Julia gave … patronizing isn’t the right word, a matronizing smile. “Jun, I know what’s happening to Carlyle, it’s a case quite without precedent in your experience. There’s no shame in an imperfect prediction.”
“I know what I’m looking at. I can pull them up again, they’re…” Jun clutched suddenly at the nearest warm arm, which happened to be Toshi’s. “They’re there now.”
“What?”
“3035, C-CF-003035, Carlyle Foster. They’re there now. Their location signal, there, in your office.”
“Arriving?” Julia turned toward the door.
“No. There. Now. They’ve been there for almost an hour.”
Julia frowned, gazed about her room, her seats, her desk. Her closet. “Carlyle?”
Carlyle: <C-CF-003035 is my tracker tag, isn’t it, Julia? They’ve infiltrated the tracker system on top of all the rest, and you never told me.>
Julia Doria-Pamphili savored a long, smiling breath. “Time to end the call, kids. I’ll handle this myself.”
“They’re there?” Hiroaki voiced it with the most fear. “3035! They heard! We talked about the Cousins!”
“Do not worry,” Julia pronounced with a clear, commanding calm. “I’ll handle it, then call you back. Give my best to your mother.”
“Juli—”
Earth’s Chief Sensayer killed the call, then watched, still smiling, as the screen cycled around to a slide show of her favorite Sniper posters. “They have a thrillingly original reincarnation theory, those kids; I’ll send you the notes.”
“Set-sets.” With those black syllables, Carlyle Foster stepped forth from the closet. “Pythagorean set-sets.”
“Yes, their notion of reincarnation is more Pythagorean than Buddhist, well done. How did you know?”
Carlyle is priest enough to tread with reverence in the Chief Sensayer’s office, even now. “Jehovah Mason. When they first met Eureka Weeksbooth, their first question was ‘Are both your set-sets Pythagorean?’”
“Ah,” Julia smiled, “the infallible Jehovah Epicurus Mason.”
Every inch of Carlyle was tense: pale hands clenched in fists, golden brows knit, a parody of threat from a creature too delicate to make it feel real. “Would those kids have been Cartesian set-sets too, like Eureka and Sidney, if their training hadn’t been interrupted?”
“No, no.” Julia flexed her shoulders. “A new kind. I’ve heard them say Oniwaban set-set, but I think they’re just being dramatic. They claim they would have made Cartesians obsolete.”
“Set-sets, Julia, on both sides of this: attacking the Cousins, and in the Saneer-Weeksbooth bash’. They are the poison after all, and you’ve been treating it like a game.”
Her smile did not change. “Why are you here, Carlyle? Is there a problem in the Saneer-Weeksbooth bash’?”
“You taught me to be a spy, Julia. Don’t think I haven’t used it on you, too.”
“Did you record the call just now?” she asked. “Should I say, ‘Oops’?”
“I recorded that one, and dozens of others, today and many days.” Carlyle’s steps were slow, the fatigue of a grueling night weakening her limbs like flu.
Still Julia smiled. “You mustn’t read too much into how I talk to them like it’s a game. You and I really have been guarding the world from them, Carlyle, keeping the set-set poison out as best we can. I let them think I think it’s just a game because it makes them give away so much to me, you heard how much.”
“I don’t believe you, Julia. But, right now, I actually don’t care. I’m not here to confront you about our noble battle against the Mitsubishi brood being a sham. I’m here to make you save the Cousins.”
“Make me?” Her smile brightened. “You are feeling stronger after your first session with Dominic. Did you enjoy it? I see you’re not wearing your old scarf anymore.”
Carlyle’s throat was indeed naked for once. “I’m not going to let you bait me, Julia. This is serious. The CFB scandal is going to drag the Cousins down, and all that we’ve created with it, all the hospitals and orphanages, the greatest charitable network in history. You can stop it.”
“I can?”
“Yes, only you.” Carlyle sank into one of the pudgy armchairs. “You don’t see how, do you?”
Julia leaned back. “I hadn’t thought about it.”
“I didn’t think you would have. You have the CFB, Julia. You have Darcy Sok and the others. I encouraged you to make them your parishioners because I thought you were the best one to help them.”
“Mmm. A wise decision.”
There it flashed in Carlyle’s blue eyes, the chill of diamond, almost keen enough for murder. “I know you’ve been exploiting Darcy Sok. Not a lot, not enough to threaten the world order, just having them push the Cousins in directions you suggest from time to time, plus…”
“Plus?”
“Plus the other sorts of things you like to make parishioners do. You’ve broken your vows, Julia, over and over. I’ve recorded that, too.”
“Have you?” She picked at her nails. “How enterprising.”
“Yes. And now that I know Dominic, I see where you learned your style from.”
“Mmm. We cross-pollinated, Dominic and I. Did you like it? Dominic’s technique.”
Carlyle did not avoid her eyes. “We’re not talking about me for once.”
Julia laughed. “If you don’t like what I do to my parishioners, why didn’t you do something years ago? You kept feeding me more people, that makes you guilty too.”
“True. I’m guilty. I wasn’t even deluded, or, if I was, I was willingly deluded. I let things continue, spying, manipulating, because it made me feel good, and because I believed you were doing more good than harm.”
“I still am.”
Carlyle breathed a short sigh. “Only if you do this. There’s one more chance, Julia. You can save the Cousins. It’s not hard to prove you’ve been manipulating the CFB. All their key staff are your parishioners, and I’m sure, if an expert analyzed the way they’ve been editing how letters are sorted, they could see that it supported your goals.”
“That’s not proof.”
“True, it’s not, it’s circumstantial, enough to cause doubt but not enough to bring to trial. On the other hand, if you confess—”
“Confess?”
“Confess that you have been calling the shots in the CFB.”
“Why, in the name of sanity, would I confess?”
“Because, if everyone thinks you controlled the CFB, they won’t look for anything deeper. The press smells blood, Julia. They’re not going to let up until they’ve sunk their teeth into someone. It could be you instead of the heart of the Cousins.”
Julia stretched back. “Mmm. Doesn’t sound very appealing.”
“No? The whole point of you sending me into the CFB was to help them fight more sinister outside control. You achieved that, twice in fact.”
“Twice?”
“You helped the CFB fight back against the original outside manipulation, and you also slowed Dana?’s brood down. If you tell everyone you only hijacked the CFB in order to keep Dana? out, we can expose what the Mitsubishi set-sets were doing, make it look like there was nothing rotten in the CFB before Madame started moving in on it, and no one ever needs to learn the truth. The Cousins stay safe, Madame is exposed, and you wind up a hero.”
Julia’s eyes went wide. “Madame? You think I was fighting Madame directly? That’s very flattering, Carlyle, but honestly I thought I trained you better than this.”
“Doesn’t Dana? Mitsubishi work for Madame? If President Ganymede was born at Madame’s, their twin sister was too.”
Julia shook her head. “You’re useless when it comes to period thinking, aren’t you, Carlyle? When a lady weds she throws away all allegiance to her parents and transfers it to her husband. Dana? isn’t working for Madame. It’s Director Andō who wants the Cousins torn down, not Madame.”
“Andō?” Carlyle trembled. “That … That’s even worse! The Mitsubishi Director themself trying to tear the Cousins down. That’s what you have to tell the police!”
“Why?” Julia shot back. “Why should I? I like Dana?, we have endless fun.”
Carlyle’s brows knit. “They’re destroying a Hive! Is that not registering in your mind? Almost two billion people. There’s never been a social disaster on this scale!”
“That may be true,” Julia answered, “but it’s for the world’s good.”