004. Roulette

Chambers – in a bullet, in a building; there was a notion of Russian Roulette built into both of them, and Partridge had always liked to play the odds; he was a lucky sonnuvabitch.

Marek got him out – and if he hadn’t, then someone else would have. Now he needed to get in somewhere else – somewhere he could find someone that would make the data he had actually valuable and that meant making it actionable.

You never know who the connection is going to be, or what the shape of the future might take when you stop believing that it should be a certain shape, and you just see where drifting along takes you. It was not always the easiest attitude to adopt, because it kind of ran counter to his training, in that he was directed there to be the one who was in the driving seat. Still, in both flows observation was of the utmost importance.

Someone sits down opposite you, and they express an interest in your data, and they make you an offer with the belief that you might never choose to refuse them, because they fail to ask any questions to clarify your position, whereas you sit their and ply them with questions until you are satisfied. No question is stupid if it opens a door to further understanding. Partridge asked a lot of questions and took great interest in the answers.

‘Me? Oh, I come from a pretty distant place. You might say that the distance though is not merely geographical, not notional, but temporal.’

‘Temporal? Great, are we in the kind of territory no sane agent ever wants to step into? Are we into science fiction territory?’

‘Maybe for you, but not for me. My purpose is justice, which I think may align with yours, and the other great thing is, you can give me the data, and because of where, or rather when, I am going, you can sell it again to someone who exists in a contemporary time-slice to you.’

‘OK, well, this is definitely something that I didn’t expect.’

‘If it helps, I was kind of weirded out by it at first as well. Moving in a different direction to the normal flow of time seems so counter-intuitive that it hits you at a really fundamental level as to how it can’t really be occurring.’

‘But then you get used to it?’

‘Then you get used to it.’

‘OK, so what use is the data I have to you?’

‘Oh, I have a friend who needs it to help bring down the organisation at some future point when it gets even more out of control’

‘It gets even more out of control?’

‘Yes, it does. It was a good point for you to get out of there, because otherwise you would have been swept up in all the drama that is going to occur, and you would not have survived it.’

‘Who are you? How do you know so much about me, and who put you onto me?’

‘Me? My name is Carter Brecht – I am what is known as a Reality Engineer, and I was told about you but someone you may or may not know – a man called Quint Essential’

‘I have heard of him – some connection to the Royal Court, I believe’

‘Yes, he has connections there, amongst others. Play this game long enough and there is barely a soul who is not wound up in the web, and barely a soul who does not fancy themselves a spider, who at some point makes the uncomfortable discovery that it is a question of scale, and that they are more often than not, a fly.’

‘And which are you?’

‘Same as you – I am both, at different turns of the game.’

‘But this gives me the chance to be a spider, right? Even if it is just for a moment, and even if I never get to see the results of what I do?’

‘Oh, it’s for more than a moment, let me assure you. Though you may not see it, the stone that you are sends out many ripples.’

‘And I get paid well for it too? That sounds like a bargain.’

‘Yes. Here is what I would offer you.’

As Partridge hefted the bag of money he knew already that it was worth his time. He reached across the table and shook the Reality Engineer’s hand, and that was that.

003. In A Pair Three

Partridge, moving between Dead Drops, testing the old systems, making sure that they were watertight. His fieldcraft was good, always had been, and he had been off-book without any kind of supervision for longer than any agency worker should ever have been allowed to be. Back in the day, if he had been caught, he would have been dragged in for an assessment, and if he hadn’t been tried for treason he would have been buried on a desk somewhere so far away from anything important he would have been pretty much invisible.

He found a different way to be invisible. He had what he called sealed circuit friends – acquaintances that were separated into cells, each knowing only him and having no connection to each other. He had begun to set them up as a number of contingency plans – he thought of them as separated domino rallies heading to different conclusions; waves heading towards singular outcomes. Be a quantum computer and never have to deal with limiting binary choices. Still, in the end, decisions had to be made.

This probability wave was called Marek, and he had been smuggling things in and out of different countries under the noses of the authorities for years. Partridge had done him a few favours in the past, and now was the time to call them in. All those favours he had spirited away throughout the years were going to come in very handy. Truth is worth only so much, and for survival purposes not very often asked for by those who wanted to make money or get along. Facts, as shapeable and mutable as they are, by those who wish to redefine and recontextualise the world, aren’t worth much to those on the ground. Depending on the echelon he was dealing with, he would change the currency he traded in. Marek wanted numbers that would better enable him to smuggle – Partridge had that. His other sealed circuits? They’d be asking for facts that supported the truths they clung to in this world.

What was he looking to do now? What was his mission? He had to find one – find some kind of target to shoot for; more in the metaphorical sense now, for sure, but he had to find some way to use the tools that he had or he would shrivel up and die. He had seen it before – those bars where all the relics of old conflicts washed up, and sat there either talking about the glory days, or angling to get back into some kind of action … action which they were generally ill-qualified to understand. That wasn’t going to happen to him.

He knew he was being followed – they had definitely sent someone out from Recovery to find and retrieve him, or to wipe him … whatever the phrase du jour was among that shadowy branch of a shadowy organisation. He sat down and he ordered a drink; James Bond special so he could stay sober. There was a femme fatale next to him who he pegged as ex-spetsnatz, so probably now a gun for hire. To his right sat some guy with an obvious stick up his backside, so he figured he was somehow connected to MI6.

‘Ow do, guv?’

‘Greetings.’

The Russian and the Brit stare at each other.

‘I’m popular,’ offers Partridge ‘Price on my head, or offer for my intel?’

‘One or the other,’ says Russian, smooth as velvet.

‘She’s a bit of alright, eh, mate? I have an offer here, but if you’re looking to get a little bit of From Russia With Love, I wouldn’t blame you.’

