The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.: A Novel Read online

  ODA: You might think of the Tearsheet Brewery as like a lettuce leaf embedded in a Jell-O molded salad. Because of the unfortunate chain of events, this piece of lettuce was yanked out of the Jell-O and ceased to exist. A vacancy was left in its wake, which self-healed with the most terrible consequences for those unlucky enough to be near it.

  HATCHER: Terrible consequences, indeed. Thank you, Dr. Oda. Madame Chair, I yield my time.

  CHAIRMAN ATKINSON: Are there any further questions for Dr. Oda at this time? No? Very well, you may step down, Dr. Oda.

  SENATOR COLE: Madame Chair, in light of Dr. Oda’s remarks I would like to call Lieutenant Colonel Lyons back.

  [REDACTED]

  SENATOR COLE: . . . the descriptions of the Tearsheet Brewery event are, in sum, so bloodcurdling, and the benefits of this mission so trivial in comparison—the recovery of an old book from a cask in Dr. Oda’s backyard!—that it must call into question why we are being asked to spend the taxpayers’ money on this sort of undertaking at any level, to say nothing of the exorbitant requests embodied in this proposed budget.

  CHAIRWOMAN ATKINSON: I would like to thank my distinguished colleague for that impassioned, eloquent, and thorough statement. Was there a question for Lieutenant Colonel Lyons?

  COLE: Why should we spend the taxpayers’ money on building a device that will only expose this great nation to additional risk?

  LIEUTENANT COLONEL LYONS: Thank you, Senator Cole. For high-level strategic questions I might refer you to General Frink, but I’m happy to address your question on a more nuts-and-bolts level. As you point out, we need to keep the costs as low as possible while minimizing risk and maximizing benefits. From a cost point of view, I’ll remind the committee that the only work being actively funded right now, and for the next few months, is CRONE: Chronodynamic Research for Optimizing Next Engagement. We have cut back the number of DEDEs to the bare minimum needed to sustain progress and we have limited those to missions of an exploratory or experimental nature. Most of our current budget is devoted to pathfinding work on the Chronotron, a device whose entire purpose will be to minimize risk.

  COLE: To minimize risk, you say.

  LYONS: Yes, Senator. That is its purpose.

  COLE: Both Dr. Oda and General Frink in their earlier testimony praised the Chronotron as a tool that would enable DODO to plan future missions. Would you concur?

  LYONS: Yes, it duplicates the functionality of the quipus or other similar devices used by witches to navigate the different Strands of history, and combines that with a colossal database of historical facts. If we’d had it earlier, we’d have planned our first DEDEs differently and gotten results more quickly and more safely.

  COLE: Or perhaps chosen some different DEDE altogether?

  LYONS: Yes, it’s quite possible that with a functioning Chronotron we might have been able to identify something both easier and more profitable than recovering a Bay Psalm Book.

  COLE: This is precisely what concerns me about building the Chronotron.

  LYONS: I’m sorry, Senator Cole. Why would you be concerned about DODO having a tool that would enable us to make more informed choices? As opposed to just winging it?

  COLE: When you just wing it, you are aware of the risk and the uncertainty, and inclined to be more cautious. When you have a high-tech tool giving you an illusion of omniscience, I am concerned that it will lead to greater risk-taking.

  LYONS: I would argue that more information is always better. I would make an analogy to using computers to predict the weather. Back in the days when all we had was a weathervane and a barometer, a ship’s captain had to make his best judgment about what the weather was going to do, and trust his gut. Now that we have weather satellites and computerized forecasts, the captain can make informed decisions.

  COLE: It is an attractive analogy, but it’s self-serving, since we all know that those satellites and computers actually work most of the time. You’re likening the Chronotron to familiar technology that we trust. How close is the Chronotron, really, to deserving that trust?

