Charles Stross - The Hidden Family

Miriam stopped. Paulette was looking bright, fascinated—and a million miles away. “That was when the French invaded,” she said.

“Huh?” Paulie shook her head. “The French? Invaded where?”

“England. See, Frederick was the crown prince, right? He got sent over here, to the colonies as a royal governor or something—‘Prince of the Americas’—because his stepmother the queen really hated him. So when his father died he was over here in North America—and the French and Scottish simultaneously invaded England. Whose army, and previous king, had just been whacked. And they succeeded .”

“Um, does this mean anything?” Paulette looked puzzled.

“Don’t you see?” demanded Miriam. “Over on the far side, in world three, there is no United States of America: Instead there’s this thing called New Britain, with a king-emperor! And they’re at war with the French Empire—or cold war, or whatever. The French invaded and conquered the British Isles something like two hundred and fifty years ago, and have held it ever since, while the British royal family moved to North America. I’m still putting it all together. Like, where we had a constitutional congress and declared independence and fought a revolutionary war, they had something called the New Settlement and set up a continental parliament, with a king and a house of lords in charge.” She frowned. “And that’s as much as I understand.”

“Huh.” Paulette reached out and took the book away from her. “I saw you look like that before, once,” she said. “It was when Bill Gates first began spouting about digital nervous systems and the net. Do you need to go lie down for a bit? Maybe it’ll make less sense in the morning.”

“No, no,” Miriam said absently. “Look, I’m trying to figure out what isn’t there. Like, they’ve had a couple of world wars—but fought with wooden sailing ships and airships. There’s a passage at the end of the book about the ‘miracle of corpuscular transsubstantiation’—I think they mean atomic power but I’m not sure. They’ve got the germ theory of disease and steam cars, but I didn’t see any evidence of heavier-than-air flight or antibiotics or gasoline engines. The whole industrial revolution has been delayed—they’re up to about the 1930s in electronics. And the social thing is weird. I saw an opium pipe in that pawnbroker’s, and I passed a bar selling alcohol, but they’re all wearing hats and keeping their legs covered. It’s not like our 1920s, at least not more than skin-deep. And I can’t get a handle on it,” she added frustratedly. “I’ll just have to go over there again and try not to get myself arrested.”

“Hmm.” Paulette pulled up a carrier bag and dumped it on the table. “I’ve been doing some thinking about that.”

“You have? What’s about?”

“Well,” Paulie began carefully, “first thing is, nobody can arrest you and hold you if you’ve got one of these lockets, huh? Or the design inside it. Brill—”

“It’s the design,” Brilliana said suddenly. “It’s the family pattern.” She glanced at Paulette. “I didn’t understand the history either,” she said plaintively. “Some of the men …” she tailed off.

“What about them?” Asked Miriam.

“They had it tattooed on their arms,” she said shyly. “They said so, anyway. So they could get away if someone caught them. I remember my uncle talking about it once. They even shaved their scalp and tattooed it there in reverse, then grew their hair back—so that if they were imprisoned they could shave in a mirror and use it to escape.”

Miriam stared at her in slack-jawed amazement. “That’s brilliant!” she said. “Hang on—” her hand instinctively went to her head. “Hmm.”

“You won’t have to shave,” said Paulie, “I know exactly what to do. You know those henna temporary tattoos you can get? There’s this dot-com that takes images you upload and turns them into tattoos, then sends them to you by mail order. They’re supposed to last for a few days. I figure if you put one on the inside of each wrist, then wear something with sleeves that cover it—”

“Wow.” Miriam instinctively glanced at the inside of her left wrist, smooth and hairless, unblemished except for a small scar she’d acquired as a child. “But you said you’d been thinking about something else.”

“Yup.” Paulette upended her shopping bag on the table. “Behold: a pair of digital walkie-talkies, good for private conversations in a ten-mile radius! And lo, a hands-free kit.”

“This is going to work,” Miriam said, a curious fixed smile creeping across her face. “I can feel it in my bones.” She looked up. “Okay. So tell me, Paulie, what do you know about the history of patent law?”

It took Miriam another day to work up the nerve to phone Roland. Before she’d gone back to Niejwein, to the disastrous plot and counterplot introduction to court life that had culminated in two attempts to murder her on the same night, they’d exchanged anonymous mobile phones. If she went outside she could phone him, either his voice mail or his own real-life ear, and dump all the unwanted complexities of her new life on a sympathetic shoulder. He’d understand: That was half the attraction that had sparked their whirlwind affair. He probably grasped the headaches she was facing better than anyone else, Brill included. Brill was still not much more than a teenager with a sheltered upbringing. But Roland knew just how nasty things could get. If I trust him, she thought wistfully. Someone had murdered the watchman and installed the bomb in the warehouse. She’d told Roland about the place, and then … correlation does not imply causation, she told herself.

In the end she compromised halfway, taking the T into town and finding a diner with a good range of exit options before switching on the phone and dialing. That way, even if someone had grabbed Roland and was actively tracing the call, they wouldn’t find her before she ended the call. It was raining, and she had a seat next to the window, watching the slug-trails of rain on the glass as her latte cooled while she tried to work up her nerve to call him.

When she dialed, the phone rang five times before he picked it up, a near-eternity in which she changed her mind about the wisdom of calling him several times. But it was too late: She was committed now. “Hello?” he asked.

“Roland. It’s me.”

“Hello, you.” Concern roughened his voice: “I’ve been really worried about you. Where are—”

“Wait.” She realized she was breathing too fast, shallow breaths that didn’t seem to be bringing in enough oxygen. “You’re on this side. Is anyone with you?”

“No, I’m taking a day off work. Even your uncle gives his troops leave sometimes. He’s been asking about you, though. As if he knows I’ve got some kind of channel to you. When are you going to come in? What have you been doing? Olga had the craziest story—”

“If it’s about the incident in her apartment, it’s true.” Miriam stopped, glanced obliquely at the window to check for reflections. There was nobody near her, just a barrista cleaning the coffee machine on the counter at the other side of the room. “Is Edsger around? He hasn’t gone missing or anything?”

“Edsger?” Roland sounded uncertain. “What do you know about—”

“Edsger. Courier on the Boston-New York run.” Quickly Miriam outlined her departure from the Clan’s holdings in the capital city Niejwein, her encounter with the courier on an Accela express. “Did he arrive alright?”

“Yes. I think so.” Roland paused. “So you’re telling me somebody tried to kill you in the warehouse as well?” A note of anger crept into his voice. “When I find out who—”