“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.
<of course, thiz, what’s up?>
“Can you use your transit logs to track J.E.D.D. Mason?”
<sure.>
“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.”
<that’s mycroft guildbreaker, right?>
<yes, that’s right.>
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.”
<ooh, trixy xiao hei wang. no car id, no records in my system.>
Thisbe’s dark brows arch with intrigue. “What does that mean?”
<they don’t use our cars, thiz. seneschal & guildbreaker do, but xiao hei wang never uses our cars, doesn’t even have an id. they came today in a u-car, left in a u-car, always u-cars.>
“You have Utopian records too, don’t you?”
<not their predictor data, but they do share flightpaths and ids. found them. there they are now, flight to togenkyo. loading past records.>
“Great. What are the most frequent addresses?”
<romanovan forum, togenkyo directors’ tower, imperial palace, brussels … >
“Those all sound like work addresses. Anything that isn’t work?”
<here’s one, all three go often, and xiao hei wang has lots of overnights there, at least one a week, could be a residence, could be a lover. [XX], rue [XXXX], avignon, france.> I censor His address here, reader, though I could not hide it from Thisbe. <that one looks good. let’s see if there’s another place. oooh!!!!! black hole! black hole! they go to the black hole! wow, they go a lot!>
“Black hole?”
<yes! the black hole! that’s what sidney and i call it. it’s the most amazing place! we don’t know what’s there. we’ve been guessing for years, great game. it’s a place, and people go to it, you should see the patterns, thisbe, so many visitors, so fast, so spicy cold. nothing looks like that. and sometimes people go but hide the fact on purpose. they hitch a ride with somebody else so there’s only one car id, but we can tell there’s extra people from how much the car weighs, and lots of people do it, thisbe, lots all the time. they’re trying to hide that they’re going to the black hole, but they go, over and over, sometimes for an hour, sometimes for a night, a weekend, but if somebody goes even once they always go again, again and again and again, over and over and over. and some people stay forever!>