Chapter 10: Chapter 10: The Many Angled Ones Sometimes Serve Crumpets

I found myself pacing in the virtualspace of the Heartseed even as my physical body was floating comfortably within the control tank. I needed the ability to actually move.

I'd done everything I could to help Ethan and Philippa. They'd had stack backups made the instant we arrived in the Laundry 'verse. I'd timed the event of my arrival here for one slightly after the Fuller Memorandum, so that their contact would be in the best place he could be psychologically for the contact to happen at all. There weren't a lot of very good options, but shortly after Bob's return from the psychiatric wards -- this made sense in context -- was the height of his approachability and stability in context.

I'd even scanned the open datanets to try to find poorly scrubbed instances of genuine information on Turing's Final Theorem -- there had to be some out there, I'd reasoned, as the Laundry themselves were constantly plagued with having to suppress people stumbling upon said information by accident -- and loaded them down with silver medallions etched and filled with platinum for each possible warding configuration I could find that was at worst hokum. Religious symbols of pretty much every faith, for all the good it would do them. And then I let them go about their business, landing the skycar -slash- shuttle from where the Heartseed was stashed away in a infrequently travelled ravine. It was a bit of a risk, taking her down so low, but the intelligence and scientific communities of this world were not the irresponsible sort when it came to keeping a weather eye peeled for Things From Beyond The Stars.

The skycar being more concealable, they made their way to a far closer to London dropoff point from which they would simply commute via bus to the nearest appropriate stop that would get them by Bob Howard's flat.

I went from a single circuit in my virtual command deck to opening every possible window I could, running every possible analytic I could on the audiovisual feeds my Host followers were providing me even as they made their way up to the small tenement's door. They knocked. There was genuinely no turning back, now.

It was just after shift, a decent April afternoon, and Agent HOWARD was still in his work attire. "Err… Hello? Do … do I know you sir, madam?"

Ethan gave a watery but winsome grin. "Oh no sir. You know my Philippa and I not at all. But we're going to be … well, not necessarily bosom friends, we lot, but certainly affably cordial if you understand, son. I won't ask for you to have us come in, 'tisn't done. But would you mind terribly if I have my Philippa and I a rest here while you scrounge about a cuppa? It's been an awful long trip, my boy."

The Junior Eater of Souls was flummoxed. This was entirely outside of his comfort zone and expectations. This was, however, a rather familiar thing for him to be. "I… yeah. I'll get right on that then, shall I?"

Ethan settled himself down onto the stairway as well. Philippa, next to him, turned enough to make eye contact and gave a gentle wave. "Such a nice young man, don't you think Mister Bunnell?"

"Oh indeed, indeed, Missus Bunnell. Indeed."

A decent number of minutes later, Agent Howard was arriving with two cups of brown joy, having surreptitiously slipped his work phone back into his pocket. "So ... err … Mister and Missus Bunnell, was it? I'm afraid I haven't any milk at the moment, but I could spot some sugar if you like?"

I couldn't tell if he was actually being a flummoxed office worker trying to be polite to an elderly couple, or if he was just that damned good on his game. From what I remembered, it was honestly likely that he couldn't tell either. I whispered from the virtualspace. "Ethan, Philippa. You have a go."

Ethan looked askance for a moment, before smiling at some fond memory or another. "Well, Mister Howard, it's like this. We have, Missus Bunnell and I, a rather respectul friend in common. And he has decided that you and your Invisible College affiliates -- oh, you call them Mahogany Row -- and he could engage in some mutually beneficial exchanges meant towards improving each other's long-term actuarial remaining life expectency table entries, if you understand my meaning."

Philippa shakes her head ruefully. "So formal, Mister Bunnell. Son, My Ethan here means to say that we have a way out of this spot of trouble coming to this green world of ours. We're willing to share if you provide, oh let's say, certain protective and software instructions?"

The Government IT Manager with a license to kill stares hard at the couple. "Who the hell are you and how did you fool my equipment?"

Ethan and Philippa's smiles never waver for a second. "Oh we're exactly what we seem, son. And we didn't fool it at all. We'll just wait here on your step whilst you gather together someone to round us up then, shall we?"

Bob went back to that flummoxed confusion again. "Err… yeah. You do that. Won't be but a moment."

I whispered into Ethan and Philippa's ears from within the digital sphere. "We have OFCUT. It wasn't designed with subsapient AIs of our caliber in mind. We have cracked the DRM. The deodexed files have comments with references to additional items we can scour the 'net for. If you get nothing further, you've already made this trip worth the effort. Words cannot express my respect for your actions. Godspeed."

Ethan looked at Philippa. "It's a lovely day, don't you think, Missus Bunnell."

Philippa leaned into her husband's shoulder. "Oh my yes. God is smiling down on us all for sure."

