Free The Annihilation Score by Charles Stross

shows up in luminous green.
There’s an interview with the Mayor, from his hospital bed, breathlessly expressing his gratitude and admiration to “the redhead withthe violin” who took down Strip Jack Spratt, as the supervillain manqué apparently calls himself. (Alias Dougal Slaithwaite, age 52, unemployed, of no fixed abode: now facing charges of kidnapping, indecent assault, and threatening behavior.)
There are linked news items—human interest color, I gather—about other superhero outbreaks.
Who
ordered
that?
Apparently my media habit is sufficiently out of the mainstream that I’ve been missing out on the summer’s big story.
There are more than seventy messages waiting for me in my Facebook inbox. I delete them all. Another one appears almost immediately. (I log out.)
    I don’t bother checking the newspapers. Instead, I repack my suitcase, adding my second-best suit in place of the one I’m wearing. It may be some time before I can come home without running a gauntlet of journalists. The first of them may already be on their way, depending on how good they are at image manipulation and social engineering. As I said, Sis is in for a real surprise next time she checks in . . .
    But for me, it’s time to face the music.
    *   *   *
    I phone for a cab, and they pick me up at my front door. My skin’s crawling as I do the perp walk out to the curb, but there are no tabloid reporters or paparazzi waiting in the bushes yet: it’s a lucky escape that I can’t count on repeating. I feel nauseous as I contemplate what’s coming up next. An auto-da-fé if I’m lucky; utter shame otherwise.
    Of course the cabbie turns out to be the talkative kind. “Did you ’ear about the mess in Trafalgar Square?” he asks. “I’m going to ’ave to loop around to drop you on Pall Mall, that end’s all blocked off. One of those supervillains went off ’is trolley and kidnapped the Mayor! Then some girl with a magic guitar took ’im down, right in front of Nelson’s Column! The news is saying she works for a
secret government agency
,” he confides with a knowing look.
    â€œI’m sure she does.” I cross my arms and peer out of the window, feigning boredom. I’m certain he can hear my pulse pounding over the noise of the lorry we’re nose-to-tail with.
    â€œStands to reason, the government must have some kind of plan for dealing with them, right?” He sounds worried.
    â€œThem?”
    â€œYeah, the crazies with superpowers.”
    â€œCrazies with—” I catch his eye in the mirror, looking at me as if he’s wondering what planet I’m from.
    â€œYeah, crazies. Like the bloke wot tore up that community center in Tooting last week, with ’is bare ’ands. It’s anarchy, that’s wot it is, even with all these crime-fighters in pervert suits coming out of the woodwork.”
    â€œPervert suits?” I ask, caught by his phrasing.
    â€œYeah, it’s like there’s some kind of law or something: ordinary bloke acquires the power to turn his ’ead into a teapot, he has to start poncing around in Lycra and fishnets. Like something from the
Rocky Horror
, innit? You know what? That sort of thing turns my stomach. There ought to be a law against it.”
    â€œWhat, turning your head into a teapot?”
    â€œNo, the pervy suits. I mean, no offense, if a fit bird with superpowers wants to wear a skimpy dress and thigh-high boots I’ve got no problem, knowworramean? But some of these blokes, they’re a bit past their sell-by. There oughta be a law about it, right? They should make all the fat supervillains wear burkas. But they ain’t doing anything about
any
of it right now, looks like. It’s a crime! The police should do something.”
    And so on and on and on, for approximately twenty-five minutes. By the time we arrive at the