“Hey, not fair!”
“You can pay next time.” His smile is bland.
“You’re making assumptions,” I accuse.
“I hope not.” He looks suitably chastened, though. While the maître d’ goes to fetch the chip and pin reader, he continues: “I’ve been thinking. You’re feeling culturally deprived, and I’ve got a sixteen-year-old barbarian to educate. How would you like to go to a concert or two with me and Sally? She needs the exposure, and we both need to get out of the office more —”
“I’m assuming by ‘concert’ we’re not talking about the latest reunion tour by Union J, right?”
“I was thinking more along the lines of The Marriage of Figaro myself. English National Opera are putting on a run starting this weekend and I was looking for an excuse to go and see it.”
“Ah, that kind of education! I can provide the Mystery Science Theater 3000 commentary, highlight all the rude bits if she gets bored.” It sounds good to me. “Okay, deal. Let’s keep our eyes open for fun stuff happening in town, hmm?”
“Deal.” He nods.
A thought occurs to me: “But your car…”
“That’s all right: Sally can ride on the roof rack.” He guffaws. “Kidding, really and truly: just kidding. I’ll get Liz to agree to a car swap in return for a Sally-free evening. She kept the Volvo but she’s been making cow eyes at the Z4 ever since I bought it: she’ll bite.”
“Works for me.” We push back our chairs and stand. I pull my jacket on and follow Jim out; we head back to his car. “Deal. Now you’ll need to give me directions, if you want that lift home to go anywhere useful…”
So I do that, and he drops me at my front door. I do not invite him in, and he doesn’t try to kiss me, because we are not dating. But at least I have something to look forward to next weekend.
14: INFECTED
My first meeting the following morning is in the New Annex. The SA has organized a date for me with our tame superpower epidemiologist and his boss, Dr. Mike Ford, and intimated that there are things here that I need to be briefed on urgently that are not for general consumption. I am, as they say, agog.
Dr. Mike doesn’t actually work at the New Annex: he’s based at one of our outlying R&D labs, disguised as a somewhat recondite office in an engineering company south of the river. For this particular briefing, the SA has actually summoned him – which is quite a feat. Dr. Mike doesn’t like to travel. He’s seldom seen outside the building he works in. There are rumors about a camp bed that lives under his overflowing desk. To see him in the New Annex is distinctly unusual.
The meeting is on the fourth floor, in one of the Mahogany Row briefing rooms that has been restored to regular use since the Code Red incident. I can’t suppress a cringe as I tiptoe past the boarded-up doors of the offices above and to either side of Room 202 – two floors below – with fresh wards and THAUM HAZARD signs prominently displayed. Angleton (and others: Judith, Andy…) died down there, giving their lives for the nation in a senselessly bloody endgame engineered by a master vampire who was already dead when it kicked off. And for what outcome? My husband, now estranged, possessed by or possessing the alien soul-thing that rode in his former boss’s flesh. My own life, damaged and diverted. A breach of sanity and a plethora of endings. I can do this, I tell myself as I edge around the last of the off-limits rooms and walk swiftly towards 411, heels clacking on the scraped-bare floor. They have not yet replaced the thick wool carpet. Its woven-in wards sparked and burned during the battle two floors below, triggering the sprinkler system.
To get to Room 411 I have to pass through a vestibule with a blue-suiter on duty. I leave my handbag and phone with him on the way in; Lecter, as an occult device, is a special case, and after some discussion I’m allowed to keep him – but not my highly dangerous lipstick case and tissues.
The room itself is windowless and boardroom-sized, with chairs, a lectern, and a projection screen. Think in terms of a much older and somewhat more spartan version of COBRA, only set up as a miniature lecture theater rather than a committee room. The security we don’t see is enforced by summoning grids embedded in walls, floor, and ceiling, alien Actors and Agents locked and programmed to strike out at certain classes of threat. Any information leakage while the doors are shut is sensed and traced, and if it’s directional, active countermeasures may be deployed. It’s a really bad idea to snoop on a high-security briefing in Mahogany Row.
