Empire Games Series, Book 1

by Charles Stross

  She arrived on the fourth floor to discover the local Force Command Suite in a state of turmoil: majors and inspectors rushing around urgently, stenographers clacking away at their computer terminals and telex machines, a steady stream of messengers coming and going. “Where’s Commander Jackson?” Olga demanded at the door.

  “You can’t see him,” the callow young man on reception began. “He’s in a briefing—”

  “Aha! Miss Thorold!” The Commander bounced out of a boardroom door and came to rest in front of her, positively vibrating. “Excellent, we’ve been waiting for you!”

  “About time,” she muttered under her breath as Jack wheeled her into the conference room. “What do we know, Richard?”

  Heads turned as she entered the room: Commander Jackson closed the door behind her and a captain hastily cleared a space at the table for her chair. “Inspector Alice Morgan is with the subject right now, resuming the interview. They’re on the top floor. She’s keeping it low-key and friendly for the time being: the subject has been cooperative so far. The only problem is, there’s obviously been some sort of leak—”

  “Who was the recipient?” Olga demanded.

  “The General Secretary’s office. Mr. Pierrepoint’s deputy called the interview room on the direct line about an hour ago, demanding we hand the subject over. Whoever blabbed told them exactly what extension to call and who to ask for, so I’m treating it as a hostile security breach and will be hunting the leaker in due course. Inspector Morgan told them to come back with a warrant, but it’s anybody’s guess how long we’ve got—”

  Olga cut him off: “They’ve got tame judges. We’ve got to get her out of here right now. You don’t want to get caught up in a fight between the Party Secretariat and the DPR.”

  “But a transfer of jurisdiction—”

  “Do you agree that this is a matter of national security?” Commander Jackson met her gaze for a second, then nodded abruptly. “The DPR is best placed to handle a debriefing and work out how to respond. If it’s a matter of whatever charges you’re detaining her on, I’m sure we can arrange to settle them or bring her in front of a sheriff’s court in due course. But it would be a really bad idea to let Mr. Pierrepoint take custody of the prisoner in view of the current, uh, political situation.”

  “Oh hell.” Jackson rubbed his eyes. “This is about the succession, isn’t it?”

  “I hope not, but the timing is a terrible coincidence.” Olga took a deep breath, then another. She was running out of energy again. She wanted nothing more than to go back to her hotel room and sleep for the rest of the day. Her job was demanding enough at the best of times. Having a multiple sclerosis flare-up in the middle of a crisis would put her in the hospital if she didn’t take care of herself. For Lightning Child’s sake, don’t give him any ideas about who the spy is. “What have you got from her so far?”

  A woman in the uniform of a Transport Police lieutenant stood up. “I can fetch the latest updated transcript, sir…?”

  “Do that.” Jackson’s dismissal was abrupt. “She’s from their Department of Homeland Security and we’re certain she’s a world-walker. They trained her as a spy and kept her in a padded cell so she doesn’t know much about her operational context, but—”

  “That makes her our responsibility for sure. Take me up to see her.”

  The lieutenant came bustling back, clutching a manila folder of printouts. Jackson took it and passed it to Olga without a word. “Right away.”

  In the elevator, alone with the Commander and her attendant, Olga looked at him appreciatively. “You’ve done well, Richard. And so has Inspector Morgan.”

  “We only just caught her by the skin of our teeth. We’re not out of the woods yet.”

  “Of course not. But if you got me half an hour’s lead over Pierrepoint…”

  They rolled out into a corridor. Olga had no problem identifying the interview room. Two cops armed with short-barreled shotguns stood guard outside it. They came to attention as Commander Jackson approached. Olga glanced down at the briefing papers. NAME: RITA DOUGLAS. AGE: 26. RACE: MIXED HINDUSTANI. HEIGHT: 5′4″.

  Oh dear, she thought dismally. The age and ethnicity added another decimal place to the probability they’d placed on her identity. If the speculation about the Americans having worked out how to activate world-walking in recessive carriers was true, then it was hard to see who else this woman could be. She barely had time to read another line when the door opened. She closed the folder hastily as Jack lined her wheelchair up with the door frame and pushed her through.

