The Annihilation Score (Laundry Files)

by Charles Stross

  — Since last Monday, now that I think about it —

  Bingo. Jim was going to pick me up around six, so I grab my phone and text him, It’s the Last Night: going to wear fancy dress. So, while the imp of the perverse has my attention, I pick up the uniform kit bag from where I left it in the hall and take it through to the kitchen.

  Playing dress-up really isn’t like me: but nothing that’s happened since that horrible morning when I woke up to the phone ringing and the empty bed and answered a call to Trafalgar Square has really been me. At least, not the me I’ve been trying to become for the past decade. Once upon a time, there was a me who wouldn’t have blinked twice at the idea of going on a date in fancy dress: once upon a time, I had room for frivolity. What happened?

  I’ve been so busy running in circles, being the responsible adult in a madhouse as the world slowly comes apart at the seams, that I’ve pretty much forgotten what it’s like to have fun. Now that I’ve got my very own superhero kindergarten to run, I’m even busier being a responsible adult than when I was simply wearing Agent CANDID’s shoes – but there’s not much fun in that life, not very much frivolity, not very much Mo as opposed to Dr. O’Brien. I’ve been shoveling the bits of me that don’t fit the sharp-edged requirements of the workday week into a mental closet – an overstuffed closet, now bulging at the edges. Well, damn it, there’s still some space for fun in my life. I can, too, go to the Last Night of the Proms on the arm of a superhero! And there’s only one way to do it.

  When the bell rings at six on the dot, I am ready and waiting. “Come in,” I call, unlocking the door to find Jim on the front step. “Well? What do you think?”

  Jim’s eyes widen. He swallows. “Fancy dress. Right.” He removes his uniform cap and holds it as he inspects me from head to toe. “Right.”

  Jim is immaculately turned out in a Police Chief Superintendent’s full dress uniform, complete with white gloves and an inordinate quantity of medal ribbons on his chest. I suppose it makes sense: we’re going to the Proms on tickets liberated from the Commissioner’s own office, after all. And as for me…

  Ramona delivered on the alterations we’d discussed on Monday. In addition to the sinister-looking helmet and the Borg-style head-up display and comms headset, the kit bag contained a classic black half-mask that hooks over the ears – and a half-length cape, clearly modeled on the rain capes coppers on the beat used to wear back during Jack the Ripper’s days. By leaving off the cargo pants, helmet, and anti-stab vest, but keeping the leggings, cape, and mask, I managed to assemble a passable comic book superheroine outfit. With the cape slung across Lecter’s case, I only look slightly hunchbacked. And if it all goes horribly wrong, well, I can turn invisible and die of embarrassment in private, right? “What do you think?” I repeat, still uncertain. (I’m more worried about my makeup than the outfit itself: nothing washes out your cheeks and lips like a velvet half-mask, but I’m worried that I overcompensated on the theatrical side.)

  “I think you look great!” Jim says with that desperately fervent tone some men affect when they’re trying to think their way through the social minefield of commenting on their date’s attire half an hour after it’s too late to do anything about it. Then his brain finally catches up with where he wants it to be. He slowly smiles. “You know what? They’re going to think we’re both in fancy dress!”

  I grin at him, trying for impish, and he offers me his arm, which necessitates him putting his hat back on. His BMW is waiting at the side of the road: he opens the door for me, and we roar off very slowly into the London evening traffic.

  Jim finds a parking slot just off Bayswater Road. It’s a big concert, with overflow screens and a huge crowd in the park. The weather has improved since yesterday’s overcast and rain, and we stroll – or rather, promenade – along Broad Walk, past the Round Pond, mingling with the crowds who are here for the outdoor event. Big repeater screens are set up behind the sound stage, and the orchestra for the Prom in the Park concert are tuning up as we hang a left in the direction of the Albert Memorial and then head across the road to the hall itself. Where, despite the hour, there is still a huge queue of Prom-goers.

