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Time sags and fractures when you work on someone you love. Hours stretch like months and weeks are a blur. I think it’s August.
The first iterations were toughest going. Pulley systems that, in hindsight, could never work. Rail guides that snap before we even begin testing them. Fried boards. HQ sending us the wrong PCIe switches, over and over. Pained thrashing, skin torn raw by locked up servos, carapaces snapped.
It didn’t get easier. I wasn’t as good with a welder as I thought I was. My cobbled-together notebook on circuit design wasn’t near enough. I had no idea just how bad the electronics market out there had gotten. I cursed past me for skipping programming classes so many times the words almost lost meaning.
But every time I fail, I tell them, “we’ll get there”. And lately, it seems like we both almost buy it.
We are on body thirty-five. The boundary between bedroom and workshop has been lost. I sleep on the floor with Kory, quilts layered atop the blue back-tarp of their iterative re-embowelment. The tarp bears the same grid of solder burn marks as my skin. Their six delicate arms, lacking outer plating and doubly vulnerable thus, cradle me to sleep. Within their open ribcage, the dual RTG cells churn inaudible, and I have stopped worrying if my head rests too close or if the screening is really that solid. It’s warm, and that’s what I care about. We watch a Star Trek season we have no context for. We sing harvest hymns, poorly.
It’s afternoon. We are taking a break. I’m crying and I don’t know why. Their new voice rustles all around me from a distributed speaker array. Beyond the unpowered door, out of sight on the stairway, nisse are going ham on another jar of sauerkraut I left out for them. They’ve been helping weed out the greenhouses, so it’s only fair. The valley’s ears perk and focus, gently tracking a moving target, invisible to us beyond the opaque dusty sky. Must be a satellite or a lander. There seems to have been a lot of landings in South America lately. Vines segment the skylight, competing for warmth with flower-like photovoltaics, considerate gift from a recurring guest. The two storks ascend in half-loops, returning to their estate atop the radome with a still-squirming catch.
We’re only a day or two away from the next field test, and I’m really hopeful this time Kory will be able to walk for long enough to come with me to the swingset. We always do funerary services in August. The goners here aren’t picky - if we are late by half a year, it’s still leagues better than the treatment they got before us. But it is good tone to be consistent.
An alarm blares from the command room, the first one in a week. The nisse hiss and scatter, clicking away through ventilation grates.
I don’t want to get up. It’s comfortable down here, intimately familiar alloy bones cutting into the back of my neck, branching fingers wandering over my dirty shirt. I groan and nuzzle closer to Kory’s incomplete chest, sharp scaffolding pinching the skin of my cheek. Trying to stave off reality.
But the alarm repeats, louder this time.
“I swear, if it’s the pillars again,” - I sigh and get up. Not before rubbing my face against the interlocking scales at the front of Kory’s new head, the one part we are completely sure is done. It elicits a giggle, and they poke at my side so that I don’t linger.
The narrow strip of light breaching into the corridor makes it look like I’m in a deep trench, not a good five meters above ground level. The mushroom drying operation has spilled out from the storage room, and I carefully step over the venerable space heater at the heart of it. The stairway jar is tipped on the side by the nisse’ hastied retreat, brine dripping from the grating down into the basement flight. The alarm rings again. Whoever it is, I have some strong words.
“What’s up?” - I turn into the control room. The PC screen is already flashing at its borders. I think it’s open to a camera feed. Hard to see from here.
Golden light warms Playback’s domain. Control surfaces of the four towers sprout, decrowned, into a jungle of sinew-actuated connectors. Most manual controls have been bifurcated to be accessible to both my hands and Playback’s branches. I duck under. My hair brushes against a thumping vein running along the overgrowth. I emerge in the clearing, and clamber into the chair.
The screen flashes again, even though I am already looking. It’s a perimeter camera. One that goes unused so often I forget I set it up at all. Nested below a mighty old spruce’s paws, status light taped over. Overseeing the checkpoint at maximum zoom.
