by Anthology
He nodded, mouth set hard.
“It’s kind of beautiful though.”
He let out a breath and tilted his head. “You never stop saying things that surprise me.”
“That’s why you like me so much.”
“One of the many reasons.” His smile heated its way through her and she looked away. The memory of their stolen kiss warmed her lips and she wished, not for the first time, that they had met out in the city, as normal people instead of in the temple, sorted and coded to spec.
She dropped his hand and reached for the door.
“Wait.” He reached for her, but she placed her hand on the knob without issue.
“It must be the metal in your skin,” she said, and if Virgil could blush under all those layers of woven iron, she was sure he was doing it now.
She opened the door and stopped, unable to step inside the room. The glare blinded her for a moment, but as she adjusted, the white on white features of the room came into focus. The room was circular. Tack stations and tekmods were lined up around the edge. In the middle, a thick column of white and translucent wires with blue light racing through them hung from the ceiling. At the base of the column was a ring of chairs.
Virgil stepped close behind her as she took in the faces of the Teks seated around the column of wire and tek. They had ports connected to the cog implants on the sides of their heads, the black veins exposed thanks to the careful shaving of the hair around them.
A 6ix sat in front of them, his metallic ocular implant pulsing with deep blue light as the wires connected to his head mirrored the syncopated rhythm.
Virgil dropped the blanket covering his shoulders and stepped into the room. His white tunic blended into the glaring light and his skin seemed to shimmer, the light so strong it picked up on the weave of metal running through his flesh.
He moved as if in a daze, his feet floating forward, carrying him closer.
She wanted to stop him, to call him back, but the room stole her voice just as it had stolen the souls of those sitting before them.
Virgil walked through the room, his eyes resting on each Tek as he approached them. A 6ix, a 3hree, an 8ight, another 3hree. Directly across from where Avi stood transfixed, he stopped. A noise choked out from him, not a cry, not a word. Something else more horrible than anything she had ever heard.
Her feet moved her forward. She raced toward him, wanting to take away whatever pain raced through his body. As she neared, she realized what he was looking at.
Nelson sat rigid in a metal chair, his head shaved, wires attached to the black veins running along the right side. More wires were attached at the base of his skull. His already pale flesh shone in the pulsing blue light running along the conduits connecting him to the other Teks and the tree of wires and technology running up to the ceiling.
“What is this?” she whispered. There was no reason to be quiet, no one else would be here at this time of night, but she couldn’t bring herself to speak any louder. It seemed disrespectful, like screaming at the dead.
“This is 3Spek.” Virgil pointed to Nelson’s open eyes. The blue irises had rolled back in his head; only the very edge showed beneath his eyelid. The white vacancy of his gaze filled her with dread.
“That’s not 3Spek. It’s on servers. Storage Tek.”
Virgil shook his head and placed one large hand on Nelson’s shoulder. “Let’s get him out of here.”
She thought she heard him sniff, but didn’t say anything. She bit the inside of her cheek and stepped toward Nelson’s slack face. She ran one hand over his head, searching for other wires. Around the back, the thick conduit was attached to a port at the top of his spine. The flesh around it was red and swollen.
“This is new. Someone just put this in.”
Virgil kept one hand on Nelson’s shoulder and peered around at where she pointed. “Can you unplug it?”
“I don’t know. What if it ports into his nervous system? I mean, what happens if we unplug him without knowing what we’re doing?” Her voice rose as the possible ramifications washed over her. “He could end up braindead, or worse.”
“What’s worse than this?” Virgil wrapped his fist around the collection of wires running into Nelson’s spine and pulled. One by one they slipped out with a squelch, wires moving through muscle and flesh.
Nelson’s back arched, his head tilted back, and when the last wire unplugged, he gave out a loud sigh.
“Nelson?” Virgil hunched in front of his friend, searching the white eyes for a response.
