Jennifer Morgue (21 page)
Authors: Charles Stross
"I can neither confirm nor deny anything to do with my employers," she says with the flat-voiced emptiness of a necromancer's answering machine, before snapping back into focus: "My folks lived offBaja California. That's where I grew up." For a moment her eyes overflow with a sense of loss.
"The Deep Ones did ... well, they did what they did at Dunwich. My folks have been go-betweens for generations, able to pass as human and visit the depths. But we're not really at home among either species. We're constructs, Bob.
And now you know why I use the glamour!" she adds harshly. "There's no need for flattery. I know damn well what I look like to you people."
You people: Ouch! "You're not a monster. Exotic, yes." I can't look away from her. I try to pull my eyes away from those perfect breasts and I keep looking down and there's another pair — "It just takes a little getting used to. But I don't mind, not really. I've already gotten over it." Down in the Laundry compound at Dunwich they've got a technical term for human employees who start spending too much time skinny-dipping with a snorkel: fish-fuckers. I've never really seen the attraction before, but with Ramona it's blindingly obvious. "You're as attractive without the glamour as with it. Maybe more so."
"You're just saying that to fuck with my head." I can taste her bitter amusement. "Admit it!"
"Nope." I take a deep breath and duck under the water, then kick off towards her. I can open my eyes here: everything is tinged pale green but I can see. Ramona dodges sideways then grabs me by the waist and we tumble beneath the reflective ceiling, grappling and pushing and shoving. I get my head above water for long enough to pull in a lungful of air, then she drags me under and starts tickling me. I convulse, but somehow whenever I really need air she's pushing me up above water rather than trying to pull me down.
Weirdly, I seem to need much less air than I ought to. I can feel the gills working powerfully in her pleural cavity; it's as if there's some kind of leakage between us, as if she's helping oxygenate both our bloodstreams. When she kisses me she tastes of roses and oysters. Finally, after a few minutes of rubbing and fondling we settle to the bottom and lie, arms and legs entangled, in the middle of the circuit-board tracery of gold that caps the concrete table.
''Fish-fucker!'' She mocks me.
''lt takes two to tango, squid-girl. Anyway, we haven't.
I wouldn't dare.''
''Coward!'' She laughs ruefully, taking the sting out of the word. Silver bubbles trickle and bob towards the surface from her mouth. ''Y'know, it's hard work breathing for both of us. If you want to help, go up to the surface ...''
''Okay.'' I let go and allow myself to stand up. As I pull away from her I feel a tightness in my chest that rapidly grows: we may be destiny-entangled, but the metabolic leakage is strictly short-range. I break surface and shake my head, gasping for air, then look towards the beach. There's a loud ringing in my ears, a deep bass rattle that resonates with my jaw, and a shadow dims the flashing sunlight on the reef.
Huh? I find myself looking straight up at the underside of a helicopter.
"Get down!" Ramona hisses through the deafening roar.
She wraps a hand around my ankle and yanks, pulling me under the surface. I hold my breath and let her drag me down beside her — my chest eases — then I realize she's pointing at a rectangular duct cover at one side of the concrete platform.
''Come on, we've got to get under cover! If they see us we're screwed!''
''lf who see us?''
''Billington's thugs! That's his chopper up there.
Whatever you did must have really gotten them pissed.
We've got to get under cover before — ''
''Before what?'' She's wrestling with the iron duct cover, which is dark red with rust and thinly coated with polyps and other growths. I try to ignore the tightness in my chest and brace myself to help.
''That.'' Something drops into the water nearby. I think it's rubbish at first, but then I see a spreading red stain in the water. ''Dye marker. For the divers.''
''Whoops.'' I grab hold of the handles and brace myself, then put my back into it. ''How long — '' the grate begins to move '' — do we have?''
''Fresh outa time, monkey-boy.'' Shadows flicker in the turbid waters on the other side of the coral barrier: barracuda or small sharks circling. My chest aches with the effort of holding my breath and I think I've ripped open the skin on my hands, but the grate is moving now, swinging up and out on a hinged arm. ''C'mon in.'' The opening is about eighty by sixty, a tight squeeze for two: Ramona drops into it feet first then grabs my hand and pulls me after.
