- Joined
- Jan 22, 2008
- Messages
- 8,072
After doing several favours for a dubious interplanetary agency, Richard Cleaver has been formally made a member. It's his induction week and he has already met Heather Biscuit and Gordon Barrow, two jaded but loyal agents. This is early on, but not the start of the story. The favour Cleaver agrees to do at the end kickstarts the main plot. The tone is slightly tongue-in-cheek, although not outright comedy.
At lunchtime, Heather Biscuit appeared at the end of Cleaver’s desk. “Come with me, tiny grasshopper.”
Ah, he thought, this sounds promising. “Where are we going?”
“Into the depths of Service HQ. You’re going to see the nerve centre, the place where all the important decisions get made: the canteen.”
They walked out of the main office and down a staircase. Around them, employees hurried about their lunchtime business, carrying wrapped sandwiches and lunchboxes. Cleaver raised his voice over the rumble of the stairwell.
“What’s the canteen like?”
“Like a sports hall in a nuclear bunker. Left at the bottom.”
They headed down a long white corridor that smelled of new carpet. There were doors on either side, with numbers above them. Cleaver knew that it was pointless to wonder what was inside, but he wondered anyway.
“How’re you fitting in with the others?” Biscuit asked.
It struck Cleaver as an odd question. “I can’t really tell. Am I fitting in?”
“I think so. The boss once told me that if you want to work for Five, you need precision. If you want to work for Six, you need charisma. And if you want to work for the Service, you need your head examined. It’s not true, of course. In reality, nobody wants to work for us, partly because they don’t know we exist.”
“Really?” said Cleaver. “How did you end up here, then?”
“Chloroform.” She didn’t break stride. “Bad luck and chloroform.”
Biscuit stopped walking, and Cleaver stopped beside her. They looked back down the corridor. It seemed to go on for half a mile. How big was this place?
“Important lesson,” Biscuit said. “Never follow anyone you don’t know down an empty corridor. I could strangle you here and nobody would find your body for a month.”
He swallowed. “Thanks.”
“Now then, let’s go to the canteen. I bet you’re hungry by now.”
Cleaver thought about his own throttled corpse, slowly decaying in a forgotten corridor deep in the bowels of the Service headquarters. “Famished,” he replied.
They left the stairwell, headed down the corridor and passed through a pair of doors into a concrete hall. Biscuit had been right: it looked and smelled like a brutalist tennis court. About thirty people sat at trestle tables down the length of the hall. Their conversations echoed, mingling into a jumble of indistinguishable noise.
Biscuit pointed to a row of vending machines. “Take your pick. They’re all equally awful.”
Cleaver purchased a bacon roll and a cup of tea. They sat down at the end of an empty table.
“So,” he said, “what can I talk about here?”
She looked puzzled. “How about the poor state of the vending machines? The horrible architecture is also a good conversation-starter.”
“I meant in terms of secrecy.”
“One table per conspiracy. Most people can lip-read. Otherwise, there are no cameras or anything like that here – none that you’d need to know about, anyway. I’d tell you to use your common sense, but if you had any you’d already have left to work for the private sector. Or gone into organised crime. Both are quite popular exit routes.”
“It seems that I’ve already done the crime bit.”
“To be honest, you’ll probably be back in the organised crime before long, just as soon as we’ve organised it for you.” She took out a thin sandwich and looked at it wearily.
Someone moved at Cleaver’s shoulder. With a rustle of brown overcoat, a man sat down beside him. It was Gordon Barrow. “Alright, everyone. Mind if I join you?”
“Sure,” Biscuit said, and Cleaver felt slightly disappointed. “I thought you were dealing with the old bastards?”
“They’ve gone to a pub for lunch. More accurately, a different pub. They only meet in pubs. Really bad pubs. The last one was all cream plastic on the inside. I felt like a fly trapped under a toilet seat. I feigned illness and, trust me, it didn’t take much feigning.”
“Lordy.” Biscuit glanced at Cleaver. “Gordon has been infiltrating right-wing organisations frequented by persons of a certain vintage. Which, I assume, is why he currently reeks of beer.”
“Deep cover,” Barrow said. “Look, Heather, I’m getting somewhere with these wrinkly old alien-haters. I just need a few more evenings. Helen should be coming back to the spaceport tonight, with a shipment of freight. Is there any chance you could get one of your crew to pick her up instead of me?”
“I’ll do it,” Cleaver said.
“He’ll do it,” Biscuit added.
