The Jennifer Morgue l-3

by Charles Stross

  He picks up his whisky. "I need her to ride the grab down and keep an eye on it while it locks onto the target. If the defenders of the deep smell Old One in the water they'll stay cowering in their burrows in the abyssal mud. What do you say to that"

  "It's an interesting theory," I admit, which is true because I don't know one way or the other whether it'll work.

  "It's more than a theory. I sank a lot of money into arranging for the Black Chamber to send her, boy. Her folk aren't so numerous and most of them would die rather than let themselves be turned to such a purpose. She's been tamed, which is unusual, and you've got a handle on her, and I've got you. So, I'll make you a new offer. Convince her to ride the barge for me willingly, and I'll have McMurray free her from her curse. Convince her to ride the barge and I won't even have to threaten you. How about it"

  He's backed me into a corner, I realize. And not just with menaces; the thing is, he has found Ramona's price. And having been inside her skull, even if only a bit, I'm not sure I can criticize her. Or easily stand in her way, if she really wants to do it. Threats of torture are redundant — just forcing her to go on living in her current state is torment enough.

  Plus, if she doesn't cooperate, Billington might turn nasty and take it out of my hide. Which reminds me of something else ...

  "Why me?" I finally burst out. "I mean, if you needed her, surely you don't specifically need me to control her? I'm nothing to you. You've got McMurray. You already know about my government's offer. What am I doing here? Why don't you just do the disentangling ritual and dump me overboard"

  Billington's smile widens, disturbingly: "Ah, but that's where you're wrong, Mr. Howard. Your presence here prevents anyone else — like the US Navy, for example — from turning up and spoiling my scheme. Which I realized would be a likely response to my current operation right at the outset, and took steps to prevent, in the form of a monumentally expensive and rather intricate destiny-entanglement geas that compels the participants to adopt certain archetypal roles that have been gathering their strength from hundreds of millions of believers over nearly fifty years. The geas doesn't mess with causality directly, but it does ensure that the likelihood of events that mesh with its destiny model are raised, while other avenues become less ... probable. Going against the geas is hard; agents get run over by taxis, aircraft suffer inexplicable mechanical failures, that sort of thing. Now you've jumped through all the hoops in the geas and in so doing massively reinforced it. You've taken on the role of the heroic adversary. Which in turn means that nobody else is allowed to play the hero around here. And in accordance with another aspect of the geas, you're in my power for the time being and you're going to stay there until a virtuous woman turns up to release you. Got that"

  My head's spinning. What the hell is he on about? And where am I going to find a virtuous woman on board a mad billionaire's yacht at three in the morning as we steam towards the Bermuda Triangle? "What about the auction?" I ask plaintively.

  Billington laughs raucously. "Oh, Mr. Howard! The auction was only ever a blind, to make your superiors believe I could be bought and sold!" He leans forwards across the Desk, and his eyebrows furrow like thunderclouds: "What use do you think I have for mere gigabucks? This is the highstakes table." He looks past my shoulder, towards the gorilla.

  "Take him back to his room and lock him in until morning.

  We'll continue this conversation over breakfast." The gorilla stomps over and lays a beefy hand on my shoulder. "When I have JENNIFER MORGUE they'll do anything I want," he mutters, and my skin crawls because I don't think he's talking to me anymore. "Anything at all. They'll have to listen to me once I own the planet."

  The gorilla herds me back down a short flight of steps and onto a passage that sports a row of mahogany-paneled doors like a very exclusive hotel. He opens one of them and gestures me inside. I briefly consider trying to take him, but realize it won't work: they've got Ramona and they've got the surveillance network from Hell and I'm on a ship that's already out of sight of land. I'll only get one chance, at most, and I'd better make sure I don't blow it. So I go inside without a struggle, and look around tiredly as he turns the key in the lock.

  Being locked in one of Billington's guest rooms is a comfortable step up from a police cell. It's aboard ship so it's smaller than a five-star hotel suite, but that's about the only way it suffers by comparison. The bed's a double, the carpet is luxuriously thick, there's a porthole (non-opening), a wet bar, and a big flat-screen TV, a shelf next to it holds a handful of paperbacks and a row of DVDs. I assume I'm supposed to drink myself comatose while watching cheesy spy thrillers.

