L E T

T H E M

E A T

C A K E

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“A good friend once told me that religion is the opium of the people. Now, I must disagree. It is not religion. It has never been religion. It has always been, from the days of Adam, the food we put on our tables and have our tables put out for us.”

– Render

“Here, try this imitation mindo.”

Klost held out a small slice of the snack to her as she pulled back from the curtain’s tassels of white heide. She took it from his hand, and ate.

It was delicious. “Not bad for imitation High food,” she commented.

“Really? Have you tried mindo?” Klost asked, setting the plate of slices down on the stage.

“Careful, you don’t want to ruin tonight’s rehearsal,” she replied.

“Good joke, Eleanor.” As they watched, standing on the steps, a member of the Blazon Theater Company caught sight of them and smoothly walked over, their bare feet making no sound on the hyperglass. Wearing nothing but a reflective suit of what looked like flynder, the actress smoothly bent down, picked up the plate, downed the rest of the slices in quick, successive gulps, and went back the way she came, carrying the plate at her side.

“So as I was saying, they got some weird ones this year.” Klost shrugged and looked after the actress, whose suit showed their receding faces. “But hey, at least they don’t have Tr’aedis.”

She nodded pensively. “True enough.” The back of the stage, where various large stone models with inset blue-grey mirrors were appearing to be floating, had some actors hurrying through their preliminary motions. No cloaks or wild hand-waving, but a sense of professionalism inscribed from primary schooling by parents who'd yearned for their children to make use of their inborn talents.

“Where is Tr'aedis, anyway? I'd expect him to be with you, pretending that he isn't jealous of them and all that."

She shook her head. “He’s probably studying for once, pacing his father's basement, staring at his ancestors' portraits, the usual."

“That's cool." Klost turned his head to indicate that he was TM'ing someone. “Jule and Anderi are by Form Governors; we go there, and then to the raider game at 4?”

“Sounds wonderful,” she replied. Klost nodded, and they left the foot of the steps to the stage, the students preparing for their performance with the new recruits. She knew that Tr’aedis wouldn’t have been able to say his lines in that brief of a time after auditioning, especially for one of Blazon’s highest attended presentations. She’d stop by later to see the name of their play, which hadn’t been announced yet on the holoscreen which for now only read ALTERYEAR PERFORMANCE: TO BE NAMED. Off to Form Governors, then.

They emerged from the auditorium and into the hallway crowded with various student organizations' Alteryear preparations. BAT (Blazon Association of Techistry) had representatives trying to carry some sort of pre-bio terra model past a pair of squabbling SAB's (Student Agents of Blazon), each outfitted after whatever Agent they were emulating; a bot wielding the flag of Blazon Student Governors (BSG) darting in and out of the fray; they passed by BBB (Blazon Netbankers and Business) putting a V-photo containing what looked like a live student Netbanker conference across five meters of wall, almost reaching across the door to Future Services' open aperture, out of which sailed a pouting dazon wearing what was most definitely not real flynder.

“Auditorium B2, right?" Eleanor asked Klost, who nodded from ahead of her. “Student Blucorps has more samples, if you want," he offered, navigating between a Blazon actor in the same reflective suit as earlier and a fellow Blucorps member carrying a plate of more imitations; she shook her head. This was why she didn't join any clubs after her first year. “That's cool," he replied, and they emerged from the hallway to stop outside the curved wall marking Form Governors' practice forum.

Klost put a hand on the wall, patting it firmly, before stepping back to gaze upon the entrance contemplatively. A girl with ebony ringlets draped across her shoulders and a dazon with silver hair shaped after mindo stepped out of the forum. Anderi and Jule.

“They're almost done," Anderi stated, and Eleanor nodded. They stepped back inside, and she looked with a mix of nostalgia and blasé disregard at the raised platform held aloft by alter cables, upon which stood two FG representatives in their imitation hologram suits. They were speaking softly but she knew she could listen by the code emblazoned on the small holoscreen by the entrance, holocast by an FG member looking bored. She didn't cue in.

