The Apocalypse Codex

by Charles Stross

  There’s going to be an epidemic of dementia—not mad cow disease, new variant CJD, but something our house doctors call Krantzberg syndrome: if a sorcerer unintentionally thinks the wrong thoughts, performs magic by mind, the listeners and feeders and actors they invoke from the quantum foam take tiny bites out of their brains. Dream the wrong dreams, and you can wake up with a palsy or an aneurysm.

  There will be amazement and miracles, too. Magic wands stuffed with silicon chips that work wonders. Twisted biological creations that obey our directives. Ordinary people discovering they have the power to summon demons and angels and warp reality to their will. Somnolent sentient species rising from the deeps to take an interest in the suddenly interesting land-dwelling aboriginals. Alien emissaries, and powers beyond our comprehension like the Sleeper in the Pyramid—

  —Monstrous conquerors no bullet or atom bomb can kill—

  —And their willing servants.

  No, this isn’t a sensible decade to start a family. Especially not for the likes of Mo and me, insiders and experts with a ringside seat at the circus of horrors.

  WEDNESDAY MORNING DAWNS, GRAY AND MOIST. I YAWN, ROLL out of bed, and stumble downstairs to the kitchen to switch on the kettle. I glance at the clock: it’s a quarter to seven. I shiver, the skin on the soles of my feet sticking to the cold linoleum. We talked, for a bit, when the tears dried, then I slept fitfully. No dreams of the plateau and the pyramid, which is a small blessing. But today is a workday, and I’ve got at least one meeting booked in the office. I reach for my phone, which is still sitting on the kitchen table where I left it last night—

  There’s a notification. A call. I blink, bleary-eyed. Six forty-two last night, from oh fuck it’s Lockhart. There is voicemail. I listen to it. “See me first thing tomorrow morning. Bring your bag. Be prepared to travel.” Click. He doesn’t sound happy: probably expected the good little minion to be in the office until whenever he felt like going home. I yawn, then get the coffee started.

  Half an hour later Mo and I are sitting opposite each other across the table. Toast, marmalade, a cafetière full of French roast. Mo is showing signs of sleeplessness, yawning. “I had a bad dream,” she remarks over the coffee.

  “Bad enough to remember?”

  “Very.” She shivers. “I was alone in the house. Upstairs, in the attic.” The roof space is big enough that we’ve been planning to add a dormer window and turn it into a spare room one of these years. “There was—this is going to sound cheesy, but it was just a dream—a window. Under the window, there was a cradle, and a woman in a chair sitting next to it with her back to me. I couldn’t see very clearly, and her face was in shadow, or she was wearing a veil, or there was something between us. She had a bow, and she was playing—lullabies. Except I couldn’t hear them. To the crib. Although I couldn’t see anything in it.”

  “Um.” There’s no way to say this tactfully, so I don’t. “Are you sure it was empty? Because if so, that’s classic projection—”

  “No.” She shakes her head. “I know what you’re thinking.” She looks troubled. “The thing is, in my dream I knew the melody. It was familiar from somewhere. Only I don’t. It’s not a tune I’ve ever heard. And I’m not sure the crib was empty. But it was definitely my instrument.”

  And now it’s my turn to look troubled, because nobody in their right mind would play lullabies to a baby on Mo’s violin. It’s an Erich Zahn original, with a body as white as the bone it’s carved from, refitted with electric pick-ups and retuned to make ears and eyeballs bleed. It has other properties, too.

  “Have a bagel,” I suggest, buying myself some time to chew on the problem. “It sounds like projection, but if you think it’s something else…well.” A thought strikes me. “The violin?”

  “Huh.” Mo glances at the corner of the room. She brought the violin downstairs. It’s still in its case. Come to think of it, the only time she leaves it in another room is when she’s having a bath or a shower. “Think it’s jealous?”

  She shivers. “Don’t say that.”

  “My new boss phoned,” I say to change the subject. “Told me to bring my go-bag. I might be late for dinner.”

  “Oh.” She stands up and walks around the table. “So soon?”

  “Can’t be sure. Hope not.” I stand up and we embrace, awkwardly because of the coffee mug glued to the palm of my right hand (it’s a shape-shifting leech that feeds on fatigue poisons in my blood; it’ll fall off when I’m fully awake).