No one is ever at the checkpoint. No human wants to go here. Especially not that one.
Yet there she is. No, I have leeway. It could be anybody. I don’t have a good shot of the face. It doesn’t have to be her.
Sitting on the ground, back propped up against the boom gate. Still on the outer side. MT-16 pattern attire rendered much less effective by abundant splotches of dried blood. Patched-up hiking backpack. Empty rifle on the knees. STOLAS brand handheld radio in a trembling hand. They’re staring at something away from the camera, not turning around, though they clearly would like to have their rear covered. I tilt the camera up, and see the culprit. Guess that explains where the last mannequin has been lately. Though he isn’t alone - two of his kind follow, both’s chests hollowed out as impromptu flower-pots for some sort of creeping plant. Unlike mine, they almost disappear into the shade beneath the evergreens.
The base transceiver is already on, but the speaker is at zero. Playback has been listening through its own dedicated TRS jack. I don the headphones, re-padded with nettle fabric, and turn the knob up. The usual noise of the universe flows into my mind, then a voice. I wince. I don’t have leeway anymore. It’s her.
“Calling Alpha Root Base. This is…” - Enara stutters into a short coughing fit, takes a few labored breaths. Either sick or dehydrated, - “This is Doctor Ena. I am at the gate. Alone. Since this is… Since this is your territory, I ask for your permission to proceed. Over.”
I sigh, and bury my face in my hands. Sunlight sieved through my hair. Playback flicks through a few cameras further out to check if she is really alone. She is.
She waits a minute, then repeats the inquiry.
I pull the microphone close, and Playback wires it in.
“Doctor Ena, this is Alpha Root. You do not have our permission to proceed. State your business. Over.”
“Alpha Root, I am here with a message. Over.”
“Deliver it then, and vanish. Over.”
“Alpha root, I can’t… Look, it’s complicated. And I’m a bit fucked right now. Could you… Come to the gate and pick me up? Let me stay a few nights or something? Over.”
I lean back in the chair, and look at Playback. Playback blinks with its dozen eyes, as conflicted as me.
“They’ll never leave us alone, will they?” - I ask it. A ripple of cyan passes through the spectrogram display, something like a shrug.
I switch to the quarters intercom. I explain the situation. Kory is silent for a long few minutes. Ena repeats her inquiry, seen but unheard. The dirty wall of ballistic glass draws a stagnant blotch pattern on my face. Dust motes continue their endless ballet.
“It is not for us to decide, I think,” - Kory finally comes in, voice like a tide-whisper through inductive interference on the wires, - “She is not a threat to us, but we cannot just invite her in. She is a much greater offense than you were. You should take it to the Judge.”
“Thank you,” - I smile into the screen, and switch back to medium-range radio, - “Doctor Ena, this is Alpha Root. Stay where you are, I am coming to the gate. Over and out.”
She is an even sadder sight in person. Her short hair is greasy and mottled, glued to the skull with caked up blood at the left temple. Her eyebags are so bad they almost look like she’d been punched. Her combat fatigues carry enough burs to start a whole damn colony, though they also help to mitigate camouflage disruption from the blood. Which is pretty inconsequential around these parts. I can smell the blood.
I handbrake the bike and step off. The mannequins did not come closer, still watching her from across the river. She turns to face me, failing a smile.
“Hey.”
I don’t respond, studying the rifle. It saw use recently. That’s not good. Her torso is freshly bandaged. That’s even worse.
“Do you… Have some water?”
“The river is right there.”
“I don’t think it’s safe… For me.”
I squint at her. It doesn’t look like she’s lying. And she isn’t that stupid.
I walk off the road, parting dense reeds. The stream gurgles lively, gushing against my boots. I step forth with care. The riverbed drops off rather fast, and I’d rather not have to clamber back up some 200 meters downstream.
