“Just what—” I swallow “—are we supposed to be working on?”
She smiles. “Baccarat.” She finishes her G&T and stands up with a swish of silk: “I’ll be seeing you later, Robert. Until tonight . . .”
I BUY ANOTHER BEER TO CALM MY RATTLED nerves and hunker down in a carnivorous leather sofa at the far side of the bar. When I’m sure the bartender isn’t watching me I pull out my Treo, run a highly specialized program, and dial an office extension in London. The phone rings four times, then the voice mail picks it up. “Boss? Got a headache. A Black Chamber operative called Ramona showed up. She claims that we’re supposed to be working together. What the hell’s going on? I need to know.” I hang up without bothering to wait for a reply. Angleton will be in around six o’clock London time, and then I’ll get my answer. I sigh, which draws a dirty look from a pair of overdressed chancers at the next table. I guess they think I’m lowering the tone of the bar. A sense of acute loneliness comes crashing down. What am I doing here?
The superficial answer is that I’m here on Laundry business. That’s Capital Laundry Services to anyone who rings the front doorbell or cold-calls the switchboard, even though we haven’t operated out of the old offices above the Chinese laundry in Soho since the end of the Second World War. The Laundry has a long memory. I work for the Laundry because they gave me a choice between doing so . . . or not working for anyone, ever again. With 20/20 hindsight I can’t say I blame them. Some people you just do not want to leave outside the tent pissing in, and in my early twenties, self-confident and naïve, I was about as safe to leave lying around unsupervised as half a ton of sweating gelignite. These days I’m a trained computational demonologist, that species of occult practitioner who really can summon spirits from the vasty deep: or at least whatever corner of our local Calabi-Yau manifold they howl and gibber in, insane on the brane. And I’m a lot safer to have around these days—at least I know what precautions to use and what safety standards to obey: so call me a bunker full of smart bombs.
Most Laundry work consists of tediously bureaucratic form-filling and paper-pushing. About three years ago I got bored and asked if I could be assigned to active service. This was a mistake I’ve been regretting ever since, because it tends to go hand-in-hand with things like being rousted out of bed at four in the morning to go count the concrete cows in Milton Keynes, which sounds like a lot more fun than it actually is; especially when it leads to people shooting at you and lots more complicated forms to fill in and hearings in front of the Audit Committee. (About whom the less said the better.)
But on the other hand, if I hadn’t switched to active service status I wouldn’t have met Mo, Dr. Dominique O’Brien—except she hates the Dominique bit—and from this remove I can barely imagine what life would be like without her. At least, without her in principle. She’s been on one training course or another for months on end lately, doing something hush-hush that she can’t tell me about. This latest course has kept her down at the secure facility in Dunwich Village for four weeks now, and two weeks before that I had to go to the last liaison meeting, and frankly, I’m pining. I mentioned this to Pinky at the pub last week, and he snorted and accused me of carrying on like I was already married. I suppose he’s right: I’m not used to having somebody wonderful and sane in my life, and I guess I’m a bit clingy. Maybe I should talk about it with Mo, but the subject of marriage is a bit touchy and I’m reluctant to raise it—her previous matrimonial experience wasn’t a happy one.
I’M ABOUT HALFWAY DOWN MY BEER AND THINKING about calling Mo—if she’s off work right now we could chat—when my phone rings. I glance at it and freeze: it’s Angleton. I key the cone of silence, then answer: “Bob here.”
“Bob.” Angleton’s voice is papery-thin and cold, and the data compression inflicted by the telephone network and the security tunnel adds a hollow echo to it. “I got your message. This Ramona person, I want you to describe her.”
“I can’t. She was wearing a glamour, level three at least— it nearly sent me cross-eyed. But she knows who I am and what I’m here for.”
“All right, Bob, that’s about what I expected. Now this is what I want you to do.” Angleton pauses. I lick my suddenly dry lips. “I want you to finish your drink and go back to your room. However, rather than entering, I want you to proceed down the corridor to the next room along on the same side, one number up. Your support team should be checked in there already. They’ll continue the briefing once you’re in the secure suite. Do not enter your room for the time being. Do you understand?”
