“I went out for drinks with Kayla and, erm, Clyde,” I manage. “And it went on, erm, a little longer than expected. And I suspect I probably thought something along the lines of you not wanting a heinous drunk in your apartment.”
If pursed lips made a sound, then I would hear it right now. Then, “OK, I mean, yes, of course. That makes sense. I just, well, I don’t know, I just thought after yesterday’s conversation about the whole living arrangements thing, that you’d be here, I suppose.”
Oh crap. I wrack my sodden memory a second time. Bits of the previous night tumble back. I sort of wish they hadn’t. I think I was a bit of an ass.
“You weren’t worried, were you?” I ask. That’s the last thing I would want to make her. She has enough on her plate without worrying that I stumbled into the path of some oncoming car.
“No, no. Just… surprised, like I said.” Another pause that I am in no fit state to interpret yet. “Look Arthur, just, when you get in this morning, if you could come straight to my office, OK?”
“Erm, yeah, sure,” I say. “Yes, boss.” A little joke, and not enough to really cover up the fact that I got wasted last night and reneged on a fairly major life promise. And if wincing made a sound, Felicity would probably hear that now.
HALF OF A MONUMENTAL CUP OF COFFEE LATER
Despite its subterranean location, Felicity’s office is full of daylight. Clutching a Starbucks coffee large enough to drown a child in, I blink owlishly at the myriad of bulbs clipped in place along the shelves that line one office wall. Under their watchful gazes, orchids slowly, delicately bloom.
Along the office’s facing wall, there are filing cabinets. They’re easier on my headache.
Between the opposing walls stand two women. Felicity—dressed efficiently in a practical pants suit and sensible shoes—and a younger black woman I don’t recognize. The latter is dressed… well in many ways it mirrors what Felicity’s wearing. It is a pants suit. Sensible, flat-soled shoes are involved. And yet, something is somehow subtly altered. While Felicity’s suit is perhaps a little severe, the other woman’s is more relaxed, and gives off the vague sense of asymmetry. Where Felicity’s shirt is white, the other woman’s is a defiantly bright purple. Felicity’s hair is shoulder length and pulled back in a loose bun. The other woman has cut it short, tight curls cropped close to the skin. Felicity eschews jewelry. The other woman has series of jade studs stitching their way up her right ear.
“Ah,” Felicity says, as I push open the door, “Arthur, excellent. Come in. I want you to meet Hannah Bearings.”
Grossly hungover is not usually how I like to meet people. Or do anything except curl up and wait for tomorrow. But we don’t get a huge number of visitors at MI37, and when they do come, they rarely bear good news.
I try to kick the withered stump of the detective I used to be into action despite the soupy slur of my hangover. Hannah Bearings is in her late twenties. From her clothes, I’d guess she’s ambitious but holding onto her individuality. So not necessarily someone who will play well with others, but possibly someone who’s good enough that they don’t have to. It’s just what she’s good at that I don’t know.
I step up to her, my hand extended, trying to cover up how much I’m assessing her.
“Hi,” I say, “Arthur Wallace, nice to meet you.”
“All right,” she says, with a light cockney accent it seems she’s decided to not lose entirely. She shakes my hand. A firm grip.
“Arthur’s our field lead,” Felicity says.
Which means Ms. Bearings is aware of who we are and what we do. Which means government.
Felicity keeps talking. “You’ll be reporting directly to him,” she says to Hannah.
Which means…
“Say what?”
In terms of welcoming someone to the family fold of MI37, it is possibly not the best way to handle things. But the best way to handle things probably doesn’t also involve me being blindsided while horribly hungover.
“Hannah,” Felicity says with a degree of force that I suspect is meant to reach back in time and erase my faux pas, “is coming to us on transfer from MI6, where she has garnered the very highest praise from her superiors. She is the bright young thing over there and we are very lucky to have her.”
MI6. The last time I had a serious encounter with MI6, I was running through their offices while their agents tried to shoot me. We haven’t really been on speaking terms since.
Hannah feigns being oblivious to all this subtext, examining Felicity’s office plants.
