Chapter 5

"Do you want to see what I do while you're in school?" Aunt Jessica asked Saturday morning. They'd finished breakfast and Aunt Jessica was washing the plates.

"I thought you taught at the local college or something."

"Not really," Aunt Jessica said, smiling. "I do give lectures, but I'm still basically just a researcher."

"So I wouldn't be sitting in the back of a classroom watching you talk."

"No, nothing of the sort."

"But it's Saturday. I thought—"

"C'mon. I think you'll find it interesting. Besides, there's something I want to see."

"Where would we go?"

"I work at the Gate Building in Terminus."

"I suppose you do a lot of reading."

"No, actually, I do a lot of looking at images."

That sounded more interesting than watching someone read books. "I suppose," Danielle said. She plucked at her robe. "I'll have to get dressed."

"It'll be just the two of us. Jenny and Brad went off with some friends."

And they didn't even think to ask me, Danielle thought to herself. Figures.

"Let me go get dressed."

She wasn't sure what was appropriate, so she just put on the first thing she found that looked clean, a beige skirt and white top that was at the front of her closet. She was pinning up her hair when Aunt Jessica came down the stairs.

"All ready, I see. I think you'll find this interesting."

Danielle gave her aunt a smile that didn't promise one thing or another. They walked down to the corner and caught the trolley. They had to take the train to Terminus, and sign in before they got to Aunt Jessica's office.

Danielle's first impression was that it wasn't what she thought a college professor's office should look like. There were books on the walls, but not as many as she'd expected. There were whole shelves of videotape or CDs or something, and a desk in the corner with two monitors.

Aunt Jessica moved some books from a chair. "Have a seat, this'll take a few minutes."

She logged onto the computer and entered all sorts of things besides a password. She had to call someone on the phone, but she finally turned on the second screen. "The left one is the camera shot," she said. "The right one is a position indicator."

"Position indicator? Of what?"

"Florence, Italy," her aunt said. "Local date is September 2nd, 1497. As near as we can tell, that is an accurate map of the Florence of the time."

She moved the cursor on the right screen to a button and clicked it. "Hello Grace, it's Jesse."

The screen on the left blinked and came to life. It showed a town square. There was a large bonfire in the middle of the square, and people were throwing books and other things on it.

"Hello Jesse," came a muffled woman's voice. "Can't talk too much, too many people. Where's David? I thought he was working today."

"Pam went into labor last night. What's going on?"

"Bonfire of the Vanities. Savonarola's thugs are going door to door cleaning out anything they don't like. They're also committing petty burglary, but nobody's going to call them on it. Not yet, at least. Oops, gotta shut up."

"Grace is an agent-in-place," Aunt Jessica said. "She's part of a team working in this particular Florence for myself and about a dozen others."

"They're burning books," Danielle said.

"They're taking ones the head of the city government, a priest named Savonarola, deems debasing or not morally correct. They burned paintings, books, vases and anything else he didn't like. It's come down through history as the 'Bonfire of the Vanities'."

"He could do that?"

Aunt Jessica nodded. The picture on the left changed. The camera was obviously attached to someone and that person was walking through a crowd.

"Their clothes are so rich."

"Florence was pretty prosperous."

"Wait a minute. If that's another time, how are you getting the picture?"

"They set up a solar powered WiFi system. Grace is carrying an internet camera in her clothes, her hair I believe, and it transmits to the WiFi system. That's connected to a gate via a cable—you can't broadcast through a gate for some reason—and then to our system here."

"Could she get caught?"

"She's been trained to blend in. She doesn't do anything, she just goes where we want, and takes her camera along. She isn't the only one working in Florence; there's a team of six there with her, and a technician. I don't know all of the details, though, so I couldn't help you with it."

Danielle watched as the camera moved closer to the bonfire. It became obvious that the person with the camera was carrying something when a painting was handed to someone to toss on the flames.

"Did this go on for long?"

"For most of a year," Aunt Jessica said. "Then people grew tired of the priest, there was a coup and he was arrested and burned at the stake."

"Ugh. For that?"

"Among other things. He was a fanatic, and he condemned quite a few people to death for either disagreeing with him, or being 'immoral', at least as he defined it." She smiled sadly. "If you wanted to make a point of it, people lost their lives and property for being not politically correct. I don't want you to think I'm drawing any obvious conclusions, though."