Once inside I find myself among a select few. The SA himself is here, of course, as is Dr. Mike. Our paranormal epidemiologist, Julian Sanchez, is setting up a set of overhead projection slides (PowerPoint is strictly forbidden in these briefings, for obvious reasons: it supports Turing-complete macros), and we have some additional hangers-on. Colonel Lockhart is here from External Assets. The strikingly pretty young Auditor, Seph or Persephone or whatever she’s called, sits beside a bloke whose body language screams Special Forces at me – I’ve seen enough of them in my time. (He’s Special Forces, after the British – or maybe French – fashion: incredibly wiry, not a bulky bodybuilder the way the Americans make them. Emphasis on enormous stamina rather than sheer strength.) He’s introduced simply as “Johnny,” which leaves me wondering, but it’s not my job to police the guest list. We’re just taking our seats when the door from the vestibule opens again. Mhari slips inside and hastily sits down next to me. I manage not to flinch at the abrupt move. I’m getting better at it.
“Good morning,” says the SA, smiling down at us from the lectern. “I’d like to start by asking Dr. Sanchez to give us a brief rundown on the epidemiology of the superpower outbreak as it has evolved over the past month. After his backgrounder, Dr. Mike will then discuss the implications.”
“Er, hi,” says Sanchez. He looks nervous at first, but sheds it rapidly as he gets into his stride. “Today I’m here to deliver an update on the three-sigma incident monitoring project that I reported on a month ago, along with additional data. This comes with good news and bad news attached.
“First, here’s last month’s graph of notifications of superpower incidents.” A familiar slide showing an ominous hockey-stick curve appears on the screen. “Second, let me add the new items we’ve processed since then.” The shocking exponential slope from last month, in blue, is extended, in red – and shows a dramatic off-ramp, tapering back towards a steady state. “As you can see, it seems to be a classic sigmoid curve – suddenly goes from a horizontal line to near-vertical increase, then just as suddenly tails off and goes flat again, albeit at a higher level. We’re still working on the confidence limits here, and there’s some scope for updating the curve as more low-grade incidents work their way through our reporting system, but it looks, for now, as if we have dodged the bullet. There is no superhero singularity looming in our near future. Just a regular elevated rate at which ordinary people will suddenly acquire enhanced capabilities.”
There’s an audible relaxation of tension on all sides, a sudden rustling and shuffling and wheezing as we stop holding our collective breath. I wasn’t consciously aware that I was doing it, like the rest of them: We’re not going to die just yet, I realize. To say that my guts turn to water with relief is only a slight exaggeration. I try not to slump too obviously; beside me, Mhari lets out a tiny gasp.
“That’s the good news,” warns Sanchez. “There’s bad news, too. Before I get into that, I’ve been asked to give a brief overview of the international situation. We are not tasked with assessing and evaluating extraterritorial events that do not represent direct threats” – because, money and time – “so this is based on secondary sources: reports from cooperating allies, public news reports in non-cooperating territories. Different cultures have different responses to paranormal phenomena. In sub-Saharan Africa we are tracking an upswing in reports of vigilante attacks on suspected witches. There may be some correlation with homophobic political rhetoric: moral panics frequently spread to adjacent targets by contagion. Certainly there has been an upswi
ng in reports of koro from western Africa recently… In predominantly Islamic countries there have been increasing reports of Djinn and ifrit, and witchcraft trials have been reported in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan’s tribal territories, and Afghanistan. However, they can’t be ascribed directly to superpower manifestations: witchcraft accusations are often leveled at ordinary men and women as a pretext for settling grudges. There’ve also been outbreaks of miracles in Poland, Ireland, Mexico, and elsewhere in Central and South America. Statues of the Virgin crying tears of blood, that sort of thing. Religious manifestations in India, much speaking in tongues in Baptist churches in the Deep South.
“Overall, the incidence of religious anomalies worldwide – reported miracles, curses, incidents of successful imprecatory prayer – is up by roughly 150 to 200 percent over the past three months.
