Krill: When the Good Choices are Gone by Susan Hasler

Author:Susan Hasler [Hasler, Susan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bear Page Press
Published: 2021-08-19T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter nineteen

Hail Mary

A vanilla word, plan. Just the sort of word that you have to watch out for in the intelligence world. If you run across something called “Office of Plans,” it’s time to start asking probing questions. If the thing is called “Office of Advanced Plans,” then you need to get someone from MIT or Stanford to ask those questions for you.

Bostock had spent enough time in New Hope to know that. It was the office’s nickname, “Hail Mary,” that attracted him despite his misgivings. The desperation pass made when the game is all but lost. He had a son now, and he could no longer afford to resign himself to the end or let doubts stop him. If there were people looking for solutions, then he had to align himself with them.

If Hollywood had created its own version of a highly secret “Office of Advanced Plans,” it would have been a cavernous space lit by bluish lights from beneath a translucent floor. The place would be staffed by serious-looking, hyper-attractive people dressed in white. It would have sleek machinery with flashing lights, and arrays of screens and buttons. One button would be large and bright red. According to Chekovian law, that button would have to be pressed by the end of the movie. Then things would blow up in spectacular fashion.

Bostock had worked for the government long enough not to expect any such thing. He knew that secrecy on the working level meant that visitors were few and workspaces were utilitarian and not in the least showy. And they were dirty. Cleaning ladies didn’t linger long and didn’t dust for fear of seeing something they shouldn’t and losing their jobs. A cheese cloth run over any surface would pick up years’ worth of black grime. Secrecy meant that there were few visitors so people dressed rather shabbily. There would be ties hanging on hooks in case of the need to give an unscheduled briefing.

Even by Bostock’s realistic standards, the OAP was a dump. The office’s requests for more people had been granted, while its requests for more space were ignored. As a result, population density in the vault was approaching the human equivalent to a behavioral sink—the point at which rats quit reproducing and begin to display pathological behaviors. Microwave fish, and pretty soon the place would devolve to bestiality or perhaps cannibalism.

Most of the people weren’t visible when an OAP escort led Bostock through the vaulted space located in the basement of the Technical Intelligence Agency—another of the detached limbs of the former CIA. They were hidden away behind the partitions of tiny cubicles. The original concept of an open office environment had been vetoed by this introverted group. They collaborated electronically, even if they worked only inches from one another. Bostock could hear voices, coughing, chairs scraping, and other sounds of human habitation. By smell, he could tell that they had enjoyed a pizza lunch, coffee had scorched in the pot, and someone had taken off his shoes.

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