COLE: It is an attractive analogy, but it’s self-serving, since we all know that those satellites and computers actually work most of the time. You’re likening the Chronotron to familiar technology that we trust. How close is the Chronotron, really, to deserving that trust?
LYONS: As of today, about halfway through the CRONE phase, we have the individual processing units—the QUIPUs, or Quantum Information Processing Units—running according to spec, and we’re developing the manufacturing capability to produce them in larger numbers. By linking just a few of them together we’ve been able to achieve more accurate results than the quipu-like item Erszebet was using—
ERSZEBET KARPATHY: My számológép, which has now been lost because of the incompetencies and manipulations of this government.
ATKINSON: Ms. Karpathy, you are out of order.
COLE: Yes, thank you, Ms. Karpathy, we have already noted your remarks on this topic several times.
KARPATHY: My comments have not yielded results.
ATKINSON: Order! Order!
[REDACTED]
(NEXT DAY)
SENATOR EFFINGHAM: . . . moving on to Line 539 of the proposed budget, unless my eyes deceive me, you wish to allocate twelve full-time positions to historians?
MELISANDE STOKES: In order for the Chronotron to do its job it has to have a vast database of historical facts in memory. Going back to the weather analogy from yesterday, you can build a computer that’s really good at performing the mathematical calculations needed to predict weather, but it’s going to be totally useless unless you can feed it real-time information about actual weather conditions. Which is why we need weather balloons and satellites and so on—to supply that data. In the case of the Chronotron, we have these QUIPUs that know how to do the math, but they’re useless without historical data.
EFFINGHAM: I believe we covered this in Lines 420 through 487, which describe a program to extract this information directly from digitized history books already in the Library of Congress.
STOKES: Yes, that covers ninety percent of it, but some books contain ambiguous material that confuses our natural language processing algorithms. When that happens, the offending passage can be sent up the line to a human reader who can try to parse it. For obvious reasons we think that historians will do the best job.
EFFINGHAM: Very well, but it appears that their cost is being split with another subprogram called . . . DORC?
STOKES: We should probably come up with a different name for it, but DORC is the Diachronic Operative Resource Center. Colonel Lyons and I had to improvise our own training program when we learned how to speak, dress, and behave in colonial Boston and Elizabethan England. As DODO’s scope of operations expands to other DTAPs . . .
EFFINGHAM: Ah, yes, thank you for jogging my memory, Ms. Stokes. DORC is like the Starfleet Academy, if I may indulge myself with a reference to Star Trek.
STOKES: The Hogwarts.
EFFINGHAM: Yes, the training ground where DOers will acquire the requisite skills.
STOKES: Those budget entries begin around Line 950.
EFFINGHAM: Yes, my aide has found it for me.
STOKES: It makes sense to split the historians’ time so that they can help out with DORC activities.
EFFINGHAM: This is quite a large section of the budget and I may need additional time to go through it . . .
[REDACTED]
SENATOR EFFINGHAM: Line 1162 jumps out at me. Why do you need to spend so much money on swords?
LIEUTENANT COLONEL LYONS: It turns out that they are more expensive than you might think. They have to be hand-made from special kinds of steel.
EFFINGHAM: You are missing the point of my question, Colonel Lyons. Let me rephrase: this seems to imply that you are assembling a squad of warriors and assassins.
LYONS: Probably not assassins per se because of the risk of Diachronic Shear.
EFFINGHAM: You can’t just go back and kill Napoleon.
LYONS: It would be a terrible idea.
EFFINGHAM: Renewing my question . . .
LYONS: People back then—people of the upper classes—carried swords and other edged weapons all the time. And they knew how to use them. Any DOer, at least any male DOer, who went back pretending to be such a person, but who had no skill with using a sword, would be as conspicuous as someone who couldn’t mount a horse or speak the language.
EFFINGHAM: Are you expecting some of your DOers to engage in swordfights?
LYONS: I had to do it several times during my DEDE in London.
EFFINGHAM: But that was before you had the Chronotron—it was an improvised DEDE.