“Orchids, right?” she says, looking up from the shelves.
“Yes.” Felicity is all smiles again.
“Nice,” Hannah says. “They’re tricky, though, right? I fancy spider plants myself. Little buggers spread all over the place and take over everything, but you only have to water them once a week and you’re golden.”
It’s said in a friendly way. There’s a smile behind it. But still I flick a glance at Felicity, try to use the telepathy of a year-long relationship. Really? I want to ask her. You went to 10 Downing Street and all you brought me back was this lousy MI6 agent?
Felicity arches her eyebrows meaningfully, but the exact message is probably about as obvious as mine is. Which means I’m none the wiser.
“So,” I say, trying to affect a tone that’s more jaunty than suspicious, “what’s your background?”
She turns to me, another big friendly grin. “You know,” she says, “standard drill.” She shrugs. “I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.”
I laugh. It’s a little laugh. Because I’m waiting for the actual answer.
It doesn’t come.
“Wait,” I say. “Seriously?”
“Well,” Hannah shrugs, “you know, not trying to be a dick about any of it, and, you know, I’ve seen your file and you’ve done some really stellar stuff, I must say, but I reckon if it came down to a square standoff, I could probably murder you, yeah.”
I look up at Felicity just to make sure this is still reality I’m in.
“She’s part of MI37, Arthur,” Felicity says with patience that seems more than a little feigned. “You’re not part of MI6. Your need-to-know is not her need-to-know. If you ever go and join MI6, I’m sure you can find out lots about what they do.”
I shake my head. It throbs back at me. This is reality. It’s just shittier this morning than it usually is.
“All right,” I say, “so you’re an MI6 badass. That about cover it?”
“Well,” Hannah gives me a look that’s as assessing as any I’ve given her. I’m not the only one trying to work out where the land lies. “I’m trained in small arms, rifles, machine guns, a smattering of heavy artillery pieces. I’m proficient in jujitsu, tae kwon do, capoeira, krav maga, and a few other martial arts. I’m also a pretty decent friend to have in a knife fight. I’ve been a field operative in deep cover for three years, and I speak eight languages. Is that enough for you?”
There is a challenge at the end of the sentence. Whether it’s there consciously or not, I’m unsure.
In the end of course, it is impressive. And we do need more hands in the field.
Except…
Except every time we’ve introduced a new element to the mix somebody has died. Often, to be perfectly honest, it’s been Clyde. But others have fallen along the way. And capable though she may be, Hannah Bearings has not seen what we have seen, has not been prepared for what we deal with. There’s throwing someone in at the deep end and there’s tying concrete blocks to their feet and hurling them into the Marianas Trench.
And I could be the person who pays the price for that…
I shut that line of thinking down. I’ve had enough of that. Today is a new day. I hit the reset button. Everything is OK. I shove my hands deep into my pockets.
“Of course it’s enough,” Felicity says. “Arthur isn’t challenging you. You’ll just find that this job breeds a certain amount of curiosity.” It’s a
smooth recovery.
“Of course,” I manage. “Good to have you on board.”
Hannah Bearings is still weighing me. “Yeah,” she says. “Totally.” Her nod is slight, her smile slighter.
“Now,” Felicity says clapping her hands in a business-like fashion, “I believe Tabitha wanted to talk to us about something she found in the files last night. Arthur, show Hannah to conference room B, would you?”
I hold the door for the newcomer. She slips through. Just as I’m about to follow, Felicity catches my elbow. “That coffee,” she says, “drink it faster.”
CONFERENCE ROOM B
All eyes fall on Hannah as we enter the room. Kayla sits with her back to the white board, feet up on the table, holding a small tub of yogurt, spoon jammed in her mouth. Tabitha and Clyde huddle together at the far end of the table, papers spread out before them, muttering and pointing. They look up, fingers still on the page, tips pressed together.
I buy a second with the last dregs of the coffee then meet the gazes. But Kayla’s mouth is already off and running.
“The feck are you?” she asks Hannah.
“Hannah fucking Bearings,” Hannah replies without missing a beat.
Kayla nods. “All right then.”
