The Delirium Brief

by Charles Stross

  (What I’m going to say to get us out again is another matter entirely, but we’ll worry about that when we get there, shall we?)

  Dartmoor is both a national park and a big steaming pile of moorland in the southwest of England. It’s piled on top of the largest granite extrusion in the country, and is dotted with tors—low hills—where the underlying rock peeps through the low scrubby cover. Finally, despite much of it being the aforementioned national park, other areas are reserved for use by the army as firing ranges. Right now we’re on our way to one of those firing ranges where I am led to understand the Royal Artillery have an MLRS rocket launcher and a gang of howitzers set up and zeroed in on a target area just on the other side of one of those granite tors, which some asshole with a warped sense of humor has named Camp Tolkien.

  There are wards around the camp. There are guards with machine guns and dogs and a razor wire fence bearing signs in Elvish—ahem, in the alfär Low Tongue script—saying DANGER OF DEATH. There are also trip wires and searchlights and other defenses I know better than to ask about. The artillery is there in case of a mass jailbreak attempt, but nobody is taking any chances, even though the Host surrendered to us unconditionally. Their hierarchical social order is rigidly controlled by geas, which means there is a single point of failure, and if All-Highest accidentally chokes on her Cheerios … well, incoming fire has right of way, as they say.

  Okay, so the Daily Mail would be really happy to put them all in a field and bomb the bastards, to quote the immortal Kenny Everett; or failing that, to ship them back where they came from because hanging’s too good for them. The usual engines of public outrage over-revved and burned out completely in the wake of the events in Leeds. We’re so used to shrieking and wailing displays of grief over the military equivalent of an ingrown toenail that a real attack left the media speechless. As for the surrender immediately afterwards …

  I am merely a DSS. I do not personally report to the Board of Directors. (The SA reports to them via an intermediate level; people at my level are reported on.) But I am led to believe that obtaining this fragile peace required a personal visit to Number Ten by the entire Board, who explained to the PM in words of one syllable the likely consequences if he followed his first (public relations) instinct and repudiated the acceptance of their surrender. (Hint: immediate resumption of unconditionally hostile action by the survivors of the alfär Host. Hint: the undermining of every occult binding ever actioned by agents of the government. Hint: violation of the Benthic Treaties and other binding agreements with the Great Powers we do not speak of in public.)

  And so to Camp Tolkien, where we keep the elven equivalent of the SS Panzer division that just parked itself on our doorstep, while the people who are paid to deal with the hard questions figure out just what to do with them. (Best non-self-destructive proposal so far: send them to Syria and set them on the Islamic State nutjobs.)

  We get through an outlying perimeter checkpoint five miles up the road on the basis of our paperwork and Johnny’s rottweiler growl, but we’re not allowed to get any closer to the camp than the outer fence. Johnny parks up outside the outer fence between an Army Land Rover and a tank transporter. The guard hut by the gate is a converted freight container that looks as if it just came back from Camp Bastion in Helmand. “We have to walk from here, sir,” he tells me, deadpan in character. Typically, the drizzle in Exeter has graduated to a steady cold spring rain.

  “Lead on,” I say, and he’s off at a quick march to the human-sized door beside the main vehicle gates.

  I’m not going to bore you with the protocol for getting into a prisoner of war camp. We progress through a series of circles beneath the eyes of very serious-looking men and women with loaded guns and identity checks, a bag search, then a wall of shipping containers, another checkpoint, then an inner wall of raw concrete motorway crash barriers, hastily erected.

  Inside the compound there are rows of shipping containers painted desert beige, suggesting the original intended destination was Afghanistan or Iraq, not the wilds of rural Devon. They’re customized temporary accommodation intended for troops, rather than jail cells, and they’re clumped in small groups surrounded by high fences, although the inmates seem to be relatively free to move around. I see a few of them through the wire mesh, in orange jumpsuits but no manacles or fetters—obviously someone realized that elves and ferrous metals are a bad combination. Anyway, as long as All-Highest orders them to behave themselves their guards won’t have any problems. And if All-Highest has a change of heart, there’s always the Royal Artillery.

