Clockwork Phoenix: Tales of Beauty and Strangeness

by Mike Allen

  “It started with gills,” she finally said, “so people could mine in deep water without suits. Prisoners got early parole; people dependent on their governments got bigger stipends, and all they had to do was change a little and learn a new skill . . .”

  Vegar interrupted her. “Those people were volunteers . . .”

  Akhila raised an eyebrow and spoke over him. “Most of them died on the bottom of the ocean and were forgotten by everyone but their families, who were offered new opportunities on new worlds. Why go to the expense of terraforming a planet with skilled workers when you can augment criminals and the poor at a fraction of the cost? So gills became chemicals or genetic alterations for breathing hostile atmospheres. Sometimes skin became scales or even better, self-replicating body armor. It’s amazing what you can do to flesh when you don’t care whether or not it survives for very long.”

  “What does any of this have to do with your war?” Vegar’s heart rate increased, and she heard his breath grow shallow. Good. She was making him angry. Maybe she could make him think as well.

  “Did you know that drowning is a terrible way to die? You can’t hold your breath until you pass out; your body will force you to inhale eventually. So you breathe in water knowing it will kill you, but it takes a minute or two for you to lose consciousness. Chemical burns are bad too; they linger on the body, and no amount of medicine can make it easier to look in a mirror.”

  “I don’t support any of that, and I’m sure the little boy you destroyed had no idea it was happening at all.”

  “Of course you support it. This is a terraformed moon, and you’re living on it without any regard to the people who made it habitable.”

  “But why children?” He was shouting now.

  “Yes, Vegar. Why children? Is it because they’re easier to augment? Is it because they fit into smaller spaces? Is it because a child’s mind is as malleable as her body is?”

  “I’m just a monk. I haven’t hurt anyone.”

  “You’re a . . .” She paused, chose a word from his argument with Sigurd, “. . . murderer. At least I have the grace to get my hands dirty.”

  “You’ve butchered entire worlds full of people!”

  “Who refuse to tell the truth when they know it and refuse to listen when they hear it. Who are living on the bones of other people who died to put them there. Who will never have to run out of oxygen or water or food or wonder what kind of abomination they’ll turn into if the augmentation fails. Who’ve never had to sell one daughter’s mind to pay for another daughter’s medicine. And I will keep on killing them, every one of them, every man, woman and child of them until you stop it, stop it, stop it!”

  Akhila heard the guards cock their weapons and realized she was standing on the table. Her body glowed a faint blue in the darkness. She shuddered once and slumped into a seated position again. “Oh, Vegar.” She began to rock back and forth, her arms wrapped around her belly. “Help me.”

  But the guards were already escorting him out.

  Some time later, the door opened again and Sigurd entered the cellar alone. He was wearing the same expression he had worn on the hillside and carrying one of the weapons he had brought there. He strode over to her as the door closed behind him and shoved it under her chin. She didn’t move to stop him.

  “Do not speak to the boy again,” he growled, “or I will melt your nanobody slowly, over a period of hours, while you beg me for your life.”

  “Father Sigurd, where have you seen a radical augment before, and what did it do to you?” She ignored the gun.

  He picked her up by the throat and threw her against the dirt wall of the cellar. Gravel and soil crumbled around her. Again, she didn’t struggle but rose to her feet in a single, fluid motion as he crammed his fingers into her mouth and gripped her jaw.

  “You are not allowed to call me ‘Father.’ I’ll kill you for that, too. I should kill you for that now.” He wasn’t shouting anymore, but his body was shaking, and his breath hissed in and out over his teeth.

  Akhila remained calm. She had come to this moon seeking death and was not afraid to meet it. Her mouth peeled back from his fingers and rematerialized beside them. “For whatever it was, and for whoever did it, I am profoundly sorry. I invite you to do to me whatever you believe is just in order to avenge your loss.”

  Sigurd’s eyes misted then, and he looked away from her. When he spoke, his voice was thick with emotion. “It wasn’t a ‘who’, and neither are you.” His barrel chest heaved. “Leave the boy alone,” he repeated, leaning on the door and stumbling out into the afternoon sunshine.

  Akhila sat in darkness for the next day, a slender nanofilament extending outward from her body, through the micro-cracks at the base of the cellar door and up into the grass. It didn’t collect much sun, but if she was still, it was enough. At the end of that time, she had sufficient power to stretch the nanofilament farther, make it longer, and escape the cellar altogether without attracting the attention of the guards.

  She spent the rest of the afternoon draped over the metal roof of the monastery like frost on a window, glinting in the early winter sun. After planet rise, when all was quiet, she slid down from the roof and went walking in the arboretum.

  * * *

  Vegar stood at the edge of a sand sculpture of the Yin and Yang. His hands and shoes were gritty; his chest and arms ached. He had been there all evening with a rake, combing the sand into place when he heard the crunch of snow underfoot and spun around, startled.

  Akhila reached forward and covered his lips with a flat-handed seal to keep him silent. “I didn’t mean what I said before.”

  She withdrew her hand, and Vegar considered her for a moment. “You really aren’t here to kill us, are you?”

  “I’ve made a choice, and I intend to see it through.”

