“It’ll be fine,” said Tristan, still working on the package in the kitchen. “We’re not trying to launch any new campaigns. We’re not being proactive. We’re being reactive now—reactive to Gráinne. We wait for her to make the first move, by sending DOers to the DTAPs we know so well. Then we go to those same DTAPs and stop them.”
“Fuckin’ A!” Mortimer said.
Tristan came in from the kitchen carrying a white plastic bag that he had extracted from the package. He continued, “We start by going back and talking to our KCWs, explaining how it is, asking them if they are willing to come over to our side. I think many will say yes. So we can develop our own witch network, our own system of safe houses. And in the present day, we still have friends within DODO.”
“How can you be so sure?” Erszebet demanded. “Gráinne is subtle. These people who claim to be your friends may in reality be her agents, trying to win your trust.”
“Then explain this,” Tristan said. He reached into the plastic bag and pulled out a dingy, tangled jumble of yarn, which I did not immediately recognize because I hadn’t seen it for years. Erszebet knew it before it was half-revealed.
“My számológép!” she cried, with the wide-eyed wonder of the girl I’d only ever seen in 1851. She began to scramble to her feet, but Tristan saved her the need by tossing it to her over the table.
“Merry belated Christmas! It occurred to me you might need something like this. I’ve spent the past month tracking it down.”
“How?” I asked, amazed.
“Classified,” Tristan said. “All bureaucracy, no cloak-and-dagger. It’s been stuffed in a filing cabinet for five years.”
“You are a good man,” said Erszebet almost tearfully. She clutched the számológép to her, cradled it against her heart as if it were a delicate pet. “Thank you. Thank you.”
“Ask and it shall be given!” said Julie. “Tristan, your timing rocks.”
“Do you know how to use one of those?” asked Rebecca quietly, to Julie. “I have no idea.”
“Mortimer and I can work together to rebuild the app,” Frank assured her. “It will never be the Chronotron, but it will be more powerful than the számológép and easier for those of us not used to the analog models.”
“Is there enough room left in the cellar for that project?” asked Tristan, wresting his attention from the cooing Erszebet.
“We have a guest room upstairs,” said Oda-sensei.
“You’re all fools,” said Rebecca. “This cannot be the headquarters for a new diachronic endeavor. Besides the fact that I want it to be safe for family to visit, Blevins will be after all of us. I’m surprised they haven’t already knocked our door down.”
“Actually, I’ve been thinking about that,” Tristan said, and finally sat down again. “It’s the dog that didn’t bark. Why hasn’t Blevins sent a DOSECOPS squad to knock the door down? What’s holding him back?”
“Probably not Gráinne,” I said. “Gráinne’s pretty hawkish.”
“Let’s cut to the chase: it’s the Fuggers,” Tristan said. “They made sure we could build an ODEC in the basement here. They’ve obviously made a decision that it’s better to have us around as a counterbalance to Gráinne than to cede total control of history to her and her minions. And so we are protected, somehow. We can stay here as long as we want.”
“Until the Fuggers change their minds,” Rebecca said, in a tone that made it clear this wasn’t good enough.
“I don’t think they’ll do that, though,” Tristan said. “They’ll protect us—they might even fund us, indirectly, untraceably—as long as we’re holding up our end of the deal.”
“Which is . . . ?” I asked, although I already knew the answer.
“To figure out what Gráinne’s up to, somehow—then go wherever she’s sending her DOers, and fight them. With wit and words when we can, with swords when we have to.”
“Yesss!” Mortimer said
“Works for me,” said Esme instantly.
“Me too,” said Felix.
“I’m in,” Julie said.
“Excellent,” said Frank, looking pleased, as Rebecca made a well-fine-be-that-way gesture of allowance.
“I have already agreed,” Erszebet contributed moodily.
Tristan glanced at me. “Stokes?”
“As if I had a choice,” I said. “Of course I’m in.”
And that, dear reader, is who we are, and what we now are doing.
