The Annihilation Score

by Charles Stross

  “But it got the key points across, didn’t it?”

  “I know it’s meant to be funny, but there’s a fine line between being laughed with and being laughed at. If we go public with this, we’ll be a laughing stock.”

  “So that’s a no, Mo?”

  “Remember the search for the HomeSec’s sense of humor? They had to ground the rescue choppers for maintenance checks, they’d been airborne so long. If we take this to the Home Office, someone’s going to have to explain all the jokes to her, and I don’t want that someone to be me. I’m pretty sure she’s got Medusa DNA.” Pause. “Unless, hmm. Unless we make it look like a leak. What if we let it show up on YouTube with a disclaimer saying it’s an unreleased rough treatment?”

  “You mean it’s kitsch enough it might just go viral? But we could disclaim it if it backfires? Holy Batman, that’s brilliant, Mo!”

  “Who knows? It’s a long shot, but it just might work.”

  16.

  DEMOCRACY IN ACTION

  The amusement afforded me by the first of our promo video treatments is short-lived, because after a lunchtime raid on Pret A Manger I have to return to Marsham Street and the Home Office for the long-dreaded grilling about, well, everything.

  This session is somewhat smaller than the previous one: but it will be chaired by the Right Honorable Jessica Greene herself. Luckily Jim is coming along, fancy uniform and all, so I’m not the only sacrificial rodent entering the snake pit. But I confess to feeling some trepidation—almost enough to make me dial in the combination on my safe and remove Lecter. (But not quite. If it’s a really hostile session and I get upset, there is a very remote chance that I will undergo a stress reaction, and if Lecter is present the potential for certain defensive reflexes to cut in is also present, and it would be a very bad idea to eat the soul of the fourth ranking minister in the cabinet—even though some of her harsher detractors would laugh in disbelief at the very idea that she has a soul in the first place).

  I meet Jim in the concourse outside. He looks the very model of a modern police major-general. “Afternoon, Mo. How do you want to play this?”

  I shrug. “I think we should be blunt but honest. Aside from operational work-up, our biggest priority is the search for Freudstein. Message is: we are working on building a profile of him, but we are handicapped by a lack of resources and information. Freudstein is a canny opponent and he is clearly attempting to manipulate us. We intend to get inside his decision loop and outmaneuver him, but so far we have very little data upon which to build a predictive model of his activities because they are cunningly arranged to be maximally flashy but effectively random.”

  Jim nods but looks withdrawn. “She’s not going to like that.”

  “No, but what else—”

  The door opens and a Junior Undersecretary beckons us forward.

  “Remember it’s not all about Freudstein,” Jim warns me quietly, and then we go in.

  This conference room has natural light, courtesy of a row of high windows opposite the doorway. There’s a U-shaped set of tables for the Home Secretary and her staff, and a table set across the end for people giving evidence or testimony or confessions. That would be us, I guess from the semicircle of a dozen faces opposite. Mrs. Greene sits at the far end of the U, chatting affably to a senior departmental secretary to her right. Our usher directs us to the seats in the hot spot, then closes the door, and we’re off.

  “Dr. O’Brien. It has been nearly eight weeks since the individual or group identifying themselves as Professor Freudstein first came to our attention. Why haven’t you caught him? Or her?”

  Mrs. Greene is as direct and friendly as the business end of a machine gun. But it’s not personal, and I know how to handle this sort of interrogation. Years of performing in front of the Auditors have hardened me.

  “With all due respect, one might ask why the security guards at the Bank of England, SCO19 at the British Library on Euston Road, or the Civil Nuclear Police at Sellafield all failed to capture him. I don’t want to play the blame game, but they were on-site during his previous appearances; my unit was not, and furthermore, we’re still working up towards an operational capability which we have not yet achieved. Let me emphasize that: we’re not fully operational yet. We’re still recruiting and training personnel. The real problem with Freudstein is that we’re not dealing with a normal criminal here.

