Termination Shock

Informateur

The last power of any real significance that had been stripped away from the Dutch monarchy had been that of appointing the informateur. When a government had dissolved, someone needed to go around and have conversations with leaders in all the significant political parties and run the numbers and try to work out what the next ruling coalition might look like. When that picture began to come into focus, the informateur, as this person was called, would make a graceful exit and be replaced by a formateur who was usually the next prime minister.

The work of the informateur simply could not be done if all his meetings took place in the public eye, on the record. This gave it a smoke-filled room vibe that clashed with the overall style of Dutch politics. They couldn’t do away with the role, because it really was essential to forming a new coalition. But they could at least take it out of the hands of the monarch. They’d done so by an act of the States General in 2012 and the then queen had, of course, accepted this further curtailment of her already minimal powers. It was still a bit of a sore point for those who wanted the monarchy to retain some power. But it satisfied those who looked askance at kings and queens, while bolstering the position of those on the other side who could now point to the monarch’s utter lack of political power as a reason why keeping them around was harmless.

The upshot of it all was that during the day after the fall of Ruud Vlietstra’s government Queen Frederika had no responsibilities whatsoever in that sphere and so was able to do what was considered proper for a monarch in the wake of a natural disaster, namely to visit shelters and ladle soup for people who, had this happened in a Third World country, would be called refugees. She was photographed shaking her head in dismay at the wreckage of the Maeslantkering, reading books to children sitting on the clean carpet of a high-and-dry shelter, nodding her head and looking extremely supportive as a coalition of charitable organizations kicked off a fund drive.

Her lack of any serious responsibility, combined with the fact that she didn’t want to mess up any of the television shots, led her to shut her phone off during much of each day. Thus it was that while driving back from a visit to a breached dike in the eastern part of the country she turned her phone back on to discover the following series of messages from Lotte, delivered over a span of about half an hour:

> 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.

“Earlier today, a video was released on the Internet that appeared to show me saying certain things about the cabinet and its positions on the geoengineering question. This video is a fake. A very sophisticated fake that was produced by digital manipulation of real footage shot on that sad day in Scheveningen and doctored by unknown persons apparently seeking to disrupt the normal functioning of our democracy. We do not at this time know who produced this forgery or what their motives might be. An investigation has been launched, but definite results may not be forthcoming for a long time, if ever. In the meantime, my message to you as queen is that my commitment to the basic principles of our democracy remains unshakable and that under no circumstances would I, or any other Dutch monarch, dream of interfering in domestic politics in the manner that is falsely depicted in the fake video.

“As anyone who follows Dutch politics will know, the government was dissolved yesterday and has become a caretaker cabinet. All this happened in a manner consistent with our constitutional norms and with no involvement or influence from me. Likewise, the process of forming a new government, which will unfold in coming weeks and months, shall be one in which I shall be a mere bystander. In keeping with our norms, I shall await the verdict of our duly elected political parties and respect the outcome of that process as has always been the practice in the Netherlands since the creation of our system of government in its modern form. In the meantime I would warn all Dutch citizens to beware of fake videos that appear to depict me, or any other prominent persons, making statements with political significance.”

“Spot on” was Willem’s verdict.

“I thought I tripped over some of the words halfway through.”

“Just makes it seem more authentic.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Someone producing a deepfake would probably try to make it look perfect.”

“Is that the sort of thing we must worry about now?”

Willem didn’t respond. Probably because it was an idiotic question. Willem nodded to the streamer, who nodded back and popped a memory card out of the camera. “I’ll clean it up, slap on the bumpers, and have it ready for review in half an hour,” he said.

“Faster would be better,” Willem answered with uncharacteristic snappishness.

“Putting out a garbage amateur video with bad sound and color isn’t going to help given the nature of the problem we are trying to solve,” pointed out the streamer on his way out of the room with the memory card between his knuckles.

Willem had no answer for that. But after the man had left he looked around at the crew, taking the lights down and pretending they hadn’t heard. Then he looked at Saskia and gave a little toss of the head that meant we need to talk in private.

It took him about a quarter of an hour to lay out the basics of what he had learned yesterday in the SCIF at Eindhoven.

“Sorry to break this to you now,” he said, “when there’s this whole other crisis happening.” He gestured back in the direction of where they had shot the video.

“Do you really think it’s a whole other crisis?”

“No. Of course not.”

“Because obviously all this is coordinated.”

“Yes.”

“The deepfake must have been produced some time ago. They—whoever made it—could have released it earlier. But instead they held it back until the day after the government had fallen apart on its own.”

“I hadn’t considered that,” Willem said. “You’re right.”

“Why would they hold it back? Because if it had been released earlier, before the government had fallen, then the fall of the government would be blamed on me. It really would lead to a constitutional crisis in that case. Deservedly so.”

Willem nodded.

“But,” Saskia went on, “if it is released after the fall of the government is a fait accompli, then I can’t really be accused of unconstitutional meddling . . .”

“Only of being blunt and outspoken. Saying out loud what ordinary sensible people are already thinking.”

“The voice of the people,” Saskia said. “Which I have never claimed to be. But it seems the role is being thrust upon me. Presumably by whoever sabotaged the Maeslantkering.”

“That thing was the pride of the nation,” Willem said. “A symbol of our engineering prowess. Its destruction a huge psychological shock. The kind of thing that makes people sit back and reconsider everything. Whoever did it is creating an opportunity to reshape the way our politics works for a generation. Setting you up. Not to take the fall. More the opposite.”

“Well, I’m afraid whoever that is is just going to have to be disappointed,” Saskia answered.

