Dr. Blevins,
Sorry for the repeated pings over the last few days, but I’m frankly a little surprised you haven’t responded yet. I AM NOT KIDDING—it is a matter of the highest urgency that we have a private face-to-face as soon as possible. In the meantime, I suggest in the strongest terms you cancel further sessions in the ATTO with Gráinne.
. . .
Post by Dr. Roger Blevins to LTG Octavian K. Frink
on private ODIN channel, 11:50
DAY 1925 (5 NOVEMBER, YEAR 5)
Okie,
I just sent you a “snail mail” letter on a personnel matter. This message will probably overtake it—sorry for the confusion.
It has to do with one of our employees whose behavior is causing some concern. Nothing that we can’t handle here, but I wanted to give you a heads-up in case you hear anything from the woman in question.
As you know I’ve been working with Macy for two decades now, and she’s always been my right-hand woman. Loyal and reliable to a fault. Well, it grieves me to tell you that she has been under some considerable stress of late, and has not been herself. I think she’s having a hard time with the way our MUONs outshine her on so many levels, and her self-doubt has been gnawing away at her and made her vengeful and frankly a little paranoid.
In short, if you receive any communications from Macy, please take them with a grain of salt. I’m looking for a way to land this plane, as it were, but there may be some turbulence during the descent.
. . .
Post by Macy Stoll to Dr. Roger Blevins
on private ODIN channel, 22:51
DAY 1927 (7 NOVEMBER, YEAR 5)
Dr. Blevins,
I am here late again, beside myself. I can’t get over the fact that you won’t talk to me.
The least you could do is pay some attention to my warnings. Looking at tomorrow’s ATTO calendar I see you have a block scheduled with Gráinne at 1000 which segues right into a Gráinne/Erszebet block at 1100.
WHAT IS GOING ON?!?!
I have canceled those ATTO blocks. I consider it a security matter and I have plenty of evidence to back up my decision.
. . .
Post by Macy Stoll to Dr. Frank Oda on private ODIN channel, 08:32
DAY 1928 (8 NOVEMBER, YEAR 5)
Dr. Oda,
Sorry for the irregular communication but I know you are frequently in the building early, and obviously you are one of the people with the know-how required to power up the ATTO.
I’m making a unilateral decision to restrict access to the ATTO until we get certain important matters sorted out.
If anyone—ANYONE—shows up while I’m not around, requesting even brief “experimental” access to the ATTO, the answer is “no.” If they have a problem with that, send them to me.
Don’t worry, I’m sending the same message to all the other keyholders.
Reply from Dr. Oda, 08:56:
Macy,
I received your message about ATTO access and will comply. As you know, we’re getting ready to move ATTO #1 out of the dock and get it out in the field for mobile tests, beginning just after Thanksgiving. Its place will then be taken by ATTO #2.
From Macy Stoll, 09:01:
Thank you, Dr. Oda, but I’m not sure if I follow your point—remember I am an operations person, not a physicist.
From Dr. Oda, 09:03:
Today was the last day scheduled for normal ATTO research anyway—tomorrow we hoist it onto the tractor-trailer rig and begin prepping it for mobile operations. I can move that schedule up if you are telling me it’s not going to be used today for scheduled research.
From Macy Stoll, 09:07:
That’s exactly what I’m telling you and it’s fine with me if no one uses it today. Shut it down.
Have any of the MUONs been by today?
From Dr. Oda, 09:10:
No, just Magnus, he has a boyish fascination with trucks and equipment and likes to hang around on the loading docks watching in his off time.
. . .
Post by Dr. Roger Blevins to Macy Stoll
on private ODIN channel, 10:15
DAY 1928
Macy, I arrived in the office half an hour ago to find my ATTO schedule canceled without my say-so, everything in disarray, Gráinne and Erszebet up in arms, and according to the security cameras you are camped out in front of the ATTO doors wearing a hard hat and watching them put the thing on some kind of hoist. Your arms are crossed in what seems a very irritable frame of mind. I’m writing you this message because this is a serious matter and I feel we need to establish a paper trail in the event of any subsequent disciplinary action that might be called for.
