Citadel 32: A Tale of the Aggregate

by Tom Merritt

  One room in the Reliquary in particular fascinated Michael. It’s where he spent all his time these days. It was an empty room on the first floor far from Guteerez’s chambers. Inside sat a white object about twice as tall as Michael. From what he could tell, it was some sort of a machine from before the Fall. That was the real reason he continued to come back. He wanted to figure out how it worked, what its purpose was. He couldn’t fathom its power source or its function, but he kept discovering new things about it.

  When he first visited the room, he took it for a sculpture. As he sat and meditated that day, he noticed wires. He discovered a box connected to it that had a battery and showed some kind of unintelligible moving text. Eventually, he figured out how to make a small, thin piece of metal rise and fall from the top. A toy? A moving work of ancient Citadelian sculpture? Possibly. But to Michael, it seemed too complex, or maybe complex in the wrong ways, to simply be a piece of art.

  The main body of the piece was some kind of semitransparent rock. It seemed there was metal below its surface, but the clear rock was impenetrable. Who knew what ancient power had embedded the metal in the rock or where the odd rock had come from? The piece was egg-shaped, and a thin piece of metal rose out of an impossibly tiny hole in the top.

  He knew it could do more. He just needed more time. To have more time, he needed to make sure nobody, especially Dabashi, found out he came here. And to that end, he needed to bring candles. If he requested volt-lights, they would want to know what he was using them for. Candles were free.

  Today, he decided to go over every inch of the Sculpture, looking for anything he might have missed. He hoped to find a lever or a compartment or something that would allow him to look inside. He knew some old Citadelian things had hatches for workmen to repair them. Even some statues had hollowed-out internals, like the huge copper lady that lay in the water to the south.

  He meticulously moved his hands over the surface. He kept moving his candle to make sure he could see where his hands were going. The surface felt smooth and cool, as usual. He thought about the person who built it. What noble artisan of the Citadel of New York had wrought it? Was he proud? Was he famous? Or maybe he was a Middler like Michael, someone born into a good enough family to do good works but almost never allowed to rise into the inner circles of the Authority.

  He marveled at how irregular the surface was. It was probably not intentional. Or was it part of the artistic expression? Was it a comment on the unpredictable nature of our world? He doubted it. That was the way the Heretics thought, not the Citadelians. The Heretics rebelled against the Citadels because there was not enough unpredictability. They complained about overplanning and stagnation and then brought the world into chaos.

  Citadelian artists surprised him sometimes with their freedom of expression. It was one of the most confusing aspects of history. The Citadels allowed great freedoms. Many more freedoms than people had under the Authority. The Superiors taught that as the lesson of the Fall. It was too much freedom. Humanity could not handle it. The confusing part for Michael was that the Heretics rebelled on the basis of too much control. Yet they had ultimate freedom. Why didn’t they just go off to a museum city and live however they wanted?

  Michael never risked expressing his thoughts on the matter, but he felt there must not have been the right kind of freedom or the Heretics wouldn’t have rebelled. The thing that troubled him most was that the failings of the Citadels seemed to confirm the Heretics’ view. And yet the Authority praised the Citadels and preserved their traditions while purging the Heretics, hunting them to extinction.

  Of course he had nobody to ask. To question the basis of the Authority out loud would be heresy and grounds for expulsion, imprisonment or worse. That’s why he loved to hide in the Reliquary. He could grapple with those questions in the silent presence of the remnants of the Citadel without fear for his life. The worst that could happen would be someone might discover him and tell him he really should inform his Superiors when he meditated there. It wasn’t wrong to go to the Reliquary as a Monk, after all. It was only a slight oversight not to let anyone know he went there.

  Michael thought it would ruin everything if the Superiors knew he was there. He wasn’t sure exactly why. His direct Superior, Dabashi, was kind for the most part. Not very warm but always fair. However, when it came to the Citadel ruins, Dabashi got prickly and very argumentative. He never transgressed propriety, just always made it harder to justify activities in the Citadel than other things. It was as if he was trying to reduce the number of people who went there and the amounts of time those who did spent there.

  Michael’s fingers caught on something. He had stopped paying attention to what he was doing but his fingers had continued to methodically feel over every square inch of the egg. Down near the bottom, in deep shadow, where he might not have been brave enough to touch if he’d been looking, he found something.

  It felt like a small bit of paper rolled up. He got his candle as near to the edge as he could but could not shed enough light into the crevice to see what he was doing. At least he could tell there were no spiders. He wasn’t sure if it was wedged under the Sculpture or embedded in it or—then he felt it move.

  It was wedged in a ripple in the flowing bumpy surface. Someone had tucked it into a small gap between two of the larger bumps. He tried to pull it out, but it wouldn’t budge. But he felt it move, so he was sure he could move it more. He kept working at it until his candle went out.

  Michael slumped down against the egg, giving up for the moment. He had another candle to light off the first but he had nothing else with which to make flame. He knew the room had a tinderbox somewhere, but he was wedged deep behind the Sculpture with his arms almost caught below it. If he got up now to look for the tinderbox, he wasn’t sure he could find the paper again. He sighed and decided to keep trying. The candlelight hadn’t helped him much anyway.

  Suddenly the dim glow of a volt-light bathed the room. Michael heard voices. Someone was coming. He scrunched up his legs so they weren’t visible and squeezed himself into a hiding place behind the Sculpture without letting go of the paper. He could tell one of the voices was Superior Dabashi. The light brightened and the owners of the voices entered the chamber Michael was in.

  “I told you he wasn’t here,” said Guteerez, the Citadel Reliquary’s Warden. Michael always made sure to slip in without Guteerez noticing. It was easy enough to come from the attached Monastery, which didn’t require a security gate like the other entrances.

  “And I know he does come here and too often,” said Dabashi. “He’s likely to break something.”

  “Break something?” asked the elder Guteerez. “You talk as if he’s a child. What could he break? The Archive is empty anyway.”

  “Quiet! Don’t call it that in public.”

  “I wasn’t aware we were in public,” Guteerez laughed. “Look, Dabashi. I know your charge. And thankfully, I don’t know your secrets, and maybe that’s why I worry less. But this old rock here isn’t going anywhere for anyone. There’s nothing in it to find—that much I do know. At worst, he discovers how to deploy the antenna. He won’t even know what it is and it certainly won’t work for him. He’ll think it’s a moving sculpture, and that’s pretty much what it is.”

  “And if he finds out that much, he becomes dangerous. We ought to lock off this chamber,” snapped Dabashi.

  “And make it even more attractive? No. If he’s coming here as often as you say, and I am surprised I don’t see him, he must be quite stealthy. But if he comes here that often, he’s probably going through the questioning phase we all went through at his age. He needs his quiet time. Eventually, he’ll stumble across his own answers. If we push him, we risk driving him away—or worse. Let him stew. Let him sit. Let him write angry young poetry if he must. But calm down. He won’t find what you fear. It isn’t here to be found.”

  “It makes me nervous.” Dabashi paused, muttering. “But perhaps you’re right. If th
at’s the case, maybe we should lean the other way. I’ll approach him. Tell him I know he’s been coming here and that I’ll countenance it. Make it part of his rituals to come contemplate here. That way I’ll know when he’s coming.”

  “That’s an excellent idea.” Michael could hear Guteerez grinning. “Smart. Make it a chore! Take the mystery out of it! He’ll tire of it in half the time.”

  “Very well. Take him to luncheon and make the assignment tomorrow. Make it a commission. But mind you, I want him checking in with you. No more sneaking in through the side halls.”

  “Very good. Now let’s go before we miss evening ale.”

  Michael was so stunned he almost let go of the paper. The two Superiors walked away, plunging the room into darkness. He had doubled his knowledge of the Sculpture, fired his desire to uncover its mystery and come to understand he would be given sanction to spend every day in the room, all for the price of checking in with Guteerez.

  Then another thought struck him. Dabashi would know when Michael was there and likely try to observe him—quite a heavy extra price to pay but just about worth it. He wasn’t sure what Dabashi could do. Stop him from looking at the Sculpture? Stop him from observing the battery box? Stop him from—the paper came loose.

  Somehow he had wiggled it the right way or loosened it up enough that it slid out from between the two bumps in the surface. He pulled it away and discovered it was a rolled up page of paper. He unrolled it but couldn’t see a thing. He desperately wanted to see what it said but he had no light.

  He scrambled around in the dark with one hand gently holding the paper while he used his other hand to search for the tinderbox. He finally found it. He had to trust the paper to lay on a chair without disappearing while he worked the tinder blindly on his spare candle. Eventually, he lit it. The paper had not disappeared.

  On the page was an unintelligible drawing. It looked like a diagram. One of the shapes seemed vaguely like the Sculpture, but much smoother and with its top lopped off. There were all kinds of squiggles and dotted lines and words in a language Michael couldn’t read.

  On the other side was a page of text titled “Signal Transmission Instructions.” This was in a variant of English that was ancient but Michael had studied enough Citadelian texts to be able to read most of it.

  SIGNAL TRANSMISSION INSTRUCTIONS

  The following instructions apply to the NYC module and Archive Beta.

  As a reminder, the primary Archive is located in the SLC part of the Ellay Citadel (LAC). The location of SLC is classed.

  The NYC module exists as a local connected backup, and the Armstrong Archive (ALC) will serve as a physical remote backup.

  NYC will be entangled with LAC, impacting direct communication between the two. An explanation of the entanglement preservation envelope and the associated effects (translated experiences) can be found under the section “Entanglement Protocol Advisories.”

  For the purposes of this section, no communication attempts should be made from the NYC module to the SLC module.

  All transmissions should be forwarded through ALC whether meant for ALC or SLC. The following steps should be taken to engage transmission.

  BEGIN AUTHORIZATION

  Set the control box to a dedicated wavelength. Use a Dabashi key to attune the wavelength to your authorized frequency. Temporary Dabashi keys may be provided by an authorized party to grant limited transmission permissions to a second operator. Follow normal two-person presence auth schemes at the control box.

  Once granted auth, the operator will see several transmission selections, defaulted to a single stream simpledata message. More complex messages may be accommodated by adjusting these settings. Consult the section “Archive Messaging Settings.” Since the transmissions are meant mostly for maintenance and status, assume all settings are left as default.

  BEGIN MESSAGE CREATION

  Select “Generate” to move to the message creation selection.

  Message Creation consists of two parts. The first part is for transmission header and codeword protocols, the identification needs of the message. The second part is for the message content.

  Identification needs should follow standard procedure as coordinated by the Archive Central Project. In absence of updated procedures, as in a failure of one module or an emergency situation, use the most recent emergency control procedures to create an identity.

  IMPORTANT: Failure to enter an acceptable identification section will result in lockout, despite authorization.

  Message content is freeform but will be analyzed at recipient end for steg signals as required in training.

  Once identification scheme is validated and content has been entered to the satisfaction of the user, select Transmission Bundling to move to Transmission Selection.

  BEGIN TRANSMISSION

  Once in Transmission Selection, make sure the transmitter is deployed as described in the section “Antenna Control and Deployment.”

  If the antenna is deployed, whether the Archive is in closed or open state, the operator should be able to make visual confirmation. Once this confirmation is made, select Transmission and provide confirmation.

  Progbars will indicate transmission operation. Once the progbar is complete, it will slide and a receiptbar will display. Once automatic receipt is indicated, the receiptbar will fill and visually indicate estimated message coherence.

  Once the receiptbar is complete, the receiving module may ask for cross-ver. Use current or emergency protocols to provide response in these cases. While this will not affect transmission itself, it may affect the end module’s ability or willingness to respond.

  Please keep in mind that while the Earth-Lunar message transit is only a few seconds, the processing of encryption, decryption and verification take several times that amount.

  SUMMARY

  Sending maintenance and status messages over the Archive should not be used to replace normal comm means. However some sensitive communications will be necessary and direct module-to-module comm is preferable in these situations. For that reason, module transmission has been made as simple and secure as possible.

  See this link (or reverse in print) for illustration aids.

  Michael had no idea what most of the words on the page meant. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. Michael knew most of the words, it was the sentences he couldn’t make much sense of. The one word that leaped out at him was “Dabashi.”

  “Use a Dabashi key to attune the wavelength to your authorized frequency. Temporary Dabashi keys may be provided by an authorized party to grant limited transmission permissions to a second operator.”

  While Michael wasn’t completely sure, he guessed this meant that there was a key named after Dabashi that made the control box work and further, a person with that key could unlock the control box for a second person to use.

  What Michael dared to hope was that the Dabashi key might be genetic. He had heard of that sort of thing before. If it was, and Superior Dabashi had the right genes, he could be tricked into unlocking the control box in a way that would let Michael use it. Michael had no idea how he would orchestrate that without Dabashi suspecting what was going on. Of course, he could also be wrong about the key. In which case, getting caught might be even worse.

  Dabashi had promised to keep an eye on Michael. So getting Dabashi in the room should be easy. Michael was also fairly confident he could play around enough with the control box to know what state it needed to be in to accept an unlock.

  The real trick, if the control center activated whatever it was supposed to activate, would be to get Dabashi to leave without shutting Michael down, reporting him, or getting him declared a Heretic. Michael wasn’t sure anything he planned to do was technically heretical, but he’d seen the accusation used as a weapon too often to believe a reason was really needed. Once you were accused of being a Heretic, your life was miserable even if you were one of the rare people who escaped conviction. The only exceptions were state-appo
inted opposition Heretics, sort of devil’s advocates. Michael knew he didn’t have the constitution to make a career of pretending to be a Heretic under state supervision. He wouldn’t lurk about playing with ancient Citadelian relics if he did.

  Michael thought back over the conversation between Dabashi and Guteerez, and the makings of a plan formed.

  CHAPTER 6

  “Do the words change the longer you look at them?”

  LeAnn sat down next to Corge, holding a cup of coffee, smiling.

  “I wish they did. I feel like I’ve squeezed every last drop of meaning from it, but something’s still nagging me. Something’s still missing.”

  The paper from the machine sat on the café table in front of Corge. He eyed LeAnn’s coffee suspiciously.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll be careful,” she said. “I can’t believe they let you carry that thing around, anyway.”

  “They don’t care,” Corge replied. “It’s scanned. If anything, they’d like an excuse to reclaim it now that we have the info. I suppose I’m being a little sentimental wanting to keep it, but somehow I feel like the digital version wouldn’t be as easy to decipher. Except that I seem to be having plenty of trouble deciphering it as it is.”

  LeAnn took a sip of the coffee and looked at Corge over the rim of the cup, “Good thing you’re assigned to Observation. If you were just on my Tunnel team I’d tell you to quit navel-gazing and get back to work,” she grinned.

  That was the joke about Observation team members, especially Generalists who were on more than one team. When they wanted to slack off, they insisted they were studying something, like a speck of dirt, or a hole in the wall, or a piece of paper. Corge looked up and caught LeAnn’s grin.