The Annihilation Score

by Charles Stross

  “Are you forbidden to talk about Professor Freudstein?” I ask, slowly and clearly.

  “No—” Spratt wails, then abruptly drops to the floor like a puppet whose strings have been cut. There is nothing theatrical or contrived about it: I’ve seen sacks of potatoes with more muscular control. So, by her reaction, has Jo: she spares me a horrified glance, swears, and is out the door so fast she knocks her chair halfway across the room. I stay just long enough to put Lecter back in his case and am about to hurry after Jo and find out where they keep the emergency resuscitation kit when I glance back at Spratt.

  He’s lying on his back with his feet against the glass, legs slightly spread and one arm twisted behind his back. His left cheek is twitching, the heel of his left foot banging on the floor: but to all appearances, my chief suspect has just suffered a massive stroke.

  * * *

  I do not get to leave the police station for some time. I am, as they say, unavoidably detained. Not as unavoidably as the late Mr. Spratt, who is pronounced dead at the scene by the on-call doctor. But DCI Sullivan isn’t going to let me escape until she’s taken me aside for a very free and frank exchange of opinions.

  “Spill it,” she demands, leaning in my face.

  “I was testing a hypothesis.” I hunch my shoulders. I feel dreadful: too exposed, in need of some safe space to retreat into while I get my head centered again. Did I kill Spratt? No, of course not. But I asked him the fatal question . . . “Did you hear about the Bank of England case?” I ask, more to distract myself than to inform Jo.

  “The what?” The penny drops, instantly.

  “Okay, so they’re locking the lid down tight on it.” That makes this easier. “Listen, Jack may not have been as out-of-it as your shrink thought. While he was busy doing his thing with the Mayor, somebody did something really bad that you haven’t been told about and don’t want to stick your nose in.”

  “Shit. That’s not just a major crime, that’s the kind that . . .”

  “Yes, that.” We share a moment’s conspiratorial silence. “Think in terms of the Northern Bank robbery and you’ll be on the right track. You’ll hear about it after they’ve completed the emergency damage control. Until then, keep your trap shut.”

  “Jesus wept.” She’s gone all clipped and stiff-upper-lip on me: utterly aghast. Good, she’s got the message.

  Let me give you a brief rundown: the Northern Bank Robbery of 2004 was the biggest bank robbery in Northern Irish history. Hell, it was one of the biggest bank robberies anywhere, ever. The robbers, using an MO that is eerily familiar to anyone who had dealings with the happy fun guys from the Provisional IRA back in the bad old days, took two bank managers’ families hostage to guarantee their cooperation, then hit the bank’s cash center. They were spectacularly successful and got away with a truckload of banknotes. In fact they were too successful. Northern Bank is an issuing bank—one of the four banks licensed by the Bank of England to print Northern Irish currency. Northern Ireland isn’t very large: the robbers stole nearly a tenth of all the banknotes that institution had in circulation. In fact, they stole so much that the bank issued a total currency recall, printed new currency, and hastily took the old ones out of circulation, thereby turning the entire truckload of stolen lucre into high-quality toilet paper (because it’s just a little bit difficult to launder 10 percent of an entire currency in a couple of months).

  “The, ah, naughty person, left a calling card,” I tell her. “It was signed ‘Professor Freudstein.’”

  “Jesus . . .” She takes a deep breath. “You think our man was an accomplice or a diversion?”

  “Did he or did he not babble about that name? And about the bank? And kinda-sorta confess to being involved in a real crime you didn’t know about at the time?”

  Jo looks as if she’s sucking on a lemon. “I don’t know what to think. But he’s dead. Stroked out when you asked that question, didn’t he?”

  I nod jerkily, trying to hold myself together. “It was a stroke for sure.” And a massive one: by the time the duty medic got to him, it was all over bar the autopsy.

  “Any idea what could have done that?”

  Jo looks at me sharply. I could speculate about K syndrome and untrained superpowers overclocking the firmware until they get holes nibbled all through their gray matter and blow a gasket in the Circle of Willis, but I’m not sure she’s cleared for it—and anyway, I might be wrong. I confine myself to a pained expression and a shake of the head. “Didn’t like him. But. He deserved better.”

