The Administration Series (206 page)

During the day, the new Administration announced that the curfew would move back to ten. So, after leaving work as early as he could, he went out and tried thinking about the problem over a drink in one of the bars that immediately reopened at the news. If he didn't find inspiration, his reasoning went, he might at least find a distraction.

However, other customers were thin on the ground, and the atmosphere dead. People were probably too scared to come out.

He turned down a couple of offers without thinking about it, and went home when the bar closed at half past nine.

Back in the flat, he tidied up, or at least moved the debris round. He stacked broken furniture in the corner of the living room; he could throw it out some other time, although there wasn't any reason not to do it now. There weren't likely to be complaints about the noise, because the building was half-empty — most of the tenants had been Int-Sec staff. His neighbours on both sides seemed to have gone — dead or not he had no idea.

Pity Warrick wasn't here — for once, Warrick could be as loud as he liked without generating tedious notes from the building administrator.

The gear was indisputably gone. He checked round the bedroom, knowing Warrick would've searched, but hoping anyway. All that remained were the leather straps on the bed posts, and even they somehow looked wrong. Everything out of place, everything damaged in some way.

The heating was barely functional and the place was freezing. At least building maintenance had repaired the door, or tried to, and the broken windows had been sealed over. The looters had left the bed and the sofa, although most of the kitchen was gone. He'd have to get a new fridge, if he was going to stay.

Not that he had anywhere else to go.

Living at Warrick's had been . . . convenient. Being able to walk in at night and not have to worry about anything had meant more than he'd thought. It had been fun having Sara around. Then there'd been the good food, laundry service, a warm, comfortable bed . . . and when he caught himself thinking about what else he'd be missing, he put his mind firmly back to the problem at I&I.

Tomorrow morning he would be buried once more under mundane but important tasks that would only distract him. Carnac would still be there and the deadline would be another day nearer. Toreth sat on the sofa and drank beer, and thought his way through a dozen dead-end plans, all of which served only to highlight what a good idea it would be to run like fuck.

Carnac would love that. He'd watch him scuttle off back to hide under Warrick's protection, then he'd tear I&I to pieces. Compared to Carnac triumphant, execution didn't seem so bad.

Eventually, since there was nothing else to do and he was tired, he went to bed, without undressing. Lying in the chilly darkness, shivering, anger stirred — directed primarily at Warrick. He'd been utterly unreasonable yesterday. He should've helped because . . . and Toreth ran up against a dead end. There was a sense of obligation he didn't care to examine too closely, and also the fact that Warrick hadn't — apparently — felt the same, which was even worse.

Whatever it was, it was entirely Warrick's fucking fault.

Then, somewhat to his surprise, he discovered it was one o'clock in the morning and he still couldn't sleep.

"You're drunk," Chevril said, two seconds after he opened the door. He wore only a pair of pyjama bottoms, slit at the side to accommodate the cast on his ankle. He stayed blocking the doorway, leaning on his crutch and looking less than pleased to see Toreth.

"Not much, but well spotted. I suppose that's why they made you a senior in the end." He heard a laugh from behind Chevril and looked past him to see Elena standing at the far end of the hall, dressed in a startling red silk nightdress. "Hi, how're you?"

She came to stand behind Chevril, almost a head taller than her husband. "Very well, thank you," she said, unruffled as always. "You?"

"Go back to bed," Chevril said to her, over his shoulder. "And
you
can just go. What the hell do you want at this bloody time of night?"

"Well, either I've come to declare my undying love for Elena, or I've come to talk to you. Which do you think?"

Chevril didn't move to let him in. "Come back in the morning, sober, and try again."

"Don't be rude, Don." Elena moved Chevril gently aside. "Come in, Toreth. What's wrong?"

He slipped inside quickly, closing the door behind him. "I need to talk to Chev about something. Something important."

He heard a strangled protest from Chevril, but he and Elena both ignored it.

"Come through to the living room. Would you like something to drink while Don's getting dressed?"

"No thanks. I think I've had enough already."

