The Concrete Jungle | Page 2

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