  “Even though you can’t stay here?”

  “I don’t think I ever believed I could.”

  “The military will be cruel. You probably won’t live long.”

  “I’ll deal with that when the time comes.”

  Vegar turned back toward the sand sculpture and sat down. “Nobody deserves cruelty, not even someone like you.”

  Akhila sat beside him. “So I’m a person, then?”

  “I think so. I don’t want to think so, but I do.”

  “That will carry me a long way.”

  Vegar examined her body. Her breasts were round and dark, there were thatches of fine hair in her armpits and her skin looked real on close inspection. He reached out a hesitant hand and touched her arm. It was warm. “How long has it been since you were Organic?”

  “Bharati was never my mother, and Dhiren was never my father. They were deep sea miners who sold the right to copy their little girl’s mind. It doesn’t hurt to have your mind copied; you just go to sleep, and they wire you up and take an imprint. Only their Akhila went home with them, and I stayed in the machine.”

  Horrific, he thought. She must have been terrified. Then he remembered something she had told him. “Did your sister get her medicine?”

  Akhila nodded. “For the rest of her life. Or at least that’s what my parents were promised. It was a long time ago.”

  Vegar gathered his robe around his body and buried his hands in it for warmth while Akhila brought the tips of her fingers together. Sparks flew between them, and a fine dust began to accumulate on her legs. He watched her for a while. There was a faint smell of hot metal, and he had the sudden urge to hold his hands up to hers the way he had held them up to the fire shrine. After a moment he asked, “What are you doing?”

  “My nanoparticles are self-policing. When some of them malfunction, I use others to destroy them.” The flame faltered and died. “Vegar, I didn’t just decide to come here. I was sent, like you said, to blight the hospital and surrounding community.”

  He stiffened. “But you haven’t.”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “I recently
found my granddaughter and made a carrier of her before I realized who she was. Gorgeous girl, about five years old. Her father must have been fair-skinned because her hair was blond, and her eyes were green, but her skin was like . . . was like her mother’s. Of course, she wasn’t my granddaughter, but she might have been.” Akhila grew still, and her body began to shine blue in the darkness. “So you see, there isn’t anything you or anyone else could do to me that I don’t deserve, and I had to land somewhere.”

  They sat together in silence for a while. Akhila closed her eyes and tilted her head while the barren branches above her creaked in the breeze. Vegar watched his sand sculpture soften.

  “Are you familiar with the Tao?” he asked a few moments later.

  “I know the data.”

  “Humph.” Vegar’s lips lifted in a half-smile. “This isn’t a good representation of it.” He pointed at the sculpture. “The one on my back is better. Here, I’ll show you.” He shrugged off his robe and unbuttoned his shirt but sucked in a breath as he tried to pull it from his shoulders.

  “Let me help you.” She lifted his collar and moved his hair. His torso was still swathed in bandages, but the Yin and Yang was tattooed above them. Akhila leaned down to look.

  “Do you see the two halves?”

  “Yes.”

  “The dark half represents the receptive part of nature and the bright half the aggressive part. The opposing spots in each are the seeds of one in the other, the hope for integration.”

  She raised her head. “You think I can heal.”

  “I don’t know. Your path is a hard one. But I do know there’s a place beyond duality where the Tao is eternal, a place we all come from, a place we all return to.”

  “And what happens when we return?” Her hand rested on his bare shoulder.

  “We come to understand why we had two halves to begin with. Help me with my shirt again, would you?”

  Akhila slipped the garment over his arms and helped him with his robe.

  “It would be better if nobody else saw you out here.” He stood and prepared to leave.

  “I know. I won’t be much longer. I just want to take in a little more light before it gets too dark.”

  “All right, then. Good night, Akhila.”

  “Good night, Vegar,” he heard her say as he walked toward the monastery kitchen, where a cup of evening tea and other human comforts could be found.

  Sigurd was waiting in Vegar’s room when he returned there.

  “Where have you been?”

  “In meditation.”

  “Ah.”

  “Is there something I can do for you, Father?”

  The older man opened his mouth to speak, fell silent, and then opened his mouth again. “How are you feeling?”

  “I’m better than I was.”

  “Good.”

  “Are you all right?” Vegar sat on the bed and put his elbows on his knees.

  Sigurd shifted in his seat. “Do you believe in fate?”

  “Well, I believe our ancestors needed the idea of fate, and I think our thoughts and behaviors create ripple effects we often don’t understand, but no, not really, not in the way I think you mean it. Why do you ask?”

  “I . . . do you know how I came to be a priest?”

  Vegar smiled. “I’m afraid that was before my time.”

  Sigurd gripped the chair seat between his legs, shifted again, and looked out of the window. “This war with the Augments has been going on a long while.”

  “Did you lose someone, Father?”

  The knuckles on Sigurd’s hand whitened. “I’ve tried to be a good priest.”

  “And you’ve succeeded.”

  Sigurd turned his head and stared at the floor. “Some wounds never heal.”

  “Priests don’t have to be perfect; they have to be present. You taught me that.”

  “You’re a good man, son.” Sigurd rose from the chair. “Remember I said so.” He left the room and closed the door behind him before Vegar could formulate a reply.

