Charles Stross - The Delirium Brief

Its twenty past ten at night and Im being escorted through the glass-fronted atrium of a certain office building in central London. Im surrounded by a knot of soberly dressed civil servants who are marching shoulder-to-shoulder in lockstep to keep me from being recognized, or maybe to prevent me making a run for it if I lose my nerve. We are waved past nodding receptionists and security guards who hold the turnstiles open for me as if I am expectedbecause I am indeed expected. Unfortunately.

This afternoon my minders took me to a barber. They said I was overdue for a trim; protests about my male pattern baldness fell on deaf but determined ears. (I still think closing the shop, kicking everyone else out, and stationing guards inside the door was a bit excessive, though: who ever heard of a top secret haircut?) Im wearing my funeral suit and tie, and my shoes are dazzlingly polished. (Just pretend youre acting a role, she said, straightening my collar; concentrate and remember your talking points.) I look twenty years older than I feel, and I feel ten years older than usualmostly due to jet lag. They emailed me a set of talking points just before I caught my flight home, and I did my best to memorize them on the plane from Kansai. But right now I feel like its seven in the morning, and Im yawning because Im waking up, not going to sleep.

Minder number threeBoris, a tech-side middle management guy I used to do the odd job for: until today I hadnt seen him in yearshits the button for the sixth floor. The glass-walled lift slides silently up into the lofty heights of Broadcasting House, rising past open plan offices full of serious-faced journalists and program managers peering into computer screens. As we pass a coat of arms saying Nation shall speak Peace unto Nation, I go over points seventeen to twenty-two again, mumbling under my breath. Then I rub my sweaty palms on my woolen suit jacket.

I have got the Fear. Why the fuck couldnt they find somebody else to do this?

I imagine Lockhart or the SA or some other drop-in authority figure explaining it to me calmly. You know why its got to be you, Bob: its because of the scaling laws. The threats the agency exists to deal with grow exponentially, doubling in scale on an eighteen-month cycle, like a nightmarish version of Moores Law. But our cohort of qualified senior staff only grows linearly. The clusterfuck at the New Annex a year ago killed a bunch of senior officers, and the disaster in Leeds has put so many others on paid leave pending hearings that everyone in the field is currently operating above their pay grade. Were all taking on tasks were not trained for, often without backup or oversight.

As for this job, were a secret government agency: we dont even have a public relations department. Which is why were scrambling to improvise tonight. When the order came down from on high that someone was to come here and do this thing, it ended up on my desk simply because I was senior enough, and available. (At least thats the official explanation. Part of me cant help thinking that a more rational explanation is that God or Management hates me and wants me to suffer.)

My handler clears her throat just behind my left shoulder, and I jump. Try not to sweat so much, Bob, the makeup guy will want to redo everything. I hate it when Mhari sneaks up on me like that. She makes me really uncomfortable: about ten percent of it is knowing that shes actually a vampire, and the rest of it is down to our uncomfortable personal history. The only consolation is knowing that having to work with me makes her even more uncomfortable, and only about ten percent of it is because Im a necromancer. At least were both trying to be professional about it, and were mostly succeeding. She reaches out briskly and brushes lint from my lapel, and I try not to flinch again.

When they went looking for someone to represent the agency in public and picked me, they werent just scraping the bottom of the barrel: they were fracking for oil in the basement. My biggest qualification for this job is that I havent stepped in any operational dog turds lately. Im Mr. Clean: nobodys going to blame me for the disaster in Leeds, I was out of the country at the time. So they briefed me and gave me talking points to memorize, and sent me videos of the Great Man toying with his prey, to watch as in-flight entertainment on the way home. Which, in hindsight, was probably a bad idea: Im so keyed up I need the toilet again and Im due on-air in about ten minutes.

Remember, he only really takes the gloves off when hes interviewing policy makers, Mhari reassures me. Youre a line manager, not an executive, so by sending you out like a sacrificial goat with a sign taped to your arse saying KICK ME were calling his bluff. He cant crucify you on-air for setting policy without looking like a bully, so hell have to settle for asking you lots of hard questions to which you are expected to plead ignorance or pass the buck. He cant even badger you until you change your storyremember the Iraqi WMD scandal and the way Dr. Kelly committed suicide when the press turned on him? So youll be fine. Just remember its not personal: hes not interviewing you, hes interviewing the organization. She bares one delicately curved canine, ivory outlined against crimson lip-gloss while I boggle at her appalling mixed metaphor. Im buying the drinks afterwards. Everyone okay? Boris?

Boris nods lugubriously. Am understanding there are good club late license around corner, he slurs. (Boris has permanent damage to his speech center from one too many run-ins with the brain parasites that cause K syndrome.)

A couple of harried technicians glare at us for blocking the lift doors until Mhari smiles at them and sharply knuckles my spine to get me moving again. Where are we going? I ask. The level were on features lots of floor-to-ceiling beech and invisible recessed handles on doors that curve to match the walls. The carpet is eerily sound-deadening, but I can sense the murmur of many minds all around us, whispering and intensely focused.

Studio A. Which is right... here...

Boris and the other guy (a blue-suiter in civvies, fooling no one: he stinks of cop) wait outside while Mhari pushes me through the door into the production suite and follows me inside to stop me escaping. I turn and frown at her. Shes far better at looking professional than I am. With her mercilessly coiffured blonde hair, tailored black suit, watered silk blouse, and sky-high heels, she looks like Taylor Swift in boardroom draga version of TayTay that runs on type O negative and has a severe sunlight allergy. Cant you do this? I ask plaintively, one last time: Take one for the team?

She spares me a brazenly unapologetic grin as she points a finger at the ceiling: See the bright lights, sweetie? Id go up in flames.

Im about to tell her that they use LED spotlights these days and theyre not powerful enough to set fire to her PHANG-sensitive skin when I spot the producer. Hes half-risen from his seat, clearly fascinated by this exchange. He leans forward and peers at our ID badges. Ah, you must be Mr. Howard and Ms. Murphy from the, er, Ministry of Magic?