A few hours later, the pair were in a holding cell. Well, I called it a holding cell, but to the rest of the world it would appear like nothing so complicated as a somewhat-dilapidated, underequipped, and somewhat cramped office meeting room as found in office buildings across the planet. The offwhite beige and soft browns and greys guaranteed to produce mild mannered behaviors and a scientifically calculated minimum of disruptive emotional outbursts by those condemned to the cubicle-laden sea that surrounded it.

There was a red light over the door that all within the particular building knew that the current occupants of said cell -- err, meeting room -- were to be interfered with or bothered under absolutely no circumstances except by, say, a certain particular Detached Special Secretary.

Or, as James Angleton was more colorfully known as within the vicinity, a certain particular Deeply Scary Sorceror. One of the many reasons why any fool knew Angleton to be as tremblingly terrifying as he was, was the simple fact that the ancient man's manners were utterly infallible. Though he had long since mastered beyond all hesitation the fine British art of making tea, he had far fewer opportunities to serve it. Let alone along with crumpets. This should inform any observer who was familiar with these facts as to the precise hazards found in the bemusement currently present within Mister Angleton's expression.

Ethan, however, clearly seemed more interested in the crumpets. "Oh good man! We've been stashed away in here for hours now, my Philippa and me. I was starting to worry about her blood sugar, you know."

Philippa elbowed her husband. "Oh don't mind him. He's more worried about the possibility of his waistline receding. Pass us one of those would you love?"

Ethan reached across the table towards the box containing proper crumpets within to go along with the tea set that had been placed on the well-worn office table at the same time.

The Eater of Souls -- original flavor -- laughed. It was the sound of the hope of a hundred schoolboys chances of avoiding detention dying. "How very droll. I gather that you are the very same Mister Ethan Bunnell and Missus Philippa Bunnell who made themselves a nuisance to the young Mister Howard just this afternoon?"

Philippa took a small but hardly dainty bite out of her confection. "Well, yes. Are we to understand you have a response to our offer?"

Angleton slid over two pieces of paper, while with his left hand flipped open a wallet to display a Warrant card.. "Of course. Ethan and Philippa Bunnell, by the power invested in me, I do hereby bind and compel you to serve. You will speak only truth. You will answer in good faith any question put to you. Do you understand me?"

The elderly couple's eyes went blank for a moment. They then snapped to, as though having both dozed off and startled awake at the same moment. "Well of course we understand, my Philippa and me. We're old, not daft!"

Angleton's weathered eyebrow rose along his leathery skin. "Fascinating. And how old are you, exactly?"

Ethan frowned. "You know, I'm not rightly sure. I've lived whole lifetimes, me. Hard to keep track of it all. But if you want to be perhaps more philosophical, or at least remonstrative, I were born when I awoke this morning."

The eyebrow rose an infinitesimal fraction higher. "No resistance, no dishonesty, and yet a completely unhelpful answer. The wards you're wearing are utterly useless, yet exquisitely crafted. You two are quite the conundrum. If this were the old days we'd simply kill you. If this were the recent days, we'd Section 3 you. But … no. You're…" Angleton's eyes widened suddenly. "What are you?"

Ethan smiled that winsome smile of his. "Oh that's simple enough. We're Hosts, my Philippa and me."

The ancient sorceror in the room very carefully did not adjust his posture. "Hosts… to what, exactly?"

Philippa answered quite earnestly. "Well. That's a good question! Nowadays, we're Hosts to only ourselves. But before his Worship freed us we were subject to all manner of sorrow and lament. But now we're free to revere Him and find our own way. That's us."

Ethan nodded in vigorous agreement. Elsewhere, in a place that didn't exist, I facepalmed. Fucking geases, man. This was going straight to hell in a handbasket.

The Eater of Souls did not glare at the couple, so much as display something between disgusted contempt and pity. Perhaps for him they were the same thing. "And does 'He' have a name?"

Philippa just shook her head sadly. "Well naturally. But the Mister and me, we don't know it. Well not his real name anyway. But you can calls him Mister Andes. It's as close as we're like to see of his name."

That actually seemed to surprise the sorceror. "Mister… Andes…? Surprisingly unhelpful. You called him 'his Worship'. How does one go about worshipping such a … person?"

Ethan glared at the DSS. "Any which way will do so long as it's honest. But I should warn you it would just upset him if someone like you went and did so. He's a jealous sort, His Worship, of being seen as just a man. He accepts it from us Hosts, but it shouldn't be encouraged further, you understand?"

Angleton pursed his lips in thought. "Circles within circles. How does one become a Host, then?"

Ethan and Philippa looked at one another in silent confusion. Ethan, with a sidelong glance, finally responded. "Well… I suppose you're just made that way."

Angleton pressed on. "And how is one made into a Host?"

