Invictus

by Ryan Graudin

  The rest of the room settled into place. Far knew he was surrounded by hologram plates—how else would you train would-be time travelers without screwing up the world?—but they did a hashing fine job of convincing his senses otherwise. Cavernous ceilings arched above him: chandeliers dripping like a goddess’s tears, gold pouring from every surface. There were gueridons in the form of sumptuous women, seats embroidered with squirrels and flowers, courtiers buzzing high on gossip and champagne. And courtiers, and courtiers…

  He’d walked into the middle of a party.

  Dozens, if not scores, of people milled through the room. How many eyes that might see Far? How many ears that might hear him? Yes, the partygoers were products of the hologram plates beneath his feet, but their programming was meant to mirror flesh and blood. If Far did anything to attract their attention, his score would suffer.

  At least his getup blended in. Their outfits were as outlandish as Far’s. Frill and color mixed through the mirror’s mercury gloss like a bad med-patch trip. The women’s beehive hair climbed impossibly high. Makeup caked their faces to cover the smallpox scars of sickly youth.

  One woman was brighter than the rest. She didn’t stand in the center of the party yet she was its center. Her dress billowed seafoam green—light as air, with a spring-day glow. Real ostrich feathers sprouted from the whorls of her hair. Her makeup was as heavy as the others: gossamer powder, eyebrows perfectly arched as if they’d been drawn on. The woman wore these things like magic, trapping an entire ring of courtiers in her spell.

  “ID?” Far asked into his cupped palm.

  “Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna. Better known as Marie Antoinette. She is currently twenty years of age and the queen of France. She registers as a Tier Three mark on the important- persons scale.”

  “Tier Three?” Far, half afraid that the computer was lying, turned to get a better, mirrorless view. It was indeed Marie Antoinette. One of the most hated women of her age. One of the most beloved queens of history.

  “Hades’s clangers in a hashing bluebox,” he whispered to the back of a gueridon’s gilded head. The Academy had really tossed him into the deep end this time. Being a Tier Three mark meant any interactions with Marie Antoinette beyond a bonjour were forbidden. It also meant that datastreams of the flamboyant queen of France were rare. Valuable. Such footage could send Far’s exam marks through the roof, maybe even land him a score high enough to enter the Corps as a ranked official. He’d be that much closer to becoming a captain of operations on a CTM, calling the shots….

  The safe thing to do would be to play the wallflower for fifty-nine minutes. Stick to the mirrors’ edge, drink in every detail of the party from the outside. Note the food being served, the brand of champagne being poured (Veuve Clicquot), every stitch of the courtiers’ frocks.

  But being so conservative held its own danger. Too much Central money was poured into the Corps to commission travelers who skulked on the sidelines. If Far didn’t score high enough, he risked being licensed but never selected for an actual CTM mission. Just the thought of being grounded to a single time, when his mother and Burg no longer existed, made Far’s insides go dark.

  That couldn’t be his future. It wouldn’t.

  His choices were the following:

  1. Fade into the background. Be lost.

  2. Step out into the thick of the crowd. Be seen.

  3. Walk the line between.

  Far had pulled off anonymous observations of Tier Three marks before. Keeping beneath a gossipy royal’s radar would be nothing compared with stowing away on the HMS Endeavour for two days. He was as good as this. Better than. Number three was all his.

  Scores of people wasn’t quite a large enough number to get lost in. Far kept to the crowd’s outer layer, drifting quickly enough to avoid getting caught in conversation. He circled the party once, twice, soaking Versailles’s nightlife into his datastream. Always Far’s gaze went back to the queen: her dreamlike dress, her smile—so buoyant beneath all that makeup.

  He itched to get closer. His path coiled inward like a nautilus shell, making smaller and smaller circles. With every new step, Far felt the points racking up in his favor: Captain here I come!

  “Proximity to Tier Three mark has breached recommended distance,” the computer cautioned at ten meters out. “Risk of detection imminent.”

  Far could hear the queen detailing her latest Parisian adventures to a rapt audience. “One must go to a masquerade at least once in one’s life. It gives one such a sense of power, to be faceless. To be free of who you are, if only for a moment.”