LYONS: Wars, battles, and duels are important events. In some cases, depending on what the Chronotron tells us, we may need DOers who are capable of effecting that kind of change—or at a minimum, staying alive in such environments.
EFFINGHAM: It sounds dangerous.
LYONS: It is, by definition. Only a small minority of DOers will be fighters. They make a big splashy impression in the budget because we have to buy them training equipment.
EFFINGHAM: But the majority will have other specializations?
LYONS: Yes. As an example, during the current CRONE phase, our efforts are focused on making discreet insertions into certain DTAPS, trying to develop and nurture our relationships with KCWs—
EFFINGHAM: With what?
LYONS: Known Compliant Witches.
EFFINGHAM: Ah. Yes. This takes us back to, er, Line 345 or thereabouts. Developing the witch network. The subway map.
LYONS: Yes, like the subway map that tells us how we can route our DOers from one DTAP to another and eventually get them home safe. Obviously, this relies on having friendly relationships with witches.
EFFINGHAM: Who tend to be, shall we say, peculiar individuals.
ERSZEBET KARPATHY: I find your tone offensive, Senator.
CHAIRWOMAN ATKINSON: Order!
EFFINGHAM: Go on, Colonel Lyons.
KARPATHY: Are you ignoring me? I said I find your tone offensive. I do not even want to be here, I am here only out of the goodness of my heart, but all of you, all of these millions of dollars and plans to rule the planet and all that, do you understand that all of it depends on me? And yet you use that tone with me? Who do you think you are?
EFFINGHAM: It’s all right, Madame Chair. Now, Ms. Karpathy—
KARPATHY: Don’t “Ms. Karpathy” me. Apologize for your tone.
EFFINGHAM: I apologize, Ms. Karpathy.
KARPATHY: I do not accept your apology.
EFFINGHAM: Why not?
KARPATHY: You do not sound at all sincere about it. It does not count if it is not sincere. I am going to leave this room and I want you to think about what happens if I do not return. Then when I do return, I expect you will apologize appropriately.
MELISANDE STOKES: Tristan, shall I—?
LYONS: Yeah.
ATKINSON: Let the record show that Ms. Erszebet Karpathy has left the hearing room without authorization at 1723 hours accompanied by Dr. Melisande Stokes.
EFFINGHAM: Colonel Lyons, you were saying?
LYONS: Erszebet has just given you an excellent example of why we require very specialized agents to win over witches. They don’t want money. They’re not the sort to join us on behalf of Truth, Justice, and the American Way. Every witch has her own agenda for why she might or might not help us. So we need to be able to find witches, but then also to win them over. Sometimes that can be a complicated undertaking, involving a series of actions that require various sets of skills.
EFFINGHAM: I suspect I’m not the only one in the room who would appreciate an example of what you mean.
LYONS: Okay, recently we wanted to establish a foothold in the Balkans for reasons that General Frink can explain if you need to know, so we did research to anticipate where a witch was, and then we Sent back one of our agents to find the witch. Well, he found her, and she did agree to Send him back here, but she wasn’t interested in being on call for us, so to s
peak, unless we made it worth her while. Her husband was imprisoned, so she told our DOer that if he could get the husband out of prison, she’d work with us.
EFFINGHAM: Why didn’t she just, you know, use magic to get him out?
LYONS: With respect, magic isn’t the same thing as omnipotence, Senator. It’s a hereditary skill set, really, that’s all. Anyhow, our fellow who we Sent back there, his language skills are first-rate and he’s a tremendous athlete and good at problem-solving, but he’s not much of a schmoozer and he doesn’t have the skills that would assist in a jailbreak. So the witch Sent him back here, but said she didn’t want to hear from DODO again unless we could get her husband out of jail. If we’d had somebody who specialized in picking locks or was a general escape artist or whatever, we could have Sent that person back. We didn’t have anyone like that, so we had to try bribing the prison guard, but we did not succeed.
EFFINGHAM: Bribe them with what? According to this document, you can’t take anything back in time with you.
LYONS: That’s correct.
EFFINGHAM: So what did you try to bribe him with?
