The Annihilation Score by Charles Stross Read Free Book Online Page B

Havelock, General Sir Charles James Napier, and His Nobby Nob-ness, King George the Fourth. (Who was not even remotely as pompous as his statue suggests.) Over to the left at the back, there’s the infamously empty Fourth Plinth, subject of the Duty Officer’s scrutiny.
    And the instant I clap eyes on it, I realize that we have a problem. No, make that a
problem
.
    The Fourth Plinth is one of those British affectations which we love to parade around in public as a sign of our broad-minded tolerance and love of eccentricity. It’s actually just another classical stone plinth, originally intended to support an equestrian statue. It’s been empty for about a hundred and fifty years because nobody could agree who to put on it. Then around the turn of the millennium, the Royal Society of Arts said, “Oi, can we borrow the spare plinth? It’s an Art thing.” And since then it’s been occupied by an ever-changing succession of arts projects: sometimes a statue, sometimes an abstract sculpture, sometimes a random member of the public reciting poetry or narrating Shakespeare in semaphore.
    Today there appears to be a human pyramid on the plinth. Or maybe it’s a rugby scrum? Or a public orgy, or a sponsored die-in? I’m not sure, because I’m at the other side of the square and there are a lot of people between me and the plinth. But in any case, there’s what looks like a pile of naked human bodies up there. Here and there, a leg or arm flops limply over the side.
Hmm.
    I sit on one of the steps and open the violin case. Pigeons rattle and flap their way across the flagstones; I force myself not to let them distract me, even though they remind me too damn much of the seagulls swirling around the oil rig. At the far side of the square I spot a van with a satellite uplink dish on its roof and an open door, a journalist with cameraman in tow. They seem to be looking up at theplinth. I lift Lecter and his bow out, latch the case closed, and sling it across my shoulder. Standing, violin in hand, I scan for police. There’s always a car or two, or a van, drawn up around the edge. Today I spot three vans and four cars, one with the distinctive markings of an Armed Response vehicle. They’re all parked along the west side of the square. A handful of bobbies in stabbies are dispersed among the crowd, which is no thinner or thicker than I’d expect for a weekday in one of the nation’s most prominent tourist attractions. No sign of anything particularly unusual, though, except—
    â€œWhoa!” I’m so startled by what I see that I speak aloud. Nobody pays me any attention, though, because everyone else who sees it responds the same way.
    A woman floats into the air in front of the plinth. She’s a yummy-mummy type, modishly dressed, with a matchingly accessorized baby in a buggy the size of a Range Rover. She’s waving her arms and legs like an upside-down beetle, clinging on to the pushchair—which is also airborne—for grim death. I can just about hear her desperate screams for help above the traffic noise and the hum of the crowd as she levitates alongside the four-meter-tall slab of marble. The push-chair tilts sideways and sheds its load: a rain of baby bottles and nappies splatter to the ground. The woman screams again and loses her grip on the buggy. It drops for a moment, then swoops, and kisses the ground in a controlled landing. Its securely strapped-in passenger laughs and claps appreciatively. She, however, is not so lucky: whatever force holds her airborne raises her higher, then slides her over the pile of bodies on the plinth. Then invisible hands start to undress her in mid-air.
    I look around. Police are dotted around the plinth, but they seem reluctant to approach it. I look closer, and see they’re putting down cones and unrolling incident tape.
Shit.
    The woman is naked now. Suddenly she stops thrashing, as if paralyzed or