Too Like the Lightning (44 page)

“Do Utopians ever reject an application to join the Hive?” He asked.

Aldrin exchanged nervous glances with Voltaire, or seemed to. “Not that I've heard of. We can check, if you like, Mike.”

“Sic fiat. Rapide quam experiatur theoriam Martinus habet. (Let it be so. Martin has a theory quickly to be tested.)” Then, for Utopia, He translated Himself: “Tomorrow suffices.”

The Utopians looked to me in their confusion, but, like them, I could not then understand the purpose of His question. I think, knowing more now, that he asked it for Martin, that at that moment Martin's Master had invited him to listen over His tracker to hear our words. More meat for the investigation.

“Caesar?” An aid intruded. “The Reservation Oversight Commission is waiting in the August Room.”

“I come.” MASON looked to me, his face as grim as those archaic statues carved before Greece learned to sculpt a smile. “Tomorrow will not do for me. You may eat now, Mycroft. You may sleep when I am done with you.” At Mason's nod, a guard rolled a prepackaged sandwich across the table, which slid off to plop at my feet within its plastic shroud.

Voltaire's digital eyes followed me as I knelt to take the food, though I cannot guess what expression truly lay beneath the vizor. “Be careful not to exhaust Mycroft, Caesar. They owe us, too.”

 

C
HAPTER THE
TWENTY-SECOND

Mycroft Is Mycroft

Bridger crossed his arms, his small hands snuggling in the looseness of his play-stained sleeves. “Reading that stuff is only making you more mad.”

Anger tears had made Carlyle's eyes red around the lenses, which shimmered with the records of my deeds. He lay in the grass-and-blossom bedding of the flower gully, facing Thisbe's door. “Sometimes it's correct to be mad.”

“Why?” The child's chirp matched the singing of the night's insects.

“Because if I don't have the pictures in front of me, I can't believe a human being really did those things. To make a list of all the nastiest ways to kill somebody and to go through systematically, it…”

Bridger sniffed. “I know it was the worst thing anybody's ever done. But that was then Mycroft. Now Mycroft is different.”

Carlyle let the glitter of the computer leave his eyes. “People have done much worse things in the past, but that sort of thing doesn't happen anymore. We were supposed to be past that.”

Bridger settled in the grass beside Carlyle, gazing up into the strip of Chile's stunning stars above the gully. “You remember back then?”

“Everyone remembers.”

He fidgeted with a dry stem. “What do you remember especially? The photos Mycroft took of Ibis Mardi? I haven't seen them but I know.”

Carlyle shuddered. “I remember the first one most, when they found Senator Aeneas Mardi.”

Bridger nodded. “That was the one Mycroft stabbed to death on the Ides of March, like Julius Caesar?”

“And left the body on the Altar of Peace in Romanova. That's how it started.” The sensayer hugged himself within his wrap. We refuse to call them dresses, these ‘wraps' that flow around the knees and ankles, tempting one to peek at what lies hidden. But if they are not feminine, why do only Cousins wear them? “I was in Romanova then, studying. I walked by the Altar of Peace every day. I didn't see the body, but I saw the blood, I actually saw it, spattered all over inside of the little shrine. It looked like someone painted red holly berries on the flower garlands carved in the stone, and the basin on the altar was full of blood, all the Nobel Peace Prize medals drenched in it like pancakes in strawberry syrup. Two hundred and nineteen. I remember the news said the killer intentionally sloshed the medals around to make sure the blood got on all two hundred and nineteen.”

“Two hundred and nineteen?”

“That's how many years it had been since they stopped giving out the Peace Prize. All the remnants of the Church War were dealt with more than two hundred years ago, so nowadays they just put the medals on the Altar of Peace every year to commemorate another year of peace.” Carlyle hid behind his hair. “That year they almost shouldn't have.”

Boo settled down between the pair, offering warmth and wagging.

“Were you studying at the Gurai Senseminary or the McKay Institute?” Bridger smirked at Carlyle's astonishment. “I've been looking at Campuses. I'm leaning toward Romanova too. There are really good craft and design schools, so I can learn to make toys of things I imagine, plus lots of philosophy and theology. I need that.”

“Yes, you do.”

