Another Weasel Badger Legal Mystery

I. The White Wall at Dawn

The rain came down on Nacotchtank like a government disclosure. At the offices of Weasel Badger Beaver Mink & Otter Partners, the windows rattled against a prevailing wind from the Imperial District, where the White Wall stood gleaming in the distance. Nobody knew precisely who had built the Wall. The official histories credited the Department of Information Systems Intelligence Service. The unofficial histories credited the CIA. The more interesting histories credited neither.

White Weasel sat behind his immaculate desk, examining a file marked:

SOCIETY OF MYSTIC ANIMALS v. CVLTVS IMPERATORIVS ANTARVS

Below the caption, somebody had written in red pencil:

Possession. Heresy. Idolatry. Possible temporal fraud.

Mr. Badger, whose grounded defenses had once brought an entire municipal tribunal to its knees, entered with a cup of black coffee.

“Another spiritual jurisdiction,” he said.

“Worse,” said Weasel. “An interdimensional one.”

Mr. Otter emerged from the records room carrying three books, two sealed affidavits, and a photograph of an allegedly magical mycelium network.

“Apparently,” said Otter, “the Central Intelligence Agency was involved.”

Badger raised an eyebrow.

“You don’t say.”

II. The Agency Behind the Agency

For generations, the CIA of the USA had been suspected of operating a nefarious intelligence network through the imperial subversion rail-yield lattice of ISRYL. Its operatives were believed to have infiltrated the dreams of humanity, manipulating cultural movements, manufacturing consensus, and steering the collective imagination toward predetermined destinations.

The firm had investigated several such allegations. The CIA, in its customary fashion, denied everything. But the new evidence presented a complication.

According to the Society’s documents, the actual intelligence apparatus had originated not in Langley but in the backflowing time-space corridor of the Imperial Cult of Antarus.

The corridor had been activated at the erection of the White Wall. Its purpose was not merely surveillance. It was temporal retroaction.

The Imperial Cult, having acquired the means to transmit information backward through the rail-yield lattice, had apparently discovered that the most efficient way to govern the future was to seed its imaginary worlds into the past.

And it was well known that the most efficient way to seed imaginary worlds into the past was through children’s literature.

“Now,” said White Weasel, “the CIA becomes intelligible.”

He opened a folder bearing the words:

<COCULTPRO> COUNTERCULTURE PROGRAM\: OPERATION PIPER

“The allegation,” he explained, “is that the Agency executive-produced the counterculture of the nineteen-sixties as a distribution mechanism for the subverted rail-yield lattice of SRYL, a sandbox of sorts for imperial subversion.”

“Executive-produced?” asked Beaver.

“Like television,” said Mink, entering in a beige raincoat. “Only with black budgets, psychedelics, and the occasional inconvenient revolution.”

She placed a newspaper on the desk.

The headline read:

PINK FLOYD'S PIPER AT THE GATES OF DAWN: AN INTERDIMENSIONAL PROPERTY DISPUTE

The newspaper was dated approximately forever.

III. The Children’s Tale as Intelligence Infrastructure

The first witness was a white rabbit.

He had appeared in the waiting room at 8:65 a.m., wearing a waistcoat and carrying a pocket watch whose hands moved in opposite directions.

“I’m late,” he said.

“For what?” asked Beaver.

“Everything,” the hare shuddered.

White Rabbit was subsequently identified as an emissary from a children’s fantasy world whose literary origins had long since been obscured by the accumulated debris of time-space.

His testimony was astonishing. According to the rabbit, the Agency had discovered that children possessed a remarkable capacity for inhabiting multiple ontological realities without demanding that each one submit to a credentialing process. The intelligence community had therefore seeded a series of imaginative environments into human culture through their impressionable minds.

First came the stories.

Then came the songs.

Then came the psychedelic electronic music.

Then came the children who grew up believing that consciousness could move through corridors invisible to conventional institutions.

“The Piper,” said White Weasel, “was not an artist in the ordinary sense.”

“He was a distribution protocol,” said Otter.

“A pastoral interface,” said Mink.

“A temporal shepherd,” said Beaver.

Mr. Badger considered the matter. “Or,” he said, “a rather successful piper.”

IV. Chapter Seven

The first substantial evidence came from the Wild Wood.

In that realm, Otter and Rab Ratzman sojourned in search of Otter’s son and found him in the care of the Piper at the break of dawn.

The event had long been treated as an eccentric excursion into mystical sentiment, a moment of literary transcendence involving a lost child, a sacred presence, and the unbearable tenderness of nature.

But the Society of Mystic Animals insisted that the chapter was a transcript.

The Otters, it turned out, had been there.

Not merely the Otters of the riverbank, but the Otters of the interdimensional aquatic corridors: ancient custodians of the rail-yield lattice, whose navigational methods depended on moonlight, river currents, and a proprietary understanding of temporal drift.

“They recognized him,” said Otter, reading from the affidavit.

“Recognized whom?” asked Badger.

“Our guy Pan.”

The Otters had encountered the Piper before.

He had led them through the waters between worlds, where the stars reflected not the present sky but the best available futures.

