Twig

by wildbow

  The man sighed.

  “No other choice?”

  “No good ones. I forgot what it might look like to someone coming at this from an objective standpoint, I don’t think of them as anything more than tools.”

  Warren nodded. He felt uncomfortable with the notion, but he couldn’t put his finger on why, or how he might fix it. Instead, he changed the subject.

  “I almost forgot. Father, Dr. Pegram, this is Harry, my friend from school. Harry, this is my father, Mr. Clifford Howell, and Dr. Pegram, the man who pulled me into this world and looked after me for the first ten or twelve years after that.”

  “It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Howell, Dr. Pegram,” Harry said. He stepped forward, hand extended.

  “Is Harry only visiting Radham?” Warren’s father asked.

  “I’m here to stay, as a matter of fact. Warren and I are starting our own business, building and fixing up cars.”

  “I was top of my class in the building,” Warren said. “Harry’s grades were… less stellar, but he’s a salesman through and through, and he knows just where we can get started.”

  “Excellent,” his father said. “Might have some competition from the academy. There’s something to be said for the carriages we’re all used to.”

  “There’s something to be said for cars, too,” Harry said.

  Warren half-turned as he saw a movement in the doorway. His mother. Smiling, he met her halfway and wrapped her in a hug.

  She had to raise herself up on her toes to touch his face, and she put one hand on him to steady herself as she plucked the cap off his head. “No hats indoors.”

  “Sorry, mother,” Warren said, a little abashed to be talked to like a little boy while Harry was around. He saw Harry snatch the cap from his own head, lightning quick.

  “Sit, please,” his mother said. “Wendy.”

  The stitched girl turned.

  “Fill the teapot with the boiling water from the stove, I’ve already got teabags in there. And, let me see—”

  “Don’t count me among your guests,” the doctor said. “You’ve already been so hospitable, and I’m on my way out the door.”

  “Four cups, then, Wendy. Farewell, Doctor,” she said, giving the man a brief hug.

  They settled themselves on armchairs and couches that had been positioned around the little coffee table.

  The small talk never happened. Warren’s father sat, giving him a peculiar look, then squinted.

  “Father?”

  “You look different, Warren. I thought it might be your hair, or your brow, but…”

  Warren felt his heart skip a beat as his father circled the table. The grip on Warren’s chin was surprisingly strong and fierce as his father forced his head up at an angle, so he was looking up at the man.

  No geniality now. Only the grim.

  “Your eyes.”

  “Ah, heh,” Warren said. “Harry convinced me.”

  “It’s true, I did.”

  “Blue?” his father asked, no humor in his tone.

  “My vision is sharper, too. The change in color from brown was purely cosmetic.”

  “It looks wrong,” his father said, and there was something in his voice that made Warren feel deeply uncomfortable.

  “Clifford,” his mother said. “Don’t make mountains out of molehills.”

  “This isn’t a molehill, if my suspicions are right. Or are you going to tell me this will go away on its own.”

  “It’s permanent, father.”

  “It was a lark, sir,” Harry said. “I convinced him it was cheaper to change his eyes than to buy eyeglasses every few years.”

  “Changed how?” the man’s words had a hollowness to them. “Torn out and swapped in with another man’s?”

  “They rewrote the language that determines how my eyes should be,” Warren said.

  Warren’s father let go of his chin as if he’d been burned.

  “I know you’re more conservative, father, but if you’re employing stitched—”

  “This and that are two very different things.”

  “It’s a very minor change.”

  Harry chimed in, “An attractive one. I told him it would get him all the girls, an ice blue stare, but—”

  “Please,” Warren’s father said, in the gentleman’s way of saying something polite while declaring that Harry might get struck if he kept talking.

  Harry dutifully shut up.

  “I’ve heard about this,” the older man said. “Rewriting our very being. I’ve heard the concerns. It carries forward, Warren. When you have a child, there is a very good chance it will have the same sort of eyes. This alien blueness.”

  “I… yes. I’ve heard that,” Warren said. The blueness was a remark on the deepness of the blue. Most had a pale blue color to their eyes, but Warren had elected for a shade and hue that was closer to what might be found on a flower.

  A moment’s decision, after drinking with Harry and several other friends. A lark, as Harry had suggested.

  “Clifford,” Warren’s mother said, standing and reaching out. But the man was so filled with repressed anger that she seemed to hesitate to approach.

  “Father,” Warren said, trying to use the moment, “It’s easily changed back. Same process. A needle in the arm, and a few weeks to adjust.”

  “Oh?” his father asked. “Do you have the, what do you call it, the language, the script of your eyes as they once were? Or are you simply trying to mime the old color? A guess on the part of whatever doctor you subject yourself to? How is that different?”

  “You make it sound like the end of the world!”

  “It’s the end of us!” his father said, suddenly shouting.

  The statement seemed to bring everything in the room to a standstill.

  The stitched girl stood in the doorway with tea on a tray. Her head was bowed, and the plates on the platter rattled as her hands shook.

  Warren’s mother flew to the stitched girl’s side, to console and to take the tray, the murmured words indistinct.

  “The end of us?” Warren asked.