‘Wow, says Partridge ‘You care that much about state secrets?’

‘I have tenure, and I really don’t give a fuck about partisan politics and the information that backs them up.’

‘I am not going to sleep with you for intel.’

‘That’s not in your arsenal, eh?

Partridge smiled ‘I’m going to leave you two to it.’

He wondered how long it would be this calm, and where the storm would come from, and whether he would weather it.

002. Questions

Bryson sat in the uncomfortable chair which seemed ergonomically designed to fuck up your back in the short time you were its prisoner. The man he had come to see smiled a mirthless serpent smile – yes, this was staged. No one wanted to answer questions.

‘Perceval, is it?’

‘You may call me Mr Adjunct.’

‘Real name?’

‘It matters? You’re wasting time. Ask your questions and we can get this unpleasant business over and done with.’

‘Oh, wasn’t explained to you, Mr Adjunct, that my remit allows me to come and go as I please as far as old and new members of the service are concerned.’

‘No – that inconvenient fact was not shared with me. Regardless – ask what you came to ask, and leave.’

‘Partridge – you worked with him. I haven’t been given exact data on the capacity you were employed, but I believe you were a pay-grade above, so I am assuming you were his senior. What I need to know is whether you noticed him having any close ties, or affiliations, however you wish to phrase it, to one department or the other.’

‘And what would have been the use of that? Personal relations were not encouraged, and were in fact closely monitored.’

‘Yes, so no office romances ever took place under the noses of those who considered themselves super-observant.’

‘Of course. I see you fancy yourself a comedian, Mr Bryson, and while you may not have anything more important to do, my time is considerably more valuable.’

‘Oh, I understand. Let me get to the point then, Mr Adjunct. Please provide me with any relevant data you have while I am here asking nicely, and while this whole affair is as low key as it is, or you, and anyone else who proves to be uncooperative will be considered by those who have to make the proverbial omelettes will see you as an egg to break.’

‘Try The Story Room – it’s still a hang out for the people of both those departments, I believe.’

‘Thank you, Mr Adjunct – your help is most appreciated. If you should happen to recollect anything else that might prove useful in the pursuit of our investigation here is my card; please, don’t hesitate to contact me.’

Adjunct smiled, arose imperiously from the seat opposite Bryson, who was strangely more comfortable than he had expected to be, and strode from the room. Hopefully not all of these toffee-nosed bastards would have their heads so firmly inserted into their rectums.

001. Unlikely Suspects All

They called them Repositories – they were parasitic transmitter cells designed to piggyback on the old Number’s Stations systems, and they were meant to bury their own data amidst the official broadcasts. Most people heard it as whitenoise. Most people didn’t know that defectors within the agency had set up these infrastructures back in the day. Not everyone in the intelligence community back then had been obsessed with control – some of them saw where the current trend had been leading, and they wanted to put something in place to combat it.

Partridge sat down in the snug. He squirted some ketchup onto his index finger and sketched a red arrow on the table. Then he waited.

An unlikely suspect sat down opposite him. He smiled. The whole game was about unlikely suspects – that was what him and his community were all about. They could waltz about under your noses and you wouldn’t have the slightest idea of who or what you were looking at. She smiled at him. Squirted some mustard onto her index finger and sketched out a passable honeycomb.

‘Carlisle?’

‘Yes. Partridge?’

‘Yes.’

‘You have the data that you wanted us to transmit?’

‘Yeah. And there is some extra stuff here that is going to help you too.’

‘Help us?’

‘I know you are connected to Brittania Ascendant. There’s strategic data in there that might help – should help. Shit, if we can’t do something with this then the whole thing really is a lost cause.’

‘Why are you doing this, Partridge?’

‘It’s what I always meant to do – it’s been a waiting game. People died while we were waiting. It’s time to stop waiting. Time to start doing, right?’

‘I suppose so. You want to join us?’

‘I can’t. I’d put you all at risk. They know about me and I am a loose end that they want tied up. I’m moving on – going to strengthen the network.’

‘It’s good work.’

He smiled. It was something. He was doing something. All those years of doing nothing and now he could finally do something. They touched their food coloured index fingers together. Time to leave. She stayed sitting in the booth, working to clean away the mess. He hoped she did what they planned for her to do; hoped that it went well. After the meet it was always a matter of trust that things would go the way you hoped they would.

000. in ex aisle

Some jobs you do not retire from. Memory wipes weren’t reliable technology at that point in time – sure they worked well enough if you just wanted to muddle up some already addle-brained prisoner that you wanted to treat like a catch and release, but an agent? No, that wouldn’t work. An agent needed to be dealt with definitively.

Partridge had been a go-between for the two departments, and he knew the prisoner. He knew things that no one below Oversight should have had a clue about. How they had let something like this happen was going to be the subject of several inter-departmental reamings.

Bryson had been given the task of running the inconvenient bastard to ground, but it was like chasing smoke. Bryson had a good track record of nailing down ghosts, and he had no fear that he was going to fail this time.

Partridge had been told that when you go rogue it is like a marriage – that you have entered a putative relationship with death … doesn’t matter how long it takes, it will be consummated, and there is no divorcing. You spend all that time in the aisle, never really leaving the church, walking in slow motion away from the vow. When time decides your end is nigh it all kicks up a notch and, before you know it, there you are being fucked nine ways to Sunday … pregnant with death before you know it.

He liked to play up to their cliched sense of how these things were done, so he teased them, gave them little love taps. One day though he knew the cat would tire of playing with the mouse and they would just kill it dead – it had never been otherwise; that he had persisted so long was a constant source of surprise to him.

The world was changing – it had changed so much already. He was going to have to work harder at disappearing and getting them to lose interest in him.