Jim Baen’s Universe

by Edited by Eric Flint

  To get out of Mac­Do­ugal's of­fi­ce I had to ex­p­la­in three ti­mes that my an­ti­qu­ated wor­k­s­ta­ti­on kept cras­hing and ne­eded a system re­bu­ild be­fo­re she'd ta­ke the hint. Then she sa­id so­met­hing abo­ut sen­ding me so­me sort of ad­mi­nis­t­ra­ti­ve as­sis­tant-an of­fer that I tri­ed to dec­li­ne wit­ho­ut ca­using mor­tal of­fen­se. Sen­sing my ope­ning, I as­ked if she co­uld pro­vi­de a bud­get li­ne item for a new com­pu­ter-but she spot­ted whe­re I was co­ming from and cut me de­ad, sa­ying that wasn't in HR's re­mit, and that was the end of it.

  ****

  Anyway, I'm now lo­oking at my watch and it turns out that it's get­ting on for lunch. I've lost anot­her mor­ning's pri­me ga­ming ti­me. So I he­ad back to my of­fi­ce, and just as I'm abo­ut to open the do­or I he­ar a rus­t­ling, crun­c­hing so­und co­ming from be­hind it, li­ke a gi­ant ham­s­ter snac­king down on tra­il mix. I can't ex­p­ress how dis­tur­bing this is. Ro­dent me­na­ces from be­yond spa­ce­ti­me aren't sup­po­sed to show up du­ring me­etings with HR, much less ho­le up in my of­fi­ce ma­king dis­tur­bing no­ises. What's go­ing on?

  I ra­pidly con­si­der my op­ti­ons, dis­car­ding the most ex­t­re­me ones (Fa­ci­li­ti­es ta­ke a dim vi­ew of im­p­ro­vi­sed or­d­nan­ce dis­c­har­ges in Go­ver­n­ment pre­mi­ses), and fi­nal­ly do the ob­vi­o­us. I push the do­or open, le­an aga­inst the bat­te­red be­ige fi­ling ca­bi­net with the jam­med dra­wer, and ask, "who are you and what are you do­ing to my com­pu­ter?"

  I in­tend the last phra­se to co­me out as an omi­no­us growl, but it turns in­to a stran­g­led squ­e­ak of ra­ge. My vi­si­tor lo­oks up at me from be­hind my mo­ni­tor, eyes black and be­ady and che­ek-po­uc­hes stuf­fed with-ah, the­re's an open can of Prin­g­les sit­ting on my In-tray. "Yuh?"

  "That's my com­pu­ter." I'm bre­at­hing very fast all of a sud­den, and I ca­re­ful­ly put my cof­fee mug down next to the lig­ht-sick pe­tu­nia so that I don't drop it by ac­ci­dent. "Back away from the key­bo­ard, put down the mo­use, and no­body ne­eds to get hurt." And most es­pe­ci­al­ly, my sixth le­vel cle­ric-sor­ce­rer gets to ke­ep all his ex­pe­ri­en­ce po­ints and gold pi­eces wit­ho­ut so­me mun­c­h­kin in­t­ru­der sel­ling them all on a dodgy auc­ti­on si­te and re-skil­ling me as an exo­tic dan­cer with chlo­rac­ne.

  It must be my fa­ce: he lifts up his hands and sta­res at me ner­vo­usly, then swal­lows his cud of po­ta­to crisps. "You must be Mr. Ho­ward?"

  I be­gin to get an in­k­ling. "No, I'm the grim fuc­king re­aper." My eyes ta­ke in mo­re tel­ling de­ta­ils: his sal­low skin, the ac­ne and straggly go­atee be­ard. Ye gods and lit­tle de­mons, it's li­ke lo­oking in a ti­me-tra­ve­ling mir­ror. I grin nas­tily. "I as­ked you on­ce and I won't ask you aga­in: who are you?"

