Too Like the Lightning (68 page)

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.”

“I'm sorry.” You will not blame Carlyle for having a one-track mind. “Look, I can't explain why, but I really, really need to see Bridger. There's never been anything so important.”

The Captain's smile beamed condescension. “Is the world going to end in the next couple hours if you don't?”

“It might.”

“I'm sorry,” she answered, “but I genuinely don't know where Bridger is, just that it's a safe house. I'd help you if I could. Look, nobody can trap Mycroft for long. Stick with us and we'll get a visit, or another message, soon I'll bet, and then you can ask Mycroft to take you to Bridger. Meanwhile, relax and have a…” The Captain frowned, lifting a green striped ball from the picnic blankets. “Do you know what kind of fruit this is? We've been trying to guess at some of them for an hour. The inside has pink and orange blotches and tastes like raspberry, but none of us has ever seen one before.”

Carlyle stared at the fantasy which Bridger calls a ‘razzalope.' “I don't know. It…” His eye caught on another Servicer passing by with a crate of time-darkened Barbies. “Are these boxes all toys?”

“Yeah, the second cave's full of them. Want to see the collection before we box the rest? It's an amazing sight.”

Snatching a ‘strawberanna' en route, the Captain led Carlyle toward the second cave.

“Where are you taking it all?” Carlyle asked as more crates trudged past. “To the safe house? Won't that leave much more of a trail than just taking me?”

“It's going to Sniper's Doll Museum.”

Carlyle's breath caught. “Sniper's?”

“Mycroft arranged it. Leave it to Mycroft to know everyone who's anyone.”

The Cousin frowned. “I thought they only had Sniper Dolls at the Sniper Doll Museum.”

“Until now they did. Apparently Mycroft convinced Sniper to make a new wing for this, a special exhibit on the pathos of the discarded toy. It should be really something.”

It was already ‘really something' even arrayed in the semi-dark of Bridger's second cave. The toys stood in phalanxes, row upon ten rows upon a hundred rows. As a library overstocked with relics crams shelves together to the maximum, hardly leaving room for scrunched shoulders to pass, so Bridger had crammed this cave, ten times the size of the other, with shelves, and then crammed every shelf with toys. It was a labor of love: children set with mommies and daddies, colts with mares, warriors with rivals, villains with heroes ready to stop them if they stirred, all with accessories, not the ones they came with but the sorts of things they would want to have on hand if wakened. They were lovingly posed: teachers at plastic blackboards, families at dinner tables, whole bash'es fishing together, making breakfast, dancing, moments in which one would not mind being trapped forever. Those with missing limbs were bandaged and placed in doctors' office play-sets, though the mobs of wounded outnumbered the doll-faced nurses like war victims. There were toy soldiers too, hundreds, who could not set down their plastic arms, but were posed as if in training, shooting targets, ducking obstacle courses, no combat, no casualties, the Green team carefully segregated from enemy Yellow. Can you picture Bridger, reader, picking these orphans from the garbage one by one? Can you see him scrubbing the centuries' muck from painted faces and calling each one ‘friend'? It was the Major who volunteered to teach him that you can't save everyone. “Take your time,” was how he started. “Your powers prove you're fated to be one of the special ones. Maybe someday, gods willing, you'll find a way to bring them all to life, and overthrow death's tyranny forever, but not today. Today we're scouts, learning about this world, and making plans. You don't bring in the army until you have the tents and grain to house them too.”

“I've seen this before,” Carlyle whispered. The Message doesn't have to be a burning bush, reader. From the Maker of planets, atoms, and electrons, the Message can be a thought.

“You have?” The Servicer Captain scanned the plastic hordes.

“Not this exactly, but I've had this feeling before, looking at something just like this. It was recent … What was it?” Carlyle chewed his thumbnail, struggling, atoms bouncing in their scripted paths. “Where did these come from?”

“The trash, apparently. There's a trash mine here. They're Twentieth to Twenty-Second Century mostly, all carefully cleaned up and fixed. It's going to be a really moving display, the idea of this many things that people used to love, abandoned.”

Carlyle wandered through the shelves, not studying individual objects but vistas, the long stretch of close-crammed clutter that had been so much more than clutter to someone once. The atom strikes. “Jehovah…”

The Captain was not close enough to hear. “What?”

“Avignon. The icons collected at their house, that's where I've seen this! It's the same! Discarded things that people used to love, all crowded together by someone who can't stand to see them rot. An icon collection—a giant No-No Box.” Carlyle rushed from row to row, unpacking his thoughts less to his companion than to the toys themselves, or to himself. “Why didn't I see it before? Mycroft wouldn't divide their time between the two of them unless they were equally important. And Bridger being what Bridger is, the other must also be … not toys necessarily but, like Bridger, they must have … That's why the Emperor would pick them, out of all the children in the world, and that's why Heloïse would talk like they're a god. If people raised at Madame's found something like Bridger they'd worship it.”