The Delirium Brief

by Charles Stross

  But sanity is in short supply in government these days. Instead, there are ominous smoke signals coming out of Downing Street and the COBRA committee meetings on a daily basis, drumbeats that signal the PM’s iron-jawed determination to stand firm in the face of elven terrorist sympathizers and threats to the British way of life. Possibly by introducing a new package of mandatory, child-friendly censorware for all internet users, or maybe by invoking the Civil Contingencies Act (the twenty-first century formulation for rule by decree during a state of emergency). Oh, and a steady trickle of leaks about SOE’s reckless and unaccountable waste of public funds, domestic spying and infiltration of Bible study groups, and anything else they can find in the classified reports that makes us look bad. (Of which there is rather a lot, given that a large government agency can’t possibly exist in the shadows for over seventy years without stepping in the occasional dog turd.)

  There’s other news, on a global scale, and it’s just as depressing. The cleanup operation in Tokyo Bay continues, but there’s been another attack near the southwest coast of Honshu. Russia continues to be troublesome. There’s been an earthquake in Syria, in the vicinity of Palmyra, which is currently under occupation by Da’esh, and if you know what’s buried there that’s really worrying: those whack-jobs have form for robbing tombs to auction off the antiquities, and if they’ve stumbled across RANCID MOON I could be putting out the resulting fires for the next decade. Worst of all is the news from the United States, or rather, the lack of it. The political headlines are all saber-rattling over the Iranian nuclear weapons program and some bullshit enquiry into Benghazi in the run-up to a midterm election. It’s almost as if Congress has no idea that a giant occult power struggle for control of the US government is in progress … or perhaps it’s over already, and a ruthless media clamp-down by tongue-eating mind control parasites is the only thing keeping the world from learning about the takeover of DC by gibbering alien nightmares. I hope I don’t get sent over there on a fact-finding mission once we’ve sorted out our domestic headaches; I’ve got a bad feeling about this.

  Finally, the personal news: on my second day I got a terse email from Mo, who also has one of these phones. The cat has gone to stay with my parents, she herself is fine but will be moving around a lot, and these are her new contact details. I grind my teeth a bit, but per the README my wife and I aren’t supposed to go to the mattresses together because it would roughly double our likelihood of being apprehended, never mind requiring us to confront all our unresolved baggage in a setting where one of us can’t just walk out if things turn bad. (So it’s going to stay unresolved for now, itching like hell.)

  As for the rest of the agency, Persephone, Johnny, and everyone else I can think of are also on the move, because I’m not the only Mahogany Row name to pop up on the Met’s Charge and Book system. We’re not the only people who can root government databases, it seems. Persephone’s on a bogus immigration rap, Johnny is wanted for illegal firearms ownership and is flagged as extremely dangerous, do not approach (which means if they spot him they’ll call in a sniper team). I’ve been upgraded to assaulting a police officer, aiding and abetting a fugitive, impersonating an officer, murder, murder, and more murder—they’ve pinned the unfortunate Captain Marks and his guards on me, along with the headless handmaid and her assistant. Oddly, they haven’t added the tank crew to my rap sheet, and there is no mention whatsoever of Cassie going missing, probably because they don’t want to trigger a national panic.

  So all I can do is sit here all on my own, in a rented living room with the curtains shut, surfing the web, swearing at the news, and hating myself.

  Isn’t life great?

  * * *

  It’s early evening on a Wednesday night in North London. A woman pauses at the corner of Woodside Avenue and glances at her phone, as if checking a message. She’s dressed for the office in a business suit and heels, and carries a briefcase as well as a small handbag: unexceptionable, except for the pallor of her skin and her hair, the glossy blackness of which suggests she might be a weekend goth. The hair is dyed, of course. Mhari Murphy doesn’t know for sure that there’s a warrant out with her name on it, but she doesn’t believe in taking any chances. She’s hungry and impatient, but not so impatient she’s willing to risk watching the final sunrise through the window of a locked police cell.

  She checks the time again: 2057. Nearly nine. She starts walking, heading for the driveway and frontage of the hospice. This is London, so although the facility is set back behind a hedge, the grounds are not extensive; however, the red brick inpatient unit is reasonably secluded, with the ground floor rooms facing inwards onto a terrace and courtyard surrounded by flower beds. There are, Mhari thinks, many worse places to die.

  The last straggling carers and support staff—administrators, physiotherapists, a chaplain—from the afternoon shift are leaving as she heads towards the hospice. One or two of them climb into cars parked on the street, but most drift towards the nearby bus stops or Woodside Park Tube station. Mhari heads for the front door under the short drop-off driveway opening onto the street. The front door opens onto a quiet reception area, not the bustling receiving unit of a frontline hospital. She walks to the desk and waits until a door nearby opens and a nurse comes out to greet her.

  “Hello. Can I help you?”

  “Hi, I’m Jill Cantor, from the Wellcome Trust—I’m here to talk to Dr. Gearing, if she’s available?” Mhari smiles stiffly and raises her briefcase slightly, watching the nurse’s eyes track towards it. “I have an appointment.”

  “I’ll just check if she’s available.” The nurse picks up the desk phone and dials, then waits. She seems to have swallowed the cover unquestioningly: Mhari can see the precise pigeonhole she’s landed in. The black business suit and briefcase make her look like a drug company saleswoman, but it’s late in the evening and the Wellcome Trust is a charitable research foundation, and Dr. Gearing is the pain management specialist on team, working night shifts this week, so: Ms. Cantor—or maybe Dr. Cantor—is obviously here about some joint research project, going above and beyond her core working hours because death’s handmaidens never sleep. “Dr. Gearing? A Ms. Cantor … yes, I’ll send her on up.” She looks at Mhari. “First floor, ward two, if you ask one of the sisters they’ll point you at Alice.”

  “Thank you.” Mhari smiles, showing her some melting ice. Then she turns and heads for the stairs up to the first floor.

  It must be a quiet period: half the rooms on ward two stand open, empty and waiting. The others are mostly closed, although through one half-open door Mhari glimpses a bedridden figure, two women sitting in chairs to either side, one holding the sleeper’s shrunken hand. It’s a somber reminder and she finds herself taking more care over her heels, although—unusually for a medical ward—the corridor outside is carpeted to deaden the sound. It must be hell to keep it disinfected, she thinks absentmindedly, although it’s not as if most patients stay here long enough to pick up a bug.

  Dr. Gearing is checking a patient’s records on a computer terminal behind the nursing station as Mhari approaches. She’s in her late thirties, wearing the slightly frumpy business attire that seems to be a thing among junior doctors, like an overworked office administrator except for the totemic stethoscope that signals her status. She glances up. “Ms. Cantor…? Can I help you?”

  Mhari nods. “Is there somewhere we can talk in private?” she asks, holding her Continuity Ops warrant card just slightly too far away for Dr. Gearing to read the fine print. “It’s about the midnight supply arrangement.”

  Gearing meets her eyes for a moment and nods minutely. “Be with you.” She finishes typing, then stands up. “Follow me.”

  They end up in one of the empty rooms on the hospice ward, overlooking the patio at the back. Gearing shuts the door and leans against it. “I heard the news,” she says tiredly.

  “The agency was abolished, just like that, with no replacement supply arranged for the, the recipie
nts,” Mhari tells her. “They’re in serious trouble.”

  “These recipients.” Dr. Gearing looks at her. “I was under the impression your research program would be restarted in a few weeks? Or maybe a couple of months, when the new organization has had time to sort everything out. It is a research project, isn’t it? That’s what I was told.” She focuses on Mhari. “What’s this about, exactly?”

  “I can’t tell you; it’s classified. Which is a problem, unfortunately, because I’d like to tell you, but I’m not allowed to. I think I’m allowed to say that the … the cultures that the samples are serving to maintain will be irreparably spoiled if the regular supply is interrupted for more than a few days. It took years to get these cultures established and stabilized, and—”

  “Please don’t bullshit me, Ms. Cantor, or whoever you are, I’m not buying it.” Gearing’s gaze sharpens and she stands up, clearly adamant. “This has been a very strange research protocol all along, and the whole … occult … connection with your agency is quite disturbing. As you are probably aware, the supply arrangement imposed on me by our directors breaches the Human Tissues Act and almost certainly wouldn’t pass muster in front of a medical ethics review board; unless you can give me a good reason to stick my neck on the line for your study I’m going to have to—”

  “Don’t move.” Mhari throws her force of will behind the instructions and Dr. Gearing freezes. Then Mhari takes an irrevocable step: she smiles.