  He gulps. "I'm Pe­te. Uh, Pe­te Yo­ung. I was told to co­me he­re by Andy, uh, Mr. New­s­t­rom. He says I'm yo­ur new in­tern."

  "My new what?" I tra­il off. Andy, you're a bas­tard! But I re­pe­at myself. "Intern. Ye­ah, right. How long ha­ve you be­en he­re? In the La­undry, I me­an."

  He lo­oks ner­vo­us. "Sin­ce last Mon­day mor­ning."

  "Well, this is the first an­yo­ne's told me abo­ut an in­tern," I ex­p­la­in ca­re­ful­ly, trying to ke­ep my vo­ice le­vel be­ca­use bla­ming the mes­sen­ger won't help: an­y­way, if Pe­te's tel­ling the truth he's so wet be­hind the ears I co­uld use him to wa­ter the plants. "So now I'm go­ing to ha­ve to go and con­firm that. You just wa­it he­re." I glan­ce at my des­k­top. Hang on, what wo­uld I ha­ve do­ne, eight ye­ars ago…? "No, on se­cond tho­ughts co­me with me."

  ****

  Ops Wing is a ma­ze of twisty lit­tle pas­sa­ge­ways, all ali­ke. Cram­ped of­fi­ces open off them, pa­in­ted in­s­ti­tu­ti­onal gre­en and il­lu­mi­na­ted by un­der-po­we­red bulbs lightly dus­ted with cob­webs. It isn't li­ke this on Ma­ho­gany Row or over the ro­ad in Ad­mi­nis­t­ra­ti­on, but tho­se of us who ac­tu­al­ly con­t­ri­bu­te to the bot­tom li­ne get to mend and ma­ke do. (The­re's a ma­li­ci­o­us, per­sis­tent ru­mor that this is be­ca­use the Bo­ard want to en­co­ura­ge a spi­rit of plucky us-aga­in­st-the-world self-re­li­an­ce in Ops, and the easi­est way to do that is to ma­ke every re­qu­isi­ti­on for a box of pa­per­c­lips in­to a Her­cu­le­an strug­gle. I sub­s­c­ri­be to the ot­her, less po­pu­lar the­ory: that they just don't ca­re.)

  I know my way thro­ugh the­se dingy tun­nels; I've wor­ked he­re for ye­ars. Andy has be­en a co­up­le of rungs abo­ve me in the org chart for all that ti­me. The­se days he's got a cor­ner of­fi­ce with a blond Scan­di­na­vi­an pi­ne desk. (It's a cor­ner of­fi­ce on the se­cond flo­or with a vi­ew over the al­ley whe­re the lo­cal Chi­ne­se ta­ke-away ke­ep the­ir dum­p­s­ters, and the desk ca­me from IKEA, but they're still the car­go-cult trap­pings of up­ward mo­bi­lity: we beg­gars in Ops can't be cho­osy.) I see the red light's out, so I bang on his do­or.

  "Come in." He so­unds even mo­re wor­ld-we­ary than usu­al, and so he sho­uld be, jud­ging from the pi­le of spre­ad­s­he­et print-outs scat­te­red ac­ross the desk in front of him. "Bob?" He glan­ces up and se­es the in­tern. "Oh, I see you've met Pe­te."

  "Pete tells me he's my in­tern," I say, as ple­asantly as I can ma­na­ge un­der the cir­cum­s­tan­ces. I pull out the ratty vi­si­tor's cha­ir with the ho­le in the se­at stuf­fing and slump in­to it. "And he's be­en in the La­undry sin­ce the be­gin­ning of this we­ek." I glan­ce over my sho­ul­der: Pe­te is stan­ding in the do­or­way lo­oking un­com­for­tab­le, so I de­ci­de to mo­ve Whi­te Pawn to Black Cas­t­le Fo­ur or wha­te­ver it's cal­led: "co­me on in, Pe­te, grab a cha­ir." (The ot­her cha­ir is a craw­ling hor­ror co­ve­red in mo­use-bit­ten le­ver arch fi­les la­be­led STRICTLY SEC­RET.) It's im­por­tant to get the mes­sa­ge ac­ross that I'm not le­aving wit­ho­ut an an­s­wer, and cam­ping my hen­ch-squ­irt on Andy's vir­tu­al in-tray is a go­od way to do that. (Now if only I can fi­gu­re out what I'm sup­po­sed to be as­king…) "What's go­ing on?"