It looks at me from beyond the frenzied glints on the surface. A pit-eyed face forever locked behind the ever-changing bars, hair like eels and skin like soaked paper. I lower my palm into the cold stream. The shadow jumps at me, tugging painfully at my fingers, almost tipping me over, but soon recognizes the smell.
“Not today,” - I whisper.
It stares up in disappointment, and nibbles at my skin judgmentally. The otherworldly teeth sting, but I do not budge.
Eventually, it leaves. I reemerge.
“Now it should be. You’re welcome.”
She does not believe me, but does approach the water. She waits for what must be ten minutes to verify. I chew on some salt-dried roaches I keep in my shirt pocket. A family of ducks crosses the road behind me. She finally kneels and drinks. Greedily, like an exerted horse. Washes her head off, too. How long has she been walking around reeking of her own death?
Her gun lies in the dust, and I continue inspecting it from afar. I was never quite literate about these things, and my interest has only shrunk with the kinds of stories Array whispers to you in the evenings. The profile is vaguely familiar. It’s probably automatic.
She stumbles back onto the road, looking distinctly more alive, but still rather pathetic.
“So, uh… Can I come with you?”
“We will find out soon. Disarm.”
She freezes, backpack hanging on one strap, free hand already halfway to picking up the rifle. Looks at me with suspicion, water trickling along her nose. Her hair is a lot shorter than she ever liked, quite stiff. And uneven. Must have been cut recently, by her own hand.
“You think I’ll shoot you?”
“No. The only one you can hurt with that thing is yourself. Leave it.”
She lags for a long time, but does listen. The rifle is deposited into the dusty guard booth, onto the solid-metal counter.
“Magazines too. And whatever that is in your ankle holster.”
Ugly box. Ugly box. Ugly box. Handgun from the last century. Ugly box.
“Can I keep the knife, at least?” - she’d judgemental. She thinks it’s a display of power.
“Ill-advised, but acceptable.”
I turn around, and lead the bike along. She squeezes between the boom barrier and the booth, and follows. Silence condenses around us like soft butter around an ice pack. Birds leave quietly at our approach.
“Do you no longer live at Root?” - she asks, annoyed, huffing behind me as we climb Whiskey’s hills.
Gravel crunches under our boots. Mine waterproof, hers not so much. Soft wind licks my face in concern. Her fatigues are way too warm for the day. I don’t know why she won’t just take the top layer off.
“I do. You don’t.”
“So, me staying is not allowed? You could’ve just told me at the gate, fucking hell.”
“I said I don’t know yet. We will find out soon.”
The dish bobs and sinks to our right as we round it, then drains away between the trunks. A garrison of fluffy, thick spruce stands tireless guard around us, keeping the ground in eternal dusk. Podzol is littered with cone husks and dry branches. Normally, squirrels would be abundant. But Enara’s arrival disrupted everything good in the world.
The ground levels out, and we turn off onto the dirt path. Back when I used the quad bike, it was “uncomfortably narrow”. Now, it’s as luxurious as anything that doesn’t force me to crawl.
The ritual clearing is quiet. The goat rests on His pedestal, looking over the valley, legs folded under His body in a pose that conveys complete and utter detachment. But I know He has been watching.
“So, is this supposed to…”
“Shut.”
She stops in her tracks, staggered by my harshness. A good thing.
I drop the bike onto the bed of yellowing needles. I make it the rest of the way, and fall to the knees before the Great Archer. Formerly, Protector for the forest. Nowadays, more of a Judge.
“…and through the haze of leper’s eyes, burn his path forth with caustic light…” - I utter the invocation segment, and wince. The little round burn mark on my right wrist rapidly shifts into the next phase’s configuration. Painful, but terribly convenient for avoiding embarrassments. In two seances, it will flip to the beginning, and I’ll make another sacrifice to renew it. The mark, not the communication. Talking is free. Remembering is not.
