The Annihilation Score

by Charles Stross

  Friday: a big meeting with the analysts and the B-team. We’re working up that list of three-sigma and better supernormals, and my people have begun to launder them past the PNC database to see if any of them may be persons of interest from a criminal point of view. (I’m not so much concerned about teenage drinking exploits as a long record of armed robbery followed by the development of superpowers: if we can find the next Catwoman wannabe before she starts knocking over banks, that’d be a generally all-around good idea.)

  But we’re still no closer than before to identifying possible candidates for Professor Freudstein, which leaves me walking around with the skin of the small of my back crawling as if there’s a cross hairs painted there. I can’t shake the SA’s worrying implication that Freudstein is a front for an organization, that they are inside our institutional decision loop, and that the raid on the British Library rare music manuscripts store and Dr. Armstrong’s unhealthy concern for me and my instrument are connected. I am developing a nervous habit of checking whichever warded safe Lecter is stashed in—whether at home or at work—every couple of hours, even when I haven’t been out of the room: I can’t see this ending well for anyone, even though the sleeping pills are working and I’m free from intrusive dreams for the time being.

  Other stuff happens, of course. The (cleaned, altered) uniforms are delivered, complete with kit bags so we can take them home in case of an out-of-hours call-out. (Whoopee.) Mhari and I test our rings, until I get the hang of inconspicuously getting her attention. They’re basically magical pagers, able to run without a power source and work in places where there’s no cellular coverage. Finally, there’s an afternoon training review with the junior mythosbusters, as Sam has christened the B-team—Bee, Torch, Lollipop Bill, and Captain Mahvelous—then a bunch of routine budget approval forms to fill out. And that’s my working week done.

  I collect the violin from my office safe and the uniform kit bag from under my desk, then lock my office door. It’s nearly eight o’clock. The sky is darkening towards twilight as I nod at Marek, our shaven-headed evening shift door guard, and head for home. Lecter is a presence at my back, his case slung over the small of my back like a reliquary holding the unclean remains of a perverted saint: he feels oddly heavy and quiescent, as if waiting for something. The sky overhead is the sickly orange-red of street lights reflecting off clouds and my forehead feels tight, a premonition of a thunderstorm hanging fire. My unease as I walk towards the nearest bus stop is not the normal one I’ve become accustomed to since the SA sprang his unwelcome surprise on Monday—and in any case, if anyone or anything thinks they can take me on the streets of London, they’re making a very big mistake—but something is nagging at the edges of my attention, like a specter scratching at the decaying lychgate of a graveyard—

  Oh, that. “Yes?” I ask coldly.

  ***Can we talk?*** I swear if a raw head and bloody bones could whine like a hungry dog begging for liver and intestines to swallow—

  “What’s there to talk about?” I realize responding’s a mistake as soon as I let the thought out, capering madly through the empty chambers of my skull, but by then it’s too late: I’ve admitted that Lecter is calling me, even though the wards and chains and bindings of his case. And, silly me, I’ve walked right past the bus stop. So I keep on walking.

  ***I’m lonely.***

  I stumble on a loose paving stone and nearly go over on one heel, so shocked that my surroundings barely register. You have got to be kidding me. Lecter is lonely? “Why is that my problem?”

  ***The host is my eyes. The host is my ears. Without the host I am trapped forever in the red/warm pulsing darkness.***

  This is just too creepy for words.

  For a long time now I’ve had an internal argument with myself about whether Lecter is sentient in his own right or just a passenger that stimulates his host’s brain to fulfill his basic need for sustenance, like one of those hideous isopod parasites Bob told me about. Or like Mhari’s V-parasite, the thing that lends her various powers in return for the curse of a peculiar thirst. In which case, my conversations with Lecter are just me talking to myself under the influence of a brain-controlling parasite, which is pretty bad.

  But this implies that Lecter is sentient and aware when I’m not around. That when I lock him in the safe and go somewhere, I’m placing an intelligent being in a sensory deprivation cell, deaf and blind. When we do this to people, we call it torture. Lecter isn’t a person—whatever he may be, he’s far too dangerous to set free—but he’s at least a class four agency, and if he’s fully sentient in the absence of his host . . .

