THEATER: C/COD
OPERATION: Year 5 Halloween Party
DTAP: Cambridge, MA, present day
FILED: Day 1921 (November 1, Year 5)
The ATTO was left powered up overnight. No harm and no casualties are known to have resulted from this incident. This appears to have been an oversight resulting from an impromptu demo that was staged during the party for LTG Frink. Some of our personnel remained in the ATTO following the conclusion of the tour and there seems to have been confusion as to who was responsible for powering the system down at the conclusion of the demo and placing it in a safed condition.
Dr. Oda assures me that the system is designed to run for an indefinite period of time without harm and so I’m sure you’ll all be relieved to know that the ATTO has passed a thorough systems checkup in the wake of this incident.
So, no harm, no foul—but I am writing it up anyway as a “lessons learned” document. Remember, we don’t yet know everything about what can happen inside an operating ODEC and so it is never approved procedure to leave one turned on and unattended.
Post by Macy Stoll to Dr. Roger Blevins
on private ODIN channel, 10:30
DAY 1923 (3 NOVEMBER, YEAR 5)
Dr. Blevins, Gráinne failed to report to the ATTO for scheduled psy-ops research activities this morning at 0900. Keycard records show she did not report for work this morning, and she did not call in sick or otherwise advise us as to the reason for her absence. Normally this would be handled as a routine HR matter but because of her special status I felt it best to bring it to your attention directly. Shall I check in with the staff at the MUON residence?
Reply from Dr. Blevins, 15:49, same day:
Macy, apologies for the belated response, but I wanted to let you know that I just saw Gráinne in person, looking a little the worse for wear after her activities at the Halloween party, which have already become the stuff of internal DODO legend—all classified, of course. As you can appreciate, the concept of calling in sick is unfamiliar to Anachrons and so I think we can overlook her failure to do so this morning.
GRáINNE’S
FINAL LETTER
to GRACE O’MALLEY
PART 2
And so, to make a short tale of it, when they were through pumping me with the potions, Erszebet brought a gown like her own for me to wear, the most brilliant colors, I felt like a lady of the court, so I did! And she brought me out into the world of Cambridge (not England’s Cambridge, of course) and showed me the many many things I referred to earlier, which as I said would take half a lifetime to describe proper-like. So in the interest of finishing this before you die, I’ll be staying with the part of this story that’s to do with my plans.
The place is full of rules and regulations, and doesn’t Erszebet just ignore every single one of them, and what can they do about it? There is a reverence that is paid her, and no rules apply to her. She has explained many wondrous things to me, but the most important, of course, is why magic finally stopped working. Without going into the minutiae of it, as I’m sure Your Grace has no patience for it, it comes down to this: those natural philosophers and the rest I have been keeping company with in the shadow of Sir Francis? It is their doing. Those curs and their ilk as the centuries progress. These “scientists” make the world extremely technical in innumerable ways, and it’s not only that science is a new kind of magic that makes ours seem feeble by compare, it’s that their powers’ waxing causes ours to wane. And there is particular a kind of art called photography, which as I guess from the name means “light-writing,” or the setting down of light on paper. The effect is an image like a painting or a drawing, but as real as the real image being copied. It is wondrous—and everywhere. And the cause of magic’s end, so it is.
This means that for magic not to end, there must be no photography. Sure I am there’s other things as well, but that is where it ended, and so that is where the undoing must begin.
The greatest risk of my tenure in the future was to expose my intentions to Erszebet, on the strong suspicion she would care to join me in my endeavors. And so she was, Your Grace—gleefully, almost greedily, did she agree to join my ranks.
“How appalling that I was so beaten down by these horrible Yankees,” she said (not certain am I, what a Yankee is), “that I never thought of doing this thing myself. You are a witch after my own heart, Gráinne, a woman of integrity!” And then we pledged ourselves each to the other in the way of witches, which I must not share even with Your Grace.
And now doesn’t Erszebet Send me back, a few hours or a day at a time, so that I can be seeing to various matters of our mutual interest?
I am in London just now, to set some things in motion. But having done so, and having writ this very long letter to Your Grace, I will be returning to Tristan’s lair, with a plan to undo the undoing of magic. It must be done slowly and cautiously, to avoid lomadh, or as they call it in that era, Diachronic Shear. But it shall be done.
And here be my plan, which is of three parts.
First, I must be getting the money on my side, because after magic wanes money is the most powerful thing on earth (followed by weapons that destroy whole cities in a go, and religion—that never goes away, damn it!—and lastly, female actors who do not wear much clothing). Having little enough need for money in London, I have been but passing familiar with some men of the banking world, but by now I have corrected that, sure. The Gresham family seems to me already to be a waning force, but the Fuggers are savvy enough. I have arrived at an understanding with Athanasius Fugger, the man in our time with the sharp yellow beard. And in the future I have made the friendliest of connections with one Constantine Rudge, who is an important member of the Fuggers’ high councils, and who has been in on DODO from its very beginnings. And in other times and places as well, as Erszebet finds opportunities to Send me, I have sought out other Fuggers. In short, haven’t I predisposed the whole clan to be of assistance to me—or to “any comely Irish witch named Gráinne,” as it is likely to be their descendants that I deal with. They have been told now that an immortal witch has pledged herself to aid the family. And whilst I was in the future, with Erszebet’s assistance haven’t I made a study of whole eras of what happens between then and now, and coming back here, haven’t I whispered into the Fuggers’ ears where they should be adjusting their interests to keep the money flowing their way? Is right I have.