"Did you bring me here to make that point?"

"No, actually, I brought you here to see what I do for a living. It just happens to be what's going on in Florence right now." She typed in another command, and both screens changed. The picture on the left was from a hill overlooking a harbor.

"This is Genoa."

"And you have an agent there, too?"

"Only occasionally. This is one of a dozen cameras in Genoa that are fixed in place. They don't always show us much. Here, let me show you what we recorded a while back."

She typed in a series of commands. The screen cleared to show a column of knights in armor marching along a road. Men with crossbows and really antique looking guns followed them.

"This is part of the French Army invading Italy at the time. The French King Charles decided he wanted Italian provinces, and led one of the best armies of the time into Italy."

"This happened ... now? I mean then?"

"Well, about three years ago, local time. That's why we always say 'local time' when we're talking about what happens on an alt. The French continued south for a ways and won a battle. We didn't have any cameras there, which I always thought was a pity. This was the start of a whole series of wars that would tear up this area for the next 30 years or so. In our original history the French were finally ejected from Italy for good only in 1859."

"Wouldn't a battle ... I mean, all these people dying, and guns and everything? How could you look at it?"

"The first few battles were fairly bloodless," Aunt Jessica said. "The Italians fought a kind of war that was all maneuver, and the side that felt it was out-maneuvered would retreat or surrender. After all, they were mercenaries, and getting killed would rob a mercenary of his pay."

"But a battle..."

"It's hard, the first time, and I won't say it gets easier. Normally we can't get records of a battle. It's hard to predict where they're going to happen, and our agents are under orders to stay away from them. Sieges, on the other hand, are more predictable. We still don't want our people involved in one. Instead they put in fixed cameras and evacuate through a gate."

Danielle got tired of watching the harbor scene in Genoa. She could see a few ships, including a large one with oars, moving around the harbor. Her aunt must have sensed it, and clicked to Florence again.

This was an interior shot. It was dark, except for light streaming in through the windows. She could make out a few people at the other end of a long room. There was a staircase to the left, and the person with the camera climbed that, walked down a hall, and entered a bedroom. The camera moved jerkily for nearly a minute, and then a hand pulled open a bookcase and the view was of someone descending a spiral staircase.

"What's going on?" Danielle asked, fascinated.

"We have an underground room below that house," Aunt Jessica said. "The owners don't know it's there. That's where our equipment is."

A hand pushed a place on the wall, and what looked like a bricked-up entrance swung open. The camera advanced. The light went out, and then back on as another door opened. This room was filled with racks of computer equipment, and an arch of pipes in the far wall. There were electric lights overhead, and a small refrigerator against the wall.

"You still there, Jesse?" a woman's voice said.

"Still here, Grace. Sit down and relax."

"Glad to. Let me get out of this rig and we can chat."

The camera was placed on a table. A figure in a dress could be seen disappearing into another room. After a couple of minutes a woman came out wearing a robe. She crossed to the refrigerator and took out something. Then she sat in a chair with her feet up.

"God, I'm glad to get out of that get-up for a while. The things we do for knowledge."

"Tell me about it. I took my turn in the field. I worked several different Romes, and all of them smelled like you wouldn't believe."

"Oh, I'd believe it all right. Okay, a couple of things, and then we can look at my playback."

The next few minutes sounded like gibberish. Aunt Jessica and the woman spoke back and forth, their words clipped and full of jargon. Aunt Jessica made notes, working from a long list of questions. Finally she finished and leaned back, stretching.

"I want to look at something in one of my references," she said. "In the meantime, this my neice Danielle."

"Hi Danielle," the woman on the screen said as Aunt Jessica got up. "Call me Grace."

Danielle tried to hide her surprise. She hadn't realized there was a camera in her aunt's PC. She tried to think of somethig to say.

"Been, uh, been doing this long?"

"I've been in Florence for nearly a year," Grace said. "Before that..." She sighed. "Before that I had several months of intensive training."

"Are you one of those agents for the—"

"For the Commission?" Grace shook her head. "No, I'm a grad student doing my field work for the University."

"Is it hard?"

"Staying in character?" She nodded. "Yeah, at first. That's why the previous person on-site trains her replacement. I've just been assigned a trainee, which means that in a month I'm headed home."

