Too Like the Lightning

by Ada Palmer

  Bridger’s smile would not dim. “Maybe Achilles couldn’t get used to gun armies, but Odysseus could. Odysseus is the cleverest ever. If Odysseus can get along with nymphs and gods and goddesses and ghosts and foreigners then they can handle Frenchmen.”

  “Probably so, but I can’t see it going well. Odysseus managed to get lost for ten years in just the Mediterranean, and up in France there’s the whole Atlantic to deal with.” I mussed his hair again, its blond perhaps starting to dim. “You know that’s a very sad book, right? Les Misérables. Famously sad.”

  Bridger hadn’t learned to avoid the eyes of others, but always met them honestly. “I know. Lieutenant Aimer already told me some of what’s going to happen. I’ll be ready when it comes.”

  I used to forget sometimes that I was not Bridger’s only pseudo-parent.

  “Why do people like sad books?” he asked.

  “You like this book,” I answered.

  “I’d like it better if it wasn’t sad.” He leaned his head against my shoulder. “I get mad at authors for doing that sort of thing to characters.”

  “Some books have to be sad to get across the ideas the author wants to talk about. Victor Hugo is describing a very sad part of real history. Hugo wants you to understand that moment in time, what was beautiful about it, and what was horrible. Books, even made-up stories, can’t all have happy endings because they reflect the real world, and the real world isn’t always happy.”

  The Major nodded, sagely slow. “If history is written by winners, fiction like that is written by bystanders trying to guess what the victims would have said if they’d survived.”

  “So what?” The heedless boy elbowed me in the gut again as he sat up. “Even if it’s real life’s fault bad things happen, that doesn’t mean they aren’t bad. Don’t you get mad, Mycroft? Major? Whether it’s fiction or real life, don’t you get mad?”

  I nodded. “That’s the sort of thing you can talk to the sensayer Carlyle about.”

  The Major leaned back, his tiny arms swinging over the chair’s sides. “Anger doesn’t help. Men write books like that because they want history to remember, mourn, and make sure that sort of tragedy won’t happen again.” His voice was gentle, like an abdicated king happy that his words are words again and not commands. “Most of the characters in that story were willing to die for what they believed in. It’s a good bet that, given the choice, they’d be willing to suffer what they suffered in the book if it would insure that you in the real world don’t make the same mistakes.”

  Bridger nodded, not the acceptance of a man convinced, but of a child willing to accept the answers of his elders until he has time to test things for himself.

  “Is Thisbe here?” I asked.

  The boy wiped his nose on his sleeve, then pretended he hadn’t. “Thisbe went to go meet that sensayer, Carlyle. They’re coming again.”

  “Good. Did you like talking to them before?”

  “No. But it was all right after.”

  I frowned down at him. “Did you not like Carlyle?”

  “I like Carlyle.” He smiled his cherub’s smile. “But I didn’t like what we had to talk about. This time I want to talk about something happier.”

  I held his eyes. “Bridger, Carlyle’s job is helping you talk about things that are hard.”

  “I know.” He flopped onto his side, winding me accidentally. “I guess we can talk about hard things. We can talk about sad books that make me mad.”

  I smoothed his hair. “You should talk to Carlyle about what you said to me before, how sometimes you get mad when bad things happen in real life too, the same way you get mad at the authors of sad books. Carlyle can tell you about philosophers who talked about that too.”

  “About getting mad?”

  “About thinking about the world the same way you think about a book. There were some philosophers called Determinists, who sometimes talked about the creator of the universe as being like the Author of a Great Scroll, where all the events of history are written out—the Author of the world.”

  “Did the Deternists…”

  “Determinists,” I corrected.

  “Determinists, did the Determinists also get mad at God for choosing to make the world a sad book?”

  “Some of them did, but others said God had a reason for writing a sad book, just like Victor Hugo did, or that the book only seems sad because we’re in the middle of it, but if you read the whole thing start to finish you’d see a happy ending. Carlyle can tell you more.”

  He smiled. It was good to know that Bridger could smile at the prospect of facing a near-stranger. “I like happy endings better.”