In their testimony, the Piper had never demanded worship.

He had demanded only that they follow.

This was a crucial distinction.

For in the jurisprudence of the Five Clans, a guide was not necessarily a god, and a god was not necessarily a demon.

The Otters had followed him because he knew the way home.

V. The Beavers of Narnia and the Lost Souls of Oz

The second witness was a beaver.

He arrived accompanied by a woman in a fur coat and a lion who declined to identify himself.

The Beaver testified that the inhabitants of Narnia had encountered the same phenomenon.

Their roads, forests, and railway stations had been subject to unexplained discontinuities. Some travelers found themselves displaced by centuries. Others discovered that the winter had ended before it began.

The Beaver family, he said, had long suspected that the White Wall was responsible. But the Wall was merely the visible manifestation of the corridor. The corridor itself was older than the Empire. It had been there when the first children dreamed of a country beyond the wardrobe. It had been there when Dorothy Gale crossed the threshold from Kansas into Oz. It had been there when the lost souls of the Wonderful-Never-Land discovered that they were not lost at all, but merely out of phase with their destination.

The Beaver placed a map on the table. It showed Narnia, Oz, the Wonderland, the Mushroom Kingdom, the Neverland, a vague realm called, in various places, Antarahbad, Antartarus, and Antartaria, as well as a number of worlds whose names had been redacted by the Department of Information Systems Intelligence Service.

All were connected by intersecting luminous white lines. At the crossroads stood a figure with horns, hooves, and a flute.

“Pan,” whispered Mink.

“St. Peter,” said Beaver.

“Or some other custodian of the gate,” said White Weasel.

The lion finally spoke.

“Names,” he said, “are often the least reliable evidence in theology.”

VI. The Million-Light-Year Translation Error

The most sensational discovery came from an acoustic analysis conducted by the firm’s junior associates. They had isolated a phrase repeated by millions of animals across the interdimensional lattice.

Originally, it had been said:

THAT'S OUR GUIDE, PANNING THROUGH THE HEAVENS.

The phrase had traveled through millions of light-years of animal consciousness, undergoing gradual phonetic erosion, until the second version became:

THAT'S OUR GUY, PAN, WHO IS IN HEAVEN.

The third:

THAT'S OUR GOD PAN IN HEAVEN.

By the time the phrase reached humanity, the distinction between the guide and the deity had disappeared.

The Piper had become a god through the ordinary mechanisms of acoustic degradation, collective repetition, and insufficient quality control.

“It’s a classic,” said Beaver.

“What’s a classic?” asked Otter.

“A clerical error with sufficient historical duration.”

White Weasel made a note.

EXHIBIT C: THE GODHOOD OF PAN MAY HAVE ARISEN THROUGH A MILLION-LIGHT-YEAR TRANSLATION DEFECT.

The Society of Mystic Animals was delighted.

The cult of the Holy Theotokos was not.

VII. Holy Theotokos and the High Dragon

The trouble began when the Authority of the Holy Theotokos of this realm discovered that millions of animals had been, wittingly or unwittingly, following The Pied Piper St. Peter Pan.

Their concern was understandable. The Piper appeared in dreams without authorization. He crossed borders without documentation. He transported animals into alternative time-lines. He had no fixed office, no ecclesiastical address, and no known registration with the Department of Religious Affairs.

Worse, his followers sang a holy office.

The authorities therefore declared him a pagan devil. He was placed on the same theological register as the High Dragon Satan himself. And The Society of Mystic Animals was charged with possession by the Devil. Its members were accused of having been misled by witchcraft, corrupted by idolatry, seduced into paganism, and rendered incapable of distinguishing the Holy Spirit from a panflute.

The Piper’s counsel, a small monoglassed mouse with an enormous legal vocabulary, protested.

“Where,” he asked, “is the evidence of malice?”

The authorities produced a photograph of a fairy ring.

The mouse objected.

“Where is the evidence of coercion?”

The authorities produced a photograph of a flute.

The mouse objected again.

“Where is the evidence of Satanic possession?”

The authorities produced the Piper in bonds.

The mouse sat down.

The case was transferred to the Five Clans.

VIII. The Opinion of White Weasel

White Weasel stood before the tribunal in his immaculate black suit.

His face bore the peculiar expression of a man who had discovered that the universe was guilty on several counts of unauthorized trafficking in spirits, but had nevertheless retained the right to counsel.

“Your Honors,” he began, “the question before this firm is whether the Society of Mystic Animals, in the following of Pan, is possessed by the Devil.”

He paused.

“Or whether it has merely been traveling in its own right.”

The tribunal stirred.

“The distinction is not trivial. To be possessed is to have one’s agency displaced. To be misled is to have one’s judgment compromised. To commit idolatry is to assign sacrosanctity improperly. To commit heresy is to depart from a prescribed doctrinal standard. To be pagan is, in the present matter, largely a question of whose vocabulary is controlling the proceedings.”

The High Dragon’s counsel objected.

White Weasel continued.

“Now, the Piper has been accused of transporting animals through time-space. That is not in itself a crime. The Empire has been doing precisely that since the erection of the White Wall.”

