Dark State--A Novel of the Merchant Princes Multiverse

by Charles Stross

  “Yes. You are to leave all your personal effects behind, your wallet and phone and anything else you’re carrying. You can take the camera and mapper—they’ve already seen them and you may get some use out of the kit. Dressed like that you’ll stand out, but it sends the message that you’re an official visitor, not a covert one.”

  “Okay…”

  “There’s some other stuff,” Smith added impatiently. “Their rendezvous list included printed trigger engrams for, uh, for the Gruinmarkt and for getting you to the BLACK RAIN time line. You should use those papers for your jaunts rather than your key generator. I’ve also got a list of keys you should load into your gizmo’s memory. They’re bug-out options that will take you to other time lines we’ve got covered, in case you get into a situation where you’re actively pursued by a world-walker.”

  “Pursued? But if they can’t jaunt repeatedly—”

  “We don’t think they can jaunt rapidly, but we do know they have a history of using antihypertensive medication. They’d be fools not to have thrown every research asset they’ve got at the problem, and if we could fix it, they might have a work-around too. So”—Smith slid another sheet of paper across the desk—“I want you to enter these knot parameters into your key generator.”

  “What, right now?”

  “Yes. Because your next act will be to witness and sign off on me destroying this sheet of paper, which is the only extant record of the escape vectors I’m giving you.”

  “In case of—hmm.” Rita moved the page closer and began to read. “Are you afraid they might have a spy inside DHS?” she asked quietly.

  “They’ve been spying on us for decades. We have no idea how well-developed their HUMINT capability is, so we always assume the worst, even though we hope for the best. The crown jewels are stored on paper only, put there using a manual typewriter. We burn the ribbon afterwards. Get keying, Rita: I’ve got a meeting in half an hour.”

  “Okay.” She unbuttoned her cuff and pushed her left sleeve back, then began to squeeze the trigger points. Numbers appeared in boxes on her skin, black and white tattoos depicting dot-matrix digits; they faded within a second each time she pushed the memory store button.

  Smith waited patiently while she did the data entry job. Then he pulled open a drawer and removed an ancient-looking glass ashtray and a Zippo lighter. “Are you done?”

  “Yes.” I hope I got them all in right, she thought. They should be right: each set of coordinates came with a check digit, and the trigger generator would throw an error if she tried to enter an invalid destination. But should was not the same as is. “What now?”

  “This.” Smith picked up the sheet of paper and folded it twice while Rita buttoned up her sleeve. He balanced it on the ashtray, and flicked the lighter. The paper must have been specially treated: one too-bright flare of light and it crumbled into ash. “Okay, that’s done. Sign here.” He slid a tablet over to Rita. It displayed a form with space for signatures witnessing the destruction of whatever it was that had been burned. Evidently a log of document destruction was less of a security risk than the paper-only document itself: the difference between primary data and metadata. Rita signed, and Smith closed the file. “Good.” His cheek stretched into a forced approximation of a smile. It made him look uncharacteristically insincere. “So far everything’s going to plan today, which is more than could be said yesterday … you have another paper file to read. Eyes only. It stays in this room, and so do you, until I get back. I’ll be about an hour, then we’ll burn it. And then it’s showtime.”

  BERLIN, TIME LINE THREE, AUGUST 2020

  “This weather,” said Elizabeth, pensively staring at the rain streaming down the outside of the tall sash windows, “is truly vile.” It had been raining for two days, rendering excursions into town unappealing. She’d been mewed up in her suite at the grand hotel for nearly three days, unable to take any healthy outdoor exercise, and her patience was wearing thin.

  “Not to worry, Your Highness!” Susannah said cheerfully, approaching her chaise from the doorway: “I have here a letter for you from Mme. Houelebecq! I’m sure it concerns the arrangements for your arrival, for term is due to start the week after next.”

  “Oh really.” Elizabeth sighed irritably. She was, she admitted, bored. The hoped-for round of social engagements had simply not materialized. Either Berlin lacked both polite society and a bohemian alternative for it to sneer at, or the two cultures were simultaneously snubbing her. Her capacity for distracting herself with needlepoint, reading, music, and other indoor pastimes deemed suitable for a young lady of refined breeding was running low. She would be vastly happier skiing, riding, or shooting. Nor was she the prayerful kind. While Elizabeth dutifully attended the Church services that were expected of her as future head of the worldwide Anglican communion, she found them boring and fusty rather than a source of comfort. “At this rate it can’t come soon enough. Open it, Suz. What does it say?”

