The Delirium Brief

by Charles Stross

  “What are we supposed to be doing?” I ask.

  “Combing them for coverage,” Mhari tells me. “Any mention—substantive news, human interest pieces, scurrilous gossip, editorial, and other lies—basically anything about you, Bob.”

  I stifle a groan. “Why would you want to do that?”

  “Because you’re our public face now, Bob.” The SA speaks with the compassionate tone of a doctor giving me a terminal prognosis. “We want to see what the papers make of you, with a chance to discuss it. Do bear in mind that when you’re up in front of the Select Committee, this reportage is going to inform their first impressions of you. We could pay a clippings agency to do this for us but we’d still have to read what they sent—and this way, paid out of my pocket, it’s entirely unofficial.” And thereby invisible and deniable. Hmm.

  “But isn’t it all about the Facetweets and interwebbytubenet these days?” I protest. “These are just loss-leading birdcage liners put out by billionaire tax exiles to offset their double-Irish Dutch cheese sandwich tax arrangements, right? Clickbait for crumblies.”

  “Old people vote,” Mhari says, with mild asperity, “and there’s an election coming up. Do try to keep up, Bob.”

  “We’re not campaigning for office, though—” I stop dead as my brain finally catches up with my tongue. “Oh.”

  “Yes,” says Dr. Armstrong. “And there’s an ongoing cabinet reshuffle right now. Get skimming, there’s a good lad?”

  “It shouldn’t be too painful as long as you avoid the op-eds about which reality star is getting what bits of their anatomy surgically enhanced in the run-up to their celebrity wedding,” Mhari adds cruelly. Now she knows I’m going to be unable to avoid them.

  Because I’ve wasted time carping I end up with the bottom of the pile and have to spend half an hour wading through the Express (“Does the Spirit of Diana Make You Fat? Are Elves Communists?”), the Mail (“Elven Scum Are Coming for Your Daughters!”), and the Sun (“Phwoar, Get a Load of Santa’s Lovely Helper’s Jubblies!”). This forcible dunking in the collective subconscious of the British public leaves me feeling dirty, but I’m relieved to discover that I rate zero column-inches in the Mail and The Sun. There is a short piece on page eleven of the Express, wherein the ink-on-paper equivalent of a talk-radio shock jock expresses dismay that in last night’s Paxo Roast the great man didn’t interrogate “the boffin from the Ministry of Magic” with red-hot pliers and pilliwinks, but as I don’t even rate a name check I’ve got to concede that the SA might be taking my meteoric rise to national celebrity status a bit too seriously. So I’m just getting ready to breathe a sigh of relief when Mhari excitedly says, “Ooh, that’s interesting!” and punctures my balloon.

  “What is?” I lean towards her.

  “It’s the Telegraph business section.” She holds up a quarter-page piece, solid text and a very unwelcome and familiar photograph. “Did you guys know about this?”

  The SA leans forward and adjusts his half-moon spectacles. “Oh dear,” he says very softly. “Oh dear me.”

  “What is it?” Vikram asks tensely.

  “American Televangelist in Outsourcing Deal with Serco,” reads Mhari. “Dr. Raymond Schiller’s GP Security has just inked a thirty-six-million-pound initial contract to handle domestic security operations on behalf of…”

  She keeps on reading, but I know instantly that we’re fucked. GP Security is now officially in bed with one of the biggest government outsourcing corporations in the UK, and you don’t have to be a genius to put two and two together.

  * * *

  I spend the next couple of days drinking bad coffee, making list after list of things I’m not supposed to say in public while bearing in mind that the people I’ll be briefing on the committee under parliamentary privilege have all got security clearances that theoretically cover most contingencies, living on canteen food, and going home to Persephone’s town house to crash for a few hours each night. My accounting procedures and project management standards homework is unaccountably neglected: can’t think why. In between I snatch time to chew over the DELIRIUM file contents with Mo and the Senior Auditor a few times, but we don’t reach any firm conclusions about it. It’s disturbing, true, but not that different from any number of other public-private partnership stitch-ups. This sort of thing happens all the time in the state sector these days, and the only thing that makes this case different is the unacknowledged remit of the agencies involved.