  At one side of the camp sets a complex of windowless containers, linked by walled and roofed walkways: daylight-proof accommodation for the Host’s magi, and you’d better believe that those guys are wearing ankle tags and don’t go outside without armed guards and restraints.

  Finally, at the opposite end of the camp from the entrance is a smaller walled compound: the admin wing. And this is where Johnny and I are directed by the very serious guys with guns who seem to believe that we’re here to question the All-Highest on behalf of the Deputy Director, Service Prosecutions.

  The guardhouse is windowless—these folks aren’t getting to see any daylight except for the exercise yard in the middle—but there’s carpet, comfortable seating, and a capsule tea and coffee machine for the staff, and a welcoming party is waiting for me: a brisk fellow in a well-pressed uniform with a captain’s shoulder boards and a scarlet beret. “Captain Marks? I’m Major Oliver, on behalf of the DDSP, and this is Sergeant Smith. I’m here to discuss proceedings with Dr. Schwartz and Ms. Brewer.” And I show him my warrant card.

  Captain Marks stares at the card for a moment and I suppress a shudder. It’s the new Continuity Operations card and this is the first time I’ve used it on anyone. For all I know it’s something the SA found in his cornflakes one morning and Marks will—but no. “Ah, excellent! Pleased to meet you.” He sounds genuinely enthusiastic as he offers me a hand to shake. “My office is right this way, we should talk there.” I follow him to a side room that’s just big enough to hold a desk, two chairs, and enough paperwork to account for half a forest. Johnny looms as inconspicuously as he can in a corner by the door. “What do you need from me?”

  “I need an interview room, or something that can pass as one, and both prisoners. What I’ve got to say concerns both of them so I can kill two birds with one stone.” Despite Marks’s outward affability he tenses, so I offer him the clear plastic document wallet containing my faked-up authorizations. I’ve no idea how the SA arranged for them, but they back me up and strongly imply (to anyone who can be bothered reading them) that I’m here to offer the All-Highest some sort of deal—what the Americans would call a plea bargain. “As you can imagine, we’re still picking up the pieces and trying to work out how to handle this. The thinking is that All-Highest might be motivated to cooperate if we offer to go lightly on Dr. Schwartz—and vice versa—and maintaining their cooperation in regards to controlling the other detainees is an immediate priority,” and will make your life much easier, I think at him.

  Captain Marks twitches and for a moment I think I nudged too hard. It’s much easier for me to reap someone’s soul than it is for me to stun them, much less cozen them into doing what I want—there’s nothing subtle about my necromantic capabilities. Marks gives me a hard stare, but I’ve been stared at harder by much more terrifying people; after a moment he takes my folder and says, mildly, “I’ve got to double-check this with Andover, but I’m pretty sure interview suite three is available. Give me five minutes.”

  “Of course,” I say as he disappears.

  Johnny gives me the side-eye. “A solid B-minus, sir,” he mutters disapprovingly.

  “But he bought it?”

  “Yes. Just as long as Head Office slipped the paperwork under the transom at Legal Services…”

  I sweat bullets in silence for a few minutes until Captain Marks returns.

  “All checked out,” he says
briskly, and finally manages a wan smile. “Prisoner Number One is finishing lunch right now but I’ll take you to interview room three and park you there, then send her round with Dr. Schwartz. If you’ll follow me?”

  And with that, he leads us into the very heart of the prison, to meet nerd-boy and his faerie queen.

  * * *

  Of course it’s not quite as simple as Captain Marks saying, “You check out,” but ten minutes later I find myself sitting at the side of a low table equipped with notepad and recording gear, opposite a two-place sofa. Call it a VIP interrogation room, or a living room with ambitions in the direction of police procedural. Either way it’s not exactly an adversarial you will confess or else: ve haff vays of making you talk setup. The only duff note is Johnny who is standing at ease with his back to the wall next to the door, doing his best to become one with the magnolia emulsion.

  “Tea or coffee?” I ask the vampire on the settee; “and what do you take?” I ask his girlfriend.

  “Er … do you have any decaf?” he asks hopefully. “Because that’d be a decaf with milk, no sugar—”

  “I’ll have his caffeine, and his sugar, twice over!” Cassie takes over seamlessly, and hits me with a smile bright enough to cause eye injuries.