  “Ah, let’s see—Your Highness, we are deeply honored by your father’s request that you attend our school this year. As term commences on the seventh, we would be grateful if you could arrange for your personal effects to be transferred to our premises no later than the fourth of September. We have furnished for you a room of your own, adjacent to the headmistress’s chambers. We politely request”—Susannah slowed—“because of the nature of this establishment, the presence of personal servants is discouraged? Chaperonage is provided by the mistresses of the establishment, as are the usual household functions. We recognize that Your Highness is of an unusually elevated rank to grace our humble establishment, but we would be grateful if for the duration of your residence you could consent to set aside the style of Her Majesty and instead be the Miss Elizabeth Hanover … well, I never saw such a thing! It’s scandalous, Liz—Your Highness! The effrontery!”

  “Give me that.” Elizabeth took the letter from her lady-in-waiting’s nerveless fingertips. She read quickly. “Hmm. Yes, I see.” A faint smile emerged, like weak sunlight filtering through storm clouds. “You are overzealous, Susannah. This is not a slight. Quite the contrary: they’re offering me as much anonymity as I might ask for.” Her smile warmed. “I assume that Captain Bertrand has already made arrangements for discreetly securing the schloss? After all, it would be inappropriate to station soldiers inside a ladies’ finishing school.”

  Susannah nodded weakly. “Do you want me to summon him, my lady?”

  “Yes, I believe so. It will be necessary to discuss the disposition of my household, yourself included, while I attend the school. I will retain the use of these rooms for the holidays”—which she had no intention of still being in Berlin for—“and in any case I shall only be able to take a small part of my wardrobe. Yes, fetch the good captain, if you please: and also Anders”—the chauffeur, responsible for the car Elizabeth’s father had provided for her use—“and Mr. Leverhulme,” the butler, first among her servants. “It is time we discussed arrangements directly.”

  Susannah raised an eyebrow. “But—the other thing?”

  “You will keep it to yourself,” Elizabeth said sharply. She continued in an undertone: “Never fear, I will remember your loyalty and discretion and send for you once it is safe to do so. But for now, I have no way of knowing which of my other servants are informers on behalf of my father’s chief of security.”

  “I understand.” Susannah dipped a brief curtsey. “By your leave?”

  “Go. Begone! With my thanks.”

  Elizabeth walked toward the rain-spattered windows as her lady-in-waiting disappeared about her business. She fanned her face with the letter as she stared across the broad avenue at the imposing town house opposite, the urban seat of some lickspittle baron or jumped-up count who had not seen fit to invite her across his threshold despite her proximity for several weeks. Snub me, will you? She challenged the city: We’ll see about that. Berlin, she had decided, would go down in infamy in the annals of the royal family, not to mention her
secret diary. If Berlin’s bohemian artistic and philosophical salons couldn’t be bothered to invite an imperial princess to dinner—if her elevated persons of privilege had a fit of the vapors at the mere idea of inviting a quadroon to a ball—then, she thought with the brutal self-confidence of late-teenage royalty—Berlin could go hang itself, and she’d happily pay for the rope.

  As for the school, well: their offer of an incognito identity might come in very useful indeed, if the Major’s arrangements failed to come to fruition before the start of term. And if he was late, or—being prudent—if circumstances changed in such a way as to force her to review her planned defection, then at least it would make for a less stultifyingly claustrophobic year than would otherwise be her fate.

  PHILADELPHIA, TIME LINE TWO/NEW LONDON, TIME LINE 3, AUGUST 2020

  It was three o’clock in the afternoon when Dr. Scranton finally arrived with the promised attaché case. Rita, nesting in a corner of the Colonel’s office, had managed to memorize most of his semi-indigestible dossier of lies. Despite not feeling at all hungry she’d forced down a tasteless ham sandwich for lunch. It was probably for the best: Scranton was impatient to get things moving. “Come on,” she said briskly, “let’s get you on your way.”