  Then it’s suddenly four o’clock on a Friday afternoon, and instead of the usual weekly wrap-up meeting, I’m enduring a grilling in a conference room in Whitehall. My interrogator is the Right Honorable Lord Swiveleyes of Stow-on-the-Wold, a retired Big Cheese from MI5 who is eking out his political afterlife in the Lords—and he is slowly driving me mad. He has a maddeningly rhythmic cadence that’s just too slow, as if he’s trying to lull me to sleep, but it’s entirely deliberate, then every so often he speeds up abruptly and throws me a curveball. I hate being cross-examined by barristers.

  I’m tired because I slept badly—stayed up too late giving my revision notes a final once-over, then had too many nightmares about being interviewed live on TV by a gently smiling journalist with a giant extradimensional wood louse for a tongue—but I can’t afford to lose track in front of the Defense Select Committee. It would be Very Bad Form—possibly bad enough that they’d consign me to the Tower of London, given the way this session is going. If only I’d woken up this morning, headed for Heathrow, and hijacked an airliner to Syria. (Yes I know they’re supposed to shoot them down when they’re hijacked these days. Not that they’re flying a normal service again, after the events in Yorkshire: but that’s the point.) I’m standing under the spotlights in my monkey suit, trying not to admit that anyone in the organization I work for broke the law. Any law. Because they’re out for blood—and mine will do, if nobody juicier comes to hand.

  They hauled me in for two reasons. Firstly, I’m senior enough to represent the organization in public, and secondly, I’m junior enough they think they can squeeze me for gossip before they go on to interrogate higher-level folks using the ammunition I negligently left lying around. So it’s a no-win situation for me, and for the organization. Oh, and because I’ve been on TV, they (or their staffers and spads) know who I am. So there is no escape.

  The worst part? They keep asking the same fucking question, over and over, from different angles. (Who do they think they are, Paxo?)

  “Where exactly were you when you first learned of the existence of elves, Mr. Howard?” my tormentor repeats for the fourth time, hunching forward over his microphone. (He pronounces the word elves in portentous tones, as if he thinks they’re some kind of TV special effect.)

  I try not to roll my eyes.

  “I was first made aware of the existence of a gracile hominid species distinct from our own kind—Homo sapiens sapiens—seven months ago, in a weekly briefing paper circulated by our scientific liaison department. Professor McPherson of the Natural History Museum’s Department of Paleontology delivered a lecture to some of my colleagues describing the recent discovery of a ritual burial site in the Republic of Ireland. Approximately a thousand years ago—”

  There is a brief muttering among the assembled MPs, civil servants, and assistants behind the horseshoe-shaped ring of conference tables that focus around the podium I’m standing at. “Silence, please!” calls the chair. “Please continue, Mr. Howard.”

  “Thank you. As I said, I came across this report in a weekly news bulletin that crossed my email inbox, but I confess I only skimmed it at the time and didn’t pay close attention.”

  And the inevitable derail happens: “Why not?” the Keen Young Thing on the edge of the front row demands triumphantly, as if I just confessed to treasonable negligence.

  “As I’m sure the Right Honorable member is aware, the Division has a variety of roles and responsibilities. My personal duties at the time had absolutely nothing to do with tracking new discover
ies in paleontology. I am certain everyone here is as up to date on the deliberations of the Commons Select Committee on Intellectual Property Rights as I was, at that time”—this doesn’t even provoke a titter: they’re really looking for blood—“on a discovery by another department that was assessed by those involved as being of purely historical interest.”

  “But you would agree that your organization was aware, on some level, of the existence of H. alfarensis, Mr. Howard? As much as seven months ago?”

  Oh for fuck’s sake. “Individuals within the organization were aware that another hominid species, presumed extinct, had persisted into the historical record.” I put a heavy emphasis on the presumed extinct. “This isn’t unprecedented. The hobbits, H. floresiensis, died out about ten thousand years ago; elves, we thought, had become extinct somewhat more recently. I’d like to emphasize that there was no evidence of anomalous technology or occult capabilities associated with the Specimen B burial site. All we had was an Iron Age ritual burial of an executed—beheaded—nonhuman.”