“Plus Mycroft is in Romanova all the time for work, so they can keep an eye out for me. I've been studying for it too, learning about normal life, and Mycroft takes me to Cato's Junior Scientists Club, so I can learn how to make friends, and have a bash' someday.”

Carlyle's face warmed for a moment, but only a moment. “Mycroft Canner wants you to have a bash'? You know it wasn't strangers Mycroft Canner killed, right? It was their foster-bash'.”

“It wasn't their foster-bash'!” Bridger snapped. “Mycroft was fostered by the Terrafirma bash', which was two doors down from the Mardi bash, and you don't know more about Mycroft from seeing a lot of news reports and icky photos than I do from talking to Mycroft every day for years and years.”

Carlyle smiled weakly at the ferocity in Bridger's eyes. “That's true, but I know different things.”

Now it was Bridger's turn to hug his knees. “Maybe.”

“Mycroft Canner charmed everyone in the Mardi bash', spent time there, got everyone to think of them like an unofficial member, just like Thisbe and their bash'mates have here. That's how Mycroft Canner works, they trick people into thinking of them as family.”

“It's different. They're safe now. They wouldn't do anything. Plus the police watch Mycroft all the time. Sometimes Mycroft can't come see me for days and days because they're watching too close. You saw they had to slip their tracker just to come tonight.”

Carlyle almost laughed, the stage beyond tears. “That just means Mycroft can still slip their tracker. If they can do it to come help you, they can do it for other reasons.”

Boo's whine made Bridger peer more closely at the sensayer. “You're shaking.”

Carlyle looked at his hands. “I'm sorry, I … it was just very important Mycroft Canner being … gone. Mycroft Canner was a tragic, horrible thing that happened, but it was over. The world wasn't like that.”

“I thought lots of people liked Mycroft. There's the fans, and photo books, and Canner Beat, and there was just another movie. Thisbe said it was pretty good.”

Carlyle gagged. “Those people are sick, Bridger. And there are fewer and fewer of them. We're healing. Mycroft Canner was on a Seven-Ten list in 2441, but never after that. The scars were healing. It's different when you know the monster is still here.”

“Mycroft's not a monster!” Bridger rose, burying his arms in the folds of his wrap. “I have to pack. You can come inside and help me clean up and talk, or you can sit there and be wrong. It's up to you.”

The sensayer could not accept option two. “How can I help?”

“Can you fold clothes?”

“Yes.”

“Come in, then.”

A quick jog up the flower bed and Carlyle ducked the plastic sheeting to find the cave in ruins, shelves bare, mattress gutted, every possession strewn across the floor.

“You can pick the clothes out and fold them. Put them there.” Bridger pointed to a bookcase near the entrance, standing almost straight. “The soldiers are out on patrol, so you don't have to worry about stepping on them.”

“Oh. Right.” Carlyle dared not admit he had forgotten.

“You shouldn't be mad at Mycroft anyway, not you. You're a Cousin. Cousins are supposed to forgive everybody.”

Carlyle's voice grew light, distracted. “That's the stereotype.”

“Mycroft said at the trial it was Bryar Kosala who kept bringing up how this was society's fault for not doing more to help a kid who'd been through all that.” Bridger paused to huff and puff as he tugged at a blanket wedged between shards of desk. “That's how Cousins are supposed to think.”

Cousin:
“We all feel better telling ourselves Mycroft Canner was just a trauma victim, that a monster like that can only happen in the incredibly improbable circumstance of a bash' house exploding and killing every member except an eight-year-old kid who has to recover alone from being blown almost limb from limb. Of course Mycroft Canner went nuts, if we just take better care of traumatized orphans from now on this'll never happen again. That way we don't have to admit that a human being actually chose to do…” Tears seized Carlyle again, sapping his strength as he struggled with a fallen bookcase. “But it was so premeditated. There's never been a crime so premeditated. Mycroft Canner spent years learning languages just to make it easier to deceive their victims. That's not lashing out at random, that's…”

“Mycroft can't anymore.”

“Can't what?”

“Can't kill. The Major says Mycroft lost it.” Bridger took a chunk of dollhouse in his arms. “The Major can tell. The Major said a skeptic can't be a killer. And they made Mycroft a Servicer, and all the Hive leaders know, do you think they're all wrong too?”