  “Okay.” Rita stood. Her legs felt leaden. The idea of seeing Mrs. Burgeson again filled her stomach with dreadful embarrassment. Mortifying. She picked up her handbag. “Uh, Colonel, can I leave this here?”

  “Stick it under my desk.” Smith was carrying a leather satchel. He now opened it for her to see. “This contains the same camera and mapper you carried on your last trip. If you can use them, fine, but don’t shed any tears if the opposition confiscate them.” There was a side pocket sized for an old laptop computer. Scranton handed him the attaché case and he slid it inside. “All yours,” he said.

  “Witnessed,” said Scranton, as Rita accepted the bag gingerly. “Let’s go, people. I have a plane to catch.”

  Miss Thorold’s list of secure transfer locations and times ran to several pages, listing times and GPS coordinates where a world-walker—Rita, by implication—would be met by a reception committee. The locations had given the Colonel (and everybody else with an interest in operational security) a bad case of heartburn because of what it implied about the Commonwealth’s ability to spy on US territory. (GPS coordinates were not, after all, a natural measuring system.) But it made it considerably easier for them to find the rendezvous, Rita had to admit. Gomez was waiting in the parking lot in an official sedan. Rita, Dr. Scranton, and Smith climbed in, and Gomez took off, heading for the interstate on autopilot.

  The transfer location was in a big green space in Union, off the Garden State Parkway. Gomez parked the car in the lot next door to a McDonald’s, and they crossed the road into Kawameeh Park together. The trees alongside the avenue cut them off from traffic and the incurious gaze of restaurant customers alike. “This looks to be the place,” Gomez murmured, checking their location on her phone.

  “Close enough for government work,” Dr. Scranton murmured with a small, ironic smile. “Colonel, please proceed.”

  “Rita.” Smith squinted at her, half-worried: “It’s three forty-six. You’ve got a two-hour window, starting at three, ending at five. We’ll be waiting over the road in McD’s until five, if you need to come straight back. Otherwise, Gomez or Jack will be waiting at each three ’til five transfer window until you show, for the next week.”

  “And, uh, if I come back prematurely and not via a scheduled window or rendezvous—”

  “Don’t worry, we’ll know,” Smith said with total self-assurance. “It may take up to an hour for us to have somebody pick you up, though.”

  “It could take that long,” Gomez agreed, sparing Rita an amiably menacing glower.

  “Right.” Rita rubbed the inside of her left elbow, near the persistent phantom itch caused by the map generator implant. You don’t even care that I know you chipped me like a cat, do you? She forced a smile, shifted the shoulder-strap of the bag so that it hung more comfortably against her hip, then raised the printed card. She clicked her heels: “I’m gone.”

  Staring at the knot on the card felt subtly different from focusing on an e-ink tattoo, but it had the same effect. Rita jaunted. The grass in the Gruinmarkt’s shattered time line was damp: a light rain fell. She flipped the card, then jaunted again, blinked, and swallowed to clear her ears as they popped with the pressure change.

  The ground beneath her feet had changed from grass to cement. Where there had been trees there was now a wall with shuttered double doors: rails ran under it. The far side of the compound was stacked with the discarded Lego brick shapes of multimodal freight containers. They were indistinguishable from the ones so widely used back home because they were copied from them, of course. It’s another stockyard, Rita realized, turning on her heel. Then she saw a pair of bodies in double-breasted greatcoats and peaked hats walking toward her. One of them waved. “Ah, Miss Douglas. We meet again.”

  “Um, yes. Yes, we do.” Rita swallowed. It was Inspector Morgan of the Commonwealth Transport Police, accompanied by a tall man with a mustache luxuriant enough that if nailed to a pole it could serve as a broom. The Inspector’s expression was deadpan. “You’re my reception committee?” asked Rita.

  “The Commissioner requested my services. And had your arrest warrant quashed.” The Inspector sniffed, looking her up and down with a raised eyebrow. “I have a car waiting. Miss Thorold is expecting you.”

  Someone had been briefed, or chosen for her discretion, Rita realized. At any rate, the Inspector passed no comment on her outfit.

