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

by Neal Stephenson

A few minutes more conversation, and she was willing to actually speak the words, “Yes, I will take them” (which put my fledgling Inner Bureaucrat at ease). She even invited me to share her meal of rabbit stew with root vegetables, and to stay the night before she Homed me the following morning.

  Back at DODO HQ, I delivered my good news. Tristan and I sat at the same computer (be still my heart, I suppose) to pore over the feudal, judicial, and church chronicles of the area, seeking references to raids circa 1045. We found nothing, except one possible indirect reference to villagers who perished during altercations with bandits. It did not match Thyra’s description, nor was it chronicled officially anywhere—it was an ancillary comment in testimony given during a property dispute.

  “Well, that’s good, anyhow,” said Tristan. “Probably means I won’t encounter anything while I’m there.”

  I entered notes about Thyra’s dialect into the relevant linguistic databases, and sat with DORCCAD personnel, giving them sketches of the area for entry into their systems.

  There was some chatter about timing, conducted over ODIN—and occasionally in person, since we tried to dine with the Odas every couple of weeks. To make a long logistical issue short, it was determined that Tristan would go back to stay with Thyra four different times, for a fortnight each time (rather than going back twice for a month each—Frank Oda determined this to be stabler with Chronotron calculations, and Erszebet agreed with him).

  Tristan already knew Anglo-Saxon, and I’d been prepping him on Latin almost since we met (how can anyone with Western language interests not know Latin, FFS?). So he needed very little prep. Erszebet Sent him. Thyra had secured clothes in anticipation of his coming (he was Sent in spring).

  Thyra had also already communicated to curious villagers, priests, etc. that Tristan (her supposed kinsman) would be sojourning with her for a fortnight so they might exchange news, and that he was of mixed Danish/Anglo-Saxon descent originating from a remote part of England (Tintagel—or as they called it then, Dintagel), journeying to Normandy to seek his fortune on the tourney field. This would explain why his accent was unfamiliar and why he tended to use Britannic, Cornish, and Anglo-Saxon vocabulary. Since no one in the settlement had been to that part of England, they accepted the cover story.

  I KNOW THAT in the bowels of ODIN, there is an official DEDE report of Tristan’s time there, for I wrote it myself; I know also that there is an “incident report” that the well-intentioned but insufferably officious Macy Stoll required him to write as well. But I have just come into an extra measure of whale oil, and there is ink enough, and I cannot sleep from my growing anxiety, so it pleases me to recall Tristan’s telling me of his time there, and one element in particular.

  When he arrived, he was made welcome by the settlement at large, and all manner of gifts and entertainment pressed upon him. Once a level of trust was established, he asked to learn their combat styles, and the men of the settlement were pleased to show off and practice with him. It was generally limited to stick-fighting arts, as the locals were rural villagers. These sessions also allowed him to work on language immersion more fluidly, imitating not only the vocabulary but the cadence and pitch of able-bodied young males. He was not in danger of “talking like a girl,” which would have been the case if he’d mostly stayed under Thyra’s roof.

  He was Homed after two weeks (yes, it was dreadfully good to see him, and yes, I did try to catch a peek of him before he disappeared into the decontamination shower). After about ten days of downtime, he went back; another two weeks, another ten days; a third fortnight, a third rest period. During the rest periods, he was fully debriefed (usually by me) and all lessons learned were inserted into DORC’s linguistic database, so that future “Varangian Guard” candidates could bone up on their Norman prior to visiting Thyra, and learn the language that much more quickly.

  Then came the fourth and final repetition. This is the part I most like to remember him describing.

  One morning, shortly before dawn, Tristan and Thyra were awakened by suspicious noises. Tristan arose, went outside, and saw a longboat moving up the tributary toward the village center, with six men in it. He grabbed a peeled tree branch, at least an inch thick and about his own height, which he had been intending to use to build Thyra a drying rack. He ran to the village, entered the church through its narthex, and rang the bell urgently to alert the villagers. And then he stayed in the church, realizing the strangers must be coming there to steal the only thing of value in the area: a reliquary of a wrought silver cross, about a handspan across. Embedded in a decorative gold rosette in the center was a flake of white enamel, alleged by local clerics to be a fragment of a molar formerly belonging to St. Septimus of Pontchardon, an early missionary who had been martyred by the Gauls. Obviously this was of value to the would-be thieves for the metal, not the relic. They were startled by the bell as they approached the church entrance, more so because they found themselves unexpectedly face-to-face with a large man brandishing a stick.

