Headlines and graffiti stand the purest chronicle of these next hours. “JEDDM Declares Both Peace and War” was my favorite, proclaimed by The Romanov, the world capital’s paper cutting a keen and honest mid-ground between The Times of India’s “Olympic Spirit Inspires Global Truce” and the Buenos Aires Herald’s “Sniper Proved Right: JEDDM Plans World Conquest.” That first night, vandals multiplied Sniper’s bull’s-eye sigil tenfold on walls real and digital, often with the addition of a crosshairs and “JEDDM” at its center, but by dawn a new corps of scribblers had largely obscured these bellicose scrawls with bold Olympic rings. The proliferating slogans “Use Peace Well” and “Valuable Days” I attribute to Cousins, while their Rosetta Forum boasted, “Olympic Truce Opportunity to Negotiate Peace Before War Begins.” The Cousins’ Board and newly elected Transitional Congress pledged to fight for amnesty from the Masons if those who violated Alexandria would surrender voluntarily. MASON did not respond to the suggestion, but none could doubt at whose command Audite Nova published a new photograph of the ravaged Sanctum Sanctorum, promising it would be followed the next day by another image, and another, with a daily countdown toward the Closing Ceremony that would be War’s birthday: 127, 126, 125, 124… today 12, tomorrow 11… The Brillist Institute Newsletter on that first morning reprinted unchanged, even in their quaint historic fonts, the original articles which had announced and mourned the cancellation of the stillborn Games of 1916, 1940, 1944 and 2136. Brillist graffiti generally takes the form of 1-5-☺-19-♥-2-∞-1, but Hive symbols appeared among the numerals more often now, along with Sniper’s bull’s-eye, and exposure has taught me to recognize sets close to Eureka’s, Sniper’s, and Danae’s brood. Le Monde and El País praised Jehovah’s forethought, audacity, and respect for tradition, and focused their headlines, with well-feigned objectivity, on the progress of the motion in the European Parliament that the EU should, as it purged the residue of Perry and O.S., restructure its very heart and place, above its Councils and Ministers, an Emperor. “Europe Needs a Conscience,” one bold vandal scrawled across the temporary House of Parliament, “One Europe; One Leader,” “Integrity, Stability, Monarchy,” “Bourbon Forever,” “Empire Endures.” Meanwhile, Mitsubishi papers praised “Tai-kun’s Truce,” and His respect for honor and method, a virtue Asahi Shimbun and Black Sakura praised Andō for instilling in his pseudo-Stepson, though Shanghai Daily focused instead on the need to “rescue” Xiao Hei Wang from the control of Alexandria, and for someone—anyone!—to find a way to quench the other Hives’ continued appetite for Mitsubishi land. So the Great Hives played at normalcy as kids play House. The graffiti knew it was a show. If Providence makes Master Jehovah Master of the world, all this will be His to solve or smash, the precious Mitsubishi acreage, the throne of Europe, the power of life and death over Cousin and Mason, criminal and set-set, slave and king. The graffiti knew, as I did, that the only real piece of news was what Sniper sent to The Olympian six hours after Jehovah’s declaration: