The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.: A Novel

by Neal Stephenson

  I say “supposed to be” because Robert Burns was right on the money about best-laid plans.

  As if in a medieval street festival, our clutch of officials, aides, geeks, and department heads followed Blevins, Rudge, and Frink down the hallway and staircase to the basement, and were joined along the way by additional historians, DOers, office workers, and techies emerging from the spaces where they had been watching the live stream. The basement level had room to accommodate a few more spectators. Erszebet, decked out as only she could deck herself out, awaited us.

  ODEC Row looked more like a medical facility than a magical teleportation center. This was because of the need to preserve strict epidemiological precautions. We’d improvised a working decontamination suite around the first ODEC, of course, but the more recent influx of funding and expertise had given us the resources to do it right.

  The entire basement was cut in half by a wall of glass. On the other side of it, as we came in, was the bio-containment zone, subdivided into discrete isolation zones for each of the ODECs. They all shared some plumbing in the form of the sterilizing showers—“human car washes” in Tristan’s description—that all DOers passed through en route to and from the ODECs, and the air filtration systems that ensured not even a virus could pass across the barrier. A fully equipped medical suite—sort of a compact trauma center—was tucked away in one corner. It was equipped with x-ray machines and an operating room so that injured DOers could be treated on-site, immediately and secretly. Next to that was a two-bed recovery ward. Compared to all of that, the ODECs themselves—the four that were up and running, and the two that were only roughed in—occupied only a small footprint. They were cylindrical rooms, just big enough on the inside for the Sending witch and the DOer, larger on the outside because of the thickness of the cryogenic jackets and electronic systems.

  Tristan—who was en route to 1203 Constantinople on Varangian Guard duty—had slipped out of the conference room early, come downstairs, and passed through the airlock into the bio-containment zone. By the time we arrived, he had gone through the showers and was undergoing other decontamination procedures that my current Victorian sensibilities forbid me from discussing on the page.

  The crowd of dignitaries and support staff tumbled like unmilled corn into the space on the “dirty” side of the glass wall. General Frink was positioned in direct view of ODEC #3 and the pre- and post-DEDE bio equipment surrounding it. Oda-sensei was just off to Frink’s side, checking the ODEC’s status through a touch-screen interface.

  We’d used all four of the finished ODECs sporadically, just to make sure they all worked. It was expensive to keep them running because of the need for liquid helium and electrical power. Until today, DODO hadn’t had the budget, and we hadn’t needed them frequently enough to justify leaving them on. With the new year and the powering-on of the Chronotron, this had all changed. Over the holiday weekend the technicians had been chilling the whole system down to just above absolute zero and running tests on the electronics. From now on, it would stay on 24/7. This meant keeping the doors shut to limit heat loss and the excess usage of energy and cryogenic fluids. When we arrived that morning, the door to ODEC #3 was decorated with a red ribbon tied into a bow. For the schedule called for us to kill time with another ribbon-cutting ceremony as Tristan completed his preparations. Blevins droned on while Erszebet went through the airlock and changed into a disposable bunny suit and surgical mask—these were standard procedures, needed to prevent re-contaminating Tristan during the moments that they would be standing together in the ODEC. She emerged in the space between the glass wall and the door to ODEC #3 and picked up a sword that was waiting for her on a table. It was a sharp one—a Hungarian saber. Mortimer had sourced it from eBay and honed it until it could slice through a handkerchief in midair. Erszebet had been training with it, enough that she could swing it without killing herself. At a signal from Frank, she raised it above her head and drew it down through the ribbon, severing it in one quick motion. At the same moment, Frank whacked the “enter” key on his keyboard, executing a command that made all the lights come on.

  ODECs #1 through #4 had been officially powered up. A round of applause swept through the crowd on the “dirty” side. At the same moment Tristan finally emerged, wrapped in a sterile paper jumpsuit. This created the amusing impression that he was a character in a sitcom who had just made his entrance on the set and was getting a round of applause from the audience. He saluted General Frink through the glass wall. Frink saluted back. Tristan and Erszebet moved toward the ODEC door. The crowd on the “dirty” side pressed forward, trying to find space along the glass wall. For many of these people, it would be the first time they saw the ODEC actually in use. There’d be nothing really to see, of course, except that two people would go in and only one would come out.

  Frank had switched on an audio link so that he could talk to Erszebet and Tristan. Standing near him, I could hear their voices through the tinny little speakers built into the monitor.

  Tristan turned toward ODEC #3 and reached for the button that would cause it to open its door.

  Just before his hand touched it, there was a pounding from within, and a muffled scream.

  Tristan and Erszebet glanced at each other with concern. “Open it,” I said urgently, but Tristan was already mashing the button.

  As the door hissed open, a naked young woman tumbled out of the ODEC, clutching her head and wailing with fear. As she curled up protectively, her wordless hysteria was interspersed with a few hyperventilated phrases of medieval-era Hebrew.

