Free The Apocalypse Codex by Charles Stross Page B

agencies are fanatical about locking down the hardware, banning phones and USB sticks and iPods from the premises. The Laundry takes a different approach, and focuses on securing the people, not the property—although sometimes this leads to, shall we say, misunderstandings in our dealings with other agencies.
    “Paperclips, other assets.” Lockhart waves dismissively. “People on external assignment, for example. We provide support for senior executives on request. And it goes both ways. We also keep track of external contractors.”
    “External what ?” I stumble into disbelieving silence. External contractors? I’ve never heard of such a thing. Not here, not in an agency that promiscuously hires anyone and everyone who stumbles across the truth—makes them a job offer they can’t refuse, inducts them under the authority of an appallingly strong geas, and keeps them busy chasing paper until it’s time to retire. “But we don’t employ external contractors! Do we?”
    “No, we don’t. Not as such.” His expression is so arch you could hang a suspension bridge from it. “Tell me, Mr. Howard, have you eaten recently?”
    “No—”
    “Then you’ll have no objection to accompanying me to lunch at a restaurant, will you? The organization’s paying.”
    I boggle. “Isn’t that against accounting regs or something?”
    “Not when I’m briefing a pair of contractors, Mr. Howard. Your job is to sit tight, ears wide, and listen . When we get back here afterwards there will be an exam. If you pass, then I shall explain what I want you to do for the next couple of weeks.”
    “And if I don’t pass?”
    “Then you go back to Dr. Angleton with a recommendation for some more training courses. And I shall have to do the job myself.” His cheek twitches at the prospect. I am beginning to get a handle on the code. That is an unhappy twitch: the caterpillar has indigestion. “However, that would not be an ideal outcome, because the job in question appears to be well-matched to your strengths.”
    Damn him, he’s clearly been taking lessons from Angleton on best practice for baiting the Bob-hook. “Okay, I’ll bite. Lunch with a contractor, then an exam. Where do I start?”
    “Right here.” And Lockhart folds back his black cloth, picks up a slim dossier headlined BASHFUL INCENDIARY, and watches vigilantly while I read it.
    AFTER AN HOUR’S READING, MY HEAD IS SPINNING. MIDWAY through the dossier, Lockhart—evidently satisfied by my absorption—tiptoes out of the office for a quick fag or something. I hear the door lock click behind him. Luckily I don’t need a toilet break. The file is quite slim, but the contents—or rather, their implications—are explosive.
    Here’s the rub. The Laundry runs on three inviolate rules:
    1) We make a point of recruiting—conscripting, really—everyone who learns the truth. That’s how I ended up here. We have a place for everyone (and make sure everyone knows their place).
    2) It is a corollary of the preceding rule that we never employ external contractors. There are no independents.
    3) Finally, and most importantly, the security services—of which we are one—do not snoop on Number Ten.
    But all of these rules come with a sanity clause.
    Take the first rule. It’s how everyone I know (Angleton excepted) came to work for the Laundry. We stumbled across something ghastly that we couldn’t handle, and before it could apply the Tabasco sauce and find us crunchy but good with fries the Laundry came and rescued us, then made us a job offer we weren’t allowed to refuse.
    In my case, I nearly landscaped Wolverhampton with an unfortunate experimental rendering algorithm. (For my sins, they stuck me in IT Support for three years; on the flip side, I didn’t die.)
    The B-team players we hire so we can keep an eye on them and protect them from the consequences of their own actions. The A-team players end up doing the protecting—both for the second-raters and for the