The tribunal fell silent.

“The CIA has been accused of seeding the rail-yield lattice into the hive mind of humanity for purposes of imperial and ontological subversion. That, too, is not the question before us. The question is whether the lattice, once introduced, has been harmonized and brought to coherence in the Holy Spirit of the Most Sovereign Creator of Heaven and Earth, the sea, and all that therein is.”

He lifted the affidavit of the Otters.

“The Otters testify that the Piper led them home.”

He lifted the affidavit of the Beavers.

“The Beavers testify that the Piper led them through the wardrobe.”

He lifted the affidavit of Dorothy Gale.

“Dorothy testifies that the Piper led her dog Toto out of Kansas.”

He lifted the acoustic report.

“And the animals testify with song.”

White Weasel lowered his papers.

“Your Honors, the mere fact that a creature has been transported into an unfamiliar time-line does not establish that it has been transported into Hell.”

IX. The Best of All Possible Time-Lines

The tribunal recessed.

Mr. Badger and White Weasel walked into the White Wall, where the rain had finally stopped.

“Do you believe him?” asked Badger.

“Believe whom?”

“Pan.”

Weasel looked toward the river.

“I believe the evidence indicates that he has been guiding the animals.”

“And the Agency?”

“The Agency may have seeded the movement.”

“And the Imperial Cult?”

“May have engineered the corridor.”

“And Satan?”

Weasel smiled faintly.

“Mr. Badger, in being alive, there is great risk that one may be enticed, coerced, or otherwise induced into the worship of Satan, dragons, demons, and sordid creatures of all sorts. That is why we maintain a professional liability practice.”

Badger nodded with conviction. “Nature’s first defense,” he affirmed.

“Precisely.”

They reached the riverbank.

There, in the willows of the brook, stood the Piper.

He was neither particularly handsome nor particularly frightening. His coat was weathered. His feet were muddy. His flute looked as though it had been carved from a branch of the oldest tree in the oldest multiworld.

Around him stood the Otters.

The Beavers.

The Rabbits.

The lost creatures of Oz.

The animals of Narnia.

And countless other objects in space-time whose names had been lost to the archival limitations of the Empire.

The Piper lifted his flute. A melody moved across the river. It passed through the White Wall, the rail-yield lattice, the Imperial District, and the countless imaginary worlds that had been waiting since the beginning of time.

For one brief moment, every corridor aligned. The animals saw their destinations. The children saw their homes. The lost souls saw that they had never been lost.

And the White Wall, which had been erected to contain a memory, became a window.

X. Judgment in the Matter of Pan

The Five Clans issued their opinion three days later.

The Society of Mystic Animals was not found guilty of possession by the Devil, nor was it found innocent of every conceivable theological liability.

The court held that the Piper’s followers had been subjected to a complex interdimensional influence whose origins could not be conclusively attributed to either the CIA or the Imperial Cult of Antarus.

The court further held that:

1. A guide is not necessarily a god.
2. A god is not necessarily a demon.
3. A flute is not necessarily evidence of witchcraft.
4. A children’s tale is not necessarily an intelligence operation.
5. An intelligence operation is not necessarily a children’s tale.
6. The rail-yield lattice may be subverted without the animals themselves being subversive.
7. The Holy Spirit may harmonize what the Imperial Cult has rendered incoherent.
8. No animal shall be presumed guilty merely because it has crossed a temporal boundary.

The final ruling was entered under the caption:

IN RE: THE PIPER AT THE GATES OF DAWN

The tribunal declined to determine whether Pan was a god.

It declined to determine whether St. Peter, as such, had been involved.

It declined to determine whether the CIA had executive-produced the psychedelic counterculture.

It declined to determine whether the Imperial Cult had invented the future and subsequently backdated it.

But it did determine that the Society of Mystic Animals was entitled to continue its domestic and interstellar travels.

XI. Nature’s First Defense

That evening, White Weasel returned to his office.

The rain had abated for a time. A small animal sat on the windowsill, playing a flute. Weasel did not ask its name. He knew better than to inquire into the identity of a guide before determining whether the guide had committed a tort.

Instead, he opened a fresh file.

THE SOCIETY OF MYSTIC ANIMALS: ON THE LIABILITY OF INTERDIMENSIONAL WORSHIP

Underneath, he wrote:

In the beginning, the animals sang.

The song passed through the heavens.

The heavens became a corridor.

The corridor became a Wall.

The Wall became an Empire.

And the Empire, having mistaken its own architecture for the Creator, declared the Piper a lesser god.

He paused, then added:

But the Piper was only showing them the way.

Outside, the animals continued singing.

Somewhere beyond the White Wall, a million light-years away, a baby otter stirred at dawn.

“That’s our guide,” he said.

And the river, which had always known the difference between current and command, carried the song onward through the hypostatic superfluidity of eternal darkness, black darkness, white darkness, infinity, incorporated.

— Weasel Badger Beaver Mink & Otter Partners, Chtd.

Nature's First Defense Against Temporal, Spiritual, and Interdimensional Liability.

It's the best of all possible multiworlds.

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