Rule 34 (42 page)
Authors: Charles Stross
(And your hamster-mind is skittering ahead in blind panic, trying to figure out ways around the onrushing wall of steel spikes. Maybe if you can prove you’ve been acting in good faith—or perhaps if it
is
a fake you can resign and dob them in to Mr. Webber or Inspector Butthurt, demonstrate you’re a good and responsible citizen—assuming the madman with the suitcase doesn’t come after you . . .)
is
a fake you can resign and dob them in to Mr. Webber or Inspector Butthurt, demonstrate you’re a good and responsible citizen—assuming the madman with the suitcase doesn’t come after you . . .)
The office is as you left it when you received Bibi’s panicky call yesterday afternoon. It feels like an infinity ago. You sit down, open up your laptop, and check for email. Nothing from head office, just a handful of spam. Actually, there hasn’t been anything from head office—the Foreign Ministry—this week. No updates, no memos, no bulletins and reminders about policy on export licenses, charges for visas, cancelled passports, office supplies.
You frown and check your settings. They
look
alright, but how can you be sure? Maybe the Ministry’s mail server is sulking. Or perhaps there’s a public holiday that lasts all week, and nobody thought to tell you. Or a general strike or a meteor strike. Whatever the cause, it’s disturbing. So you turn to your handy quick reference guide to running a consular mission, and bounce around the hyperlinks until you come to a list of voice contacts.
Ah, technical support.
Issyk-Kulistan is four hours ahead of Edinburgh; you paste the contact into your phone app and wait patiently as it tries to connect. And tries to connect. And clicks over to dump you in voice-mail hell. An interminable announcement in the sonorous Turkic dialect rolls over you, before switching to English and informing you that: “You have reached the mailbox of senior consular support engineer Kenebek Bakiyev. Direct customer support is available on Mondays and Wednesdays between the hours of 8 A.M. and 1 P.M. For outside hours support, please leave a message after the tone.
BEEP.
I’m sorry, this mailbox is now full.”
look
alright, but how can you be sure? Maybe the Ministry’s mail server is sulking. Or perhaps there’s a public holiday that lasts all week, and nobody thought to tell you. Or a general strike or a meteor strike. Whatever the cause, it’s disturbing. So you turn to your handy quick reference guide to running a consular mission, and bounce around the hyperlinks until you come to a list of voice contacts.
Ah, technical support.
Issyk-Kulistan is four hours ahead of Edinburgh; you paste the contact into your phone app and wait patiently as it tries to connect. And tries to connect. And clicks over to dump you in voice-mail hell. An interminable announcement in the sonorous Turkic dialect rolls over you, before switching to English and informing you that: “You have reached the mailbox of senior consular support engineer Kenebek Bakiyev. Direct customer support is available on Mondays and Wednesdays between the hours of 8 A.M. and 1 P.M. For outside hours support, please leave a message after the tone.
BEEP.
I’m sorry, this mailbox is now full.”
You stare at the screen. “What the fuck? What the fucking fuck?” The calendar on your desktop is telling you that today is Wednesday and the time is ten past nine, local time—ten past one in Bishkek.
You are not an idiot; you were not born yesterday. You know exactly what’s going on here. You’re supposed to buy the story and sit tight until next Monday, aren’t you? It’s a delaying tactic. What kind of technical-support line is available for ten hours a week, carefully timed for when most of its customers are still asleep in their beds? They’re gaslighting you. Or maybe not. A sudden moment of doubt: Issyk-Kulistan is very poor. What if they can’t afford to run a proper support desk or help-line? If this is the best they can do—how secure is your pay?
You check the phone wiki again and again. Digging deeper, looking for clues. Then a thought strikes you, and thirty seconds later you’ve got another number. You feed another contact to the phone app, and ten seconds later a voice answers you in the flattened vowels of London’s East End: “’ Ello, you’ve reached the consulate of the Independent Republic of Issyk-Kulistan. How can I help you?”
