Charles Stross - The Fuller Memorandum

“It won’t-excuse me?”

“Everything.” She shrugs. The effect is rather fetching, if you have a goth fixation. “Go on, tell me what you think is coming up next.”

Oh hell. “This is the point,” I say guardedly, “where the evil cultist monologues at the captive agent and tries to convert him to her way of thinking. It never works. Does it?”

Iris shakes her head. “You’re probably right, but I ought to give it a go. Okay, here’s my pitch. If I thought for a moment that official policy as set forth in CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN stood a chance of success-if it was remotely possible that we, the human species, could stand shoulder-to-shoulder against the elder ones and build a shield against our Dark Emperor, do you think for a split second that I wouldn’t go for it?” She looks at me speculatively. “You know just how high the odds are stacked against us. There are just too damned many people-we’re damaging the structure of reality by over-observing it! And we can’t kill them either, not without releasing a pulse of necromantic energy that will have every brain eater for a thousand lightyears in all directions homing in on us. The latest research”-she bites her lower lip-“it means the breakthrough is inevitable, and soon. The dead things quicken, and the harder we fight against the inevitable, the worse it will be.”

She falls silent. Despondent? Or resigned?

“What you’re saying is, if rape is inevitable, lie back and try to enjoy it. Right?”

She glares at me, blood in her eye for an instant: “No! I’m not into, into enjoying this. I’m interested in survival, Bob, in reaching an accommodation. Survival at all costs and ensuring the continuity of the human race, that’s what the Brotherhood of the Black Pharaoh is about these days. I won’t lie to you by denying that our history is ghastly, but we change with the times. Our goal is actually your goal, if you think about it for a moment.”

Which, for me, is an Oh hell statement with brass bells on. It’s not as if I haven’t had my quiet nagging doubts about the Laundry’s methods and goals, and its intermittent self-thwarting tendency to substitute circular arse-kicking routines for progress. Iris is goddamn good at what she does. Wasn’t I thinking earlier that I’d follow her to hell if-

– If I couldn’t hear an echo of Mo’s voice, reminding me: the things in the cultists’ bodies had already eaten the blonde teacher’s face and most of her left leg, but the Somali boy-child was still screaming-

“You used a phrase there,” I say quietly. “I don’t think it means quite the same thing to you that it means to me. At all costs.” I put my energy drink can down. I’ve emptied it but I’m still exhausted and the pain is still lurking, just beyond the edge of my awareness. Plus, I feel drained, countless years older than my age. “Implying that the ends justify the means.”

“Just so.” Iris nods. “So. Will you join us of your own free will?”

I give her question the due weight of consideration it deserves. “Piss off.”

She sighs. “Don’t be childish, Bob. I like you, but I’m not going to let your selfish little fit of pique stand in the way of human survival.” She stands up, gathers her robe around her, and walks past me. “Bring him,” she commands.

Strong-armed cultists seize me under the shoulders and lift. I’m in no position to put up a fight as they frog-march me after her. “What are you going to do with me?” I call after her.

She pauses before an oak door studded with heavy iron nails. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to sacrifice you,” she says apologetically, “so that the Eater of Souls can stalk the corridors of the Laundry wearing your promotion-fast-tracked skin. I’m really sorry, dear. I promise I’ll try to make sure it hurts as little as possible.”

The door opens before her, and they drag me down into the catacombs.

THERE IS A HALF-EATEN SANDWICH SITTING ON A BREADBOARD IN the kitchen, and an empty milk carton next to the electric kettle, and to the witness in the corner of the room the sandwich is a thing of horror.

Mo stares at it for almost a minute. Then she reaches out very carefully and lifts the upper slice of bread. Lettuce, sliced tomato, and either chicken or turkey-not ham. She breathes in deeply, shudders for a moment, then moves on. Battery farmed and de-beaked chicken, not properly stunned at the slaughterhouse-that would account for the shadow in her left goggle. No need to remember the tunnel in Amsterdam, nor where it led…

Behold: a typical London family home. Recently renovated kitchen, dining room with French doors opening onto a patio in the garden, lounge with bay window out front, staircase in hall, under-stair closet, side door leading into garage, bedrooms and bathroom upstairs. Why the creeping dread, then?

Mo stalks the lounge like a shadow of judgment, violin raised and ready. There’s a row of books on a shelf above the plasma TV. Management for Dummies, The Power of Positive Thinking, The Book of Dead Names-she pauses. “What the fuck?” she says, very quietly. She’s seen that one before, in the unclassified section of the archives: it’s the Sir Richard Burton translation of Al Azif, the source text referred to by the mad pulp writer of Providence, who renamed it Necronomicon. It’s not of any great significance-it’s mostly the deranged babbling of a schizophrenic poet who’d smoked far too much hashish-but it’s as out of place in a suburban living room as a main battle tank on the high street.

There’s a rumble outside, as of a heavy truck. Mo glances at the window in time to see the blue strobes flickering. A knot of tension leaves her shoulders. She steps into the hallway, towards the front door, and freezes.

Lying on the carpet before her is a runner. The rug is handwoven with an intricate mandala. To an unequipped civilian it might look harmless, but in Mo’s goggles the buzzing, humming tunnel of lies flickering with greenish light is unmistakable. She kneels beside it, inspecting its woolen edge. Very carefully, she lowers her bow across the strings of her instrument. Her fingers slide on the fretboard, leaving a fine sheen of skin oils and blood behind as the strings light up, cutting brilliant blue gashes in the air above the mandala. She plays a phrase that trails down into a wailing groan, then up into an eerie scream. Then she plays it again, louder. The rug smolders. Once more, with emphasis: and there is a bang, as the binding between the woven wool carpet and the place it connected to gives way.

The cloud of acrid smoke from the rug sends Mo into a coughing fit. An unseen smoke detector starts to scream as she stumbles forward and yanks the front door open. “In here!” she calls to the firemen walking up the driveway. As the first of them reaches her she holds out an arm: “I’ve checked the ground floor. There was a welcome mat, but I defused it: I think it’s clear now, but let me check out the stairs.”

“Understood, ma’am.” Howe turns to face his men as Mo starts to check the staircase for surprises. “Wait while the lady checks the staircase. Scary, secure the garage. Len, backyard. Joe, show Dr. Angleton to the living room.”

Ten minutes later, Mo joins Angleton downstairs. He’s sitting in a floral print armchair with a book in his lap, looking for all the world like someone else’s visiting grandfather. He closes it and looks at her mildly. “What have you found?” he asks.

“Nothing good.” She peels her goggles off and perches on the edge of the sofa, then begins to return her instrument to its case. Wiping down the bloody finger-marks on the fretboard with a cloth: “Who lived here?”