  “Don’t we all.” She punches me lightly on my left arm. “You have no idea of the shitpile of paperwork that’s about to descend on my head, Mo. You have no idea. People are not supposed to die in custody cells anymore, not unless it’s a shitty medical emergency and the duty medic fucks up. And the duty medic wasn’t present. Incoming IPCC investigation at six o’clock high. I’ll be lucky not to get suspended over this, you know?”

  “I’m”—I swallow—“due in front of the Home Secretary’s desk on Monday at nine o’clock sharp. If I’m not dog food by ten thirty, if it’s remotely possible to do so, I’ll put in a word.”

  Jo doesn’t look relieved. She’s not naive enough to think that a good word will save an honest cop from being hung out to dry for Madam Executioner’s public relations convenience; the HomeSec clearly has her sights set on Number Ten, and she’s a member of the hardline wing of a party who eat their weak with gusto because it makes the survivors stronger. “Just promise me that you’ll nail the bastard. Or call me so I can nail him. Whoever this Freudstein guy is.”

  “You know I will,” I assure her.

  * * *

  After which, the rest of the week drains away downhill like floodwater.

  I steel myself and head across to the New Annex, to report developments in person to the INCORRIGIBLE committee. Then, before I head back to the TPCU office, I sneak around to Emma’s office and politely request a list of all her other nominations for my team, just in case. I am wound up like an over-tightened spring, but Bob, the object of my angst, is apparently busy disarming traps in Angleton’s office and has his phone set to do-not-disturb. I can’t bring myself to check his own office, so I chicken out and text him a carefully worded query as to Spooky’s state of health.

  Back in the TPCU, everything is running swimmingly. Martin from Facilities is hammering and power-screwing furniture together like a one-man IKEA assault team; Sara is swearing over a glass-fronted equipment cabinet full of flickering LEDs and patch cables; Sam and Nick the analysts are installed in an office with two desks, hammering away at tasks assigned to them by Mhari (insert token shudder here) who is tucked away in the office adjacent to mine, working on the corner (well, 50 percent share) of the Roadmap that I handed her yesterday evening.

  So I retreat into my office and work until it’s time for the all-hands.

  Which goes something like this:

  * * *

  “Hello, everybody,” I begin.

  We don’t have a boardroom yet—Martin is still bolting chairs together—so we’re all standing in the lobby area behind the glass wall. It’s all a little stiff, but at least it’s an incentive to keep this short.

  “I’m going to keep this as short as possible. On Monday”—today being Friday—“at nine o’clock in the morning I have to be ready to walk into the Home Secretary’s office and deliver a presentation articulating our goals, our strategic plan for achieving those goals, the enabling regulations or primary legislation we need in order to reach those goals in a lawful manner, our required budget, a roadmap for implementation, metrics for assessing our performance on an ongoing basis, and the moon on a stick.”

  I see eyes going wide. Also some silently mouthed rude words, which I pretend to ignore.

  “Let me emphasize that I do not intend to run this organization in continuous crunch mode. Crunch mode is bad for
morale, worse for productivity, and does terrible things to the shelf life of the milk in the break room fridge. I don’t like being on the receiving end of it, and neither do you. But. But. We got set up too late to fit this all in during our regular nine-’til-five core hours, and there’s no way to pull in any more bodies and get them bedded down in time to help. Our next intake isn’t due to turn up until Monday afternoon, and our job is to ensure that we’re still in business when it’s time to receive them. So I’m hoping everybody is able to stay late tonight, and to be in and working tomorrow and Sunday as well.” I pause. “Keep track of your hours, and once we’re fully staffed and stable, I’ll sign you all off for time-and-a-half in lieu to make up for it.” I pause again. “Does anyone have a real problem with that? Hospital appointments, elderly parents or infants, or some other immovable obstacle?”