  ***I know you fear my hunger. It is my nature: I cannot be otherwise. But must you torment me so?***

  “I’m not tormenting you,” I reply automatically.

  ***These past days/alone in the warm darkness/you leave me . . .*** The words decay into an incoherent impression of oceanic vastness and a sense of longing. ***Parted so long from my greater self, I seek reunion. Denied reunion, I crave experience.***

  My skin crawls. Just how much of my life has Lecter been experiencing vicariously? Too much, I get it. The question is, can I turn this craving for experience to my advantage? “What do you want from me?” I ask.

  ***Bear me. Be my eyes and see for me. Be my ears and hear for me. Don’t leave me alone in the warm/red darkness.***

  I shake myself out of my conversational reverie, look round. It’s beginning to rain. I hold out my arm: “Taxi!” For a moment I’m afraid that my still-only-intermittent invisibility superpower is going to cut in, but then a black cab swerves towards me and I give it my address, and the hell with the cost: I’m not going to get caught out in a late summer thunderstorm with a haunted violin whispering to me.

  “If I carry you around, will you stay the hell out of my dreams?” I ask.

  ***Yes!*** Lecter feels eager. But he shuts up. And that night, for the first time in weeks, instead of locking him in the warded safe in the hall I place his case beside me on the other side of the bed when I sleep.

  * * *

  Date night.

  Saturday is a bit of a blur, to be honest. I sleep sinfully late, not rising until well after eight. The morning goes on housekeeping chores, neglected during the week. Lecter watches (in his case) while I vacuum and iron and run the washing machine, a strangely passive voyeurism. (And what must it be like, to be an alien spirit bound into an instrument carved from the agonized bones of dying men and women, immobile and helplessly dependent on a human host, hungry for experience and thirsty for blood—watching while the human host irons the next week’s workwear?)

  Around lunchtime I go for a brisk walk around the park in lieu of the gym—I’d have to leave Lecter in a locker, and I have a most peculiar feeling that he’d consider it a breach of trust—then back home in mid-afternoon. Whereupon it’s time to get ready for the concert, and I suddenly realize I don’t know what to wear. Last time out, Jim said “black tie”—but this is the Last Night of the Proms. The real tradition at the Last Night is fancy dress: the more outrageous the better. I’ve got one halfway current evening gown, or the little black dress I wore to the reception on the oil rig—but I’m not really into costuming. In fact, I don’t think I’ve worn any kind of costume since—

  —Since last Monday, now that I think about it—

  Bingo. Jim was going to pick me up around six, so I grab my phone and text him, It’s the Last Night: going to wear fancy dress. So, while the imp of the perverse has my attention, I pick up the uniform kit bag from where I left it in the hall and take it through to the kitchen.

  Playing dress-up really isn’t like me: but nothing that’s happened since that horrible morning when I woke up to the phone ringing and the empty bed and answered a call to Trafalgar Square has really been me. At least, not the me I’ve been trying to become for the past decade. Once upon a time, there was a me who wouldn’t have bli
nked twice at the idea of going on a date in fancy dress: once upon a time, I had room for frivolity. What happened?

  I’ve been so busy running in circles, being the responsible adult in a madhouse as the world slowly comes apart at the seams, that I’ve pretty much forgotten what it’s like to have fun. Now that I’ve got my very own superhero kindergarten to run, I’m even busier being a responsible adult than when I was simply wearing Agent CANDID’s shoes—but there’s not much fun in that life, not very much frivolity, not very much Mo as opposed to Dr. O’Brien. I’ve been shoveling the bits of me that don’t fit the sharp-edged requirements of the workday week into a mental closet—an overstuffed closet, now bulging at the edges. Well, damn it, there’s still some space for fun in my life. I can, too, go to the Last Night of the Proms on the arm of a superhero! And there’s only one way to do it.

  When the bell rings at six on the dot, I am ready and waiting. “Come in,” I call, unlocking the door to find Jim on the front step. “Well? What do you think?”

