The Annihilation Score

by Charles Stross

  “Well, I think that went well,” Jim confides as we emerge into a hallway where our hosts have set up a table with coffee supplies.

  “I hope so.” I pull out my compact to check my hair’s under control and my mascara isn’t running. “They really had me sweating at the end.”

  “What, John’s grilling about training and professional standards?” Jim is busy with the refreshments.

  “Yes, that—no, all of them.” My face having neither melted nor exploded, I put the mirror away and accept the cup of coffee Jim hands me. “John was right: it normally takes three months to train a PCSO, and two years for a probationary constable—and we’re trying to rush through candidates who didn’t originally want a career in policing?”

  “It’s not quite that bad.” I can’t tell whether Jim’s speaking of the coffee or the training program. “We’re running a specialist unit that gets called on as backup in response to specific events. The superpowered don’t need training in everyday policing tasks that don’t fall within their remit: they’ll never be deployed in a situation where they don’t have a responsible officer in charge. They just need to keep their noses clean and follow instructions. And I don’t think anyone is ahead of us on the learning curve in our field, so there’s nobody for us to look bad in comparison to.” I take a cautious sip of coffee as I wince. Jim’s perspective is blunter than usual: perhaps it’s the uniforms on all sides making him open up. “That’s probably what they’re thinking, even if they’re more polite to your face,” he adds. “Join me for lunch after the next talk? I think I can promise you an eye-opener.”

  I sit through the next half-hour slot (a woman from the CPS discussing new procedures for handling cases involving serious financial malfeasance—not my thing at all although I can see it’s useful to the intended audience), using the time to decompress. In due course I tag along with Jim behind a clot* of uniformed senior officers as they make their way towards the canteen at New Scotland Yard—because it’s necessary for them to be seen there, canteen culture being what it is even today.

  There’s a side room waiting for the top brass, although the door’s open so that everyone can see that they’re just regular coppers who eat and drink the same food as everyone else. Even if it’s a buffet and there are starched linen tablecloths waiting for them. Jim walks straight in—as an ACPO staffer it’s his right—and I tag along, hoping nobody calls my bluff.

  My middle-aged invisibility seems to come in handy—at least at first. I find myself sitting opposite Jim, sandwiched between an assistant chief from South Wales, Graham Walton, and his opposite number from Humberside, Chris Norton. They seem to know Jim (he’s probably on their radar as young and ambitious, possible future competition for a top slot), but the conversation is friendly enough: almost collegiate. So I do my best fly on the wall impersonation as they politely grill Jim about my organization.

  “. . . So we’re particularly worried about the public order angle,” Graham is telling Jim. He has a sausage impaled on the end of his fork and gestures with it while he speaks, knife poised ready to scoop a mashed potato shroud atop it when he finishes and has time to chew: “Not your outliers, but the low-end troublemakers who come out to play at chucking-out time on a Saturday in Cardiff. Your two-sigma tanked-up chav with a skin full of Bucky can raise Cain on the early watch, but what if we’re not covered? Because you’ve only got the one team—”

  “We’re working on it.” Jim’s gaze flickers my way, then slides away as he looks at Chris Norton to see how his response is going down. “We’re still working up to operational status from zero across the board, Graham”—a sidelong glance at his Welsh interrogator, who is now demolishing his plate—“but we have to get the back-office system in place first. Currently we’re focusing on intelligence-led operations, starting by compiling a register of all known high-end offenders. We’re also working up a team of PCSOs with three-sigma or higher capability who can be brought into play by field commanders who need backup—”

  “But what about the leadership culture?” Chris pushes in. “I know you’re overstretched already with your ACPO brief, but what other officers do you have on-force to provide mentorship in a progressive policing environment?” I clear my throat, but he doesn’t stop: “There’s just one of you, and from that org chart you showed us earlier the TPCF is already up to twenty staff and growing rapidly—too rapidly for organic promotion from within. Do you plan to advertise senior positions for recruitment from other forces?”

  “Excuse me—” I try to cut in.