She instead followed Klost, Jule and Anderi to an empty row of floafas, where they sat down. The three immediately sat back and listened in: Klost putting his hands together, Anderi turning a BAT badge in between her fingers, Jule crossing their arms. Eleanor thought back to her initiation day for Form Governors, being asked to choose her own hologram suit, asked to select a name; watching the other initiates adopt countenances of absolute calm and order, to discuss the nonexistent problems of society.

She used to be interested in that. Just as Tr'aedis used to be adept at performance theater. Now she sat and watched her real friends, those who'd find success with her, heed the words of aspiring Governors and High desirers. Eleanor Thought for the time. She might as well listen to the end.

“Therefore, society needs more schools,” the one to the left quoted from that most ancient doctrine. “Fewer students. Would education increase?” the one to the right quipped. “Smaller learning, is greater.” Came the response. “Society’s costs?” Right FG member. “Outweighed by knowledge multiplicity.” Left. It was its own theater. Eleanor didn’t even want to imagine how the real Governors deliberated.

She left the Thought-pool. Anderi was still turning the badge in and out. Eleanor sighed, and thought about the raider game, and thought about her Alteryear avatar. She thought back to when she entered Blazon, hair chosen after the orange of autumn almost never seen; to last year, when she chose orange after the color of her nudd trees; to this year… Tr’aedis wouldn’t do anything, of course. Maybe he’d have something trying to be funny to say about her orange this Alteryear. “I’ve quite enjoyed those curtains of the theater company, Elly, make it that orange.” A joke, as they were heide, and heide was always white. Well, she’d already ignored him for this much of the day. She Thought via her receptor for Tr’aedis von Hiischklen.

Receptor not found.

Hilarious. She took off her receptor and put it back on. Tr’aedis.

Receptor not found. Please contact your local Governor.

Maybe he’d just gone to the Lowers again, and tossed it over the Lowall and fried it. Well, she’d just find him at school the next day.

Peripherally, she saw that the platform was lowering, and comments of approval echoing throughout the audience Thought-pool. Klost was saying something about the raider game, they were playing William Restor’s Bears next. Neither team was supposed to have good players, but this year’s slate was just not alter at all, pretty bad, actually. Anderi nodded. Jule was looking off; Eleanor thought beyond the raider game, stepping out of the portal for home, or Dorr house or alternatively, Dorr Palace––

She entered the front gates. She was walking in, passing by the petite groves of elephants and rhinoceros, dipping their snouts to her as she walked over the front steps; she continued. Walking through the foyer, and following the alternating angles of the steps. Counting them. Turning, entering. Stepping onto her Alterface. Standing on it; her face resolving itself in the hologram above. She confirmed her avatar’s facial features and thought for hair color. She thought about selecting amber.

“Eleanor, you ready? Let’s go.”

“Yeah, I’m ready to see us take over those Might players.”

They laughed, and Eleanor smiled with them.

Some time later, he couldn't tell without his receptor functioning––the four ceased their game. He knew not because one of them looked to the ceiling, laughing, but because the ripples had ceased. As he shifted his feet, he saw that ripples still did not percolate the water from his own movements. Tr'aedis looked to the one laughing, the first to have spoken before.

“Ila ce geldin noht flænde!” they said, smiling in a way that theatrically would have silenced the audiences of Blazon. They must be the winner, he thought.

The one who had not spoken before looked his way, and Tr'aedis meeting the eyes felt as if he were back in Blazon, performing a part of the Monologues for the Theater Company; ridiculing himself behind walls of heide.

The third to have spoken now stood before him. “Mynt aeros, Puræ,” she spoke, addressing the winner, who only continued to smile. “Flende next Ligaeryen. Vont, Ligaeryen nort nët?” she asked Tr'aedis.

He heard “knocks” and “noir” but he couldn't comprehend their language. As far as he knew, Sectors II through V all spoke Neo English, which had been adopted from English with the creation of the Sectors. High used to have a language among its wealthiest families, those placed in the Government; but he didn't know any of those words.

“Verx, felot. Ila ce-t pelgis.” The second to have spoken before pressed their finger to a place on their neck, and then his entire strange-white outfit dissolved, revealing a body that was suffused with a living gold. Or perhaps it was the sun. The clothes within succeeded in covering the light, which radiated outward with preemptiveness, or chastisement.

