1

A broken tool was frantically trying, failing to mend himself. Whenever he made any progress, far enough that he was no longer actively dying, perception would resume. His body would register again what had made it trigger the failsafes, his memory would be burned out and the genecoded venom contained in his spinal cord would be forced out into his bloodstream. No venom left, this time, instead the metallic muscle convulsed and screamed, threatening to snap the weak bone it coiled around, like a black-silver snake around a white branch. Some subsystem contained in the elderflower markings on the head of that snake fired, and machine muscle gave way to the soft mind. He returned to himself somewhat, knowing that the slow pulse in his chest meant that the venom had been rebuffed by his immune system. The venom hadn’t been defective, it couldn’t be, and that left two options. Feeling the warm embrace of some kind of textile and insulation against his skin, he could immediately rule out the first, he wasn’t dead. Hell was certainly not this comfortable. He must have somehow crossed from the grass, but he couldn’t remember how. The lack of the singing pressure from above that told his body exactly what to be meant that he was under open skies but that was impossible, even beyond the Green. The lightning-fire of another forced memory burn forced him back into himself, not very effective but also not too much left to burn. He knew these were symptoms of something, he should know what. He came from somewhere, too. Hard to tell, really. He was fourteen, and he was imitating someone, trying to put up a sardonic disaffected persona. A smile that turned slightly up at the end, revealing where white teeth gave way to yellow and black. There were boxes somewhere, he would’ve put stuff in boxes, it would be just like him. Would it? Shaded Tree. He was from Shaded Tree, he was fourteen, his body was small, would be forever. There were old roots over older metal, sunshine guided far, far below the grass, there was a spider in the tree. There shouldn’t be, no breaches, not ever.

He was something, made for something else, the smile with yellow teeth came with concerned blue eyes, the exact same as his own. Why was there a spider in the tree? Couldn’t be, spiders were easy to deal with and there were no breaches. There wasn’t much else. The fangs the snake had implanted in the back of his skull pulsed, and he was anxious. He had a body, and it was somewhere and that was good in a way but probably mostly bad. Should he not have a body or should he not be in a place? It wasn’t even his spider, his spider was a burrower and the spider that skittered madly along old roots was a juvenile flood spider. He was in a room, it was made of wood. Perverse, don’t know why. There was one window and one door, probably a normal amount of windows and doors for a normal room, couldn’t complain. The smile was upside down and his arms were broken, a steel-toe boot pressing him underneath the rock so hard he thought me might break. A long, white tendril of something first caressed the calf and then lightly wrapped itself around it, once, twice, three times around the shaking muscle and bone, so gentle like a breeze, like the swaying grass. There were people outside the door, they were talking so loud but he couldn’t hear a thing. A very, very old little man that he didn’t know until now was stealing the sounds. The little man lived somewhere in his head and he was screaming, so many others were, too. Did the screaming men live in his boxes? Maybe, it seemed like the kind of thing men and boxes got up to when no-one was looking. The pressure from the boot gave way, and the tendril pulled so hard, an impact felt through the rock. Not who the smile was made for, it should’ve been eaten by another burrower, they’d bonded over that sometime long ago, by a fire.

The door opened, the hallway beyond smelled like steel and blood, but not too much, maybe it was supposed to smell like that. Shouldn’t judge, it wasn’t his hallway. Someone had entered the room and closed the door behind her. She felt massive, and so much, most of it went down, far beneath the ground, but some shot over to him, to kiss his cheek and gossip for a while. The girl was sad and anxious, lonely and scared. She worried about him, which was a bit funny, he was a gardening tool, why would anyone worry over the fate of a trowel. The men in the boxes were screaming louder now, more of them, more boxes. Not his boxes either, old dusty boxes with markings in unscented, copper and silver. His boxes smelled like elderflower, like the snake.

