The Annihilation Score (Laundry Files)

by Charles Stross

“Ah. It’s important,” I tell him as I glance at the screen. “O’Brien here. Speak.”

  “Mo?” It’s Mhari. “We have an incident call-out.”

  “Where?”

  “Downing Street. It’s the Mandate.” She fills me in quickly. He’s somehow penetrated the security cordon, and is visiting the Government Chief Whip for tea and a chat in that worthy’s official residence. What he didn’t reckon with was the face recognition software running on the computers fed by the CCTV cameras around Whitehall. He can beguile a human watcher, but not a database system.

  I get hot and cold and shivery with adrenaline, reflexively reaching for a violin case that isn’t at my feet. “How long has he been there?” I ask.

  “Only ten minutes so far,” Mhari says eagerly. “We can get there if we hurry. Jim’s in the office with Torch and Bee —”

  “Okay. Tell them to go ahead and deploy around the area, don’t wait for me. Don’t let the Mandate leave the scene but don’t interfere with him until I give the go-ahead. I’m coming back to the office to – no. Scrub that. Mhari, you know what’s in the safe in my office?”

  “Ye-e-s…” She doesn’t sound happy.

  “Tell Ramona to open the safe and bring the violin, in its case, then deploy. I’ll give her the combination over the phone. If there’s any trouble or if it tries to resist, don’t bother; I’ll swing by the office to collect it myself. Main thing is, I want everyone, and the violin, on deployment: I’ll meet you there directly. Can you do that?”

  “Let me get this straight? You’re deploying without your —”

  “No! I’m relying on security-cleared personnel to bring it to me: I’ll collect it at the incident scene. You, Ramona, and Jim are all aware of its capabilities. I trust you know better than to mess with it.”

  She laughs, slightly shaky. “No shit! It’s sunny outside.”

  “So go as White Mask.” The Home Secretary wants a show? Let’s give her one.

  “Yes, Mo.”

  I end the call. The SA is watching me patiently. “Yes?” he asks.

  “It’s the Mandate,” I tell him. “He’s gone too far this time. I’ve got to go —”

  “I’m coming with you,” he says, unfolding himself from his chair. “You said it’s happening at the Chief Whip’s residence, didn’t you?” He rummages in his desk drawer and pulls out a bunch of ancient-looking keys.

  “Yes —”

  “Follow me.” He walks towards the curtained windows at the far end of his office. I stand and follow him, and he pulls back one of the ceiling-to-floor drapes at the side to reveal a narrow wooden casement, paneled, in which is set a keyhole. “Now let me see…” He works his way around the bunch of keys until he finds one to his liking. He inserts it in the keyhole, turns it, and the casement hinges open like a very narrow doorway. Beyond lies utter darkness. “Follow me,” he repeats, and slips sideways into the night.

  I take a deep breath. “Where does this go?” I ask, tiptoeing after him.

  “Sideways.” I can feel a smooth surface in front of my nose, and there’s another wall behind me: it’s so narrow I have to turn sideways, hoping I won’t get stuck. The air is cool and fresh, and for some reason I know in my guts that there’s no ceiling overhead, just an infinite expanse of not-sky. I glance over my left shoulder and see the rectangular column of light from the SA’s office dwindling with each crabwise shuffle. “Not far now,” he reassures me.

  “What is this?” I ask.

  “You know about the ley lines and bike paths. The shadow roads aren’t so different. Think of it as the institutional equivalent of hotelspace…”

  He’s clearly been listening to Bob too much: So we’re taking an extradimensional shortcut. I don’t want to think about it. Extradimensional geodesics are wonderful until you run into someone or something else that’s coming the other way. Bob once ran into some shotgun-toting cultists on a shortcut: it’s why he has a ten-centimeter-long scar on his upper right arm. He got off lightly, though. Not all the users of such routes are human. Sometimes someone you know uses one to save a little time and you never see them again. I shudder and hurry after the SA’s receding shoulder. I can just see a twilight rectangle beyond him.