“I think so.” I nod. “You’ve got a little surprise job lined up for me. Is that it?”
“Yes,” says Angleton, and hangs up abruptly.
I put my beer down, then stand up and glance round. I thought I was here for a routine committee meeting, but suddenly I find I’m standing on shifting sands, in possibly hostile territory. The middle-aged swingers glance disinterestedly at me, but my wards aren’t tingling: they’re just who they appear to be. Right. Go directly to bed, do not eat supper, do not collect . . . I shake my head and get moving.
To get to the elevator bank from the bar requires crossing an expanse of carpet overlooked by two levels of balconies—normally I wouldn’t even notice it but after Angleton’s little surprise the skin on the back of my neck crawls, and I clutch my Treo and my lucky charm bracelet twitchily as I sidle across it. There aren’t many people about, if you discount the queue of tired business travelers checking in at the desk, and I make it to the lift bank without the scent of violets or the tickling sense of recognition that usually prefigures a lethal manifestation. I hit the “up” button on the nearest elevator and the doors open to admit me.
There is a theory that all chain hotels are participants in a conspiracy to convince the international traveler that there is only one hotel on the planet, and it’s just like the one in their own hometown. Personally, I don’t believe it: it seems much more plausible that rather than actually going somewhere I have, in fact, been abducted and doped to the gills by aliens, implanted with false and bewildering memories of humiliating security probes and tedious travel, and checked in to a peculiarly expensive padded cell to recover. It’s certainly an equally consistent explanation for the sense of disorientation and malaise I suffer from in these places; besides which, malevolent aliens are easier to swallow than the idea that other people actually want to live that way.
Elevators are an integral part of the alien abduction experience. I figure the polished fake-marble floor and mirror-tiled ceiling with indirect lighting conspire to generate a hypnotic sense of security in the abductees, so I pinch myself and force myself to stay alert. The lift is just beginning to accelerate upwards when my phone vibrates, so I glance at the screen, read the warning message, and drop to the floor.
The lift rattles as it rises towards the sixth floor. My guts lighten: We’re slowing! The entropy detector wired into my phone’s aerial is lighting up the screen with a grisly red warning icon. Some really heavy shit is going on upstairs, and the closer we get to my floor the stronger it is. “Fuck fuck fuck,” I mumble, punching up a basic countermeasure screen. I’m not carrying: this is supposed to be friendly territory, and whatever’s lighting up the upper levels of the Ramada Treff Page Hotel is—I briefly flash back to another hotel in Amsterdam, a howling wind sucking into the void where a wall should be—
Clunk. The door slides open and I realize at the same instant that I should have leapt for the lift control panel and the emergency stop button. “Shit,” I add—the traditional last word—just as the flashing red dial on my phone screen whisks counterclockwise and turns green: green for safety, green for normal, green to show that the reality excursion has left the building.
“Zum Teufel!”
I glance up stupidly at a pair of feet encased in bulletproof-looking, brown leather hiking boots, then further up at the corduroy trousers and beige jacket of an elderly German tourist. “Trying to get a signal,” I mut
ter, and scramble out of the lift on all fours, feeling extremely stupid.
I tiptoe along the beige-carpeted corridor to my room, racking my brains for an explanation. This whole set-up stinks like a week-old haddock: what’s going on? Ramona, whoever the hell she is—I’d put hard money on her being mixed in with it. And that entropy blip was big. But it’s gone now. Someone gating in? I wonder. Or a proximal invocation? I pause in front of my door and hold my hand above the door handle for a few seconds.
The handle is cold. Not just metal-at-ambient cold, but frigid and smoking-liquid-nitrogen cold.
“Oops,” I say very quietly, and keep on walking down the corridor until I arrive at the next room door. Then I pull out my phone and speed-dial Angleton.
“Bob, Sitrep.”
I lick my lips. “I’m still alive. While I was in the elevator my tertiary proximity alarm redlined then dropped back. I got to my room and the door handle feels like it’s measuring room temperature in single-digit Kelvins. I’m now outside the adjacent door. I figure it’s a hit and unless you tell me otherwise I’m calling a Code Blue.”
