Charles Stross - Concrete

VIP免费

2024-12-16 0 0 244.43KB 66 页 5.9玖币

侵权投诉

Reprinted with permission from The Atrocity Archives

Golden Gryphon Press, 2004, ISBN 1-930846-25-8

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

The Concrete Jungle

by Charles Stross

http://www.antipope.org/charlie/

The death rattle of a mortally wounded telephone is a horrible thing to

hear at four o'clock on a Tuesday morning. It's even worse when you're

sleeping the sleep that follows a pitcher of iced margueritas in the

basement of the Dog's Bollocks, with a chaser of nachos and a tequila

slammer or three for dessert. I come to, sitting upright, bare-ass naked in

the middle of the wooden floor, clutching the receiver with one hand and

my head with the other — purely to prevent it from exploding, you

understand — and moaning quietly. Who is it? I croak into the

microphone.

Bob, get your ass down to the office right away. This line isn't secure. I

recognize that voice: I have nightmares about it. That's because I work

for its owner.

Whoa, I was asleep, boss. Can't it — I gulp and look at the alarm clock

— wait until morning?

No. I'm calling a code blue.

Jesus. The band of demons stomping around my skull strike up an encore

with drums. Okay, boss. Ready to leave in ten minutes. Can I bill a taxi

fare?

No, it can't wait. I'll have a car pick you up. He cuts the call, and that is

when I start to get frightened because even Angleton, who occupies a lair

deep in the bowels of the Laundry's Arcana Analysis Section — but does

something far scarier than that anodyne title might suggest — is liable to

think twice before authorising a car to pull in an employee at zero-dark

o'clock.

I manage to pull on a sweater and jeans, tie my shoelaces, and get my ass

downstairs just before the blue and red strobes light up the window

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

case — and slam and lock the door and turn around in time to find the

cop waiting for me. Are you Bob Howard?

Yeah, that's me. I show him my card.

If you'll come with me, sir.

Lucky me: I get to wake up on my way in to work four hours early, in

the front passenger seat of a police car with strobes flashing and the

driver doing his best to scare me into catatonia. Lucky London: the

streets are nearly empty at this time of night, so we zip around the feral

taxis and somnolent cleaning trucks without pause. A journey that would

normally take an hour and a half takes fifteen minutes. (Of course, it

comes at a price: Accounting exists in a state of perpetual warfare with

the rest of the civil service over internal billing, and the Metropolitan

Police charge for their services as a taxi firm at a level that would make

you think they provided limousines with wet bars. But Angleton has

declared a code blue, so . . .)

The dingy-looking warehouse in a side street, adjoining a closed former

primary school, doesn't look too promising — but the door opens before

I can raise a hand to knock on it. The grinning sallow face of Fred from

Accounting looms out of the darkness in front of me and I recoil before I

realise that it's all right — Fred's been dead for more than a year, which

is why he's on the night shift. This isn't going to degenerate into plaintive

requests for me to fix his spreadsheet. Fred, I'm here to see Angleton, I

say very clearly, then I whisper a special password to stop him from

eating me. Fred retreats back to his security cubbyhole or coffin or

whatever it is you call it, and I cross the threshold of the Laundry. It's

dark — to save light bulbs, and damn the health and safety regs — but

some kind soul has left a mouldering cardboard box of hand torches on

the front desk. I pull the door shut behind me, pick up a torch, and head

for Angleton's office.

As I get to the top of the stairs I see that the lights are on in the corridor

we call Mahogany Row. If the boss is running a crisis team then that's

where I'll find him. So I divert into executive territory until I see a door

with a red light glowing above it. There's a note taped to the door handle:

BOB HOWARD ACCESS PERMITTED. So I access permitted and walk

right in.

As soon as the door opens Angleton looks up from the map spread across

the boardroom table. The room smells of stale coffee, cheap cigarettes,

and fear. You're late, he says sharply.

Late, I echo, dumping my emergency bag under the fire extinguisher and

leaning on the door. 'Lo, Andy, Boris. Boss, I don't think the cop was

taking his time. Any faster and he'd be billing you for brown stain

removal from the upholstery. I yawn. What's the picture?

Milton Keynes, says Andy.

Are sending you there to investigate, explains Boris.

With extreme prejudice, Angleton one-ups them.

Milton Keynes?

