The Annihilation Score (38 page)

On the other hand, a nice relaxing swim in the Channel doesn't
have
to be permanent.

Thinking these thoughts I walk upstairs, unseal the ward on the
wardrobe, remove the violin case, and carry it back down to the kitchen table. Then I open the lid and stare at the thing inside.

“Do you know what I'm thinking?” I ask.

The violin lies still, quiescent and inert in its coffin lined with ivory silk.

“I went to the opera today,” I tell him. “I went outside without you. For the second time this week.” It's true: the meeting at ACPO and my afternoon with Jim and Sally are the only times this year that I've allowed myself to get more than a hundred meters away from him. “I'm still mad at you. But now I know something else: I can live without you.”
Modulo some withdrawal symptoms, but . . .
“What do you think of that?” I'm not sure that I can live without my instrument, but I'm not prepared to live
with
him if we can't establish exactly who's in charge of our relationship. “What do you say?”

***Sorry.***

“I've been thinking,” I muse aloud: “Destroying you, unbinding you, would be difficult. Not to mention extremely hard to obtain authorization for. I can send you to sleep with the fishes for a while, but that wouldn't stop you finding a new host, would it? Maybe the best thing would be if I just admit defeat and surrender you. I can tell Dr. Armstrong I can't carry you any longer. I can tell him why, and I can tell him, warn him that you're growing stronger. They'll need a more powerful player to control you. And those don't come along very often, do they? So they'll carry you back to that humidity-controlled safe in the basement of Dansey House and seal you up alone in the dark again, and this time it'll be for months or years. Maybe decades. All alone in the dark.”

***Please don't do that.***

“So it's please
now
, is it?” I shout, thumping the kitchen table so that the violin case bounces. “Well,
tough
!” I take a deep breath. “Here's what's going to happen. I am going to get a warded gun locker installed here and another at the office. You're going to live in them when I don't need you. At night, for example, when I'm sleeping. You'll come out of your box when I need to practice and when I need to deploy you and for transport. That's all. If you try to escape
or slither into my dreams, that's
it
. It's the safe for you. I'm through with this. You've had your chance. You tried to kill Mhari, you tried to kill Bob, you tried to force me to play you. No more. No more chances, no more apologies. That stuff is over for good. Do you understand?”

***Yes.***

“Good.” I close the violin case. “Back in your box.” I carry him back upstairs and stash him in the wardrobe again.

***So hungry,*** I hear him whisper in my head as I close the door and then turn the key in the lock. His voice is like contaminated engine oil floating on the surface of a river at night. A sharp stab of anxiety grips me:
Is he lying to me?
Something about his supine display of remorse rings false.
Well, fuck you,
I think. “Sleep tight.”

***Need food—*** I activate the ward: blissful silence descends.

The rest of the weekend is uneventful. If only I could relax and enjoy it.

*   *   *

It's Tuesday, and pigeons released weeks ago are coming home to roost.

Monday started with an all-hands meeting to introduce our four new hires to the analysts, HR, and support folks. That kind of event is
always
risky, teetering on the edge of embarrassment. For quiet, gawky Billy, aka The Torch, it's his first-ever job in a workplace with carpet, much less indoor plumbing and co-workers who wear suits. There's a 150 percent pay rise hanging over him like the Sword of Damocles: What is he supposed to do to earn it? He's silently terrified, even though he has enough firepower in his right index finger to take out a main battle tank. For my part I'm just glad that his hoodie, combats, and trainers are clean enough he doesn't look as if he's walked in off a construction site. Bee, aka Lucy Teller, is infinitely more mature—if by mature you mean sassy: with her dark hair gathered in pigtails and wearing a '50s style yellow dress with black horizontal stripes, she could pass for a hipster on speed, if hipsters had a permanent caffeine buzz and metaphorical stingers. She's excited,
energized, eager to make a difference. This poise has Billy, unsurprisingly, caught somewhere between fascination and terror, so he's pointedly ignoring her.
Great
way to start building a team, team.