  Patriotic excess is the rule rather than the exception in this crowd: there are balloons and Union Jack flags galore and immensely silly costumes. We take our place in the queue behind a man dressed as John Bull, complete with Union Jack waistcoat – Steampunk seems to be the thing this year among the dedicated costumers – and in front of a couple in full evening dress. Behind them, a group of flag-waving younger concert-goers seem to have decided that Tweed is the New Black: students, I think, too painfully earnest to be true hipsters. (Behind them I spot a Dalek accompanied by two Cybermen, presumably there to help their legless exterminatory friend up the entrance steps.)

  As the queue moves, people are chatting. “I hear there are some last-minute changes to the program,” John Bull tells us: he has an iPhone in a brass-and-leather case connected to his fob chain.

  “What’s happening?” I ask.

  “Well, the guest conductor is still Sakari Oramo, but word is that they’re replacing Henry Wood’s Fantasia in the second half with something special!” He looks perturbed, and well he might: the Fantasia on British Sea Songs is a classic staple for the Last Night concerts, and any true Proms geek is bound to be intrigued by a mysterious substitute.

  A gap has opened up ahead of us while we’ve been talking. “Exterminate,” grates a pointed electronic rasp from behind me. Jim casts the Dalek a stony-eyed copper’s stare, then clears his throat and, taking my arm, steps forward.

  The queue is moving again: “Excited?” I ask him.

  “I —” Jim pauses, nonplussed. “I think so.” He doesn’t sound very excited.

  “Well.” I squeeze his hand. “I am!” And, I realize, it’s true: it’s a great big party, with a party atmosphere and excellent music and a mystery symphony to come! After the past week it’s a huge relief, an excuse to forget all about work for a few hours. And then —

  Look, it’s a concert hall. Not huge by modern standards (but it was enormous when it first opened in 1871). If you’ve been to classical concerts or rock gigs or even theatrical performances or musicals, you know the drill. You queue, and the ticket staff check your tickets and direct you to another queue, past the cloak rooms (where I deposit neither cloak nor violin case), then up stairs and through fire doors and along a dark-walled tunnel (in this case, lined with wooden panels), then through another door into the auditorium. In our case, we go up an extra flight of stairs instead, then along a curving corridor with many doors until Jim finds the door that matches our ticket numbers, and opens it for me. And we’re in a box. It’s our own little walled-off segment of the dress circle, off to the left of the stage and very dim inside, but with an unobstructed view out over the floor of the hall.

  Now, if you are thinking “classical music concert,” you are probably thinking of a polite, middle-aged audience seated in orderly rows before a stage with an orchestra on it. But this is the Proms. Indeed, this is the Last Night of the Proms. While there are seats (and we have some), the Proms are famously standing concerts. The floor of the Albert Hall is basically a Victorian mosh pit populated by Daleks, Cybermen, women in steampunk dresses, and men in Union Jack waistcoats and bowler hats. There are balloons. There are flags. There is a steady crackle of party poppers and a nostril-tickling peppery smell of gunpowder. The audience are excited, the air heavy with anticipation. Jim and I take our seats in the front row of the box, and I unsling my violin case and lean it against the front wall. We don’t have it to ourselves: we’re sharing the darkened box with a gaggle of fifty-something men and women, their faces somehow vaguely familiar. (Perhaps I’ve seen them on TV?) As I lean forward to take in the vista, I half expect the conductor to abseil down from the rafters in white tie and tails. I can feel Lecter at the back of my mind, soaking it all in: the sounds, the sights, the buzz of quiet anticipation rising from the audience like
steam from a simmering pot. “When is it going to kick off —” Jim asks, just as the lights dim and the conductor walks onto the stage from the rear.

  I shush him and sit back, expectantly, and a woman sits beside me and clears her throat. “That’s Sakari Oramo, isn’t it, Dr. O’Brien?” I startle and glance at her.

  “Assistant Commissioner Stanwick?” Yes, it is: even if I didn’t recognize her from the party on the Shard, her uniform would be a big clue.

  She half smiles. “I’m glad to see Derek’s tickets are getting put to use by someone who can appreciate them,” she assures me, touching my wrist briefly to defuse any implied criticism: “I hope you’re enjoying yourself! I’m sure you can tell us all about the program afterwards!”

  Beside me, Jim sits rigidly upright, his face expressionless. As my eyes adjust to the darkness, I realize we’re sitting in a pack of Police top brass – Jim is the knave and I’m the joker. I wonder what that means?

  But I don’t have long to wonder because the concert gets under way almost immediately. It opens with a special piece by a contemporary British composer, commissioned by the BBC, then Arnold’s Peterloo Overture, with new lyrics, then a couple of songs by middling-familiar composers, and next a first: Richard Strauss’s Taillefer, in a recital by the guest soprano —

  Look, it’s a concert: and I am here to enjoy myself. If you’re that interested, you can look up the running order on the web or stream the broadcast via BBC iPlayer. Most of you won’t be, though, so I’m not going to bore you with it: let’s just say, big symphony orchestra, famous guest conductor, violin soloist, soprano, tenor, and baritone, and a medley of old favorites and innovative new compositions performed to an appreciative standing audience of thousands with an atmosphere more like a big stadium rock gig than a normal classical event.

  I open my ears and eyes wide, soaking it all in. A little part of my brain is watching the soloist’s technique, observing the conductor’s cueing and execution – that bit of your brain that you simply can’t switch off when you’re observing a virtuoso performance in a field you know something about. And another part of me is distantly aware that Lecter is listening eagerly, vicariously marinating in my emotional responses, but I don’t have enough concentration to spare on irritation – and anyway, isn’t that why I agreed to bring him?

  All too soon the crescendo of applause and the rising lights signal the intermission. Jim claps enthusiastically; around us, our temporary companions are only slightly more restrained. “That was really rather good,” Laura Stanwick confides in me. To her partner: “Don’t you think so, Alan?”

  Alan, whoever he is – sixtyish, distinguished salt-and-pepper hair – agrees. “Quite special…” The hall public address system announces a twenty-minute break, drowning out the rest of his response.

  “Would you like anything from the bar?” Jim asks, framing his question to take in both myself and his proximate superior: “A glass of wine?”

  Stanwick accepts his offer: “A G&T would be marvelous —”

  “And mine’s a Sauv. blanc,” I tell him, with a smile.

  “Be right back.” He taps two fingers to his forehead briefly, as if saluting, then slips out of his seat. A moment later, Stanwick lays a hand on my wrist. I tense involuntarily, a premonition sending chills up my spine.

  “Director, would you walk with me?” She nods towards the front of the box: “Bring your instrument, please.”

  I pick up Lecter as she stands, then follow her towards the door. I know a setup when I see one: The only question is, how deep does this go? I should have known Jim didn’t get those tickets by accident. As I follow Stanwick out, I reach for my phone – it’s in the utility pouch on my belt. One glance tells me there are plenty of notifications. “Just a moment,” I say, glancing at the screen.

  Stanwick doesn’t bother with her own phone: “There’s no signal in here,” she tells me. “These booths were redecorated recently with shielded wallpaper to cut down on interruptions.”

  “I see.” I put the phone away and swallow, trying to work up some saliva. My heart pounds unevenly as I tighten my grip on the violin case’s quick-release button. The notifications all came from the OFCUT suite running on the device – there’s a strong thaum field here. Too strong. “Where are we going?”

  “There’s someone I’d like you to meet, backstage.” She glances over her shoulder. “We don’t have much time if we want to be ready for the second half.” I look round, following her gaze: her companion, Alan, is following us. Now there’s enough light I can see that he’s another Deputy Commissioner.

  “What exactly is going on?” I ask as my feet carry me after her.

  “Later,” she says tensely. There are other concert-goers in the corridor. Stanwick leads me to the staircase, then heads down them briskly. We go with the flow for the time being, but once we reach the ground floor, there’s another staircase going down – and very little traffic. The corridors here have scuff guards on the walls and uncarpeted floors, and I find myself curiously unsurprised when, as we turn into one, another two cops fall into step behind us – these two wearing street patrol gear, stabbies and hi-vis jackets over black combats, pistols discreetly holstered on their hips.

