Dark State--A Novel of the Merchant Princes Multiverse

by Charles Stross

  She’d had some idea what to expect, of course. Life in solitary in a supermax prison. No human contact, and probably no trial—her case would be heard by a court, but it would be a FISA court sitting in camera, her case pled before the bench (of judges, no jury) by a defense lawyer with a security clearance assigned by the very same agency that had arrested and prosecuted her. Her defense would be classified, so that she might never even learn the name of her faceless attorney. Nor might she be given the details of the prosecution brief. Even the charges and the verdict could be classified secret, if disclosing the fact that one Paulette Milan had been tried and found guilty under the Espionage Act might be construed as giving valuable information to the enemy. Whoever the enemy was.

  It was even possible that, despite her guilt—guilt that Paulette embraced wholeheartedly, for she was beyond self-deception and entirely clear on the fact that she was, in fact, an enemy spy, for this was not the United States she had grown up in and recited the pledge of allegiance to at school—it was even possible that she had been arrested by mistake. After one particularly grim crying jag she laughed herself to unquiet sleep over the possible irony that they might have mistaken her for a North Korean spy, or even—much funnier—an agent of the Clan.

  After fourteen or fifteen meal times and a few sleeps her apathy was interrupted by an abrupt recorded announcement: “Stand with your back to the door, your legs apart, and your hands behind your back.”

  “What—” Paulie began, before the recording repeated itself.

  She didn’t seriously consider ignoring it. There was no telling what they might do. They could flood the cell with CS gas, or Tase her, or simply leave her alone to starve. And besides, the light was bugging her almost as much as the boredom. She stood, as directed: hands using unseen slots fastened chains around her wrists and ankles, then the door opened. They didn’t hood her this time, but the guards (male, built like football quarterbacks) wore masks, and in any case there was nothing to see but endless painted concrete. They marched her along a corridor then through a door and along another corridor, always beneath the vigilant gaze of a galaxy of cameras.

  There was a door at the end of her journey, and on the other side of it a white-painted room with a white-topped table and a hard chair. It was bolted to the floor, of course. This time there was a window—a mirrored one, spanning the width of the wall opposite the chair. “Sit down,” said a recorded voice. She sat, and the guards padlocked her leg manacles to a ring in the floor. Then they ran a chain from it to her wrists, behind the back of the chair, tested the restraints, and left her alone in the room with the one-way mirror.

  Am I supposed to stew in my own juice? she wondered after a couple of minutes. She shifted in the chair, finding the limits of movement. Her shoulders were going to hurt if she had to sit here for more than a couple of hours. And her back was already sore from the shitty thin mattress. She peered at her dark reflection in the window. Cheeks thinner, hair a flyaway mess tangled beyond easy repair—someone would have to give her a bob cut to restore order. Age sank in. What a mess I look, she thought listlessly. Another morsel of human food, gulped into the belly of a Hobbesian beast, driven mad in its torment by powers from another world—

  “Paulette Milan,” said a voice.

  “Yes?” She looked round.

  The voice was obviously filtered: they were using Auto-Tune to disguise the speaker and adding a bit of specious bass that gave it an unrealistic resonance, like something from one of the goth and industrial records her elder sister had liked in the late eighties. The door was still shut: she was exposed beneath the panopticon gaze of the one-way mirror.

  “You are under arrest subject to Section Four of the Defending the USA against Extradimensional Terrorism Act, 2003.” The DUET Act had suspended habeas corpus, driven a stake through the rotting heart of the Fourth Amendment, and seriously undermined the First and Fifth: passed in the wake of 7/16 and rubber-stamped after a pre-arranged appeal by the rump supreme court appointed by President Rumsfeld, it had taken the ball from the USA Patriot Act and run all the way to a successful touchdown at the end of the Bill of Rights. “The Miranda rights do not apply in your situation. The Fifth Amendment safe harbor from self-incrimination does not apply in your situation. You will now be questioned under penalty of perjury. Failure to truthfully answer all questions put to you may result in additional charges being laid against you.” Pause. A subtly more human, less distorted voice continued: “If you cooperate willingly the prosecutors have signaled their willingness to waive requesting the death penalty.”

