The Annihilation Score

by Charles Stross

  Our unwilling guide opens the door and walks in. He does a double take: “Hey, Anwar, what are you doing—”

  There is a crimson flash of light and a deafening bang from across the room, then it’s raining indoors and Lecter’s strings flare the light electric. I take two steps forward, shoes slipping on the suddenly wet floor as I pass a cop in riot gear who is standing in place, smearing the blood around on his visor in a desperate attempt to see what’s happening. I pluck notes from my instrument, notes that absorb the thunder and fall flat and oppressive on my ears like atonal anti-music. Lecter nimbly drives my fingertips as I raise the blood-spattered bow and draw it across electric-blue strings that leave purple after-images in my vision, after-images like warped and melted prison bars that wrap around the silhouette of the man who stands chanting in the center of the summoning grid, holding a knife and the bleeding body of a black cockerel.

  ***Fun!*** sings my instrument as the perp brings the knife to bear, pointing it at us and chanting the lightning down. There are green worms spinning in his eyes because of course you don’t get to run this kind of summoning without shielding and still keep your soul intact: this is classic suicide-cultist territory and Anwar isn’t alone in his head anymore.

  There’s another pink-blue flicker-bang and I am dazzled and deafened, nearly thrown off my feet as Lecter absorbs a direct lightning strike at point-blank range.

  “Police! Drop it!” yells the other officer—the one who hasn’t lost his lunch all over what’s left of the caretaker. He’s drawn his Glock and he’s given warning and he’s about to double-tap the summoner, which would be fine by me if he was dealing with a regular armed lunatic. Unfortunately he isn’t. The revenant in the grid is still chanting, and now he turns his knife in a circle, waving it in all the cardinal directions. My skin tries to crawl off my body with the intensity of the thaum field he’s gathering around him.

  ***May I?*** pleads Lecter.

  Yes, I say, and he takes full control of my hands and—

  Hiatus.

  The next thing I am aware of is Alice Christie speaking rapidly into her Tetra mike. “We’re in the back of the mosque, entry with probable cause. Two confirmed dead, one officer down needs urgent medical support, dead include prime suspect in earlier lightning-induced fatalities—”

  Someone takes my elbow. “Ooh, tasty. Come on, Mo, let’s get you out of here.” They tug insistently, and I turn, mind fogged and numb. “Damn, I really need a drink. What a waste. Come on, walk, dammit.” Mhari shoves me towards the door. “That looks nasty, I hope you’ve got a change of clothes back at the office. I guess now we know why real superheroes wear artificial fibers.” I slip and slither across the caretaker’s intestines, which have somehow untangled into a complicated gray-pink maze between the upper and lower halves of his torso. Mhari steers me around the Tactical Ted who, having lost it, is now shivering by the door. The smell of blood and feces is a sullen reek in my nostrils, nauseating and fierce.

  “Let’s go home,” I mumble. It’s funny: now I’m no longer in play, trying to hold on to my own stomach contents is turning out to be a real chore. I hate wet work. It triggers hideous flashbacks, and I can’t get the mental taste of Lecter’s gloating satisfaction out of my mouth. Not letting him off the leash whenever he feels like it is about 80 percent of my job. It’s small consolation that the feeder animating Anwar’s body was gearing up to zap us repeatedly until crispy, or that the man himself had died some time before we got here. Why does this stuff always have to happen to me?

  We stumble out into the daylight, blinking (and cringing, in Mhari’s case). The clouds are thinning rapidly, the rain has stopped, and I can see a blue patch of sailor’s pants beyond the rooftops across the road. Ramona’s not-so-yellow submarine is parked beside the command truck, still disguised as a white Mercedes van. I stumble straight towards it, when there’s a thunder of rotors directly overhead, and I look straight up into a big telephoto lens poking through the open door of a helicopter.

  “Don’t say anything compromising,” Mhari reminds me, “we’re on candid camera.” She pushes me back towards the mosque doorway, then pauses, body language telegraphing distaste: “And you’re really going to have to bin that suit before the press conference, dear. Those bloodstains will never come out.”

  “Wonderful,” I manage. Trying to match her mordant humor seems to help with the chore of holding things together: “This day just keeps on getting better.”

  “Yes, it does,” says Superintendent Christie, her grim reaper voice just behind my right ear. “Because you do not get to bugger off back to London and leave me carrying the can. Once I get that bloody chopper out of the picture, you and I”—she pokes me in the small of my back—“are going to have a little chat about what happened in there. Because my boss is going to ask me for an explanation, and it had better be one which won’t set this whole city on fire by nightfall. Is that clear?”

  * * *

  We end up in a briefing room in a police station on Barn Street. At least it’s not a cell: that’s a hopeful sign.

  We are not, it seems, expected to shoulder the blame for Übermensch going off his trolley, throwing six assorted vehicles around, upending an ambulance, severely injuring half a dozen Anti-Fascist Action members, and nailing a middle-aged taxi driver to the back wall of his home for the crimes of having been born in Peshawar and dyeing his beard with henna. In fact Officer Friendly is quite popular with the force hereabouts, having saved any number of his non-superpowered colleagues the trouble of having to tackle the aforementioned juiced-up thug themselves.

  However, we’re getting rather less love for how we dealt with Anwar Kadir, a regular at the mosque and all around good egg—until he pulled out the extremely dodgy textbook, inscribed a summoning grid in the number two classroom, sacrificed a rooster, and got himself taken over by a class four manifestation (commonly known by the locals hereabouts as a Djinn).

  The death of Mohammed Nasir, the unfortunate mosque committee member who let us in, is not going to be easily brushed under the carpet. Neither is that of Mr. Kadir, although the fact that he was throwing lightning bolts around at the time and threatening a Superintendent weighs in our favor.

  But the steaming turd in the soup tureen is the fact that we went inside a mosque in hot pursuit and killed him. This is not good. In fact, it is extraordinarily bad. It would be bad enough if we’d done it in a church or a synagogue, but doing it in a predominantly Muslim neighborhood in the middle of a race riot . . .

  Paradoxically, what saves the day turns out to be the TV news cameras showing me stumbling out into the daylight with my arm over White Mask’s shoulders, both of us absolutely covered in gore. Mhari was right—my suit’s utterly ruined—but it takes very little effort to imply that I’ve been injured in the course of taking down a superpowered monster. Superintendent Christie simply arranges for an ambulance to back up to the front door and for me to be taken away on a stretcher. Mr. Nasir was not the only member of the mosque committee to be sheltering on the premises. When the Super invited them to examine Kadir’s little pentacle, there were many sharp intakes of breath. Then the imam picked up the book Mr. Kadir was working with—disturbing the crime scene, but we’ll let that pass—and started swearing loudly in Pashtun. It was not a copy of the Koran; it was not a holy book at all. In fact, it was very, very unholy indeed, positively unclean—and he wanted it removed from his mosque as fast as possible.

  We (I am using the corporate “we” here: I, personally, wasn’t involved at this point in time) were happy to make it go away. The Laundry is always happy to expand its archives.

  But this leaves us dealing with the unpalatable task of explaining our role in a multiple fatality police incident involving two separate riots and a superhero dust-up. If I was an authorized firearms officer and I’d just shot someone—hell, if I’d so much as drawn my gun and pointed it, never mind dis
charging it—I’d be facing a lengthy period of suspension on pay pending an IPCC enquiry to determine if in fact I had behaved lawfully, with possible prosecution at the end of the process if I hadn’t. I’m not a police officer and I didn’t use a firearm and I’m actually supposed to be running a new type of quick reaction force with backing from the Home Office, and the procedures we’re supposed to follow start out murky, then drive off a legal cliff.

  Which makes it a very good thing indeed that the only witnesses were Mhari, me, Superintendent Alice Christie, Constable Ed Carter (hospitalized for shock: under heavy sedation, may never work again), and Sergeant Barry Samson, who had actually drawn on Mr. Kadir and was about to pull the trigger when I beat him to it and maybe saved his life.