  “No need for that,” Jim replies, without giving me a chance to answer. It’s really annoying: I expected better of him. “We have a management skeleton already in place: people drawn from the Security Service who are on loan to the Home Office. It turns out the MoD already has a lot of experience handling superpowers. The real issue is building a Police culture within the organization, not finding high-quality administrative support and management personnel.”

  “Excuse me—” I say, but as Graham finishes chewing, he leans towards Jim.

  “But surely you’ll be wanting training standards officers and cadre who already have front-line experience?”

  It’s as if I’m not even here. I give up and stir my salad listlessly with my fork. “Gentlemen,” I say quietly, “don’t mind me. Feel free to pretend I’m not here—”

  “You’d have to ask my director,” Jim replies to Graham. “She’s in charge of all senior staffing decisions, although she defers on them to her head of HR.” He doesn’t look at me. It’s like he’s forgotten I’m here. He smiles ingratiatingly: “You could ask her.”

  “Maybe later.” Graham goes back to ploughing through his lunch.

  “The real problem, it seems to me”—Chris Norton speaks quietly, almost inaudible against the background chatter and the sound of canteen cutlery—“is the overall trajectory of the epidemic. We have to assert control now, before the structures we rely on for the reinforcement of societal consent break down.”

  “Which structures in particular?” Jim asks, in a mild tone of voice I’ve come to recognize as his Socratic sucker-bait.

  “Authority,” Chris states. “Yes, yes, Peelian principles are all very well. We police by consent, the public are the police and the police are the public, and so forth. But that growth curve you showed us is troubling. It seems to me that if we have a major ongoing outbreak of superpowers, the entire structure of public consent may be dangerously weakened. We rely on most people obeying the law of the land most of the time because it’s the right thing to do—and when that fails, we rely on them obeying because they must, because we can always out-escalate them. But superpowers will undermine that. If it’s just a handful, we can muddle through with backup from TPCF and good intelligence. But heaven help us if it hits ten percent of the population and the hard core of regular troublemakers cut loose.”

  “We’re going to need a bigger stick,” Graham agrees, dabbing at his lips with a napkin.

  “So where’s the bigger stick?” Chris asks Jim, disarmingly candidly. “One team of extraordinary PCSOs isn’t going to cut it, if you don’t mind me saying. We really need something better. The Met should provide leadership on this one.”

  “We’re working on it,” Jim says defensively. “There are plans afoot.” His gaze flickers past me as if he’s forgotten I’m here. “But nothing I can really discuss in public yet.”

  Chris puts his knife and fork down. His plate is as spotless as his uniform. “Well, I just hope it’s ready when we need it.” He smiles. “Well, gentlemen: we have fifteen minutes until the next session starts. If you’ll excuse me?” He rises to leave; Graham Walton follows his example. Jim watches them leave.

  “Well, that was illuminating,” I mutter.

  Jim glances at me, then suddenly twitches as if seeing me for the first time. “What?” he asks, eyebrows raised in surprise.


  “What indeed?” I look at him. He looks slightly flustered. Embarrassed, even.

  “Uh, Dr. O’Brien, I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

  “Oh, don’t mind me.” I smile, thin-lipped. “I can handle it. Canteen culture, eh?”

  He nods. “Canteen culture.” But I have an inkling that it’s something more than that.

  * * *

  I barely notice the rest of the week, I’m so busy. I’m bogged down in a sea of minutiae, fully occupied juggling a huge brief: team recruitment operations, budget estimates, our continuing research into individual cases and general superpower threat projections. I don’t have time to be upset or angry about the way the ACPO delegates virtually ignored me, as if I were invisible. Developing invisibility as my superpower: wouldn’t that be something? (Something hellishly annoying, if you couldn’t control it . . .)

  Our failure to find Freudstein is eating away at me. I’ve also got a horrible feeling of near futility, coupled with a sense that I’m spinning my wheels, that however hard I run I’m not gaining on our workload, that CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN is closing in, and that a tidal wave of horror is surging towards us, still unseen, just beyond the horizon—

  Let’s just say I’m not sleeping very well.

