Twig

by wildbow

  A table beside her had what appeared to be two fifths of a human being, lacking skin, mouth agape.

  “Junior,” I said, looking down at Ferres. “How drugged is she?”

  “She should be fairly lucid, if you need to ask her something,” he said. He grimaced. “The project is a mess right now. We’re trying three methods of mapping her out in a way we can translate to another vehicle, we’re just figuring out what we want final implementation to look like. If you came tomorrow, I might be able to say we’d be on track and half-done. This isn’t my field. I’m just managing. David? Thoughts?”

  “About right,” one of the others said.

  “It’s fine,” I said. I would have been happier if there were results, but that would have been greedy. “Jessie and Lillian are outside. Talk to them, they’ll fill you in. Stay if possible, but if they say to do different, do that.”

  “Sure thing,” Junior said. He gave me a sidelong glance as he walked by, assessing me.

  Junior, at the very least, had experienced being my enemy. I’d earned his respect, and he was someone who had been a rebel long before

  I didn’t want the events outside this lab to reach Professor Ferres. I walked slowly across the lab, noting that Paul was still sitting on that counter.

  “Paul? You too.”

  “Are you hiding things from me now?” he asked.

  “No,” I said. “I’m hiding things from her.”

  He considered that.

  “I backed you,” he said.

  “I know.”

  “I’ll back you again.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “Back me in this, alright?”

  I’m not putting you away, I’m not trying to diminish you.

  Paul left.

  I was aware of the shape of the Infante looming in the corner of one eye.

  “Keep the doors open,” I called out.

  Paul did.

  The surgical theater was fairly well lit, but it had a dark atmosphere. The time I’d spent in and around this particular room had been some of the hardest, when it came to making it look like Jessie and I were simply aristocrats who’d wormed their way into Ferres’ inner circle. I had watched children go under the knife for the sake of a show.

  Now all of that darkness and negativity seemed to have been distilled in Ferres’ current state.

  I reached into her mouth and took hold of the tube. I began pulling it out, hand over hand, while she coughed and gagged.

  It felt like a full minute before the end of the tube finally came free.

  I walked over to a cabinet, while letting her recover from the coughing, and found the little porcelain bottles. I peered through them, opening some that sounded right, before I found something that looked like what I needed. A compacted disc of medication, almost the shape of a large coin, if a little thicker, red.

  I walked over to Ferres and placed it in her mouth. She could have bitten me, had she felt recalcitrant, but she didn’t.

  “You were—” she started, before pausing to suppress a cough, “—paying attention.”

  “Mm hmm.”

  “You have early arrivals, don’t you?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Power plays. There are some I sized up who I left alone, and others I maintain rivalries with. I can think of a few it might be. Showing up early, throwing others off of their rhythm, it’s a minor play. Someone from one of the small Academies, I’m thinking. There might be one or two more. More of a coordination, ensuring there’s no time to prepare, no time to get everything right. They might even bring complications. If I were actually making this announcement, I’d have already contacted allies elsewhere to counter and react.”

  I took my seat where Paul had been.

  “You need me,” she said. “And by your own order, I’m in dire shape. They’re going to take my skin and a portion of my fatty tissues and make them into a full-body mask. They want to steal my voice. It’s macabre, isn’t it?”

  “Wholly deserved.”

  “And it might even work,” she said. She closed her eyes, moving the lozenge around her mouth.

  I was aware that our guest was just now arriving at the gate. There would be stalling, organization, asking for paperwork. While Lillian had been investigating monsters and hunting people, Duncan had spent far more time elbow deep in the Academy, his eye always on the ultimate political prize. He would have a good sense of what to say and do to buy us those extra minutes.

  I was aware, too, that this conversation and what followed might take a little while yet. That our target would make his way up the stairs while the Lambs secretly collaborated and organized students to prepare areas and make them as pristine as possible.

  We would arrive fashionably late.

  If ‘we’ arrived at all. Ferres was unhinged. She was dangerous in the way that someone with nothing left to lose could be. She’d demonstrated that, taunting me, attacking me,

  “You sound remarkably at ease with this,” I said.

  “All stories have a bad ending,” she said. “The oldest, most powerful of the fairy tales see the heroines turned to sea foam, slain by the wolves, their only legacy a moral lesson for children, if there’s anything at all.”

  “No,” I said. “Not all stories end badly.”

  “At best we grow old and die,” Ferres said “The Academy can postpone it, we endeavor against this bleak fact, but we won’t conquer it and change it for at least a little while. At best, we lead a bright life with good stories, and we get our bittersweet ending with a positive legacy left behind. At best.”

  “There are good endings,” I said. “To fairy tales or reality.”

  “What ending is there that is unambiguously good? The noble sacrifice? The celebrated death?”

  “Not all endings are deaths.”

  “Not strictly, but close enough. You’ve known about your ending for some time. I’ve enjoyed the journey and focused on the brightness I could bring to others and the art I could bring to existence, I’ve tried to walk the path that only I could walk, a personal one. You, I think, are so focused on the endings that you forgot to pay attention to the middle.”

