Grand Design, page 19
“Humans communicate with mites?” To’Wrathh asked, feeling confused.
“Those that follow that religion say they do or did in the past. Not really a lot of them these days. Mites always have been an enigma to me, say how are they on the machine side?”
“They have a firewall around their digital space. Smaller programs can filter through but surviving past the mite wall is difficult. Anything larger that attempts to pass through the wall never returns.”
“They’re an enemy?” Tamery asked, confused.
“A neutral party. I believe they have been spotted assisting both sides of the conflict at different times. Like humans, they are not a monoculture. As for their goals and objectives, the archives machines have access to show no results. What does the human mite religion do? Perhaps they know more than we do.”
Tamery thought for a moment. “Most people don’t pay attention to speakers because only the mentally unwell ones says they can speak to mites. Usually they’re like doomsday preachers, talking about prophecies. The ones that aren’t lunatics are more likely grifters. We don’t have any here, mostly we’re just a city of imperials. Very traditional.” She handed To’Wrathh what looked to be a grilled rat on a stick. “Pipe rat with shakram spices. A staple for the lower income, but personally I find it tastier than crab. It’s, like, my comfort food.”
“How do you eat this?” To’Wrathh asked. But Tamery was already away, buying another set of food from a vendor farther down the road. With little options, the Feather shrugged, and simply ate the whole rat in one bite. It was oddly juicy, filled with rendered fat that paired well with the soft tissue and cooked protein.
“Whoa, that’s metal,” a voice said behind her. She turned and saw tiny humans. Three of them. Boys. One of the children pointed at her hand. “She even ate the bones and everything!”
To’Wrathh flushed, suddenly connecting the dots that perhaps she shouldn’t be eating the whole animal off the skewer like so. Too late now. Another boy scoffed. “She’s a ‘tian like me,” he said proudly. “Of course, she’d be tough. Told ya.”
“‘Tians are all just show,” the other kid said. “A single crusader would beat a hundred ‘tians and still have time to eat a meal. My dad said so.”
The first turned around, angry, and a fight quickly came down between the two.
The third came up to To’Wrathh, tugging on her skirt, ignoring his two friends currently wrestling one another. “How did it taste?” he asked. “With the bones?”
To’Wrathh looked down on the small child and thought for a reply. “Crunchy,” she finally said. Less was better, especially since the first child had claimed to also be a puritan. She didn’t want to be caught as a fraud this early.
“You kids bugging my friend here?” Tamery said, walking back into range. The two on the ground shot back up, all problems forgotten and forgiven. Tamery’s hand shot out and ruffled the hair of one of the kids. He scrunched up and backstepped away, hands brought up as if ready to go into a fight. Tamery laughed like bells would chime. “Wow, so tough! But do you think you could beat her in a fight? Think your dad could take her on?”
The kid glanced over to To’Wrathh, and then to her empty skewer. “Yeah, I could take her on. Easy,” he said with a gulp.
“Statistically unlikely,” To’Wrathh said, but her attention was focused elsewhere—specifically on what Tamery was bringing back with her.
The girl grinned and passed what looked like an orange claw to To’Wrathh. “Here, you little glutton. I was talking about crab earlier, turns out the shop way down there had some in stock. Give it a try. Six clawed rock crab, a fisherman’s staple.”
She brought up another claw and took out a small pocketknife, which she used as a lever to snap the exoskeleton off. From there she sucked out the meat.
The Feather observed and brought up her own crab claw. Cooked orange, with what looked to be bits of red flakes, and dripping a butter compound of some kind. Steaming off the shell. She didn’t have a tool to break the meat open, but a quick scan showed the composition was chitin, protein, and calcium carbonate. Mostly brittle and of little challenge. She snapped the claw with a press of her fingers. The meat had been crushed in the process by accident, she’d put too much pressure. But enough of it was left over to be edible. She quickly went on to doing exactly that, comparing the vastly different texture and taste of crab to rat. Cataloging it all and saving the memory. Yrob and the other runners would greatly appreciate this. Unlike the rat, this meat had a sweet taste to it, soft and melting away. The bits of pulverized shell added a nice crunch to the whole thing, too. Unlike the rat bones, the shell fragments were far more random and spread out.
