Dead Lies Dreaming

by Charles Stross

  Doc handed over his faked driving license and the stolen cash card Eve had provided. There was a bit of to-ing and fro-ing with a PINsentry reader and a computer screen, then Granger asked some obvious security questions that they’d both been briefed on—date of birth, postal code, nothing remotely challenging. Then Granger unwound infinitesimally. “You just want to check your safe deposit box?” he asked.

  “Yes. There are some papers in it and I’m afraid my computer ate its hard disk last week, so I just need to copy down some numbers, otherwise my accountant will shout at me.” Doc leaned back, mirroring Granger’s posture.

  “You just want to…” Granger mumbled under his breath. “Yes, well, that sounds entirely normal. You’ll need to come into the back office,” he added, so studiously offhand that Imp instantly flipped into paranoid alertness: It’s a trap, Admiral! “Follow me, please?” Granger stood and Doc copied him. Against his better judgment, Imp rose.

  “After you,” Doc murmured.

  Granger led them into a corridor running into the back of the building. Offices with interior windows and doors opened off it to either side. (The security door and the tellers’ counters appeared not to be so easily accessible from this side of the building.) He ushered them into one of the offices. “If you wait here, I’ll have Miss Deere bring you your safe deposit box,” he said. His moustache writhed in an approximation of a smile. “Don’t go anywhere,” he muttered rapidly. He ducked out into the corridor, pulling the door shut.

  “I’ve got a feeling—” Imp started, before Doc elbowed him in the ribs and side-eyed a corner of the room. Imp followed Doc’s line of sight—“a feeling deep inside,” he continued in a squeaky falsetto, as badly out of tune as a grand piano with a buckled frame—“must be lunchtime,” he concluded. “Laibach, in case you were wondering.”

  “Really? I thought it was the Beatles.”

  Doc was twitching his cheeks in what was probably a Morse code of his own invention.

  “I really need to go urgently,” Imp said, bouncing up and down in his chair, “to the loo.”

  “Just hold it.” Doc looked irritated. “We’ll be done in ten minutes.”

  Imp took a deep breath and held it. That’s what I’m afraid of. Someone was coming. He hated this part, the rising tension as a job came to life. Get a grip, he told himself. The door handle turned and the door opened to admit a woman in a dark trouser suit. “Which of you two gentlemen is Mr. Harris?” she asked, glancing at them: “I’m Ms. Deere.” Before either of them could move, she nudged the door shut: it latched with an ominous click.

  Ring ring, Imp thought, you’re a ringer. Something about her bearing told him she was no more a bank manager than he was. It took him a moment to register what was wrong: she was wearing black Doc Martens shoes, not office-appropriate heels. She had an ID badge on a lanyard, but it was back-to-front and tucked behind one jacket lapel, rendering it unreadable. Floor security, he figured. But she was carrying Bernard’s bank deposit box, so there was still a chance they could bluff their way through and out the other side, so stay cool, Imp—

  “He’s just here to look inside the box,” Imp told her, giving a little nudge, a push in the direction of plausibility. An instant stab of pain told him that Deere was warded. It wasn’t as strong as the one Eve had been wearing, but it still hurt like biting down on an olive pit.

  “I’ll handle this,” Doc said, sparing Imp an irritated look.

  Deere didn’t seem to have noticed the nudge. She placed the box on the table. Locked. “Can I see some ID?” she asked, rolling out a totally fake smile: “For both of you.”

  “Certainly,” said Doc, reaching for his wallet, just as Imp patted his front pocket and said, “Shit.” His eyes widened as he conjured up the mind-set of a man who’d just discovered he’d lost his wallet on the underground: “Shit! I’ve left my—”

  “There, there, dear.” Doc patted his arm. “You probably put it in the wrong pocket again.”

  While Imp made a show of checking his jacket and trouser pockets, Ms. Deere scrutinized Doc’s driving license and card minutely. Finally she admitted, “This appears to be in order, Mr. Harris.” She returned his card, then reached into her jacket pocket for a bunch of keys—Wait, what kind of woman’s suit jacket has pockets? Imp worried—and unlocked the strong box.

