«You’ve been a busy bee this week, Mycroft.» He used Greek now, childhood’s tongue for both of us, tender to my ear, though I don’t know how it sounds to those who don’t associate those tones with home and storybooks, and a mother so faded in my memory now that she is little more than a warm darkness muddled with images of Mommadoll.
«It’s been a busy week,» I answered. «And before I forget, Happy Independence Day one day late.»
Would you correct me, reader? It had been two days since Renunciation Day, but to us the true holiday was the Greek Independence Day, March twenty-fifth, when the four-century oppression of the Turks was finally thrown off, just in time for Greece to enjoy brief nationhood before nations became passé. A Servicer may not, but Papadelias wore his strat insignia, the Greek flag armband in vivid blue and white. Nation-strats like Greece or France or Mexico always offer less conspicuous alternatives, a bracelet or narrow ribbon, but it rankles when I see a Greek declare their pride with anything less than the full armband. Do you laugh, reader? Thinking that every nation-strat considers itself the most important in the world? Well, we are right. Rome was built from Greece, Europe from Rome, our modern world from Europe’s Union, and however many worlds Utopia may colonize they will all come from this one. So the triremes which defended Greece at Salamis defended Mars, too, reader, and every Hive, and you.
«They’re trying to keep me off this Black Sakura case,» Papa began.
«I know. Are they succeeding?»
«I’m Commissioner General, you know what that means?»
«You get an office in the Forum?»
«Cute.» His eyes glittered, the brightness of the passenger within his age-thin frame. «It means I trump the law enforcement of all seven Hives. If one, just one, says they want me on the case, no power on this Earth can keep me off.»
I’d learned over our many interviews just how to lean against the car to keep my hands from falling asleep. «You sent Martin in the first place, didn’t you?»
«Yes, but I didn’t expect it to be an either-or, especially not now that it’s getting juicer. I’ve called all seven. Not just the seven, I’ve called Senators, strat leaders, secretaries, Tribunes, you-know-who.» He picked at his sleeves, always rolled up as if the rank stripes around the cuffs offended him. «The whole reason they forced me into the Commissioner General’s chair was to get someone they could trust there, but, no matter what I try, no change.» His eyes narrowed. «I called Martin Guildbreaker to help me help them, not to banish myself to paperwork mountain. The only reason to keep the police off a case is if you don’t want it solved.»
«They don’t want it solved,» I confirmed. «They want it fixed.»
«Are they stupid? There wouldn’t be this many tremors without something dangerous underneath. Do they even have a plan for if they find something they can’t just sweep under the carpet?»
«I don’t know, Papa.»
«See, even you don’t know. But that isn’t what really gets me. What really gets me is knowing the decision to block me was made in about five minutes in Ganymede’s parlor—somewhere I could’ve come if they’d called me!—but they didn’t.» He unleashed his frustration in a kick at an unoffending trashbot. «I thought for sure the Utopians would at least have the good sense to worry when all the others agree on something, but I got word back from them this morning: ‘It’s being handled.’ You can’t tell me they settled on that answer by themselves, it’s not even U-speak! If I had a euro for every time I’ve heard that sentence in the past two days I could retire on it.»
«Twenty minutes,» I corrected.
«What?»
«It took them twenty minutes in Duke Ganymede’s parlor to decide to keep you off the case, and there were reasons for it. You’ve heard who is handling it?»
«J.E.D.D. Mason.»
I nodded. «You know J.E.D.D. Mason’s a good person. And you know Martin Guildbreaker’s a good person. If they find something that needs you on it, they’ll come to you.»
A slow breath. «Hopefully. But then why block me from the case?»
«I don’t know. I really don’t.»
Papa shook his tired head. «Since when have they let politics be this openly incestuous, Mycroft? Tsuneo Sugiyama put Sniper instead of Ganymede on a Seven-Ten list and everyone’s acting like it’s the end of the world. Even thirty years ago you couldn’t find two Seven-Ten lists with the same top Seven, but when’s the last time you saw one of the Gordian Brain’bash members on there instead of the Headmaster, huh? Or a European other than the Prime Minister?» The guards around us were growing nervous hearing the Commissioner’s Greek so heated. «What worries me is that they aren’t even being subtle anymore. The Censor married the Cousin Chair and the Mitsubishi Hive leader is the Humanist president’s brother-in-law and no one’s crying conflict-of-interest? Do people really not care?» A deep breath. «It shouldn’t be this easy for them, Mycroft. The Death of Majority doesn’t help if the minorities come together and act like a majority again.»
Do you still believe in the Death of Majority, reader? The First Anonymous’s first essay, lauding what they saw as the promise of eternal peace. After the Church War there was no majority race, no majority religion, no majority language, no majority nationality. Mukta birthed a world so intermixed that no one anymore grew up among people mostly like themselves: the majority of Japanese people did not live in Japan, the majority of Greeks did not live in Greece, so too for every country in the world. Majority died with Church and Nation, the Anonymous proclaimed, and with it war and genocide died too, for they require a majority united, patriots, an ‘us’ and ‘them’ in which ‘us’ is normal, larger, more powerful, capable of overwhelming and defeating ‘them.’ I could ask any contemporary here, ‘Are you a majority?’ and I know what he or she would answer: Of course not, Mycroft. I have a Hive, a race, a second language, a vocation and an avocation, hobbies of my own; add up my many strats and you will soon reduce me to a minority of one, and hence my happiness. I am unique, and proud of my uniqueness, and prouder still that, by being no majority, I ensure eternal peace. You lie, reader. There is one majority still entrenched in our commingled world, a great ‘us’ against a smaller ‘them.’ You will see it in time. I shall give only one hint—the deadliest majority is not something most of my contemporaries are, reader, it is something they are not.
«Couldn’t you ask to investigate on behalf of the Hiveless?» I asked.
Papa shook his head. «Not if no Hiveless have been affected by the crime. So far none are. If the Saneer-Weeksbooth bash’ had kids who were minors I could use them as an excuse, but as it is … »
«Dominic Seneschal is missing.»
«Dominic Seneschal isn’t a missing person yet, they turned their tracker off themself and didn’t specify a duration after which they should be sought if they don’t check in. Thanks to a certain Mycroft Canner,» Papa nodded his mock gratitude, «we’re allowed to start search and rescue after five days without contact no matter what the person said, but that’s still a ways off. Besides, I don’t want to go in without at least one of the big Seven giving their stamp of approval, or I’ll bring them all down on my head. I need a way to make it look like I didn’t push for this, like one of them requested it.»
«I see.» I glanced down at my Utopian manacles, their taut, gelatinous surfaces almost comforting after so many meetings. «You could try King Isabel Carlos. These days the others don’t have the heart to say ‘no’ to Their Majesty’s requests. If you get the King to support you it’ll be hard for the others to object, especially because Andō and Ganymede can never pass up a chance to piss on Casimir Perry.»