THE END
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors would like to thank Ed Allard, James Gwertzman, Karen Laur, Sean Stewart, Ned Gulley, Professor Natasha Korda, Billy Meleady, Chrysal Parrot, George Fifield and Lynne Adams, Janice Haynes and Beckie Scotten Finn, the Gorgeous Group, Liz Darhansoff, Jennifer Brehl, and Marc H. Glick, Esquire.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS
(* = historical figure)
Twenty-first-century Cambridge, MA (or DC)
Tristan Lyons, Major (later Lieutenant Colonel) in the U.S. Army; founder of DODO
Dr. Melisande Stokes, initially lecturer in Harvard’s Department of Ancient and Classical Linguistics, then Tristan’s first recruit to DODO
Dr. Frank Oda, retired MIT physicist, husband of Rebecca East-Oda
Rebecca East-Oda, his wife; a witch
Erszebet Karpathy, a Hungarian witch
Dr. Roger Blevins, chair of Harvard’s Department of Ancient and Classical Linguistics, later head of DODO
Lieutenant General Octavian Frink, Director of National Intelligence and Blevins’s eventual boss at DODO
Dr. Constantine Rudge, head of IARPA, advisor to DODO, intimate of the Fuggers
Brigadier General Schneider, Tristan’s initial boss at IARPA
Lieutenant Colonel Ramirez, Schneider’s aide
Les Holgate, Blevins’s nephew and Frink’s protégé, appointed advisor to DODO
Mortimer Shore, MIT student, systems administrator, swordsman, and general geek at DODO
Julie Lee, classical oboist, waitress, DODO agent, and witch
Macy Stoll, head of C/COD at DODO
Chira Yasin Lajani, DOer, Lover class
Felix Dorn, DOer, Strider class
Dr. Esme Overkleeft, DOer, Sage class
Major Isobel Sloane, officer in command of DOSECOPS, DODO’s security force
The Maxes, ODEC builders
The Vladimirs, ODEC geeks
Frederick Fugger, a man of business
Senators Hatcher, Cole, Effingham, and Villesca, and Chairwoman Atkinson, members of the secret Senate committee overseeing DODO’s budget
Gordon Healey (offscreen), a Chronotron nerd
Mei East-Oda (offscreen), daughter of Frank and Rebecca
Darren (offscreen), theatrical swordfighting instructor
Tanya Wakessa Washington (offscreen), DODO witch recruit
Dr. Eloise LeBrun, HOSMA
Dr. Stephen Moore, HOSMA
Dr. Hilton Fuller, HOSMA
Nadja, witch recruit
Dr. Srinavasan (offscreen), in-house physician
Sundry DOSECOPS and Secret Service officers
Constance Billy, Anachron witch from fourteenth century
An unidentified witch in collusion with the Fugger Bank
(In France) Anne-Marie, proprietress of Collinet B&B
1640 Cambridge, America
Goody Mary Fitch, a witch
Elizabeth Fitch, her young daughter
Goodman Griggs, their neighbor
Ferrymen (brothers)
*Hezekiah Usher, merchant and bookseller
*Stephen Day, printer
A cooper
1560s Antwerp
*Winnifred Dutton, witch
*Thomas Dutton (offscreen), her husband, factor to Thomas Gresham
*Thomas Gresham (offscreen), banker, Winnifred’s paramour and father of her child
*Anne Dutton, twelve-year-old child of Winnifred Dutton and Thomas Gresham, witc
h
1601 London
Gráinne, an Irish witch, spy for Gráinne Ó Máille
*Grace O’Malley (Gráinne Ó Máille), “Pirate Queen of Connacht” (offscreen, Ireland)
Athanasius Fugger, banker
Sir Edward Greylock, courtier
*Queen Elizabeth I (offscreen)
*William Shakespeare, playwright (offscreen)
*Christopher Marlowe, playwright and spy, believed deceased
*Richard Burbage, actor
*Edward Alleyn, actor (offscreen)
*George Clifford, Earl of Cumberland (offscreen), cofounder of East India Company
Pym, proprietor of Tearsheet Brewery
Morag, wench at Tearsheet
Mary, wench at Bell Tavern
Rose, an English witch
Herbert, a handsomely armed young nobleman
George, his not-so-handsomely armed older friend
The Constable of Southwark
Lord Simon Beresford, Sir Edward Greylock’s intended father-in-law
*Sir Francis Bacon (offscreen)
Jacques Cardigan, one of Sir Francis’s “Good Pens” at Greyfriars (offscreen)
*Nathaniel Bacon, Sir Francis’s half brother, married to Anne Dutton (offscreen)
*Three daughters of Nathaniel and Anne, all witches (offscreen)
1203–4 Constantinople
Magnus of Normandy, Varangian Guard
Basina, out-of-wedlock member of the royal family
*Alexios III Angelos, Byzantine Emperor
*Euphrosyne Doukina Kamatera, his Empress
Avraham ben Moises, a Jew of Pera
Rachel, his eldest daughter, a witch
Sarah, his wife, a witch
Bruno of Hamlin, a crass Varangian Guard
*The Crusaders: European warriors, Venetian sailors, churchmen, camp followers, etc. Underfunded and undermanned, but sailing first-rate ships with ample armaments, this army had been called to liberate the Holy Land by way of Alexandria in Egypt; political and financial manipulations resulted in its detouring to Constantinople, to replace Emperor Alexios III with his nephew, Alexios IV (who’d offered to pay the cash-strapped army for this service—but then failed to follow through, leading to the eventual rape of the city).