  This time there were no handcuffs or blindfolds. The car was something of a shock to Rita. It seemed bulky and crude, but was bulbous and smooth, like a sixties muscle machine that had been subjected to a wind tunnel and streamlining then stripped of all the chrome brightwork. There were no electronics to speak of, but a two-way radio (with dials, yet) bolted under the dash. “In the back, please,” said Inspector Morgan. “The seat belt is mandatory.”

  At least it had seat belts, even if you had to tighten them with a lever. Rita strapped herself in as Mr. Mustache made the starter motor shriek. It seemed to go on for a long time before the engine caught, and he kept gunning the throttle for some reason. The whole car shook as it crept toward a side entrance that Rita hadn’t seen for the shipping containers. “Is the engine all right?” she asked, worried by the odd sounds and the vibration.

  “Why wouldn’t it be?” Inspector Morgan craned her head round. “It’s only a year old.”

  “Oh.” Rita shrugged. So they had cars, with seat belts and head restraints and a big-block engine—a V-8 by the sound—that gurgled and snarled as it drank gasoline. But it felt curiously crude and unfinished, lacking the dozens of computers and electric motors that made even Rita’s ancient Acura feel like a real car. This must be what they were all like in the old days, she realized.

  “Floor it, Greg,” Morgan told her driver, then reached up for the grab-handle. Rita braced herself as Greg mashed the gas pedal and the car surged forward. There was a road outside the stockyard, but it was quite unlike the interstate she’d arrived by with the Colonel and Dr. Scranton. This one was three lanes wide in each direction, but the inner two lanes were occupied by streetcar rails, and the outermost lane was rendered inaccessible by a raised curb. Seconds later Rita realized why, as they rushed past a clot of motor-assisted bicycles.

  Rita settled back for the ride, peering at the urban landscape flashing past to either side. She occupied herself by taking mental notes. Houses here looked very different. There seemed to be lots of three- and four-story apartment blocks, with streetcar stops outside their shared entrances. Dense urban farms or community gardens plugged block-sized gaps. The sidewalks were lined with tiny shops at street level, apartments piled above them. In the distance, smoke-spouting factory towers loomed. Businesses—warehouses, even small factories—were scattered throughout the residentia
l suburbs as if zoning laws didn’t exist. Bicycles were everywhere, as were delivery vans, trucks, buses, and streetcars. There were surprisingly few private automobiles.

  Eventually they turned onto a recognizable cloverleaf, and then an ascending overpass that joined a bicycle-free highway in the sky. Greg accelerated to a precarious-feeling sixty miles per hour as they shot toward Staten Island and beyond, the lights of the imperial city glowing against the darkening sky in the east.

  Rita’s stomach clenched at the prospect of the meeting to come. If she was lucky Olga would take the pouch and send her straight back to Dr. Scranton. If she was lucky Mrs. Burgeson wouldn’t be in town. No uneasy confrontation, no brittle silences, and no fraught conversational minefields lay in her future—if her luck held out. Who am I kidding? she wondered dismally as the road deck flew through a painted cage of red bridge trusses, carrying her toward an alien future.

  The demands of empire imposed a certain kind of architectural similarity on capital cities and administrative centers. The common need for large ministerial buildings within easy walking distance of mass transit made for similar layouts. An outer loop road, with modern office blocks sprawling to either side of it, formed a defensible perimeter around inner avenues that were closed to most vehicle traffic. Police or soldiers in discreet checkpoints controlled access to the palaces, courts, and legislative chambers in the middle. That was how it was in Baltimore now, and how it had been in D.C. before the attack. In the case of New London there was a wall around the entire complex—a fortification dating to the late eighteenth century. The bones of the fortress city were still visible through the flab of modern construction, with sloping ramparts recessed into ditches to resist direct cannon fire, polygonal bastions poised to rain fire down on the heads of any force trying to storm the royal residences. These days, the ditches had been turned into sunken gardens and the bastions held only ceremonial guns. Nevertheless, as her ministerial limo approached a ramp leading into an underpass beneath the bastions, Rita’s breath caught in her throat. The wall enclosed the entire southern quarter of Manhattan Island, as if a gigantic pre-industrial Death Star had fallen to earth. It must have soaked up the sweated labor of hundreds of thousands of slaves or captured enemies, back in the early years of the Hanoverian ascendancy over the Americas. “Where are we going?” she asked.