

Another nice thing is the birds. I love birds. I wrote about that a few times already, I think. Yes. Birds are neat. I am glad not all of them go to the other place, they brighten up things here. Most of the clientele here also appreciate the birds being there.

Some like them for the colours and the songs. Some like them for the feathers and the meat. And then there are people who pray to them. Well, to each their pick, right?

Maurice showed up in time for the Asatru party. The party. Yes, another one of the nice things. Odin was here in time too, but Thor took his bloody time. We went up to the party-grounds ahead of him. Afterwards we found out that Thor had brought in too many hammers, the weight had held him back. But he made it, so that was good.

The Asatru threw a kick-ass party. Man, their beer is better than that of the Pygmies and it doesn't make your head spin like theirs does. The folks were delighted that they could welcome Odin and Thor. They kept shouting "Wassail" and drinking beer and wine and mead from their long horned cups.

Found out that there's quite a trick to drinking from those things. Do it wrong and you have your drink all over you! But that too was good fun. It just makes you smell unpleasant after a while, but by that time nobody noticed anymore.

Odin organised a sing-song contest, which was really nice. Then he tried to set up a kind of literary and poetry circle. Thor cut him short on that, luckily. More people were into hammer throwing than for poems and rhymes.

The hammer throwing was great. Maurice has a darned good hand at throwing hammers accurately. Thor even invited him over for some private lessons. I hope he is not trying to steal Maurice away from me, he's a most valuable assistent. Wouldn't know what to do without him. And perhaps I should also watch my back for a while. And secure all hammers around here...

After the hammer throwing there was plenty of time for dancing and singing. Odin assembled an impromptu choir and had them do a recital of all kinds of songs. I did not understand most of them, they sang many of them in a language that is even worse to me than Greek. But it sounded nice, and as most people were laughing I am sure the lyrics were hilarious also.

As that part of the party was going on, lots of other people came around also. I had the extreme pleasure of dancing with an Egyptian princess, a real looker. A poison monger also, that's why she's here, but hey, as long as she doesn't give people hell here, that's fine. (Haha, that's funny!) Got her phone number, so that is promising!

Strange bit is that we never saw Loki. He's a real party animal, so why he missed out on this one...