“Come on,” the child coaxed, “it’s easy.” He grasped the iron bars, pliant as straw in hands where Thor’s magic strength surged. “We can teleport away, your friend too, home safe.”

“No.” I grabbed his wrists to stop him. “I have work to do here, important work. I’ll come soon, soon as I can, I promise. Now please, go, now! Someone might find you.”

Bridger frowned. “I know it’d be selfishness if any other kid said this, but it’s true for me: I’m the most important thing in the world. No matter what you’re doing here, it can’t possibly be as important as making sure I do whatever it is I’m here to do.” The softness of his face grew softer. “I know you believe in Providence, Mycroft. You think there’s a reason we met, and you think there’s a reason for my powers, they didn’t just appear by random chance. I’m supposed to do something and you’re supposed to help me find out what.”

My throat grew tight. “You’re not going to leave until we hash this out, are you?”

“No,” he answered flatly, “I’m not, and I know how dangerous it is here and I don’t care. I’m leaving with you, or with a good reason you can’t come, or not at all.”

I reached out through the bars and patted the carpet, motioning him to sit close so he could almost lean against me through the cage wall. “You’re right. You’re right you’re that important, Bridger. It’s good that you know that. I think the Major’s right, I think you can save everyone, everyone who’s alive now in the world and maybe even everyone who’s ever died, that’s why you’re here.”

“I want to.” His fists clenched with the force of his conviction; I remember days when my fists clenched like that. “I want to help everyone,” he said, “save everyone, but I have to be careful, you and the Major taught me that. Everything I do I have to think and plan. If Mommadoll had my powers they’d fix all the world’s booboos and have no plan for how to save the economy from chaos when suddenly nobody dies anymore. It would wreck the world. This!” He pulled a vial from his pocket, a glowing, mottled orange like cold lava or living gold. “I made this resurrection potion for Pointer, but I can make more, a hundred more, a hundred billion more, but what will happen if I do?” Small fingers trembled as he held the tube between us, close enough for me to snatch—such trust. He managed half a smile. “Thanks to that sensayer Carlyle I’m not worried anymore about dragging people back from heaven or whatever. I agree with Carlyle, if there’s a God out there running an afterlife They wouldn’t let me do it if They didn’t want me to. I’m worried about what happens here.” He hiccupped. “If I start resurrecting dead people, how will we adjust? What will happen to the Hives? To society? Where will the extra people live? Ten billion people is as much as Earth can handle and Mars isn’t ready yet. Should I make another Earth for the extra people to live on? Is one enough? Should I make six more Earths? Who will own them? Who will run them? Should I make teleporters to take us from Earth to Earth? Who will run those?” His face grew red as he recited his questions, an old list but longer this time than when last I had heard it, a few more details worked out, transit and property, the kind of things we grown-ups learn to think about. “And what if I don’t just bring back people who died recently, what if I bring back people from ages ago, from the Middle Ages, all ages, how will they adjust? How will we adjust to them? How will we even talk to them? Should I make them all speak modern English? Will they even be the same people they were if I change them like that? I don’t know!”