  “Good morning, Inspector, Miss Douglas. I’m sorry to interrupt your little chat, but you’re both coming with me.”

  “And who are—oh.” Alice Morgan half rose, then abruptly came to attention as she saw the Commander behind Olga’s wheelchair. “Sir.”

  “Who—” The prisoner looked confused. “What’s going on?”

  Olga looked at the prisoner. There was a family resemblance, if you were looking for it. She steeled herself. “I’m from the Department of Para-historical Research, Security Directorate. Commander?”

  Jackson knew his role. “National security,” he said stiffly, nodding apologetically at Inspector Morgan. “Miss Thorold here is taking over the investigation. You will accompany her and the prisoner.”

  The prisoner flinched visibly: Inspector Morgan was also clearly startled. “What, right now? But we’ve got another six days—”

  “You’ve got until the Party Secretariat gets a judge to rubber-stamp an Emergency Decree that will doubtless be a massive case of bureaucratic overreach, then rushes it round here with a goon squad for backup.” The commander gestured at Olga. “Miss Thorold is from the DPR. She’ll keep the Secretariat off our back. That’s right, isn’t it?”

  Olga stared at the prisoner. She was pretty, in the gamine mode that was popular in the United States. Skin that could pass for a deep tan, shoulder-length black hair, eyes like a frightened rabbit’s. “You showed up at a very bad time,” Olga told the woman. She flinched as Olga continued: “I’m here to get you to a place of safety. Then I will have a message for you to take to your handlers. Are you going to cooperate?” The prisoner nodded, visibly subdued. “Okay, hood her and cuff her, then bring her along. To the car, Jack, there’s no time to lose…”

  IRONGATE, TIME LINE THREE, AUGUST 2020

  Rita felt trapped in a bad dream. This can’t be happening felt like it should be a cliché, not a queasy churning in her stomach as men in unfamiliar uniforms pinioned her hands behind her back and dropped a sack over her head, then frog-marched her out of the room. She was hungry, tired, and frightened by this turn of events. All she could do was cling to what the woman called Thorold had said: a message for you to take to your handlers. She shuffled, trying to keep her feet under her as they hauled her into an elevator. As long as the message isn’t my dead body, she thought.

  The cop, Inspector Morgan, had been reasonable, but that’s what you’d expect of an interrogator. The art of successful interrogation was all about getting the suspect’s trust. She’d been spared violence and torture only because they weren’t effective means of extracting useful information; they were tools for intimidation, for making someone (often not the victim) do what you wanted. They aren’t going to torture me because it would serve no purpose, Rita told herself uncertainly as the elevator descended. These people are professionals. But repeating it didn’t help. For all she knew, this was another little motivational scenario: an attempt to convince her to cooperate by handing her a believable lie.

  The elevator juddered to a stop. She felt fresh air on her face, heard voices: “Whatever you do, don’t take the cuffs or hood off until I tell you to. We don’t know if she’s got a tattoo somewhere…” They marched her out to a vehicle, shoved her onto a padded bench seat, then someone climbed in next to her. The engine rattled, and the stink of gasoline made her nose itch. They drove for minutes that felt like hours, before coming to a halt so
mewhere where the air stank of burning diesel: there was a distant roaring. An airport? she wondered dizzily. They lifted her up a short flight of steps and onto another seat. Someone sat down next to her. “We’re going for a short flight,” Miss Thorold confided in her right ear, confirming her suspicions. “I hope you don’t get airsick.” Then someone clamped a pair of ear defenders over her hood, muffling everything.

  There was more vibration, then a gathering banshee scream and a vibration that set her teeth on edge. It seemed to go on forever, until Rita felt her stomach drop away as they rose straight up. Must be a chopper—

  Someone removed the ear defenders and hood: Rita blinked at the dazzling daylight. Without the mufflers the noise was deafening, far louder than Rita would have expected of a helicopter. She was sitting directly behind the pilots, Miss Thorold to her right. Someone in the seat behind her clamped a headset to her ears: she tried to look round, but the cuffs prevented her from turning. The chopper lurched and began to accelerate forward. As it did so the noise level dropped, as if some sort of boost motor had shut down. “What—” She cleared her throat. “Where are you taking me?” The entire front of the aircraft was a glass bubble. The view would have been mesmerizing if she hadn’t felt as if she was about to throw up.

