by Jo Anderton
I'd opened my arms to it. I'd let those pions play across my skin, touch my own systems, grow to know me, to trust me. As they always did. And I'd whispered calming words, like a mother to her child. And I'd stroked their tense formations, like soothing a wild beast. Working together, the pions and I unravelled the circle that had so entangled and enraged them, and then put right the building they had almost destroyed.
And I'd realised, in the aftermath, that I might be different and I might be poor, but with pions beside me none of that mattered. With my skill, with their help, I'd form myself a new identity.
So this wasn't possible, couldn't be possible. They had to come back, they couldn't leave me. We were all connected: the pions gave me strength and I gave them purpose.
I squeezed harder. Something tore beneath the bandage and I gasped at the sudden rush of pain. But no lights came with it. It was like the pions just couldn't hear me any more, as I couldn't see them. The world had become a barrier between us.
And I was alone. And everything I had worked for was gone.
"What are you doing?"
I flinched, and released my left hand as I looked back to the doorway. An entirely different man stood there. Worry wrinkled the edge of his green eyes – nothing like mould, closer to the Deep Salt Sea – and he brushed a fringe of rich dark hair across his forehead.
"I'd leave those bandages alone, if I were you. They're there for a reason, you know."
I frowned at him, and croaked, "Just leave me alone." Alone. Could I really be more alone than this?
He shook his head. "He didn't even offer you any water, did he?" He produced a large, full glass with a flourish. "Those men, the veche ones I mean, they never change. Don't even think to offer a thirsty lady some water." And he smiled at me, all white teeth and shining eyes. What, exactly, did he think I had to smile about?
"Devich," he introduced himself as he swept into the room, white coat billowing. He helped me hold the glass to my lips, tip it and ease the precious fluid into my dry and aching throat. Despite everything I sighed when it was gone, rested my head back, and realised how much I had needed it.
He watched me, expectant, like a loyal dog.
"Tanyana," I finally said.
He poured more water into the glass and placed it on the table beside the bed, just within reach. "I know who you are." And his eyes were so heavy with concern, with worry and even fear, that his look caught a lump in my throat. I swallowed on it, hard. "And I'm so sorry for you, my lady. So sorry." He knew about Grandeur, then. And the pions. "But I'm here now and, oh, Tanyana, I will try and help you. I will."
Could he bring my pions back? Because that was the only way to help me now.
He began dragging something large and covered with a white sheet through the doorway. Almost too large. It ground horribly against the wooden frame, the sheet caught twice in the wheels and almost tipped the whole trolley over. I caught glimpses of metal, but couldn't begin to guess what it actually was. Devich, red-faced, yanked and dragged until the contraption came through. It left two large dark marks either side of the door frame, and with a nervous laugh and ruffle of his hair, he glanced down the corridor and quickly shut the door.
"What is that?"
He laughed again, self-deprecating. "Ah, in good time. This is first." He rummaged beneath the sheet. "Here." He produced a clear glass tube, apparently empty. "This will help with the pain. I feel almost as bad as those veche men saying this, but you're going to need to be able to concentrate. And pain is never helpful, is it?"
"Concentrate? On what?"
Another nervous laugh, and he didn't answer. "Let me show you how to apply it." Devich walked around to the left side of the bed. He began untucking the blankets that covered me and instantly I tensed. His face fell. "I'm sorry, my lady. I'm sorry to have to do this to you so soon. And I… I don't even want to test you. But they are waiting. And I know it's not fair, and I don't want to push you…" He seemed to flounder, eyes on the floor, tube in his hand.
With a groan, I reached for the water. Again, I filled my mouth, my throat. It washed through me, so fresh and clean. Everything I did not feel. I watched him from the corner of my eye and wondered if I could trust him. I almost wanted to. Because of the smile, perhaps. Definitely because of the water. But perhaps it was the sorrow in his eyes and the hitch of his voice, so real compared to the veche man's statue face and false sympathy.
"What test?" I placed the glass back on the table carefully. My right hand shook. My left side ached.