“What are you…” - Enara begins, but abrupts in a gasp. In less than a blink and quieter than a mouse’s step, the Great Archer’s weathered copper head is turned rightwards, gracing us both with the gaze of a slanted pupil defined against His metal sclera not by color or texture, but by how piercingly uncomfortable the material becomes to look at. Even she can’t ignore it. I know her eyes dart between me and Him half a dozen times each second.
“Let it be known,” - I formally continue, - “That this human, affiliated presently with the ASO, has arrived with an alleged message, and seeking shelter. The human has willingly disarmed, and possesses no methods of long range communication… That I know of, at least,” - The Great Archer’s dissecting attention switches away from me, and I allow myself to assume a more comfortable sitting position, looking back at her, - “Go ahead, tell it now.”
She blinks at us from beneath the lamppost, not sure what went insane - herself, me, or the world. Then she gives in.
“Can I sit down at least? My legs are fucking killing me.”
I shrug.
“Sure.”
“I am not presently affiliated with the ASO, because there is no ASO,” - She talks at me, not at us. Trying to pretend that the goat isn’t there. Very funny, - “You probably didn’t even notice, but the country is under martial law. The agency got nationalized. They have our records. All of them.”
I’m using the free time given to me to comb my hair. I didn’t even realize how tangled it became. It’s greasier than I’d like, too. I suppose she isn’t the only one who looks like a mess.
“There must have been a dead man’s switch for the databases?”
“There definitely was, but someone must have cut it out. Most of us didn’t even know what was happening, Hans just didn’t show up to work one day. We thought he was sick or something. Security people looked all weird. Then in the afternoon the green dresses showed up and told us to go home. I had a vague impression that shit hit the fan, so I went to a bar to think. The telly was on a report of STOLAS headquarters burning brighter than the goddamn sun. At least their killswitch went off properly.”
She takes a second to steady her breath.
Arcs of alarm zip between my teeth and fingers and eyes. They always do, in the Great Archer’s presence. If you aren’t scared of Him, you’ve been tricked.
I work the brush. My hair spills across warm gravel like a photographed waterfall of tar. It’s been changing tone, very subtly, over the last year. May be something in my diet, or may be not, but it has a distinct bluish glint to it. Raven-like. I quite enjoy it.
Something scratches roughly at the side of my mind.
“When did this happen?” - I implore on the Archer’s behalf.
“Five days ago, right at the month’s end… Kellin, look, here’s the sentence I’m here to tell you: you need to run. That’s the important part.”
“There is no one by that name here.”
“Sure, whatever you’re called nowadays. You need to leave. Take your robot buddy and whatever else you can and leave.”
“Why so?”
She frowns, borderline offended.
“Because they’re going through our records. Right now. The clerical side is such a mess, you have no idea, but eventually they’ll understand what we’ve been doing. And then they’ll come in droves, thinking the forest is full of space alien laser guns or some shit, dude. They won’t find any, of course, but will that make them treat you any better?”
“That doesn’t answer my question…” - He probes motionless at me again, forcefully redirecting my sentence, - “But, to more immediate matters now. The human has stated its wish to use these lands as shelter. The human must know that this cannot be allowed as-is.”
She wipes her face of riverwater and sweat, trying her best to keep steady on the old bench. Her backpack had fallen on the side, spilling dirty clothes onto the hesitant grass behind the fencing. She didn’t even notice.
“This phrasing implies there is a condition.”
The Great Archer hooks deeper into me, subsuming my throat for His own purposes entirely. The words hurt, rendered in a voice that strains my vocal chords by virtue of merely existing. He does not care to make me breathe. I suppress an attempt to violently cough (it wouldn’t work anyways), claw desperately at the folds of my shirt.
“Though shattered now, your arrogant foul coven is yet at fault for much of misery that roams Our Land. Each scar across the hills displays your logotype quite proudly. Your ill-prepared and crudely butchered lambs have thrashed against their chickenwire bindings, and wells still run their bitter agony as poison. This humble Priestess’ restless toil has served to heal but a small fraction of its wounds. Despite your positive intentions, you can not simply be excused by Us on the behalf of Land. The Land must judge you in its multiplicity.”