  LYONS: As of today, about halfway through the CRONE phase, we have the individual processing units—the QUIPUs, or Quantum Information Processing Units—running according to spec, and we’re developing the manufacturing capability to produce them in larger numbers. By linking just a few of them together we’ve been able to achieve more accurate results than the quipu-like item Erszebet was using—

  ERSZEBET KARPATHY: My számológép, which has now been lost because of the incompetencies and manipulations of this government.

  ATKINSON: Ms. Karpathy, you are out of order.

  COLE: Yes, thank you, Ms. Karpathy, we have already noted your remarks on this topic several times.

  KARPATHY: My comments have not yielded results.

  ATKINSON: Order! Order!

  [REDACTED]

  (NEXT DAY)

  SENATOR EFFINGHAM: . . . moving on to Line 539 of the proposed budget, unless my eyes deceive me, you wish to allocate twelve full-time positions to historians?

  MELISANDE STOKES: In order for the Chronotron to do its job it has to have a vast database of historical facts in memory. Going back to the weather analogy from yesterday, you can build a computer that’s really good at performing the mathematical calculations needed to predict weather, but it’s going to be totally useless unless you can feed it real-time information about actual weather conditions. Which is why we need weather balloons and satellites and so on—to supply that data. In the case of the Chronotron, we have these QUIPUs that know how to do the math, but they’re useless without historical data.

  EFFINGHAM: I believe we covered this in Lines 420 through 487, which describe a program to extract this information directly from digitized history books already in the Library of Congress.

  STOKES: Yes, that covers ninety percent of it, but some books contain ambiguous material that confuses our natural language processing algorithms. When that happens, the offending passage can be sent up the line to a human reader who can try to parse it. For obvious reasons we think that historians will do the best job.

  EFFINGHAM: Very well, but it appears that their cost is being split with another subprogram called . . . DORC?

  STOKES: We should probably come up with a different name for it, but DORC is the Diachronic Operative Resource Center. Colonel Lyons and I had to improvise our own training program when we learned how to speak, dress, and behave in colonial Boston and Elizabethan England. As DODO’s scope of operations expands to other DTAPs . . .

  EFFINGHAM: Ah, yes, thank you for jogging my memory, Ms. Stokes. DORC is like the Starfleet Academy, if I may indulge myself with a reference to Star Trek.

  STOKES: The Hogwarts.

  EFFINGHAM: Yes, the training ground where DOers will acquire the requisite skills.

  STOKES: Those budget entries begin around Line 950.

  EFFINGHAM: Yes, my aide has found it for me.

  STOKES: It makes sense to split the historians’ time so that they can help out with DORC activities.

  EFFINGHAM: This is quite a large section of the budget and I may need additional time to go through it . . .

  [REDACTED]

  SENATOR EFFINGHAM: Line 1162 jumps out at me. Why do you need to spend so much money on swords?

  LIEUTENANT COLONEL LYONS: It turns out that they are more expensive than you might think. They have to be hand-made from special kinds of steel.

  EFFINGHAM: You are missing the point of my question, Colonel Lyons. Let me rephrase: this seems to imply that you are assembling a squad of warriors and assassins.

  LYONS: Probably not assassins per se because of the risk of Diachronic Shear.

  EFFINGHAM: You can’t just go back and kill Napoleon.

  LYONS: It would be a terrible idea.

  EFFINGHAM: Renewing my question . . .

  LYONS: People back then—people of the upper classes—carried swords and other edged weapons all the time. And they knew how to use them. Any DOer
, at least any male DOer, who went back pretending to be such a person, but who had no skill with using a sword, would be as conspicuous as someone who couldn’t mount a horse or speak the language.

  EFFINGHAM: Are you expecting some of your DOers to engage in swordfights?

  LYONS: I had to do it several times during my DEDE in London.

  EFFINGHAM: But that was before you had the Chronotron—it was an improvised DEDE.

  LYONS: Wars, battles, and duels are important events. In some cases, depending on what the Chronotron tells us, we may need DOers who are capable of effecting that kind of change—or at a minimum, staying alive in such environments.

