Warrant Officer O’Hara pulls a file folder out from under his blotter and extracts a fearsome-looking document. “Read this and initial each page please, Mr. Howard.” His avuncular smile draws some of the sting from his words, but it’s quite clear that I’m not going to hear another word from these folks until I sign.
I read the first paragraph, clock that it’s the standard Official Secrets Act boilerplate with added Laundry special sauce that we use to bind people to silence under threat of a fate worse than prosecution, skim-read the rest to make sure there are no surprise whoopee cushions buried in it, and sign in blood, using the sterile lancet and pen that O’Hara provides for that purpose. The unusually heavy paper itches under my fingertips, a dry prickling sensation that reminds me of dead insects. O’Hara removes the form and slides it back into the folder as I apply a cotton wool pad to my hand.
“Now we can proceed,” says Traviss. He walks over to one of the filing cabinets and unlocks it, withdraws a zip-lock bag containing something that looks like a small photo album—the old dead-tree variety—and sits back down in front of me. He pulls the booklet out. “Mr. Howard. Have you ever seen one of these before?”
I squint at it. “A photo album. Yes?”
“Exactly.” Traviss looks glumly satisfied. “Nine pounds from WHSmith’s.” He carefully folds the first page open. “And this is a prepaid phone card.”
I nod, fascinated.
He flips to the next page. “This is a temporary tattoo.” Just like a million other tramp stamps sold on rolls of transfer paper in tat shops for kids who’re too chicken to let a weekend biker scribble on their skin with a needle gun. “And, oh look, another. Inventory tags, Mr. Howard.”
“Right.”
“The phone card goes in your wallet. There’s nothing special about it except that any call you make using this number will go through a switch that is monitored around the clock, so everything you say will be overheard.” He nods at Lockhart. “I believe Mr. Lockhart has a list of codewords for you to memorize.”
“Isn’t that a little crude?” I probe.
Traviss pulls a face. “There is a man behind the curtain but you should pay no attention to him, Mr. Howard. We’ve put a lot of effort into ensuring that if you ever use this phone card, nobody will pay it any particular attention. In fact, we encourage you to use it a lot—if you’re overseas, you can use it to call your wife.” I suppress a twitch. Clearly he doesn’t know that Mo is also a Laundry employee. “Would you rather engage in some cloak-and-dagger antics involving ad-hoc wifi networks running at set times in Starbucks, and laptops with hardware encryption dongles? So that when the black hats come to arrest you they find all your incriminating equipment and beat your password out of you with rubber hoses?”
I swallow. “I’m not used to that particular threat,” I admit.
“I suppose not.” Traviss looks satisfied.
“What about the tattoos?” I ask.
“Ah. Let’s see.” He flips rapidly through them: a goth’s trophy pentacle, a cherub’s kebab-skewer of love hearts, a hieroglyphic squiggle of ankhs and eye of Horus, even a couple of crosses. “Put these on your, ah, inventory items. They’re waterproof and will last until they rub off—typically three to six days, but possibly longer if the inventory items refrain from bathing or cover them with an occlusive dressing. The image itself is non-signifying—the ink contains suspended nanoparticles impregnated with—” O’Hara clears his throat. “Right.” Traviss pauses for a few seconds. “This is the master controller.” He flops to the back of the book and shows me a kitsch clockface tat. “Apply this and you can communicate with the satellite tattoos.”
“Um. How?” I ask.
“Contagion and blood magic,” says Fraser, with relish. He grins fiendishly. “Use a needle to prick yourself through the tat and you’ll be able to drop in on your subject. Or just use pain, in emergency pinch skin—but that can damage the tattoo. You can talk by subvocalizing or thinking the words—you can communicate silently.”
I blink. It sounds almost too good to be true. “What are the drawbacks?” I ask.
“Well, there’s some sensory leakage; while you’re connected, you can feel their emotional state to some extent, see through their eyes. And physical pain—that transfers much too easily. You really don’t want to call one of your satellites right after they’ve been shot in the stomach. The second real risk is that the opposition will find the tattoo and deduce what it is and what it’s for before one of you can remove it. Oh, and you really don’t want to activate it while you’re in proximity to an unshielded trophic resonator—soul-suckers, or demons, or anything that can get a lock on your nervous system—they’re attracted to such channels, and a ward won’t save you.”
