Dark State

by Charles Stross

  “So? Either he doesn’t know what she is, or—”

  “Or he doesn’t have her.”

  “But Hulius sent the extraction code!”

  “What if”—Olga looked thoughtful—“what if Hulius succeeded in extracting Elizabeth, but between him getting himself shot, and that last phone call, and Smith arriving, Liz took a hike?”

  “That’s what our friends call a Hail Mary pass.”

  “Yes, but think about it: Smith doesn’t know. If he had her and knew what she was he’d have us over a barrel, wouldn’t he? However, our English Rose isn’t a shy and reticent wallflower. She’s bright and determined enough to defect. If the extraction went wrong—”

  “But that would mean she’s in Berlin in time line two, on her own and on the run! Is that what you’re thinking?”

  “Yes. Of course, as soon as Colonel Smith gets a chance to question Hulius he’s going to figure out what slipped through his fingers, but that could take a while. It all depends how badly Yul’s been hurt. Shot, fainted.”

  “Could be blood loss, could be anything, really.”

  Olga made a pistol of the first two fingers on her right hand, aimed them at Brilliana. “You’ve been shot. Bang. Stayed functional long enough to get your charge to a place of safety—twenty, thirty minutes. Then collapsed. Shock, exhaustion. Hulius’s going to be out for a couple of days, minimum. We can factor in Colonel Smith being reluctant to apply enhanced interrogation to a high-value captive who’s recovering from a gunshot wound and who may have value as a hostage. Hulius’s a stubborn son of a bitch, isn’t he?”

  Brill nodded. Her eyes glistened. “He won’t give them anything easily.”

  “So if the Colonel doesn’t have Elizabeth Hanover already, he isn’t going to find out about her for a good one to three days.”

  Brill nodded again. Her expression hardened. “You know what? I have a feeling it’s time we spoke to Rita’s grandfather…”

  PHILADELPHIA, TIME LINE TWO, AUGUST 2020

  “Hi Kurt! It’s Angie!”

  “Hello, Angie. Have you heard from my granddaughter?”

  “No, I think she’s still working on that job they sent her on? I was just wondering if you wanted to do dinner tonight.”

  Kurt thought for a moment. Only a moment: his memory wasn’t as sharp as it had once been. It was on the tip of his tongue. “Dinner, you say?”

  “Yes, dinner.”

  She was insistent. Dinner. Well, then. An interesting choice of words. “Dinner,” as opposed to “supper” or “Chinese” or “drinks.” His pulse raced for a moment as he replied. “Very well. Do you want to pick me up?”

  “Sure—are you still in that motel?”

  In only thirty seconds the conversation was at an end. They had a date. Kurt slid his phone back into its padded case with a rueful snort. Fifty years ago—even thirty or forty, if he hadn’t been married—he’d have been overjoyed by the thought of a date with a green-haired muscle goddess like Angie, even if she wasn’t interested in him in the same way. Now it was just ironic, and a bit worrying. Dinner meant that Rita had been in touch. (Best not to know how.) Dinner meant news. But any unscheduled contact held an element of risk, so Angie wouldn’t have requested a face-to-face meeting without a good reason. I hope trouble has not found Rita, he thought. But of course, if Rita was in trouble how would she have signaled Angela?

  An hour later Kurt was downstairs in the lobby when Angie pushed through the doors. “Kurt!” They embraced loosely: Angie was willing to air-kiss, but a bit standoffish. He tried hard not to give offense, but the mores of the younger generations frequently left him confused and uncertain. Such an old and ugly man I am, he thought ruefully. “Come on, I was thinking we could pick up burritos together, there’s this great little carry-out—”

  He was half-expecting the usual tradecraft runaround, with a chatterbox bag for the phones and a last minute diversion to a random destination, but true to her word Angie drove him straight to a taqueria with a sit-down area that did indeed serve burritos as promised. They queued for a few minutes, then Angie led him to a table near the front window where they ate and chatted of inconsequentialities. Partway through their meal she backhanded her 7UP, tipping it onto the table: “Oh, I’m sorry!” she chirped as she grabbed at it. “Excuse me.” She followed through with a handful of the serviettes she’d heaped on his tray, then dumped them back in a soggy mass, with something else folded among them. It was a note, scrawled on paper. Kurt smiled and nodded, and resisted the temptation to read it under the watching eyes of the diner’s CCTV. The restaurant only had a low-grade commercial system, but if the DHS felt the need to tap its stream they could do so without a warrant. And even cheap CCTV cameras recorded in cinematic high definition these days.

