Episode 3 - Plowshares

  Chapter 24 - A Growing Tide of Small Things

  “I’m surprised there’s so much,” I say rather dumbly. I’m still feeling pretty ignorant of most things since leaving Murasaki.

  “Apex is large and prosperous enough that imposing the kind of financial control necessary at a lot of companies just gets unreasonable,” explains Everett, looking sideways at me while he walks, hands in his pockets. He’s wearing an interesting combination of coal-black suit slacks and a tank. I don’t blame him for that tank, I’d show off those shoulders if I had them.

  “How?”

  “They’re diversified, rather than specializing in a few trades and goods they do a bit of everything. Food and energy security will buy a lot of comfort. Plus don’t get the wrong idea, the stores are Apex owned and licensed. It’s just credits with more steps.”

  “Cooperative City was pretty big, we didn’t have anything like this?” I mumble, looking through the window of one shop that has brightly colored clothing as it passes me.

  “Hmm, the clue’s in the name. Co-Op City is like… twenty something companies? They split everything into independent districts, yeah?”

  Ahead of us, Shion, Nessa and Blake all walk immersed in their own conversations, Adrian steering his chair forward within the clearing both of our groups carve for him through the late afternoon foot traffic.

  I lower my voice slightly. “Do you get work there often?”

  That tiny muscle on the edge of his jaw twitches, and I flee his gaze scared of what the question might have given away. There is a hitch in his voice, like he’s clearing his throat but doesn’t quite know what words to say next, and he turns to look forward.

  “Do you miss them?” he asks so low I can barely hear it over the noise of the crowd.

  My lack of answer drags on just too long. I can see him in the edge of my vision shift his pace, one hand emerging from a pocket, his fingers awkward.

  It’s easier if I pretend I never heard the question, and I'm willing to sacrifice my own question to get out of answering his. I spin and tap a window at a pair of black boots as we pass them. “I don’t think I’ve ever had my own shoes before.”

  Everett frowns and hovers a little closer like he's tempted to not let the moment pass. I can see his reflection off the glass looking at the back of my head. His hand pauses, then tucks back into his pocket. “Oi, Nessa, come help Conrad buy some shoes!” he calls after a moment.

  ‘Conrad’… It’s the first time I think I’ve heard him call me that.

  Okay, I get it. I get ‘buying things’. Sure, it blew through every Velo I had to my name apparently, but what else am I going to do with them?

  I’m positively buzzing with joy as I wear my new black boots out the door, so much so I can’t help the giddy grin on my face as I look down at them. They have a little bit of a heel, not as high as Shion or Regina wear, but it makes me feel fantastic. The laces up the front of the boots look like the combat boots the APS employees all wore, with metal details in oil polished silver.

  “I’m glad you're excited,” purrs Shion, leaning on the handles of Adrian’s chair.

  I grin as I look down at Everett, now well and truly the shortest in our group except for Adrian. His unimpressed cobalt eyes look up at me. He snorts and turns, but I can see the corner of his mouth curl upwards as he tries to hide it.

  “What do you want to get with your next paycheck?” asks Nessa, handing me the bag with my old shoes in it.

  I don’t even need to think to answer. “Paper!”

  Shion blinks and takes a draw from her vape-stick. “That might be a little niche, we can look around. What on earth do you want paper for?”

  I scratch the back of my neck, suddenly embarrassed by the crowd. “Uh, I like to draw.”

  “With physical media?” clarifies Shion.

  I nod. “Yeah, my Dad sent my pencils with me. I don’t have anything to draw on though."

  "Are you good?” asks Nessa.

  “What kind of question is that?! I’m good at everything,” I insist, taking a step to try and encourage the group to start walking. “Can we get going again?”

  “Not at cooking,” returns Nessa in a hiss under her breath.

  “I agree with Conrada,” interjects Adrian, turning his chair after me, Shion steps back at the slightest movement so she doesn’t impede his motion. “I was the one who wanted to go out, and the salvo will be closed shortly. Let's get going, kids.”

  Adrian is still wearing his grey track pants, but instead of his bare frame he has a large white medical blanket draped over his torso and distended form beneath.

  Everything about him makes sense when I can see the paper-nest. The way his shoulders hunch forward slightly, how his spine curls, the manner his neck juts backwards as if he is straining against the weight across the front of his chest and hanging from his abdomen. Covered, and without it in sight, he looks disfigured. It's unfortunate. The look isn’t helped by the sterile white, woven blanket draped across his shoulders, his hollow cheeks, and the miskept locs hanging over his eyes. We look like care workers escorting an invalid, ones doing a bad job based on how he dresses himself.