Avi checked his pulse and peered into the now oozing port. Translucent yellow liquid globbed around the opening, thickening as it dripped down Nelson’s back, staining his white tunic.
Virgil grabbed the wires hooked into Nelson’s cog implants.
“Wait, that’s his brain. You can’t rip that out.”
“Why not? If it kills him, at least we know he’s really gone, not sitting here like this.”
One of Nelson’s arms twitched.
Then the other.
He took in a deep breath, followed by another.
And then the rest of the room’s occupants joined him. The collection of ported Teks gasped in unison. Their speed increased and the blue lights from the wires flickered so quickly they appeared to be flying through the air.
“Nelson? Can you hear me?” she asked.
“We have to do this now.”
“Nelson?” His irises flickered into view. Sad blue eyes stared at her and his mouth opened and closed without a sound.
Virgil pulled the wires connected to his cog implant and pulled.
Nelson’s body slumped forward.
Virgil stared, the wires still dangling from his hand. “Nelson?”
Avi reached for their friend, but when she touched him, he fell to the side, his body limp against Virgil.
On cue, the rest of the group stopped their synchronized breathing and slumped forward in their chairs, the blue lights dimmed, leaving only black and translucent wires hanging in the now silent room.
“No.” Virgil dropped the evidence of what he’d done, leaving it to dangle from the ceiling, swinging from side to side without purpose.
“We have to leave.” She grabbed Virgil and pulled on his arm.
“No!” he roared, jerking away from her and grabbing Nelson’s body. “Nelson! Come on, come on! You have to get up. We can get you out of here.”
“Virgil…” The lights in the room dimmed slightly and the Tek consoles on the perimeter of the room pinged as they booted up. The sound of old-fashioned gears turning filled the room and soon an alarm shrieked overhead. “We have to go.”
Virgil knelt and held Nelson in his arms. Two oversized boys without family.
Avi pulled Nelson away, letting his body slump to the ground.
“What are you doing?” Virgil lashed out, hate and pain filling his eyes with tears.
“I don’t want you to join him. Get up, now.”
“I can’t leave him. This is wrong. All of this. How could they?”
“Who? The priests? The Mezna? The other Teks? You don’t even know who did this or why. You don’t know anything. But I do. I know that if you don’t haul your ass out of here, you’re going to get plugged into that monstrosity or sent to mine on the lunar surface or some other punishment that’s going to take you away from me. And I hate seeing Nelson like this, but I can’t survive it here if I lose you too.”
“I can’t.”
“I need you, Virgil. I need you to get up, because I’m not leaving without you.”
He tilted his head up so she could see the blue beneath his watery eyes.
“Come on,” she soothed. “Come with me. I’ll take care of you.”
He sniffed and nodded.
Together they ran down the halls, hiding in plain sight as chaos erupted in the temple.
At the door of his dorm, she kissed both his eyes and then his mouth. Not the passion-filled intermingling of desires from earli
er in the night, but the kiss of someone who knows your darkest secret, and loves you anyway.
Now
“I have to go back down tomorrow. My medical leave and begged delays are over,” Avi forced herself to say into the smooth skin on Virgil’s chest. She lay next to him on the floor of the med-sensor closet. Years ago, they’d pushed the shelves away from the back wall and made themselves a hiding place.
“You’ll do fine. The tunnels are safe, they’re all reinforced.”
“It’s not that.” She traced the hard line of the access bar bisecting his chest.
“What is it, then? Are you afraid of the dark?” He reached over and dug his thick fingers into her ribs, making her squeal and pull away from his warmth.
“No.”
“What, then?”
“It’s the smell. The petrichor seeps under my skin and I feel like I’m drowning in it. There’s so much dirt. I forget sometimes how big the planet is. There are only a handful of Mezna cities and even fewer human reservations left, but there’s all this wild open space—the Acid Seas, the Feral Wilds. It gives me the creeps, and being under there, it’s like you’re a part of all that.”