Eyes to the floor still, Devich mumbled like a shameful child, "For debris."
"Debris?" Something quivered in my stomach and had nothing to do with my injuries. The same terror I felt confronted by a world without its pions.
"The veche need to know if you can see debris, they need to know if you will be a collector. A debris collector. As quickly as possible. You see, the longer we wait the harder it is for the networks to-"
He'd stopped making sense by that point. I could see Devich's mouth moving, but no words came out. All I could hear was Grandeur, as she fell. All I could think of was emptiness. A debris collector? That was impossible. I was an architect, a highly skilled pion-binder. Nothing less.
"That's not possible," I breathed out the words. "I'm not a debris collector."
Devich looked up, he clasped the tube at his chest. "I hope so, my lady. I truly do." Then he tried for a smile, it shook slightly. "Now, let me help you." He unscrewed the tube. "This is for the pain, and to help you heal."
"What is?" The tube still looked empty to me.
"The-" He paused. "Oh. Of course. You can't-" He floundered again.
"I can't see them." I had no way of knowing what the pions in that tube were doing, and what they would do to me.
I allowed him to lift back the covers and expose my left side. The strange gown was tied at the seams, and he undid them with fumbling fingers. His touch was very warm. A layer of cloth bandaged me down the entire left side of my body. Carefully, tip of his tongue caught between his teeth, he lifted my leg, my arm, and undid them.
Someone had embroidered on my skin. Thick, ugly dark lines woven from face to thigh. My left hand seemed to be held together by the stitching alone.
Devich sucked in a sharp breath. "Oh, you poor thing."
I rather agreed. Instead, I asked, "Who did this? Do you know?"
He just shook his head. "They didn't tell me. The veche brought you here, to me, as you are now."
Devich squinted at the glass tube and held it above my left hand. I breathed in sharply as one rounded end rippled, like the glass had just turned to water, and pulled back to create an opening. He lowered it, then, so the newly formed edges rested softly on my stitches. He held it there, for a moment, then repeated the action, moving along the left side of my body. Face, arm, chest, leg. His touch was sure, gentle. He glanced up at my face and whispered apologies, even as he cradled my hand in his.
Whatever those invisible particles of once-were-light did seemed to work. Wherever he touched me a cool, numb sensation slid over my injuries, easing the roaring ache. When he finally finished he bandaged me again and did up my gown. "Here." He discarded the tube, and handed me more water.
"Thank you." I drained the glass again. "Well, are you going to tell me if I'm a collector?"
With a sad nod, Devich pulled the sheet away. It revealed a bizarre-looking station of buttons, flashing lights, flickering dials and quiet screens, all topped with a large dome, something like a birdcage in clear polymer. Its wheels squeaked as Devich pushed it closer to the bed.
Crammed into that ungainly chamber, I saw the truth. Truth twitched and floated aimlessly, truth vibrated and wiggled. I saw debris.
Debris was the waste created by pion manipulation, and Other did it look like it. It looked like little clumps of squirming dirt, the dark and dim-minded younger sibling to the pions' lightness, their energy and colour.
It could not be controlled, it did not
have the ability to unbind and rearrange the very structures of the world. In fact, all debris could do was interfere with existing pion systems. Too much debris left uncollected could slow down the working of a system, weaken and ultimately undo its bindings. It was dangerous, if left unchecked.
And I realised I had seen it before, in the moment before Grandeur hit me. Squirming darkness turning my construction site into a dumping ground. But I hadn't known what it was as I fell toward it. I had not understood the implications.
I sat straight, raised a hand. Devich grunted, pushed the station closer. I leaned over the edge of the bed, ignoring the pull of stitches and smothered pain, and brushed warm polymer with my fingers. Inside, the debris scurried haphazardly; it didn't react to my touch. The debris had none of the semi-sentience, the playfulness, that allowed binders to persuade, to coax, or control pions.
"Ah well, that answers the first question. Looks like you can see it."
