by Cam Baity
“What the hell you think you’re doin’?” he demanded.
“Getting this,” she said calmly, showing him the first-aid kit. “And information. Now go to the wheel, and I’ll explain.”
“I said no talkin’ to Foundry. Not without my say-so.”
“I don’t need your permission,” she asserted. “And I just—”
“Shut up for a second!” he snapped.
Her mouth fell open. Micah was heaving like a rabid dog.
“You’re makin’ it real tough to protect you, you know that? Damn near impossible.”
“Is that what you call this? Protecting me?” she asked. “You stole a Foundry boat that you don’t know anything about, and now you’ve stranded us out in the middle of nowhere.”
“You think you can do better? Be my guest!”
He kicked a box of fuses across the cabin.
“Why are you being such a jackass?” she shot at him.
“’Cause you’re bein’ an idiot!” he screamed. “What about ‘no talkin’ to Foundry’ don’t you understand? You never listen!”
“I don’t listen?” she laughed. “That’s funny. Because every time I try to tell you anything you just—”
“You think I like cleaning up your crap? You think I wanted this?” He was pacing, pounding his hand into his fist. “I told you, I ain’t your servant anymore. I told you I quit, and I meant it!”
“What are you talking about?” she said softly, taken aback. “It’s not like that anymore. Micah, I’m trying to—”
He rushed at her, his face warped with fury.
“Then quit tellin’ me what to do!” he roared.
Instinctively, she shoved him back, but he barely budged.
“Stop it!” she screamed.
He was right up in her face, mouth flecked with spit.
“OR WHAT?”
Her hand went to the Multi-Edge strapped around her waist.
Micah let out a nasty laugh. “You gonna cut me?” he sneered. “Well, praise the gears! What a brave little Loaii—pfff.”
“Don’t…say that,” she muttered, wincing.
“I’m done with all your Makina crap, so just drop the act, okay? The only one you’re foolin’ is yourself.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“You’re a phony. Just like your dear ol’ daddy.”
It felt like he had taken the blade from her hip and plunged it into her chest. Something within Phoebe withered before Micah’s eyes, and he knew he had gone too far.
She drifted away from him. He watched her walk to the console at the helm, not knowing quite what to do.
“Phoebe…I…”
Then he saw her press the compass orb and rotate it. Two red buttons lit up on either side of the compass. She held the buttons down until they chimed and went green.
She looked back—tears flowed freely down her cheeks.
“Just had to calibrate it,” she whispered, breezing past.
Micah bit his lip. He needed to figure out something to say, needed to fix this. He turned to face Phoebe, but it was too late.
The hatch to the engine room eased shut with a click.
Dollop wanted to know everything about Amalgam, but they rarely answered his questions. They weren’t being evasive—they just couldn’t comprehend what he was asking. Their worlds were so different that they often just stared at one another in wonder.
He spent the day with the amalgami, swimming and playing in the lagoons of their glittering cave. When Dollop grew hungry, Amalgam brought him to the shallows of a pool where a school of jelyps flitted. The critters were smooth black tubes about the size of his finger with turquoise speckles that matched their surroundings. They had a spout at each end, through which they expelled vesper, causing them to twirl through the amber fluid.
“Try one,” urged several amalgami.
Together with Dollop, they squatted by the lagoon, snatched up some of the darting jelyps, and dumped their harvest in a heap. The cavern was filled with the sound of cracking shells and slurped innards. Dollop tried one and found it to be delicious—a taste he had been craving without even knowing it.
He watched the amalgami gleefully absorbed in their feast, curiosity building within him until he could no longer resist the urge. He tiptoed up to the towering mass.
Tentatively, he reached out and touched it.
Dollop allowed his hand to separate. Like pebbles in a pond, his fingertips sank into Amalgam, then his knuckles, and at last the pieces of his palm slid apart to join the community.