LYONS: Um. Mel—Dr. Stokes—she went back because. She was willing to try. Bribing him with. What she brought with her.
EFFINGHAM: Her body?
LYONS: Yes.
EFFINGHAM: You’re saying she
[REDACTED]
LIEUTENANT COLONEL LYONS: The utter failure of this effort led us to conclude we needed an actual sex worker, or at least somebody capable of passing as one.
SENATOR EFFINGHAM: I yield, Madame Chairwoman.
CHAIRWOMAN ATKINSON: I recognize Senator Villesca.
SENATOR VILLESCA: Colonel Lyons, I hope you appreciate that prostitution is illegal in this great country of ours, except in certain rural parts of Nevada.
LYONS: The prostitute would be plying her trade in sixteenth-century Balkan territory, sir. Or possibly his trade, based on Dr. Stokes’s reception. Anyhow, we haven’t found one yet.
VILLESCA: You’re saying you want to use taxpayer money to recruit prostitutes.
LYONS: That’s not a typical example, sir. We need people with specific skill sets like masons and soldiers and people with specific athletic abilities, and we need people who can blend in—like I said, schmoozers. Actors. Whatever it takes.
GENERAL FRINK: Madame Chairwoman, if I may?
ATKINSON: Proceed.
FRINK: With all due respect, Senator Villesca, it’s not like taxpayer money has never been used to hire prostitutes before. I know you’re aware of that.
[REDACTED]
(NEXT DAY)
GENERAL FRINK: . . . an ongoing theme in the last few days’ deliberations has been the need for wisdom and discretion in future DODO operations. Senator Hatcher has reminded us of the need to avoid any future incidents such as the one in which Les Holgate sacrificed his life for his country. Senator Cole has expressed concern that a fully functional Chronotron may lead us into taking risks we might not otherwise consider. With Senator Effingham, we’ve had an illuminating discussion of the importance of learning from the wisdom of experienced professional historians. Finally, Senator Villesca has spoken with great passion and eloquence of the need to maintain moral standards that we can all be proud of. It is for all these reasons that I am pleased to introduce Dr. Blevins of Harvard University as the new acting head of the Department of Diachronic Operations. He replaces Lieutenant Colonel Lyons, who is being reassigned to command of DODO’s “boots on the ground” operational unit, and who will henceforth report to Dr. Blevins. Though the academic world knows Roger Blevins as a peerless scholar, those of us with security clearances are aware of his long service to his country as
[REDACTED]
SENATOR HATCHER: . . . even for one of your distinguished credentials, this is an important career transition, Dr. Blevins, and so I would like to be the first to congratulate you. Frankly, I am pleased to see that you are being moved off of the Advisory Board. I myself am on more advisory boards than I can even remember, and not one of them ever asks me for advice.
DR. BLEVINS: I’ve had similar experiences, Senator, and this is why I took the unusual step of establishing an office within DODO headquarters in Cambridge, and spending time there on a regular basis. I’ll now hand that off to Dr. Rudge, who I most certainly will be asking for advice on a regular basis.
HATCHER: How do you see that facility developing as we transition out of the CRONE phase? What does it look like in a year? Two years?
BLEVINS: As a very special hybrid of tech start-up, liberal arts college, and Special Forces base. Our present thinking suggests we’ll need about a dozen kinds of specialists, divided into classes, such as tracker, fighter, entertainer, and so on. All of them will need immersive training in the language and ethos of whatever DTAP they go to. Meaning we also need to hire people to train them in those things—manners, customs, how to put on and take off clothes, fighting styles. All of that falls under the heading of the Diachronic Operative Resource Center, whose acting director will be my student, Dr. Melisande Stokes.
SENATOR EFFINGHAM: The budget and head count envisioned for DORC are impressive.
BLEVINS: The personnel expenses add up as quickly as the technical expenses. That’s why the budget is as large as it is. We obviously can’t outsource any of these services, given that there is evidence that the governments of [REDACTED] and [REDACTED] are already engaged in this kind of training program. Whoever works for us has to be kept very close to the mothership, as it were, and that kind of loyalty doesn’t come cheap.