"I bet you can't wait."

Grace laughed. "The first thing I'm going to do when I get back is eat a whole quart of chocolate ice cream. You don't miss something until you can't have it."

"Does everyone ... is what you do a requirement for your degree?"

"For my Ph.D.? Yes it is, at least in this field. I don't know about the others."

"So what is it you do there in Florence? Aunt Jessica said you wander around a lot."

"Yeah, mostly. I'm covered as a member of the minor nobility, a distant cousin sent to the city to look for a husband. That lets me go places and see things a peasant girl would never get near."

"Covered?"

"Ah, my cover story. You have to have one that's plausible. If a stranger just shows up and starts asking questions ... well, let's say it wouldn't go well with them."

"Aunt Jessica said you're staying in this large house. Do they know... ?"

"Not really. I have to carry on a fake correspondence with my 'distant' relatives. Setting up something like this takes time, and is a bit risky."

"So people have been studying there for a while?"

"Twelve years. I'm not the only one here, though. There are six others, and a tech. I'm hoping we can set something up so we don't have to fool our hosts."

Danielle tried to think of what to ask next. Finally she had it. "What have you been looking at lately?"

Grace shifted in her chair and took a sip from her drink. "Well aside from the larger project, which is studying the politics of this city, I've been focusing on the social customs. That means I've had to attend a great many parties and listen to hours and hours of gossip. Most of it is who's seeing whom, who's snubbing whom, and anything else you can think of. Think of it as just like back in high school, except these people have nothing else to talk about. Or at least they didn't used to."

"Did something happen?"

"A fanatic priest named Savonarola. A lot of our effort is to document just what happened. Today was one of the key events. On one hand it boosted him to the top of his political power, but on the other his extremism led to the coup that overthrew him. We're hoping to get that, too."

"A coup? That sounds dangerous."

"It is. Our boss told me that we're going to have a couple of Commission Operatives here to bail us out if we have problems."

"That happened to my husband," Aunt Jessica said. "He was dragooned into the Prussian Army when he was doing his field work. They got him out of there, but it was touch-and-go for a bit."

"Yeah, I hope that doesn't happen here." She glanced at something out of range of the camera. "I've got about 10 more minutes, some of which I'll need to dress again."

Aunt Jessica made shooing motions. Danielle got out of the chair, but stayed close. "I've got the take. Was there anything else you recorded?"

"I had to replace the camera at Fountain Square," Grace said. She did something that was out of sight of the camera. "I'll shoot the contents across to you with my recorded commentary."

"Anything you want me to tell David?"

"Tell him he owes me pictures," Grace said. "I'll see him when I get back, but be sure to say hello. And if you can, I'd appreciate a picture or two."

"I'll see what I can do. In fact I'll go visit him right after we're done here."

"Appreciate it." Grace got up. "Nice meeting you Danielle. Maybe we'll get a chance to meet in person."

"I hope so," Danielle said. "I'll probably have a lot more questions."

"I'll see you at the regular time, Jesse," Grace said. "Bye."

She moved away from the camera. Aunt Jessica busied herself with several things. Danielle watched the screen. After a few minutes Grace reappeared. She was wearing an elaborate floor-length dark red dress with a tight bodice and that flared from her hips. There was a lot of beading on the dress, and the lace at her wrists. Her hair was confined by a hat that resembled ones she'd seen Katherine Hepburn wear in a movie set in Africa. Grace swept past the camera and out of view.

"Is she going out on the street again?" Danielle asked.

"No, she was out of sight for a while, now she's expected to reappear."

"How does she get away with disappearing like she did?"

"She says she has to 'freshen up', which is the polite euphemism for going to the bathroom. It was considered extremly vulgar to call it that, but all of the other women know about how long it takes to do that, so she has to reappear, she can't linger. She spends a good part of her day just maintaining her cover."

"So where's she going to go?"

"She'll stay inside for a while, attending to those things that are normal for a girl of her age. I don't think there's a dinner party tonight. She always gives us advanced notice of them."

"Was that dress she was wearing typical of the time?"

"Oh heavens, yes, at least for the nobility. The hard part is all of the boning in the dress. It forces you to sit and stand straight, and it's a relief to get out of when you can, even just for a few minutes. That's why she was wearing a robe." Aunt Jessica laughed. "Call it instant relief."