  Marie Antoinette’s admirers nodded. The women’s hair feathers bobbed and the tips of the men’s wigs fluttered: yes, yes in fervent agreement. Far pushed closer, taking care not to jostle any hemlines. So far no one in the crowd had tossed him a second glance, and he aimed to keep it that way.

  The warning in his ear blared louder: “Risk of detection imminent.”

  He wasn’t in any danger. Marie Antoinette’s back was to him, and the listeners around her had formed a wall—three bodies thick—to be first in the queen’s line of sight. The taller courtiers’ shoulders provided more than enough cover.

  “To walk unknown in the midst of a hundred strangers is simply exhilarating.” Marie Antoinette began spinning. “Don’t you think?”

  There was another chorus of yeses, but the queen waved these off as she turned. Far stayed on the crowd’s outer edge, his datastream capturing every detail as Marie Antoinette came into view. The lace edges of her Rose Bertin gown. The beauty mark that dotted her right cheek. The diamonds lassoed around her swan-pale neck.

  Oh, this was good footage! Possibly some of his best to date. If it were real, Far was positive it would’ve become a published datastream: An Evening with Marie Antoinette. Much more entertaining than medieval, rat-gnawed corpses. Cheerier, too—if you disregarded how it all ended.

  This would get him assigned to a CTM right away. Far was already dreaming of the sergeant bar that would be pinned to his jacket when the queen spoke again.

  “Don’t you think?”

  Two men in front of Far nodded, but Marie Antoinette paid them no mind. She stepped between the pair. The queen’s pale skin, the dark flash of her eyes, her regal stride all reminded Far of a white reindeer he’d once seen in a snow-laden nineteenth-century Swedish Sim. This was all he could manage to think as the queen of France stood in front of him. Anything else was too terrible.

  The computer wailed useless warnings. “DETECTED BY TIER THREE MARK! ABORT MISSION IMMEDIATELY!”

  “I know an outlier when I see one.” Marie Antoinette leaned in. Her cheek brushed Far’s, accented with scents of rosebushes and bergamots. “You don’t belong here.”

  This couldn’t be happening. This shouldn’t be happening. None of the normal triggers were there—Far had stayed out of the line of sight, lips sealed, wardrobe well worn. His proximity was closer than the computer preferred, but that had never mattered before. An average Marie Antoinette in an average Sim would still be addressing her courtiers, not holding Far’s stare like this, dark eyes into dark. They were, he noted distantly, similar to his own in color. A brown so deep it tangoed with black.

  “ABORT MISSION IMMEDIATELY!” the computer screamed.

  The exam was over. EVERYTHING was over. Marie Antoinette stepped back with a wink. The motion was smooth and deliberate, just mocking enough to let Far know this wasn’t some curveball failure.

  This Sim was corrupted.

  He’d been set up.

  Versailles vanished, reduced to a warehouse of hologram plates that glimmered mother-of-pearl in their resting state. Far stood alone in the sudden silence, breathing heavily. Patches of cold sweat spread under all those hashing layers of clothes. His body shook—not out of fear, but with anger.

  “Bring it back! That wasn’t my fault! It wasn’t—”

  “Farway Gaius McCarthy.” The computer in his comm gave way to Instructor Marin’s
voice. Oh Hades, Marin would be loving this. “Please proceed to the exit for your debriefing.”

  SUBJECT SEVEN HAS BEEN SUCCESSFULLY REDIRECTED.

  3

  LOOPS WITH THE BIRD

  THERE WAS A TWO-WAY MIRROR IN the debriefing room, capturing Far’s reflection with unforgiving detail when he entered. His wig was still on, flowered waistcoat in place, and the ruffles were threatening to grow. He felt shell-ish as he stared, as if his self were elsewhere, tethered to this courtesan gentleman like some child’s balloon.

  The chamber, with its table and two chairs, was a long leap from Versailles’s gilded halls. It gave the appearance of solitude, but Far knew he wasn’t alone. An entire jury of instructors sat on the other side of the glass, stripping his datastream to centimeters and syllables. Surely they’d deduce that the mistake wasn’t his. It couldn’t be his. He’d logged thousands upon thousands of successful Sim hours. Hades, there was a plaque sporting his name in the Academy’s main hall: FARWAY MCCARTHY, BEST CUMULATIVE SIM SCORE OF 2370. Being engraved in solid 24-karat gold had to count for something.

