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She tugged the Cousin Chair’s limp hand. “The world needs you! There are victims! Fires! Orphans! Burns! Europe is wounded! It needs your ambulances, your nurses, your councilors! It needs your Cousins! Come!”
This right here, this is Madame’s goal, all of us squabbling for a chance to raise their child, when this whole stunt was obviously planned to give Madame a stronger hold over us.”
« I received a message from Kraye just after the first missiles hit. It’s a prerecorded confession. I have already sent it on to Papadelias. Kraye intentionally gathered as many officials as they could at Parliament before the attack, and published the whereabouts of others on the net so mobs could find them if Kraye’s own agents failed.
We surrender.” “What?” “We know what you are doing here. Your conquest of the other Hives has progressed beyond their ability to counter. We have no desire to destroy ourselves fighting back alone. I am here to negotiate terms.”
She blinked at the compliment. “What is your name?” “Mushi Mojave.” “A relation of the late lamented Apollo. My condolences.”
Micromegas.”
“Almost all. It’s our Infinite To-Do List. It staves off complacency. It’s not easy to maintain a race of vokers in such a comfortable world.”
“Xiao Hei Wang would do it, I’m sure. We can make them custodian of all our shares until a new board is selected.” “They’ll protect our families.” “Maybe get us acquitted.” “No!” Hotaka Andō rarely raises his voice, but there is thunder in it when he does. “We have been defeated. That does not mean we hand the enemy their prize.” All stared. “What enemy?” “Madame D’Arouet. Can’t you see it? They planned all this to force us to pass power to Tai-kun.” “Madame?” Glances flicked fast as sparks among the others. “Why would Madame attack us? We’re all their clients.”
“Then Madame is trying to have Xiao Hei Wang take over three Hives at once?”
Andō’s voice was steel. “All hives. You know Faust and MASON have already surrendered.” “MASON? But Xiao Hei Wang is Shan Huang Zi, they can’t be Shan Tai Zi.” (China has its own words for porphyrogene and Imperator Destinatus.) “Can they?”
As of this moment I have left all my shares in trust to Dominic Seneschal, for a duration of three years, on condition that they train a board of new Directors selected by the dominant shareholding groups.”
«Welcome back, Mycroft. You’re now the new Anonymous.»
I searched sincerely for an answer, but knew nothing then of the kidnapping and day of passion that had been in payment for giving Carlyle Foster–Kraye de la Trémoïlle to Dominic. «If Sniper wanted Julia dead they’d aim for the head,» I answered, «not the heart. That’s all I know.»
«There’s no robotics or modifications inside. Serial number checks out and everything. For all science can tell me it’s a normal Sniper Doll.» He held my eyes. «Thisbe introduced me to Private Croucher.»
«Then it was Bridger’s fault. Bridger said it was, I thought they just felt guilty that they couldn’t stop it.» «Bridger brought this to life?»
With only a brief frown at MASON’s coldness, Madame shifted onto her brother’s arm. “No, but it is my doing nonetheless.” “Explain,” Caesar demanded.
The Eighteenth-Century aristocracy seduced, betrayed, and corrupted itself until its world self-destructed into revolution. I didn’t have to destroy you, Cornel. I just turned all of you into Eighteenth-Century aristocrats and let you do it yourselves.”
Diderot theorized that a new Enlightened Man could be raised with Reason in place of conscience, a cold calculator who would find nothing good or bad beyond what his own analysis decided. They had no way to achieve one back then, but I did it. I raised an Alien.”
Those people our world respects most, emperors and kings, Jehovah saw fucking like animals since before He knew the difference between beast and man. No child could absorb social values after that. I birthed a Being Who believes in nothing He did not conceive Himself. I hadn’t realized Enlightened Man would turn out to be a God.
Had you smelled Hobbes at work in Madame before, reader?
The Hive, the nation, multitudes united into one Leviathan with the Sovereign as its head,
“War,” he repeated, cold. “This ‘great change’ you say you felt was coming, you can’t be the only person who hasn’t realized it means war.” She laughed. “Cornel, we’re sensible modern people, we’ve outgrown war.” “Outgrown?” he snapped. “How can you still have no inkling of the warning signs? Kohaku Mardi’s numbers, the Censor’s predictions, O.S., Sniper, Tully Mardi; Apollo died for this, Aeneas—even the original Enlightenment ended in bloody revolution! What were you thinking, unleashing that?”
“Steady on, Cornel,” Felix interceded. “Not one word, Felix!” MASON thundered. “You knew your sister was doing experiments a thousand times more dangerous than rearing set-sets. You didn’t care who got hurt either!”
“Of course I care who gets hurt! Jehovah is the Alien raised free from conscience, I’m not.
I’ve tried every perversion in Sade’s book, but I still feel bad when I hurt people.” She sighed. “And imagine my disappointment when Jehovah came out more horrified by homicide than anyone. Our poor young God; the war will be so hard on Him. I trust you’ll help us get it settled quickly.”
I do not believe Caesar is a violent man by nature; none of them were until we made them so, Madame and Dominic and I, creatures too terrible for words without violence to truly touch us.
Caesar’s awed voice hardened to iron even as he toppled, “… Saladin!”
Madame pulled his hood back and patted the hairless scalp above the hairless face which the vizor still made seem half Apollo’s. “Good boy.”
He prowled toward me around the circumference of Madame’s skirts. “I don’t get it, Mycroft. We thought Cornel MASON was a keen mind, but you and I can spot a predator at fifty yards—how come they can’t after sleeping with one for twenty years?”
Madame did it. One night, sitting by his cage with tender musings and philosophy, and she made a convert even of my Saladin. Diogenes the Cynic was our childhood mentor, Saladin’s and mine, the first of our wretched race to realize that honor, glory, ambition, wealth, success, all are artificial things, and that pursuing them only makes us miserable.
Madame has never answered whether she was pleased or angry when her Great Experiment found another who could comingle English, Latin, French, Spanish, a little German, Japanese, and Greek.
Own Universe. He says living here is what taught Him how to make it different there, better, richer. He used to think it was cruel making Him live here, but He sees now it was the only way This Universe’s God could find to reach out and share the example of His Creation, so Jehovah could respond and grow.
“He says He will accept the powers offered Him,” I answered, “and face His enemy. He says Sniper must…” I choked. “Sniper must die.”
he commanded that I, Mycroft Canner, must track it down and kill it.
“The kid brings toys to life. You think this is coincidence? You think I’d give that up?”
It laughed. “Since we’re talking about someone who’s spent their whole life trying to become a living doll, I’d say I’m more real than the original!”
The suggestion struck like lightning. I had not thought of it. Perhaps you, wiser than I, had, reader, but it is far easier to doubt another’s existence than to doubt one’s own. My mind searched itself for proof, dredging up memories, actions, continuity, excuses. It couldn’t be true. “I’m not your invention, Bridger,” I answered, more for myself than him. “I have too many memories of things you don’t understand.”
“Stop, Achilles. It isn’t Sniper’s fault, it’s ours.” He turned, just enough to glance sidelong at me, while the helmet’s shadow veiled his expression. “So, you did know.” I choked. “I felt like saying something would make it more true.” He fidgeted with the rifle at his shoulder, where his shield should be. “How long have you known it was me?”
“I wasn’t positive until Lieutenant Aimer turned so conspicuously into Patroclus.” “Have I always been … myself?”
his fear whenever his Lieutenant Aimer volunteered for some mission.
Mukta fuel and U-beasts. You’ve already fought Apollo’s war. You can teach us.”
And call your Servicers. Thanks to you they’re closer to a ready army than anything else on Earth.”