  DUET had established in law that assisting world-walkers from another time line was treason within the meaning of Article Three of the US Constitution. It carried the death penalty. Paulette thought of her cell, and of her former life, before she opened her mouth. Her tongue felt like timber as she spoke, her voice wavering only a little. “Go fuck yourselves.”

  It was oddly liberating and pants-wettingly terrifying at the same time, like letting go of her life. But she’d had a long time to think it through: not just a double handful of supermax meal periods, but many years of leaden dread. All the lonely nights spent lying awake in fear of exposure. And she had figured it out. She was past any fear of being dead, of the judgment of Heaven or Hell. But the prospect of being buried alive in a concrete coffin ten feet by four for years or decades to come … that scared her.

  “You’re making a mistake,” said the voice behind the mirror. It, or he, sounded very sure of himself.

  “Oh, I don’t think so.” She squinted into the dark glass. “You’re never going to let me go, so why not cut straight to the chase? I’ll take the needle, thanks. It’s better than being buried alive.”

  “There are worse fates than a secret trial and execution.” Pause. “Unmarked bizjets fly around the world every week. Some of them go to countries you’ve never heard of. We can broaden your horizons with foreign travel. Of course, then you’ll wish you’d told us everything: but once in Turkmenistan or Algeria it will be too late for regrets.”

  Another voice, of lighter pitch—possibly female, behind the Auto-Tune tricks—chipped in. “After they’ve extracted everything you know they’ll sell you on to a prison hospital in Hangzhou. They don’t execute donors these days, they harvest one organ at a time. It can be months until they find a buyer who’s a good match for your heart or liver. But the corneas usually go first. Also, they usually harvest one kidney and the bladder—lots of cancer patients in China need new bladders and you can piss in a bag for a few weeks. There’s a designer drug, MPTP, they use to pacify the donors, to stop them kicking up a fuss…”

  “We can fast-track you for execution, if you want,” the first speaker interrupted. “But if you’re really good, we can swing a deal: get the prosecutors to ask for life without parole, but served in the general prison population. It’s not like you’re violent. So what’s it going to be, Ms. Milan? Are you going to cooperate within the rule of law, or are you going to force us to outsource you to the Far East for recycling?”

  Paulette closed her eyes. This was inevitable, of course. To extract cooperation from those facing execution, it made sense for there to be a fate worse than death waiting in the wings. “Well fuck.”

  “I’ll take that as conditional consent to our proposal that you cooperate with the prosecution in pursuit of a plea bargain, shall I?” said the second speaker.

  “We really do have your best interests at heart,” said the other. “It kinda sticks in the throat to send US citizens to the PacRim donor theaters, doesn’t it? Even if you forfeited your citizenship by spying for a hostile power.”

  “Ms. Milan? Ms. Milan, are you listening?”

  Fifteen minutes in manacles in a white room and they’d cracked her resistance without laying a finger on her. I’m useless, she thought drearily. “Ask whatever you want. I’m listening.”

  “Very well, Ms. Milan. Let’s take it from the top of the list then, shall we? The s
ooner we get through this, the sooner you can go back to your cell and we can tell the prosecutors you’ve been a good girl. So, let’s just clear up some easy questions first.”

  “Yes…”

  “Ms. Milan. In your own words: when did you start spying for the Deutsche Demokratische Republik…?”

  PHILADELPHIA, TIME LINE TWO, AUGUST 2020

  FEDERAL EMPLOYEE 004930391 CLASSIFIED VOICE TRANSCRIPT

  COL. SMITH: So how did POTUS take the report?

  DR. SCRANTON: She wasn’t happy about the unplanned contact, but she’s going to play ball. That’s the TL:DR version, anyway. The longer version … We’ve got a lifeline and a diplomatic channel. State are already in the loop, and SecState is working with POTUS and SecHomeland on how we approach negotiations with the Commonwealth—targets, strategies, desired outcomes, that sort of thing. It’s a major embarrassment that the adversary ID’d our HUMINT asset first, but the fact that they’re eager to talk is a decent counterweight. We are 100 percent responsible for execution and they agreed to keep this fast and light, so the firewall remains in place, this time with official backing from the very top. If something goes horribly wrong they’ll hang us out to dry—but that’s not going to happen on my watch.

