Too Like the Lightning

by Ada Palmer

  «Grand frère!»

  Danaë’s greeting rang through the halls like fanfare. She rushed to her brother, the sleeves of her kimono rustling like a flightless bird which flaps in its excitement, forgetting for a moment that it is Earth’s prisoner. The view through Ganymede’s tracker camera was stunning as she threw herself into his arms, rivers of spring blooms flowing across her silks like a florist’s window with many more colors than mere rainbow. Danaë rained kisses upon her brother, and the sparkles traded back and forth between their silks made the scene almost blinding. Such scenes are even more powerful in person, seeing the twins’ eyes lock, the same gem-deadly blue; their hands intertwine, the same china doll fingers; Danaë’s cheek brushing Ganymede’s mane, as gold as hers. Danaë’s station demanded that her hair be bound modestly back, though the sheer bulk of the coil dared one to imagine what ocean of sunlight would pour down if it were free. Her station also demanded that she not throw herself so enthusiastically upon another man in public, and her husband was not slow to place a firm hand on her shoulder.

  “Hello, Ganymede. Thank you for inviting us again.” Chief Director Hotaka Andō Mitsubishi’s voice was cheerless as old stone. His suit this evening was spectacular itself, a rich blue like deep water, whose winter pattern of fine spirals was halfway through transforming into the ripples of a rain-spattered spring pond, koi and turtles appearing through the blue as if rising to feed.

  “The pleasure is ours.” The Duke crushed the orchid-fragile knot of Danaë’s obi as he held her tight.

  Director Andō pulled harder at his wife. “Come, Danaë, let’s let your brother breathe.”

  Smooth as a dancer, Danaë peeled one arm off of her brother and netted her husband in its grasp, forcing the pair to sandwich her in one affectionate embrace. The photographers went mad.

  “I saw the ice sculptures out front!” She shouted in her joy. “I can’t believe that horse’s tiny legs are strong enough to support its whole body, and Lady Godiva on top, and so much hair!”

  Ganymede let his head rest on his sister’s shoulder as she held him. “That’s nothing. Wait until you see out back. The whole hedge maze is iced so you can skate the entire course, and it’s lit so the colors change each time you move, like skating on the Northern Lights.”

  “Oh, we must have a race!” She gave her twin and husband each a fresh kiss before letting go. “Wouldn’t that be marvelous? I bet I can make it through the whole maze faster than either of you!”

  The gentlemen exchanged a chuckle.

  “Come, come, let’s race!” Her eyes pleaded with her husband’s. “It would be such fun, and we can invite the others! His Majesty, Bryar and Vivien, the Emperor, and Felix—can dear Felix skate?”

  Ganymede peeled himself away just enough to tap the front of her obi, which bound her belly as tightly as a corset. “And just how do you propose to skate in that?”

  “Easy, I’ll see which one of you is faster, then I’ll hold your coattails and have you tow me through. Then at the last second I’ll distract you and pull ahead to victory!”

  “And how will you distract us?”

  Smiling Danaë threw both arms around her husband and locked him in a kiss, while at the same time her left foot snagged Ganymede by the ankle and toppled him forward. With both still stunned, she flitted aside quick as a hummingbird, and let her brother fall into her husband’s arms.

  His Majesty Isabel Carlos II laughed.

