The Annihilation Score (Laundry Files)

by Charles Stross

  “I already cancelled.” Jim is dismissive. “While I should, strictly speaking, be flying a desk, it does me good to get out once in a while and stick my nose into the real world – even if it’s a less productive use of my time than organizing people and issuing policy directives. Which this isn’t, by the way – unproductive use of time, I mean, mine or yours. The more experience of routine investigations you get, the better you’ll understand the needs of the police units you’re supporting.”

  There is something wrong with Jim’s analysis, something very slightly off-kilter, but it takes me a few seconds to put my finger on it: he’s looking at my responsibilities purely from a policing point of view. He’s put me in a frame and moved it sideways, obscuring part of the big picture of what the Home Office needs, much less what the Laundry is trying to accomplish here, and focusing on his own preoccupations. Does he expect me to go native? But then again, he is a cop. It would be weird if he didn’t view everything in terms of his own organization’s needs.

  I’m about to mention this to him when the tracks beside the deserted platform begin to rattle and hum. A bright yellow locomotive comes rolling out of the tunnel at the opposite end of the platform at walking pace. It’s a battery-electric locomotive: one of the maintenance machines that can operate in the tube tunnels when the traction current is switched off.

  It grates to a halt just before it reaches us, the ventilation fans on the panels covering its immense lead-acid battery packs humming. The driver opens his door. “O’Brien and Grey?” he asks.

  “That’s us,” Jim says. He climbs aboard, and I follow him. The cab is surprisingly cramped. It’s short enough that there isn’t room for me to lay Lecter’s case on the floor in a straight line from front to back; the seats are padded flaps that fold down from the rear wall.

  Our driver is a short, wiry guy in TfL uniform and Sikh turban. “What do you want to see today?” he asks.

  “I think we’d like to look at the Aldwych branch line,” I say brightly.

  To my irritation, he doesn’t respond until Jim echoes me: “We hear it’s been blocked off overnight and we want to take a look at the obstruction.”

  “Right, that’s what I thought. Let me call Earl’s Court and confirm.” He picks up an antiquated-looking Bakelite phone handset and begins speaking in an oddly formal steam-powered dialect of air traffic control jargon. When he hangs up he looks at us, avoiding my eyes: “We’ll be moving soon.”

  We wait. And we wait some more. And suddenly the red light we’re staring at just outside the tunnel mouth goes out and a green light goes on above it, and we begin to move forward. I haul out my smartphone and point it out the windscreen, recording video.

  “Eyes left,” says Jim. I pan to take in the left-hand side of the tunnel. We slowly gather speed until we’re rattling along at what seems like a terrific clip, but is probably no more than ten miles per hour. More signal lights appear in the tunnel ahead, green with a diagonal white slash illuminated above them. “That’s us,” says the driver. We begin to slow. I glance at the tachograph in front of the driver and see it’s reading seven or eight miles per hour. So that’s how fast we’re going when we see the red light ahead and he throws on the brakes. We screech to a halt in plenty of time to see the bricked-up circle of the dead end ahead of us, the track ending at a pair of suspiciously shiny-looking buffers.

  “That’s not supposed to be there,” our driver complains. “It wasn’t there yesterday —” He sounds as if he’s doubting his own sanity.

  “What wasn’t?” I ask.

  “The buffers. That wall.” He points: “There’s supposed to be another half mile of track, then the western platform. With an old Northern Line train parked alongside it.”

  “You’re telling me someone just walled off a tube tunnel, overnight?” Jim sounds as disbelieving as I feel.

  “Oh yes.” Our driver checks a couple of dials, then throws a big switch: “All righty, that’s the end of the line. Now, if you’d care to follow me single file to the other cab, it’s time to go back…”

  I get back to the office just after lunchtime, and steal ten minutes to type up a report on whatever the hell just ate my morning. I upload the video from my phone and email it to Sam for his urgent attention – then head for the first of what promises to be a lengthy series of sessions with a pair of very sympathetic investigators from the IPCC. My afternoon is then enriched immeasurably by an hour with a senior body from Human Resources at SS HQ, then half an hour alone with my homework (I am ploughing my way through Butterworths Police Law in my spare time, wondering what I did in a previous life to deserve this), and then a briefing by two amiable Health and Safety folks who are here to give me a helpful orientation briefing on what I can do to contribute to a healthy and safe workplace environment.