  AGENT O’NEILL: Well, that’s a relief, ma’am.

  DR. SCRANTON: You’d better believe it. Meanwhile, going forward, SecState will provide us with a sealed communique for delivery to the adversary’s leadership at the next available pre-arranged safe mail drop. And we’re to take it from there.

  COL. SMITH: How are we going to utilize Rita in this context? What about DRAGON’S TEETH?

  DR. SCRANTON: Good questions. For now, Rita has been burned as an illegal in the Commonwealth. We’ve got to assume that even if they don’t have a national DNA and biometrics database as good as ours, they’re aware that such things exist, will have taken samples from her, and will be working to develop such a capability. She’s still got utility outside the Commonwealth, and she’s still clean for use in other time lines, so she remains in your inventory. But for now we’ll use her as an overt asset, a courier. She is not cleared to know about DRAGON’S TEETH, and from now on she’s outside the firewall. Anything she knows, they could learn. The flip side is also true. While she’s over there she can soak up all the local color they give her access to. We know they’ve been spying on us, so as long as she can’t give them anything useful we could end up ahead on points … on the other hand, it would be a good idea to preload her key generator with a termination jaunt. Just in case she’s tempted—or coerced—into showing them how it works and where it can take a world-walker.

  AGENT O’NEILL: A termination jaunt?

  COL. SMITH: I would prefer not to deploy that unless it’s absolutely, utterly necessary.

  DR. SCRANTON: So would I, and that’s why I’m trusting you to make suitable arrangements and define the activation protocol if we have to, have to cut her loose. The criteria for termination are high likelihood of imminent, or actual, defection. Alternatively: if she’s been captured, is unable to escape, and they’re pulling her apart to see how she works … but the primary criterion is loyalty, which makes it a value call, which in turn means it needs to be determined by the officer with greatest insight into her state of mind. I personally don’t believe we’ll need to use it—she doesn’t exactly seem to have hit it off with her mother—but we need to cover all the bases. If possible, you should come to me for confirmation before going through that gate. But as of now you’ve got authority to terminate her if these circumstances arise.

  COL. SMITH: (sarcasm) Thank you ever so much.

  AGENT O’NEILL: Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.

  COL. SMITH: It’s not going to be easy to issue that kind of order.

  DR. SCRANTON: I think we can all agree on that. I picked you for this task, Colonel, precisely because you won’t do it lightly. We owe her that much. Now, moving on: when will Rita be ready to deploy again?

  COL. SMITH: We could go tomorrow if you give us the call. Deployment to a pre-arranged rendezvous with a welcoming party is a totally different ball game from what we’ve been doing so far. There’s no need for a wardrobe session or special equipment if the other side are expecting her as a guest. We should sanitize her—no phone—but there’s no harm in giving her a camera, a notepad, and a pen, and telling her to declare them. Worst case, they’re confiscated. Best case, she brings back a diary and vacation snapshots.

  DR. SCRANTON: And this is useful because…?

  COL. SMITH: Per original mission goals, we’re moving into an utterly undocumented, closed society—like China or the USSR in the 1950s. Our predecessors knew nothing back then, and it made it really hard to operate. Just what she’s learned already is going to keep a room full of analysts busy for months. She may not need to know about DRAGON’S TEETH, but don’t you think DRAGON’S TEETH will stand a better chance of success if they go in with a good quality pre-brief?

  DR. SCRANTON: This isn’t about DRAGON’S TEETH, but your point is taken. Do it.

  AGENT O’NEILL: Do we have any other actions around Rita, other than BLACK RAIN Phase Two prep?

  COL. SMITH: I’m a little worried by this business with her grandfather. And the girlfriend.

  DR. SCRANTON: What are you worried about, exactly? She’s got strings. I thought you wanted her to have strings.

  COL. SMITH: Yes, but the strings are in danger of getting tangled.

  DR. SCRANTON: Explain, please.

  COL. SMITH: I asked Sonia to keep a close watch on Grandpa Kurt. Then Rita swan-dived into Angela’s bed, so I told her to add Angela to the MKCrossbow Tracklist—

  DR. SCRANTON: MKCrossbow?

