Viscera

by Gabriel Squailia

  “You little prick,” she said. “You had me feeling bad for a second there.”

  The room went silent. For a moment she thought he’d gone.

  Then, from around the bend, she heard his faint, rasping voice.

  “May you live forever, Ashlan Ley.”

  When the students returned, they asked if the silk purse belonged to her.

  “I don’t need it,” Ashlan said. She healed her stomach before they noticed the gash.

  They looked annoyed when they saw how much was left on her plate, so she put away the bird while they watched. That seemed to please them. They took off her wrist cuffs, student III holding a vial in her hand—a threat—while student IV bathed her.

  She hadn’t decided whether she should try to escape. Not now, while IV scrubbed the grime from her back, hard enough that her body jerked, but in general. She had nowhere to go. And ripping herself free would mean fighting them, and what if she couldn’t stop? What if she got a taste of blood and slaughtered them all, and the city came crashing down?

  You could always just endure it, she thought. Like you do everything else. Sooner or later, it’ll just end, and then the next thing will begin.

  Again, and again, just like this, forever.

  Hollis’ words were still ringing in her ears, and she let them ring—until they sounded like every other meaningless thought competing for space in her head.

  The students rubbed her down with oil, then dressed her. One kept watch while the other braided her hair, far too loosely, as if she was afraid of hurting her. They showed her a mirror, after they’d wiped down the table and locked her wrists up again.

  This was for him, she understood. For Ram.

  He confirmed it when he returned, complimenting her lavishly. She looked like a meal, he said—no, like a feast. A sumptuous feast.

  She stared at him, not sure whether to encourage him or shut him down.

  He didn’t seem to mind her glazed expression. He went to great lengths to explain their anesthetic techniques. It was important to him to know that she wouldn’t suffer.

  She thanked him, and smiled weakly, as if she’d been overcome by shock, and might come back to herself soon.

  They put her under, and when she woke, she’d already healed.

  She let herself bob along like this for a day or two. They took five loads of innards from her—contributions, they called them—and fed her constantly. The students were good cooks.

  Ram visited her often. She didn’t say much, but listened attentively to his long, self-congratulatory stories.

  Sometimes she caught him staring at her belly.

  She started to wonder what he was doing with all of her. The thought started to bother her. The discomfort reminded her of another time.

  They’d just taken the nameless prototype from her lab.

  She’d sat there all night, looking at her empty desk. A part of her was out in the world—and she had no way of knowing what it was doing.

  This time she’d learn.

  The next day, when he brought a meal to share with her, she apologized for shouting at him when she’d arrived. It made him glow, instantly. Encouraged, she gave him more.

  The lies came easily. She knew what he wanted to hear. “I was hungry, you were right. But it was more than that, Ram. My—my body got the better of me. Sometimes I feel like I’m not in control. It’s like my blood keeps flooding with substances that are working against me.” She lowered her eyes. “Against you, too, I guess. But I—I do want to see a better Eth. A better world. I do want to help.”

  “Hey,” Ram said, leaping up, too excited to finish his plate. “I promised you something, didn’t I? And then we got caught up in building Kin One—we’re going to have to name them, maybe you can start helping there—and I plumb forgot.” He bounded to the curve in the passage. “I’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere!”

  She rattled her manacles.

  He laughed.

  Their little joke.

  He brought her the last of her notebooks, convinced the students to leave her lanterns on that night, and left, promising that they’d have a drink together when she was done. “A toast to the Ashlan I know.” She read through it, more irritated than inspired.

  Then she got to the quake, and was surprised to find she remembered every word.

  Except for the names. She must have passed the book around their camp in the rubble, and everyone who’d helped her design the mannikin had signed.

  She was startled when she got to her own.

  She’d been using a pseudonym, then, after one of her many resurrections, but she wrote Ashlan Ley that day.

  When it was done—when she got to the point when the Uni had confiscated her books, that is—she closed the cover and lay back on the table.

  Ashlan had spent the past hundred years in a fog. Her history was partly to blame, surely. But there had been a kernel of truth in what she’d told Ram. Her biology had conspired with the rest of it—the Uni’s betrayal, her serial solitude, the violent deaths of more or less everyone she’d ever met—to make it all seem insurmountable.

  Her body had made up her mind.

  This made her angry, in a foggy way.

  “My life has not been an utter waste,” she said aloud, as if she was trying on the words.

  They didn’t fit.

  It wasn’t long before Ram brought the wine, a bottle in each hand. He was already drunk.

  She threw her head back, thanking Fortune, and while it was theatrical, she meant it. The moment after he opened her manacles, she downed her first glass in one gulp.

  “I can tell I’ll have to work,” he said, raising his eyebrows slowly, “to keep up with you.”

  “Maybe.” She slid off the table, sitting on the bumpy floor and holding out her glass. “Probably. Tell me something?”

  He sat beside her, pouring, then scooted closer. “Name it.”

  She gulped that glass down, too, running her tongue over her teeth. “What are they? Your Kin, I mean.”

  He set down his glass and hugged himself. “When I was young, Ashlan, I had this fantasy. Have I told you yet? No—that I was singly born.”

