Empire Games Series, Book 1

by Charles Stross

  Catch up on friends indeed. She hit Facebook, skidding across the frozen river of all the lifelines she’d crossed. Do I know anyone who lives in Allentown? she wondered. A quick search later, the answer came back: to her surprise, she did have a friend in Philly. And it was Angela, of all people. Or rather, Angie: she’d suddenly acquired a serious hate on her name … when? When she was fifteen?

  Rita hadn’t seen Angie since they’d been in the Girl Scouts in Massachusetts, a decade ago. They hadn’t been very close at first, but they’d done a couple of the special summer camps the parents of girls in Wolf Troop sent them to, the ones with the language courses and orienteering and the other stuff. Then teenage kicks and tentative self-discovery happened and for a year they’d been inseparable. Not to mention fizzing bundles of anxiety at the possibility that one of their schoolmates might see them together and realize what they were to each other. This was back during the second Rumsfeld administration, when Congress was busy defending marriage from girls like them. It had fizzled out tearfully when Angie’s folks had stayed in Boston and Rita’s moved to Phoenix, but Angie herself had enlisted and then somehow ended up here … and she was on chat.

  Rita procrastinated for almost a quarter of an hour. There were idiotic arguments to chip in on, after all, and five things she really needed to know about vaping that would totally change her life, and sundry clickbait to distract from the burning question, How will she remember me? Angie’s face had sat frozen in her FB feed for years, unlooked at—Rita couldn’t bear to think of herself as a stalker; it was undignified and creepy—but also undeleted. And Angie didn’t update her wall very often, anyway. Like Rita, she clutched a thick veil of privacy tight around her online life.

  But here she was, online for chat—and nearby, not thousands of miles away.

  Finally, Rita ran out of excuses. This is stupid, she told herself. She’ll have found herself a cute blonde, settled down, and forgotten me. Or—

  Somehow, while she was spinning her gears, her fingers began to move without her conscious volition.

  > Hi, Angie?

  >> Rita? Been ages! Sup, Sis?

  > I’m in Allentown. Work. Weekend. Bored.

  >> Work!?! Permanent?

  > Temp

  >> Wanna meet up?

  > Love to. When/where is good?

  >> Lemme get back 2 U. Free 2 nite?

  Feeling unaccountably hot and prickly, Rita stared at her phone for a minute. Angie seemed enthusiastic. Come to think of it, when had she last followed her? Angie lived so far away there hadn’t seemed to be much point. She looked at Angie’s profile status—single again—and bit her lip before replying.

  > Y

  >> Hot! Share Ur location & I’ll be round at 8

  > Y

  >> L8R:-)

  Oh my God, Rita thought dizzily. She hoped Angie wouldn’t get the wrong idea. It had, after all, been a very long time.

  PHILADELPHIA, TIME LINE TWO, AUGUST 2020

  Rita had gotten close with Angie when they were both in tenth grade, gawky teens trying to figure out what interested them in life. They were both going through that phase of working out whether to try and scrape together the money to study, or to get a job right away: not to mention whether they were interested in boys or, or not. Rita: not so much, although, shy and introspective, she’d been unsure how her parents would cope if they found out. (A misplaced fear, as she subsequently learned.) Angie: back then she’d been a strawberry blonde with a bob and a smile, as devoutly Lutheran as her parents. Grandpa Kurt and Angie’s parents shared a history back in the GDR that the girls were supposed to ignore, and for the most part they successfully did. When they’d first spent time together at summer camp Rita had pegged her for a boy-chaser who’d be married by twenty and pregnant by twenty-one. Then Rita had learned just how wrong first impressions could be, in a good way.

  Angie’s eyes were still blue and twinkled like the iridescent sheen on her nose stud and eyebrow rings, but her hair was cuprous green streaked with blue, and she walked with a swagger. Rita managed not to gape when she saw her across the hotel lobby. “Angela?” she called, momentarily forgetting. So much for the demure girl she remembered from high school days. On the other hand, Rita had been far from the only one who’d been kept in the closet for fear of bullying in the coldly repressive climate of the early 2010s. Times had changed, and in any case the whole wide world was not a high school diner: and Angie had blossomed.