I shiver. Suddenly it’s not looking that convenient after all.
“It’s a tool,” O’Hara explains slowly, as if to a particularly stupid schoolboy, “to allow you to silently and untraceably talk one-on-one with field operatives, or snoop on their activities. In enemy territory, under the nose of the bad guys. It is not a magic wand. There are countermeasures, and if you are not careful and run into them it can betray you as thoroughly as being caught with a shortwave radio and a code book. But not to civilians.” By which he means the likes of the FBI and police.
I take a deep breath. “Got it. Is there an FAQ?”
“I’ll email it to you.” Traviss’s words are directed to Lockhart. “You can share it with Mr. Howard, I’m sure.”
I do not like this. I do not like the way Lockhart takes the slim flipbook and pages through it, frowning thoughtfully—the caterpillar is disturbed—or the way these cowboys are tag-teaming us. “Is that all?” I ask sharply.
“Is that all?” Traviss sounds appalled.
“Yes, Bob, that is all.” Lockhart stares at me with watery, dyspeptic eyes. “I think we’ll be going now,” he says, sliding the book back into its bag. “Thank you, gentlemen.” He stands, and we file out.
LOCKHART DOESN’T SAY ANYTHING UNTIL WE GET BACK TO THE New Annex; he takes the admonitions about careless chatter so seriously that while we’re out and about he’s as conversational as a badger that’s been dead for three days. Once back in his office he opens up—in my direction, unfortunately.
“You will not discuss our operational parameters in the presence of members of external organizations ever again,” he says coldly. “Do I make myself clear?”
“Uh?”
He walks around me where I stand, more or less rooted to his office carpet. “You mentioned destiny entanglement, Mr. Howard. How do you know that Dr. Traviss and his companions were cleared to know about that technology?”
I blink rapidly. “My geas didn’t—”
“No, it didn’t, Mr. Howard. But you should not rely on your oath of office as an infallible guide to the perimeter of our security cordon. It relies on your own cognizance of threats to determine what level of security to apply. You of all people should understand that there are individuals who your geas would passively allow you to talk to who are nevertheless enemies—moles, enemies within who have official clearance. It may be that Dr. Traviss and Mr. Fraser and Warrant Officer O’Hara are familiar with destiny entanglement tools like the one you used in conjunction with agent RANDOM a few years ago. Very probably they are, because the inventory tracking tags rely on a very watered-down version of the same technology—one that does not risk your mind fusing with that of your target if it isn’t forcibly disconnected after a handful of days. The problem is that they now know that you too are familiar with such tools.”
Enlightenment dawns, somewhat too late. “Oh. Shit.”
“That is the correct word, Mr. Howard. Most likely it is an insignificant slip—but if, for example, Mr. Fraser turns out to be a mole in the employ of the Thirteenth Directorate, you have just delivered valuable information about your own capabilities to an unfriendly organization. Security is not just an externally directed process, it must be an internal one.
Do you understand me?”
I nod jerkily. “Good.” He makes a cutting gesture with one hand and suddenly my feet can move again. “You’re a smart lad. If you have any concerns, you can bring them to me whenever you like. I will not mock you for asking stupid questions; we all have to start somewhere. But I would appreciate your keeping them private.”
“Um,” I say again.
“Yes?”
“If I’m going overseas, do I have any defensive issues?”
“Are you expecting to be physically attacked?” He raises an eyebrow.
I pause for a few seconds. “I am not expecting anything,” I say slowly. “But I try to be prepared for all circumstances. I really don’t like being held at gunpoint. And it’s happened before.”
For a few long seconds Lockhart stares at me. Then he nods approvingly. “Use your discretion,” he finally tells me. “No firearms; remember you will be traveling under diplomatic cover.” I wonder why he’s so certain about that, but now is probably not the time to poke him. “I’ve got a meeting in ten minutes. Go. I’ll send you the FAQ on the tracking tags when I receive it.”