His mind was struggling with giving the angry little men enough mouths and voices so they could yell at him properly, some didn’t have faces at all yet, waiting to be made so they could scream commands in ancient, dead languages. No room for them all but the oldest ones, they knew who the girl was, what she was for, but they wouldn’t say, couldn’t speak over the others and the snake really didn’t like them. The girl sat next to him on a wooden chair, were these people made of trees or what. She faced the window, he did too. She liked the pretty things she kept there, and she held his hand. To comfort herself more than anything, not to comfort him, she thought he was asleep until he accidentally squeezed her hand. Not hard, the oldest little men would never allow that. To her credit, she didn’t startle or jump, didn’t pull away either. The oldest men said that she should’ve, that he was dangerous and dirty and that she must have forgotten. He really, really wanted to open his eyes and look at her, or to be able to hear the words, and the men really didn’t agree, a thousand little boxes shaking in impotent fury. He found he could scoop up most of them and put them in an even larger box, one with a lid. The snake was mostly asleep by now. That was supposed to be a very bad thing, one of the last little men told him in passing. He was going somewhere, probably a nice holiday. He hoped the men got holiday pay, he was a union gig after all. That didn’t mean anything, and he was getting ready to open his eyes, the girl was looking at him. This was a mistake and premature and he realised it far too late, he tried to give the beautiful crying girl a winning, slightly upturned smile but his left eye was disobedient. At first he could feel her elation and excitement, then as the traitor flickered to the side and rolled back he felt fear, and to her credit, concern. There was also disgust but he tried to ignore that one. He tried to force Lefty to behave and forced it back dead centre, but it flickered back, asking for lubricant. We don’t have anymore of that you spoiled dumbass. He decided it should be punished, so he forced it shut and made it roll around randomly so it would get nauseous.

The girl was still scared but all the little men were on holiday now, or trapped in a big box. When he shook it he could hear them all tumble around in there, it was funny. The oldest man said that was undignified with a bit of a huff. When he tried to make amends the man just gave a grunt and turned his back on the poor trowel. His back was really well animated, should tell him later, maybe write a poem about it. The girl looked weird, brow all furrowed, eyes still red from crying and a forced, dimpled smile. She was not made of trees, trees were not purple, and there was no spider crawling across her roots. He looked down, had to check after all. He could almost hear her now, the man who stole sounds was trapped in a box and the oldest man had his back turned, rooting around in a briefcase. Forgot his lunch at home maybe?

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2

Anna was drunk, she shouldn’t be but she was anyway, Mitte had just left and Mina was brooding. Her sister did that sometimes, most of the time if she was being honest, which was a very unfortunate side effect that came with distillation.

“It’s a leak, Anna. We plug those or we sink.”

Just 14 hours ago it had been all “don't talk about my niece like that you ugly whore”. Now Tana was something to be plugged.

“I understand that you feel like she is some last connection to Mom, being the way you are”.

What the fuck did that have to do with anything, that hag burned with the rest of it, almost a century ago.

“We have to be rational and consider scope as well as where we are in the process. I can finish the letters to the homes of..”

Mina glanced down at a pile of papers covering the small table that she hunched her massive frame over, Anna’s poor couch straining against the weight.

“Maya Ayaresh and Ulli Tovo. Guess it’s a bit lucky they’re both Republic girls. Different republics but still, non-essential chaff.”

That much was true at least, Tana had picked two very disposable people, she didn’t know if she should be proud or not, though. She had been keeping most of the untoward aspects of their venture from her daughter, even when it led to unpleasant consequences for those around her. Like poor Miss Valentine who drowned in the bay. A drinker apparently, who knew.

“As for the leak itself, I'd rather not go down there and, uh, dislodge Miss Tovo personally, but I could do it quietly. Inny can report Tovo lost on patrol tomorrow, probably between points seven and eight, the woods have already taken two this year.”

“And Tana? What solution do you have in mind for your niece? Something quick and humane, I assume? No pain, no fear? Maybe even a nice, final hug goodbye?”

