Rhesus Chart (9780698140288)

by Stross, Charles

  Foxes are fast movers—and they bite.

  • • •

  AT PRECISELY THREE MINUTES PAST SEVEN O’CLOCK, AT EXACTLY the moment that I’m rolling around in Steven Howe’s intestines with ringing ears as a demented vampire hunter with a pistol and a selection of explosives tries to kill me, Old George launches an assault on the New Annex.

  If he was able to call on the support of all his minions, you would not be reading this account of his attack; but Basil has cunningly stripped him of his deadliest proxies and waved the flag of an immediate threat before him. There is insufficient notice to prepare adequately for the offensive. Old George is therefore winging it.

  Old George is very well-informed, for an outsider. He knows about the night watch. He knows about our alarm systems. Finally, Old George is armed for bear. He may be desperate, but he’s also a two-hundred-year-old ritual magician and occult practitioner who is immune to K syndrome, and a vampire on top.

  At this time of evening the building is largely deserted. The cleaners have been and gone; a couple of night watch bodies roam the ground floor and basement level. Lights burn on the second floor, in a couple of briefing rooms and the duty officer’s den. So it is that when a black Mercedes pauses briefly outside the main entrance and a man gets out, nobody is paying enough attention to the external CCTV feed.

  Old George wears a charcoal gray trench coat with its collar turned up, and a homburg pulled low over his ears. The trench coat conceals a multitude of sins, not least of which is a silk lining that Old George has embroidered by hand himself over a period of many months, with enough defensive wards and charms to armor an aircraft carrier. The hat has properties of its own, its brim casting a shadow that renders the wearer’s face unrecognizable. Anonymous and all but invisible, he marches up to the front door of the New Annex and touches the keypad. The pad smokes as he lets himself in.

  In the darkness of the lobby, a shuffling caretaker hisses as it approaches the intruder. Old George has heard of these revenants, the Residual Human Resources that gave their all for the organization and now give even more, and he is amused to see the faint swirl of green luminosity within the sunken eyes of the shambler. “Lie down,” he suggests, not unkindly, and, reaching out with a gloved finger, he taps the night watchman on the forehead, right inside the span of its outstretched arms.

  The corpse wheezes faintly as it collapses, the breath fleeing its flaccid lungs for the last time. Old George turns towards the staircase. Then he begins to climb.

  • • •

  GEORGE IS HERE BECAUSE BASIL HAS MANEUVERED HIM INTO A coffin corner, and the shortest way out is through the Laundry with guns blazing.

  This latest move in the game they’ve been playing for seven decades began almost by accident, with the Laundry’s move out of Dansey House. For the first time in more than half a century, Basil found himself unprotected by the subtle, powerful, and extensive geas that he had spent so much energy constructing—the compulsion to disbelieve in vampires. Many people would react to this as a threat. Basil, however, chose to view it as an opportunity.

  Over the years, Old George has settled into a routine of sending his proxies to crush his enemies. Over the years, his proxies have become increasingly dangerous and unstable; the woman who is not called Marianne is the latest of these, a fearsome instrument of destruction—to vampires. Normally Basil would avoid both of them like the plague. There is nothing to be gained from messing around with Old George. But once outside the walls of Dansey House, a plan suggests itself to him:

  Tempt Old George to create a nest of baby vamps.

  Bring them into the Laundry, who will ultimately realize that Old George is their creator . . .

  . . . Thereby threatening to overturn the law of secrecy.

  Borrow not-Marianne on the pretext of suffocating the babies; seduce her with the gift of fresh meat, buying her temporary collusion.

  Stripped of his most powerful catspaw, Old George is now in a position where he can only silence the security threat by attacking an organization he has been aware of (but has avoided any connection to) for a very long time.

  Make sure that Old George believes Basil to be on the premises when, in fact, Basil is elsewhere at the time of the attack.

  If Old George is killed, Basil will shed no tears. And if Old George succeeds, those of us who might expose Basil will be eliminated. From Basil’s point of view it’s a win-win situation.