“As for superheroes, they’ve broken out all over. Japan has its own version of the paranormal-slash-superpowered individual in popular culture. Luckily the prevalent anime and manga media tend to emphasize social responsibility and teamwork, with even their fictional bad guys frequently working within a controlled framework. We understand that the Home Office is actively liaising with the National Police Agency under the auspices of the National Public Safety Commission” – I share a glance of mutual ignorance with Mhari: nobody’s told us about that – “and others to define best standards for co-opting and diverting transgressive behavior among the superpowered. There are also reports of yokai-related crime and disorder, but these are less clearly correlated with —”
“Yokai?” asks the SA.
“I’m sorry, I should have said: traditional Japanese folkloric and mythological monsters. Neko-mata, the two-tailed cat demon; Nopperabo, the faceless ones; Kappa, or water goblins. Kitsune and Tanuki and Nurikabe. They’ve got hundreds of the things – Japan is one of the most densely haunted territories on Earth if you believe the folklorists, and the plethora of Shinto Kami or spirits overlap with Yokai, monsters. When you first get paranormal bleed-through, it manifests via canalized pathways.
“Moving on. In the United States the tide seems to have been stemmed by two very successful initiatives: the big media franchises are proactively litigating for trademark violation against infringers – they’ve sued sixteen Supermen, twenty-one Batmen, eleven Iron Men, and nine Wonder Women so far – while the Nazgûl appear to have taken action to ensure that no four- or five-sigma instances reach the public eye. There’s such a sharp cutoff point in the power spectrum of reported American superpower events that it’s fairly clear somebody is suppressing the high-end individuals. Probably by a conscript or kill strategy, knowing how the Black Chamber operates.
“The American mainstream news media have so far steered well clear of the subject because the phenomenon has been enthusiastically embraced by the talk radio fringe, leading to a death spiral of diminishing credibility. So we see a situation over there where the visible superpower scene resembles a low-rent version of the World Wrestling Federation with added special effects and non-trademark-infringing suits, while in the background the Black Chamber are either icing or co-opting the high-power examples. This follows an emerging pattern among the G20 governments, whereby they appear to be splitting into two groups: those who adopt a strategy of co-option and positive leadership, as in our own case, and those who go for outright suppression, such as the Russian Federation and the United States.”
Sanchez clears his throat and drinks from a water bottle. “As you can imagine, the likes of the FBI and the DEA take a very dim view of having to compete with Superman. And they’ve got the entrenched support and the corporate contractors with the lobbying muscle to make their preferences stick. We shouldn’t be surprised, really. But anyway. I think I’m done here. It’s time for the bad news. Dr. Mike?”
Dr. Mike stands up and slowly shuffles to the podium. He doesn’t look well, I realize with a stab of concern – it’s been too long since I dropped round for a cup of tea and a chat about the latest thinking on CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN, which is simultaneously his curse, his obsession, and his entire career.
“Yes, that,” he says slowly. He looks at us. “The step-function in superpower outbreaks is good news,” he says. “It means we don’t have to worry about the entire population manifesting quasi-godlike powers – at least, not unless there’s yet another step-function transition lurking unseen in our future. But it leaves us with a major problem. What you must understand is, we don’t yet know the full spectrum of medical side effects of these emergent occult capabilities. However, there is reason for serious concern. I’ve been working with Dr. Wills at UCLH to try to determine an approach for dealing with this. Let me illustrate.”
He shoves a slide showing four MRI brain scans onto the projector. Oh dear. I think I know what’s coming up, and the only reason it’s not my breakfast is because I didn’t eat this morning.
“On the upper left, a cross-section through a healthy adult human brain. Here’s the cerebral cortex, this is the cerebellum, here are the intraventricular foramina, channels filled with cerebrospinal fluid that perfuse the brain.” He points them out. “Now, here on the top right is a similar view of the brain of a practitioner with advanced Krantzberg syndrome.”