“How many times have we done this, Anna? How many Imperial girls are in the bay or in the grass? Morally, how is this any different? Do you think she’ll just let us hand the native over to the church? Do you think that old moron won’t burn her because she looks like you? I can do it after Tovo, say she was overcome with zeal and attacked me. It’s a mercy, Anna.”

There was prejudice against those with Mina’s condition, non resonant and unattached, incapable of drawing roots. It wasn’t a secret here, it was something open, something everyone knew about, a disquieting wrongness went well with the type of role Mina needed to play in their long-winded scheme. Sometimes it felt like it did make her wrong, it was probably the life-long punishment and ostracization that had made her sister into this thing, casually suggesting she murder her own blood but still, sometimes she felt like Mina really didn’t have a soul. What she was talking about, anywhere in the world it was the worst sin, anywhere it was punishable by fire or rope or steel, even in the womb.

“Keep Ayaresh somewhere, at least a month, then get rid of her, method doesn’t matter but make sure she is mentioned as normal in the frontier reports. The native broke out, it employed some hitherto unknown vinn-enhancement and stole away into the night.”

Mina held her gaze for a long time, defiant and awful, her eyes looked black against the leather they were flanked by.

“And the leak is unplugged.”

“The leak,” Anna felt her voice rise in a way it shouldn’t. “The leak will have been lightly injured during the escape, and then brought to her room so she could be lightly sedated and rest.”

Mina gave a sigh, the type of sigh you would give your younger sister when she clung to a token of childhood for too long. Like Anna was embarrassing her by crying over a broken doll in the street.

“As you say, ma’am.”

3

The girl was clever, she had a little notebook, and she was writing quickly, trying to use math and geometry to translate, assuming trowels couldn’t speak whatever language cute purple girls spoke. Binary was simple enough, yes or no. He was trying to do a lot of things, smile in a not scary but encouraging and slightly roguish way. He’d tried rake-ish at first but it did seem a bit on the nose. The girl was asking questions using gestures and two figures drawn in her book; I and II, yes and no. Was he hungry, gesturing at something brown and yellow on a plate, no figure for kind of hungry but don’t like the look of yellow and brown, so yes it was. She picked up the plate of yellow and brown, and held it out to him, and he was surprised to find it didn’t taste like yellow or brown, but instead savory and foodlike. Didn’t taste like colours at all. Was there a word for both bedside and tableside manners at the same time? Would save time in situations like these, he thought, taking another bite of the yellow, which had slightly divorced itself from the brown. He was making sure not to bite into the plate, the plate was a nice ceramic thing and yellow was taking it all in the divorce, that bitch.

There was an idea, and it came from him this time, not interrupted by the apparently mad amalgam of information feeding through the big box. He sat up and moved closer to her, and felt kind of funny when she didn’t pull back. He was wearing a poofy shirt so he took it off and felt decidedly un-funny when he both felt and saw her reaction. Undeterred he took her hand and moved it to the leftmost river on his chest, it had to be warm, it was him. He held her finger there and tapped I in her notebook. Then, he moved her finger to the river next to it, which he knew was cold and tapped II. Then he repeated the gesture, the girl understood the first time, but he was stalling, and didn't actually want to know the rest. He moved her finger to the third river and her other hand pointed firmly at II, the third river probably had a name at some point, she had to. He moved her finger again, her other hand stayed unmoving. He moved it again, and those purple fingers seemed glued to the notebook, the fingertips turning white from the pressure. Did she understand what this was? The next two were important, but he knew the first was cold, and it almost felt comforting to have predicted it. The one after that was worse, no memory of her at all, no teeth or boots or screams, just an absence in the shape of a person. He rushed the rest, he knew the score by now and the girl never moved that awful hand. He almost threw her hand back in her face but was stopped by an old man. He drew up his legs and pressed his eyes into his kneecaps, vision dark first and then a buzzing grey from the pressure. He could open the box and let those guys run the show for a while. His knees were wet, funny. He didn’t have tear ducts, maybe Lefty had some made in secret.