Feed the Machine

by Mathew Ferguson

  Hello fluttered across to the table and picked up the note in his beak. He flew it back to her bag and pushed it into a pocket.

  “Ready to go? I could use some pap. Or some beetles if you have them.”

  “The hasdee told me!” she shouted.

  And gone.

  Chapter 10

  Darkness, glowing green numbers and code on the tiny two-line screen.

  Cajoling, threatening, begging the hasdee circuit for information.

  A blur of typing, her mind leaping ahead of itself as she programmed a tempcube to cajole, threaten and beg for her, faster than she ever could.

  The hasdee talking too too much, flooding out thousands of numbers, pages of code, a torrent of information and she was standing in it with a thimble, scooping mere droplets.

  Gray light and a plate of pap cubes sitting on the table. Some of them had been pecked. Gulping them down, feeling her throat sting.

  Elisa’s toaster was gone and she’d no memory of seeing the little blonde girl. But there was two dollars on the table.

  Was it Nola who brought the food? Or their mother? Where there should have been a memory were numbers. Not Ash, he was somewhere in the Scour or something. She hadn’t been paying attention.

  She had two tables full of junk she worked on—one outside in her workshop, the other inside the house. Had she been inside at any point to see her family?

  Connected to her body by only the thinnest thread but the body grew tired, began making its gentle requests for sleep which soon became demands.

  Silver rushing through the numbers, racing through the jungle, exhaustion chasing her, the answer ahead.

  Closer now but her feet were aching, her nose running, the red welts itching, her body making its displeasure known.

  A wall of numbers scaled in an instant, an ocean of them gulped in one mouthful, an island, numbers crunching under her feet like hot sand. A temple and a book, a glowing silver light shooting from it into the sky.

  The answer.

  They were close to Kaleen’s numbers but Silver knew that was because Kaleen was inaccurate. The birthweights here were measured down to fifty decimal places. There were tens of thousands of them, all connected to a number. Some sort of identifier. Some of the numbers were static. Others rose up and down, jumped from high to low and back again.

  Silver slipped out of her chair and onto the mattress resting against the back wall. It was cool against her burning skin.

  She let exhaustion catch her.

  How does the hasdee know the births and deaths of all the people?

  “I don’t know,” she murmured, sinking into sleep.

  Yes you do.

  Chapter 11

  Silver stepped over the endless lines of flowing blue bugs and looked at the sagging mansion.

  “If he’s so rich why is his house falling down?”

  Hello moved on her shoulder, his claws pricking her skin.

  “He loves old things. I saw a shiny spoon in his yard—can I get it?”

  “On the way out.”

  The bugs were a vivid blue running in two lines through the three fences surrounding Cago. The ones leaving were thin and small. Those returning were fat and waddling, barely fitting through the wire mesh.

  “He must have five hundred bugs,” Silver said, looking down the line and counting two hundred and twenty-seven within sight. She calculated the average speed of going and returning, watched for a few seconds and the final total of estimated bugs came close to five hundred.

  “Can you fly, tell me if you see anything?”

  Hello took off with a caw, looping high over the mansion and then flying away to loop over a few more. Silver saw him pretend to peck something out of the air. He fluttered down, landing at her feet.

  “The old man is in there. Asleep I think. Cat nowhere to be found.”

  Silver rubbed the itch creeping up her neck and chewed on her lip. The Collector had a pet—a cat named Gress—who stayed with him at all times. If they were going to break in, they needed to know where he was.

  “His servant is gone for the day… did Gress go with him do you think?”

  Hello pecked at the ground, pulling a small stone up and looking underneath it.

  “Gress isn’t down at the Machine. What is the old man’s name?”

  Silver thought for a moment, her mind whizzing over all the data she’d ever collected.

  “It’s… Ijira,” she said, the name thrown up from a question she’d asked her mother four years ago.

  Silver felt for the two bugs hanging on her belt. One of them was twitching rhythmically—not a good sign. The program she’d put in it was conflicting somehow. The other was fine.

  The plan had been to let the bugs in to map the house. She’d return home, have them scratch it in a piece of metal or maybe on the tabletop. Then she’d devise her strategy to break in to steal an electronic tablet.

  Not enough time.

  “I know.”

  Flood was the wrong word for the information the hasdee chip poured back at her. She’d spent the morning on a single entry, dropping down layers and finding each layer had tens of thousands of bits of data. Any one of them contained thousands more. It seemed to go down without limit. Endless acronyms that meant nothing. Numbers that flickered and moved even as she watched them. That they were people was obvious. How the hasdee had a continually updating measurement of them less so.

  Silver had a bottomless appetite for information but this meal could never be finished. There were too many variables, too much to absorb. It blurred by on her small two-line black-and-green screen and she was lost in it.

  When she worked on a problem there was always a moment when she sensed how long it would be before she could complete it. A glimpse of minutes (fixing a toaster) or weeks (messing around programming tempcubes). The hasdee’s information was without end, cryptic and strange.

  “Even if I had ten thousand of me slaving for a thousand years I wouldn’t work it out,” Silver said.