They sat on the sofa in the living room, and made small talk while Chevril went to dress. He liked talking to Elena, or at least listening to her, because she had the kind of soft, low, amused voice that it was easy to imagine hearing in bed. The view wasn't bad either — flawless olive skin, hair like a black waterfall and a beautifully proportioned body, tall and slender. Shown off to perfection by the nightgown, too.

"Toreth?"

He blinked. "Sorry?"

"I said, 'how is Warrick'?"

They'd only met once, but she always asked after him. He felt a flicker of irritation. "Fine, probably. We had a huge fucking row and I'm not seeing him until . . . well, sometime. If ever."

She smiled, amused or sympathetic, he couldn't tell. "I'm sorry to hear that."

"Right, I'm here." Chevril limped back into the room, dressed but clearly not in a better mood.

Toreth smiled at Elena. "I hate to say it, but I need to talk to Chev alone."

"Of course." She rose gracefully. "Don't keep Don up too long."

He watched her leave, thinking that she looked ten years younger than she must be.

Chevril lowered himself carefully into a chair. "If you've finished eyeing up my wife, do you think you could get on with whatever it is so I can get back to bed?"

He'd had practise at summarising Carnac's plan, but Chevril proved the hardest to convince so far. The way he'd obtained the information was, surprisingly, the thing he had the least difficulty with.

"Everyone? Executed as in
dead
? Are you sure?" he asked, after Toreth had run through it for the third time.

"Yes. Absolutely. Listen, if I had the drug list, I'd show you what I gave him. He's got beautiful genetics for that sort of thing — you couldn't ask for anyone more susceptible. He was well gone, but he wasn't hallucinating and he wasn't making it up for me. Textbook confession, if you don't include the fucking. I almost wish I'd taped it, if it wasn't too dangerous to have around."

"Oh, God, no." Chevril shuddered. "Jesus, talk about an image I don't need. Okay, say I believe you. What next?"

"That's what I don't know. I can't see a way of getting rid of Carnac, short of killing him. I can't see a way of stopping the inspection. But if I don't think of something soon, it'll be too fucking late to matter."

"Um. I see." Chevril frowned, sucking his teeth thoughtfully. Eventually he looked up and said, "Can't we make sure there's nothing for them to see? No interrogations?"

Toreth had thought of that himself. "He'd bring them back. Or show them recordings — there are plenty of those around."

"I didn't mean just for the morning. I meant, change the whole system completely. Stop interrogations. You've got the authority to do it, haven't you?"

"Stop interrogations?"

"That's what I said. Bloody hell, it's not that complicated, it is?"

"No, it's . . . " Extremely simple, actually, although he hadn't thought of it. He turned the idea over, examining it. "I&I without Interrogation?"

"Well . . . no. I didn't mean that. There'd have to be some. We'd have to rewrite the P&P, that's all. Let's see." Chevril leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. "Level one, level two stay in, of course. No one can have a problem with verbal only, can they? Levels three and four . . . maybe okay, if we tighten up the medical guidelines for the level four drugs. Level five if — no. Cut all the neural induction — better to be on the safe side. And definitely nothing with tissue damage, so that leaves us with nothing level five or higher. Keeps it simple, anyway."

He looked back at Toreth. "What do you think?"

It would never work. "What about the prisoners who won't crack for one to four? We let them go, drop the charges?"

"Why not? If the new Administration don't like unsolved cases, then they can come up with something. Not our problem. And anyway, I don't know about you, but I won't miss all the screaming. Gives me a migraine."

"It's . . . " He hunted for reasons, trying to work out why the idea felt so wrong. "It'd be unprofessional."

"And we'll be able to do a good professional job when we're six feet under, will we?"

There was that. "Okay. Maybe. But Carnac won't like it. Not one little bit."

"I thought it was high-level interrogations he had the twitch over?"

"He thinks we're dangerous animals that need putting down. He really believes it. You had to hear it."

Chevril grimaced. "No, thanks. So this isn't going to do the trick for him?"

"No. He wants everyone
dead
, it's that simple. Classic resister obsessive, in fact. The Socioanalysis higher-ups would go into spasms if they heard him — their psych screening must be shot to shit. But he'd put a stop to everything as soon as he got wind of it."