  Tristan sidestepped and pulled a hospital gown from a rack of them hanging nearby. He tossed the gown on top of the hysterical girl, like a man throwing a blanket on a fire. Erszebet elbowed him away and adjusted the gown for modesty.

  Nudging Frank away from the control panel, I spoke firmly in Hebrew: “You’re safe. You are among friends. There is no need to be frightened.”

  Relief at hearing her own language made her catch her breath. Pulling the gown around her body, she rose to a kneeling position and stared about the place, wide-eyed. Tristan dropped to one knee and pointed toward me. I waved to her and caught her eye. “You are safe,” I repeated, and then, rifling through my mental roster, maintaining eye contact: “Are you Rachel? From Pera? Constantinople? Daughter of Avraham? Is that who you are?”

  Clutching the gown to her front, she rose to her feet and padded over toward me. For a moment I was afraid she’d walk straight into the glass wall, but Erszebet put a restraining hand on her shoulder, and Tristan darted ahead and rapped on the glass with his knuckles. She slowed as she approached, and stopped with her face only inches from mine.

  “Yes . . .” She turned her head and glanced around the space—not to the ODEC itself, the open door of which was just behind her, but around at the control panel and the scores of curious faces, in what must have been extremely curious forms of dress. She gasped. Electric cables, fluorescent lights, plastic chairs . . . every single thing in that room, other than the biological reality of other human beings, was utterly alien to her. Her eyes opened so wide I could see the whites all around the iris. I thought for a moment she would faint.

  Instead, she erupted into giggles.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” Tristan announced, “looks like we’ve got ourselves another witch.”

  PART

  FOUR

  INCIDENT REPORT

  AUTHOR: Rebecca East-Oda

  SUBJECT: Rachel bat Avraham—unauthorized ODEC use

  THEATER: C/COD

  OPERATION: Ribbon-cutting ceremony

  DTAP: Cambridge, MA, present day

  FILED: Day 896 (early January, Year 3)

  Summary: At 11:21:16 of Day 891, the subject, Rachel bat Avraham, a KCW from the circa-1200 Constantinople DTAP, was Sent from there to ODEC #3 and materialized in normal physical condition. She was issued clothing and placed under observation in the medical isolation facility adjoining ODEC Row. She was debriefe
d in Hebrew and in Greek by Dr. Stokes (head of DORC) and Dr. Lingas (in-house Byzantine Greek HOSMA) respectively. Initial briefing focused on two topics of immediate concern, namely (1) whether any more surprise visitors from 1200 Constantinople were to be expected, and (2) the importance of immediate medical procedures needed to protect subject from our diseases and vice versa. As precautions in the meantime, Dr. Oda had shut down all four operational ODECs, and ODEC Row had been placed under bio-containment lockdown.

  Upon receipt of verbal consent from subject, medical staff began administration of inoculations required to protect subject from modern diseases to which she is not likely to have immunity, and collected samples (swabs, blood, urine, feces) for analysis of possible historical disease agents. Upon examination, subject had fully healed scars indicative of a past encounter with smallpox, suggesting that no active, virus-shedding infection was in progress. Subsequent laboratory analysis detected low levels of intestinal parasites and gut flora of a potentially contagious nature; these were eradicated through orally administered medications and the subject given a clean bill of health following four days of analysis and treatment. The inoculation protocols are scheduled to continue for another two weeks, whereupon subject will be cleared to emerge from bio-containment and mingle with the general population. Psychologically, subject appears normal, other than some natural disorientation.

  Results of debriefing: Subject is a seventeen-year-old resident of Pera, the Jewish neighborhood lying across the Golden Horn from Constantinople proper. She is one of a small network of KCWs recruited by DODO and used extensively for DEDEs conducted during the last two years while laying the groundwork for full-scale diachronic operations slated to commence immediately. She is well known to our DOers, who from the very beginning have commented on her marked curiosity about our time and place and her frequently voiced desire to travel into the future and join us. She was able to reach ODEC #3 through the assistance of her mother, another KCW in Constantinople who agreed to carry out the Sending.

  Until this incident occurred, we had not envisioned that a security breach of this nature was a realistic threat.

  1. Sending by a historical witch into her own future was considered extremely difficult.

  2. There was no place in the present day where magic worked, save in the confines of an “up and running” ODEC. Since we didn’t leave the ODECs up and running, the Sending witch had no fixed target to “aim at.”

  Obviously, these two assumptions are no longer valid.

  1. Our KCWs in 1200 Constantinople have had so much practice Homing our DOers that they seem to have developed a feel for how to access the modern Boston DTAP.

  2. The policy just inaugurated of leaving the ODECs running 24/7 has given the Sending witch a much broader and more stable target to “aim at.”

  During her debriefing, subject admitted that she had become aware of the new ODECs and the “always on” policy slated to go into force at the beginning of the new year. This leakage of information was not the result of one specific disclosure by one specific DOer, but rather a pattern of information that she had assembled through numerous conversations with various DOers. In addition, it appears that subject, along with many other witches, has the ability to extract information from nearby persons through non-verbal techniques. That combined with subject’s intense curiosity and drive to escape what she sees as the stifling confines of a traditional medieval Jewish household led to her devising the plan that led to her materializing in ODEC #3.

