by Ada Palmer
“I don’t know. I destroyed it.”
“You must remember.”
“You can’t go, something horrible will happen.”
“You’re forgetting what I am, kid. If there’s another liberated human out there, they’re either my disciple or my rival. Either way, this is a challenge.”
“No! I don’t want Mycroft’s best friend to get hurt.”
“I’m going to track them down anyway, it’s just up to you whether it’s going to be fast and easy or whether I’m going to have to comb through this whole cave for hairs they left behind. Not everyone has our special shampoo.”
The child whimpered. “Please don’t. Let’s just hide and be safe.”
Saladin took a long breath. “Bridger, did you ever see the photos of the Mardi killings?”
“Some.”
“Did what this person did to Redder look familiar?”
The answer did not want to come. “It looked kind of like what Mycroft did to Senator Aeneas Mardi.”
“Exactly,” Saladin confirmed, “this is exactly what we did to Aeneas Mardi, cut for cut. It’s a re-creation. Bridger, how many imaginary friends do you have? Seventeen? Eighteen? This is a declaration of war. After the stabbing of Aeneas Mardi comes the sound and electricity torture of Laurel, then the guillotining, then feeding Leigh to the lions, then Chinese water torture on Jie, European water torture on Makenna, and by this schedule Geneva Mardi would already have been on the cross a few days.”
“No! No, they already have the others! Aimer, and Pointer, and Nostand, and Nogun, Nogun’s been missing for two days! They’re not imaginary, either, they’re already real!”
“Then tell me the address. Either one of us turns up there, or your friends die like the Mardi bash’. There are no other options.”
“Dominic Seneschal. Paris, the alley behind Chateau d’Arouet, [XX] boulevard [XXXX], 20:00.” It was not Bridger’s voice. It was the Major’s, rising from the coat at Saladin’s back, as if from the speakers of Bridger’s tracker.
Saladin would have liked the flavor of that voice. “Who are you?”
“Bridger’s very short-tempered guardian angel. Can you kill Seneschal?”
“If I can’t, no one can. I do like hunting hunters.”
“Don’t mess around. Take them from behind, a shot to the back, an ambush, anything that will score an instant, certain kill. We can’t have that kind of monster around Bridger.”
The hunter’s eyes narrowed. “I’m a torturer, not an assassin. I don’t kill prey until I’ve given them a proper taste of death’s epiphany.”
“This time you have to. There’s too much at stake. Kill Seneschal and I can find the hostages myself.”
“I’ll kill them, but I’ll kill them my own way.” Saladin started to climb the wreckage around the paint-smeared corpse. “I don’t take orders from angels.”
Bridger whimpered as he felt Saladin’s body tilt. “What are you doing?”
“Last rites. You don’t want to leave your friend like this.” Saladin gathered the paper guts and fed them gently ‘back’ into the ‘wound.’
“We can’t burn them here,” the Major warned. “The smoke will draw attention.”
“I know. But we can do more than nothing.” Laying the body gently on the floor, Saladin scraped a handful of dry earth and sprinkled it over the body, muttering a few words of Greek.
Bridger sniffed, trying not to drip again on Saladin’s shoulders. “Do you think Redder’ll be okay now? Do you think they’re off somewhere, okay?”
“No idea.” Saladin closed the coat around him now, so his passage through the plastic sheeting seemed like nothing but a breath of wind. “If you want to pray for them, try Hermes. Gotta figure Hermes likes imaginary friends.”
It isn’t easy to make the Major smile.