  “As I said, I don’t want to play the blame game. Freudstein doesn’t fit any of the threat profiles those forces are designed to deal with. In fact, from the planning he’s demonstrated so far, he’s operating more at the level of a hostile government agency rather than a criminal gang or terrorist cell. He—or they: I think there’s a very high probability that we’re dealing with an organization here—have access to trained special forces people, automatic weapons, helicopters, vehicles, and inside intelligence on some of the nation’s most tightly guarded facilities. That’s before we mention enough plutonium to credibly threaten us with multiple nuclear weapons. What we don’t have is any kind of clue about his identity, real or purported, nor do we know what he wants.” Although, I fail to say aloud, there’s probably a clue buried in what he stole from the library. If only we knew what he was really after and what were the decoy thefts!

  “Freudstein is our number one priority, and if we develop a source, or if a sister agency can give us a lead in time to deploy, we will engage him immediately. My analysts are currently creating a database of all known superpowers in the UK, and we are developing a profile for Freudstein and looking for possible leads on his real-world identity if he is indeed a five-sigma evil genius—but we’re still dependent on leads from other forces. Nobody saw fit to inform us of the Sellafield incident until three days after it took place: that’s typical of the level of cooperation we’re currently getting. Again, I do not want to attribute any blame for this. In many cases the forces concerned don’t even officially know we exist, much less have a set of criteria for referring incidents to us. But it’s not helping us do our job.”

  “Why not?” Mrs. Greene is typically blunt.

  “Because we were only formally established as a police force by order in privy council four weeks ago, and while we’ve sent out briefing packs to all the other forces, they’re still working their way through the system. Jim and I briefed as many ACPO chiefs as we could reach at their summit last week, but it takes time for new information to get from the head office down to the feet on the beat.”

  Greene shares a brief whispered exchange with the woman on her left—a parliamentary private secretary, if my nose serves me right: an MP on the first rung of the ladder to ministerial rank, essentially a political gopher assigned to the HomeSec—then turns back to me. “Dr. O’Brien, I notice a pronounced defensiveness in your responses and a lack of proactive engagement with your primary objectives.” Her eyes narrow. “You’ve been up and running for eight weeks: What have you accomplished?”

  Oh shit. I think on my feet: “Let me start from the top. I’ve assembled a core management team of experienced superpowers, able to provide an austere—basic—response in event of a notified incident while our operational team is in training. We were active in time to be on-site during the Euston robbery. We subsequently established transport and logistic capabilities that support deployment anywhere in the UK, and have already deployed operationally in response to a support call from Greater Manchester Police.” Please don’t ask how it went. “We have created an analysis department, which is, as I said, currently working up a database of all known superpowers in the UK of three-sigma or higher capability. We have established liaison protocols with ACPO and are in the process of bringing all the territorial forces up to speed. We have recruited—after enhanced CRB checks and interviews—a core superpower team suitable for deployment with backup and oversight from the management team once they are fully trained. We are undergoing intensive training in police
procedures and operations, because it’s necessary for our superhero team to be sworn-in officers of the law—I should note that training for a probationary constable is normally two years, but we’re working with Hendon to get them through the essentials in less than six months. We’ve been working with a Home Office–approved PR organization to produce a range of public information materials in support of our core function of diverting potential vigilantes into working within a lawful framework—”

  Mrs. Greene is rubbing her forehead. Am I giving her a headache? Oh dear.