  “Huh.”

  “That surprises you?”

  “It does.” It did. He sounded Ethian.

  “It wasn’t—the usual way. I mean, I was born in Eth. But my parents, who loved to complicate everything, they got their own home-brewed enchantment approved. A sort of birthing circle, one use only, that would take all the best elements of my seven iterations—and fold the whole brood into one. The best possible offspring.” He sipped his wine. “I am the basket where the chickens put all their eggs.”

  She snorted. “And they named you Ram Annathanker. Just to make sure you stayed humble.”

  “I know! I was grown, in a lab, to unite the kingdom. Rule for a lifetime, plus conquer the lands all around. It was a lot to live up to. So I didn’t.” He leaned back on one palm. “Anyway. This fantasy I had—I was a kid, mind you—was that I’d find a way to divide myself back into seven. And instead of ruling Eth, alone, the way my parents wanted it—I was supposed to reconcile the Uni and the throne, see—”

  “No pressure.” She filled her own glass this time.

  “Exactly.” He finished his and poured another. “So after I magically extracted all my brothers, we’d rule the whole world. One of us in each kingdom. I guess we would have annexed some, to even things out.”

  “Wouldn’t that have led to brother fighting brother?” she said, squinting. “I mean, you’re the student of history, but I have read a few books.”

  “Ah, but you see, we wouldn’t really be brothers. We’d all be me! And I’m perfect, so.” He made a face to show her that he was kidding. “But you’re right. As I got older, I started doubting how harmonious I’d really be with myself. Power always seemed to go in the same direction. Toward its own destruction, not to mention the destruction of everything else. And right around then, I found your no
tebooks.

  “You taught me what I could be. Through your words. Through your designs. But most of all, Ashlan—through your hope.”

  He closed his eyes. “I will do no harm. I am here to help. And if I do not, I have become a monster. When I read that, Ash, I have to tell you, it changed the course of my life.”

  Despite the rush of confused emotion, she kept her voice bright. “So the Kin, they’re your—identical rulers?”

  “Actually, no. They’re—well.” He drained his glass and set it on her table, standing, holding out his hand. “Why don’t I show you?”

  “I’d like that.” She stood up, making a show of her unsteadiness.

  He took her arm. “I developed something new, so far as I can tell.” He led her around the first bend. She was unsurprised to see more of the same—room after room set up in the bends of the Gone-Away’s intestine, lit by flickering lanterns. “It’s a piece of rune-work that senses a certain constellation of psychological stances. What you might call—lust for power. It can sniff it out, even at a distance.”

  She made approving noises as they came around the corner, into a far larger chamber, crammed full of cabinets.

  Seeing the great metal chamber at the far end of the room, she stopped.

  It was fifteen feet high, built of solid steel.

  “The Kin of Man is in—there?”

  “The first of them, yeah. We’re almost ready to start the second, thanks to you.” He held up his hand, as if she might race toward the box and throw the door open. “Now, I know he can’t do anything to you that’s going to last.” Ram smiled, picking up a lantern.

  “But?”

  “But this seems like a good time to ask you if you’ve ever thought of yourself as a leader. Wished it was maybe you who was holding the throne, bossing people around, smiting your enemies, that sort of thing.”

  She laughed, though her stomach was sinking. “Your mannikin can read minds?”

  Ram’s chest expanded. “More like—he can sense these cocktails of aggression, the residual physical effects of ambition, if you will—but yes, in effect, that’s what he does. I call it the Alpha Scan. It’s named after an outmoded theory, but—”

  “But he tracks down people who want power, and then—”

  “Then he changes the world.”

  With a bow, Ram pulled the bolt and tugged the door open.

  Light licked the floor, where six helmets lay.

  The seventh stood atop the shoulders of a ten-foot-tall man. Its fingers were made of stout blades, splayed apart, cruelly recurved. Every joint was a spiked bludgeon, every metal surface covered in acid-eaten runes.

  But Ashlan was staring at its face.

  It was a cast-iron sculpture of a bulging human heart, and though it had dull, immobile chambers instead of eyes, she could feel it regarding her.

  Reading her.

  For a moment, she was afraid of what it might find.

  Then Ram walked up to it, striding through the empty helmets—each one representing another of the body’s organs, from brain to liver, all intricately detailed—and placing his palm on its broad stomach.

  The Kin of Man folded its blades away inside the empty chambers of its forearms and knelt, putting an arm around him.

  “You’re not afraid,” she said softly, “that it might kill you?”

  “Oh,” he said, laughing. “That’s what I made him for. My parents, they engineered me—to be a monster, in your formulation. Right? So it gives me a lot of comfort to know that if I ever were to do what would make them proud—well, he’d find me, and put a stop to that.” He patted his creation and closed the door. “Six more to go! Then we’ll set them to work. Our Kin will spread out all over the world, and keep the human race from getting the better of itself. This is the world you wanted, Ashlan—the end of the worst of man!”

  “It’s—incredible,” she murmured.

  But all she could think was what it was made of.

  From boot to helm, that thing was packed full of her enchanted insides.

  He put his arm around her as they walked back.

