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  SEVEN SURRENDERS

  BEING A CONTINUATION OF Too Like the Lightning,

  A NARRATIVE OF EVENTS of the year 2454

  Written by MYCROFT CANNER, at the

  REQUEST OF CERTAIN PARTIES.

  Published with 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

  The Mitsubishi Executive Directorate

  His Majesty Isabel Carlos II of Spain

  And with the consent of all FREE AND UNFREE

  LIVING PERSONS HEREIN PORTRAYED.

  * * *

  Qui veritatem desiderit, ipse hoc legat. Nihil obstat; nihil obstet.

  * * *

  Recommended.–Anonymous.

  * * *

  I won’t be certain who the killer is until I meet them, but if it is Mycroft, be merciful. Keep them alive, and safe, and working. You need them. If you have lost me, you need them. There are things I leave undone that only Mycroft Canner can complete.

  —APOLLO MOJAVE.

  * * *

  CERTIFIED NONPROSELYTORY BY THE FOUR-HIVE COMMISSION ON RELIGION IN LITERATURE.

  * * *

  RATÉ D PAR LA COMMISSION EUROPÉENNE DES MEDIAS DANGEREUX.

  * * *

  Gordian Exposure Commission Content Ratings:

  S4–Explicit but not protracted sexual scenes; rape; references to sex with violence; sexual acts of real and living persons.

  V5–Explicit and protracted scenes of intentional violence; explicit but not protracted scenes of extreme violence; violence praised; recent incidents of global trauma; crimes of violence committed by real and living persons.

  R5–Explicit and protracted treatment of religious themes without intent to convert; theological abuse; theological assault; recent incidents of global religious controversy; religious beliefs of real and living persons.

  O3–Opinions likely to cause offense to selected groups and to the sensibilities of many; subject matter likely to cause distress or offense to the same.

  Persons APPEARING IN THIS HISTORY

  Bridger

  a child

  The Major

  a veteran

  Aimer

  his lieutenant

  Looker, Crawler, Medic, Stander-Y, Stander-G, Nogun, Nostand

  his men

  Croucher

  a malcontent

  Mommadoll

  a homemaker

  Mycroft Canner

  their guardian

  Saladin

  his lover

  Thisbe Ottila Saneer (Humanist)

  a smelltrack artist

  Ockham Prospero Saneer (Humanist)

  Officer of Security

  Lesley Juniper Sniper Saneer (Humanist)

  a security officer

  Ojiro Cardigan Sniper (Humanist)

  a pentathlete and living doll

  Eureka Weeksbooth and Sidney Koons (Humanists)

  data analysts

  Kat and Robin Typer (Humanists)

  twins

  Cato Weeksbooth (Humanist)

  a mad science teacher

  Carlyle Foster (Cousin)

  their sensayer

  J.E.D.D. Mason (minor)

  a Tribune

  Madame D’Arouet (Blacklaw Hiveless)

  His mother

  Gibraltar Chagatai (Blacklaw Hiveless)

  His housekeeper

  Martin Guildbreaker (Mason)

  His investigator

  Dominic Seneschal (Blacklaw Hiveless)

  His sensayer

  Heloïse (minor)

  His nun

  Cornel MASON (Mason)

  an emperor

  The Seventh Anonymous

  a political voice

  Brody de Lupa (Humanist)

  his proxy

  Bryar Kosala (Cousin)

  a chairperson

  Vivien Ancelet (Graylaw Hiveless)

  her spouse, the Censor

  Jung Su-Hyeon Ancelet Kosala (Graylaw Hiveless)

  their bash’child, the Deputy Censor

  Ganymede Jean-Louis de la Trémoïlle (Humanist)

  a president

  Hotaka Andō Mitsubishi (Mitsubishi)

  a chief director

  Jyothi Bandyopadhyay, Chen Zhongren, Huang Enlai, Kim Yeong-Uk, Kimura Kunie, Lu Yong, Wang Baobao, Wang Laojing (Mitsubishi)

  his colleagues

  Danaë Marie-Anne de la Trémoïlle Mitsubishi

  his wife

  Jun, Sora, Michi, Ran, Harue, Naō, Setsuna (minors)

  their bash’children

  Masami Mitsubishi (Mitsubishi)

  their bash’child, a reporter

  Toshi Mitsubishi (Graylaw Hiveless)

  their bash’child, an analyst for the Censor

  Hiroaki Mitsubishi (Cousin)

  their bash’child, an analyst for the Cousins’ Feedback Bureau

  Casimir Perry (European)

  a prime minister

  Isabel Carlos II of Spain (European)

  a king

  Felix Faust (Gordian)

  a headmaster

  Julia Doria-Pamphili (European)

  Head of the Sensayers’ Conclave

  Jin Im-Jin (Gordian)

  Speaker of the Romanovan Senate

  Darcy Sok (Cousin)

  Head of the Cousins’ Feedback Bureau

  Lorelei Cook (Cousin)

  Romanovan Minister of Education

  Ektor Carlyle Papadelias (European)

  a detective

  Tully Mardi (Graylaw Hiveless)

  a warmonger

  Aldrin Bester and Voltaire Seldon (Utopians)

  ambassadors

  Mushi Mojave (Utopian)

  a Martian entomologist

  Apollo Mojave (Utopian)

  in memoriam

  Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be

  Ere one can say, ‘It lightens.’

