Charles Stross - Halting State

Most of the offices you pass are empty and dark, but a faint rime of light frosts the night ahead of you as you near it. Glancing sideways, you see that the door is set to opaque; the light barely leaks out around the edges, and if the passage hadn’t been dark, you’d never have noticed it. You hesitate as you reach it, on the verge of knocking out of sheer curiosity, but then you hear the ugly voices.

“—right off! We’re in deep shit if this goes on. They raided the MacDonald tenement, did you know that? And those bastards from DBA are digging too deep. If they keep on going, it’ll be obvious what’s going on.”

“And I’m telling you that if we chill and sit still until the put options vest, they won’t be able to prove anything. It’s running on rails, yes? And we haven’t done anything. So, we’re being targeted. Luckily they don’t know what they’re looking for, and they can’t prove anything. So, just—chill. Stop fretting. Lie low and wait for it to blow over.”

“What about your friends? Can they do something for us? Arrange a distraction, maybe? Muddy the water?”

“I’ve got them working on it already, but I can’t promise anything. Leave that side of things to me. What I want to know is, can you hold up your end?”

Pause. “I’ll do my best. It’s just, with these fucking pests sniffing around underfoot, they keep getting in my face. If we don’t get them out of here soon…”

“Leave them to me, I said. My friends are working on getting them pulled out.”

The voices fall, and you suddenly realize you’re standing here outside the door, and the mummy lobe gooses you with a red-hot trident: Don’t you know it’s rude to eavesdrop? It screeches in your ear. You wince, and tiptoe guiltily away, trying not to think too hard about what whoever they were were talking about. It wasn’t entirely clear, but it sounded like they were simply talking about ways of getting Dietrich-Brunner to pull out. And if you were in their shoes, what else would you do?

Up on the surface, you let yourself out of the office, and the door swings shut behind you before you realize that you’ve got no way back inside. The last vestiges of daylight stain the sky a pale blue above the black silhouettes of the trees. You haven’t booked a taxi, either. You trudge down Drum Brae towards the distant rumble of traffic from Queensferry Road, bringing up a bus map overlay on your glasses. You’ve just missed one by three minutes, and they’re down to three an hour at this time of evening. Great . At least it’s a warm night, without any real risk of a spring deluge.

When you get home, you find a letter lying on top of the pile of spam on the floor just inside your front door. (At least, it looks like a real piece of correspondence—lately the junk mailers have been wising up, disguising advertising come-ons as tax demands and gas bills.) It’s addressed to you by name and they used a real old-fashioned postage stamp. You tear it open and four glossy photographs fall out.

Heart pounding, you pick them up and hold them where you can see them properly, under the hall light. The first photograph is the entrance to Hayek Associates’ offices. You flip past it to the second. This one looks like a primary-school playground. There’s a cluster of wee ones playing in it, and you don’t need the dotted red circle someone’s helpfully Photoshopped into the image to tell you you’re meant to be looking at Elsie. You feel sick, but you can’t stop yourself looking at the third picture. It shows the front door of a house you know quite well, and that was your sister on the doorstep, her and Mary in her school uniform, in the early-morning light, looking very young. The picture’s a little blurry, as if the photographer was trying to conceal the camera. As well they might, because as soon as you get a good look at the fourth picture, you put them all down and speed-dial the number the policeman gave you after the dodgy voice call, hyperventilating and trying not to panic.

The last photograph shows an empty butcher’s slab.

You’re still eating your breakfast the next morning when you get an IM from Liz: SHIT DUE TO HIT FAN AT 0915 MEET ME AT INGLISTON. It’s so unexpected you blow orange juice bubbles through your nose, much to the wee one’s amusement, then end up swearing at the pain in your sinuses. You don’t have a car today, but you get your move on anyhow, and you make sure you’re on the tram out to the airport in time for Liz’s promised faeco-ventilatory intersection.

It’s the tail-end of the morning commuter rush. Liz is stalking up and down outside the entrance to the shiny new terminal on what used to be the highland show-ground, her face pinched and tense: She’s smoking a cigarette, which surprises you—you didn’t think she was the type. When you approach her, she drops it, pulls a face, and grinds it into the tarmac. “You’re late.”

“I don’t have a car.”

“You don’t? Ah—shit.”

You blink back red overlays—the airport is a kaleidoscopic blur of too much information in CopSpace—and focus on her. She looks tired, as if she’s been up since too early in the morning. “What’s going on?”

“Visitors from Europol,” she says absently, shoving her specs up her nose. “Some kind of special operations team from Brussels. Here, have a look.” A huge, indigestible dollop of something descends on the centre of your desktop, and you just have time to read the title of the opening page before she adds, “Didn’t mean to bite your head off. Looks like they’re here.”

She turns and marches into the concourse, and you hurry to keep up, trying not to go wall-eyed as you skim the summary. Corpus juris, Europol agreements, bilateral treaty of secession arrangements for justice, law, and order—it’s all bullshit. What it boils down to is—

Six men and women in dark suits and dark glasses marching towards you from the EU arrivals exit: the heavy mob converging from London and Brussels with stainless steel briefcases and secure identities. “Inspector Kavanaugh,” says their leader, not extending a hand. “Our cars are waiting. Who’s this—ah, I see. Good morning, Sergeant Smith. You will come with us.”

A fleet of driverless BMW SUVs appear, bouncing slowly over the traffic pillows, and pull in next to you, flagrantly ignoring the red route markings and security notices. They’ve got diplomatic plates. Doors spring open, and you find yourself gently inserted into the empty driver’s seat of the third vehicle as Liz and the leader of the hit squad slide into the back. The steering wheel twitches hesitantly, then as the doors click shut it spins hard over and the yuppiemobile accelerates fast. You try not to shudder: You hate the whole idea that some bored drone pusher in a remote driving centre has got your life—and half a dozen other lives—in his hands. At least on the motorways the cars steer themselves, that’s within the capabilities of today’s AI. “Please switch off your personal electronics,” says the man in dark glasses. “The car is shielded, but this is to go no further.” His English is as perfect and accentless as an old-time BBC presenter’s.

You peel off your glasses and hit the Judas switch on your phone, then the antiquated TETRA terminal, and finally—when he clears his throat impatiently—your cameras and biomonitors. “Which department are you with?” asks Liz.

“Officially, you’ll find the plaque on our door reads ‘ Organisation pour Nourrir et Consolider L’Europe. ’” Your watching the Man in Black in the driver’s mirror, and his cheek doesn’t twitch. Behind him, in the jump-seat in the cargo area, his companion is opening up a Peli briefcase and exposing an array of hardware that you’re really not supposed to fly with. “It’s our little joke—the only one. We’re not the Man from UNCLE, and this isn’t a game.”