Twig

by wildbow

  “A dog.”

  “A dog! I’m treated no fucking better than a dog, not given any more years, kept on a leash. I realized that pretty early on too, eh Fray? Are you starting to get it? How this plays out? How I arrived to the conclusion that no, I’m not a doctor, I’m not a scoundrel, I’m not a charlatan or a child genius or a protector of mice or any of that. At the start and end of the day, I’m an experiment. So I’m glad for you, Fray, if you’re free to see yourself as a doctor. How good for you, there. Do tell me the difference, with you getting the care of a talented wyvern-augmented professor to help you along every step of the way, while I got students working on a side project. Let me know what this means for you. How many years do you really have left?”

  “I talked of cracks and wedges before, Sylvester. You’re asking me to place the wedge between us.”

  “That’s an answer unto itself, you know.”

  “It is,” she admitted. “If you must know, I’ll see another five to seven years.”

  “No, no, there’s a rule, isn’t there?” I asked. “With diagnoses. Terminal ones. They marked it out on the charts for the Lambs with the expiration dates, so this was a lesson I learned pretty damn early. Part of a formative memory here, and I try to hold on to those. Given predictions on Academy advancement, for every seven tenths of a year you last, you get more time. It inflates the expiration dates. Your ticker due to go in three years? Now it’s four, because medicine advances that fast. Now, the dates the Lambs got already account for that. But you? I feel like you’re being disingenuous.”

  “Five. A heart due to fail in three conventional years with non-Academy medical aid can last five with the Academy’s help. There are diminishing returns, but it folds into itself too if you reach certain benchmarks. There are other factors, advancements I’m keeping my eye on. My estimation is that I’ll suffer the true effects of Wyvern in eight to eleven years.”

  I chuckled. “Listen to that. If you started a new kid on Wyvern, same regimen I got, he might expire at the same time you do. A whole ‘nother lifetime.”

  “Sylvester—”

  “No,” I said. I extended my finger. “No. Fuck you, Fray. You don’t get to claim the rights and wisdom of being doctor and experiment both. You don’t get to be the savior. You’re as bad as any of them, because if the cards had fallen down differently, if you hadn’t been caught looking too hard at things they wanted to keep secret, you’d be one of them. And you probably would have gotten your damn tea party with the Lambsbridge Orphans, and I probably would have enjoyed it! Hell, it might have been everything I needed for me to stay with the Lambs and stay at the Academy, having a like mind, Helen getting that tea party you seem so set on, and if you could work half the miracles you seem set on promising, you could have saved Jamie and Gordon. Perfect! Hunky dory!”

  “Sylvester, that’s not—”

  “Don’t,” I said, sharp enough to cut her off. “Don’t talk.”

  She fell silent.

  My eye stung where tears had welled out to touch the slice at my lower eyelid.

  “You don’t get to tell me to heel, Fray,” I said. “You’re no different from the ones who made me and the ones who condoned me, so you don’t get any more say than they do. Now, I’m going to consider matters. I’ll think about this threat of retaliation, but I’ll make the decision, and I’ll probably make a decision you won’t be happy with. You’ll put up with it, because I’m a reality no different than the primordial you created and put out there. The only difference is that I slipped the leash.”

  She clenched a fist. I could see that her hand really was stiff.

  She could deal. She had another decade to deal with it and a thousand other minor inconveniences that naturally came about during the spans of sanity, life, and companionship.

  “I can make better use of your army of students than you can, Fray. I’ve got no time left to be scared, for myself or for others. I’ve got no time to be stonewalled or told no by people who have no right to say boo to me. You call the Crown a sore loser?”

  I spread my arms, chuckling. I gestured at myself.

  “Sylvester,” she said. “No.”

  “They say a dog resembles its master.”

  “I’ll bargain with you,” she said.

  “You’ll try. I’m not backing down on this.”

  “The accommodations for your new army. I was going to arrange for you to have them from the time asked you to go on this walk with me. I’ll give you what you need to take care of them. Because I meant what I said.”

  “Gracious of you,” I said.

  “As for the actual bargain, the Lambs are coming within the hour. They’ll arrive before the vehicle you’ll want to take to leave Laureas does. Give me time to get affairs in order—”

  “Time to work against me?” I asked.

  “I have no bloody idea,” she said. “I don’t know what to do with you. I hardly know what to say, because I’m afraid I’ll say the wrong thing and make you more upset. But give me a few months, tend to your new rebellion faction. I’ll give you Warren and all of the resources I planned to use to safely and discreetly make my exit from this city with hundreds of students in tow, just for the day.”

  I thought about it.

  I shook my head.

  “What do you want, then? I can give you attention. Buy you a few months, maybe years.”

  “No,” I said. “Could you revive the caterpillar project from scratch?”

  I watched her eyes move.

  “That’s a no, then?”

  “Sylvester,” she said. “You were going to look after the Beattle rebellion regardless. You’d be trading a few words and a restriction on schedule for everything you need.”

  “Nah,” I said. I looked past Fray at the Lambs who were witnessing the scene. I extended an arm, gesturing at them. “I’ve got to look after them, don’t I?”

