Tarot Headquarters — Case File 001
Episode One
Apparently This Was Supposed To Be An Easy Reading
Same Procedures
Same People
Same Questions
Different Day
Prologue
There is a place that exists somewhere in the vast, expansive territory of the collective unconscious called Tarot Headquarters.
It exists somewhere between the shuffle and the draw.
This is not a metaphor.
Tarot Headquarters is real—or at least as real as anything can be in a place where archetypes have personnel files, heartbreak has its own department, and the Ten of Swords works in the Kitchen for reasons no one has ever been able to adequately explain.
Nobody knows exactly where Headquarters is located.
Carl Jung probably had a theory.
The Akashic Records almost certainly have the address.
Google Maps does not.
But every time someone shuffles a deck and asks a question they probably already know the answer to, somewhere in that enormous psychic territory, the lights come on.
A file lands on a desk.
A phone rings.
Someone swears.
And the cards go to work.
Nobody knew precisely where the building was located, including the people who worked there.
It had seven floors on Mondays, nine on Thursdays, and an elevator with buttons for eleven.
The basement Archive extended approximately three city blocks farther than the physical dimensions of the building allowed.
The windows occasionally showed weather occurring in other centuries.
Facilities had submitted multiple reports.
Facilities had stopped submitting reports.
There were seventy-eight employees.
Technically.
Human Resources disputed this number because Human Resources had no employment records whatsoever for Gary.
Gary disputed the existence of Human Resources.
The matter remained unresolved.
A brass plaque beside the elevators summarized the institutional philosophy:
Same Procedures
Same People
Same Questions
Different Day
Tarot Headquarters had one purpose:
To answer questions.
Not useful questions.
Useful questions were apparently handled somewhere else.
Tarot Headquarters specialized in the questions human beings knew perfectly fucking well they should not ask.
What am I not seeing?
Why does this keep happening?
What happens if I stay?
What happens if I leave?
Is this intuition, or am I completely full of shit?
Why did I dream about that?
Should I open that door again?
What am I supposed to learn from this?
What the fuck was that?
And the question responsible for approximately forty percent of the building’s operating expenses:
Why?
There was one particular human responsible for a statistically unreasonable percentage of these inquiries.
They called her The Reader.
The Reader had never entered Tarot Headquarters.
She didn’t know where it was.
She couldn’t hear them.
She simply shuffled.
And they suffered the consequences.
Scene Transition
8:17 A.M. — TAROT HEADQUARTERS
Mr. Charles Bentley was drinking coffee.
For seventeen seconds, everything was fine.
Charles was the King of Swords, Executive Director of Interpretation, Logic, Procedure, Documentation, and Things That Should Have Been Obvious the First Time.
He wore glasses.
He owned several robes.
He believed strongly in chronology, evidence, properly numbered documents, and people leaving him the fuck alone before nine o’clock in the morning.
Charles lifted his coffee.
The lights flickered.
He stopped with the cup halfway to his mouth.
“No.”
The fluorescent tubes buzzed overhead.
Somewhere deep inside the building, machinery began to wake.
Charles lowered the cup.
A second flicker.
The enormous black screen mounted on the conference-room wall illuminated.
The Insight Records & Disposition system had come online.
IRD.
Charles called it the IRD.
Everyone else called it the Board.
SHUFFLE DETECTED
PERSONAL FILES ACCESSED
THE READER
Charles stared at them.
“Please don’t.”
Another line appeared.
His forehead wrinkled.
“No.”
The Board flashed.
THE READER
Charles looked toward the ceiling as though there might be someone above it willing to intervene.
There wasn’t.
There never was.
INTERPRETATION STANDBY
Charles sighed.
“Fine.”
The first card appeared.
POSITION ONE
PAGE OF PENTACLES — PENNY
Charles reached for the case file.
“Promising.”
The Board chimed.
POSITION TWO
FIVE OF SWORDS — AMY
His pen stopped.
“Oh, for God’s sake.”
Another chime.
POSITION THREE
FIVE OF WANDS — WANDA
Charles stared at the names.
Amy.
Wanda.
Adjacent.
“No.”
The fourth card appeared.
POSITION FOUR
SEVEN OF CUPS — MIRANDA
Charles slowly removed his glasses.
“Of course.”
POSITION FIVE
TEN OF WANDS — DONNA
He put his glasses back on.
“Naturally.”
Then:
POSITION SIX
SEVEN OF WANDS — GAY PERRY
Charles paused.
“This is going to be exhausting.”
The seventh card appeared.
POSITION SEVEN
FIVE OF CUPS — LINDA
Charles stopped.
“No.”
The room seemed to change.
It always did when Linda’s name appeared.
Five of Cups meant grief.
Loss.
Regret.
Something that hadn’t worked.
Something somebody wished had.
Tarot Headquarters made fun of almost everything.
Bad decisions.
Terrible timing.
People who asked the same question eleven different ways and became offended when the cards continued giving them the same fucking answer.
But Headquarters did not make fun of grief.
People were fair game.
Feelings weren’t.
The Board chimed.
POSITION EIGHT
THREE OF CUPS — LUCI
Charles leaned closer.
“Hm.”
POSITION NINE
TWO OF SWORDS — BARRY
Then:
“Stalemate,” Charles murmured.
No movement.
No decision.
Two possibilities held in perfect tension.
The Board chimed one final time
Charles waited.
POSITION TEN — OUTCOME
SIX OF WANDS — VICTOR
“Wonderful.”
The Board flashed.
READING COMPLETE
Then:
SELECTED PERSONNEL REPORT TO INTERPRETATION
Somewhere outside the room, ten phones chimed simultaneously.
Charles looked down at his coffee.
It was still warm.
He knew better than to get attached.
8:21 A.M. — SELECTED PERSONNEL REPORT TO INTERPRETATION
Ten numbered chairs surrounded a long wooden table.
The conference room had been designed specifically for this problem.
When The Reader pulled a Celtic Cross, ten employees were summoned, and each took the chair corresponding to the position in which their card had been drawn.
No switching.
No negotiating.
No calling in sick.
No claiming you had a dentist appointment.
The Board knew.
The Board always fucking knew.
Other spreads had different protocols, most of which Charles had documented in a nine-hundred-page procedural manual nobody had read.
Except Hank.
Hank was the Eight of Pentacles, Director of Craft, Maintenance, Repetition, and Doing the Same Thing Until It Finally Worked.
Hank read instructions.
Hank fixed things.
Hank was therefore treated at Headquarters with the reverence normally reserved for saints and people who knew the Wi-Fi password.
Penny, The Page of Pentacles arrived first.
Of course she did.
The Page of Pentacles was the Department of New Beginnings, Practical Opportunities, Learning, Preparation, and Taking Something Seriously Before It Became a Problem.
She stepped into the conference room carrying a yellow legal pad, three sharpened pencils, two pens, a highlighter, and the expression of someone who still believed preparation could prevent catastrophe.
“Good morning, Mr. Bentley.”
“Morning, Penny.”
“I reviewed the intake procedures.”
“Excellent.”
“And the supplemental procedures.”
“Good.”
“And the appendices.”
Charles looked at her.
“All of them?”
“Yes, sir.”
Something almost resembling affection crossed his face.
“Position One.”
Penny nodded and sat.
There might be hope for civilization yet.
Then Amy arrived.
Five of Swords.
Amy was the Department of Conflict, Strategy, Winning Arguments, Losing Gracefully, and Making Sure Everyone Knew Who Had Technically Been Right.