The difference is visible, even at this scale. The bright cerebral cortex still has a thin rind of white, but there are dark bubbles scattered through the interior. The foramina are larger, the cerebellum oddly withered-looking. “Note the classic signs of a neurodegenerative pathology,” Dr. Mike says, pointing out the features to watch for. “Feeders attracted by the subject’s repeated introspection and visualization of summoning vectors have, over time, chewed microscopic chunks out of the cerebral cortex until the interior is a barely functional lacework. The human neocortex is structured as a sparsely connected network, and the feeders preferentially leave the long-range connections alone, not wanting to kill their host prematurely; but microvascular accidents associated with their activities have caused ischemic degradation here, here, and here —” He points to the largest patches of darkness. “The patient died three weeks after this MRI scan was taken; at post-mortem, after the CSF was drained, his brain was found to weigh about two-thirds as much as expected based on its exterior dimensions. The rest was scar tissue and fluid.”
Mhari is making faint choking noises beside me: she holds a hand daintily in front of her mouth. Tough. Dr. Mike ploughs on indefatigably. “Now, moving on. Bottom left: this is the healthy brain of a three-sigma superpower who first came to our attention five weeks ago. As you can see, it looks superficially similar to that of the control case above. And now” – he points to the bottom right quadrant – “for something completely different!”
I squint at it dubiously. “This is a cross-section of the head of the three-sigma power known as Strip Jack Spratt. Spratt died of a subarachnoid hemorrhage while in police custody in the wake of the incident in Trafalgar Square. At the time of his demise the police surgeon had provisionally assigned him a diagnosis as an unmedicated paranoid schizophrenic with the controlling-machine delusional archetype and superpowers, the psychological impact of which we may assume to be destabilizing with respect to his grip on reality. As you can see, the left hemisphere is largely intact. And if you would like to compare it to the advanced K syndrome example above…”
The similarities are unmistakable. Enlarged foramina, dark bubbles, lacy cortex.
“In my opinion, Mr. Slaithwaite had less than two months to live at the time of his hemorrhage. In fact, the hemorrhage was almost certainly a side effect of his K syndrome: about ten percent of cases experience a cerebrovascular accident rather than dying of dementia. Now, you must focus on this: examination of his medical and police records show no sign of paranormal capabilities more than four months prior to his arrest in Trafalgar Square. So the unpleasant conclusion is that he went from zero to advanced K syndrome in around three to four months. Total life expectancy post-superpower: six months, the last two of them with an advanced
neurodegenerative condition. Being an uncontrolled, fully active three-sigma supervillain is about as lethal as contracting an inoperable diffuse astrocytoma or similar brain tumor.”
Dr. Mike glances around at us. His eyes are tired and baggy. “This isn’t universal,” he says quietly. “We have some superpowers who have been confirmed for six months now. I managed to persuade two of them to undergo MRI scans and there is no evidence of active disease. You must understand that for the time being this remains a one-off – we don’t have enough samples to confirm beyond reasonable doubt that the superpowered are subject to K syndrome or a related neuropathy.” I feel a faint shaking through the seat of my pants: it’s coming through Mhari’s chair, which is hooked up with mine. She’s shuddering. It’s her personal nightmare: PHANGs need to drink blood from a living human or they succumb to a not-dissimilar degenerative condition, V syndrome. It’s ugly, progressive, and ultimately fatal. Without thinking I reach for her hand. Her fingers close convulsively around mine, almost painfully tight.
Dr. Mike presses on. “Nevertheless, I believe there is sufficient evidence to strongly support the hypothesis that the superpowered are just as subject to K syndrome as occult practitioners. Superpowers all manifest a strong thaum field: it would be logical to anticipate that feeders are drawn to them – and unlike a ritual practitioner, or even a PHANG, they have no defenses. Finally, although the rate at which new superpowers emerge appears to have plateaued, they continue to do so. And we have no way of tracking the spread of low-level powers. The worst case now is not that we face a superhero singularity, but that we face a low-level pandemic of K syndrome affecting the wider – undiagnosed – population at a rate that could potentially be as high as one in ten thousand people per year. If this hypothesis is supported, we need to identify all superpowers as a matter of urgency and arrange for them to receive the same training and protective measures as our own practitioners. To do otherwise would be unconscionable and inhumane.”
The Annihilation Score (Laundry Files) Page 28