  I smoothed his hair once more. “Is Mommadoll here?”

  “I’m here. Have some cookies.”

  “Yay!”

  The boy picked the finest specimens from her tray of mud pies, which transformed to steaming gingerbread as they passed through his hands to mine. Mommadoll is tenderness itself, thirty centimeters tall, with rosy cheeks, bright glassy eyes, golden curls, and a permanent smile. Her tiny fingers are as adorable as an infant’s until you touch them and realize that their childish thickness comes from the calluses of a decade’s toil, and her apron is cheery with colorful patches when you do not think about the rips and stains beneath. I have caught her sweating as she fights to hoist a roast chicken twice her weight, or blistered to bleeding as she battles real-world cobwebs with her doll-sized broom. No human being can live without complaining even once, but she is a child’s mad ideal, far beyond human.

  “Are they yummy?” Mommadoll asked, watching me with her too-bright eyes.

  “Yes!”

  “I’ve made some for the Major, too, see them?”

  “Mmm!” His mouth already full, the boy grabbed the pill-sized cookies from the plate’s edge and passed them down.

  The Major accepted. “Thank you.”

  “I’ll have milk for the cookies in a moment, you boys just hold on.”

  “That’ll have to wait. We need you here for this.” The Major straightened in his seat.

  Mommadoll reached up, and at that signal Bridger lifted her and nestled her between his chest and mine. She is warm under that frilly skirt, precariously warm like an infant whose new heat might wink out like a candle. “What’s up?”

  The Major’s silence forced me to go first. “We don’t know for sure yet, but we need to get ready in case we need to leave here soon.”

  Bridger spat cookie in my eye. “Leave?”

  “I’m sorry. It’s possible some strangers may search this area soon. We have to be ready to evacuate in case they come.”

  I could hear the other soldiers’ mutters, soft as the skittering of insects, as they gathered in a nearby little turret.

  “Strangers like Carlyle?” Bridger asked.

  I shook my head. “Dangerous strangers. Bad things are happening in Thisbe’s bash’. People are coming there, and may come here. We need to pack up your most important things into just a few bags so you and I can carry them.”

  “And Thisbe,” the boy corrected. “You and me and Thisbe.”

  The Major shook his head. “No. If there are police and press involved, we won’t be able to see Thisbe for a while.”

  “But—”

  “Bridger.” Mommadoll stroked his cheek with her doll fingers, “Remember, what’s most important is that you stay safe. Nothing else matters. Right, Mycroft?”

  Still in Victor Hugo’s spell, I choked a moment, thinking of what parents do for children. For how many generations have we had no soldiers anymore, no patriots, no proselytes, no causes to die for? Only our children.

  “Absolutely,” I answered. “Bridger’s safety comes first. I know Thisbe agrees. It won’t be long until it’s safe again, and we can see Thisbe all we want, but so long as Thisbe’s being examined by the police we can’t risk it, and so long as there are people searching around the bash’house we have to be ready to run.”

  Hands almost man-sized c
lutched my shirt. “But you’ll still be here, right, Mycroft? You can come?”

  I was so glad to say the words, “Of course.” I stroked his hair. “No one can follow me.” For that power, still mine, I thanked the distant makers of the Gyges Device.

  “Okay, I’ll do my best to pack.” He gave his strongest smile. “How bad will it be if they catch me?”

  Only the Major could face that question with a chuckle. “Not as bad as Croucher says. We have a plan. Our Mycroft Canner knows a lot of powerful people, people who can intervene and protect us if need be. Canner, have you picked one yet? Which would be best to go to? The Censor, Vivien Ancelet? He’s got resources enough but no ambition, and he’s Hiveless so it would keep Bridger out of the hands of any one Hive.”

  I closed my eyes, using Bridger’s warmth to steel myself. “When that time comes, it will be J.E.D.D. Mason.”

  “I knew it!” Thisbe’s voice burst through the plastic sheeting, and the witch herself an instant after. “You do know J.E.D.D. Mason, I knew you did! You wouldn’t admit it, but I could tell, the way you look at your feet whenever you hear that name. Tell me everything you know about them, Mycroft, and I mean everything, right now!”