  “Voila.” Ms. Deere stepped out of the way, leaving the contents of the box to Doc and Imp. It did not escape Imp’s notice that she had taken up a position between them and the door. Nor did he fail to notice that she was balanced on the balls of her feet, arms held loosely by her sides, almost like some kind of martial arts enthusiast waiting for trouble to kick off. Or that she’d noticed him noticing her watching him.

  Doc reached towards the box and slowly turned it so that the contents were visible. There were a couple of plastic boxes inside, like cigarette packets only three or four times as thick. Are those diskettes? Imp wondered. There were also some papers and an envelope. Doc pulled out the envelope and looked at the name on it: Evelyn Starkey. So that’s what she’s calling herself these days. “Huh. I think I need to update this,” Doc grunted.

  “Who is Evelyn Starkey?” asked Ms. Deere.

  “My sister—” Imp bit his tongue so hard he nearly drew blood. What did I just say? The alarm bells in his head were ringing deafeningly loud, now; bank guards were emphatically not paid to ask customers questions like that.

  “Just asking,” she said guardedly. “You going to be long?”

  “I hope not,” Doc muttered. He pulled out the sheet of paper from inside the envelope and laid it on the table. “Would you mind photographing this? I’ll write up a fresh copy when I get home,” he told Imp, who was already reaching for his Samsung. “Or,” Doc continued, “I don’t suppose you have a copier here?” he asked Ms. Deere: “I could amend and sign it right now, and then there’d be no need for anyone to make a second trip to the strong room—”

  “There should be some paper in the printer,” Ms. Deere said, pointing to the laser printer beside the desk. “Why don’t you—”

  She was interrupted by a burst of gunfire from the front of the bank.

  * * *

  Game Boy was chilling on the street in front of the Pennine Bank, idly flattening the oppo in a capture the flag game on his phone, when he got the first intimation that something hinky was going on.

  In truth he was bored, though as he was supposed to be running surveillance on the target this should have been a good thing. He had his Bluetooth headset on and dialed in on a live conference call with Rebecca, who was cruising the block in her posh wheels. Doc and Imp were on the inside. His job was to call Del for a pickup, then dive indoors and create a diversion if one of them made the dumb phone in his pocket vibrate, signalling that the job was off. But nothing had gone wrong so far, nothing was going to go wrong, nothing could go wrong—

  Right up until a black Ford Transit screeched up onto the curb outside the bank, the rear doors opened, and four guys in Reservoir Dogs cosplay outfits piled out and charged in the front door, bellowing hoarse commands to get on the fucking ground now as they waved their motherfucking AK-47s around.

  “What the shitstained wank?” Game Boy gaped, then hit the speed dial on his burner to ping Imp and Doc’s phones.

  “Wassat, Boy?” The Deliverator sounded distracted.

  “Bad company, gonna need pickup! Fuuuu—” He tried not to swallow his tongue as he vibrated with fear—“this bunch of white guys with assault rifles just ran in—”

  “Stop making shit up, Boy, this is London, that kind of thing doesn’t happen here—”

  A thunderous hammering like a chorus of road drills from hell made Game Boy wince and drop to the ground. “Shooting,” he gasped. Getting a grip, he rose to a crouch and moved towards the front door. “I’m going hot.”

  Rebecca’s voice flattened. “On my way. I hit traffic, expect pickup round the back within two minutes.”

  They’d played a
closely related scenario in a hacked-for-purpose level of Grand Theft Auto so many times it was almost instinctive: what to do if a Police Armed Response Unit turned up in the middle of a job. Guys in dark suits with AK-47s were not so different—fewer handcuffs, maybe. But it was much scarier in real life than any simulation.

  Game Boy pushed through the doors, dodging half a dozen terrified customers scurrying to get out. There was another burst of gunfire, so tooth-rattlingly loud he could feel it in his stomach. A rain of plaster dust fell from the ceiling: “Everybody get on the fucking floor the next motherfucker to move dies this is not a fucking Quentin Tarantino movie—” The boss gunman had lost his porkpie, revealing a pink and shiny dome above his contorted face, eyes concealed behind Ray-Bans. “You fucking eat carpet you fucking carpetshagger—” he screamed at Game Boy, spittle flying as his three thuggish helpers swung round to cover the room.