EFFINGHAM: How do you know that [REDACTED] and [REDACTED] are ahead of us in this?
BLEVINS: That’s classified, Senator, even for the purposes of this hearing.
EFFINGHAM: Be that as it may, I question whether a linguistics student with no management experience is equipped to manage a department of that size.
BLEVINS: Yes. Most of the day-to-day burden of HR, facilities, and so on will fall under the Conventional/Contemporary Operations Department for which we have been fortunate to recruit a very able manager in Macy Stoll. With those managerial and administrative tasks out of the way, Dr. Stokes will be free to concentrate on the historical and linguistic research that is her specialty.
HATCHER: Well, I’m in no position to assess the technical requirements and their associated costs—I’ll leave that to my honored colleagues on this hearing committee with more expertise in this field, such as Senator Effingham—but having compiled different staffs, for different purposes, over the years, I certainly feel capable of assessing your personnel hiring goals. So I will be submitting my opinion that the budget you seek is tied into your laying down very clear goals for who exactly you wish to hire, and why. That includes reports on all potential witches you’d be working with in other DTAPs. Can you do that for me?
BLEVINS: I’ll see to it that Dr. Stokes writes up something specific, as soon as she has calmed Ms. Karpathy.
HATCHER: Out of curiosity—a curiosity I suspect is shared by other members of this panel—how exactly does one calm Ms. Karpathy?
BLEVINS: It always seems to help to listen to her spend a few uninterrupted minutes besmirching the reputations of certain people, with Colonel Lyons being a particularly frequent target of abuse.
HATCHER: Is it accurate to describe her, then, as a truculent and abusive team member?
LIEUTENANT COLONEL LYONS: If I may, Madame Chair, it is accurate to describe her as the only witch available to us at the present moment. That pretty much trumps any other description.
GENERAL FRINK: What Colonel Lyons is trying to say, Senator, is that unlike politicians, her job security does not depend on other people’s approval.
BLEVINS: Not that General Frink is suggesting there’s anything inappropriate about politicians having that dependency.
FRINK: Yeah, that’s right. Thank you for clarifying that, Dr. Blevins.
BLEVINS: So to get back to the point, you’re asking us to create two thing
s. First, a personnel profile of our most desired hires. We’re happy to do that. I can create a template as soon as this hearing is adjourned. Colonel Lyons and Dr. Stokes can help me out as their schedules allow. Second, a template for recording how we determine who to approach as a potential KCW.
HATCHER: That works for me. I yield the floor to my colleagues for further questions.
FROM LIEUTENANT GENERAL OCTAVIAN K. FRINK
TO ALL DODO DEPARTMENT HEADS
DAY 581 (MARCH, YEAR 2)
After several grueling days of congressional hearings, I am pleased to announce that DODO’s budget has been approved and sent on to POTUS for signature. All DODO staff are to be thanked for their hard work over the difficult months since the tragic and heroic demise of our friend and colleague Les Holgate. During that span of time DODO has been stripped down to the bare metal, as it were, and rebuilt into a new kind of organization that we can all be proud of.
New resources and responsibilities naturally bring organizational changes in their wake. Effective immediately, Dr. Roger Blevins is the overall head of the Department of Diachronic Operations, reporting directly to me, with a dotted line to Dr. Constantine Rudge at IARPA. To him will be reporting the heads of various subdepartments, as bulleted below:
- Dr. Melisande Stokes, acting head of the Diachronic Operative Resource Center.
- Macy Stoll, head of C/COD (Conventional/Contemporary Operations Department).
- Dr. Frank Oda, head of Research.
- Lieutenant Colonel Tristan Lyons, head of Diachronic Operations, which for obvious reasons will be organized and run along the lines of a military unit.
With Dr. Blevins’s change in status, the Advisory Board is reduced, at least temporarily, to one member, that being Dr. Constantine Rudge.
I hope that the rest of you will join me in welcoming Ms. Stoll to the organization. Her long experience managing operational matters in various civilian and military environments will no doubt prove of enormous value to DODO during the coming era of rapid expansion.