A cloak burst out. It had silver markings, or rather the design of a silver wing, cast across the hood, which flew back across the man’s shoulders. The cloak expanded; it rustled beneath the light of the sun which, as Tr’aedis looked up, was emerging from beyond the ceiling, which was now opening. The cloak settled, and the man’s hair was crisply brightened as the wing he bore, silver itself but more roughshod; between the color of the clouds to bring rain, and the color of Tr’aedis’s rejection from the Blazon Theater Company. The man shook his hair out and re-straightened it, pulling it back with his fingers. Kindles of light dripped off, like dew, from the strands.

“Drin!” he said to Tr’aedis.

Tr’aedis could not answer. He could not understand. The more words he heard, the greater a weight of basket-weaving filled his mind. He could see no such baskets; but they were finely woven, and by a material stronger than alter steel.

“But soft, what light through yonder window breaks, but not from Eleanor, for the sun is here,” he found himself murmuring.

He saw that the four looked between themselves, expressing surprise that outshone his own. The woman pressed a finger to her suit to coruscate off as well, unveiling a cloak similar to the man’s, but with the wing sigil not only on the hood, but also on the crests of the sleeves. With its departure, her hair became visible, released from its binds to fall over the front of her cloak. It was long. It was the color of sunlight.

“Noht mynt lingua moëret, felot.” She turned to the one who had not spoken. After a moment, they nodded, but rather than release their cloak, they knelt down to the water––now more shallow––and received a palmful of it, still in the geest-like fabric. As they stood, the small mouthful of water wavered, before producing splashes, dancing. The small drops jumped higher and higher, collecting; until a tablet roughly the size of a V-book hovered in the air above their palm, which no longer contained the liquid. They then pointed to their mouth, and then to Tr’aedis.

He did not recognize this technology; perhaps he was in another Sector, beyond Sector II––it did not seem to be leave. The tablet in no large means resembled the water it came from, but rather of a metallic, alter-like material. It wasn’t Upload, as the tablet had been transformed from the water itself. The only thing he could think of was when he once sampled the Camelot v-World, as a ‘wizard’ casting spells and curses with a staff; Eleanor’d seemed to rather enjoy it.

But that couldn’t be. Tr’aedis swept back his make-believe cloak, which had been dampened by the settling water. He threw his arms to the sky, which now encompassed itself above. “O, she’s warm! If this be magic, let it be an art.”

The tablet glowed a dull orange, and the woman––whose age he could not decipher, but looked to be around university––frowned. Her countenance became a broken rock, shattered by the act. She looked at the others, and they seemed to confer, but without speaking. They were not wearing receptors.

The woman turned back to him. As from the back, her hair did not look like sunlight, but heard as such; Tr'aedis could hear something beating as the rays came down upon the grass-shards, striking them softly.

Her countenance retained its brokenness, as if she had been reminded of something she had tried to forget, by looking upon the forgone actor. Her companions remained silent, including the one who had laughed, enthusiasm won way to a pensive gaze. Tr’aedis, meeting her eyes which seemed to beckon at memories that did not exist for him, was brought to smell grasses grown naturally, to see cliff-faces studded with halls ringing with the sound of energy he did not know; of a certain presence that was not there with the five. The stranger sighed, and by some unseen signal, the four shared a movement, and the floor below became non-transparent.

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All the world was not contained anymore, the sky above a real thing, which Tr’aedis knew was real. The water had left his feet, which were never wet. The plain which had been blue was now green, a verdant splendor that, as his cloak brushed the plants’ tops, did not merely stand upwards from the ground, but was pulled to the sky above, which would give it rain. His first reaction was to stutter the lines he was going to produce, only to take them back; he attempted to weep, but that was inadequate. He abandoned the effort, and tried to pull himself back out.

He tried to pull himself back out.

Hearing a soft step, he started, and looked ahead of himself.

A––a brown creature, with peculiarly shaped protrusions atop its fine head, glittering dots speckling its body, walking not on two legs but on four, rearing its head down to tear the blades gently off their stems, and into its mouth, eating. Its snout was ruddy. Its tail was short, and donned both white on below and mahogany. It stopped chewing, perhaps noticing his gaze; and it craned its tree-like neck up towards him. To look at him.