  Danaë had blinded the others as the King of Spain arrived. There are few people in this world whom Ganymede does not hate, but the Duke reserves a special hatred for the King. Isabel Carlos II is not the offender, nor is any Spanish king, nor any Spaniard. Ganymede’s fellow Frenchmen birthed the grudge. No line so noble as his cannot boast royal blood, and with wealth, fame, and his golden presence, Ganymede is worthier than many past pretenders to France’s throne. But there is no throne for Ganymede. France killed its king in our very own Eighteenth Century, and what few kings it has tried on since it discarded, like a grown man no longer comfortable in childhood’s clothes. If he tried, Ganymede might convince as many to call him ‘Your Majesty’ as now say ‘Your Grace,’ but what would it mean when every member of the French nation-strat is more loyal to the Marseillaise than to the memory of Charlemagne? The Duke knows he cannot tame France to monarchy once more. That, I think, is why he lets the world call him by the celebrity nickname ‘Duke Ganymede’ rather than his preferred title ‘Prince de la Trémoïlle’; Prince has enough of Machiavelli’s stink to make a free man balk. And even if he could win France, she spread her contagious liberty to Europe, too. King Ganymede I of France would be as voiceless in the European Parliament as the Queens of England and Belgium are, or the Japanese Emperor among the Mitsubishi. Not so Spain. While the French Monarchy lay dead these six centuries, the Kings of Spain have been peacemakers and powerbrokers, kindled democracy from the ashes of tyranny, shared the podium with Thomas Carlyle, and caught the dying words of Mycroft MASON. Isabel Carlos II would have but to offer his name on the ballot for every European strat from Swedes to New Zealanders to rally to make him Prime Minister again, while if Ganymede sought power in Europe he would have to fight for it tooth and nail like a mere Casimir Perry. I cannot say whether President Ganymede actually feels himself entitled to a crown, but it is certainly the presence of the King of Spain which forced the Duke to choose the Humanists, not Europe, as his kingdom, and La Trimouille, not Paris, as his capital. That he will never forgive.

  “Your Majesty.” Danaë bowed stiffly, as a Mitsubishi ought. “Which of these two do you think would be faster at ice skating?”

  Spain smiled his modest smile. “If you mean to win, Princesse, you should ride the coattails of the one who built the maze.”

  “Of course!” She turned bright eyes on Ganymede. “Grand frère, will you introduce me to your gardener?”

  He cuffed her gently on the forehead. “Cheater.”

  All laughed together, and the twins exchanged fast French. In fact, between the English and flirtation, you must imagine French fluttering back and forth between the pair all evening, birdsong sibling chatter too quick for even Spain to catch.

  “Oh, good evening, Chair Bryar, I didn’t see you there.” The King nodded his respects. “And the Honorable Censor. How are you both?”

  Chair Kosala had retreated into the crowd to avoid the glitter, but stepped forward now, dragging Vivien with her. “We’re very well, Your Majesty.”

  Ganymede stepped in. “We’re about to view a new piece these two might take home with them.” He offered the King a smile as sweet as the sugar coating around poison. “Would Your Majesty care to join us?”

  There is always a hesitation when His Majesty addresses Ganymede, as if he considers each time which style of address to use. “Why certainly, La Trémoïlle. Lead on.”

  Lead Ganymede did, each step printing his own graceful signature into the carpet surface, an elaborately framed linear rendition of his coat of arms, three eaglets surrounding a chevron. “Hopefully the bookies didn’t swarm any of you too terribly as you arrived. They’re out in full force.”

  “I know, begging for hints about the lists, as if we knew anything.” Danaë hung on her husband’s shoulder. “The children practically had to beat them off of us. Vivien, I imagine it was worse for you?”

  “Oh, unbelievable!” Chair Kosala answered for her spouse. “The way they swarmed, it was as if they thought they could absorb the lists from Vivien by osmosis!”

  Danaë hid her reaction behind her sleeve. “I hope they’ll flutter off when the official odds are set tonight. Grand frère, how long until the announcement?”

  “Twenty-one minutes. And here we are. Is that not the most tender thing?”

  It was an oil piece, Cupid and Psyche. Most artists choose to depict the moment of their final reunion on Olympus, or the earlier moment of betrayal, when curiosity drives the girl to break her vow not to try to see this mystery lover who comes to h
er only in darkness. But this artist did not show triumph or betrayal, but an earlier moment, when the lovers were still nestled in each other’s trusting arms, with yet no taste of sorrow. Psyche’s eyes were gently closed, while Cupid’s were covered by what might have been a slim, dark mask, but in context was the blindfold which artists sometimes have Love wear. The painting was also, quite intentionally, hung in the center of the villa’s largest open gallery, where hundreds gathered to see and be seen—the perfect hunting ground for Sniper.

  The King of Spain was first to recover enough to speak. “A new artist?”

  “Fairly new, yes,” the Duke answered. “Up-and-coming new Ganymedist, Hooper Abbey.”