  It’s cold-blooded, of course. But it’s hard to make an omelette without breaking eggs.

  • • •

  I FIND IT VERY HARD TO WRITE THIS ACCOUNT OBJECTIVELY.

  So I am going to quote extensively from the report of the board of enquiry, with added comments of my own.

  • • •

  AT THE TOP OF THE STAIRS OLD GEORGE PAUSED TO ORIENT himself. Then he turned and headed down the corridor between the Operational Research Unit offices on one side and the Admin and Facilities cubicle farm on the other. Turning right he came to the general office fronting the Department of External Affairs, and here he encountered Doris Greene from Health and Safety.

  We do not know exactly what Doris was doing outside Briefing Room 203, which was occupied at the time by the task alpha group established by the Senior Auditor to which she had been assigned. For obvious reasons, CCTV coverage of the New Annex premises stops at the front door. Jez Wilson indicated at the enquiry that she believes Doris was simply taking a break to powder her nose, but cannot provide definite confirmation for this theory. Certainly to get to the nearest ladies’ toilet from Briefing Room 203, Doris would have had to turn right, walk past Briefing Rooms 204 to 210, descend the north staircase, turn left through the fire doors, and go through the corridor leading past the DEA cluster, which is exactly where her body was found.

  Doris Greene (aged 56), leaves a husband, Martin (age 59), and three children, Peter (aged 31), Emma (aged 29), and Carol (aged 26).

  Old George did not pause to feed or attempt to coerce his victims into obedience. He merely touched them with a fingertip and killed them. His touch carried an abstruse contagion, an anti-pattern for life—an invocation of a kind that can only be generated by someone who has consumed far too much of it. No soul-eating is involved: victims are simply thrown away, minds shredded, brains stilled, hearts stopped. There is no indication that Doris Greene offered (or was capable of offering) any resistance.

  The board of enquiry located the next body just beyond the second-floor fire doors fronting the north stairwell, in the corridor outside the door to Briefing Room 210.

  Four bullet holes were found, in two groups, in the left fire door. The gun that fired them, a standard issue Glock 17, was found in the right hand of Mr. Andrew Newstrom. One round was chambered and twelve more rounds were found to be present in the 17-round extended-capacity magazine after the weapon was made safe by forensic investigators. The ammunition load consisted of alternating rounds of hollow-point 9x19mm Parabellum and our own standard banishment rounds (essentially FMJ 9mm with an embedded banishment circuit in the base of the bullet). Examination of the spent rounds confirmed that the banishment circuits of the two bullets retrieved from the wall beyond the fire door were discharged by contact with a ward of class 6 or higher strength.

  The board’s conclusion is that the likely course of events was that Mr. Newstrom left Briefing Room 202 for reasons unknown, encountered Old George, and engaged him with his personal defense weapon at close range. He had time to fire four rounds and hit the target repeatedly, but the combined effect of the translocative compulsion wired into Old George’s coat effectively rendered his target physically immaterial to bullets. Old George advanced at walking pace, covering six meters of physical distance, and touched Mr. Newstrom before he could fire again.

  Andy Newstrom, aged 47, leaves a wife, Sandra (age 49), and two children, Alec (15) and Olivia (11).

 
Fifteen meters farther down the corridor, the door to room 203 was locked. Briefing Room 203 was occupied at the time of the incident by Jez Wilson and Gerald Lockhart, who had returned empty-handed from his errand to retrieve Oscar Menendez. The board’s findings note that Wilson and Lockhart survived the incident principally due to their quick thinking in locking the door in response to the shots fired by Mr. Newstrom. As a result, Old George bypassed room 203. The board finds that neither Lockhart nor Wilson were equipped to survive a confrontation with Old George, or to impede his progress. Had they attracted the attention of the intruder, or attempted to engage him, they would certainly be numbered among the dead.

  (Jez and Gerry were frantically piling furniture behind the door at precisely the moment my call to the duty officer’s room connected.)

  The next body was found just outside Briefing Room 203. It belonged to Dr. Judith Carroll, the ranking Auditor with internal affairs, and second in command to Dr. Michael Armstrong.