  “It’s Angie, remember?” Angie hugged her. “And a five-merit-point fine every time you forget! You’re looking gorgeous! Have you eaten? No? Let’s roll, then.”

  Angie’s wheels were recent enough to drive themselves, with a truck top and a fire-red paint job. “You’re looking good, too,” Rita said, trying to fill the silence. “Been keeping well?”

  “It was hard at first, but I got my certification two years ago. You would not believe how much work there is for an electrical contractor in this town! Chariot, drive us to Emma’s. Listen, Rita—”

  The pickup’s engine lit with a whine as it backed and turned out of the narrow parking lot, and Rita noticed, to her confusion, that they were still holding hands. How did we even get in the truck?

  “You never called? Never even sent me a selfie bug?”

  Rita swallowed. “I wanted to, but it kept getting harder the longer I waited. Then my folks moved and your folks moved—”

  Angie leaned across the bench seat and turned Rita’s face to hers and kissed her as if to hit “undo” on the last decade. “You do not leave it ten years next time, girl.”

  “I didn’t mean to. Where are we going?”

  “The best gay bar in town, not that there are many to choose from out here in the sticks. Uh, unless you’re…?”

  “No, I’m fine.” She tossed her head, then let go of Angie’s hand long enough to shove her hair back. She caught Angie’s eye. “There’s a lot of catching up to do and I, uh, was hoping for somewhere private…”

  “Really?” That smile. “Chariot, make all windows opaque.” Angie’s thumb clicked on her seat belt button as the outside world dimmed to night. Then the thumb clicked on Rita’s belt button. “Will this do?”

  Rita made a quiet eep of assent as Angie scooted sideways toward her. Then they kissed again as the steering wheel spun, unattended.

  PHILADELPHIA, TIME LINE TWO, AUGUST 2020

  Much later—after dinner and drinks and dancing, and a drunken auto-ride home—they sat together naked in the middle of Angie’s bed, as Angie rolled another joint. Rita traced her finger across the tentacles of the Hokusai octopus. They trailed from its bulbous body, centered on Angie’s left shoulder, coiling around her ribs, and rose to cup the underside of her right breast. She was luminous with sweat and sweetly aromatic with the new-mown-hay aroma of marijuana. “I feel like I’ve been living in a coffin for months,” Rita said softly. “Too much work and no play makes…” Her fingertip lingered at the crinkling, stiffening edge of Angie’s areola, then gently nudged the silver barbell.

  “Too much of that and I’ll spill the bud, girl.”

  “So I’ll have to lick it off you, so what?” Rita leaned against Angie. “Like this.”

  She demonstrated. Angie tensed. “You never did say what brought you to town.”

  “Work.” Rita paused. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  Angie raised the open cone to her mouth, ran her tongue along the seam of the papers. “If it’s such a shit job, why don’t you quit?” Angie asked as she rolled it between her palms.

  “I’m not sure it’s the kind of job I can quit.”

  “Mob?” Angie asked softly. “Because if so, listen, I know a cop who—”

  “It’s not like that. I, uh, I work for the DHS now. I’m not at liberty to discuss it.”

  “Oh.” Angie fell silent for a minute, until the gathering sense of dread nearly convinced Rita that she’d confessed to something inexcusable. Working for The Man. They both understood—i
t was expected of them, like marriage and babies to so many other young women—but even so. “Okay.” Angie’s tone fell oddly flat. “Thought I’d heard the end of that when I got out of the Army.” She extended her arm and placed the joint on the bedside unit. “Phone.”

  “What?”

  “Phone.”

  Rita looked over the edge of the bed, picked up her purse. “What?”

  “Give it here.” Angie took it, flipped it upside down, and popped the battery. “Glass?”

  “Don’t wear it.”

  “Okay.” Angie reached over her side of the bed and picked up her own phone. She held it where Rita could see it as she popped the battery. Then she pulled a thickly quilted craft bag out from under the bed and swept the phones and batteries into it, then closed it and shoved it in a bedside drawer. “I don’t think they could have done an in-and-out here while we were gone. Wouldn’t bet on it in future, though. So I think we’re alone now. Just us and the stars above, like back when we were in camp.”