“Still think you can beat her in a fight, tough guy?” Tamery asked while To’Wrathh focused on eating. The child had turned white for some reason, and took a step back as the Feather swallowed, snapped off another bit of claw and sucked out the meat inside like Tamery had done. Less shell this time, but that gave a slightly different profile to compare the data to.
“Maybe when you hit your growth spurt, you’ll get to hang out with us again you little scamps,” she said, patting him again on the head and lightly pushing him on the way. He got the message and the other kids all followed behind, quickly kicking off into a sprint, chasing after the lead in some impromptu game To’Wrathh hadn’t yet understood. The last one ran away, waving goodbye. She returned the wave, awkwardly. The claw fragments of the crab were not making it easy.
“That was a novel encounter,” To’Wrathh commented. “The disguise worked. One of them claimed to be a puritan, and he did not suspect my status.”
“Of course, it worked. I know my stuff,” Tamery said, puffing her chest out. “Ready to keep going? I’ve got more food to show you on the way, you’ll love this next dish.”
“She discovered your weakness quickly,” Tenisent said to To’Wrathh’s side. The ghost floated around, watching over.
“She does not,” To’Wrathh chided in private to Tenisent. “Food is simply enjoyable.”
“You could eat a cement wall and say it was appetizing,” Tenisent said.
Feeling miffed at the thought, she tossed the memory of eating the crab down into the cell that housed the ghost. The old warrior had been a clanner, food like crab wasn’t something he’d ever eaten before. She saw him pause, frown, open his mouth to complain and then stop again, and frown some more.
“See? Enjoyable,” To’Wrathh said, feeling a puff of triumph. It’s about time she got one up on him.
For the rest of the trip down the docks, anytime the old man was about to complain, she threw at his face another recently made memory of food, and that did excellent at shutting him up. Seemed to her, that she’d found his weakness just as easily. Everyone liked food.
Even if the stubborn ghost wasn’t willing to admit it out loud.
The rock overhangs were exactly what Tamery mentioned. To reach the floating slabs, rope ladders were the only path up, unless one could climb. “Every few years some dumb kid makes a mistake and slips off these slabs,” Tamery said. “History says that’s part of the reason tent roofs became a thing in this city, supposedly it saved a few lives. The old city government tried to ban coming up here multiple times, but it’s never stopped teenagers. So, eventually, they caved and set up nets under the slabs. It’s all ancient history. They’re a little hard to spot from the ground, but you can see them more clearly from here.”
Climbing was a novel experience for To’Wrathh. Usually, she would fly anywhere she chose. Tamery climbed just above, keeping a steady pace, her body angled to keep the rope set right.
She could see some of the other, lower slabs, having small gatherings of people, surrounding a bonfire of some kind. They seemed to be speaking to one another, but given the wind and distance, not even To’Wrathh’s hearing was able to make sense of it all. And they were all youth of some kind. Adults were nowhere to be spotted up here, with the effort required to climb.
The top of the slab was a small grassy plain, with a central masonry. What looked to be ruins of a mite construction, little more than eroded walls now with moss growing anywhere it could take root. At the center was a small gathering of people, all wearing outfits similar to To’Wrathh’s. Each had their own unique flare, though the overall theme remained consistent.
Tamery had told her more about these people on her climb. She felt reasonably prepared to join this social circle.
“Hey, all! I’m back!” Tamery said, waving to the group. They turned and stared for only a moment before standing back up and rushing over, crowding around her.
“Who’s the new girl?” one of the women asked, pointing at To’Wrathh.
