I pried the doll’s arms from around me. “That’s why you need help. I’ll protect you, you know I will, always!”

“You can’t! Everybody knows, Mycroft! Everybody saw me, the Hive leaders, videos, the whole world. They’ll all be after me now.”

“That’s why you need to come with me, where it’s safe.”

“It’s not safe, even with you. I can’t handle this. I can’t handle the whole world hunting for me and the whole world counting on me.”

I moved close to the door, calling softly through its crack, as through the pillow door of a play-fort where children run to pout. “Of course you can’t handle it alone, but you’re not alone. May I come in?” I tried the handle, but the lock stayed firm.

“Stay away!” He choked on the violence of his own syllables. “I don’t want anybody to touch me! Nobody!”

“Okay. I’ll be right here when you decide to come out. Do you want some tissues? I have some, I can stick them under the door.”

Bridger sniffed to prove he didn’t need them. “I did what you said, Mycroft. I watched, I spied on your Jehovah. Do you think they’re actually a God like they say?”

I stole a trick from Carlyle. “What do you think?”

“I think they’re scary. When I hear them talk, they’re different, more different than anything else, like everything else I’ve ever seen is part of one familiar thing, but they’re something else. Every word they say it feels like it’s true, but at the same time like I shouldn’t be hearing it.”

I wondered whether the presence of This Universe’s God in Bridger let the child sense somehow that Jehovah was separate, an Intruder in the fixed perfection of our Maker’s Providence, a free and separate Will. “It’s true that Jehovah’s scary,” I answered, “but they’re also Good. We can rely on Them. They understand what you can do better than anyone. Jehovah’s the right Person to help you.” I could hear Bridger moving on the far side of the door, the rustle of fabric a few feet inside.

“That’s not what you said before,” he countered. “You said before I had to wait to meet Jehovah, that they’d twist me into something I’m not, if I met them too soon.”

I smiled. He could not see, but sometimes a smile can be heard in one’s tone even over distance. “You met Them when you were intended to, no earlier or later.”

“They’re right, aren’t they?” His voice grew thin. “I’m going to destroy the world.”

“Of course you aren’t, you’re going to save it.”

“I don’t like it when you lie to me. You know I’m not going to save this world, I’m going to destroy it to make a better one, just like Apollo wanted.”

“Apollo never wanted that!” I snapped, glad now that he could not see my reddened face. “Apollo was willing to destroy this world to guard a better one, but only because there was no other choice. They tried to start a war now to keep Utopia from being wiped out in the war that will come when Mars is ready, but that’s not what they wanted, it was never what they wanted.”