Charles Stross - Halting State

“Which country?” Jack asks helpfully: “Scotland, England, the British Isles Derogation Zone, or the EU?”

“All of the above.” Barry taps his fork on the side of his plate, as if it’s a gavel. “Do you want fries with that?”

You put your knife down carefully. “What if I just say ‘no’?”

Michaels looks at you with jailhouse eyes. “You can’t. So I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.”

You’re getting really fucking sick of slick public-school boys telling you what you do or do not want to do, and saluting the flag and being constructive is nearing the point of diminishing returns; but you get the message. Chris and Maggie and Brendan and the gang can just fire your ass and make sure you never work in the forensic accounting field again, but Michaels can really screw you if he puts his mind to it: He can screw you as thoroughly as only a vindictive civil servant can. On the other hand …“On the other hand, you can’t get my willing co-operation if you twist my arm. If you want that , you’re going to have to pay.” You pick up the coffee cup that came with your breakfast. “Like this: I quit Dietrich-Brunner Associates. Retroactively, with effect from yesterday morning at 9:00 A.M. And you hire me on a freelance basis and pay me the same rate you’re giving Jack. Also retroactive, with effect from yesterday morning at 9:00 A.M.”

Michaels picks up his coffee cup. “You enjoy living dangerously, do you?”

“You need her, don’t you? You need her as much as you need me.” Jack flashes a worried look at you from behind Michaels’s shoulder.

Your mouth is dry. You take a sip of coffee to moisten it, as you realize what you’re gambling for. “Do you want me motivated , Mr. Michaels?” (You’ve just demanded two months’ pay, minimum. Your instincts are yelling don’t give up the day job! —but logic tells you that if he agrees to pay you this once, he’ll pay and pay again for what you can do for him. You and Jack, if you’re sensible about it. Because the agency behind Hayek Associates clearly need you far more badly than Dietrich-Brunner ever did. If only you knew why !) “You know what I can do for you, that’s why I’m here.”

Michaels grunts as if someone kicked his ankle, then looks away. “That falls within my discretionary allowance.” He puts his empty coffee cup down and winces. “But don’t push your luck.”

“And I want you to do something about Elsie,” says Jack. His guarded expression promises many more words for you, when Michaels isn’t around to hear them.

“Right,” you agree. “Or we go to the police.”

“Really?” Michaels gives you a very odd look. Jack is frantically trying to tell you something without moving his face or his lips, but it’ll just have to wait. “I said we were making enquiries, yesterday. I can ask our SOCA liaison how things are going, but they don’t appreciate having their elbows jogged.”

He might as well be wearing an LED signboard flashing PHONY, but there’s nothing more you can demand right now—and Jack looks as if he’s about to explode, which would be bad, so you nod and finish your coffee, then smile. “So that’s everything settled,” you say. “So how about we go someplace where there’s some signal and place some calls?”

You emerge from the depths of Bannerman’s blinking like a hung-over bat, and glance up and down the canyonlike length of the Cowgate. Someplace where there’s some signal indeed: The stone tenements to either side are nine stories high, and they predate lifts and indoor plumbing. Michaels spots an on-coming taxi (subtype: one with a human driver) and flags it down without waiting for you, so you glance over your shoulder at Elaine, who is glaring at her mobile and fuming. “Come on, let’s take a walk,” you propose.

“We’ve got work to be doing,” she points out.

“Well, the hotel is about a mile and a half that way”—you point along the canyon towards the Grassmarket and beyond, in the direction of Tollcross or maybe the West End—“and we need to talk. Might be a good idea to take the battery out of your phone first.”

“Right, right.” She fiddles intently with the plastic case of the gizmo, then shoves it in a back pocket. “What now?”

You begin walking towards the looming arch where North Bridge vaults across the Cowgate, perpetually confusing tourists who think that if two roads intersect on their moving map it should be possible to cross between them without abseiling. “What did you pick up there?”

“He’s scared, very scared. And he knows more about your Elsie than he’s letting on.”

You keep going, legs pumping, arms swinging, even though you want to stop and have a good scream at the underside of the stone bridge. That’s what you’d concluded, too—but grabbing Michaels and trying to throttle the truth out of him seemed inadvisable. And besides, you have three different hypotheses—and only the sheer terror of finding out that they’re all wrong keeps you from making the final phone call. That, and the little problem that you’re in too deep and you’d have to tell Elaine about—no, let’s not go there now. There’ll be plenty of time later.

You fumble around for a conversational token. “Were you serious about quitting your job?”

“Are you kidding?” She catches up beside you as you sidle past the puddles under the bridge, the loading bay for the night-club ahead on the left. “Look, Barry’s desperate. And…long-term, his operation needs us. What does that suggest to you?”

“I really don’t know where you’re going there.” You shake your head.

Small fingers force their way into your hand. After a moment you relax your fist and try to slow down to her pace. “There’s the cover story, and there’s the truth. Everybody here’s playing games, Jack, everyone but you—the game developer.”

“Huh? How do you figure that?” She’s wrong, as it happens, but it’s an interesting mistake. The buildings are opening out ahead, towards the homeless shelter and the weird little shops that cluster on the edge of the Grassmarket.

“Michaels—I’m pretty sure he’s responsible—made damn sure I stayed up here after Maggie and Chris and the rest of the home team scuttled back to London with their tails between their legs. He wanted an auditor present, someone to act as a disruptive influence—but not to keep the place crawling with strangers. I was containable. So I have to ask, why me? ”

You can play this game straight, and that seems to be what she wants, so: “Why you?”

“Nobody else at Dietrich-Brunner plays games. No RPGs, no LARPs, no re-enactment, no ARGs. Doesn’t that strike you as slightly strange, in this day and age?”

“Strange?” It’s downright freakish, but you decide to play it straight. “Wow. What were you doing there?”

“I’m not sure. But now I think about it, I wonder if the real reason I was there wasn’t the reason I thought I was there at all.”

“Try me. Why did you think you were there?”

“Why the hell do you work anywhere ? I was sending out job applications, and they offered me a job, straight out of university with a golden handshake to cover my tuition fees and professional registration. The only question is whether that’s all there ever was to it. I don’t know…I’ve got a feeling I was set up. Maybe it was a long-term thing: If SPOOKS is a pilot project, maybe they figured that if they went into widespread deployment, they’d eventually need a way of guaranteeing their own transactional integrity? Wanted: one forensic accountant, trained in HUMINT field-work, with gaming experience and security clearance, for counter-penetration duties. They don’t exactly grow on trees, do they?”