He’d built the summoning grid on a folding table that occupied about half his floorspace: by the look of it, it had started out as a NAAFI table tennis game sometime in the 1950s, before he repurposed it as an occult research workbench. I spotted peripherals: an Arduino controller, a laptop, a couple of wire-wrap circuit boards, a breakout box, and of course a summoning grid—which most people mistake for a pentacle.

“They roped you into the Google cargo-cult, too?” I asked.

“Yes.” He shrugged again. “On the bright side, it gives me an excuse to brush up on my practical skills: I’ve spent so long shuffling reports that I’m in danger of forgetting what it’s all about. If you’re willing to watch my back I’d be very grateful, Bob, but you really don’t need to; it’s perfectly safe.”

“Yes well, I can’t help thinking that you’ve been here since at least the BLOODY BARON meeting this morning.” He nodded instinctively. “Which means you’ve been in the office for at least twelve hours. If you were a pilot they wouldn’t let you anywhere near the controls of an airliner when you’re that tired: it’s how mistakes happen—”

“Don’t be silly, Bob! All it is is a ‘hello, spirit world’ demo. There’s nothing to go wrong: all it does is execute a contained summoning of a class one voice-responsive agent”—a demon, to you—“make it do a handstand, then send it away again. With maybe a couple of optimizations to the grid controller, which I’m trying to prove with cheap off-the-shelf components. There’s no agency outside the grid.” He pointed at the Arduino board. “See? It’s perfectly safe. Watch—”

My hair stood on end, I broke out in a cold sweat, and I was already in motion, halfway across the room towards him, when he began to utter the inevitable, fateful word—“this”—as his finger descended on the button wired to the breadboard beside the microcontroller, and power surged into the grid.

• • •

I SHOVED ANDY AWAY FROM THE TABLE, BUT I WAS TOO LATE: the circuit had been completed, and I could hear the chittering in the back of my head much more clearly, over a mumbling chewing sizzle like millions of mandibles on the move—

“Andy, get out!” I grabbed his arm and swung him towards the door. He resisted instinctively but ineffectually: I shoved him across the threshold. The alien gibbering was rising in pitch, and my skin crawled as we passed the side of the card table, where the grid was glowing with a rapidly brightening violet radiance. I felt a metallic taste on my tongue as we crossed below the lintel—

“Wait, what, I don’t even—” Finally Andy began to move under his own steam.