  Not going head-to-head with neo-Nazi superpowered hooligans or maniacs possessed by class four demons would be a good start; not being trusted to carry around a necromantic occult artifact with a taste for souls that talks to me in my sleep would be another. But, as Bob would say, I digress.

  Around five, I find myself in another meeting. This time it’s with Ramona and Mhari, who in the past few weeks have gone from triggering panic attacks to being among the more comfortingly predictable elements of my life. (Strange days indeed.)

  “So, I got the CRB-enhanced checks through on The Torch and Busy Bee,” says Mhari, “and the good news is, they’re clean enough for our purposes. Busy Bee had a checkered childhood, but we’re required to ignore anything prior to the eighteenth birthday except convictions in adult court for serious criminal offenses – and she was basically an activist. Went on marches, not burglaries. From university onwards she’s been politically engaged, but at the good-citizen end of the spectrum. We might have a headache if we were vetting her for the Laundry, but for the Home Office… well, we can kick this up a level if necessary. It’s not as if we’re overflowing with candidates, is it? As for The Torch, he’s boringly clean.”

  “Good. If you have any doubts you should ask Jim about Bee’s background and what it means. Do you want to invite them back for a second interview if the news is good?” I ask.

  “We can do that,” she says. She sounds pleased with herself. “Should Jim sit in on this round?”

  “Yes, about that,” I say, and give them a dump of my current thoughts on the subject. “It’s not that I don’t trust him because of” – I point at the ceiling – “but more a case of my not wanting him to hitch our little red wagon too tightly to his own special interests. We have to keep the big picture in mind. We operate with the privileges and duties of police officers, but we are not here solely to provide the Met or ACPO with backup. We need police powers because we have to operate in public, but we’re not here to play cops and robbers with bad guys: there’s a reason we’ve got the word Coordination in our name.”

  “As you say.”

  Mhari looks as if she’s chewing it over. Meanwhile, Ramona has another issue to raise: “Are we on to any other business yet? Have you had any new thoughts about the uniform question?”

  I twitch, remembering the fate of my #2 suit. “There’s definitely a case for us to have protective gear available for field work; I’m less sure about the brief for us to play superhero dress-up. How far did you get to with that, anyway?”

  “I put in a bit of time earlier in the week and came up with some ideas, yes.” Ramona wakes her tablet, swipes a few times to bring up an image, and spins it around so Mhari and I can see it. “What do you think?”

  “I think” – I pause – “it looks very Daft Punk.” Or maybe Daft Punk goes Territorial Support Group/SWAT team.

  “Part of our remit is to counter the cult of personality that goes with the whole public perception of superheroes,” Ramona points out. “Nothing tilts the scale away from grandstanding individual and towards organization body like having a de-individualizing uniform. Any uniform you decide we should standardize on needs to define a corp
orate identity – unavoidably one that plays off existing police uniforms, because of the nature of the organization. It also needs to provide protection from hazards, and you said you wanted to avoid the cheesecake problem.” By which she means the popular expectation that women with exotic powers should wear six-inch stilettos, fishnets, and implausible corsetry while courting hypothermia as they fight crime. (An expectation which has more to do with the historic age and gender distribution of the weekly comics consumer demographic than with, for example, a PHANG’s desire to avoid exposure to sunlight or my own strong preference not to show off my impending middle-aged spread.)

  I look at Ramona’s proposed outfits. The chrome and silver motorcycle helmets with odd bumps for antennae and mirrored-glass faceplates – I can see why that would appeal to Mhari. The pointy top to the helmet, with the blue beacon, is an obvious shout-out to Officer Friendly’s kit. The rest of the outfit reminds me of something else: “These are motorcycle leathers.”

