Chapter Text
As it turned out, through strategic marketing to a target audience, there was quite a substantial supply for a ‘computer destruction engineer.’ Unfortunately often enough, companies and school districts and government departments were well aware that there was a need to upgrade their computer and security systems. Employees and IT departments across the world were assured that the upgrade would come soon, but since they had what they had, they ought to squeeze as much life out of their current resources as possible. Think of an elderly family member being kept alive by IV supplements and a machine that breathed for them. If computers had feelings, they would feel a lot like that family member. They were ready to go. At this rate, it cost more to keep repairing and maintaining the old equipment than it would have been to replace it all.
After realizing this, Witchfinder Private Newton ‘Actually-I-Married-Her’ Pulcifer put out a very specific advert: ‘Need someone to break every electronic device on the network? Give your employers a reason to invest in proper technology today!’ It took some time for word to get around, but once it did the results were astonishing. It was quite simple. Newt had a ‘consulting’ fee and a travel fee. Once both were paid, Newt would come as a ‘computer engineering consultant’ and ‘check out’ a computer that needed some work done on it. The poor IT assistant that had called him after exhausting most other options would ensure that the computer was on the same network as every other device in the company, and then step aside for Newt. Newt would sit down, open the script editor, and every computer in the building would overload, explode, or shut down. He would then give his professional opinion, which was invariably: “Probably best to just scrap the whole system, if you ask me.” The IT department would take this advice to their higher-ups, who would finally admit it was time for an upgrade.
He had five star ratings across the board.
The work was quite simple on his part. Newt spent much more time driving and scheduling than he did ‘repairing,’ which was very little in all. It meant he had plenty of time to attend to his wife, whose endeavors had not been nearly so fortunate as his.
The wedding had been small and the honeymoon wonderful. The wonderful thing about national parks in the United States is that Newt was much less capable at breaking them. Anathema Device spent much of the time explaining the supernatural phenomena that contributed to the majesty of forests and canyons and rock formations and waterfalls. Newt was rather inclined to believe her after he saw the End of the World come and go, even if he couldn’t quite keep up with everything she said.
It was actually Anathema who suggested Newt start his career as a computer destruction engineer. After all, most people weren’t hiring occultists or professional descendants, even if they had witnessed the end of the world. Truth be told, after burning the rest of Agnes Nutter’s work, Anathema wondered if there was any point in continuing her work in witchcraft now that the prophecies she did still have were fulfilled.
She began teaching Newt the basics of her craft at his request. Sure, she had gone over the most important things on Armagedidn’t (the name was Newt’s idea), but that had been rushed for obvious reasons. He wasn’t interested in knowing how to do the craft itself but more interested in how it worked so if Anathema ever found something important, he would be able to track what she was saying rather than having to judge from her tone of voice whether it was good or bad. He made considerable progress: Ley lines connected important archeological sites. Prophecies are memories from the future. Forces for good and evil were at work in the world. The boy they had met, Adam, was the apparent Antichrist who had said ‘no’ to the end of the world. Newt understood it about as much as he understood why computers resented his touch. As Sergeant Shadwell said in one of his letters, he would probably make an excellent witchfinder now that he had insider information. Newt laughed as he wrote back in his reply that he was very happy with the witch he had already found, thanks.
Then Anathema didn’t wake up. Most doctors said she fell into a coma. Some said she was in a deep REM sleep that seemed to be lasting much longer than it ought to. One doctor even said she was some sort of zombie (which, compared to everything else that had happened that year, wasn’t entirely out of the question to Newt). He had been so concerned that he didn’t notice the pendulums around their house pointing decidedly away from Anathema until a day or so into her slumber.
When she woke up nearly ten days later, Newt and Anathema had very different priorities. Newt tried to give her water and food and a ride to the hospital. Anathema instead wanted a pen and paper.
The prophecies came in about as much order as Agnes’s prophecies had, which was none at all. In fact, whole prophecies didn’t even materialize all at once. Newt was lucky if a full sentence was written down sequentially on the same scrap of paper. More often, the paper would just be a word cloud with no hint as to which words went in which order, or even if they were part of the same prophecy. Anathema was constantly writing on notes, on napkins, on papers, and eventually on the notepad Newt got her when she tried to write on the table when nothing else was close enough.
