Blackout by Connie Willis Read Free Book Online Page B

Michael said. “What the hell’s going on?”
    “There’s no need to swear,” Badri said mildly.
    “That’s what you think! You can’t change my schedule at the last minute like this. I’ve already done the research for Pearl Harbor. I’ve already gotten my costume and papers and money and had an implant done so I sound like an American.”
    “It can’t be helped. Here’s the new order of your drops.” Badri handed him a printout. “Dunkirk evacuation,” the list read, “Pearl Harbor, El Alamein, Battle of the Bulge, second World Trade Center attack, beginning of the Pandemic in Salisbury.”
    “You’ve changed all of them?” Michael shouted. “You can’t just move them around like this! They were in the order I gave you for a reason. Look,” he said, shoving the list under Badri’s nose. “Pearl Harbor and the World Trade Center and the Battle of the Bulge are all American. I scheduled them together so I could get one L-and-A implant.
Which I’ve already had!
How am I supposed to be a
London Daily Herald
war correspondent reporting on the evacuation from Dunkirk with this accent?”
    “I apologize for that,” Badri said. “We attempted to contact you before the implant. I’m afraid you’ll have to have it reversed.”
    “Reversed? And then what the hell do I do about Pearl Harbor? I’m supposed to be an American Navy lieutenant. You’ve got these alternating, for God’s sake—British, American, British! This isn’t an ordinary mission where I’m there for a year. I’m only going to be in each of these places a few days. I can’t afford to spend it faking an accent and worrying about what to call things.”
    “I understand,” Badri said placatingly, “but—”
    The door opened and a burly young man charged in. “I want to speak to you,” he said to Badri and marched him over to the far corner of the lab. “What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing moving mydrop up?” Michael heard him say, so apparently he wasn’t the only one whose mission they’d been messing with.
    He looked over at Linna. She was still on the phone. “—to February sixth, 1942,” she read from the printout.
    “How the bloody hell do you expect me to be ready by Monday morning?” the burly guy shouted.
    “Denys Atherton,” Linna droned on, “March first, 1944—”
    “I understand your vexation,” Badri said.
    “My
vexation
?” the young man exploded.
    Go ahead
, Michael thought.
Hit him. Do it for both of us
, but he didn’t. He stormed out, banging the door behind him so violently that Linna jumped. “—to June fifth, 1944,” she said into the phone.
    Jesus, how many historians did they have going to World War II right now? Charles was right. They were going to start crashing into each other. He wondered if that was why they’d changed the order of his drops. But if that was the case, they’d have sent him to Salisbury or the World Trade Center.
    Badri came back over to Michael. “Can’t you pose as an American reporter?”
    “It isn’t just the accent. It’s the prep. I can’t be ready in three days. I don’t have any clothes or papers and I’ve only done the general research, not the—”
    “We’re aware you’ll need time for additional prep,” Badri said placatingly, “so we’ve moved the drop to Saturday—”
    “You’ve given me one extra
day
? I’ll need at least two weeks. And now I suppose you can’t do that either.”
    “No, no, of course we can reschedule,” Badri said, turning to the console, “but you’ll have to go with lab availability, and we’re extremely heavily booked. Let me see,” he peered at the screen, “the fourteenth might work… no… it will be at least three weeks. I think you’d do better to shorten the prep time with implants. The lab can arrange for you to—”
    “I’ve already had my limit. You’re only allowed three, and an L-and-A counts as two. And I had ‘Historical Events—1941,’ which will come