The Will to Battle

by Ada Palmer

  Achilles: “What do you intend in all this, Faust?”

  Faust: “In that particular sentence, the war, the prewar, or life in general?”

  Achilles: “The war. Will you insist on vengeance for what O.S. has done against Gordian?”

  Faust: “Vengeance isn’t useful. Participating in a political coalition, should one arise to address how to proceed, may be useful, depending. I take as yet no stand.”

  Achilles: “Not even on set-sets?”

  Faust: “Oh, one must take whatever opportunities one can regarding set-sets. That’s not even a question. Not to hurt the set-sets themselves, of course, they’re just clockwork tombstones testifying to past infanticide, no, it’s the abominable fools that make them that must be stopped. If convenient. If inconvenient, it can be postponed. The number of children unmade by set-set training is not large compared to the number who might be killed in riots if the issue is badly handled.”

  Achilles: “Tell me, Faust, isn’t what your sister has done to Ganymede and Danaë and all her creatures brainwashing, just as much as making a set-set?”

  Faust: “Yes. It’s a complex yes, but, in a nutshell, yes.”

  Achilles: “Then I want to hear from you why a set-set is so much worse.”

  Faust: “Because a set-set is murder where the corpse still walks. There are over two billion theoretically possible developmental sets in Brill’s scale. A few hundred are common and a further thousand reasonably common, but sets aren’t for life, we develop over time and our numbers go up, rapidly in childhood but also after that; my own sixth digit went up recently. 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 nature might still triumph, just to make extra-sure the sets stay locked, they train the set-set not to let itself develop close relationships, no cross-stimulation, passion, friendship, nothing outside the script. Eureka’s fed and housed in a bash’ but no more part of it than a grandfather clock. I won’t deny that Heloïse and Dominic are brainwashed, as much as Martin Guildbreaker, or Spain, or myself, or anyone, all clumsily and semi-intentionally trained by bash’ and parents to become what we become, but Spain, Martin, myself, all of us can change, grow, love, not love, and variously expand the palette of what humankind can do, or be. Eureka may as well be dead.”

  Achilles: “There I disagree. Death and life are more different than that.”

  Faust: “Poor word choice in your case, I apologize. I can tell you speak Greek as well as English, but, tell me, when you do, what kind of Greek comes out, modern or Homeric?”

  Achilles: “You believe I am what I am, then? You didn’t even ask to see Patroclus.”

  Faust: “Dear boy, I believed you the instant you stepped through the doorway. You walk like a horse, and continued straight three paces as if to let your hind-quarters pass the doorpost before turning toward me. I know no one else who was raised by centaurs. There are other signs.”

  Achilles: “I … guess there would be…”

  Faust: “I know you’ve decided not to fight for Gordian, but I hope you won’t reject us as a potential ally should it become practical. We’d be a good one.”

  Achilles: “I’m sure.”

  Faust: “Think of an enormous number. Lots and lots.”

  Achilles: “A thousand.”

  Faust: “Exquisite.” The pleasure on the Headmaster’s flushed face surpassed common delight and swelled toward glee. “Do you know how many generations it’s been since anyone outside the most primitivizing Reservations would pick a number smaller than a million?”

  Achilles: “No.”

  Faust: “Neither do I! Brill’s data only goes back to 2144. You must let me run ten thousand tests on your brain, on every fiber of you. In your spare time.”

  Achilles: “Spare time…” A moment’s frozen incredulity elapsed before Achilles laughed, a deep, raw laugh with deep, raw weight behind it. Faust laughed with him. I got the joke—spare time in a war?—but not as they did. To me it was funny; to them it was a healing, binding breeze. “Alright, Faust, you’ve given me enough. I’ll see you more, I’m sure.”

  Faust: “More leaders yet to test? Who’s next? Ancelet at last? Or has Mycroft found someone among the Mitsubishi worth an interview while Andō’s inaccessible? I presume you won’t try to base your impression of the Mitsubishi faction on poor Dominic: Acting Chief Director, yes; in over their head, yes; good sample of Mitsubishi thought patterns, goodness no!”

  We did not answer Faust. But I will answer you, my distant master, and show you the next meeting, the one which the Great Soldier made me vow not to share with any living soul. Some encounters do not blur, even in my mind. They chose the open beach as meeting place, the northern coast of Crete, where a cloudless sunset made the sparks of our satellites visible between Moon and stars, and where the same salt smell which marks the rocky shores of home brought tears to my eyes, and to Achilles’s. Five of them joined us on that open beach. Two I knew: Mushi Mojave, whose ants made verses of our footprints on the sand’s broad canvas, and Aldrin, who made the sea a sea of stars. The others were new to me. One’s coat made living tissue of the deep, turning invisible currents to visible tendrils, and granting the Mediterranean vast eyes to stare back at we who imagined ourselves safe on her shore. Another left the waves unchanged, but spotted them with strange ships, whose distant spires stabbed straight up from the surface like blades, or like the fins of fish a hundred times too huge. The last coat made all storm and darkness.

  Achilles: “Are Bridger’s relics safe?”

  Utopia: “Yes.”

  Achilles: “And being studied? Put to good use?”