  The problem couldn’t be estimated but that didn’t mean she shouldn’t start. The first step was acquiring a larger electronic screen so she could see more of the information at once.

  So go inside, take a risk.

  Silver waited a few more minutes, standing there absorbing the world around her. The house on the left side was empty but in good condition. The Artos family lived in the house on the right. A father, mother and baby boy. They were rich—they’d never have a low-birthweight problem. She looked over at their back fence. Two rows of pale orange bugs. They owned two hundred and twenty in total. More than enough to stay warm for the rest of their lives.

  High above a few birds floated on the breeze, flying for fun or acting on their owner’s instructions. Silver knew some of them might belong to the law—she’d have to hope they didn’t see her break in.

  No one was watching as far as she could tell. The thin corridor of dirt behind the back fences was empty, the shit-carters having collected their product earlier in the day.

  “Should we go in?” Hello turned over another stone, looking for beetles, following ancient programming that no longer applied. How could it when there were no beetles alive?

  Silver glanced around and then put the mapping bug back in the bag on her belt. The other one had stopped twitching. Its legs were folded under it, dead.

  “As Nola would say… fuck it.”

  Chapter 12

  There was dust on everything.

  Dust means footprints.

  Silver stood quiet, breathing in the smell of the old mansion. Ancient wood and metal, old parchment, decaying books.

  The room was dim, the curtains shading it in tones of orange. Despite the hot day outside, it was cool inside.

  Dust made no sense. Bugs cleaned it—after all dust was mostly organic matter, skin cells flaked away. For there to be dust this had to be deliberate. The bugs were instructed to not clean inside the mansion. There was a servant too—what was he d
oing to allow this?

  Silver took a step and then looked behind her. She was leaving footprints. There was nothing she could do about it though. Bring dust with her to cover her tracks?

  Except for an old wooden chair in the corner of the room, it was empty. The door was ajar, dim orange light filtering in from the other side.

  Silver breathed and listened. The old man was sleeping on the other side of the mansion according to Hello. With any luck his cat was sleeping there too.

  After a few minutes Silver moved to the door. Hello sat on her shoulder, under strict instructions to keep his beak shut unless it was an emergency.

  The corridor outside stretched through the house, doors coming off it on both sides. Some were open or ajar, letting in light. Others were black pits. Towards the end of the corridor it sank into darkness, heavy curtains blocking out all the light.

  Silver opened the door and slipped across the corridor into the room opposite it. No electronics here—only old books stored in glass cases covered in dust. She looked closely at one, her fingers itching open the case to touch it. The text was indecipherable—lots of squiggles, loops and dots.

  Arabic.

  “What’s that?” she whispered.

  A dead language.

  Hello moved his wing, gently brushing it against her neck. A subtle reminder to keep moving. Books were not what they came for.

  Silver backtracked, crept down the corridor and entered the room on the left. The door creaked as it swung open, the sound seeming as loud as Hello cawing.

  This room was filled with wooden tables covered in squares of soft fabric. On each square sat something dug from the Scour.

  A perfect screw, shining silver with a bronzed tip.

  Half a gold watch, the face cut away, the gears removed and arranged beside it.

  A black plastic box, seamless, a faded image of a flame on the top of it.

  Silver moved fast, each item calling to her. Pick me up! Look at me! Discover new things! She counted wires as thin as a hair, gears sparkling in the dim light as though they were lit from within. There were familiar objects (knives, a wheel from a small cart, half a pencil) and then things utterly incomprehensible. She brushed her fingers over a small square of black glass. A moment later a stream of colors shot across it before fading away.

  Perhaps this will do.

  She picked it up and found it was connected on the back with wires through a hole drilled in the tabletop. She squatted down and saw underneath the table there were batteries bolted, supplying power to any devices still functioning.

  A moment’s work with her cutters and she slipped the black screen in her bag.

  Don’t leave yet—look around some more.

  When the voice was mean she found it easier to resist. But when it was telling her to do something she wanted to do?

  Silver left the room and opened the door opposite it. Empty.

  She moved on, opening doors and peering in.

  A room, the entire floor covered in buckets. Each bucket was filled to the brim with shiny screws.

  More books locked in glass cases. These ones were blackened as though they had been rescued from a great fire.

  Another room of tables, each one holding varieties of the same object. Door handles in different shapes, sizes and metals. Spoons. Knives.

  A room filled with black metal boxes, padlocked shut. Each box was covered in warnings written in different languages, a fading skull and crossbones emblazoned on each side.

  “Something is coming!” Hello hissed in her ear.

  Silver turned around and closed the door, leaving it ajar. She moved behind one of the boxes and crouched down. This was an internal room—it had no window to climb out.

  All she could hear was her heart thudding loud in her chest. An itch started in the back of her throat and threatened to move down into her lungs.

  The door creaked and swung open.

  “Not the best room to hide in.”

  A white cat with a long face jumped up on top of the box Silver was hiding behind.

  Gress.

  He tapped his paw on the box.