“You think too much,” Virgil teased before frowning and pulling her tight against his body. “Don’t fitz out again. That scared me.”
“Me too.” She nuzzled close and let herself drift off, breathing in the metallic tang of Virgil.
In the morning, Avi trudged to the tunnels. It took all her effort not to hide and pretend she wasn’t a 5ive at all, that she could get a job out in the city and come home at night to Virgil’s smile. All her life she’d fought against being categorized, against being nothing more than her series designation, but now that’s what it all came down to. There were no other options for her. She would never live anywhere but Nuuk and she would never be anything but a 5ive.
The smell hit her before she could see the stairwell that led into the 5ive Center. There she’d get her first work assignment and take the lift down into the depths of the earth. The center was white and pristine, like the rest of the city. But no matter how hard the terraformed walls and ground worked to keep the room clean, absorbing all the dust and gravel the Teks carried on their clothes and shoes, it could never get rid of the smell.
“Avendui 5ive,” she said, introducing herself to the 5ive holding a vidscreen. She waited until he acknowledged her.
“You’re in the depths, so you’ll be bunking below tonight.”
“This is my first day back.”
The Tek raised an eyebrow and snorted. “So?”
She took a deep breath, but felt faint. She took another, too fast. Too much oxygen flooded her system. She needed to breathe. The room felt full, everyone’s voice rising to a volume that drilled inside her brain. Her skin itched and tingled and every thought ended abruptly as the next one interrupted. All the while, a chant of ‘in the depths’ swirled through her mind.
“I can’t…” She gasped, the white ceiling brightened as she looked up, and for a moment she thought she was flying. The world became soft and gentle like a cloud as she drifted, and she’d never have to think about anything but Virgil again. Maybe they could live in the Greenland Human Reservation. He’d stand out because of his size, but she could hide her exo-implants if she wore long pants.
And then everything went black.
***
Virgil stood outside the Upper 5ive dorm for two days.
He didn’t eat.
He didn’t leave when the guards threatened him with their sparking blue staffs.
They were smaller than him anyway, so he felt no threat.
On the third day, one of the nuns brought him water and asked if he’d like a chair.
“No, thank you, Sister. I’ll wait like this.”
“She’s not here,” the nun said, confirming what everyone else had told him.
“I’ll wait until she comes back.”
When the nun left, Virgil placed the glass of water on the ground and resumed his wait.
On the fourth day, Virgil felt faint. He hadn’t left his spot except for the rare trip to the bathroom. He needed food. No matter how strong his body had been coded, every creature needed sustenance to survive.
Virgil clenched his fists. He wouldn’t leave until someone told him where Avi had been taken.
She’d never returned from her first day below. Virgil had worried but knew she might be tired. After a few days he checked 3Spek to see if she’d been admitted to the infirmary again. He should have known right away, he’d set up an alert, but maybe it had faltered. He slipped into the weave, deeper than he had since they’d lost Nelson, but couldn’t find her anywhere. It wasn’t until the next week that his panic set him on this ridiculous course of action. No one cared if one 9ine stood sentry forever outside the Upper 5ive dorms. No one cared if he starved to death. There were other 9ines lined up to replace him. Moving, exchangeable parts. That’s all they were.
Avi had tried to tell him that so many times, but he’d never understood until she was gone.
That night, he sat on the floor, his long legs stretched out before him, filling the entire hall. He nodded off as the darkness overtook him and roused to a gentle touch on his shoulder.
“Brother 9ine,” a soft voice beckoned him from his sleep. It sounded like her, his Avi, but she had never been soft. She had always been the strong one.
He opened his eyes to find a young nun sitting before him with a full blue habit covering her from head to toe. She kept her eyes down but he knew they were blue, like every other person whose DNA was laced with Mezna biology.
“Sorry, sister. Am I in the way?” He wiped the sleep from his eyes, trying to focus his vision. The young nun looked like…
“No, Brother 9ine, you are fine. The Order asked me to see to your needs. Should I bring you food?”
