Cohost writing prompt: @spy-thief-assassin-who — Spy who really doesn't want you to look at that microfilm
"Christ," the unshaven man in the strange clothes says desperately, and rattles the handcuff pinning him to the interrogation room table. "I'm English. I work for the British Government in a capacity I can't reveal to you. I know how this looks to you, but please, I'm begging you, the most vital thing here is that you don't open the case."
"Your case full of microfilm?" Harris says coolly.
"Oh, bloody hell," the man says, and goes pale enough Harris thinks for a second he might faint. "Oh, bloody hell, this is a trap. They wanted us to take it...they're going to sink the Lighthill Report. Listen to me, listen to me, we recovered the microfilm from a hostile site, it's — contaminated. Anyone who's been in contact with it needs to be quarantined. It must not be viewed."
"You can see how this sounds," Harris says: "Listen, guv, I'm on your side, can't corroborate that in any way, don't worry about this high-tech spy gear I'm carrying, and just don't look at whatever intel I'm smuggling. Trust me."
"Listen, I'm with Operation Elder. Operation Elder. Please, tell me someone here knows enough to know that name, or make whatever calls you need to speak to someone who does, just — just don't look at the microfilm." The man desperately rattles the cuff again. "Just don't look at it."
"Elder?" Harris says sharply, cold pooling abruptly in his guts.
"Hallelujah," his captive says, ragged and fervent. "Operation Elder."
"I ran into a Ministry man who claimed to work for an Operation Elder, back in '68." Harris's fists clench involuntarily. "At Exham Priory."
"Exham," the stranger mutters. "Exham — Project Thornton? That would have been — Major George Stokes?"
"Stokes," Harris says. "Christ. Christ. What happens if someone sees the microfilm? Do they—" and bile rises in his throat. He stops to choke it down, trying not to remember gnawed flesh, screaming, blankly inhuman staring eyes, the smell—
"Exham Priory was a weapons test," the stranger says. "The weapon wasn't — those people. The weapon was what did that to those people, understand? Sensory input creates — patterns in the brain. And some unnatural patterns act on the brain as if they're — turbo-charged hypnosis, I suppose you could say. Exham was a prototype. It was crude. The latest versions are subtle. Anyone who's seen the microfilm—"
"I'll shoot them myself," Harris says hoarsely.
"Quarantine," the stranger says. "It needn't — necessarily come to that. Elder might be able to — well, with victims to study they might develop an antidote. And you need to get hold of Stokes, fast; did he leave you a telephone number?"
If you should ever see something like this again— Harris can still hear the Major saying, stroking his moustache, and handing over a business card with the man's name and a number and some inscrutable alphanumeric codes on it. God forbid.
Sometimes, lapsed as he is, Harris prays. And he prays he'll never have cause to use that number, which he knows from memory.
"Tell them—" the man pauses. "If you have any trouble, say this, and it'll light a fire under them sharpish. Tell them: KTLU is not contained."
"K, T—"
"KTLU."
"KTLU is not contained," Harris repeats.
God forbid, the Major's voice says in his memory.