Follow-up from Dr. Blevins, fifteen minutes later:
I have been talking to Dr. Oda who informed me about your communications with him earlier this morning.
Security is en route to escort you from the premises.
Reply from Macy Stoll, thirty seconds later:
Dr. Blevins,
Hitting “send” on a message I have been keeping in “Drafts” for a few days. Getting this on the record before you lock me out of the ODIN system, which I suspect will be your next move.
I’m sorry it’s come to this.
DRAFT MESSAGE
TOP SECRET
PRIVILEGED AND CONFIDENTIAL
This message documents what I believe to be a CLEAR AND PRESENT national security threat.
I have incontrovertible evidence that two MUONs, Gráinne and Erszebet, have been colluding to circumvent essential security procedures.
My suspicions were first aroused on Halloween, when (as shown on security camera footage) Gráinne and Erszebet entered the ATTO with Dr. and Mrs. Blevins and LTG Frink. An hour later, all of them emerged except for Gráinne. It was explained that Gráinne had been taken sick, but this was not verified until a DODO medic arrived and entered the ATTO with Erszebet WHEREUPON ERSZEBET CLOSED AND LOCKED THE DOOR! After a few minutes in the FULLY POWERED UP ATTO the medic emerged and confirmed that Gráinne was there, unconscious but stable. Erszebet then went back into the ATTO “to look after Gráinne” and remained in the ATTO until after the conclusion of the party.
Our security system automatically logs all arrivals and departures by means of RFID badges. The system recorded Erszebet and Gráinne departing the building together at 03:37 on 1 November. Gráinne did not show up for work the next day, nor the morning after that (3 November), though Dr. Blevins gave a verbal report of her being on premises the afternoon of 3 November.
Following subsequent suspicious activity I checked security camera footage timestamped 03:37 of 1 November and observed Erszebet leaving the ATTO alone and proceeding to the exit where she waved TWO RFID badges over the sensor—hers and Gráinne’s. Repeat: GRÁINNE DID NOT LEAVE THE ATTO. Her next appearance anywhere on the premises was during the afternoon of 3 November—almost 72 hours after she entered the ATTO during the Halloween party!
All of this evidence supports the theory that Erszebet Sent Gráinne to some other DTAP on Halloween and that Gráinne spent three days on a COMPLETELY UNAUTHORIZED AND IRRESPONSIBLE DEDE OF HER OWN CHOOSING.
Following this lead, I have made an exhaustive study of all of Erszebet’s and Gráinne’s comings and goings since Gráinne emerged from quarantine. I have checked their entrances and exits from the building, tracked their movements on the security cameras, and cross-correlated this with the calendars and logs for the ATTO and the other ODECs. To make a long story short, what happened on Halloween is not a one-time anomaly, but part of a pattern. The evidence clearly supports the following allegations:
– Gráinne has made brief, unauthorized visits to unknown DTAPs on half a dozen occasions in addition to the lengthy absence spanning 31 October–3 November.
– Erszebet has Sent her on all of these occasions, and has covered for Gráinne’s absence by committing ID card fraud.
– Most disturbing of all, I believe that Gráinne and Erszebet have used the ATTO to manipulate the mem
ories and the mental states of non-MUON personnel who were in there with them, using the very “psy-ops” techniques that Gráinne is allegedly “researching.”
– Those who have been so victimized include Dr. Roger Blevins.
This explains the extraordinary and unilateral actions I have taken in changing the ATTO schedule and shutting it down until the conspirators can be apprehended. I realize that these actions will appear shocking to some, but I am confident that I will be vindicated.
Post by Dr. Roger Blevins on
“Announcements” ODIN channel
DAY 1931 (11 NOVEMBER, YEAR 5)
To all employees and contractors:
I know that some of you have noticed and remarked on Macy Stoll’s recent unplanned absence from work, and so wanted to make a brief announcement before rumors and speculation get out of hand.