It must be something in my expression; Andy turns away hastily and

pours me a cup of Laundry coffee while Boris pretends it's none of his

business. Angleton just looks as if he's bitten something unpleasant,

which is par for the course.

We have a problem, Angleton explains, gesturing at the map. There are

too many concrete cows.

Concrete cows. I pull out a chair and flop down into it heavily, then rub

my eyes. This isn't a dream is it, by any chance? No? Shit.

Boris glowers at me: Not a joke. He rolls his eyes toward Angleton.

Boss?

It's no joke, Bob, says Angleton. His normally skeletal features are even

more drawn than usual, and there are dark hollows under his eyes. He

looks as if he's been up all night. Angleton glances at Andy: Has he been

keeping his weapons certification up-to-date?

I practice three times a week, I butt in, before Andy can get started on the

intimate details of my personal file. Why?

Go down to the armoury right now, with Andy. Andy, self-defense kit

for one, sign it out for him. Bob, don't shoot unless it's you or them.

Angleton shoves a stack of papers and a pen across the table at me. Sign

the top and pass it back — you now have GAME ANDES REDSHIFT

clearance. The files below are part of GAR — you're to keep them on

your person at all times until you get back here, then check them in via

Morag's office; you'll answer to the auditors if they go missing or get

copied.

Huh?

I obviously still look confused because Angleton cracks an expression so

frightening that it must be a smile and adds, Shut your mouth, you're

drooling on your collar. Now, go with Andy, check out your hot kit, let

Andy set you up with a chopper, and read those papers. When you get to

Milton Keynes, do what comes naturally. If you don't find anything,

come back and tell me and we'll take things from there.

But what am I looking for? I gulp down half my coffee in one go; it

tastes of ashes, stale cigarette ends, and tinned instant left over from the

Retreat from Moscow. Dammit, what do you expect me to find?

I don't expect anything, says Angleton. Just go.

Come on, says Andy, opening the door, you can leave the papers here for

now.

I follow him into the corridor, along to the darkened stairwell at the end,

and down four flights of stairs into the basement. Just what the fuck is

this? I demand, as Andy produces a key and unlocks the steel-barred gate

in front of the security tunnel.

It's GAME ANDES REDSHIFT, kid, he says over his shoulder. I follow

him into the security zone and the gate clanks shut behind me. Another

key, another steel door — this time the outer vestibule of the armoury.

Listen, don't go too hard on Angleton, he knows what he's doing. If you

go in with preconceptions about what you'll find and it turns out to be

GAME ANDES REDSHIFT, you'll probably get yourself killed. But I

reckon there's only about a 10 percent chance it's the real thing — more

likely it's a drunken student prank.

He uses another key, and a secret word that my ears refuse to hear, to

open the inner armoury door. I follow Andy inside. One wall is racked

with guns, another is walled with ammunition lockers, and the opposite

wall is racked with more esoteric items. It's this that he turns to.

A prank, I echo, and yawn, against my better judgement. Jesus, it's half

past four in the morning and you got me out of bed because of a student

prank?

Listen. Andy stops and glares at me, irritated. Remember how you came

aboard? That was me getting out of bed at four in the morning because of

a student prank.

Oh, is all I can say to him. Sorry springs to mind, but is probably

inadequate; as they later pointed out to me, applied computational

demonology and built-up areas don't mix very well. I thought I was just

generating weird new fractals; they knew I was dangerously close to

landscaping Wolverhampton with alien nightmares. What kind of

students? I ask.

Architecture or alchemy. Nuclear physics for an outside straight. Another

word of command and Andy opens the sliding glass case in front of some

gruesome relics that positively throb with power. Come on. Which of

these would you like?

I think I'll take this one, thanks. I reach in and carefully pick up a silver

locket on a chain; there's a yellow-and-black thaumaturgy hazard trefoil

on a label dangling from it, and NO PULL ribbons attached to the clasp.

Good choice. Andy watches me in silence as I add a Hand of Glory to

my collection, and then a second, protective amulet. That all? he asks.

That's all, I say, and he nods and shuts the cupboard, then renews the seal

on it.

Sure? he asks.