  “Actually, they’re Kevlar,” Ramona explains. “With cervical airbags and extra padding around ankles, kneecaps, and elbows – just like high-end biker kit. But they’re actually next-generation riot gear. It looks like motorcycle protective gear because it’s designed to do much the same job – provide whole-body protection from blunt or sharp trauma and being thrown about. The cervical airbag is a biker thing, and bikers are taking to them to save their necks when they put down a ride at high speed; it seems to me that if we end up going hand-to-hand against someone with super-strength, they’ll be a life-saver. Or at least a spinal-injury preventer. I’ve also spec’d out earthed chainmail inserts in case of lightning or tasers, and heavy-duty wards in case of the usual.”

  “I take your point,” I say carefully. “But isn’t the overall effect a bit Darth Vader? I mean, all you need to add is a cape and a light saber. We’re supposed to be operating as police, not imperial stormtroopers. What message does this look send?”

  “I am the law, motherfucker, are you feeling lucky?” suggests Ramona.

  “People.” I pause for a moment. “Remind me of Peel’s Principles of Policing, again?” Ramona looks blank. Mhari looks skeptical. “Policing by consent,” I hint. “Come on, the basic rules we play by? Minimum use of force to achieve compliance, the performance of a police force is judged best by how little crime takes place on their watch rather than by how many heads they kick in, that kind of thing?”

  “Since when do flying chavs with the ability to set fire to anything they look at consent to be policed?” Mhari crosses her arms. “We don’t get called out until there’s already a public order problem. At which point…” She looks to Ramona for support.

  “If a little bit of pre-emptive intimidation saves us from having to fight, I’m all in favor of it,” she agrees.

  “Hmm.” I stare at the blueprints for the Mark One Home Office Imperial Stormtrooper uniform some more. The male version comes over as distinctly Judge Dredd, but the female fitted variant is mercifully cleavage-free, doesn’t show off the wearer’s cellulite, and has boots that look like they’d be more at home kicking down doors than tottering around a bordello. “Need to sleep on this. Huh.” Next item. “Mhari, did you get anywhere with the origin story?”

  Mhari shakes her head tiredly. “I was talking to Jez Wilson, Gerry Lockhart, and Pete Russell – they’ve formed an ad-hoc committee to draw together a big lie suitable for public disclosure that remains consistent with everything that’s already accidentally leaked. It’s not just a front-page story, but a bunch of elaborate conspiracy theories to satisfy the tinfoil hat crowd. The headliner is that it’s a mutant descendant of SARS, but the backup stories blame the Fukushima meltdowns, mercury preservatives in vaccines, and a rogue nanobiological warfare experiment by the US government.”

  “Well.” I stare at Mhari. She stares back at me. “I take it you’re not happy with these options.”

  “Are you?” she shoots right back.

  “Dumb and dumber.” I shake my head. “On the other hand, the kind of people who obsess at length about where superpowers come from…”

  “We just need to distract them for a couple more years,” Mhari reminds me. “Make them keep chasing after half-truths and lies. Sooner or later, CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN is going to leak – it’s just a matter of time – and then we won’t need an origin story anymore.”

  “Well.” I resist the urge to clutch my head. “I suppose you’re right, in the long term, but none of those are exactly helpful —”

  “Why not?” asks Ramona.

  “Because they all push epidemic or pollution narratives.” I resist the urge to snap: “They paint us as contaminated. It’s deeply unsettling to ordinary members of the public because it has echoes of ritual uncleanliness that go back a long way. The whole superhero narrative is flawed, anyway – it’s a stand-in for the old-time Greek and Roman pantheons, ultra-powerful gods with dysfunctional emotional lives – we’re going to be perceived as unstable by default, and now we’ve got some committee trying to convince us to play the part of contaminated untouchables?”

  “You’ve got to admit, it’s a step up from Dracula,” Mhari says drily.