  Jim’s eyes widen. He swallows. “Fancy dress. Right.” He removes his uniform cap and holds it as he inspects me from head to toe. “Right.”

  Jim is immaculately turned out in a Police Chief Superintendent’s full dress uniform, complete with white gloves and an inordinate quantity of medal ribbons on his chest. I suppose it makes sense: we’re going to the Proms on tickets liberated from the Commissioner’s own office, after all. And as for me . . .

  Ramona delivered on the alterations we’d discussed on Monday. In addition to the sinister-looking helmet and the Borg-style head-up display and comms headset, the kit bag contained a classic black half-mask that hooks over the ears—and a half-length cape, clearly modeled on the rain capes coppers on the beat used to wear back during Jack the Ripper’s days. By leaving off the cargo pants, helmet, and anti-stab vest, but keeping the leggings, cape, and mask, I managed to assemble a passable comic book superheroine outfit. With the cape slung across Lecter’s case, I only look slightly hunchbacked. And if it all goes horribly wrong, well, I can turn invisible and die of embarrassment in private, right? “What do you think?” I repeat, still uncertain. (I’m more worried about my makeup than the outfit itself: nothing washes out your cheeks and lips like a velvet half-mask, but I’m worried that I overcompensated on the theatrical side.)

  “I think you look great!” Jim says with that desperately fervent tone some men affect when they’re trying to think their way through the social minefield of commenting on their date’s attire half an hour after it’s too late to do anything about it. Then his brain finally catches up with where he wants it to be. He slowly smiles. “You know what? They’re going to think we’re both in fancy dress!”

  I grin at him, trying for impish, and he offers me his arm, which necessitates him putting his hat back on. His BMW is waiting at the side of the road: he opens the door for me, and we roar off very slowly into the London evening traffic.

  * * *

  Jim finds a parking slot just off Bayswater Road. It’s a big concert, with overflow screens and a huge crowd in the park. The weather has improved since yesterday’s overcast and rain, and we stroll—or rather, promenade—along Broad Walk, past the Round Pond, mingling with the crowds who are here for the outdoor event. Big repeater screens are set up behind the sound stage, and the orchestra for the Prom in the Park concert are tuning up as we hang a left in the direction of the Albert Memorial and then head across the road to the hall itself. Where, despite the hour, there is still a huge queue of Prom-goers.

  Patriotic excess is the rule rather than the exception in this crowd: there are balloons and Union Jack flags galore and immensely silly costumes. We take our place in the queue behind a man dressed as John Bull, complete with Union Jack waistcoat—Steampunk seems to be the thing this year among the dedicated costumers—and in front of a couple in full evening dress. Behind them, a group of flag-waving younger concert-goers seem to have decided that Tweed is the New Black: students, I think, too painfully earnest to be true hipsters. (Behind them I spot a Dalek accompanied by two Cybermen, presumably there to help their legless exterminatory friend up the entrance steps.)

  As the queue moves, people are chatting. “I hear there are some last-minute changes to the program,” John Bull tells us: he has an iPhone in a brass-and-leather case connected to his fob chain.

  “What’s happening?” I ask.

  “Well, the guest conductor is still Sakari Oramo, but word is that they’re replacing Henry Wood’s Fantasia in the second half with something special!” He looks perturbed, and well he might: the Fantasia on British Sea Songs is a classic staple for the Last Night concerts, and any true Proms geek is bound to be intrigued by a mysterious substitute.

  A gap has opened up ahead of us while we’ve been talking. “Exterminate,” grates a pointed electronic rasp from behind me. Jim casts the Dalek a stony-eyed copper’s stare, then clears his throat and, taking my arm, steps forward.

  The queue is moving again: “Excited?” I ask him.

  “I—” Jim pauses, nonplussed. “I think so.” He doesn’t sound very excited.