  “Have you heard from Rita’s employers?” Kurt asked Angie, smiling for the cameras.

  “Not a tweet.” She looked worried. “You’d think they’d at least be able to confirm or deny to an employee’s publicly-acknowledged partner, but no…”

  “I imagine if they expected her to be away for any length of time they’d say something.”

  “Weather looks good. Why don’t we walk our supper off?” she suggested.

  “Ah, yes. Let us do that.” Kurt kept a straight face. He’d been doing a lot of walking lately. It was good exercise as long as his knees and hips held out, and he’d been careful during his middle years not to put on more weight than his joints could carry. But his old shanks were tired today, and although Angie’s suggestion made good tradecraft sense he’d regret it afterward.

  Before they left, Kurt went to the restroom and used the stall. There were no cameras present when he unrolled Angie’s smudged pencil-scrawl letter and read it. MESSAGE FROM RITA’S CONTACTS. HER MOTHER’S PEOPLE WANT YOU TO VISIT THEM. SAY IT’S URGENT. IF YOU AGREE, RDV DETAILS ARE …

  Kurt read the rendezvous instructions three times, then continued to repeat them silently as he pulled wads of toilet paper from the holder and dropped them in the pan. He quietly tore the note up and scattered it on top before flushing. He continued to repeat the directions to himself as he walked out of the diner and found Angie. “Yes,” he said, “let’s walk. I think … yes, it’s past time I went on a journey.”

  She glanced at him, questioning. He nodded infinitesimally. Then they walked around the block—a couple of blocks, in fact—before returning to her pickup for the drive home.

  When he got back to his lonely hotel room, Kurt set his phone’s alarm for seven o’clock the next morning. Then, before he went to bed, he laid out clothes and a day pack in readiness for the ride of his life. He lay awake in the dark for nearly an hour, repeating the instructions and working out for himself the steps necessary to minimize his risk of being observed. And then he drifted off to sleep for the very last time in this America.

  NEW LONDON, TIME LINE THREE, AUGUST 2020

  Even though she was still half-asleep, Rita realized something was wrong the instant she stepped through the parlor doorway in search of breakfast. It was something about the angle of Huw’s shoulders, or the way Brilliana, at the other end of the table was furiously poring over a pile of documents. They were taut yet subtly broken, like overwound clock springs. They were also both dressed from head to toe in black, which after a few seconds she pegged as anomalous.

  Brilliana looked up. “Ah, it’s you.” She paused with her pen in a death grip, poised in mid-air to stab a defenseless form. Her eyes were saggy, as if she’d been up half the night. “Take a seat. We need to talk.”

  “Go easy on her.” Huw sounded equally tired. “Coffee, Rita?”

  “Um, yes.” Rita looked between them apprehensively. “What is it?”

  Brill broke into speech with the suddenness of a mudslide: “It’s not about you,” she hastened to reassure. “But we’ve—well, there’s a minor crisis. And a major one.” She ground to a halt.

  Huw looked at her questioningly, then leaned back in his chair and fac
ed Rita. “Adam died yesterday afternoon, while you were away,” he said quietly.

  “Oh, I’m—” Rita hesitated. “I’m sorry for your loss,” she said woodenly. Retreat into formula seemed somehow less false than gushing regrets for a man she’d never met, who had meant nothing to her personally. He wasn’t her president, after all.

  “Well, we knew it was coming.” He sounded phlegmatic. “It does shove us into two weeks of official mourning, a state funeral, a possible constitutional crisis, and a power struggle—but that’s not your problem.” His forehead wrinkled. “Although, come to think of it, your managers will need to be informed.”