A deep breath. “Mycroft Canner is very good at deceiving people.”

“The Major's killed people too, in the war, lots and lots of people. Are you going to say the Major's bad now too?”

“That's different.”

“No it's not!” Bridger's wrath set Boo's blue fur bristling. “The army men are people too! Just because they're toys you can't say killing them doesn't count!”

“No, no, I didn't mean that. They're people, I respect that. But war is different. War is for something, at least in people's minds. Mycroft killed for … art, for fun, killing for the sake of killing, evil for the sake of evil.” A fast sob. “I remember, whenever a new member of the bash' would disappear, people would start to place bets what the killer would do this time, vivisection, immolation. People enjoyed it, thinking like … Mycroft's goal was to make the world worse. That's evil.”

“Yes.”

That caught Carlyle off guard. “Yes what?”

“Yes, it's evil. But you said the world was getting better, people were thinking like that less. So, same for Mycroft. They were caught, they changed, they got better.”

The Cousin gave a scornful snort. “So one day they're happily vivisecting Mercer Mardi and the next—boom!—cured? Impossible.”

Bridger faced him across the dollhouse wreckage. “Miracles are impossible.”

“That's different.”

“Why?”

“It's…” I give the Gag-gene credit for pausing to try to find a real answer. “You create things, Bridger, you don't make people into different people.”

“You should talk to Mycroft, you'll see how different they are.”

A shudder. “I don't want to be in a room with Mycroft Canner.”

“Call on Mycroft's tracker, dummy!” Bridger was too young for his brow to really furrow in anger, but he did his best. “It's better to try to find stuff out than to sit around and be wrong! Someone needs to drag you with a flashlight.”

“What?”

“When I was little I was scared of the noises from the trash mine, I thought there was a monster in there. Eventually I told the Major, and the army men got a flashlight and made me look. I didn't want to but they dragged me over, and it was just the robots there, no monster. Then I wasn't scared anymore. Someone needs to drag you with a flashlight and make you look at Mycroft Canner.”

“Knock, knock!” called Thisbe through the plastic sheeting. “Are you kids playing nice?”

Bridger had a smile for Thisbe. “Did you get rid of Ockham?”

“Yes, they're off filing paperwork. And you, Carlyle, have a lot of documentation to read.”

“Why didn't you tell me that was Mycroft Canner?” Carlyle asked flatly.

Thisbe summoned her best false smile. “Bridger, sweetheart, it's much too late for you to be up. Mommadoll's made up a nice bed for you in my closet, all cuddly with lots of pillows, and you'll be safer there.”

“I want to wait up for Mycroft.”

“Absolutely not. It's much, much, much too late for you to be awake.”

“But—”

“Mommadoll says straight to bed. You don't want to make her sad, do you?”

No one could resist that. “Okay. But only if you make Carlyle stop being wrong.”

Thisbe gave a little laugh. “I'll try. I promise.”

“Good!” My brave defender gave Carlyle a last glare, then stomped off through the flowers to the much-needed pillow fort.

Thisbe turned dark eyes on Carlyle. “Come outside. Now.”

The Cousin folded one last T-shirt, overmeticulously to prolong the pause. “Why didn't you tell me that was Mycroft Canner?”

“Because you'd react like this. Come back outside.”

He followed, haltingly, like a dog that does not really want to come home from play. “You've had your bash' adopt Mycroft Canner. You know what happened to the last bash' that adopted Mycroft Canner.”

The witch's—apologies, master—the woman's tone grew richer as she basked in the night air. “Mycroft's an amateur. Ockham and Sniper are experts, trained, they have to be or they wouldn't be trusted with the system. We're in no danger from Mycroft Canner.”

Carlyle winced, as though his stomach turned. “Are you a Cannerite?”

She gave a little laugh. “It's so juvenile, Cannerism. A philosophy concocted by a seventeen-year-old.”

“It's sick.” He almost spat. “Sensayer training tries to present it like a legitimate belief system, but I've had a couple Cannerite parishioners. It wasn't a philosophy, they were just sick people reciting trivia about Mycroft Canner like some dark messiah. Why do you want that near you?”