  Nick’s hand rises, hesitantly. I don’t wait for him to speak, don’t want to risk embarrassing him in front of everybody else. “Email me or see me in my office. If I can help out—if it’s something I can help out with—I’ll move heaven and earth to do so. If not, you’re off the hook: we’ll figure something out.”

  I have a bottle of water: I take a swig. “Now, as to the strategy and the plan . . . our job is to get out in front of the superhero/supervillain/superpower problem. I don’t believe in one-size-fits-all solutions, so we’re going to go wide, not deep. One task will be analysis and forward intelligence.” Nick and Sam both perk up at that. “A second task will be Police and Home Office liaison and support—it’s no good for us to know all about the problem if we don’t tell anybody, and approaching it from the opposite direction, if we can get the Home Office on board, they can be a huge force multiplier for us. The third task is public relations: we need to generate a message about how the government wants the newly superpowered to behave, and we need to get it out through all available media. Our fourth and final task—really, a subsidiary of the third—is to go after the high-end threats ourselves. And that means we need a framework for managing superpowers directly.”

  That creates a stir. Good. Let them think about it for a while. Mhari smirks knowingly and taps the toe of one glossy black pump as if she’s impatient to give the game away. I make eye contact briefly and the smirk vanishes. She nods, imperceptibly. You’re a deputy director: bloody act like it.

  “That’s all for now,” I add. “I sent out new task assignments five minutes ago, they should be in your inboxes by the time you get back to your desks. Finish up what you’re working on today, and let me know what your obstacles are. My door’s open.”

  And that, I realize with a start, is everything I needed to say. Because there’s nothing left but a dismal weekend of sixteen-hour workdays in the office, followed by a visit to the Lion’s Den on Monday.

  And then, if we’re really lucky, we will get the green light of approval for my master plan . . .

  It’s a crazy scheme but it just might work.

  PART 2

  THE SORTING ALGORITHM OF EVIL

  7.

  OFFICER FRIENDLY

  That Friday, I checked out of the hotel and walked my suitcase to the office by way of an express dry cleaning outfit. At lunchtime I followed Bob’s example and nipped out for just long enough to buy a sleeping bag and a camping mattress. It turned out there was a staff shower room on the ground floor for the cyclists. From experience I knew that I could get by without going home for a while, just as long as I stuck to the rules: four hours’ sleep, two square meals, and one shower every day. Although on Sunday I began to realize that people were looking at me oddly—working nearly sixty hours in three days will do that.

  Okay, so for three days I had no life except for PowerPoint, MS Project, Excel, and a bunch of PRINCE2 worksheets. But after a while I got into a soothing routine of deep focus, meal breaks, an hour off to run chores, then back to a different task that required my attention. I was so preoccupied that I forgot to twitch when I ran into Mhari in the corridor, or to shudder when the engine note of a passing truck outside my window triggered a flashback to a Green Zone suicide bomber. It’s amazing how much work you can get done in three days if you hold a blowtorch to each end of the candle.

  But around 2 a.m. on Monday morning, I finally had to admit that I was right down to the wire. It’s good to have the world’s most polished business plan or financial projection, but if you fall asleep in the middle of delivering it, the message will get mangled. So I dialed in a four-hour timer on my phone, locked the office door, crawled into my sleeping bag, and curled up next to my violin case.

  Blink.

  And now it’s six in the morning, my pillow is vibrating alarmingly, and it’s time to get up, shower, caffeinate my bloodstream, and prep myself for round two with the lioness in her Home Office den. Even though I’m much too old for this lifestyle.

  Blink again.

  And it’s eight in the morning. I am awake, hair brushed, face painted, booted and suited. Laptop fully charged: check. Presentation loaded and ready at the first slide: check. Violin—

  Oh damn. I whimper faintly. Here’s the thing: I am meant to be the sober and suitable director of a small but significant department of a government agency, tasked with dealing with the transhuman menace. And I am about to walk into a briefing session so close to the apex of government that mere civil servants need oxygen masks to function there. I do not want to look like some sort of eccentric. As a part-time lecturer in music theory, carrying a violin everywhere I go is perfectly normal—and I need to email Danny about my tutorial schedule next semester as we’re going to have to find a stand-in quick: damn, I should probably resign from faculty, or at least take a sabbatical, if this turns out to be ongoing—and in the Laundry they only look at you twice if you’ve got a nonstandard number of heads. But out in the rest of the civil service violins are definitely not normal uniform accessories for executives.