  “If there was an opportunity to lay money on the chances I’d have a very violent, ugly end, I wouldn’t take that opportunity. It’s very possible,” I said. “But as bad as my ending is, I don’t think I’m going to end up flayed so someone else can make a skin puppet mockery of me. You talk about your legacy, but I somehow think you’ve managed to be far more hated than I. Even your Academy is turning on you.”

  “I’ve had many, many more decades on this planet than you have, Sylvester,” Ferres said. “It’s a lot more time to earn people’s hatred.”

  She closed her eyes again. Still very relaxed.

  “How are the drugs?” I asked.

  “Quite satisfactory. To make me calm, rather than to help with the pain. I expect that will end when they no longer need to keep me stable. The hand will go then too, I’m sure. It’s fine.”

  “Is it really?”

  “Several long weeks of misery for a life lived doing what I’m passionate about. I know my last few weeks have been as awful as you could make them, I know what comes next might well be more awful, but I expected cancers or dementia, and those are horrible in their own way. I mentally took note of every last thing, and I came to peace with the idea. I’m at peace with the fact that I lived to my passions, and I didn’t let minor things get in my way. I broke new ground, in Academy science, in making it possible for girls and women to make more headway, and in creating stories and works that would open minds. What are you passionate about, Sylvester?”

  My first thought was of Lillian, of Jessie. Mary. Helen in a different way.

  “Something in mind? You could have spent your time doing that, getting immersed in that, indulging in that—”

  The thought made me snort.

  “…and you’ve spent it desperately, madly struggling forward in vain against a reality
you cannot change,” Ferres said. “It’s the saddest thing about you.”

  My thoughts of the girls were moving on in the background, my brain turning to thoughts of Lambs, then to the mice. From that, though it was something unwieldy I hadn’t devoted enough attention to, the thoughts of a greater, more abstract world.

  “There are a hell of a lot of things that are sadder than that,” I said.

  “Not from my perspective, as someone who did the inverse.”

  The inverse.

  “You walked a dark path, your eye always on the end. Your own, the friends you neglected to save. You’ve allowed it to taint the rest of your life.”

  I thought of the times I had. They weren’t accurate memories so much as they were impressions and blurry scenes that were more imagination than actual hard memory. The Lambsbridge backyard. Being in Lillian’s arms when she clung to me while she slept. Mary sleeping with her back to me, or turning over and her face relaxing in a way so few got to see. Being with Jamie while music played in our room in Tynewear. Sitting with Jamie and Gordon while interacting with mice in the… whatever that neighborhood had been called in Radham. Having tea with Helen while she made our ears and brains want to turn inside out from her elaborate descriptions of horrible scenes. Figuring out Ashton as we had a conversation in the orphanage dining room. Sitting with Jessie in an armchair only big enough for one person, me holding the tea for both of us, the two of us talking about the fish mounted on the wall. Talking to Jessie while she cooked, or vice versa. Eating with Jessie after the cooking.

  “I think I’ve had a pretty good journey, with enough good moments along the way,” I said. “I made pretty good time with the people I had with me, and I think what I’m gunning for doesn’t take away from that. No. I think your impression of me is wrong on that score.”

  Ferres nodded, leaning her head back. “Well, I don’t imagine you have long to wait and see just what awaits you.”

  With those words, I was made very aware of the Infante, standing off to the side. That made me want to check that I wasn’t alone, that I wasn’t letting my guard down.

  Junior, Lillian, and Jessie were standing at the doorway. The others would be nearby.

  Jessie signaled. Edmund Foss was here. Upstairs.

  He wanted to see Ferres, and she was here, doped up, in pieces, with tubes running through her.

  “Junior,” I said. “Lillian. Let’s get Professor Ferres as put together as we can get her.”

  “You’re not even going to ask if I’m going to cooperate?” Ferres asked. “I have nothing left to lose. You took my hands, gave one back, and you’ll take it away. You took my Academy and perverted it, and you took my students. You’ve condemned them, telling them something that will justify them being utterly and completely destroyed the moment those words touch the wrong ear. A series of bad endings will befall everyone here, far, far sooner than they otherwise might have. That’s on your head. And you expect me to play along?”

  We don’t have a choice, I thought.

  “You’ll get to demonstrate a little bit of that fairy tale play of yours,” I said. “The only thing worse than a bad ending is a story that doesn’t get one.”

  I watched as she took that in.

  “Isn’t it funny, then, that you’re taunting them with immortality, of all things?” she asked.

  “Maybe. But you’ll see this through, just to demonstrate you can.”

  She moved the stump of an arm that wasn’t restrained. “Then your doctors should get to work, shouldn’t they?”

  They were already moving into the room, making way to the tools, talking under their breath about the measures that would need to be taken, things that would need to be scrounged up.

  Ferres, facing her impending journey on the surgical table, only looked at me and smiled.

  Previous Next

  Root and Branch—19.4

  Red had her arms crossed.

  “If you decided you were up for it, it would make all the difference.”

  She shrugged.