I look at him. Andy is a slightly built, forty-something guy; thin, wispy

hair, tweed sports jacket with leather patches at the elbows, and a

perpetually worried expression. Looking at him you'd think he was an

Open University lecturer, not a managerial-level spook from the

Laundry's active service division. But that goes for all of them, doesn't

it? Angleton looks more like a Texan oil-company executive with

tuberculosis than the legendary and terrifying head of the Counter-

Possession Unit. And me, I look like a refugee from CodeCon or a dot-

com startup's engineering department. Which just goes to show that

appearances and a euro will get you a cup of coffee. What does this code

blue look like to you? I ask.

He sighs tiredly, then yawns. Damn, it's infectious, he mutters. Listen, if

I tell you what it looks like to me, Angleton will have my head for a

doorknob. Let's just say, read those files on the way over, okay? Keep

your eyes open, count the concrete cows, then come back safe.

Count the cows. Come back safe. Check. I sign the clipboard, pick up my

arsenal, and he opens the armoury door. How am I getting there?

Andy cracks a lopsided grin. By police helicopter. This is a code blue,

remember?

I go up to the committee room, collect the papers, and then it's down to

the front door, where the same police patrol car is waiting for me. More

brown-pants motoring — this time the traffic is a little thicker, dawn is

only an hour and a half away — and we end up in the northeast suburbs,

following the roads to Lippitts Hill where the Police ASU keep their

choppers. There's no messing around with check in and departure

lounges; we drive round to a gate at one side of the complex, show our

warrant cards, and my chauffeur takes me right out onto the heliport and

parks next to the ready room, then hands me over to the flight crew

before I realise what's happening.

You're Bob Howard? asks the copilot. Up here, hop in. He helps me into

the back seat of the Twin Squirrel, sorts me out with the seat belt, then

hands me a bulky headset and plugs it in. We'll be there in half an hour,

he says. You just relax, try to get some sleep. He grins sardonically then

shuts the door on me and climbs in up front.

Funny. I've never been in a helicopter before. It's not quite as loud as I'd

expected, especially with the headset on, but as I've been led to expect

something like being rolled down a hill in an oil drum while maniacs

whack on the sides with baseball bats, that isn't saying much. Get some

sleep indeed; instead I bury my nose in the so-secret reports on GAME

ANDES REDSHIFT and try not to upchuck as the predawn London

landscape corkscrews around outside the huge glass windscreen and then

starts to unroll beneath us.

REPORT 1: Sunday September 4th, 1892

CLASSIFIED MOST SECRET, Imperial War

Ministry, September 11th, 1914

RECLASSIFIED TOP SECRET GAME ANDES,

Ministry of War, July 2nd, 1940

RECLASSIFIED TOP SECRET REDSHIFT,

Ministry of Defense, August 13th, 1988

My dearest Nellie,

In the week since I last wrote to you, I have to confess

that I have become a different man. Experiences such as

the ordeal I have just undergone must surely come but

once in a lifetime; for if more often, how might man

survive them? I have gazed upon the gorgon and lived to

tell the tale, for which I am profoundly grateful (and I

hasten to explain myself before you worry for my safety),

although only the guiding hand of some angel of grace

can account for my being in a position to put ink to paper

with these words.

I was at dinner alone with the Mehtar last Tuesday

evening — Mr Robertson being laid up, and Lieutenant

Bruce off to Gilgut to procure supplies for his secret

expedition to Lhasa — when we were interrupted most

rudely at our repast. Holiness! The runner, quite

breathless with fear, threw himself upon his knees in front

of us. Your brother . . . ! Please hasten, I implore you!

His excellency Nizam ul-Mulk looked at me with that

wicked expression of his: he bears little affection for his

brutish hulk of a brother, and with good reason. Where

the Mehtar is a man of refined, albeit questionable

sensibilities, his brother is an uneducated coarse hill-man,

one step removed from banditry. Chittral can very well do

without his kind. What has happened to my beloved

brother? asked ul-Mulk.

At this point the runner lapsed into a gabble that I

could barely understand. With patience the Mehtar drew

him out — then frowned. Turning to me, he said, We

have a — I know not the word for it in English, excuse

please. It is a monster of the caves and passes who preys

upon my people. My brother has gone to hunt it, but it

appears to have got the better of him.

A mountain lion? I said, misunderstanding.

No. He looked at me oddly. May I enquire of you,

Captain, whether Her Majesty's government tolerates

monsters within her empire?

Of course not!

Then you will not object to joining me in the hunt?