Our two other new hires aren't here yet, but I can at least show everyone their mugshots and order that they be made welcome on arrival. Speaking of which:

“I'd like you all to welcome Billy and Lucy to the Transhuman Police Coordination Force. They've got a steep learning curve ahead of them and lots of training courses before they can represent the Force in public—along with our two other front-line superpowers, Lollipop Bill and Captain Mahvelous, who will be arriving next week. Billy and Lucy: Mhari Murphy will start you on your basic orientation today and introduce you to everyone this afternoon so you don't need to memorize their names right now. I know this is all a lot to take in at once”—I suddenly realize that even though Jim's elsewhere and Sam is visiting a sick relative, there are nearly a dozen people present—“but don't worry, you'll get used to it in no time.”

The formal introductions done, I beat a hasty retreat into my office. There's plaster dust on the carpet and an unpleasant oily smell in the air, courtesy of the hulking gun safe in the corner.
*
I check my chair carefully for plaster dust before I sit down—I'm wearing my smart suit today, in anticipation of spending the afternoon at a Home Office briefing session—and am about to bury myself in prep for the anticipated grilling (on anything we can contribute to the Freudstein problem) when Ramona motors in.

“Hi, Mo,” she says. “I've got a surprise for you!”

“What kind?” I ask cautiously.

“Nothing bad.” She smiles gleefully as she whirrs forward, holding up a USB key.

“What's that?”

“First cut at a promo video. Want to watch it together?”

I suppress my first reflexive response (a groan), force a smile, and say, “Can do.” Then I shove the memory stick into the front of my newly chained-to-the-desk PC. We've recently acquired new software that locks everything down, only lets data in (not out) when you plug in a dongle, and refuses to run software that hasn't been installed and authorized centrally by IT Support. In my opinion (and everyone else's) it turns our PCs into single-function boat anchors, but two months and ten employees on, our organizational threat surface has expanded until it's too dangerous for us to risk laptops. Also, we now have to play by civil service regs, not Laundry rules. “Let's see what they've come up with.”

“Move over.”

I shove my chair sideways to make room for Ramona. There is indeed a movie file on the stick. I double-click, wait for the obligatory three virus scanners to do their stuff, then sit back while the video player fills the screen with the first thing the organizational PR agency's collective subconscious has come up with.

*   *   *

START ANIMATION SHOWREEL:

THE SCENE:
A boringly normal-looking suburban street in Anytown, England. Dogs bark, children shout, a delivery van drives slowly past.

CUT TO:
A different street, more densely urban: houses on one side, a big new charter school campus on the other. Uniformed kids hang around outside the gates and in the playground . . .

VOICE-OVER:
Keeping our schools and homes safe.

PAN RIGHT:
A street corner adjacent to the school. Just round the corner, past more buildings, the camera zooms in to frame a man in a lime-green PERVERT SUIT and cloak, crouching in front of a house. He brandishes a teddy bear at the camera.

PERVERT SUIT:
Arr
, I am NONCE-BOY! I hang out on street
corners near schools and 'ipnotize your kids! 'Oo knows what hideous perversions I fantasize about perpetrating on their smooth underage flesh, what nightmarish pedobear-related fantasies I intend to corrupt their innocent little souls with—

ZOOM OUT:
A posse of SUPERHEROES are racing down the side street towards PERVERT SUIT.

SUPERHERO 1:
It's NONCE-BOY! Get 'im!

SUPERHERO 2:
On my way!

SUPERHERO 3 (FEMALE):
Flying scissor kick!
Oh Piroge
jump!

THEY FIGHT.

CUT TO:
NONCE-BOY lying prone on the pavement with his hands and feet hog-tied in elaborate Japanese rope bondage style. The SUPERHEROES stand over him. He grins horribly at the camera.

NONCE-BOY:
They're making a big mistake.

CUT-TO:
A Police interview room. TWO INSPECTORS are cross-examining NONCE-BOY.

INSPECTOR 1:
And what exactly did SUPERHERO 1 say?

NONCE-BOY:
I heard him distinctly say, “It's NONCE-BOY! Get 'im!” Then he attacked me without provocation.

INSPECTOR 2:
Are you denying your previous? You've done time for
hideous crimes of hideousness
! He obviously thought you were about to get up to your old tricks again.

NONCE-BOY:
Nevertheless, I has my Human Rights! Including the right not to be beaten up by random vigilantes! (
Confidingly
): And there's more.

INSPECTOR 1:
What else?

NONCE-BOY:
SUPERHERO 3 used her
Oh Piroge
jump on me. That's sexual assault, that is!

CUT-TO:
A Police briefing room with the TWO INSPECTORS.