“This isn’t the Code Blue you’re here to deal with.” Angleton sounds dryly amused, which is pretty much what I expect from him. “But you might want to make a note that your activation key is double-oh-seven. Just in case you need it later.”
“You what?” I glare at the phone in disbelief, then punch the number into the keypad. “Jesus, Angleton, someday let me explain this concept called password security to you. I’m not meant to be able to hack my own action locks and start shooting on a whim—”
“But you didn’t, did you?” He sounds even more amused as my phone beeps twice and makes a metallic clicking noise. “You may not have time to ask when the shit hits the fan. That’s why I kept it simple. Now give me a Sitrep,” he adds crisply.
“I’m going live.” I frantically punch a couple of buttons and invisible moths flutter up and down my spine; when they fade away the corridor looks darker, somehow, and more threatening. “Half-live. My terminal is active.” I fumble around in my pocket and pull out a small webcam, click it into place in the expansion slot on top of my phone. Now my phone has got two cameras. “Okay, SCORPION STARE loaded. I’m armed. What can I expect?”
There’s a buzzing noise from the door lock next to me and the green LED flashes. “Hopefully nothing right now, but . . . open the door and go inside. Your backup team should be in place to give you your briefing, unless something’s gone very wrong in the last five minutes.”
“Jesus, Angleton.”
“That is my name. You shouldn’t swear so much: the walls have ears.” He still sounds amused, the omniscient bastard. I don’t know how he does it—I’m not cleared for that shit—but I always have a feeling that he can see over my shoulder. “Go inside. That’s an order.”
I take a deep breath, raise my phone, and open the door.
“Hiya, Bob!” Pinky looks up from the battered instrument case, his hands hovering over a compact computer keyboard. He’s wearing a fetching batik sarong, a bushy handlebar moustache, and not much else: I’m not going to give him the pleasure of knowing just how much this disturbs me, or how relieved I am to see him.
“Where’s Brains?” I ask, closing the door behind me and exhaling slowly.
“In the closet. Don’t worry, he’ll be coming out soon enough.” Pinky points a digit at the row of storage doors fronting the wall adjacent to my room. “Angleton sent us. He said you’d need briefing.”
“Am I the only person here who doesn’t know what’s going on?”
“Probably.” He grins. “Nothing to worry about, ol’ buddy.” He glances at my Treo. “Would you mind not pointing that thing at me?”
“Oh, sorry.” I lower it hastily and eject the second camera that turns it into a SCORPION STARE terminal, a basilisk device capable of blowing apart chunks of organic matter within visual range by convincing them that some of their carbon nuclei are made of silicon. “Are you going to tell me what’s happening?”
“Sure.” He sounds unconcerned. “You’re being destiny-entangled with a new partner, and we’re here to make sure she doesn’t accidentally kill and eat you before the ritual is complete.”
“I’m being what?” I hate it when I squeak.
“She’s from the Black Chamber. You’re supposed to be working together on something big, and the old man wants you to be able to draw on her abilities when you need help.”
“What do you mean draw on her? Like I’m a trainee tattooist now?” I’ve got a horrible feeling I know what he’s talking about, and I don’t like it one little bit: but it would explain why Angleton sent Pinky and Brains to be my backup team. They’re old housemates, and the bastard thinks they’ll make me feel more comfortable.
The closet door opens and Brains steps out. Unlike Pinky he’s decently dressed, for leather club values of decency. “Don’t get overexcited, Bob,” he says, winking at me: “I was just drilling holes in the walls.”
“Holes—”
“To observe her. She’s confined to the pentacle on your bedroom carpet; you don’t need to worry about her getting loose and stealing your soul before we complete the circuit. Hold still or this won’t work.”
“Who’s in what pentacle in my bedroom?” I take a step back towards the door but he’s approaching me, clutching a sterile needle.
“Your new partner. Here, hold out a hand, this won’t hurt a bit—”
“Ouch!” I step backwards and bounce off the wall, and Brains manages to get his drop of blood while I’m wincing.
