The Jennifer Morgue Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1. - RANDOM RAMONA

  Chapter 2. - GOING DOWN TO DUNWICH

  Chapter 3. - TANGLED UP IN GRUE

  Chapter 4. - YOU’RE IN THE JET SET NOW

  Chapter 5. - HIGH SOCIETY

  Chapter 6. - CHARLIE VICTOR

  Chapter 7. - NIGHTMARE BEACH

  Chapter 8. - WHITE HAT/BLACK HAT

  Chapter 9. - SKIN DIVING

  Chapter 10. - DEAD LUCKY

  Chapter 11. - DESTINY ENTANGLED

  Chapter 12. - POWER BREAKFAST

  Chapter 13. - FIDDLER HITS THE ROOF

  Chapter 14. - JENNIFER MORGUE

  Chapter 15. - SCUTTLE TO COVER

  Chapter 16. - REFLEX DECISION

  Epilogue - THREE’S COMPANY

  PIMPF

  Afterword - THE GOLDEN AGE OF SPYING

  GLOSSARY OF ABBREVIATIONS, ACRONYMS, AND ORGANIZATIONS

  “Stross packs this new novel full of hilarious in-jokes and frenetic set pieces, from underwater fight scenes that top anything in Ian Fleming’s Thunderball to a villain who makes Ernst Stavro Blofeld, Thunderball’s villain, look like the voice of sanity.”

  —San Francisco Chronicle

  “[Stross has] raised the stakes, taking his story well beyond any kind of ‘gag,’ both incorporating and transcending his material, in one of the most enjoyable novels I expect to read for a while.”

  —Jonathan Strahan, editor of the annual Best Short Novels anthology series

  “Charles Stross is a versatile writer . . . He is at his best when indulging [Lovecraftian horror laced with Cold War and contemporary high-tech espionage], where Arkham meets MI6. The resulting combination of chilling Cthulhoid monstrosities, Kafka-inspired spy-agency bureaucracy, and flippant hacker humor is irresistible, Lovecraft’s Mythos filtered through rambunctious gonzo language and plotting that is edge-of-the-seat and slapstick-intensive all at once. Expect to be entertained, extremely, brilliantly . . . [The Jennifer Morgue is] a pop-lit send-up of unique ingenuity and force . . . The revisionist climax is superbly choreographed, parody blurring into seriousness at just the right moments, and the customary Bondian closing segment, a last gasp by the villains, achieves surprising psychological depth. The Jennifer Morgue is Stross’s most entertaining novel to date and a metafiction of distinction ... astonishing.” —Locus

  “The Jennifer Morgue continues Stross’s delightful style from the first book, blending elements of Neal Stephenson’s references to hacker culture, Lovecraftian eldritch horrors, and Tom Clancy’s spy thrillers . . . The plot of the book is genuinely intriguing—I read the book straight through in one sitting . . . There is fast-paced spy action with a generous measure of humor (much of it sidesplittingly hilarious) . . . The plot has some interesting twists and turns, and the book never takes itself too seriously . . . It’s a treasure trove of humorous quotes . . . [The Jennifer Morgue] may be the most fun book you’ve read in a long time—it certainly was for me.” —MIT Science Fiction Society

  “Since Archives was great fun, I was happy to see The Jennifer Morgue.” —Analog

  “Alternately chilling and hilarious . . . Stross has a marvelous time making eldritch horror appear commonplace in the face of bureaucracy.” —Publishers Weekly

  “[A] gripping saga . . . perfect for avid fans of the genre.”

  —Midwest Book Review

  “Stross has created a story [that] uses the meta-Bond plot as a commentary on both its absurdity and its power. By doing so right out in the open, he’s masterfully concealing his actual moves. The Jennifer Morgue is a high watermark in whatever genre you want to assign it, and a lot of fun besides.” —SFRevu

  “The Jennifer Morgue quite deliberately, and elaborately, draws upon the resonance of the James Bond mythos, infusing it with a Lovecraftian paranoia and a metatextual brilliance . . . a fascinatingly strange, rip-roaring adventure . . . [It] is definitely a different offering from the norm. It’s perfect for those who are always looking for cutting-edge fiction and boundary-stretching ideas. I thoroughly enjoyed it, even when I wasn’t entirely sure what was going on beneath the surface. Give it a shot if you’re in the mood for something challenging.” —The Green Man Review

  “This is Stross’s take on the James Bond mythos, a wryly updated undermining of everything Ian Fleming held dear—and it’s great fun!—a Fleming-Lovecraft mash-up, blending the two incompatible universes into one contradictory whole! Superspy versus supernatural horrors . . . The Jennifer Morgue is a rip-roaringly entertaining homage, a highly intelligent high adventure bursting with geek humor and a love for the spy genre.” —SF Site

  “The Jennifer Morgue is a work of metafiction, a playful, knowing, and openly self-confessed deconstruction of James Bond novel and movie plots, mocking them and reveling in them at the same time . . . Bob’s innate cynicism comes through in the first-person narration, which deflects the outright silliness of the ideas into the realm of tragic comedy and farce, and avoids the snake pit of superficial spoof . . . It’s a fun book. And it’s funny, too.” —Vector