  "Nobody told you?" Andy lo­oks puz­zled.

  "Okay, let me re-ph­ra­se. Who­se idea was it, and what am I me­ant to do with him?"

  "I think it was Em­ma Mac­Do­ugal's. In Hu­man Re­so­ur­ces." Oops, he sa­id Hu­man Re­so­ur­ces. I can fe­el my sto­mach sin­king al­re­ady. "We pic­ked him up in a ro­uti­ne swe­ep thro­ugh Erew­hon spa­ce last month." (Erew­hon is a new mas­si­vely mul­ti-pla­yer on­li­ne ro­le-pla­ying ga­me that star­ted up, oh, abo­ut two months ago. Writ­ten by a bunch of spa­ced-out ga­mes prog­ram­mers from Got­hen­burg, only a few tho­usand pla­yers so far.) "Bo­ris iced him and ex­p­la­ined the si­tu­ati­on then put him thro­ugh in­duc­ti­on. Em­ma fe­els that it'd be bet­ter if we tri­aled the men­to­ring ar­ran­ge­ments cur­rently on roll-out thro­ug­ho­ut Ad­min to see if it's an im­p­ro­ve­ment over our tra­di­ti­onal way of in­duc­ting new staff in­to Ops, and his num­ber ca­me up." Andy ra­ises a fist and co­ughs in­to it, then wag­gles his eyeb­rows at me sig­ni­fi­cantly.

  "As op­po­sed to hi­ding out be­hind the wet shrub­bery for a few months be­fo­re gra­du­ating to po­lis­hing An­g­le­ton's ge­ar-whe­els?" I shrug. "Well, I can't say it's a bad idea -" no­body ever ac­cu­ses Hu­man Re­so­ur­ces of ha­ving a bad idea, they're sub­t­le and qu­ick to an­ger, and the­ir re­ven­ge is ter­rib­le to be­hold - "but a lit­tle bit of war­ning wo­uld be ni­ce. So­me men­to­ring for the men­tor, eh?"

  The fe­eb­le pun is only a tri­al bal­lo­on, but Andy lat­c­hes on to it im­me­di­ately and with evi­dent gra­ti­tu­de. "Yes, I com­p­le­tely ag­ree! I'll get on­to it at on­ce."

  I cross my arms and grin at him lop-si­dedly. "I'm wa­iting."

 
; "You're- " His ga­ze sli­des si­de­ways, co­ming to rest on Pe­te. "Hmm." I can al­most see the whe­els tur­ning. Andy isn't ag­gres­si­ve, but he's a sharp ope­ra­tor. "Okay, let's start from the be­gin­ning. Bob, this fel­low is Pe­ter-Fred Yo­ung. Pe­ter-Fred, me­et Mr. Ho­ward, bet­ter known as Bob. I'm-"

  "- Andy New­s­t­rom, se­ni­or ope­ra­ti­onal sup­port ma­na­ger, De­par­t­ment 'G'," I butt in smo­othly. "Due to the mo­dern mi­rac­le of mat­rix ma­na­ge­ment, Andy is my li­ne ma­na­ger but I work for so­me­one el­se, Mr. An­g­le­ton, who is al­so Andy's boss. You pro­bably won't me­et him: if you do, it pro­bably me­ans you're in big tro­ub­le. That right, Andy?"