  Whatever quirks he has, it seems most members of Aquila tolerate and treasure him with an attentive care unlike anything I've ever seen. I don’t understand then why he exudes this constant air of tormented distraction and lack of self-care, like a man half here and half ghost.

  Or maybe we do, if I was more honest with myself. Maybe another few years and I’ll be more ghost than person too. Pooka’s continued brooding silence since the Plowshares contract has been disquieting.

  Shion obediently follows as he turns his wheelchair up the path again. “Of course darling, onwards!”

  I feel myself drawn to the old electronics while we browse. Half of the goods are literally junk, likely better suited for recycling except for the complex amalgams of materials which would take significant symbiont and human effort to separate and reuse. Then scattered between it all with a strange lack of care is the occasional treasure; organic materials that haven’t been used in years, dusty artworks, and goods from times when there were so many things they could all be kept in excess. I can't help but drag my fingers across the worn grain of a wooden box as I pass it, tracing the whirling veins with my finger tips.

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  Adrian is hobbling between the tightly packed rows of salvaged furniture and miss-matched goods on his crutches, his wheelchair wouldn’t fit. Seeing him on his feet for the first time I understand just how strangely his center of gravity is distributed, without the crutches he’d be bent backwards trying to keep the weight of the nest over his hips. Blake and Shion both hover slightly too close to him, each on a palpable edge as they flinch when one of his crutches bumps an old armoire made with splintering wood, the anachronistic lacquer on its surface peeling in flakes on the floor.

  Adrian ignores them, planting the heavy, unbalanced weight of his upper body over the crutches tucked in each armpit to stabilize himself, his blanket tied around his neck and waist like a bib. The shopkeeper obviously knows him and is engaging in lively conversation about an odd ceramic vase Adrian had us all come here for. As I watch him, a Vespa crawls out from under the neck of his blanket wrap and takes off to investigate something.

  “As you can see this one is in nearly perfect condition, the glaze is an exemplary shade of celadon typical from this region pre-feudalization,” says the shopkeeper, his white-gloved fingers lingering on the piece with possessive pride.

  I wander between the aisles, looking into the plastic tubs of old parts and devices. Junk has already got me well trained to look for oddities. One of the tubs is full of older style city-monitors, with the big screens that wrap around the wrist and clunky interfaces. I dig through the pile and find a few modern ones, arranging the small bracelet screens on the edge of the tub one by one in a neat line of five total. I turn one to look at the price and the currency listed isn’t even Velo. Looking around everything is I-Euros. This isn’t a store for the dregs then. I glance up at the roof and spot the security camera, then glance over my shoulder at the shop keeper.

  “It’s a nice piece,” replies Adrian, hunched over his crutches to look a little closer. “But I’m certain you said you got two in the shipment. Where’s the other?” His drawling tone takes an amused edge, as if this is a practiced game between them.

  “It’s already reserved, Adrian,” replies the shopkeeper defensively.

  “And have they paid a deposit?” pushes Adrian.

  “Well no. But they’re a frequent patron-”

  “I’m a frequent patron. Go on, bring it out. I want to see it at least. Half your ceramics would be collecting dust if I wasn’t the one looking at them.”

  The shopkeeper frowns, but ultimately his tight eyebrows relax in resignation. “Always the connoisseur for the dusty and discarded. Fine, fine, give me a moment.” He gets up from his counter to go out back and spots Everett weaving between the aisles, a familiar nod passing between them as I watch. I lean backwards against the tub I was inspecting and watch him duck back into a private room behind his counter, my hands tucked behind me. Blindly, I grope my fingers along the edge of the tub shielding them from view with my torso.

  Moments later, the shopkeeper emerges with a second long-necked vase, a Vespa walking around the rim. It takes flight as the vase is placed on the counter with the previous one and lands on Adrian’s head, crawling between his locs.

  “You’re holding out on me,” chides Adrian, a rare spark of energy in his voice as he leans lopsided into one crutch to free a hand to pick up the new vase. “This one is a beauty. You don’t see this style of glazing during its period, especially not on a shape like this.”

  “It’s beyond your means, Adrian,” warns the shopkeeper, sitting back down in his chair by the counter with a weary sigh. “As much as I know you’d love it. I was doing you a favor by not tempting you where your budget doesn’t stretch.”