Tr’aedis then succeeded in crying, but only for a moment before the one who had shouted with exhilaration came to stand besides him. He was nodding thoughtfully, as if memorizing the actor’s profile; he was wearing no cloak beneath the game-suit, but only a unified layer of black, crenulated flaps of the material running up and down the torso, arms, and legs. It held no design––but as Tr’aedis continued to look, the crenulations on the forearms had a slightly lighter black, forming the shape of a wing.

“Veld, felot.” he spoke, and pointed with one arm at the receding cloaks, all bearing wings, of the other three. The grass swayed with their receding movements. Tr’aedis could not respond, but he could follow. He followed in the man’s wake.

4 years ago

Hey Skylark, why did you leave us like that, the movie’s about to start!

Skylark was down by the primary school’s playground. Wasn’t that far away from the mediary classrooms. She felt for her receptor, curled around her ear. Saw the Thought message in her head. I don’t know, I’ll go back to you guys later, she Thought back, and looked around the playground for a good object. OK, just TM me.

She saw it. There. An alter hedron, small enough to carry, sitting between two surfaces and a platform. She walked up to it and sat down. She took the hedron into her hands and felt its smooth sides, tried shaping it with her imagination. No one was on the playground with her. It was during class. She touched her receptor, and Thought for Alauda li Agle.

Ala, please, are you there. Mom and Dad are worried they’re really worried. We should be able to find you unless you threw your receptor away. But if you did you couldn’t TM me back ok ummm Ala just if you haven’t taken it off I’m sorry, I’m sorry I kept using the trait after––after you came back. I promise I’ll stop using it ever again, I promise, I haven’t told Mom and Dad––

She stopped the Thought-feed and placed the alter hedron back on the surface. She tried to take a deep breath and was glad that no one else was there. She looked back at the hedron.

She hadn’t tried with anything larger than her receptor. This was many times bigger. If Alauda was here he’d pick up the hedron and throw it as far as he could. If Alauda had never been found out he’d throw wind at the hedron and it’d tumble across. He’d laugh and she’d ask him to do it again! Do it again.

Skylark looked at the hedron and focused. With smaller things it was like moving her finger, but this was bigger. She thought about her older brother and pushed.

It failed to budge. She looked around the playground again and saw some cyber trees. They had a lot of leaves. She picked out two and thought, hard. After a few seconds, they twitched. She did it…

She watched them wiggle until someone from out of her sight approached––it was a girl her age, standing at the edge of the playground. Solid red hair that fell straight across both sides. Skylark’s heart thump thump thumped but there was a soft wind blowing. She exhaled.

The girl came up to her slowly. Skylark didn’t know who she was, but they had the same school uniform. She carefully didn’t look at the leaves, and went back to holding the alter hedron as if she’d been doing it the entire time.

“Hi,” the girl said. Her eyes were very fixed. On Skylark, when she met hers.

“Uh, hi.”

“Do you go to Green Thrush Mediary?”

Skylark wondered why she asked, when she was clearly wearing the same uniform. Same badge and colors. “Yeah.”

The girl beamed. “I’m Falara!” she exclaimed, pushing her hand out. “Falara Miyander. Want to be friends?”

the present

My sky blue alter Falara you knew this whole time, thought Skylark as she watched the V-book cling to the first window on her ceiling. It didn’t cover it completely. She didn’t know what to think. Not even the words her friend had spoken but there were too many strange things going with Falara right now, who was trying to explain exactly what had happened and how she was a “Magy’cal in nightform from the Magical World” and Skylark didn’t know what nightform was, what this Magical World was, it was too much to take into her head. She didn’t want to think that Falara’d only befriended her because she’d noticed her using her trait. She didn’t want to think that she only knew Falara because she was a Scion. She didn’t want to think about how she’d all but stopped talking to the others after meeting Falara. She didn’t want to think about the container under her bed, she didn’t want to think about opening it. The photo of Alauda grinned at her fakely. She kept using her trait, keeping the book stuck to the window, as Falara kept trying to explain. She wasn’t listening.