  Most democracies have legislatures that meet in some sort of a parliament or senate building. The UK’s House of Commons meets in the Palace of Westminster, a gothic pile on the banks of the Thames, near the middle of the cluster of neoclassical government offices known collectively as Whitehall. (The Palace of Westminster isn’t as old as it looks: the original burned down by accident in the 1830s and this one is a replacement. It also got rebuilt in the 1940s, after it burned down for entirely non-accidental reasons.)

  About a third of a kilometer away from Parliament there’s an unassuming little stretch of road called Downing Street, lined with eighteenth-century town houses that have gradually been hollowed out and turned into a warren of offices and residences for the three highest politicians in the government: the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the one nobody’s ever heard of – the Chief Whip.

  The Chief Whip is the Prime Minister’s personal representative to individual MPs, telling them how they are expected to vote. And to give you some idea of how important the Chief Whip is in the British parliamentary system of government, that worthy lives at Number Nine Downing Street, next door to the Prime Minister. While my boss, the Home Secretary, as number four on the totem pole, doesn’t rate a residence on the street.

  The SA steps out of a panel in the wall of a side corridor and into a marble-floored entrance lobby. I follow on his heels as he marches straight towards the front door, and I hurry to catch up with him. “Where are we?” I ask.

  “Foreign and Commonwealth Office.” There are metal turnstiles and a security barrier ahead: he nods affably at the guard and slips through. I follow him, doing my best to look as if I belong here. We’re both dressed for the part, which helps: the SA in dark gray pin-stripe and me in a black trouser suit.

  Out on the street, my phone vibrates. It’s Mhari. “Mo here. I’m with the SA on King Charles Street at the FCO building. Where are you?”

  “We’re northbound on Whitehall, just pulling over beside the entrance to Downing Street. Ramona’s putting the flashers on.”

  “Okay, we’ll be with you in two minutes.” I hang up and tug the SA’s sleeve. “They’re at the east entrance, round the block.”

  “Poor timing on my part,” he says tightly, quickening his pace.

  Downing Street is not open to the public. There are anti-vehicle defenses and electrically operated gates at either end, not to mention armed officers from the Diplomatic Protection Group. You do not park within spitting distance of those gates unless you’re the Police and it’s an emergency. Luckily we are the Police (technically) and it is an emergency (even if they don’t know it yet); also, my people have a uniformed Chief Superintendent to wave at the guards. But it’s still going to be a little bit tense.

  When Dr. Armstrong and I come round the corner, we see Jim standing beside the van, head to head with a uniformed Inspector from SO17. Ramona’s watery chariot has sprouted high-vis markings and a strobing light bar; a red DPG car has drawn up behind the van and its officers are standing alongside, but they’re not pointing their assault rifles at anyone in particular yet. I take this to be a good omen.

  We walk up towards the cluster and I pull my warrant card in readiness, but the SA beats me to the punch. As an armed officer moves to intercept, he gives the man a saintly smile and says, “I’m with him,” nodding at Jim. The constable staggers slightly, then recovers and steps aside.

  “Sorry,” I say as we shoulder past: “Transhuman Force.”

  Jim seems to be having a little problem with the officer in charge of the Downing Street watch. “We haven’t been notified of any problem —”

  “You won’t be. A four-sigma supervillain has gained access to the Chief Whip’s office. Anyone capable of calling for help has
already been disabled.”

  There is a whirr from the direction of the van: Ramona is lowering herself from a side door using some sort of wheelchair lift. “Dr. O’Brien,” she calls.

  I join her, leaving the SA to assist Jim in giving the creditably tenacious Inspector a backgrounder. “Thanks,” I say as she hands me my instrument case. Is it my imagination or is Lecter unusually quiet? I walk back over, just in time to hear the SA calmly deliver what should be the definitive smackdown.

  “The gentleman who the Chief Whip is currently playing involuntary host to walked right in because your men were unable to see him. Luckily, his ability to cloud minds is not so effective on CCTV cameras: Why don’t you ask the control room for confirmation?” Dr. Armstrong smiles his saintly but subtly terrifying smile, then speaks, head tilted to one side as if he’s listening to an invisible earpiece: “It is now 11:58. Ask them to confirm that at 11:43 a gentleman in a three-piece suit and a bowler hat walked up to the gate and was admitted, then proceeded to the door of Number Nine, where he was also admitted by the officers on door duty. That’s our man.”