As you know I have worked hand-in-glove with Macy for many years. We could not have built DODO into its current form without her loyal and tireless work on the operational side of things.
It is with a heavy heart, therefore, that I announce Macy has decided to resign her position, effective immediately. I realize that this will come as a surprise to many of you, but that’s the way Macy wanted it. She wanted to work at full power and effectiveness until the very end and then make a clean break, rather than slowly fading away over a period of months. She plans to take a few well-earned months off and then seek less stressful opportunities in the non-profit sector.
Needless to say, given all that Macy does for us, this is going to leave a void that will take some time to fill. I’m stepping in for the time being as acting head of C/COD while we recruit a replacement.
In accordance with the usual security procedures, her DODO email and ODIN channels have been “turned off.” Those of you who would like to write personal notes to Macy should leave them in the box at the front desk—we’ll deliver them in a few weeks, once Macy gets back from a long and restful vacation.
Journal Entry of
Rebecca East-Oda
NOVEMBER 13
Temperature 40F, no wind. Barometer rising. Garden: mulch, mulch, and more mulch.
Mei has sent us a cellar-conversion specialist to see about converting the cellar into a “hangout room” for the grandkids so they can be antisocial when they visit during their adolescence. Pointed out that her bedroom worked just fine for her antisocial purposes, but she says they want to set up some kind of gaming center.
Frank has been sulking around the house, as he has been placed on a “time-out” by Blevins, who suddenly informed him that somebody higher up insists he takes his vacation time immediately, because his not taking it is confusing the HR system. Apparently Macy had been covering for him, but now that she has abruptly resigned, the bean-counters are having their way. Never thought I would miss that woman.
While Frank is “on vacation” he is not legally supposed to be on site. He takes phone calls from trucking companies—something to do with acquiring a semi-trailer rig on which to mount the ATTO. Otherwise, he is very much underfoot here again. I like it, now that I’m here more often myself. He is pensive, spending a lot of time by himself. He spent ten hours yesterday in front of the computer in his office, and when I came by later to dust I found evidence of business as usual—incomprehensible sketches and equations on graph paper, and industrial supply catalogs piled on the floor, sticky notes hanging out of them willy-nilly.
It’s probably too late already for Mei’s “hangout room” in the cellar. If I read the signs correctly, by the time she can draw up the plans and mobilize the contractors, Frank will have claimed the space and begun a new experiment there—something to keep him busy in his retirement.
Threw a dinner party last night. Frank brought the leaf down from the attic and put it into the dinner table and we got the second-best chairs out of the basement. Tried as best as possible under these very peculiar circumstances to be all Emily Post about it, inviting people as couples, and setting out place cards.
Frank and I: seated at opposite ends of the table as host and hostess.
Melisande and Tristan: still not a couple, remarkably enough, but resigned to being treated as if they were. Tristan on my right, Melisande on Frank’s left.
Mortimer and Julie (my fellow modern witch, and occasional DOer): very much a couple. Something about her heavily pierced and inked look appealed to Mortimer somehow (although her tattoos evaporated when she was Sent the first time; she has since grown her real eyebrows out). Once I’d gotten past her looks and her language I found her a reasonably good match for Mortimer; she seems to make him happy.
Gráinne and Erszebet: thick as thieves. Erszebet has been the den-mother to all the witches from the start, even her elders, but Gráinne is the first one she has treated as a peer. She seems almost—almost—content in Gráinne’s company. Had never considered Erszebet capable of contentment. Gráinne extremely personable with everyone, so perhaps not a surprise that she can wrest a smile from Erszebet.
Magnus and Constance: I think Magnus had some sort of dalliance with Gráinne when he first arrived, but this seems to have cooled down, and he has lately taken up with Constance Billy, a peaches-and-cream sort of Norman witch from the fourteenth century who was brought forward last year to get her out of some predicament related to the Hundred Years’ War and the Black Death. Anyway, she is lovely, she speaks Magnus’s language, and she also speaks modern English now well enough to get along at dinner. I seated him across from Tristan and (breaking Emily Post protocol) next to Constance so that he would be in earshot of two people who could talk to him.