  She saw something moving in the shadows, emerging from a dark furrow behind the chamber.

  She looked away. Ram hadn’t noticed.

  It was Hollis, his face crumpled, his vest hanging open, staring not at Ashlan, but at the door.

  It took all she had not to run to him.

  But she had no idea what she planned to do.

  They drank the other bottle then. Ram was talking about his plans. His schools, their curricula formed around the interests of the students. The way he’d redesign the city. “You’ve thought of everything,” she said, and he almost purred.

  Before he said good night, he put her manacles back on. “I don’t think we’ll need these for much longer,” he whispered. “The others want to be sure, that’s all. They haven’t gotten to know you the way I have.”

  “I don’t mind,” she whispered back.

  He smiled, weaving across the room.

  She could feel his desire.

  “Ask me,” she said.

  “Tomorrow. Do you—do you want to be awake? To be—with me?”

  “For—the surgery?”

  “Yeah. It might be educational,” he blurted. “You might—you might learn something about yourself.”

  I’m learning something about you, she thought.

  His face was red, and he was breathing quickly.

  She understood. To him, this was an act of love.

  He saw the two of them as parents, about to birth a new world.

  “Sure,” she said.

  “I mean. Without the anesthetic, it’s going to hurt.”

  “Pain doesn’t bother me.” The words came easily. She knew what he wanted to hear. “I just keep thinking about the Kin. How it’s me in there. I’m ready to be more—involved.”

  “Yes. You will be, Ashlan,” he whispered. “But—don’t let the others catch on, okay? Just for today. I’ll need to get them used to the idea. They’re—” He glanced over his shoulder. “They’re still not sure if you should be walking around.”

  “No problem.” She winked, and went limp.

  All night she struggled to decide.

  Two hundred years, and she’d never taken a human life, while everyone around her seemed to be a murderer, or in training to become one.

  Kill Ram, though, and all that was over.

  So she’d never killed.

  How much harm had she done regardless?

  Leave him alive, and he’d make seven of them.

  How much harm would the Kin do?

  How many lives would they end?

  She couldn’t sort out the calculus. She still hadn’t made up her mind by the time III and IV came in. They took their time, chatting with Ram, earning his laughter. Ashlan kept very still.

  He placed his blade against her belly. She could feel his hand trembling.

  “Everything all right?” said IV.

  “Oh!” said Ram, chuckling. “Too much to drink last night. I must have the shakes.”

  He steadied himself, and had just swept his blade from one side of her belly to the other when the room went strange.

  “Is it me, or—”

  All of them stopped moving.

  “That was something,” said IV. “Wasn’t it?”

  They must have felt the same queer lurch that Ashlan had.

  “No, look.” Ram pointed at a bottle on a shelf. It was rattling, seemingly on its own.

  “Damn it,” said III, crouching down as the floor seemed to roll beneath them. “Another quake?”

  “It’s really going to hell up there,” said IV.

  Ram sighed as it settled down. “It’s probably the fucking guards,” he said, “going to town on the Assemblage. Or the other way around. Gosh, we really created a—”

  This time the whole room shook. “My goodness—it’s a big one!” called Ram, starting to look concerned.

  Tables crashed. In
struments fell. The shaking grew so intense that chunks of calcified innards fell from the ceiling, then crashed onto the floor.

  It calmed for a moment. Then the rolling began, then the shaking, again and again, sending hunks of stone to the floor, until IV was helping III up from the floor, her face bloody.

  “It’s not stopping,” Ram shouted at last. “Get into the chamber with the Kin. It’s the safest place. I’m right behind you.”

  They ran.

  This might be the end of Eth, or the beginning of Ram’s new world.

  Either way, Ashlan had been shaken into a decision.

  This wasn’t calculus after all—it was arithmetic. Two monsters were better than seven.

  Ram had staggered over. He reached for Ashlan’s wrist—then stopped.

  “Shit!” he said. “I was about to bring you along. But the others would be suspicious! I mean, we can just pull you out of the rubble later if it gets bad, right?”

  He turned his back before she could answer.

  Ashlan ripped her hands through the metal cuffs, shearing off her thumbs.

  Ram heard the clank and paused, turning as another rumble began.

  Leaping to the floor, feeling the slippery mass of her insides spilling out, she let the heat rush into her arms. Her thumbs sprouted back—the bones, at least.

  Ram saw her just as she’d gathered a slippery loop in her hands.

  A chunk of ceiling took him to his knees.

  Ashlan did the rest, garroting him with her entrails.

  He stabbed at her arms, however briefly, with his scalpel.

  “You’re adorable,” she said.

  —Rites—

  Withdrawal was in full bloom.

  A flower made out of lack.

  A ball made out of tlak.

  If all the tlak the Assemblage had taken was rolled into a ball, how big would it be?

  Bigger than the fruit Jassa had bitten?

  Littler than the wad Gingerbeard had won at the Masque?

  Larger or smaller than Rafe’s own beat-skipping heart?

  “You didn’t kill me,” he said, or imagined saying, as if Jassa could hear him, as if dying in the catacombs instead counted as some sort of victory.

  There was a score sheet that tallied all the times he’d taken the drash’s kiss.