Twig

by wildbow

  “I do believe our guest is on the horizon,” Lacey informed them.

  “Our guest is on the horizon, my lord,” Duncan repeated, pitching his voice to be heard.

  “My ears work perfectly fine, my Duncan.”

  Duncan made a pained face. “He’s really going to need to stop saying that.”

  “So do you,” the Lord said, from the next room.

  “Please tell me the others are ready,” Lacey said.

  “I wish I could,” Duncan said. “It’s been a year and two months of preparation and convalescence, the deadline’s here, and we are down to the razor’s edge.”

  “We shouldn’t have set the deadline in the first place,” Lacey said.

  “Far be it from me to lay the blame at the foot of any of our esteemed Lords or Ladies,” Duncan said. “But I recall something said about them wanting to put pressure on their own. They worried if they didn’t have a deadline, that nothing would get done.”

  “They? He.”

  Duncan drew in a deep breath. “Abigail, could I see you for a moment?”

  There was a pause, and then the door moved. Abigail stepped out into the hallway, closing the door behind her. She was as tall as Lacey, though she was less than half Lacey’s age, and she was beautiful in a very peculiar way. Her dark hair was long, and she wore a fine green silk dress that draped straight down from armpit to ankle. Her slenderness was the slenderness of youth.

  Abigail walked a fine line as it was. It was hard to call her a Noble, because she wasn’t quite there. It was hard to call her just an aristocrat. Perhaps it was fitting.

  Seeing her made Lacey feel that fear rising a touch. It made the vague feeling of claustrophobia and the looming, unavoidable crisis that much worse.

  A distance away, the hallway was growing into place. Harvesters swarmed, keeping the growth from reaching inward, creating the apertures that would be windows, and redistributing material to smooth out the floor into a flat plane without even the divides of floorboards.

  “Abigail,” Duncan said. “Please forgive me for saying so, but I don’t believe you’re helping matters.”

  “Rest assured, Doctor, our Lord does what he says he’ll do. If he says he’ll be ready on time, he’ll be ready.”

  Duncan suppressed a response, which might have been a sigh and which might have been a bark of uncharacteristic anger.

  He was as scared as Lacey. For different reasons, yes, but he was scared.

  “My Lord, for all his punctuality and finer points, is shortening my lifespan with the stress he’s causing me,” Duncan said. He said it so the room’s occupant could hear.

  “How so, my Duncan?”

  “By insisting on calling me ‘my Duncan’, for one thing.”

  “He’ll stop when you stop using ‘My Lord’ when there’s no bystanders in earshot,” Bonnie said.

  “We never know who’s in earshot,” Duncan said.

  “I have very good ears,” said the voice in the next room.

  “Just the wait is causing me enough stress, you know,” Duncan said. “I’m going to have a heart attack if we cut it any closer. Would someone please help me with this?”

  “I think Abigail’s heart is skipping beats for different reasons,” Bonnie said, her voice soft. There was the faintest hint of something wry in her tone. “Playing dress-up with a red-haired young Noble, when every moment counts? Oh my, oh gosh.”

  “Such insolence,” Abby said, affronted. For all the character she managed to inject into the words, she proved the lie by the gentleness with which she touched the side of Bonnie’s face. She paused at the door, looking at Duncan. “We will be on time. I promise.”

  Lacey approached the small group as Abigail stepped through the door. She saw Bonnie’s expression change as the girl paid more attention to her.

  Poison had its way of spreading through systems, Lacey observed. It could affect character and personality. There were traces of the boy she’d known in so many of these things. In the jokes, the cavalier treatment of danger, in the anger a soft, gentle child could display toward a woman in a laboratory coat.

  “Is it what you expected?” Lacey asked.

  “You’re asking me?” Duncan asked.

  “Yes. You wanted to work with Nobles.”

  “I don’t know. He might not be one. We’re holding off on a final decision or verdict. The last time we talked about it, we decided we wouldn’t announce him as one.”