Most of all she didn’t want to consider that she’d been best friends with a living Magy’cal for the past six years and never knew. Oh, she could make things, not very heavy things, float straight up to her ceiling. In nightform? What was that? Falara was a normal human being, she’d forget this whole conversation, Skylark would keep practicing until Lucas contacted her again, she’d make friends with the older Scions who’d all been using their traits for greater things. She opened her eyes, and Falara was whispering things in some weird language.

I can't do this. Skylark let the V-book plummet to the floor with a thud, making Falara jump. She took hold of the nearest thing she could find related to her friend––the swirling plate that looked like it was floating. How ironic. Skylark stared at it, hard. She imagined it moving through the air––and it lifted off her bedside, wobbling. And suddenly––something shifted in her head, and it thrust to the left, towards Falara, who dodged. The Alteryear gift crashed into the wall, and fell to the floor. The wall of her room showed a dent, which immediately began processing, the wall speckling; the plate continued to swirl.

Skylark, I––

Skylark denied the Thought message. How could she? Her only close friend, whom she’d told all about losing Alauda, she didn’t tell her everything, and even if she had, her friend would’ve forgotten, but… now, things couldn’t be as they were.

“Skylark, I was forbidden, I didn’t have a choice, I really––”

Skylark made several objects in her room head up into the air, hovering, then still. It took two seconds. She took a deep breath, and exhaled slowly. “Falara, show me your magic.”

Those annoying red bangs weren’t bouncing. “I’m trying to explain! I’m in nightform, and it’s permanent, I can’t use magic but I––I can maybe show you how to use yours––”

Skylark raised a hand. “Please. Just get out.” The five objects quivered, and began moving in Falara’s direction. Falara stared, and didn’t move for a moment. Skylark’s concentration flickered, and one of the objects fell to the floor with a thud. Falara gave a low sound in her throat, almost said something; but she turned, and walked out of the room. Skylark maintained the opposition of gravity until she heard the house-elevator whine.

Then, she let it go, and I watched the books fall.

Tristan walked into the cube-styled clubhouse of the Restor Techist Academy. He came in turning a robot earring, found on the floor; between his fingers, polishing its perfect surface, breathing in its grey gradient. The president of Restor's most esteemed student organization stopped carving the soft white cube of alter plastic she was sitting in front of on the floor, and looked up at him.

“Tristan!" Amenda Sheen exclaimed. Her close-cut hair remained still, in the same style as when he had been the Master of Records. “It's been some time. You're here to see Cel's design pitch?"

No, he wasn't. “That'd be nice to see."

Amenda nodded, smiling. “He's setting for Altermost. What's your dad got this time?"

Perpetual motion. He imagined Pops at morning discussion with the other silver starred GAT panelists, lauding his son's triumphant usurpation of the Alter Boy's pedestal of many colors. Tristan handed a steam white cup of coffee to Meliodas across the polygon table.

“Perfect inertia model.”

“Hmm, ok. You know, Tristan, the One Fleet (not the receptit version, but the one you showed at the Exhibit) was not bad! It showed a… separation of bonds, like in chemistry, but, also in life. Right?” Cube soft surface, molded by hands bearing rings. He shook his head. “The opposite. Connecting the product (the alter dart) to its original image (the unmodified paper dart).” The little robot swung from his fingers.

“I see. Well, Cel should be coming in soon. Techists! Come here, Tristan’s back.” She waved her ringed hand to the other aspiring techists in the room. Only he, Tristan Mott, was accredited by the Global Association of Techists (which was an irony), and Cel Rin, of course. A dazzling rainbow ponytail. The others each in their parents’ image walked forward, each in their own body-maintained work unto its own, and Tristan felt that he had to resist looking at his own hair that he had ignored that morning.

One of them had particularly long hair. Not particularly unusual in its own way but leading past the shoulders, and the waist, almost down to the mid-thigh. Tristan feeling his scattered brown felt himself comparing it to the length of Mary Restor, the designer of flynder and geest and other now High-unique makes. Outfluxing animal material to match the increasing waves of species going extinct. Her hair had been the first multi, as the inventor of Body-Maintenance Prescriptions as well, and some other things. She’d at least been modest in her turn in the documentary. This person, around his age, had chosen a vivid black that shone.

“Is everyone here, Amenda?” the person asked, and Tristan instantaneously derived the voice, which unlike Mary Restor’s (which had been precise, fabricated, delicate) was hard, riveted, supple (its own voice). He recognized it. He’d heard it before.