  Game Boy raised his hands, then dived for the carpet, interrupting his descent with a duck-and-roll that somehow spun him behind a desk, tugging a computer cable to send a monitor flying sharp-corner-first into the ankles of one of the armed robbers. The robber stumbled, stitching a neat row of bullet holes across the outside wall of the bank just as the front door opened again to admit a neatly bearded man in a much more expensive suit, terrifyingly accessorized with an AA-12 assault shotgun. “Cease fire!” he bellowed. “Drop your weapons!”

  Game Boy scuttled for cover behind the next desk along, heedless of the arms and legs he was crawling across, despite a quiet squawk of protest from one of the bank clerks. He was just in time: moments later the bald-headed robber lit up the newcomer with his Kalashnikov.

  CRASH. Plaster and blood sprayed everywhere. CRASH. What the fuck? Game Boy gibbered silently. The rifles left his ears ringing, but he could feel the assault shotgun in his bowels. Automatic fire hammered across the room as the newcomer (and the first wave of gunmen) took cover.

  “We’re in an office off the back corridor,” Imp shouted in Game Boy’s earbud, “what’s going on out there?”

  Game Boy got to his knees behind the desk, feeling for the zone: an itching in the back of his neck and a tension in his thighs told him time to dance as he sprang forward.

  “Hey! Get him—”

  Game Boy lunged towards the door to the back offices as one of the AK-toting goons took aim from behind the photocopier. Satan’s drum machine beat a rapid tattoo as the gunman’s heel slid out from under him and he toppled over backwards, bringing down another, more substantial chunk of ceiling. Shotgun Dude joined the bass line with a slammingly percussive gun solo. Game Boy’s leg twisted as he jinked sideways, dodging another robber’s fire—this one was smart enough to squeeze off aimed shots rather than wasting ammo—then he crashed through the open door and slammed it shut with one heel. Bullets punched holes in the wall above his head as he scrambled towards the office at the end of the corridor. “Open up, Imp, I’m coming in,” he gasped. Behind him, the gunmen were kicking at the door: a freak ricochet had jammed the latch in its reinforced strike plate.

  * * *

  The man who Wendy was absolutely certain wasn’t Bernard Harris exchanged a wide-eyed look with his maybe-not husband: “What the ferret-legging hell?” he demanded, ducking instinctively at a second burst of automatic gunfire.

  It was a sentiment that Wendy fervently shared, but right now she had another priority: “Two bank robberies at once is a bit of a coincidence isn’t it, gentlemen? You’re under arrest.”

  “You don’t want to do this.” Not-his-husband focussed on her, and the ward she wore under her collar grew hot.

  “Stop that shit if you want to get out of here alive,” she said evenly as she raised her hands and summoned her katana into existence. “What are you after?” Not-husband—the movie impresario, bloke-in-a-hat—flinched. Not-Harris gave the game away by glancing guiltily at the letter on the desk. “That? Right, I’m impounding it as evidence.” She grabbed the letter left-handed, shoving it inside her jacket. “It’s probably what our tooled up playmates are after so how about we—”

  The door opened and she turned. “No!” screamed Imp as her sword began to move.

  She froze with her blade hanging over the neck of a frightened Chinese kid, who crouched on his hands and knees across the threshold.

  “Del’s bringing the car round,” gasped the kid, ignoring her: “ninety seconds.” Another gasp, then, “They’ll kill us if they find us—”

  Her arrestees were unarmed, unlike the gang of heavies shooting up the front of the branch. She made a snap decision. “Follow me,” she said, and stepped outside just in time to hear a hollow boom as the door at the front end of the corridor sprang open. (Evidently the shotgun-toting heavy had given up on subtlety and loaded a breaching round.)

  Wendy let go of her sword—it evaporated, barely a wisp of vapor surviving to reach the floor—and raised her arms into a new position. She summoned, drew, and let fly an arrow in one smooth motion. She took a long step backwards, away from the front door, drawing and loosing again and again. The compound bow she’d trained herself to summon and shoot was compact but packed a punch: her arrows evaporated after a second, but that was plenty long enough to put a hole in the torso of anyone stupid enough to get in her way. Wendy had studied the Russian kinzhalnaya technique—very rapid fire using a short bow at close range—and could manifest a fresh arrow between her fingertips as fast as she could draw. And she could draw forty times in a minute, if she didn’t mind wearing her arm in a sling the next day.

