Charles Stross: Equoid

I move to the desk and sit down behind it facing the door, making sure to keep my hands in view, and hold up my warrant card. I sit like this for approximately thirty seconds before it crashes open and I find myself staring up the business end of an MP5K. “Oops, sorry sir. Be right back.” The MP5K and its owner disappear as I try to get my heart rate back down to normal.

Finally, after another minute, the door opens again—this time more sedately. “Hello, Bob!” It’s Alan Barnes, chipper and skinny, with slightly hyperthyroidal eyes. He bounces into the room, head swiveling. “Nice pair of shamblers you’ve penned up down there. What do I need to know?”

Alan is a captain in that corner of the Army that we work with when this sort of situation comes up: namely one particular squadron of the Territorial SAS, a peculiar special forces unit composed of reservist veterans who have seen more and stranger things than most of their colleagues would credit with existing. His crew of merry pranksters are securing the premises as we speak. “There’s a file on this computer,” I say, patting the box on the desk. “You heard about the business in Darmstadt with the infected PowerPoint presentation?” He nods. “Well, there’s a Word document with an infected startup macro on this thing’s hard disk. Which it attempted to scribble on when the inspector—in the stables right now—tried to open it for me.” He nods again, looking thoughtful. “This needs Forensics to go over it. We’re looking for a requirements document which seems to have come out of nowhere, and which persuaded Inspector Dudley that it was all his own idea to replace the horses in his mounted unit with, ah, EMOCUM Units. Otherwise known as the subjects of EQUESTRIAN RED SIRLOIN.”

Alan has a notepad. “How do you spell that?” He murmurs politely.

I fill him in as fast as possible. “DEFRA spotted it, there’s an emergent cuckoo’s nest down on Edgebaston Farm but the farm owner doesn’t seem to be infected—” yet “—so I suggest once we’ve secured the station we rendezvous with Greg Scullery and proceed to the farm to conduct a full suppression. What remains after that is to—” my shoulders slump—“work out where the hell the brood-Queen’s spawning-nest is, and take her out.” I swallow, then continue: “Which is bound to be harder than it was in Lovecraft’s day, if only because the thing has concealed its tracks well, and appears to be pulling the puppet strings of local Renfields like the Inspector. If it figures out we’re coming it may be able to organize a defense. In the worst case scenario, East Grinstead is going up in flames. And that’s before we get to the thorny question of where that demon-haunted requirements document came from.”

Alan sits down on the wobbly swivel chair with no armrests. “I’m not familiar with, ah, EQUESTRIAN RED SIRLOIN,” he admits. “I’ll need to get clearance and then—”

We don’t have time. On the other hand, ERS is barely classified at all. I pull out my briefing papers: “On my cognizance, and in view of the severity of the situation, with a class two Eater outbreak in train, I take full responsibility for disclosing EQUESTRIAN RED SIRLOIN. Or, at least, what I know about it,” I add hastily. (Because if it is an inside job, (a.) I don’t know enough to blow its cover, and (b.) it’s just very publicly shat the bed, and whoever is running it is probably in for the high jump whatever I do. In other words, my and Alan’s attempts at mopping up are unlikely to make the mess any worse.)

Alan raises an eyebrow. “Are you sure?”

I shrug. “It’s classified MILDLY EMBARRASSING NO TABLOIDS. I’m sure they’ll offer me a cigarette and a blindfold at the firing squad.”

Alan nods and takes the papers. “Right,” he drawls. What I’m doing is technically unauthorized, but my Oath of Office lets me get away with it without even a warning tingle. I’m pretty sure Iris will sign off on it when I file my report. And if not, I can’t see the Auditors yelling at me for briefing my field support team. Then his eyes focus on the first page, and the list of decreasing classification levels, and the index of documents attached, and his eyebrows climb so high they nearly merge with his hairline. “ Unicorns? Bob, what have you gotten us into this time?”

“I wish I knew, Alan. But they’re not sparkly…”

Ring-ring . “Yes, who is that?”

“Greg? It’s Bob here. Where are you?”

“I’m back at the office, sorting out some paperwork. Has something come up?”

“You could say that. Listen, can you meet me at the old police station? As soon as possible; it’s urgent. There are some gentlemen I’d like to introduce you to. We want your input on operational planning.”

“I—yes, I daresay I could do that, young feller. Is five o’clock too late?”

I glance at Alan. He nods, minutely controlled. “Five o’clock but no later,” I say. We exchange pleasantries: “See you. Bye.” I glance at my phone: it’s ten past four. Back at Alan: “In my opinion, we’re not ready to go public,” I explain. “No point frightening the bystanders.”

“Hmm.” Alan gives in to toe-tapping and thumb-twiddling, impatient tics that seem to vanish whenever an actual operation starts. “Let’s go over the map again, shall we?”

We’ve got an Ordnance Survey 1:12,500 spread out across the table in the antique briefing room. A couple of constables have shown up for shift change, and we’ve taken pains to explain the situation to them in words of one syllable: a chief inspector from a mega-city like Hove or Brighton is on her way in to take control of the policing side of the operation, but I gather she’s caught up in traffic, so for now we’re relying on Sergeant Colon to keep everything looking vaguely like business as usual. Alan’s driver finally un-wedged the OCULUS truck from the cobblestoned yard, and it’s parked outside. The contingency story for the reporter from the Bexhill Babble is that we’re conducting a joint major incident containment exercise simulating an outbreak of anthrax on a local farm. Which is close enough to the truth to make what we’re really doing look plausibly routine if not actually boring, so that when we get the officers of the law to cordon off Edgebaston Farm nobody will so much as blink.

The map is accurate enough to let Alan’s merry headbangers lay down a barrage of covering fire if that’s what it takes. I point out the various elements of the farm. “The barn: there are two or more EMOCUM Units stationed there. Carnivorous, fast, hopefully hobbled. The woodshed: has damp rot in the roof beams. Currently full of lumber, they’re planning on putting the cows in it when they get round to emptying it. South field: two horses, four cows (one of them with a wooden leg). Basically harmless. The EMOCUM Units are distinctive—the eyes are too close together and glow blue, and their fur is white—”

“Don’t you mean they’re cremelo? Or at least perlino?” Alan raises an eyebrow at me.

“Whatever.” I shrug. “They look like horses, walk like horses, have breath like a leopard. Oh, there’ll also be saddles with roll cages stashed in the barn—”

“Roll cages?” His eyebrows are really getting a workout today.

“With wire mesh reinforcement, yes, to stop the nice horsies eating their riders. Seriously, if any of your men see a horse-shaped object that can’t instantly be confirmed safe, they should shoot to kill. We’re dealing with the Hannibal Lecters of the riding world here.”

“Moving swiftly on—” Alan points at the farm house itself. “What can you tell me about this structure?”

“Oh, that . Farmhouse, repeatedly built, razed, re-built, extended, and re-razed ever since the twelfth century. AD, not BC, though you might be hard put to tell. Main entrance opens into a porch with boot racks, closet to the left, huge farm kitchen to the right, passage leading into house at the back, and no, before you ask, I didn’t get a good look inside. Why do you—”