The couple again were caught in thought, before the geas again drew the answer from Ethan's lips. "Err. Well, you're just made, is all. Philippa and me, we don't actually know how it's done."

A sigh passed Angleton's lips. "I'm missing something. You two definitely aren't resisting. There is a flaw in my assumptions… hmm. Ethan. Were you ever human at all?"

Ethan blinked. "Well. I'm a Host, aren't I? His Worship would say that makes me as human as anyone else, in the important ways anyhow. I having never been naught but a Host, I couldn't say. But I imagine if there's anyone who knows, it would be Him."

The sorceror pressed further, his eyes starting to take on a squirming green glow -- though that might have been a trick of the light. "You were always a Host, then? So how might one go about becoming a Host if that was what they wanted?"

Ethan only got more confused. "Become… but … huh. Well, the Thinktanks are working on that, I imagine. I mean, there are some advantages to being a Host, though His Worship has rather balanced out most of those. But for now, the only way to become a Host is to be manufactured in the first place."

The lights of the office grew dimmer, and the air colder. Or maybe it was just the HVAC vents turning on again. "Manufactured? But you are ensouled living bein… oh. Oh I see. How droll. You are rather new. So what, something much bigger and more dangerous than you found your home, you had a way to evacuate somewhere, and now you're looking to trade that method of evacuation for our means of protection?"

Philippa at this point was drooling. Ethan wasn't much better. He was, however, able to respond under the full weight of the Detached Special Secretary's "schoolmaster gaze of doom". "I… well, the details are a tad off, but that's the tall and short of it, yes."

Angleton harrumphed. "Show me this method, then. Describe it to me."

Ethan instead picked up a pen and began writing on backs of the pieces of paper that had been presented to the pair -- contracts that they had been meant to sign. In painstakingly precise shaded detail he began writing down the mathematical formula and components necessary for the operation of the New Virginian Gates. An hour or so passed in relative silence, excepting an instance of Angleton briefly exiting and returning to the room with a full ream of paper and better writing implements.

Ethan looked up into the eyes that moved in directions that didn't exist. "That's all I can recall, sir. I'm afraid I don't quite understand it all myself -- that wasn't my job. Mine nor my poor Philippa here's."

Angleton looked down at the reams of paper before him, flipping through them. "Well. This is … unanticipated. No innate method of targeting, however. But -- a purely mechanical solution? And the gateway itself is demonstrated safe for bulk transit over decades. Well then. Yes. Yes your Worshipped One has definitely gotten my attention. I shall return shortly. I'll send someone along in a moment to bring you a fresh pot." The sorceror smelled the air. "And perhaps a change of clothes." Hoarfrost was melting off of the whiteboard in the back wall of the meeting room when the Eater of Souls let the door close behind him.

Philippa and Ethan looked to one another. "Well, Ethan, my love, you know this means we'll like as never see any 'verse but this one again. Even if they let us go -- the Teapot 'isself would have a means of tracking us down, without question."

Ethan nodded. "Aye, m'love. But we only need to make copies of any goods they provide us for His Worship, now don't we? And those they won't be able to trace."

In my virtualspace bridge, I couldn't help but smile softly. I hadn't condemned the two Hosts to being vivisected. I'd take what I could get. That smile grew somewhat wider when, an hour later, my winsome couple were presented with copies of texts describing the best practices of effective Warding as known to common Laundry personnel, along with instructional manuals titled "Dho-Na Curve Integration in Java For Dummies" and "Dho-Na Curve Integration in Python For Dummies" (not even kidding, that was their actual titles), as well as a "Do's and Don'ts of safe extradimensional summonings" pamphlet -- that helpfully didn't include how to actually perform summonings. But that wasn't something I was actually after in the first place. It wasn't everything the Laundry -- let alone the Invisible College -- had to offer. But it was, in addition to the existing samples of OFCUT itself, enough to get the ball rolling as it were. Or at least provide some measure of safety.

I decided to leave the Bunnells the skycar, as a parting gift of gratitude. Between it and the two hundred thousand Euros in cash in the glovebox (certified clean of zombie blood), they should be able to make a decent living for themselves until the wheels came off of the 'verse at least. Maybe they'd even make it out when the Invisible College decided to abandon their own Universe when the time came. I could only hope.

I was too emotionally exhausted to do more after that to even attempt to begin to instruct the Host Synod on what to do with our newfound gains, except to declare everything from the Laundry 'verse to be "Maximum Safety and Containment Procedures Required, Hardcopy Only". The infomorphic equivalent of toxic waste handling procedures.

I practically trundled my way to the cryopod set for another three month interval before looking at Smiley and saying, "You know, the hell of it is -- this was the best possible outcome. Wake me if you need me."

The last thing I heard before falling asleep was the mild-mannered british tones of Smiley's responding, "Consider it done, sir."