  The Thorold woman adjusted her mike, then reached up and flipped a switch. “I don’t think anyone can overhear us. Ms. Douglas, you are in deep shit, and not just because you’re an illegal. Luckily for you, I’m going to throw you a life preserver. I’m even going to ask Jack to take the cuffs off, assuming you won’t try to jump out the door at ten thousand feet?” Rita shook her head. Miss Thorold leaned over the chair back and said something on another channel; a few seconds later the guard in the seat behind her unlocked her handcuffs. “First, I want you to answer a couple of questions for me.” Miss Thorold pulled out a bunch of printed papers. “You told the inspector that you were recruited by the DHS after world-walkers tried to abduct you. I want you to tell me exactly what happened.”

  Rita massaged her wrists and stared. “Wuh?” She swallowed. “I thought you’d know.”

  Thorold looked tense. “Pretend I don’t. We’ve got nearly an hour before this flying scrapheap gets where it’s going. You’ve got plenty of time to tell me everything.”

  Cold realization crystallized in her guts. “I’d flown home to Boston from Seattle,” she began, then recounted her story for the second or third time this morning.

  Eventually Thorold shook her head. “We didn’t do it.” Her tone was blunt. “Whoever they were, they used totally the wrong protocol. Amateurs! If we’d wanted you—assuming we even knew who you were—we’d have caught you. You know what I think? It was a set-piece scenario organized to motivate you to say ‘yes’ when they recruited you. You were probably expected to break away when they parked somewhere, or to call up those friendly DHS people who’d bugged your phone.” She snorted. “Idiots.”

  “I suspected something like that,” Rita said defensively. “But I didn’t have any good alternatives.”

  “You could have phoned us.”

  “What! How?”

  “Let’s see.” Miss Thorold put her papers away. Not for the first time Rita noticed that the woman’s hands were shaking. “You’re twenty-six. Born in 1994. You’re a world-walker. They finally figured out how to activate the ability in by-blows, did they?” Rita nodded reluctantly. There didn’t seem to be any point in denying it. “That means you’re a relative. We can confirm it if you like, but at a guess … Indian father, right?”

  Rita looked away. “I never met my birth parents,” she said. “They gave me up for adoption right after I was born. Who are you and where are you taking me, ma’am? And what have my birth parents got to do with anything?”

  “Those are three very good questions. You might also want to add, why did your Colonel send you in particular?”

  Thorold sounded approving. As if she wanted Rita to ask questions. Her skin crawled. Asking questions in a classified security perimeter was a good way to get yourself a one-way trip to a jail cell. Even thinking the wrong questions could be dangerous. “I changed my mind. I don’t want to know—”

  “Tough, kid. I’m going to give you more answers than you want. Firstly”—Thorold held up a finger—“the Clan of world-walkers that the US government is so pants-wettingly scared of doesn’t exist anymore. We are citizens of the New American Commonwealth—naturalized immigrants—and we mostly work for the government. In my case, I work for an agency called the Department of Para-historical Research. As you probably guessed, my specialty is para-time security. You could say I’m your Colonel Smith’s opposite number. Right now we’re en route to the DPR headquarters in New London—that’s the Commonwealth capital, although you know it better as Manhattan.

  “When we get there, you’re going to meet my boss. She’s a Party Commissioner, a member of the Central Committee—there is no exact equivalent in the US government, but she is responsible for an entire government ministry. And she’s going to give you a message to take home to your bosses.”

  “A message?” Rita felt a stab of hope.

  “Yes. Don’t you think it’s better if our political leaders start talking to each other?” Thorold’s cheek twitched. “Talking like responsible adults, instead of shooting down drones and playing stupid cold-war spy games? They should be exchanging embassies, sending diplomats, that sort of thing. This playing footsie with spies, somebody could get hurt.”