  Well, that tears it. The skin-crawling sensation that I’ve been aware of for the past week, that there’s a target pinned between my shoulders, is back in full strength: I can feel Lecter coming to full alertness, coiling and writhing slowly in the smoky velvet-lined void in his case. The adversary surely has me in his sights. But… the Police?

  We come to an office; just past it there’s a staircase leading up to the doors in back of the stage. It’s cluttered with desks and papered with posters announcing past performances. Stanwick makes a beeline for the director’s desk and sits down behind it. There’s a folio in the middle of the desk, and she opens it and begins to sort through papers. “Go ahead, Alan,” she says. “I’ll take it from here.”

  “If you’re sure —”

  “Yeah.” She looks straight at me. “Dr. O’Brien. Sit down.” There is no please. I sit opposite her, acutely aware of the two armed officers flanking the only exit.

  I lick my lips. “What’s going on?” I ask.

  “I think you know what’s going on.” Stanwick looks at me sharply. “But we don’t have time to tango right now. I’m going to have to ask you to read this, please.”

  “Read —”

  She slides a letter from the folio across the desk towards me. I take it with nerveless fingers.

  It’s on Home Office letterhead. And in one brief paragraph it sets out my worst nightmare.

  It identifies Freudstein. It tells me what to do. And it puts me in a terrible quandary.

  For the past few months, the biggest source of stress in my working life has been our lack of progress in identifying our Mad Science villain.

  The obvious answer, so obvious it has been our main avenue of investigation, is that the pseudonym Professor Freudstein is the front for an organization. Why is it obviously an organization? Because there might be an evil genius somewhere in the picture, or even a Mad Scientist, but in this century, you don’t do science without teamwork. Neither do you break into the Bank of England on your own, or the Sellafield Product and Residues Store, much less the British Library. Each of those incidents has to have involved one or more insiders, or someone with privileged information and the ability to suborn a high-level security system. So: Freudstein is a group of people able to stage remarkable coordinated operations with virtual impunity, a group with access to fissile nuclear materials, a team who are able to stay inside my unit’s observation/decision loop, able to plan the most sophisticated schemes —

  These are not the activities of a rogue genius or a loose cannon. These are the coldly calculated actions of a sophisticated organization that has huge resources and understands criminality too well for it to actually be a criminal.

  And now I know what that organization is.

  �
�You are absolutely out of your fucking mind,” I tell the Assistant Commissioner in charge of the Specialist Operations Directorate of the London Metropolitan Police, “and if you think I am going to cooperate with this, you have another think coming.”

  I push the letter back across the table at her, then cross my arms. “Not. Going. To. Happen.”

  Laura’s face goes still, in a peculiarly over-controlled way that suggests she’s bottling everything up tight. She pauses for a couple of seconds before she speaks again, this time in the distant tones of a copper reading a charge sheet to a petty criminal she’s just nicked. “Dr. O’Brien, you have just been presented with a written order signed by the Home Secretary, under Part Two of the Civil Contingencies Act (2004), declaring a large-scale civil emergency and ordering you to support special operations as directed by my command. In case it has escaped your attention, you swore an oath before a magistrate not very many months ago. This is all by the book.” Her smile is thin and utterly lacking in humor. “Are you rejecting a lawful order?”

  I try to center myself. “May I suggest that running a false-flag supervillain operation is one thing, but ordering the deployment of a class six quasi-sentient occult invocation engine is another matter entirely?”

  “You can suggest it, but I’m not listening.” She mimes hear-no-evil. “This is a crisis, Dr. O’Brien. You don’t get to say no. You’re part of Operation Freudstein now, and you’re going to play the violin sonata from the second act of that manuscript.”

  You have got to be kidding. “Convince me.” Play for time. I fidget with the ring on my right hand, desperately aware that if Mhari mistakes it for a routine itch or is sleeping or otherwise distracted —