  And which also explains why at ten o’clock at night I’m sitting in a briefing room, wearing a set of exercise sweats borrowed from the GMP ladies’ basketball team and drinking a bottle of Coke Zero while Alice, who has spent the last four hours on damage control, explains what’s going to happen in words of one syllable. Mhari—who escaped the worst of the mess when Mr. Nasir exploded because she was standing behind me—is also present: she’s removed her mask and is looking surprisingly subdued.

  “I am not going to charge you with manslaughter, Dr. O’Brien, because it is patently obvious that you were acting in self-defense and, indeed, in defense of myself and my officers. Personally, I would like to thank you for what you did back there. Nevertheless, I and my force commander would be extremely pleased if your team could refrain from visiting us again in an active front-line role until all your people are officially on the books as sworn-in constables. If the Met would see fit to discover that they’ve misplaced the paperwork and you simply forgot to tell me that your attestation was held the day before yesterday, that would be amazingly helpful. Oh, and if you could remind your friend from ACPO that he designated you as an Authorized Firearms Officer as well? You will need to talk to the IPCC about establishing due procedures for investigating fatalities resulting from the actions of officers on your, ah, force, and for controlling the use of potentially lethal weapons. I assume you have no objection to my division filing the preliminary paperwork to refer Mr. Kadir’s death to the IPCC, and will supply your own sworn testimony in due course.”

  “I understand,” I say woodenly. There’s no credit to be gained by pointing out that in my parent organization we regularly use lethal force with minimal oversight: quite the contrary. I’m not in Kansas anymore, and the Security Service is supposed to leave this kind of head-banging to SCO19 and, in extremis, the Army.

  Alice rolls her eyes. “You would not believe the shit-storm that’s going to land on my head tomorrow, and on yours the day after. IPCC fatal incident investigations rattle on for years; they don’t terminate until the weight of paperwork exceeds the fully loaded coffin and the gravestone on top. Sometimes they result in a manslaughter prosecution. I’m pretty sure this one won’t, but your delayed or misfiled paperwork is absolutely not going to make things better. You can expect a dressing-down from Professional Standards, at the very least. And I’m serious about not coming back here until you’ve got your ducks in a row.”

  “Believe me, I’d like nothing more than to do that,” I tell her. Yes, a three- to six-month paid vacation would be just fine right now. I instinctively nudge my violin case with one foot. I spent a couple of hours cleaning it, but there are still patches of dried blood that will take specialist attention. “I’m not sure we’ve got time, though. My unit didn’t even exist until last Tuesday—”

  “You’d better make time. If this was your organization’s first outing, you might be able to roll over it, or not: but it all depends on whether the Home Secretary is feeling merciful and how the press spin things in tomorrow’s broadsheets. At least Officer Friendly is on the books, and tackling that tanked-up chav is going to earn credit in the right places.”

  “We’d better head back for London,” I say tiredly.

  Mhari sniffs. “Ramona can drive. Officer Friendly took off a couple of hours ago under his own power.”

  “You go.” Alice shakes her head. “I’ll walk you to the car park. Oh, and we haven’t had this conversation. Understand?”

  “Absolutely,” I say.

  “Yes,” agrees Mhari.

  “Good. Because if we had accidentally discussed ways of working around an Independent Police Complaints Commission investigation, that would be very bad indeed—for all of us.”

  And that’s how our superhero team’s first clash with the forces of evil comes to an end.

  * * *

  It’s after eleven at night by the time Ramona, having driven out of town in her white van camouflage, takes us up into the starry vastness of the stratosphere while the abyssal ghosts hoot and trill in existential pain behind us. We blaze a cometary course southeast before descending somewhere north of the M25 to drive back into town along the A1 in dug-out canoe mode. Consequently, we don’t slither and slide into the car park until shortly after midnight.

  As soon as the hatch dilates, my smartphone beeps repeatedly, announcing a slew of messages. “Wait,” I say. The very first one I glance at is an SMS from Dr. Armstrong. See me in your office as soon as you arrive. Bring everyone who is traveling with you. “Damn.”

  “What?” says Mhari.

  “We’re meeting the Auditors, upstairs, right now.”

  “Shit.” It occurs to me that Mhari is getting just a tad repetitive: I resolve to find a way to tackle her about her language—but not right now.