As with all such events it was more work than I had expected and I ended up wondering why I had got myself into it. I was reminded of Frank’s early MIT days when an expectation of a faculty wife was to throw such affairs and extend a welcoming hand to foreign graduate students and their wives and children, who were naturally feeling isolated and lonely. The only difference in this case being that the visitors are foreign not only to our place but to our time. Constance showed up two hours early to help with the cooking, which she understands well. She is younger than I had appreciated, and all aflutter about Magnus, who shows her a lot of attention.
Frank was a bit dubious that I had invited Magnus, whom he saw as a sort of man-child who would require a lot of management at the dinner table. I was therefore braced for all sorts of Asterix and Obelix hijinks when he showed up, but this could not have been further from the case. During his stint as a Varangian Guard at the court of the Byzantine Emperor, Magnus obviously learned how to behave in formal social situations. He was on his best behavior, taking everything in with his quick blue eyes, asking intelligent questions of Tristan and Constance, showing me a degree of courtesy that was almost comically formal. I put the Thanksgiving decorations up last week—the usual kitschy stuff that has been in the family forever—but he took it very seriously and asked many questions (through Constance) until Tristan mercifully took over and gave him the whole download about turkeys, pilgrims, cranberries, the Wampanoag tribe, etc. I don’t speak Norman French, of course, but this apparently segued into questions about DODO’s vacation policy (Magnus understands that no one is expected to work on that Thursday) and Black Friday and Yuletide shopping and all the rest.
During dinner Magnus and Gráinne kept sizing each other up across the table, as though they’d taken each other’s measure and were circling warily, but they seem to have arrived at a decision to stay out of each other’s way. Constance observed apprehensively, Julie was fascinated, Mortimer cheerfully oblivious as usual. Erszebet was down at Frank’s end, seated to his right in the position of honor, a detail she, and only she, would appreciate. She still views him as a sort of highfalutin techno-butler, and patronized him with questions about the plans to mount the ATTO on a truck and drive it around while conducting various experiments. These are now scheduled to begin immediately after Thanksgiving—Blevins has announced that “Black Friday” will not be a h
oliday for DODO personnel, and everyone is expected to show up for work as usual instead of participating in TV set riots at their local Walmart. Frank answered patiently and thus caught the attention of Magnus, who doesn’t have much modern English vocabulary but does respond to “truck” and “Walmart” and a few other terms like “touchdown,” “iPhone,” and “Google.” Like most other male Anachrons he views the latter as a near-miraculous way of viewing pictures of naked ladies. Between that and his fascination with trucks I suppose I can see why Blevins and others see him as a bit of a simpleton. But it is quite obviously a matter of male jealousy. Magnus is ludicrously hyper-masculine in ways that have been bred and trained out of modern-day men and so they have to deprecate his intelligence.
In any event we got through the evening without any sword- or cat-fights. There was the usual fuss trying to get people to leave so that I could tidy up alone, which I prefer. I had Frank summon the MUON van to get rid of Erszebet, Gráinne, and Constance, and leaned on Mortimer and Julie to give Magnus a lift back to the SARF. I shooed Tristan and Frank out and they went to the basement to drink scotch and speak of Deep Dark Things. Melisande stayed to help clear dishes. She has seemed a little distant lately, and uncharacteristically wistful, so I asked her directly what was going on. Knowing as she does that I’ve decided to step away from DODO in all capacities except witch-work, she confessed she was thinking of leaving too—entirely—sometime in the new year. She attributed this to (a) Blevins’s unending denigrations of her competence and (b) more significantly, the growing shift away from diachronic work (where her expertise is clearly valued) and toward psychological operations (which she not only is not expert on, but which she finds more ethically problematic, as do I). I think however there is also (c): she and Tristan have teetered at the edge of a relationship for so long, and never yet fallen into it, and she is tired of that balancing act. Men are always better at compartmentalizing these things. I don’t especially say that in a laudatory way.