  “A delirious collision of the archetypal hero adventure, our modern obsession with flashy technology, and our perpetual fear of the unspeakable unknown. Stross wraps his reverent irreverence with a not-entirely-tongue-in-cheek warning: Not all our monsters are inhuman soul suckers or tentacle-faced alien overlords; some are auditors.” —Strange Horizons

  “This is Charles Stross delivering totally enjoyable reading on all levels . . . The real delight in this book is to see Stross undertake a dead-on cybergeek-Lovecraftian version of a James Bond novel. Stross has a corporate-aged sense of humor, and his jokes are laugh-out-loud funny while his scares are shiver-your-spine scary. And don’t think that Stross has left out his vicious satirical jabs at the political shenanigans that governments keep getting up to . . . Stross delivers big-time. Monsters. Sarcasm. Computer in-jokes. Geek humor. Lovecraft—H. P. Lovecraft. This is to die for.”

  —The Agony Column

  PRAISE FOR

  THE ATROCITY ARCHIVES

  A San Francisco Chronicle Holiday Recommended Book

  A Kansas City Star Noteworthy Book of 2004

  One of Locus Online’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy

  Books of 2004

  One of Chronicle’s Best Science Fiction Books of the Year

  Includes the Hugo Award-winning “The Concrete Jungle”

  “TRULY WEIRD . . . WONDERFUL FUN.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “It’s science fiction’s most pleasant surprise of the year . . . Much of the action is completely nuts, but Stross manages to ground it in believability through his protagonist’s deadpan reactions to both insane office politics and supernatural mayhem.”

  —San Francisco Chronicle

  “A very breezy, fun, and imaginative novel . . . great fun . . . snappily written and clever throughout . . . recommended.”

  —SF Site

  “If this keeps up, ‘Strossian’ is going to become a sci-fi adjective . . . Charles Stross writes with intelligence and enjoys lifting the rock to show you what’s crawling underneath . . . The clever results will bring a smile to your face.”

  —The Kansas City Star

  “A bizarre yet effective yoking of the spy and horror genres . . . In The Atrocity Archives, Stross’s genius lies in devoting fully as much time to the bureaucratic shenanigans of the Laundry as he does to its thaumaturgic mission. What with all the persnickety time charts and useless meetings Howard has to deal with, it’s a wonder the world gets saved at all.”

  —Paul Di Filippo, The Washing
ton Post Book World

  “Stross shows his versatility with this one, a playful cross between espionage fiction in the manner of Len Deighton and supernatural horror in the vein of H. P. Lovecraft . . . Bob is a thoroughly entertaining protagonist, and his suspension between the highest of high-tech worlds and the almost anachronistic Lovecraftian pantheon makes for a heady blend of fictional treats.”

  —Asimov’s Science Fiction

  “With often hilarious results, the author mixes the occult and the mundane, the truly weird and the petty . . . The world he creates is wonderful fun.” —Publishers Weekly

  “One of the most compelling and intellectually engaging narrative sequences in the SF canon, the logics of demonology and physics in astounding tandem.” —Locus

  Ace titles by Charles Stross

  SINGULARITY SKY

  IRON SUNRISE

  ACCELERANDO

  THE ATROCITY ARCHIVES

  GLASSHOUSE

  HALTING STATE

  SATURN’S CHILDREN

  THE JENNIFER MORGUE

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada

  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)

  Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia

  (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)

  Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand

  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196,

  South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Copyright © 2006 by Charles Stross.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form

  without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in

  violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  ACE and the “A” design are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  eISBN : 978-1-440-66067-2

  1. Geeks (Computer enthusiasts)—Fiction. 2. Intelligence service—Fiction. 3. Demonology—

  Fiction. 4. Great Britain—Fiction. I. Title.

  PR6119.T79J46 2009

  823’.92—dc22

  2008041099

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  FOR ANDREW, LORNA, AND JAMES

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  No book gets written in a vacuum, and this one is no exception. I’d like to thank my editors, Marty Halpern at Golden Gryphon and Ginjer Buchanan at Ace, and my agent, Caitlin Blasdell, all of whom helped make this book possible. I’d also like to thank my hundreds of test readers—in no particular order: Simon Bradshaw, Dan Ritter, Nicholas Whyte, Elizabeth Bear, Brooks Moses, Mike Scott, Jack Foy, Luna Black, Harry Payne, Andreas Black, Marcus Rowland, Ken MacLeod, Peter Hollo, Andrew Wilson, Stefan Pearson, Gavin Inglis, Jack Deighton, John Scalzi, Anthony Quirke, Jane McKie, Hannu Rajaniemi, Andrew Ferguson, Martin Page, Robert Sneddon, and Steve Stirling. I’d also like to thank Hugh Hancock, who valiantly helped me MST3K my way through the Bond canon.

