The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.

by Neal Stephenson

  But at least I knew what I was in for, and that was oddly comforting. I presented myself to him with a slight brazenness, so that at least I avoided the unpleasantness of being groped—I came near to actually teasing him, promising future “generosity” before he even asked for it. I had his full attention and cooperation, and I was out of there sooner, and less grossed out, than last time.

  So: déjà vu continued up the road to Watertown, and into the copse of trees where the creek was, and the boulder. I took off my apron, wrapped it around my hand while I was shoveling, and thereby saved myself the splinter of the last visit. My muscles were sore from all the digging yesterday—for my body knew that to have happened yesterday, even if I was now situated long, long before yesterday. Also, I was terribly hungry. And my leg was now throbbing like a motherfucker badly. So I was not in good humor.

  I found the same Native American midden, and this time, when the hole was deep enough, tossed the shells in first and then put the bucket in atop them. I buried it, and then in a state of filthy exhaustion limped back to the ferry, where I paid my way and therefore had no need to even talk to the ferryman; miserably, I dragged my fatigued butt back to Goody Fitch’s, and barely had the energy to thank her or speak to her daughter. I had no energy at all to follow through on my earlier intention of interviewing her regarding the Strands of time. Still, she made the same offer she had the first time, which was heartening.

  This time, her daughter did not say, “You already told me.” I took that as a good sign: this must be the visit she’d been referring to the other time. There need be no more. Two visits should suffice. Please, God, let two suffice.

  Goody Fitch sent me forward to the ODEC, where I arrived shivering and naked, the superficial gash on my calf crusted and angry. I went through the decontamination procedure as before. Tristan, without the excited fanfare of the previous day, drove us back to the East-Oda homestead, where Rebecca tended my wound with a salve she had whipped up herself—a combination of modern antibiotics from the pharmacy and herbs from her garden. The menfolk once again dug up the backyard. Or rather, Tristan dug, while Frank Oda watched with the interest of a schoolboy who was illicitly attending a ballgame.

  Early that morning, Tristan had “sent some men around” to fill in the hole. This had further torn up the yard and made a terrible noise, as it involved the kind of pounder that is used to smooth out new asphalt laid down over potholes. The neighbors were up in arms, Rebecca told us with a sigh, although mostly she was upset about her garden. Tristan of course was indifferent to the controversy.

  Once I was sufficiently bandaged and plied with painkillers, we went downstairs and out the back to see how the digging was coming, ignoring the black and calico cats who were trying to trip us. Frank Oda was leaning against the boulder with a cup of tea; we three women stood on the small back deck of the house, staring over the railing. The midden of oyster and clam shells—which I had deliberately placed under the bucket this time—had been unearthed . . . yet still no bucket.

  As I watched, it seemed to me that my exhaustion, or perhaps a side effect of the painkillers, was affecting my eyesight, for Tristan suddenly looked slightly blurred, as if I were looking at him across a lit BBQ grill.

  “You see?” said Erszebet, sounding satisfied. She gestured casually toward Tristan. “It’s coming along.”

  “Is he . . . wavy?” I asked.

  “He’s not wavy,” she said in her usual being-derisive-about-Tristan voice.

  “Something is wavy,” said Rebecca decisively.

  Tristan stopped digging and leaned on the shovel, breathing harder than he had yesterday although the soil was looser and the hole was smaller (but then, this time, he was the only one digging it). “Ma’am, could I trouble you for some saline drops?” he asked Rebecca. “I’ve got something in my eyes.”

  “No you don’t,” Erszebet informed him. “That’s just the glimmer.”

  A childlike surge of excitement overrode my exhaustion, briefly: “Like in . . . like in old stories about witchcraft? You mean ‘glamour’?” I asked. For with her accent it was difficult to tell.

  She shrugged. “I don’t know what it is called in old stories. We called it pislákoló, this is ‘glimmer’ or ‘glamour’ or something in English. I never knew the English term for it, magic was nearly gone by the time I was fluent in your language so there was no occasion to describe it. And now the word ‘glamour’ is ruined by that magazine.”

  “What is it, exactly?” said Tristan. “What’s going on?”

  “It happens because it is the spot . . .” Erszebet paused, then sighed noisily, as if put upon. “When magic existed, this was common knowledge and nobody ever had to explain it any more than you would have to explain why you sweat when you are hot or need air to breathe. But I will try.” She pressed her elbow upon the deck rail and leaned her chin into the back of one lithe hand, lips pursed—Lauren Bacall imitating Rodin’s Thinker. “This spot is where we are trying to make change. When there is no magic happening, things look normal. But when magic is happening, then what-could-be becomes . . . louder, or bigger, than whatever-currently-is. That causes the glimmer. So glimmer is a good sign.” She reached into her bag, pulled out the számológép, and began to finger certain strands with seemingly random dexterity. Then she put it away, looked directly at me, and declared, “I think seven more times back to this DTAP without complications, and we will find the bucket when we dig for it here.”