"Yeah, you're right. Sorry. Stupid idea."

He was about to agree, when it struck him that, stupid or not, at least it
was
an idea, which was more than he'd managed to come up with. Why else was he here? He sat and thought it over, while Chevril watched him.

There were problems — a lot of problems. But fundamentally, it seemed sound. If there were no interrogations for the inspectors to see, and no reason to think there would be again, then Carnac's plan was sunk. He thought about Sara, suggesting that they shut I&I and give Carnac what he wanted. This was much better — it would be exactly what Carnac didn't want and he'd have to swallow it anyway, because the new Administration would love it. Comprehensive reform of I&I — something he'd heard dozens of prisoners mewling about.

"You're a genius, Chev."

"Am I?" He looked pleased, but wary. "What about Carnac?"

"We don't tell him. It can work. The hard part is going to be rewriting the Protocols, just because there's so much of it. And then putting it all into the computers for when the inspectors start nosing around. I'll have to have a word with someone in Systems." He ran through it again, looking for critical flaws that would sink the whole idea. "We don't know the date — that's going to make it harder."

"I thought he said two weeks?"

"Yeah, but not exactly two weeks. Could've been two weeks to the day, or a couple either side. It was no use asking for a date at that point — my fuckup. I should've pressed for it when he was sharper. But once it's done we can have everything ready to go, and brief the teams the day the inspection turns up."

"Or the day before — that'd be better. And even then we'll need to bring a few more people in beforehand. Some of the seniors, so it'll all happen smoothly. And the bloody interrogators." Chevril shook his head. "It'll be a bloody miracle if Carnac doesn't twig."

"Doesn't matter, if it's too late and he can't do anything. He'll have to bite his tongue and let it go."

Chevril looked at him dubiously. "Carnac?"

"If we do it right, yes." He grinned, savouring the words. "We'll have him and there won't be a fucking thing he'll be able to do about it."

They talked for a while longer, and then Chevril started looking pointedly at his watch. To Toreth's surprise, Elena reappeared to show him out of the flat. On the doorstep, she stopped him, with her hand on his arm. "Warrick," she said, then stopped. After couple of seconds, he nodded, uncertain.

She seemed to take that as permission, because she glanced over her shoulder then said, "Call him tomorrow. Whatever you fought about . . . these things can be always be mended." She smiled slightly, mysteriously. "Always. I know."

He nodded again, surprised that she'd said anything at all. There was a last flash of red silk as she closed the door, and he shook his head. She was wasted on Chev, she really was.

He didn't call Warrick, of course. He had far too much to do, and anyway he'd made a promise. No way was he crawling back before he'd done what he said he'd do — he might as well buy a new collar, put it on, and hand Warrick the chain. Instead, as soon as he arrived at work on Saturday, Toreth explained the plan to Sara. She seemed approving and (to his relief) unfazed by the prospect of rewriting the Procedures and Protocols.

She called it up on her screen, and a depressingly large document it looked. However, after she'd skipped through it, she said, "If all you want to do is cut the top levels, it won't be too hard."

"It needs new guidelines for when to finish interrogations, that kind of thing — happy, fluffy resister stuff. Then it needs going through with a fine-tooth comb to make sure there aren't any references in there to high-level procedures. You could split the remaining levels on the old upper level/lower level divisions, and then we'll be back to eight. Should make it easier to keep things consistent."

She nodded. "Good idea. B-C and I can do most of it, if you or Chevril check the procedures afterwards." She paused. "B-C doesn't know about any of it, does he? Do you want to tell him?"

He'd recited the story too many times already. "You can do it. Don't forget to tell him it's confidential information. It goes no further without my say-so, and make doubly sure he understands that includes Nagra if she gets in touch."

"Can I talk to Daedra about the drug sections?"

He considered. This was a problem he knew he'd have to face over and over again: who was safe? With Carnac involved, the answer was 'no one'. So the question became: who had to know? The new contents of the P&P had to be convincing, if they were going to sell them to the inspection as the result of careful thought and consultation.