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Humanist clubs and sports bars besieged by outraged mobs,
videos of Sniper at Madame’s, of Tully Mardi’s war sermons, of Perry-Kraye’s maniacal last moments laughing amid Brussels’s flames, and of what no one wanted to call Jehovah’s death. I
The seven recent days of transformation are the graveyard’s central monument, each step in the chain from the theft of Sugiyama’s Seven-Ten list to Bridger’s final deed etched deep enough to withstand an aeon’s war with wind and rain. Yet the ten days that followed are a blur.
“Caesar, this is Achilles.” I could not forget this. The Major was the first man I had ever seen enter the citadel of Alexandria without pausing for that tremor of awe which we owe ancient monuments,
The Emperor frowned. “I want to hear this from your own lips: you are not a human being born of human parents, but the fictional Achilles, brought to life by divine fiat. Is this true?”
“I have Patroclus.” Achilles’ gaze guided the Emperor’s to his pocket, where Patroclus Aimer leaned out, tiny enough to make a chess piece seem a looming monolith. “This is a beautiful hall, Caesar!” he shouted in his tiny voice.
protoarch,
“The mayor and city council have issued an order requiring the redistribution of real estate in the city so that the proportion of property owned by each Hive matches the resident population of that Hive.”
“More than seventy percent of the land in Odessa is currently Mitsubishi-owned, but it’s a very mixed city, fairly even populations of all major Hives, and a very large Brillist population.”
“A Cousin, European-raised, in the Ukrainian nation-strat, with Nurturist connections. The Mayor’s announcement contained Nurturist language lifted from Tully Mardi’s broadcasts.”
MASON breathed deep. “Xiaoliu, have you compiled tracker numbers for all my subjects in that part of Odessa?” he asked.
Perry, in the thoroughness of his machinations, killed the backup crew, and the art does not come swiftly, even to a monstrous set-set.
“Teach the Cousins? No,” the headstrong runner answered quickly. “When the war comes you need to stay out of it.” “Stay out of it?” Kosala repeated, cold as I imagine Amazons would be. “You think we’re not capable of fighting? I mean to pursue peace by any and every means I can.”
You are. Of all the great Hives, the Cousins have the greatest capacity to avoid being drawn into battle. If you remain neutral, then there will be a corner of this world that’s separate, inviolable, safe. There will be someone who can negotiate with all sides—what priests and women used to be in wartime.
“Nurturism?” Achilles guessed. Kosala nodded. “Lorelei Cook and their faction are gaining influence every day. Yesterday’s board meeting degenerated into screaming. Three of our Romanovan Senators are openly calling for a set-set ban.”
Never was the letter of the law so meticulously followed and its spirit so ridiculously failed. There was no malice intended, or imagined, on the nun’s part, but the world knew what forbidden habit lay beneath this sack of concealing gray, and the shapeless folds spurred one to imagine the more important shapeless folds beneath.
“Set-Set = Slavery.” Kosala looked to Achilles. “There were six bash’es training set-sets in Odessa, one of the largest concentrations outside Asia. All but one of the six now look like this.”
think Brillists did most of it, but Cousins helped. Most of the ‘rescued’ children have already turned up at our orphanage
Your Cousins and the Masons are united in rage against the Hives that used O.S.
Here I dared interrupt. “The passions that incline men to peace are fear of death, desire of such things as are necessary to commodious living, and a hope by their industry to obtain them.” Both stared at me. “That’s what Thomas Hobbes says.”
it’ll turn us into everything that was worst about the geographic nations.
The majority of most nation-strats are European Members, but nation-strats have members in every Hive, even Utopia and Gordian,
“If this resurrects the old nation-states, and destroys people’s freedom to choose their laws and governments, it will undo this world.
Imagine how quickly the Masons would degenerate into tyranny if the Emperor didn’t have to worry about tyrannical action making Members leave.
They’ve designed an absolute dictatorship where the ruler is still subject to...
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Bridger wasn’t even my child by blood, and when I lost him revenge nearly drove me rage-mad, even though I knew no earthly power was responsible for my loss. Your son was murdered, and by Perry, a man you broke bread with, a traitor!”
“Was Bridger that child who resurrected Epicuro?”
“Yes. He resurrected me, too, and I raised him like a son. If any living man had been responsible for his death, that man wouldn’t be living now.”
with their resurrection came proof of the existence of the Higher Power that now holds the other.
“It’s a frightening thing to ask. And without a sensayer here, if Mycroft chimes in we’ll have broken the First Law.
Utopia does not use set-sets. Utopia’s separate car network has never needed set-sets, nor with their varied U-beasts do they need the other types of set-sets with their many special powers.
the Set-Set Law moved the Utopians to the first mass action they had ever taken, and they never told us why.
“Because a set-set is murder where the corpse still walks. There are over two billion theoretically possible developmental sets in Brill’s scale.
But set-set trainers, to protect the inhuman powers that they want to sell, start engineering brain development long before the fetus has even lost its gills, shaping the brain’s growth stimulus by stimulus, light and touch rationed like prescriptions, and the chemicals, some extra glucose here or poison there to make each neural cluster swell or shrivel as the engineer requires. A Cartesian set-set like Eureka Weeksbooth is a 1-5-2-19-19-2-21-1 for life”—he spat the numbers, as one spits names of devils—“and, because the founders of these techniques have read their Brill enough to fear that
...more
Eureka may as well be dead.”
your hind-quarters pass the doorpost before turning toward me. I know no one else who was raised by centaurs. There are other signs.”
«Enough, Mycroft,» Achilles ordered in our native Greek. His frown contained no sympathy. «If Jehovah Mason asked you what we said here, would you be able to stop yourself from answering?» I choked on a sob. «No.» His face softened. «I’m sure somewhere on this globe great leaders of men are waiting for you to do a thousand tasks for them.» «But—» «I’ll call you when we need you. Now we don’t.» My throat tightened. «Alright.» «And, Mycroft.» «Yes?» «Don’t eavesdrop this time. I know you spy by habit, but don’t spy on this. Never on things like this.»
「Ghost is real!
「Listen, Ghost, I don’t know who sent you after me, but whatever they’re paying you I’ll give you more.」
You’re the best hired gun I’ve ever worked with, and I’d love to use your services again in future,
「Then what do you want?」 「A new Canner Device.」
「I love my nation-strat. Right now Tai-kun is the only thing keeping the other Hives from gutting the Mitsubishi,
and the one name which is our era’s synonym for cannibal. 「I’m Mycroft Canner.」 I smell urine on the wind.
lie, not as they understand the name: a title of honor, Most Wanted, Archfiend, Devil. Those of the underground who are willing to believe that “Ghost” exists have long suspected their monster was this monster.
Only one name in our century has created Hell on Earth, and since Saladin and I shared those deeds, so he deserves to share my name.
Saladin gropes beneath the folds of Griffincloth and loosens the straps
He spins as I step down, so the coat lifts from me all at once, revealing my dappled Servicer beige and gray, while Saladin settles in beside me, my wonderful, beautiful monster, his back against my back, invisible except for a slice of grinning face. 「Better?」
the culmination of my Saladin’s renunciation of all things human.
「Who gets all this when the war’s over? You’re laying the foundations for a unified global underground. Who controls it in the end?」
“First, the Chair recognizes Hiveless Fracciterne.”