I do my best to ignore this preamble. “This is Hannah,” I say to the room, “formerly with MI6 and now a field agent of MI37.” I nod in Kayla’s direction. “That’s Kayla MacDoyle, another of our field agents. She…” I struggle for a job description.
“I feck things up,” Kayla offers. “Professionally.”
Which seems accurate. So I move on, pointing to Clyde. “That’s Clyde Bradley, our magician.” I glance at Hannah to see if that knocks her off her stride, but she just nods.
“Nice one,” she says.
Clyde looks up, leans forward, eyes bright. “Completely charmed to meet you,” he says, “and very excited to have someone new on board. Really looking forward to working with you, which, well I don’t want to put you under any undue pressure, or make you feel as if you’ll be judged excessively, but I just wanted to say that I really think working in the field with you is going to be excellent. Very good feeling. Not a scientific assessment of course, can’t put too much stock in feelings. Well, some mediums with a low reality-barrier threshold can. But I’m not one of them, so I can’t. But still, confident. Totally confident.”
“Rrright.” Hannah drags out the word. And that might have thrown her off her stride a little.
Finally I point at Tabitha. “And that’s Tabitha Mulvani, our researcher.”
Tabitha eyeballs Hannah. “New field agent?” she says.
“Yeah,” Hannah and I both say at the same time. Out of the corner of my eye I see Kayla arch an eyebrow.
“So, I’m not going to be a field agent?” she asks.
Kayla’s other eyebrow pops up.
“No,” I say. This isn’t my mess, it’s Felicity’s. And I realize that I should be being more charitable, but… Well, I’m still hungover, goddamn it.
Tabitha fist pumps. “You,” she says to Hannah, “don’t screw up. I want my library and my laptops. You want balls on the line and threats of death. Keep it that way.”
Hannah just gives Tabitha a thumbs up and swings into a seat.
And it’s not as if she could know that it’s the seat I usually take. And I’m not one of those petty idiots who’s going to force the newbie to take a worse seat, but I am overly aware of Kayla’s raised eyebrow following me as I squeeze past Hannah to take a seat between her and Clyde.
There is a protracted moment of silence.
“So,” says Clyde, “I guess this means you’re not the new guy anymore, Arthur.”
I almost double take. “New guy?” I ask him. “I’ve been here a year now.”
“Well, yes.” He nods. “Totally valid point. Time marches on. Waits for no man. Lot of proverbial stuff. Very busy chap, Time. Or chapess. Don’t mean to be sexist. Though the image is Old Father Time. Though he was probably called that by sexists. Though, nice of them to show support for the seniors. Not ageist of them at least. Old Person Time, perhaps. Though that leads to all sorts of pronoun confusion. Anyway, I am now far from the garden path, in the bushes, floundering in cliché, trying to find my way back to pointing out, though, that you were—up until about a minute ago—technically speaking of course, the newest member of MI37. Now you’re not. Now you’re the old hand. Though not as old as Old Person Time, of course. Not that there would be anything wrong with you being that old. Except, well, I mean even the most pro-senior-citizen advocate couldn’t help but acknowledge that being an old man probably would make this job a lot harder. Difficult to perform acts of derring-do when your hip replacement is acting up, I suspect. Can’t speak from experience, but, well, I think you know what I’m saying.”
At least that makes one of us.
Hannah looks at me. “He always talk like that?”
Something defensive flares up in me. “We don’t judge here,” I say. I’m shocked to hear something close to a snap in my voice.
Hannah doesn’t react though. “Wasn’t, mate,” she says. “It’s just, you know, I’ve been hazed before. Though that did seem like a really bloody weird way to do it.”
“Well…” I flounder a bit, unsure of what direction I’m taking the conversation in. My emotions seem to have gone a little rogue of late. “You’ll find a lot of things are weird at MI37,” I say. Which I think confuses me as much as it does Hannah.
I am saved from digging myself out of this particular hole by Felicity’s arrival. She pushes into the cramped conference room, wedges herself in at the head of the table.
“Hello then,” she says, “I trust you’ve all had time to meet Hannah, so down to business. Tabitha, if you’d take us through your findings.”