INSPECTOR 2:
It's no good. He's got us bang to rights.

INSPECTOR 1:
We can't let him go! He's a pervert—

INSPECTOR 2:
But he's right about one thing. The SUPERHEROES who took him down are vigilantes. They didn't observe due
process, they didn't identify a suspect in the process of committing or preparing a crime, they aren't sworn officers of the law like you and me, they used dubious or outright illegal methods, and they inadvertently handed his defense a watertight case. In fact, they'll be lucky if he doesn't sue them.

INSPECTOR 1:
All we can do is let him go and hope he falls downstairs on his way out of the cell block.

INSPECTOR 2:
And this is a one-story-high police station, so that's not terribly likely.

INSPECTOR 1:
(
Addresses the camera
): So NONCE-BOY walks free, all because those SUPERHEROES acted like idiots.

ZOOM IN:
INSPECTOR 1

INSPECTOR 1:
Want to be a SUPERHERO? Don't be like these numpties! Join up with TPCF. Get wise, get trained, get your villain.

FADE TO:
Home Office Logo, Transhuman Policy Coordination Force contact information.

*   *   *

“Well, what do you think?”

“Hmm. I think that was pretty good, actually. It compared favorably with
Plan 9 from Outer Space
. Three rotten tomatoes?”

“I was thinking
Surf Nazis Must Die
.”

“Actually, if they ham it up a bit more, say if they turn the dial from nine to eleven and switch from animation to human actors, it might hit Adam West Batman values of kitsch. Who knows? We might be on course to be the first government agency to win a Golden Oyster award.”

“But it got the key points across, didn't it?”

“I know it's meant to be funny, but there's a fine line between being laughed
with
and being laughed
at
. If we go public with this, we'll be a laughing stock.”

“So that's a no, Mo?”

“Remember the search for the HomeSec's sense of humor? They had to ground the rescue choppers for maintenance checks, they'd
been airborne so long. If we take this to the Home Office, someone's going to have to explain all the jokes to her, and I don't want that someone to be me. I'm pretty sure she's got Medusa DNA.” Pause. “Unless, hmm. Unless we make it look like a leak. What if we let it show up on YouTube with a disclaimer saying it's an unreleased rough treatment?”

“You mean it's kitsch enough it might just go viral? But we could disclaim it if it backfires? Holy Batman, that's brilliant, Mo!”

“Who knows? It's a long shot, but it
just might
work.”

DEMOCRACY IN ACTION

The amusement afforded me by the first of our promo video treatments is short-lived, because after a lunchtime raid on Pret A Manger I have to return to Marsham Street and the Home Office for the long-dreaded grilling about, well, everything.

This session is somewhat smaller than the previous one: but it will be chaired by the Right Honorable Jessica Greene herself. Luckily Jim is coming along, fancy uniform and all, so I'm not the only sacrificial rodent entering the snake pit. But I confess to feeling some trepidation—almost enough to make me dial in the combination on my safe and remove Lecter. (But not quite. If it's a really hostile session and I get upset, there is a very remote chance that I will undergo a stress reaction, and if Lecter is present the potential for certain defensive reflexes to cut in is
also
present, and it would be a
very bad idea
to eat the soul of the fourth ranking minister in the cabinet—even though some of her harsher detractors would laugh in disbelief at the very idea that she has a soul in the first place).

I meet Jim in the concourse outside. He looks the very model of a modern police major-general. “Afternoon, Mo. How do you want to play this?”

I shrug. “I think we should be blunt but honest. Aside from operational work-up, our biggest priority is the search for Freudstein. Message is: we are working on building a profile of him, but we are handicapped by a lack of resources and information. Freudstein is a canny opponent and he is clearly attempting to manipulate us. We intend to get inside his decision loop and outmaneuver him, but so far we have very little data upon which to build a predictive model of his activities because they are cunningly arranged to be maximally flashy but effectively random.”

Jim nods but looks withdrawn. “She's not going to like that.”

“No, but what else—”

The door opens and a Junior Undersecretary beckons us forward.

“Remember it's not all about Freudstein,” Jim warns me quietly, and then we go in.