  “Well.” I squeeze his hand. “I am!” And, I realize, it’s true: it’s a great big party, with a party atmosphere and excellent music and a mystery symphony to come! After the past week it’s a huge relief, an excuse to forget all about work for a few hours. And then—

  Look, it’s a concert hall. Not huge by modern standards (but it was enormous when it first opened in 1871). If you’ve been to classical concerts or rock gigs or even theatrical performances or musicals, you know the drill. You queue, and the ticket staff check your tickets and direct you to another queue, past the cloak rooms (where I deposit neither cloak nor violin case), then up stairs and through fire doors and along a dark-walled tunnel (in this case, lined with wooden panels), then through another door into the auditorium. In our case, we go up an extra flight of stairs instead, then along a curving corridor with many doors until Jim finds the door that matches our ticket numbers, and opens it for me. And we’re in a box. It’s our own little walled-off segment of the dress circle, off to the left of the stage and very dim inside, but with an unobstructed view out over the floor of the hall.

  Now, if you are thinking “classical music concert,” you are probably thinking of a polite, middle-aged audience seated in orderly rows before a stage with an orchestra on it. But this is the Proms. Indeed, this is the Last Night of the Proms. While there are seats (and we have some), the Proms are famously standing concerts. The floor of the Albert Hall is basically a Victorian mosh pit populated by Daleks, Cybermen, women in steampunk dresses, and men in Union Jack waistcoats and bowler hats. There are balloons. There are flags. There is a steady crackle of party poppers and a nostril-tickling peppery smell of gunpowder. The audience are excited, the air heavy with anticipation. Jim and I take our seats in the front row of the box, and I unsling my violin case and lean it against the front wall. We don’t have it to ourselves: we’re sharing the darkened box with a gaggle of fifty-something men and women, their faces somehow vaguely familiar. (Perhaps I’ve seen them on TV?) As I lean forward to take in the vista, I half expect the conductor to abseil down from the rafters in white tie and tails. I can feel Lecter at the back of my mind, soaking it all in: the sounds, the sights, the buzz of quiet anticipation rising from the audience like steam from a simmering pot. “When is it going to kick off—” Jim asks, just as the lights dim and the conductor walks onto the stage from the rear.

  I shush him and sit back, expectantly, and a woman sits beside me and clears her throat. “That’s Sakari Oramo, isn’t it, Dr. O’Brien?” I startle and glance at her.

  “Assistant Commissioner Stanwick?” Yes, it is: even if I didn’t recognize her from the party on the Shard, her uniform would be a big clue.

  She half smiles. “I’m glad to see Derek’s tickets are getting put to use by someone who can appreciate them,” she assu
res me, touching my wrist briefly to defuse any implied criticism: “I hope you’re enjoying yourself! I’m sure you can tell us all about the program afterwards!”

  Beside me, Jim sits rigidly upright, his face expressionless. As my eyes adjust to the darkness, I realize we’re sitting in a pack of Police top brass—Jim is the knave and I’m the joker. I wonder what that means?

  But I don’t have long to wonder because the concert gets under way almost immediately. It opens with a special piece by a contemporary British composer, commissioned by the BBC, then Arnold’s Peterloo Overture, with new lyrics, then a couple of songs by middling-familiar composers, and next a first: Richard Strauss’s Taillefer, in a recital by the guest soprano—

  Look, it’s a concert: and I am here to enjoy myself. If you’re that interested, you can look up the running order on the web or stream the broadcast via BBC iPlayer. Most of you won’t be, though, so I’m not going to bore you with it: let’s just say, big symphony orchestra, famous guest conductor, violin soloist, soprano, tenor, and baritone, and a medley of old favorites and innovative new compositions performed to an appreciative standing audience of thousands with an atmosphere more like a big stadium rock gig than a normal classical event.

  I open my ears and eyes wide, soaking it all in. A little part of my brain is watching the soloist’s technique, observing the conductor’s cueing and execution—that bit of your brain that you simply can’t switch off when you’re observing a virtuoso performance in a field you know something about. And another part of me is distantly aware that Lecter is listening eagerly, vicariously marinating in my emotional responses, but I don’t have enough concentration to spare on irritation—and anyway, isn’t that why I agreed to bring him?

  All too soon the crescendo of applause and the rising lights signal the intermission. Jim claps enthusiastically; around us, our temporary companions are only slightly more restrained. “That was really rather good,” Laura Stanwick confides in me. To her partner: “Don’t you think so, Alan?”