Charles Stross - The Atrocity Archives

"Okay," I say, leaning back. "One more thing to do: we have to trip the observe button."

"Yes, that seems obvious," says Alan. "Um, mind me asking why?"

"Not at all." I close my eyes, feeling as if I've just run a marathon. "The basilisk spontaneously causes about 1 percent of the carbon nuclei in the target in front of it to tunnel into silicon. With one hell of an energy release at the same time, of course."

"But plutonium isn't carbon-"

"No, but the explosive lenses are made of RDX, which is a polynitrated aromatic hydrocarbon compound. You turn 1 percent of the RDX charge into silicon and it will go bang very enthusiastically indeed. If we offset it to one side like this "-I nudge the chair a couple of centimeters-"one side of the A-bomb's explosive lenses predetonate, totally out of sequence, causing a fizzle. Imagine a giant's fist, squeezing the plutonium core; now imagine he's left his thumb off the top. Molten plutonium squirts out instead of compressing around the initiator and going bang. You get a messy neutron pulse but no supercriticality excursion. Maybe explosive disassembly of the case, and a mess of radiation, but no mushroom cloud."

Alan glances at his watch. "Nine minutes. You'd better be going."

"Nine-what do you mean?"

He looks at me tiredly. "Laddie, unless there's a timer on this basilisk gadget, someone has to stay here and pull the trigger. You're a civilian, but I signed up for the Queen's shilling."

"Bullshit!" I glare at him. "You've got a wife and kids. If anyone's disposable around here it's me."

"Firstly, I seem to remember you saying you'd do whatever I said before you came along on this road trip. Secondly, you understand what's going on: you're too bloody important to leave behind. And thirdly, it's my job," he says heavily. "I'm a soldier. I'm paid to catch bullets, or neutrons. You're not. So unless you've got some kind of magic remote controller for-"

I blink rapidly. "Let me look at it again," I say.

The basilisk gun is a bunch of customised IC circuits bolted to a pair of digital camcorders. I lean closer. The good news is they have fast interfaces. The bad news-

Shit. No infrared. The TV remote control program on my palmtop won't work. I straighten up. "No," I say.

"Get the hell out of here then," says Alan. "You've got six minutes. I'm going to wait sixty seconds after you leave the room, then hit the button." He sounds very calm. "Go on, now. Unless you think losing two lives is better than losing one."

Shit. I punch the door frame twice, oblivious to the pain in my wrist.

"Go!" he yells.

Upstairs, I pause in the guardroom, about to ignite one of the two Hands of Glory that are waiting for me on the table. I wonder if I'm far enough away from the bomb. (That American scientist-Harry Dagnian, wasn't it?-who did something similar by accident in the Manhattan Project: dropped a neutron reflector on top of a weapon core during an experiment. He died a couple days later, but a guard just ten feet away wasn't affected.) There's a muffled thud that I feel through the soles of my boots; a split second later I hear a noise like a door slamming.

I hear my pulse racing erratically. I hear it, therefore I am still alive. I heard the explosion, therefore the bomb fizzled. There will be no nuclear fireball to energize the conquest dreams of the ancient evil that lurks in this pocket universe. All I have to do is pick up the Hand and walk back to the slowly evaporating gate before it closes…

A minute passes. Then I put down the Hand of Glory and wait for another minute. It's no good. My feet carry me back inside and I fasten down my faceplate, switching to my canned air supply as I head down the corridor that leads to the staircase.

At the top of the stairs I key my microphone. "Alan? Are you there?"

A momentary pause, then: "Right you are." He chuckles hoarsely. "Always knew I'd die in my own bed, laddie." Another pause. "Make sure you're buttoned up before you come downstairs. This isn't a sight most people ever get to see."

THREE DAYS LATER I AM BACK IN LONDON. MOST of the intervening time seems to be spent in interview rooms, doing debriefs and going over every last aspect of events. When I'm not talking myself hoarse I am fed institutional food and sleep in a spartan institutional bed. Officer's Mess or something. The flight back to London is an anticlimax, and I go straight from the airport to Alan's hospital bed.

It's in a closed bay off a ward devoted to tropical diseases in one of the big London teaching hospitals. There's a staff nurse on the desk out in front, and a police officer on the door. "Hi," I say. "I'm here to see Alan Barnes."

The nurse barely looks up. "No visitors for Mr. Barnes." He goes back to studying someone else's medication chart.

I lean on the front of the nursing station. "Look," I say. "Personal friend and coworker. It's visiting hours. Please."

This time the nurse looks at me. "You really don't want to see him," he says. The cop straightens up and takes notice of me for the first time.

I pull my warrant card. "How is he?" I ask.

The nurse exhales sharply. "He's stable for now but we may have to move him to the ICU at short notice; it isn't pretty." He glances at the cop. "We can arrange to call you if there's any change."

I glance at the officer of the law, who is inspecting my warrant card as if it's the clue to a particularly nasty murder: "Are you going to let me in or not?"

The cop looks at me sharply. "You can go in, Mr. Howard." She opens the door and steps inside first, not bothering to give me back the card.

"No more than five minutes!" calls the nurse.

It's a small room with no window; fluorescent lights and a trolley bed surrounded by machines that have far too many dials and knobs for comfort. A trolley beside the bed is draining bags of transparent fluid into the arm of the bed's occupant by way of a vicious-looking cannula. The bed's occupant is reclining on a mound of pillows; his eyelids flicker open as I come in. He smiles. "Bob."

"I came as soon as they let me go," I say. I reach into my inner pocket for the card, barely noticing the policewoman behind me tense; when she sees the envelope she relaxes again. "How are you feeling?"

"Like shit." He grins cadaverously. "Like the world's worst-ever case of Montezuma's revenge. Have you been all right, lad?"

"Can't complain much. They haven't given me a chance to talk to Mo, and I spent the first day back being prodded by the witch doctors-I think they liked the colour of my bile or something." I'm babbling. Get a grip. "Guess there was enough concrete between you and me. Have they let you talk to, uh, Hillary? Is the food okay?"

"Food-" He turns his head to look at the cannula in his arm. His skin is brown and ulcerated and seems to be hanging loose, patchy white flakes falling from the underlying reddish tissue. "Seem to be eating through a hose these days, Bob." He closes his eyes. "Not seen Hillary. Shit, I'm tired. Feverish, too, some of the time." His eyes open again. "You'll tell her?"

"Tell her what, Alan?"

"Just tell her."

The policewoman clears her throat behind me. "Yeah, I'll tell her," I say. Alan doesn't give any sign of showing that he's heard me; he just nodded right off, like an eighty-year-old on Valium. I open the envelope and put the card in it on his bedside table, where he'll see it when he wakes up. If. He always knew he'd die in his own bed. Tell Hillary?

I turn and walk through the door, blind to the world. The cop follows me out, shutting it carefully. "Do you know who did that to him, Mr. Howard?" she asks quietly.

I stop. Clench my fists behind my back. "Sort of," I say quietly. "They won't be doing it to anyone else, if that's what you're asking. If you'll give me back my card now, I have to go in to the office and make sure someone's told his wife where he is. I take it you'll let her in?"