The Great Archer releases its hold on my throat, and I collapse sideways, coughing, wheezing, gasping for air. Tears stream from my eyes. This awful violation of my body isn’t one I could get used to, ever. And yet I cannot help feel proud for being chosen for it.
“What… Does that mean?..”
My former friend’s voice is small. She finally, finally looks straight at the speaker. I realize that, from her seating position, she can faintly spot the second eye, too.
She doesn’t understand it yet, but she is pretty close.
I lie on my back, sucking in lungfuls of beautiful, fresh afternoon air. Some unseen bug bumps into my sleeve repeatedly, annoyed at the obstruction. The squirrels are somewhere far away, but I can hear them.
“It… Means… That…” - I force myself to slow my breathing down, avoiding overoxygenation, - “It means, you must spend the next night outside, unprotected. If nothing decides to kill you, you are considered forgiven. Enough to stay as my guest, anyhow.”
“Do I… Have a choice?”
I smile through the tears.
“Well, you could leave the way you came.”
We follow the winding faint trail southwest in silence. Thick branches blocking the ground before us still feel as if they yearn to flutter in the wind. She keeps close, uncomfortable with the thickening dusk. The forest is nowhere near back to normal. Shadows linger for quarter a blink longer than their allotted time. The birds are gone.
The trees begin to thin. The burning-peach shade sky trickles in, constellations in the east developing out of the gentle film. The treehouse isn’t too far off now.
“Is this your idea of revenge?” - she asks.
I stop dead in my tracks. She almost bumps into me. It feels like she wants to. My head turns sharply rightwards, and I scan her with one eye.
“Eye for an eye? Giving me what you got? I guess that’s understandable. But, shit, I told you, I tried! You’re not the only prisoner-”
“I told you, you can leave. There’s still time.”
“Leave and do what? Just walk back? Sorry, last spasms of a state that won’t exist in a year, my bad, stole your equipment, shot two of your men, maybe possibly tried to cut off your access to a wealth of paraweapons research, mind if I just go home, it’s no biggie right?”
“You could stay in the mountains.”
“I’m not you, I can’t live off bugs and bogwater!”
“Why did you come here, then?”
A rolling, angry hiss.
“Because I thought you’d help me avoid that! And you’re tossing me between a rock and a hard place instead! Aren’t you some kinda big name here by now?! Couldn’t you at least have tried to negotiate something more favourable?!”
That is really funny. Way too funny to pretend it isn’t. She stumbles back, mouth frozen in a grimace of fear and offense, while I bend over laughing. The sound spirals through the dusk, shoos off some of the shades that had been getting impatient. I have to hold onto a trunk for support.
“Does your index finger get to negotiate,” - I finally manage to raise my eyes again, mouth stretched wider than it’s been in a long time. My lips hurt a little, - “On whether or not the trigger is getting pulled?”
She gets it, I think. I wipe my face off, and slowly regain an upright stance. Though the sun is almost out of view, its heat will linger well into the night. Three green needles fall onto my outstretched hand, one after the other.
I take a step back towards her, trying to appear as soft as I possibly can. It’s a very rusty skill, and I was never good at it, but I hope she at least recognizes the attempt.
It is worth minimizing her anger. Anger tends to cloud evaluations.
“I can’t tell you you’ll be okay. Because you won’t. I can’t tell you what you will see. Because I don’t know. I can give you a light that won’t go out unless you break it, a roof in case there’s rain, and the choice to back out if you so wish.”
We’re on a borderline between the forest’s phases, and the trail is on its last sharp bend westward. Enara is in a pocket of sunset inside the whispering coniferous mass, and my shadow blurs into the interplay of miniscule shades composing her path forward.
We part at the old treehouse. She seems somewhat invigorated with its supposed significance. I can’t tell if it’s a good thing or a warning sign. The ants are still there, but something tells me she will prefer the ants to open sky.