  General remarks: Subject is beginning to learn modern English and is rapidly becoming familiar and comfortable with modern technology, conveniences, etc. It will be some time before she can move about freely in modern society without supervision, however, nothing in principle stands in the way of her doing so. It should go without saying that she carries in her head classified secrets that can never be divulged to the modern world at large. Likewise, if she were to return to her place of origin and divulge information about the future, or attempt to alter the reality of that DTAP in a heavy-handed manner, Diachronic Shear would likely result.

  For her own protection, she will remain in biological isolation for another two weeks, but after that, top-level direction will be needed in order to determine her fate.

  FROM LIEUTENANT GENERAL OCTAVIAN K. FRINK

  TO DR. ROGER BLEVINS

  DAY 900 (MID-JANUARY, YEAR 3)

  Blev,

  I was perusing Mrs. East-Oda’s report on the recent incident and came across something toward the end of it that, to put it mildly, startled me: Ms. bat Avraham “has the ability to extract information from nearby persons through non-verbal techniques.”

  Am I to understand that she is a mind reader? And that other witches have the same ability? If so, then this document is an extraordinary example of what is referred to, in the journalism business, as “burying the lede.”

  Yours in consternation and amusement,

  Okie

  FROM DR. ROGER BLEVINS

  TO LIEUTENANT GENERAL OCTAVIAN K. FRINK

  DAY 902

  Okie,

  I too noticed the passage you referred to in your letter, and was doing some investigation before reporting further. I would recommend against use of any such pulp-novel terminology as “mind reading” but, in short, it does appear that many witches have enhanced skills around sensing others’ mental states, and manipulating same. Of course, like any other magical technique, it can only be used in an ODEC, or in a pre-1851 DTAP.

  In a larger sense, this is not a surprise. For reasons I needn’t belabor to you, DODO has focused on one, and only one, form of magic: Sending people to other DTAPs. But magic has many other possible uses. Making an analogy to electricity, it’s as if Thomas Edison devoted his entire career to the development of washing machines but never put any effort into light bulbs, elevators, or the myriad other applications that surround us today. We know perfectly well that witches could perform other kinds of magic; we just haven’t put any resources into it yet.

  Blev

  Post by LTG Octavian K. Frink to Dr. Roger Blevins on private ODIN channel

  DAY 903

  Blev, I’m moving this over to the secure messaging system for efficiency’s sake. I got your letter. To put it bluntly, exploitation of the Sending type of magic has ballooned into an enormously expensive and cumbersome operation. All worth it, I’m sure—not suggesting that the taxpayers’ money is in any way misspent on ODECs and so on. But now that we have all of that apparatus up and running we need to look for other opportunities to make the most of it.

  It didn’t escape my notice that you mentioned the possibility of manipulating others’ mental states as something witches could do. Let’s drill down on that.

  Reply from Dr. Blevins:

  In a sense it’s almost common knowledge, Okie. Historically, witches were feared and mistrusted for just such abilities; where do you think the term “bewitched” originated from?

  We haven’t put much effort into this because it only works in an ODEC, and it’s hard to imagine a practical application of such techniques, which depend on getting the subject into a cryogenically isolated telephone booth in a basement in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Also, we only have one witch.

  From LTG Frink:

  Now we have two, and we pretty much own Rachel bat Avraham; we can’t very well just let her wander around free. If she came forward, it means others can do likewise. Let’s get more witches, and let’s put ’em to work.

  I take your point about the ODEC. Why can’t we make these things smaller? More portable? That would make their use for psy-ops far more feasible.

  From Dr. Blevins:

  As to your first point, we’ve been contemplating such a program for a long time—which is why we built so many ODECs. I’ll put my foot on the gas, and I’ll spread the word to the department heads.

  As to your second, my understanding is that they are impossibly cumbersome because of the cryogenics. But Dr. Oda is now s
urplus personnel, since he finished the Chronotron. I’ll try to draw him out on the topic, without tipping our hand.

  Follow-up from Dr. Blevins, a day later:

  Okie, I had coffee with Dr. Oda, framed as a conversation about his future at DODO. We had contemplated moving him to “emeritus” status to get him out of the way without sending his troublesome wife into a rage. In that capacity he would have the freedom to explore independent research projects as long as they were relevant to DODO’s mission. Without any prompting from me, he mentioned that he had ideas on building an ODEC capable of working at non-cryogenic temperatures. The technical details are over my head but apparently it has to do with room-temperature superconductors and certain advances in computer processing power that he has been tracking. Sounds like this could possibly lead to a portable ODEC—and if so we could redirect resources from diachronic travel to psy-ops.

  Unless you say otherwise before COB today, I’ll slide him over to the new role and encourage him to pursue the idea.

  Blev

  Post by Macy Stoll