  Fray turned her head.

  “There’s nobody there.”

  “The Lambs, Fray. They’re there. If you’re going to start making concessions to me, for the way you and others have treated me, you owe the rest of the Lambs something too, don’t you?”

  “You said—”

  “I said I wouldn’t render you bait for the bear. I’m not. I’m telling you to make a damn sacrifice for once. Show me you can actually follow through for once, when it counts. Voluntarily hand yourself over. It’ll be a nice checkmark in their files. Something that pacifies the higher-ups, keeps the Lambs project running smoothly.”

  She was silent. I finally got to see her flustered, agitated.

  “It’s your choice, Fray. Only you, me, and Jessie will know you made it. You stated the stakes yourself. You can go, turn yourself in, let them lock the restraints on. Tell them whatever you want, tell the Academy that I know things, and use that information to stave off whatever treatment they have planned for you. That’s fine, but you’ll be theirs. Or don’t go, and spend every day dreading that everything and everyone you like and care about might be taken from you by a force beyond your control.”

  “You have no idea what you’re really doing,” she said.

  “You wanted time, Fray? You really believe in this threat? Convince me. These are the terms. The accommodations for my army of students, Warren’s help, and you, waiting politely on that platform when the Lambs emerge from their train.”

  Previous Next

  Bitter Pill—15.15

  Jessie was waiting outside of the hotel. Students were scattering, leaving the building and walking through the streets. I walked down the street, holding my cigarette and not really puffing on it. My thoughts tumbled over one another.

  That was fine. They needed to get themselves ready. Clothes and personal belongings needed to be gathered. They would come back with luggage.

  She told me, “I sent for some carriages. We’re going to need to assist, because the Academy is going to have recovered and they’ll react to a mass exodus.”

  I nodded. I
leaned against the wall beside Jessie and puffed, still thinking.

  She gave me a curious look. “It didn’t go well?”

  I had to think before I answered that question.

  “Depends how you look at it. Am I that easy to read?”

  “You’re smoking.”

  “That’s not a tell,” I said.

  “You don’t usually smoke more than one or two cigarettes a day.”

  “I smell?”

  “You smell like you had more than one, yeah.”

  I wrinkled my nose, then bit my lip.

  “If the outcome of the meeting depends on how I look at it, share some perspectives,” Jessie told me.

  Some of the students walked out of the hotel. A group. There was a bit of excitement in the air. They were taking a massive leap of faith. For some of them, it was the first time in their lives that they had really moved beyond their pre-set paths.

  “She touched a nerve,” I said. “One I didn’t realize was there.”

  “If this were a ‘there’s good news and bad news’ explanation, that’s the bad news, then.”

  “No,” I said. “Because it isn’t that kind of explanation. It’s muddled. Lots of gray area.”

  “I see,” she said.

  “She wasn’t who I wanted her to be, and I saw that, and a lot of accumulated stresses and disappointments came out,” I said. I pulled back on the cigarette. A pair of male students walked past, one gave me a nod, and I gave him a nod in turn.

  “You look a little scary, for the record,” Jessie said.

  “Noted,” I said.

  “What’s the gray area?”

  “Being able to see that Fray wasn’t who I wanted her to be meant I got more of a glimpse of her, I think. I was able to stop myself, but… chose not to. Because I saw an in.”

  “Past the facade? You once described Fray as a demon wearing an angel’s mask.”

  “Did I?”

  “To Jamie, once upon a time.”

  “Huh. I like that. Good for me.”

  “I’d point out that you said it once, forgot about it, and then said it again later like it was the first time, and then you did it again but it was the matron and the ogre, but you seem like you’re not in the mood for any playful jabs,” Jessie said.

  “Thank you for not pointing it out, then,” I said. I smiled a little, then I puffed thoughtfully. What had I been saying? It was hard to recall particulars when my thoughts were this scattered and the things I was considering were this big.

  “You saw an in,” Jessie reminded me.

  “Yes,” I said. “Thank you. I didn’t penetrate past the angel to the devil inside, though. I think I glimpsed the human.”

  “Something exploitable?”

  “We’ll find out in less than forty-five minutes, I think.”

  “What an interesting timeframe.”

  “The Lambs are coming,” I said. “In forty-five minutes.”

  “Ah,” Jessie said. She pushed her glasses up her nose.

  I nodded.

  “That’s bad.”

  “I’m not so sure,” I said. “Gray areas, remember?”

  “Of course I remember, Sy,” Jessie said, clearly annoyed. “Why is this gray?”

  “Because I’m suspicious that when the train pulls up and the Lambs get off, Fray is going to be standing there, ready to turn herself in.”

  “I see. This goes back to what you were saying about your valiant fight against the primordial, does it? It’s really my facade you’re trying to crack.”

  “Jessie—”

  “Do you expect to find an angel, a demon, or a human when you chip away my mask? I assume that’s why you’re chipping away at my reason and sens—”

  I flicked my fingers, striking the arm of her glasses with a fingernail, interrupting her. “Chip.”

