The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.. Nicole Galland

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СКАЧАТЬ Now I understand what you mean by systematic.”

      “Try to see it through the eyes of my higher-ups,” he suggested. “Salem. Witches. Go. Get on it. See if you can find a witch, or a witch’s descendant, or a witch’s DNA or something, just so I can tell them it’s being worked on. I’ve got to work my contacts at Lawrence Livermore, they’re hoarding helium.”

      “Of course,” I said, and wished for a brief, exhausted moment that he had asked me to translate Tartessian, or something simple like that.

      Feeling like a dolt before I’d even departed, I borrowed Tristan’s Jeep and drove up Route 1 to Salem, about an hour away. In that vehicle, on that road, this was like being beaten with sacks of gravel.

      Like many New England towns with something of historical note to recommend it, Salem was a bizarre combination of well-preserved, beautiful old buildings and ugly commercial developments. The commercial developments were winning, however. Ignoring the various signs for the Salem Witch Museum, the Salem Witch House, the Salem Witch Village, the Salem Witch Day Spa, and so on, I found a parking spot on a broad street, marveled at how cheap the parking was, and walked into the older part of town. I have no words to describe how unenthusiastic I felt about this assignment. Three and a quarter centuries after nineteen innocent people were hanged for no reason, a bunch of New Age types whose concept of witchcraft had zero in common with the seventeenth-century concept of witchcraft decided to set up shop right by the graves of the victims. What the fuck. I have no tolerance for sloppy logic like that.

      Just so I could tell Tristan I’d done it, I walked into a couple of occult shops that I found along a pedestrian stretch of Essex Street, then fled before the incense overwhelmed me.

      There’s another context-is-everything moment, because now I live for incense—if I really am to be stuck permanently in 1850s London, I might have to become an Anglican nun. God, I hope it doesn’t come to that.

      In the end, though, the scholar in me won out, and I ended up visiting a few of the legitimate historical sites in the Salem area. The name of Mary Estey—one of the victims of the witch hysteria—kept jumping out at me. Rebecca East, Frank’s wife, had mentioned that she was a descendant of this family, the spelling having changed and the final syllable having been dropped from the surname at some point in the intervening three centuries. In typical WASP style, Rebecca underplayed its significance, pointing out that the families of that era had been enormous and that, if you did the math, every second or third white person you encountered on the streets of America was probably descended from someone who had lived in Salem. But I felt that the least I could do was pay my respects.

      Then, suddenly feeling as though it was late in the day and that I must be missing important developments, I got back in the Jeep and fought my way back through late afternoon traffic to the office. I can’t say I mourned my failure overmuch, as it meant I’d get a free trip to New Orleans out of it, and that would rock be most excellent.

      I DROVE BACK to the office late in the day to find Tristan collapsed on the couch from exhaustion. I began to make coffee in one of the high-tech machines we had pillaged from a departing tech start-up. While it gurgled and hissed, I idly and out of habit took my phone out and glanced at it. There was a banner notification from Facebook Messenger.

      “I will wait in the lobby,” said a private message from the Hungarian woman, with a 9:04 a.m. time stamp on it.

      “Oh God,” I said out loud. How could I have gone the whole day with hardly a thought of her?

      A mechanical chime sounded as an instant message sprang up. “I waited the ENTIRE DAY. Where were you?” She had changed her profile picture again, this time to an artsy-looking purple blur.

      I went to the couch and nudged Tristan. Deep asleep, he almost instantly awoke and leapt to his feet, shoving me sideways without registering my identity, glancing around for an assailant.

      “It’s just me,” I said with irritation. “Calm down.”

      “You startled me,” he said, as if I should have known better.

      I gestured to my phone. “Take a look at this.”

      Even as I showed him her comments, our exchange, and her blank “About” page, several more prompts popped up on the bottom of the screen with mechanical chimes, as Miss Karpathy informed me she could see I was online and why was I not answering?

      Tristan considered the screen a moment. “The Vladimirs have been all over this. Intriguing-slash-disturbing-in-the-extreme. Tell her you’ll speak to her tomorrow. Today’s got to be about the dry run.”

      I tapped in, “Sorry. Will be with you tomorrow evening.”

      Immediately the response: “Why the delay?”

      “Technical difficulties,” I typed.

      “With the ODEC?” she typed back instantly.

      I looked at Tristan. “Jesus,” he said under his breath. “Who is she?” He moved closer to the screen and nudged my shoulder with his. “Tell her you can’t discuss it online,” he whispered, as if worried of being overheard by somebody. I typed this in, and a response came back:

      “Will you come with your Mr. Tristan Lyons?” she typed back. “I wish to meet him.”

      I looked up over my shoulder at my Mr. Tristan Lyons. He nodded, staring at the screen.

      “We could go now,” I suggested.

      He shook his head. “We don’t know what we’re getting into. Tell her yes, I’ll come with you. But tomorrow.”

      “With Mr. Tristan Lyons,” I typed. “Tomorrow evening.”

      “Come before 6 p.m. or it will be harder to leave because of the Night Guard.”

      We both continued to stare at the screen for a moment in silence. Then Tristan reached out and gently took the phone from my hand, tossed it on to the couch.

      “Can’t wait to hear the explanation,” he said, sounding weary. Then, with a tired grin down at me: “Funny how she called me your Mr. Tristan Lyons.”

      I felt my face flush. “Maybe she’s dealt with another Tristan Lyons,” I said. “Surely the multiverse contains more than one. The coffee’s ready.”

      “Good,” he said, “because so is the ODEC.”

      During my sojourn to Salem, the crew had mounted all of the circuit boards to the walls of the inner cavity and also bolted in the electromagnets; these were mounted to a sturdy framework of steel angle irons that had been welded together around the external tank. Black melted areas on the floor suggested that welding sparks had set the occasional odd fire to the carpet; larger burns were surrounded by penumbras of powder that had apparently been shot out of the various fire extinguishers, which now lay scattered around the floor like empty beer bottles after a frat party. As Tristan led me in, he absentmindedly nudged these out of the way with his foot, cautioning me to watch my step.

      “Did your friends come through with the liquid helium?” I asked. Certainly the first time in my life I had uttered that sentence.

      “They will.”

      “That’s СКАЧАТЬ