"You need to know three things about this machine. One: if someone points one at you, do whatever they tell you, it is not a fashion accessory. Two: if you see one lying around, don't pick it up, unless you know how to carry it safely. You might blow your feet off by accident. Three: if you need one, dial the Laundry switchboard and ask for 1-800-SAS-our lads will be happy to oblige, and they train with these things every day of the week."
Harry isn't joking. I nod, and jot down some notes, and he sticks the submachine gun back in the rack.
"Now this-tell me about this."
I look at the thing and rattle off automatically: "Class three Hand of Glory, five charge disposable, mirrored base for coherent emission instead of generalised invisibility… doesn't seem to be armed, maximum range line-of-sight, activation by designated power word-" I glance sidelong at him. "Are you cleared to use these things?"
He puts the Hand of Glory down and picks up the M11/9 carefully. He flicks a switch on its side, looks round to make sure he's clear, points it downrange, and squeezes the trigger. There's a shatteringly loud crackle of gunfire followed by a tinkle of brass on concrete around our feet. "Your call!" he shouts.
I pick up the hand. It feels cold and waxy, but the activation code is scribed on the sawn-off radius in silver. I step up beside him, point it downrange, focus, and concentrate on the trigger string, knowing that it sometimes takes a few seconds-
"Very good," Harry says drily. "You realise it cost an execution in Shanxi province to make that thing?"
I put it down, feeling queasy. "I only used one finger. Anyway, I thought our suppliers used orangoutangs. What happened?"
He shrugs. "Blame the animal rights protesters."
I'm not back on duty-I'm suspended on full pay. But according to Boris the Mole there's a loophole in our official procedures which means that I'm still eligible for training courses that I was signed up for before being suspended, and it turns out that Andy signed me up for a full package of six weeks of prefield training: some of it down at the village that used to be called Dunwich, and some at our own invisible college in Manchester.
The full package is a course in law and ethics (including International Relations 101: "Do whatever the nice man with the diplomatic passport tells you to do unless you want to start World War Three by accident."), the correct use of petty cash receipts, basic tailing and surveillance, timesheets, how to tell when you're being T amp;S'd, travel authorisation requests, locks and security systems, reconciliation and write-offs, police relations ("Your warrant card will get you out of most sticky situations, if they give you time to show it."), computer security (roll around the floor, laughing), software purchase orders, basic thaumaturgic security (ditto), and use of weapons (starting with the ironclad rule: "Don't, unless you have to and you've been trained."). And so I find myself down on the range with Harry the Horse, a middle-aged guy with an eye patch and thinning white hair who thinks nothing of blowing things away with a submachine gun but seems somewhat startled at my expertise with a HOG-3.
"Right." Harry ejects the magazine from his gun and places it carefully on the bench. "I think we'll keep you off the firearms list then, and pencil you in for training to COWEU-2-certification of weaponry expertise, unconventional, level two. Permission to carry unconventional devices and use them in self-defence when authorised on assignment to hazardous duty. I take it that bullseye wasn't an accident?"
I pick up the hand and remember to disarm it this time. "Nope. You realise you don't need an anthropoid for this? Ever wondered why there are so many one-legged pigeons in central London?"
Harry shakes his head. "You young 'uns. Back when I was getting going we used to think the future would be all lasers and food pills and rockets to Mars."
"It's not that different," I remonstrate. "Look, it's a science. You try using a limb from someone who died of motor neurone disease or MS and you'll find out in a hurry! What we're doing is setting up a microgrid that funnels in an information gate from another contiguous continuum. Information gates are, like, easy; with a bit more energy we can crank it open and bring mass through, but that's more hazardous so we don't do it very often. The demonic presences-okay, the extraterrestrial sapient fast-thinkers on the other side-try to grab control over the proprioceptive nerves they can sense the layout of on the other side of the grid. The nerves are dead, like the rest of the hand, but they still act as a useful channel. So the result is an information pulse, raw information down around the Planck level, that shows up to us as a phase-conjugated beam of coherent light-"
I point the hand at the downrange target. Two smoking feet.
"What will you do if you ever have to point that thing at another human being?" Harry asks quietly.
I put it back on the rack hastily. "I really hope I'm never put in that position," I say.
"That's not good enough. Say they were holding your wife or kids hostage-"
"The enquiry hasn't been held yet," I reply. "So I don't know if I've still got a job. But I hope I never get put in that kind of position again."
I try to keep my hands from shaking as I padlock the case and reactivate the ward field. Harry looks at me thoughtfully and nods.
"COMMITTEE OF ENQUIRY WILL COME TO ORDER."
I shuffle the papers in front of me, for no very good reason other than to conceal my nervousness.
It's a small conference room, walled in thick oak panels and carpeted in royal blue. I've just been called in: they're grilling people in order of who was there and who was responsible, and after Vohlman I'm number two. (He was running the course and conducted the summoning; I merely terminated it.) I don't recognise the suits sitting behind the table, but they look senior, in that indefinable way that somehow says, "I've got my KCMG; how long until you get yours?" The third is a senior mage from the Auditors, which would be enough to make my blood run cold if I were guilty of anything worse than stealing paper clips.
They ask me to stand on the centre of the crest of arms in the carpet: sewn with gold thread, some kind of Latin motto, very nice. I feel the hairs on my arms prickle with static and I know it's live.
"Please state your name and job title." There's a recorder on the desk and its light is glowing red.
"Bob Howard. Darkside hacker, er, Technical Computing Officer grade 2."
"Where were you on Thursday the nineteenth of last month?"
"Er, I was attending a training course: Introduction to Applied Occult Computing 104, conducted by Dr. Vohlman."
The balding man in the middle makes a doodle on his pad then fixes me with a cold stare. "Your opinion of the course?"
"My-er?" I freeze for a moment; this isn't in the script. "I was bored silly-um, the course was fine, but it was a bit basic. I was only there because Harriet was pissed off at me for coming in late after putting in a twenty-hour shift. Dr. Vohlman did a good job, but really it was insanely basic and I didn't learn anything new and wasn't paying much attention-" Why am I saying this?
The man in the middle looks at me again. It's like being under a microscope; I feel the back of my neck burst out in a cold, prickly sweat. "When you weren't paying attention, what were you doing?" he demands.
"Daydreaming, mostly." What's going on? I can't seem to stop myself answering everything they ask, however embarrassing. "I can't sleep in lecture theatres and you can't read a book when there are only eight students. I kept an ear open in case he said something interesting but mostly-"