Too Like the Lightning (34 page)

“We needed help,” the Major continued, “a full-sized adult who could move things, and get us things, so I decided to draft Mycroft.”

“Draft them?” Astonishment swept Carlyle's face.

The Major laughed. “I don't mix well with civilians. But I'll never forget what Mycroft first said when I said I was going to draft him: ‘Have you ever read the
Recollections
of Alexis de Tocqueville?'”

I smiled, remembering the Major's face back then, my tiny captor, sternness brightening to relief, recognition, eventually to delight as I explained myself, my Tocqueville. He wasn't happy because of the revelation itself, but because of how I explained it, my literary roundabout, my subtle, weaving words. That was the moment the Major discovered what I am. I could have lied. I could have given my captor an unreserved “yes” and stayed silent about any division of my loyalty. I did not.

“Tocqueville wrote a memoir of living through a French revolution,” the Major explained, just as I had explained it to him eight years ago and fifteen yards away. “Not the main one, the 1848 one. In one section Tocqueville describes his valet. The valet wanted to join the revolution, but was also dutiful, and loyal to his master. Every day the valet would come home from fighting, clean Tocqueville's shoes, brush his suit, prepare the room, then beg his master's leave and head back to the barricades for a few hours to risk his life again.” He nodded to me. “For Mycroft, minding Bridger is the barricades. Apparently J.E.D.D. Mason is the master.”

Thisbe loomed over me. “Is that right?”

The truth caught in my throat a moment. “Y-es.”

“Why?”

I glanced at Carlyle, so innocent of who sits before him, so calm and kind without knowing the surname ‘Canner.' “I can't explain.”

“Which basically means you're not objective on any question about J.E.D.D. Mason!” Thisbe accused. “You won't even answer a basic question like why they act like a crazy cultist.”

I looked down at my hands. “I believe it is possible to be simultaneously biased and right. I work for…” The Major's eyes demanded truer words. “I serve J.E.D.D. Mason. I do. I always will. I also, separately from that, believe that we can trust J.E.D.D. Mason better than anyone who isn't standing here right now. They are a good Person, Good, honest, kind, trustworthy, and keep Their promises more absolutely than anyone I've ever known. And They're unambitious. They have all the wealth and power anyone could want, the trust of every leader on Earth. They have nowhere to rise, no side to help. There is no better Being in the world. Believe me. There isn't. Possibly there never has been. They wouldn't exploit Bridger. They'd move sky and Earth to find the way to best help Bridger use their powers for the good of all humanity. That's why I want to keep Bridger away from Them for now, because They're so good and so kind, They couldn't keep from pressuring Bridger to move too fast, to take on too much.” I squeezed the child in my arms. “A kid shouldn't have to face that much pressure. You saw how They tried to help that traitor security captain, They weren't being manipulative, They were being kind. Kind and too much, trying to help, but They pushed too hard, made things uncomfortable. They're always like that. It takes a lot to learn to handle being near Them. Once Bridger has their own plan of what they want to do first with their powers, once Carlyle”—I pointed—“helps Bridger get ready to change the world, then we should go straight to J.E.D.D. Mason, and They'll make sure Bridger gets the best support the world can give. But J.E.D.D. Mason is too powerful and clumsy to be endured by anybody fragile. I don't mean powerful politically, but personally. You saw what talking to Them was like. They speak only Truth, and do only Good, and They don't know how to mitigate it the way people do. Someday, Bridger, you'll be ready for that, more than ready.” I gave the child a squeeze, and felt stronger addressing him, who trusted me, than Thisbe, whose glare stayed black. “And when you are, you and J.E.D.D. Mason will make the whole world so impossibly much better. But only when you decide it's time.”

I was grateful, during my ramble, that they listened patiently, but even when I finished they still waited, quiet, thinking on this Stranger, His presence, the many facets of Him I can only call ‘too much.'