  “But that’s impossible —” begins the Inspector, as I notice a blur of motion behind him. It’s Bee; she jumps right over the two-meter-high spiky steel gate, then flashes along the street, covering the distance to the Chief Whip’s front door in under a second.

  “You appear to have another intruder,” Jim tells the Inspector. “Good thing this one’s a trainee constable, isn’t it?”

  “Back off!” The Inspector is so focused on the threat under his nose that he doesn’t take his eyes off Jim, even though the Diplomatic Protection Group constables on the other side of the barrier are making a beeline for —

  “Can we leave this for later?” I butt in, doing my best to be visible: “We have to apprehend the Mandate immediately!” I hold out my warrant card in front of the Inspector’s nose and shove every gram of willpower I’ve got into it. He recoils in alarm. I don’t dare look away from him: if my suspicion about what’s happening to me is right, it’s quite possible that if I break eye contact he’ll suddenly forget I’m even standing in front of him. It’s always more pronounced when I’m stressed: people seem to stop being able to see me, as if I’m not just socially invisible… “Torch, I want you to trip the fire alarms in Number Nine just as soon as you see Bee’s in position. Try not to set the building alight, it’s Grade One Listed and there are people inside. Jim, Ramona, get those officers to safety if the Mandate kicks off. I’ll cover if it turns hairy.” Mhari is hiding in the van, but I can’t blame her: it’s a bit bright out here today. I heft my violin case, finger on the quick-release button, and wish I’d had time to pick up some noise-cancelling headphones to hook into Lecter’s pre-amp. They degrade the sound quality, but given who we’re up against…

  “You c-can’t —” the Inspector stutters: I’m impressed. He has real willpower. “You’ll answer to the Home Secretary!”

  “I certainly hope so. Now let us in, otherwise I promise you that you’ll be the one who’s up in front of Professional Standards tomorrow.”

  A thin plume of white smoke begins to trickle from an attic window at Number Nine. “Oops,” someone says aloud. An alarm siren keens. In the street, four or five officers are somehow tying themselves in knots. Bee let them get just close enough to think they’d got her, did the I’m-just-a-petite-and-harmless-girl thing to avoid provoking a restraint hold; then before they can get the cuffs on she’s behind them, in front of them, performing cartwheels in the street – then she vanishes just as the door to Number Nine opens and everybody inside begins crowding out.

  Inspector Diligent talks urgently into his Airwave. The Downing Street gate draws back and the Keystone Cops performance changes to something more sinister, as officers dash for cover and bring weapons to bear on the doorway.

  Men and women stumble around in front of the Number Ten railings. They don’t look as if they’ve left the office due to a fire alarm: they look dazed and confused, as if they’ve awakened from a disturbing dream to find that the dream was real. There’s a blur of motion, and suddenly one of them sprouts a black cloth hood and takes a dive, feet swept out from under him. A moment later Bee is sitting triumphantly on his back, locking handcuffs around his wrists. He twitches and tries to say something: instead of listening she pulls out a taser and zaps him in the arse.

  Jim, the SA, and I move forward into the crowd of evacuees. A very distinguished-looking senior politician nearly runs headlong into me as I sling my violin case over my shoulder. “You can’t arrest him!” he’s shouting at Jim. “He’s going to be our next Prime Minister! He’s going to save the Party!”

  I look the Chief Whip in the eye. “You have got to be kidding.” He doesn’t seem to hear me. I reach into my handbag and grab the spare heavy-duty ward bracelet. “Wear this, you’ll feel better.”

  “But you can’t —”

  He’s still raving as I slither past him. The Mandate is having his rights read to him by a very smug-looking Chief Superintendent Grey. There’s chaos on all sides, but I put my hand on Bee’s shoulder and lean close to her ear. She tenses as I say, “Come with me. Don’t say anything.”

  “All right – Dr. O’Brien?”

  “Over here.” I lead her away from the throng of confused staffers and agitated cops. “Did he —”

  “Boss? I can’t see you!”