  The desk (small, guest-room-sized) opposite the bed shows raw patches where they must have yanked out a PC earlier — it's a damn shame, but Billington's people are smart enough not to leave a computer where I can get my hands on it.

  "Shit," I mutter, then sit down in the sinfully padded leather recliner next to the wet bar. Surrender has seldom been such an attractive prospect. I massage my head. Looking out the porthole there's nothing but an expanse of nightblack sea, overlooked by stars. I yawn. Whatever that bitch Johanna used to put my lights out was fast-acting; it can't be much past three in the morning. And I'm still tired, now that I think about it. I look around the room and there's nothing particularly obvious in the way of escape routes.

  Plus, they're probably watching me, via a peephole in the door if they've got any sense. "What a mess."

  **You can say that again, monkey-boy.** I flinch, then force myself to relax. Trying to show no sign of anything in particular, I open my inner ear again.

  **Ramona?**

  **No, I'm the fucking tooth fairy. Have you seen my pliers lying around? There's a couple of folks here in line for some root-canal surgery when I get free.** The wash of relief is visceral; if I was standing I'd probably collapse on the spot. It's a good thing I found the recliner first **You're all right?** She snorts. **For what it's worth.** I can feel something itchy where my eyes can't see. Focusing on it, I see the inside of another room, much like this one. She's kicked off her heels and is pacing the floor restlessly, examining everything, looking for an exit.

  They've wired the walls. There's a shielding graph in the floor but they must have switched it off for the time being to let us talk. I don't think they can overhear us, but they can stop us any time they want.**

  **Nice of them — **

  **To let us know they've got us where they want us?

  Don't be silly.**

  **How'd they catch you?** I ask, after an uncomfortable pause.

  **It's probably the oldest trick in the book.** She stops pacing. **I was looking for Eileen's inner circle when I ran into a lure, a daemon disguised as someone I know professionally — a real class act, I could have sworn it was really him. He suckered me into an upstairs meeting room and before I knew what was happening they had me in a summoning lock. Which should be impossible unless they've got the original keys the Contracts Department used when they enslaved me, yet they did it. So I guess it's not impossible after all.** I stare at the blank TV set. **Not if it was the real thing.

  His name's McMurray, isn't it?** I can taste her shock. **How the fuck did you know that?** she demands.

  **Because he took me for my entire expenses tab at baccarat,** I confess. **He's got a new employer with very deep pockets. Has Billington tried to buy you yet?** She starts pacing again. **No, and he won't. Where he comes from there are different rules for people like me.

  You're employable. You're human. I'm ...** I can feel her working her jaws, as if she's about to spit: **Let's just say, there are minorities it's still okay to shit on.** I wince. **He led me to believe t h a t ... well, if you don't think he's going to try to buy you, what's he got on you?

  Besides the obvious.** She tenses. **He's got you. That's bad enough, in case you hadn't figured it out.** Whoops. **He knows all about your curse.** The idea begins to sink in. **Tell me about McMurray. You worked with him, righ
t? In exactly what capacity?**

  **He made me.** Her voice is chilly enough to liquefy nitrogen. **I'd rather not discuss it.**

  **Sorry, but it's relevant. I'm still trying to work out what's going on. How Billington turned him. I wonder what the key was, if it's just money, like Billington said, or if there's something else we can use ...** Ramona snorts. **Don't waste your time. When I get out of here I'm going to kick his ass.** I pause. **I think you may be wrong about Billington. I think he has every intention of trying ro buy you. He's got your heart's desire in a box, if you'll just turn a trick for him.**

  **You English guys, you've got such a way with words!

  Look, I don't bribe, okay? It's not a matter of being too honest, it's just not possible. Suppose, for the sake of argument, I go down for him and he gives me whatever it is you're hinting at in return. What happens then? Has that occurred to you? I'd be dead meat, Bob. No way can he let me walk.**

  **Not so fast. I mean, I think he's nuts. But I think he believes that if he succeeds there won't be an 'after,' in the conventional sense; he'll be home clean and dry, immune to any consequences. I put the offer Angleton — my boss — gave me on the table, and Billington just laughed at me! He laughed off about five billion dollars at today's exchange rate.

