The Will to Battle Read online

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  TOP SECRET MATERIAL: NOT FOR PUBLICATION OR DISTRIBUTION

  THE WILL TO BATTLE

  A CHRONICLE OF EVENTS, begun in JULY of the year 2454

  Undertaken by MYCROFT CANNER, at the

  COMMAND OF CERTAIN PARTIES.

  ALL CLASSIFYING BODIES MUST DECLASSIFY THIS DOCUMENT BEFORE IT IS CONSIDERED DECLASSIFIED.

  ALLIANCE TOP SECRET

  CLASSIFIED BY: Censor Jung Ancelet Kosala; S.O. 2454-147

  REASON: Military Operations, Poly-Hive Security Vulnerabilities

  DECLASSIFY: August 1, 2504, subject to Senatorial approval

  EUROPEAN UNION TOP SECRET—Très Secret Défense

  CLASSIFIED BY: Their Majesty Prime Minister Isabel Carlos II

  REASON: Hive Security Vulnerabilities, Inter-Hive Relations Risk

  DECLASSIFY: August 1, 2504, subject to Parliamentary approval

  GORDIAN SECRET—Geheime Verschlußsache

  CLASSIFIED BY: Executive Chancellor Carlyle Hassal-Krane

  REASON: Inter-Hive Relations Risk

  DECLASSIFY FOR RESEARCH ACCESS: August 1, 2459

  DECLASSIFY FOR PUBLIC: Five years after the death of J.E.D.D. Mason

  IMPERIAL TOP SECRET—SECRETISSIMA

  CLASSIFIED BY: DICTUM ABSOLUTUM

  HUMAN TOP SECRET—Ultra Secreto Humano

  CLASSIFIED BY: President Vivien Ancelet

  REASON: Military Operations, Hive Security Vulnerabilities

  DECLASSIFY: Ten years after stabilization of current crisis

  UTOPIA TOP SECRET—Cosmic Top Secret

  CLASSIFIED BY: Ichabod Hubble, Harbinger Peacebonding Constellation

  REASON: Safeguarding Nuclear Facilities and Weapons of Mass Destruction

  DECLASSIFY: After weapons systems are no longer a relevant threat

  TOP SECRET MATERIAL: NOT FOR PUBLICATION OR DISTRIBUTION

  This Document is certified Potentially Harmful by the Cousins’ Legal Commission, and its circulation in any form is banned for a period of five years, renewable pending review.

  Cause for certification: potential harm to the public peace, potential harm to minors herein portrayed, potential harm to Servicers herein portrayed, potential harm to Cousins herein portrayed, potential harm to real and living persons herein portrayed.

  Private access may be granted by judicial order.

  Not to be published without the permissions of the Romanova Seven-Hive Council Stability Committee, the Five-Hive Committee on Dangerous Literature, Ordo Quiritum Imperatorisque Masonicorum, the Cousins’ Commission for the Humane Treatment of Servicers, and His Majesty Isabel Carlos II of Spain or successor.

  LET IT BE HEREBY KNOWN THAT ANY, MASON OR OTHER, WHO DARES UNLAWFULLY VIEW, CIRCULATE, REPRODUCE, TRANSFER, DISPLAY, DESTROY, OR ABUSE IN ANY WAY PART OR ALL OF THIS DOCUMENT SHALL BE SUBJECT TO THE SEVEREST EXERCISE OF THOSE CAPITAL POWERS WITH WHICH, BY MOST ANCIENT MANDATE, MASON IS INVESTED FOR THE PRESERVATION OF THE EMPIRE IN TIME OF WAR.