Virgil stared. The tiny body he knew so well hid between layers of fabric, and her face had none of the sharp curiosity he’d always loved, but somewhere inside, he knew what had happened to her.
“Avi?” He reached out for her veil.
“Brother!” She jumped out of the way, stopping him from pushing back her headdress so he could see if her head had been shaven, if the telltale black veins ran beneath the thin skin of her skull. Nuns were supposed to be free of biotek, but he knew it was her.
The nun attempted to stand, but as she did, she tripped on the edge of her skirt and tumbled backwards, the fabric pulling up and exposing her metal plated shins.
“Avi?” Her name sliced him like razors as it slipped from his mouth.
“No, you have me confused with someone else.”
And then she looked at him, directly in the eye. No spark of recognition. No lingering look or secret smile to tell him she remembered who he was. Who she was. Who they had been.
Avendui 5ive had been recogged and would never know him again.
Tamara Vardomskaya
http://www.vardomskaya.com
The Metamorphoses of Narcissus(Short story)
by Tamara Vardomskaya
Scott H. Andrews
I lay on the drowned grand piano, naked, my head that of a chess-horse, my hands and feet stumps oozing black-green blood onto the keys.
“Beautiful!” the voice I knew so well thundered above me. “Beautiful! Come here, Oinhoa, I am sheer genius.”
“Isn’t she…uncomfortable?” a gentler contralto responded.
“Why would that matter?”
And it didn’t matter. This was not my blood; it was but part of glamorous transfiguration. I was beautiful, or I believed I was. What did it matter, the beauty a woman was born with, my long fair hair that was now a wooden horse’s mane, my hands and feet that had once moved in the dance so skillfully? Beauty was a construction, a blueprint geniuses dictate to mere mortals who could not know for themselves what it meant.
I had come to the Royal Conservatory of Halispell as a mere girl from the border provinces with a talent for dancing
, with the faint hope of finding a genius mentor and inspiring him—it was undoubtedly a ‘he’—to re-shape me, to transfigure me, into something other than the raw material of a Hestland village girl.
Fool that I was, I had thought the mentoring would be in dance.
The woman who had stood in a corner near the stage and watched me dance at my first year-end recital had seemed nothing extraordinary. Her simple pale-blue dress made her merely a splash of color from the stage, something to spot on when I spun, my head always returning to that splash to keep from losing balance and orientation. After the recital, when I was basking in the applause—not as much as for the true stars of the class, I knew; I was at the time a second-rank dancer, and I nurtured the hope of a mentor to send me to the first ranks—when she approached me, the face above the blue dress was plain, lacking classical features, and she moved like one untrained, her posture that of a pine tree among the slender palms that were my fellow dancers.
“I am Oinhoa,” she said, and the name triggered a vague familiarity. “You danced beautifully, and you have a beautiful body. My husband wishes to speak to you. Would you join us at the Butterfly for a glass of wine tonight?”
The Butterfly Lounge was a bit far from my lodging, and more dear than my student stipend’s means. She must have spotted my quickly-masked dread. “It will be on us, of course. My husband is very interested.”
“Who is your husband?” I asked, and immediately felt like an ignorant provincial at her look of surprise.
“You’ve heard of Avardi, I’m sure? The…” still smiling, she seemed to search for an adequate word, and finally settled on “…artist?”
And now only focusing on her blue dress once more kept me from losing balance and orientation. Every man and woman at the Conservatory read Arts Today, and Avardi’s face was on this month’s cover in full glamour, shifting from himself to the breathtaking transfigurations he wrought. Here was a man who knew no veneration or limits, who proudly declared that he would not just challenge but annihilate the fossilizing artistic traditions. We girls had quickly passed the magazine around in the dressing room, whispering at the dynamic-captures, before the dance artistic director, gracefully withered as a century-old lemon tree, furiously confiscated it.