Barrow seemed to weigh this up. “Alright. There’s a lorry you can use. It’s muffled for talking, in case you and Helen want to swap war stories.” He drummed his ugly hands on the table. “Right then, what’s chef’s special today?”
At lunchtime, Heather Biscuit appeared at the end of Cleaver’s desk. “Come with me, tiny grasshopper.”
Ah, he thought, this sounds promising. “Where are we going?”
“Into the depths of Service HQ. You’re going to see the nerve centre, the place where all the important decisions get made: the canteen.”
They walked out of the main office and down a staircase. Around them, employees hurried about their lunchtime business, carrying wrapped sandwiches and lunchboxes. Cleaver raised his voice over the rumble of the stairwell.
“What’s the canteen like?”
“Like a sports hall in a nuclear bunker. Left at the bottom.”
They headed down a long white corridor that smelled of new carpet. There were doors on either side, with numbers above them. Cleaver knew that it was pointless to wonder what was inside, but he wondered anyway.
“How’re you fitting in with the others?” Biscuit asked.
It struck Cleaver as an odd question. “I can’t really tell. Am I fitting in?”
“I think so. The boss once told me that if you want to work for Five, you need precision. If you want to work for Six, you need charisma. And if you want to work for the Service, you need your head examined. It’s not true, of course. In reality, nobody wants to work for us, partly because they don’t know we exist.”
“Really?” said Cleaver. “How did you end up here, then?”
“Chloroform.” She didn’t break stride. “Bad luck and chloroform.”
Biscuit stopped walking, and Cleaver stopped beside her. They looked back down the corridor. It seemed to go on for half a mile. How big was this place?
“Important lesson,” Biscuit said. “Never follow anyone you don’t know down an empty corridor. I could strangle you here and nobody would find your body for a month.”
He swallowed. “Thanks.”
“Now then, let’s go to the canteen. I bet you’re hungry by now.”
Cleaver thought about his own throttled corpse, slowly decaying in a forgotten corridor deep in the bowels of the Service headquarters. “Famished,” he replied.
They left the stairwell, headed down the corridor and passed through a pair of doors into a concrete hall. Biscuit had been right: it looked and smelled like a brutalist tennis court. About thirty people sat at trestle tables down the length of the hall. Their conversations echoed, mingling into a jumble of indistinguishable noise.
Biscuit pointed to a row of vending machines. “Take your pick. They’re all equally awful.”
Cleaver purchased a bacon roll and a cup of tea. They sat down at the end of an empty table.
“So,” he said, “what can I talk about here?”
She looked puzzled. “How about the poor state of the vending machines? The horrible architecture is also a good conversation-starter.”
“I meant in terms of secrecy.”
“One table per conspiracy. Most people can lip-read. Otherwise, there are no cameras or anything like that here – none that you’d need to know about, anyway. I’d tell you to use your common sense, but if you had any you’d already have left to work for the private sector. Or gone into organised crime. Both are quite popular exit routes.”
“It seems that I’ve already done the crime bit.”
“To be honest, you’ll probably be back in the organised crime before long, just as soon as we’ve organised it for you.” She took out a thin sandwich and looked at it wearily.
Someone moved at Cleaver’s shoulder. With a rustle of brown overcoat, a man sat down beside him. It was Gordon Barrow. “Alright, everyone. Mind if I join you?”
“Sure,” Biscuit said, and Cleaver felt slightly disappointed. “I thought you were dealing with the old bastards?”
“They’ve gone to a pub for lunch. More accurately, a different pub. They only meet in pubs. Really bad pubs. The last one was all cream plastic on the inside. I felt like a fly trapped under a toilet seat. I feigned illness and, trust me, it didn’t take much feigning.”
“Lordy.” Biscuit glanced at Cleaver. “Gordon has been infiltrating right-wing organisations frequented by persons of a certain vintage. Which, I assume, is why he currently reeks of beer.”
“Deep cover,” Barrow said. “Look, Heather, I’m getting somewhere with these wrinkly old alien-haters. I just need a few more evenings. Helen should be coming back to the spaceport tonight, with a shipment of freight. Is there any chance you could get one of your crew to pick her up instead of me?”
“I’ll do it,” Cleaver said.
“He’ll do it,” Biscuit added.
Barrow seemed to weigh this up. “Alright. There’s a lorry you can use. It’s muffled for talking, in case you and Helen want to swap war stories.” He drummed his ugly hands on the table. “Right then, what’s chef’s special today?”