He began to understand the whole ‘prophecies are memories’ thing once Anathema began prophesying herself. She didn’t have the surprise or the shock of someone trying to point out a deer in the middle of the street at night. Instead she had the urgency and frustration of someone with memory loss or dementia, trying to remember the face of a loved one but only being able to see features, like eye color or the shape of a nose, instead of the whole face. She knew all of it, that was the only thing Anathema was certain of. Recalling that knowledge was a greater challenge.
Newt was not a professional descendant, nor did Anathema have any professional descendants. He called his mother-in-law, Mrs. Device, about what should be done with the prophecies. Her immediate instructions were to make copies of anything and everything Anathema wrote so that none of it would be lost. He had already been saving the many notecards, napkins, and papers he had found with her handwriting, so this was quickly done.
Mrs. Device insisted upon visiting and seeing her daughter herself. Newt wasn't opposed to this, and he privately hoped that she would give a better, more accurate diagnosis than the doctors had. What she actually said was essentially what Newt already guessed: Anathema was physically fine, if not a bit underweight and dehydrated from sleeping for over a week. She had witnessed some amount of the future while unconscious, but now that she was awake, she was only barely able to process her new memories. The prophecies weren't so much of a warning as they were Anathema’s desperate attempts to sort out the information that was far too much to fit in her head.
Before leaving, Mrs. Device assured both Newt and Anathema that her frenzy would dissipate with time. The dementia-like memory would never leave Anathema and would continue to plague her until the world’s time caught up to her prophetic time, but it would become more bearable as she lived with it for longer. With no better alternatives, Newt took on his new role as ‘professional husband’ and kept making copies.
To his relief, after a few weeks, Anathema was able to focus on something other than her prophecies. As she stabilized, she might pause a conversation to write down something, but she could usually set it aside and pick up where she and Newt left off a moment earlier. He felt better about going back to work after that as long as Anathema promised to call him if something went wrong.
About a year after the coma, Newt stared at the growing pile of notes and realized they should probably do something with all of them. Now that the mad scribbling had subsided, Anathema was able to go through the scraps of paper (which had thankfully been organized by when she wrote them) and connect the dots between the sentences, words, and sometimes images she had written. These were then organized into prophecies. It was like a jigsaw puzzle. Newt’s old newspaper skills started to come in very handy.
The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch had been promptly returned to Anathema after Armagedidn’t. This, along with the cards of Agnes’s prophecies and her descendants’ notations, came in very useful. Thankfully, Anathema still thought like a proper twentieth-century human, but every once in a while a word with strange, antique spelling popped up in her prophecies. Aside from that, the prophecies were actually rather sensible this time. Or at least, they seemed like actual things someone would say if that particular someone spoke in riddles.
Long ago, Anathema had told Newt that "Most of the time she comes up with such an oblique reference that you can't work it out until it’s gone past, and then it all slots into place. And she didn’t know what was going to be important or not, so it’s all a bit hit and miss.” ‘She’ was Agnes, of course. Newt had privately hoped Anathema would be a bit more direct and to the point. She was not.
Once they started piecing together the prophecies, Newt noticed Anathema looking over her shoulder, or up at the ceiling, or out a window. She was paranoid, easily startled by sounds that might have been made by a person. At first, Newt thought it was just residual nerves from her prophetic coma, but when it didn’t go away, he asked why she kept doing it. Anathema only shook her head. “The oblique references weren’t a trick,” she explained. “They’re a defense. To make sure the wrong people don’t understand them.”
That created more questions than it answered. Who were the ‘wrong people?’ Why was there a need for defense? Did they need to invest in home security, or perhaps landmines? Newt briefly considered buying old computers for the sole purpose of chucking them at invaders in the hopes that his magic touch would cause them to blow up at the opportune moment. She refused to explain any further, only saying that as long as they left the prophecies for others to interpret, they would be alright.
Years passed. Newt studied Agnes’s book, half-hoping a miraculous piece of advice would appear on the pages in front of him. Incidentally, he stumbled upon half a miracle; there was one last prophecy in the book, despite the End of the World having come and gone years ago. He pulled out the corresponding annotated notecard, which read as follows:
813. To the lizard that walks on two legges. | ? Nod to evolution? Name?
That hath the power to destroy with a single touch | How are they so powerful?
This is hyr destiny, Notte to witnesse what ye have seen | Future descendant?
