I come back toward the tower for reconnaissance, and I see at once that two things are different from how they’ve always been. First, because of the explosion and fire and all that hell that broke loose, there’s no way to release the chain mechanism. It’s fused. That thing is never going to open. Ever. And just as I’m thinking about what a massive fuck-up that is—because without the chain being lowered, the ships cannot get into the safety of the harbor, and then literally, history cannot move forward—and then the second thing I notice is that . . . Pera is gone. Gone. Not even any foundation stones. It’s obliterated—a black charred spot, acres of it—on the hillside, as if there was never anything there. And that awful smell I remember from the Albigensian DTAP, that noisome smell of charred bones after an execution. The whole area, which had been walled and locked, went up so fast that nobody there had time to escape. Horrible.
A quarter hour later, while half the army is still walking around in a daze, something incredible happened: the Eagle, the largest and heaviest iron-prowed Venetian ship, rammed into the harbor chain and broke it. They broke the harbor chain of Constantinople! That’s not how it was supposed to happen. Invaders tried for five hundred years to break the chains guarding the Golden Horn. Every generation of that chain was unbreakable. Something about the Diachronic Shear must have had a molecular effect on the metal and weakened the chain. I think the multiverse required the Crusaders to get into the harbor and so made sure it happened, even if they couldn’t do it the way they did on every other Strand.
Anyhow—neither side lost many men to the Shear, but it freaked the hell out of everyone. Even being aware of the Shear, I’m already feeling confused about what happened, so I’m sure all kinds of crazy things will end up getting said about it. I’m willing to bet everyone will say that Pera must have been made of wood to go up in flames like that, and the flames must have come from the fire-arrows—something like that, even though I know Pera was made of stone and tile, and I also know the angle the fire-arrows came from would never have landed in Pera anyhow. So lots of weird crap is going to get said.
In conclusion, it appears Rachel was reunited with her family and warned them. This changed everything.
Clearly Rachel’s information moved quickly out of the Jewish settlement. There is no way we will ever know what Rachel said, or to whom, or what that person attempted to do with the information. We know only that the multiverse could not bear such a change of course, and eliminated its possibility.
Post by Dr. Melisande Stokes
on “All-DODO” ODIN channel
DAY 1812
All,
Mortimer has requested that everyone please stop checking the wiki for updates on Constantinople, it’s slowing the servers down and it is a waste of time until the GLAAMR dissipates. Lieutenant Colonel Lyons and I believe that over the next few days, history will literally rewrite itself, as the oral accounts of that day’s Diachronic Shear make their way into written testimonials and then eventually history books, and finally the Internet.
Rachel bat Avraham almost certainly died in the Shear. Although she died in defiance of our regulations, it is important to be sensitive to the grief of the many DODO workers—especially her fellow MUONs—who had the fortune and pleasure to have worked with her for the better part of three years.
Respectfully submitted,
Melisande Stokes
Exchange of posts by LTG Octavian K. Frink,
Dr. Constantine Rudge, and Dr. Roger Blevins
on private ODIN channel
DAYS 1810–1813 (MID-JULY, YEAR 5)
Post from LTG Octavian K. Frink:
Blev, (cc Rudge):
I’ve been following the traffic on this system as my schedule permits. Relieved to hear LTC Lyons made it back in one piece. Somewhat confused otherwise. He accomplished the mission on all four Strands? So, how do we know whether it worked?
Reply from Dr. Roger Blevins:
Okie, that is the fundamental question of all diachronic operations—how can we know the success or failure of a campaign such as this one, where the objective is to shift national borders a few kilometers, or even a few meters, to one direction or the other?
In the present case, as you know, what we are trying to achieve is to pry Crimea loose from the Russians and get it back into the full and undisputed possession of Ukraine, all without firing a shot or engaging in military operations as that term is normally understood.
If the project succeeds, then our present-day reality changes; we wake up tomorrow and Ukraine owns the Crimea free and clear. Not only that, but history will have changed as well. We’ll have no memory and no records of Russia ever having marched into Crimea in 2014. So how do we know that anything even happened?
The answer is that the alteration of history doesn’t happen in a flash; it takes a little while to propagate through all of the Strands and whatnot, and during that time there is this thing that Dr. Oda terms GLAAMR (Galvanic Liminal Aura Antecedent to Manifold Rift), which even non-magical people can sense if it’s strong enough.
From Dr. Constantine Rudge:
Just jumping in here with a note that DODO’s R&D division has invented ways of measuring GLAAMR. That’s why we had three spy planes in last year’s budget; we mounted the GLAAMR detection systems in their bellies, and even now they are flying routes over Ukraine gathering data.
From LTG Frink:
Yes, I remember the spy planes now, and the ruckus they caused in the budget hearing. Glad to know they are getting some use.
Why can’t we just draw a map or something, and store it, and then compare it to a current map a few days later? I know you’re going to tell me it would change and there would be GLAAMR, but is there no way to just store a document in such a way that it wouldn’t change?
From Dr. Blevins:
That is being worked on too. Apparently if the map were stored in an ODEC, your idea might work. But because space in ODECs is so scarce and expensive we have done very little of this.
