Suddenly I had a terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach—a premonition, which is not, dear reader, something I am prone to. I sensed it had something to do with Gráinne’s detailed knowledge about photography, and the significance of the eclipse. “Where are you going?” I asked.
“Oh, it’s back to DODO headquarters for myself, sure,” she said. “I’ve stacks to do there, and I can’t have you underfoot. So it’s elsewhere I am Sending you, where there will be no magic strong enough to Send you forward. God ye good day, Melisande Stokes. ’Tis been a pleasure to serve with you. Fare thee well.”
Even as she spoke, the room began to dim and tilt about me, and the lovely aroma that always wafted at the edges of my attention when I was Sent—I smelled it, and then . . .
. . . And then I awoke three weeks ago, naked, cold, on the grimy pavers of a London street at dawn, frantic to know what date it was, like a perversion of Scrooge at the end of A Christmas Carol (which came out less than a decade ago).
To make short shrift of it: a beadle was called and I was bundled off to Bedlam, but a physician there sensed there was something different about me (thank God!) and brought me to his home, for he and his wife to try to “salvage.” They have it almost right: they take me for a witch (there are witches in distant branches of his family, and he has watched with compassion as several of them have fallen into despair as their powers waned; one took her own life). So they have offered me shelter, food, the clothes upon my back . . . on the sole condition that I make no attempt to communicate with any witch in any way.
Not that I know any witches in 1851 London anyhow. And even if I did, it would be a miracle if she had the power left to Send me forward before the eclipse. Which will occur in just seventeen days.
Post by Mortimer Shore on
“General” GRIMNIR channel
DAY 1947 (BLACK FRIDAY, YEAR 5)
Mortimer here, writing first entry on new GRIMNIR system from safe locale.
OK, so those of you who are into the Norse mythology might have read a story about Odin disguising himself as a regular mortal for tactical reasons. The name he adopted was Grimnir.
The old ODIN system is no longer accessible to me, they have changed the passwords and kicked me out, I’m on the outs, and on the run, with a few of the others. But I set up a new system on the dark net that we can use to stay in touch with each other and make a record of all that’s happening. And I’m calling it GRIMNIR.
I’m not much of a narrative writer, but here’s what has gone down . . .
Two days ago, on Wednesday afternoon (the day before Thanksgiving), after some delays, Mel and Gráinne were Sent to the 1850 San Francisco DTAP, supposedly to recruit a Chinese KCW there. The old-school ODECs don’t have enough room inside of them for a Sending witch and two DOers, so this was a dual Send from ATTO #1, which has plenty of room on the interior. By that point it had been hoisted up and mounted on the back of its tractor-trailer rig, making it ready for field trials on the streets of the greater Boston area beginning Friday.
This was billed as a one-day DEDE, or possibly a one-nighter, but as I said it got off to a late start, and by the time they were going into the ATTO, Mel was resigned to the fact that it was probably going to wipe out most of Thanksgiving Day and that she’d take Friday off instead.
At the same time (Wednesday) there was a lot of bureaucratic back-and-forth involving Tristan, Erszebet, and Blevins regarding this unusual DEDE that had been planned for Tristan starting Friday morning, where he was being sent back to 20,000 BC Germany. Erszebet was all like, “I am only following orders. Like the indentured servant I have been since I met you.” And so it was up to Tristan to verify and double-check the order with Blevins and interface with the Chronotron crew.
Gordon Healey, one of the Chronotron nerds, ended up staying late and missing his flight home as he tried to help make sense of the mission and dig up the background information that Tristan needed to prep for it. He and Erszebet booked a slot in ODEC #1 early on Friday morning (that’s today), since the ODECs were already fully booked for the rest of the day and the ATTO would not be available. I volunteered to come in and run the control panel.
So we arrived this morning, about an hour before the rest of the staff was due in. Tristan had slept well although he still looked a little ruffled about this strange assignment (like I said: 20,000 BC. Dude.). Erszebet had a look of sort of grim resignation to her—but that’s not too unusual for her. We checked the logs to see if Gráinne and Mel had made it back, but there was no sign of them. A little unusual, but nothing that would really raise a red flag yet.
I stayed on the outside of the glass wall to run the controls. Erszebet and Tristan went through the usual protocols in the bio-containment ward while I got ODEC #1 powered up and ran the usual checks. Through the glass wall I saw Tristan come out of the sterilization suite in the usual bathrobe. He tossed me a salute and walked into the ODEC.
Erszebet began to follow him in. Then she hesitated mid-stride, and stepped back away from it. For a long moment she stared into the ODEC. She kind of looked a little queasy.
I turned on the intercom and asked if there was a problem.
“Come on, Erszebet,” I heard Tristan say.
“You will come out of there,” she said.
“What?”
“I say you will come out of there. Very quickly. I must tell you something.”
A sound nearly a harrumph, and then Tristan came out of the ODEC. Erszebet closed the door behind him, and then visibly relaxed—I hadn’t realized she had been tense until I saw the tension leave her shoulders.
“. . . All right,” said Tristan, bemused. “What’s going on?”
“There is no real assignment to send you on this DEDE,” she said.
Tristan was totally still for a moment, and then pursed his lips together until they were colorless.
“What?” he said at last.
“It is all faked. Every bit of it. It is all part of a scheme.”
“What scheme? Who’s behind it?”
She looked troubled, but resigned. “The scheme requires getting rid of Melisande and yourself. Melisande is gone forever and now I am supposed to get rid of you.”
The look on Tristan’s face was of even greater shock than I myself was feeling, which is saying a lot. “But Mel’s with . . .” he protested.
“It is Gráinne’s scheme,” said Erszebet. “It was almost mine as well. But I have been awake all night thinking of Melisande and it is wrong to do this. So I am not doing it.”
There was complete silence in the chamber except for the background hum of the ODEC.
“I do not want to do this anymore,” she continued, sounding almost plaintive, which if you’ve ever heard Erszebet speak is a hard thing to imagine. “I am quitting. I will leave and do something el—”