CHAPTER THE THIRTY-SECOND
That There Are Two
This History has two halves, reader, strange as it is that seven days should take two books to tell. But they were dense days, not just with events, but with inhabitants, many, different, like these wildflowers in the trench where all began. Here one stray footstep snaps many different plants, releasing different saps, and smells, and stirring up the insects hidden underneath. The surge is just beginning now, the armies of crawling life which swarm forth, as if born from the broken stems. You do not see their full numbers yet, but I hope I have, at least, shown you enough to realize that these first scouts you do see, like the others that will follow, were not born from the stems. These swarms, these changes, were all waiting in their sleepy tunnels, all with causes that you can now understand. You do not have to believe. You only have to believe that we believe, that I, that Dominic, that Carlyle who stumbled on so much, believe in Bridger, acted on that belief, and that we believe too in the second Thing that Providence placed in Carlyle’s path on this, the morning of the twenty-seventh, in that same fitting spot where, four days prior, he first saw Divinity reveal Itself. Perhaps you will not be satisfied. This last change I am about to show you is too subtle. You want politics, apocalypse. I will show you that, too, as an addendum, the scissors that can still beat paper, perhaps even our deceptive, one-piece house of cards. But if, this morning, Carlyle comes to Bridger’s trench once more, despite Ockham’s command, it is because Ockham, the cars, the Humanists, the theft, the Earth, are on a different scale. Not on the scale of miracles. Bridger is as much more important to Carlyle, as much more real, as your clothes, your friends, your problems, the floor beneath your feet are more real and more important to you than we and our problems of an age now passed. This is the true last chapter of this first half of my history, the last chapter for Carlyle, for me. Here we glimpse the full and concrete shape of the Intervention—still shadowed but a shape in darkness instead of just darkness, a form with edges, definition, so we may say with certainty ‘I saw Something’—the Intervention of Our Maker. The rest is merely what that Maker made.
“Bring ’em out! Bring out Mycroft Canner! We know you’re hiding them, you filthy shitsack Servicers!”
Sticks and stones were not to be found in the clean glass tiers of Cielo de Pájaros, but trash flew just as hard, raining down on the heads of the Servicers who cowered amid the grass and petals of Bridger’s flower trench. Their attackers were on the bridge above, five lamentably sober Humanists, who had pried open a garbage robot, baring yesterday’s deposits ready to burst and smear.
“Bring the monster out here or there’s a lot worse where this came from!”
I must say this first, reader: I am no Beggar King. My fellow Servicers have never considered me their leader. If some gather around me in the dorms it is because I am resourceful, and there are certain problems one does not take to the Cousins who are our babysitters. Criminals tend to have unfinished business, which often threatens the bash’es left behind. Many of these Servicers would have moved mountains in the past to save friends and family, but cannot anymore. I still can, begging favors from Madame or MASON when I dare, and when the need is great. So, when my need is great, the others are eager to give back.
A shout rallied the Servicers below: “Protect the food!”
Servicers have few things we can call precious, but a good meal justly earned is chief among them, so this picnic laid out on checked blankets on the grass was as worth fighting for as all the gold in Troy. They formed a makeshift wall, sheltering plates and platters with scraps from the dump, empty boxes, their uniforms, themselves, happy to accept a splatter if it would save a sandwich.
The attackers spat. “You’re gonna lose a lot more than your lunch if you don’t send Canner out! One call’s all it’ll take to have my whole crew down here, you’ll see what damage a rugby team can do!”
A leader stepped forth among the Servicers, bristling with rage, but nameless here thanks to Kosala’s censorship. “Look! We don’t know anything about Mycroft Canner!”
“Don’t give us that shit! The cops may be trying to cover it up, but the p
ictures are all over! Canner’s hiding out as a Servicer!”
What was once chili struck the Servicer’s shoulder, spattering rancid juice across her cheeks. “There are a couple hundred thousand Servicers worldwide! What makes you think we’d even know if it was true?”
The rot rain did not stop. “We’re not buying that! Canner had a whole pack of Servicers with them when they came back to finish off that Mardi survivor. You’re all in it together!”
Carlyle Foster rushed up behind the attackers now, his wrap and long scarf fluttering like silks around a fleeing nymph. His talk with Bryar Kosala the afternoon before had done much to revive his spirits, though he would have risen full of strength that day regardless, for March the twenty-seventh was sacred to Asclepius, Dionysus, Rama, the Bodhisattva Tara, the Egyptian powers Neteret Renenutet and Neter Nepri, and to St. Rupert of Salzburg, a day on which men honored their Creator in many ways in ages past, and still do today. The good Cousin charged in, ready to place a restraining hand on the nearest Humanist, but their last claim froze him. “There’s a Mardi survivor?”