I can take a hint; I go.
* * *
I HATE FIGHTING. I’M NOT PARTICULARLY GOOD AT IT, COMPARED to some of my acquaintances. Hell, I’m not even as good at it as my wife. If you have to fight, it means things are already badly out of control. So I generally try to avoid physical confrontations; my preferred defensive tactic is to run away. However, I can handle a Glock 17 and a Hand of Glory, and I’m certified for certain classes of occult self-defense. Mo said something about a device that Pinky and the Brain are testing over in Facilities…so after grabbing a quick lunch in the canteen I bail out of the office and head across town to what they used to jokingly call Q Division.
Unlike HMGCC, which is not part of the Laundry, Field Support Engineering is, and my warrant card is enough to get me inside. Whereupon I make my way through a drab corridor floored in carpet tiles that look to be a decade past their replace-by date, to an office door with a frosted-glass window and a No Entry sign. A pair of concrete seagulls to either side serve as gate guardians—these ones are unpainted, and unpleasantly lifelike—and there’s a bumper sticker instead of a name plate. Q: What are we going to do tonight, Brains? A: The same thing we do every night, Pinky: Try to take over the world!
I enter, and close the door behind me. Pinky—not his real name—is hunched over his computer’s screen, messing around with a digitizer pen. After a moment he blinks and looks up at me. “Bob?” He grins enormously and comes bounding out from behind the desk. “Bob!”
“Long time no—”
“Bob! You really must see this! It’s brilliant!” He zips across the room and begins sifting through a mountain of what looks at first sight like junk (but probably isn’t). “You’re going to love this,” he promises, turning round and offering me a slim box. After a second I recognize it.
“It’s a camera, right?” Digital, subtype: compact. I take it.
Of an instant, Pinky’s expression is all concern. “Hold on a minute! Don’t switch it on yet.”
I turn it over in my hands. “Huh.” There’s a legend on the front: Fuji FinePix Real 3D. Suddenly I remember the seagull gate guardians and my blood turns to ice. “Jesus, Pinky. Tell me this isn’t what I think it is?”
“I don’t know, Bob.” He cocks his head on one side. “What do you think it is?”
I lick my suddenly dry lips. “What happens if I turn it on?”
He shrugs. “It switches on.”
“And what happens if, say, I took a photograph of you?”
He shrugs again. “It takes a rather crappy 3D photograph. Why?”
“Where’s the special sauce?” I ask tensely.
“On this.” He produces an SD memory card with a flourish. “It’s just a 3D camera until you reflash it with this special firmware.”
“And then…” I lick my lips again. “Don’t tell me. It’s SCORPION STARE in a box that looks like a consumer digital camera. Right?”
“Yup.” And Pinky, the idiot, looks indecently pleased with himself. “Mo said you might be needing a personal defense weapon and, well, you’ve used a basilisk gun before? Only bigger, bulkier, and much crappier.”
You could put it that way.
Most of the magic we work with here in the Laundry is about using computational transforms to send messages that induce certain entities from outside our universe to sit up and pay attention. But sometimes there’s cruder stuff.
We’ve known for years that sometime soon we’ll be living through a crisis period; magic gets easier to perform the more people are around to perform it. It’s a computational, cognitive process and humans are cognitive machines…so are computers. We’ve got a population bubble, and a computing bubble, and they coincide. For the next few decades conditions are right for rupture and invasion by entities from outside our universe.
Some folks (ritual magicians) actually do the symbol-manipulation thing in their heads, risking death by Krantzberg syndrome and worse. It’s not an approach to defending the realm that scales, because you can’t take a random reasonably bright teenager and reliably turn them into a sorcerer. But you can turn some of them into computer scientists—and a whole lot more into IT support drones who can use a canned toolkit to perform a limited range of occult manipulations.