  He's not in this for the money, he's in it because he thinks he's going to come out of it owning the entire planet.** She snorts theatrically. **How boring, just another billionaire necromancer cruising the Caribbean in his thinly disguised guided missile destroyer, plotting total world domination.** I shudder. **You think you're joking? He monologued at me. With PowerPoint**

  **He what? And you're still sane? Obviously I underestimated you.** I shake my head. **I didn't have much choice. I figure we're stuck here for the duration. Or at least until he gets wherever he's taking us.

  **The other ship.**

  **Yeah, there's that.** I stand up and walk over to the sliding door at the far side of the room. The bathroom beyond it is small but perfectly formed. There's no porthole, though.

  **If we could figure out a way to spring you, could you do your invisibility thing?** The question takes me by surprise. **Not sure. Damn it, they took my Treo. That would make it a whole lot easier. Plus, he's got an occult surveillance service that's going to be murder to evade. You don't use Eileen's make-up, do you? Especially not the mascara?**

  **Do I look like a dumb blonde?** she snorts. **Pale Grace(TM) is for department store sales clerks and middle-management types trying to glam up their suits.**

  **Good for you, because he's got a contagious proximityawareness binding mixed in with it — that's what he married Eileen for, that's why he bankrolled her business. The goddamn seagulls weren't how he was watching us, they were just cover: it was all the thirty-something tourist women. All of them, at least the ones who take the free samples down at the promenade. And I reckon if he's got any sense, all of the crew on this boat will be using it, or something similar.**

  **At least they'll all have beautiful complexions.** She pauses. **So what does he want with us? Why are we still alive?**

  **You're alive because he wants you to do a job. Me ...

  probably because he needs someone to monologue at. He said something about a geas, but I'm not sure what he meant.

  And we're still entangled, so I guess ...** I stop. While I was wibbling, Ramona realized something.

  **You're right, it is the geas,** she says sharply.

  **Which means nothing's going to happen until we arrive.

  So go to sleep, Bob. You're going to need all the sleep you can get before tomorrow.**

  **Lights out.** And with that, she pushes me out of her head, blocking me off from that sudden flash of understanding.

  12: POWER BREAKFAST

  I AWAKEN IN A STRANGE BED THAT FEELS AS IF it's vibrating slightly, with a head like thunder, and muscles I didn't know I had aching in my arms and legs. The thin light of dawn is pouring in through a porthole. Sleep held me down and tried to drown me, but waking comes as fast as a bucket of seawater in the face: I'm on Billington's yacht!

  I roll out of bed and use the bathroom. My eyes are blood-shot and I could strip paint with my chin, but I'm not even remotely sleepy. I'm out of touch with Control! That fact is sitting on my shoulder, screaming in my ear with a megaphone; forget little organizational tics like Griffin, I need to talk to Angleton and I need to talk to him right now, if not about six hours ago, and especially before the upcoming power breakfast.

  Last night's sense of apathetic passivity is a million miles away, so alien that I frown at myself in the mirror: How the fuck could I do that? It's not like me at all!

  It's got to be something to do with this geas that Billington's running on me, the one Ramona refuses to explain in words of one syllable. I can't trust my own reflexes.

  Which sucks mightily. Billington is racing headlong towards a full-scale sanity excursion, he's penetrated the Black Chamber, the auction for JENNIFER MORGUE is a decoy, and I'm in the shit just about up to my eyebrows — and not a snorkel in sight.

  "Right," I mutter to myself. I look at my clothes from last night in distaste. "Let's see." I pull on my trousers and shirt, then pause. Gadgets. Pinky was talking about... toys. I snort.

  I pick up the bow tie, meaning to flick it across the room, then notice something lumpy in either end. That'd be the USB drives with the dog-fucker kit, right? "Ludicrous," I mutter, and roll the thing up. It'd be bloody handy if they'd locked me in a cell with a computer plugged into Billington's shipboard network, but they're not that stupid.

  I stare longingly at the bare chunk of space on the desktop.

  There may be a keyboard stitched into the lining of my cummerbund, but without a machine to plug it into it's about as much use as a chocolate hacksaw.