  “As you’re not announcing Abigail or the others?”

  Duncan nodded slowly. “We thought we’d decide when we saw them all together. If he looked the part, and if he could play it. But we have, what, less than half an hour? Tens of minutes? Less?”

  “I couldn’t tell you. Any of the above.”

  “We’ll have other things in mind. Unless it’s unanimous and instant, I think we’ll hold off. So to answer your question, I don’t know. I don’t know if any of this is what I expected.”

  “You work closely with other Nobles.”

  “Of my share of our Lords and Ladies, do you really think any of them are the type you work with?”

  “I’m not wholly certain any of them are,” Lacey said.

  “And I’m not wholly certain why you’re here,” Bonnie said.

  Lacey glanced down at the girl. She saw the anger and it took her breath away. She’d seen the same expression on a young face, a decade ago.

  “I’m only a witness,” Lacey said. “I think I’m one of the only ones still standing who knows enough to know what happened, who isn’t threatening enough to warrant being destroyed, and I’m not so close to things that my judgment is obscured.”

  “I heard who you were. What you’ve done,” Bonnie said.

  “I’ve done good and bad,” Lacey said. “Yes, absolutely.”

  The anger didn’t wane in the slightest.

  Like so many things, that anger had been passed down in its way. By deed, by word of mouth.

  “I think you’re lying to yourself if you think your judgment is clear,” Bonnie said.

  Lacey paused at that.

  It was Duncan who rescued her, or who interrupted at the moment she could have made order of very disordered thoughts and sentiments. “Lacey?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m tied up here. Could I ask you to check on Ibbot next door?”

  Lacey glanced down at the girl from Hackthorn’s Fairy Tale ending. She saw the hard expression, and she left, so she wouldn’t subject the girl to her presence any longer.

  “I’m thinking I’ll need to check on everyone.”

  “That might be good. You could fill us in last minute.”

  “Excuse me, then. No time to waste.”

  “Thank you, Lacey.”

  What had come before would come again.

  She had to pass through the hallway in progress, Harvesters swarming along their prescribed paths, removing and depositing material. Branches slowly reached out toward her like grasping hands, only to wobble, jerk, and twitch as they were gnawed at their bases. That which fell to litter the corners between wall and floor was swiftly caught up and carried in the same direction Lacey traveled.

  A young man ducked his head in a hasty little bow as he passed Lacey, traveling the other direction.

  Lacey reached and knocked on the door to the next manor, which was becoming part of the overstructure.

  The answer was a woman’s voice. “Come in.”

  Lacey bent her head in a bow as she entered.

  “No need to bow, my dear.”

  “My lady,” Lacey said. She raised her eyes. “You might want to know that your guest is on the horizon and fast approaching.”

  “I know. We had lookouts poised.”

  “Yes, my Lady.”

  Ibbot was in the center of the foyer. He knelt, his eyes fixed on the ground, and his entire body was rigid.

  Galatea was there, wearing a dress that resembled a toga, all in spun golden silk. It draped off of one should
er, gathered in careful folds around a belt that accentuated her waist, and the bottom hem was knee height at one side, ankle length at the other, the one calf exposed. Her shoes were stilettos with golden ribbons fixing them to her feet and ankles, but she was still putting one on.

  She was and always had been fairly Noble in appearance. She’d only ever needed to grow to her full proportions to fit the mold.

  No, it wasn’t appearance that had marked the change, here.

  Galatea finished doing up the other set of ribbon-straps. She moved her foot and leg to examine it from multiple angles. Some of the angles bordered on the unlikely, but it was a thing she might have dismissed as an illusion or trick of the mind if she hadn’t known better.

  Lacey averted her eyes, hands clasped in front of her. She’d been told not to bow, but here especially, she felt the need to. She wondered if it would be the case with the others, or if it was only the feeling of danger that went hand in hand with this particular young Lady.

