The Jennifer Morgue

by Charles Stross

  “Very good.” McMurray turns and begins to descend the staircase at the end of the room. Ramona follows him, eager to get away from the things in the pickle jars behind the glass display panels. “I’m glad to see that you’ve still got a . . . sense of humor, agent Random. Unfortunately this is no laughing matter.” He pauses at the bottom step. “I believe you’ve been here before.”

  Ramona’s hand tightens on the stair rail until her knuckles turn white. “Yes. Sir.”

  “Then I won’t have to explain.” He smiles frighteningly, then walks down the corridor towards one of the display rooms. “I brought you here to see just the one exhibit, this time.”

  Ramona forces herself to follow him. She feels as if she’s walking through molasses, her chest tight with an almost palpable sense of dread. It’s not as if anything here is aimed at me, she tries to tell herself. It’s all dead, already. But that’s not strictly true.

  Most advanced military organizations maintain libraries of weapons, depositories like armories that store one of everything—every handgun, artillery round, mine, grenade, knife—used by any other army that they might face in battle. The exhibits are stored in full working order, with specialist armorers trained in caring for them. Associated with their staff colleges, these depots are a vital resource when training special forces, briefing officers tasked with facing a given enemy, or merely researching future requirements. The Black Chamber is no different: like the Army repository at the Aberdeen Proving Ground, they maintain their own collection. There is a subtle difference, however. The Black Chamber’s archive of reality-warping occult countermeasures is partially alive. Here lie unquiet roadside graves dug by ghoulish reanimators. Over there is a cupboard full of mandrakes, next door to a summoning grid that’s been live for thirty years, the unquiet corpse of its victim dancing an eternal jig within the green-glowing circle, on legs long since worn down to blood-encrusted ivory stumps.

  You can die if you get too close to some of the exhibits in the Ranch. And then they’ll add you to the collection.

  McMurray knows his way through the corridors and passages of the repository. He threads his way rapidly past doorways opening onto vistas that make Ramona’s hair stand on end, then through a gallery lined with glass exhibit cases, some of them covered by protective velvet cloths. Finally he comes to a small side room and stops, beckoning Ramona towards a glass-topped cabinet.

  “You asked about Billington,” he says, his tone thoughtful.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You can cut the ‘sir’ bit; call me Pat.” He half-smiles. “As I was saying. Billington’s current actions worry the Dark Commissioners. In fact, they’re extremely concerned that his motive for purchasing the Explorer and moving it to the Bahamas is to make a retrieval attempt on the eastern JENNIFER MORGUE site—that was in your briefing pack, yes? Good. If it turns out that JENNIFER MORGUE is a chthonian artifact, then an attempted retrieval operation could place us—that is, the United States government, not to mention the human species—in breach of the Third Benthic Treaty. That would be a bad place to go. On the other hand, the rewards to be reaped from such an artifact are huge. And your cousins have a very limited presence in the Caribbean. They prefer the deep ocean. It’s possible that they’re not even aware of the location of the artifact.”

  McMurray turns to stare at the glass-topped cabinet. “Billington’s not doing this for the good of the nation, needless to say. We’re not sure just what he plans to do with JENNIFER MORGUE if he gets his hands on it, but frankly, CenCom isn’t keen to find out. He needs to be stopped. Which is where we run into an embarrassing problem. He already figured we’d take steps to interdict him, so he’s preempted us.” He glances at Ramona, and her blood freezes at his expression.

  “Sir?”

  McMurray gestures at the cabinet. “Look at this.”

  Ramona peers through the glass warily. She sees a wooden tabletop: perfectly mundane, but for a strange diorama positioned in its center. It seems to consist of a pair of dolls, male and female, wearing wedding clothes; adjacent to them are a pair of engagement rings and a model of a stepped wedding cake. The whole diorama is enclosed within a Möbius-loop design in conductive ink, connected to a breadboard analog-digital converter and an elderly PC.

  “This is probably the least dangerous exhibit you’ll find here,” McMurray says calmly, his momentary anger stilled. “You’re looking at a hardware circuit designed to implement a love geas using vodoun protocols and a modified Jellinek-Wirth geometry engine.” His finger traces out the Möbius loop below. “Symbolic representations of the entities to be influenced are placed within a geometry engine controlled by a clocked recursive invocation. There are less visible signifiers here—the skin and hair samples, necessary for DNA affinity matching, and concealed within the dolls—but the intent should be obvious. The two individuals linked by this particular grid have been happily married for sixteen years at this point. It’s a reinforcing loop; the more the subjects work within the framework, the stronger the feedback frame becomes. The geas itself extends its influence by altering the probability gauge metric associated with the subjects’ interactions: outcomes that reinforce the condition are simply rendered more likely to occur while the circuit is operational.”

  Ramona blinks. “I don’t understand.”

  “Obviously.” McMurray steps back, then crosses his arms. “Try to get your head around the fact that it’s a contagion spell that generates compliant behavior. This couple, for example, started out hating each other. If you were to destroy this generator, they’d be in divorce court—or one of them would be in a shallow grave—within weeks. Now bear in mind that Billington’s cruising around the Caribbean in a huge yacht, plotting some kind of scheme. He isn’t stupid. We figure that about six months ago he created a similar hardware-backed geas engine aboard his yacht, the Mabuse. The precise nature of the geas is not entirely clear to us, but it has been extremely detrimental to our counterforce operations—in particular, attempts to act against him through normal channels fail. Telex requests dispatched to the Cayman police force via INTERPOL get unaccountably lost, FBI agents develop random brain tumors, associates who might plea-bargain their way to giving evidence wake up embedded in concrete foundations, that sort of thing. CenCom’s not convinced, but Sensor Ops believes that Billington has used the geas engine to create a Hero trap—only a single agent conforming to the right archetype can actually approach him; and even then, the geas will screw with their ability to take correct action. And because Billington figured he’s got the most reason to be afraid of us, he picked a goddamn limey as the Hero archetype.”

  Ramona shakes her head. “We can’t get to him ourselves?”

  “I didn’t say that.” McMurray walks towards the door, then pauses in front of a picture on the wall. “Look.”

  Ramona stares at the picture. It’s a photograph of an oriental longhair cat, reposing on a sofa. The cat is well-groomed and white, but lacks the distinctive pinkish eyes characteristic of albinism. It stares at the camera with haughty disdain.

  “I’ve seen that cat before,” she murmurs, chewing her lip. She glances at McMurray: “Is this what I think it is?”

  McMurray nods. “It’s a show-grade Persian cat, a tom. D’Urbeville Marmeduke the Fourth. Billington acquired this—pet is perhaps too loose a word, perhaps familiar is closer to the truth—some time ago. Probably when he began planning his current venture. He keeps him aboard the Mabuse. Fluffy white cat, yacht cruising around the Caribbean, huge mother ship with a secret undersea module—this geas isn’t powered by some goddamn dolls and a wedding ring, agent Random, it’s got legs. It’d take a miracle for anyone except the Brits to get close to him. One Brit in particular—an agent who doesn’t exist.” Then he stares at Ramona. “Except we’ve figured out a loophole, one that’ll let us reach out and touch Billington where it hurts. You are going to go in through that loophole, you and me. And you will nail Billington’s head to the table to prev
ent JENNIFER MORGUE Two from falling into the wrong hands.

  “Here’s how we’re going to do it . . .”

  THREE PEOPLE SIT IN A CONFERENCE ROOM WITH bricked-up windows in London. The slide projector clunks to an empty slide and Angleton leans over to switch it off. For a minute there’s silence, broken only by the emphysemic rasp of Angleton’s breathing.

  “Bastard.” Mo’s voice is cold and superficially emotionless.

  “We’re going to get him back, Mo, I promise you.” Barnes’s voice is flat and assured.

  “But damaged.”

  Angleton clears his throat.

  “I can’t believe you did this,” she says bitterly.

  “We didn’t choose to, girl.” His voice is a gravelly rasp, hoarse from too many late-night meetings this past week.