  It is odd to hear Ganymede talk of Ganymedists, but there is no excuse to call the school by any other name. It was thirty-two years ago that Lister Dalal, one of the younger New Aesthetes of the Johannesburg Campus, fell into the spell of this golden-haired exemplar of exquisite youth, then only twelve years old. At first Dalal kept Ganymede to himself, producing portrait after best-selling portrait, but as other artists begged for access to his mystery model, he realized this blossoming Adonis could become the center of his own school, hijacking the Art-for-Pleasure rhetoric of his teachers, but focusing on the idealized figure, Ganymede’s idealized figure. The Duke’s galleries—like most great galleries now—hold a hundred portraits which strive to capture facets of his maturing body in oil and pigment, chalk and crayon, bronze and stone. How could he fail to become Earth’s most successful art dealer when half the art world was already in love with him?

  “It’s a bit much,” was the King’s judgment, frowning at the halo the dim light cast on Psyche’s rosy nipples, erect in her excitement.

  “And a bit dark,” Andō added.

  Danaë—of whom a few modest, clothed portraits hang among her brother’s on the walls—shot each of them a pout. “But it’s wonderful! So tactile! You can just feel the texture of those sheets, and the wings, the feathers tickling Psyche’s thigh. What do you think, Bryar?”

  Chair Kosala had no chance to answer, for the room went suddenly dark, as the shattering of glass and the screams of startled innocents announced the arrival of Ganymede’s quarry.

  CHAPTER THE ELEVENTH

  Enter Sniper

  Fragments of light broke the darkness sporadically, like the death throes of a battered strobe lamp. A wolf’s howl cut across the startled cries as guests huddled together in the dark. Security tightened around the leaders instantly, Spain’s Royal Guard, the Censor’s Guard, Mitsubishi forces, Cousins, the Ducal-Presidential Guard in livery of blue and gold. Their flashlights cut the blackness, at first revealing only art and wide-eyed faces, but soon one could catch the motion of machinery and great shapes assembling themselves on the ballroom floor like the arrival of a clockwork beast. Startled cries morphed into titters of anticipation, as guests rushed in from other galleries, forcing their way toward spots they hoped would have good views. Then a sudden spotlight brought the beast to life. The center of the hall, which had been nothing but a crowd of socialites, was now a mad laboratory, burbling beakers and giant electrodes raining sparks on bays of ancient vacuum tubes, while in the center a shrouded body lay on a slab, waiting.

  “Throw the switch!” The speaker was a picture-perfect hunchback, looming over the machinery in a grungy laboratory smock. “Quickly, doctor, while they’re still distracted! Throw the switch and bring our glorious monster to life!”

  The crowd burst into exuberant applause.

  “Quickly, Doctor Frankenstein! It’s too late to turn back!” The hunchback didn’t need to drop the name for everyone to know the character. I spotted the doctor now, cowering by a control panel. He made a magnificent Mad Scientist: his Asian black hair was uncommonly wild and wiry in the right way, his shoulders had the academic hunch under the white lab coat, and his hands, forever stained with inks and dyes, had the right inhuman thinness to let him stand proud on a poster between a Werewolf and a Mummy. Even his Chinese features in this context focused the attention on his eyes, almost as black as his hair, and greenish makeup made their glints feel extra maniacal. Poor Cato Weeksbooth. With the eyes of the world upon him, the recluse seemed about to have a heart attack.

  Eager ‘Igor’ stared expectantly at his Frankenstein, but Cato just gaped, his jaw twitching as if he were on the edge of saying lines, but nothing came.

  “Quickly, doctor! I don’t know how long we can keep the villagers from invading the laboratory!”

  Igor was right. The spectators had recovered from the shock of the reveal, and were beginning to advance and poke the edges of the set.

  “I can’t do this…”

  “You must! There’s no turning back!”

  “Why’d you drag me into this? Leave me alone!”

  The hulking assistant gestured with a too-huge prop wrench toward the shrouded figure, lifeless on the table between them. “You must finish, doctor! You will! There’s nowhere to turn back to. You’ve already shattered the laws of man, of king and country, medicine, conscience, humanity. There’s no forgiveness now, nothing waiting for you but the gallows or the asylum. You have only one choice! Push on, doctor! Shatter the next laws too, the laws of Nature! Then, with the powers of life and death at your command, and your glorious creation at your side, you will lord it over your enemies like a god! Throw the switch!”