  Rita shivered. They’d been in the same Girl Scout troop: sent to the same weird summer camp down in Maryland, with other girls whose folks had serious faces and didn’t talk about what they did. “You know we were nearly the only girls there whose parents didn’t work in Spook City?” Spook City was the huge, formerly NSA-only compound at Fort Meade where the CIA and a bunch of other secret agencies had moved after 7/16. It had taken her years to figure that out: why she and Angie and a couple of others had perpetually felt like they didn’t quite fit in. “Little lone wolves,” Kurt had jokingly called them when Rita told him about it.

  “Of course.” Angie sniffed. “I just want to be able to talk to you without the NSA on the party line.” It was an old joke: We’re the NSA. We love to listen. We’re the only branch of government that does. Alternative version: We’re the phone company. We don’t listen. We don’t have to: we’ve got the NSA to do it for us. She placed a hand on Rita’s shoulder. “Do you need help, Rita?”

  “I need—” Rita licked her lips. “No, I don’t think there’s anything you could do to help. Not right now. No, wait, yes there is.” She reached out awkwardly, groping for Angie’s shoulders. “I had no idea you were here. Or that you still wanted me.”

  “A happy accident.” Angie pulled her close and nuzzled up against her neck. “Stay with me?”

  “Always.” Rita clung to her: a drowning woman who had just discovered a life raft. “And this time I mean it.”

  PHILADELPHIA, TIME LINE TWO, AUGUST 2020

  Angie lived in a one-bedroom condo on the outskirts of Philly, in a suburb that was fitfully trying to redevelop. Rita spent the weekend with her, happier than she had been in years. The apartment was sparsely furnished. Angie’s parents hadn’t quite disowned her when she came out, but things had been tense. With the GI Bill benefits paying her way through her night school classes and electrician’s apprenticeship, she’d scrimped and saved every spare dime to pay off the mortgage early. The walls were mostly bare, except for the framed certificates holding Angie’s electrician’s license and her honorable discharge (Private First Class, 704th Military Intelligence Brigade). There was a stack of old dead-tree books in the bathroom: Rita was amused by the discovery that the sole reading matter they had in common consisted of dog-eared copies of The Grasshopper Lies Heavy and a handful of government security manuals.

  On Saturday night, Angie insisted on glamming up with Rita and taking her clubbing. On Sunday morning they lay in, Rita aching from unaccustomed exertion. There was a bittersweet edge to it. “I’m not sure how much longer I’m going to be on assignment here,” Rita told her.

  “We’ll sort something out.” Angie leaned against the headboard. “You don’t get to escape again, girl.” Her grin was wicked, inviting complicity. “What were we thinking?”

  “We were thinking guilty thoughts and trying not to get caught making out. Typical fucked-up teenagers.” Rita squinted, casting a judgmental gaze upon her earlier self. “I don’t know if we would have clicked if we’d tried dating back then. Too young, too much external pressure. I had a bunch of growing up to do. Also”—she shrugged—“it gets better.”

  “You’ve changed for the better, too.” Angie tugged her close. “I can’t believe you were single—”

  “Like I said: I had a bad breakup, then the whole DHS thing happened. I was being single, and then I was being kept busy.”

  “Do you still feel single?” Angie asked, and kissed her slowly.

  “No,” Rita said, when she caught her breath again. “I don’t feel single.”

  “My girl.” Angie giggled briefly.

  “Yeah,” Rita said fondly, and tangled her fingers in Angie’s hair. A thought struck her. “Listen, just do me a favor and don’t change your relationship status on FB just yet.” Angie froze. “I mean, not yet, not in public. People are watching. I’ve got a feeling.”

  “Have I been misreading this?”

  “No. But my, uh, employers might. Listen, how about the day after tomorrow? Wait that long? So I can, uh, so I can report the contact, so they don’t think I’m hiding anything. Otherwise they might think it’s a security infraction…”

  Angie unwound very slightly. “Your employers are bastards.”