Butte to see what I can notte. Save thee world. | Looks like we have another prophet coming
Yet is to be donne, not by ye butte by the seven living | Seven, holy number, why is living important?
Who sharl take up the side an the sword an the stand. | Side = wall?. Sword = weapon? Stand?
The only reason this popped out to Newt at all is because a schoolboy had asked him when he was younger why he was named after a lizard (which he had not been, as he informed that schoolboy). Indeed, it did make sense now and it did slot into place, which Newt took to mean this prophecy had in some way already come to pass. In this prophecy, Agnes was not speaking to her descendants this time but to her great-great-great-great-great-grandson-in-law.
He was the lizard that walks on two legs (or legges). Apparently, Agnes couldn't remember his name properly, and Newt wasn't sure if he was supposed to be insulted by that. His day job was testimony to his ‘power to destroy with a single touch,’ though he felt he would have disappointed Anathema's ancestors. ‘Hyr’ was Anathema, and ‘this’ was her prophecies, and yes, she was a prophet now.
It seemed that neither he nor Anathema were involved in the actual saving of the world, though he thought it was already saved, but that there were seven others involved with this round. Agnes apparently didn’t remember who the seven were, or at least didn’t have enough information to give any hints in this prophecy. Agnes must have only caught a glimpse of this particular saving of the world, and it was Anathema who would reveal the rest of the useful information.
He and Anathema tacked prophecy 813 on the wall and got to work, combing through the completed and uncompleted prophecies for any overlap in symbolism, phrasing, or any more mentions of a lizard. He sent copies of Anathema’s prophecies to Mrs. Device in the hopes that she might know what do with them, and though she was very encouraging and supportive, she was at a loss for advice. She was an expert in Agnes’s prophecies and was overjoyed when Newt cracked prophecy 813, but there were no experts for Anathema’s prophecies.
Knowing that there were seven people out there who would need the prophecies, Newt and Anathema wrote the completed prophecies on index cards, copied them, laminated them, and hole-punched them. At Anathema’s insistence, no interpretations or annotations were added. The prophecies went onto seven book rings. The originals and the incomplete prophecies were preserved in a binder that he kept on the kitchen counter in case Anathema needed to add something to the collection.
The longer it went on, Anathema continued to calm down. Despite their new life calling, Newt and Anathema also dedicated themselves to regular, domestic coupley things. Anathema delved into gardening, which suited both of them just fine. Plants didn’t blow up, after all, and according to Anathema, their house had been built on a ley-line. Newt destroyed computers by day and combed through newspapers and prophecies by night.
It wasn’t until they were both asleep, years after Armagedidn’t, when Newt bolted upright. The only time he had ever seen a sword in his entire life was at the air strip in Tadfield. Those four children. Were they part of the seven living? He shook Anathema awake, and after getting hit in the face with a pillow for his outburst, the two of them agreed; the Them were probably part of seven.
He tried to find their addresses the next day, but Tadfield had grown and changed over the past decade. Praying he wasn’t making a mistake, Newt sent four of the annotated prophecy book rings to the one address he was sure belonged to one of those four children with a letter explaining the situation.
They had no idea how to reach those other two folks who had shown up at the airstrip that day, the one with the sword and the other with the crank. However, Newt still kept in regular contact with Shadwell, and after complaining about this predicament to the Witchfinder Sergeant, Shadwell wrote back with the address of the bookshop the ‘southern pansy’ lived at. Hoping the bookshop owner was still in contact with the sunglasses man, Newt and Anathema sent two book rings to Soho, London.
Unfortunately, Newt had lost the last book ring. He had placed it in his work bag by accident—and if he was honest, the bag was just for show anyhow—and he had taken it on a trip to the United States. He was fairly certain he had lost in in the airport somewhere, but he never bothered to try and find it. He could just make another book ring if he needed it, but something told him that there was no need. When he told Anathema, she agreed that if the prophecies had made it that far, then it wasn’t a coincidence. Whoever had found them was the person who was supposed to find them.
Other prophecies came together after that. Only about thirty prophecies had made it onto the book rings. Anathema started writing her own book with the help of Newt. As of now, he was currently Witchfinder Private Newton ‘Actually-I-Married-Her’ Pulcifer, computer destruction engineer, professional husband, and prophecy editor and distributor.
And he used to think Shadwell had a strange resume.