One of the weapons Her Majesty’s Government is developing to deal with the threat is the SCORPION STARE network. Two or more observing viewpoints—cameras—feeding the right kind of hardware/software network can, shall we say, impose their own viewpoint on whatever they’re looking at. In the case of SCORPION STARE, about ten percent of the carbon nuclei in the target are randomly transformed into silicon nuclei as if by magic. Messy pyrotechnics ensue: gamma radiation, short-lived muons, some really pretty high-energy chemistry, and lots of heat. We worked out how to do it by reverse-engineering basilisks and medusae—animals and unfortunate people suffering from a peculiar, and very rare, brain tumor. Now we’ve got defensive camera-emplacements on every high street, networked and ready to be controlled centrally when the balloon goes up. Street cleaning by CCTV-controlled flame thrower.
“What are its capabilities?” I ask Pinky, holding up the camera.
“Right now, it’s running the camera firmware,” he says. “Slide the lens cover down to switch it on. Point, shoot, it’s a camera.” I slide the lens cover down. As expected, the display back lights up. There’s a honking great gunsight frame superimposed over it. I turn it off hastily. “Load the basilisk firmware and you’ll see a gunsight. Point and shoot and instead of taking a snap, it sends a bang.”
“You’ve been practicing on the seagulls,” I accuse. “In Milton Keynes.”
“They’re vermin, Bob. They’ve been driven inland by over-fishing and now they’re spreading disease, attacking waste collections, keeping people awake in the small hours, and carrying away stray cats and small dogs. Next thing you know they’ll be cloning credit cards and planning bank robberies.”
“Yes, but…” I see no point in arguing; it’s not as if I like seagulls.
“It’s got an effective range of about a hundred meters, and enough juice to fire eighty times on a single battery charge,” Pinky adds. “It looks innocuous, which is more than you can say for a Glock; you can carry it on an airliner or through a security checkpoint, right?”
I sigh. “I hate these things.” Being shot at with them is a good enough reason, in my books.
“So use it wisely!” Pinky beams brightly. “Mo said you’d be calling, so I took the precaution of booking it out to you as a beta tester. Sign here…”
He’s learned from Brains’s mistake last year: he’s got the correct release forms in triplicate, and a memorandum of approval from the head of FSE, and a fearsome-looking end-user agreement that commands and compels me to ensure that the said device shall be returned to FSE, whether intact or in pieces, and all usage documented—this isn’t go
ing to be a repeat of the JesusPhone fiasco.
“Okay.” I read the small print carefully and sign, repeatedly, in blood before he hands me the rest of the kit—charger, sync cables, spare SD card full of dodgy firmware, and a neck strap. By the time I leave his office, my suit pockets are bulging. But at least if any bad guys try to shoot me I can snap right back.
Interlude
ABSOLUTION
BREAKFAST AT NUMBER TEN.
Normally the Prime Minister and his family dine in the apartment upstairs, in the relative privacy of their home rather than the imposing wood-paneled rooms of state below. But today is different. The PM has invited four of his senior ministers, a handful of senior advisors, and a party of industry leaders to a breakfast meeting in the State Dining Room at 10 Downing Street, his official residence. It’s not a press-the-flesh session—all the invitees have met the PM before—so much as it is a promotional session for one of the PM’s pet hobby horses, the Caring Society initiative.
The Prime Minister is young, pinkly scrubbed and shaved, and privileged: a self-congratulatory scion of the upper social ranks of the Conservative party. He’s bright as a button and sharp as a razor, with a mesmeric oratorical ability that served him brilliantly in his political pre-history as a barrister. He’s an impressive performer—made it to the top of his party less than a decade after entering Parliament. And in no small part it’s because he’s clearly a man with a mission: to restore personal integrity, honesty, and humility to government (and to get government out of people’s private lives and pocket books along the way).
“Good morning,” says the PM, beaming and bobbing slightly as he shakes hands with the chief executive of a private academy trust with eight schools to his name: “Morning, Barry”—to the Home Secretary, an old war horse with pronounced progressive views about the value of rehabilitation over imprisonment (if only because it’s cheaper)—“have you met Raymond before? Barry Jennings, the reverend Raymond Schiller.”
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