by Ada Hoffmann
“Actually,” said Qiel with a playful glint in her eyes, “it’s a nice day out. I was thinking we could picnic. With some food from your food printer, of course.”
Elu spied real calculation behind that glint. Qiel trusted these friends with her life, but she also wanted to prove to them what Elu could do. Indoors or outdoors, Elu would provide for them far more richly than their homes did. They would start coming to him more and more, even if it was only this trusted few. They’d be his friends, and in return, he’d give them anything they asked. He had so much; how could he turn down people who were needy, who wanted to be his friends? He couldn’t imagine not wanting to do that.
Qiel had driven a good bargain, and she knew it. Elu could see how she’d risen to prominence here.
Over the next several minutes he set things up. He printed a bright checkered cloth to spread out in a clearish space on the forest floor, like the cloths he’d seen in mortal vids. He printed sandwiches and biscuits and muffins, fruits and vegetables, soft drinks, little chunks of cheese and bowls of nuts. None of it extravagant, by the standards of mortals, but all of it precious and rare in the Chaos Zone. The mortals fell on the food and devoured it, chattering all the while. It was nearly overwhelming, this much chattering after this much silence, but the sight of them there made him happy.
“–so Fu said the shelters needed better roofing before the next storm,” Bannah babbled, “but I was like, roofing is the least of your problems – last time we had water damage it was from flood water coming up, not down–”
“Good luck getting Fu to listen to anything,” said Mes through a mouthful of sandwich.
Elu could tell, from their microexpressions, that they were sticking to topics like these on purpose. They would glance at him or at the Talon with expressions of great curiosity, and then they’d start talking about something else. Qiel must have warned them not to pry too deeply into Elu’s life, that there were security concerns for him and he’d be shy.
It was nice, though. It was nicer than listening to the radio. Even if they weren’t completely talking to him, they knew he was there, and they were including him.
“What do you use for roofing?” Elu asked, curious. He’d seen the survivors’ settlements in Akavi’s vids, but Akavi didn’t tend to focus on structural details like that, and he wasn’t sure what kind of shelter they were talking about. Depending on the group of survivors, there could be intact buildings repurposed, or ruins patched up more extensively, or new structures built from scratch, using anything from scrap lumber to adobe to tarps on sticks. Most communities had some of each, and who got to stay in what kind of shelter was a perpetual point of contention.
He liked talking about this, partly because he liked focusing on visual and material details, the way he did when he designed clothes for Akavi. But he’d also noticed something about the survivors; he’d been noticing it all along, in Akavi’s vids and in the conversations he listened to over the radio. They squabbled over what repairs were needed and why – much more squabbling than a team of angels would have been allowed – but they pitched in and did the repairs anyway. An angel with an ailing ship would be expected to be smart enough to figure out the repairs on their own – or suffer the consequences of their incompetence. That was one way the angelic corps weeded out the weak. But the survivors looked out for each other, tried to figure out what other people needed and how to help, and most of the time despite their squabbles and lack of training they did a reasonable job. Certainly better than what the angels were doing.
It made Elu feel wistful in a way he didn’t want to examine.
Mes wiped his mouth. “Mostly clay around here, but–”
Elu’s gaze was drawn to a movement somewhere in the distance, behind Mes, at the outskirts of the forest.
Someone was walking toward them.
The person was still so far away that even Elu’s enhanced senses could not see any detail. Not their gender or race or general appearance. But they were coming from the direction Akavi usually came from, when Luellae dropped him off here. And Elu recognized the movement even if he couldn’t see what face the person wore. He knew Akavi’s proud, striding gait – he would have known it anywhere. It was faster than normal, at the moment, and slightly uneven. Hurt. Agitated. Angry.
He’d thought he had more time than this. Damn it, he’d known there was a risk of discovery, but he’d thought he’d get away with one visit, at least. Akavi’s visits here were irregular, but he’d been sure it wasn’t time for one yet.
“Run,” he said.
Qiel, who knew to take him seriously, put down her food and scrambled up immediately. The other two hesitated. “He said run,” Qiel snarled. Elu had already gotten up and hurriedly started to gather in the rest of the food and the cloth, for all the good it would do him. He could throw all this into the recycler immediately, it could all be converted without a trace into raw material for the next round of printing, but it wouldn’t matter. Akavi would have seen what he’d seen.
There was a minute of confusion. The mortals ran. Elu piled up all the evidence of disloyalty into his arms, too frantic to do anything else. For a panicked moment he wondered if Akavi would come to him, or if he’d chase down Qiel and her friends and try to hurt them. But Akavi’s shape strode closer and closer to him. She wore a female face now, the one she often used with Luellae, and that face was incandescent with rage. Blood was matted in her hair and along her limbs.
She said nothing until she’d walked all the way up to Elu, until she had him in arm’s reach. Then she took him by the collar and yanked him in, his eyes an inch from hers.
“Are you OK–” Elu started, staring at the blood.
Akavi slapped him hard across the face.
Elu stumbled slightly, reeling. He dropped his armful of cloth and food, sending perfectly good sandwiches rolling into the undergrowth, but Akavi’s grip kept him upright. She’d never done a thing like this before. He was too panicked to know what to do in response.