  I heard myself groan before I could contain it. Seven more days of being ogled by the cooper. Of digging a deep hole in virgin soil with an unwieldy shovel. Of that long, swampy trudge back to Muddy River. “And it has to be me, correct?” I said. “We cannot swap me out for Tristan. That would be like resetting the counter to zero?”

  She nodded.

  “I’ll take the next DTAP,” said Tristan. “Scout’s honor.”

  “What if the next one requires conversational Sumerian?” I asked.

  WE WAITED A couple of days for my leg to heal, and then Erszebet sent me back again.

  And then she sent me back again. And then again and again and again.

  It was as if I inhabited a perverse universe at the intersection of Groundhog Day and a computer game. I knew what I had to do to get to the next level, so to speak . . . and I could do it, increasingly well, but dammit, that did not release me from the requirement of repeating it.

  There were always slight variations, of course. For that was, in a way, the whole point of what Erszebet called the Strands. They were never exact clones. They were more like a family of similar pasts that all got to vote on what their shared future was going to look like. My next visitation, the witch’s house was sited slightly closer to the river; otherwise, all was the same. But the time after that, Goodman Griggs was blind, and his son drove the cart for him—and thus, being a young man responsible for the well-being of a household, he had not been out illicitly shooting rabbits as I arrived. The time after that, it was the younger ferryman who looked at me, not the older. In that Strand, the witch had only a son, but said she would pass the word on to any other witches she met, not that there were likely to be many in such a society. The next time around, the printer Stephen Day was drunk, and as I left the shop, I heard him slur to Hezekiah Usher, “There is something about that woman, she seems so familiar . . .”

  Journal Entry of

  Rebecca East-Oda

  JUNE 22

  Temperature about 75F, pleasantly humid. Slight SW breeze. Barometer falling.

  Seedlings planted in container garden on front steps: kale, lettuce, seed onions. Tea roses transplanted to south side of house to avoid further damage to root system; hate to do that this time of year, but no choice, really.

  The digging continues. Tristan has ceased claiming the aeration is good for the soil. Has offered to have fertilizer mixed in after the final dig. Neighbors registering complaints about the early morning noise. Cats stressed even though they are strictly ins
ide.

  Today was the fifth dig. Each time we collect to watch Tristan at work, the glamour is stronger. It feels almost as if, when I attempt to look directly into the hole, some force shunts my vision aside. A very strange sensation, but Erszebet says it is a good sign. Frank is pleased with himself for coming up with an acronym: GLAAMR, for Galvanic Liminal Aura Antecedent to Manifold Rift. I hope he is not just being optimistic.

  It is clearly exhausting for Mel to make these excursions day after day, but she keeps her chin up. Tristan getting increasingly agitated (in a contained but obvious way). “Can you make it happen any faster?” he asked Erszebet today.

  Erszebet’s answer: “No.” And then continued, as if the same conversation, “I am ready to go to Hungary now to spit on the graves of my enemies.”

  Tristan: “We’ve already had this conversation. We need money. What we’re doing now, that’s how we get money.”

  “I know, I was present at the rude idiot’s office in Washington, DC, when you volunteered me for this indentured servitude.”

  A pause as he reclaimed his cool. “The sooner we’re successful, the sooner we fly you to Hungary to spit on the graves of your enemies.”

  “I cannot alter the laws of the universe, even if you tell the idiot I can. But when I Send back Melisande this time, I will try very hard to summon her toward a Strand that is especially conducive to change. That is the most I can do.”

  Diachronicle

  DAY 335 (COLONIAL BOSTON DTAP, 1640)

  In which I am foundationally challenged

  FOR WHAT I HOPED MIGHT be the final repetition, I just wanted to hurry through the motions and be done with it. I realized the witch was aware of all my other visitations, but referred to them only occasionally and only very obliquely—they were, in a sense, all happening at the same moment in time to different versions of her. And to all of her non-witch neighbors, of course. But part of what it was to be a witch, I was beginning to realize, was that all of those different versions were somehow in closer touch with one another than was the case for non-witches. So on this visit I was less conversational, got out the door faster—finally (to my great relief, uncomfortable though it was) borrowing the witch’s corset. Happily, Goodman Griggs was also leaving earlier, and his ox had more oomph to his step as the sun had not gotten to its hottest point yet. I was over the river in record time, walked out of the shop holding the Bay Psalm Book scant minutes later, and even the cooper was prompt and respectful (perhaps because I was finally dressed like a goody rather than a hussy). The day felt like the last fortnight of high school, senior year: I had to show up, but no Powers On High expected me to do anything but phone it in.

  I was in such a good mood, and now so familiar with the way, that truly I was operating on autopilot as I approached the creek that would lead me to the boulder. This may account for why I did not quite register that something was suddenly extremely different: the creek, which had heretofore dwindled in size and force as I approached the boulder, was now running rapidly and loudly. I looked at it . . . and stopped in my tracks. It had been recently dredged and the banks cut back to allow for a faster flow. I was moving upriver, so looked ahead to see how far this man-made alteration went.

