Iron Sunrise by Charles Stross Read Free Book Online Page B

surroundings. Sometimes she had nightmares about this sort of thing, nightmares that dragged her awake screaming in the middle of the night, worrying Martin badly. "Can you have someone pick me up in the concourse? Brief me on the way in. You know I haven't handled one of these in years? I'm on the reserve list."
    "Stop that now!" Madam Chairman was in the way, standing between Rachel and the doorway. She pouted like a fighting fish faced with a mirror, bloodred lips tight with anger and fists balled. "You can't just walk out of here!"
    "What are you going to do, slap me?" Rachel asked, sounding amused.
    "I'll bring charges! You arranged this distraction—"
    Rachel reached out, picked Madam Chairman up by her elbows, and deposited her on the conference table in a howl of outrage and a flurry of silk skirts. "Stick to minding your desk," Rachel said coldly, unable to resist the urge to rub it in. "The adults have got important work to be getting on with."
    Rachel just about had the shakes under control by the time she reached the main exit. Stupid, stupid! she chided herself. Blowing up at Madam Chairman could only make things worse, and with the job ahead she needed desperately to cultivate a calm head. A police transporter was waiting for her in the landscaped courtyard outside the UN office dome, squatting in the shadow of a giant statue of Otto von Bismarck. "Suspect an unemployed artist and recluse believed to be named Idi Amin Dadaist," the police dispatcher told her via her bonephone, simultaneously throwing a bunch of images at the inside of her left eyelid. "No previous record other than minor torts for public arts happenings with no purchase of public disturbance and meme pollution rights, and an outstanding lawsuit from the People's Republic of Midlothian over his claim to the title of Last King of Scotland. He's—"
    The next words were drowned out by the warble of alarm sirens. Someone in the headquarters bubble had been told what was going down a few blocks away. "I haven't even done a training update for one of these in three years!" Rachel shouted into the palm of her hand as she jogged toward the transporter. She climbed in, and it surged away, meters ahead of the human tide streaming out of the building toward the nearest bomb shelters. "Don't you have anyone who's current?"
    "You used to be full-time with SXB, that's why we've still got you flagged as a standby," said the dispatcher. A worried-looking cop glanced round from the pilot's seat, leaving the driving to the autopilot. "The regulars, like I said, they're all en route from Brasilia by suborbital. We're a peaceful city. This is the first bomb scare we've had in nearly twenty years. You're the only specialist—active or reserve—in town today."
    "Jesus! So it had to happen when everyone was away. What can you tell me about the scene?"
    "The perp's holed up in a refugee stack in Saint-Leger. Says he's got an improv gadget, and he's going to detonate it in an hour minus eight minutes unless we accede to his demands. We're not sure what kind it is, or what his demands are, but it doesn't really matter—even a pipe bomb loaded with cobalt sixty would make a huge mess of the neighborhood."
    "Right." Rachel shook her head. "'Scuse me, I've just come from a meeting with a bunch of time-wasters, and I'm trying to get my head together.
    You're saying it's going to be a hands-on job?"
    "He's holed up in a cheap apartment tree. He's indoors, well away from windows, vents, doors. Our floor penetrator says he's in the entertainment room with something dense enough to be a gadget. The stack is dusted, but we're having fun replaying the ubiquitous surveillance takes for the past month—seems he started jamming before anything else, and his RFID tag trace is much too clean. Someone has to go inside and talk him down or take him out, and you've got more experience of this than any of us. It says here you've done more than twenty of these jobs; that makes you our