  “I can’t believe you let some snake oil defense contractor get the jump on you. Using it as an excuse. Shit, Angleton, what do you expect me to say? The bait-and-switch you’re planning is stupid enough to start with, and you’ve handed my boyfriend over to a sex vampire and I’m supposed to lie back and think of England? You expect me to tamely pick up the pieces when she’s finished banging his brains out and pat him on the head and take him home and patch his ego up? What am I meant to do, turn into some kind of angel-nurse-child-minder figure when all this is over? You’ve got a fucking nerve!” She’s got the violin case by the neck and she’s leaning across the table towards Angleton, throwing the words in his face. She’s too close to see Barnes staring at her fingers on the neck of the instrument case like it’s the barrel of a gun, and he’s trying to judge whether she’s going to reach for the trigger.

  “You’re understandably upset—”

  “Understandably?” Mo stands up, shifting the case to the crook of her left arm as she toys with the clamp alongside its body. “Fuck you!” she snarls.

  Angleton pushes the file across the table at her. “Your tickets.”

  “Fuck you and your tickets!” She’s making chicken-choking motions with the fingers of her right hand, the other hand vaguely patting at the body of the violin case. Barnes slides to his feet, backing away, his right hand half-raised to his jacket until he catches Angleton’s minute shake of the head. “And your fucking grade-six geas!” Her voice is firm but congested with emotion. “I’m out of here.”

  She freezes in place for a moment as if there’s something more to say, then grabs the file and storms out of the conference room, slamming the door behind her so hard that the latch fails and it bounces open again. Barnes stares after her; then, seeing the wide eyes and open mouth of the receptionist, he nods politely and pulls the door shut.

  “Do you think she’ll take the assignment?” he asks Angleton.

  “Oh yes.” Angleton stares bleakly at the door for a few seconds. “She’ll hate us, but she’ll do it. She’s operating inside the paradigm. In the groove, as Bob would say.”

  “I was afraid for a minute that I was going to have to take her down. If she lost it completely.”

  “No.” Angleton gathers himself with a visible effort and shakes his head. “She’s too smart. She’s a lot tougher than you think, otherwise I wouldn’t have put her on the spot like that. But don’t sit with your back to any doors until this is all over and we’ve got her calmed down.”

  Barnes stares at the pitted green desktop. “I could almost pity that Black Chamber agent you’ve hitched Bob to.”

  “Those are the rules of the game.” Angleton shrugs heavily. “I didn’t write them. You can blame Billington, or you can blame the man with the typewriter, but he’s been dead for more than forty years. O’Brien’s not made of sugar and spice and all things nice. She’ll cope.” He stares at Barnes bleakly. “She’ll have to. Because if she doesn’t, we’re all in deep shit.”

  9.

  SKIN DIVING

  ★★THAT’S INTERESTING,★★ RAMONA SAYS TO THE pitch darkness as I choke on a throatful of stinging cold saltwater, ★★I didn’t know you could do that.★★ My chest is burning and it feels like ice picks are shoving at my eardrums as I begin to thrash around. I can feel my heart pounding like a trip hammer as the fear grips me like a straitjacket. I manage to bang one elbow on the side of the tunnel, a sharp stab of pain amidst the black pressure. ★★Stop struggling.★★

  Slim arms slide around my chest; her heart is hammering as she hugs me to her, pulling my face between her breasts. She drags me down like a mermaid engulfing a drowning sailor and I stiffen, panicking as I begin to exhale. Then we’re in a bigger space—I can feel it opening up around me—and suddenly I don’t need to breathe anymore. I can feel her/our gills soaking in the cool refreshing water, like air off a spring meadow, and I can feel her borrowed underwater freedom again.

  ★★Where are we?★★ I ask, shuddering. ★★What the hell was that?★★

  ★★We’re right under the platform’s central deflection circuit. I figure it throttled our link while we were passing through.★★

  My eyes are starting to adjust and I can see a diffuse green twilight. A black ceiling squats above us, rough and pitted as I run my fingertips across it: the tunnel is a square opening in the middle of a room-sized dome under the middle of the flat ceiling. Off to the sides I can just about see other black silhouettes, support pillars of some sort that vanish into the murk below. Beyond them, the turbidity speaks of open seas.