''What is this?'' I ask. I get an edgy, panicky feeling: we're dropping into a concrete-walled tube with hand-holds on one side, and it's black as night inside.
''Quick! Pull the cover shut!'' I yank at the hatch and it drops towards me heavily. I flinch as it lands on top of the tunnel, and then I can't see anything but a vague phosphorescent glow. I blink and look down. It's Ramona. She's breathing — if that's what you call it — like she's running a marathon,-and she looks a bit peaked, and she's glowing, very dimly. Bioluminescence.
''k's shut.''
''Okay. Now follow me.'' She begins to descend the tunnel, hand over hand. My chest tightens.
''Where are we going?'' I ask nervously.
''I don't know — this isn't in the blueprints. Probably an emergency maintenance tunnel or something. So how about we find out, huh?'' I grab a rung and shove myself down towards her, trying to ignore the panicky feeling of breathlessness and the weird sensations around my collarbone. ''Okay, so why not let's climb down a secret maintenance shaft in an undersea occult defense platform while divers with spear guns who work for a mad billionaire wait for us up top, hmm? What could possibly go wrong?''
''Oh, you'd be surprised.'' She sounds as if she does this sort of thing every other week. Then, a second later, I sense rather than feel her feet hit bottom: ''Oh. Well that's a surprise,'' she adds conversationally.
And suddenly I realize I can't breathe underwater.
8: WHITE HAT/BLACK HAT
AN ADVENTURE DEMANDS A HERO, AROUND WHOM the whole world circles; but what use is a hero who can't even breathe under water?
To spare you Bob's embarrassment, and to provide a shark's-eye view of the turbid waters through which he swims, it is necessary to pause for a moment and, as if in a dream — or an oneiromantic stream ripped from the screen of Bob's smartphone — to cast your gaze across the ocean towards events transpiring at exactly the same time, in an office in London.
Do not fear for Bob. He'll be back, albeit somewhat moist around the gills.
"The Secretary will see you now, Miss O'Brien," says the receptionist.
O'Brien nods amiably at the receptionist, slides a bookmark into the hardback she's reading, then stands up. This takes some time because the visitor's chair she's been waiting in is ancient and sags like a hungry Venus' flytrap, and O'Brien is trying to keep her grip on a scuffed black violin case. The receptionist watches her, bored as she shrugs her khaki linen jacket into place, pats down a straying lock of reddish-brown hair, and walks over towards the closed briefing-room door with the AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY sign above it. She pauses with one hand on the doorknob. "By the way, it's Professor O'Brien," she says, smiling to take the sting out of the words. "'Miss' sounds like something you'd call a naughty schoolgirl, don't you think"
The receptionist is still nodding wordlessly and trying to think of a comeback when O'Brien closes the door and the red light comes on over the lintel.
The briefing room contains a boardroom table, six chairs, a jug of tap water, some paper cups, and an ancient Agfa slide projector. All the fittings look to be at least a third of a century old: some of them might even have seen service during the Second World War. There used to be windows in two of the wails, but they were bricked up and covered over with institutional magnolia paint some years ago. The lighting tubes above the table shed a ghastly glare that gives everybody in the room the skin tint of a corpse — except for Angleton, who looks mummified at the best of times.
"Professor O'Brien." Angleton actually smiles, revealing teeth like tombstones. "Do have a seat."
"Of course." O'Brien pulls one of the battered wooden chairs out from the table and sits down carefully. She nods at Angleton, polite control personified. The violin case she places on the tabletop.
"As a matter of curiosity, how are your studies proceeding"
"Everything's going smoothly." She carefully aligns the case's neck in accordance with the direction of the wards on Angleton's door. "You needn't worry on that account." Then she exhausts her patiently husbanded patience. "Where's Andy Newstrom"
Angleton makes a steeple of his fingers. "Andrew was unable to attend the meeting you called at short notice. I believe he has been unexpectedly detained in Germany."
O'Brien opens her mouth to say something, but Angleton raises a bony finger in warning: "I have arranged an appropriate substitute to deputize for him."
