“Put it back? That data point was a fifty-nine-year-old Cousin named Harper Morrero. If we hadn’t parried, they’d be dead now.”

The set-set’s breath raced, enough to make their tracker bleep concern. <dead? a person? wait, what is this data?>

Aldrin’s fists clenched her unicorn’s ink-black mane. “You didn’t tell the set-set what data they’re sifting?”

Martin gave the set-set’s shoulders a comforting squeeze. “They didn’t need to know. They said they’d work better if they didn’t.”

<ten billion points,> the set-set typed faster than speech, <ten billon people, that’s the whole world. is this the tracker system? have I been hooked to the tracker computers without knowing it?>

Martin sighed at Aldrin. “Why did you give them access to live data? I told you to show them old records, not—”

“They asked for it,” Aldrin interrupted.

<wait, you said a car crash. the transit network! this is the transit network, isn’t it? not the trackers. cars! am i in cielo de pajaros? where are sidney and eureka?>

“Why did you try to kill that person?” Aldrin pressed. “What fallout did you prophesy?”

The set-set’s breath raced. <i didn’t mean to hurt anyone! attempted murder? am i going to prison now? i didn’t know those data points were people! i’m not a murderer!>

“It’s all right,” Martin consoled. “We know you didn’t know. I called you in here, you won’t be held responsible. You had no way to know.”

<then all the points i found that were deleted, those were people too? murders!>

The Masonic iron of Martin’s face softened for a moment. “Just remember, it’s not your fault. I didn’t tell you what we were investigating. You aren’t responsible for what’s going to happen when we release this information, I am. I could have hired anyone. None of this was you.”

<release? you can’t release this! it’ll cause worldwide panic!>

“They’ll just keep killing if we don’t.”

<you don’t understand.>

“How many did you find?”

<what?>

“I had you look for deaths—deletions—that had a large global impact, and which only a Cartesian set-set would know how to predict. How many did you find?”

<maybe it’s not true. this is new data to me. where are sidney and eureka? sidney koons and eureka weeksbooth, they work on the transit network, they’re the ones you want! ask them!>

“You knew Sidney and Eureka well, didn’t you?” Martin asked softly. “You were sort of ba’sibs?”

<of course. with the cousins and lorelei cook sabotaging set-set training, there’s only one place left that trains cartesians. you must’ve read the black sakura seven-ten list article about it.>

How could Martin not wince? The whole world had read by now, not only Masami Mitsubishi’s original editorial about Romanovan Senator and Minister of Education Lorelei “Cookie” Cook, but the follow-up articles, penned by quick-striking journalists ever poised like mantises in search of prey: the nighttime raids which, increasingly of late, had been ripping infant set-sets from their pod-beds, smashing their computers, burning their bash’houses down, was this more than the sleeping dragon Nurturism releasing a scorching snore? Was this Nurturist surge deliberate? Traceable to Lorelei Cook, and through the Cousins’ most prominent Senator to the Cousins themselves? Perhaps this sigh from Martin wishes for a world where that had been the largest crisis.