  I continue to hope HR will deliver something more about Jim’s background. I try to be patient, but if Alison can’t get results within a week, I’m going to have to escalate my enquiries. I put this to Dr. Armstrong at our Friday morning confessional in the New Annex, and he gives me absolution. “I understand your concerns, Mo. I believe you’ve taken the correct action with respect to Jim. Under the circumstances, it would be indiscreet to enquire too openly about his capabilities. As for Bee, Torch, and the others—”

  “They’re a known quantity,” I point out. “I can refer them to Dr. Wills directly, get them checked out weekly if necessary. We’ve got protocols for dealing with K syndrome. My real concern is that Jim is a special case. As you yourself said. Anyway, where did that armor come from?”

  The SA is imperturbable. “You might as well ask where Ramona’s vessel came from.”

  “BLUE HADES, but—” I stop dead. “I first met Jim at the reception during the treaty negotiation sessions up north.”

  “Jolly good.” The SA nods.

  “Is that why you’re suspicious of him? You think BLUE HADES gave him the armor? Why would they do that?”

  “Why would they loan us Ramona and her chariot?” He raises an eyebrow expectantly.

  “Somebody asked?”

  “Yes, somebody asked. In the case of Ramona, somebody asked if they knew anything about the superpower problem: that’s when they offered to send us a liaison officer and some specialized equipment. The trouble with dealing with the Deep Ones is that sometimes something is lost in translation . . .”

  “So they sent Ramona as a message. A very clear one: ‘Mess with us and we have the capability to make you very sorry indeed. Meanwhile, have a nice day fighting crime.’ But Officer Friendly . . .”

  “Also fights crime,” the SA reminds me gently. “And works for ACPO. But please remember that it’s a mistake to base an analysis on insufficient data.”

  “Or on a posteriori reasoning, don’t teach your grandmother to—sorry. But. Why Jim?” I take a deep breath. “Null hypothesis: Jim was just there. Assigned to Fisheries and cleared to liaise with our people so he was probably a Person Of Interest to whatever passes for BLUE HADES’ HUMINT people—Ramona’s employers—when his superpowers manifested themselves. Either BLUE HADES gave him the suit, or someone else did, or he made it himself—but he’s a cop, not a Mad Science Corporate Executive!”

  “That’s a reasonable assumption. In the absence of evidence that there’s anything more to it, Occam’s razor suggests it’s the most likely explanation. But it’s a bad idea to rely on the razor for too close a shave: sometimes you get cut.” Dr. Armstrong unlocks a drawer in his desk. “You haven’t seen these.” He pulls out a slim display folio and hands it to me. “I am not showing you this because it does not exist. Officially.”

  “What—”

  The cover bears the BAe Systems logo, subtitled Computational Invocation Applications Group. I open it. It contains a bunch of presentation folders, with glossy promotional renderings. I blink a couple of times to clear my eyes because I’m not entirely sure what I’m looking at. The first few pages look like Mhari’s proposed “protective overalls,” complete with helmets, except they’re in British Army Brown and the wearers are carrying L85 rifles with Very Scary Electronic Sights bolted on top and choppers hovering menacingly in the background. Then I flip a page and come face to face with something familiar. Take Officer Friendly’s outfit, swap out the frankly theatrical helmet for something that looks like a cross between a praying mantis’s head and a gas mask, and color it Army: you get something called the Future Battle Environment Suit. This time the L85 is just a carrier for a pair of side-by-side ruggedized cameras, a Joint Line-Of-Sight Vitrification Weapon according to the caption. A basilisk gun, in other words.

  “Jesus,” I mutter.

  Dr. Armstrong removes the promotional brochure from my nerveless fingers. “Power-assisted chameleon suits with tactical displays, mesh networking, armor, and strength amplification,” he says. “A triumph of our new strategic technology transfer program. Some of this stuff did come from BLUE HADES, in return for certain . . . services. Chicken feed by their standards, but highly useful to us nevertheless. Their approach to CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN seems to be to give the natives muskets while keeping the Gatling guns for themselves.” His expression is disapproving. “The Army think it’s just the ticket for when the stars come right. It’s not as revolutionary as you think: the Americans have been working on something similar since the late 1980s, the Future Force Warrior program. It’s all a bit pricey in today’s austere climate, though. One might consider the possibility that a certain large corporation has chosen to demonstrate some of the less sensitive aspects of their new toy chest by painting it blue and loaning it to ACPO as cover for one of their less well-understood capabilities.”