I
not
we
, you notice. “Hi,” you say, “this is Anwar, at the Scottish consulate. Listen, can you tell me, have you had any email through from the Ministry since Monday afternoon?”
not
we
, you notice. “Hi,” you say, “this is Anwar, at the Scottish consulate. Listen, can you tell me, have you had any email through from the Ministry since Monday afternoon?”
It takes a minute or two for you to get Mr. East-Ender to grudgingly acknowledge your identity, and another minute for him to get the picture, but by the time you put the phone down, you know two new facts: that IRIK have only bothered to establish a one-man consular presence in
England
, and no, he hasn’t heard anything from head office either.
England
, and no, he hasn’t heard anything from head office either.
Your moustache twitches at the half-imagined odour of dead
Rattus norvegicus
, and you turn to your browser. There are news aggregators and search engines and attention proxies, and you are a master of the web, a veritable expert. Even though you’re having to pipe everything through a mess of translation agents, it is but the work of half an hour for you to churn through a hundred searches, refining and reducing and recycling your terms until you’ve got a pretty good idea of what’s
not
going on. There’s no public holiday today. There are no football matches, riots, or debates going on in the chamber of deputies. More significantly, a bit more digging reveals that there are no bandits, bank robberies, or bombings. In fact, Issyk-Kulistan is a bit of a news black hole. It’s as if a cone of Internet silence has descended across the entire country, and nobody outside has noticed.
Rattus norvegicus
, and you turn to your browser. There are news aggregators and search engines and attention proxies, and you are a master of the web, a veritable expert. Even though you’re having to pipe everything through a mess of translation agents, it is but the work of half an hour for you to churn through a hundred searches, refining and reducing and recycling your terms until you’ve got a pretty good idea of what’s
not
going on. There’s no public holiday today. There are no football matches, riots, or debates going on in the chamber of deputies. More significantly, a bit more digging reveals that there are no bandits, bank robberies, or bombings. In fact, Issyk-Kulistan is a bit of a news black hole. It’s as if a cone of Internet silence has descended across the entire country, and nobody outside has noticed.
Your skin crawls; you’re running low on excuses.
If Adam’s right
—then the sock-puppet nation is about to be wadded up and thrown away. And you know too damned much. You know about empty-eyed men with suitcases they want you to look after, and trade delegations with bags of not-bread mix. You don’t have to be Inspector Rebus to know what happens to bagmen who aren’t sitting tight when the music stops.
If Adam’s right
—then the sock-puppet nation is about to be wadded up and thrown away. And you know too damned much. You know about empty-eyed men with suitcases they want you to look after, and trade delegations with bags of not-bread mix. You don’t have to be Inspector Rebus to know what happens to bagmen who aren’t sitting tight when the music stops.
You try a different strategy and waste a few minutes hunting for notifications of service outages afflicting the major trunks in and out of the country. Then you have a moment of blinding realization.
Voice mail.
You flip through the Ministry’s online directory until you come to a different section. With a shaky finger, you drag the address card into your phone and prod the connect button, already rehearsing your abject apologies. It rings twice, then a man answers it, speaking an unfamiliar language. There’s music in the background, tinny voices singing. “Hello?” you say tentatively: “Is Colonel Datka there?”
“One moment.” The speaker’s English is very good, almost unaccented. There’s a scraping sound, as of a hand covering a mobile phone, some muffled conversation. “Felix is tied up right now, but he’ll be along in a minute. Who should I say is calling?”
Your tongue swells abruptly, and you cough. “To whom am I speaking?”
“This is Bhaskar.” Whoever Bhaskar is, he sounds amused. “And you are?”
“This is the Scottish consulate,” you say, your voice barely above a dry-mouthed whisper. “I need to talk to the colonel.”
“The—you say the
Scottish
consulate?”
Scottish
consulate?”
“Yes.” You swallow, hoping the phone app they gave you is adequately encrypted. “There’s a problem.”
“A
problem
. And for this problem you need to talk to Felix Datka.” His tone sharpens.
problem
. And for this problem you need to talk to Felix Datka.” His tone sharpens.