  Prologue

  JENNIFER

  August 25, 1975

  165° W, 30° N

  THE GUYS FROM THE “A” AND “B” CREWS HAVE been sitting on their collective ass for five weeks, out in the middle of nowhere. They’re not alone; there’s the ship’s crew, from the captain on down to the lowliest assistant cook, and the CIA spooks. But the other guys have at least got something to do. The ship’s crew has a vessel to run: an unholy huge behemoth, 66,000 tons of deep-ocean exploratory mining ship, 400 million bucks and seven years in the building. The CIA dudes are keeping a wary eye on the Russian trawler that’s stooging around on the horizon. And as for the Texan wildcat drilling guys, for the past couple of days they’ve been working ceaselessly on the stabilized platform, bolting one sixty-foot steel pipe after another onto the top of the drill string and lowering it into the depths of the Pacific Ocean. But the “A” and “B” teams have been sitting on their hands for weeks with nothing to do but oil and service the enormous mechanism floating in the moon pool at the heart of the ship, then twiddle their thumbs nervously for eighty hours as the drill lowers it into the crushing darkness.

  And now that Clementine is nearly on target, there’s a storm coming.

  “Fucking weather,” complains Milgram.

  “Language.” Duke is a tight-ass. “How bad can it get?”

  Milgram brandishes his paper, the latest chart to come out of the weather office on C deck where Stan and Gilmer hunch over their green-glowing radar displays and the telex from San Diego. “Force nine predicted within forty-eight hours, probability sixty percent and rising. We can’t take that, Duke. We go over force six, the impellers can’t keep us on station. We’ll lose the string.”

  The kid, Steve, crowds close. “Anyone told Spook City yet?” The guys from Langley hang out in a trailer on E deck with a locked vault-type door. Everyone calls it Spook City.

  “Nah.” Duke doesn’t sound too concerned. “Firstly, it hasn’t happened yet. Secondly, we’re only forty fathoms up from zero.” He snaps his fingers at the curious heads that have turned in his direction from their camera stations: “Look to it, guys! We’ve got a job to do!”

  Clementine—the vast, submersible grab at the end of the drill string—weighs around 3,000 tons and is nearly 200 feet long. It’s a huge steel derrick, thickly coated in gray paint to resist the corrosive effects of miles of seawater. At a distance it resembles a skeletal lobster, because of the five steel legs protruding from either flank. Or maybe it’s more like a giant mantrap, lowered into the icy stillness of Davy Jones’s locker to grab whatever it can from the seafloor.

  Duke runs the engineering office from his throne in the center of the room. One wall is covered in instruments; the other is a long stretch of windows overlooking the moon pool at the heart of the ship. A door at one side of the window wall provides access to a steel-mesh catwalk fifty feet above the pool.

  Here in the office the noise of the hydraulic stabilizers isn’t quite deafening; there’s a loud mechanical whine and a vibration they feel through the soles of their boots, but the skull-rattling throbbing is damped to a survivable level. The drilling tower above their heads lowers the endless string of pipes into the center of the pool at a steady six feet per minute, day in and day out. Steve tries not to look out the window at the pipes because the effect is hypnotic: they’ve been sliding smoothly into the depths for many hours now, lowering the grab towards the bottom of the ocean.

  The ship is much bigger than the grab that dangles beneath it on the end of three miles of steel pipe, but it’s at the grab’s mercy. Three miles of pipe makes for a prodigious pendulum, and as the grab sinks slowly through the deep-ocean currents, the ship has to maneuver frantically to stay on top of it in the six-foot swells. Exotic domes on top of the vessel’s bridge suck down transmissions from the Navy’s Transit positioning satellites,
feeding them to the automatic Station Keeping System that controls the ship’s bow and stern thrusters, and the cylindrical surge compensators that the derrick rests on. Like a swan, it looks peaceful on the surface but under the waterline there’s a hive of frantic activity. Everything—the entire 400-megabuck investment, ten years of Company black operations—depends on what happens in the next few hours. When they reach the bottom.

  Steve turns back to his TV screen. It’s another miracle of technology. The barge has cameras and floodlights, vacuum tubes designed to function in the abyssal depths. But his camera is flaking out, static hash marching up the screen in periodic waves: the pressure, tons per square inch, is damaging the waterproof cables that carry power and signal. “This is shit,” he complains. “We’re never going to spot it—if . . .”

  He trails off. Good-time Norm at the next desk is standing up, pointing at something on his screen. There’s a whoop from the other side of the room. He squints at his screen and between the lines of static he sees a rectilinear outline. “Holy—”

  The public address system crackles overhead: “Clementine crew. K-129 on screens two and five, range approximately fifty feet, bearing two-two-five. Standby, fine thruster control.”

  It’s official—they’ve found what they’re looking for.

  THE ATMOSPHERE IN SPOOK CITY IS TENSE BUT triumphant. “We’re there,” announces Cooper. He smirks at the hatchet-faced Brit in the crumpled suit, who is smoking an unfiltered Camel in clear violation of shipboard fire regulations. “We did it!”

  “We’ll see,” mutters the Brit. He stubs the cigarette out and shakes his head. “Getting there is only half the struggle.”