“I am Sophia,” To’Wrathh lied. “I’m new to the city and arrived right before the machine blockade hit.”
The news seemed to sour people, as they grew quiet. “Scrappers. Always trouble, eh?” one said. “Glad you made it before the chopping block. Why not come by earlier?”
She was prepared for that. “I wanted to work on my outfit, but Tamery helped speed that up.”
Originally this was supposed to have been Tamery’s. The girl had been working on it in secret a few years ago, before her troubles hit. She handed it off to a friend, who’d gone and returned it once Tamery returned. With To’Wrathh’s arrival, the girl didn’t seem to mind giving her hard worked outfit away. According to her, she could always make a new one.
The new group asked her further questions, light probes to find out more who she was rather than question the validity of her persona. She answered each as practiced. Soon, they invited her back around their fire.
A large bucket filled with stripped crawdad tails was presented. “Grab a skewer, nail one of these up and put it over the fire,” one of the boys said to her, handing her a thin wooden stake. The city seemed in love with any kind of food that could be handled with a stick it seemed. She commented as much. “I don’t know what your city’s like Sophia, but here we mostly deal with seafood. The lake provides a basically unending source of it,” the boy said.
“Machines might have us surrounded, but they can’t ever starve us out.” Another said, to a small cheer from the group.
“You guys know that’s bunk right?” Tamery said. “If the city alone could make all the food in the world, we wouldn’t have farms on the other hollows. The city’s going to run out of food eventually, not anytime soon, but eventually.”
“Never took you for a downer,” the boy said. “I remember you’d always be looking on the bright side of things, what happened since you left?”
“I had to live outside the ring for months and saw the machines face to face. What do you think?” Tamery said. “Of course, that changes a person. Got to be more realistic and down to earth. Besides, you guys heard the rumor about the machines accepting surrender now?”
That got a heated debate among the group. To’Wrathh watched, eating roasted crawdad after crawdad while the group debated politics and their place in the world. Tamery had been correct—the people were not unwilling to surrender. They simply didn’t know if the machines would let them live after. They needed personal confirmation.
“They’ve changed,” To’Wrathh said, drawing attention for the first time. “The machines. They will not hurt you if you prove you’re not a threat.”
Tamery glanced at her nervously, but the others were already there asking questions. “You sound like you know this firsthand, did you run into a machine while you were outside?”
To’Wrathh nodded. In a manner of speaking, she had. But for her persona, there was a different story to tell. “We reached the gates safely because we surrendered. The machines let us pass. So, I have seen firsthand that they can cooperate with humans, in good faith.”
The group grew quiet until one of the older men stepped in. “Sounds like they might be returning to their base programming? They were originally made to serve humans, not killing us is a good step in the right direction. They’re the manifestation of human evil, but humans overcome evil on a daily basis. Maybe the bit of humanity in them is returning? It’s in our nature to overcome evil.”
“Steel rusts but the flesh rebuilds,” the group murmured. To’Wrathh remained puzzled. She knew this religious sect believed that humanity and machines had been one and the same at some point, but a schism caused the two to split. Historically, they might be referencing cybernetics and older human augmentation, or at least as far as To’Wrathh could suspect. Data was not completely whole, even the machine archive is missing great swaths of it. Either locked away by the pale lady for her own reasons or deleted in the first war. It was easier to destroy than it was to capture and preserve, and the early days had all be about capitalizing on surprise.
It was pleasant to spend time with people like this, hiding among them. The talk continued deeper into the night, and To’Wrathh learned more about the city’s stance on the machines. The military had been tight lipped about machines allowing surrender, up until too many refugees had arrived and let it slip. From there it became a rumor, and soon it would have to be revealed as the full truth.
