The Annihilation Score

by Charles Stross

  “Tough.” The SA smiles humorlessly as he bends down and presses a button on the black box.

  The office, and the faint traffic noises from outside, vanish.

  We sit around a boardroom table floating atop a circle of carpet surrounded by total blackness, eating pizza and drinking blood. The only illumination is the SA’s camping lantern.

  “We have some questions for you,” says Dr. Armstrong. “One at a time. Starting with, precisely what happened between the time you left the car park below this building and the time you returned. In your own words, without compulsion. Mo, you first.” He raises his fingers and the quality of sound in the ward deadens until the only things I can hear are the Auditors and my own voice. (Great: they’ve put the others in a cone of silence.)

  Fever-chills run up and down my spine. “What about Jim?” I ask.

  “You have no need to know.” Mouse Woman’s eyes are shadowed.

  Oh dear. “Well then.” I lick my lips. “Ramona led us to her vehicle, and then . . .”

  It seems to take forever to tell the tale, but the Auditors listen patiently. Then they release Mhari from the cone of silence and ask her to recount her version of events. I’m allowed to listen in but not contribute: as their manager I may have to defend them later if they say anything inadvisable.

  I cringe when she gets to the sequence where Officer Friendly broke into the taxi driver’s backyard and found what Übermensch had done there. Disgusting doesn’t begin to describe it. Stomach-churning? Yes. But his sadism was constrained in the end by his lack of imagination: it was vile but petty.

  Mhari describes the events in the classroom at the mosque and our subsequent discussions with Superintendent Christie. She makes no attempt to dissemble or self-censor, which surprises me: I didn’t know she’d encountered Dr. Armstrong and his colleagues in their professional capacity before, but her body language is totally cowed, submissive. Not what one would expect from one of the self-identified lords and ladies who rule humanity from the shadows, setting interest rates and offering credit—not even what you’d expect from a vampire.

  Finally it’s Ramona’s turn, but at this point she’s pretty much just confirming what Mhari and I told the auditors. At the end, the Mouse Lady nods. “I believe your accounts are consistent,” she says. “Michael?”

  “Yes,” the SA says slowly. “Yes, indeed. Dr. O’Brien”—he leans forward—“did you at any time see Chief Superintendent Grey? From the time you entered the basement to the time you arrived back here?”

  Wait, what? “Of course,” I say, confused. “He was sitting right behind me in the flying submarine—”

  “I’m sorry, but I believe I have not made myself sufficiently clear. You have said that you saw Officer Friendly sitting behind you. Did you at any point see James Grey’s face?”

  “Whu-well!” I sit back, and glance at Ramona. She looks bewildered. “Well no, but he had his armor on the whole time. Why would I see his face?”

  “Ms. Random, Ms. Murphy—did either of you see Chief Superintendent Grey? Or just a suit of armor?”

  “Ulp.” Mhari pushes her biohazard container aside and licks her lips. They glisten black in the dim glow of the lantern. “I don’t believe so,” she says hesitantly.

  “It was definitely Jim in there!” Ramona insists. “I mean, he may use a voice distorter but his diction and body language . . . ?” She looks around the table uncertainly. “You’re serious,” she says in a small voice.

  “Didn’t he say he couldn’t get a satellite signal inside the flying sub?” asks Mhari.

  “We only have his word for it,” I remind her. I look at the SA. “Are you serious?” I ask. “Do you really believe Jim wasn’t inside that suit of armor?”

  “I have heard no conclusive testimony to the effect that he was,” says Dr. Armstrong, “merely conjecture based on diction and body language.”

  Oh god. Officer Friendly was sitting behind me for the whole flight out. Standing behind me. Whoever was in that suit could have leaned forward and garroted me and I wouldn’t have stood a chance.

  “I do not believe you were in immediate danger,” the SA says calmly.

  “We are merely investigating one low-probability contingency,” echoes the Mouse Woman. “That information received from a sister agency is of questionable accuracy.”

  Silver-Hair leans back from the table and makes a steeple with his fingertips. “There are lessons to be learned,” he says.

  I can’t help myself: “What lessons?” I demand. “Which agency? Are the police lying to us? Do you think Jim Grey is a plant?”

  “He’s not—” begins Ramona.

  “Chief Superintendent Grey is very definitely what he appears to be,” Dr. Armstrong interrupts. “The question is whether Officer Friendly is likewise.”

  “But Officer Friendly is Jim Grey’s superhero persona!” I protest.

  “That’s what Chief Superintendent Grey says,” agrees the Mouse Woman. “Certainly Chief Superintendent Grey wears Officer Friendly armor. Whether it is the only such suit of armor, however . . .”

  “We think you should investigate further,” says the SA. He smiles. “What else?”

  Silver-Hair clears his throat. “Your attestation ceremony as officers of the law was held in front of Woolwich Magistrates yesterday morning and noted accordingly by the clerk of court. The paperwork is on its way to you: try not to lose it. Ahem. An order in privy council will be issued tomorrow formally re-designating this organization as the Transhuman Police Coordination Force—there is common law precedent, and an amendment to the Serious Organized Crime and Police Act (2005) will be tabled in the next Parliamentary session to regularize it. This leaves the, ah, IPCC enquiry. I believe we can head it off at the pass once you can demonstrate that you were acting lawfully to stop an imminent threat to life.”

  “Thank you for clarifying that,” I say tiredly. So the Auditors have an onside lawyer? What a surprise. “What else should we be doing?”

  “Generally, we want you to keep on doing what you’re already doing. With, perhaps, a little more structure.” The SA folds his arms. “Continue to solicit interviews with suitably solid citizens, and supervise their training and deployment. Collect forward intelligence on potentially disruptive superpower threats of three-sigma level and above.” He pauses. “You need to work out what story you’re going to feed the public and media to explain where you came from, sooner rather than later. It’ll need to be compatible with the global superpower origin cover we’re developing, of course, but that shouldn’t be too hard.” He pauses again. “And you might also want to investigate some sort of uniform or team costume.”

  “Now wait a minute,” says Mhari, a gravelly snarl creeping into her voice, “if you think you’re going to get me to wear spangly fishnets—”

  “Not at all!” says the SA. “But”—he gestures at my bagged-up suit—“next time your clothes are ruined, you’ll find it much easier to indent for a replacement if it’s a uniform item rather than personal office attire.”

  “Are we done here?” asks the Mouse Woman.

  “Not quite.” Dr. Armstrong spares us a long look. “I want you to know that I’m proud of you; despite being inadequately briefed, not to mention trained, you did far better than we could reasonably have expected today. But in future”—he momentarily looks as if he’s sucking on a lemon—“expect the worst. I’m afraid you won’t be disappointed.”

  12.

  END OF THE LINE

  It’s eight forty on a rainy Monday morning a week later, and I am already on the phone. “They stole a what?”

  The voice on the other end is terse to the point of obscurity: “A tube station.”

  “A station. Not a train . . . ?”

  I arrived at work ten minutes ago to find my voicemail was already backed up like a blocked drain. The contents sm
ell nearly as bad, too: five calls from the British Transport Police, three from officials at Transport for London, one from the office of the Mayor, and two silent calls from blocked numbers. The latter I can ignore, but the BTP calls are worrying so I start at the top and work down.

  “Aldwych is missing,” Inspector Hoare explains in the slightly stunned tones of someone who woke up this morning to see lions lying down with lambs, rivers flowing uphill, and the sun rising in the west. “The G4S security guard phoned it in when he visited on his rounds at six a.m. I thought he was on drugs at first, but no, it’s gone.”

  I hesitate to tell the inspector at the other end of the line that I think he sounds as if he’s on drugs. Instead: “Who else knows?” I ask.

  “Us, obviously—BTP London situation room, that is. Also TfL, equally obviously—they’re responsible for station premises even when the stations are closed—”

  “Derelict?” I interrupt.

  “No, just closed. Aldwych was the only station on a branch of the Piccadilly Line that they officially closed in 1994. It used to be Strand Station when it opened, because it’s on the Strand; there were plans to extend the spur to Waterloo but they were canned ages ago. The building’s still used for filming, but trains don’t run there anymore—a security guard checks it a couple of times a day to make sure it’s not squatted. This morning he entered through the side entrance but couldn’t gain access to the underground sections of the station. I sent an officer to Holborn to take a look and they reported back that the entrance to the spur tunnel’s missing. Blocked off as if it was never there in the first place. Really spooked him when he saw it, I can tell you.”

  I think for a moment. “What do you mean by can’t gain access? From the surface, I mean.”

  “The structure’s been modified,” the Inspector says darkly. “Best if you see for yourself.”

  “Okay. One more question before I come over: Why did you think of us? I mean, what makes you think it’s a job for the Transhuman Police Coordination Force?”

  “I asked around and was advised to talk to you people by our liaison at the Met. If you could have your man meet me there, it’s near the corner of the Strand and Surrey Street—about a five-minute walk from Temple on the District and Circle Line.”

  “I’ll be along in about forty minutes,” I tell him, and hang up. Then I go for a little walk. My first stop is with Sam and Nick in the analysts’ hole. They’ve added pale green cubicle walls and two more desks in anticipation of some new recruits, but otherwise it looks nearly the same as it did on their first day. Spartan. They’re at their desks, but both look up when I enter. “I have an extra special rush job for you this morning. I need everything you can dig up on Aldwych tube station, anything at all in the past two or so years.”

  “Anything?” Nick looks surprised.

  “Yes. It’s been closed for more than twenty years, but suddenly—” I shrug. “Email it to me, I’ve got to go pay a call.”

  “How do you spell Aldwych?” asks Sam.

  My next destination takes some thought. Ramona is wheelchair bound, which wouldn’t normally be a problem, but I’m planning on visiting a century-old station that closed around the time the Disability Discrimination Act came in: the chances of it being wheelchair-friendly are approximately zero. Mhari is not unreasonably reluctant to venture outside in daylight. The analysts are needed at their computers, and we still don’t have any superpowered recruits—our most promising candidates are stuck in the middle of their enhanced criminal background checks. That leaves me with a choice of Jim or Jim for backup.

  He answers his mobile at once. “Grey speaking.”

  “I’ve got to go out of the office to look into something, and I could do with a second pair of eyeballs,” I tell him. “What I really need is the paranormal equivalent of a detective constable, but as I don’t have one, that leaves you. Can you spare a couple of hours this morning? Or find a body you can send along to hold my hand through the finer points of examining a possible crime scene?”

  “Let me see—” I hear him typing on an old rattly desktop keyboard. His calendar is probably as full as mine: he may have an office here but he’s still spending half his time in the ACPO suite on Victoria Street and another quarter at the Yard. “I’m finishing my weekly activity report for my boss and his executive, then there’s a meeting at eleven this morning, but I’m not a key stakeholder. I’ll send my apologies and come along. Are you sure about this?”

  “Not entirely, but the British Transport Police seem to think it’s a job for us.”

  “Well, if they say so, it must be true.” He camps it up just a little and I stifle a laugh.

  “Personally I think it’s a job for Fortean Times, but BTP seem to think we’re some kind of official Bizarro-World division. So unless we can shrug this one off on the missing property office . . .”

  “Missing property? Why would they be involved?”

  I tell him about the missing tube station and we agree to meet there at nine thirty. I pause just long enough to grab my coat and violin case, and then it’s out onto the uncharacteristically sodden pavement to do a job I don’t have the staff to delegate to, which in turn gets in the way of my recruiting the warm bodies I need in order to do this kind of thing without getting my feet wet. Wonderful.

  * * *

  I’ve spent the past decade working for an Intelligence organization rather than the Police. The rules are, shall we say, different over there.

