Rule 34 - Charles Stross [128]
Halfway up the first flight of worn stone steps behind the gallery, your phone shivers. You glance at it, startled. It’s an invite to join a new start-up group on some business network, one of the half-assed by-blows of LinkedIn and Facebook that offer virtual corporate hosting to folks too cheap to rent an office. Somehow it’s dodged your spam stack. You’re about to flag it when you see the sender’s name. JOHN CHRISTIE. You mash your thumb on the delete icon with a shudder, like you’re crushing a sleepy autumn wasp. A minute later, the phone buzzes again: It’s a different invite, this time for some kind of file repository. Same sender. The menacing buzz of the hornet circling your head, looking to sting: He’s relying on your natural curiosity to make you break cover, nose inquisitively into his new business scheme. It’s a trap, of course. You’ve had enough. You flip the phone to flight mode and pocket it. It’s not like you need a map to find your way home, and when you get there, you’ll—
What will you do?
You’re breathing harder as you climb faster, but you know exactly what you’re going to do. You’re going to take his luggage and dump it out the back yard. You’re going to call Inspector Butthurt and cough everything you suspect, the weird coincidences, the job that’s too good to be true. Give them the bucket, the bread mix, and Colonel Datka’s phone number, much good may it do them. You’re going clean, the cleanest you’ve been: an end to the tears and the in-between . . . yes. Get your priorities right: Naseem, Farida, Bibi, your parents and uncles and aunts and cousins and nephews and nieces and family—
There’s a buzzing as of an angry swarm of bees from your pocket, then your phone rings.
You pull it out and stare at it. It’s in flight mode: How can this be? It’s ringing, though. The screen says INTERNATIONAL CALL.
You answer the phone. “Hello.”
The voice at the other end of the connection is heavily accented, male. “Presidential palace,” it says. “Please wait.”
You stop and lean on the iron railing near the top of the steps, just below the intersection with Market Street. Turning to face back the way you came, you stare out across the deep gulf of Princes Street Gardens, the classical stone pile of the Royal Scottish Academy, towards the stony frontages of the New Town, blocks hacked out of history. There’s a light breeze blowing, and high above you it tears cotton-wool shards from the passing clouds. There’s a sour taste in your mouth. After a moment you realize it’s fear.
A new voice, gravelly, with a faint American accent: “Good afternoon. Am I speaking to Mr. Anwar Hussein?” You half recognize it, but you can’t quite place where you’ve heard him before.
“Yes,” you say cautiously.
“Excellent. Please accept my apologies for intruding on you—I understand, I’m told, you have recently had a death in your family?”
“Yes.” You bite your lower lip, then glance around. Just in case somebody’s watching you.
“I’m very sorry about that.” A momentary pause. “I gather that when you called Felix Datka half an hour ago, we had a slight misunderstanding.”
“I resigned,” you say icily, tightening the shreds of your dignity around you.
“Yes, he told me that. Mr. Hussein—Anwar—I want to explain to you: Matters are not so simple that you can just resign.”
You’d tell him to fuck right off except he rang through to your phone while it was in flight mode, and that’s supposed to be impossible, isn’t it? Or isn’t there a backdoor for the emergency services? You vaguely remember hearing something about that, something about external emergency reactivation—“I’m quitting,” you repeat, less firmly. “Who are you, anyway?”
“I’m Colonel Felix Datka’s boss,” says the man on the phone. “You can call me Bhaskar. Or Professor Tanayev. I am, very indirectly, your employer. Or ex-employer, if you insist