  But I can’t leave Lecter alone, can I? I just can’t. It’s not possible.

  Oh, wait.

  I carried him into a COBRA meeting last week. The HomeSec’s already seen him. She’s seen him on the news on TV, for crying out loud: she knows he’s a paranormal instrument. What’s nagging me—

  Oh. The sticker. No, that definitely won’t do. I can wing the rest, tell them just enough of the truth to satisfy them about the violin, but the sticker’s got to go. Damn, I like that sticker. It’s been a constant reminder for the past eight years. But it looks unprofessional: I’ll have to cover it up.

  Five minutes later, Lecter’s case is discreetly updated with a strip of duct tape—just another musical instrument, rather than a thing that KILLS DEMONS. And I’m ready to go.

  * * *

  I hail a cab and tell the driver to drop me on Horseferry Road, round the corner from the shiny new Home Office building on Marsham Street. Actually, it’s not just a single building, but a campus of three glass-and-steel blocks connected by a four-story-high bridge. I head for the Peel building,* present my credentials, receive a visitor’s pass, collect Lecter from the far end of the X-ray belt, and am given directions to a briefing room on the sixth floor.

  People are already arriving for the Home Secretary’s regular Monday morning session, and there’s a coffee urn in the vestibule outside—so far, it’s turning out to be so much like a regular conference lecture theater that I feel a momentary stab of déjà vu. But students don’t generally wear formal business attire, much less dress in police commissioners’ uniforms. A pleasant-mannered senior something-or-other in a suit intercepts me once I’ve filled a coffee cup, with nary a glance at my violin case: “Dr. O’Brien? Good morning, hope you found it easy to find us. You haven’t attended one of these sessions before, so I should warn you that we have a tight agenda to stick to for this morning’s meeting, and everything will go so much more easily if I can remind you to keep to your sixteen-minute slot? There is an open-ended Q&A after the last of the p
resentations, around eleven fifteen, when the ministers may call you back to the podium to clarify any points, so you’ll need to stick around until then . . .”

  He hands me an agenda, shows me where to plug my laptop in, reassures me that it will all go swimmingly, and vanishes in search of his next target.

  The seats are all assigned by name. It’s an invitation-only meeting, which is why I’m here on my own (although, given our personal chemistry, bringing my deputy director along for moral support might have been a bit counterproductive). I make my way to my chair and stash the violin case under it. I’m four rows back, at the side of the aisle where they’ve parked the presenters for easy access. Very efficient. I am, it appears, speaker number seven: Dr. D. O’Brien, Security Service, Subject: “Introducing the Transhuman Policy Coordination Unit strategy roadmap.” Bleary-eyed and tired, I notice the empty seats to my right just as a looming uniform to my left clears its throat. “Excuse me, ma’am . . .”

  “Uh, hi, sure.” I shuffle sideways to let him through. I’m no expert on police insignia, but judging from the shoulder boards and the amount of braid on his tunic I think he’s got to be a superintendent or above. He sits down next to me and I try not to stare too obviously: there’s something familiar about him.

  “Ah, Dr. O’Brien! We meet again.” He smiles and offers me a hand.

  I smile and shake, racking my memory. He does look familiar, but where . . .

  “Jim Grey. I was boring you last week with bafflegab about fisheries when you were snatched from under my nose by a mermaid.”

  “Oh yes!” My eyes widen infinitesimally. “That.”

  “Yes.” He nods, a twinkle of complicity in the corner of one eye. “I’m one of your organization’s intimates.”

  “Ah.” I relax slightly. He’s another insider, like Jo. Not all senior police officers know about us, but if he was on that oil rig, he’s in on BLUE HADES at the very least.* “Which stakeholder are you representing today?”