  “Take care. Remember to write. Or call, if you can keep track of the time zones.”

  “I shall.” I remember something. “Pinky had a little toy waiting for me. Not the kind of toy that’s supposed to go walkabout, I think. Your doing?”

  “What toy—oh, that. I don’t think so. But last week Angleton made a point of asking me the kind of hypothetical question that’s not so hypothetical: I reminded him about that time in Amsterdam.” The hole in a hotel corridor’s wall, blowing air into vacuum in a dead-cold world beneath the blue-shifted pinprick stars of a dying cosmos. Pinky’s little toy is the direct lineal descendant of the machine they issued me for self-defense back then. “Promise me you’re going to make sure you don’t get into a situation where you need it. Please, Bob?”

  I shudder. “I promise. You know what I think of violence.”

  “And you’ll draw a new ward. And a HOG. Two HOGs. And you’ll brush your teeth every night. Okay?”

  I kiss her. “Sure.”

  And, oddly, when I go in to work later that morning my first stop is the armory, just to draw a new and unused protective ward and a pair of mummified pigeons’ feet in leather bags. I draw the line at toothpaste, though.

  “AH, MR. HOWARD. COME IN. YOU’RE LATE.” LOCKHART IS CHARACTERISTICALLY curt, but despite the routine chewing-out—I am getting a feeling that this is his usual way of relating to his staff, in which case it’s bloody juvenile and I wish he’d get over it—he seems somewhat pleased with himself.

  I shut the door. “Has something come up?”

  “You could say that.” The smugness is threatening to burst out. “Yesterday BASHFUL INCENDIARY’s invitation to attend a session of the Omega Course came through. It’s a weekend residential session held at the Golden Promise Ministries headquarters, just north of Colorado Springs, and it starts this Friday. We’ve been trying to get someone inside there for weeks. She’s already on her way there by way of New York, along with Mr. McTavish. So you’d better get moving, eh?”

  “Wait a minute. The tattoos—”

  “You’ll just have to play catch-up with her in Colorado, Mr. Howard.”

  “Okay. What then? What’s the plan? What’s she doing, do we know?”

  “I couldn’t possibly say.” Lockhart’s eyes narrow. “BASHFUL INCENDIARY is not one of your, or my, or our department’s employees, so in principle she could be doing anything. As it is, she’s clearly engaged in surveillance activities directed against a protégé of the PM. We are therefore sending you to Denver to keep an eye on her and find out what’s going on. We devoutly hope that she will find it amusing to confide in you from time to time, Mr. Howard. That is all you or I know, to be sure. Do I make myself understood?”

  “I think so.” I pause. “Isn’t this a little bit open-ended…?”

  “Clever boy. Yes, it is.” He nods sharply. Then he picks up a black nylon travel document wallet from his desk and hands it over, along with a form. “Sign this.”

  “Sign what—” It’s a receipt. “Just a sec, you know I need to check the contents.”

  “Take your time.”

  I open the wallet. It contains a passport and a bunch of boarding passes. Return from London to Denver, business class, fully flexible—my eyebrows are clawing at the ceiling even before I see the next item.

  “You’ll need to sign that, too,” Lockhart adds.

  “But, bu-but—” I don’t usually stutter, honest, but it’s the first time I’ve seen one of these things in the
wild: Aren’t they supposed to come on a velvet cushion escorted by a couple of snooty liveried footmen and an armed guard? “This is a gold Visa card. A Coutts gold Visa card.”

  “For expenses.” Lockhart sounds perfectly matter-of-fact.

  “But, but…” Coutts is a small, obscure, remarkably stuffy financial institution in London. It used to be private but these days it’s the posh subsidiary of one of the mega-banks. Owner of banking license 002—001 belongs to the Bank of England—they won’t even give you a cheque account unless you maintain a minimum balance of a quarter of a million. The Queen banks with Coutts. (Although apparently they had second thoughts about her son: maybe he lowers the tone, or something.) They’ve become a little more accessible since the RBS takeover—I gather they’ll give accounts to rock stars and presidents these days—but even so. “What will the Auditors say?” I finish weakly.