  “If this was a week ago, I think I’d be handling this differently,” I said.

  She didn’t speak, but she made fleeting eye contact.

  I’d lost my mind and threatened to raze Hackthorn to the ground, and she hadn’t been that wary of me then.

  “As little as a week ago, I’d be manipulating you, I think. This would be easier. I could empower you, make you feel like it was almost your idea. You’d be happier, really. Most of the time, when I manipulated people for their benefit, they were happier. But, uh, I think right now it would be too hypocritical. I’m not sure enough of anything to really feel like I could plot out your course of action and guarantee you’d be better off for it. So I’m just asking. If you decide no, that’s fine.”

  “I’ll think about it,” Red said.

  I nodded.

  She was the only one I was willing to work with at this stage, who I even dared to broach the subject to.

  “Thank you,” I told her.

  She shrugged, noncommital, and I left things like that.

  The sheer number of students heading up and down the stairs throughout both stairwells was impressive and shocking—from the looks of it, and from what I could see looking past the glass walls of Lab One and through the windows, students and rebels were heading down to the ground, crossing the city below, and making their way into the buildings on the very ground level, to climb up.

  All to minimize the foot traffic moving through the space that served as the dining hall.

  Mary watched all of this unfold, standing with her back to the door, so she could keep an eye on Lillian and another eye on me. When I passed her and stepped into the surgical theater, directly beneath the dining hall and the tables where our ‘guest’ was currently being entertained, Mary followed me in. The door swung closed.

  I’d almost expected Ferres to complain. She didn’t. I’d had more expectations that she would comment, needle and nettle. She remained quiet, aside from the occasional sound, as she was supplied with parts. It was a quick and dirty job, and I watched as Lillian worked with Junior’s team, laying the groundwork for voltaic limbs and extremities, hooking up a voltaic organ to power them. Tubes were pulled free, blood and sweat wiped away, a spare hand attached in stages before being drawn together.

  The fact that she remained silent against my expectations bothered me. I would very much have preferred it if I had a keen sense of what she would do.

  I might have tilted my brain in one direction or another, to better anticipate Ferres, but I was cognizant of the Infante’s presence, as he stood in the shadows, his face illuminated by the spotlight of voltaic lighting that allowed the doctors and students to clearly see what they were working on.

  If I pushed myself to focus hard on body language, or on analyzing Ferres’ word choice, or even choosing words that would prickle her and slip through her defenses, then that might well be the action that prompted the Infante’s reaction, the flame to the fat, the spark to the tinder, meat for the carnivore.

  Instead, I moved gently, thought carefully, and focused on observing.

  It was, I imagined, very much as if Ferres was being remodeled on the fly in the same fashion that Hackthorn was. Triage, but for the individual and her institution.

  Well, it was our institution now.

  Mary arrived with the clothes we’d sent her to get. She had an eye for style, I knew, and I trusted her to slip past the dining area to access the administration’s quarters.

  “What’s going on upstairs?” I asked.

  “They’re gathered. They’re having their tea. It won’t be long before Headmaster Foss starts getting antsy. For now he’s occupying himself with idle observations of the school.”

  “Any crises?”

  “Mabel’s group handled the burned building. He was already at the landing of the stairs when they got the last of it in place. They tore up the gardens and draped the greenery over the burned areas of the b
uilding. The burned bridge was the opposite. They dropped the plant-based portion of it completely, let it fall to the city below. Shirley’s people were at the ground and had it cleaned up before anyone glanced outside.”

  “That’s good,” I said.

  “He’s getting antsy. I wouldn’t say he suspects anything, but he’s making comments and I’m worried his prey instinct is up. There not being enough members of faculty is playing a role. Your, ah, father? He’s there, and he’s making some conversation.”

  I smiled.

  “Move your arm,” Lillian instructed, still speaking softly.

  Ferres did.

  “With your fingers, touch—”

  “I know the procedures,” Ferres said. She touched thumb to fingertips, one after another, back and forth. “Eight out of ten, if I had to gauge the response.”

  One of the other young Doctors fiddled with the voltaic organ, a rectangular block of meat contained within a metal frame that outlined only the edges and corners. I saw Ferres’ arm jump, and saw her wince with the pain.

  It must have hurt a lot. The ongoing surgery had barely elicited a reaction from her. She had broken a sweat, occasionally reacting reflexively, but some things couldn’t be suppressed.

  “Again,” Lillian said.

  I thought for a moment that the doctor with the organ would jolt her again, but it was an instruction meant for Ferres. She repeated the hand motion.

  “Nine,” Ferres said. “No need to adjust further. I’ll manage, and the brain will adapt to my benefit.”

  “Any pain?” Lillian asked.

  “Pain is fine,” I said. “We just need her functional.”

  “Minimal pain,” Ferres said. “I imagine it’s all exactly what I should expect for surgery of this nature and for a voltaic transplant. A thrum of pain, sitting at a two, something between a three and a four for the surgical sites.”

  “Does anything feel especially out of place?” Lillian asked. “Does it feel square?”