  Keen Young Thing subsides in a mound of disappointed pinstriped tailoring. To his right, Lord Swiveleyes bloats up slightly, then starts to drone on again. He goes straight back into interrogation mode. “How do you account for your department’s unaccountable lack of follow-up, Mr. Howard, in light of the discovery of Specimen B?”

  I’m running low on fucks given, so help me. If he’d just bothered to read the after-action report he’d know all this—“Hindsight is wonderful, and in the wake of this month’s events we now have a context for understanding the discovery of Specimen B which was absent at the time of discovery. The Morningstar Empire ceased exploring the ghost roads when their own world descended into a thaumaturgically enhanced world war, approximately a thousand years ago. The Host, our intruders, survived and entered a period of suspended animation for the intervening centuries in an attempt to outwait the aftermath. It is currently believed that Specimen B was a forward reconnaissance asset—a spy or special forces operative—who was stranded in dark ages Ireland when the balloon went up. Isolated and cut off, they were unable to pass for human and so resorted to theft to keep body and soul together, until a local war band or tribal leader hunted them down and executed them. I emphasize that this is merely speculation: after a thousand years there’s no way to be sure, and the Host’s records are fragmentary.”

  I pause for a moment and catch my breath. “The existence of H. alfarensis was noted by our Operational Oversight group and assigned a low threat probability because no incursion had been noted more recently than the Norman invasion. Nevertheless, contingency plans that had been drafted purely speculatively—I will note that PLAN RED RABBIT was a methodological training exercise, not a real war plan—were reviewed and kept up to date accordingly.”

  “But why didn’t you—”

  And so on and so forth, all bloody afternoon.

  The clusterfuck in Yorkshire was a Never-Happens event, like an airliner crashing or a surgeon amputating the wrong leg: something that supposedly can’t happen unless institutional procedures fail or aren’t followed. This enquiry should be about determining which of these cases apply and producing findings so that we can draw up new guidelines that ensure it never happens again.

  But this particular mess went above and beyond the call of duty, rising from the dizzy heights of fuck-uppery—an air transport operator dropping a loaded 747—to the moon-shot-level insanity of losing over twelve thousand lives and several tens of billions of pounds’ worth of property damage to an invasion by hitherto-mythological beings. It’s the worst disaster on British soil since the Second World War. And in case that isn’t bad enough, there’s a general election coming up on May 18 next year and we’re already featuring prominently in the campaign ramp-up by all parties.

  In such a febrile atmosphere, they’re not going to settle for a bloodless enquiry finding along the lines of mistakes-were-made (here’s a checklist, try not to do it again); nothing short of a public gibbeting will slake the bloodlust. I just hope it’s not my neck in the noose when it happens.

  * * *

  Saturday evening: the Prime Minister’s garden party.

  There is a sixteenth-century mansion near Ellesborough, in the middle of a country estate surrounded by woods at the foot of Coombe Hill. The house has a long and prestigious history: it contains a large collection of memorabilia associated with Oliver Cromwell, and once guarded a royal prisoner. Remodeled in the early twentieth century to restore the original Tudor paneling and windows, it was subsequently donated to the nation to serve as the Prime Minister’s rural weekend retreat.

  This weekend the PM is in residence, throwing a garden party for selected members of the great and the good. Security is tight. As Raymond Schiller’s BMW crunches to a stop at the end of the graveled drive, close protection officers from the Metropolitan Police wave it to one side, then politely inspect both its occupants and the underside of the vehicle. Schiller puts up with the formalities in good humor, rolling down his window to allow the officers to identify himself and Anneka. Checklists are updated. “Good morning, sir,” says the sergeant, finally moving to hold the door for him. “You’re expected: please go right on inside.”

  Chequers Court is small and unimpressive by the standards Schiller is used to. The billionaire donors and tycoons he rubs shoulders with generally took the antique stone piles of the English aristocracy as a starting point for their fantasy palaces, rather than the destination. Consequently, the reception laid out in the Hawtrey Room feels curiously like stepping into cramped middle-class 1950s suburbia. It’s a surprisingly small room with drab carpet, chintzy overstuffed armchairs, and occasional tables that might have been sourced from a Martha Stewart franchise shop. The oak-paneled walls lend an oppressive, tight feeling to a room that isn’t very open in the first place. But the furniture and oak paneling are four hundred years old, and these aren’t Martha Stewart reproductions: this is the real deal. Schiller takes a deep breath and reminds himself that he’s not being shuffled off into the parlor frequented by the PM’s chauffeur and security detail when they’re on call.

  Well-dressed domestic staff approach and offer Schiller his choice of tea, coffee, or a very acceptable Merlot; for Anneka he requests a glass of mineral water. They are politely steered towards a pair of wingback chairs close to a cold stone fireplace. “The PM will be along in a few minutes,” murmurs the butler. “His last meeting has overrun. If there is anything I can do to make you comfortable, please don’t hesitate to ask.”

  Schiller smiles. “I’ll be fine,” he says, resisting a naughty impulse to test the outer limits of the butler’s willingness to serve. (Schiller’s little master is hungry, for there have been no opportunities to feed since they flew out of New York.) He relaxes in the chair, sips his glass of wine, nibbles canapés from an eighteenth-century porcelain plate, and considers his next move. Anneka stands with one hand on the back of his chair, his vigilant shadow alert for threats. Her water glass sits on the table, ignored.

  As it happens, he isn’t kept waiting long. The door at the far end of the room opens and Jeremy Michaels struts in, followed by the Cabinet Secretary, Adrian Redmayne, whose expression suggests he has not yet recovered from drinking one too many G&Ts the night before. Michaels is as complacently self-assured in private as in public—when he’s oozing false sincerity for the TV cameras—and Schiller forces himself to smile warmly.

  The Prime Minister might be a pompous and self-satisfied upper-class twit who married an heiress and counts the Queen as a second cousin, but he’s amazingly good at persuading people to do what he wants (like make him leader of a political party, then appoint him to head the government). If Schiller can get him on board with his project everything will flow smoothly; if not, it will be tediously necessary to install a new PM. He still needs to meet with Nigel Irving, the Secretary of State for Defense. He also needs to get the Home Secretary on board, but she’s not stupid and if she wants to be the next
resident of Number Ten she’ll play ball. Today’s priority is the Cabinet Office, and this is Schiller’s opportunity to take Mr. Redmayne in hand. The highest-ranking civil servant in the land has been attending Sunday services at a church affiliated with Schiller’s mission for the past three years, but Schiller believes in adding personal contact to the denomination connection. The only real problem he can foresee is that these upper-class Brits think of religion as an embarrassing weakness, and Irving in particular is a notorious libertine. So he can’t count on the Come-to-Jesus glad-handing that works at home to soften up these people. He’s going to have to approach the topic sideways, with a smirk and a wink.

  “Ah, Dr. Schiller!” The PM is friendly, if not effusive. “So good of you to visit, and at short notice too.” Redmayne clears his throat and sidles in for a handshake, mustn’t be left out in the cold, then briefly glances sidelong at his boss before looking back at Schiller. Schiller’s smile broadens as he squeezes the man’s hand reassuringly. The PM clears his throat. “Adrian tells me you have an interesting angle on the recent unpleasantness up north and that I should give it due consideration.” Michaels is looking at Redmayne with an avuncular expression. It’s as if the head boy is indulging his pet snitch, just for once, but the story had better be a good one or tears will be shed behind the bike shed before sundown. Doubtless the PM has got his civil service supremo nailed, and has a good idea how much Schiller has paid for this half-hour slot—cash for access comes under the eleventh commandment: thou shalt not get caught—but none of that matters as long as Schiller uses his time effectively.

  “Thank you for making time for me in your busy schedule.” Schiller, who stood for their entrance, waves towards the seats and waits for the PM to get comfortable. “Very regrettable, I’m afraid, the business in Leeds. But this is what you must expect if you trust an old-fashioned organization untouched by modern management principles to deal effectively with the—I’m sorry, I have to say this—forces of darkness. Without oversight, mistakes are inevitable, and the public at large cannot be expected to understand the difference between a rogue agency failing disastrously and a responsibly managed, effective arm of government”—the PM is turning an entertaining shade of puce, so Schiller hurries it along—“but you’re going to change all that,” he completes, and pauses to take a sip from Anneka’s water glass.