  “Ah.” It would certainly explain a lot. ACPO suddenly acquire a super-cop: How to protect his identity and make best use of his capabilities? Throw in a serendipitous marketing approach . . . “Tell me they weren’t also looking into selling this as next-generation riot kit?”

  “I’m disappointed in you, Mo: How could you imagine that the militarization of the police might be seen as a huge potential growth market by defense contractors?”

  “How indeed.” A thought strikes me. “Can I get my hands on some of this stuff for my team? Not the basilisk gear, but the power-assisted armor? So far, Mhari’s come up with unpowered body armor with helmet-mounted communications kit, but the strength amplification . . .”

  “Would you trust your trainee team with it?” askss the SA. “That’s a serious question.”

  “If I can’t trust them with it, they don’t belong on the team.”

  “That’s the right answer.” He nods thoughtfully. “Tell Mhari to talk to me directly. I’ll point her at someone who may be able to help.”

  And that’s another Friday morning confessional over: stick a fork in me, I’m done.

  * * *

  That Friday afternoon’s highlight is a personnel review with Mhari and Ramona. Our next two recruits have finally been cleared by CRB, and we are on course to induct them next Monday. They’re a bit mundane if you stack them up against Officer Friendly, but they’re squeaky-clean role models, and that’s actually more important in my opinion. Mhari delivers the HR smackdown:

  “First up: Lollipop Bill. Aged sixty-four, former ambulance paramedic, retired at sixty. For the past few years he’s been working part-time as a school crossing attendant.” Wearing a hi-vis coat and wielding a fluorescent sign, he’s one of the army of unsung heroes and heroines whose very important job is to wa
lk out into a main road and bring the traffic to a screeching halt when the primary school kids are chucking out, in order to stop the oblivious yummy mummies and white-van men from mowing down bairns like ninepins. “He came to our attention two months ago when he had an argument over right of way with a courier firm Ford Transit—and won. Bill saved a bunch of six-year-olds from being maimed or killed, and incidentally discovered that he’s got lightning reflexes and super-strength. He’s not as fast as Bee and not as strong as Jim, but he used to be fully certificated in first aid, and we could do with a paramedic on the team. Oh, and the guy behind the wheel was charged with texting while driving.”

  Bill is an affable-looking sixty-something in good shape—he could pass for a decade younger—with a salt-and-pepper beard and neatly trimmed hair. Born in Jamaica, emigrated with his parents when he was three, naturalized citizen, three kids and six grandchildren, he’s a genuine good-natured public servant and all around British hero with an ethnic spin: exactly what we need.

  “Okay.” I nod. “And the other, Captain Mahvelous—”

  Mhari pulls up his file. “Eric Talbot. Aged thirty-eight, software developer, civil partnership, works in banking.”

  “Why isn’t he one of yours?”

  She sniffs. “Obviously he isn’t bright enough.” Ramona clears her throat. Mhari shakes her head. “Want me to continue?”

  “Sure, let’s get this over.”

  She gives me a tight little smile. Smug, even. “Origin story: He and his hubby were on their annual boys’ day out for London Pride this year and decided to head over to Old Compton Street for some clubbing after the march. Halfway there they ran into a group of gang-bangers who were looking for trouble, or maybe some easy wallets to lift: your traditional queer-bashing ensued. Or rather, your traditional queer-bashing was attempted. That’s when Captain Mahvelous discovered his hitherto unknown talent for telekinesis, and his affinity for dumpsters. And then, in short order, the joy of introducing would-be queer-bashers to said dumpsters. He hospitalized two of them—broken ribs—but the entire incident was captured on CCTV, and as it was six against two and the bad guys had knives, it was an open-and-shut case of self-defense.”