  The Galatea project had very nearly come to a conclusion when she had been reduced to only the core, essential pieces. The experience that had followed would have broken any other individual, to be confined in a parcel of flesh and brain for months, before a body was ready. But this woman had not and never would operate like other individuals. She was an actress, and she would never allow others to know the full extent to which she had changed, if she didn’t see the need to.

  With Lacey, as familiar as Lacey might be to her, she wouldn’t see the need.

  “Is there anything else?”

  “I’m checking on everyone, my Lady. Duncan requested I check on you and the Professor Ibbot.”

  “Very well. I’m still getting ready.”

  “Yes, my Lady.”

  “The Professor is fine.”

  “Yes, my Lady.”

  The fat little man had barely moved since Lacey had entered.

  “Is my little brother well?”

  “He seems to be taking his time, but miss Abigail is helping him, my Lady. Bonnie suggested miss Abigail is secretly enjoying the process.”

  The Lady in front of Lacey tittered at that. Lacey swallowed.

  “If she’s enjoying herself, then he is too. Good.”

  “Yes, my Lady.”

  “I’ll be along shortly, once I’ve put my Professor in his cage.”

  “Yes, my Lady,” Lacey said. “Please excuse me.”

  She only felt as though she could breathe once she’d left the room.

  She passed a cluster of Doctors who were discussing the harvester’s work with the overstructure of the castle-in-progress in hurried and hushed tones.

  She knocked on the next door.

  The doors were opened. In the hallway alone, there were three men and three women in dress uniforms, the men to the left, the women to the right. Rapiers as their sides, rifles in hand, resting against shoulders.

  Lacey bowed as she entered, and she kept her eyes to the ground as she made her way through the manor, using the position of the guards to know when to turn. If they were in her way and she had another path, she would take that path.

  She entered the master bedroom. The Lady of this particular house was standing in front of a mirror, her back to the door as Lacey entered. Lacey saw only one eye, peering over the Noble Lady’s shoulder. The eye assessed her, then returned to the arrangement of jewelry.

  “If you’re looking for our Doctor Lillian, she left a minute ago.”

  “I’m under instruction to look for everyone, my Lady. The messengers told you that your guest is imminent?”

  “They did, thank you.”

  “Is there anything I can do for you while I’m here, my Lady?” Lacey asked.

  “No, I don’t imagine there is.”

  “Very well, my Lady.”

  “I never could have worn a dress like this before.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t fully follow, my Lady. You’re referring to your weapons?”

  “I do miss the feeling of the flats of the metal blades resting on my skin. Not that I’m any less dangerous. Just the opposite.”

  “Yes, my Lady. You could still use the blades, I imagine.”

  “Not today. They wouldn’t make a difference, but the others thought that our guest might be able to smell the metal or the oils used on it. I had some special work done, blades of material other than metal. It’s not the same. Very different. Lighter.”

  “Yes, my Lady. I imagine so.”

  “It all reached a certain point, and then it started playing out backward.”

  “My Lady?”

  “I knew who I was and where I belonged, part of my unit, knowing who I followed. The crisis. Taking that leap of faith, at his behest. Getting to know the Lambs. Being a prisoner while I was secured and reconfigured for a new role. Crossing the threshold with a new kind of mission. The big, new, intriguing missions. Thinking I was falling in love. Finding love. Loss. More missions. More losses.”

  “Yes, my Lady.”

  “More losses, more missions. Loss. Falls in love, both false and real. The big, new, intriguing missions. The new, greater, grander missions. Being a prisoner while I’m remade for a new role. That’s as far as we’ve gotten. Now…”

  “Getting to know them again, My Lady? Taking that leap of faith, at his behest? The challenge.”

  “The crisis. Yes. That would be our imminent guest, this time around.”

  “If you’ll excuse me saying, then after the crisis is faced down, with luck, you’ll find the security you had at the very beginning? Knowing who you are and where you belong?” Lacey asked. She realized she’d forgotten the appellation and was quick to add, “My Lady.”

  “Ah,” the Lady said. She adjusted her jewelry, her back still to the door. “I should have said that differently. I don’t know if I really knew, then.”