  She was in her house robe, her boots half-unclasped, with a pale and harried Carlyle Foster trembling in her wake.

  “What’s happened?” the Major asked at once.

  Since Thisbe’s broken explanation will not satisfy you, reader, I shall loop back now, and give my best account of the encounter of that morning, which, like an eclipse, was always coming, yet still makes us quake inside when we see the cosmic clockwork plunge day into night.

  CHAPTER THE SIXTEENTH

  Thou Canst Not Put It Off Forever, Mycroft

  I was not there, but those who were testify that it began as a peaceful morning, sleepy after the holiday. The sky was a vivid overcast, white as a canvas against which the endless flocks of Cielo de Pájaros soared tauntingly: you claim, humans, to have mastered the skies, but you race through them on your busy way, while we, we play.

  Cato’s voice when he calls from his room is usually too soft even to be called a whisper. “¿Is it safe?” Like good Humanists, they would have spoken Spanish here at home, which I approximate.

  Eureka lay, as ever, sprawled on the floor in the shadow of the Mukta prototype, ancestress of the lifeblood of our world.

  “¿What about Cardie?”

 

  “¿Ockham?”

 

  “¿Does Thisbe have their boots on?”

 

  Envision Cato Weeksbooth sticking his toe out first, as if testing the water, then, feeling no burn, he sweeps into the hall. He is majestic in his way, the white lab coat billowing like a cape, his black hair full as a lion’s mane, though wild and stiff as if frazzled by electrocution. He is not a Mad Scientist. Heartless reality does not grant humans the lifespan necessary to master every specialty of science, so no one genius in his secret lab can really bring robots, mutants, and clones into the world at his mad whim—it takes a team, masses of funds, and decades. But one man can love all sciences, even if he cannot wield them, and he can inspire children with the model of the mad genius, even if he cannot live it. Doctor Cato Weeksbooth is a Mad Science Teacher, who spends what hours are not required by the Mukta system at his dear museum plunged in the ecstasy of Show and Tell. He has just enough of every discipline at his command to answer almost all the children’s questions, and what he does not know he urges them to grow up and discover for themselves. “I’m going to the museum.”

  “You’re on duty here in two hours.” Thisbe spends her empty mornings on the sofa by the window, staring at the sky over her chamomile.

  “Screw that.”

  “I’m not covering for you. I just had the night shift, I’m going to bed.”

  “Let Cardie cover it. They owe me after last night.”

  “Fair enough.”

 

  “I did piss my pants. ¿Where are my boots?”

  “There.” Thisbe pointed. “Mycroft cleaned them.”

  They stood in the corner, Cato’s own design, Griffincloth, which, when active, shows in an ever-changing cycle the bones, blood vessels, skeleton, or heat signature of feet, sometimes human, sometimes beast feet, or robotic feet, elastic hinges bending as the tendons would. What schoolbook could be better?

  Thisbe claims that Cato smiled, but Eureka, blind within the computer’s embrace, cannot corroborate. “¿When was Mycroft here?” he asked.

  “They just left. They say they’ll be around to help as much as possible until the threat is past.”

  “¿Then those two crazy sensayers are coming back?”

  Thisbe slurped her aromatic tea. “The two aren’t connected. Mycroft says Dominic Seneschal is a threat but Carlyle Foster is an ally.”

  “¿And you believe that?”

  “Yes. Carlyle’s a good one. Lesley and I were so impressed we invited Carlyle to come back today to meet with whichever of the twins we can catch, or you. You must have a session, Cato, it would do you good.”

  Cato must be careful latching his boots, to keep the cuffs of his hospital scrubs from catching in their seal. “No thanks.”

 

  Eureka recalls being startled as their brother stomped the floor in his rage. “¿How can all of you be over Esmerald already? ¡Eighteen years means something to me!”

  No one can recall what the women said here; perhaps nothing.

  “Anyway, I don’t think we should let Mycroft Canner be our judge of sensayers.”