  EFFINGHAM: It sounds dangerous.

  LYONS: It is, by definition. Only a small minority of DOers will be fighters. They make a big splashy impression in the budget because we have to buy them training equipment.

  EFFINGHAM: But the majority will have other specializations?

  LYONS: Yes. As an example, during the current CRONE phase, our efforts are focused on making discreet insertions into certain DTAPS, trying to develop and nurture our relationships with KCWs—

  EFFINGHAM: With what?

  LYONS: Known Compliant Witches.

  EFFINGHAM: Ah. Yes. This takes us back to, er, Line 345 or thereabouts. Developing the witch network. The subway map.

  LYONS: Yes, like the subway map that tells us how we can route our DOers from one DTAP to another and eventually get them home safe. Obviously, this relies on having friendly relationships with witches.

  EFFINGHAM: Who tend to be, shall we say, peculiar individuals.

  ERSZEBET KARPATHY: I find your tone offensive, Senator.

  CHAIRWOMAN ATKINSON: Order!

  EFFINGHAM: Go on, Colonel Lyons.

  KARPATHY: Are you ignoring me? I said I find your tone offensive. I do not even want to be here, I am here only out of the goodness of my heart, but all of you, all of these millions of dollars and plans to rule the planet and all that, do you understand that all of it depends on me? And yet you use that tone with me? Who do you think you are?

  EFFINGHAM: It’s all right, Madame Chair. Now, Ms. Karpathy—

  KARPATHY: Don’t “Ms. Karpathy” me. Apologize for your tone.

  EFFINGHAM: I apologize, Ms. Karpathy.

  KARPATHY: I do not accept your apology.

  EFFINGHAM: Why not?

  KARPATHY: You do not sound at all sincere about it. It does not count if it is not sincere. I am going to leave this room and I want you to think about what happens if I do not return. Then when I do return, I expect you will apologize appropriately.

  MELISANDE STOKES: Tristan, shall I—?

  LYONS: Yeah.

  ATKINSON: Let the record show that Ms. Erszebet Karpathy has left the hearing room without authorization at 1723 hours accompanied by Dr. Melisande Stokes.

  EFFINGHAM: Colonel Lyons, you were saying?

  LYONS: Erszebet has just given you an excellent example of why we require very specialized agents to win over witches. They don’t want money. They’re not the sort to join us on behalf of Truth, Justice, and the American Way. Every witch has her own agenda for why she might or might not help us. So we need to be able to find witches, but then also to win them over. Sometimes that can be a complicated undertaking, involving a series of actions that require various sets of skills.

  EFFINGHAM: I suspect I’m not the only one in the room who would appreciate an example of what you mean.

  LYONS: Okay, recently we wanted to establish a foothold in the Balkans for reasons that General Frink can explain if you need to know, so we did research to anticipate where a witch was, and then we Sent back one of our agents to find the witch. Well, he found her, and she did agree to Send him back here, but she wasn’t interested in being on call for us, so to speak, unless we made it worth her while. Her husband was imprisoned, so she told our DOer that if he could get the husband out of prison, she’d work with us.

  EFFINGHAM: Why didn’t she just, you know, use magic to get him out?

  LYONS: With respect, magic isn’t the same thing as omnipotence, Senator. It’s a hereditary skill set, really, that’s all. Anyhow, our fellow who we Sent back there, his language skills are first-rate and he’s a tremendous athlete and good at problem-solving, but he’s not much of a schmoozer and he doesn’t have the skills that would assist in a jailbreak. So the witch Sent him back here, but said she didn’t want to hear from DODO again unless we could get her husband out of jail. If we’d had somebody who specialized in picking locks or was a general escape artist or whatever, we could have Sent that person back. We didn’t have anyone like that, so we had to try bribing the prison guard, but we did not succeed.