  TOP SECRET MATERIAL: NOT FOR PUBLICATION OR DISTRIBUTION

  A SEVEN-TEN LIST

  FOR Our Changing World

    1. Cornel MASON (Mason)

  Masonic Emperor

        Mycroft “Martin” Guildbreaker (Mason)

  Minister Porphyrogeni, Familiaris regni

        Xiaoliu Guildbreaker (Mason)

  Familiaris regni, Martin’s spouse

        Charlemagne Guildbreaker Senior (Mason)

  Romanovan Senator, Martin’s grandba’pa

    2. Bryar Kosala (Cousin)

  Cousin Chair

        Heloïse (Minor)

  Cousins’ Board Advising Member

        Lorelei “Cookie” Cook (Cousin)

  Romanovan Minister of Education, Nurturist faction leader

    3. Vivien Ancelet (Humanist)

  Humanist President, Kosala’s spouse

        Jung Su-Hyeon Ancelet Kosala (Graylaw)

  their bash’child and Ancelet’s successor as Censor

        Ganymede Jean-Louis de la Trémoïlle (Humanist)

  former Humanist President, in custody

        Aesop Quarriman (Humanist)

  Romanovan Senator, Olympic Champion

    4. Isabel Carlos II of Spain (European)

  Acting European Prime Minister

        Joyce Faust D’Arouet (Blacklaw)

  Spain’s fiancée

        Mushi Mojave, Aldrin Bester, Voltaire Seldon (Utopians)

  her hostages

        Saladin Canner (officially deceased)

  her dog

        Julia Doria-Pamphili (European)

  Head of the Sensayers’ Conclave

        Ektor Carlyle Papadelias (European)

  Romanovan Commissioner General

    5. Dominic Seneschal (Blacklaw)

  Acting Mitsubishi Chief Director

        Hotaka Andō Mitsubishi (Mitsubishi)

  Mitsubishi Chief Director, in custody

        Danaë Marie-Anne de la Trémoïlle Mitsubishi (Mitsubishi)

  Andō’s wife, Ganymede’s sister

        Masami (reporter), Toshi (Censor’s analyst), Hiroaki (C.F.B. staff), et al.

  Mitsubishi bash’children, not set-sets

        Carlyle Foster-Kraye de La Trémoïlle

  Dominic’s parishioner, sensayer

        Jyothi Bandyopadhyay (Mitsubishi)

  Greenpeace Mitsubishi Director

    6. Felix Faust (Gordian)

  Headmaster of Brill’s Institute

        Jin Im-Jin (Gordian)

  Speaker of the Romanovan Senate

    7. Mycroft Canner (Servicer)

  The Eighth Anonymous, our chronicler

    8. Jehovah Epicurus Donatien D’Arouet Mason (Minor)

  Graylaw Hiveless Tribune, Porphyrogene, Cousins’ Board Advising Member, Humanist Deputy Attorney General, European Council Counsel, Mitsubishi Directorate Adviser, Gordian’s rising Brain-bash’ Stem, Alien, Heir Presumptive to the Throne of Spain; a God

        Gibraltar Chagatai (Blacklaw)

  His housekeeper

    9. Ojiro Cardigan Sniper (Humanist)

  Thirteenth O.S., at large

        Ockham Prospero Saneer (Humanist)

  Twelfth O.S., in custody

        Lesley Juniper Sniper Saneer (Humanist)

  their second in command, at large

     
   Tully Mardi (Graylaw)

  warmonger, their ally, at large

        Thisbe Ottila Saneer (Humanist)

  smelltrack artist, in custody

        Cato Weeksbooth (Humanist)

  mad science teacher, in custody

        Eureka Weeksbooth (Humanist)

  Cartesian set-set, at large

        Sidney Koons (Humanist)

  Cartesian set-set, in custody

        Kat and Robin Typer (Humanists)

  one in custody, one at large

  10. Achilles Mojave

  a hero

        Patroclus Aimer

  his lieutenant

        Looker, Crawler, Medic, Stander-Y, Nostand

  his remaining men

        Diverse Servicers pseudonymized

  his Myrmidons

        Private Croucher

  a deserter

        Boo

  a real dog

  In Memoriam:

  Bridger

  a miracle

  Mommadoll, Nogun, Stander-G

  his creations

  Casimir Perry, a.k.a. Merion Kraye

  a villain

  The Mardi bash’: Geneva, Aeneas, Jules, Chiasa (Masons), Leigh (Cousin), Malory, Seine (Humanists), Jie (Mitsubishi), Makenna (European), Mercer (Gordian), Kohaku, Luther Mardigras (Graylaws); their bash’children Laurel, Ken (Minors), and Ibis (Cousin); and their friend Apollo Mojave (Utopian)

  first casualties of the war

  For Warre, consisteth not in Battell onely, or the act of fighting; but in a tract of time, wherein the Will to contend by Battell is sufficiently known: and therefore the notion of Time, is to be considered in the nature of Warre; as it is in the nature of Weather.

