Laundry – A Brief History

For the most part, the universe really does work the way most of the people with PhDs after their names think it works.

Molecules are made out of atoms which are made out of electrons, neutrons and protons – of which the latter two are made out of quarks – and quarks are made out of lepto-quarks, and so on.

But that isn’t the full story.

Everything you know about the way this universe works is correct – except for the little problem that this isn’t the only universe we have to worry about. Information can leak between one universe and another.

The realm of pure mathematics is very real indeed, and the . . . things . . . that cast shadows on the walls of Plato’s cave can sometimes be made to listen and pay attention if you point a loaded theorem at them.

Which is why we have the Laundry . . .

That’s Capital Laundry Services to anyone who rings the front doorbell or cold-calls the switchboard, although we haven’t operated out of the offices above the Chinese laundry in Soho since the end of the Second World War.

Many of our recruits came to us accidentally. Bob Howard, for example, was trying to develop a new graphics algorithm but we got to him first. Planar homogeneous matrix transformations into dimensions dominated by gibbering horrors tend to attract the Laundry’s attention.

The Laundry is that subdivision of the Second World War-era Special Operations Executive that exists to protect the United Kingdom from the scum of the multiverse. And we do a damn good job of it.