  Fire: step back: fire: step back. The gunman (or gunmen) wasn’t stupid—Wendy had at best seconds before he (or they) emptied a magazine down the passage—but the storm of arrows hissing past the broken door would give them pause. Fire: step backwards. She felt something cold and hard against her spine and shoved herself against the fire bar.

  The alarm screeched as the door swung open and Wendy tumbled onto the grimy tarmac in the alleyway, rolling out of the line of fire just as a shooter unloaded his magazine down the corridor. The shots stopped abruptly. Wendy cast around for cover, but the exit from the alleyway was at least ten meters away. Surely the raiders would have backup watching the escape route—

  The sound of footsteps coming towards her was partially muffled by the ringing in her ears. She rolled onto her back, bow drawn and aiming between her toes, but it was just her two perps and their teenage sidekick. They walked like cats on black ice, tiptoeing backwards away from the fire exit as if they had to maintain eye contact with the gunmen in the bank.

  “—Will he stay down?” not-husband asked not-Bernard.

  “Depends if he decides to suck off his own AK instead of signing up for CBT. I hit him with all the fear and loathing in Islington. He’ll be in therapy for years—”

  “Where’s Del?”

  “She should be—hey!”

  The kid had half-turned and spotted Wendy. She gave him a feral grin as she sat up and took aim at his chest. “Hello again! Hands up, no sudden movements.”

  Sirens rose and fell in the near distance, bouncing between the brick walls. Wendy’s pulse hammered a manic counterpoint. The kid narrowed his eyes at her, somehow managing to look utterly freaked out and supremely bored simultaneously. “Nope, not playing that game.”

  What? Wendy glared. The kid was the stunt artist, wasn’t he? The one who’d played Robin in the Hamleys heist, neutralizing the guards with their own gear. “Neither am I,” she told him. “I know what you are and I’ve got what you want.” She scrambled to her feet. Step back. Step back. The end of the alley was just a short sprint away.

  A big black SUV turned the corner and roared towards her, then rocked to a sharp standstill just as she tensed for the moment of impact. Doors popped open: “All aboard!” shouted the gorgeous black woman behind the wheel. “Last train to trancentral leaving now!” She smirked at Wendy from behind her windscreen: “Aww, isn’t she cute?”

  Wendy evaporated her arrow just long enough to
give Getaway Woman a two-fingered salute, the traditional insult started by the English archers at Agincourt. In an argument between an SUV and a shortbow, the one with the two-ton pedestrian masher was inevitably going to win; but once she moved … “I’ve got what you want,” she taunted as the three miscreants trotted past her. “How about we go somewhere quiet and talk about how you’re going to surrender?”

  “Yeah nope—” The impresario scampered past her. “She’s warded,” he called to someone just out of sight.

  “On it,” said a voice behind her back.

  Wendy let go of her bow as she turned, bringing her riot baton to the ready, but something tugged at her collar and then a bleak tide of depression washed over her. It felt like she’d jumped in a river of regrets, her pockets stuffed with cobblestones. It came to her distantly that she could barely muster the energy to breathe—in fact, begrudged herself every successive moment of mindlessly prolonged life. The kid slithered behind her, clutching her ward in his hand, its broken cord trailing. He leaned close and she couldn’t quite bring herself to care about his hand groping past her breast to grab the crumpled note.

  The big V8 howled as Getaway Woman threw it into reverse. “Justified and ancient!” she sang through the open window, as she backed up the alley under Wendy’s despairing gaze. “Let them eat ice cream!”

  What. The. Fuck?

  Wendy shook herself as the big black Cayenne reversed rapidly into the street. She took a hesitant step forward. The weight of the world’s woes gradually slid from her shoulders; her feet buoyed, and she ran after the car just as the fire door cracked open again and a gun banged.

  They’re getting away, she realized angrily. Nothing else mattered, not the sick sense of fury at her suspects slipping through her fingers, not even the bullets cracking past her head. Gotta get my wheels on! Wendy drew a deep breath as she stepped up on one foot, then up again on the other, wobbling slightly as she swapped her shoes for speed skates.