My entry for Iron Fic 3, set in the Laundry Files universe by Charles Stross, a blackly humorous but still serious universe which combines spy fiction and Lovecraft. Please give the books a chance, even if you hate the following. 
Some secrets need to be kept and I should know; I work for Her Britannic Majesty's Secret Service or a part of it anyway. Not the Security Service, of course, or even the Secret Intelligence Service but something deeper, something darker. My name is Bob Oliver Francis Howard and I work for The Laundry, the sole part of the Special Operations Executive to survive the post-WW2 hatchet job.
My job's to protect Britain from things which go bump in the night, horrible things, terrible things, things worse than you can imagine. And I'm not talking about anything as mundane as mere darkness. I mean the greater night, the nigh infinite array of dimensions full of malevolent creatures who think human souls are damn tasty things. Never forget: the Many Angled Ones hide at the bottom of the Mandelbrot Set and evocations to dark gods lurk in the depths of Pi.
And the scariest thing of all is how easy it is. Back in the bad old days before Colossus and Bletchley Park, magic was hard. Not anymore. Computers can perform countless operations in a second and that is essentially what magic is: information, the platonic realm of mathematics. Preform the right equation, solve the wrong theorem, and you cast shadows on the walls between dimensions. The horrors which live there can see those shadows and respond. They're listening, listening for a way in.
To give an example, in my student days I'd worked out a geometry curve iteration method, which, when ran on a sufficiently powerful computer would invoke Nyarlathotep and wipe out a fair sized city. Birmingham say. Luckily for Birmingham City's cup chances (not to mention a million odd people) the Laundry caught me in time and stopped me. They didn't kill me, though. They gave me a job. And that's the other thing about the Laundry. They'd rather have you safely in a cubicle working 9 to 5, than in concrete boots. Less paperwork you see.
Paperwork... We might be all that stands between Britain and fates worse than death, but we're still civil servants and that means bureaucracy, lots and lots of bureaucracy. Whether its codeword sealed files or the Great Paperclip Audits of '02, people are watching, people are counting, people are just waiting for you to slip up. Don't laugh. People died for those 'clips.
And that brings me to the present. Angleton looked up from behind his desk, eyes hard. Those eyes were held in the dried out face of a mummy but that just served to emphasize them. He said two words, "They know."
I blanched, the colour draining from my face. "But the dummy accounts."
"Seen through."
"But the IP redirects."
"Traced."
"But the Third Rite of C'thalpa! I have Linux Servers singing her deathly hymns night and day."
"Broken one by one during the scheduled restarts."
I started pacing, up and down the room. It wasn't large. Even Angleton, legendary head of the Counter-Possession Unit, didn't have a large office. When it became clear I couldn't get far, I whirled on him, eyes imploring for some comfort. He's my sort-of-boss (only sort of thanks to the wonders of Matrix Management but I answer to him in every way which matters). He partook of the fruits of my poisonous enterprise. He owed me something. "I had a good reason."
"Doesn't matter."
"Surely they'll understand."
"Do you really believe that?"
I gulped, images of the Auditors in my mind. Out of all the Laundry's internal security divisions, they're the worst. Worse than the night watchmen: Residual Human Resources, corpses in other words, with class two demons wired to their slowly decaying nervous systems. Worse than the Black Assizes, a court which really can condemn you to hell. Worse even than the hounds of Oscar-Oscar and Internal Affairs. The Auditors do not sleep. They do not forgive. They do not forget. And when they lay their spells on you, neither will you.
"But I needed to do it," I said. "We couldn't do our jobs without them. Some things you just can't use computers for. They won't let you." I glanced at the Memex machine on Angleton's desk, a huge electro-mechanical proto-hypertext system, designed to use microfiche. Most people think they were only hypothetical but once upon a time they'd been the heart of the Laundry's Arcana Analysis division. "You know that."
Angleton nodded his head. "I do, but it still doesn't matter."
"But they were discretionary funds. I have wide discretion to spend them. That's why they're called discretionary."
"Proper channels and proper forms."
"Damn the proper forms!" I came near to hitting something but calmed myself. "Where are they now?"
Angleton reached into one of his desk draws and drew out a small cardboard box. It was covered in writing, the same name repeated a dozen times in a dozen languages.
"What if we destroy them?"
"It's too late. Too many people know."
"Who sold us out?" I started through a list of who knew, who was involved in my darkest conspiracy. There was Peter-Fred Young, of course, my assistant, but he wouldn't do this. Stab me in the back during an MMO, yes, but not this. That just left my three other underlings in Information Technology, Lyra, Frank and Jenkins. They were the only people who knew enough to turn me in. Lyra was a doll and knew her stuff; not the sort to do this. Frank was too stupid. That just left... "It was Jenkins, wasn't it? I never should have trusted him but he seemed so desperate."