  –William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, act II, scene ii

  CHAPTER THE FIRST

  Nihil Obstet

  Nihil Obstat—‘Nothing prevents it’—was the old license-by-fiat which kings and inquisitors pronounced in stifled ages when no printing press could give its inky kiss to paper until Tyrant Church and Tyrant State had loosed censorship’s universal gag. But ‘nihil obstet’ is something else when He appends it to our permissions page, Good Jehovah Mason. ‘Obstet’ is a prayer, one He made over and over to the many authorities who guard humanity: His Imper
ial father, the Cousin Chair, the King of Spain, the Sensayers’ Conclave, the far-seeing Censor, Brill’s wise Institute: ‘Let nothing prevent it.’ They feared as much for Him as for themselves, tried to sow doubt in Him, asked Him by His many names: Are You sure You want to do this, J.E.D.D. Mason? Tribune? Porphyrogene? Prince? Tenth Director? Tai-Kun? Xiao Hei Wang? Jed? Jagmohan? Micromegas? Jehovah Epicurus Donatien D’Arouet Mason? Are You sure You want this snarling, wounded Earth to learn so much of You? But Madame D’Arouet, who raised Ἄναξ Jehovah in that strange bash’-out-of-time she cultured in the gold-drenched heart of Paris, also taught Him numbers: one and many, less and more. So, the same grim calculus that compelled Cicero and Seneca to give their lives for bleeding Rome compels Jehovah now to end the desperation-pain of the ten billion who cry for answers, even at the cost of worse pain to those dearest to Him, and Himself. For your sake, reader, He prayed, to one, to many. And for His sake I pray too, to That One Power—absent from our permissions page—Which could still stop us, as It stopped firebrand Apollo. The many mouths of Providence have swallowed up a thousand histories, and could swallow one more. So I pray: Let nothing obstruct this book and the Good it aims at. If there is benevolence in You, strange Creator, nihil obstet.

  CHAPTER THE SECOND

  Sniper’s Chapter

  RESTRICTION: THIS SECTION MUST BE EXCISED BEFORE THIS DOCUMENT MAY BE PUBLISHED OR DISTRIBUTED. PRIVATE ACCESS MAY BE GRANTED BY JUDICIAL ORDER.

  RESTRICTION ORDERED BY: The Conclave of Sensayers of the Universal Free Alliance.

  REASON: Libelous attribution of criminal acts to a licensed sensayer.

  RESTRICTION ORDERED BY: Cousins’ Legal Commission.

  REASON: Potential harm to the public peace, potential harm to minors herein discussed.

  RESTRICTION ORDERED BY: Ordo Quiritum Imperatorisque Masonicorum.

  REASON: Instigation of violence against a Familiaris Regni.

  RESTRICTION ORDERED BY: Universal Free Alliance Commissioner General Ektor Carlyle Papadelias.

  REASON: Strong evidence that substantial parts of this document are an alteration or forgery with destructive intent.

  DURATION OF RESTRICTION: Five years, renewable pending review.

  * * *

  Howdy, fans and foes! This is your very own Sniper. First, let me assure you that I’m alive and well. The fugitive lifestyle suits me fine, my wounds are healed, I have plenty of allies, and I will kill Jehovah Mason for you, that I swear, today, tomorrow, a year from now, however long it takes. They can’t guard the little prince forever. Tyrants and assassins have a great symbiosis. Assassins are always evil and despised (even when our effects are good, we’re still a bad means to a good end) until tyrants crop up. Then suddenly assassins are heroes, lifelines; suddenly we alone have the power to save the world without a revolution and the destruction revolutions bring. You admit you need us. But, between tyrants, you forget that assassins will only be here, ready, when you want us if we’ve been here, ready, the whole time. You feel dirty keeping such a weapon in the house, but somebody has to keep one or it won’t be there when the bad wolf comes to huff and puff. My office is no less a pillar of this age than Censor or Anonymous. I serve with no less pride.

  Second, I should say I’m only writing this one chapter, and Mycroft will take over again when I’ve had my say. Mycroft went to great lengths to contact me so I could describe this event, which did come next in sequence. I agreed to relate it only on condition that they promise not to touch a word of what I wrote. It’s a privilege I intend to abuse to the utmost, and I’ll have my say about Jehovah Mason before I’m done. But I’ll start first with the part that will make your usual narrator squirm the most: correcting their willful omission and giving you a proper physical description of Mycroft Canner.