Tabitha stands. She’s wearing a featureless gray tube of a dress, her neck and upper torso wreathed in loose gray scarves. It gives her an oddly top-heavy appearance.
“Right,” she says. “Recap: yesterday, in a pub, in the Highlands. Great big robot comes through the floor, attacks everything. We kill it. It knocks over the pub. We all wonder, ‘what the hell?’”
She looks for any signs of dissent. Hannah looks slightly dubious, but keeps her peace for now.
“Nothing in the digital databases,” Tabitha continues, “but we suck at scanning, so not the end of the world. Hit the analog data.” She points at the papers on the data. “Found something.”
She pushes a piece of blue-gray paper across the table, the edges brittle and flaking. Faded schematics recorded in a tight neat hand. Front view, side view. Detailed sketches of cogs meshing together. Tiny, indecipherable notes with arrows pointing to shoulder joints, to plates of armor.
It is not our robot, not exactly, but it is a pretty close cousin, if not a direct relation.
“Prototype schematic,” Tabitha says, “for an Uhrwerkmänn.”
“That means clockwork man in German,” Clyde throws in. “Not really a very imaginative name, but it sounds fantastic.”
Tabitha rolls her eyes at the interruption. “Whatever. Interesting bit: schematics drawn by Professor Joseph Lang.”
She leaves a pause for the reaction that doesn’t come. She hangs her head. “Fucking philistines.”
Clyde looks around the room. “Joseph Lang? Anybody? Seriously?” We all fail to spontaneously know things. “Oh, this is great stuff. Goes right back to the founding of MI37 itself in 1935. The whole discovery of The Book at the peak of Mount Everest, its revelations about the existence of multiple realities, plus bonus details how to access them. It’s the book that triggered the whole magical arms race of the seventies and eighties. Big deal. But the expedition to Everest—”
“Wait,” Hannah interrupts. “Everest weren’t climbed until Edmund Hillary in the fifties.”
“Exactly,” Clyde nods.
Hannah gives Clyde the perplexed stare that I thought I owned the copyright on.
�
��You see,” Clyde says, “the actual first expedition was in 1933, but because of the discovery of The Book, it was all hushed up. Stymied Himalayan exploration for years actually. A not much talked about consequence in the annals of magical history in fact. I considered writing a treatise on it once, but the problem with magical treatises is that they’re usually only read after you’ve died by the people ransacking your tomb. In fact, the whole publishing track in thaumaturgy is disastrous, but I suppose that’s neither here nor there, really. The point is that Joseph Lang was part of that original 1933 expedition.”
And that actually gets my attention. “Joseph Lang was involved in the founding of MI37?” I glance over at Felicity. This looks like it’s news to her as well.
“Oh yes, very much so. The Germans at that time were hugely into the whole occult thing.”
“Wait—” It’s Hannah again, apparently unable to let Clyde’s words just flow. “At that time? You mean, like, when the Nazis were oppressing the shit out of everybody, right?”
Clyde beams. “I do! Top marks. Oh wait, that’s horribly condescending. Scratch that from the record. But totally what I mean. Because that’s really the whole problem here. You see, while fundamental to the discovery of The Book, and the founding of MI37, Joseph Lang was also a hideous, hideous, bigoted arsehole of a Nazi. Terrible human being in almost every conceivable way actually. Brilliant thaumatophysicist, but that’s about all the positive things that can be said about him. He was kicked out of the organization in 1938 due to the whole brewing war thing. Plus the arsehole thing, I hope.”
“So MI37 was founded by a Nazi?” Hannah looks decidedly unimpressed. I would like to be able to take umbrage at this, but unfortunately I’m unimpressed with MI37 right now too.
“Well,” Clyde shrugs a few times for good measure. “One of the founders was a Nazi. One out of fifteen I think. Or maybe fourteen. I think it’s safe to say that less than ten percent of the people who founded the original MI37 followed the tenets of National Socialism. Not sure how that compares to national averages at the time, don’t have the data to hand, but I could look into it, if you wanted me—”
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