On how the Wombles came to the New Museums Site
          -------------------------------------------------

   Dearest reader, as you know, the Wombles are cute creatures that
live in a snug burrow underneath Wimbledon Common (SW London, near the
Lawn Tennis, for those people who are not well acquainted with the
UK). They live there all year round, only venturing out to collect
food, and to tidy up the Common, removing the bits and pieces of
rubbish that we clumping great humans so carelessly scatter about and
using them to improve the burrow and provide the raw materials for
making their furniture, tools and many other things besides.

   However, what it not so well known is that, one day, in a fit of
anger at being forced to work, Orinoco, the laziest and greediest
Womble of them all, decided to take out a fixed interest loan with a
Building Society, using the burrow as collateral. He then went and
spent all the money obtained at Fortnum and Mason's Food Emporium, and
gained a massive stomach ache before being mugged on the way back to
the burrow.

   When the police found Orinoco's body the next morning, face down in
a puddle of a mixture of urine and his own blood, they wondered what
could possibly have caused a sodden toy appear to bleed. Then, as the
IRA stepped up it's bombing campaign, they just threw his body into
the most convenient skip and moved onto the persecution of other
things.

   Little did they know that Orinoco's actions the day before would
herald doom for the wombles. After a suitable period, during which
many strong and brave Wombles searched in vain for Orinoco, little
knowing of his fate and of the terrible times to come, the Building
Society sent a sternly worded letter to Great Uncle Bulgaria stating
that, if a payment wasn't made within fourteen days, then the burrow
would be repossessed.

   An immediate response in triplicate was made, but to no avail, and
surely enough, a fortnight later, the Wombles were without a home.

   The times that followed were hard, and many a young womble gave his
or her life in service to the whole, but eventually the Wombles found
another common, and built another burrow beneath the tarmac they lay
there, and began to return to their usual habits.

   Unfortunately, the troubles of the Wombles were only just beginning.

   Although there was much of the ordinary types of rubbish lying
around, there were also a number of glowing cannisters (marked Greenham
Common AFB, though even Great Uncle Bulgaria could not elucidate the
true meaning of these, being deprived from recent copies of the
Times), but the taste of the contents was amazing, and soon Madame
Cholet added it to every dish.

   Slowly, over time, the Wombles began to change. They grew taller
and stronger. They became smarter and, alas, crueler. Finally, as they
outgrew their burrow, they decided that they had had enough of humans,
and so would have to wipe them out.

   To this end, they tunneled into the weapons storerooms at the base
and stripped them bare. Then they retreated and searched out another
location to continue their development towards world domination.

   It was their lead warrior, Bungo, who found the New Museums
Site. Arriving late one evening, he looked around the buildings, and
found them ideal, with a recently installed electronic lock system
that could easily be subverted, and large scientific laboratories
where it would be easy to manufacture nerve gas and weapons.

   The greatest find though, was that there were facilities that could
be adapted to cloning Wombles, thus allowing them to overcome their
single remaining problem; their lack of numbers.

   Returning with an elite strike force, it was found that the
security of the New Museums Site was entrusted to a small group of
humans. A quick dose of psychoactive drugs in the VendeCoffee rapidly
rendered the guards insensible, and the wiley Wombles, realising that
they would need an expendible front line of defense, brain-washed
them, turning them into a Womble-worshipping death cult.

   Over the following months, the rest of the wombles moved in,
surreptitiously taking over the departments. Womble cloning machines,
and nerve gas cookers were installed under the control of Tobermory,
and rapidly the CS were taken over, just as the Securicor guards were,
and now they lead in the attempts to control the rest of the World's
computers, thus speeding their research, and preventing enough
information from being able to be assembled for anyone to work out
what is happening.

   One night, as you head towards the Mond Room for an all-night
session of playing DOOM, you see something moving in the
shadows. Green and furry, with a long snout, it looks like a womble,
but at eight feet tall, it surely doesn't fit with your imagined image
of them. Especially not when it is carrying a hand gun with
smart-targeting system.

   Luckily, it is facing the other way, and sneaking up on it, you
manage to hit it over the head with a convenient brick.

   It groans, and, dropping the gun, it reaches up with both arms to
rub it's head.

   Quickly, you retrieve the gun and, pointing it straight at the
Womble's chest, you tell it to forget about making any moves until you
are satisfied that it is peaceful.

   You wonder whether it understood you, since it rapidly turns round
and reaches out to slash you with long claws and you get an
unpleasant, and rather too close, view of a mouth filled with fangs.

