The Jennifer Morgue

by Charles Stross

  “But you need me to get aboard his ship because I’m playing a role in some sort of script. While you stay entangled with me so you get to come along, too.” I swallow. “Punching a hole in his firewall.”

  “That’s the idea.”

  “Any idea how to do it?”

  “Well—” a hint of a smile “—Billington usually visits the casino every evening when he’s in range. So I’d say we ought to get back to the hotel and get ready for a high-rolling evening, and try to finesse an invitation. How does that sound?”

  I stand up. “That sounds like a plan,” I say doubtfully. “I expected something a bit more concrete, though.” I glance around. “Where did I put my boxers?”

  WE HEAD BACK UP THE BEACH AND WHEN WE GET to the car Ramona hands me my clothes. By the time I get out of the toilet she’s changed into a white sundress, head scarf, and shades that conceal her eyes. She’s unrecognizable as the naked blonde from the beach. “Let’s go,” she suggests, turning the ignition key. I belt in beside her and she guns the engine, backing out of the parking lot in a spray of sand.

  Ramona drives carefully along the coast road, back towards the west end of the island and the hotels and casinos. I slump down in the passenger seat and check my e-mail as soon as we get adequate cell phone coverage. All that’s waiting for me are two administrative circulars from the office, an almost plaintive request for a Sitrep from Angleton, and an interesting business proposition from the widow of the former president of Nigeria. 10 Ramona doesn’t seem to be in a talkative mood right now, and I’m not sure I want to risk upsetting her by asking why.

  Eventually, as we’re entering Philipsburg, she nods to herself and begins talking. “You’ll want to report in to your support team.” She downshifts a gear and the engine growls. “Keep your station chief off your back, pick up the toys your tech guys have been unpacking, and call home.”

  “Yes. So?” I study the roadside. Pedestrians in bright summer holiday gear, locals in casuals, rickshaws, parked cars. Heat and dust.

  “Just saying.” We’re crawling along. “Then I figure we need to meet up, late afternoon. To go sort out your invitation to the floating party aboard the Mabuse.”

  Late afternoon. A stab of guilt gets to me: it’s about six o’clock back home, and I really ought to call Mo. I’ve got to reassure her that everything’s under control and make sure she doesn’t do something stupid like drop everything and come out here. (Assuming everything is under control, a quiet corner of my conscience reminds me. If you were Mo, and you knew what was going on, what would you do?) “You sound very certain that I’ll get an invite,” I speculate.

  “Oh, I don’t think it’ll be too difficult.” Ramona focuses on the road ahead. “You already got Billington’s attention yesterday. After today, he’ll want another look at you.” She looks pensive. “Just in case, I’ve got some ideas. We can go over them later.”

  I steel myself. “I get the feeling you’re trying very hard not to tell me something that’s not related to the mission,” I begin. “And you know I know but I don’t know what I’m not supposed to know, and so—” I wind down, trying to keep track of all the double-indirect pointers and Boolean operators before I succumb to a stack crash.

  “Not your problem, monkey-boy,” she says with a false smile and a toss of her beautiful blonde hair, now coiling up into tight ringlets as the seawater dries in the breeze over the windscreen. “Don’t worry yourself about me.”

  “What—” My skin crawls.

  She looks at me, her eyes abruptly distant and hard. “You just have to get aboard the yacht, figure out what’s going on, and expedite a solution,” she tells me. “I’ve got to sit it out back here.”

  “But.” I shut my mouth before I can stick any of my feet in it by accident. Then I point my head forwards, watching her out of the corner of my eye. Thin-lipped and grim-faced, knuckles gripping the steering wheel. The mermaid who clutched me to her watery bosom is frightened. Ramona, who plays with her food and never slept with a man who didn’t die within twenty-four hours, is concerned. Driving me back to the hotel and the safe house and a setup where she’ll have to hand me over to people she seems to despise—Ramona, the spy who loves me? No, that dog won’t hunt. It must be something else, but whatever it is, she isn’t talking. So we drive the rest of the way to the hotel in lonely silence, grappling with our respective demons.

  10.

  DEAD LUCKY

  WHEN I GET BACK TO MY HOTEL ROOM I FIND BORIS pacing the carpet like a trapped tiger. “What time you are naming this?” he asks, tapping his heavy stainless steel wristwatch. “Am being on edge of calling in Code Red on you!”