  Utopia: “Of course. We can now prove you are an anachroconstruct if necessary.” A glance at me. “We can also prove Mike’s resurrection really happened. Empirically, at least. We are not yet well armed against minds impervious to evidence. Soon, perhaps.”

  Achilles: “How are my men?”

  Utopia: “Fascinating. Also patient.”

  Achilles: “Stander-Y and Nostand?”

  Utopia: “Decelerating faster. Fatigue and patches of coma.”

  Achilles: “Like the others.”

  Utopia: “Yes. Do you want see them before they revert?”

  Achilles: “If I have time.” He avoided my eyes here, brave Achilles, as he had avoided telling me when word arrived that Pointer first, then Stander-G and Nogun had succumbed to the eternal peace of plastic. We do not know why Bridger’s gift fades quickly from some of his creations while others linger on. If they linger long enough, science may learn. If science can.

  Utopia: “We’ll arrange a call.”

  Achilles: “Patroclus will call them if I can’t.”

  Utopia: “You could visit them in person if you wish.”

  Achilles: “No time.”

  Utopia: “You must come to the lab yourself soon, Achilles. The experiments we want to run on you are multiplying like hydras’ heads.”

  Achilles: “Later.”

  Utopia: “There won’t be time once real war wakes.”

  Achilles: “I know.” The hero took a deep breath. “Mycroft says, however the sides fall, you and your work must be protected, at any cost.”

  Utopia: “Not at apocalyptic cost, but at epic cost if need be, I agree. Each death is an infinite waste, but infinity still has degrees. If a new Dark Age tears the Great Project down again, we lose more than current lives, we lose the past ones that were sacrificed for it. Including yours.”

  Achilles: “Mine?” The wars, which ha
ve nearly killed true laughter in the veteran, have strengthened its sardonic shadow. “I never died for anything useful, just glory and destruction.”

  Utopia: “You can this chapter.”

  Achilles: “This chapter … It is like a new chapter, isn’t it?” I recognized the shudder that washed across Achilles, that same awed shudder that had washed over Carlyle Foster when he witnessed Bridger’s miracle, and spent the next hours praying that this answer to his lifelong prayer would not turn out to be a dream. “And we are allies?”

  Utopia: “We are allies.” An otherworldly hand was extended, and accepted.

  Achilles: “I think we should keep this alliance secret for now.”

  Utopia: “Agreed.”

  Achilles: “Most of the other Hives have tried to recruit me. If I agree to work with one, I can make them help defend you, too.”

  Utopia: “Will you tell them we are allies?”

  Achilles: “I’ll decide when the time comes.”

  Utopia: “Very sage. Will you select your side soon? Or wait to see how the players slot out? It seems some Hives may bud.”

  Achilles: “I won’t wait long. I don’t think we have long.”

  Utopia: “Do you have a battle plan?”

  Achilles: “Not yet. I know what resources I want to prepare for the beginning, but I can’t guess at this point what the pretext will be when things finally begin.”

  Humor, mankind’s survival strategy, brought absurd images before my mind here, mobs in blasted wastelands, raising impossibly honest banners: “Financial stability! Self-determination! Xenophobia!” We do need pretexts for our wars. A man may leap into the fray in the name of Liberty, Homeland, Human Rights, Justice, but never Economics.

  “We have our own warcraft under way,” Utopia announced.

  “Apollo’s plan?” It hurts when I hear anyone pronounce Apollo’s name with hate, even someone with as good reason as war-stained Achilles has.

  “We will not unweave it while you have no replacement.”

  The Great Soldier nodded. “That’s good sense. I—”

  Static flashed, the coats displaying only harsh white blankness as, across the rolling surface of the Earth, all the worlds Utopia dreamed of turned to nothing. Four seconds, five, six Utopia mourned the untimely loss of one of their own, somewhere on the far side of the Earth, or past it. They have not disarmed death, reader, not enough. Not yet.

  “Violence?” Achilles asked. “Or an accident?”

  Silence held the Utopians as their vizors told them the story of whatever comrade had fallen. “An accident, this time.”

  Godlike Achilles breathed deep. “I need to know what you’re doing.”

  “We will tell you. We won’t tell Mycroft.”

  Hubris again, reader! Will I never escape the sin which made me raise my voice, indignant, to this kind-descending daemon and protest: “You know I would ne—”

  “Your will is too broken for you to control your mind, or tongue,” Utopia admonished.

  Still I snapped back against their righteous sting. “I’ve read Apollo’s Iliad. I already know the plan by heart.”

  “No, Mycroft, you do not. Not all.”

  “But I—”

  «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.»

  «Alright.»

  «I have your oath?» Achilles caught my eyes, and held them.

  «You have my oath.»

  He did, my tears as well, as I cursed the weakness which made me, not only unworthy, but unable to serve the cause as purely as I loved it. I had indeed many orders waiting from many masters, and the Utopian robed in storm rode back with me to make sure I could not double back to spy. Utopia’s car was quick to whisk us from those salt-swept sands, though not quite too quick to let me see—or rather not see—one last thing.

  Utopia: “Take this, Achilles. It will suit and serve you well.”

  Achilles: “What is it?”

  Utopia: “Nothing.”

  It was nothing, a bundle of heavy nothing which the Utopian held out carefully, as if it were a swaddled infant. The hero groped a bit before touch let him grasp the gift, and a few shimmers betrayed hints of substance as it unfolded. As spider’s threads catch the sunlight for a moment, then vanish again into invisibility, so glints flickered around Achilles’s lithe, athletic form as he twisted and stretched within the gift. Only as he tried out the vizor did I recognize the coat for what it was.

  CHAPTER THE FOURTH

  Ghost

  Written July 20–21, 2454

  Events of April 12

  Shinjuku

  I like their screams, loud and raw and failing, none of the fake, suspended purity of actors’ screams. They force themselves to stop screaming, but the almost-silence just makes them panic anew at every sound: their footsteps, their swishing clothes, the echo of their breathing ricocheting through the steel ceiling ribs, which make this basement warehouse a nightmare labyrinth now that a hunter’s cunning has murdered the ceiling fixtures’ artificial day and conjured true dead night.

  「Keep it together!」 The second-largest of the clustered six reveals herself as the leader so easily. 「What are you, guards or children? There’s no such thing as Ghost!」

  Ah, ignorance, the predator’s ally. The hunter lets itself be heard now, a light, pinging scrape of something passing flight-fast through the beams above the cowering prey. An ash scent follows, and a faerie tinkle as one more emergency light, which they might have found and fixed, powders their shoulders with its rain of glass dust. One of them fires at the source of the sound, the shot’s quick flash illuminating the maze of steel and boxes for a lightning second, and revealing, moving among them, nothing. The poor fool doesn’t even remember to fire twice.

  「Ghost is real! It is! My ba’sib saw it when it took out Hino and the others!」

  What is that trembling ray of white-blue brightness? A pocket light, multiplying the mad, geometric shadows of the beams as it shakes in an unsteady hand. An instant later a broken yelp sends the light spinning across the floor. Why shoot the light in someone’s hand when you can shoot the hand, and add blood to the dark?

  「There! Above us!」

  The predator’s weapon makes no bang, but a hum lingers in the beams, and one of the prey fires some hopeful shots into the shadows. Another silenced shot shatters the offending gun, and the hand which held it.

  「We’re dead! Ghost never leaves targets alive!」

  「Shut up! Be quiet and listen!」

  The light they dropped is still on, cutting the darkness with its little blade of visibility as it lies on its side among some sacks ten meters from the clustered prey. Now the predator drops something into the beam’s path, gleaming wet and pale, with scraps of flesh and sinew clinging to its length: a bone.

  「It’s Ghost! It’s real!」

  「Of course they’re real. Stop shooting at them. Lower your weapons.」 The predator’s hackles rise as something different rears its head among the herd. This speaker is the smallest of the prey, sheltered in the center like a precious insect queen. The protectee. 「Listen, Ghost, I don’t know who sent you after me, but whatever they’re paying you I’ll give you more.」

  「The Moon? Tempting.」 The hunter’s voice floats down through the shadows, growl-rough and growl-soft.

  The protectee does not dare step out of the ring of guards, b
ut at least stands straight, not cowering. 「What about the Moon?」

  「Your offer. I have all the world as hunting ground, and all the races of the Earth as my prey, so if you want to up the ante you owe me the Moon.」 The beast strays near the light for a moment, so the prey can make out the contours of face and shoulders as it licks rich meat drippings from its cheeks. 「Or were you not serious?」

  「Look, Ghost, we’re not enemies. You’ve done great work for our group in the past. You’re the best hired gun I’ve ever worked with, and I’d love to use your services again in future, but if you hurt me, not only will you destroy our working relationship, but my bash’ and all our allies will hunt you to the ends of the Earth and kill you, even you.」

  「I doubt that.」 It vanishes again. 「But I’m not here to hurt you.」

  Cloth creaks as hope eases the guards’ tense limbs.

  「Then what do you want?」

  「A new Canner Device.」

  「What for?」

  「To kill J.E.D.D. Mason.」

  「Not for any price,」 the protectee answers unflinching. 「I love my nation-strat. Right now Tai-kun is the only thing keeping the other Hives from gutting the Mitsubishi, and on the inside no one would be surprised if the Chinese, Koreans, and ex-Greenpeace move to expel Japan from the Hive and let us take all the heat. I respect what O.S. was, but anyone who takes a shot at Tai-kun right now, whether it’s you or Sniper, is my enemy.」

  Warm wind at ground level announces that the predator has landed. 「You passed that test fast.」

  The chief bodyguard looms bravely between the hunter and her ward. 「Who are you really?」

  The monster has a second bone, and sinks its teeth into the rose wet flesh still clinging to it. What was this bone, they wonder. A goat? A stag? A dog? The thought of eating any once-living mammal turns most stomachs in our vat-meat age, but for these cornered six, with the adrenaline of the hunted surging through them, the monster’s supper invokes a more terrifying taboo, conjured inexorably by fear, imagination, and the one name which is our era’s synonym for cannibal. 「I’m Mycroft Canner.」

  I smell urine on the wind.