Empire Games Series, Book 1(94)
Rita closed her mouth. She opened it, and closed it again, speechless.
“You get the picture. We’re in danger of turning into the ball in a psychoceramic football tournament.” He looked at her pensively. “You’re sure you’re not deeply religious, Rita? No terribly deep convictions about anything?”
“I was raised Lutheran, kinda-sorta.”
“Well, that’s something. At least you’re not going to turn missionary on me.” His smile was disturbingly weak.
She shrugged. “Is that sort of thing common?”
“More than you might think. More than one idiot used discretionary funds to pay for their church outreach program under the guise of running a string of informers.” Smith shook his head. “This game attracts kooks. Before my time, we used to have a real problem with swivel-eyed witch finders pointing and shrieking ‘Communist!’ back when there was a cold war to run. Then we went through the Great Muslim Panic—and look how well that turned out. Now we’ve got a multiverse to police, and no clear idea what’s going on out there. So people with a clear idea of what they want yell the loudest and set policy. And we end up with terms of reference that are total bullshit…”
Smith raised a hand, took two deep gulps of air, deflated visibly, and gave a quietly unhappy chuckle. “You didn’t hear this, Rita. You didn’t see me lose my shit. Understood?”
She nodded.
“I think you need to know about the shit-storm upstairs, even though Eileen and I are going to do our best to keep you sheltered under our umbrella. In case of emergency, if I’m incapacitated and you can’t contact anyone else, I’m going to send you a number in Baltimore that will put you through to Dr. Scranton or her boss. You get to use it once, no questions asked, and if someone is making trouble for you the White House will make them go away. But you only ever use it if you can’t reach me. For the time being”—he shrugged—“the overt mission and the covert mission are still in alignment, ‘kinda-sorta,’ as you young folks say. I’ve made you aware of the priorities of our lords and masters, so I can check that off my list. Now, back to work…”
He spun his tablet round so she could see it. “We punched another couple of micro-drones through, too small and too low to light up their air defense radar. There’s a city where Philadelphia is in this world, as you’d expect: it’s smaller and denser, with more high-rise buildings and less suburban sprawl, but it’s there. We’ve located a passenger railway station, too. These folks are big on public transport and streetcars, less so on automobiles. So we’re going to put you through a quarter hour before dawn, and you’re going to hang out and people-watch for a couple of hours. You’ll be carrying a military inertial nav system. It works like a handheld GPS map except it’s entirely self-contained, and we’ve filled it with lots of waypoints for safe jaunt sites. If there’s any trouble, you just run away. How long you stay there is up to you—it’s entirely up to your comfort zone—except the mapper only has a seven-day fuel cell charge. And we’d rather you came back the same day.”
“Wait, but what am I going to do for clothes? Money?” Rita stared at him. “How will I fit in?”
Smith shook his head. “We don’t know. That’s why you’re going walkabout. I suggest you study what people are wearing, how they talk, what they do. Wardrobe has run up an outfit based on what you video’d at the railhead. It should pass at a distance. If begging is legal, you could try and get us some cash to copy. Go window-shopping, see what things cost. Building a retail price index will tell us a lot about their economy, which in turn tells us a lot about the constraints imposed on their military by the funding envelope. If you get a chance to talk to people, take it—within reason, we don’t want you running risks. Finally, back in 2003 we got a memo from the Office of Legal Counsel. The Attorney General approves the legal theory that people in other time lines are not subject to the protections and laws of the USA, even if they’re in the equivalent geographical territory. We’re not giving you a gun because if you find yourself in a situation where you might need to defend yourself you should jaunt immediately. But anything you do over there falls outside the scope of our laws over here, if you follow my drift: you have total immunity.”
“Got it. Tomorrow morning, quarter before dawn—that’s about six fifteen, isn’t it? Walk around for a few hours. Not less than two, unless I’m in danger, not more than a day or you start getting edgy. See the sights, play penniless tourist. Anything else?”
“Yes.” Smith nodded. “You’re going to spend the rest of today in a wardrobe fitting, then with props—they’ll orient you on the inertial map system. In particular we want you, if you get a chance, to log waypoints over there for a couple of different types of sites—abandoned houses or retail establishments in particular. Government offices, too. Then you’re sleeping here tonight, I’m afraid. Four-thirty wake-up call for makeup.” He rose. “Good luck and Godspeed.”
Mission Abort
IRONGATE, TIME LINE THREE, AUGUST 2020
The Colonel, his staff in the Unit, their seniors in the Office of Special Programs, and everyone in the DHS who was aware of the JAUNT BLUE program and the BLACK RAIN time line assumed that Rita’s aborted mission had been completed largely without consequence.