I could feel a trap closing on me, but could not for the

life of me see what it might be. Certainly, I said. By Jove,

old chap, we'll have this monster's head mounted on your

trophy room wall before the week is out!

I think not, Nizam said coolly. We burn such things

here, to drive out the evil spirit that gave rise to them.

Bring you your mirror, tomorrow?

My — Then I realised what he was talking about, and

what deadly jeopardy I had placed my life in, for the

honour of Her Majesty's government in Chittral: he was

talking about a Medusa. And although it quite unmans me

to confess it, I was afraid.

The next day, in my cramped, windowless hut, I rose with

the dawn and dressed for the hunt. I armed myself, then

told Sergeant Singh to ready a squad of troopers for the

hunt.

What is the quarry, sahib? he asked.

The beast that no man sees, I said, and the normally

imperturbable trooper flinched.

The men won't like that, sir, he said.

They'll like it even less if I hear any words from them,

I said. You have to be firm with colonial troops: they have

only as much backbone as their commanding officer.

I'll tell them that, sahib, he said and, saluting, went to

ready our forces.

The Mehtar's men gathered outside; an unruly bunch of

hill-men, armed as one might expect with a mix of

flintlocks and bows. They were spirited, like children,

excitable and bickering; hardly a match for the order of

my troopers and I. We showed them how it was done!

Together with the Mehtar at our head, kestrel on his wrist,

we rode out into the cold bright dawn and the steep-sided

mountain valley.

We rode for the entire morning and most of the

afternoon, climbing up the sides of a steep pass and then

between two towering peaks clad in gleaming white snow.

The mood of the party was uncommonly quiet, a sense of

apprehensive fortitude settling over the normally ebullient

Chittrali warriors. We came at last to a mean-spirited

hamlet of tumbledown shacks, where a handful of

scrawny goats grazed the scrubby bushes; the hetman of

the village came to meet us, and with quavering voice

directed us to our destination.

It lies thuswise, remarked my translator, adding: The

old fool, he say it is a ghost-bedevilled valley, by God! He

say his son go in there two, three days ago, not come out.

Then the Mehtar — blessed be he — his brother follow

with his soldiers. And that two days ago.

Hah. Well, I said, tell him the great white empress sent

me here with these fine troops he sees, and the Mehtar

himself and his nobles, and we aren't feeding any

monster!

The translator jabbered at the hetman for a while, and

he looked stricken. Then Nizam beckoned me over. Easy,

old fellow, he said.

As you say, your excellency.

He rode forward, beckoning me alongside. I felt the

need to explain myself further: I do not believe one

gorgon will do for us. In fact, I do believe we will do for

it!

It is not that which concerns me, said the ruler of the

small mountain kingdom. But go easy on the hetman. The

monster was his wife.

We rode the rest of the way in reflective silence, to the

valley where the monster had built her retreat, the only

noises the sighing of wind, the thudding of hooves, and

the jingling of our kits. There is a cave halfway up the

wall of the valley, here, said the messenger who had

summoned us. She lives there, coming out at times to

drink and forage for food. The villagers left her meals at

first, but in her madness she slew one of them, and then

they stopped.

Such tragic neglect is unknown in England, where the

poor victims of this most hideous ailment are confined in

mazed bedlams upon their diagnosis, blindfolded lest they

kill those who nurse them. But what more can one expect

of the half-civilized children of the valley kingdoms, here

on the top of the world?

The execution — for want of a better word —

proceeded about as well as such an event can, which is to

say that it was harrowing and not by any means enjoyable

in the way that hunting game can be. At the entrance to

the small canyon where the woman had made her lair, we

paused. I detailed Sergeant Singh to ready a squad of

rifles; their guns loaded, they took up positions in the

rocks, ready to beat back the monster should she try to

rush us.

Having thus prepared our position, I dismounted and,

joining the Mehtar, steeled myself to enter the valley of

death.

I am sure you have read lurid tales of the appalling

scenes in which gorgons are found; charnel houses strewn

with calcined bodies, bones protruding in attitudes of

agony from the walls as the madmen and madwomen who

slew them gibber and howl among their victims. These

tales are, I am thankful to say, constructed out of whole

cloth by the fevered imaginations of the degenerate

scribblers who write for the penny dreadfuls. What we

found was both less — and much worse — than that.