“Great, that’ll let us complete the destiny lock. You know you’re a lucky man? At least, I suppose you’re lucky—if you’re that way inclined—”
“Who is she, dammit?”
“Your new partner? She’s a changeling sent by the Black Chamber. Name of Ramona. And she is stacked, if that sort of thing matters to you.” He pulls an amused face, oh so tolerant of my heterosexual ways.
“But I didn’t—”
A toilet flushes, then the bathroom door opens and Boris steps out. And that’s when I know I’m in deep shit, because Boris is not my normal line manager: Boris is the guy they send out when something has gone terribly wrong in the field and stuff needs to be cleaned up by any means necessary. Boris acts like a cut-rate extra in a Cold War spy thriller—right down to the hokey fake accent and the shaven bullet-head—although he’s about as English as I am. The speech thing is a leftover from a cerebral infarction, courtesy of a field invocation that went pear-shaped.
“Bob.” He doesn’t smile. “Welcome to Darmstadt. You come for joint-liaison framework. You are attending meeting tomorrow as planned: but are also being cleared for AZORIAN BLUE HADES as of now. Are here to brief, introduce you to support team, and make sure you bond with your, your, associate. Without to be eated.”
“Eaten?” I ask. I must look a trifle tense because even Boris manages to pull an apologetic expression from somewhere. “What is this job, exactly? I didn’t volunteer for a field mission—”
“Know you do not. We are truly sorry to put this on you,” says Boris, running a hand over his bald head in a gesture that gives the lie to the sentiment, “but not having time for histrionics.” He glances at Brains and gives a tiny nod. “First am giving briefing to you, then must complete destiny-entanglement protocol with entity next door. After that—” he checks his watch “—are being up to you, but estimating are only seven days to save Western civilization.”
“What?” I know what my ears just heard but I’m not sure I believe them.
He stares at me grimly, then nods. “If is up to me, are not be relying on you. But time running out and is short on alternatives.”
“Oh Jesus.” I sit down on the sole available chair. “I’m not going to like this, am I?”
“Nyet. Pinky, the DVD please. It is being time to expand Robert’s horizons . . .”
2.
GOING DOWN TO DUNWICH
Th
e river of time may wait for no man, but sometimes extreme stress causes it to run shallow. Cast the fly back four weeks and see what you catch, reeling in the month-old memories . . .
IT’S LATE ON A RAINY SATURDAY MORNING IN February, and Mo and I are drinking the remains of the breakfast coffee while talking about holidays. Or rather, she’s talking about holidays while I’m nose-deep in a big, fat book, reacquainting myself with the classics. To tell the truth, each interruption breaks my concentration, so I’m barely paying attention. Besides, I’m not really keen on the idea of forking out money for two weeks in self-catering accommodations somewhere hot. We’re supposed to be saving up the deposit for a mortgage, after all.
“How about Crete?” she asks from the kitchen table, drawing a careful red circle around three column-inches of newsprint.
“Won’t you burn?” (Mo’s got classic redhead skin and freckles.)
“We in the developed world have this advanced technology called sunblock. You may have heard of it.” Mo glares at me. “You’re not paying attention, are you?”
I sigh and put the book down. Damn it, why now? Just as I’m getting to Tanenbaum’s masterful and witty takedown of the OSI protocol stack . . . “Guilty as charged.”
“Why not?” She leans forwards, arms crossed, staring at me intently.
“Good book,” I admit.
“Oh. Well that makes it all right,” she snorts. “You can always take it to the beach, but you’ll be kicking yourself if we wait too long and the cheap packages are all over-booked and we’re left with choosing between the dregs of the Club 18-30 stuff, or paying through the nose, or one of us gets sent on detached duty again because we didn’t notify HR of our vacation plans in time. Right?”
“I’m sorry. I guess I’m just not that enthusiastic right now.”
“Yes, well, I just paid my Christmas credit card bill, too, love. Face it, by May we’re both going to be needing a vacation, and they’ll be twice as expensive if you leave booking it too late.”
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