  "Yes Bob," he says in­dul­gently, pic­king right up from my cue. "And this is Ops Di­vi­si­on." He lo­oks at Pe­ter-Fred Yo­ung. "Yo­ur job, for the next three months, is to sha­dow Bob. Bob, you're bet­we­en fi­eld as­sig­n­ments an­y­way, and Pro­j­ect Auro­ra lo­oks li­kely to ke­ep you oc­cu­pi­ed for the who­le ti­me-Pe­ter-Fred sho­uld be qu­ite use­ful to you, gi­ven his bac­k­g­ro­und."

  "Project Auro­ra?" Pe­te lo­oks puz­zled. Ye­ah, and me too.

  "What is his bac­k­g­ro­und, exactly?" I ask. He­re it co­mes…

  "Peter- Fred used to de­sign dun­ge­on mo­du­les for a li­ving." Andy's che­ek twit­c­hes. "The ear­li­er ga­mes we­ren't a big prob­lem, but I think you can gu­ess whe­re this one's go­ing."

  "Hey, it's not my fa­ult!" Pe­te hun­c­hes de­fen­si­vely. "I just tho­ught it was a re­al­ly ne­at sce­na­rio!"

  I ha­ve a hor­rib­le fe­eling I know what Andy's go­ing to say next. "The third-party con­tent to­ols for so­me of the le­ading MMORPGs are get­ting pretty ha­iry the­se days. They're sup­po­sed to ha­ve so­me re­cog­ni­zers bu­ilt-in to stop the most dan­ge­ro­us de­sign pat­terns get­ting out, but no­body was ex­pec­ting Pe­ter-Fred to try to im­p­le­ment a Del­ta Gre­en sce­na­rio as a Ne­ver­win­ter Nights per­sis­tent re­alm. If it had go­ne on­li­ne on a pub­lic ga­me ser­ver-if it didn't eat him du­ring be­ta tes­ting-we co­uld ha­ve be­en fa­cing a mass out­b­re­ak."

  I turn and sta­re at Pe­te in dis­be­li­ef. "That was him?" Jesus, I co­uld ha­ve be­en kil­led!

  He sta­res back tru­cu­lently. "Ye­ah. Yo­ur wi­zard eats ri­ce ca­kes!"

  And an at­ti­tu­de to bo­ot. "Andy, he's go­ing to ne­ed a desk."

  "I'm wor­king on get­ting you a big­ger of­fi­ce." He grins. "This was Em­ma's idea, she can fo­ot the bill."

  Somehow I knew she had to be ti­ed in with this: but may­be I can turn it to my ad­van­ta­ge. "If Hu­man Re­so­ur­ces are in­vol­ved, su­rely they're pa­ying?" Which me­ans, de­ep poc­kets to pick: "We're go­ing to ne­ed two Her­man Mil­ler Aeron cha­irs, Eames bo­ok­ca­se and oc­ca­si­onal tab­le, a desk from so­me eye-wa­te­ringly ex­pen­si­ve Ita­li­an de­sign stu­dio, a ge­nu­ine eighty ye­ar old Bon­sai Ca­li­for­ni­an red­wo­od, an OC3 cab­le in­to Te­le­ho­use, and ga­ming lap­tops. Ali­en­wa­re: we ne­ed lots and lots of Ali­en­wa­re…"

  Andy gi­ves me fi­ve se­conds to sla­ver over the fan­tasy be­fo­re he pricks my bal­lo­on: "you'll ta­ke Dell and li­ke it."

  "Even if the bad guys frag us?" I try.

  "They won't." He lo­oks smug. "Be­ca­use you're the best."