Someone knocked on the door. “It’s ready,” came Fenna’s voice. “A triumph!”

“We’re coming,” Saskia called back. To Willem she said, as she was getting up, “First things first. Let’s get this done and then we can continue this conversation.”

A few rooms down the hall, the video crew had patched the streamer’s laptop into a big flat-panel screen and cued up the edited video for their review. Like all the queen’s official videos it opened with a “bumper” depicting the royal palace, with the arms of the House of Orange superimposed. Then it cross-faded to Queen Frederika sitting in that chair. And then she said the words she’d said. Then it cross-faded to the “outro.”

Heads turned toward Saskia. In truth, she’d barely seen it. Her eyes had been open and aimed at the screen, but her mind had been all over the place. “It’s fine,” she said, “put it up.”

That command was aimed at the royal webmaster. An antiquated job title—“social media coordinator” would have been more up-to-date—but it was common in royal courts to have outdated remnants of a bygone age. If Saskia could be guarded by men in bearskin hats riding horses, why, she could as well have a webmaster.

Accordingly, everyone looked at the woman who bore that title.

She was oblivious.

She was staring at the screen of her tablet, completely aghast at some new horror. To be perfectly honest, that was the usual emotional state, and the customary facial expression, of anyone who worked in the social media industry. But even by those standards she looked shocked.

She finally became aware that all attention was focused on her. She tried to say something but couldn’t get it out. Instead she flicked her fingers over the surface of her tablet and spun it around so that everyone could see it.

It was playing a video. The same video they’d just finished watching, or so it seemed through the intro. When that cross-faded to show Queen Frederika sitting demurely in her special chair, however, she was wearing a different outfit. One she had, in fact, worn recently in front of cameras. But she had never sat in that chair and delivered a speech while wearing it.

Nor had she ever spoken the words that she now, on this video, appeared to speak.

“I come to you this afternoon with an apology and a promise.”

“Where did you get this?” Willem demanded.

“It showed up on YouTube fifteen minutes ago!”

Everyone shushed them.

“Earlier today, a candid video was posted in which I was caught on film expressing certain views concerning the prime minister and the cabinet that should not have been said out loud by a reigning monarch. For that I apologize. Regardless of the frustration that I—along with all other Dutch citizens—may from time to time experience regarding our political process, it is not my place to utter such words in public. I did so thinking that I was merely expressing private sentiments to a small number of family members bereaved by the loss of loved ones in the disaster at Scheveningen. I was naive not to realize that my words might be captured and put up on the Internet where they have now become part of the public record. Again, for this I apologize.

“In retrospect, the disaster we experienced that day was but a foretaste of the much more devastating events of the last week—events that have among other sad outcomes led to the fall of the government. We must now look ahead to a period of at least several months during which a caretaker cabinet will look after the day-to-day running of the country while a new governing coalition is organized. It is the tradition during such periods that the caretaker government should avoid making major policy decisions or budgetary commitments. That is all well and good—in normal times. These times, however, are not normal. The nation is in the midst of a crisis that cannot be addressed without decisive action. I do not believe that we can afford to sit on our hands for several months during the endless negotiations that, in normal times, are needed to organize a new governing coalition. I therefore give you my promise that I will do everything that lies within my strictly limited powers as a constitutional monarch to speed that process along and goad the bickering parties into action. To that end I am putting forth the name of Willem Castelein to serve in the role of informateur. While I lack the statutory power to fill that office, nothing in the Grondwet or the law prevents me from stating my personal opinion as to who is best qualified to serve in that role. I hope that the leadership of the political parties will agree with me and name him to that position without delay, as a way of getting the process off to a faster than usual start. With that momentum established, I believe that Dr. Castelein will be able to shepherd a new and effective government into office in a matter of weeks, or even days—not months. Thank you and good evening.”

Willem, aware that all eyes were upon him, took the risk of checking his phone. He had silenced it completely. But the sheer volume of messages was proof that they weren’t just imagining this. It wasn’t just a dream. Looking at the screen of the device was like staring into the chute of a slot machine that had just hit the jackpot.

“We have to release a statement—” Saskia was saying.

“To the effect that the totally convincing apology we just watched is actually a fake apology for the earlier totally convincing video that was also fake?” asked the streamer.

Maybe it was just his imagination, but Willem couldn’t help feeling that some of the eyes now upon him were less than entirely friendly. He had felt a bit of this yesterday in the SCIF. To some Dutchmen he would always be an inscrutable combination of American and Chinese. Being gay didn’t exactly help. His family links to China, his fluency in Mandarin, his recent interactions with Bo—which he had been at pains to put on the official record, to avoid the slightest hint of undue influence—all these could suddenly begin to look suspicious now that this second deepfake had been released.

His ID—the credential that got him through the gates of this palace, and many other secure facilities in the Netherlands as well, was hanging around his neck on a cloth lanyard that was riding up above his collar and touching his neck. It was suddenly feeling heavy. Before he’d even really had time to think about it he reached up and pulled it off and let it dangle from both outstretched hands in front of him. “Until this matter is resolved,” he said, “to avoid even the appearance of any impropriety, I am placing myself on leave.” He dropped the credential on the table and turned around. As he did so, his gaze swept across the queen’s face. She looked stunned, stricken. Willem’s impulse, born of habit, was to offer some advice. To coolly analyze the situation, make suggestions, execute a plan, smooth it all over. But there were situations that arose from time to time when the monarch actually did have to be the monarch. Alone. This was one of those. “Nice enough afternoon,” he said. “Can I borrow a bicycle?”