  “There’s a mourning dress in the wardrobe Cook and White’s supplied for you,” Brill reminded her sensibly. “In case you need to make any public appearances in relation to the funeral.” She seemed preoccupied. “That’s not going to be a big problem. I mean, the protocol has been planned in minute detail already. Which ambassadors are seated next to which Commissioners, who rides in front of or behind the gun carriage, the speeches, obituaries, and documentaries for public consumption. The real problems are all behind closed doors.”

  “Problems,” Rita echoed, curiosity getting the better of her. “If it’s all planned, if you knew he was ill—” She paused. “Is there something else going on that you want to tell me about?”

  “Quite possibly, though I think we need to wait a little while.” Brilliana gave her a guarded look. “Rita, I have a favor to ask of you.”

  “A—” Rita put her coffee down. “Is this work, or personal?”

  “To the extent that politics is sometimes frighteningly personal, it could be either or both.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Brill looked at Huw, whose blank look was disturbingly artless: “Dear, would you mind leaving us for a minute?”

  “Wait what”—Rita paused until Huw closed the parlor door on them—“is that about?”

  “Ears-only. Rita, I’m about to ask you to do something that falls outside anything your bosses expect of you, and which they might consider to be treasonable. You can say no and I won’t hold it against you. If you’re completely, robotically loyal you can even report it to them and—well, if you do so it means I’ve misjudged you. But I want you to be aware, up front, that the consequences of you saying yes are open-ended and drastic. You might not be able to return to the United States afterwards. If that happens, we have the resources to look after you and yours—but it’s up to you.”

  It’s the pitch, Rita thought faintly. The one she’d been expecting them to throw at her sooner or later. Only it was premature, far sooner than she—or the Colonel—had expected. They hadn’t even tried to soften her up: they must know she couldn’t say yes without— What’s she playing at? “I’m listening,” she said.

  “It’s not about you.” If Brilliana had been waiting for Rita’s double take, she was not disappointed. “We—Miss Thorold and I, after obtaining the consent of Mrs. Burgeson—reached out to your adoptive grandfather. Kurt Douglas. We need his help on a matter of some delicacy. Of course he isn’t a world-walker, so we have set up a rendezvous, and we would like you to go and fetch him for us. Alice Morgan will organize ground transport and security. The thing is, we need a world-walker who is not on the DPR’s books, or on our watch list, and who has a plausible reason for visiting time line two.”

  Rita opened her mouth, then closed it again. Picked up her coffee cup to take a mouthful, covering her confusion. “You want Gramps? What for?” You want a world-walker who isn’t one of your own to do this? Why?

  Brill’s lips thinned. “I mentioned a major crisis and a minor one. The death of the First Man was the minor one. The major one—we’ve lost track of an asset, and we want to retrieve it. Kurt Douglas has skills that are uniquely applicable to the job in question. Skills you may be aware of, I think.”

  Rita suppressed a horrified shudder. What does she know? If Olga’s people knew about the Wolf Orchestra they had her over a barrel. It wasn’t just a minor indiscretion: it was blackmail material. The proverbial handle you wanted to have on a covert asset. They could mail an anonymous tip-off and she’d be in the shit so deep she’d be lucky to ever see daylight again. The Colonel and Dr. Scranton would bury her alive.

  “His background is not a problem for us—quite the contrary. We’re prepared to offer him asylum, a state pension, and just about anything else he can reasonably ask for, if he helps us out in this matter.”

  “What?” Her eyes blurred with cognitive whiplash. If she knows about Kurt how can she not know about me? “What matter?”

  “That’s his business, not yours. All I’m asking of you right now is that you let Inspector Morgan take you to a surveyed rendezvous point, cross over, pick up your grandfather—literally, pick him up—and come back. Oh, and if he turns the job down, you’re his ride home. He has no reason to trust me, but he certainly trusts you.”

  Rita crossed her arms, a sick sensation settling in her gut. So this is what a conflict of interest feels like. She decided to bluff, weakly: “I can’t agree to you recruiting my grandfather for some kind of illegal operation on US soil—”

  “It’s not going to be on US soil. And it’s almost certainly not illegal, either. Well, it might involve violating another nation’s immigration regulations, but that’s about it.”

  “What?”

