“ID?” Far asked into his cupped palm.
“Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna. Better known as Marie Antoinette. She is currently twenty years of age and the queen of France. She registers as a Tier Three mark on the important-persons scale.”
“Tier Three?” Far, half afraid that the computer was lying, turned to get a better, mirrorless view. It was indeed Marie Antoinette. One of the most hated women of her age. One of the most beloved queens of history.
“Hades’s clangers in a hashing bluebox,” he whispered to the back of a gueridon’s gilded head. The Academy had really tossed him into the deep end this time. Being a Tier Three mark meant any interactions with Marie Antoinette beyond a bonjour were forbidden. It also meant that datastreams of the flamboyant queen of France were rare. Valuable. Such footage could send Far’s exam marks through the roof, maybe even land him a score high enough to enter the Corps as a ranked official. He’d be that much closer to becoming a captain of operations on a CTM, calling the shots….
The safe thing to do would be to play the wallflower for fifty-nine minutes. Stick to the mirrors’ edge, drink in every detail of the party from the outside. Note the food being served, the brand of champagne being poured (Veuve Clicquot), every stitch of the courtiers’ frocks.
But being so conservative held its own danger. Too much Central money was poured into the Corps to commission travelers who skulked on the sidelines. If Far didn’t score high enough, he risked being licensed but never selected for an actual CTM mission. Just the thought of being grounded to a single time, when his mother and Burg no longer existed, made Far’s insides go dark.
That couldn’t be his future. It wouldn’t.
His choices were the following:
1. Fade into the background. Be lost.
2. Step out into the thick of the crowd. Be seen.
3. Walk the line between.
Far had pulled off anonymous observations of Tier Three marks before. Keeping beneath a gossipy royal’s radar would be nothing compared with stowing away on the HMS Endeavour for two days. He was as good as this. Better than. Number three was all his.
Scores of people wasn’t quite a large enough number to get lost in. Far kept to the crowd’s outer layer, drifting quickly enough to avoid getting caught in conversation. He circled the party once, twice, soaking Versailles’s nightlife into his datastream. Always Far’s gaze went back to the queen: her dreamlike dress, her smile—so buoyant beneath all that makeup.
He itched to get closer. His path coiled inward like a nautilus shell, making smaller and smaller circles. With every new step, Far felt the points racking up in his favor: Captain here I come!
“Proximity to Tier Three mark has breached recommended distance,” the computer cautioned at ten meters out. “Risk of detection imminent.”
Far could hear the queen detailing her latest Parisian adventures to a rapt audience. “One must go to a masquerade at least once in one’s life. It gives one such a sense of power, to be faceless. To be free of who you are, if only for a moment.”
Marie Antoinette’s admirers nodded. The women’s hair feathers bobbed and the tips of the men’s wigs fluttered: yes, yes in fervent agreement. Far pushed closer, taking care not to jostle any hemlines. So far no one in the crowd had tossed him a second glance, and he aimed to keep it that way.
The warning in his ear blared louder: “Risk of detection imminent.”
He wasn’t in any danger. Marie Antoinette’s back was to him, and the listeners around her had formed a wall—three bodies thick—to be first in the queen’s line of sight. The taller courtiers’ shoulders provided more than enough cover.
“To walk unknown in the midst of a hundred strangers is simply exhilarating.” Marie Antoinette began spinning. “Don’t you think?”
There was another chorus of yeses, but the queen waved these off as she turned. Far stayed on the crowd’s outer edge, his datastream capturing every detail as Marie Antoinette came into view. The lace edges of her Rose Bertin gown. The beauty mark that dotted her right cheek. The diamonds lassoed around her swan-pale neck.
Oh, this was good footage! Possibly some of his best to date. If it were real, Far was positive it would’ve become a published datastream: An Evening with Marie Antoinette. Much more entertaining than medieval, rat-gnawed corpses. Cheerier, too—if you disregarded how it all ended.
This would get him assigned to a CTM right away. Far was already dreaming of the sergeant bar that would be pinned to his jacket when the queen spoke again.
“Don’t you think?”
Two men in front of Far nodded, but Marie Antoinette paid them no mind. She stepped between the pair. The queen’s pale skin, the dark flash of her eyes, her regal stride all reminded Far of a white reindeer he’d once seen in a snow-laden nineteenth-century Swedish Sim. This was all he could manage to think as the queen of France stood in front of him. Anything else was too terrible.
The computer wailed useless warnings. “DETECTED BY TIER THREE MARK! ABORT MISSION IMMEDIATELY!”
“I know an outlier when I see one.” Marie Antoinette leaned in. Her cheek brushed Far’s, accented with scents of rosebushes and bergamots. “You don’t belong here.”
This couldn’t be happening. This shouldn’t be happening. None of the normal triggers were there—Far had stayed out of the line of sight, lips sealed, wardrobe well worn. His proximity was closer than the computer preferred, but that had never mattered before. An average Marie Antoinette in an average Sim would still be addressing her courtiers, not holding Far’s stare like this, dark eyes into dark. They were, he noted distantly, similar to his own in color. A brown so deep it tangoed with black.
“ABORT MISSION IMMEDIATELY!” the computer screamed.
The exam was over. EVERYTHING was over. Marie Antoinette stepped back with a wink. The motion was smooth and deliberate, just mocking enough to let Far know this wasn’t some curveball failure.
This Sim was corrupted.
He’d been set up.
Versailles vanished, reduced to a warehouse of hologram plates that glimmered mother-of-pearl in their resting state. Far stood alone in the sudden silence, breathing heavily. Patches of cold sweat spread under all those hashing layers of clothes. His body shook—not out of fear, but with anger.
“Bring it back! That wasn’t my fault! It wasn’t—”
“Farway Gaius McCarthy.” The computer in his comm gave way to Instructor Marin’s voice. Oh Hades, Marin would be loving this. “Please proceed to the exit for your debriefing.”
SUBJECT SEVEN HAS BEEN SUCCESSFULLY REDIRECTED.
3
LOOPS WITH THE BIRD