  She gave me a sidelong glance.

  I did it again. “Chip.”

  “I’m armed, Sylvester.”

  “And I’m being honest. Really. The Lambs are due. Sixty-forty odds that Fray will be there.”

  “That must have been a fascinating conversation. If I hadn’t seen you walk off with Fray, I might have thought you were losing your mind again.”

  “Maybe I did, just a bit. But I’m pretty sure on this one,” I said. I reached into a pocket, and I withdrew a piece of paper. I handed it over. “Warren Howell arrived with the last train—”

  “—Twelve minutes ago.”

  “Twelve minutes ago. Fray will be talking to him. He’ll cover us from the Lambs and he’ll cooperate, as will the rest of the people he brings for help. That paper has the addresses of our first contacts. Fray was kind enough to supply the next part of her plan. We’ll be able to room and board our army while we get the next pieces of our plan underway.”

  “I’m usually content to let you do your thing, and I keep up, but I’m going to need more information on this one.”

  “The dark cloud that’s hanging over all of this and making it look a lot grayer is that our standing plan may not work. Fray thinks others have tried, or others have done similar things. She knew and she didn’t try. The Crown is a sore loser, Jessie. She believes that if we move forward and spread the word, the Crown will sooner erase the Crown States from the map than allow the mask to be pulled off.”

  Jessie nodded, taking that in.

  Even irritated, with me flicking at her face, she was calm and sure. It was a panacea of sorts. It made the sentiments Fray had stirred easier to handle.

  I continued, “In my ire, I convinced her that if she doesn’t turn herself in and show that she really does take this that seriously, I might move ahead with the plan regardless. That I’m a sore loser too.”

  “How much of that was truth?”

  I smiled.

  She reached out and flicked my nose.

  “That’s annoying,” I commented.

  “Oh, is it now?”

  “You’re terribly immature,” I told her.

  “I am. And I’m curious, too. This fear that you think will put her on the train platform, was it the glimmer of human you saw in her?”

  “Sixty percent chance she stands on that platform, mind you,” I said. “Completely made up number, but it’s approximately where my feelings are on it. And only to a degree. Both the devil in Fray and the angel are practical monsters. If she extends the same arithmetic to the hunting of us, practically speaking…”

  “Practically speaking, it’s not out of the question that she ends up on that platform.”

  “But that’s only a small part of that. If it was that alone, it would account for perhaps five percent of the chance. It was two things that stood out to me in particular,” I said. “Two things that make me see Fray in a different light than I did before today. The first, really, is when and how the crack appeared in her shell. It was when I got angry. When I accused her, arbitrarily, she started listening to me. I accused her again, still angry, of being responsible, and she got angry. I made unreasonable demands, and she bargained.”

  “The crack in the facade.”

  I finished my cigarette, mashed it against the wall, joining other dark spots from other days and nights Jessie and I had both stood here outside our hotel, plotting what came next.

  “She actually felt guilty,” I said.

  “Despite no direct involvement?”

  “Indirect involvement. She took Wyvern, which was tested on me and others like me. She ran from us very effectively for a very long few months before she let us catch her. She probably had moles, and she didn’t give any tells, but she didn’t actually ask any questions or raise eyebrows about to my repeated references to Lacey, and I’m wondering if she would have if there was nothing going on there.”

  “Indirect involvement, then. Maybe. Your interpretation of Lacey was very different from Jamie’s.”

  I nodded.

  “Guilty,” Jessie ruminated on the word.

  “A bit of fear, a bit of genuine guilt, as I le
t my facade down and pulled a bit of hers down in the process, some practicality, and, maybe a bit of it had to do with her being spooked.”

  “Spooked? This is different from her being scared?”

  “Flustered. Put on her heels. In all of that, my ranting and railing against her, I went with my instincts. In the midst of it all, I asked her to make a sacrifice for once. I think it hit home. Prey instinct, gut feeling, and a bit of the raw on my side to break past the civil veneer. We should run after these students. Talk while we walk.”

  I put my hand on Jessie’s shoulder, bringing her with. She had to bend down to grab our bags, which meant my hand slipped away.

  “You’re going to need to elaborate on that last point,” Jessie said.

  “Of course,” I said. I took my bag from Jessie. I glanced back at the hotel.

  “If you wait and try to make me impatient, it won’t work,” Jessie said. “I’ll remember, and you’ll forget, and you’ll be more annoyed and inconvenienced in the end than I am.”

  “You’re my foil,” I said. “It’s why we get along so well.”

  “Of course,” she said. “Is this a new realization? Stemming from the fact that Fray turned out not to be who you thought she was?”

  “No,” I said. “Hardly. I’ve known you and Jamie were natural fits for me for a long while. Fray was… something else. When I called on her to make the sacrifice for once, she was flustered. I was musing on it while I walked back here, and I’m left thinking, you know, the Crown, awfully sore losers. Destroy a continent to hide the fact they actually lost once.”

  “You’re going to need to elaborate on that, too.”

  “So needy!” I waved my hands at Jessie, as if shooing a pesky fly or an annoying small child. She pulled my hands down.