  “Uh-huh-unh—” Gearing is fighting it, a sure sign of her rising panic. Mhari lets the smile slip, allows her lips to relax back into place, concealing her dentition.

  “I’m not going to bite you.” Mhari takes a deep breath, then searches for the right words, a formula that will imply the essentials without breaking confidence. “Even though I’m hungry. But this isn’t about me. The agency has been dealing with a, a certain problematic condition, a contagious paranormal disease. As you can see, some of the patients can be stabilized, if they receive regular transfusions. The downside is that the donors … don’t survive. So the optimal protocol is to take donations only from people who are already dying.” Gearing’s eyes are wide and dark, terrified, as she meets Mhari’s gaze. She’s breathing rapidly, and Mhari can’t help glancing down at the nearly irresistible pulse in her throat. “Do you understand? You may reply.”

  “Yuh-you’re a—”

  “Stop! Don’t say it. Let’s keep this deniable, please.”

  Dr. Gearing’s face is wan and her forehead is shiny with perspiration; it’s a wonder she hasn’t pissed herself. “But you, you drink—”

  “Calm down.” Predictably, that sort of order doesn’t work, even with PHANG mind control mojo behind it. “Most of what people think they know about this condition is stuff and nonsense. I’m not going to murder you, I’m not some kind of undead animated corpse, I’m not harmed by religious symbols, it’s all rubbish. Well, except for needing regular blood samples. The point is, if the supply arrangement is disrupted a number of people with this condition will be faced with a slow, lingering death or, or, having to face an unacceptable alternative. I’m a civil servant, Doctor, I didn’t sign up to become a blood-drinking serial killer. But I can’t speak for all the others, if their rations are interrupted.”

  Dr. Gearing is shaking her head. “But if it harms the donors, if they haven’t given informed consent, it, it’s clearly unethical as well as illegal—”

  Implied threats aren’t working and she’s in danger of losing control. Mhari consults her conscience and takes another step into the twilight borderland between bending the rules and breaking them. “One of the other civil—former civil—servants who shares my condition is the fellow to whom the All-Highest of the alfär Host pledged their surrender. I’m not exaggerating: this little interruption jeopardizes our national security. If it comes to the crunch, there are soldiers who will stick the needle in their own arm and draw blood, even knowing that their life expectancy afterwards will be measured in weeks, because it’s better than the thousands of deaths that will result if they don’t.” Mhari’s delivery grows increasingly vehement as she makes her case. “Do you know the streetcar problem? A runaway tram is hurtling towards six people on the track, but you can throw a switch and divert it onto a siding—where it will kill one person instead? Congratulations, Doc, welcome to my world. It’s a classic streetcar problem—except the six people you think you’re saving will die of natural causes before the streetcar reaches them, and the person on the other track is carrying a bomb that will wipe out everyone on the tram if it hits them.”

  Mhari takes a step back; now she’s breathing too fast as well, and trying not to clench her fists. Dr. Gearing stares at her as if she’s grown a second head as well as fangs. “You can talk and move again,” Mhari says curtly. “I’m not going to hurt you. But I want you to think very hard. I just committed a serious offense in trusting you with this. I’m not just risking a disciplinary hearing or being struck off, my neck is quite literally on the line here.”

  She turns and stares out the window, at the moonlit garden where so many of the people who have unknowingly kept her alive for the past year spent their last hours. She feels empty, purged of human feeling. By rights she ought to be appalled at herself for the deliberate breach, but she finds she really doesn’t care any more. She has reached the point of questioning whether her actions are more about defending herself than defending the realm, and the irony of surrendering responsibility and dumping the whole thorny dilemma on the shoulders of a doctor who specializes in pain control does not elude her. She seats herself in the visitor’s chair, beside an empty bed where her own will to survive has hastened the end of more than one cancer patient’s story, and she finds herself at peace as she waits for the doctor to return and deliver the verdict on her prognosis.