  —Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan XIII

  CHAPTER THE FIRST

  We the Alphabet

  Written July 6, 2454

  At Alexandria

  Hubris it is, reader, to call one’s self the most anything in history: the most powerful, the most mistreated, the most alone. Experience, and the Greek blood within my veins, teach me to fear hubris above all sins, yet, as I introduce myself again here, I cannot help but describe myself as the most undeservedly blessed man who ever lived. I, who once moved act by act through the catalogue of sins, I, cannibal, torturer, traitor, parricide, who at seventeen gave myself over to deserved execution, I, Mycroft Canner find myself at thirty-one alive, healthy, with far more liberty than I deserve, making full use of my skills in the service of not one, but several worthy masters, and even permitted to sleep at night in the arms of he whose embrace will always be the one place in this universe where I most belong, while he too lies in his proper place, on the floor outside his mistress’s bedchamber.

  War has not yet come, but the waters have withdrawn to form the tidal wave, leaving the beaches and their secrets bare. Hobbes tells us that war consists not in Battle only, but in that tract of time wherein the Will to Battle is so manifest that, scenting bloodlust in his fellows and himself, Man can no longer trust civilization’s pledge to keep the peace. If so, we are at war. We have been these four months, since Ockham’s arrest and Sniper’s bullet revealed too much truth for trust to stay. But we do not know how to turn the Will to Battle into Battle. We have enjoyed three hundred years of peace, World Peace, real peace, whatever the detractors say. This generation has never met a man who met a man who marched onto a battlefield. Governments have no armies anymore, no arms. A man may kill another with a gun, a sword, a sharpened stone, but the human race no longer remembers how to turn a child of eighteen into a soldier, organize riot into battle lines, or dehumanize an enemy enough to make the killing bearable.

  We will learn fast. Man is still a violent beast; I proved that thirteen years ago when the swathe of atrocities I scarred across the public consciousness stirred the world to scream in one voice for my blood. We will make war, but no one wants to light the first match when we do not know how fast the fuel may burn. Three hundred years ago humanity had weapons enough to exterminate ourselves a hundred times over. Now the technology that birthed those weapons is so outdated that children who split the atom for a science fair are labeled antiquarians. We have no newer weapons, but no one doubts that, with a month’s cunning, the technologies that cook our food and slow our aging will birth horrors beyond imagining. If we survive, the wreckage of posterity will want to know how. It is for curious posterity, then, that I am now commanded to keep this chronicle.

  I have done this work before. A week ago my masters presented to the world my little history of those Days of Transformation, now four months past, which left us on war’s threshold. They tell me that the history has done what they had hoped: shared much of the truth, without pushing us farther toward the brink. My great merit as an historian is that I am known to be insane. No court or council can trust my testimony, and each reader may pick and choose what to believe, dismissing anything too unsettling as lunacy. I gave the public what it wanted of the truth, no more, leaving the pundits and propagandists free to shape opinion into faction, and faction into sides and enemies.