  Brill paused, clearly choosing her words very carefully. “The asset we’ve lost track of is in Germany. Germany in your world. And by the way, if you report this to your superiors before the meeting with Kurt, the deal’s off the table.”

  “Germany.” You’re kidding me. Rita shook her head. Carrot and stick. “What?”

  “Your grandpa’s old home. That’s where the job is.”

  “Oh.” Rita thought about it for a few seconds. “It’s not directed against the United States, is that what you’re telling me?”

  “Exactly. I swear it, on my honor.” She made an odd gesture, fist over heart: something about her phrasing sounded formulaic rather than quaint. “If anything, if your grandfather agrees to do this for us, it will make our ability to negotiate with your government more secure.”

  “You just want to talk to him?”

  “Yes, we just want to talk to him. Although I was hoping you might be willing to help us with another job in the meantime, if he agrees to help us out.” She cocked her head to one side and stared at Rita thoughtfully. “You hoped to pursue a career on the stage, or in the cinema, at one time. Is that right?”

  Rita, head spinning, could only nod dumbly.

  “Well, we may be able to help you fulfill that ambition,” Brilliana continued. “We want you to attend the First Man’s funeral and related events, of course. We need to introduce you in public and ensure that you are recognized as the daughter of Miriam Burgeson and acknowledged as a diplomatic messenger from the United States, to maintain appearances—the only perfect alibi is the truth. But while you are doing that, how would you like to try out an acting role on the side?”

  “Acting? What?”

  “We think you can probably successfully impersonate a not-terribly-well-known figure in front of the media. Just for a few days—while we locate the original, who has managed to lose herself at the worst time imaginable. You bear a strong resemblance to her, and—” Brilliana shrugged.

  “This figure. Their disappearance wouldn’t by any chance be connected to your sudden need to talk to Kurt, would they?” A thought struck Rita. “You want this to be totally deniable, don’t you? It’s off the books and you’re trying to run an ad hoc recovery operation involving as few people as possible. Something’s gone wrong and you’re in trouble—”

  “Please stop speculating.” Brilliana frowned. “All I am asking you for now is to bring your grandfather to a confidential meeting. You can sit in on it and discuss it with him—if he wants you to—and with Miss Thorold, to decide whether you are willing to help us out. All the cards will be laid out
on the table, I promise. It’s up to you.”

  “You are in trouble!” Rita drained her coffee. “This acting role. I want to know who it is. Tell me and I’ll go fetch Kurt and we can talk. But”—she pointed a finger at the other woman—“I want that card on the table first. Or no deal.”

  “All right.” Brilliana nodded slowly. “You know about the succession issue. For some time now, we’ve been negotiating with the—with the only child of John Frederick IV, the pretender to the throne. Offering an amnesty and a pot of gold if she’ll come home, take up an oath of citizenship in the Commonwealth, and renounce the throne. It would … well, a royal defection would badly damage the Monarchist faction and spike the wheels of the French claim to some of our peripheral territories. It would reduce the risk of a superpower conflagration. And from your employers’ point of view, it would stabilize the current configuration of the Central Committee, enabling us to push for direct negotiations with your government. And that is vital.

  “Everything was running smoothly until the wheels came off her extraction in the early hours of yesterday morning. We’re going to get her back, but it’s important that she’s seen making the right speeches on the timetable dictated by Sir Adam’s funeral. So once we’ve established your public alibi, it would really help us if you would agree to spend a few days—at most, a week—standing in front of the cameras, playing the role of Princess Elizabeth of Hanover, fiancée of the French Dauphin and heir to the Crown.”

  CAMP SINGULARITY, TIME LINE FOUR, AUGUST 2020

  When Dr. Scranton risked severe professional embarrassment by pushing the panic button, she did so in the full knowledge that she was kissing goodbye any remaining hope of recovering the ERGO-1 probe, thereby writing off nearly two hundred million dollars and two years of R&D. Even at her level, this was a potentially career-ending move. But she didn’t do it on impulse. She’d entered the Bridge Control Room having memorized a set of planned responses for various outcomes. As she walked carefully down the steps and out onto the apron inside the dome (carefully, for she dared not risk breaking an ankle at this point), she was already speed-dialing the base commander’s phone.