Charles Stross: The Fuller Memorandum

Her office door is ajar as I turn the corner between the reception area and the coffee station: she’s the kind of manager who’s happy to sacrifice an outside office with a window in return for an interior one that lets her keep an eye on everyone entering and leaving her little fiefdom, which should tell you something. Her attitude is one of those irregular verbs peculiar to bureaucracies: if you like her she’s attentive, and if you don’t, she’s paranoid.

“You wanted to see me, boss.”

Iris waves me at the seat opposite her desk. She’s leaning back with feet up and phone clamped between ear and shoulder, nodding along unconsciously to the beat of her unseen caller’s narrative.

“Yes, I understand. You can use his office, I think. When?… Half an hour? Excellent, thanks. Yes, and you too. Bye.” She puts the receiver down, then hits the divert to voice mail button on her handset. “How are you feeling, Bob?” She looks concerned.

“Like shit.” I don’t see any need-or room-to dissemble. “I came in because I’ve got a report to file.”

“Are you sure that’s wise?” She raises a penciled-in eyebrow. “I’ve given you my presenteeism lecture, haven’t I?”

Bless her, she has: she’s the first manager I’ve ever had who explained to me in words of one syllable that she’d be really pissed off if she caught me skulking around the office while I’m feeling ill. (This is the Laundry; they don’t fire you for calling in sick, in fact, they can’t fire you: all they can do is give you scut work. Back in my first year I took two weeks off, once, just to try it on-I ended up going back to work when I got bored with counting the cracked tiles on the bathroom wall. We still maintain this endless pretense that we’re the same as any other government department, clock-punching time misers all, but it’s not true: we do things differently in the Laundry. And so does Iris, and for a blessing, she admits it.)

I nod.

“Good,” she says briskly, her accent so clear she could get a job as a BBC news anchor. “So.” She pauses. “Something went wrong yesterday, and you’ve got a report to file. Want to fill me in on it? So I know what to expect?”

So I know what to expect is Iris-speak for so I can cover your ass.

“Yeah… I fucked up a routine out-of-the-office job for Angleton.” I take a deep breath. “One dead bystander, in front of witnesses-luckily the only direct eyewitness is already sworn to Section Three.” (Section Three of the Official Secrets Act, which covers our activities, is itself classified Top Secret under the terms of Section Two, making knowledge of it by unauthorized persons an offense-and we enforce it ferociously.)

“I’ve got to file an R60 and then Operational Oversight are going to be calling the shots. There’ll probably be an enquiry. I may be suspended pending the outcome.” Oddly, it’s a lot easier to say this to Iris than it was to Mo.

Iris watches me for a few seconds. “Oh, you poor thing.” She nods to herself. “Was it bad?”

“It was stupid,” I say between gritted teeth. “Stupid, stupid. If I’d noticed the entanglement channel between the airframe and the control panel, or warded both artifacts at the same time, it wouldn’t have happened. And if she’d opened the door five seconds sooner, or later, it wouldn’t-shit. If I’d been told what the airframe had been used for I wouldn’t have…” I trail off.

“Save it for the Auditors,” Iris says tiredly. She takes her booted feet off the desk, then leans forward. “That phone call I just took was your case officer, Bob. I think you should go and get yourself a nice cup of tea or coffee or whatever pleases you, then go and wait in your office. Business as usual is canceled for the day, and if I catch you doing your time sheet or answering support queries I will personally kick you around the block, okay? Go play games on Facebook or something. I’ll bring your case officer round and sit in with you while you fill out the R60, so you’ve got a witness. If you think she’s giving you grief, let me know and I’ll handle it. Then”-she takes a deep breath-“I’m signing you off sick for two weeks. You don’t have to take it, I mean I can’t force you, hell, maybe you’d rather do some light admin and filing than sit at home or go for a week in York-that’s my suggestion-but you’re overdue for a slowdown, and I’m going to make sure you get it.”

“But Angleton-”

“Leave him to me,” she says brightly, with a smile that shows me her teeth: “He’ll do as I say.”

Oh.

Before I can open my mouth and insert any feet, she adds, “It’s Angleton’s job to point you at the enemy, Bob, but it’s my job to keep you from breaking. I take my job seriously. If I tell Angleton to back off, he will.”

Oh. I hadn’t looked at it quite that way before. I manage to nod, then close my mouth.

“Why?” I ask.

“Fatal accidents never have just a single cause,” she tells me, “they happen at the end of a whole series of errors. What the enquiry is going to ask is, how far back did the chain start? And I’ll tell you this right now, it started before Angleton shoved you out to go and do that job yesterday. But I’d better not say any more for now. Go and get that coffee: we’ve both got a tough morning ahead.”

I’M SITTING IN MY OFFICE, SHIVERING OVER A COOLING CUP of coffee and reading The Register, when my door opens without warning. I look up: it’s Iris, which is no surprise, but the other visitor-“Jo?” I say, standing: “Long time no see!”

“Not long enough, under the circumstances,” she says with a twitch. Jo is short for Josephine, as in Detective Inspector Josephine Sullivan, formerly of Milton Keynes but working for us in Operational Oversight these days. (That’s my fault; on the other hand, so is her still being alive after the SCORPION STARE business, so I suppose they cancel out.) Looks a bit like Annie Lennox, if she’d taken up a second career as a nightclub bouncer. “How are you keeping?”

“Badly.” I look round at the mounds of paper, the padlocked secure cabinet covered in Dilbert cartoons, the cubicle-farm-sized novelty dart-board with a picture of the Prime Minister’s face over the bull’s-eye: “Uh, I wasn’t expecting you.”

Iris gives Jo a sidelong look: “You’ve met?”

“Yes.” Jo gives her one right back. “I won’t let it influence me.”

“You’re here to take my statement?” I ask.

“Yes.” For a moment Jo looks haggard. “Bob, what have you gotten yourself into?”

“I’ll fetch another chair.” Iris catches my eye and shakes her head pointedly as she backs through the door.

“A mess. How long have you been working for Oscar-Oscar?”

Jo sits down on the squeaky chair with no arms, and opens her attaché case. “Two years now,” she says quietly. “Please tell me before we begin, while we’re not under oath, you didn’t do this deliberately?”

I shake my head. “Cross my heart and hope to die, it was an honest fuck-up.”

“Okay.” She takes a deep breath. “I’m just here to fill out the forms with you and ask you the questions. If a decision is made to pursue an enquiry I will declare a conflict of interest and withdraw. Are you happy with that?”

For a moment I feel a flicker of gratitude amidst the gloom and dread. “Fair enough.”

Iris returns, pushing another rickety office chair through the door. (I approve. Most of my previous managers would have sent a minion to do that for them; actually mucking in and getting stuff done was beneath the dignity of their station. I’m still taking notes on Iris’s style, although right now my career doesn’t exactly look to be on course for promotion.)