A secondary screen below DeLupa replayed the footage from Sniper’s visit: Madame’s regulars giddy with delight as they dressed their living doll, now as a captain, now as a duchess, now as a groom. An eye accustomed to the view could see that the Flesh Pit was different with Sniper in it, all dancing and banquet tables, a masked ball, racy, with its fair share of bare breasts and crude gestures, but nothing like an orgy. It hardly seemed like a brothel at all, just a Blacklaw-run themed nightclub, scandalous only for using ‘he’ and ‘she,’ while every client who might have been ashamed to be caught there had retreated to the inner rooms. In the hour before the great crash, millions across the globe had seen Madame’s great banquet hall through Sniper’s cameras’ eyes and decided it was a place they might try visiting, even booked a dinner there; they could not thereafter censure Spain’s choice of venues without feeling the tickle of hypocrisy.

“The message we got wasn’t from the President,” Sniper answered, “it was faked by Casimir Perry. It was a setup. Perry wanted that meeting exposed, and O.S. too. They ordered me to go to Madame’s, and they ordered us to make the Harper Morrero hit knowing Papadelias was watching.”

Lesley frowned. “But Perry’s guilty too.”

“I know, but Perry doesn’t seem to care.”

“And what about the presence of Mycroft Canner at the meeting?” It was the reporter on the screen who asked first, but Ockham and Lesley wondered too: if even the Prime Minister would betray them, so might I.

DeLupa huffed. “The Emperor still insists that the Lex Familiaris forbids any public discussion of Mycroft Canner’s sentence, but I agree, an explanation is in order. Don’t forget, the victims of the Canner Spree were all influential people themselves: two Familiares, a leading Senator, Faust’s successor-designate…”

Even the reporter paled. “Are you suggesting the Canner murders were part of this same conspiracy?”

“I can’t comment on that, but if Canner was summoned there then someone at that meeting, probably Caesar, was wondering the same thing.”

Lesley’s hands clenched hard around her ba’sibs’. “If they blame us for Mycroft Canner there won’t just be a trial, there’ll be mobs and torches.”

Sniper scowled. “Smells like Vice President DeLupa can’t wait to drop the ‘Vice.’ ”

Lesley flexed her toes. “¿Should that be our next hit then?”

“¿What?”

“We still have the cars for a few hours, I’m sure Sidney and Eureka can work up a list of targets that would calm things down.”

“¡You can’t be serious!” The words came through the lab door, which Cato Weeksbooth had cracked open just enough to let the others see a sliver of white coat, wild hair, tears. “¿You’re going to keep going? ¿Now? ¡It’s over! ¿Can’t you see? ¡It’s over! ¡The world knows! ¡And they hate us! ¡And they’re finally going to tear us down like we deserve!” Cato’s throat was too sob-sore to scream. “¡People don’t want this! They don’t want us to keep going. They don’t want the world to be dirty like this. ¡They want it to stop! It’s not just Ockham who should stand trial, it’s everyone: Sniper, Lesley, Eureka, Sydney, me, the President, Andō, every Humanist who’s ever put a name down on the Wish List, everyone. It’s over. ¡Let it end!”