Charles Stross - Rule 34

You run down. Not that you’re giving her more than the most superficial gloss on how Tariq set up the tagging system and real-time chat to show the old farts a very skewed view of the system; or the block-booked hotel rooms that users can sublet by the hour (at a 500–per cent mark-up for Tariq), or the proximity-matching service for halal doggers—pay your money, enter your preferences, go to this hotel room at that time and a suitable partner will be waiting for you—but Inspector Butthurt isn’t an idiot.

She nods thoughtfully. “Nobody gets killed because of a dating website. What do you suspect , my friend?”

She’s pushing your buttons but letting some morsels slip. The deadening fear is back: The man with the empty eyes, his luggage in your attic. The Gnome’s outrageous proposition. Tariq’s memory stick. “I suspect —I don’t know anything for a fact—Tariq was into other stuff, too.”

“Other stuff? Like what you were arrested for last time?”

Your mouth is dry. You nod. “I’m out of that, I swear. I’ve got a wife and kids to look after. And this.” You twitch your phone, which chooses that moment to vibrate again. It’s less intrusive than the old leg-tags, but no less an imposition. “And a respectable job.”

“A job?” She raises an eyebrow.

“Yes.” You need to rub her nose in it, make her recognize that you’re a man of consequence these days. “I handle the consular affairs in Scotland of the Independent Republic of Issyk-Kulistan. I have diplomatic connections now, you know! I am required to be a man of utmost respect. And so Tariq knows he must leave me out of his madcap schemes.”

“Wow.” It’s the nearest thing to an admission of surprise you’ve ever heard from Inspector Butthurt. So worldly cynical is she (from dealing with the scum of the earth on a shift-work basis) that it is clearly a test of her self-control. A lesser inspector would be shouting their disbelief in your ear. “Does your probation officer know about this?”

“Of course he does!” you splutter. She shakes her head, and a very curious expression steals across her face. Respect or what? “You can confirm my credentials with the Foreign Office,” you add haughtily.

“Ah, that won’t be necessary.” It’s glassy-eyed disbelief, you decide, twitching your security blanket of smugness closer. At last you’ve broken through her shell of assumed white English privilege. But she doesn’t let the moment last. “Back to Tariq. What else can you tell me about him?”

“He was always too smart for his own good.” You realize abruptly that you’re never going to see him again, never engage in his line of crazy banter, never have to shrug off his sly importuning to get you on board one of his scams. The icy lid on your bottomless well of grief shatters, and you sniff, blinking back tears. You’re unsure whether you cry for Tariq or yourself.

Kavanaugh touches your shoulder: You flinch. “Better answer your call,” she says, rising. “I’ll be back in a minute. Don’t go away.” And she leaves you alone to face Bibi, who is making urgent demands for reassurance you can’t deliver.

Snug as a sphex wasp larva in the belly of a paralysed katydid, you bed down in the Peter Manuel identity. You rent a room in a West End hotel to shower and change your clothes. One brief online session later, you’ve ordered a couple of shirts, a week’s supply of socks and underwear, and a new shaver. Delivery post restante. Over in the Hilton, John Christie’s room lies hollow and empty as a condemned cell. It may already be under active monitoring by the police, but you doubt they’ll put a human-surveillance team on the case—human eye-balls are expensive—and if you don’t interact with the hotel’s digital nervous system they’ll have no way of telling you’re around. But they’re not yet looking for Peter Manuel, and the cost of ambient DNA sequencers is high enough that they’re not yet deployed outside of airports and other class-one security hot spots, and reliable automatic face recognition is right around the corner next week, next year, next decade, just like it’s always been.

Standing under the monsoon shower, you review the afternoon’s work. Parking your luggage with the dithering Indian guy was a bythe-book move, but maybe not such a bright one. It’s always good practice to have a secondary safe house prepped and ready when things turn to shit, and you needed to get your commercial sample out of your immediate proximity lest the police decide to pull in “John Christie” for a grilling, but you can’t count on him for more than documents and a mattress, and even that may be pushing a bit too far. He’s a classic mark, easy to dominate but too fragile for heavy-duty work.

Something about his face brought out the long-forgotten old school bully in you: You wonder what it would be like to punch him until he pleads for mercy, then keep going. Battered, blood dripping down her nose… You’re sprouting wood, you realize, but you’ve got a date for the evening and judging by this morning’s chat-up, she’s aiming for the same goal, so instead of reaching for the soap, you step out of the cubicle and towel yourself dry, then pad through into the bedroom and inspect your clothing options.

Building the new start-up can wait—anything you arrange in the current circumstances will just give the enemy a target. (You pick up a clean pair of boxers, hold them at arm’s length.) On second thoughts, wouldn’t it be a good idea? Draw out the bad guys by giving them a target? (The Straight woman’s a hot dresser. You want to be clubbable, smart casual at least. Flash a bit of class along with the cash.)

Maybe you should set up a front, let the adversaries home in on it, then capture their assassin and pump them for information. (Suit and tee shirt? Or jeans and a jacket? The former. Armani tee. The Fabrice Gonet watch and the Edwardian silver snuff-box.) Set up a target, to draw their fire. (Hit the drug store for some meow-meow. Or better make that premium coke: She looks old-school.) Who could possibly fill those scapegoat shoes for you?

Hmm. Maybe you will move in with Mr. Hussein and his family tomorrow. See if he makes a suitable target: If not, that can be fixed.

(But first, you’re going to make friends with Dorothy.)

As you spot him from across the bar, you’ve got to admit John Christie cleans up well.

One good thing about these on-site assignments with the bank is that nobody’s ever sorry to see you leave on the dot. Nobody likes the inquisition. So as soon as it hits five, you make your brief apologies—little white lies, special pleading about having a life, they love these signs of human frailty—and catch the rush-hour tram back into town. There’s still no word on the other, mystery job—the no-knock ethics audit you’re meant to do on some NDA’d client’s local management sometime next week—but that’s no bad thing. You’ve got enough on your plate right now.

There’s safety in numbers, up to a point. Liz has got your name on some kind of watch list, bless her, but that’s a fat lot of use if your mystery stalker decides to jump you in the bushes while you’re stranded between half-hour buses on a deserted industrial estate due to working late. Or if they decide to have a little tête-à-tête in your hotel room, just them and you and Mister Rubber Hose. But you’re damned if you’re going to turn up on her door-step, shivering and small. Liz is desperately, blatantly monogamous, and if she clocks that Julian isn’t your primary anymore… let’s just say you need a wife like a fish needs a bicycle.