“I’m getting to it, love. Give me a minute? It’s not exactly the NSA, but our system is good enough to keep track of five thousand teenagers from a safe distance. It’s all automated, using syntax analysis software to keep an eye on their prose style in case anything happens to them, then squirt a logfile to one of our stay-behind assets”—she shared a glance with Hulius—“every month. Anyway, up till now, nothing’s happened. Our herd of little recessive carriers have been left to their own devices. Except, last month, the prototype went missing.”
“The proto-what?” Huw sat down. “I thought they were all born over a six-month period.” Dr. ven Hjalmar had, with the backing of Duke Angbard, the then head of Clan Security, used a fertility clinic in New England to distribute sperm samples from world-walkers to infertile couples. They’d kept track of the infants: the plan had been to offer the females good money a generation later to act as host mothers for babies that would grow up to be full-fledged world-walkers to supplement the civil war–depleted ranks of the Clan. (This plan had, like all of the Clan’s operations in the United States, come to an abrupt end in 2003.)
“Well, that’s not entirely true.” Brill gave him a slow, appraising look. “There’s an older one, born years earlier, who’s listed on the database. Actually, she wasn’t the product of the breeding project—she predates it—but was added to the list as an adopted-out carrier born in the US.”
“Wait—born over there? In the US? But the child of a world-walker?” Hulius raised an eyebrow. “Whose bastard are they? Wasn’t that sort of thing frowned upon strongly? Why didn’t we—”
Brill raised a hand. “You don’t want to know,” she said, her tone curiously flat. “Trust me, you don’t. Anyway, as of last month, her Facebook page has become curiously bland. No new photo sharing, and the word frequency metric has changed.”
“That might not be significant.” Huw thought for a moment. “Aren’t those social network accounts prone to being hacked?”
“Not so much these days.” Brill stopped pacing. “I raised an intelligence order: we should find out something more about this in the next month. It’s amazing how many cameras they’ve got on the Internet over there that aren’t properly secured, and how little it costs to get someone to go through their feeds looking for a face.”
“Cameras?” Huw looked nonplussed for a moment. The Commonwealth had television now, even in color. There were closed-circuit cameras and videocassette recorders: but they were cumbersome tube-based things that drank electricity and vomited bulky and expensive tapes. Knowing that CCD camera chips and DVDs were possible was one thing: mass-producing them was still a decade away.
“Convenience stores, gas stations. I’m not talking about government surveillance here. We should be able to confirm if she’s really missing soon enough. It’s often as simple as paying a credit ratings agency or a skip tracer for a report. But the change in social profile is noticeable. Two months ago our prototype was desperate for a job. Now she’s clammed up.”
“It might be a coincidence.” Huw took a deep breath. His pupils were wide: unlike Hulius, he’d obviously added two plus two and gotten the correct result. “She might have been murdered or something. Or just have landed a job that keeps her very busy or that she can’t talk about.” Another breath. “I’m whistling past the graveyard, aren’t I?”
“Yes.” Brilliana flashed him a brief, very tense smile. “It looks like the DHS have decided to pull her in, and there can only be one reason why they’d do that. We know they’re better than we are at genetics and bioengineering: what do you think? My dear, the Survival Committee is going to shit a brick. I might be a little bit paranoid about this, but I think you should prepare to accelerate project JUGGERNAUT. We may be only weeks away from being knee-deep in world-walking spies.”
Huw closed his eyes. Leave the political shit to Brill. Oh what a mess. “The first driver pits aren’t due to arrive until next month, the boost stage tankage isn’t even finished, and we’ve got a lot of testing to do before we’re going anywhere. Rudi’s flying test-bed was a huge help, but you realize how crazy-dangerous this is? Nobody’s ever done anything like this before. At least, not outside Kerbal Space Program.”
“Done what?” Hulius said. “Cuz, why exactly am I here? And where is here, anyway?”
Huw looked at him with mixed affection and exasperation. “You’re a world-walker with a pilot’s license. Or at least you had a license and you can requalify. What do you think you’re here for?”
“Um.” Hulius’s brow wrinkled. “World-walking while flying?”
“Exactly!” Huw slapped the table. “But that’s another of Brill’s projects, and anyway, I’m forgetting my manners. You’ve just flown in from New London; you must be tired. How about I get Denis to show you to the officers’ quarters and give you a chance to stow your kit? Then you must join us for dinner.” He glanced at Brilliana. “Unless you’ve got other plans, we’ve got a lot of catching up to do…”
ST. PETERSBURG, TIME LINE THREE, SPRING 2020
In one of the more fashionable salons of St. Petersburg, in the upper stories of a grand hotel whose gaudily painted onion-domed towers echoed the long-bombed ruins of the Cathedral of the Protection of Most Holy Theotokos on the Moat, two crown princes egged each other on with wilder and more provocative toasts to the demise of their enemies.
“And here’s to the extermination of the traitors infesting the Summer Palace in New London: long may their so-called First Man rot in his gibbet when you return at the head of your armada!” Louis, the Dauphin destined to be Louis XXVI of France and her Empire, raised his glass. He was the younger of the two, in his early thirties: blond, cherubic of complexion, with the athletic build of one who had devoted much effort to proving himself in military exercises.
“I’ll drink to that,” Prince John Frederick Charles of Hanover, by Grace of God heir to the Empire of the Americas, Protector of the Chrysanthemum Throne, and bearer of various other titles, responded laconically. He drained his shot glass of spiced vodka in a single gulp. In his mid-forties, he had gone somewhat to seed in the years of his exile. “Ahh.” He held out his glass and a footman stepped forward to refill it.