  Pinky has plugged a PlayStation into the TV set and is making zooming sounds, bouncing up and down on the bed; and from the sounds leaking under the bathroom door Brains is testing a radio-controlled hovercraft in the shower.

  “I’ve been running some errands,” I say tiredly. “And then I went swimming.”

  “Swimming?” Boris shakes his head. “Am not enquiring. Are giving Angleton the Sitrep yet?”

  “Oops. My bad.” I pull out the desk chair and slump into it. My forearms and thighs are aching in unaccustomed places: I’m going to feel like shit tomorrow. “How did you get in here?”

  Pinky saves his game and looks round. “Picked the lock,” he says, waving what looks suspiciously like a hotel card key at me.

  “You picked.” I stare at it. “The lock.”

  “Yup.” He flips it at me and I catch it. “It’s a smartcard, got an induction loop instead of the usual dumb mag stripe on the back. Guaranteed to run through the complete list of makers’ override keys in under twenty seconds.”

  “Right.” I put it down carefully.

  “Hey, I’ll want it back in a minute—where’d you think I saved my game?”

  Boris snorts, then stares at me. “Report, Bob, now.”

  “Okay.” I cross my arms. “When I left this morning, I thought I’d check out a hunch. I found out the hard way that Billington’s got a total surveillance lockdown on the French Cul de Sac north of Paradise Peak. Dead birds on Anse Marcel, seagulls everywhere. His people are running zombies. Human ones, too.” Boris looks like he’s about to interrupt, but I keep on talking: “I had a run-in with one of them. Ramona helped me get out of it, and we lost them by going swimming close to the island defense chain. Which has been tampered with, incidentally, compromising the three-mile offshore thaumaturgic-exclusion zone—did you know that? Ramona says her sources say Billington’s going to be back at the casino tonight, so we made a date. How does that fit with your plans?”

  When I finish Boris nods. “Is making progress. Please to be continuing it.” He turns to Pinky: “Get Brains.” To me: “Am authorizing contact tonight. These two are being explain gizmos for self-defense. Call me later.” And he leaves, just as there’s a loud toilet-flushing sound and Brains comes out of the bathroom.

  “Okay,” I say, pointing at the half-inflated, bright yellow life belt hanging round his waist. “What’s that about? And do I want to know?”

  “Just testing.” Brains pushes it down around his feet then steps out of it. “Can I have your dress shoes, please?”

  “My shoes?” I bend down and rummage for them in my luggage. They’re horrible things, shiny patent leather with soles that feel like lumps of wood. “What do you want them for?”

  Pinky is doing something to the PlayStation. “This.” He flourishes another smartcard, which Brains takes and slides into a hitherto invisible seam in the leather tongue of my right shoe.

  “And this,” Brains says, holding up a shoelace.

  “That’s a—”

  “Miniature 100BaseT cable. Pay attention, Bob, you don’t want to lose your network connectivity, do you? It goes in like this and to activate it you twist and pull like that; it uncoils to three meters and the plastic caps expand to fit any standard network socket. It doubles as a field-expedient grounding strap, too. That’s right.
No, you don’t want to tie your shoelaces too tight.”

  I try to stifle a groan. “Guys, is this really necessary? Does it help me do the job?”

  Pinky cocks his head to one side. “Predictive Branch says there’s a ten percent chance of you failing on the job and dying horribly if you don’t take it.” He giggles. “Feeling lucky, punk?”

  “Bah. What do I really need to know?”

  “Here.” Brains tosses a stainless steel Zippo lighter to me: “It’s an antique, don’t lose it. Predictive Branch said it would come in handy.”

  “I don’t smoke. What else?”

  “The usual stuff: There’s a USB memory drive preloaded with a forensic intrusion kit hidden in each end of your dickey-bow, a WiFi-finder on your key ring, a roll-up keyboard in your cummerbund, the pen’s got Bluetooth and doubles as a mouse, and there’s a miniaturized Tillinghast resonator in your left heel. You turn it on by twisting the heel through one-eighty degrees; turn it off the same way. Your other heel is just a heel: We were going to hide a Basilisk gun in it but some ass-hat in Export Controls vetoed our requisition because it was going overseas. Oh, and there’s this.” Brains reaches over to a briefcase on the bed and pulls out a businesslike nylon shoulder holster and a black automatic pistol. “Walther P99, 9mm caliber, fifteen-round magazine, silvercap hollow-points engraved with a demicyclic banishment circuit in ninety-nanometer Enochian.”

