I blink owlishly. Iris leans forward, concerned. “Would you like a can of Red Bull? I’m sure you could do with a pick-me-up.”
I nod, speechless. “Why me?” I ask, as a male minion-wearing a long black robe, naturally-sweeps forward with a small silver tray, on which is balanced a can of energy drink. I stare at it and twitch my right hand. He opens the ring-pull and holds the tray in front of my (functioning) left hand. I take the can gratefully, and manage to get most of a mouthful down my throat rather than down my tee shirt. As he steps back, I repeat my question: “Why did you abduct me? Because I’m quite clear now that this little charade is all about me. We’ve all been suckered. Iris is one of the two sharpest managers I’ve ever had-the other being Angleton-and she’s been one step ahead of us all along. She probably swiped Mo’s report, too. “Why? I’m a nobody.”
“You underestimate your value, Bob.” She raises her cup, and smiles over its rim as she takes a sip of something dark. I blink, focusing on it. (That’s not a cup, I realize with a sense of detachment. Why is she drinking from a-because she’s a cultist, idiot.) “You’ve been fast-tracked for senior management for the past eight years. You knew that, didn’t you? But you’re only graded as an SSO 3. That’s a bit low for someone who’s reporting directly to a DSS, so I did some digging. You’re not being held back; it’s just that the Laundry operates a Y-shaped promotion path-administration and line ranks diverge above a very low level. You’re due for regrading later this year, Bob. If you pass the board, they’ll make you an SSO 4(L). Doesn’t sound like much, but it’s the first step up from the fork into the line hierarchy, and it’ll entitle you to boss Army majors around. Or police superintendents. I’m an SSO 6(A) but you’d be able to tell me what to do. And a year after that, unless you really go off the rails, they’ll be coaching you for SSO 5(L).”
I try not to boggle openly. I haven’t been paying too much attention to my grade, frankly: I get regular yearly pay raises and rung increments, and I knew I was up for promotion sooner or later, and I knew about the Y-path, but it hadn’t occurred to me that I might be about to effectively jump three grades.
“I’ve seen your confidential record, Bob. It’s impressive. You get stuff done, and Angleton thinks very highly of you. Angleton. You know what that means, don’t you?”
I nod. My mouth is dry and I feel my pulse fluttering. “You didn’t infiltrate the Laundry just to get close to me. Did you?”
She chuckles. “No, Bob, we didn’t.” We. Oh holy fuck. There’s more than one cultist infiltrator in the Laundry? I swallow. “But I’ve been looking for someone like you for a long time. You’re on track for executive rank when the stars come right. You lucky, lucky man.” Her voice drops to a low croon as she raises the baby’s skull and drains it, then holds it out for a refill. “It won’t work, of course.”
“It won’t-excuse me?”
“Everything.” She shrugs. The effect is rather fetching, if you have a goth fixation. “Go on, tell me what you think is coming up next.”
Oh hell. “This is the point,” I say guardedly, “where the evil cultist monologues at the captive agent and tries to convert him to her way of thinking. It never works. Does it?”
Iris shakes her head. “You’re probably right, but I ought to give it a go. Okay, here’s my pitch. If I thought for a moment that official policy as set forth in CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN stood a chance of success-if it was remotely possible that we, the human species, could stand shoulder-to-shoulder against the elder ones and build a shield against our Dark Emperor, do you think for a split second that I wouldn’t go for it?” She looks at me speculatively. “You know just how high the odds are stacked against us. There are just too damned many people-we’re damaging the structure of reality by over-observing it! And we can’t kill them either, not without releasing a pulse of necromantic energy that will have every brain eater for a thousand lightyears in all directions homing in on us. The latest research”-she bites her lower lip-“it means the breakthrough is inevitable, and soon. The dead things quicken, and the harder we fight against the inevitable, the worse it will be.”
She falls silent. Despondent? Or resigned?
“What you’re saying is, if rape is inevitable, lie back and try to enjoy it. Right?”
She glares at me, blood in her eye for an instant: “No! I’m not into, into enjoying this. I’m interested in survival, Bob, in reaching an accommodation. Survival at all costs and ensuring the continuity of the human race, that’s what the Brotherhood of the Black Pharaoh is about these days. I won’t lie to you by denying that our history is ghastly, but we change with the times. Our goal is actually your goal, if you think about it for a moment.”
Which, for me, is an Oh hell statement with brass bells on. It’s not as if I haven’t had my quiet nagging doubts about the Laundry’s methods and goals, and its intermittent self-thwarting tendency to substitute circular arse-kicking routines for progress. Iris is goddamn good at what she does. Wasn’t I thinking earlier that I’d follow her to hell if-
– If I couldn’t hear an echo of Mo’s voice, reminding me: the things in the cultists’ bodies had already eaten the blonde teacher’s face and most of her left leg, but the Somali boy-child was still screaming-
“You used a phrase there,” I say quietly. “I don’t think it means quite the same thing to you that it means to me. At all costs.” I put my energy drink can down. I’ve emptied it but I’m still exhausted and the pain is still lurking, just beyond the edge of my awareness. Plus, I feel drained, countless years older than my age. “Implying that the ends justify the means.”
“Just so.” Iris nods. “So. Will you join us of your own free will?”
I give her question the due weight of consideration it deserves. “Piss off.”
She sighs. “Don’t be childish, Bob. I like you, but I’m not going to let your selfish little fit of pique stand in the way of human survival.” She stands up, gathers her robe around her, and walks past me. “Bring him,” she commands.
Strong-armed cultists seize me under the shoulders and lift. I’m in no position to put up a fight as they frog-march me after her. “What are you going to do with me?” I call after her.
She pauses before an oak door studded with heavy iron nails. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to sacrifice you,” she says apologetically, “so that the Eater of Souls can stalk the corridors of the Laundry wearing your promotion-fast-tracked skin. I’m really sorry, dear. I promise I’ll try to make sure it hurts as little as possible.”
The door opens before her, and they drag me down into the catacombs.
15. DEAD MAN WALKING
THERE IS A HALF-EATEN SANDWICH SITTING ON A BREADBOARD IN the kitchen, and an empty milk carton next to the electric kettle, and to the witness in the corner of the room the sandwich is a thing of horror.
Mo stares at it for almost a minute. Then she reaches out very carefully and lifts the upper slice of bread. Lettuce, sliced tomato, and either chicken or turkey-not ham. She breathes in deeply, shudders for a moment, then moves on. Battery farmed and de-beaked chicken, not properly stunned at the slaughterhouse-that would account for the shadow in her left goggle. No need to remember the tunnel in Amsterdam, nor where it led…
Behold: a typical London family home. Recently renovated kitchen, dining room with French doors opening onto a patio in the garden, lounge with bay window out front, staircase in hall, under-stair closet, side door leading into garage, bedrooms and bathroom upstairs. Why the creeping dread, then?