The attackers turned, their anger ready to give way to scorn. “Where’ve you been, Cousin, Mars? It happened yesterday, the video’s all over. Tully Mardi’s the kid’s name, was addressing a crowd when in charges Mycroft Canner with a pack of Servicers. Good thing the kid recognized Canner or who knows what they’d have done!”
“Not that we’d expect you to care,” another added. “This is your fault.”
Carlyle drew back. “My fault?”
“You Cousins. Don’t try to tell me it wasn’t Bryar Kosala who kept the Emperor from putting that monster out of everybody’s misery. ‘Oh, Canner’s just a poor traumatized little orphan!’” he whined, mocking Kosala with a squeaky voice which sounded nothing like her, “‘We just need to be extra-nice to them and they’ll turn into a good boy!’”
Carlyle’s smile stayed serene. “Actually, Bryar Kosala doesn’t think that,” he corrected.
“What?”
“They don’t think that. I’ve talked to Chair Kosala personally about Mycroft Canner and Kosala had nothing to do with the decision not to kill them.”
“You talked to Bryar Kosala?” Fresh fire lit the mob’s eyes. “Then it’s true! Kosala knew! Do all the Cousins know? You’ve been covering it up, haven’t you!”
“No! No! Nobody knows! I know because … I’m Mycroft Canner’s sensayer.” See how ably our Carlyle lies? “I’m not their regular sensayer, though,” he backpedaled quickly, “but I get called in sometimes.”
“Their sensayer?”
“How long have you known?” the hoodlums asked at once.
“What’s your name, Cousin?”
“Who made the decision? Who kept Canner alive?”
“Was it the Utopians? We saw them save Canner in the video.”
“How’d they get the Emperor to agree?”
They surrounded Carlyle, the trash in their hands far less menacing than the hands themselves.
Carlyle seemed surprised himself at his answer. “I don’t know.”
“Bullshit, Cousin!” One of them seized a fistful of Carlyle’s hair.
“I mean it. I didn’t realize it until now, but the whole time Kosala was telling me how they didn’t make the decision to spare Mycroft Canner, they never told me who actually did. I don’t know. I should know!”
“Don’t give us that crap. You know. You’re just trying to…”
“Hey up there!” the lead Servicer called from the trench, cupping garbage-spattered hands into a makeshift megaphone. “I thought you might like to know I called the police! They’ll be here in about one minute, so I’d run if I were you! If you leave now we’ll tell them a dog knocked the trash bot over, but if you stay, assault on Servicers, plus wrecking a public robot, plus harassing that Cousin, plus trying to force a sensayer to break vows, that’s going to be one fat old fine!”
“Shit, they’re right!” The skies were suddenly the enemy as the little mob searched for the falcon-streaks of cop cars.
“Book it!”
“You got lucky this time, Servicer shitsacks!”
“Bring the Cousin!”
“Leave the Cousin, they’ll track them.”
“Take a picture, we can find them later.”
The troop stunned Carlyle with a camera flash, then bolted.
Watching the troublemakers run, leaving their fingerprints on the robot and their signatures stamped on the pavement by their Humanist boots, not a few of the Servicers laughed at the amateurs.
“Hey, sensayer,” the Servicer leader called up, “you’d better be more careful what you say about Mycroft Canner or you’re going to have mobs after you too!”
Carlyle leaned over the bridge’s rail, gasping as he saw the Servicers clustered barely ten paces outside the plastic flaps of Bridger’s cave. “What are you doing down there? That’s a private yard!” Actually, it wasn’t, but one tended to forget that the ever-empty public garden of the flower trench did not belong to its young master and his toys.
“We’re here on a job. Come on down, I’ll show you.”
“Shouldn’t I wait here for the police?”
All below laughed.
“The police aren’t coming. That was what we in the business call a big fat lie. That makes us both liars, doesn’t it?” The Servicer leader winked. “Everyone knows Mycroft only sees European Doria-Pamphili. Isn’t that right, Cousin Foster?”
Carlyle tensed. “You know who I am?”