Kidra was an odd topic she hadn’t expected. Apparently, the duel between her and the surface girl had gone public, at least recordings taken from the final moments. The rumors were that the leak had been intentional, to increase morale. That had certainly worked, as the group considered the surface knights to be folk heroes. A lot of faith was being put on them to help save the city. They called her a sword saint, the first human in history to ever be able to stand and fight against a Feather. A lot of the imperials believed her to be an emissary of the golden goddess, as much as Kidra herself denied such rumors.
However, one knight, no matter how skilled, could not turn the tide of an entire war. That would be absurd. To’Wrathh was certain of this.
Before she could even take a bite from her next crawdad, an alarm blared obnoxiously loud in her mind, set to maximum possible volume, causing her to outright flinch in surprise. She shut it off with a spark of fury and went digging into where it had even come from. As she discovered, it was hardwired a week ago by herself, specifically set to trigger anytime she thought a Winterscar wasn’t going to be a problem—to remind her that every single Winterscar To’Wrathh had met in her life, she’d ended up with a problem.
She crunched the crawdad whole, not bothering to deshell it, angrily chewing away, to the surprise of the others around the fire. To’Wrathh really needed to stop doing this exact mistake every single time. It always blew up in her face. Once was a coincidence. Twice was an anomaly. Three times—that’s a repeating predictable pattern. She didn’t know how the Winterscars would throw off her plan this time around, but newfound instinct was now screaming in her mind that they would—somehow.
The Feather wondered what Keith was doing right now on the surface.
From the handful of memories Tenisent had shared with her, she guessed it was probably something sinister.
CHAPTER 17
CHASING DOWN A ROGUE AIRSPEEDER FOR LOOT AND PROFIT
An explosion rocked the wall-side, scattering larger boulders down until a gap appeared. Bright white shone through, like beams in the dusty twilight of the cave. A beat passed before another explosion shook the leftovers and the whole wall collapsed down. Four relic knights zipped through the new openings, led by Shadowsong.
The man landed hard on the ground, blades out and ready, scanning around for anything. His helmet passed over the remains of the knightbreaker, one half of which was already in my hand, while I was on the way to recover the second along with the few fragments of broken chains. “Enemy?” he asked, straightening up from his crouch.
“Chased away,” I said. “The ol’ knightbreaker here lived up to expected value, though I don’t think it’ll work a second time against this particular foe. I had surprise on my side this time around. Also, finally found out why they’re after me too in the trade.”
Shadowsong nodded. “Explain on the way. We need to move, or the Chosen will escape me. What foe attacked? Who is behind this?”
My hands reached the last sliced off half of my work and awkwardly affixed them to my hip while the group and I jogged up the ruined avalanche back up to the opening. “You remember that Feather Atius fought off underground?”
“Impossible,” Shadowsong growled, more to himself. “Machines don’t travel to the surface. What’s changed?”
Ropes were already being lowered down, a set of five, one of each of us. I grabbed hold of mine, hooked a carabiner and used my arms and legs fully to scale the sheer wallside. I’d have picked up some extra scrap from the blasted off pieces of my homicidal stalker as a trophy, but the chains had some some serious work and there wasn’t anything I could spot in good enough piece. The recording of the fight would be enough for now.
Teed’s airspeeder hovered right over the edge of the abyss, the ropes lowered directly from the bay side doors. Risky move all in all—airspeeders couldn’t really fly, they only hover up to thirteen feet of clearance, at most. If the ship drifted off even slightly, it would fall down into the hole, dragging everyone with it. “Enemy is already on the move, their airspeeder is retreating,” Teed said on the comms. “We hit them with an engine buster right when the ground exploded, so they’re limping right now. But they’re still getting away. Get up here fast.”
Relic armor made the climb supremely easy, with my legs kicking me up leap after leap. “See, I think it’s got to do with that bunker underground. Only Lord Atius, Kidra and I got inside there. And Atius is a Deathless, it would be impossible to get anything out of him. My sister and I? We’re plain old humans. Easy targets. She’s gone, so I’m the only one left to grab. That’s my guess at why he’s hunting here.”
