Bob Howard: The Laundry Series free short stories by Charles Stross Table of Contents The Concrete Jungle..........................................1 Down on the Farm...........................................50 Overtime..........................................................72 Equoid..............................................................87 0 The Concrete Jungle I manage to pull on a sweater and jeans, tie my shoelaces, and get my ass downstairs just before by Charles Stross the blue and red strobes light up the window http://www.antipope.org/charlie/ above the front door. On the way out I grab my emergency bag — an overnighter full of stuff that Andy suggested I should keep ready, just in The death rattle of a mortally wounded case — and slam and lock the door and turn telephone is a horrible thing to hear at four around in time to find the cop waiting for me. o'clock on a Tuesday morning. It's even worse Are you Bob Howard? when you're sleeping the sleep that follows a Yeah, that's me. I show him my card. pitcher of iced margueritas in the basement of the Dog's Bollocks, with a chaser of nachos and If you'll come with me, sir. a tequila slammer or three for dessert. I come to, Lucky me: I get to wake up on my way in to sitting upright, bare-ass naked in the middle of work four hours early, in the front passenger the wooden floor, clutching the receiver with seat of a police car with strobes flashing and the one hand and my head with the other — purely driver doing his best to scare me into catatonia. to prevent it from exploding, you understand — Lucky London: the streets are nearly empty at and moaning quietly. Who is it? I croak into the this time of night, so we zip around the feral microphone. taxis and somnolent cleaning trucks without Bob, get your ass down to the office right away. pause. A journey that would normally take an This line isn't secure. I recognize that voice: I hour and a half takes fifteen minutes. (Of have nightmares about it. That's because I work course, it comes at a price: Accounting exists in for its owner. a state of perpetual warfare with the rest of the civil service over internal billing, and the Whoa, I was asleep, boss. Can't it — I gulp and Metropolitan Police charge for their services as look at the alarm clock — wait until morning? a taxi firm at a level that would make you think No. I'm calling a code blue. they provided limousines with wet bars. But Jesus. The band of demons stomping around my Angleton has declared a code blue, so . .) skull strike up an encore with drums. Okay, The dingy-looking warehouse in a side street, boss. Ready to leave in ten minutes. Can I bill a adjoining a closed former primary school, taxi fare? doesn't look too promising — but the door No, it can't wait. I'll have a car pick you up. He opens before I can raise a hand to knock on it. cuts the call, and that is when I start to get The grinning sallow face of Fred from frightened because even Angleton, who Accounting looms out of the darkness in front occupies a lair deep in the bowels of the of me and I recoil before I realise that it's all Laundry's Arcana Analysis Section — but does right — Fred's been dead for more than a year, something far scarier than that anodyne title which is why he's on the night shift. This isn't might suggest — is liable to think twice before going to degenerate into plaintive requests for authorising a car to pull in an employee at zero- me to fix his spreadsheet. Fred, I'm here to see dark o'clock. Angleton, I say very clearly, then I whisper a special password to stop him from eating me. 1 Fred retreats back to his security cubbyhole or We have a problem, Angleton explains, coffin or whatever it is you call it, and I cross gesturing at the map. There are too many the threshold of the Laundry. It's dark — to save concrete cows. light bulbs, and damn the health and safety regs Concrete cows. I pull out a chair and flop down — but some kind soul has left a mouldering into it heavily, then rub my eyes. This isn't a cardboard box of hand torches on the front desk. dream is it, by any chance? No? Shit. I pull the door shut behind me, pick up a torch, and head for Angleton's office. Boris glowers at me: Not a joke. He rolls his eyes toward Angleton. Boss? As I get to the top of the stairs I see that the lights are on in the corridor we call Mahogany It's no joke, Bob, says Angleton. His normally Row. If the boss is running a crisis team then skeletal features are even more drawn than that's where I'll find him. So I divert into usual, and there are dark hollows under his eyes. executive territory until I see a door with a red He looks as if he's been up all night. Angleton light glowing above it. There's a note taped to glances at Andy: Has he been keeping his the door handle: BOB HOWARD ACCESS weapons certification up-to-date? PERMITTED. So I access permitted and walk I practice three times a week, I butt in, before right in. Andy can get started on the intimate details of As soon as the door opens Angleton looks up my personal file. Why? from the map spread across the boardroom Go down to the armoury right now, with Andy. table. The room smells of stale coffee, cheap Andy, self-defense kit for one, sign it out for cigarettes, and fear. You're late, he says sharply. him. Bob, don't shoot unless it's you or them. Late, I echo, dumping my emergency bag under Angleton shoves a stack of papers and a pen the fire extinguisher and leaning on the door. across the table at me. Sign the top and pass it 'Lo, Andy, Boris. Boss, I don't think the cop was back — you now have GAME ANDES taking his time. Any faster and he'd be billing REDSHIFT clearance. The files below are part you for brown stain removal from the of GAR — you're to keep them on your person upholstery. I yawn. What's the picture? at all times until you get back here, then check them in via Morag's office; you'll answer to the Milton Keynes, says Andy. auditors if they go missing or get copied. Are sending you there to investigate, explains Huh? Boris. I obviously still look confused because With extreme prejudice, Angleton one-ups Angleton cracks an expression so frightening them. that it must be a smile and adds, Shut your Milton Keynes? mouth, you're drooling on your collar. Now, go with Andy, check out your hot kit, let Andy set It must be something in my expression; Andy you up with a chopper, and read those papers. turns away hastily and pours me a cup of When you get to Milton Keynes, do what comes Laundry coffee while Boris pretends it's none of naturally. If you don't find anything, come back his business. Angleton just looks as if he's bitten and tell me and we'll take things from there. something unpleasant, which is par for the course. But what am I looking for? I gulp down half my 2 coffee in one go; it tastes of ashes, stale Oh, is all I can say to him. Sorry springs to cigarette ends, and tinned instant left over from mind, but is probably inadequate; as they later the Retreat from Moscow. Dammit, what do you pointed out to me, applied computational expect me to find? demonology and built-up areas don't mix very well. I thought I was just generating weird new I don't expect anything, says Angleton. Just go. fractals; they knew I was dangerously close to Come on, says Andy, opening the door, you can landscaping Wolverhampton with alien leave the papers here for now. nightmares. What kind of students? I ask. I follow him into the corridor, along to the Architecture or alchemy. Nuclear physics for an darkened stairwell at the end, and down four outside straight. Another word of command and flights of stairs into the basement. Just what the Andy opens the sliding glass case in front of fuck is this? I demand, as Andy produces a key some gruesome relics that positively throb with and unlocks the steel-barred gate in front of the power. Come on. Which of these would you security tunnel. like? It's GAME ANDES REDSHIFT, kid, he says I think I'll take this one, thanks. I reach in and over his shoulder. I follow him into the security carefully pick up a silver locket on a chain; zone and the gate clanks shut behind me. there's a yellow-and-black thaumaturgy hazard Another key, another steel door — this time the trefoil on a label dangling from it, and NO outer vestibule of the armoury. Listen, don't go PULL ribbons attached to the clasp. too hard on Angleton, he knows what he's Good choice. Andy watches me in silence as I doing. If you go in with preconceptions about add a Hand of Glory to my collection, and then what you'll find and it turns out to be GAME a second, protective amulet.