  COL. SMITH: Enhanced number plate recognition, phone cell tracking, government override with voice monitoring enabled on the phone’s mikes, proximity-activated CCTV and celldar, domestic appliance monitoring. The panopticon treatment, in other words. It generates way too much data for a manual trawl, but it comes with some Bayesian behavior analysis tools—basically a deep learning software bot that models her behavior and flags up anomalies, generates a timeline around suspicious incidents. Gomez is tasked with reviewing the exceptions and generating daily reports for my eyes only.

  DR. SCRANTON: So what did your crystal ball see, Ms. Gomez?

  AGENT GOMEZ: A couple of events over the past two weeks have us really worried, ma’am. On one occasion Ms. Hagen went over to Boston and enlisted the grandfather’s help in collecting Rita’s car from the pound. Mr. Douglas was in town to put flowers on his wife’s grave and go drinking with some old friends—he does it at least once a year. They drove back in convoy, then Angela gave Kurt a lift to his motel and went home on auto-drive. Oddly, they were conversing for much of the drive but the speech recognition software degraded significantly. In fact, when we pulled the raw recording later it sounded like Furbyspeak—the speech synthesizer equivalent of lorem ipsum.

  Something similar happened again when Ms. Hagen collected Douglas after the most recent clusterfuck. They went back to Ms. Hagen’s apartment, then departed again in Rita’s car. The vehicle in question is too old to have a cellular uplink to the manufacturer’s service agency for firmware monitoring—all it has are tire inflation transponders, our standard Remora tracker, and a couple of pinhead mikes powered by induction from the in-car electronics loom. The pinheads are terrible, and the audio capture from their phones turned to junk. They were heading for a diner in one mall, and per the feed they reached it and parked up, but then they crossed the edge of the parking lot and ended up in a different mall. The lack of forward intentionality indicators meant that we had no in-place monitoring, so all we got was the standard mall CCTV and gibberish from their phones. They sat with their backs to the nearest cameras, so no lip-reading.

  DR. SCRANTON: Shit. Pardon my French.

  AGENT GOMEZ: Request permission to offer an opinion, sir, ma’am.

  COL. SMITH: Go ahead, Sonia.

  AGEN
T GOMEZ: I believe the little cow has blabbed to her grandfather, and possibly to her girlfriend. Her grandfather was a Communist border guard back in the eighties, and the border guards were part of the East German secret police, not regular soldiers. The drop-outs stink of tradecraft and point to his situational awareness exceeding that of a normal civilian. The girlfriend stinks of it, too. Ms. Hagen went to a Girl Scouts camp a few years running in Maryland. I did some checking, and it turns out the place was famous: it’s where a lot of NSA, CIA, NRO, and other INTELCOM folks sent their daughters. Sir, nearly two thirds of the girls in that camp had parents with security clearances! It was such an open secret that the girls called it Camp Spooky. I mean, they had day trips to the National Cryptologic Museum and merit badges for dead letter drops. Sir, ma’am, I am very disturbed …

  DR. SCRANTON: You’re telling me we’ve been penetrated by the Girl Scouts?

  AGENT GOMEZ: It’s not funny!

  COL. SMITH: Or maybe the ghosts of the Iron Curtain are rattling their chains?

  AGENT GOMEZ: Sir, all the indicators—

  COL. SMITH: Noted, Sonia. Pause for a moment, though, and consider: the girlfriend went to Girl Scout summer camp near the city she lived in. We in the trade have a technical term for this: we call it a coincidence. Just like it’s a coincidence that a few years later Angie enlisted in the Army and did a term as an intelligence specialist. You don’t need to invoke Communist spies to explain them showing rudimentary signs of tradecraft-awareness some years later when they try to evade surveillance over pizza and chicken pot pie—especially when the Communist nation in question ceased to exist three decades ago. I agree, spoofing their phones is suspicious. I agree that it looks circumstantially as if Ms. Douglas has loose lips in the direction of her lover and her most intimate family member. But they’re by no means the only folks who do that from time to time, and it could just be that they assume monitoring is still carried out by human ears, and they wanted to discuss something embarrassing: Rita and Angie coming out to Kurt, for example. Or asking for advice about how to handle Emily and Franz Douglas. From an ideological standpoint they’re about as damaging as, as, your co-religionists, for example: there’s no need to go hunting reds under the bed—