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Authors: Charles Stross
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still throwing up everywhere. No, really. You wouldn’t thank me. No, I wasn’t drinking. Rotavirus, I told Mhari—oh? She said what? The cow! Look, I’m a bit better now and I’m going to come in this evening, work the late shift to make up for lost hours. Thing is, I was hoping you could stay so I could talk you through my last commit. What, you didn’t understand—look, I’m not surprised, I was already feeling ill so I didn’t doc it very clearly. I’ll talk you through it, okay? This evening.”
Without ever saying so in so many words, Evan made it clear that he’d had other plans for the evening. No matter: Alex was at his most implausibly persuasive, and kept at it until he could feel Evan’s resistance crumbling.
Bastard’s probably got a hot date,
he thought resentfully. Evan had a way with the talent that Alex, despite diligent study, had never been able to emulate: something that enabled him to speak to pretty women without derping out like a refugee from the Island of Dr. Moreau. (Single-sex school followed by a de facto single-sex faculty and an obsessive-compulsive work ethic had left Alex with few opportunities to socialize with the opposite sex since the age of ten.) “See you there,” Alex insisted. “You
are
going to stay, aren’t you?” The same sense of assurance filled him: “You can go after we’ve gone over that visualization. Bye!”
• • •
SUNSET.
Alex left the hotel, not bothering to check out. A taxi to the office and a badge-swipe through the turnstile: he took the stairs to the office, intrigued to note that he didn’t feel particularly breathless after sixteen flights. Passing through the airlock and into the Scrum’s office, he had to narrow his eyes against the glare of the screens.
The office was empty but for Evan, who was waiting for him with a pained expression, as if desperate for the toilet. “Couldn’t you have left this until tomorrow morning?” he demanded. “I had to bail on Candace and she’s going to be—”
“
Trust
me.” Alex leaned over his teammate: “If my hypothesis is correct, it’s going to be totally life-changing . . .”
• • •
. . . AND THEN THERE WERE TWO.
3.
KGB.2.YA
MO AND I HAVE BEEN MARRIED FOR YEARS: ONE OF THE SECRETS of our success is that we don’t harbor grudges in silence. If Mo figures I deserve it, she vents at me and we hammer out an apology or an agreement or a peace treaty or whatever it takes immediately. So it’s a sign of how serious this quarrel is that she sat on it for nearly a month. And when she finally decides it’s time to draw it to my attention, it’s very ripe and stinky.
“You shouldn’t have dragged Pete into it,” she tells me one midweek evening as I’m clearing the kitchen table of the remains of a passable lasagne, and topping up our wine glasses. “It wasn’t fair on Sandy. Or the kid.”
“I—”
She raises her hand, and that’s when I work out she still needs to vent. “I know what you’re going to say. You’re going to insist that it was time-critical, that you didn’t think we had anyone on tap who could do whatever it was you needed Pete to do, and that the survival of the human race depended on it. And you’re ready to back up those talking points with a well-reasoned, sensible explanation. But I’m still angry.”
The worst part of it is, she’s right about everything
except
my having an arsenal of well-reasoned, sensible explanations to back this up. The sad fact is, Gerry Lockhart emphasized the level of confidentiality attached to that last job by ordering me not to talk about it to
anyone
. And the geas that’s part of my oath of office won’t let me break that order. It’s extremely heavy-handed of him: Mo has been working as an external asset since before I heard the term, and I’ve been part of her support framework, and hitherto it’s been mutual. However, I can’t tell her a word about GOD GAME BLACK without his permission
Without ever saying so in so many words, Evan made it clear that he’d had other plans for the evening. No matter: Alex was at his most implausibly persuasive, and kept at it until he could feel Evan’s resistance crumbling.
Bastard’s probably got a hot date,
he thought resentfully. Evan had a way with the talent that Alex, despite diligent study, had never been able to emulate: something that enabled him to speak to pretty women without derping out like a refugee from the Island of Dr. Moreau. (Single-sex school followed by a de facto single-sex faculty and an obsessive-compulsive work ethic had left Alex with few opportunities to socialize with the opposite sex since the age of ten.) “See you there,” Alex insisted. “You
are
going to stay, aren’t you?” The same sense of assurance filled him: “You can go after we’ve gone over that visualization. Bye!”
• • •
SUNSET.
Alex left the hotel, not bothering to check out. A taxi to the office and a badge-swipe through the turnstile: he took the stairs to the office, intrigued to note that he didn’t feel particularly breathless after sixteen flights. Passing through the airlock and into the Scrum’s office, he had to narrow his eyes against the glare of the screens.
The office was empty but for Evan, who was waiting for him with a pained expression, as if desperate for the toilet. “Couldn’t you have left this until tomorrow morning?” he demanded. “I had to bail on Candace and she’s going to be—”
“
Trust
me.” Alex leaned over his teammate: “If my hypothesis is correct, it’s going to be totally life-changing . . .”
• • •
. . . AND THEN THERE WERE TWO.
3.
KGB.2.YA
MO AND I HAVE BEEN MARRIED FOR YEARS: ONE OF THE SECRETS of our success is that we don’t harbor grudges in silence. If Mo figures I deserve it, she vents at me and we hammer out an apology or an agreement or a peace treaty or whatever it takes immediately. So it’s a sign of how serious this quarrel is that she sat on it for nearly a month. And when she finally decides it’s time to draw it to my attention, it’s very ripe and stinky.
“You shouldn’t have dragged Pete into it,” she tells me one midweek evening as I’m clearing the kitchen table of the remains of a passable lasagne, and topping up our wine glasses. “It wasn’t fair on Sandy. Or the kid.”
“I—”
She raises her hand, and that’s when I work out she still needs to vent. “I know what you’re going to say. You’re going to insist that it was time-critical, that you didn’t think we had anyone on tap who could do whatever it was you needed Pete to do, and that the survival of the human race depended on it. And you’re ready to back up those talking points with a well-reasoned, sensible explanation. But I’m still angry.”
The worst part of it is, she’s right about everything
except
my having an arsenal of well-reasoned, sensible explanations to back this up. The sad fact is, Gerry Lockhart emphasized the level of confidentiality attached to that last job by ordering me not to talk about it to
anyone
. And the geas that’s part of my oath of office won’t let me break that order. It’s extremely heavy-handed of him: Mo has been working as an external asset since before I heard the term, and I’ve been part of her support framework, and hitherto it’s been mutual. However, I can’t tell her a word about GOD GAME BLACK without his permission
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