  Thisbe came to my defense. “¿You want to know what Mycroft really said? They said that, if one believed in Providence, one might believe Carlyle was sent here to help prepare us for the coming dangers.”

  Cato answered as you would have, reader. “Mycroft shouldn’t talk that way. Neither should you.”

  Eureka resorts to shorthand when spooked by questions their computer cannot answer.

  “A great deal. Mycroft won’t admit it, but I think they’ve met this Dominic Seneschal before. They’re the worst kind of secret-sniffer, dangerous as they come, trust me. But Mycroft also doesn’t think Dominic’s behind this. Dominic’s a side effect, not the author. There’s no way to tell yet who’s targeting us, but whoever it is has significant resources and malevolent intent.”

  “¿Malevolent intent? That’s a good phrase to hear first thing in the morning.” See Sniper stumbling down the stairs now, eyes vacant as a zombie’s. This time of day he would probably have mustered the baggy shirt and moplike straw brown wig he wore at home to keep visitors and low-ranked guards from recognizing him, but he was not yet awake enough to achieve pants. “Morning, Thisbe. Morning, Eureka. Morning, murderer. ¿Did you enjoy the party last night?”

  Cato would not look at him. “I’m not speaking to you.”

  “It’ll be good publicity for the museum, throngs of kids.”

  Wordless, Cato hurried to the door, the winds of his lab coat brushing Sniper’s thighs with chill.

  “Ockham approved, you know.” Would Sniper here have sounded cold or smug? “It was necessary. We can’t afford to have the President not trust us.”

  “¡Never do anything like that again!”

  “¿Or what? ¿What will you do, huh?”

  What could Cato do? He hurled the door aside, eager to slam it behind him, but froze on the threshold, confronted with a figure there, about to knock. “Weichun?”

  I have not met the security captain who smiled from the doorstep, but she is Cat
o and Eureka’s cousin, so imagine Cato, but in a Humanist uniform, black to make the bright Olympic rings of its embroidered patches brighter. “Good morning, Cato. Everyone. We’ve had call for a security drill.”

  “Now?” Cato wriggled with the urge to bolt. “We just had one.”

  “I think the higher-ups want to triple check, after the break-in.”

  “Can I just—”

  “Good call,” Sniper cut in. “We’re right at shift change, so I’m not even on duty yet. A disruptive moment is the best time for a test.” Likely the living doll apologized with a roguish smile for his lack of pants, and likely the captain did not mind one jot. “07:17 local 11:17 UT, I’ll clock in now. Eureka, message Ockham and Lesley upstairs, let them know it’s a drill.”

 

  Thisbe dragged herself up off the couch. “I’ll head downstairs.”

  “Good. I’ll start the clock at 07:18 on my mark … Cato, you were here when the drill was called so here you stay.”

  “Fine!” Cato spun and stomped back to his lab in a huff that made even this obedience rebellion. “Test my security, my security is perfect…”

  Sniper smiled at Cato’s murmur, as at the sweet babbling of a toddler. “On my mark, then … Mark!”

  I have never seen the house spring into action, lights and sirens, bolting doors, the robots pouring forth from walls and corners like the wrathful march of ants. I have once seen from a distance the sudden blackening of the sky as the cars race in, guards upon guards, some in the city’s police uniforms of white and gray-blue, some in Humanist colors, a second wave in civvies, rushed in from beds and sofas in the surrounding tiers of bash’houses whose residents are proud to add their names to the roster of Mukta’s defenders. Ockham’s prophecies were sound: fifty guards in two minutes and three hundred in five, who joined the automated system and the few guards always on duty in the computers’ humming depths. Soon every room in the bash’house had a guard, and coordinated squads took up their places, each on its appointed tier of the computers which climbed down and down beneath the city’s depths, like the vast, true body of the iceberg, a glimpse of which will make the horror-stricken sailor dream of monsters. Troops filled the trench outside too, chatting, cheerful in their proud routine, but Thisbe had showed us where their perimeter falls, so we dug Bridger’s dwelling far beyond.