  “These are bombs. Do you understand?”

  Silver nodded, frozen.

  Gress looked at his paw. The dust had stained his white fur. He gave it a lick and sneezed.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked, looking at Hello the way cats look at birds.

  I thought this house was empty.

  “I thought this house was empty.”

  “No you didn’t. Try again.”

  I was worried about Ijira. The house is dusty and no one has seen him for weeks.

  “No you weren’t. Try again.”

  Silver stood, feeling the itch in her throat start to creep down.

  “I came here to steal a tablet so I can work out why my hasdee chip is tracking every single human. I’m also building a scanner so my brother can find gold and other precious metals.”

  Gress swished his tail, flicking dust.

  “That’s more like it.”

  Chapter 13

  “I don’t trust him.”

  “Why?”

  “He’s a cat.”

  “Kin’s a cat.”

  “Exactly.”

  Silver looked back at the decaying mansion. Gress had marched them out the back gate and told them to never return or he’d inform the law. Then fifty of the bugs had split off from gathering resources and switched to guard duty.

  “He let us go. I have something that might work as a screen for the hasdee information.”

  “He’s up to something. I didn’t get my spoon either.”

  Silver scratched behind Hello’s head. He resisted for a moment before leaning back into it. It was pointless arguing with him. Birds had a natural suspicion of cats. Gress could have given Hello a piece of meat and he’d still think he was plotting something.

  It was… strange though.

  The voice was quiet on the matter. It was off thinking about all the numbers, looking for correlations, teasing out meaning.

  If it were feeling vicious or threatened it might have asked her to kill Gress.

  Just like—

  “Nope, not today,” Silver said, clenching her bag tight to her chest and stomping on the cobblestones. A dark memory trembled in the shadows and then slunk away.

  “You should tell Nola about all the stuff he has. Steal it, pay off the quota.”

  “Most of it’s not worth more than the weight of the metals. A book is a block of paper, a few cents per page.”

  “He has five hundred bugs. I bet he has valuable shiny things hidden in that mansion.”

  “You’re right.”

  “I wish I had a room of shiny things,” Hello said, gazing off into the distance.

  Stealing is wrong.

  She heard the voice but she could tell its heart wasn’t in it. They’d reasoned through it this morning. Stealing is wrong but what about stealing food or medicine to stop someone from dying? That was stealing but it wasn’t wrong. If you stole money to buy medicine then that wasn’t wrong either. So if you stole a screen to figure out code to build a scanner or hack a hasdee to make endless food then that was…

  Silver stopped next to a shop. The Sheriff was in the distance, thudding around town. He glanced at her, his face grim and downcast.

  Then he winked.

  He turned away and walked off down a side street.

  He knows.

  “No he doesn’t. No one saw us.”

  That cat did. You should have—

  “Stop it right now or I’ll smash that tablet to a million pieces I swear.”

  The voice went quiet. She was bluffing and maybe it knew but had decided not to risk it.

  So get home then.

  “Not yet. More to do first.”

  Chapter 14

  Bell Dorrit was in bed huddled under thin blankets. The room was warm but she was shivering, her deep brown skin beaded with sweat. There were two empty bottles
of orange heal next to the bed.

  She’s going to die.

  Her daughter Cora stood in the doorway, arms crossed, looking at the floor. She was the same age as Silver, a small duplicate of her mother.

  This is a bad thing. She has lost her baby so she is sad. Tell her you’re sorry.

  “I’m sorry,” Silver said, looking down at the empty bottles. Orange heal was the weakest medicine available. It would fix cuts and scratches, maybe fight off a weak virus. Bell needed blue heal or better. Maybe even yellow.

  Silver walked to her bedside and knelt down. There was a smell in the room, blood and sweat and something else mixed together. Like rotting meat. A thin cat huddled under the bed.

  “Mrs. Dorrit, can I ask you a question?”

  Bell opened her eyes, her teeth chattering, and focused on Silver.

  “Y—yes.”

  “What date and time were you born?”

  “This is what you wanted to ask her?”

  Cora had her arms crossed. She was frowning.

  Means she’s…

  “I’m sorry you’re… upset? I need to know.”

  “She’s thirty-seven. Now you can leave.”

  “Please I just need the date at least.”

  “Cora… it’s okay.” Bell looked at her daughter and swallowed. Her lips were cracked. The bottom one had a small split in it, showing red.

  She told Silver the date but didn’t know the time. Somewhere near two a.m.

  “She’s thirty-seven years, one hundred and four days, fifteen hours, six minutes and thirty-two seconds old, if she was born at two a.m.,” Silver told Cora.

  “Please get out. You said you were here to help.”

  “I am.”

  How could she explain? If she could get the scanner working then she could find endless wealth in the Scour. She could buy Bell a bottle of yellow heal, make her better. The hasdee held an infinite ocean of information and it couldn’t all be about people. But she needed somewhere to start. A fixed point to start deciphering. She had the birth and death dates of the baby and had found the entry. If she could find Bell’s entry then she would have a spot on the map to stand.

  “Get out right now.”