Salt crusts would not let Cato fully close his eyes. “I still can.”
Even injured, Sniper’s left arm was not too numb to feel Cato reach for something in the depths of his lab coat pocket. Sniper seized Cato’s wrist and twisted. “You know the penalty for pulling a weapon on—” It stopped short as Cato’s fingers slipped, and a jar with one coarse white pill rolled out across the floor.
“?Coward!” Sniper cried, its voice black. “Oh, no you don’t. You’re going to live through this, Cato. You’re going to live to see what the consequences are when it all ends like you pretend you always wanted.”
“?Cardie! ?Please! ?I just want it to be over!”
“It’s Ojiro now,” Sniper corrected sternly, “and it won’t be over.” Twisting Cato’s arm, Sniper dragged the sobbing Mad Science Teacher to his feet and steered him back into the lab, where festive flashing screens stood ready to weave more murder. “This is beginning, Cato, not ending, and you don’t get to run away.”
A bin of scraps and string and other bric-a-brac standing by for quick inventions supplied tape strong enough to strap Cato’s hands behind him.
“?No!” Cato wriggled like a scooped-up puppy, protest without real hope of escape. “Cardie—Ojiro—Don’t make me, I can’t face—”
“?The Utopians?” Sniper supplied, cold. “?Afraid they’ll treat you as a traitor? ?Letting them think of you as almost one of them all these years? ?Or is it your students you can’t face? ?When they find out what your science was really for!”
The words, more than Sniper’s grip, forced Cato to the floor. “This isn’t what it’s for,” he whimpered. “It shouldn’t be. It should be for the future, for Space, and Mars, and medicine, and talking to dolphins, and finding what the universe is made of. That’s what I should have been, but I can’t look at a spool of tape without thinking how to hide poison in the glue, or plant a pathogen in the fibers. ?You made me into this!”
Sniper grunted, its injured shoulder straining as it strapped Cato methodically to a table leg. “We’re all living weapons, Cato. That’s why humans are born with fangs and claws. You can have a few hours to think about your choice.”
“?Choice?” Cato flexed to test his bonds. “You’re not leaving me any choice. You never have.”
Sniper straightened. “I am this time, Cato. That’s your punishment: you get to choose. You can stay here, and stand trial, and see how sympathetic your precious public is when they hear your sob story about how you never wanted to commit mass murder, or you can come with me, and keep doing what you’re so good at doing, to protect the world now that it needs us more than ever.”
“It never needed us.”
“It did. You know it did. And it does now. You may not care about the Humanists, but you can’t honestly believe this mess won’t touch Utopia. Once Ockham’s arrested, Utopia will take over our cars. ?Do you think the world won’t see that as a coup? They helped the police unmask us, that’s three billion very angry Humanists, Mitsubishi, and Europeans against half a billion Utopians. ?You really want to sit back and trust it’ll end well?”
Cato shivered like a fly in a web. “They’re not involved. They’re clean. This is our sin, everyone’s but theirs. The world can’t turn around and attack the only innocents. ?Can they?”
Sniper fished a rag from the invention bin and wound it into a gag. “I don’t expect you’ve got the guts to bite out your own tongue, but I don’t have time to babysit you, and I’m not taking the risk.”
“?I’m not what the world needs!” Cato cried. “The world needs a real mad scientist, someone who could concoct something to save everyone, some world-saving wonder, not just death. If I were that—”
“You’re not.” Sniper forced the gag between Cato’s teeth. “I’ll be back by dawn. Have an answer ready: stay with me in O.S. and save the world, or rot.”
I CANNOT SAY THE SIXTH DAY EVER REALLY ENDED, BUT HERE, WITH DISASTER’S BREATH UPON THE WIND, THE SLEEPLESS EARTH SPUN ON TO THE SEVENTH AND LAST DAY OF MY HISTORY.
CHAPTER THE FIFTEENTH
The Most Important Person in the World
We reach at last March the Twenty-Ninth of the Year 2454. The birds of Cielo de Pájaros still teemed that morning, numberless as spirits over the rings of glass roofs which studded the mountainside’s descent toward an Ocean black and barely crusted with the gold of infant dawn. Seven days had passed since Martin Guildbreaker and Carlyle Foster had made their first approaches to the Saneer-Weeksbooth bash’. Today it was Papadelias who came with Martin, with others behind them, police uniformed in Romanovan blue, who marched with reluctant awe across the bridge which gave Bridger his name. You did not know that, did you, reader? In childhood all names were ‘-er’ for him, Stander, Looker, Aimer, Croucher, Canner, even Saneer, so, dwelling as he did beneath a bridge, Bridger. It is a name which, like all good names, means nothing. I hope you will keep calling Jehovah ‘Jed Mason,’ reader. An empty name is healthier.
Martin and Papadelias separated on arrival, each taking a squad to cover the two bash’house entrances, the Commissioner General taking Thisbe’s door in the trench below, while the Mason took the front. His hand shook as he activated the intercom.
“This is Mycroft Guildbreaker, acting for Romanova. I am here for Ockham Saneer.”
“Is the world about to end?” the master of the house called back. “If not, leave. I have eight hundred million lives to oversee.”
Martin breathed deep within his square-breasted Mason’s suit. “I’m afraid the sky is falling this time. Ockham Prospero Saneer, by order of the Universal Free Alliance I am here to place you and all members of your bash’ under arrest for murder and conspiracy.”
The twelfth O.S. did not yet open his fortress door. “I am a critical officer appointed by the Humanist government, and charged by the Alliance with the maintenance of the cars. I may not leave my post unless relieved, nor may I permit anyone to interfere with my bash’mates’ work without an order from my President.”
“I know.” At Martin’s gesture the Utopians stepped into line of sight, nine of them, somber in muted shades of ancient temples and nanolabyrinths, with a reluctant set-set riding their triceratops. “These replacements have trained on the Utopian Transit Network. My orders are to have the two most vital of your bash’mates remain here under house arrest to help them with the transition, while you and the others are conducted to Romanova.”
One did not have to see Ockham’s face to sense his frown. “Utopians are a strange choice.”
The Mason swallowed hard. “The Humanist backup facility by Salekhard was destroyed in an explosion late last night. There are two survivors of the backup crew, both in hospital.”
Even Ockham required some moments to digest that. “You realize this cannot be coincidence.”
“It was revenge,” Martin confirmed. “The perpetrators already confessed. They were the bash’ of a Brillist killed in a car crash, and attacked the Salekhard backup facility with a homemade incendiary device. If your bash’house weren’t in a major population center, they would have targeted you, too.”
A pause. “Which Brillist?”