The Jennifer Morgue - Charles Stross [75]
“Too public and two bucks will get you a coffee,” Ramona says acidly; then, fearful that she might have gone too far, adds: “But why did you need to bring me out here? Is it part of the briefing?”
She realizes too late that this was the wrong thing to say. McMurray fixes her with a penetrating stare. “Why else do you think you might have been ordered to the Ranch?” he asks, deceptively mildly. “Is there something I should know, agent Random?”
A huge fist grips her around the ribs, squeezing gently. “Nuh—no, sir!” she gasps, terrified.
Merely annoying McMurray can have enormous, terrible consequences for her: there’s nothing subtle about the degree of control the Black Chamber exercises over its subjects, or the consequences of error. The Chamber has a secret ruling from the Supreme Court that citizenship rights only apply to human beings: Ramona’s kin are barely able to pass with the aid of a glamour. For failure, the punishment can be special rendition to jurisdictions where the very concept of pain is considered a fascinating research topic by the natives. But he merely stares at her for a moment with watery blue eyes, then nods very slightly, relaxing the constraint binding. The pressure recedes like the backwash of an imagined cardiac arrest.
“Very good.” McMurray turns and begins to descend the staircase at the end of the room. Ramona follows him, eager to get away from the things in the pickle jars behind the glass display panels. “I’m glad to see that you’ve still got a . . . sense of humor, agent Random. Unfortunately this is no laughing matter.” He pauses at the bottom step. “I believe you’ve been here before.”
Ramona’s hand tightens on the stair rail until her knuckles turn white. “Yes. Sir.”
“Then I won’t have to explain.” He smiles frighteningly, then walks down the corridor towards one of the display rooms. “I brought you here to see just the one exhibit, this time.”
Ramona forces herself to follow him. She feels as if she’s walking through molasses, her chest tight with an almost palpable sense of dread. It’s not as if anything here is aimed at me, she tries to tell herself. It’s all dead, already. But that’s not strictly true.
Most advanced military organizations maintain libraries of weapons, depositories like armories that store one of everything—every handgun, artillery round, mine, grenade, knife—used by any other army that they might face in battle. The exhibits are stored in full working order, with specialist armorers trained in caring for them. Associated with their staff colleges, these depots are a vital resource when training special forces, briefing officers tasked with facing a given enemy, or merely researching future requirements. The Black Chamber is no different: like the Army repository at the Aberdeen Proving Ground, they maintain their own collection. There is a subtle difference, however. The Black Chamber’s archive of reality-warping occult countermeasures is partially alive. Here lie unquiet roadside graves dug by ghoulish reanimators. Over there is a cupboard full of mandrakes, next door to a summoning grid that’s been live for thirty years, the unquiet corpse of its victim dancing an eternal jig within the green-glowing circle, on legs long since worn down to blood-encrusted ivory stumps.
You can die if you get too close to some of the exhibits in the Ranch. And then they’ll add you to the collection.
McMurray knows his way through the corridors and passages of the repository. He threads his way rapidly past doorways opening onto vistas that make Ramona’s hair stand on end, then through a gallery lined with glass exhibit cases, some of them covered by protective velvet cloths. Finally he comes to a small side room and stops, beckoning Ramona towards a glass-topped cabinet.
“You asked about Billington,” he says, his tone thoughtful.
“Yes, sir.”
“You can cut the ‘sir’ bit; call me Pat.” He half-smiles. “As I was saying. Billington’s current actions worry the Dark Commissioners. In fact,