I glanced up to meet Devich's flushed face, and took my hand away. "You can see it too?" Maybe there was hope for me, if Devich could see debris, and he could still bind pions, then But he shook his head. "No. Would make it easier, but then who'd operate this?" He pressed his hands to a clear glass panel and all the lights that ringed the polymer cage started flickering. "Collectors fill the chamber for us." Something beeped beneath his fingers. "They check it from time to time, so we know it's still full." Odd-looking dials moved and the filament inside half a dozen or so valves began to glow. "Not easy working with something you can't see."
Wasn't that my whole life, now? Living in a world created and run by things I could no longer see.
What was going on inside this bizarre machine? The dials and the valves were a throwback to old, pre-revolutionary technology, before critical circles were discovered. So what was powering this thing? Fire? Steam, gas, water? If so, then there'd be exhaust, surely. And noise. I'd almost believe a pair of poor abused rats turning a wheel. But what was Devich doing, then? Hands on a glass panel, eyes slightly unfocused, whispering under his breath. That was pion manipulation if I'd ever seen it in action.
"Now we need to measure how well you can see it." He cast me what I'm sure he wanted to be a reassuring smile. How could I be reassured with debris floating around like that?
Devich's fingers twitched and I stared at them, hard, trying to read what he was doing with the pions from his movements alone. Something in the debris chamber shifted, and I looked up quickly to catch the end of a strange haziness on the other side of the poly.
"Tell me," he said. "What do you see now?"
The debris was clearer now, clumped together in distinct groups. It looked like the deposits of several dogs on someone's unfortunate courtyard. "I see debris."
Devich was a statue of patience. "Yes, but what does it look like this time? Describe it for me."
I did, analogy and all.
"Very nice." He chuckled, twitched, muttered. "Count them, will you?"
"Why? You said you couldn't see them. How will you know if I get it right?"
"This isn't an eye exam, Tanyana. I need to know if you can tell the debris apart, or if it's all one hazy mass."
Eye exam? Arrogant statue of patience that he was. "And that will make a difference?"
"A big one."
I counted six deposits.
"Very nice, very nice indeed." More of that same strange fuzzing in the chamber. "You need a challenge, my lady."
"I'm nobody's lady." Not any more. I was not longer the centre of a nine point critical circle. And I did not need reminders of it.
"Will you look again and tell me what you see?"
The debris had changed. No longer distinct clumps it had become something flat, dark. Like the shadow of a featureless building. The poly cage began to mist up, and Devich removed one hand from the glass panel. He opened a door in the side of the machine and turned a small crank. A fan whirred, and the condensation faded.
I leaned over the edge of the bed again, and wished I could stand. Wished I could face Devich on my own two feet. "It's hard, this time." I squinted in a vain attempt to work out what the debris was doing.
"To see it?" Devich's voice was carefully controlled.
"No." Oh no, I could see it. But I couldn't understand it. It had become squares, rectangles, shapes with too many sides to name, of thin black or grey. They stretched across the cage like the webs of a tribe of particularly disorganised spiders. Were they holes? Gaps in the air, or little solid sheets of paper? "I don't know how to describe it."
"Can you try?"
I gave him my jumbled description, and his fingers flew.
I touched the poly, lightly. It felt warm, the whir of the fan a slight vibration. The debris flickered and its webs redrew themselves, crowding around my fingertips. The poly grew warmer. With a small shudder, I sat back. "So what does it mean?"
"It means you are as highly skilled with debris as you were with pions. Few collectors see more than a haze, or a shadow of the stuff. Not like you."
"I am a collector, then?"
With a sigh, Devich lifted his hands from the glass panel, and the whole machine turned off. He replaced the sheet in silence.
"Yes. And you need a suit."
"Suit?" Why did such a small word seem to echo so, in this unhomely room?
"All debris collectors wear them." His green gaze held mine. He hesitated. "Tanyana, I can't do this to you, not if you don't want it. I mean-" he fidgeted, fingers plucking at each other with startling violence "-that's not what they would want me to say, but after everything that's already happened to you. I could pretend. If you wanted. To spare-"
The door slammed open, and Devich jumped. Pale, he turned, his hands still plucking their guilty twitch. Two veche men this time, impossible to tell apart. They stood, shoulder to shoulder, filling the doorway.