  Seconds stretched into minutes, and the initial anger at the Sim reduced to a simmer, tunneling beneath Far’s skin like fire ants. The debriefing instructor was usually here by now, congratulating him on this or that evasive maneuver. Delay meant conversation, conversation meant doubt. Who wouldn’t be reexamining the Sim’s technological integrity after a wink like that?

  He wanted to say his piece, sans shouting, so he walked over to the mirror and spoke past himself. “Look, we all know this was a programming problem. I can come back and retake the exam once it’s fixed.”

  “Have a seat, Cadet McCarthy.” Instructor Marin’s voice slid through the comm—sterling, austere.

  Neither of the room’s chairs had been designed with ergonomics in mind: steel surface as flat as Homer’s view of the earth. Sitting would not only be a sentence to a numb backside, but also any other terms Edwin Marin set forth. The Academy instructor was armored with spite when it came to Far, chips sheathing both shoulders. The grudge weighting them was over twenty years old, born the moment Empra McCarthy had tossed an engagement ring at the man’s face. Rumor had it that the princess-cut diamond had left a scar on Marin’s upper lip, but this could neither be confirmed nor denied because of the handlebar mustache that had taken up permanent residence there.

  Water was not under the bridge that had been burned, and Far was too proud to let Marin jerk him around. As long as the instructor didn’t order him verbatim, he’d stay on his own two feet, a fog’s breath away from the mirror. His exhales clouded the glass, peeling back and replacing themselves, thick enough to trace shapes in. Far drew an infinity symbol with his forefinger—loop, loop, never-ending loop—until Instructor Marin spoke again.

  “Sit down, Cadet McCarthy. That’s an order.”

  Far huffed out the remaining hot air in his lungs and traced one last round with his middle finger. Marin wouldn’t miss the switch, but there was no standing rule against doodling with “the bird.”

  Loopholes were a wonderful thing.

  He took a seat and began downloading Punched Up Panda’s victory anthem. “Top of the Rise” had a beat that demanded movement, thumb drums to steel tabletop. Who’d have the gall to sabotage his final exam Sim? Far was no tech-head, but he knew hacking into a time-travel Simulation required smarts, not to mention a willingness to break digital trespassing laws. That ruled out Instructor Marin, who’d follow Corps’ protocol off a cliff if said command was written in the Corps of Central Time Travelers’ Code of Conduct. Far’s best friend, Gram Wright, had the brainpower for such a hack, IQ on the right side of 160, but never in a million years would he use his keyboard wizardry against Far.

  Who, then?

  And why?

  By the time Marin entered the room, Far’s nerves were amped up to eleven. The instructor smiled in an off sort of way as he took a seat in the opposite chair, lips cozying to the ends of his waxed mustache. “Cadet McCarthy, the licensing board and I have just finished reviewing your datastream—”

  “The Sim was compromised, sir.” Words were sparks on Far’s tongue, too hot to contain. “Marie Antoinette was expecting me. Someone must have hacked the systems—”

  “Do not interrupt me while I’m speaking, Cadet. I’d take marks for it, but we both know there’d be no point in my doing so.”

  No… no point? Far’s confidence sputtered, his insides left singed. If he opened his mouth now, ashes might spill out, so he kept his molars locked.

  Marin continued, “Nineteen years I’ve taught here, trying to mold wide-eyed datastream addicts into effective time travelers. This isn’t the first time I’ve heard the programming excuse. Hades—it’s not even the tenth time I’ve heard it.”

  “It’s not an excuse, sir. It’s true.” Far’s gaze darted back to the mirror. He hoped the licensing board had remained to hear him out. “I’m wearing a poodle wig and purse-pinching pants. I was standing two men deep and the queen’s back was turned. There’s no way Marie Antoinette could have seen me.”

  “You were two meters away from a Tier Three mark. That’s inexcusable in any scenario!” There was a reason Instructor Marin hadn’t been assigned to a CTM in multiple sun orbits. The man was all structure, no stretch. Perfect fit for a desk.