  Did that mirror, as well?

  Lacey said, “I remember seeing Mary Cobourn, back then, my Lady. I talked to Professor Hayle about her.”

  “Yes. Mary Cobourn. We talk about her as someone who has passed. Or someone we’ve passed on from. New names, now. Did she look lonely then? Lost?”

  “She did. But if I may say so, my Lady, that didn’t last for long.”

  “A good reminder, that. Thank you, Lacey.”

  “You’re quite welcome, my Lady.”

  “Would you give me a moment’s privacy? I’ll be along shortly.”

  “As you wish.”

  For all that the Noble Lady had turned down her offer for support, Lacey suspected she’d wanted, needed, and benefited from it most.

  The outer shell was formed, at least for the ground floor, as Lacey emerged. The growth was faster now. The building had its outer walls, and the interior space was being fleshed out. Students hurried to place pots and tumbles of clover and the derivative plants in sconces and troughs, so the green spilled out to the ground below. It turned the area that had once been the cul-de-sac in the midst of the manors into a kind of garden or an overlarge gazebo. Flowers were set with care throughout, splashes of color in a dark aesthetic. They avoided the color red, it seemed.

  “Ma’am?”

  “Yes?” she asked, turning.

  It was a messenger. A young man, black-skinned with his head shaved of all hair. He wore a vest over a dress shirt. “I was told to tell you the guest has touched ground. We’ve sent people to meet him, and we can expect updates shortly.”

  “Thank you,” she said.

  She picked up her pace, all but running to her next destination.

  It was everything the last houses hadn’t been. Busy, with Academy science in plain sight. Doctors and Professors worked to get everything arranged. Tanks bore the floating brains within, glowing faintly, as Lacey had seen countless times. Smaller tanks, these.

  They were arranged as a wedding cake was, one atop the other, each a bit smaller than the one below.

  “Don’t be so flustered, Lacey.”

  It was hard to find her voice.
She could barely see the Lady through the jumble of bodies.

  “All according to schedule, thus far.”

  “Forgive me for saying so, but your castle is still growing, my Lady. Things started late, as we expected him today, but we didn’t know what city to expect him in.”

  “All according to schedule, I assure you.”

  “Yes, my Lady.”

  “Moving,” one Professor announced.

  “Excuse me.”

  “Yes, my Lady.”

  Tubes were disconnected. Pressurized gases hissed out, and mechanical latches snapped.

  Stitched provided the lifting, though it would have been incorrect to call it steady lifting. It was a team that did the work because grace was required. With a team, it could be done fluidly. An upper body was carried into place. Trailing cords and tubes were plugged into the new housing, the layered stack.

  Lacey averted her eyes, as stitched moved away, and an opening was provided that gave her a glimpse of the full picture.

  Latches snapped into place, gases hissed, and things were connected.

  “Ahem,” the Lady said. “I don’t seem to have feet, Professor Verde.”

  “Beg pardon, my Lady,” a man muttered.

  There were more snaps, then another hiss of gas escaping.

  In Lacey’s peripheral vision, as she stared at the ground, the connected body raised itself up a fraction. The Lady didn’t move as a biped moved. She glided.

  Cloth swept into the air as attendants took over. A dress was put in place. Hair was adjusted, where it had already been pre-done. There were no glasses.

  The crowd thinned as everyone filled their prescribed role. All on a kind of schedule.

  When they moved away, there was only a young woman of Noble-caliber beauty, silver hair braided in an intricate way and left draped over one shoulder. Her dress was of top quality, but modest, draping down to graze the ground.

  “Walk with me?”

  “As you wish, my Lady. I haven’t checked on Doctor Foster or—”

  “Of course. I planned to give them a bit of time together, but the deadline’s come.”

  The young Lady moved like a ghost floating through the air, always a measured, even distance above the ground. Even at the short set of steps that had once been the front steps of the manor, she moved fluidly and without effort.