  * * *

  It’s six o’clock on a Saturday evening at Nether Stowe House and the reception is just getting underway. The permanent staff and Schiller’s events team have been working flat-out for days to ensure that everything is ready to run in accordance with the plan drafted by the party planning office. This first session is a black tie event with a very exclusive guest list (no journalists or press photographers will be permitted to approach within telephoto range). While many of the attendees are arriving in a fleet of chauffeur-driven limos provided by GP Services, others—the reclusive property tycoon Burroughs twins, the eldest son and heir of an infamous press baron, a former French president and his supermodel/rock-star wife—are dropping in on the helipad tucked discreetly behind the orchard at the rear of the building.

  Nigel Irving, the Minister of Defense, does not rate a helicopter, but the vintage Rolls-Royce Schiller’s people laid on for him is a step up from the normal ministerial Jaguar, as is the bottle of posh plonk in the solid silver bucket. It’s a nice touch, he has to admit, and he is more-than-somewhat lubricated by the time the car glides to a halt on the graveled drive in front of the big house. (A Minister of the Crown can’t accept gifts, but a lift in a friend’s car and a bottle of refreshments between friends is somewhat deniable, or can at least be written down as “party hospitality” on his parliamentary expenses form.)

  Nigel is, as is so often the case, alone for the evening. Winifred only accompanies him to public work shindigs these days—she says the other kind give her a headache, although what she really means is Nigel gives her a headache—and the girls are at college or on an overseas exchange program, conveniently out of the way. Of course he doesn’t have to be here—when you’re a minister you’re not short for party dates—but he’s heard that Schiller throws great parties, and he’s been curious for a while.

  The chauffeur opens the door and Nigel pulls himself unsteadily to his feet, blinking at a sleekly smiling platinum blonde in a black evening gown. She offers him her opera-gloved hand. “Welcome to Nether Stowe House, Minister, we’re so glad we could welcome you tonight! My name’s Anneka Overholt and I’ll be your hostess for the eveni
ng.” She has an odd accent, trans-Atlantic with a trace of something Scandinavian, and Nigel smiles back, pegging where she’s coming from immediately.

  “Thanks,” he slurs, then squares his shoulders and offers her his arm. She rests her hand on it and guides him discreetly towards the marble mosaic floor of the entrance hall. “Charmed, ’m sure.” He stifles a hiccup. The champers in the car was somewhat stronger than expected, or else he forgot to eat lunch again: he’s not sure. “Happy to be here.”

  “I’ve heard so much about you,” his companion gushes happily, ice-blue eyes twinkling, and for a moment Nigel’s mind sharpens: I’m sure you have, he realizes. This isn’t amateur hour and the girl’s clearly top-drawer talent, not somebody you rent by the half hour off the back of a phone box postcard. “We have a seafood buffet in the Grand Hall, there’s a very accomplished swing band playing in the Prince Regent’s Ballroom, and a firework display after dark at the end of the Rose Garden. There are other refreshments in the pavilion on the terrace, and if you want anything—anything at all—I’ll see to it.”

  “I’m sure you will,” Nigel purrs amiably. She dimples as she smiles, earrings glittering as brightly as her perfect teeth—gosh, Schiller must own half of Hatton Garden, he tells himself as he notices the amount of ice she’s wearing—and she sways closer for a moment.

  “Would you care for refreshments?” she asks, and without looking away she reaches sideways and produces a glass of Buck’s Fizz from a tray presented by a uniformed waiter. “Something lighter, to pace yourself with, perhaps? The night is young…”

  Damn it, he’s had a wearisome week. The fallout from that mess up north is the gift that just keeps on fucking giving, one damn hearing after another, not to mention the headache of dealing with Barry’s insensate demands that he shut down this rogue agency immediately, a job just concluded this week. He deserves an evening off, especially one on the dime of the trans-Atlantic cousins who’ll be picking up the slack. Kicking back with the delectable Anneka is just what the doctor ordered, he decides. “Thank you! A glass for yourself?” he suggests.