  Indications of intense thaumaturgic discharge were found around this body. Dr. Carroll’s ward of office was discharged: in the process it combusted and the metal trimmings melted. The body was extensively burned. Scorch marks were found on the walls and ceiling to either side, as well as on the body. A residual high thaum count renders a three-meter section of the corridor hazardous for traversal, and extensive decontamination and exorcism will be required if the second-floor corridor is to be rendered safe for normal use.

  From the position of the corpse and adjacent spatter patterns, it is inferred that Dr. Carroll left Briefing Room 202 when she heard Mr. Newstrom open fire on Old George. A confrontation then ensued. During this confrontation, Dr. Carroll activated her entire repertoire of personal defense macros and spells. In doing so she caused extensive damage to Old George’s coat and disabled the geometry engine supporting its translocative compulsion field. From this point on, Old George was no longer immune to gunfire. Old George attempted to apply his thanotic anti-pattern to Dr. Carroll. Dr. Carroll’s ward short-circuited it, in the process discharging completely and, per subsequent evidence, inflicting fifth-degree (bone-deep) burns on Old George’s right hand and forearm.

  Old George appears to have responded with physical force, using his remaining (left) arm to apply torsion to Dr. Carroll’s right elbow, first dislocating her limb at the shoulder, then inducing traumatic amputation. He then used the appendage as a bludgeon to apply blunt trauma to Dr. Carroll’s head. The cause of death is unclear but may include a combination of blood loss, shock, and cerebral swelling secondary to a fractured skull.

  Dr. Carroll, aged 62, was a widow at the time of the incident. She is survived by a son, Derek (38).

  The door to Briefing Room 202 was open, and this is where the intrusion event terminated.

  The last two bodies are unaccounted for but are believed to be located within the containment ward in that room. One of them is that of Old George; the other is that of DSS Angleton, also known as the Eater of Souls.

  The precise sequence of events leading to the loss of DSS Angleton and the 227-year-old vampire known as George Stephenson have not been established, as of the date at which the board of enquiry issued their interim report. Briefing Room 202 is, as of the time of writing, currently inaccessible due to a residual necromantic thaum field, which is sufficiently intense (at 1200 milli-Parsons per hour just inside the threshold) to pose a high risk of neurophagic possession to anyone unwise enough to enter. A four-meter diameter, perfectly spherical, event horizon can be observed in the center of the room, but the thaum field rises exponentially as the singularity is approached. Detailed examination is not currently feasible.

  It is believed that the bodies of DSS Angleton and Old George lie within the event horizon.

  A narrative account of the encounter between DSS Angleton and Old George is appended to the interim report, but is marked as a provisional finding and some questions remain over its accuracy.

  It is believed that, at the time shots were being fired by Mr. Newstrom, DSS Angleton was in Briefing Room 202, where he was occupied with a phone call from his operational assistant, Mr. Howard. On hearing shots, Angleton ended the call and spoke to Dr. Carroll, who volunteered to investigate. It is noted that Dr. Carroll’s ward of office should have given her similar immunity to physical threats to that available to Old George, and Dr. Carroll’s position as Auditor was contingent upon her ability to compel and command—she was, in her own right, a formidable operative (if somewhat rusty, her last field experience being over two decades earlier).

  It is not possible to be sure of DSS Angleton’s state of mind at this time (DSS Angleton not being entirely human to begin with, and having occupied his body for at least eighty-two years at the time of the incident). However, it is inferred that DSS Angleton was aware of an imminent threat from multiple sources: from the sound of gunfire, from Howard’s Code Red warning, and then from the Auditor’s radiative emissions and subsequent screaming as Old George beat her to death with her own arm.

  It is unclear why DSS Angleton did not immediately enter the corridor and engage Old George. It is speculated that DSS Angleton required time to prepare himself for combat—again, as with Dr. Carroll, Dr. Angleton’s last active field operation (if the fiasco two years ago at Brookwood Cemetery is excluded) was over six years ago. It is also speculated that DSS Angleton assessed Dr. Carroll’s triage status as irretrievable and decided to spend almost a minute preparing Briefing Room 202 to receive Old George.