  “You want me to be a messenger?”

  “Yes.” Thorold raised her finger again. “But let me warn you what I’m talking about. Your boss couldn’t have picked a worse time to play head games with us. The Commonwealth is on a hair trigger. That’s because in this world, we’re one of two superpowers who are pointing lots of nuclear weapons at each other. Our enemy is a totalitarian regime that covers the whole of Europe, Asia, the Middle East, most of Africa … and they’d love to take advantage of any internal crisis to damage the Commonwealth. There are lots of proxy wars on the fringe, and everyone’s afraid the Big One will start by accident if someone sneezes at the wrong time—just like the cold war you might have learned about in history lessons.

  “I’m telling you this because it’s possible the Commissioner will be too distracted to mention it, and if she does mention it you’ll probably be too distracted to remember. But it’s vitally important that your bosses get the message. The last high-altitude drone they sent over nearly triggered a nuclear war. If that happens again, the consequences will be very bad for everyone.”

  Rita’s stomach clenched. “You’re soft-soaping me. Why? What are you softening me up for?”

  Thorold muttered under her breath: “Lightning Child … there’s no easy way to say this. Rita. Ms. Douglas. I am not certain of this—I won’t be until the results come back from running the DNA sample the police took from you, and that’s going to take a while—but you’re the right age, ethnicity, and background, and everything else about you fits.” Outside the glass bubble of the helicopter, the world rolled by. Rita’s sense of unreality intensified as Miss Thorold continued. “The woman you are about to meet is almost certainly your mother. She’s known of your existence for about an hour. You are her only child. And I believe you were recruited, trained, and sent here to fuck with her head.”

  AIRBORNE, EN ROUTE TO NEW LONDON, TIME LINE THREE, AUGUST 2020

  Miss Thorold clearly had some idea of the impact her words would have on Rita, for she fell silent for the next ten minutes. This suited Rita completely. She was shaking; her hands felt cold. She raised them to cover her mouth. “Mother” meant Emily, not some stranger in a foreign government ministry. Not the woman who had turned her back on her as a baby. The realization that she was going to have to meet her made Rita feel increasingly resentful. Angry, even.

  Many little girls went through a phase of thinking they were different, of playing make-believe that they’d been left with foster parents but that when their real
parents found them they’d discover that they were actually a princess. Rita had known better from an early age. Just by looking in the mirror she could see that she didn’t resemble her parents. They hadn’t bothered pretending otherwise. They wanted her regardless, and had showered her with love. Rita hadn’t ever searched for Cinderella shoes to wear because she’d grown up knowing that she was a pale brown Snow White. Her make-believe queen had betrayed her, abandoning her for good. And now she found herself sitting in the middle seat of a military helicopter, thundering through the skies to answer the evil queen’s summons.

  When she could trust herself to speak, Rita lowered her hands. “Tell me about my—about who I’m going to, to meet.”

  Miss Thorold’s lips thinned. “Mrs. Burgeson—Miriam Burgeson—is the Party Commissioner in charge of the Ministry of Intertemporal Technological Intelligence. If you think of it as a cross between the National Science Foundation, the CIA, and the Department of Transportation, you won’t be too far off the mark. Like you, she is a world-walker. The Department of Para-historical Research, where I work, is part of MITI.”

  Her first name was Miriam. Another piece of circumstantial evidence to back up Thorold’s assertion, Rita realized. Her birth mother had been called Miriam something or other. “She—she sounds important. Is she?”

  “You have no idea.” Thorold looked away. “Her husband runs the Ministry of Propaganda and Communications. They both report in the cabinet to the First Man—the equivalent of the President. Except he isn’t—we have a different constitutional separation of powers. The point is, you are about to have fifteen minutes with one of the most important people in the government of this continent. Half of the power couple who lead one of our Party factions, if you like. She’s going to give you a message to take back to your government, along with proof of her identity. And then we’re going to get you out of there before the bad guys arrest you.”