  “Do they want me, too?” Ramona sounds mildly anxious. It occurs to me to wonder if she’s made the Auditors’ acquaintance yet.

  “Yes, they want all of us. Follow me,” I say, and I stumble tiredly towards the lift. I’m still wearing the borrowed sweats, violin in one hand and bagged-up remains of my second-best work suit in the other. I don’t so much feel like I’ve been dragged backwards through a hedge as I feel like I’ve been stomped flat, chewed up, and spat out by the Cape buffalo that lives on the other side.

  The lift door opens onto the twilit lobby. There is a trail of light leaking along the corridor from the boardroom doorway. My mouth tastes of ashes and I’m exhausted: I really don’t feel up to another grilling today, but needs must. I slowly walk towards the inevitable reckoning.

  I’m about to touch the door handle when someone opens it from the other side. “Ah, Dominique,” says the SA. His smile is polite but strained. “Do come in. And you, Ms. Murphy, Ms. Random.” He looks past us. “Chief Superintendent Grey is elsewhere? Excellent. Do make yourselves comfortable—”

  “Yes, do,” echoes the silver-haired elder from the Audit Committee who confronted me the week before. “Please seal the room, Dr. Armstrong.”

  They’ve brought food. My nostrils flare: the odor of pizza drifts from a stack of square boxes in the middle of the table. They’ve even brought drinks, or at least bottles of mineral water. I’m instantly on edge, scenting a setup. “I expect you’ve missed your tea,” says the Mouse Lady from the Audit Committee. (The only one who’s not here is the woman named Persephone.) “Do sit down, ladies.” Her attempt at emulating domestic hospitality is a washout, I’m afraid: she’s even less good at doing motherly than I am.

  The SA paces the perimeter of the room, sprinkling white powder from a silvery Thermos flask. Mhari looks at me apprehensively, then takes a seat; Ramona rolls up beside her. “I don’t understand,” I say, glancing at Dr. Armstrong.

  “He’s establishing a field-expedient grid,” says Silver-Hair. “Total privacy is required. In the meantime, feel free to tuck in; you must be famished. Oh, I nearly forgot.” He picks up a different thermally insulated container, decorated with biohazard symbols. “This is for you, Ms. Murphy. I suggest you consume it within the next hour; it will be nonviable by tomorrow.”

  I shudder and look away, suddenly nauseous. Oh God, they did it
. They went and did it. PHANGs need a blood meal at least once every two weeks or their V-parasite runs wild. The trouble is, it has to be blood from another living human being. The commensal parasites that give them their superpowers, by way of the law of contagion, use the blood as a bridge into the brain of their victims—which they chew holes in. Blood is just a communications channel, not the meal itself, and V syndrome is a horrible neurodegenerative affliction I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy—similar to K syndrome, except at one remove. Hideous and terminal, and—

  Mouse Woman notices me staring: “The donor is in a hospice, Dr. O’Brien, in the end stages of malignant melanoma. In this instance, she is already unconscious and will be dead of natural causes within twenty-four hours—she won’t have time to suffer from V syndrome.”

  Mhari gives me a guilty sidelong look, her shoulders hunched. I look away and swallow. My stomach rumbles and the pizza smells wonderful, but I don’t feel right about dining at this table.

  “Please go ahead and eat,” Mouse Woman tells me, a note of iron creeping into her voice. “This meeting is going to take some time.”

  Damned if I do, damned if I don’t. I can still taste the metallic strangeness of Mohammed Nasir’s blood on my lips. (I spat and rinsed with bottled water but it doesn’t seem to go away.) I pull the nearest box towards me and open it. Pineapple and mushroom and ham: doubly damned I am. I nibble on the edge of a slice as Dr. Armstrong repeats his circuit of the room, chanting quiet mnemonics in Old Enochian. He sketches a ward on the boardroom door, then connects a crude-looking black box to the salt trail using a ribbon cable, takes his seat at the table, and switches on an LED camping lantern. “Is everybody ready?” he asks.

  I nod, mouth full. Mhari is sucking liquid through an opaque straw. Ramona shakes her head. “Not really,” she says quietly. She’s been unusually subdued since we came up here. I wonder if she knows how she’s been set up?