  “Nothing, as long as you keep proper records.”

  “But, but…what?”

  “Mr. Howard. Robert.” Lockhart lowers his voice and speaks slowly and clearly, as if to an idiot child: “You are pursuing an investigation on behalf of External Assets. It’s an open-ended assignment. Let us be very clear, I am handing you a sufficiency of rope with which to hang yourself, should you choose to do so—but we have no way of anticipating what you may run up against. So we’re equipping you accordingly.”

  He taps the rectangle of plastic. “This card draws against an account held by the Ministry of Defense—supposedly for entertaining visiting Saudi royalty or equally dubious people. You can pay for your incidentals and subsistence, within reason: hotel bills and car hire and so forth. Just keep receipts. This particular card comes with a call center in London, manned around the clock by a concierge service that will arrange just about any personal service you desire at the drop of a hat—as long as it’s legal. You can hire an executive jet or pay for an emergency liver transplant. You can draw ten thousand pounds in cash per day. It’s the most powerful weapon in your inventory, notwithstanding the silly little toy camera your friends in Facilities have loaned you, or the dead pigeons’ feet in your toilet bag.”

  He clears his throat. “I gather you’ve met the Auditors. Just remember that this isn’t your own money and you won’t have anything to worry about.”

  “I thought you said that we’re outside Operational Oversight?”

  His gaze is icy. “We are,” he says. “But the Auditors make random inspections. And we can always make an exception if you really fuck up.”

  “Urp.” I flip the card over and scrawl on the signature strip. Then I sign the receipt. “Okay.” I open the passport. It’s for me, okay, but it’s shiny and new, with the enhanced security biometrics, and there’s an extra page bonded into it—a diplomatic visa good for the United States, accrediting me as a junior cultural attaché at the British embassy in DC. “We still have cultural attachés?”

  “We still have pulse-dialing electromechanical Strowger telephone exchanges in the basement”—Lockhart startles me by suddenly rattling off the correct but decades-obsolete terminology—“just in case we experience a need for such equipment. And you are now discovering just why we also have cultural attachés in the embassy in DC.”

  “Ri-ight.” I glance at the first boarding pass. “Hey, this leaves Heathrow in less than three hours!”

  “So you’d better get moving, Mr. Howard. The tag for your reports is GOD GAME BLACK. Don’t forget to write!”

  THE NEXT FOURTEEN HOURS HAVE THEIR HIGHS AND LOWS.

  The highs: taking a cab to Paddington, breezing through the barriers onto the Heathrow Express, arriving at the airport nineteen minutes later, and zipping through all the usual inconveniences and impediments of air travel as if they barely exist. Priority check-in, special security screening arrangements with no queue, then forty minutes to catch my breath in a slightly run-down business lounge (with free wine and beer! If only I wasn’t on business) and then priority boarding. There are no queues—at least nothing worthy of the name—and my ticket comes with a reclining chair and the kind of meal service that convinces me British Airways are engaged in a sinister conspiracy to prepare their frequent fliers’ livers for sale to a pâté factory.

  The lows: arriving at JFK to change flights, entering the diplomatic queue in the vast, echoing cowshed that is the immigration hall, and waiting as the uniformed immigration officer stares at my passport, types at his computer, then stares some more until I get that familiar old-time sinking feeling.

  “Is there a problem?” I ask, pitching my voice for curious-casual.

  He glances up and looks at me. “Please look into the camera, sir.” There’s an eyeball on a stalk—that’s new since I last visited the USA—and I mug for it. “Fingerprints.” That’s new, too. Come to think of it, I haven’t been over here for a decade and my last visit didn’t end well. “Hmm. You’re traveling on an embassy visa, sir. Can I ask the purpose of your visit?”

  I’ve been briefed on what to say. “I am here on official business of Her Majesty’s Government.” I try not to look apologetic. “I am an accredited member of a diplomatic mission—accredited by your own State Department—and I am not required to discuss my business.”

  I don’t see him press the magic button, but there’s some discreet movement behind him: another Customs and Border Patrol officer—this one a guard—is drifting over, and an office door at the other side of the barn is opening, someone coming out. “If you wouldn’t mind waiting a minute, sir, my manager will take this from here.” Another officer has sidled across the entrance to the tollbooth-like tunnel I’m occupying, effectively blocking my retreat.

