The Annihilation Score (23 page)

“Yes, well, what's”—Mhari's eyes slide towards Jim—“this all about?”

“We've been set up!” I announce cheerily. “The culprit confessed, which is the good news.”

“What
kind
of setup?” Mhari's eyes narrow.

“A logical one.” I nod at Officer Friendly. “Jim is the final corner of our tent. It's all Dr. Armstrong's fault: he decided to assemble a team without telling its prospective members, which is why I've been looking over my shoulder this whole time. I'm supposed to set strategy. Mhari, you're on execution of policy. Ramona, you're in charge of human resources and logistics. And Jim, you're here for liaison and forward intelligence. It was
absolutely
a setup, but our puppet master believes in giving his proxies enough free will to tangle up their own strings.”

“Oh hell—” Mhari begins, just as Jim tries to say something. “What?”

“It's Thursday afternoon,” I tell them. “So, the SA tells me that next Monday HR are going to send round our third wave of recruits. We've got tomorrow to read résumés and filter out the obvious no-hopers; next week we get to interview the survivors. Our job is to pick four of them and mold them into a
public
superhero team, complete with uniforms, origin stories, the whole Marvel/DC public relations package.” I glance round the room. “Sort of like us, actually, only younger, more photogenic, and willing to get beaten up by supervillains on BBC News 24. We just have to handle the paperwork and run the office. Nothing, really.”

That gets a chuckle, except from Jim, who has presumably spent so many years collaring miscreants that the joke's worn thin.

“Great,” says Ramona. “That explains the rumbling from HR about a pile of CVs they're going to drop on us this evening.”

“Can you all clear tomorrow afternoon from your calendars, so we can go over them together?” I ask.

“I've got a meeting at two with my Divisional Commander,” says Jim. “It's to sign off on the resources I need for this project, so it really can't wait.”

“But can you be over here by five?” I ask. He hesitates for a moment, then nods. “Great. Well then, the rest of us will get stuck in beforehand. And then, well, I was thinking about adjourning for a team-building exercise at seven.”

“What do you have in mind?” asks Mhari.

“Any cuisine we all like, as long as it doesn't include calamari.” I keep an eye on Ramona, but she doesn't even twitch.

“I know a decent trattoria that's not far away,” Jim volunteers. “Want me to make a reservation?”

“That would be great.” I stand. “I should have laid in some bubbly for this, shouldn't I? Anyway, here's to teamwork!” And for some reason they all stand and we end up in some kind of four-way handshake, and for a moment I have a very odd feeling that an invisible caped figure larger than any of us is looming over all our shoulders and nodding its approval.

GREAT PAY AND BENEFITS! APPLY HERE!

It is Monday afternoon. Jim and I are in my office, interviewing the third job applicant of the day, while Ramona and Mhari tackle candidate number four. It is not looking good.

“So, Mr., ah, Human,” says Jim, “do you have any practical experience of community policing?”

The Human Cowboy snorts bullishly and paws the carpet with one cloven hoof. “Nope,” he grunts. All his replies are monosyllables: I'm not sure he'd recognize a compound noun phrase if it tugged on his tail. He has impressive presence, not to mention gravitas—it's hard not to when you're two and a half meters tall, have the head of a bull, and your horns leave grooves in the ceiling tiles—but he's not going to go down a storm with interviewers. To be honest, he's not going down a storm with us, either, but at least he doesn't have a disqualifying prior unspent criminal conviction like applicant #1. (And the less said about applicant #2, the better.)

“Any experience of dealing with law enforcement issues at all?” Jim asks, overly optimistically in my opinion.

“
Mroooo-oo.
Nope.”

“So, ah, what led you to apply for a job as a Police Auxiliary?” Jim coaxes. “Can you tell us what influenced your decision to respond to our advertisement?”

“JobCentre in Buslingthorpe said tha'd cut ma bennies if I di'n't.”

Coming from the Human Cowboy this is a Shakespearean soliloquy, but it's not exactly the answer either of us were hoping for. Jim's forehead wrinkles. “Is that the only reason?”

“Tha' said ye'd give us a flyin' combine harvester.” He stares at us with bovine patience. “Izzat true?”

“Yes, well.” Jim sighs. “Maybe not.”

I glance back at the skills matrix on my tablet. The Human Cowboy is superstrong and has an amazing sense of smell. Unfortunately his IQ seems to be off the scale, in the wrong direction. And there's nothing here about his educational attainments.
Nothing.
As if they've been redacted. “Mr. Human, the CV we were sent is missing a few details. Can you tell me which school you attended? What grades you left with? Any other educational qualifications?”

“Nope.” He shuffles uneasily from side to side as if the question disturbs him.

“Why not?”