This conference room has natural light, courtesy of a row of high windows opposite the doorway. There's a U-shaped set of tables for the Home Secretary and her staff, and a table set across the end for people giving evidence or testimony or confessions. That would be us, I guess from the semicircle of a dozen faces opposite. Mrs. Greene sits at the far end of the U, chatting affably to a senior departmental secretary to her right. Our usher directs us to the seats in the hot spot, then closes the door, and we're off.

“Dr. O'Brien. It has been nearly eight weeks since the individual or group identifying themselves as Professor Freudstein first came to our attention. Why haven't you caught him? Or her?”

Mrs. Greene is as direct and friendly as the business end of a machine gun. But it's not personal, and I know how to handle this sort of interrogation. Years of performing in front of the Auditors have hardened me.

“With all due respect, one might ask why the security guards at the Bank of England, SCO19 at the British Library on Euston Road, or the Civil Nuclear Police at Sellafield all failed to capture him. I don't want to play the blame game, but they were on-site during his previous appearances; my unit was not, and furthermore, we're still working up towards an operational capability which we have not yet
achieved. Let me emphasize that: we're not fully operational yet. We're still recruiting and training personnel. The real problem with Freudstein is that we're not dealing with a normal criminal here.

“As I said, I don't want to play the blame game. Freudstein doesn't fit any of the threat profiles those forces are designed to deal with. In fact, from the planning he's demonstrated so far, he's operating more at the level of a hostile government agency rather than a criminal gang or terrorist cell. He—or they: I think there's a very high probability that we're dealing with an organization here—have access to trained special forces people, automatic weapons, helicopters, vehicles, and inside intelligence on some of the nation's most tightly guarded facilities. That's before we mention enough plutonium to credibly threaten us with multiple nuclear weapons. What we
don't
have is any kind of clue about his identity, real or purported, nor do we know what he wants.”
Although,
I fail to say aloud,
there's probably a clue buried in what he stole from the library. If only we knew what he was really after and what were the decoy thefts!

“Freudstein is our number one priority, and if we develop a source, or if a sister agency can give us a lead in time to deploy, we will engage him immediately. My analysts are currently creating a database of all known superpowers in the UK, and we are developing a profile for Freudstein and looking for possible leads on his real-world identity if he is indeed a five-sigma evil genius—but we're still dependent on leads from other forces. Nobody saw fit to inform us of the Sellafield incident until three days after it took place: that's typical of the level of cooperation we're currently getting. Again, I do not want to attribute any blame for this. In many cases the forces concerned don't even officially know we exist, much less have a set of criteria for referring incidents to us. But it's not helping us do our job.”

“Why not?” Mrs. Greene is typically blunt.

“Because we were only formally established as a police force by order in privy council
four weeks ago
, and while we've sent out briefing packs to all the other forces, they're still working their way through the system. Jim and I briefed as many ACPO chiefs as we could reach
at their summit last week, but it takes time for new information to get from the head office down to the feet on the beat.”

Greene shares a brief whispered exchange with the woman on her left—a parliamentary private secretary, if my nose serves me right: an MP on the first rung of the ladder to ministerial rank, essentially a political gopher assigned to the HomeSec—then turns back to me. “Dr. O'Brien, I notice a pronounced defensiveness in your responses and a lack of proactive engagement with your primary objectives.” Her eyes narrow. “You've been up and running for eight weeks: What
have
you accomplished?”

Oh shit.
I think on my feet: “Let me start from the top. I've assembled a core management team of
experienced
superpowers, able to provide an austere—basic—response in event of a notified incident while our operational team is in training. We were active in time to be on-site during the Euston robbery. We subsequently established transport and logistic capabilities that support deployment anywhere in the UK, and have already deployed operationally in response to a support call from Greater Manchester Police.”
Please don't ask how it went.
“We have created an analysis department, which is, as I said, currently working up a database of all known superpowers in the UK of three-sigma or higher capability. We have established liaison protocols with ACPO and are in the process of bringing all the territorial forces up to speed. We have recruited—after enhanced CRB checks and interviews—a core superpower team suitable for deployment with backup and oversight from the management team once they are fully trained. We are undergoing intensive training in police procedures and operations, because it's necessary for our superhero team to be sworn-in officers of the law—I should note that training for a probationary constable is normally two years, but we're working with Hendon to get them through the essentials in less than six months. We've been working with a Home Office–approved PR organization to produce a range of public information materials in support of our core function of diverting potential vigilantes into working within a lawful framework—”

Mrs. Greene is rubbing her forehead. Am I giving her a headache?
Oh dear.

