She spoke with such a clarity that G once again had to wonder how exactly she had ended up here. Her handler refused to elaborate, said that as long as she got the job done it didn't matter, and G was in the business by way of making sure he didn't step on the toes of other interesting characters. After all, MI666 was chock full of cracked nuts and mystics.

"Yes. Well, we'd obviously like you to look into that a little more. Though the MKULTRA is dead, we may be able to piggy back off its limited success with the boys down in development here."

He clasped his hands in front of him, considering her. "Arundell. This business with the American and the native. How much do you think they are hiding?" 

"Oh, lots." She smiles in quite a predatory way. "The boy knows something more about the procedure they used on him, and I have the strangest feeling he won't be keen to talk about it. The native is probably up to no good at all and I haven't ruled out her knowing more than she lets on about," she gestures vaguely at Foundation headquarters, "this. I think they're both hiding how little they know and making it up as they go along. But most of all, they're hiding how they really feel about each other and if they don't have sex soon I dread to think what will happen." This said as though it's the most normal thing in the world to say. "In short, yes sir, however you were thinking we could turn this to our advantage, we probably could."

G's moustache quivers and he turns a rather interesting delicate shade of pink at her words. It's one thing to hear them spoken by a lady, much less one as disconcerting as Arundell. 

"Ahem. Well. Stay the course. Keep monitoring the subject as you can, as much as your cover allows. And do your best to send the Russians off the course somewhere. We do not want them catching on that the Americans have successfully gone through trials for the Subject."

Anything like that would be a certain herald of the war that people had been talking about recently. The Nuclear War. 

"Acknowledged," she says cheerfully, leaning back a little. "But I wondered if you might not prefer to have a little fun. The natives are going to know all about our Subject's little talents anyway, so Moscow probably will soon." She lights a cigarette. She doesn't actually smoke, but it tends to unnerve gentlemen. "Of course one wouldn't presume to invent one's own orders, but I thought we might get ahead of it. Steer things our way. I think I could have those two do anything you liked, sir. If you were game for that sort of thing, of course." The cigarette flares red. "Sir."

Good God this woman is something to behold. If only there was a way to get her to answer to some authority. There wasn't much she was beholden to, except perhaps herself...

He makes himself nod slowly. "With initiative like that we could see you moving up the ranks quite soon, Arundel. Though I would caution against being so brazen in your suggestions."

G paused for a moment. "Do your best to turn them against Moscow. Make them see reason. The Yank might be too loyal to his government, but the Native... She could be brought over. If she's not reconsidering her loyalties already, that is."

People never see reason. 

"Acknowledged, Sir."

People like to tell themselves they understand, like to tell themselves they do things for nice cool clever rational reasons, but mostly when it comes to it they listen to the strange soft dark parts of themselves that to Gail are clear as water. 

It's easy to make people love you when you know these things. 

The question becomes, then...

Carter probably won't betray his country. Raina might turn against the Russians if she can arrange for it to look like they took him from her... The woman must have other weak points. Maybe if she lost someone... Or, no, maybe if she had something to live for, if and only if she turned...

Time for a meeting. 

Raina has been doing her best to delve into more research on the myths that Saleem was rattling on about. It's very hard to focus when Carter still won't talk to her. 

At last, after three days of poring over academic texts in four different languages (two of those being extinct), something, something leads somewhere. 

It's not much.  

It looks like a draft of a student's essay, in fact - old brittle paper, handwritten, crossed-out in many places, written in a strangely loopy and circular Arabic script that - combined with the many folds, so many and so sharp and so dense that the whole rather resembled an Oriental fan, with which she found it - gives the whole manuscript an oddly insectile appearance.

The thesis isn't signed, except perhaps for an illegible word that might be English and might start with M, and it seems to be mostly made up of literary allusions she has never heard of whatsoever - it cites a "world-famous scholar" to whom she can find no other reference anywhere else. 

Most of it is impenetrable, but it has one section that seems to be a direct quotation and poor translation from Classical Arabic:  

...we seemed then, Allah Most Merciful preserve us, as the clever birds which drop nut-shells to break under cartwheels [?]; could such know forging [?]? And swords and darts, and all-consuming fire? For we had set to cleave the dream desired lands of the Prophet, peace be upon him, away from the bellies undersides of Osiris and beheld the Pit, wide as the very sea and of blood not water; whereupon we laughed and remembered the crossing of the Israelites therein where no kingdom † now ever had been possible † [ and the [book???] bewept the rape of history; and I feared the Eye of the god and fled; and since I contemned this † new old † sea of crimson His searing Eye could not fall upon the wet brains in my head, Allah be praised, and so I write this account of the before. 

A man made mad may open the Eye, for a man in good shape cannot be squeezed into the shape of a man who comprehends the Eye. The Eye will be found in the noblest house. The Eye will consume you. The Eye will break you before you can wield it. The Eye can be blinded only by the lotus sap, for a mind made blank cannot be broken; so it was that we made the sea red. 

Well that makes no sense. What the hell is the Eye? Is the underbelly of Osiris referring to the land of Egypt, with reference to the Israelites?

Saleem had mentioned an old god awakened... the Eye seems linked to the activities and movements of his people. It seems that there is something linked to it in their vault. But she dare not go and look at it without the proper protection. The Lotus sap...? The Lotus is sacred to Laxmi of Hindu spirituality and is known for its cleansing and healing properties. It seems this is a lot deeper than just espionage. This is mythology made real.

And she can't make much of it. She wants to see an academic expert, but no academic is going to look twice at a young girl scholar. 

So she stands outside his door, for the seventh time this week. The other times, it's been at night when she's sure he would be sleeping. She likes to hear him breathing evenly, safe. It calms her on nights when sleep is a forgotten sensation.

She knocks. "Carter? I think I have something."