The sensation crept up on him like a dream. Although he could no longer see the pieces of his own hand, he did not lose track of them. Dollop merged with Amalgam, becoming aware of a thousand other limbs as if they were his own. Through them, he could feel the entirety of the cavern, from the top of the dripping ceiling to the bottom of the deep lagoon.
Amalgam was everywhere.
Strange images flickered in his mind, multidimensional feelings of the cavern that were difficult to comprehend. He felt expansive and shapeless as vapor, conscious of every glittering fleck in the ore, all of them familiar as the faces of friends.
The images transformed, scores of eyes shifting focus. It took him a moment to realize what he was looking at. It was a diminutive figure with half-closed eyes, a stranger. He wondered who it could be—felt he should know. Couldn’t quite recall…
It’s me.
He was staring at himself through Amalgam’s eyes.
With a yelp, Dollop pulled back from the mass. He had sunk into Amalgam up to his elbow. His parts retracted and clung together again, re-forming his arm as he tugged free.
The images and feelings vanished in a puff.
“I’m so-so-sorry,” he stuttered. “I wa-was…curious.”
“So are we,” they sang together.
“So are we.”
Dollop and Amalgam considered one another, and they burst out laughing. While the swirl of bizarre sensations had been startling, Dollop yearned to unite with the community again, to experience that feeling of magnitude—a taste of omniscience.
They played together for a while more, grazing on jelyps until exhaustion overtook them. Still giggling and singing, Amalgam led Dollop to a cozy side chamber with a crescent-shaped pool and knobby walls devoid of those pinpricks of mineral light. This was where they slumbered.
Amalgam spilled itself out to fill every corner of the space, a cushion of innumerable soft limbs. The darkness was warm and alive with a million scattered breaths as the amalgami cuddled and relaxed. Dollop settled himself in the middle of the mass, nuzzling into a nest of embracing arms.
Contentment washed over him. His life before Amalgam didn’t feel like it had been his at all. His mind stumbled back through the recent horrors—the attack on the Covenant camp, the loss of his friends, the vaptoryx. He tried to focus on Amalgam’s soft snores and its communal bliss, but the pain of the last few cycles was not easily banished.
Dollop pressed his hands to his dynamo and tried to turn his mind to the Way. He had recited the recharge prayer every night since he learned it all those phases ago in the Housing.
But now, try as he might, he couldn’t recall how it began.
“Bless me, Ma-Makina,” he whispered, certain that these were not the actual words of the prayer, but hoping they would suffice. “Gu-guard me as I—I re-recharge, and…uh…sh-shield my f-friends from d-danger. Please protect…”
What was her name again? His mind drew a blank.
What was happening? How could he have forgotten?
They were his friends. He loved them.
What was it? Fee…
“Pr-protect Phoebe and Micah,” he continued, speaking with more confidence as he overcame his momentary lapse. “Wherever they a-are.” He squeezed his eyes shut and concentrated.
“What are you doing, little one?”
The question was repeated, sounding from all around him.
“Pr-praying to
Makina,” he said, opening his eyes to find a circle of sleepy faces studying him.
“Praying?”
“Asking Ma-Makina to watch over my, um, friends. To save them from falling to rust.”
“Friends?”
“Who is Makina?”
“Makina…” he gasped. “The Gr-Great Engineer. You—you don’t know Her? She ma-made us all, Her Ch-Children of Ore.”
The faces showed no understanding.
“What is ‘falling to rust’?” one asked.
“Ru-rust,” Dollop struggled to explain. “When…when you pass and your em-ember departs your body.”
They continued to look quizzical.
“The end of your sp-span.”
“End?” they wondered.
“There is no end.”
“Only us.”
“Forever us.”
His mouth hung open. “You…you do-don’t…ever?”
“Don’t ever what, little one?”
“Ne-never mind,” he said in a tiny voice and settled back.
Amalgam rearranged itself, purring with sleepy sighs as it drifted off to sleep. But Dollop just lay staring into the dark.
There is no end.
The words rang in Dollop’s head.
Could it be true? Did Amalgam live without rust? Without the fear of pain or loss? Dollop touched the spattering of silver scars on his chest. He thought of the terror he had felt when he resigned himself to die in the Citadel.
If he were to stay here, would he be free from rust forever?
But another question tormented him.
He wanted to merge with the amalgami in joyful eternity, but even in the clicks he had been here, he was fading, his memories were receding—his knowledge of the Way, his duty to his friends.
Could he give himself up in order to join Amalgam?
The darkness offered no answer.
Phoebe lay huddled in a miserable ball in the engine room, and her tears showed no sign of subsiding. The outline of sunlight around the ceiling hatch had long since gone black. She felt weak, and not because of the seasickness.
How was she going to look Micah in the eyes ever again?
The vibrations of the engine room died away, and blinking indicator lights went dark. She suspected that Micah was powering down the Sea Bullet to grab some sleep. The lavatory was quiet, which meant Gabriella had probably passed out in a hog-tied heap. The boat settled, rocking gently in the Mirroring Sea, and silence gathered around her like morning fog.
That’s when Phoebe thought of the whist.
She sat against the wall and lowered the cowl over her head. Immediately, all noise snuffed out, leaving only a peaceful void.
And Phoebe gave herself to it.
Blessed relief. She breathed deeply.
Phoebe noted a strange, unfamiliar sensation. It was as if she were drifting upward, her consciousness pulling free from the weary burden of her body.
She did not resist.
Slowly, she departed the Sea Bullet and rose into the night. The air was bitingly cold, but she did not feel it. She was an ephemeral speck of heat and light, an ember soaring weightless, carried aloft through the frigid night sky.
The Shroud called to her. She went to it, a wave of consciousness returning to the endless shore. Unanchored, Phoebe tumbled through the sky.
A murmur of whispers grew as she neared.
In an instant, she understood.
Axial Phy’s words rang clear.
In that nothing, Her voice will guide you.
The voice of Makina, it had to be. Phoebe had heard it before—in fact, it had been with her all along.
Follow was Her word, spoken as Phoebe faced the black tunnel deep in the Foundry. It had drawn Phoebe to Mehk.
No, She had said, and Phoebe had saved the liodim.
With every fiber of her being, she longed to hear it again. Now, more than ever, she needed guidance.
Phoebe plunged into the Shroud. She felt lost, confounded by the ineffable gray. But she let nothingness fill her.
To be here she had to not be at all.
And then came a laugh so pure that its dulcet tones seemed to kiss the air.
This was not the voice of Makina. It was even more precious.
Not one, but two voices, speaking one word.
“Cricket.”
Phoebe tore from the Shroud. Her ember plummeted through the nothing, colliding down to substance in one breathless instant. Her body jerked forward, eyes snapped open.
It couldn’t be, she thought.
She had touched the unknown. Part of her insisted that it was just her imagination, a product of her grieving mind.
But was it possible? Could it have really been them?
Her mother was dead. Her father was dead. And yet she had heard them. They had spoken.
They were calling to her from beyond the Shroud.
Normally, the emptiness Phoebe felt was too much to bear. Her mother’s death had torn a hole within her, and losing her father had ripped it wider.
Why, then, was she not crying now?
Because hearing them had awakened something.
Her parents were watching over her.
If she could hear their voices, might she discover a way to speak with them? With Makina Herself?
The hole in her heart began to mend.
Phoebe pulled back the hood and reentered the reality of the engine room. The line around the hatch overhead glowed with a dim light. Time had swept past her. Night had come and gone.
There was a hollow banging on the lavatory door.
“Phoebe?” came Gabby’s voice. “Are you there?”
She rose to her feet, reeling from the stiffness in her muscles. With a couple of tugs, she removed the pipe and opened the door. Gabby was sitting in the dark on the closed commode.
“You either gotta untie me,” she said in a hoarse voice, “or you’re going to have to give me some help.”
“With what?” Phoebe asked, turning on the interior light.
The woman nodded to the toilet.
Watching for any sign that Gabby might use the opportunity to get free, Phoebe obliged. They avoided eye contact during the awkward process, but Gabby had not been bluffing. It made Phoebe aware of her own pressing needs.
“My turn,” she muttered to Gabby.
At first, Phoebe’s instinct was to be mortified, but the woman just nodded and turned her back. What a luxury the tiny bathroom seemed now. Between the humiliation of navigating the issue with Micah (meaning avoiding it at all costs and only going when the other was busy) and the impractical nature of doing it in Mehk, this commode was a godsend.
And strangely, it was easy with Gabby. Almost like they were just a couple of girls back at Fort Beatrice—the ones who would only go to the bathroom together, for whatever reason.
When she finished, Phoebe closed the toilet lid and helped Gabby back onto it. They sat down and considered each other.
“It’s funny,” the woman said, “I’m supposed to be on vacation right now, but they extended my tour when the Citadel went down. Did you have anything to do with that?”
“They let you go on vacation?” Phoebe asked.
“Of course,” Gabby said. “No matter what you think about the Foundry, it’s just a job to us. A good one too. My fiancé and I were planning to go to Prosper Falls. You ever been there?”
Phoebe shook her head.
“Three hours south of Albright City,” the woman explained. “Natural hot springs in Kappermane State Park. You gotta see it to believe it. I miss the woods most of all when I’m on duty here. Our trees, our stars—you know?”
Phoebe had a far-off look.
“What are you thinking about?” Gabby asked.
“I…” Phoebe said, looking wistfully at her feet. “You said Albright City, and I thought about downtown. I used to go through it every day on the way to school. It always looked so big, like there couldn’t possibly be a bigger world outside o
f it.”
Gabby considered her.
Phoebe caressed her whist.
“But there is. Now I know there is.”
Downtown Albright City was seized with traffic as Aero-copters surveyed from the sky. The authorities were keen to maintain the peace below the epic platinum facade of the Council of Nations building. As always when the CN was in session, demonstrators paraded on its plated steps, and heavily geared riot police stood watch.
Inside the golden-glass lobby sat a spectacular column forged from every metal in existence. From manganese to zinc to titanium, the flags of every nation in the world were sculpted upon it, each with its own unique alloy, weaving together in a swirling eddy that stretched up to the steepled ceiling.
Security was especially tight because representatives from all thirteen countries of the infamous Quorum were present.
The assembly hall was packed, its bold metallic décor illuminated by sunlight beaming in like a spotlight. The stage was flanked with Televiewers, gold banners stretched from floor to ceiling, and interpreters crowded a nearby balcony.
If the Council of Nations was a theater, then President Saltern was its star.
Amply dusted in makeup and decked in a stunning gunmetal-blue Durall suit, Saltern’s magazine smile was broad. He was mid-speech and just warming up. Saltern noted that the members of the Quorum were the only nations not listening. Greinadoren, the Kijyo Republic, Moalao, Trelaine—the cast of villains was all there, lined up like targets in a shooting gallery. They made a show of being embroiled in their own conversations.
“Of course, trouble runs rampant in the global economy,” Saltern continued, the practiced cadences of his speech as masterful as ever. “Yet we see our challenges as opportunities in disguise. By dedicating ourselves to international cooperation, we will ensure liberty and prosperity to our partners. However…”
His eyes drifted up to the golden-mirrored lounge above the assembly hall. The faceless Foundry Board was there, he knew, waiting to hear their script come out of his mouth.
Oh, to see the look on their faces.
“There are those who seek to undermine Meridian’s progress, those who don’t want to play fair in a free market. Cowards…” Saltern emphasized as he looked to the Quorum, “who scheme in the shadows. Well, I’m here today to draw a line in the sand.”