“Dun'remember.”

“Why don't you remember?” Jim asks quietly.

“Was before tha' accident.”

Oh.
I share a glance with Jim. “Thank you very much for coming here, Mr. Human,” I tell him. “We'll be sure to tell the JobCentre you attended the interview, and we'll be in touch within a week to let you know how you did and to reimburse your travel expenses.” After all, he did come all the way from a farm in North Yorkshire by Megabus, just for this: I feel obscurely guilty. We stand up and I let Jim do the hand-shaking thing and show him out the door because, frankly, Minotaurs scare me.

“Well
that
went well,” I say as Jim shuts the door. Exercising my real superpower: vinegar-dry sarcasm.

“Indeed.” He sighs. “File under ‘mostly harmless.' Poor bastard is
probably unemployable. He's barely able to speak in grammatically formed sentences. What was the accident, I wonder? Was he bitten by a radioactive cow?”

“Not our department, but I
knew
letting HR publish a job advertisement and send it around every JobCentre in the country was a bad idea. ‘Trust us,' said Emma. I am”—I glance at the next CV on my screen—“getting burned-out. We've got fifteen minutes until the next one arrives. Break for coffee?”

*   *   *

Interviewing applicants for an ill-defined job with no obvious career-progression ladder that doesn't exist yet turns out to be a logistical nightmare, not to mention giving me headaches. I can see it's even beginning to get to Jim, who is used to dealing with bottom-dwelling criminal minds on a daily basis. “I think this was definitely a mistake,” I tell him over coffee. “I know that as a non-secret organization—operating as part of the regular civil service—we're required to advertise all postings publicly and interview all applicants who meet the requirements regardless of background, but we're getting spammed senseless by recruitment agencies and the JobCentres are using us as a soft touch for giving their no-hope clients the interviews they need to keep their Jobseekers' Allowance . . .”

I realize I'm trailing off. Blowing mental smoke rings. Jim is watching me expectantly.

“If we don't get anywhere in the next two days, I think we ought to take a leaf from the SA's book. Send out some discreet targeted invitations.”

“I thought you'd already done that?” he says.

“You—” I stare. “Oh hell. Should I?”

He shrugs. “For what it's worth I think we're wasting our time interviewing random superpowers. Well, apart from building a dossier of new and exciting antisocial personality disorders, but we don't need to do that in person, do we? Why don't you delegate, Mo? Grab a couple of bods from HR and a couple of analysts, get Mhari to
supervise, and let them do the donkey work. It's invaluable research, making our future surveillance targets come to us for a job interview—and you never know, if we accidentally trip over someone who isn't completely dysfunctional, we can even give them a job.”

“You're right.” A knot in my stomach that I've barely been aware of relaxes. “Hell, we could even invite Freudstein, couldn't we? But seriously, let's start at the top and work down. Who was that guy who rescued the woman who drove her car into an overflowing river the other day? We ought to look him up. Proactively identify the good citizens, filter out the ones with criminal records, and see if they're willing to play ball. Shove all this messing around with no-hopers onto—” My phone bleeps. “Damn, next candidate is due in five minutes.” I blow on my coffee. “Too late to cancel at this point.” At least he's the last for today. “Want to go over his CV?”

Jim picks up his tablet. His brows furrow. “Candidate number four Age: Twenty-two. Name: Fabian Everyman. Assumed superhero alias: ‘The Mandate.' School: Attended Eton College, took five A-levels at grade A*. University: Oxford, Brasenose College, graduated with a distinguished first in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics. Also: Member of the Oxford Union, Debating Society team captain.” His frown deepens.

Something in my subconscious is ringing alarm bells. “That's not a superhero CV, that's a
parliamentary
—” My phone trills. “Yes?” It's the front desk. “Right-o, send him up.” I look at Jim. “Would you mind escorting Mr. Everyman from the lift?”

“I've got a bad feeling about this one,” Jim murmurs.

“Me, too. Wait one.” I've taken to wearing a basic Laundry-issue protective ward all the time, but I pull open my desk drawer. There, nestled in foam inserts, are a pair of heavy-duty bracelet wards, beside a tube of extremely unusual mascara. I pass Jim a bracelet. “Wear this,” I suggest. I clasp the other one around my left wrist, then tap the mascara tube against the edge of my desk, hoping it hasn't dried up completely. Pale Grace™ Bright Eyes® products have been off the market for years, but in the course of wrapping up the Billington
corporate empire we seized some of the more exotic ingredients, and if life hands your research department lemons and a recipe, you shouldn't be surprised if they make lemonade for you. Or, better still, anti-lemonade countermeasures.