“What is this?” Akavi snarled. “Of all the times– What did you do, Elu? How could you endanger our security–”
“I couldn’t–” He stumbled over himself, trying and failing to explain. Had he caused whatever it was that had injured her somehow? Elu didn’t feel that he’d had any other choice. He hadn’t meant to stumble across Qiel in the field. He couldn’t have denied her what she wanted, not when she knew how to sell him out to the other angels. He couldn’t have turned her down when she came to him with Lingin, not when an injured child’s life lay in the balance. He couldn’t have turned down the offer of friends, not when he was starved for them. What could he have done? He felt powerless.
But helpless victims of circumstance didn’t behave as Elu had behaved. They didn’t happily set out a picnic on a cloth for the people who controlled them.
“Who were those people?” Akavi demanded. “What were you doing with them?”
Elu didn’t know how to explain. “They were – mortals. Friends. They needed my help.”
Akavi tilted her head like a bird of prey, irate. “Evidently. And you were willing to endanger both yourself and me. For friendship. You know how hard it is for me to trust anyone, Elu, but I trusted you. I thought you, at least, would never betray me.”
Elu opened his mouth and closed it again. His cheek stung. He had nothing to say for himself.
“Was I not a good friend?” Akavi bit out, pulling him in even closer. “Did I not kiss you enough, Elu? Was that the problem? At least I won’t have to do that anymore.”
She made a sharp movement and released her grip, throwing him to the ground. He caught himself in the leaf litter and crouched there, trying to understand what he’d heard. Was she going to leave him here for the other angels to find? She could ensure his destruction so easily.
“I was spotted,” Akavi added, more diffidently. She looked at him cowering on the ground with the same neutral expression that she typically used when giving orders, as if t
his was no more emotionally salient to her than any other sight. “I managed to escape, and I don’t think the angels can track me here. But we need to revise our plans immediately, and to tighten our security. Get back on the ship.”
For a split second, Elu looked over her shoulder at the tiny figures of Qiel, Bannah, and Mes in the distance.
“I see you looking at them,” said Akavi, following his gaze. “After more than fifty years with me, you change your loyalties so easily. You’re already thinking of running away with them. But you wouldn’t last long out there. Even supposing that they still wanted you, without the bounty of your food printer and your medical skills, what then? They obviously found out that you’re an angel. How long would it take before someone else did? Before the real angels came and found you and brought you in for termination. Along with the whole group that sheltered you.”
Elu’s stomach clenched. For one wild moment, he wanted it. He could run away and try to go with those retreating figures, and he’d die soon, but at least he’d have friends in the meantime.
But he knew Akavi was telling the truth. He knew angelic protocol. Fallen angels were a bigger threat than almost any mortal heretic, and they were hunted and taken down accordingly. Elu had already resigned himself to being killed for desertion eventually. But he couldn’t take people like Qiel, Bannah, and Mes down with him. He was not capable of that.
“I was willing to accommodate your needs,” Akavi continued coldly. “Your absurd desire for sentiment and affection. I was willing to compromise my own physical integrity to keep you happy. But even that wasn’t enough, was it? You couldn’t even observe the process of basic loyalty or safety. You chose to run away with me. You chose to live a fallen angel’s life, knowing it would mean being alone. You made that choice, Elu, not me. And now you’re going to have to live with it.” She turned and walked toward the Talon, opening the outer airlock. “Get in the ship.”
She was wrong. Elu knew she was wrong, deep down, even if he couldn’t have articulated it aloud. But she was right about one thing. Right now, unless he wanted to die very fast, he didn’t have another choice.
“Yes, sir,” Elu whispered, and he got up and followed.
Fifty-Two Years Ago
“That was fast,” said Akavi, as Elu pinged him with a folder of neatly sorted data files. They were on a mission involving a mysterious pattern of sensitive materials disappearing from research archives around a few cities in Rahi. The Menagerie’s systems could analyze data like this and look for patterns, but first the data had to be pre-processed, the relevant items and their curatorial data retrieved and collated into identical formats, with the most relevant details most prominent in the file. That pre-processing, which required no special skill beyond the ability to format data, had been Elu’s job.
“Sir?” said Elu. He thought he saw approval in Akavi’s microexpressions, but he was still new. And many supervisors said things like this as veiled insults. It was fast, so it must be sloppy work, or overeager, or only partly done.
Elu had been assigned to assist Akavi temporarily, just for this one mission. That was what his work mostly consisted of – random assignments where needed, unskilled labor, monitoring and processing and taking messages. There were far worse fates, considering his rank. He always tried to be content with random work and with loneliness. He always tried not to draw attention to himself.
Akavi blinked a few times as he skimmed through the file folder, and then gave Elu an odd, sidelong look. “This is good work. You’re clearly at least somewhat intelligent and diligent; how did you fail basic training?”
