SUE: Grand Theft Automatic

It's a grade four, dammit. Maybe it should have been a three, but the dispatcher bumped it way down the greasy pole because it was phoned in as a one and the MOP who'd reported the offence had sounded either demented, or on drugs, or something—but definitely not one hundred per cent in touch with reality. So they'd dropped it from a three ("officers will be on scene of crime as soon as possible") to a four ("someone will drop by to take a statement within four hours if we've got nothing better to do"), with a cryptic annotation ("MOP raving about Orcs and dragons. Off his meds? But MOP 2 agreed. Both off their meds?").

But then some bright spark in the control room looked at the SOC location in CopSpace and twigged that they'd been phoning from a former nuclear bunker in Corstorphine that was flagged as a Place of Interest by someone or other in national security.

Which jangled Inspector McGregor's bell and completely ruined your slow Thursday afternoon.

You're four hours into your shift, decompressing from two weeks of working nights supervising clean-up after drunken fights on Lothian Road and domestics in Craiglockhart. Daylight work on the other side of the capital city comes as a big relief, bringing with it business of a different, and mostly less violent, sort. This morning you dealt with: two shoplifting call-outs, getting your team to chase up a bunch of littering offences, a couple of community liaison visits, and you're due down the station in two hours to record your testimony for the plead-by-email hearing on a serial B&E case you've been working on. You're also baby-sitting Bob—probationary constable Robert Lockhart—who is ever so slightly fresh out of police college and about as probationary as a very probationary thing indeed. So it's not like you're not busy or anything, but at least it's low-stress stuff for the most part.

When Mac IMs you, you've just spent half an hour catching up on your paperwork in the Starbucks on Corstorphine High Street, with the aid of a tall latte and a furtive ring Danish. Mary's been nagging you about your heart ever since that stupid DNA check you both took last year ("so the wee wun kens his maws ur both gawn tae be aboot fer a whiule"), and the way she goes on, you'd think refined sugar was laced with prussic acid. But you can't afford to be twitchy from low blood sugar if you get a call, and besides, the bloody things taste so much better when they're not allowed. So you're stuffing your cheeks like a demented hamster and scribbling in the air with the tip of a sticky finger when a window pops open in front of the espresso machine.

SUE. MAC HERE.

He's using an evidence-logged CopSpace channel, which means it's business. Blow me, you think, as you save the incident form you're halfway through filling in and swap windows.

SUE HERE. GO AHEAD.

With a sinking feeling, you look at your half-finished latte, then glance sideways at Bob. Bob raises an eyebrow at you.

GOT A 4 4U. SMELLS FUNNY. CHECK SOONEST.

You swallow convulsively and take a swig of too-hot coffee, burning the roof of your mouth. It stings like crazy, and you just know the skin's going to be peeling by evening when you rub it with your tongue.

MAIL ME THE TROUBLE TICKET.

There's a musical ding from over by the doorway, and a mail icon appears on your desktop.

ON DUTY, you send, giving the latte a final wistful look. "Bob? We've got a call."

"Eh, boss…?" Bob lifts his cup and hides whatever he's been working on—probably Solitaire.

"Bring it along, it's nae the blues."

You file the email as you leave the coffee shop. Bob trails after you. The destination shows up, as a twirling diamond just visible over the buildings on the far side of the road as you get in the car.

It's a short drive from Corstorphine to the incident site, but it's up the steep slope of Drum Brae, hemmed in by shoe-box houses at the bottom of the hill and the whirring prayer wheels of the wind farm at the top. By the time you're heading downhill again, you're worrying that the map is confused: "Turn right in one hundred metres" it tells you, but all you can see is an urban biodiversity coppice. "What's the scene?" asks Bob.

"I dinna ken. The skipper says it's a weird one." You feel a flash of irritation—but your shift is a car short today, which makes it a stupid time for a prank—and right then you spot an open driveway leading into the trees, and your specs are flashing green. "Eh, look at that lot, will you?"

There are a bunch of cars parked at the end of the drive, and as the Forestry Commission doesn't hand out Bentleys and Maseratis, it's a fair bet that you're in the right place. But the building they're parked outside of is a raw contrast to the posh wheels: It's more like a 1950s public toilet than a corporate office, just four concrete walls propping up a flat slab of characterless roof that seems to scream Asbestos! with all the force its wheezing, mesothelioma-ridden lungs can muster. Maybe it's some kind of up-market cottaging club for the tech start-up crowd? You shake your head and climb out of the car, tapping your ear-piece to tell your phone to listen up: "Arriving on SOC, time-stamp now. Start evidence log." It's logging anyway—everything you see on duty goes into the black box—but the voice marker is searchable. It saves the event from getting lost in your lifelog. Bob trails along like an eager puppy. Eight weeks out of police college, so help you. At least he's house-broken.

The door to the premises is a retrofitted slab of glossy green plastic that slides open automatically as you approach, revealing a reception room that's very far from being a public toilet. So much for the cottage scene. The lighting is tasteful, the bleached pine impeccably renewable, and the vacant reception desk supports a screen the size of Texas that's showing a dizzying motion-picture tour of an online game space, overlaid by the words HAYEK ASSOCIATES PLC. It stands sentry before a raw, steel-fronted lift door with a fingerprint reader. Naturally. But at least now you know this isnae going to turn into another bleeding community relations call. You've had more than a bellyful of them, what with being one of the few overtly heterosexually challenged sergeants in C Division.

"Anyone here?" you call, bouncing on your heels with impatience.

Copyright © 2007 by Charles Stross.