  ****

  One of the ad­van­ta­ges of be­ing a cash-star­ved de­par­t­ment is that no­body ever da­res to throw an­y­t­hing away in ca­se it turns out to be use­ful la­ter. Anot­her ad­van­ta­ge is that the­re's ne­ver any mo­ney to get things do­ne, li­ke (for exam­p­le) re­fit old of­fi­ces to comply with cur­rent he­alth and sa­fety re­gu­la­ti­ons. It's che­aper just to mo­ve ever­y­body out in­to a Por­ta­ka­bin in the car park and le­ave the of­fi­ce re­furb for anot­her fi­nan­ci­al ye­ar. At le­ast, that's what they do in this day and age: thirty, forty ye­ars ago I don't know whe­re they put the sur­p­lus bo­di­es. An­y­way, whi­le Andy gets on the pho­ne to Em­ma to ple­ad for a bud­get I le­ad Pe­te on a fis­hing ex­pe­di­ti­on.

  "This is the old seg­re­ga­ti­on block," I ex­p­la­in, flic­king on a light switch. "Don't co­me in he­re wit­ho­ut a light or the grue will get you."

  "You've got gru­es? He­re?" He lo­oks so ex­ci­ted at the pros­pect that I al­most he­si­ta­te to tell him the truth.

  "No, I just me­ant you'd just step in so­met­hing nasty. This isn't an ad­ven­tu­re ga­me." The dust li­es in gen­t­le snow­d­rifts ever­y­w­he­re, un­dis­tur­bed by out­so­ur­ced cle­aning ser­vi­ces-con­t­rac­tors ge­ne­ral­ly ta­ke one lo­ok at the seg block and do­ub­le the­ir qu­ote, go­ing over the mi­nis­te­ri­al­ly-im­po­sed cap (which gets im­po­sed ri­go­ro­usly on Ops, fre­e­ing up funds so Hu­man Re­so­ur­ces can em­p­loy plant be­a­uti­ci­ans to lo­vingly wax the le­aves on the of­fi­ce rub­ber plants).

  "You cal­led it a seg­re­ga­ti­on block. What, uh, who was seg­re­ga­ted?"

  I bri­efly toy with the idea of win­ding him up, then re­j­ect it. On­ce you're in­si­de the La­undry you're in it for li­fe, and I don't re­al­ly want to le­ave a tra­il of grud­ge-be­aring juni­ors shar­pe­ning the­ir kni­ves be­hind me. "Pe­op­le we didn't want ex­po­sed to the out­si­de world, even by ac­ci­dent," I say fi­nal­ly. "If you work he­re long eno­ugh it do­es stran­ge things to yo­ur he­ad. Work he­re too long, and ot­her pe­op­le can see the ef­fects, too. You'll no­ti­ce the win­dows are all fros­ted or open on­to air shafts, whe­re the­re are any win­dows in the first pla­ce," I add, sho­ving open the do­or on­to a lar­ge exe­cu­ti­ve of­fi­ce mar­red only by the bric­ked-up fra­me in the wall be­hind the desk, and a dis­tur­bingly wi­de tra­il of so­met­hing shiny-I tell myself it's pro­bably just dry wal­lpa­per pas­te-le­ading to the swi­vel cha­ir. "Gre­at, this is just what I've be­en lo­oking for."

  "It is?"

  "Yep, a big, empty exe­cu­ti­ve of­fi­ce whe­re the lights and po­wer still work."

  "Whose was it?" Pe­te lo­oks aro­und cu­ri­o­usly. "The­re aren't many soc­kets…"

  "Before my ti­me." I pull the cha­ir out and lo­ok at the se­at do­ub­t­ful­ly. It was go­od le­at­her on­ce, but the se­at is hi­de­o­usly sta­ined and crac­ked. The penny drops. "I've he­ard of this guy. 'Slug' Joh­n­son. He used to be high up in Ac­co­unts, but he ma­de lots of ene­mi­es. In the end so­me­one put salt on his back."

  "You want us to work in he­re?" Pe­te asks, in a blin­ding mo­ment of cla­rity.

  "For now," I re­as­su­re him. "Until we can screw a bud­get for a re­al of­fi­ce out of Em­ma from HR."