“I couldn’t lie, sir,” said Elu. He had tried, but no matter how fervently he spit out untrue statements, no matter how much conviction he tried to put into the words – no matter how his teachers had kicked and spat at him insisting he do better – his microexpressions hadn’t lined up with them properly. He could not be convincing. Nor could he deal out pain and injury to human beings without flinching, or navigate the deadly political web at the heart of the angelic corps, or perform at half a dozen other kinds of tasks that Nemesis, in Her wisdom, had deemed necessary.
Elu had sold his soul to Nemesis because he fervently believed in Her work. She was the one who kept mortals safe, no matter what it took. In his early childhood, he’d been kept safe that way himself, watching Nemesis’ deadly warships streak overhead and chase the Keres from his burning city. He’d grown up wanting to do the same for others. He wanted to help.
No one had told Elu that he wasn’t the right kind of person to help. Not the priests who described angelic service in glowing terms, as the greatest glory and greatest sacrifice a human could make for their God; not the specific priest of Nemesis he’d approached when he came of age, nor the recruiter angel that the priest put him in touch with. Neither of them had asked him many questions, beyond making him prove that he was of age and insist that he was sure. It was only the angels who ran basic training, when it was already too late and he was already irrevocably one of them, who’d called him useless.
Everyone else must have assumed that a boy as intelligent and faithful as Elu would find some way to succeed. It was his own fault, he supposed, that he hadn’t.
Akavi frowned impatiently. “Is that all? There are plenty of jobs that don’t involve direct deceptive interaction with mortals.”
“It’s not just that, sir. But it’s… that kind of thing. Generally. I could never figure out a way to do it well enough to be useful.”
Akavi was looking at him very carefully, analyzing his microexpressions. He could tell, both because that was what it looked like on the surface, and because his own microexpression software had a label for it. That was funny, in a way. Software to point out software pointing out software. Elu wished sometimes that he could just be software. The too-human, emotional parts of him were the ones that kept failing.
“How long have you been working as a grunt, Elu?”
“Two years, sir. And then the year of basic training before that.”
“Hm. Not long, but long enough. And you’ve been doing jobs like this?”
“More often jobs involving guarding or monitoring, but sometimes data jobs like this, sir. Not infrequently.”
“And when you’ve done this sort of work, your supervisors have been satisfied?”
“I don’t know, sir. Mostly they don’t say anything one way or the other.” Mostly they didn’t think about Elu one way or the other. If he’d ever really fouled something up, he’d have been sent for punishment, but beyond that, he wasn’t sure.
Akavi’s head tilted. “I see why you failed basic training.”
“Sir?”
There was amusement in Akavi’s microexpressions now, though he kept it well-suppressed. “You’re not only a bad liar, you’re painfully honest. All your answers to my questions are so precise, yet without any deeper calculation. You’re not thinking even a little bit of how to spin the facts. What I might want to hear. What would put you in the most favorable position. I see that in mortals sometimes, but I’ve never seen it in an angel of Nemesis. It’s refreshing.”
“Sorry, sir,” said Elu. He knew that was not the correct response – Akavi didn’t seem displeased with him – but he was flustered.
“No. I’m going to train that out of you. Don’t unnecessarily apologize.” Akavi smiled thinly as Elu looked at him with wider eyes, trying to understand this. “It happens that I’ve risen high enough in the ranks to merit an official assistant or two. But I’ve resisted doing so. Everyone in this corps is so willing to backstab their superiors; it’s tiresome.” His gaze was piercing, taking in every detail of Elu as if Elu was some useful device on display. “I always wondered if basic training’s overly rigid ideas held us back. You might be the key to that puzzle, Elu. You never met its requirements, but you’re intelligent and good at your work. More importantly, you couldn’t stab me in the back if you tried. When the current assignment is over, I’m going to take you on as
my assistant for a trial period. We’ll see how things go. Did you have anything else you wanted to discuss?”
Elu stared at him, overwhelmed. An assistant’s position. A way out of the small, kickable jobs he’d resigned himself to doing for eternity. Normally those positions were only open to those who’d passed basic training, but an angel like Akavi would have his ways of pulling strings.
Akavi hadn’t even asked what he thought of it. Elu’s permission wasn’t necessary for an arrangement like this. An Inquisitor much worse than Akavi could have snapped him up in this manner if they’d wanted to. Elu had heard of that happening to angels like him. Some inquisitors only wanted a weaker angel that they could bully forever – or a young, pretty one to make use of in other ways. That was one of the reasons he tried not to draw attention to himself. The microexpression software hadn’t detected any lies, but it was possible even now that Akavi’s words about Elu’s intelligence were mere flattery, and that he really wanted one of those other things.
But there was something about Akavi. There was a grace to him and his shifting forms. There was a way about him, when he looked at Elu and assessed him. Like he was really looking. Really seeing. After two years being bounced from place to place doing grunt work, Elu craved to be looked at that way. He wanted to believe Akavi meant it.
“No, sir,” he said. “Thank you, sir. I won’t let you down.”
“See to it that you don’t,” said Akavi, turning away in dismissal.
He was grateful. That day, and all the days after it, every time Akavi treated him like a person instead of hurting him. For fifty-two long years, Elu had been so goddamned grateful.