  I myself am not sure whether the ‘unwilling Frankenstein’ act was a plan, or an ad lib to cover Cato’s genuine stage terror. Either way, there was a chilling passion in his “Noooo!”

  “Junior Scientist Squad Attack!” Suddenly a gaggle of kids, aged eight to fifteen, with matching “Chicago Museum of Science and Industry” caps, assaulted Igor with an arsenal of homemade slingshots, water balloons, rubber band guns, and all manner of ingenious and benign projectiles.

  “You leave the doctor alone, you meanie!”

  “Don’t worry, doc! We’ll save you!”

  Cato slumped back against the buzzing control panels, pale with joy as if the homemade weapons had been Athena’s spear. “You came…”

  Two girls in the back of the squad, the “big guns,” fed baking soda into a vinegar bottle through a funnel and let the ensuing explosion drench the adversary. “Eat real science, phony!”

  “Noooo!” Igor staggered as if the drenching were a mortal wound, and, since the vinegar spoiled the makeup, it almost was. “I won’t let you stop us!” Wild-eyed, the hunchback charged forward through the hail of rubber bands, lunged past quivering Cato, and threw the switch himself.

  The video footage can do the special effects far more justice than I. There were explosions from the machines, rains of sparks, projections of monstrous faces and equations which chased each other through the smoke as if human ambition and the laws of nature were fighting it out before our eyes, and a soundtrack by Lune Cassirer which would be top seller for four weeks.

  The body beneath the shroud twitched, jolts of sudden motion like the spasms of electrocution, real enough to cause some in the audience to wonder whether the equipment had malfunctioned. The body lay still next, not even breathing, letting the suspense and music build as a subtle odor of singed meat diffused through the gallery. Only as the last of the wires ceased their hissing did the body twitch once more, then rise, letting the shroud slide down slowly, like the unveiling of a statue. Makeup had reduced the flawless skin to patchwork, dozens of painted shades from north-European pallor to deep African black, which seemed to be sutured together with a gory roughness which only made the perfection of the face and limbs beneath more beautiful in contrast. It was a light, athletic, nymphlike figure, with a childish face and slender, androgynous limbs, every mark of beauty that Duke Ganymede was losing as a decade in office tainted him with the roughness of a grown-up. The monster faltered as it rose, unbalanced like a fresh-hatched chick, and slumped back against the slab, its eyelids sagging like a sleepwalker’s. Desperate Igor (recovering from the assault of vinegar) pressed throu
gh the cluster of awe-silenced kids and grasped the monster’s face, peering warmly into it. “Welcome to life, Sniper.”

  Sniper’s eyes are huge like a child’s, almost black thanks to a Japanese mother, but somehow the genius actor made that blackness seem to transform from dull to lively in this moment, as if it were not the electricity but this first sight of another human face that jump-started true life. “Thank you.”

  The crowd could not hold back its applause.

  “Magnificent!”

  “Spectacular! Heart-stopping!” critics raved.

  “Even better than last year!”

  “And far less destructive,” Ganymede added, rolling his eyes in memory of Sniper’s rampage in gangster’s pinstripes, complete with tommy gun and femme fatale, when the techs had dropped two Model Ts through a ballroom skylight and led the Duke President’s security on a fifteen-minute cops-and-robbers car chase through the galleries. The poor carpets.

  Sniper, all smiles, descended from the laboratory table arm in arm with his hunchbacked ‘creator.’ (I confess, reader, there is some arbitrariness in calling Sniper by either pronoun, since these stunts involve female costume as often as male, and Sniper’s publicity team has worked so hard to keep the public from learning the androgyne’s true sex. But since I have made Sniper’s two key rivals, Ockham and Ganymede, both ‘he,’ I shall use ‘he’ for Sniper, to make their strengths feel parallel). At Sniper’s nod the lights returned, so guests could see and thank the black-hooded techies who had made the spectacle possible.