We found a rubble-strewn valley; in one side of it a

cave, barely more than a cleft in the rock face, with a

tumbledown awning stretched across its entrance. An old

woman sat under the awning, eyes closed, humming to

herself in an odd singsong. The remains of a fire lay in

front of her, logs burned down to white-caked ashes; she

seemed to be crying, tears trickling down her sunken,

wrinkled cheeks.

The Mehtar gestured me to silence, then, in what I only

later recognized as a supremely brave gesture, strode up

to the fire. Good evening to you, my aunt, and it would

please me that you keep your eyes closed, lest my guards

be forced to slay you of an instant, he said.

The woman kept up her low, keening croon — like a

wail of grief from one who has cried until her throat is

raw and will make no more noise. But her eyes remained

obediently shut. The Mehtar crouched down in front of

her.

Do you know who I am? he asked gently.

The crooning stopped. You are the royal one, she said,

her voice a cracked whisper. They told me you would

come.

Indeed I have, he said, a compassionate tone in his

voice. With one hand he waved me closer. It is very sad,

what you have become.

It hurts. She wailed quietly, startling the soldiers so

that one of them half-rose to his feet. I signalled him back

down urgently as I approached behind her. I wanted to see

my son one more time . . .

It is all right, aunt, he said quietly. You'll see him soon

enough. He held out a hand to me; I held out the leather

bag and he removed the mirror. Be at peace, aunt. An end

to pain is in sight. He held the mirror at arms length in

front of his face, above the fire before her: Open your

eyes when you are ready for it.

She sobbed once, then opened her eyes.

I didn't know what to expect, dear Nellie, but it was

not this: somebody's aged mother, crawling away from

her home to die with a stabbing pain in her head,

surrounded by misery and loneliness. As it is, her

monarch spared her the final pain, for as soon as she

looked into the mirror she changed. The story that the

gorgon kills those who see her by virtue of her ugliness is

untrue; she was merely an old woman — the evil was

something in her gaze, something to do with the act of

perception.

As soon as her eyes opened — they were bright blue,

for a moment — she changed. Her skin puffed up and her

hair went to dust, as if in a terrible heat. My skin prickled;

it was as if I had placed my face in the open door of a

furnace. Can you imagine what it would be like if a body

were to be heated in an instant to the temperature of a

blast furnace? For that is what it was like. I will not

describe this horror in any detail, for it is not fit material

for discussion. When the wave of heat cleared, her body

toppled forward atop the fire — and rolled apart, yet more

calcined logs amidst the embers.

The Mehtar stood, and mopped his brow. Summon

your men, Francis, he said, they must build a cairn here.

A cairn? I echoed blankly.

For my brother. He gestured impatiently at the fire into

which the unfortunate woman had tumbled. Who else do

you think this could have been?

A cairn was built, and we camped overnight in the

village. I must confess that both the Mehtar and I have

been awfully sick since then, with an abnormal rapidity

that came on since the confrontation. Our men carried us

back home, and that is where you find me now, lying abed

文档加载中……请稍候！
如果长时间未打开，您也可以点击刷新试试。

下载文档到电脑，查找使用更方便

5.9 玖币 0人已下载

立即下载 VIP免费下载

摘要：

Copyright©2004byCharlesStross.ReprintedwithpermissionfromTheAtrocityArchivesGoldenGryphonPress,2004,ISBN1-930846-25-8ThisworkislicensedunderaCreativeCommonsLicense.TheConcreteJunglebyCharlesStrosshttp://www.antipope.org/charlie/Thedeathrattleofamortallywoundedtelephoneisahorriblethingtohearatfouro'c...

展开>> 收起<<

Charles Stross - Concrete.pdf

共66页,预览14页

还剩页未读，继续阅读

声明：本站为文档C2C交易模式，即用户上传的文档直接被用户下载，本站只是中间服务平台，本站所有文档下载所得的收益归上传人(含作者)所有。玖贝云文库仅提供信息存储空间，仅对用户上传内容的表现方式做保护处理，对上载内容本身不做任何修改或编辑。若文档所含内容侵犯了您的版权或隐私，请立即通知玖贝云文库，我们立即给予删除！

Charles Stross - Concrete

相关推荐

开通VIP享超值会员特权

作者详情

相关内容

热门标签

举报选择: