Charles Stross - Rule 34

Now consider, further:

“John Christie” walks into your life by way of Dorothy’s hotel. She’s been booked in there by her employers. He (you shy away from thinking about this too hard) manipulates her. Then she gets a request for an ethics review.

If that’s an accident, you’ll eat your warrant card.

But what if Dorothy was a channel to get to you ? Specifically, to draw your attention to “John Christie.” Because, because… ?

(Your chain of dominoes terminates in confusion. And you’re out of time.)

You blink, shake your head, then walk back inside without waiting for Kemal. “Hey, Moxie, what have you got for me?”

Moxie sits up straight. “I’ve got MacDonald’s most regular contacts, skipper. These are just the public ones, spidered off chat rooms and mailing lists. Here are his business contacts, and here are the folks he hangs out with, dereferenced to meatspace names.” He chucks a couple of tags at your specs and you open them in different windows, as the news spool from the ops room unfreezes and begins to update now you’re back in a shielded room. You glance at the personal contacts, and the bottom drops out of your stomach because right at the top of the list is a familiar name: ANWAR HUSSEIN.

“What the—” You suppress a string of invective: For some reason, swearing tends to alarm Moxie. “The personal contacts. Where does MacDonald know our friend Mr. Hussein from?”

“Our friend who? Oh, him? There are a bunch of local forums hanging off http://fitlads.net. They’re both regulars under the handles. Let’s see… yep, it’s a bed-surfing board. Looks to have a regular crowd.”

“You said the link is via fitlads, yes?” You frown. Anwar is married. Is it the same man? “This Mr. particular Hussein. Can you see if we’ve got anything on him?”

Moxie dives head down into CopSpace while you skim the feed from BABYLON. The death toll from around the world is still rising. You spot a FLASH alert, broadcast from the City Desk to every team—a report of a homicide in the south side, near the Meadows. Life (and death) goes on as usual in the city, even as you scurry round in pursuit of—

“Skipper? How did you know?”

You blink the windows away and focus on Moxie. “Know what?” Kemal appears in the doorway. “Inspector—”

“Mr. Hussein has form, skipper? He’s done time for his part in an identity-theft ring, and hey? Oh, it was you that collared him. Cool!”

“Inspector Kavanaugh. A moment, please?”

Kemal sounds worried. Your stomach lurches. You have an uneasy sense that you are holding the solution to your domino game in your hands if only you could work out where to snap them onto the chain. “Yes?”

“The murder—”

Your phone jangles, a priority incoming. You glance at it: It’s Dickie. You prioritize and answer the detective-in-charge first. “Yes?”

“Liz?” Dickie sounds strained. “You and that fly Eurocop, ye’ve already been and interviewed that professor at the uni? Did ye both go together? Ye did stream everything, reet?”

Eh? “Yes,” you say cautiously. If he’s in the incident room, they’ll know that. So why is he asking? you wonder. “Kemal and I were both there, and we both recorded the session. It’s backed up in Evidence One already. Why?”

“Was MacDonald alive when ye left?”

“What?”

You see Kemal urgently mouthing something at you and flick back to your specs. Another FLASH alert: officer called to Appleton Towers—

“Are you telling me MacDonald’s been murdered?”

“Answer me—”

“Yes, yes! He was alive when we left. I’ve got a witness and two time-stamped evidence streams, Inspector. Do you”— I held the door open, you remember—“shit.”

“Liz. Speak to me.”

“Hold please, I need to check something urgently.”

Without waiting, you put Dickie on hold and poke urgently at your specs. They’re fully lifelogging, and while the main purpose is preservation of evidence, you can at least replay what you’ve seen. You jump back an hour, then rewind at high speed until you get to your departure from Appleton Towers. You were mostly looking at Kemal, talking as you walked, but there—there’s the man coming towards you from outside; there’s you holding the door open.

“Kemal? You’re on the BABYLON roster. Can you get me a picture of John Christie? That’s—”

“What I’ve been trying to tell you,” he says, a tad waspishly, and chucks a tag at your glasses. You zoom it into a window next to your lifelog video and bite your lip.

“Fuck.” You take Dickie off hold. He’s ranting already, but you ignore him: “John Christie was recorded entering the university building at exactly the same time Kemal and I were leaving. It’s in my lifelog. I didn’t recognize him”—because you’d never met him—“is it MacDonald who’s dead?”

“You dinna recognize him,” Dickie snarls.

“Neither did Kemal. Save it for the inquest, Dickie. Have we nailed Christie yet?”

“Get your sorry ass over to Appleton Towers.” Dickie’s voice has gone flat, over-controlled. Anger is probably a good sign, with Dickie: It means he isn’t bottling it up for a future explosion. “DI Terry is on her way there to take over. I’ll be along after I finish explaining your little blind spot to the commissioner. You can walk me through your interview at the scene. Seeing you’re the last folks wha’ saw MacDonald alive.”

He hangs up.

“Shit.” You put your phone back in your pocket, trying to still the shaking in your hand.

“Well, Inspector?” Kemal asks. His expression is hard to read. Is that sympathy? Defensive distance?

You draw down a deep breath. “Let’s take a ride.” To Moxie, you add: “I want a deep trawl on Mr. Hussein. Home address, family, relationships, anything that’s available. Bounce it to me, highest priority.” Then you’re out the door like a demented groundhog, blinking in the unwelcome daylight again.

“Is that necessary?” Kemal trails you towards the garage. “I thought Dr. MacDonald was a higher priority.”

“Oh, it’s necessary alright.” To the desk sergeant: “I need a car, urgent, case BABYLON.” To Kemal: “Dickie wants us to go to Appleton Towers and identify the victim, so we’ll go. But I’m not planning on staying for long…”

You are behind the bathroom door, trying to figure out how to flush the bucket of fermenting nanotechnological bread mix down the toilet, when the doorbell buzzes.

The bread mix makes you sick, with its strange chemical smell and iridescent bubbles. There’s a permanent scummy skin floating on top of the bucket, and whenever you stick a pencil in to lift it off, more skin forms; it forms a brownish rope, very like nylon. At first it’s sticky—it sticks to anything it touches like Superglue—but it dries rapidly to a soft and stringy finish. You twist some of it up and it really does form a rope, stronger than seems possible. You’re afraid that if you chuck it down the loo (after the stomachful of vomit you ejected right after you zipped the horrid thing back into the suitcase), it’ll gum up the pipes. And then what? If you call out a plumber, they might report you to the police— and then, and then —your mind shies away from the consequences.

What did that fellow on the phone, Bhaskar, have to say? A major international criminal investigation , a material witness , and you with the suitcase in the attic full of forbidden horror belonging to Colonel Datka’s man. And Bibi knows. And, and. The smell from the bread mix makes your stomach churn. It’s sickening. So you’ve got the bucket down to the bathroom, next to the toilet, and you got the bog brush and dipped it in the bucket and now you’re slowly winding a shitcoloured caul of scum around the brush, twirling it as it dries in sheets and fibrous ropes.