  “Some of them are Fundamentalists. The spooks love that kind of straight-arrow puritan programming. I am not exaggerating: only a few years ago they’d have been telling me I’d burn in a rather hot place for this, or require an extra-strong course of aversion therapy or something. If they were following their churches’ doctrines, that is. Most of them aren’t that crazy, but you can never tell.” She kissed Angie again. “So, like, because of security I’ve got to report this, but I’ve got to be discreet. Don’t be surprised if you’re doorstepped by a couple of MIB in the next week or two. Background checks.”

  “I’ll pass.” Angie made a wave-off gesture. “Remember the twitch-your-toes trick for spoofing polygraphs? I’m current. Anyway”—she smirked—“I can always mistake them for Mormon missionaries, can’t I?”

  “You—” Rita sighed. “I should be getting back.”

  “Are you sure you can’t stay longer?”

  “No, like I said, I’m on call from midnight. Like being on watch. I have to go back to my hotel room before then or I’ll turn into a pumpkin or something…”

  “I’ll run you over, then.”

  “Would you be a dear and do that? If it’s—”

  “Of course I’d do that! And listen, if they give you any time off mid-week, you call me, you hear?”

  “I hear you. Mm-hmm.” Rita leaned close and kissed her again. “And that status update? I’m going to update mine on Tuesday.”

  PHILADELPHIA, TIME LINE TWO, AUGUST 2020

  Rita got back to the hotel at eleven thirty. As she entered the lobby arm-in-arm with Angie, she spotted Sonia Gomez sitting on a sofa at one side, reading something on her fatphone. As Gomez glanced up Rita turned and squeezed Angie’s hand, then gave her a swift peck on one cheek. “I’ll be in touch,” she whispered.

  “Who’s she?” Angie asked tensely.

  “My problem, not yours. Internal security. Go home, now. Thanks for, for everything.”

  Rita waited for Angie to leave before she approached Gomez, with a spring in her step that the agent’s sour expression couldn’t banish. Gomez, for her part, didn’t meet Rita’s eyes but instead focused on Angie’s departing back.

  “Well, isn’t that a special piece. Got one in every port, have we?”

  Fuck you too, Rita thought, but kept the words to herself. “I’ll be updating my relationship status the day after tomorrow.” Rita gave her a shit-eating grin. “Or is having fun against your religion?”

  “You didn’t check in.” Gomez hissed like an angry cat, positively bristling.

  “I carried my phone, didn’t I? And the Colonel’s little helpers could have told you who I was talking to and exactly where I was at any time.”

  “That’s not the point
—” Gomez’s fingers curled. “Fuck, you don’t get it, do you? Come on.” She grabbed Rita’s elbow, gripping it painfully, and marched her toward the elevators. “You may not be needed over the weekend but you do not go off-base during—”

  “Fuck you, Patrick told me to take a weekend leave!” Rita shook her arm free and glared at Gomez.

  “Patrick—” Gomez glared back at her. “I’m going to follow this up. He shouldn’t have. If you were needed at short notice, if anything happened while you were putting out like a two-bit hooker—”

  “You’d have been sent to fetch me, wouldn’t you?” Rita pulled her arm away. “I was in Philly, Sonia, catching up with—I hadn’t fled the country. I have a life, you know?”

  “Could have fooled me up till now,” Gomez muttered under her breath. The elevator stopped. “Come on. Briefing’s on in twenty minutes. The Colonel’s come here specially to see you. Wipe that smirk off your face.”

  Rita’s face was still stretched in a rictus grin when they approached one of the hotel conference rooms. The rest of the conference floor seemed curiously empty, bereft of weekend sales conventions and the like, but they’d passed a handful of armed DHS cops on their way. “What’s going on here, Sonia—did he book the whole hotel?”

  “Yes he did. Are you beginning to see where this is going, yet?”

  “Mushroom, remember?” Rita waggled a couple of fingers in the air. “You keep me in the dark and feed me shit, you can’t expect me to make a positive contribution.”

  “Well, try not to fuck up, child. It’s not just the Colonel today, and these guys play at the high-stakes table.”

  Rita looked at Gomez sharply. “You know what? I’d be more inclined to listen to your advice if you didn’t do such a good job of hating on me.”

  Gomez snorted. “It’s not you I hate.” She gestured at the closed conference room door ahead. “Go right on in—the lions are hungry and waiting. I’ll be back for you with a mop and a body bag when they call me.”