The mascara turns out to be dry and crumbly with age. I manage to mess up one eye before I hear Jim's heavy tread again.
Damn.
I wipe it off as best I can, put the brush back in the tube and the tube in my jacket pocket, and am blinking irritably when the office door opens. Jim enters, followed by candidate #4.

How to describe the Mandate?

We asked all our applicants to change into character for their interview—they can use the shower room downstairs if they're too embarrassed to be seen on the street. But the Mandate could easily have marched up the pavement and in through our front door in his superpower persona without raising any eyebrows. He smiles, teeth gleaming like a toothpaste advert: “Dr. O'Brien! I'm so pleased to meet you at last. I've been hearing great things about your work.” His handshake is warm, dry, and firm as a manifesto promise. “You, too, Chief Superintendent. Marvelous to see you.”

He makes a superb first impression but I really couldn't tell you the color of his eyes. I can't tell you the color of his skin or his hair, either. His suit is impeccably cut, his shirt and tie immaculate, the whole turnout just a millisecond behind the leading edge of current fashion. He wears discreet cufflinks and mirror-polished Oxfords; he has a carefully rolled-up copy of the
Times
tucked under his left arm.

“Have a seat.” I smile instinctively. Jim sits next to me, closer than normal—
Is he nervous?
“So, Mr. Everyman. You do understand that we're not a constituency party selection committee? We're actually recruiting for a superhero team who will work for the Home Office. What talents can you bring to the table?”

He smiles, and it's so contagious that I find myself grinning back at him involuntarily. “Well, you see,” he says with boyish enthusiasm, “I can run it for you. From the top, that is: I know we're still fifteen months from the next election, but I'm going to be the next Home Secretary.” He chuckles at his own joke, and it's so funny Jim and I
join in, too, although I have a distracting shooting pain in my left wrist. “That's my ability, you see: I have unshakable faith in myself, and if I believe in something, everyone around me has to believe it, too.” I nod along: that's a
very
useful ability. “And I believe that, a-ha,
tomorrow belongs to me
.” He smiles and whistles a familiar melody.
Cabaret.

“Wonderful,” Jim says with feeling. “But what about your other powers?”

“Oh, I don't need any.” The Mandate's smile widens. I realize that he's absolutely correct: if you can make the people around you believe whatever you believe, why would you need super-strength or the ability to fly? He'll be a wonderful Home Secretary, right up until he graduates to Prime Minister. “I can make bank robbers hand themselves in and volunteer to return their ill-gotten goods. I can make orphans laugh and I can make wife-beaters beg their victims for mercy. If I was so inclined, I could sell you bridges that don't exist. I can
and will
bring peace to the Middle East. I can even do a Tony Blair impression.” He has Jim in stitches with that one: it's true, he's got the charismatic former Prime Minister's mannerisms down perfectly—only he's better, more convincing.

I struggle to keep track of my interview checklist. I seem to have mild heartburn—no, my silly necklace is just overheating. I'm about to reach up and unfasten it, but the pain in my left wrist has turned into a burning itch like nettle-rash, spreading halfway to my elbow. I rub it with my right hand, and feel an unfamiliar restraint that seems to pulse in time with my heart. “Why do you want to, to work with, with our—”

His smile disappears, replaced by a tiny frown of concern. “Oh, I don't want to work
with
you, Dr. O'Brien! I'm sorry, you seem to be laboring under a misapprehension. I'm here because I want
you
to work for
me
.” I nod, encouraging him to continue with his explanation even though I'm squirming in my seat, driven half mad by the nagging itch in my left wrist.

“'Scuse me,” I finally burst out. “Need to powder my nose—urgently. Back in a minute.”

“Take your time,” the Mandate says indulgently. “I'd be very grateful if you could fetch me a coffee on your way back? White, two sugars.”

I scurry towards the door and dash for the ladies. I lean over the sink for a minute, gasping and trying not to throw up as I run my left wrist under the cold tap. The red welt left by the high-power defensive ward on the bracelet begins to fade.
Damn! That was close.
I shudder, skin crawling, and force myself to breathe slowly and deeply. I've seen heavy-duty glamours in action before, but
that
was something else. I try to remember his face, but there's just a smear of skin between hairline and chin, a vacant mask onto which it is altogether too tempting to project the kindly, caring features of an identikit best friend.
Hairline?
I can't remember. Then I realize he's still in the room with Jim and my violin case is parked under the desk and I swear softly.

I pull out the mascara tube and carefully brush more of it onto my lashes. It's crumbly and rubbish and as it moistens it begins to run—I'm going to have horrible raccoon eyes this evening—but I have a compact mirror, and I manage to get some of it to stick where it belongs. It stings a little, but when I finish blinking, everything is bleak and crystal-clear. I put the tube away, pull out my phone, and call Mhari's office line.