“Yes.” You realize you’re clutching the edge of your desk as if it’s a life-belt. “I know what you’re doing, what you’re using me for, and I don’t, I can’t . . .”
“Wait, please.
Ah, Felix
—you, you had better explain this to the colonel himself. He will speak to you now.” There’s a muffled noise, as of a phone being passed between hands, and then a new speaker.
Ah, Felix
—you, you had better explain this to the colonel himself. He will speak to you now.” There’s a muffled noise, as of a phone being passed between hands, and then a new speaker.
“This is Felix Datka. Identify yourself.”
The background music has stopped. “It’s Anwar, Anwar Hussein. From Edinburgh, your honorary consul.”
The colonel snorts superciliously. “And you are calling because . . . ?”
All your indignation comes boiling up at once.
“My cousin’s dead,
Colonel
. Since your man arrived in my city, with his curious demands. Surely this is not a coincidence? And it is not bad enough being held up to ridicule by the other diplomats of this city, oh no! Everybody knows that Issyk-Kulistan is a front for some strange diplomatic game. And the trade delegations with the
bread mix
that is a culture medium for illegal nanosystems, you have me handing this stuff out openly as if on the street-corner! Where the police can find me, red-handed! And this week, this week even the news stops. There is no news, as if you cannot even be bothered to maintain the pretense! Have you no
decency
, sir?”
Colonel
. Since your man arrived in my city, with his curious demands. Surely this is not a coincidence? And it is not bad enough being held up to ridicule by the other diplomats of this city, oh no! Everybody knows that Issyk-Kulistan is a front for some strange diplomatic game. And the trade delegations with the
bread mix
that is a culture medium for illegal nanosystems, you have me handing this stuff out openly as if on the street-corner! Where the police can find me, red-handed! And this week, this week even the news stops. There is no news, as if you cannot even be bothered to maintain the pretense! Have you no
decency
, sir?”
There is no sound from the other end of the phone, but a glance at the screen tells you the connection is still there.
“Sir?”
There is a pause. Then Datka asks, softly, meditatively, terrifyingly: “What do you mean, ‘bread mix’?”
Light-headed and nauseous, you collect your possessions and walk out of the consulate. You leave behind: the safe and its contents, the travelling trunk with its commercial samples of bread mix, the laptop, the furnishings, the stale posturing and lies. You are going home, home to your family and your future and the things that matter to you. Fuck Adam and his stupid get-rich-quick scheme, scamming scammers. Fuck Colonel Datka and his secret policeman’s eyes. Fuck the colonel’s man Christie, whoever he is. You don’t need any of them. They can’t give you back Tariq’s annoying jokes, his sly word-play. They can’t give you an extra minute to say good-bye to your cousin. And if they can’t do that, how heavily should your children’s futures weigh on your shoulders?
If it comes to it, you’ll turn yourself in to Mr. Webber and shop the lot of them. Go back inside Saughton, if that’s what it takes to keep them away from Bibi and the bairns.
You are hungry—you forgot to make yourself breakfast this morning—and you are sick at heart as you march determinedly towards the tram stop. You’re walking away from a good solid job that was paying you—well, it wasn’t paying you well in purely monetary terms, but it got you respect. And after what you threw in Colonel Datka’s face (or more accurately, his ear) you have zero expectation of keeping the job. Bibi will be livid. She’ll also be exhausted from sitting up all night with Aunt Sameena and Uncle Taleb and the kids, and she’s probably back at work by now—
Yes, you can see all this.
Nevertheless.
Nevertheless.
You check your phone for the tram schedule, and it flashes a red warning at you: delays expected due to an accident on Leith Walk, get the bus instead. You can see at least one tram with your own eyes, but who knows how the network works? So you stop by the foot of the Mound, outside the big art gallery, and poke at the time-table. You’ve hit the morning lull after rush hour, it seems, when half the buses return to their depots. Irritated, you put your phone away and start walking. It’s only a couple of kilometres, and the weather’s fine. You’ll even chance a short-cut over the Mound, normally a steep climb best left to the buses’ fuel cell.
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—
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.
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