Invisible Sun

by David Macinnis Gill

  What’s your agenda, lady? “Where’s mine?”

  “Destroyed, basically. Next to nothing was left.” She picks the eye up. “I can insert this, if you like. I’m an old hand at treating prosthetics. Farming doesn’t seem like dangerous work until a hand gets stuck in a thresher.”

  I shrug, and she takes that as permission. With deft fingers, she lifts my upper lid, then slides the lens into place as I blink to secure it. Compared to my bionic eye, it feels like a hunk of plastic.

  “A mute hunk of plastic,” Mimi adds.

  “Is she lying about the eye?” I say. “Scan her for physiological signs of deception.”

  “Beat you to it,” she replies. “Although the number of protocols I can run is severely limited, I can tell you that either she’s honest, or she’s an expert liar who can control a neuromuscular response.”

  “That’s not very comforting.”

  “You want comfort?” Mimi says. “I suggest a warm bottle and a blankie.”

  “What, no teddy bear?” But I get the point. All she can do is give me data. How I respond to it is up to me.

  Rebecca clears her throat. “Either you’re deciding if I’m trustworthy or making eyes at me.”

  “How pathetic,” Mimi chimes in. “The hussy is practically a senior citizen.”

  “Hush,” I tell Mimi. “If I’m patient, she’ll tip her hand.”

  Rebecca gives me a sidelong look. “Your lips move, but I can’t hear a word you’re saying.”

  “Sorry,” I say. “Just running some details through my head. See, I have this plan to find Vienne.”

  “Dead or alive?”

  “Alive.”

  She pats my shoulder. “I just learned a lot about you, Jacob: You’re very loyal and very, very stupid.”

  I do a double take. “You called me Jacob.”

  “Yes, I know your name.” She smiles. “The bounty on your head is a chunk of coin. Big enough to buy a new soybean harvester. I could’ve really helped the collective by turning you in.”

  “Why didn’t you?” I ask, knowing that we’ve gotten to the nuclear core. This is what she’s been driving at. The question now is, What does she want from me?

  Her answer is drowned out by the rumble of the rover’s engine—Joad is driving down the road toward us.

  “What?” I yell over the noise.

  “I said, your chariot awaits!” She escorts me to the rear of the rover, where she shows me the jump seat. “The suspension’s shot, but it beats walking with a crutch. Which by the way, I need back. Infirmary beds are hard to come by.”

  Whatever her end game is, she’s not going to make the play now. So be it, I’m not in the mood. I hand over my impromptu crutch. “Thanks. For patching me up. And everything else.”

  “My pleasure.” She takes my good hand and squeezes it. “Give a shout if you need any h-e-l-p. And do come back for a chat. It’s not every day an honest-to-God hero drops into a girl’s lap.”

  “Ha,” Mimi says. “The last time she was a girl, the Bishop was still preaching from the Holy City.”

  The wind picks up. A dirt devil whisks up loose leaves and scatters them into the air. The sky is black, the first heavy drops start falling, and the banyan trees beside the gate begin to sway.

  Rebecca is watching me. “So, you really love this girl?” she says, the wind blowing her auburn hair across her face.

  “More than you can imagine.”

  She pulls a strand of hair from her lips. “I have a pretty vivid imagination.”

  “If you imagined that every grain of rust on Mars was a supernova,” I say as Joad starts pulling away, “your imagination wouldn’t be vivid enough.”

  Chapter 15

  Tengu Monastery, Noctis Labyrinthus

  Zealand Prefecture

  ANNOS MARTIS 238. 7. 24. 13:06

  The dog is gone.

  That’s the first thing I notice when Joad parks near the monastery gate, and I climb off the flatbed. There’s still an indentation in the ground where it lay, and the bowl of water I left is filled with mud from the morning rains. Did it die of natural causes? I wonder. Or did Stain decide to speed up the process?

  “You don’t deserve her,” Joad says over the hum of the motor.

  “Who?” I ask, still wrapped up in my thoughts. “The dog?”

  “Who said nothing about no dog?” he growls. “I meant Rebecca—you don’t deserve her.”

  Rebecca? “What’re you talking about? I’ve got a girlfriend, for Bishop’s sake.”

  “Then maybe”—he guns the engine, spraying out oil from the tailpipes, staining my boots—“you ought to start acting like it.”

  I watch the rover disappear over the rise. “Mimi, is everyone psychotic these days?”

  “You seem,” she says, “to have that effect on people.”

  The next thing I notice is that my motorbike is parked in the shade of the trees. My first thought is to question how it got here, but Mimi reminds me of the adage Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.

  “Do not look a gift horse in the mouth,” Mimi says. “Did you know that the phrase originated from the story of the Trojan War, in which one of the Greek kings, Odysseus, devised an ingenious plan for sneaking into the city of Troy?”

  “They’re still here,” I say after unlocking the storage tank. Both of our armalites are safe. I close the lid and lock it back up.

  With another glance at the dog’s bowl, I push the gate aside. Overhead, a wind chime announces my entrance. The clouds have thickened during the ride, and lightning cuts across the sky like dancing barbed wire.

  I limp on into the courtyard, trying to keep all the weight on my good knee. Maybe the monks have a crutch I could borrow, or a bed that I could disassemble.

  It’s quiet, and I can hear the gravel crunch as I drag my leg along. Since it’s early, the monks should be meditating. So I make a beeline for the teahouse, where I find Shoei, Yadokai, and Riki-Tiki on their mats. Resting on their knees. Foreheads pressed to the floor. Murmuring prayers.

  “Good morning,” I say, failing to sound chipper.

  They stare at me like I’ve grown horns.

  “You are walking?” Shoei says.

  “You look like wà kào,” Yadokai adds.

  And Riki-Tiki finishes the warm welcome with, “Your arm’s broken! And your eyeball’s a different color!”

  “Yes, he looks like wà kào,” Yadokai repeats.

  “Yeah. Nice to see you all, too.” I feel a sudden pang of disappointment that they didn’t visit me at the collective. I mean, it wasn’t like they had raised me like they had Vienne, but—

  “Time for that bottle of warm milk?” Mimi says.

  Okay, I get the message. Again. I take a deep breath that stings my ribs and exhale. “Yes, I’m walking. Yes, I’ve lost an eye. And yes, I look like wà kào. And I know you all think that Vienne is dead, but she’s not, and I have a plan to save her. All we have to do is use a Trojan horse to sneak into Tharsis Two.”

  “Insane!” Shoei says.

  “Impossible!” Yadokai yells.

  “I’ll do it!” Riki-Tiki says, bouncing over to me, then sticking her tongue out at the mistress and master. “But you must ask Ghannouj before we may help you.”

  “Why?” I say, frustrated by their response. “Does he have to consult his magical teacup or something?”

  “Of course he must,” Riki-Tiki says, taken aback. “How else will we know the right path to take?”

  The Tengu Monastery complex covers about ten acres. Most of the buildings are near the gate, but the hives are a long, painful hike to a high terrace. As Riki-Tiki and I slowly approach the symmetrical rows of hives, I count over a thousand, each of them housing thousands of bees. They must number in the millions. Standing in the middle of bee central is Ghannouj, wearing a box-shaped hat and carrying a smoke pot, his girth covered by shimmering fabric that looks like a gold lamé tent.

  “I believe that you have underestimat
ed the number of bees,” Mimi says as I move through the maze of hives. Wind swirls through the rows, permeating the air with the rich scent of honey.

  “Would you like to count them for me?” I say. “It’s going to be hard without your telemetry functions.”

  “My processor is still intact. I can take a sample from close proximity and extrapolate from there.”

  “Which you’ve already done.”

  “Four million, two fifty-two thousand, and six bees.”

  “Show-off.”

  We gather around Ghannouj, who is using the smoke pot to paralyze the bees while he pulls out trays full of honey. He and Riki-Tiki speak a few words, then she slips silently past me.

  “You wish to speak with me?” Ghannouj asks after she’s gone.

  I explain my plan for rescuing Vienne. “Shoei and Yadokai think I’m insane, but Riki-Tiki says I should ask for your permission.”

  Ghannouj sets the tray in a vessel to let it drain. “The task of the bee is simple. It gathers nectar. It brings the nectar to the hive. The hive makes honey to feed its own. The task of a monk is simple. We gather knowledge. We bring it to the monastery. The monastery passes knowledge to those who hunger for it.”

  “But—”

  “The task of the Regulator is not so simple. You give of yourself so that others may live in peace. Yet there are times when peace is not possible for you.” He uses the smoke pot to chase the bees away from the tray. “When Vienne was the same age as Riki-Tiki, she had to make a choice between the way of life she loved and the person she loved.”

  Vienne’s words echo in my head: Once Stain was one of the Tengu. He desecrated the temple and was banished. He took the life of another person. Was Stain the person she loved? Did she choose him over the life of a monk?

  “It was a terrible choice,” Ghannouj continues. “One that I would not have been able to make. Vienne was always the strongest of us all. When she made her choice and left the monastery to become a Regulator, she knew that she could never join the Tengu again. She is no longer a monk, and while we welcome her presence, we cannot rescue her.”

  “I know that, sir.”

  “Yet you would have us set aside our task to aid the one who left us.”

  “Yes!”

  He sets the smoke pot down, shaking his head, and picks up a cup of tea from a tray on a nearby bench. “Why?”

  “Because the bee needs flowers to make honey, and if somebody cut through with a sling blade and chopped down all the flowers, then the bees with any sense would stop him.”

  His brow knits, confused, and he sips the tea. “I do not understand your metaphor.”

  “Because I’m a soldier, not a poet!” I grab another cup of tea from the tray. “Ghannouj, with all due respect, I don’t think you’re hearing me. Here, read these. Tell me if Vienne is alive or not.”

  He shakes his head and returns to his work. “When the hive is in harmony, all is well. Some bees have a different task. They protect the hive with their lives. They die so that the hive may live.”

  I watch him pull and replace another screen, feeling the seeds of frustration and anger taking root in my gut. “One of your own is out there. Alone. Hurt. Maybe dead, and you want to teach me about honey?”

  “The hive must accept the sacrifice and continue its work. To do less would diminish the sacrifice.”

  “Oh, I get it. You’re telling me to give up on Vienne, the same way all of you gave up on her.”

  “We have not given up,” he says so patiently, I want to throttle him. “With each meditation, I pray for her safety.”

  “You pray, but you’re not willing to search for her? Why?”

  “Because the search for Vienne is your path and yours alone. You borrow any tool or weapon that is ours, and our food is your food. Take what you need.”

  “How do you know it’s my path alone?”

  “The leaves.”

  “Not the carking tea leaves again! What makes you think it’s my path and not yours, too?” I snatch up the cup and fire it against a hive. It shatters into so many pieces, it practically disappears.

  “That was my favorite cup,” he says.

  “Oh. Sorry. I—”

  “Such things happen when you allow yourself to have favorites.” He twirls his staff. It makes both a high-pitched whistle and low bass thrum. The bees gather into a swarm overhead. With a wave of the hand, he sends the swarm away. “The leaves have never disappointed me. Neither will you.”

  Chapter 16

  Outpost Tharsis Two

  Zealand Prefecture

  ANNOS MARTIS 238. 7. 24. 15:41

  From where he sat quietly in the metal chair, Archibald could look the Regulator over without endangering himself, the way that microbiologists observe viruses in a cryo- electron microscope.

  It seems like an apt metaphor. In the few hours since her capture, she’d injured several Sturmnacht and permanently maimed the poor soul who removed her symbiarmor. So much violence and beauty in a single human being. It was almost painful to look at her. Michelangelo must have felt the same way when he first set eyes on the model for his Venus.

  As beautiful as she is now, Archibald thinks, imagine how radiant she will be when the sculpting is done.

  He presses a switch. Inside the cell, the lights flicker on.

  “Rise and shine, angel.”

  The Regulator sits up in her bed. She pulls the thin blanket over her shoulder and glares at him through the plexi. In her first few hours of incarceration, the other prisoners showed interest in her. But after they made the mistake of laying hands on her—and had those hands broken in return—they decided that the Regulator was insane. Imagine a Rapture druggie thinking that someone else is mad.

  Archibald can see the reflection of the overhead fluorescent lights shimmering in her ice blue irises. The light disappears and reappears as the subject blinks. Maybe there is a way to retain those blissful eyes in the final product. He turns away to his electrostat and scribbles a few useless notes because he can’t stand her stare anymore.

  The Regulator’s hands are cuffed in front. Her ankles are shackled, and the shackles are chained to the floor. Bruises are rising on her face and neck. A thin cut runs the length of her clavicle. She is thinner, and her eyes have shrunken. The blemishes on her forehead are the only reminders that she isn’t grown up. The rest of her is as old and hard as the forged bit of a steam drill, which will make breaking her even more delightful.

  He taps on the plexi after several minutes have passed, during which time she has not twitched. “What’s your name?”

  She flays him with her eyes.

  “That’s how it’s going to be, is it?” He removes a remote device from a pocket hidden in his cloak. “In your former life, you were probably rewarded for being tough. For being a stoic who faced the enemy down with gusto and grit. Isn’t that right? I can understand that. In my past life, I was an overachieving favored son. Then things changed.” He pulls out his lighter and creates a flame. “Things changed suddenly, and the world I lived in changed with it. The same thing happened to you, my love.”

  “Don’t call me that!” She lunges for him, but the chain draws taut, and she falls to her knees.

  Archibald grins. So that’s the chink in her armor. “By past life, I don’t mean that reincarnation wà kào. I mean the life you had before you ended up here in a cell. The life that’s gone, that’s been burnt up and snuffed out.” He blows out the flame. “From the ashes, you’ll be reborn, just like I was. What better way to start a rebirth than with a name.”

  Tossing the blanket aside, she stands up, raising a clenched fist. “I am a Regulator. I will not yield.”

  “You’re a wounded age nine in an ill-fitting gown trapped in the bowels of an old military outpost.” He crinkles his nose. “Your cell is ten meters belowground and is carved out of rock. The only way out is via a door made of plexi that’s six centimeters thick. So, yes, you are going to yield, or you’ll be le
ft here to rot cold, hungry, and wounded.”

  “My chief will rescue me.”

  He stifles a laugh. “If by chief, you mean that pitiful excuse for a Regulator who came with you, don’t let your hopes soar too high. He’s dead.”

  For a moment, her face is stone. She appears to balance the weight of a conclusion in her mind, and the light in her eyes goes out. “Dead?”

  “The Sturmnacht threw his carcass into the canyon as a warning to the farmers. They’ll think twice about sending dalit after us. Sad but true, angel.”

  “Bastard!” She launches herself into the plexi, and he flinches, shocked at her speed and ferocity.

  “Enchanté.” He licks his lips. “Je m’appelle Archibald. Comment t’appellez-vous?”

  “Go to hell.” She slams a fist into the glass, then turns her back and walks to the bed.

  “A woman who knows a little control. I like that,” he says, trying to mock her, but he’s also tired of waiting for her to break. He thumbs the remote, which opens the glass. “Let’s try it again. Je m’appelle Archibald. Comment t’appellez-vous?”

  She grabs the latrine bucket and fires it at him. The bucket bounces off his head, opening a gash on his temple. The shock of the blow stuns him, and it takes several seconds before he recovers his wits.

  “Vile little whore.” Blood trickling down his jaw, he aims the remote at her. “You’ll pay for that.”

  The Regulator doesn’t seem to give a damn. A scream erupting from her throat, she bursts through the space between them, her body in a horizontal dive.

  The chain stretches.

  And snaps.

  Her shoulder meets Archibald’s gut, and she hooks the sides of his cloak as they slam against the glass. Double-fisted punches detonate against his ribs.

  “You’re the whore!” she screams.

  His head whap-whap-whaps the glass, but somehow he manages to press the remote control.