The boy wrinkled his nose. “Then I want to know why. I want to go and ask. I’m not going to let anybody see me. I just want to talk to them. The crystal ball isn’t good enough, I need to really see, and hear, and have Mycroft hear me. I want to try to talk them into leaving, that’s all. Just one try.”
“It’s not like you can stop the kid, Major.” Trust Croucher to pounce on the truth nobody wants to hear. “He can just unmake you if you try to stop him.”
“I wouldn’t do that!” Perhaps this kind maker blushes with guilt that the thought was in his mind. “I don’t want to do that. Major, I want you to help me. I want your advice, your planning. There has to be a first time I try going out and really doing something, so walk me through it, talk me through it, guide me, make it a surefire victory. If anybody in the world can, you can.”
“‘If anybody in the world can, you can,’” Croucher repeated in a whine. “What’ll it be this time, Major? Give in? Or sit and sulk while the kid goes off and dies?”
Quick as a striking carp, the Major hurled his pocket canteen at Croucher’s face. It flew true as a javelin, striking the cheekbone below the helmet’s rim hard enough to split the skin. Croucher vanished into his puzzle-fort like a seal beneath the waves, and closed the entrance with a last piece, which almost muffled his curses. These soldiers are made of fiction, reader—did you think they would coexist in boring harmony?
Even Lieutenant Aimer required urging from his comrades before he dared address the red and glaring Major. “We could think about it for half an hour and then decide?” He smiled, trying to make the balance of sweet and sturdy in his young face tip toward sweet.
A long breath and the Major’s fingers stopped crawling toward his weapons. “Let it be. Tonight. The black of the morning Paris time.” He raised his eyes to Bridger. “You’ll have your chance. But you will not leave this room until we’ve planned out every breath, every step, until you can recite it backwards. You understand me?”
Bridger’s grin displayed his bright teeth, like an open piano. “I won’t make a single move without discussing it with you first, and I won’t touch anything, or try anything hard, just words.”
“Words? Words will be the hardest part. Persuading the persuader. He’ll have a thousand reasons marshaled against every one of yours. You know who this is you’re arguing against?”
The child swallowed. “I know.”
The Major softened. “Well, perhaps words from you will mean more.”
“I hope so.” A brave smile.
“If things go wrong while you’re out there—”
“If things go wrong,” the boy took over, “just tell me what to do and I’ll do it in an instant, no questions, I promise. I’ll be like a new recruit on my first mission. I have to have one sometime, right?”
The veteran shook his head. “No, you don’t. You know how hard we worked to make you not be like us? Not be like a soldier? We want you to enjoy these days of peace.”
“It hasn’t seemed very much like peace lately.”
“I’m glad you think that.”
Here’s an expression a child’s face should have, wide eyes, a curiosity still willing to ask any question, never fearing answers. “Why?”
“It means you have no idea what war is.” The Major rose and hauled over a pack of gum to serve as table as he set to work. “We’ll watch Mycroft until he falls asleep. They’re unlikely to leave him unguarded. Crawler, you’ll head up a team to take out guards if necessary.”
“I should do that,” Lieutenant Aimer interrupted, smiling.
“What?”
“Head the team.” The Lieutenant rose, testing his hands, tender but nimble after the healing potion. “That’s usually my job.”
The Major’s fists slammed the pack of gum before him. “We just got you back! You’re not going to think about going near that house again or, by Hades, this time I’ll be the one who nails your feet to the gods-damned floor! Now sit down!”
The white-faced Lieutenant more fell than sat down as the Major’s words flew like blows.
“As for the rest of you,” the Major continued, “if any of you catches the Lieutenant anywhere near the teleporter, or the armory, you have standing orders to knock him out and strap him to the nearest immovable object, is that clear?”
Most of the men frowned apology at the Lieutenant as they answered. “Yes, Major.”
“Good. All three of you who just escaped the enemy’s abuse, I want you to think of nothing but rest today. Crawler will head the team, with Stander-G, Looker, and Nogun. I shall head the standby team in case of misfortune, with Medic and Croucher. You hear me, Croucher?”
A mumble rose from the puzzle pieces, so vague that it might as easily have been poetry as profanity.
“So I can hear you!”
“Yes, Major! Understood!”
“Good, now, equipment check. Bridger, you first.”
Bridger smiled as he held forth his sea-green backpack. “I’ve got everything, Major.”
“I believe you, but if we’re going to do this we’re doing it in baby steps. I won’t be satisfied until I watch you put on every item. You got the talaria?”
Hermes’s winged sandals gave a little flutter as Bridger drew them from the sack. “Yup.”
“Invisibility cloak?”
The old blanket shimmered as the child tied it across his shoulders. “Yup.”
“Force field armor generator?”
“Yup.”
“Thor’s belt of strength?”
“Yup.”
“Excalibur?”
The boy fondled the plastic hilt. “Yup.”
“Phaser?”
“Yup.”
“Teleporter?”
“Yup.”
“X-ray specs?”
“Yup.”
“Magic mirror?”
“Yup.”
“Magic wand?”
“Yup.”
“Spare magic wand?”
He tapped the pair of chopsticks in his pocket. “Yup.”
Has any potentate ever traveled with such protection?
“Healing potion?”
“Four of them.”
“Resurrection potion?”
“Two of them.”
“Paper and markers to make more?”
“Twenty sheets.”
“Scissors and tape?”
“Yup and yup.”
“Apollo’s Iliad?”
The boy’s nod was grave enough for an adult. “I won’t let anything happen to it ever again, I promise. I know it’s the most important thing in the world.”
The Major shook his head. “No, Bridger—you are.”
Normally the boy would smile at that. “Major?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t want to say anything, but I know you’re thinking it.”
“What?”
“That it’s getting too dangerous, that we might need to abandon Mycroft, not see them again. I want you to know, I don’t think I could cope if I lost Mycroft.”
The Major cracked his knuckles. “Listen, Bridger, Fate takes people sometimes. I have lost a lot of people, people I thought I couldn’t live without, whole worlds, but I’m still here.”
“I know, but you’re…”
“I’m what?” the veteran invited. “It’s all right, say what you’re thinking, I won’t snap at you.”
“You’re not somebody who should have my powers. The world needs me to be sane and stable, or I could wreck everything. I need to keep being me. And for that I need Mycroft back. If we can’t get them then I don’t … I just need Mycroft back.”
CHAPTER THE SIXTH
The Room Where Mycroft Canner Died
? Young Master Jehovah, Madame wants you to send Mycroft up to the Salon de Versailles. ?