  “Dr. O’Brien,” she says, icily polite, “this is all very well, but it’s not helping to catch Freudstein. In case you hadn’t noticed, this country is facing a general election in nine months’ time. Freudstein is currently setting the paranormal policing agenda by default, and if your organization hasn’t caught him by then, it isn’t going to exist. You might not have been paying attention, but my Right Honorable opponent, the Shadow Home Secretary, is making hay with the superpower issue. He’s publicly saying that your Force is a boondoggle and that when he’s in my office he will start with a blank sheet review. And I should remind you that the only reason Freudstein’s escapades are not yet public knowledge is because Freudstein hasn’t publicized them and we have managed to keep the lid on everything except the British Library robbery due to the potential for public panic. But the blackout isn’t going to last forever, and your failure to apprehend Freudstein could become the sensational lead story across all media at any moment. If that happens, it will make this government look bad. I need a concrete achievement to point to within the next month. Get me one.” She raises a hand: “Without shooting up any more mosques.” Her tone is dry enough to parch the Sahara.

  Her gaze slides away from me to look at Jim. “Chief Superintendent. What is the state of readiness of the TPC Force, in terms of the Police Service Readiness Criteria?”

  Jim doesn’t miss a beat. “Working up, ma’am. That is to say, it’s simply not fully operational yet and won’t be for at least four months, as my director said. Our key bottleneck is that there is only one identified three-sigma-plus police officer in the country, and he’s already working for TPCF. Everyone else has to pass through basic training. TPCF is actually ahead of where I would expect a new organization to be at this early stage. Its lean staffing level and austere budget mean there’s no room for featherbedding, and it’s agile and responsive. Also, we’ve been able to import management with existing experience of dealing with extraordinary threats from the MoD. The downside of that stance is that it’s brittle—we’re reliant on highly skilled individuals rather than functioning as a resilient organization. Dr. O’Brien is addressing this, but as she noted, it will take time.”

  Mrs. Greene nods. I keep a poker face as I realize that she’ll accept it coming from a man in a uniform, but not from a woman. She fixes Jim with the unblinking basilisk stare she learned from her idol, the Iron Lady. I seem to be beneath her notice. “Get me something. Anything newsworthy and positive will do at a pinch, but what I really want is Freudstein’s hide. I expect weekly updates in the meantime.”

  We are dismissed: the pit bull releases its chew-toy and we limp away to nurse our wounds.

  * * *

  I’m going to fast-forward past the inevitable shockwaves that fan out from my collision with Mrs. Greene. If you’ve ever been carpeted by the Boss and found wanting, you know how it goes. Let’s just say that I spend the rest of the day (and early evening) in a council of war with the entire executive team—being me, Jim, Mhari, Ramona, and by special invitation, Dr. Armstrong himself—while we hammer out a highly unofficial hit list and a bunch of itemized deliverables that might meet the HomeSec’s political requirements rather than our official (and bewilderingly useless) terms of reference. There is no point in prioritizing doing your job when your organization faces being defunded in less than three months’ time if you don’t do something else: you do what’s necessary in order to ensure your organization survives, then you get back to work.

  (This is how the iron law of bureaucracy installs itself at the heart of an institution. Most of the activities of any bureaucracy are devoted not to the organization’s ostensible goals, but to ensuring that the organization survives: because if they aren’t, the bureaucracy has a life expectancy measured in days before some idiot decision maker decides that if it’s no use to them they can make political hay by destroying it. It’s no consolation that some time later someone will realize that an organization was needed to carry out the original organization’s task, so a replacement is created: you still lost your job and the task went undone. The only sure way forward is to build an agency that looks to its own survival before it looks to its mission statement. Just another example of evolution in action.)

  When we break up around seven, I un-mute my phone and check for messages. There’s a text from Bob: Mind if I drop round this evening? Need to collect some stuff. My heart bumps up against my breastbone. Sure, I text back. He sent it a couple of hours ago. I didn’t know he was even in town this week: last time I heard from him he was in Western Australia, visiting a very peculiar First Nations site in the outback.

  I collect my instrument case and head home, bone-tired and somewhat depressed. When I get there, the hall light is shining through the window above the porch. As I didn’t leave it switched on, I assume that means Bob’s home. So I unlock the door, check the alarm (it’s switched off), and go inside. “Bob?” I call.

  “Here.” The reply comes from upstairs.