  “You’re the product of your mother and I, as we’re the product of those who came before. But any child you have now will be a product of you, your wife, and the Academy’s work. We don’t yet know how these little things will carry forward, or if there will be long term repercussions, for you or your children. Such a stupid thing.”

  The word was like a slap. Stupid.

  “It’s minor. Nothing of importance in the grand scheme of it all,” Warren said, a little more obstinate now.

  “It’s important to me. Do you understand? You’ve tainted the bloodline. You’re not truly my son anymore, not in full.”

  If the word ‘stupid’ had been a slap, this was a strike to the gut. Warren felt all of the tension that had built up over the argument now seizing him. In shock, he was no longer sure how to move or properly think.

  “Warren,” Harry said, putting a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “Perhaps we should go.”

  “That might be a good idea,” Warren’s father said.

  Warren nodded, dumb. He looked at his mother, on the other side of the room, still consoling the stitched girl.

  He and Harry left, Warren more stiff than either of the stitched had been. Down the long hallway, past the stairs, and out the door, into bright sunlight. Radham was just on the horizon, past the patchwork white-brown and white of snow-dusted farmland, ringed by buildings that spewed dark fumes into the air. A perpetual raincloud hung over the city.

  “Warren,” his mother said, behind him.

  He turned.

  She pressed a slip of paper into his hand.

  He looked down at it, too caught up in a storm of emotion to process it.

  “Money. To get you off the ground and tide you over the first year or so, if you’re frugal. It was intended as a graduation present from me to you. It is a graduation present.”

  “Thank you,” he said, but he still felt
adrift, confused.

  “I’ll talk to him, Warren. He cares, but he’s had to adapt so much so quickly, this caught him off guard, so soon after he’d already made monumental sacrifices. Send us another telegram so we know where you are, so I can reunite you two when he’s calmed down.”

  “Will he?” Warren asked.

  “He will,” she said. She gave his arm a squeeze.

  He nodded, but the wound still felt raw.

  “Take Wendy and the carriage. Go where you need to today, to get yourself situated and run any errands. Wendy can help you, and she can do a surprising amount of carrying. Send them back tomorrow, if you can. She knows how to use the carriage and how to ask for directions if she needs them.”

  “Are you sure?” he asked, eyeing the young stitched dubiously.

  “She needs it, frankly. Her disposition always improves after a good carriage ride. It would be a favor.”

  Warren nodded. His mother was lying, but perhaps she wanted to keep an eye on him. Not an entirely bad thing.

  “Look after him, Wendy,” Warren’s mother said. “Do as he asks, okay?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Let’s go,” Harry said, a hand on Warren’s shoulder. He used the hand to guide Warren into the horse-driven carriage.

  Warren sat and stared blankly at the wall. He blinked as Harry slammed the door, then again as Harry sat across from him.

  “Let’s go,” Harry said. “I think you’re in dire need of an unhealthy amount of drink.”

  ☙

  Spring

  Every morning, it was the same. Replaying the discussion with his father, fragments of memory about the afternoon and evening that had followed. Drinking, meeting Harry’s friends in Radham.

  Some had altered themselves, more than very blue eyes. A girl with horns, a young man who had added muscle to himself. Among Warren and the other students in Pontiac, Harry had been the roughest around the edges, too clever for his own good, always a little disheveled.

  Harry’s friends in Radham were a dozen long strides in that same direction. Smart as a whip, all of them, but not in the academic sense. Quick to insult, joke, jibe. Warren hadn’t been able to keep up, especially as the drinks had added up.

  He remembered blood, and he wrested his thoughts away from that particular sequence of events.

  He tried to raise a hand to his face, and felt it move, felt the air against it, the shift of muscles. But the sensation folded on itself, the sensations continuing onward in his psyche until they had dissolved into smoke.

  Every morning, it was like this. Discovering how badly things had gone, one way or another.

  It was the movement in the corner of his eye that usually did it, or movement in front of him, sleep-bleary eyes making out the general shape of the surroundings.

  Waking up like this might never become routine. Perhaps because it was too far removed from the reality he understood. Perhaps because he didn’t want to realize. Waking up in confusion, with a dawning feeling of horror, that was better. It was best, all things considered. It hinted at how low his expectations should be.

  There was no dawning feeling of horror in the pit of his stomach.

  He didn’t feel sweat run down his back.

  His hands didn’t clench.

  His toes didn’t curl.

  His heartbeat didn’t pick up in speed.

  His blood didn’t run cold.

  None of those things were, not anymore.

  He turned his head, and it was difficult. He had a limited amount of mobility, and the skin pulled tight with even a small turn.

  The surroundings were dark, lit only by a slice of light that cut between curtains. It looked to be a cellar or a basement. One he had seen every morning for the last week.

  It was the smallest of blessings that things changed locations once every week or two. A change of scenery.

  As his eyes focused, he saw the movements. Shapes in his immediate peripheral vision, and in front of him. Tubes, wires, and heads.

  Heads without bodies, hair shorn, mounted on a piece of metal, tubes running into the spaces and mounts, giving blood, hydration and nutrients, drawing everything else out.