  ★★I thought it was poured onto the bottom?★★

  ★★Nope. The reef comes to within meters of the surface, but offshore it falls away rapidly; the bottom hereabouts is nearly sixty meters down. They built it on the edge of an undersea cliff and jacked it off the bottom with those pillars. ★★

  ★★Right, right.★★ I experiment, pushing off and swimming a little distance away from her until the tightness in my chest begins to return. I can make it to about eight meters out on my own, down here in the penumbra of the coastal defense ward. I turn and drift slowly back towards her. ★★What was it you were wanting to tell me? Before we got interrupted.★★

  Her face is a ghostly shade in the twilight. ★★No time. The bad guys are coming.★★

  ★★Bad guys—★★ I hear a distant churning rumble and look up, out from under the poured concrete ceiling. ★★Let me see. They’ve got spear guns?★★

  ★★Good guess, monkey-boy. Follow me.★★ She swims out towards one of the pillars and I follow hastily, afraid of being left behind by our bubble of entangled metabolic processes.

  The pillar is as thick as my torso, rough-pored concrete covered with lumpy barnacles and shells and a few weird growths that might be baby corals. Beyond it, the open sea: greenness above us—we must be at least ten meters down— and darkness below. Ramona pulls her knees up and rolls head down, then kicks, spearing into the gloomy depths. I swallow, then turn and clumsily follow her. My inner ear is churning but I can almost fool it into thinking I’m climbing alongside the fat, gray pillar. I feel a bit breathless, but not too bad—all things considered. ★★Are you doing okay?★★ I ask.

  ★★I’m okay.★★ Ramona’s inner voice is tense, like she’s breathing for two of us.

  ★★Slow down, then.★★ There’s a great beige wall looming behind us in the gloom, bulging closer to the pillar. In the distance I see the streamlined torpedo silhouettes of hunting fishes. ★★Let’s get between the pillar and the cliff face.★★

  Distant plopping, bubbling noises from above. ★★Here they come.★★ Ramona peers up towards the surface.

  ★★C’mon.★★ The cleft between the pillar and the rock face is about a meter wide at this depth. I swim into it then reach out and take her hand. She drifts towards me, still staring up at the distant sky, as I pull her into the shadow of the pillar. ★★How long can we hide down here? If they figure we’re just skinny-dippers, they may not think to come this deep.★★

  ★★No such luck.★★ She closes her eyes and leans back against me. ★★Have you ever killed anyone, Bob?★★

  �
�★Have I ever ... ?★★ It depends what you mean by anyone. ★★Only paranormal entities. Does that count?★★

  ★★No. Has to be human.★★ She tenses. ★★I should have asked earlier.★★

  ★★What do you mean, has to be human?★★

  ★★That’s an oversight,★★ she says tightly. ★★You were supposed to be blooded.★★

  ★★What are you—★★

  ★★The geas. You have to kill one of them.★★ She turns round slowly, her hair swirling around her head like a dark halo. Here we are under twenty meters of seawater and my mouth’s gone as dry as the desert. ★★There are steps you have to carry out in sequence in order to adopt your role in the eigenplot. Jeopardy in a distant city, meet the dark anima, kill one of the other side’s assassins—at least one, more would be better—and then we have to figure out a way around my—damn, here they come. We’ll have to cover this later. Get ready.★★

  She shoves something hard into my hand. After a moment’s confusion I realize it’s the handle of a vicious-looking knife with a serrated edge. Then she vanishes into the shadows lining the cliff face. I glance round as a shadow glides overhead: tracking up and over I see a diver in a wet suit, head down, peering into the depths.

  I pass through a moment of acute disbelief and resentment. I’ve been in mortal danger before, but I’m not used to being in mortal danger from humans. It feels wrong. Any one of Alan’s mad bastards is probably capable of whacking half a dozen al Qaeda irregulars before breakfast and not working up an existential sweat, but I’m not prepared for this. I can shoot at targets, sure, and I’m death on wheels when it comes to terminating cases of demonic possession with extreme prejudice, but the idea of killing a real human being in cold blood, some eating, breathing, sleeping guy with a job on a rich man’s yacht, makes all the alarm bells in my head go tilt. Trouble is, I also have a deep conviction in my guts that whatever the hell Ramona is on about, she’s right. I’m here for a purpose, and I’ve got to move my feet through the occult dance steps in the right sequence or it’ll all be for nothing. And it doesn’t matter what I want or don’t want if Angleton’s right and Billington is gearing up to drop the hammer on us. When you come down to it, if there’s a war on, the bombs don’t care whether they’re falling on pacifists or patriots. And speaking of bombs . . .