  I saw the foundation to a building. My jaw dropped open in shock. The earth and vegetation all around the boulder had been cleared for many yards, and the boulder itself incorporated into the half-built foundation, although it was of course much higher than the other foundation stones, high enough to be a section of wall for the ground floor. The site was unmanned at present, but there were stacks of lumber and shaped rock; instruments and tools rested on canvas tarps, and beyond the boulder, near the stream, was an enormous mixing vessel with bags of sand around it. The stone foundation must have cost a fortune; hewing and bringing in the stones alone would have been an ambitious undertaking.

  What was this thing? How could it have come out of absolutely nowhere, and what was I to do about it? Clearly I could not bury the book here. With a sigh of resignation, I collected myself and began to slog back toward the Cambridge palisades. The tall gates being unmanned by daylight, I let myself through and headed back to the bookseller’s.

  Merchant Usher and Printer Day had just finished arguing, with Usher apparently the victor, for Day was gloomily boxing up his stacks of books. I begged pardon and placed the bucket down so they would not think to ask about it.

  “What might be the building under construction up the creek, off the Watertown Road?” I asked.

  The merchant laughed without malice—or humor. “That is the most ambitious undertaking the devil ever spurred anyone to. It is to be a maple sugaring factory. A very enterprising company from back home has decided to stake a claim in the future fortune of the colony, and has determined that sugar maples are what Providence has provided to enrich us.”

  “The name of the company?”

  “The Boston Council for Boston,” he said.

  “Have you a share in it?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “I was invited to invest, and I confess I was tempted, to engage in something so forward-thinking. But I fear it is a bit too forward-thinking. Every joint-stock company of the New World so far has failed, or been taken over by the crown, and I see no sign this one should fare any better. When the town requires palisades for safety because all the American tribes are at each other’s throats, and the factory is half a mile’s walk outside the palisades . . . I fear they are doomed.”

  “’Tis a wondrous thing,” the printer said to me, dismissing Usher’s concern. “Any bettering in our circumstances is to be applauded.”

  “Only when it is done well, Stephen,” said Hezekiah gently, as if in regretful rebuke.

  Thanking them, but rather flummoxed, I left the keg on the step of the booksellers, as it was not worth it to cart it back to Goody Fitch’s, who would then be left with what to do with it. I took the ferry back across and walked in great agitation the now-familiar route to the witch’s home.

  Journal Entry of

  Rebecca East-Oda

  JUNE 28

  Temperature 70F, raining steadily.

  Seedlings: no sign of germination, but it is too soon. Flame azaleas and peonies a smidge beyond peak. Herb garden thriving. Roses seem adjusted to new spot. The rain helps.

  A complication has arisen in the project, that being the foundation of a factory having sprung up where this house now stands. Tristan phoned, asked us to come in to brainstorm. Frank was distracted poking about with the quipu-like object I had brought down from the attic, and I did not want to interrupt him, so I told them to come to us. We settled in Frank’s office and I made a fire, for ambience. A summer thunderstorm was passing through, and rain was lashing the windows.

  Melisande was exasperated, Tristan grim. Frank curious, when brought up to speed, and questioning Erszebet, who demonstrated boredom.

  “Does that mean there is a parallel universe in which our house does not exist?” Frank asked Erszebet.

  “I do not know if it is parallel, I have never measured it,” she said. “But clearly, something like that. If I were you, I would not try to return to that world.”

  “Why did you send me there in the first place?” Mel demanded, cross. She sat closest to the fire and held her hands right above the flames, still chilled from her return. Calico trying and failing to convince her to scratch his head.

  “You think I have control over the universe?” said Erszebet. “If I had such control, I would not have allowed magic to be ruined in the first place. There is no certainty. There is never certainty.”

  “How do we get rid of the factory? What are our options?” Tristan asked.

  Erszebet said, “You cannot get rid of it, you can only uncreate it.” Then explained that the usual means of resolving such problems is to go back to an even earlier time and prevent the conflict, by slightly (and multiple times) altering something prior to the event in question. All shoulders in the room sagged at this notion.
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  “Could we not simply go back to 1640 and try again?” I suggested. “There has only been one reality in which there was a maple syrup factory, and many more in which it didn’t exist, so perhaps we can simply continue the effort in another Strand without the factory—sidestep the problem, so to speak.”

  “You can try that, but clearly things are tending toward the factory being there, so I recommend that you address the factory.” She yawned expressively to make sure we’d noticed how dull this sort of talk was.

  “Why?” asked Frank, who was as usual the least exasperated person in the room. “Why are things tending toward the factory being built?”

  “Yes, what are the mechanics here?” demanded Tristan, almost interrupting him.

  “There are no mechanics,” said Erszebet disdainfully. “It is magic. Magic does not speak your language, Mr. Military-Physicist. Study it as hard as you wish, some part of it will always elude you. I am giving you the best advice there is.”

  “You are saying,” said Tristan (patience exaggerated), “that we must go back to a time before the factory was built, and prevent the factory from being built.”

  “Several times.”

  Tristan swore under his breath.

  “All of this effort for an unreliable result is why time travel has never been a smart use of magic,” she added in a superior tone. “I knew it would be a terrible way to try to influence anything.”