The Annihilation Score by Charles Stross Page A

at Nine. Also in attendance are Barry Jennings, the avuncular Justice Minister I nearly ran down earlier, and Jessica Greene, the Home Secretary, Lady High Executioner, and pin-up girl for the hanging’s-too-good-for-them electoral demographic. *
    In addition to the political heavies, there’s a small coterie of lower-level drones and minor flappers: the Commissioner of Police (London’s copper-in-chief), a female Assistant Commissioner attending on behalf of ACPO (the Association of Chief Police Officers), the Chief Secretary to the Cabinet Office, representatives from the Prison Service, and so on. It’s all a bit intimidating: I feel like a secondary school football coach who’s been summoned to a meeting of the Premier League chairmen. Who are, of course, very busy men (and want you to know it).
    â€œDr. O’Brien.” The Deputy PM starts up smoothly without any social lubrication: “Can you tell us exactly what happened in Trafalgar Square this morning?”
    I stand up, and deliver the cover story that the INCORRIGIBLE committee sweated their skulls over for me while I was heading home for a quick change and shower at lunchtime.
    I am used to giving lectures: this is no different, I tell myself. I can’t be suffering from stage fright, can I? I’ve done this thousands of times before—just to different audiences. I recall a trick I used to use at unfamiliar academic conferences, where I pretend I’m addressing a room full of sapient cauliflowers from Arcturus. It’s less nerve-wracking than lecturing some of the most powerful civil servants and policy-makers in the land, so I do that. It does indeed make everything easier, except for a slight tendency to get distracted (Bob
really
doesn’t like brassicas—even the smell upsets him—which leads to a hypnagogic vision of my husband choking as he tries to eat the Deputy Prison Minister’s head).
    High points:
I run a very small, very new department within MI5 which keeps tabs on superheroes and supervillains.
Sometimes the two are easy to tell apart; sometimes they’re indistinguishable.
The number of them crawling out of the woodwork is increasing.
I, myself, have some small talent in that direction.
I happened to be in town on my day off when the Trafalgar Square incident kicked off.
Yes, my department works with the Metropolitan Police. Together, we fight crime.
    I am at the end of my canned spiel, congratulating myself on a message well-delivered, when the Home Secretary herself fixes me with a brooding, brown-eyed stare.
    â€œDr. O’Brien, what you’ve outlined to us is a purely reactive stance. But this incident isn’t an isolated event. We can’t afford to be on the back foot: the terrorism implications are dreadful. Where’s your strategy to get ahead of the problem?”
    â€œIt’s coming.” I swallow. “With all due respect, I was called to this briefing at short notice. My department is in fact working overtime on a broad strategy for managing the superpowered. Unfortunately we currently have neither the budget nor the enabling legislative framework to implement the plan, but—”
    â€œYou’ll have it on my desk by nine a.m. sharp next Monday morning.” She doesn’t smile: Jessica Greene only opens wide to swallow her prey. “You will personally brief my staff later that day, subject to scheduling.”
    â€œYes, ma’am,” I say automatically. I don’t
think
a heel-click would be appreciated, but—“Is there anything else?”
    â€œNo,” she says dismissively: “I think we’ve heard all we—”
    The red telephone next to the Deputy PM’s elbow trills for attention.
    â€œYah?” Deputy Prime Minister Dennis Baker—at age forty-one the head of the junior party in the coalition, and one of the most powerful politicians in the country—actually
yah
s. He does it with the