"You have tested her?" one said.
"Can she see it?" the second continued.
Their voices were the same, their unmoving hands, their stiff, expressionless faces.
The edges of Devich's mouth pinched. "I-"
"Answer us."
Devich swallowed, throat bobbing visibly. "Yes, I think so, but I might need to do further tests."
"No, that will be enough."
"But it was difficult to-" Devich tried to speak, but the veche men cut him off.
"Step aside."
"She will come with us."
Devich, too pale, almost green, cast me a silent, fearful glance. Then the veche men entered the room, bringing their chill with them. Devich gripped his testing machine and forced it out into the corridor. It screeched against the wood again and left a deeper gouge.
In its place, the veche men brought a bed. It floated above the ground, obviously on pions I could not see, and was made of a kind of silver poly mesh.
"What are you doing?" I straightened.
"You will come with us." The men stood at either end of my bed and gripped the blankets. "You will be suited."
"I don't know what that means? Wait! Stop!"
Holding the blankets above and beneath me, the veche men lifted. Together, they carried me as though I was no heavier than a child, and deposited me on the bed. The jarring set off pain in my hip and behind my knee. I held my left hand with my right and pressed it tightly to my chest.
"You will be suited."
I looked up to the veche man closer to my head, about to argue, but stopped. A line ran along his chin, impossibly fine. It curled up to meet his mouth. Dark. Thin. Like a seam.
The bed moved. They floated me out of the room, down a long, tiled corridor that echoed the tread of their shoes. We passed few people, and they all looked the other way as I tried to meet their eyes. They all glanced fearfully at the veche men, nodded, twitched fake smiles. Still, we kept moving.
Down a ramp, along another corridor, down a second ramp. Down and down until I thought we had to be far underground, because even Grandeur, surely, could not have been this high.
Finally, two large doors swung open and we came to a stop in a wide, circular room. It was filled with more strange machinery, and as I levered myself to my elbows I noticed a table, smooth and chrome, awkwardly starshaped. Lamps surrounded it, and burned it into brilliance. "What is that?" I asked.
"You will be suited here, miss." In the sharp glare of lights reflected on metal, I caught those lines on his face again. More of them. They ringed his eyes like spectacles, they dipped down from his nose like a puppet.
That's what it was. These veche men, they looked like puppets.
"But what is that?"
Then Devich appeared. "Tanyana." He held my hand, his palm cool and dry. "I'm sorry." His hand squeezed mine. "Please trust me. I'll be here."
Someone stepped out of the bright-lights-on-silver glare. A faceless shadow, a brush of displaced air and then something sharp pierced my upper arm.
I tried to jerk away. "What-?"
Numbness seeped through me like bleach through cotton. Hands from the bright lights took my blankets away. They undid my gown, they peeled off bandages.
I turned my head toward Devich, on a neck gone to damp and dissolving sponge. My mouth wouldn't form his name, no matter how hard I pursed it, or how I lolled my tongue around like so much flopping fish.
"I'm sorry," he repeated, and leaned close. His breath reminded me of maple cakes, the kind Thada brought in from the western colonies and kept aside for me. I was suddenly hungry, then nauseous, in alarmingly quick succession. "I'll be here, I'll look after you." Devich's enormous eyes swam close to me, rich with concern, before floating away.
The shadow hands lifted, and laid me gently on the silver table. My skin was too bright, naked under the lights, my stitches too dark in comparison. I couldn't feel temperature anymore, not hot nor cold.
Shadows hovered at the edge of my vision. When one leaned in, close to my face, I could only make out pale blue eyes, distant with concentration. The rest was hidden in a tight mask of shiny silver fabric. Only when I tried to touch it did I notice my hands were clamped to the table, encased in a large-fitting glove of the same chrome metal. A lift of my sluggish head, and my feet were the same.