  Witnesses trapped in Briefing Room 203 claim to have heard Angleton call out, “In here, George!” in a tone of voice that one bystander described as “jolly” and another described as “chilling.” It is not known at this time how DSS Angleton was aware of the attacker’s identity.

  Subsequent witness reports are unreliable and subjective, but paint a picture of a subjective sense of extreme existential dread, nausea, bone-deep aches and feverish chills, hearing arcane chanting in unfamiliar languages (identified by one witness as “like Old Enochian, but different and much scarier—Old Enochian with Tourette’s syndrome, perhaps”), inhuman groaning, and an intense and eerie sense of jamais vu.

  The precise nature of the exchange of thaumaturgic firepower that happened in Briefing Room 202 is unclear, but it should be noted that items subsequently found in Old George’s possession, both on his person and at his home, indicate that he was a proficient ritual necromancer even before his contraction of PHANG syndrome. Furthermore, Old George had the benefit of nearly two centuries to perfect his technique without fear of Krantzberg syndrome. DSS Angleton, in contrast, was the dead soul of a “Hungry Ghost,” bound into the living body of a man whose mind was sacrificed to provide a vessel for the preta. Both these individuals were combat sorcerers of great age and experience, fighting for their lives: and they paid the ultimate price.

  DSS “James Jesus” Angleton (not his real name), aged 102 (or: uncountable aeons), was single at the time of his departure. He is survived by an assistant who, in the wake of a destiny entanglement accident two years ago, shares some of his abilities.

  And I am now going to stop writing, in order to observe a three-minute silence for the dead, before I bring this sorry story to its close.

  • • •

  THE POLICE FINALLY MOVE IN AND SECURE THE SCENE. SCARY organizes; Pete sees to Alex, delivering soothing words while one of the squaddies works on him from a field first aid kit equipped with morphine and burn dressings. I go through the motions of an after-op report, but it’s very hard.

  I’m back on the phone almost as soon as Angleton hangs up on me, but it takes me a minute to get through to someone who knows what’s going on, and by that time I already know what they’re telling me: Angleton, they say, is dead. Or, I infer, if not dead then discarnate, beyond recall unless someone attempts the TEAPOT BARON TYBURN invocation (which will happen over my dead body).

  At the moment of his death
I feel a great disturbance in the force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were silenced—well, no, actually. It’s not like Star Wars at all. (And there is no luminiferous ether either, dammit.) But it’s as if I’ve been wearing a pair of too-tight gloves for so long I didn’t even notice anymore, and they’re suddenly gone. And if I flex my mental fingers it’s like I’ve been performing resistance exercises and suddenly I’ve acquired the grip of doom.

  So I’m not the apprentice trainee Junior MythBuster Eater of Souls anymore. I don’t know if you could accurately describe me as the real thing yet, but I’m the nearest we’ve got now Angleton’s gone, and I’ll just have to do my best to live up (or die down) to his standards. It’s a lot to come to terms with, especially as I’m shocky and disoriented, covered in blood and other bodily fluids, upset and disturbed by the fallout from Basil’s little party, and trying to hold everybody else on the KGB.2.YA site together.

  This shit is highly distracting, even in the absence of knowing that there’s a Code Red in hand, and people keep buzzing around my head like summer bluebottles, nagging me with stupid questions. I will confess to snarling a couple of times, and one or two of the cops push back with a bit of attitude—they’re used to their authority being respected, even without the assault rifles and the Darth Vader stormtrooper gear—but it turns out that all I have to do is stare at them and they urgently remember something else they need to be doing.

  And, in truth, Scary can handle this circus from now on. Basil is roadkill, Alex is gibbering and confessing to the vicar, Little Miss Serial Killer Squared is giving me a very bad taste in the back of my mouth, and there’s a Code Red in progress back at base. So I walk over to the nearest crimson BMW with Christmas tree lighting and locate the occupant, who is by coincidence conversing with Scary. “I need a ride,” I say.