  The Auditors have fed me just enough uncertainty about Jim to alarm me, but not enough to give me any preconceptions about the cause for their concern. In the absence of evidence against him, he’s still a vital part of my team. I hate the word indispensable because it’s a sign that you don’t have a working organization, just a bunch of temporarily cooperating individuals: but the sad fact is, I don’t have an organization, I have a superhero team. Maybe in another couple of months I’ll have Teams Alpha through Delta and a duty superhero roster and a training budget and a sickness/leave chart to track. But right now my team has all the logistical flexibility of a strip of balsa wood. So I can’t wrap Jim up in cotton wool and run him through a loyalty test maze: I’ve got to depend on him to get the job done, despite not being able to fully trust him.

  As if that’s not bad enough, I can’t even talk this over with Bob. For one thing, I don’t have a life of my own anymore: I’m spending a day and a half a week at the Police college in Hendon, being given my very own accelerated catch-up course in being a really wet-behind-the-ears rookie trainee policewoman, with the added twist that I’m on MI5’s management org chart, on payroll with a department of an organization (SOE) that was officially wound up in 1945, and I’m supposed to command a small and very weird police force all of my very own, with a Chief Superintendent working under me. If you want to map out my management matrix without getting hopelessly tangled up, you’ll need to draw it on the surface of a Klein bottle. The homework alone keeps me up until midnight on those days when the job doesn’t. I’ve lost track of my friends: I don’t even know how Sandy’s baby-bump is progressing this month, and (trust me on this) when one of your friends is pregnant, not getting daily or at least weekly updates is a sign that you’re really out of the loop.

  Finally, Bob isn’t even in London most of the time. It turns out that Angleton left little piles of metaphysical unexploded ordnance all over the country, and Bob’s being kept busy scurrying all over the map itemizing, neutralizing, and containerizing them. It’s not that Angleton was particularly untidy: he just got to work in a lot of offices over nearly eight decades of service.

  So about all I see of my husband is his name on my phone when he has time to call, which is maybe twice a week. And vice versa.

  Believe me, this does not make me happy. A house cat is no adequate substitute for a life partner, even when she isn’t trying to kill me in my sleep.

 
But let’s get back to the enigma inside a conundrum that is Jim Grey/Officer Friendly: if he was inside the Laundry, the Auditors could carpet him and ask some extremely pointed questions under sanction of his oath of loyalty. Our take on internal security is that if we secure the soul, the flesh will obey.*

  But Jim isn’t in the Laundry. He’s a senior police officer who has lately and semi-publicly acquired superpowers. The Laundry can’t recruit him and hush everything up, the way we used to do with adepts who showed signs of occult talent or computer science geeks who tripped over the Turing theses. All the Auditors can do is nudge him into this neither-fish-nor-fowl unit I’m running, then get me to poke him and see if he jumps in a self-incriminating direction—and hope that if he does, I can bring him down before he does any damage.

  That’s assuming the SA’s suspicions are justified, of course. I like Jim: he seems to be a genuine straight arrow who is also a deep enough thinker to regularly surprise me with his insights. The SA is usually rock-solid, but the idea that Jim could be some kind of criminal seems so misguided as to be laughable.

  But as Jim himself pointed out, the most effective criminals are the ones who move the fenceposts of the law to protect their activities: the ones you can’t even build a case against. Treason never prospers . . .

  * * *

  I approach the barred and boarded frontage of Aldwych station along the Strand, past the front of King’s College. A steady rain falls beneath a slate-colored overcast that suggests it has set in for the day. Buses and taxis rumble past, spraying water across the pavement whenever they plough through a puddle by a blocked drain. I walk as close to the buildings as possible. The station itself presents a narrow frontage to the road, red tiles framing a wide double doorway (closed off by a security grille) beneath a semicircular window. One side of the security mesh is drawn back, and one door stands ajar: a policeman stands inside, waiting just out of the rain.

  “Mo?” calls a voice behind me. I turn just in time to see Jim hurrying along the pavement. He’s in working uniform, with a high-vis waterproof on top.