I heard Bridger thumping, hunting through boxes, uncertain where my Servicer friends had packed whatever it was he came for. “I can’t handle this, Mycroft. I know me, and I can’t. I’m not like you and the Major and your scary friend. I’m frightened. I wanted to keep hiding until I got stronger inside. I can’t face this now. I’m going to go crazy.”

“No you’re not. We’re here to help you.”

“I am! I’m going to go crazy watching a war I started. I’m going to go crazy running from a whole planet full of people who think I can grant their wishes. I’m going to go crazy having to choose between leaving dead people dead, and bringing them back and overwhelming the world with resurrected people. I’m going to go crazy trying things, and having them go wrong, over and over, with consequences nobody can predict. And I’m going to go crazy being around Jehovah.”

I leaned against the door’s cold panel, mirrored steel. Why? Did I hope my warmth would reach him somehow? Or, hearing his predictions, was I too weak to stand? “I know it seems impossibly hard, but we’ll help you. We’ll do everything we can.”

Tears’ hiccups made his voice shrill. “Why’d you raise me like this, Mycroft? You and the Major could’ve raised me stronger, like a soldier. Then maybe I could’ve handled this.”

“Then you would’ve remade the world the way a soldier would. That isn’t what you want, is it?”

“How do you know I haven’t done that already? How do you know I didn’t cause this war?”

I smiled again. “Because I trust you.”

“I don’t want to destroy this world. I like this world.”

“Then we’ll save it, together.”

“No.” There was a special, almost surprised firmness in this ‘no,’ as if Bridger’s young mind was unsettled finding himself exercising this grown-up-like responsibility of choice. “I’ve made up my mind. I’m too dangerous. I can’t handle being scared, or watching horrible things happen. I’ll panic, and snap, and just wish for everything to go away, and then it will.”

“You wouldn’t do that, Bridger. I trust you.”

“Of course you do! Because I want you to!” Sobs broke into a scream. “Can’t you see it? Everybody says you were a completely different person before you met me. What if it’s true? I was scared! I just wanted somebody nice to hug me, and keep me safe, and tell me stories. I turned you into this! You’re not Mycroft Canner! You’re a fantasy, like Boo, and Mommadoll, my fantasy of what I wanted from the first real grown-up I ever met!”

The suggestion struck like lightning. I had not thought of it. Perhaps you, wiser than I, had, reader, but it is far easier to doubt another’s existence than to doubt one’s own. My mind searched itself for proof, dredging up memories, actions, continuity, excuses. It couldn’t be true. “I’m not your invention, Bridger,” I answered, more for myself than him. “I have too many memories of things you don’t understand.”