I give her a guests’ lamp, brittle inscrutable tube up-armored by two-stage string suspension inside a storm lantern bulb. We have dozens of these by now. On the scale of decades, they seem to dim slowly, and their color shifts down towards reds, but otherwise they remain perfectly serviceable. The only problem is keeping the harsh spectral colors from hurting my eyes.
I promise to return at sunrise, and take off south, bike’s electric engine quietly pleased to get to work again, helping me push through the green legion. Darkness converges behind my back, and the LED torch struggles to illuminate more than a few steps in front. That isn’t a problem. I could get back home with my eyes gouged out.
The field drops in density, and gravel crunches under my feet once more. I make a detour to the transformer. The birch sapling has been chewed on, mangled at the base, but survives. The breathing from within is steady and calm. The fluorescent tubes pulse in sync with fireflies atop the roof.
“Hey buddy,” - I close the curtain behind me and greet the machine-beast with a friendly punch to its carapace. It lets out something like a hum, maw’s lid still not raised. It sleeps at day, usually. - “I’ve got a favor to ask you. There may be a dying animal in this part of the woods tonight. It’s important that you do not eat it.”
It produces a long grunt, displeased, but I hold stern.
“No complaining, this is important. Repeat after me: no eating tonight!”
After a few more seconds of grumbling, it folds.
“Ho… Eaa… Oihhh…” - syllables slither out of the giant mouth, moist exhale licking my boots.
“Good. It’s my food, not yours. If you can, keep it from stumbling away, too. I’d like to find it quickly in the morning.”
I flick the lights off and leave, letting it deal with the disappointment by its own means. It’s pretty good at that.
The fog has already rolled in by the time Root’s orange lights welcome me back. It’s even thicker than the first time I saw it converge on me, but qualitatively different somehow. Shapes defined by their own absence stream and swirl, brush against my muscles, homing in on the defendant.
Kory has propped themselves against the kitchen counters, two fully rendered hands idly iterating on another delicate rope-and-twig construct. Using those as working sketches for their own body is a lot more labor-intensive, but they find the organic qualities validating. We’ve collected an entire shelf by now.
They already know the resolution. We try to get back to work, but it goes nowhere. I’m too tired, and air itself eating our candlelight does not help the mood. So we do more or less nothing, let ourselves drift away, fading into the sea of mechanical tissue that had consumed the floor, my fingers locked with their ribs, theirs sifting through my hair. The night is dead silent, but we are not.
I return at sunrise, as promised. It takes a bit for me to find her, quiet, contorted shape under receding stars.
The forest has made its choice.
She is alive.
Curled up in a fetal position, clutching a shattered stormlight bulb in bloodied fingers, sobbing like a child. She doesn’t react to my presence at first, eyes locked to something far beyond the dancing stems. The trees around her wear her face. The lavender in the area is left twisted, dripping out of shape. Some wrathful equation has been scratched into the skin of her neck.
She is alive. So still that a little brown toad has chosen her as perch. But alive.
I reach for her arm, and she screams, crawling away into the grass. The toad tumbles into the dew, flopping sorrowfully. It takes until her back hits a boulder for her to recognize me. She makes her way back with equal haste, and latches onto my shoulder so violently I yelp in pain.
All attempts to shake her off are futile, so I walk her home like this, not bothering to look for her backpack. The only thing at risk inside it would be food. We can always find the rest later.
She is heavier than me, and noticeably stronger. Her fingers tear my weathered shirt in two places, and the bruises will surely persist for at least a week.
Returning sparrows peer at the new element from lemon branches.
“Welcome to Dunkeltaler, human,” - I exclaim in a mock-formal tone as the blooming concrete cliff closes in around us, leading the new guest into its soft orange gloom. Dry flowers at the Owl’s shrine flutter, mural almost cocking an eyebrow at the former astronomer. The taxidermied Gray heads look down from their shields, baleful as ever.