*Marquis Boniface of Montferrat, leader of the crusading army (offscreen)
(In Collinet, Normandy) Imblen, a witch
1850 San Francisco
Xiu Li, Chinese witch
*Celestial Jong Li, her paramour
Francis Overstreet, proprietor of the St. Francis Hotel
Mr. Fugger, a banker
1851 London
A physician and his wife, Mel’s self-appointed guardians
Mr. and Mrs. Karpathy, and the young Erszebet
Mr. Fugger, a banker
(In Prussia) *Berkowski, daguerreotypist of the fateful solar eclipse (offscreen)
1045 Normandy
Thyra, witch of Collinet
Vikings
Tóki Olafsson, skald from tenth-century Svelvik
Ingibjörg, witch of tenth-century Svelvik
Twenty-two Vikings, including Storolf, Brand, Halfdan, Thorolf, Bild, Glama, Heid, Asmund, Hrani, Arngrim, Hjordvard, Yngvar, Snorri, Hunfast “the Hapless,” Saemundr, and Thord
GLOSSARY
Acronyms
ATTO
Ambient Temperature Tactical ODEC
CHRONTEL
document label; intelligence gathered by DOers
C/COD
Conventional/Contemporary Operations Department
CRONE
Chronodynamic Research for Optimizing Next Engagement
DEDE
Direct Engagement for Diachronic Effect
DNI
Director of National Intelligence
DODO
Department of Diachronic Operations
DOer
Diachronic Operative
DOOSH
Diachronic Operative Occupational Safety and Health
DORC
Diachronic Operative Resource Center
DORCCAD
DORC Cartographic and Architectural Database
DOSECOPS
Diachronic Operations Security Operations
DoVE
Department of Violence(s) Ethnology
DTAP
Destination Time and Place
EFOT
Extra-Facility Operations Team
GLAAMR
Galvanic Liminal Aura Antecedent to Manifold Rift
GRIMNIR
neo-ragtag successor to ODIN; not an acronym
HOSMA
Historical Operations Subject Matter Authority
IARPA
Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Agency
IPOPWI
Infinite Pasts, One Present, Weighted Influence
KCW
Known Compliant Witch
MAGOPs
Magical Operations
MAGSEC
Magical Security
MARS
Martial Arts Research Summary
NEER
Northern Europe, Early Renaissance
NELM
Northern Europe, Late Medieval
NOCHRON
document label; not to be viewed by Anachrons
ODEC
Ontic Decoherence Cavity
ODIN
Operational DODO Intranet
OPIFDI
One Present, Infinite Futures, Diffuse Influence
PEP
Performance Enhancement Plan
POOJAC
Policy on Official Jargon and Acronym Coinage
QUIPU
Quantum Information Processing Unit
RAFSTIQUORDOT
mnemonic for what to do during/after Diachronic Shear
SARF
Supervised Anachron Residential Facility
SLIT
Something Less Than Infinite Time
UDET
Unity of DOer-Experienced Time
Terms
áireamhán
Irish name for broom-quipu object used like abacus by witches
Anachron
historical person brought forward in time to modern day
Diachronic Shear
infernal, catastrophic response of the universe to too-extreme changes being wrought as a result of diachronic activity
diakrónikus nyírás
Hungarian term for Diachronic Shear
lomadh
Irish word for Diachronic Shear
Shiny Hat
ultra-paranoid secure operating system
Strand
parallel universe
számológép
Hungarian name for quipu-like object used like abacus by witches
Wending
witch practice/superpower of jumping sideways between Strands
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
NEAL STEPHENSON is the author of Seveneves, Reamde, Anathem, the three-volume historical epic The Baroque Cycle (Quicksilver, The Confusion, and The System of the World) as well as Cryptonomicon, The Diamond Age, Snow Crash, and Zodiac. He is (with Nicole Galland) one of the seven coauthors of the Mongoliad Trilogy. He lives in Seattle, Washington.
NICOLE GALLAND is the author of six previous novels: The Fool’s Tale; Revenge of the Rose; Crossed; I, Iago; Godiva; and Stepdog. She is (with Neal Stephenson) one of the seven coauthors of the Mongoliad Trilogy. She lives on Martha’s Vineyard.
Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.
ALSO BY NEAL STEPHENSON
SEVENEVES
SOME REMARKS
REAMDE
ANATHEM
THE SYSTEM OF THE WORLD
THE CONFUSION
QUICKSILVER
CRYPTONOMICON
THE DIAMOND AGE
SNOW CRASH
ZODIAC
ALSO BY NICOLE GALLAND
STEPDOG
GODIVA
I, IAGO
CROSSED
REVENGE OF THE ROSE
THE FOOL’S TALE
COPYRIGHT
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.: A Novel Page 68