  Three of the men, armed with an axe, a steel-tipped lance, and a seax (knife)—held Tristan at bay in the narthex while the other three ran up the aisle of the church to nab the reliquary, which lived on the altar. While there, they snatched up a few other odds and ends that had caught their eye—the candelabrum, the communion cup, etc. These booty-carriers emerged from the church first, only to find some villagers—alerted by Tristan’s ringing of the bell—waiting for them with shovels, rakes, pitchforks, and knives.

  These first intruders were lightly armed but their hands were full of loot, and they were obliged to drop the valuables in order to defend themselves. The more heavily armed men, who had been menacing Tristan, came out to join the fray. The last of these was the one with the lance. He backed toward the exit of the building while keeping the weapon leveled at Tristan . . . then pivoted toward the open door to make a fast departure.

  However, the lance got hung up in the tiny doorway, in a manner reminiscent of an early-twentieth-century slapstick film comedy, or so it always seems when Tristan is acting it out for new recruits. Seeing an opening, Tristan advanced and delivered a “pool cue” style shot to the head of the lance-man, catching him by his ear with the butt of his staff. The man sagged toward the floor and dropped his weapon. Tristan grabbed the lance, but he himself was the next person to fall victim to the cramped dimensions of the doorway, as he tripped over its high threshold on the way out and sprawled across the pavement outside (it is a hoot to see him re-enact this moment). The lance was lost (it was still dark, the sun not having risen yet), but in groping for it Tristan found himself grasping a boat oar that had apparently been carried up to the site by one of the intruders, perhaps to use as a weapon.

  The melee was moving in the general direction of the riverbank. This was a long stone’s throw from the church; the intruders struggled to fight their way through the mob of a dozen or so villagers who were haphazardly beating at them with farm implements, as though not sure if the point was to prevent them from getting back into the church or to prevent them from escaping.

  Tristan collected himself from his unintentional vaudeville routine, and caught up with the intruders as they were attempting to board the boat to make their getaway. By now, they had dropped all their booty, but nobody could see that in the dark yet. A villager grabbed the gunwale of the boat with both hands in a bid to prevent them from getting away (presumably with the reliquary). The axe-wielding intruder raised his weapon high, clearly with an eye toward cutting the villager’s fingers off.

  Tristan lunged toward them, swung his oar in a wide arc, and caught the axe-man in the gut, knocking the wind out of him and sending him sprawling back into the boat. At the same moment, the villager holding the gunwale did a belly-flop into the river. (I am trembling with suppressed mirth even now as I write this, recalling the many times I’ve seen it all acted out at office parties when Tristan’s had a few.)

  The intruders got away in their longboat. Five of the village
rs sustained very superficial wounds (Thyra healed them in an hour), and Tristan strained ligaments in his shoulder when he slammed the oar into the axe-man. It was nothing serious, but as I said, Macy Stoll ordered him to write an incident report about it. (And this was before DODO’s bureaucracy had bloated up out of control. I wonder what would happen if he did that now . . . Well, I’ll never know. Get used to it, Stokes.)

  Once the sun rose, all of the artifacts were recovered, cleaned, and restored to the church, and the village had a shared breakfast, during which the children imitated the more absurd physical moments of the brief raid. What could have been a tragedy was transformed into a playful morning.

  But if I told you the consequences of this minor skirmish, reader, you would absolutely not believe me.

  Post by Macy Stoll to LTC Tristan Lyons

  on private ODIN channel

  DAY 872 (MID-DECEMBER, YEAR 2)

  LTC Lyons, as a rule I don’t keep tabs on all of the After Action Reports on the various DEDEs, since Diachronic Operations is your department and not mine. Medical benefits, however, ARE my department. In that vein, I note that you consulted an external physician upon the conclusion of your most recent visit to the 1045 Normandy DTAP. In order for this expense to be approved, I’ll need details on the nature of the injury, whether it was sustained on the job, and why DODO medical staff were unable to deal with the problem in-house.