  They moved, jaws opening wide, teeth clacking, the ones that weren’t asleep in the midst of a silent, mad rage.

  He opened his mouth to speak, and the air didn’t come as he bid it. The only tongue that moved was the one his mind conjured up, made of smoke. His tongue had been removed a long while ago. Too easy to bite it off and attempt to bleed out or choke.

  The thought provoked the flurry of images he’d tried so hard to push out of his mind.

  He remembered himself, partying with Harry and Harry’s friends.

  He remembered seeing them talking among themselves, every time he came out of the washroom, or every time he found himself occupied with something or someone. Furtive talks. He’d imagined them discussing his situation at home, his father’s rage, and he’d deliberately ignored it, drinking more.

  He remembered how, late in the evening, when it had been just them, Harry’s friends had grabbed him.

  Harry had helped himself to the note that would let him access the money, then he had given the signal.

  The group had lifted Warren up, then tipped him over.

  He’d dropped several stories. He remembered seeing Wendy on landing. She and the carriage had been just outside the building.

  When he’d woken up, it had been like this.

  Body ruined, head salvaged, kept indefinitely on life support.

  He stared through bleary eyes as a man pushed a curtain aside, where the curtain served in place of a door. Disheveled, with a thick beard, the man wore no lab coat. He looked more like someone who might be found sleeping at the side of the road, a bottle in hand.

  “Tea,” the man said. “The usual. Then brush their hair and sponge them off.”

  “Yes sir,” Wendy was heard to say.

  Warren had only a glimpse of the stitched as she went about her day. Left untended, she was fidgeting more, anxious. Something about dealing with the heads left her more concerned each time, and her poor condition was part of it.

  Had Warren been able to speak, he would have insisted she be taken care of, or sent back where she came from.

  He doubted he would be heard. No man that could do this had any mercy in him.

  The man approached the table, and though he couldn’t breathe, Warren could smell the rank odor of the man. He saw the man reach out and stroke the hair of one of the heads.

  “Good morning, my pretties,” the man said. He consulted a notebook. “Thinking Machine project, version three, day… hm. Day fifty-three.”

  Warren stared.

  It wasn’t the numbers that mattered, the number of days or even the implication that there had been two versions before this.

  The horror that he experienced, a frustrated horror that had nowhere to go but his head, nothing to do but compound itself, was because of the words ‘good morning’.

  Twelve to sixteen hours before sleep could claim him again.

  Warren started screaming, twisting, face contorting, best as he was able, though no sound came out.

  ☙

  Summer

  Sweat ran down his brow. He felt the coolness of the water as his scalp was gently dabbed.

  Wendy fidgeted. She’d been maintained, but it had been a rough job, and had left deep scars in her flesh, where before there had been only faint ones. The ongoing damage to her strange psyche was something else altogether.

  “I’m supposed to watch over you,” she said. “Madam said so. I very much look forward to going home, as soon as you give the word. This place is dark and…”

  She leaned close, as if to share a secret.

  “…I don’t like the dark, sir.”

  Warren did his best to nod, a sympathetic look on his face.

  “I have a teddy bear I hug when it’s dark. It was a gift. I know I’m a young lady now, but it does make
me feel better,” she said.

  He nodded, though it made his jaw and neck hurt. His brain felt fried. Wires ran in and out of his skull, connecting to the others, and several times a day, the thinking machine was put in use. The machine would play out a long stuttering series of clicks, the madman who’d put him down here would make a few notes, then take them with him as he walked into another part of the building, peering at them and scratching his head.

  “I don’t think I know how to go back,” Wendy said. “I’m supposed to get directions to the Ossuary, then I go down… I can’t remember the road. Then… I can’t remember what comes next.”

  Every day, she talked to him. Most days, she said the same things. When her pattern changed, it was because she was breaking down, running too hot. What he hadn’t picked up from idle curiosity before, back in Pontiac, he’d learned from the madman’s occasional comments.

  Warren held onto this, but he wasn’t sure why. A part of him hoped she would snap, go crazy, and end all of this, or murder the madman. Stitched did that, didn’t they? Or was that rumor, heard in a city that didn’t like stitched?

  A part of him hoped she would leave, forgetting that she had to look after him.

  And, running contrary to that, a part of him feared her leaving, above all else.

  He was supposed to have lost his mind by now. He already had, to a degree, and the memories he pulled up now and again were too real, dreamlike, while his dreams were indistinguishable from memory, or they simply brought him back here.

  He was being drugged, he suspected, to keep him from panicking or having a stroke, but he still panicked with regularity, his thoughts looping over and over. Sometimes hours passed in the blink of an eye, like that, and sometimes what felt like hours of mad panic were only as long as it took the madman to leave, cook, eat, and return.

  “I miss music,” Wendy said. “There’s this tune, it plays in my head, and it goes, ba ba ba, ba ba, ba ba ba…”

  A body with only a partial brain, and a head without a body, Warren still had the phantom sensations of movements or feelings his body might have experienced, and he’d learned that, unburied by fever and stress, Wendy had phantom traces of an identity, complete with memories.