Thisbe spoke first. “Tell me where J.E.D.D. Mason came from, Mycroft. Why did Cornel MASON adopt this particular kid? I know it was done in infancy. Whose child were they?” She tried to grasp me by the hair, but I pulled away, so she had to lean far down to force my eyes to meet hers. “Are the rumors true? Is J.E.D.D. Mason really Hotaka Andō Mitsubishi's bastard child?”

“Oh, right!” Carlyle cried. “I'd heard that once. I thought it was just gossip.”

Still Thisbe leaned close. “In person they do look a little Japanese. Is this some weird alliance between the Masons and the Japanese Mitsubishi? They even say MASON helped Andō get the Chief Director's chair.”

I took a deep breath. I took several. “To say there is an alliance of that kind is not untrue. I can't really say more. I have to go.”

“Mycroft.” Her eyes turned gentle. “Nothing is more important than—”

Like a squeal of electronic pain, my tracker's emergency siren rang out, making Thisbe jump back and the Major draw his tiny, flashing blade.

“Is this coming through?” Harsh as bad music, the voice of Censor Ancelet burst out of the speaker of my tracker for all to hear. “Look, I don't know who's there, but the Servicer in front of you happens to be the one of the best statistical analysts on the planet, and right now you have them ignoring a priority-one call from the Romanovan Censor's office for an urgent analysis which has to be done yesterday, so unless whatever you're doing is more important than the economic future of the human race, would you kindly call a car and make them get their butt to Romanova and leave the odd jobs to people who can't save the world?”

Thisbe went slack-jawed. You would not think she could know me nearly a decade without learning what work I did, especially since you, who just met me, know already. But to you, demanding reader, I reveal all, while I hide what I can from friends, to keep them safer. As for Carlyle, if your eyes are sharp, reader, you may now catch, in his too-blue eyes, a glint of something darker than surprise.

“Can the Censor hear us?” Bridger mouthed.

“Only me,” I mouthed back, then spoke aloud for the tracker, “I'll be along ASAP, Censor. I promise … Yes, I really mean it, I promise…” I waited for Vivien to disconnect. “There. They're gone.”

“Was that really the Romanovan Censor's office?” Thisbe asked, almost agape.

“That was the Censor themself,” I clarified. “And before you ask, no, I can't discuss my work in Romanova, just as I can't discuss my work for J.E.D.D. Mason, just as you can't tell me the details of what you and Cato do for your own bash'.” I tried to let my features show my honesty. “Don't make me lie to you, Thisbe. I can't tell you the truth about this, so either I say nothing or you force me to lie.”

“I understand.” The Major answered. I looked down at him, leaned forward to try to read his tiny features, but it is nearly impossible to read the subtleties of brow and cheeks on a face a centimeter high. His voice communicated more: intentionally gentle, restraining that commanding roar which rises like distant thunder behind even his calmest words.

Bridger scooted forward off my lap. “You have to go now.”

“No, I don't.”

His eyes grew round as spoons. “But…”

“Bridger, you
are
more important than the economic future of the human race.”

All at once and heedless of his weight, Bridger leapt back upon me with the fiercest hug I can remember. “I trust you, Mycroft. I don't care about Tocqueville or J.E.D.D. Mason. I trust you, and I know you never tell me what to do except when it really, really matters, and if you have to go you have to go, so go. You'll come back.” Small fingers squeezed my flesh. “You always come back.”

I held him. For breath upon breath I held him, and let him hold me. He trusted me. In this circumstance, when I was powerless to do anything but beg them to believe, I didn't have to beg. It didn't matter that Thisbe's eyes stayed dark. It didn't matter that worry wrinkled Carlyle's brow, that down in the dollhouse Private Croucher's mumbling was starting up again. Bridger trusted me. He trusted me despite my strangeness and my silences, despite the others' doubts. And better yet, he trusted himself, his judgment, over theirs. He was so young, our precious protagonist, and yet already starting to trust himself.