  “May I have my passport back?” I ask.

  “Not yet.”

  Palms damp and pulse racing, I try to look bored. It takes an endless minute for the woman in the suit to get here from the office. The immigration goons are courteous but distant—and they’re armed, and a law unto themselves. Also, some kind of shit has definitely hit the fan because they’re absolutely not supposed to stop someone traveling on a diplomatic visa. At least (I remind myself) I shaved halfway through the flight, and look reasonably presentable—credit Lockhart for making me wear a suit—but—

  “Mr. Howard?” The CBP manager is a woman, about my age, east Asian. “Would you mind coming with me?”

  “Is there a problem?” I ask.

  She looks at me, assessing and evaluating. “Hopefully not, but you must appreciate we need to ensure that only people entitled to use the diplomatic channel do so”—she takes my passport from Goon #1—“so if you’d come this way, please?”

  I don’t have any alternatives unless I want to escalate drastically, and they haven’t actually done anything that amounts to good cause yet. I fall in behind her, and try not to pay attention to Goon #3, who is trailing us at a distance, his belt clanking under the weight of handcuffs, pepper spray, and a sidearm.

  The office is spartan, bare-walled and furnished with a desk, two chairs, a computer, and a telephone. The CBP manager waves me to the seat opposite the desk, then sits down and starts mousing around on her computer. I pointedly don’t glance at the door—I’m pretty sure Goon #3 is standing outside. Presently she looks up. “Mr. Howard, I believe that these documents are genuine, and I recognize your diplomatic immunity. However, you’re identified by our records as being a covert asset. I must warn you that failing to register as an agent of a foreign government is a felony, and potential grounds for denying you entry to the United States. Do you have anything to say?”

  Her body language clearly adds: Aside from oh shit? She looks smug. It’s clearly not every day that Little Ms. Smarty-Pants here catches a spook.

  “I’m not in your Big Book of Registered Spies? Is that the problem?”

  She looks down her nose at me. “One of them.”

  “Well.” I roll my eyes. “That’s a nice Catch-22 you’ve got there, isn’t it? Real shiny, that Catch-22.”

  (I blame the Russians for spoil
ing everything. Time was when a spy could just breeze through US immigration and be about their business—but the CBP have been pissed ever since the FBI caught a battalion of barely competent FSB agents who waltzed in behind a brass band and set up shop in Manhattan. And this is, of course, a representative of the NYC local chapter of the Cantankerous Bastards Patrol that I’m dealing with, not the State Department.)

  “Let me see: I think in the next five minutes you’re going to”—I notice her neck muscles and shoulders tensing—“call DC and talk to State. Who will in turn talk to an officer from one of your government’s black agencies which do not exist, and then State will tell you what you need to know, which is that they’ve heard of me and you are to let me go. Or we can do this the hard way. You can refuse me entry, provoke a diplomatic incident, and then an agency which does not exist will arrange for your superiors to tear you a new asshole.” I lean back, cross my arms, and try to look confident. “Your call.”

  It’s only about twenty-five percent bluff. I am on the books: the Black Chamber know who I am, and if I’ve come up on the CBP radar there’ll be a contact number in the office directory. What happens to her if she’s stupid or insane enough to phone and attract the Black Chamber’s attention is anybody’s guess—eaten by Nazgûl, spirited away to a detention center at the bottom of Chesapeake Bay, compelled to listen to Rick Wakeman until her brain melts—but I don’t really care. The Black Chamber will ensure that I cease to be a person of interest to the CBP. The only question that interests me is whether the phrase “of interest to the CBP” belongs at the end of that sentence.

  (Aha, I can hear you asking, but what about the UK-USA intelligence treaty? Why didn’t Lockhart just call the Black Chamber and ask them to keep an eye on our turbulent priest? Well, there are several reasons. Firstly, our turbulent preacher is American; it’s even possible he’s one of theirs. Secondly, we’re really not supposed to give foreign agencies blackmail-grade information about the Prime Minister. And finally: they’re the Black Chamber. They’re not so much our sister agency as our psycho ex-girlfriend turned bunny-boiler.)