O'Brien swallows. "I see." Fingers drum on the body of the violin case. Angleton tracks them with his eyes. "You know this isn't about my research," she begins, elliptically.
"Of course not." Angleton falls silent for a few seconds.
"Feel free to tell me exactly what you think of me, Dominique."
Dominique — Mo — sends him a withering stare. "No thank you. If I get started you'll be late for your next meeting."
She pauses for a moment. Then she asks, with the deceptive mildness of a police interrogator zeroing in on a confession: "Why did you do it"
"Because it was necessary. Or did you think I would send him into the field on a whim"
Mo's control slips for a second: her glare is hot enough to ignite paper.
"I'm sorry," he adds heavily. "But this was an unscheduled emergency, and Bob was the only suitable agent who was available at short notice."
"Really?" She glances at the black velvet cloth covering the files on his desk. "I know all about your little tricks," she warns. "In case you'd forgotten."
Angleton shrugs uncomfortably. "How could I? You're perfectly right, and we owe you a considerable debt of gratitude for your cooperation in that particular incident. But nevertheless — " he stares at the wall beside her chair, a whitepainted rectangle that doubles as a projector screen " — we are confronted with AZORIAN BLUE HADES, and Bob is the only field-certified executive who is both competent to deal with the matter and sufficiently ignorant to be able to, ah, play the role with conviction. You, my dear, couldn't do this particular job, you're too well-informed, leaving aside all the other aspects of the affair. The same goes for myself, or for Andrew, or for Davidson, or Fawcett, or any of a number of other assets Human Resources identified as preliminary candidates during the search phase of the operation. And while we have plenty of other staff who are not cleared for AZORIAN BLUE HADES, most of them are insufficiently prepared to meet its challenges."
"Nevertheless." Mo's hand closes on the neck of her case "I'm warning you, Angleton. I know you entangled Bob with a Black Chamber assassin and I know what the consequences are. I know that unless someone collapses their superposition within about half a million seconds, he's not coming back, at least not as himself. And I'm not putting up with the usual excuses — 'he was the only round peg we had that fit that particular hole, it was in the interests of national security' — you'd better see he comes back alive and in one body. Or I am going to the Auditors."
Angleton eyes her warily. O'Brien is one of very few people in the organization who would make such a threat, and one of even fewer who might actually follow through on it. "I do not believe that will be necessary," he says slowly.
"As it happens, I agreed to your request for a meeting because I intended to tap you for the next phase. Contrary to the impression you may have received, I don't consider Bob to be an expendable asset. But I believe you're allowing your relationship with him to color your perceptions of the risk inherent in the situation. I assume you'd be willing to help bring him back safe and sound"
Mo nods sharply. "You know I would."
"Good." Angleton glances at the door, then frowns. "I do believe Alan's late. That's not like him."
"Alan? Alan Barnes"
"Yes."
"What do you want him for"
Angleton snorts. "A moment ago you were getting uptight about your boyfriend's security. Now you're asking why I asked Captain Barnes — "
The door bursts open, admitting a wiry pint-sized tornado.
"Ah the fragrant Professor O'Brien! How you doing, Mo? And you, you old bat. What do you want now?" The force of nature grins widely With his owlishly large glasses, leather-patched tweed jacket, and expanding bald spot he could pass for a schoolteacher — if schoolteachers habitually wore shoulder holsters. Angleton pushes his spectacles up on his nose. "I was explaining to Professor O'Brien that I've got a little job for you. Bob's accepted the starring role in the approach plan for AZORIAN BLUE HADES and now it's time to set up the payoff. Not unnaturally, Mo has expressed certain reservations about the way the project has been conducted to date.
I believe that, in view of her special skills, she can make a valuable contribution to the operation. What do you think"
While Barnes is considering the question, Mo glances between the two of them. "This is a setup!"
Barnes grins at her: "Of course it is!"
She looks at Angleton. "What do you want me to do"
She grips the neck of her violin case tensely.
Barnes sniggers quietly, then pulls out a chair. Angleton doesn't deign to notice. Instead, he reaches across the table and switches on the projector.
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