  Adrian nods, his hooded hazel eyes lowered. “It is,” he says with a sigh, “But at least I got to see it.” He puts the vase down with obvious yearning in his eyes, and balances his weight again between both crutches.

  “Will I pack up the other one for you?”

  “Yes, Blake can you carry it?”

  “Yes Sir.”

  I tuck my hand into one of the many pockets in my baggy pants from Murasaki.

  “What are you doing?” I start at the sound of Everett’s voice so close behind my shoulder, flinching away from the table.

  “Nothing,” I spit too quickly for it to be believable.

  He narrows his eyes, and skims the line of city-monitors I've arranged on the edge of the tub, four of them now.

  All the softness I’d started to see in the edge of his eyes when he looks at me are gone, his jaw tight with an accusatory tension. He glowers, waiting to see if I will come clean and I pull away from the tub of parts with my hands raised and empty, palms outwards.

  “I said I’d vouch for you,” he states stiffly, reaching a hand to grab my wrist.

  I flinch before his fingers wrap around me, taking a step back. “You also said you wouldn’t touch me.”

  I turn my back on him and march between the aisles to join Nessa.

  I drop the bag from my shopping trip next to my closet and take off my new shoes. As I slip the boots off my feet I set them neatly together at the end of my desk and collapse into my hands with a sigh. After a moment, I rub my eyes and brush a hand back over my head, dragging my fingers through my hair. Then I lift my head and look at the Cervus, dark gleaming eyes looking back at me. Next to it is the folded note from my life at Murasaki, my Dad and my friends, still unopened.

  I’ve made a vow.

  I’ll never read their words. When I’m done, there won’t be a need to say goodbye.

  I let my mind drift to Pooka, watching through his eyes. He sits on the very top of our building, wings hunched, head tucked within his feathers against the chill of the night. The dark water between the buildings laps gently, reflecting back all the lights of Apex city as if a second mirrored world exists just below the surface.

  I feel hate seething inside of him. Terrifying, relentless rage for things I cannot comprehend buried in memories I know are there but he keeps shut behind doors I can’t open. Sweet blood, precious violence, mother earth. And then the chill of fear, a hollow empty place beyond, waiting to embrace us once again. His silence has been many things, fraught with unchecked emotions I have no idea how to soothe. I don’t know what he is or how he seems to have hints of memories of lives before this one, and I don’t know how to speak first since we killed together and I came so close to the same fate myself.

  Smothered in the fear and the hate, there is a smaller voice in his heart. Possessive vigilance, tormented love... and a hope so faint I wonder what silenced it. It dreams of rushing water, wind in open places that are verdent green, and falling leaves. I'll show them to you one day, whispers Pooka. If... they yet remain.

  I feel him, whether or not we speak. And he feels me. There is no need to clear the air between us. We overlap, and it grows deeper each day regardless of our wants or feelings for the other. Together, we wrap our fear and anger and longing with each other's thoughts, and we will never sleep again without the other watching.

  With a sigh, I return to myself. I lift a hand and touch my ear, checking I don’t have a Vespa on me. All clear.

  I get to my feet and climb on my bed, pushing the ceiling tile above my pillow upwards and grope into the dark to find the tub of electronics I’ve stashed there, slowly stolen from the lab. With the whole load balanced on my head I step down and drop it on my desk, pushing aside the workstation for my Aquila-issued tablet.

  Out of my pocket, I fish the old city-monitor I’d slipped at the salvage store and inspect the port to find a matching power cable, plugging it into a power supply to begin charging it. A tiny blue LED light comes to life, it’s not completely dead at least.

  From my rat’s nest of parts within the tub, I dig out the first tablet Regina gave me when I left Murasaki and power it on. With a few taps, I bring up hand written plans stored locally, scrolling to the section I was last working on using the tip of my stylus. I pull my headlamp from the tub, a slightly easier requisition from the lab, and slot it over my brow, tapping one of the magnifying lens into place over one eye. Finally, I withdraw the beginning of my creation, half assembled circuit boards and sensors wired together with a breadboard, hope and desperation.

  Eventually, I’ll reach the limit of what I can do on my own, even if I can find the parts I still need, even if I give it more power.

  I need a symbiont that can manipulate tech if it’s ever going to have a chance of working. Which means an invertebrate.

  Which means telling someone what I’ve been working on.