  “Right,” I say, and look at Johnny. “Can you get that?” I ask him. And check the outer office, I don’t say aloud. Johnny knows what to do.

  A moment later we’re alone. I smile at Alex, keeping my teeth to myself; the glamoured mask echoes my facial expressions. He’s not much to look at. Twenty-four years old, about one-eighty centimeters, skinny at seventy kilos. Dark hair cut in an I-don’t-care nerd crop parted on the left, brown eyes, trying to grow a beard, bless. I took an instant dislike to him the first time we met, possibly because he thought I was a burglar, but I’ve got to admit he did a bang-up job in Yorkshire—which is why he’s banged up right now, unfortunately. Then I glance at Cassie. She looks to be about twenty-two-ish, with turquoise hair in a pixie cut and high cheekbones. She’s taller than Alex, and slightly built: pretty in an elfin kind of way, before you notice that the tops of her multiply-pierced ears rise to short points. She’s more Mr. Spock than Galadriel, though; with the right hairdo she could pass for normal. While Alex is dressed in M&S office casual, Cassie is clearly an invader from the perkygoth dimension: she looks like she just stepped out of a Shadowrun LARP. Which I take as a clear warning sign that she’s one hell of a lot more socially aware than her dutiful nerd-boy minder and companion. Here is a woman who knows how to work on people’s misconceptions, who has absorbed a shitload of cultural tropes about elves, and who is playing to the peanut gallery for all she’s worth. But two can play at that game.

  “What’s this about, anyway?” asks Alex, a guarded expression on his face. He’s not quite in guilty schoolboy mode, but not far off, and if we slide into adversarial mode this isn’t going to work, so I lean back in my armchair and try to look nonchalant as I check him out with my inner eye. He seems to be clean: no sign of obvious tampering, beyond the spent geas his companion briefly had him under. Then I glance at Cassie and nearly fall off my chair.

  “You’re not a lawyer! NoNoNo you naughty magus—no, wait, what are you?”

  Cassie stands so fast that I recoil instinctively and Alex is suddenly in full-on defensive boyfriend mode with added fangs and glowing eyes, and I’m still shaking my head and blinking away afterimages because fuck me so that’s what the Host of Air and Darkness’s binding geas looks like—“Wait!” I raise a hand and rip my face off.

  “You! What are you doing here?” Alex demands, then after a slightly-too-long pause, “Sir?” He licks his lips. “Is it something to do with what happened to the oath, yesterday?”

  Well fuck of course he’d have felt it. Even if the binding geas is flaky when it comes to PHANGs. I shake my head, trying to dislodge the sweat trickling down my nose. No going back now. “The government has been rooted by hostiles under cover of the chaos and the agency is under attack by the Cabinet Office,” I say bluntly. “When I say under attack, I mean we’ve been defunded and everyone is out of a job, except for those who are being rounded up and arrested. There is a contingency plan for surviving this sort of thing and I am here to retrieve you for Continuity Operations. The standard formulation of the oath was broken in the process. I’m meant to swear you in, then get you out of here.”

  “Who is he, Alex?” Cassie gives me the dirty old man stink-eye and I can feel the fine hairs on the back of my neck prickling under the heat of her gaze.

  “This is Mr. Howard, like I told you about,” Alex tells her. Back to me: “What happens if I don’t want to come?”

  Decision time. I cross my fingers mentally. “Then you have a big problem. The government is setting up a replacement agency, but they’re not keeping anyone on and they don’t seem to have made any provision for feeding you—the PHANGs—during the transition period.” Alex winces at feeding: so our boy has issues? Interesting. “They may be willing to hang you out to dry, but we are not.”

  “This ‘we’ you’re using—you mean what? Continuity Operations? What is that?”

  Cassie punches him lightly on the arm. “The ones he is geas-bound by, can’t you see? It’s obvious!” She points at something behind my head. “Can’t you see them, fang-boy?”

  I take a deep breath. “If you swear the new oath and come with me now, I can take you to Mhari who will explain everything. But we don’t have time to go over it now.” Dammit, where’s Johnny? He’s taking too long. I pick up my mask and shake it to try to get the moisture out. “We’ve got to get you out of the camp before the enemy get their hands on you.”