The Servicer grinned, like one who’s just revealed a good poker hand. “It wasn’t hard to guess. It’s okay, people, that’s the sensayer Mycroft said might come, the good one, not the evil one. Now let’s get the picnic cleaned up and see what we’ve lost.”
The other Servicers snapped to it, fifteen of them, their dappled uniforms making them look like boars around a watering hole as they bunched over their banquet.
“Then you do know Mycroft Canner!” Carlyle rushed down the stairway.
The Servicer leader met him at the bottom. “Of course. Who else do you think called us here, the Tooth Fairy?” A hat, that is how one could spot the leader, the only hat among the bunch, a cloth cap, black in this case, round with a small brim in the front and a central button. It is an unofficial uniform which sprang up somehow as those closest to me began to be regarded with some fraction of the reverence I receive from my peers; I do not have the right to discourage it.
Carlyle started with the obvious: “Where’s Mycroft now?”
The Servicer Captain shrugged. “Stuck somewhere is what they said, but off the streets, safe. I’m supposed to tell you that a kid called Bridger has been moved to a safe house, but they’re fine, and have all their important toys with them.”
You wonder, reader, how I sent word if I am trapped without my tracker? She will not override Dominic’s orders, but no nun can resist a sinner pleading on his knees for her to help him make a single call.
“What are you doing here?” Carlyle asked.
“Mycroft asked us to box this stuff up.” The Captain pointed to a pile of crates, which the Servicers were loading into a car, like bees filling a comb. “It’s an amazing collection.”
Carlyle peered into a box, finding fifty plastic action figures packed with care within.
“This cave’s all packed, but the other is taking longer.” A slop-spattered elbow pointed up-trench, where a newly trampled road ran past Bridger’s cave another fifty meters to a second entrance concealed within the walls.
“A second cave?” Carlyle repeated.
“There’s a lot more packing left to do if you’d care to help. Mycroft also said to warn you that the evil sensayer Dominic is planning to kidnap and rape you, so you should stick with us to stay safe.”
Carlyle chewed on that one for a moment. “Can you take me to Bridger?”
The Captain smiled. “Sorry, Cousin. Safe houses are only safe if you don’t leave a trail to them.”
“Please, it’s important!”
“No can do. You hungry? There’s plenty to go around.”
There was indeed, for their efforts had not been in vain: the picnic survived, burgers and hot dogs, cookies and pies, chips and salads, jellybeans irregular like pebbles, chocolate truffles round as if hand-rolled, mad layered cakes four and five tiers tall, and fruits of every color heaped in mounds as if by a miserly monkey. Drinks stood ready too, bottle upon bottle of the rarest juices and colored sodas, all dutifully labeled, and not a few of them misspelled.
The Servicer Captain laughed as Carlyle gaped. “Look at that fruit, almost too beautiful to be real, isn’t it?
Carlyle laughed to himself, a silent, breathy laugh. “Yes, perfect. The perfect power to feed the Servicers.”
“What?”
Carlyle waved the ‘what’ away. “I thought you were only allowed to accept food for work.”
“We are working. Mycroft knows we’d work for them for nothing, but they always leave a spread. So, how’d you get lucky enough to have our Mycroft looking after you, too?”
Carlyle took an unhappy breath. “Do you really all know Mycroft Canner? All the Servicers know?”
The Captain’s eyes, better than most at reading men, grew narrow. “Off the record?”
“Off the record,” Carlyle confirmed.
“If you’ve met Mycroft then you know it doesn’t take a genius to realize there’s something special under there. No one knew what at first, but with time we figured it out. There are signs.”
“Yes. Yes, it would have to come out sometime.”
“Not every one of us has actually met Mycroft,” the Servicer Captain continued. “Everyone knows, though. It’s amazing how many people can keep a secret when they know the whole world will turn into an angry mob if it gets out. You know one died this morning.”
“One what?”
“A Servicer the mob mistook for Mycroft. I’m sure there’d have been more deaths but we’ve practiced for this, moving in groups, handling crowds. The administration didn’t think to plan for our protection if word got out, but Mycroft did.”