“I told you it was a trap.” Tully’s voice is always urgent, calling through the war vapors around him as if every word were some last message screamed over a dying radio as the invaders’ tanks close in. I know I should not heap such scorn on Tully. He’s my fault. Still, this is the child of Luther Mardigras and Mercer Mardi, ransomed from my rampage by Apollo’s blood, and reared in Luna City by the vanguard of Utopia. Not since the days of Brill himself has one researcher’s work expanded the charted regions of psychology as much as what Mercer Mardi dictated to the recording while the pain and shock of vivisection opened each new petal of uncharted madness to her, one by one, while Luther Mardigras was the indefatigable, fun-armored heart that first drew together the Mardi bash’ which loved this world so much they dared scheme to destroy it to save a better one. The child of such a pair should have ridden on sphinx-back across an Earth that did not deserve to touch his feet, while on his coat the avatars of human intellect should war like angels through the cityscape of man’s cyclopean unconscious. Instead he whined.

“You shouldn’t have brought Mycroft here. [Mycroft flayed my father alive then burned him in a wicker man.] You’re risking everything for mere nostalgia.” The middle phrase was not spoken, reader, but I could feel it leak through Tully’s words, whispered by the smoky tongues of hate that wafted from him.

Sniper smiled. “Don’t worry. Our precautions are enough.”

Tully leaned forward, war’s claws expanding from his motion like infernal smoke rings. “We can’t know that. [You’ve seen the photos of Mycroft bathing in my mother’s bloody bile.]”

Sniper’s smile faded. “If you don’t trust my precautions, go take better ones.”

Hate answered fast. “I’m not leaving you alone with Mycroft Canner. [They made my big ba’sis watch them eat her own roasted fingers.]” Tully brushed neglect-frayed hair out of his eyes, whose lenses glittered bright with data. “Mycroft is not your friend, Sniper. If they pretended to be your friend once—even if they really were your friend once in their own mad way—that’s over. [We played together, Mycroft, Ken, and me. The police had me identify Ken’s frozen dismembered trunk when they finally found it. I was eight.]”

“Stop being such a grown-up, Tully,” Sniper snapped back. “Mycroft and I can be enemies in five minutes or tomorrow. Now is pretend time. We all need that sometimes.”