   Saved by your reflexes, and by the Womble's propensity for lying
dead after having a hole shot through its chest at point blank range,
you take a deep breath and, putting the gun in your pocket, set out
once again for the Mond Room.

   Suddenly, you see some Securicor guards running towards you, and
you realise that they also seem to be very keen on killing you since
some of them are armed with shotguns, and they are firing at you...



        Wombles. In the Mond Room, no-one can hear you scream...
      ------------------------------------------------------------

   No news had been heard from the Computer Lab for a long time. CUS
needed rebooting, but no-one seemed to be around to do it.

   Tired of this, the Proctors decided to send in a special strike
team of users to find out what was happening. Team members included
Rupert (the Proctors man on the spot), Chris (who kept trying to tell
people some wild story about wombles, as if anyone would believe
that), and a group of other DOOM players with the twin abilities of
being able to kill anything that moves, and not being able to question
any orders given by a superior officer.

   Arming themselves with the latest in modern weaponry (a combined
machine-gun, grenade launcher and flame-thrower, with furry dice) the
strike team moved in.

   Rapidly attaining the bottom of the Austin lift, they found that it
was out of order, and had to break through the inexplicably locked
doors so they could charge up the stairs.

   Reaching the User Area, not a sound could be heard, except for the
VendePac, whirring away to itself.

   Suddenly, from out of a hole scuttled Nir, quick as anything and
very afraid. After firing several times at him, just for good measure,
the strike team managed to calm down and Chris went into the hole
where Nir had retreated to try and comfort him.

   When asked by Chris what had happened to all the other User Area
regulars, Nir gave the stark reply "All dead, and you will be too if
you don't get out of here. The monsters got them all..."

   Chris turned to Rupert and asked him "If that isn't evidence that
there are Wombles on the loose here, what is?" to which Rupert replied
"We were sent here with a job to do. Lets do it."

   Suddenly, there was a noise from the lift. It had started moving
from where it had been parked on the first floor.

   The strike team looked uneasy, and Rupert started to feel very
queasy. He ordered "Come on! Lets get over the bridge and get CUS
fixed. And no shooting, or you will damage the air conditioning."

   Suddenly, as the strike team was just going through the doorway to
the bridge, the lift arrived, and out boiled masses of wombles, their
fur dripping green acidic slime, and baring 3" fangs.

   The DOOM player at the rear, hearing them arrive, turned and seeing
20 loads of poison death bearing down on him, let rip with all the
weaponry he had (in the process wiping out all the installed Macs),
but the blood spurted by the Wombles was a very strong acid with a
tendency to spurt everywhere, and so that brave warrior was rapidly
overcome.

   The strike team quickly found that flame throwers were highly
effective against the wombles, and, as they retreated across the
bridge, they kept firing and flaming the wombles.

   As the last of the surviving members of the team finished crossing
the bridge, they bobbed a few grenades only the bridge, and blew it to
smithereens.

   Rapidly moving down through the tower to the machine room, they
passed into that sanctum and sealed the door. Then Rupert began the
task of rebooting CUS having received instructions from his bosses on
how to do this.

   Later, as they waited for the reboot to finish, Rupert told them
that they had a problem.

   "With all that unauthorised use of weaponry up in the User Area,
the cooling control systems for Phoenix have been damaged. I think
that it is going to blow within the hour, and it'll probably take the
whole New Museums Site with it. At least we can't be attacked by
wombles at the moment, since they can't get through the door."

   Chris mumbled something about not being too sure about that and
that he thought that they ought to pull back and nuke the place a few
times.

   At this point, one of the meatheads^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H DOOM players
with a movement scanner said "I think we have problems. There's
something moving out there, very close indeed. I'd put it about 5
metres from me".

   "But that would put them with us here in the room," protested
Chris.

   Everyone looked at each other. "The ceiling!" shouted Chris as one
of the tiles started moving...



[[ As you can infer from the references to DOOM, the above examples of
user folklore date from c. 1993 towards the end of the lifetime of the
IBM mainframe "Phoenix". I do not know who they were written by, though I
believe I know who some of the non-Womble characters are. The New Museums
Site contains a number of Cambridge University departments, including the
Computing Service and in the past the Cavendish Laboratory. The Mond Room
used to be a public-access terminal room. CUS is (still) the Central Unix
Service. The user area in the Cockcroft building is now offices, but the
bridge still exists. It is no longer possible to get into the machine
room via the ceiling void. ]]

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