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?”