Нил Стивенсон - Termination Shock

> OMG ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND

> ????

> I can’t believe you did this

> crying

> Going to watch it now—finally downloaded. Don’t know if I will ever speak to you again!

> ???

> WTF!?

> Don’t remember any of this

> FUCKING WEIRD

> NEVER HAPPENED

> AM I GOING INSANE

> OK never mind all that mean stuff I said earlier

> WATCH IT AND CALL ME!

. . . followed by a link to a video.

Once Saskia had got through all of that, she saw a message from Willem:

> We need to talk about that video. 850,000 views and counting.

So far the most unsettling aspect of all this was that the normally cool and detail-obsessed Willem hadn’t bothered to supply a link or even to give any specifics beyond just calling it “that video.” He seemed to assume that Saskia would know what he was talking about.

Saskia hated doing this kind of thing in the car. She much preferred to just look out the window and enjoy the fact that she didn’t have to do anything. But it seemed that duty was calling. So she pulled her tablet out of her bag and, fighting back a powerful sense of dread, brought up the video that Lotte had linked to.

It appeared to be handheld cell phone footage. It took only moments for Saskia to recognize the time and place: this was the dunes in back of Scheveningen beach on the morning of the foam disaster a few weeks ago. Probably just one of many such videos that had been shot and uploaded by random bystanders when they had recognized Saskia and Lotte. This one had been shot while Saskia had been shaking hands with members of victims’ families who had gathered under the canopy to await news. It seemed that the streamer had been sort of weaving through the crowd, holding the phone up above his head, trying to keep the queen in frame, and not too far away, with varying levels of success. But at one point he managed to get a well-framed shot of Saskia looking almost directly at the camera, talking to someone who was not in the frame.

“One hates to be right about such a frightful tragedy,” she said, “but sadly this is just the sort of thing I have been trying to warn the prime minister about, if only he would listen. I worry that the next such disaster will be ever so much worse.”

Saskia had, of course, never uttered those words. She never would utter them. Though it was her face and her voice in the video, the diction was wrong. Like listening to Queen Elizabeth talking fifty years ago, running it through an English-to-Dutch translation algorithm.

Fake Frederika listened to some indistinct response from off camera and nodded.

“That is what I am saying. They—the current cabinet—are all of that generation that believes the answers are to be found in riding bicycles to work and recycling newspapers. That’s how out of touch they are. If they could see what I have seen while conducting my own research, they would understand that the climate crisis is a gushing wound. We are bleeding out. We need first to apply a tourniquet. Do we leave it on forever? Of course not. But it keeps the patient alive long enough to get him to hospital and stitch up the wound properly.”

Fake Frederika listened again, then nodded. “Yes. Yes. Of course. I’m speaking of geoengineering. That is the tourniquet. It gives us time to put in place more long-term solutions such as carbon capture and emissions reductions. But anyone who doesn’t think we need it right now is living in an ideological bubble.”

Real Saskia ran the video back to the beginning and watched it again. Then a third time. Her phone was going crazy. She turned it off.

She’d read accounts of out-of-body experiences, where a patient who was at death’s door, or pumped full of drugs, would seem to leave her own body and look down on herself from a corner of the room. This was like that. Including the part about feeling like she was high. Given that this was the single most scandalous thing that had occurred in the Dutch monarchy in many decades—a sitting queen meddling directly in electoral politics, basically calling for the downfall of the elected government—she ought to have been a lot more horrified than she was really feeling at this moment. Instead her basic impulse was to giggle at the fantastic absurdity of it all.

First things first. She texted Lotte.

> Your memory is correct, darling. I never said any of that as you know. I don’t mind your being upset when you first heard about it. It is quite convincing.

> It is a deepfake Lotte answered.

Saskia had heard the term and knew what it was. But it had never occurred to her that anyone would go to the trouble of using such a technique on her, of all people. The president of the United States, maybe. The CEO of a big company. But her?

> Saw it she texted to Willem.

> Meet you at HTB? he responded.

> Yes. En route.

> Scrambling a video crew. We can have a video up within the hour. Doing some research on deepfakes. Writing a statement. Is Fenna with you?

> In the other car, right behind me.

> I’ll coordinate with her.

> See you soon.

It wasn’t often that the gates of Huis ten Bosch were surrounded by a scrum of photographers being held at bay by police. That was more of a Buckingham Palace kind of thing. But today was an exception. As they drove through it, Saskia just stared fixedly ahead. She didn’t want to make any gesture, even any facial expression, that could be picked up and distorted by the media. But once she was through the gate and gliding across the private grounds of the palace, she wondered whether such precautions even mattered. It was all very 2010 to be thinking that way. They could create whatever they wanted in the way of fakery; it didn’t matter what she actually did.

At least she didn’t have to explain any of that to Willem. He knew the truth. He’d been there in that tent at Scheveningen. He was intermittently visible in the background of the deepfake video. He just walked into the palace by her side, Fenna bringing up the rear with a case slung over her shoulder. Without discussing it they turned in the direction of a certain room, lined with books and art and memorabilia, with windows looking out onto a secluded garden. It was the room they always used when they wanted to film a video message from the queen to the people. The film crew had it all down pat. They knew where to set up the lights, where to find the power outlets that wouldn’t trip breakers, how to set the curtains and the diffusers and soft boxes just so to prevent awkward reflections and glare. Just down the hall was a bathroom where Fenna could ply her trade. Some outfits had been yeeted from the royal closets and laid out for inspection. But while Fenna was applying Face Two—the preferred Face for in-studio video shoots—they came to an agreement that the new video would look more legit if Saskia did it in the same outfit she’d been seen in earlier today during her appearance at the busted dike and just now while driving in through the gates. That settled, Saskia turned her attention to the script that Willem had written out for her and scanned it as best she could while turning her head this way and that in obedience to Fenna’s commands.

In the end there wasn’t that much to say, beyond the basics. Getting ready took longer than actually doing it. They’d moved the customary chair into its customary position and tweaked the lights to work with the overcast daylight coming in from the garden. Saskia sat in the customary demure pose, elevated her chin, and turned toward the teleprompter. Fenna beheld the royal visage in a monitor, then darted in to tuck a hair strand and snuff out a shiny bit with powder. Then Frederika Mathilde Louisa Saskia just read it straight out, one take.