  Reply from LTC Lyons:

  NVM I will just eat the expense.

  From Macy Stoll:

  Your selflessness sets a brave example, but it’s not just about the money. By tracking these incidents and expenditures, we are able to optimize the planning and budgeting process, unlocking the ability to hire additional medical staff to meet the needs of our growing organization. Also, for legal reasons we need thorough documentation of all on-the-job injuries.

  From LTC Lyons:

  I came back with a tweaked shoulder. Dr. Srinavasan checked me out and suggested I consult a physical therapist to get it worked on. The PT doc did some myofascial work and sent me home with some exercises. Everything is fine now. To the extent that this is relevant to budget and staffing, we might benefit from having a physical therapist in the medical section.

  From Macy Stoll:

  Thank you for the explanation. I still need to know whether the shoulder injury was contracted in the workplace.

  From LTC Lyons:

  If by “workplace” you mean Normandy a thousand years ago, yes.

  From Macy Stoll:

  Thank you for that additional clarification. Given the unusual nature of DODO, that does indeed constitute a workplace injury. As such, you are required to file an Incident Report crosslinked to Dr. Srinavasan’s outside medical specialist referral paperwork.

  FROM DR. ROGER BLEVINS TO LTC TRISTAN LYONS

  CC: LIEUTENANT GENERAL OCTAVIAN K. FRINK

  DAY 874

  Lieutenant Colonel Lyons:

  I am in receipt of an Incident Report, filed yesterday, describing events that took place during one of your DEDEs in Normandy in 1045. The account is sketchy and appears to have been written in haste, or perhaps you are simply accustomed to taking a casual attitude toward such matters. In any case, if this document is to be believed, you voluntarily engaged one or more “historicals” in potentially lethal combat during this DEDE. For the benefit of LTG Frink (CCed for the record) this DEDE was strictly for the purpose of gaining fluency in the local language. It did not call for a Fighter-class DOer, and engaging in combat was not part of the mission scope. During the unscheduled and unauthorized tussle, you sustained injuries that later required expenditure of DODO funds on an outside medical specialist lacking security clearance, with possible risk of exposure of top-secret information.

  Please consider this a formal reprimand. As the head of the operational wing of DODO, you set an example for the ever-expanding staff of DOers who serve under you, and as such you must be held to a higher standard of professionalism and conduct than you exhibited in this case.

  While this is technically grounds for being placed on a Performance Enhancement Plan, or even outright dismissal, I am willing to make an exception just this once. Please consider yourself on notice, however, that further such lapses in judgment will be treated with the utmost gravity.

  With that disagreeable task out of the way, I would like to consider the matter closed, and wish you the best returns of the season.

  Sincerely,

  Roger Blevins, Ph.D.

  Director, Department of Diachronic Operations

  FROM LTC TRISTAN LYONS TO DR. ROGER BLEVINS

  CC: LIEUTENANT GENERAL OCTAVIAN K. FRINK

  DAY 875

  Dear Dr. Blevins:

  Concerning yesterday’s letter of reprimand, I would like to point out the following circumstances that may help clarify matters for you and General Frink.

  - The “injuries” that I sustained consisted of a sore shoulder. The “outside medical specialist” is a local physical therapist. I told her that I had sustained the injury while practicing jiu-jitsu. She accepted the story. There is no risk of leakage of classified information.

  - The “potentially lethal combat” consisted of swinging a boat oar into the stomach of a drunk and disorderly Norman who was about to chop off a man’s fingers. To describe this as potentially lethal is about like saying that I got up this morning in Boston and took a potentially lethal train ride in to work.

  - When we go on these DEDEs, we have to blend in, and behave as the locals expect us to behave. I was the biggest and strongest man in the village and had been practicing stick-fighting with the locals for weeks. For me to have stood by passively during this disturbance would have raised more questions than taking the minimal action that I did.