  EFFINGHAM: Bribe them with what? According to this document, you can’t take anything back in time with you.

  LYONS: That’s correct.

  EFFINGHAM: So what did you try to bribe him with?

  LYONS: Um. Mel—Dr. Stokes—she went back because. She was willing to try. Bribing him with. What she brought with her.

  EFFINGHAM: Her body?

  LYONS: Yes.

  EFFINGHAM: You’re saying she

  [REDACTED]

  LIEUTENANT COLONEL LYONS: The utter failure of this effort led us to conclude we needed an actual sex worker, or at least somebody capable of passing as one.

  SENATOR EFFINGHAM: I yield, Madame Chairwoman.

  CHAIRWOMAN ATKINSON: I recognize Senator Villesca.

  SENATOR VILLESCA: Colonel Lyons, I hope you appreciate that prostitution is illegal in this great country of ours, except in certain rural parts of Nevada.

  LYONS: The prostitute would be plying her trade in sixteenth-century Balkan territory, sir. Or possibly his trade, based on Dr. Stokes’s reception. Anyhow, we haven’t found one yet.

  VILLESCA: You’re saying you want to use taxpayer money to recruit prostitutes.

  LYONS: That’s not a typical example, sir. We need people with specific skill sets like masons and soldiers and people with specific athletic abilities, and we need people who can blend in—like I said, schmoozers. Actors. Whatever it takes.

  GENERAL FRINK: Madame Chairwoman, if I may?

  ATKINSON: Proceed.

  FRINK: With all due respect, Senator Villesca, it’s not like taxpayer money has never been used to hire prostitutes before. I know you’re aware of that.

  [REDACTED]

  (NEXT DAY)

  GENERAL FRINK: . . . an ongoing theme in the last few days’ deliberations has been the need for wisdom and discretion in future DODO operations. Senator Hatcher has reminded us of the need to avoid any future incidents such as the one in which Les Holgate sacrificed his life for his country. Senator Cole has expressed concern that a fully functional Chronotron may lead us into taking risks we might not otherwise consider. With Senator Effingham, we’ve had an illuminating discussion of the importance of learning from the wisdom of experienced professional historians. Finally, Senator Villesca has spoken with great passion and eloquence of the need to maintain moral standards that we can all be proud of. It is for all these reasons that I am pleased to introduce Dr. Blevins of Harvard University as the new acting head of the Department of Diachronic Operations. He replaces Lieutenant Colonel Lyons, who is being reassigned to command of DODO’s “boots on the ground” operational unit, and who will henceforth report to Dr. Blevins. Though the academic world knows Roger Blevins as a peerless scholar, those of us with security clearances are aware of his long service to his country as

  [REDACTED]

  SENATOR HATCHER: . . . even for one of your distinguished credentials, this is an important career transition, Dr. Blevins, and so I would like to be the first to congratulate you. Frankly, I am pleased to see that you are being moved off of the Advisory Board. I myself am on more advisory boards than I can even remember, and not one of them ever asks me for advice.

  DR. BLEVINS: I’ve had similar experiences, Senator, and this is why I took the unusual step of establishing an office within DOD
O headquarters in Cambridge, and spending time there on a regular basis. I’ll now hand that off to Dr. Rudge, who I most certainly will be asking for advice on a regular basis.

  HATCHER: How do you see that facility developing as we transition out of the CRONE phase? What does it look like in a year? Two years?

  BLEVINS: As a very special hybrid of tech start-up, liberal arts college, and Special Forces base. Our present thinking suggests we’ll need about a dozen kinds of specialists, divided into classes, such as tracker, fighter, entertainer, and so on. All of them will need immersive training in the language and ethos of whatever DTAP they go to. Meaning we also need to hire people to train them in those things—manners, customs, how to put on and take off clothes, fighting styles. All of that falls under the heading of the Diachronic Operative Resource Center, whose acting director will be my student, Dr. Melisande Stokes.