  “Banishment rounds?” I ask hesitantly, then: “Hang on.” I hold up one hand: “I’m not cleared for carrying guns in the field!”

  “We figured the exorcism payload means it’s covered by your occult weapons certification. If anyone asks, it’s just a gadget for installing exorcism glyphs at high speed.” Brains sits down on the bed, ejects the magazine, works the action to make sure there’s no round in the chamber, then starts stripping it down. “Word from Angleton is the bad guys are likely to get heavy and he wants you carrying.”

  “Oh my.” I blank for a moment. It’s only about an hour since I sliced some poor bastard’s air hose in half, and having to deal with this so soon afterwards is doing my head in. “Did he really say that?”

  “Yes. We don’t want to end up losing you by accident because someone starts shooting and you’re unarmed, do we?”

  “I guess not.” He passes the shoulder holster to me and I try to figure out how it goes on. “Well, if you’re all done now, maybe you could leave so I can phone home?”

  AFTER PINKY AND BRAINS LEAVE, I CALL DOWN TO room service for a light lunch, put the door chain on, then go run a bath. There’s a wet suit hanging over the shower rail and an oxygen tank leaning up against the toilet. While the bath’s filling I try phoning home, but get the answering machine. I try Mo’s mobile, but that’s switched off, too. She must still be in Dunwich under lockdown. Feeling sorry for myself, I go and rinse the salt off my skin: but I can’t hang around in the bath without thinking of Ramona, and that’s not a healthy sign either. I’m confused about her, I feel guilty whenever I think about Mo, and the smell of saltwater brings back that frightening slow-motion underwater tumble, knife in hand. This isn’t me: I’m just not the cold-blooded killer type. When shit needs kicking and throats need slitting we send in Alan’s goon squad. I’m supposed to be the quiet geek who sits at the back of the computer lab, right?

  Except I signed my name on the line a few years ago, right below the paragraph that said I accepted the Crown’s commission to go forth and perpetrate mayhem in the defense of the realm, as lawfully directed and commanded by my designated superiors. And while most of the time it’s trivial shit—like breaking into an office and leaving evidence to shitcan some poor bastard who’s stumbled too close to the truth—there’s nothing there that says I’m not required to wrestle killers in wet suits or molest alien monsters. Quite the contrary, in fact. I don’t have a license to kill, but I don’t have orders not to kill in the course of my duties, either. Which realization I find extremely disturbing; it’s like the sensation in your stomach the first time you get into a car after getting your driving license, when you suddenly realize there’s no instructor in the seat next to you and this is not a test.

  I wrap myself in a bath sheet and go back out into the bedroom. It’s about one in the afternoon and I’ve got a few hours to kill before Ramona is due back. Lunch shows up and is as blandly tasteless as usual—I swear that there’s a force field in the hotel dimensions that sucks the flavor out of food. I badly want something that’ll distract me from pursuing this morbid introspection. Pinky left the PlayStation behind, so I plop myself down in front of the TV, pick up the controller, and poke at it in a desultory sort of way. Candy-bright graphics and a splash screen flicker by as the machine clunks and whirs, loading; then it launches a road race game, in which I’m driving a variety of cars along winding roads around a jungle-covered island while zombies shoot at me. “Arse,” I mutter, and switch off in disgust. I check that my tablet PC is plugged into all the wards correctly, then draw the curtains and lie down on the bed for a short nap.

  I’m awakened what feels like a split second later by a banging on the door. “Hey, monkey-boy! Rise and shine!”

  Jesus. I’ve been asleep for hours. “Ramona?” I stand up and stagger towards the vestibule. My upper thighs and forearms ache as if I’ve been beaten—must be the swimming. I draw the chain and open the door.

  “Had a good nap?” She raises an eyebrow at me.

