The Rhesus Chart

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Authors: Charles Stross
scare people,” I tell him.
    “Stuff like that piece of apocrypha you emailed me last month?” he asks.
    “Yes.” I unwind infinitesimally. “It’s our job to protect people from, from that sort of thing. And worse.” I instinctively glance towards my bookcase. There, sitting in front of a pile of CS textbooks, is a Bible. It’s the one the Golden Promise Ministries used, with added special sauce in the apocrypha. I make a judgment call and pass it to him. “I’m not sure how much I’m allowed to talk about what happened out there, but here’s the original source material.” Or rather, a copy we bargained with the Black Chamber—our American opposite numbers—for. Not that they had any reason to withhold it after we saved their ass.
    Pete holds the Bible uncertainly, as if he’s afraid its cover is coated in contact poison. “They told me their last expert on Aramaic studies and Biblical apocrypha died some years ago. And would I mind very much taking on that role on a part-time consultative basis, as and when.”
    “Yes.” I didn’t know about the
last expert
angle, but it sets my mind at rest somewhat. “How about we get a mug of coffee and I show you around?”
Whatever you’re cleared for, once I’ve established your access controls,
I add silently, for my own benefit.
    “Coffee would be great. But as for the tour . . . I’m not sure it’s necessary.” He looks slightly sheepish. “They told me they won’t be needing me here routinely; I’m supposed to look at your archives and learn the procedures for accessing files and, um, that’s all for now and they’ll call me if anything comes up.” He makes a dust-off gesture with his left hand.
    “That’s probably all for the best.” I stand and lead the way towards the coffee station. “It’s not as if you don’t already have a job, is it?”
    “A vocation, actually. But yes.”
    He ambles along behind me like an oversized penguin, glancing amiably from side to side, taking it all in: the heart of the secret state, all puke-green paint, chipped lino, and LOOSE LIPS SINK SHIPS posters left over from the last war but one. (Our decor is so cheesy it’s almost regained a hipster-ish modicum of cool.)
    “So is it true, then? That you single-handedly turned back an alien invasion of tentacle monsters who were being summoned by our dispensationalist brethren with the non-standard user manual?”
    I wince. “Is that what they told you? Because if—”
    “—Not in
quite
so many words—”
    “—so they exaggerated my—”
    “—but they were quite effusive about—”
    “—success what?”
    I grind to a halt, two doors past the gents, and take a deep breath.
    “I’m not James Bond, Pete. Just a bad occasional stunt-double. For the extras,” I add, before he gets the wrong end of the stick. “You know, the ones who get beaten up?” I cross my arms defensively, wrapping a hand around my upper right bicep, which has a curious rectangular dent in it. (Covered by a skin graft about ten centimeters long, a souvenir from some very unpleasant people I met a couple of years ago.) “It’s nothing like as romantic as movies or TV make it out to be. Or books, dammit.”
    “But you’re in the job of protecting us from . . .”
    “Yes, exactly.” I start walking again. Round the bend, then we come to the coffee station. “We tend to pool mugs here.” I grab a couple of chipped promotional beakers left over from a long-defunct minicomputer vendor and slop the evil-smelling brew into them.
Milk, one sugar,
I remember on Pete’s behalf. “Seriously, I didn’t want to trouble you with that stuff. But I was out of options and you were the only person I knew who stood a hope of delivering an interpretation in time. Looks like Upstairs agreed with me, unfortunately, which is why it’s entirely my fault you’re drinking London’s worst institutional coffee right now. I owe you a huge, groveling apology—”
    “No you

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