  I close the door and open the safe in the under-stairs cupboard and shove Lecter inside. But I do not lock it—not just yet. I head for the kitchen, where I smell something delicious in the convection oven and see the table is laid for two. A flash of gratitude is followed by a stab of resentment: then a moment of self-interrogation—why am I resentful of my husband for making assumptions about my desire to dine with him? I shake my head, then go to the cupboard and haul out the cafetière and the jar of decaf.

  A few seconds later I hear Bob’s footsteps on the stairs. He gets as far as the kitchen doorway, then stops. “Who died?” he asks, looking me up and down.

  “My career, if I’m not lucky.” I pour hot water over the coffee grounds. “We were ambushed by the Home Secretary this afternoon. Be a dear and keep an eye on this while I change?”

  “Sure.” He takes over while I head upstairs and replace my suit in its carrier and pull on jeans and a tee shirt. Wearing office formal at home is too much like surrendering to the job. And it was making Bob uncomfortable—he’s in his usual, which this decade is combat pants and casual shirt.

  I find him downstairs in the kitchen, stabbing a roast chicken to death with a meat thermometer. “You could have mentioned you had dinner plans,” I chide.

  “Sorry, I didn’t think you—” Double take. “You have alternatives?”

  “Yes.” I sit down. “Ramona and Mhari ganged up on me, so I’m taking three nights a week off. Going to the opera, eating out with co-workers, anything at all really: just as long as it stops me burning the candle at both ends every day.”

  “Oh, well: that sounds like a good idea.” He nods ruefully. “Next time I’ll check in advance.”

  “Sorry, I should have warned you.” Apologies are the keystone of an enduring relationship. Failing to apologize for mistakes, or getting onto a treadmill of belittling insults, is a bad warning sign. So far we’ve avoided it, but . . . “I thought you were in Australia this week?”

  “That was last week.” (I rummage in the wine rack while he talks.) “You wouldn’t believe how many sites Angleton worked at during his career. Even if he only left behind one a year that needs checking out, if it takes me an average of a week to handle each of them, I’ll be running around with my tail on fire for the next eighteen months. Week before last, it was the sealed collection of a library in Cardiff that held the foul papers of a guy who wrote mathemati
cal puzzle books in the sixties—it’s got all the stuff Angleton made him leave out of the published editions. He was an ex–Bletchley Park analyst, nothing to do with our mob, but it had to be inspected. Angleton didn’t confiscate his notes—he just put the frighteners on him and told him not to do it again. So now I have to check them out, and either confiscate them and fend off the angry librarians or write a memo explaining why potentially hazardous papers are lying around in a library we don’t control . . . And last week I had to go check the cleanup on an Aboriginal site in Western Australia, two hundred miles east of Perth, south of the big mining complex. Angleton got all over the map.”

  I plant a bottle of sauvignon blanc on the table. It’s from a New Zealand vineyard—extravagant, but I’ve got my husband back for the evening so what the hell. I attack the screw cap and pour two glasses. “How long are you in town for?” I ask.

  “I’ve got three days, mostly for filing reports and catch-up meetings. Then they’re sending me to Leeds for a week to poke around a proposed new headquarters site for buried hazards.” He shudders. “That’s why I’m raiding my side of the wardrobe. What are we going to do?”

  “Eat,” I say. It comes out sounding like either a promise or a threat or something. To tell the truth I have no idea what we’re going to do, or even if we’re still a we.

  Bob dishes up slices of roast chicken breast and drumstick, roast potatoes, carrots, and swede on the side. For all that it comes in supermarket pre-packs, it’s welcome. We eat in companionable silence for a while.

  “You’ve got a lot of travel going on,” I say eventually, “but when things quieten down . . . do you want to see if we can make things work again?”

  Bob chews mechanically, eyes staring right through me. Man-boy, thoughtful. He swallows. “I don’t know if that’s even possible anymore.”