  Mycroft is average height, shorter because they stoop, and swimming in their oversized uniform, like a statue wrapped in sacking, waiting to be restored. Their hair is curly in that classical Greek way, off-black, closer to a grayish tint than brown, and overgrown around the sides and forehead, as if they imagine so marvelous a creature could hide itself beneath a few stray locks. Modern science has kept their face as fresh at thirty-one as it was at seventeen, when all it took was a glance from Mycroft Canner to make the strongest shudder, but now those devil eyes lock tamely on the floor. They’re brown eyes if you get a look at them, bright brown and antique feeling, like the brown tint which makes old wine richer than new. There’s a scarring on their upper lip where violence has split it once too often, which gives a sense of hidden fangs. But the real prize comes when you strip away their uniform and bare the skin beneath, a tapestry of scars, all shapes, all vintages: the crumpled edges of old cuts and bites, the roughness of burns, strap-sores around the wrists and ankles, the ley lines of surgery, bullet holes round like little kisses, all layered on top of one another like a graffiti wall which tempts you to add your own mark. There’s a story behind every scar, and I’ve spent many lucky hours tracing that skin and asking about each; Mycroft answers about one-third of the time.

  The Mycroft you remember from the news was lean, all muscle like a starving scavenger. That hasn’t changed. The wildest stray goes soft after a year of warm laps and petting, but not Mycroft. I don’t believe Mycroft starves themself only as self-punishment. It could be that they don’t want to taint such a body with whatever unhealthy slop Servicers’ patrons tend to offer, but I suspect it’s just that our predator finds common food hard to choke down after what they’ve tasted. Their famous hat (and even I was surprised to learn it came from Dominic Seneschal) is round, brown, something like a newsboy cap, though more patches than cloth at this point, with only the remnants of what might have been a brim. Mycroft lied to you, you know. They said there was no Beggar King to command the Servicers, but the sight of that hat makes the others snap to attention as surely as a crown. It’s not for the crimes that the other Servicers idolize Mycroft, it’s what Mycroft’s done since. Even in Hell they’re stunned to find an angel among them, willing to be as much a guardian as a fallen angel can.

  Today’s Mycroft genuinely is as obsequious in person as they are in print, a self-styled slave in this world which has none. But if you sit with them awhile, and talk, and coax, the formality fades, the hunch which hides the still-strong shoulders loosens, the hands begin to splay like claws, and eventually the beast I call True Mycroft pokes its nose above the surface. It’s not a prisoner in there, not fighting to break free, just resting inside Slave Mycroft like a ship in harbor, saving itself for something. Slave Mycroft has only one expression: apology. As for True Mycroft, their expressions are unreadable, or rather you’re wrong if you try to read them, like when the shape of a dog’s face makes it seem to smile or frown where really you’re just projecting human expressions onto an inhuman thing.

  Like most of us, I first laid eyes on Mycroft Canner on the news just after the capture, as the police wheeled them past row on row of emergency forces. Mycroft was so serene then, basking in the procession as if that transparent coffin-cage was a triumphal chariot. We’d already heard Mycroft’s reasons for the Mardi killings from the recorded speeches they left beside the later bodies. This was the supreme act of violence of this century, done not by a government, not a Church, not a tribe, not an army, but by an individual. Ever since villagers first wielded sharpened sticks in their chief’s name, the State had held a monopoly on supreme violence, but the Hive system ended that. Mycroft called their killings a demonstration of a liberty our era had not realized we possessed, proof of history’s progress if seventeen deaths were enough to shock the world; historically, seventeen deaths is a good day. Philosophers had long speculated about Savage Man, whether the conscience is innate or implanted by society, and whether the human mind is actually capable of willing evil for the sake of evil—even the most heinous killers still tend to imagine some goal (revenge, profit, personal pleasure, some mad command). It’s an important question, fundamental really—can we choos
e actions that purely make the world worse without any perverse perceived benefit?—but we couldn’t discover whether the true Human Beast could exist back when the Beast was like a craftsman in an age of mass production, negligible beside the infinitely greater evils: Democide and War. There before the cameras Mycroft preached that, in these days of peace when we choose our Hive and values for ourselves, human individuals finally have the chance to be the worst thing in the world, and the right to be proud of our choice if we are not. That was the first time I fell in love with anyone outside my bash’.

  It was a month after the arrest that Eureka told me Mycroft Canner wasn’t executed after all. We had to make them ours, that was clear. My crush aside, I always say a killer can smell a killer, and with yours truly on the news every five minutes, Mycroft had surely scented me by now. Eureka tracked Mycroft down among the Servicers, and Ockham paid the visit. It took moments for each to recognize what other was. Laconic Ockham delivered simply, “Come,” which Mycroft matched with an instant, “Yes, Məəəer Saneer,” in Mycroft’s signature vague diction which lets you think they’re saying ‘Member’ but underneath it’s really ‘Master’ leaking out. Lesley and I had spent weeks concocting blackmail enough to collar the beast (and keep them silent, which was Ockham’s concern), and were a little pissed to find our schemes superfluous. We’d sent the trapper after a wolf and caught a fawning puppy; there was no choice but to adopt it. It was supposed to be my puppy, but Thisbe set their sights on it, and when Thisbe stirs even O.S. trembles. I still got Mycroft as a playmate, storyteller, sparring partner, but only Thisbe got them at night, and (as I’ve learned now) never touched them. Just as well; as one learns from the obituaries of the wealthy perverts Mycroft used to prostitute themself to, raising money to help other Servicers, if you sleep with Mycroft Canner you don’t live long (and thanks to reading the first half of this history, I now know to call that phenomenon Saladin).