My nose itched, and my cheeks were wet, and my eyes were hot. I got up and ran. I didn’t know where I was running, but there was Papa’s office—no one stopped me—into Papa’s office, and there was Papa, and their cheeks were wet, and their eyes were red, and we hugged each other so tight, and we screamed. I’d never screamed crying before, but it came. There was no difference between the sounds: screams, sobs, gasps, mine, Papa’s, together. Mycroft always said no one should mourn them. Well, shut up, Mycroft, we’re going to make you eat your lunch, and take your pills, and sleep your hours, and rest your rest, and we’re going to mourn you, and there’s nothing you can do to stop us.

And we’re going to make sure your damned seeds fly.

Except it’s so, so kind that Mycroft doesn’t have to see this stupid war. See people praising the Atlantis strike. Oh, at some point someone announced that Atlantis was where the Utopians had hidden the harbinger adepts, the willing ones who consented to go with them and give Utopia a monopoly on Armageddon. Now most of them are gone, and no one (or fewer people anyway) can end the world. We’re all supposed to feel safer. And a lot of people do feel safer. Except who knows if it’s true. And even if it is true, they—we! Human beings!—we built a dream city under the sea, and then we blew it up. “To keep the world safe!” Maybe. I do like the world. But I loved that city, and they killed thousands of people, and while they weren’t all innocent, they were all dedicated to the quest to conquer death, age, and the stars. I suppose Atlantis will become one of those city names that means ‘atrocity’ forever now, like Hiroshima. But there’s no room left in me for that to sink in. Mycroft is dead. I want to say “the best and wisest person I’ve ever known is dead” but saying that of Mycroft Canner feels wrong, even though it also feels so right. What am I supposed to do now? Write an obituary? I’m the Anonymous, I have to write an obituary for civilization as we know it, not just Mycroft Canner. Then someone said I’d better take over Mycroft’s chronicle and—strange, I just finished crying, I didn’t expect this sentence to make me start again. Someone said I’d better take over Mycroft’s chronicle. So here I am.

That was the first day of the war.

HERE ENDS

The Will to Battle

Mycroft Canner’s Chronicle of how Humanity learned to make War again

HERE BEGINS THE WAR ITSELF

whose Chronicle I name

for Mycroft’s hope and mine

Perhaps the Stars

AUTHOR’S Note AND Acknowledgments

ADA PALMER