  Alex’s eyes widen and something feral shows in Cassie’s expression and for a numb instant I think I’ve lost them but then I realize that the door behind me is opening and it’s not Johnny. I begin to stand up as I turn my head and see a straight-haired ice-blonde supermodel in a black suit that screams barrister. She’s clutching a stack of legal case notes but something about her feels hinky, and behind her there’s another suit, this time male and there really is something wrong, it’s in their minds, they’re not hosts to the dreaming tongue eaters but soul-ridden by something hungry and—

  “Who are you?” demands the woman. “What are you doing with my clients?” Raising her paperwork defensively in front of her as the thing in her mind hisses hungrily at me and writhes—

  “Stand aside,” the dead-voiced male lawyer tells her and he’s one of them too and it’s making my head hurt with its hunger and I think he’s got a gun—

  Johnny punches him in the kidneys and he drops the gun as the blonde woman dumps her stack of papers and takes a little step, then tries to kickbox me in the left eye with her spike heel. I dodge and open my inner mouth and bite and there’s a stabbing electric pain and smoke as the ward she’s wearing shatters and she stumbles, but she’s still coming and the lump I bit out of her soul tastes absolutely foul and utterly not human at all. I’m trying to remember the Enochian command word for the stun macro I memorized but I fumble it and Suit Number Two is not going down but turns and lays into Johnny in a blur of jabs and feints that Johnny barely manages to block, and his mind isn’t normal either—

  Then Cassie screams—with rage, not fear—and her hair stands on end and I feel static ripple up and down my skin as she lets rip with all the mojo she’s able to draw from the alfär Host.

  I manage to duck aside and raise an arm to cover my eyes, which is a really good idea because the heat flash feels like an oven door opening in my face. It’s terrifying. For a moment I’m standing just to one side as Cassie channels the combined thaum flux of the entire Host of Air and Darkness, such of it as is confined within the giant magical ward that surrounds the camp. It’s like holding up one end of a USB phone charger cable next to a 400kV national grid transformer farm. Thousands of alfär and a couple dozen magi, their tame PHANG sorcerers, are all feeding her will, and there’s a deafening double bang and a spra
y of burning red fat across the side of my face as both headless bodies collapse to the floor, arterial gouts spraying from the stumps of their necks.

  Shit! Shit! Panic! No, don’t panic, if she wanted me dead I’d be … well. I straighten up and open my eyes and instantly regret it as the vision in my right eye goes red and blurry and something unspeakable trickles down my neck. I take a deep breath, air heavy with the aroma of fresh blood and hot poached brains. Another deep breath.

  “Who, who were—?” Alex demands, sounding as almost-panicky as I feel. Then, a moment later: “Crap, that tastes horrible—what the fuck are they?”

  I wipe the worst of the blood and gore off the side of my face and peer down at the bodies. There’s a familiar-ish silver cross pinned to the lapel of the woman’s suit jacket and something inside her is still alive—I leap backwards, shuddering, as her blouse twitches like John Hurt’s stomach in Alien.

  “Adversary,” I say unnecessarily. “Johnny, sitrep.”

  “Two down in the guardroom … Captain Marks, I’m afraid … Headshot with suppressed pistol.” Johnny pauses to breathe heavily between sentences. “Jesus, Bob, looks like we got ’ere just in time.”

  Jesus … I am having a flashback to Denver and the streets of London, but these aren’t Schiller’s tongue-eaten congregation: this is something new and deadly. The blonde not-a-lawyer would fit Schiller’s peculiarly specific taste in handmaids, though. I try to ignore what’s left of her scalp trickling down the wall. There’s something alive in her body. I focus on it. Something alive and thinking, a finger, no, a tentacle, of a greater will—her skirt twitches then wrinkles as something cylindrical that’s probably white underneath a film of blood begins to worm out from under her hem, and I recognize it as the source of the hideous, disgusting, no-good mind-taste. “Fuck me, this one’s still alive,” I say, just as Johnny raises the silenced Glock with both hands and pumps three rounds into it.