Sugiyama: “You’re right. Call your Utopians, let’s get this E.M.S. over with.”
Guildbreaker: “You’ll do it?”
Sugiyama: “If it might help, yes. Your Tai-kun’s right, the public needs to see what this is all about, but something’s rotten here, and someone’s trying to use me and use my paper. The only way to stop them is for you to find out what they’re after.”
Guildbreaker: “Thank you. We appreciate your help.”
Sugiyama: “Good. I wouldn’t do an E.M.S. for just anyone.”
Porphyrogene, repeated by Guildbreaker: “No, you do it for Truth and Charity. Your choice is kind. I thank you.”
HERE ENDS THE SECOND DAY OF THIS HISTORY.
CHAPTER THE FIFTEENTH
If They Catch Me
I see Martin has introduced the word ‘murder’ into our tale. Technology has eliminated that middle breed of criminal who thinks that, if they wash their hands and dump the body far from home, they can get away with it. Criminals now are either self-labeled geniuses who, through elaborate preparation, think they can outwit the trackers, DNA, and all the practice and experience of law, or else they are plain men with no delusions of escaping punishment. Of every five killers now, three turn themselves in right away, having acted in the grip of rage, or else in the calm confidence that the deed was worth the price. One out of five escapes by suicide. Only the last of the five attempts to hide, having schemed and toiled for months to form the perfect plan. He fails. There are professionals, of course, for the mob will always need its violence, but they too know that someday they must either flee the Alliance entirely, living out their lives in trackless hiding, or else be caught. Gone are the days when the police would gather evidence, conduct their interviews over a few days, and, in the end, discover the boyfriend, ex-wife, or business rival who had seen the opportunity and seized it. I asked Commissioner General Papadelias once which he preferred, the would-be mastermind who challenges the detective to a game of wits, or the honest criminal who waits red-handed at the scene. The former, he answered, was more stimulating, but usually only the latter commanded his respect. I understand it. The Prince of Murderers, said Papadelias, the Moriarty he waited for, would do both, accepting fully and philosophically his inevitable end, yet still fighting with all his strength and cunning to extend his freedom to the last breath. He needed, I think, to meet a soldier.
“Good morning, Major.”
“Mycroft! You look ready to drop.”
The stiffness in my shoulders made me wince as I ducked the plastic sheeting which camouflages Bridger’s cave. It is a cheerful cave, walled with foam of festive colors, carved out by the robots which mine the trash beneath Cielo de Pájaros. Inside the cave is all clutter, the choicest treasures gathered from the trash of which Bridger has first pick: bright marbles, balls, tricycles, toy cars, chunks of dozens of dollhouses assembled into a hodgepodge palace, and mounds of storybooks stacked dense as bricks. My own more hygienic contributions add to the nest: blankets, cushions, clothes, video players and digital readers, good paints and paper, and a shelf of real food: rice, animal-shaped cookies, instant bacon, anything too difficult for the boy to make from mud and grass.
“I had a long day yesterday,” I answered.
The Major stretched back in his rocking chair on the roof of a pink plastic castle, switching off the handheld news screen which dwarfed him like a billboard. “Did you sleep?”
I gave a guilty wince. “I napped on the flight back here from Romanova.”
The Major always breathes deeply, as if he enjoys the taste of air itself. “Are ten kinds of trouble coming, or only two?”
“It’s bad, sir,” I answered, comfortable in company where I could say ‘sir’ and have no one stare. “I don’t know how bad yet.”
“Bad far away or bad here?”
“Both. I just spoke with Lesley Saneer. Someone very dangerous came to the house yesterday, a sensayer in historical clothes named Dominic Seneschal.”
“I know. They spent hours searching Thisbe’s room.”
I nodded. “If we’re wise we’ll assume Dominic found enough evidence to know there have been unregistered strangers in that room.” I eased myself into my own scavenged metal chair, between the Major’s castle and a white-painted cardboard box, transformed into a functioning refrigerator by Bridger’s power. “I did my best to clean up yesterday, but we’ve been so comfortable in that house lately, we haven’t been worrying about tiny bits of evidence like skin flakes. We aren’t prepared to evade a professional.”
The Major nodded, the relaxed but heavy nod of a patient who has already deduced the worst before the doctor works around to the word ‘fatal.’ “You’ve crossed swords with this Dominic before?”
“I know Dominic well, though we haven’t literally crossed swords. Dominic does carry a sword, though, and has killed several opponents in duels. Not an enemy we can face. It’s time to move on.”
The veteran nodded slowly, his sigh heavy and frail at once. “Yes.”
“Is Bridger—” I didn’t have to finish, for light and smiles burst in through the plastic door.
“Mycroft!”
“Oof!”
Bridger was long since too big for my lap, but had never realized it. “Aimer was just reading more of Les Misérables with me!” His elbows jabbed my ribs as he climbed onto me, and his legs spilled out of the chair over mine, like a hermit crab in need of a new shell. “I think Jean Valjean would get along really well with Odysseus, don’t you? They could talk about what it’s like being on a really long journey with lots of different stages and never knowing if it’s almost over, and I bet Odysseus would have lots of clever suggestions for how Valjean could disguise themself and never be caught!”
“Yes, they probably would.” Bridger needed new pants, too, I noticed, as more centimeters of sock showed beneath ever-rising cuffs. Thirteen years old; he would begin to shoot up soon, and we would have to guess how tall he would become, and teach him how to shave.
Children rarely notice whether or not you’re listening. “I was thinking about what you were telling me before, about how the Greek heroes are beloved of the gods, and how that’s sort of good but also bad, because it means big scary divine things always happen to them, and they never get to rest, and everyone around them always dies, like Odysseus’s sailors all die. That’s what happens to Valjean, too, like they’re also beloved of the gods, so I bet they and Odysseus could help each other deal with it, and Odysseus could come up with a clever way to make money and feed all the poor people in Paris!”
He got me. My mind strayed first to imagining what ingenious barricade Odysseus could construct, and then I saw it all, the conversation he imagined, the two wanderers breaking bread together, drawing succor from seeing another pair of eyes as tired as their own. The Major gazed darkly at me, reminding me of his objections when the mining bots had dragged Les Misérables from the dump, a real old paper copy, somehow still legible. I had not had the heart to forbid Bridger to read it, but at story time Bridger always used to turn on the waterworks even when the ‘bad guy’ died. Now we were watching the bookmark crawl millimeter by millimeter through the masterpiece which brings tears to the eyes of disillusioned adults. We all imagine happy endings to such books, pick out the page, the paragraph, in which we would step in and pluck the innocents to safety. Only one among us actually can. All it would take is some store manikins, the costumes, and a miracle.