Dominic bore me blindfolded from the car to somewhere. Then he bound me to a chair, removed my blindfold so I could learn as much as possible from seeing Sniper’s people, and delivered one swift stab to the side of my back as promised, during which I held obediently still. Then he left me. It was a bare room, with no hint of light and no clock save the dripping and increasing scent of blood. Dark held no fear for me, nor death when I had been closer so often, but the consequences of this plan, success or failure (Sniper’s victory, Sniper’s death), those I feared. I fought the fear awhile by reviewing the chapters of my history which must come next. By humorous chance I was then writing the chapter where you, reader, first met Dominic—Canis Domini, as I had not yet titled it—and next, what should I write next? Carlyle day? Yes, that would show you the Censor’s office, and the Pantheon. Anemia’s haze was just starting to weigh upon me when dim light and footsteps entered from a door behind me. I tried to speak thanks, but managed only a groan. It was a single person, caution-silent, neither fast nor slow. They bent low over the ropes that bound me to the chair, then plunged a blade into the wound already in my back and stabbed deeper, hard, twice. The scents of guts and urine joined the blood drip metronome, which sped now to a stream. I whimpered. My attacker withdrew quickly and closed the door behind them, leaving the dark complete. Now fear reared dragon-fierce inside me, pain, cold, numbness as my blood’s departure reduced muscle to meat. Consciousness fled too fast for me to complete a prayer.

CHAPTER THE EIGHTH

Enemy Sanctum

Written July 27–29, 2454

Events of April 15

Somewhere east of Europe

Mycroft? Mycroft! Thou canst not die now with thy work unfinished. Who will tell me what this Dominic creature found in the Saneer-Weeksbooth bash’house? And how the O.S. melodrama cascaded disaster by disaster toward the world’s upheaval? I forbid thee to quit my service with thy history barely begun.

See, reader, it was you who saved me back then, you who called in duty’s name and forbade my staggering soul from taking the soft hands offered by the twin horsemen Sleep and Death. I had finished only seven chapters of my history, and, as the crimson dripping starved my brain toward rest, yours was the first voice which called to me of duties yet undone.

Hobbes: “Well done, friend Reader. Our stubborn guide is not easy to keep alive.”

Reader: “True, Thomas, true. Mycroft has many well-honed instincts, but not self-preservation.”