  "We'll ne­ed mo­re po­wer soc­kets." Pe­te's eyes are ta­king on a dis­tant, gla­zed lo­ok and his fin­gers twitch mo­usily: "we'll ne­ed ca­se­mods, ne­ed over­c­loc­ked CPUs, ne­ed fuck-off hu­ge scre­ens, do­ub­le-he­aded, Ra­de­on 9800 vi­deo cards," he be­gins to sha­ke, "Nerf guns, twin­ki­es, LAN party-"

  "Pete! Snap out of it!" I grab his sho­ul­ders and sha­ke him.

  He blinks and lo­oks at me ble­arily. "Whuh?"

  I physi­cal­ly drag him out of the ro­om. "First, be­fo­re we do an­y­t­hing el­se, I am get­ting the cle­aners in to gi­ve it a class fo­ur exor­cism and ste­am-cle­an the car­pets. You co­uld catch so­met­hing nasty in the­re." You ne­arly did, I add si­lently. "Lots of bad psychic bac­k­wash."

  "I tho­ught he was an ac­co­un­tant?" says Pe­te, sha­king his he­ad.

  "No, he was in Ac­co­unts. Not the sa­me thing at all. You're con­fu­sing them with Fi­nan­ci­al Con­t­rol."

  "Huh? What do Ac­co­unts do, then?"

  "They set­tle ac­co­un­ts-usu­al­ly fa­tal­ly. At le­ast, that's what they used to do back in the six­ti­es: the de­par­t­ment was wo­und up so­me ti­me ago."

  "Um." Pe­te swal­lows. "I tho
­ught that was all a joke? This is, li­ke, the BBFC? You know?"

  I blink. The Bri­tish Bo­ard of Film Clas­si­fi­ca­ti­on, the pe­op­le who cer­tify vi­deo ga­mes and cut the cocks out of mo­vi­es? "Did an­yo­ne tell you what the La­undry ac­tu­al­ly do­es?"

  "Play lots of de­at­h­mat­c­hes?" He asks ho­pe­ful­ly.

  "That's one way of put­ting it," I be­gin, then pa­use. How to con­ti­nue? "Ma­gic is ap­pli­ed mat­he­ma­tics. The many-an­g­led ones li­ve at the bot­tom of the Man­del­b­rot set. De­mo­no­logy is right af­ter de­bug­ging in the dic­ti­onary. You he­ard of Alan Tu­ring? The fat­her of prog­ram­ming?"

  "Didn't he work for John Car­mack?"

  Oh, it's anot­her world out the­re. "Not exactly, he bu­ilt the first com­pu­ters for the go­ver­n­ment, back in the se­cond world war. Not just co­deb­re­aking com­pu­ters; he de­sig­ned con­ta­in­ment pro­ces­sors for the Co­un­ter-Pos­ses­si­on Unit, the SOE unit that de­alt with de­mon-rid­den Ab­wehr agents. An­y­way, af­ter the war, they dis­ban­ded SOE and bro­ke up all the go­ver­n­ment com­pu­ters, the Co­los­sus mac­hi­nes - ex­cept for the CPU, which be­ca­me the La­undry. The La­undry kept go­ing, de­fen­ding the re­alm from the scum of the mul­ti­ver­se. The­re are mat­he­ma­ti­cal tran­s­forms that can link en­ti­ti­es in dif­fe­rent uni­ver­ses - try to sol­ve the wrong the­orem and they'll eat yo­ur bra­in, or wor­se. An­y­how, the­se days mo­re pe­op­le do mo­re things with com­pu­ters than an­yo­ne ever dre­amed of. Com­pu­ter ga­mes are net­wor­ked and scrip­tab­le, they've got com­pi­lers and de­bug­gers bu­ilt in, you can bu­ild ci­ti­es and film god­damn mo­vi­es in­si­de them. And every so of­ten so­me­one stum­b­les ac­ross so­met­hing they're not me­ant to be pla­ying with and, well, you know the rest."