  I draw a deep shuddering breath. Okay, so it’s really happening to me. “Never mind that right now. I was just going to say, good job. And now let’s get you out of here before those nice officers from SO17 remember you and realize that you’re still missing.”

  “Thanks.” Bee is still buzzing with adrenaline. I guide her towards the front gate. “But how are you doing this, boss? I didn’t know you had a superpower!”

  I force myself to keep going. “Neither did I, Bee. But it seems to work, and if it works, don’t knock it.”

  Catching the Mandate red-handed in the act of trying to suborn one of the Home Secretary’s most senior colleagues is about the best possible way to end a week that began with the HomeSec effectively demanding that we prove our worth or be shut down. But it’s no cause for complacency.

  The good news is, we’ve nailed the Mandate. He’s going to be charged with aggravated trespass, abduction (of the Chief Whip), and attempted electoral fraud. He’ll get his vote, all right – but it’s going to come from twelve jurors, the count is going to be read out to him over a CCTV link from a courtroom, and he’s going to win a seat in a high-security prison cell, not Parliament.

  The bad news is that half the afternoon is soaked up by all the paperwork involved in wrapping up the incident, including the necessary handling guidelines once we’ve booked him into the secure lock-up at Belgravia nick. As I tell the custody officer: “You will need earplugs and high-power wards – my people will provide them. Do not speak to him, do not listen to him under any circumstances. Communicate in writing only, no more than one sentence at a time. If you’ve got any hearing-impaired custody officers, now would be a great time to offer them some overtime. Oh, and your front desk staff need to monitor the behavior of the custody officers in direct contact with the subject by CCTV at all times. External vault door control, not internal.”

  The list goes on, seemingly endless. I’m still half convinced they’ll slip up and let him walk away by the end of the weekend.

  The rest of the afternoon and early evening I spend writing a report, eyes-only, for Mrs. Jessica Greene. I explain in words of one syllable exactly what the Mandate is capable of and why he was able to walk right into the door next to the Prime Minister’s residence, and what the consequences would have been if we hadn’t stopped him: a new PM and then a new Home Secretary before the election.*

  Thankfully there are no currently scheduled by-elections, so we don’t have to add a murder investigation to the Mandate’s account. (It’s pretty hard to prove murder to a jury who are mesmerized by the accused, especially when
the alleged victim – whichever MP the Mandate had decided to replace – will almost certainly turn out to have left a suicide note.) I’m pretty sure that trying the Mandate is going to present the Ministry of Justice with a huge headache as it is – maybe a tribunal of judges wearing wards and earplugs? – but that’s not our problem to worry about.

  The expected summons arrives in my email inbox around seven o’clock. See Me, Monday, 9:30 a.m. It comes directly from the Head Mistress’s appointments secretary. This is the first Home Office meeting I’m actually looking forward to, I realize. Even though I’m pretty sure that the reward for a job well done will be a royal bollocking for still not having found Freudstein.

  As I’m about to go home, I get a final email, this time from Jim: “Scored tickets for the final night of La traviata at Covent Garden tomorrow at eight p.m. Invitations to a reception afterwards. Want to eat first? We could make an evening of it.”

  Ooh, sounds like fun. I smile to myself and send back: “Yes, and yes.” I pause. “What’s the party dress code?”

  “Black tie,” he replies. “Our host is a sheikh. The hospitality will be something special.”

  “Ok,” I send. And just like that, I have a date.

  17: A NIGHT AT THE OPERA

  So, Saturday.

  I wake up early, stung by the realization that I said yes when Jim escalated to formal, but the only suitable outfit I’ve got that’s not five years out of date is a bit risqué. So I brave the autumnal clouds and the weekend shoppers, and head for Peter James and competitors. In the end, I do not buy a new dress, because everything that looks good doesn’t fit, and vice versa. On the other hand, once I’ve spent hours fruitlessly wandering department store floors, my existing gown doesn’t look so extreme. So I end up buying something much more useful: a calf-length black coat with silver detailing. It’s cheaper than a posh frock, and I can get a lot more mileage out of it. I then blow what’s left of my budget on a frivolous sequined clutch, opera gloves, and a new pair of court shoes with heels just tall enough to help me look Jim in the eyes without crippling me.