At that it did shoot, a single bullet, close enough to pierce my shadow as I rolled for cover. “Don’t insult me!” it called. “I could’ve crashed the cars. I had millions of hostages, I could’ve slammed every Mason flying into a Mason’s house, or drowned Madame’s in flames like Perry did to Brussels. I didn’t. My duty is to protect the Hive system, Masons included. If the system can’t keep going without an old-fashioned revolution, it’s my duty to lead it.”

“You can’t control it!” I cried. “It’s been three hundred years. The Mardis worked for decades and they still had only the vaguest idea what a war would be like after all this time.”

“We both know it’s far simpler than that. The side with Bridger wins.”

I reached a row of military Snipers now, crawling my way forward through history’s bloody centuries: hoplite, centurion, knight, samurai. “They’re here, aren’t they? Bridger? Can you hear me, Bridger? It’s Mycroft! I just want to talk to you!”

“Go away!”

Those two words were enough; Bridger’s sob-strained voice rose muffled from behind the closed door of a storage hall far to my left. I spotted Sniper now, perched as guardian on the roof of a concessions stand beside the door. I had wondered what costume Bridger would choose for the Sniper it awoke as guardian: something friendly, a Cousin’s wrap perhaps, a frilled apron like Mommadoll’s, or something from the heroes gallery, Sun Wukong, or Robin Hood, he did love Robin Hood. He had chosen a Servicer’s uniform.

“Bridger, call Sniper off, please! Let me help! Let me tell you what’s happened!”

Inching forward, I reached World War Sniper, took a toy grenade from its pack strap, pulled the replica pin, and hurled the weapon onto the platform where Sniper crouched. Knowing a real bomb was not beyond my resources, it fell for the gambit, dove, and rolled out of blast range like a dancer, perfect form, but in that instant I was on it. We grappled on the floor, a strange combat, moves that we had practiced often on Sniper’s training mats, suddenly intended to actually harm. Zeal’s blush lit Sniper’s face, its chance at last to taste the violence sleeping in my limbs that it had often tried to coax to wakefulness. It punched my temple, smirking as if imagining the envy on real Sniper’s face when it would see the bruises its proxy had inflicted. I did not have time for play.

“Bridger, help!” I cried. “It’s going to kill me!”

Life left the doll, as instant as the snapping of a neck. Should I apologize? It was a lie, a dirty, cheating way to win, but combat is not sport. Even Seine Mardi fought dirty in the end.

“Go a-way, My-croft!” Panicked, shallow hiccups made Bridger’s words staccato as a drum. “I’m not going to change my mind!”

I made my tone warm. “What happened in Romanova wasn’t your fault.”

“It is my fault! I got scared and careless, just once, and the Sniper I brought to life wrecked the whole world!”