From LTG Frink:
Seems to me we could get a hell of a lot of thumb drives into an ATTO. Give me a sitrep on those.
Oh, and I noticed that when Rachel bat Avraham flew the coop, she used mind control on the witch who Homed her. Obviously psy-ops is a common ability among the historical witches.
From Dr. Rudge:
Just a gentle reminder, General Frink, that we try to avoid using loaded terms such as “mind control.”
From LTG Frink:
Connie, you can call it whatever you want, psy-ops has got to be simpler than what we just went through to get Crimea back.
From Dr. Rudge:
Yes, General Frink, Crimea is part of the Ukraine today. You may share with me a vague memory, rapidly fading, of a Russian invasion that never happened. As if we dreamed it, and the memory of the dream is being dispelled by the more concrete realities of the new day.
Without disputing your opinion that the operation was anything but simple, I’ll point out that to achieve the same result through conventional military operations would have been infinitely more complex and risky.
From LTG Frink:
I’ll give you complex. Risky I’m less sure of. Hard to know what the real risks are.
From Dr. Blevins:
To answer a question earlier in this “thread,” the first ATTO is proceeding through its testing routines more or less on schedule, but it is a device of many subsystems and there are endless delays and complications around procuring special parts, debugging “code,” and so on. We are looking at bringing Gráinne forward in mid-September, once we’re certain the device works. In the meantime we could certainly try some experiments with thumb drives or other forms of document storage, as you suggest.
In the meantime, Okie, I would like to draw your attention to a question we were kicking around earlier, namely what to do with the surplus personnel in LTC Lyons’s department—including LTC Lyons himself—now that the big push in the Constantinople Theater
is over. Do we wish to throw them into another colossal operation, or sit back and assess?
From LTG Frink:
Will give you a call in five, Blev.
FROM LIEUTENANT GENERAL OCTAVIAN K. FRINK
TO ALL DODO DEPARTMENT HEADS
DAY 1825 (LATE JULY, YEAR 5)
First of all, I would like to congratulate all DODO personnel for the successful conclusion of operations in the Constantinople Theater. That is not to gloss over the tragic story of the late Rachel bat Avraham, however, to the best of our ability to assess these things, it would appear that DODO was able to “undo” a Russian takeover of the Crimea that, on our Strand, never successfully happened. To have achieved a similar result using conventional Trapezoid-style operations would have been immensely costly in both dollars and blood and would have raised the possibility of opening a wider war.
One of the measures of a successful team is the ability to adapt to unexpected complications that inevitably crop up during the course of a complex operation—the “fog of war,” as it were. Our glitch for this mission was the unexpected advent of “St. Tristan of Dintagel” as blowback from earlier operations in Normandy. While this made it seem touch and go for a short time, the situation seems to have resolved without further repercussions.
Before many of you depart for well-deserved vacations during August, I wanted to supply an idea of top-level direction during the rest of this year, and the year following. The Constantinople Theater has proved that with the help of the Chronotron we can conduct large-scale operations that will reshape history to our advantage without the expense and bloodshed of conventional warfare. As you all know, DODO is also conducting significant operations in five other theaters at this time. All of these are scheduled to wind down over the course of the autumn and early winter. Our general plan is to stand down, stand back, and appraise the results and lessons learned before plunging into additional theater-scale operations.
With that, I wish you all a restful August.
Sincerely,
Lieutenant General Octavian K. Frink
Post by Dr. Melisande Stokes to LTC Tristan Lyons
on private ODIN channel
DAY 1825
I didn’t think Frink could be that smooth.
Reply from LTC Lyons:
Don’t go there, Stokes.
From Dr. Stokes:
No, seriously, that was the nicest “fuck you” letter ever.
From LTC Lyons:
He’s a general. He fights wars. When the war’s over, he stops fighting and puts his army to work training to fight the next war. That’s all this is.
From Dr. Stokes:
Hmm, I think being turned into a saint may have affected your judgment.
From LTC Lyons:
So you’re going to be the little devil on my shoulder?
From Dr. Stokes:
:)
From LTC Lyons:
I’m outta here. Time for some R&R. See you in three weeks.
From Dr. Stokes:
Where you going again?
From LTC Lyons:
Probably shouldn’t divulge this, but I’m going to Normandy.
From Dr. Stokes:
Collinet?
From LTC Lyons:
You got it. It’s a nice place now. There’s a B&B practically right on Thyra’s homesite. Going to go get drunk on cider and light a candle at the chapel of St. Tristan.
From Dr. Stokes:
Light one for me.
From LTC Lyons:
Roger wilco.
LETTER FROM
GRÁINNE to GRACE O’MALLEY
A Wednesday of Late-Harvest, 1602
Auspiciousness and prosperity to you, milady!