  * * *

  Akhila was still sitting beside the sand sculpture when Sigurd finally found her. She rose and turned to face him in a single, fluid motion. “Good evening.”

  “How did you get out?” He raised his weapon and aimed at her chest.

  “You’ve never imprisoned a nanobody before, have you? You’re a long way from the war, here.”

  “Not long enough.” His hands shook, and the lines of his face were hard.

  “I see. Well, you don’t need your weapon, Father. I’m here of my own free will.”

  “Stop calling me Father.”

  “Of course, Sigurd.”

  “You look just like a woman.” He took two steps toward her.

  “I am a. . . .”

  “Shut up.” He took two more. “You shouldn’t look like a woman. You shouldn’t look like anything you’ve killed. It’s obscene.” His eyes filled with tears, and he ground his teeth together. “Obscene.”

  “You went to the root cellar to kill me.” Akhila looked from the weapon to his face, so red and full of rage. This is it, she thought, and waited for the blast.

  “There is no sanctuary for you, no redemption, no peace.” He lowered his weapon and closed the space between them. His free hand grazed the skin of her belly and then gripped a breast. “No.”

  “What are you doing?” She put her hand on his coat and pushed a little, but he lunged forward instead, closing the space between them. Then he buried his nose in her neck and his hand traveled upward, tightening around her throat.

  “You don’t smell like a woman.”

  “You don’t want to do this, Sigurd. I don’t want you to have to live with this. Please, shoot me or go back inside.”

  “Are you a woman?”

  Akhila shuddered. “Yes, I am.”

  “Didn’t you invite me to do whatever I thought was just to avenge my loss?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Then I want to do this.” Sigurd lifted her into the air by her neck. “Open your legs, woman,” he said, and threw her onto the sand sculpture.

  She reached into the place where she carried the imprint of a small, half-metal boy lying in a dark place, of all the children lying in dark places because she had ruined them. She thought about the sun on her nanobody. She remembered the touch of Vegar’s hand and the long threads of hair she held aside so that she could put her fingers on his shoulder. She thought of the girl who would have been her granddaughter, who should have been her granddaughter, and of all the things, the human things her body would never be able to do.

  She opened her legs.

  He shoved his gun inside her, and she opened inside so it would fit. Then he flipped her onto her stomach, grabbing her hair and pushing her face into the sand while he loosened his trousers.

  “Can you bleed?” he roared into her ear as he shoved himself into her rectum, which she opened for him as well. “Let’s see if you can bleed!” He spat on the right side of her face, and she closed her eyes while his saliva crossed her nose on its way to the ground. “Let’s see if you can bleed like my sister bled! Let’s see if you can bleed like my son bled! Let’s see if you can bleed like my wife bled!” Akhila’s body rocked with his thrusts, and the gun rocked loosely in her body, but she didn’t resist him, and this only inflamed his rage. He punched her face again and again with his free fist, and when she didn’t respond, he reached behind their joined bodies and slammed his gun into her with a repetitive, jerking motion. When he was spent, an anguished howl escaped his throat, and he held her pinned while he wailed. Tears streamed down his cheeks and onto her face, where they cooled on her lips and eyelids.

  The crunch of footsteps on frozen ground and the muffled chatter of worried voices moved toward the arboretum from the monastery. A crowd was gathering, looking for him, looking for her.

  “Sounds like your guards are coming.” Sigurd wiped his face on his coat sleeve and leaned down close to her ear. “Why don’t w
e see if they’re interested in any ‘justice’ before I melt you into scrap metal?” He rose from Akhila’s back and reached for the weapon still buried inside her. But half of the barrel was gone, absorbed. He stepped back, trousers around his knees, and watched as she began to glow. A second passed and she was bright, blazing. A face appeared in the back of her head; hands and arms reached out of her back. Then her body halved. The fiery part of her got up out of the dark self still lying in the sand, whipped long fingers around Sigurd’s neck and lifted him into the air.

  “Thank you Father,” she said as she left her other self behind, “for renewing my sense of purpose. You’ll make a fine carrier.”

  Bright Akhila was half the size of her whole body, but she began to remedy her lack by drawing sand up out of the sculpture and processing it. As it was diminished, her darker self stirred and rose, a diminutive shadow to that growing brightness. Vegar found them then. She watched him look from her to Bright Akhila and then to Sigurd’s half-naked form struggling against the burning fingers that held him.

  He screamed. “Akhila, no!”

  Dark Akhila turned to him then and threw out a hand in his direction. “Stay back!”

  “What did you do to her?” Vegar turned to Sigurd, but the older man could only roll his eyes in the younger priest’s direction and plead with his lips.

  “I couldn’t stop him. I tried. And I couldn’t stop her,” Dark Akhila said and then addressed her other self. “Let him go. Please let him go.”

  Bright Akhila sneered up at the man choking in her grasp. “What was it you said? No sanctuary, no redemption, no peace.”

  Then Dark Akhila drew the remaining sand up into her body, processing it, growing with it. “I can’t let you make him a carrier. I took refuge among these people.”

  “For what? So they could lock you in the dark? So they could rape you?”