I will not endure this pretense, Mycroft,
you object.
I have indulged thy many eccentricities, thy ‘he's and ‘she's, thy titles, Patriarch, Philosophe, thy recurrent madness calling Thisbe ‘witch,' I have even let thee honor J.E.D.D. Mason with the divine ‘He,' but thou canst not ask me to call this boy, who has barely raised his head here in thy tale, ‘protagonist.' In a history it is absurd to call anyone ‘protagonist,' but if thou must, it should be one who acts, and understands, who drives the story forward. Bridger is not that.

Must we have this argument, reader?

We must, Mycroft. Thou takest too many liberties, thou who claimst to be my servant and my guide. Thou forcest upon me this opinion, biased by love, or, I suspect, by something baser, for thou, self-described pervert, hast painted this boy, this angel, a bit too sensually at times. Read thine own words and see the cause of my distrust.

I take no offense, my wary reader. I know it is hard to believe that Mycroft Canner would not harbor lust for Bridger, or for Thisbe, Sniper, Danaë, or Ganymede, the many beasts and beauties with whom I have such easy contact. Later the tale will prove my innocence. But I must have a protagonist. I struggle to open history's inner doors to you, to teach you how those who made this new era think and feel. In my age we have come anew to see history as driven not by DNA and economics, but by man. And woman. And so must you.

Then have a protagonist if thou must, but not Bridger, the least active actor in thy drama.

Who would you have, then, master?

Why not this sensayer, Carlyle Foster? He has appeared more, seen more. He is intelligent, respectable, his opinions not too strange, his view an outsider's, like mine.

No, reader. A protagonist must struggle, succeed, fail. His fate must determine whether this is comedy or tragedy. Carlyle would make our history too like the plays of Oedipus, whose audience just waits for the protagonist to learn of sins long past.

J.E.D.D. Mason, then, whom thou holdest in such mad esteem?

You do not yet know enough, reader, to speak His name.

Fine, then. I accuse thee, Mycroft. Thou art the protagonist of thine own history, as all men are, as I am protagonist of the world which I experience. In my mind I have called thee protagonist from the first page, thou who art omnipresent in thy tale, and who walkest the corridors of Power so familiarly. How couldst thou not be thine own protagonist?

I smile at the compliment, generous reader, but you are wrong. I have told you, the protagonist must determine whether this is comedy or tragedy. Surely the boy whose powers can reshape the universe itself will determine that, not this tired slave, a tool for others' use, whose days of independent action are long done. I am the window through which you watch the coming storm. He is the lightning.

There were some mumbled partings as I left for Romanova, reassuring Bridger of my return, the Major of my fidelity, and Carlyle and Thisbe … I remember only stiffness, my shame as I slunk past them, unable to make myself look up at the faces which held such well-justified suspicions. I should have said something, met their accusing eyes and begged forgiveness for my necessary silence. J.E.D.D. Mason is not the only clumsy one, reader. I should have said something. Anything. Anything that might have stopped what Thisbe did ten minutes later, back in her room, with Carlyle in tow.

“Eureka, could you help me a minute?” She asked it over her tracker, but spoke aloud in English for the Cousin's sake.

“Can you use your transit logs to track J.E.D.D. Mason?”

“Thanks. I'm looking for their most frequently visited addresses, home and such. And cross-reference with Dominic Seneschal and Martin Guildbreaker. I think they may be bash'mates. I just want to make sure there's no security problem, or conflict of interest.”

Imagine Carlyle's wide eyes, his trembling lips. “Should we be doing this?” he whispers.

Thisbe mouths back the unassailable excuse, “For Bridger's safety.”

Thisbe's dark brows arch with intrigue. “What does that mean?”

“You have Utopian records too, don't you?”

“Great. What are the most frequent addresses?”

“Those all sound like work addresses. Anything that isn't work?”

I censor His address here, reader, though I could not hide it from Thisbe.