  This chronicle is different. My first history was written to be shared and used, now, by my masters. This chronicle cannot be shared, not while these secrets are still War Secrets. The powers that bid me record their doings week by week will not even let each other read the transcript. I alone enjoy this strange trust from the many leaders of what will soon be warring states. I hear the inner whispers of palace and boudoir, whispers which will shape armies, yet which history will never hear unless someone records them. It is this human underbelly of the war my masters bid me chronicle, not for the public, nor even for themselves, but so a record will survive, and with it some apology, as Plato’s apology preserves lost Socrates. We will lose them all in this, I fear: the wise and iron Emperor, patriot Sniper, subtle Madame. We have already lost the best. There lies my chief regret, reader. Since you cannot trust a madman’s word, I cannot persuade you of the one fact which is true comfort to me, even as I grieve. He was real: Bridger. There was a boy who walked this Earth who was a miracle. I held him in my arms. The Divine Light within his touch brought toys to life, made feasts of mud pies, raised the dead, and through him the God Who Conceived This Universe, Who usually sits back invisible, revealed Himself. I wish you could believe me. There is Providence, reader, an inscrutable but intelligent Will which marched us with purpose from the primeval oceans to these battle lines. That is how I know you will be alive to read this. He Who put such effort into mankind will not let us end here. No, I lie. I do not know with certainty that He still needs us. Those fatalists, who have long preached that all things, from the insect’s flutter to these words you read, are fated, determined, written up yonder in the Great Scroll, never considered that that Scroll might have an Addressee. There are two Gods, reader, at least, He Who Conceived This Universe, and He Who Visits from Another, just as Infinite and just as Real. We humans are the letters of a message our Creator wrote to make first contact with His Divine Peer. Now that the letter has been received, it may be crumpled and discarded, or set aside as keepsake in a coffin-stale drawer. We the alphabet may pray only that Their new friendship will continue to rely on words. If so, we will survive.

  CHAPTER THE SECOND

  Human Dignity

  Written July 7–8, 2454

  Events of April 8

  Almoloya de Juáres

  “I, Vivien Ancelet, hereby undertake upon my human dignity that I will execute with faith and vigor the office of President of the Humanist Hive.”

  Imagine hearing these words, not in the flesh, not in Buenos Aires, where you strain on tiptoe to glimpse the podium over the ocean of excited heads, nor even on live video, the new president’s bold image electric in your lenses. Instead you see him on a crass screen, barely a hand’s span square and pixelated by technology’s incompetence, r
eplayed from a recording, so you do not share this moment with your billion brethren, but receive it only as tardy proof that the world outside these prison walls sails on without you.

  “I swear to obey and preserve the Constitution and the Laws of the Humanist Hive,” the oath continues, “to sustain the Hive’s integrity and independence, and to promote all that will advance it and oppose all that may harm it. I will foster the Pursuit of Excellence of all Humanists, safeguard their rights and freedoms, and safeguard too the Olympic Games, the Olympic Spirit, and all who carry it. To these ends I will employ all the means…”—the new president’s voice wavers here, since he—like you, reader—has only recently discovered that “all the means” of the Humanist Hive has so long meant O.S.—“… all the means which the current Constitution of the Humanists places at my disposal, and when the disposition of the vote changes that Constitution, I will serve its new form with equal vigor. I will faithfully discharge these duties without bias or regard to any previous or current personal affiliation with any other Hive, strat, team, or other institution. I further swear to support the principles and reforms of Thomas Carlyle, and to maintain the Carlyle Compromise and all other treaties that continue to serve and safeguard Humanist welfare. I swear to preserve in secret the knowledge granted by my office which must be kept … kept secret.” He almost didn’t stumble. “Should I at any time break this oath of office, or in any way betray the Members’ trust, I shall submit myself to punishment by the laws of the Hive. This is my solemn oath.

  “I wish to add,” Vivien Ancelet’s voice sounds suddenly more human here, a man’s words, not a recitation, “separate from this formal oath of office, my own personal pledge to my now-fellow Humanists that my past offices, and the allegiances associated with them, will not interfere with my exercise of this one. I am no longer Hiveless. I am no longer Censor. I am no longer an officer of Romanova. I am sincere in my pledge to uphold Humanist interests, even above those of the Carlyle Compromise and the Universal Free Alliance if need be. I am also no longer the Anonymous. My commentary will, from this point on, always be biased in favor and service of the Hive that I have joined. I am a Humanist, and speak as one—although not yet in Spanish,” he added with a sheepish tone, “for which I apologize, but it is better, I think, for the whole world to hear and understand this, not just our Members. There is a new Censor now, and a new Anonymous, and both are worthy of those offices. I trust them completely to fulfill their duties as well as I or anyone could. I hope you will trust them too, as much as you trusted me, before I was called to give up those offices for this one.”