“Because I’m the Anonymous,” I said in answer to Jin Im-Jin’s stare as Su-Hyeon sat the four of us down for a private meeting after Carlyle left: Romanova’s two most senior Senators, the new Dictator-Censor and . . . some random Servicer.
“Ah, thank you.” Jin’s fingers fidgeted, likely counting out the Brillist set they read in my face and poise. “Would’ve been awkward for us all if I’d guessed.”
“The new Anonymous!” Charlemagne Guildbreaker cried. “This is an honor! Delighted to meet you, and to be working with you! Your essay ‘On Fanaticism’ was a masterstroke!” And with that the Mason who broke the Geisler case, who exposed Rongcorp’s Seven Mornings funnel, whose drafts midwifed the Greenpeace-Mitsubishi Merger, and who had cracked the Sanctum seal to read aloud the name ‘Cornelius Semaphoros’ when the watch fires proclaimed Aeneas MASON’s death, that Mason was shaking my hand with both of theirs, eyes sparkling. “An absolute honor!”
An itch told me there were tears on my cheeks, but words wouldn’t come.
Su-Hyeon rescued me. “I called [Anonymous] here because I think the four of us can do a lot right now, for this city and the world, if we work together to plan and be the voice of the Alliance. What I have right now is a lot of authority, a bit of infrastructure, and about a dozen officers in every city in the world. By myself I don’t think I could make much of it. I don’t have the right experience or training, and I don’t have the confidence of people who have barely heard of me. But if you three help me, I think we can make something of it, something powerful.”
Charlemagne Guildbreaker scratched the white beard which makes their face such a timeless picture of jovial old age that it’s impossible to guess whether they’re in their nineties or their hundred-twenties. “What sort of something? A neutral power? Or would you support a side?”
“Either,” Su-Hyeon answered instantly. “Anything, whatever you suggest. I want to save lives. I’m prepared to be guided by you about what side or stance to take. I love the Alliance and I like the idea of preserving it as a neutral force, but if the two of you tell me the human race will be better off if we throw our support behind the Masons, or the Hiveguard, or the Remakers, or Natekari’s Blacklaws, anything, I’m prepared to consider whatever your experience suggests.”
The two elders exchanged long, approving frowns.
“You know I support my Emperor in all things.” Senator Guildbreaker held out the arm which had borne the gray Familiaris armband since the day they passed the Adulthood Competency Exam.
“Yes,” Su-Hyeon answered, “but I also know you’re usually neutral in the Senate, because you say forwarding general Alliance business forwards the Masons, too. Is that still your opinion, now that you’re at war?”
“Largely, yes,” they granted. “The Alliance and the neutral Hiveless populations are very valuable to the Empire. And, for the moment, I believe I’d be more use to Caesar helping you keep the Alliance extant than anything else I can do from here in Romanova.”
“Would you want me to aid the Masons? And condemn Sniper?”
Guildbreaker paused, and in the pursed edge of their lips I recognized a little hint of Martin. “Not short-term. Taking a side overtly would make it feel like Romanova’s become a puppet. Your dozen agents in each town would abandon you to follow Hives and strats.”
Su-Hyeon brightened. “Then you think we should remain neutral? Would you help me with that consistently, even if sometimes individual actions might be against Masonic interests?”
“Yes, I would, unless my Emperor orders otherwise. And if we ask Caesar to swear their Inviolate Oath that they won’t ask me to betray Alliance neutrality, they will not break it.”
“Perfect, thank you!” Su-Hyeon answered. Color was returning to their cheeks, now that we had the beginnings of a plan. “Speaker Jin, do you feel the same?”
“That Masons believe in inviolate oaths? Yes, they genuinely do.” A teasing laugh glittered in the bright, dark eyes that peeked out from the folds of Jin Im-Jin’s face.
I felt suddenly worse, then better, as the phrase ‘Inviolate Oath’ invoked the sleeping twin dragons once again, then reminded me that they were fossils, nothing more. Masons did believe in MASON’s Inviolate Oath, all of them, belief not in some secret, shared religion, but in something newer, brighter, open to us all: the Empire, their Hive, our Hives, our good new world. Whatever private things Masons or anybody did in Reservations, or with sensayers, were not barbaric practices, but rites a person of our day and age could love, respect, and want to join in. This was the Universal Free Alliance. Our Muslims and Christians were not the Church War’s zealots but had evolved from them, like birds from bloody dinosaurs, and were as beautiful. I’d been thinking the Anonymous should release an essay to endorse Carlyle Foster’s plans to deal with ceremonial faiths. I felt now that I could make it a good one.
Smirking Su-Hyeon offered Jin Im-Jin some light Korean syllables which sounded like teasing, before switching back to English. “I meant, would you help make the Alliance a functional neutral body in this war?”
“Of course,” Jin answered. “No matter how ridiculous the sides get, everyone will need a neutral and functional Alliance to lubricate negotiations.”
“Even if Gordian gets drawn into fighting for a side?”
Jin’s cough was half wince. “That would end fast; we’re barely bigger than Utopia and don’t have any dragons. But the old Brain-bash’ is wise enough to see that, Felix too, and if they aren’t then I suppose we’ll need a strong and functional Alliance to slap sense into them.”
Guildbreaker’s brows rose. “You would side with the Alliance against your Hive?”
“Of course not. If I take off my sweater I’ll be cold. But my Hive won’t oppose a neutral Alliance,” they continued, “and if I’m wrong about something that basic, I . . . I’m not wrong about something that basic, I’m just not.”
Guildbreaker gave a warm, assenting nod.
The Speaker matched the Mason’s smile warmth for warmth, but all warmth faded as their sharp stares turned on me. “And is our new Anonymous neutral as well?”
I just stared, still caught up in Jin’s joke about the sweater. Watching Speaker Jin from a distance, one can forget their impossible extended years, but, sitting beside them, the number 150 haunts every motion of their too-tiny body, energetic like a cricket but fragile enough to shatter like ribbon candy. Instinct faster than thought—the same which makes you jump to aid a child or a pregnant person—is always on edge around them, making you tensed to hold a door, or block a draft, or bring a blanket, or, in this case, making you panic at the thought of cold, and what that cold could cost.
“I can vouch for [Anonymous],” Su-Hyeon answered for me.
“Can you indeed?” Jin Im-Jin searched my face, then Su-Hyeon’s, then mine, then Su-Hyeon’s, the Speaker’s dry fingertips fidgeting out their silent calculations as their gaze cut deep.
I refused to flinch. “Ask,” I invited.
The Speaker smiled. “Pick a number.”
“Five.”