“Dr. O'Brien,” she says, icily polite, “this is all very well, but it's not helping to catch Freudstein. In case you hadn't noticed, this country is facing a general election in nine months' time. Freudstein is currently setting the paranormal policing agenda by default, and if your organization hasn't caught him by then,
it isn't going to exist
. You might not have been paying attention, but my Right Honorable opponent, the Shadow Home Secretary, is making hay with the superpower issue. He's publicly saying that your Force is a boondoggle and that when he's in my office he will start with a blank sheet review. And I should remind you that the only reason Freudstein's escapades are not yet public knowledge is because Freudstein hasn't publicized them and we have managed to keep the lid on everything except the British Library robbery due to the potential for public panic. But the blackout isn't going to last forever, and your failure to apprehend Freudstein could become the sensational lead story across
all
media at any moment. If that happens, it will make this government look bad. I need a concrete achievement to point to within the next month. Get me one.” She raises a hand: “Without shooting up any more mosques.” Her tone is dry enough to parch the Sahara.

Her gaze slides away from me to look at Jim. “Chief Superintendent. What is the state of readiness of the TPC Force, in terms of the Police Service Readiness Criteria?”

Jim doesn't miss a beat. “Working up, ma'am. That is to say, it's simply not fully operational yet and won't be for at least four months, as my director said. Our key bottleneck is that there is only one identified three-sigma-plus police officer in the country, and he's already working for TPCF. Everyone else has to pass through basic training. TPCF is actually
ahead
of where I would expect a new organization to be at this early stage. Its lean staffing level and austere budget mean there's no room for featherbedding, and it's agile and responsive. Also, we've been able to import management with existing experience of dealing with extraordinary threats from the MoD. The downside of that stance is that it's brittle—we're reliant on highly skilled
individuals rather than functioning as a resilient organization. Dr. O'Brien is addressing this, but as she noted, it will take time.”

Mrs. Greene nods. I keep a poker face as I realize that she'll accept it coming from a man in a uniform, but not from a woman. She fixes Jim with the unblinking basilisk stare she learned from her idol, the Iron Lady. I seem to be beneath her notice. “Get me something.
Anything
newsworthy and positive will do at a pinch, but what I really want is Freudstein's hide. I expect weekly updates in the meantime.”

We are dismissed: the pit bull releases its chew-toy and we limp away to nurse our wounds.

*   *   *

I'm going to fast-forward past the inevitable shockwaves that fan out from my collision with Mrs. Greene. If you've ever been carpeted by the Boss and found wanting, you know how it goes. Let's just say that I spend the rest of the day (and early evening) in a council of war with the entire executive team—being me, Jim, Mhari, Ramona, and by special invitation, Dr. Armstrong himself—while we hammer out a highly unofficial hit list and a bunch of itemized deliverables that might meet the HomeSec's political requirements rather than our official (and bewilderingly useless) terms of reference. There is no point in prioritizing
doing your job
when your organization faces being defunded in less than three months' time if you don't do something else: you do what's necessary in order to ensure your organization survives,
then
you get back to work.

(This is how the iron law of bureaucracy installs itself at the heart of an institution. Most of the activities of any bureaucracy are devoted not to the organization's ostensible goals, but to ensuring that the organization survives: because if they aren't, the bureaucracy has a life expectancy measured in days before some idiot decision maker decides that if it's no use to them they can make political hay by destroying it. It's no consolation that some time later someone will realize that an organization was needed to carry out the original organization's task, so a replacement is created: you still lost your job and the task went undone. The only sure way forward is to build an agency
that looks to its own survival before it looks to its mission statement. Just another example of evolution in action.)

When we break up around seven, I un-mute my phone and check for messages. There's a text from Bob:
Mind if I drop round this evening? Need to collect some stuff.
My heart bumps up against my breastbone.
Sure,
I text back. He sent it a couple of hours ago. I didn't know he was even in town this week: last time I heard from him he was in Western Australia, visiting a very peculiar First Nations site in the outback.

I collect my instrument case and head home, bone-tired and somewhat depressed. When I get there, the hall light is shining through the window above the porch. As I didn't leave it switched on, I assume that means Bob's home. So I unlock the door, check the alarm (it's switched off), and go inside. “Bob?” I call.