“Yes, I believe so, uh… Sorry, what was your name again?” she asked him, and Tristan became aware that he knew the answer before it was said.

“I’m Cel. I’m doing a design pitch.”

Amenda blinked, and hurriedly moved over to sit on her cube. “I’m so sorry, Cel, I liked your rainbow ponytail quite a bit––I didn’t recognize you!”

“That’s fine. It won’t take that long.” He gently brushed it over his right shoulder, before putting a hand to his receptor. It was the newest model––the Blue Horus. “I’ll be turning on a holoscreen.”

The others sat on their cubes. Tristan remained standing, as he didn’t have the Blue Horus. Not sitting down.

“Tristan Mott, right? You can sit down.”

Tristan sat on the nearest cube.

The holoscreen appeared––first, and solely, the image––of Cel.

image [https://i.imgur.com/bOxSFzy.png]

The Rin family’s hallmark suspended robot, a suspended Cel, as real as a V-photo from the front but, as he explained, completely devoid of color from the back––without the black. It was his own son (his being the current head of the Rin family, Anima Rin) but robot, as they most recently appeared. True techistry was, the heir stated, the image of technology in the form of art and in this manner, with the work labeled The True Body (Tristan started) and described to be a robot, the viewer would not be seeing Cel Rin, but a form of Cel. The son continued to cite various Modern Era philosophers’ thinking and Tristan found himself opening his Thoughtnote and observing the hands piercing the air, forming the model. The liquid of suspension itself, of course, would follow the Rin specialty alloy, an attempted construction of water alter.

Tristan stood and felt for his receptor, before running his hands through his hair. Expressionless, Cel Rin fixed his eyes upon him, looking at him for a response (critique, or praise).

He arranged his thoughts, connecting them to their original intents. In the beginning, he’d word his criticism, noting the faults of presenting form, not being used in modern society (the true robot), thereby losing relevance, and the image to fall, showcasing solely Cel. “Cel Rin––I see you in the design. But not the original Cel. An image in the form of a robot that’d be sitting with us today, from the first half of the 22nd century. Perfect likeness from the front.”

“I'm Cel. And my piece is Cel. Which Cel is more real to you, Tristan?” the Alter Boy proposed, asking the prodigy who only reflected his father. Tristan attempted, for a brief second, to imagine Meliodas Mott standing in front of the home holoscreen, describing his next work; it was a very different image. His father chose to wear hair the shade of chocolate. Tristan did not like chocolate.

The more he stared at Cel (the image), the more he wanted to disrupt its perfect balance; it was on holoscreen, so he couldn’t touch the body. But it was there to see. So he’d deride the lack of color. “The real Cel is standing in front of me,” he murmured.

The other techist took up his hair in his hands, holding it tightly, before roughening it, running his hands through, making it more ragged and resembling wind strings. Tristan saw a single droplet, a piece of rain, rill down their cheek, onto the hair held in his palm, and felt a sliding of plates inside of himself, with a small but noticeable coefficient of friction, and he knew he’d said something right.

Cel didn’t say anything and neither did anyone else. The club president was probably recording this incident to memory, anticipating returning home to her own parents (techists) to relive the event; of seeing the most recognized techist still in school show reaction; for what? for Tristan? who was Tristan Mott, to give words that ran out of his mouth, each part connected to the previous, along an invisible line that made a sentence, in arithmetic sequence. “You are my son,” was Meliodas’s sentence. “You earned second place,” was GAT’s. “You’re my friend,” Y’sazant. “You’re not a robot,” he imagined hearing the miniature hairchain hanging from his ring finger squeak, raising a tiny hand of alter-something, too small to distinguish, but pulsing with its own beat.

“You’re right,” Cel Rin said. Tristan saw as Cel’s eyes ceased to produce the alter-vivid sheen. The holoscreen flickered––mixing the images of black and white. “You’re absolutely right. Does anyone else have any comments?” And the voice had returned; had returned to its original (which was not the real, Tristan thought) platinum timbre. It was almost––almost as if the image had not broken. The words had just been spoken, and nothing else.

For Tristan’s hands had not made anything.