"I do not know."
That brought me pause. "You don't?"
"No."
"But..." Angleton was one of the great movers with in the Laundry. He'd been here forever, quite possibly literally. I'd seen a picture from the 40s and he was in it, looking the same as he did now. "It doesn't matter. What are my options?"
"I do not see that you have any?" He shook his head. "Boy, you played the game, rolled the dice and lost." He stood up from behind his desk, body unfolding in an almost spider like way. "You should go with them. It need not be the end."
A knock came from the door.
"They're here," he said.
I turned to face the door, just as it swung open. Two security blue-suits stood there, on either side of a smartly dressed woman.
"You," I said...
"Me," said Lyra. Sweet Lyra. Sweet blonde haired, blue eyed, five foot nothing Lyra.
She held up her warrant card and the words swam on it, leaping into my mind. Her Britannic Majesty’s government commands and compels you to provide the bearer of this pass with all aid and assistance...
The words were more than just words. They were a geas, all the stronger for my 'oaths' sworn to the crown. It latched onto me, fish hooks in my brain and soul.
"Bob Oliver Francis Howard," she said without glancing at Angleton. The bastards; picking on the little fish. "I command and require you to come at once to face inquisition before the Auditors for gross misappropriation of funds."
At her words spectral leg irons locked around my limbs and I felt myself pulled forward. I could still talk, though. "It was only twenty pounds!" She didn't answer. Neither did Angleton. "Just," I said, "just tell me why."
Lyra didn't smile. "Undercover," she said. "Nothing personal but this was a sting."
She snapped her fingers and one of the security blue-suits moved to the desk and picked up the box of evidence.
As she marched me out the door, I kept asking myself one question: Had it been worth it? The withdrawal from my tiny discretionary budget. The overnight order from Amazon.co.uk. The sweet moment when I opened the box and found all the pens I could use. Real pens, pens that drew simple black lines. Not bought from the lowest bidder. Not developed as part of a Public-Private Finance Initiative. Not bulk sourced by a Whitehall Department. But simply pens that worked and could be used to fill in paper work.
The pens which filled the Amazon delivery box rattled as the blue-suit carried them out the door and I decided, that yes. Even in the face of the Auditors, those few sweet weeks had been worth near anything. Now I just had to hope I could get out of this with my career, not to mention soul, intact.
EDIT: Originally put up unproof read version. Now judging is done, I can put this version up for posterity.
~~~
They Know
Some secrets need to be kept and I should know; I work for Her Britannic Majesty's Secret Service or a part of it anyway. Not the Security Service, of course, or even the Secret Intelligence Service but something deeper, something darker. My name is Bob Oliver Francis Howard and I work for The Laundry, the sole part of the Special Operations Executive to survive the post-WW2 hatchet job.
My job's to protect Britain from things which go bump in the night, horrible things, terrible things, things worse than you can imagine. And I'm not talking about anything as mundane as mere darkness. I mean the greater night, the nigh infinite array of dimensions full of malevolent creatures who think human souls are damn tasty things. Never forget: the Many Angled Ones hide at the bottom of the Mandelbrot Set and evocations to dark gods lurk in the depths of Pi.
And the scariest thing of all is how easy it is. Back in the bad old days before Colossus and Bletchley Park, magic was hard. Not anymore. Computers can perform countless operations in a second and that is essentially what magic is: information, the platonic realm of mathematics. Preform the right equation, solve the wrong theorem, and you cast shadows on the walls between dimensions. The horrors which live there can see those shadows and respond. They're listening, listening for a way in.
To give an example, in my student days I'd worked out a geometry curve iteration method, which, when ran on a sufficiently powerful computer would invoke Nyarlathotep and wipe out a fair sized city. Birmingham say. Luckily for Birmingham City's cup chances (not to mention a million odd people) the Laundry caught me in time and stopped me. They didn't kill me, though. They gave me a job. And that's the other thing about the Laundry. They'd rather have you safely in a cubicle working 9 to 5, than in concrete boots. Less paperwork you see.
Paperwork... We might be all that stands between Britain and fates worse than death, but we're still civil servants and that means bureaucracy, lots and lots of bureaucracy. Whether its codeword sealed files or the Great Paperclip Audits of '02, people are watching, people are counting, people are just waiting for you to slip up. Don't laugh. People died for those 'clips.
And that brings me to the present. Angleton looked up from behind his desk, eyes hard. Those eyes were held in the dried out face of a mummy but that just served to emphasize them. He said two words, "They know."
I blanched, the colour draining from my face. "But the dummy accounts."
"Seen through."
"But the IP redirects."
"Traced."
"But the Third Rite of C'thalpa! I have Linux Servers singing her deathly hymns night and day."