  “Only because I got caught.”

  “Exactly, Cadet. You got caught. If what I just witnessed on that datastream occurred during an actual mission, you would have disturbed the past with unforeseeable consequences!”

  “It wouldn’t have happened on an actual mission. Someone— I don’t know who—hacked the Sim and programmed it against me. They wanted me to fail.” Once more Far stared past Marin’s shoulder, into the infinity-smudged glass. Why couldn’t they see what was in front of them? “Go over the datastream again. You’ll see how she winked at me.”

  “Marie Antoinette was a notorious flirt,” Instructor Marin pointed out. “For her to wink is hardly an indication of program corruption.”

  “I know a flirty wink when I see one. This wink was a message—”

  “Cadet, please. You’re embarrassing yourself. Diagnostics showed all systems are untampered with. You failed.” Marin’s last word curled along the edge of his mustache, pushing out at a merciless volume. It crawled through Far’s eardrums, working its way past the final notes of “Top of the Rise,” spiraling down a throat full of cinders into a stomach that was trying to digest an impossible possibility and was collapsing as a result.

  He’d failed.

  Ashes ashes we all fall dead end black hole no no no no…

  NO.

  “Someone screwed up the hashing diagnostics!” Far’s yell sounded tinny to his own ears. It was a very Alice in Wonderland feeling—shrinking inside oneself, until you had to stand on tiptoes to stare out of your own eyes. “This isn’t my fault! I’ve been framed!”

  “Lower your voice,” Instructor Marin said.

  “Or what? You’ll take marks?”

  Far knew he’d gone too far when the instructor’s smile flatlined. The man cleared his throat. “I don’t care who your mother was. I don’t care that you were born on a CTM. I don’t care that you’re first in your class. You hashed up, McCarthy. You hashed up royally.

  “You want to know why? Hubris. You think no one can touch you. I’ve watched you bend the rules again and again without consequence, because you think you’re the exception. But I’m going to let you in on a little secret, McCarthy…. You’re not special. You aren’t important. You are arrogant and disrespectful, and I have no doubt you’d obliterate history if given the chance. Crux help this world if you ever set foot on a CTM. I’ll be hashed to the moon and back before I let that happen. Cadet McCarthy, I’m sorry, but you are not a good fit for the Corps. You’re hereby expelled from the Academy and banned from ever applying for a license.”

  “You can’t expel me,” Far croaked. “I’m the valedictorian.”

  “
Not anymore,” Marin told him. “Final exams are final, Mr. McCarthy.”

  Mr. McCarthy, not Cadet. Far hadn’t missed this change in Instructor Marin’s address, the double-syllable shift that stranded him in life as he knew it. There would be no sergeant bar. There wouldn’t even be a CTM.

  “I’d advise you to hand over your practice Sim pass and campus credentials before security has to get involved,” the instructor said.

  Security? No, if Far had to leave, it’d be on his own terms. He stood slowly for the sake of his pillaged soul, peeled the lanyard of badges from his neck, and tossed it across the table. An impertinent motion, perhaps, but what did manners matter when he was a hashing civilian? This time Far wasn’t subtle about releasing “the bird,” on his left hand or his right. One flew toward the mirror, the other toward Marin. Though he was dragged down by the weight of his own sweat, both gave him wings enough to fly toward the door. It felt like waking from a nightmare, this dread trembling through all corners, but Far knew he wasn’t so fortunate. The real nightmare lay through this exit, stretching out into inescapable linear years.

  The real nightmare had only just begun.

  4

  OLD PAPER, REAL INK

  AFTER A LESS-THAN-STELLAR SIM, FAR USUALLY found solace on the pull-up bar in his room. He faced his feelings in ten-rep sets: pumping anger out, muscle mass in. Making himself better, getting ready for next time. This evening when Far stepped inside the Zone 3 flat he shared with his aunt, uncle, and cousin, the exercise equipment seemed to mock him. What was the point of burning muscle pain now? There was nothing more to work toward.

  Marie Antoinette and Instructor Marin had seen to that.