  “Got to get—” I pause. “Dressed.” Damn, I haven’t phoned Mo, I realize. Ramona is looking like about a million dollars, in a blue evening dress that clings to her improbably well—it seems to be held on with double-sided sticky tape. There’s several meters of pearl rope wound into her hair: she must have found a handy time warp for the make-up crew to have had time to get her ready for the fashion photo shoot. Meanwhile, I’m wearing yesterday’s underpants and I feel like I’ve been run over by a train.

  “You’re running late,” she says, pushing past me; one nostril wrinkles aristocratically as she surveys the wreckage. She bends over a large carrier bag with the logo of that god-damned tailor on it: “Here, catch.”

  I find myself clutching a pair of boxer shorts. “Okay, I get the message. Give me a minute?”

  “Take ten,” she says, “I’ll go powder my nose.” Then she disappears into the bathroom.

  I groan and retrieve my tuxedo from the leg-well of the desk. There’s a fresh shirt in the bag, and I manage to install myself in it without too much trouble. I leave the goddamn squeaky shoes for last. Then I have a mild anxiety attack when I realize I’ve forgotten the shoulder holster. Should I or shouldn’t I? I’ll probably end up shooting myself in the foot. In the end I compromise—I’ve still got Ramona’s phonegun, so I’ll carry that in one pocket. “I’m ready,” I call.

  “I’ll bet.” She comes out of the bathroom, adjusting her evening bag, and smiles brilliantly. Her smile fades. “Where’s your gun?”

  I pat my jacket pocket.

  “No, no, not that one.” She reaches in and removes the phone-gun, then gestures at the shoulder holster: “That one.”

  “Must I?” I try not to whine.

  “Yes, you must.” I shrug out of my jacket and Ramona helps me into the shoulder rig. Then she straightens my bow tie. “That’s more like it. We’ll have you attending diplomatic cocktail parties in no time!”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of,” I grumble. “Okay, where now?”

  “Back to the casino. Eileen’s throwing a little party in the petit salle, and I’ve got us tickets. Seafood canapés and crappy lounge music with a little gambling thrown in. Plus the usual sex and drugs rich people indulge in when they get bored with throwing their money away. She’s using the party to reward some of her best sales agents and do a little quiet negotiating on the side. I gather she’s got a new supplier to talk to. Ellis won’t be there at first, but I figure if we can get you an invitation onto the ship . . . ?”

  “Okay,” I agree. “Anything else?”
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  “Yes.” Ramona pauses in the doorway. Her eyes seem very large and dark. I can’t look away from them because I know what’s coming: “Bob, I don’t, I don’t want to—” She reaches for my hand, then shakes her head. “Ignore me. I’m a fool.”

  I keep hold of her hand. She tries to pull away. “I don’t believe you,” I say. My heart is beating very hard. “You do, don’t you?”

  She looks me in the eye. “Yes,” she admits. Her eyes are glistening, and in this light I can’t tell whether it’s cosmetics or tears. “But we mustn’t.”

  I manage to nod. “You’re right.” The words feel very heavy to me, to both of us. I can feel her need, a physical hunger for an intimacy she hasn’t allowed herself to indulge in years. It’s not sex, it’s something more. Oh what a lovely mess! She’s been a solitary predator for so long that she doesn’t know what to do with somebody she doesn’t want to kill and eat. I feel ill with emotional indigestion: I don’t think I’ve ever felt for Mo the kind of raw, priapic lust I feel for Ramona, but Ramona is a poisonous bloom—off-limits if I value my life.

  She closes the gap between us, wraps her arms around me, and pulls me against her. She kisses me on the mouth so hard that it makes my hair stand on end. Then she lets go of me, steps back, and smoothes her dress down. “I’d better not do that ever again,” she says thoughtfully. “For both our sakes: it’s too risky.” Then she takes a deep breath and offers me her arm. “Shall we go to the casino?”

  THE NIGHT IS YOUNG. IT’S JUST BEGINNING TO get dark, and sometime while I was sleeping there was a brief deluge of rain. It’s cut the baking daytime heat down a few notches, but steam is rising from the sidewalk in thin wisps and the humidity setting is somewhere between “Amazonian” and “crash dive with the torpedo tubes open.” We stroll past a few street vendors and a bunch of good-time folks, under awnings with bright lights and loud noises. The brightly painted gazebos in front of the restaurants are all full, drowning out the creaking insect life with loud chatter.