“You know what really gets me? Hearing people call these three brave.” It is the Proxy for the Anonymous they watch, Humanist Vice President Brody DeLupa, fastest to rouse the rabble on this hottest of nights. “You’re thinking it takes some guts to plead guilty to mass murder, but if they had any guts they wouldn’t have gone along with it in the first place. The real shock here isn’t that three members of Perry’s coalition came forward, but that dozens of others have not.” The screen showed DeLupa at the Rostra in Romanova, sweat dribbling down his cheeks whose stubble clumped like mildew. “Even outside Perry’s coalition, they’ve all suspected what this ‘Special Means Committee’ really was. As far as I’m concerned, every last person who’s sat on Europe’s Parliament in a generation is as complicit in these murders as President Ganymede!”
Where are the others, you ask? As O.S. and the bride whose favor made him O.S. watch the doom alone? The set-sets are sprawled as ever on the floor, watching the same explosions in their digital world. The thumps and screams of the twins float from upstairs, comforting like a dog’s familiar bark, while the stairs down to Thisbe’s room are blocked by the old rope Ockham strings across to warn the others when his deadly sister is in too dangerous a mood. One can hear poor Cato pacing in his lab alone. As for Sniper, it was waylaid an hour by the doctor, another by the President, another by its fans, but arrives home now, limping half broken down the empty trophy hall.
“?Cardie!” Lesley was the first to spot the living doll. “?Are you okay? ?We saw the fall!”
“I’m okay. The doctors patched me up fine, don’t get up.” Sniper can always force a smile. “?What’s happened since?”
Ockham’s eyes stayed on the broadcast. “A couple self-serving European MPs have gone public about O.S.”
“?What?”
“Three snitches: Goodall, Kovács, and Korhonen.” Lesley helped Sniper onto the sofa at her side, frowning at the splint plastered around its left shoulder, aglow with subtle heat. “They must have got wind that Papadelias had proof, and are trying to get ahead of the tidal wave.”
Lesley’s worry-red eyes held a thousand questions for Sniper, but they sat stunned before DeLupa’s press conference as the Vice President drew floating cameras as carrion draws flies.
“People are saying we have to move slowly on this,” DeLupa continued, “that we don’t have enough proof yet, but we can’t afford to move slowly when those accused are precisely those with the political and financial power necessary to make an investigation drag on for eternity. Korhonen’s description of the system is clear: back when the King of Spain was still Prime Minister this so-called Special Means Committee worked in secret, or semisecret since it seems most of Parliament knew about it, but ever since Perry’s coalition drove the King out of office, this committee of murderers has reported, not just to them, but directly to the European Parliament, and Parliament approved the assassinations, every single member! They’re all responsible! Some knew the truth from Perry’s mouth, some only from rumor, but they all knew, or were willfully blind! Yes, maybe some PMs didn’t like it, maybe some voted against it every time, but they all concealed it, or pretended it wasn’t true, them and all their aides and secretaries, they’re all accessories if not murderers themselves. When someone is an accessory to murder we arrest them, no matter who they are. It sounds absurd arresting more than a hundred people, but this is two thousand murders! Two thousand human lives! And if due process says we don’t have enough evidence to bring them in yet, surely due process breaks down when it’s the very powers that designed due process who need to be taken down. We have to act now, or Parliament will hide behind due process forever. As for the other Hives, with the Mitsubishi, the only question is whether Chief Director Andō is solely responsible or whether all nine Directors knew. President Ganymede’s involvement is, of course, a great personal blow to me, both as Vice President and as a Humanist. I’ve long considered Ganymede a friend, but as the voice of the Anonymous I cannot defend their complicity in this. Korhonen made it clear, the Humanist President had veto to stop any hit at any time. Ganymede’s name should be right at the top of the list of guilty, above even Ockham Saneer!”
“Crap,” was Sniper’s only answer. “They really did spill everything.”
Lesley shook her head. “Everything but your name. No one’s outed you as part of this bash’ yet. You’re still the innocent hero who risked life and limb to rescue the President from falling out that window. You’ll need to make a statement.”
“Yeah.” Sniper started to slump against her, but pain made it choose the sofa over her warm but lumpy shoulder. “I don’t have long, ?do I? Perry’s fleeing cronies don’t know I’m with this bash’, but the police do.”
“None of us has long.” Ockham lifted Lesley’s hand in his, exploring again the feel of her ink-stained fingers. “Lesley and I have been talking,” he began softly.
“?Yes?”
“We think it’s time to pass things to you, Ojiro.”
“?Ockham!” Sniper’s throat cracked.
“I do not intend to be the last O.S.,” Ockham continued. “The Humanists need us more than ever now. The millions who put names on the Wish List do not think we are wrong to solve some problems with death.”
Eureka was rereading it even then, the Wish List, that old web ‘joke’ where Humanists could vote for names of people they ‘wished’ would meet with some unhappy end. I think it reassured her, the thought that others might have killed as she did in her place. I think it reassured them all.
“When they learn how O.S. really worked, a lot of Humanists are going to feel it was right, want to support us, but they’ll be scared to say so. The Hive needs someone they respect to speak out and make others feel free to speak out too if they think we were right. They need Ojiro Sniper as the next O.S., and you need Lesley to help you keep the bash’ alive.”
“I agree.” Lesley squeezed both their hands. “You need me to go with you, Ojiro.” Sniper’s first name, not spoken in that house since Ockham’s accession, came stiffly to her lips. “The two of us together, we’ll run. You know I have the best instinct for this. I realized first when we had to kill our ba’pas. I’m also the figurehead of O.S., the one the public is used to listening to when they’re angry about crashes. You need me with you where I can make plans and speeches, and recruit allies.”
It was a sound plan. Murder or no, the world still loved that little Lesley Juniper who had stood before the cameras, all curls and chubby cheeks, and pledged to dedicate her life to improving the transit network which had left her orphaned. Before you ask, yes, they were murdered, Lesley’s parents, their deaths tipping the Cousins away from some pro-Masonic policy or other. She knew. She always knew. The eleventh O.S., Osten Saneer, realized, I think, what Lesley would become the moment young Ockham and Ojiro returned from informing the child of her ba’pas’ deaths. There were no tears back then, just the petition “Can we keep her?” as if she were some rain-soaked kitten, baring ready fangs.
Sniper swallowed. “?What happens to Ockham?”
“Prospero now,” Ockham corrected, using his own middle name, half forgotten since his accession. “I will stand trial.” He did not look at Sniper but the screen, as if the mob around DeLupa were already camped around his courtroom. “All we have done is follow the orders of our Hive President. The world needs to decide whether that was criminal or not. For that I need to stand trial. You two don’t. Take Cato, take one of the set-sets, take a twin or both if they’ll go, and keep protecting the Humanists. They need us.”
Sniper says it was the figs that made it cry, a bowl sitting on the carpet, remnants of the poor programming of their overfruitful kitchen tree. Their home. “?You’re sure about this?” it asked.
Lesley sighed. “It’s not as if staying here would let us be together.” She squeezed both their hands again. “We need to do this, Ojiro. They’re going to take the cars away from us. We’ll need your resources, to carry on without. I know you’ve thought about the possibility of something like this, living on the run. You have your fans, your followers, your underground, the makings of a private army. There’s not a town on Earth without a devotee ready to open their door to you. We need that now.”
Sniper avoided her eyes. “I was never planning to strike out on my own.”