  With nothing to do but wait for breakfast, I sit down next to the flat-screen TV and glance through the titles on the shelf. There's a bunch of paperback thrillers with titles familiar from the movie series: Thunderball. On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Next to them, a bunch of DVDs. It's all the same goddamn series about the most famous non-existent spy in history. Whoever furnished this room had a James Bond fixation.

  I sigh, and pick up the remote, thinking maybe I can watch a mindless movie for a while. Then the screen comes on, showing a familiar menu on a blue background and I stare at it, transfixed, like a yokel who's never seen a television before.

  Because it's not a TV. It's a flat-screen PC running Windows XP Media Center Edition.

  They can't be that dumb. It's got to be a trap, I gibber to myself. Not even the clueless cannon-fodder-in-jumpsuits who staff any one of the movies on the shelf would be that dumb!

  Or would they? I mean, they've got me locked in a broom closet on the bastard's yacht and everything else is conforming to cliche, so why the hell not?

  I randomly pull one of the DVDs down from the shelf — it's Thunderball, which seems appropriate although this yacht makes the Disco Volante look like a bath toy — and use it as an excuse to run my fingers around the rim of the TV. There's a slot for discs, and then, just below it, the giveaway: two small notches for USB plugs.

  Bingo. Okay, they weren't totally stupid. They took the keyboard and mouse and locked the PC down in kiosk mode with nothing but a TV remote for access. With no administrator password and no keyboard and probably no network connection they figured it was safe. You figured wrong, I admonish them. I push the disc eject button and a tray pops out, and I stick the movie in. Returning to my chair I pick up the cummerbund and bow tie and drop them on the desk in front of the TV. What else? Oh ... I pull on my jacket, frown, then casually take the pen from my inside pocket and toss it on the desk. Finally I sit down and spend the next five minutes doing the obvious thing in the most obvious way imaginable, just in case they're watching.

  I'm about ten minutes into the "Making of ..." documentary feature when suddenly the door opens. "Mr.

  Howard? You're wanted upstairs for a bre
akfast meeting." I turn round then stand up slowly. The guard stares at me impassively from behind his mirrored aviator shades. The uniform hereabouts tends towards black — black beret, black tunic, black boots — and so do the guns: he's not actually pointing his Glock at me right now but he could bring it up and nail me to the bulkhead faster than I could cover the distance between us.

  "Okay," I say, and pause, staring at the weapon. "Are you sure that's entirely safe"

  He doesn't smile: "Don't push your luck."

  I slowly move towards him and he steps back smartly into the corridor before gesturing me to walk ahead of him. He's not alone, and his partner's carrying a cut-down Steyr submachine gun with so many weird sensors bolted to the barrel that it looks like a portable spy satellite.

  "How much is he paying you?" I ask casually, as we reach a staircase leading back up to owner territory.

  Beret Number One grunts. "We got a really good benefits package." Pause. "Better than the Marine Corps."

  "And stock options," adds the other joker. "Don't forget the stock options. How many other dot-coms offer stock options for gun-toting minions"

  "You can't afford us," his partner says casually. "Not after the IPO, anyway." — I can tell when they're trying to fuck with my head; I shut up. At the top of the stairs I glance over my shoulder. "Door on the left," says Beret Number One. "Go on, he won't bite your head off."

  "Unless you make him eat his hash browns cold," adds Beret Number Two.

  I open the door. On the other side of it is a large, exquisitely panelled dining room. The table in the middle of the room is currently set for breakfast and I can smell frying bacon and eggs and toast and fresh coffee. My stomach tries to climb my throat and chow down on my sinuses: I am hungry. Which would be great except I'm simultaneously exposed to an appetite-suppressing sight: two stewards, the Billingtons, and their special breakfast guest, Ramona.

  "Ah, Mr. Howard. Would you care for a seat?" Ellis smiles broadly. Today he's wearing one of those odd collarless Nehru suits that seem to be de rigueur for villains in bad technothrillers — but at least he hasn't shaved his head and acquired a monocle or a dueling scar. Eileen Billington is a violent contrast in her cerise business suit with shoulder pads sized for an American football quarterback. She grimaces at me like I'm something her cat's dragged in, then goes back to nibbling at her butter croissant as if she's had her stomach stapled.