  Merry Christmas,

  LTC Tristan Lyons

  Annotation, handwritten by General Frink at the bottom of above letter, scanned and delivered digitally

  DAY 876

  Gentlemen,

  Xmas is four days away and we should be focused on (a) brotherly love and (b) turning on the Chronotron at the beginning of the new year. Please consider this matter closed with no further repercussions, and trouble me with it no more.

  Happy Holidays

  O. K. Frink

  Exchange of posts between

  Dr. Melisande Stokes and LTC Tristan Lyons

  on private ODIN channel

  DAY 879 (CHRISTMAS EVE, YEAR 2)

  Post from Dr. Stokes:

  Subject: Chinese take-out?

  My turn to pay, but can you get the usual and I’ll reimburse? Meet at my place. (Trying to get Erszebet out of here before she goes nuclear on Blevins again.)

  I know you’re on the outs with Blevins, but we should talk to him about fast-tracking another resident witch. E has stayed far longer than she agreed to; she’s being a good sport (by her standards), but I’m tired of running interference every time Blevins is a jackass to her. There’s three or four who expressed interest (Rachel in Constantinople, etc.) and they’re all in DTAPs with multiple KCWs. Talk about it over dinner?

  —MS

  PS: Merry Christmas.

  Reply from LTC Lyons:

  STOKES!

  1. Bad form to call your boss a jackass on a company messaging system.

  2. Merry Christmas.

  3. I thought you were heading out of town to spend time with family.

  4. We’ve never brought a historical forward in time before. Can we even do that?

  From Dr. Stokes:

  Tristan,

  1. If we get to the point where said jackass is reading my personal messages to you, then we have bigger issues and we’re all done here.

  2. And Happy New Year.

  3. Canceled the trip. Mom’s showing up late tonight, we’ll hang out at my place. Too much going on here, and Erszebet gets a little nutty around the holidays.

  4. You’re right that Sending a historical forward is different from Homing a DOer back
to their “natural” time and place, but Erszebet says it can be done. Especially if the Sending witch has developed familiarity with the ODEC by Homing a lot of people there. We have, as of today, run fifty-five DEDEs in 1200 Constantinople. We have used three different KCWs to Home all of our DOers. One of them (Rachel) has done it thirty-two times and Erszebet feels she has our ODEC strongly dialed in. We should consider it.

  —MS

  From LTC Lyons:

  OMW with the usual. Break out your finest chopsticks!

  From Dr. Stokes:

  OK but setting a knife and fork for E. She won’t eat otherwise.

  —MS

  Post by Mortimer Shore on

  “General” ODIN channel

  DAY 887 (NEW YEAR’S DAY, YEAR 3)

  Happy New Year, everyone! I’m still a little buzzed (heh) from the festivities at Oda-sensei and Rebecca’s, but now that we are almost FOUR WHOLE HOURS into the new year I wanted to buckle down to work and send this out.

  As we prepare to power up the Chronotron for real (T-minus four days and counting, huzzah), Dr. Oda recommended that I send out some informal layman’s language on What Exactly Is a Chronotron. I’m pretty amped about this (so to speak) and really grateful that I’ve been able to move away from the SysAdmin role (a big hand to the staff who’s running all the stuff I used to manage, especially Gordon Healey, another MIT CS’ist who now gets asked all the questions about email servers, but hey, Gordie, I’m proof this place is all about job growth LOL).

  So just a reminder, I’m not qualified to explain WHY this works, because that’s the physics part where I’m a bonehead, but here’s a simplified take on HOW it works:

  The Chronotron is based on a theoretical model, which proposes that for the present-day universe that we all live in, there’s not just one past, and not just several alternate pasts, but an infinite number of them. Similarly, this one single present also has an infinite number of possible futures. But our relationship to these infinite pasts and futures isn’t random—plausibility throws its weight around, per some freaky quantum mechanics stuff that Dr. Oda calls Feynman Diagram History Pachinko. If you’re really interested in the details of that, check in with him in his spare time (heh) and he will be happy to expound.