“If I let you go early and you suffer an apoplectic fit, it wouldn’t just be my job that’s on the line. With the flu doing the rounds, we’ve got only eighty-four walkers available for active ops this week.”
“Eighty—” He swallowed a curse. Of course. Plagues could travel piggyback on a world-walker in either direction, and importing a nasty epidemic wasn’t the only risk the Department of Para-historical Research ran when it authorized a transfer mission. The other time line was terrifyingly proficient at automated genome scanning and biowarfare defense. If a flu strain from the Commonwealth ever got loose over there, the US authorities would rapidly deduce the existence of the DPR’s espionage program. Pinpointing exactly where patient zero had arrived would follow, and then—
The consequences would be bad. Starting with the enemy waking up and plastering Manhattan Island in time line one with sensors and killer drones, then going rapidly downhill from there.
Hulius waited while the medics fussed, trying to relax. As usual, it did little to speed things up. After a couple of inconclusive blood pressure checks and then a better one, Brian grudgingly pronounced himself satisfied and an unseen attendant wheeled Hulius into the robing area. He stripped, showered, and dressed himself in civilian clothes—every step following strict decontamination protocols. It was a soothing and familiar ritual. He’d performed it more than a thousand times in the sixteen years since he’d joined the Department of Para-historical Research, and in rudimentary form for years before that. It was far more elaborate and effective than anything the Clan had bothered with back in the old days: more like the routine his bright younger brother Huw had come up with for probing new time lines. But the DPR didn’t dance to the same tune as the fractious families of merchant princes who had made their homes in the Gruinmarkt. Far from it.
The guards in the lobby of the building saluted politely enough, but kept a close eye on him. “Sign here, Citizen Major,” said the sergeant waiting by the turnstile with a clipboard. Hulius nodded, signed. “Thank you,” the sergeant continued. “You may leave the secure zone now.” He gave no sign of recognition, even though he’d been on this posting for several months and had spoken exactly the same words to Hulius at least thirty times. Inter-service rivalry could be brutal in the postrevolutionary Commonwealth, and the troops were drawn from the Commonwealth Guard, a body loyal to the Party rather than the state.
Outside the squat, concrete shed, Hulius paused for a minute to take in the evening air. Then he headed toward the office block where he would make his report in person.
Fort George was still centered on a century-old shingle-roofed brick barracks, but it had lately been overrun by an infestation of concrete. There was fresh cement everywhere from the driveways to the new multistory office buildings, including the sinister hemispheres facing out toward the Atlantic coast, their embrasures concealing antiaircraft missile launchers. About the only new structures that weren’t made of the stuff were the radar dishes and the flagpole.
The twenty-first century was definitely the age of concrete, Hulius mused. Concrete and blast doors and automobiles with floor-mounted gearshifts. Sidewalks and orange-glaring streetlights that turned the night to day, the gold to chrome. It was all horribly industrial, as far from nature as one could get. Computer terminals with chord-keyboards and green phosphor screens and magnetic cartridge drives: sometimes it seemed as if the Commonwealth was desperate to turn itself into an echo of the paranoid place he had just visited.
A growing shriek like the howl of a demented, mindless god split the sky overhead. Hulius glanced up in time to see a pair of silvery arrowheads disappearing into the eastern sky, trailing orange fire. A few seconds later double thunderclaps rattled the windows. They were probably off to protect the Commonwealth’s airspace from encroaching French bombers. A job at which they were very good, although it was anybody’s guess how effective such second-generation fighter jets would be if they were called upon to defend the homeland against the stealth drones and advanced electronics of the United States …
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS, TIME LINE THREE, SPRING 2018
Another day, another public opening ceremony. The Commonwealth public loved factory-opening ceremonies. Opening ceremonies meant jobs, money, and the white heat of a new technological revolution. Drama, television cameras, a news autogyro circling overhead to get the best shots of a vast new complex. They’d be highlighting the shiny new parking lots and monorail stations linking the factory to the planned workers’ satellite towns. I just wish I could hire an actor to stand in for me, Miriam thought wearily as she adjusted her white gloves. Erica, her makeup assistant, fussed around her hair, making sure every strand was in place: “I want to matte your forehead some more, madame,” she said. “Otherwise, the cameras will—”
“Certainly.” Miriam sat still. Her legs ached. Her back ached. Sometimes it felt like she was a single ache held together by willpower: she was a year off fifty, and middle age was not proving to be fun, even without the cancer scare the other year. “As long as you’re done in ten minutes.”
“Don’t worry, Minister.” That was Jeffrey, her young new PA. Was it just her, or were PAs getting younger every year? And changing faster and faster? Hell, Radical Party Commissioners seemed to be getting younger by the day too, especially since she’d ended up running a ministry of her own—the then-unforeseen but retrospectively inevitable outcome of that prison camp meeting all those years ago. “You’re looking wonderful, madame.”
“Great.” She kept her face still as Erica dusted her, brushes flicking. Fashions had changed slowly in the New British Empire of old, at least until relatively recently. Fabric and labor had been more expensive than in the United States, so clothing had to be made to last. The Revolution that had overturned the old monarchy and created the New American Commonwealth had done away with the baroque court dress of the old royal court—for which Miriam was sincerely grateful—but the outfits she was expected to wear, as a female Minister presiding over public events, were still elaborate compared with what she’d grown up with. It meant her entourage was large—dressers and makeup artists as well as bodyguards and personal assistants. “Do we have time for one last run-through?”