So at last, the time ’tis for me to reveal my plan to you in full. As good as all these fellas have been to me both in London and in Antwerp, there’s naught of use that comes of my remaining a spy for Your Grace when I’ve lost the chance to dawdle around Whitehall, and it’s all these natural philosophers and bloody intellectuals I’ve got around me. And the Fuggers, of course, but they at least are clear-eyed, so they are, about how to get things done in this world. I know Your Grace grows weary of the world, and sorrowful I am to think of your moving past us to the realms beyond. I’ve no premonition at all of what shall come of Ireland once you’ve left us, and I fear the English will renew their bloody conquering schemes, especially with the urging of Sir Francis feckin’ Bacon.
So I hope it’s understanding that Your Grace will be, when I tell you that I’ve vowed to myself to look out for my own cause now: that being magic, and the fate of my sister witches. Sure Tristan Lyons trusts me as a sibling, and yet isn’t he always refusing to tell me what stymies all magical abilities in future. So I’m thinking the best way for me to be learning such a thing is to go forward into the future myself, and be looking at things from his vantage point. Glad I am to hear from within the net-work that Tristan’s bosses think to bring me forward anyhow, to help them with a thing they call an Atto, which is apparently exactly like the horrid little chambers their witches be spending all their days in, only not quite so little, and on wheels. As if wheels would make it any better.
I intend to use the resources of Tristan’s own guild, what calls itself DODO, not to restore magic, but to prevent its destruction in the first place, as soon as I ken what is the cause of such destruction. A brilliant plan this is, to my mind, and so obvious and straightforward, I wonder what bollocks excuse Tristan’s superiors have for not be doing likewise. I know not how long a stretch of time there is, between the death of magic and its rebirth, but that stretch is surely a boil on the face of history, and if it can be avoided, then it is my duty to see that happen. For surely the destruction of magic is not only bad for witches, but bad for Ireland and such like nations that are relying heavily on magic for self-defense from oppressors.
So here then is my plan: oft enough have I listened to Tristan and the other DOers lament of a certain officer whose name is Roger Blevins. This gentleman, although little enough he seems to do, yet has more power than all the others put together—even including Tristan Lyons himself! Rose is of a mind with me, and it’s Sending me forward in time she’s agreed to, so that I may ingratiate myself with this Blevins—and yourself knows well enough how easily I may ingratiate myself when it’s ingratiating that is called for! And then won’t I be in a position to be learning things Tristan wouldn’t have me learn. And won’t he be helpless to prevent my learning.
And so, my dear beloved Pirate Queen, I pledge my loyalty to you forever, and to the Irish cause, but it’s off to the future I’m now bound.
Whether I be near or far, may I hear only good things of you, My Lady Grace!
Yours ever, Gráinne No Longer in England
INCIDENT REPORT
AUTHOR: Esme Overkleeft
SUBJECT: Magnus
THEATER: Northern Europe, Early Medieval (NEEM)
OPERATION: Botanical Infrastructure Ops for Magical Enhancement (BIOME)
DTAP: Collinet, Normandy, 1205
FILED: Day 1857 (late August, Year 5)
Having completed my DEDE in Normandy 1205 DTAP (Iris germanica rhizome grafting along La Vie River), I went to KCW Imblen of Collinet to be Sent back to DODO HQ. I have worked with Imblen on several occasions and my Norman French allows us to have reasonably fluent conversations. As others who have visited this DTAP can attest, she is a calm, unflappable, good-humored woman.
However, on this occasion she was on edge. Magnus of Normandy, known to several of our DOers from DTAPs 1202–3 Constantinople, returned to his home village (some 50 km from Collinet) after many years gone, which was a cause of celebration. However, Magnus was excessively preoccupied with querying everyone about their memory of a local song or folktale, about a great hero who had, several generations earlier, saved the village from attack by a feuding tribe and later been canonized by the Church. The hero was named Tristan of Dintagel, an unremarkable enough name—excep
t that Magnus met somebody named Tristan of Dintagel in Constantinople, 160 years after the events of the story.
Magnus called the village elders into council and described this remarkable coincidence to them. They did not share his obsessive curiosity. He then traveled to Collinet to query Imblen, formally seeking her advice and assistance as a witch to make sense of this. He was excited and aggressive and supplied many details about Tristan’s recent activities in Constantinople, making it obvious that he had observed Tristan closely and recruited other members of the Varangian Guard to keep an eye on him.
Imblen feels she said, “I can’t help you,” a little too quickly and firmly, because he became even more intrigued, and declared that he would go to Dintagel directly to seek the (parish? Church? Hundreds?) records and establish if “his” Tristan was a descendant of the hero . . . or if something stranger was happening.
For the record, this is the fourth Strand on which something like this has happened. Each time, Imblen seems more shaken and Magnus appears more clear-headed and determined. This time—given what he understands of witches’ powers—he hypothesized directly to Imblen that given Tristan’s archaic speech patterns, perhaps another witch had Sent Tristan forward in time, and if so, “he would hie himself back to Constantinople to learn more of Tristan’s doings, in case there could be profit for himself made from it.”
Respectfully submitted,
Esme Overkleeft
Exchange of posts by DODO staff on “Anachron
Management” ODIN channel
DAYS 1862–1870 (EARLY SEPTEMBER, YEAR 5)
The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.: A Novel Page 49