Charles Stross - Rule 34

There is, of course, the old electric kettle, if you can remember where it’s lurking. It’s corroded and leaks alarmingly around the water gauge, but you don’t think Bibi threw it out. You clamber down the ladder and go into the kitchen to hunt around. Finally you think to look in the cellar, where the mains distribution board, the gas meter, and several piles of junk lurk villainously in wait for unshod feet. The kettle is resting under a layer of moldy plaster dust in one of the slowly deliquescing cardboard boxes. The cellar smells of damp brickwork, and your sinuses clamp shut in protest before you can beat a retreat. Which is why Bibi finds you in the kitchen, clutching a dusty kettle and breathing heavily through your mouth, when she bustles in with a wheelie-bag full of groceries.

“Help me unpack this,” she says breathlessly, then notices the kettle: “Oh good, are you taking it for recycling?”

“I need it for the office,” you say, then the breath catches in your throat as a convulsive sneezing fit takes hold. “Aaagh! Choo!”

“Not over the saag, you naughty man!” She thrusts a wad of tissue at you. “This bag needs refrigerating. When you’re feeling better?”

You blink red-rimmed eyes at her. “The cellar is damp .”

“Oh dear, has the dehumidifier filled up again?”

“What dehumidifier?”

“The one we borrowed from Martin, silly. Don’t you remember?”

She looks at you with a speculative expression that puts you in mind of a stableman sizing up an elderly mule for the glue factory. You sigh. Now that she mentions it, you remember her telling you something about dampness and a gadget the old guy next door had offered to loan her. “No, no I didn’t,” you admit. “You say it’s filling up?”

“Yes,” she says brightly: “It needs emptying once a week!”

“Damp. In the cellar.” If Sameena’s plans to try and hold a family reunion in Lahore to corral everyone into buying into some kind of extended family takeover of a half-completed hotel complex had worked, you wouldn’t have a problem with rising damp in the cellar. (You might have to dodge the occasional lunatic in explosive corsetry, but it can’t be any more risky than running the gauntlet of the random bampots down the Foot of the Walk on a Saturday night.) Alas, you were one of the idiots who balked at the idea of turning to the hospitality trade. “Besides, it rains too much there!” you moaned at your mother-in-law, regurgitating childhood memories of a June vacation. Oh, the irony.

“Yes. I think it’s getting worse.” Your wife tilts her head on one side as she looks at you. “What are you going to do about it?”

You sigh, deeply. “I’ll see if I can round up someone who knows about such things.”

She hands you a cardboard punnet full of mushrooms. “You’d better. Or we’ll be growing these down there.”

You help Bibi unpack the groceries that need refrigerating, then retreat upstairs to the bathroom, clutching the kettle. Not being entirely stupid, you wash the filthy thing out in the wash-basin, then take it up to the attic and return for a bucket of water (which you manhandle up the ladder precariously, with much sloshing and dripping).

Finally, you glance at the brew shop’s website, where there is indeed a multilingual FAQ. It’s in Arabic, Turkish, and Farsi among other languages, if you recognize the characters correctly: You’ll have to settle for English.

“First boil 20 litres of water and allow to cool to 40 degrees…”

You plug the kettle in, fill it up, throw the switch, and all the lights and electrics go out. A few seconds later, you hear Bibi cursing most immodestly downstairs.

You’re really going to have to tackle the damp now, aren’t you? Otherwise, you’re never going to hear the end of it.

On day four of your new occupation, you receive an invitation to a diplomatic reception at the Georgian consulate.

Actually, you received it on day two, or rather your spam filter received it, whereupon it languished in MIME-encapsulated limbo until you could be bothered to skim the contents of the mailbox, swear, then freak out and run squawking in circles.

“You are invited to attend an informal cheese and wine reception at the Georgian Consulate on Brunswick Street on—” ( tonight ) “—at 7:30 P.M., hosted by the Trans-Caucasian Inward Investment and Tourism Trust. RSVP, etc.”

After about fifteen minutes you wise up and dash off a hasty query to Head Office: Should I stay or should I go? You haven’t been keeping up with the daily bulletins from the Diplomatic Service—they are replete with information about yak wool exports, the lemon harvest, and the urgent need to redress the balance-of-trade deficit, but not so fascinatingly full of matters of statecraft—so you have not the veriest inkling of a clue as to whether the Independent Republic of Issyk-Kulistan is on kissing terms with Georgia, or at war, or something in between. All you really know about politics in the part of the world you represent is that it can be alarmingly personal at times, not to mention bloody-minded, brutal, byzantine, and any number of other unpleasant adjectives beginning with “b.”

There’s no immediate reply, so you call the Gnome. “Help,” you say succinctly.

There’s a brief, pregnant pause. “Help what?”

“I’ve been invited to a diplomatic reception! Help!”

“You’re beyond help, laddie.” He sounds amused. “You’ll just have to fend for yourself. Is it one of the Middle East missions?”

“No!” You swallow. “It’s Georgia.”

“Georgia next to Alabama or—oh, I see. Well you may be in luck, then: They drink alcohol. Just remember not to mention the South Ossetian question, the Transnistrian dispute, Azerbaijani shi’ite separatism, or the existence of Abkhazia. You’ve never heard of any of those places, so you should be able to quaff a free bevvy or six and leg it without giving mortal offence.”

“How do you know all this?” you ask in something like awe.

“I looked it up on wikipedia. Oh, and try to remember, the Russians are not their friends. Have a fun party! Cunt.” He hangs up.

( Cunt isn’t an unusual expostulation from the Gnome; it’s commonly directed at any lucky acquaintance who has gotten to stick their gristle missile in a particularly cute twink, and indicates envy rather than ire. Nevertheless, you feel acutely inadequate: It’s a shame you can’t send the man himself in your place, but he’d probably piss in the punchbowl and start a trade war or something. Just to drop you in it. The cunt.)

There is no reply from the Foreign Ministry, and with a sinking heart you realize it’s Thursday afternoon over here and probably closing in on sundown—they’ll be knocking off early for Friday. You’re on your own. So you apply yourself to wiki-fiddling for a couple of hours of fascinated voyeuristic geopolitical prurience—you had no idea the IRIK had such interesting neighbours. Then it’s knocking off time for you, too, with a few hours to fill until the party.

The shortest route to the Brunswick Street consulate is via Calton Hill, and your favourite pub; so you decide to fortify yourself with some water of life and a pitta wrap before you nip round and do the James Bond cocktail-circuit thing.

The Gnome is not in residence at this time. Neither is Olaf, the Norwegian barman you quite fancy. It’s still quiet—the Friday night meat market hasn’t opened yet—so you sit in a corner and quietly shovel back your ale and chicken tikka wrap. You’ve got time to borrow a pad, boot an anonymous guest VM, and spend half an hour poking around a somewhat dodgy chat room Tariq introduced you to—one that you’re not supposed to go within a thousand kilometres of during your probation, maybe because it has something to do with the seamy underside of Internet affiliate-scheme marketing. (But they’d have to swab the screen for DNA to prove you were there: And anyway, you’re just looking, aren’t you?) Right now it’s a big disappointment. Nobody seems to be posting there this week—it’s like the usual denizens have all gone on holiday. Or been lifted by the Polis, more like, you think uneasily and log out of the anonymous guest account, which goes poofing up to bit-rot heaven.