"Broken one by one during the scheduled restarts."
I started pacing, up and down the room. It wasn't large. Even Angleton, legendary head of the Counter-Possession Unit, didn't have a large office. When it became clear I couldn't get far, I whirled on him, eyes imploring for some comfort. He's my sort-of-boss (only sort of thanks to the wonders of Matrix Management but I answer to him in every way which matters). He partook of the fruits of my poisonous enterprise. He owed me something. "I had a good reason."
"Doesn't matter."
"Surely they'll understand."
"Do you really believe that?"
I gulped, images of the Auditors in my mind. Out of all the Laundry's internal security divisions, they're the worst. Worse than the night watchmen: Residual Human Resources, corpses in other words, with class two demons wired to their slowly decaying nervous systems. Worse than the Black Assizes, a court which really can condemn you to hell. Worse even than the hounds of Oscar-Oscar and Internal Affairs. The Auditors do not sleep. They do not forgive. They do not forget. And when they lay their spells on you, neither will you.
"But I needed to do it," I said. "We couldn't do our jobs without them. Some things you just can't use computers for. They won't let you." I glanced at the Memex machine on Angleton's desk, a huge electro-mechanical proto-hypertext system, designed to use microfiche. Most people think they were only hypothetical but once upon a time they'd been the heart of the Laundry's Arcana Analysis division. "You know that."
Angleton nodded his head. "I do, but it still doesn't matter."
"But they were discretionary funds. I have wide discretion to spend them. That's why they're called discretionary."
"Proper channels and proper forms."
"Damn the proper forms!" I came near to hitting something but calmed myself. "Where are they now?"
Angleton reached into one of his desk draws and drew out a small cardboard box. It was covered in writing, the same name repeated a dozen times in a dozen languages.
"What if we destroy them?"
"It's too late. Too many people know."
"Who sold us out?" I started through a list of who knew, who was involved in my darkest conspiracy. There was Peter-Fred Young, of course, my assistant, but he wouldn't do this. Stab me in the back during an MMO, yes, but not this. That just left my three other underlings in Information Technology, Lyra, Frank and Jenkins. They were the only people who knew enough to turn me in. Lyra was a doll and knew her stuff; not the sort to do this. Frank was too stupid. That just left... "It was Jenkins, wasn't it? I never should have trusted him but he seemed so desperate."
"I do not know."
That brought me pause. "You don't?"
"No."
"But..." Angleton was one of the great movers with in the Laundry. He'd been here forever, quite possibly literally. I'd seen a picture from the 40s and he was in it, looking the same as he did now. "It doesn't matter. What are my options?"
"I do not see that you have any?" He shook his head. "Boy, you played the game, rolled the dice and lost." He stood up from behind his desk, body unfolding in an almost spider like way. "You should go with them. It need not be the end."
A knock came from the door.
"They're here," he said.
I turned to face the door, just as it swung open. Two security blue-suits stood there, on either side of a smartly dressed woman.
"You," I said...
"Me," said Lyra. Sweet Lyra. Sweet blonde haired, blue eyed, five foot nothing Lyra.
She held up her warrant card and the words swam on it, leaping into my mind. Her Britannic Majesty’s government commands and compels you to provide the bearer of this pass with all aid and assistance...
The words were more than just words. They were a geas, all the stronger for my 'oaths' sworn to the crown. It latched onto me, fish hooks in my brain and soul.
"Bob Oliver Francis Howard," she said without glancing at Angleton. The bastards; picking on the little fish. "I command and require you to come at once to face inquisition before the Auditors for gross misappropriation of funds."
At her words spectral leg irons locked around my limbs and I felt myself pulled forward. I could still talk, though. "It was only twenty pounds!" She didn't answer. Neither did Angleton. "Just," I said, "just tell me why."
Lyra didn't smile. "Undercover," she said. "Nothing personal but this was a sting."
She snapped her fingers and one of the security blue-suits moved to the desk and picked up the box of evidence.
As she marched me out the door, I kept asking myself one question: Had it been worth it? The withdrawal from my tiny discretionary budget. The overnight order from Amazon.co.uk. The sweet moment when I opened the box and found all the pens I could use. Real pens, pens that drew simple black lines. Not bought from the lowest bidder. Not developed as part of a Public-Private Finance Initiative. Not bulk sourced by a Whitehall Department. But simply pens that worked and could be used to fill in paper work.
The pens which filled the Amazon delivery box rattled as the blue-suit carried them out the door and I decided, that yes. Even in the face of the Auditors, those few sweet weeks had been worth near anything. Now I just had to hope I could get out of this with my career, not to mention soul, intact.
EDIT: Originally put up unproof read version. Now judging is done, I can put this version up for posterity.