  “Well.” I try not to roll my eyes. Then I remember my early morning legwork. “Which reminds me: something new came up this morning.” I tell them about Aldwych, then add the latest report from Sam. “The actual tunnel entrance has been blocked with brick backed with reinforced concrete; nobody’s sure how thick it is, but it’s a very professional job. TfL are looking into the maintenance contractors’ logs to see who might have had access to the spur tunnel, but it’s possible whoever decided to block it off ran an entire train load of cement, aggregate, and other construction materials inside before they did the deed.”

  “How much tunnel are we talking about?” Ramona asks.

  I read my email, repeating the highlights aloud: “Two tunnels with platforms connected via an overhead walkway… we’re looking at one kilometer of underground railway tunnel, and two platforms – one of which has been converted, with its track section replaced by offices, storage facilities, and a 1950s hostel for immigrant laborers which is said to be haunted. (I’m not making that up.)” I look up from my tablet. “Any suggestions?”

  Mhari is skeptical. “Doesn’t sound like superpowers to me. Sounds like the opposite, in fact – someone without superpowers. Like, oh, maybe another department that didn’t tell TfL they were borrowing a semi-surplus tube station for something? Ministry of Defense? They used to use the deep tube tunnels for bomb-proof storage —”

  “But why —”

  “Wild goose chase, Mo,” Ramona says firmly. “Just because the Transport Police thought it was flaky, it does not follow that it’s our kind of flaky.”

  I really do roll my eyes this time. “You think they gulled me.”

  “I didn’t say that.” I notice Ramona’s shared glance with Mhari. “You should consider taking some time off. I know you think you’ve got a lot of catching up to do, but you can only work seventy hours a week with homework on top for so long before you burn out.”

  “Yes!” says Mhari. “You’re not a twenty-something, Mo. You don’t have the stamina.”

  “And you do? You’re a —” I catch myself just in time.

  “Yes,” she snaps. “I can work a hundred hours a week if I have to. I just have to drink someone’s, someone’s —” She takes a deep breath. “It’s not worth it. Not unless it’s an emergency. Mo, we need you intact. You’ve been going at the job like a lunatic since we got back from Manchester: apart from that radio you listen to after everyone else clocks off, you’ve got no outlets. But it’s business as usual. What happens if an emergency comes up and you’ve got no reserves? We don’t have a fully formed management structure; we haven’t in-processed the new recruits for training yet – we’ve been in business for barely a month. You’re still a single point of failure for the unit, and you’re actively damaging yourself.”

  “Mo, please” –
Ramona joins in on her side before I can reply – “take some time off. If you’re going to work weekends, at least give yourself three evenings a week when you clock off at six and don’t come in until nine the next morning. Or start taking your weekends seriously. Or something.”

  I look between them, feeling bewildered by their betrayal. On a coldly rational level, they’re absolutely right, but on a gut level it feels like a stab in the back. “You planned this!”

  “Yes, Mo.” Ramona gives me a look that suddenly makes me wonder how I look to her right now. “You’re not going to slow down on your own, are you? You’ve been running with the brakes off ever since the treaty meeting —” She stops as Mhari looks away from me briefly, tension evident in the set of her neck. Oh.

  Yes, I am probably working too hard; I’ve got a department to set up and insufficient staff and support. And besides, what is there waiting for me to go home to? A cat? A bed haunted by ghosts? Yes, I admit my dancing partner has been back for a few whirls around the nightmare, and has given me a pointed nudge or two in the direction of an evil dream opera score. But that’s why I’m doing it, that’s why I’m working every day until I drop: it’s the only way to be sure I’ll sleep soundly. “I’ll think about it.”

  “You’ll have to do better than that.” Mhari winds up to badger me again. I’m not sure how she’s doing this: her body language reads scared/juggling live grenades. Am I still that frightening? “It’ll be nightfall in, oh, another hour. You can go home, but wouldn’t you rather come out with us? Girls’ night out, team-building exercise, whatever you want to call it.”

  “I don’t feel much like dancing, thanks.”

  “You don’t have to; you just have to let go of the job for a few hours! Can you even do that anymore? Because if not, you just proved my point.”