by Rosiee Thor
Mr. Second Tuesday Evening dropped a handful of coins into her palm and disappeared into the crowd without further ado. Over the next year, Anna would see to the mechanical needs of Mr. Second Tuesday Evening’s friends, mostly fixing knickknacks for those secure enough to harbor tech in their own homes, but if she was lucky, he’d bring her a mechanical limb or an eye to fix. Though she relished working with metal of any kind, she preferred to fashion useful accessories from it as opposed to the purely decorative sort surrounding them in the market. Even if she couldn’t mend everything and everyone, each bolt and cog she tightened against the skin of her clients brought her closer to redemption, closer to forgiving herself for destroying Roman’s arm years ago.
The next hour brought few visitors her way, leaving Anna with nothing to do but twiddle her thumbs. She tried not to watch the theater troupe’s finale, which culminated in a haunting rendition of “Tech, We Worship Thee” as they drowned in poisonous sludge and gas, their exaggerated performance a nevertheless effective reminder of Former Earth’s fate at the hands of humanity’s overreliance on technology, however vague the surviving histories made it out to be. No one would leave the Celestial Market with any doubt tech was responsible for destroying the planet that Earth Adjacent was meant to replace.
The audience, which had enthusiastically clapped and whooped throughout, meandered away amid hushed whispers and furtive glances, evidently deeply moved. Anna watched them go, following the crowd’s progress from her cart.
“Hello, miss!” A squeaky voice, louder than Anna would have preferred, brought her attention back to her own stall. “I’d like to make an appointment.”
“I’m sorry,” Anna said quietly, hoping to bring the girl’s register down. Her new customer looked to be about Anna’s age, and she stood unevenly, like one of her legs was longer than the other—perhaps the effect of an ill-fitting prosthesis. Anna hadn’t seen the girl before, but new customers weren’t uncommon, so she prompted her. “I only sell trinkets here. Perhaps you’re thinking of my aunt?”
The girl’s green eyes lit up, and a blush spread across her cheeks. “Yes, yes! Edith!”
Anna didn’t trust the sudden churn of her stomach, but whether her discomfort stemmed from the girl’s clear disregard for caution or the way Anna’s skin warmed when the girl smiled, she didn’t know. Anna took the girl’s coin and wrote out a riddle, but as a young man approached the cart, the girl stammered a half-formed excuse before scuttling away, leaving both her locket and money.
Anna’s eyes lingered a moment on the girl’s golden hair before turning to her new patron, a clear-eyed boy about her own age with limbs too long for his body and a hat that added inches to his already considerable height. Her muscles clenched as he leaned across the cart, fingers brushing against the lockets. She kept her papers blank until point of sale for this very reason, but the girl’s abandoned locket wasn’t empty, and it would be far from innocuous if this new patron took it. It was too late to hide it within her skirts, so Anna lifted her eyes to greet the newcomer.
“What can I do for you?”
“Good morning, miss.” The dandy offered her a hesitant smile with not a single tooth missing. Though his extra-large hat and well-tailored coat suggested wealth, his accent grounded him. Had he been from the Tower, his pronunciation would have been tighter and clipped over the vowels. “These are charming.”
“Thank you, but certainly charming is not elevated enough for a gentleman like yourself.” It was a gamble, but he had lily-white skin, unmarred by sun, that could belong only to a merchant or noble.
“Not at all!”
On the surface, he sounded elite, but a hitch in his voice marked the end of each sentence, and he carried his shoulders off-kilter as though an invisible force pulled on his left side. Something about him—his walk—no, his smile—no, his rhythm—was familiar.
“I rather prefer art that celebrates the roughness of the world.”
Anna clenched her teeth. From extracting the ore and creating the steel alloy to melting the metal down and pouring the molds, her lockets were no more than a vehicle for her true business dealings. She had never thought of her craft as art, but neither did she think her lockets were particularly rough. The word ground against her insides like two mismatched gears.
He dug into his pocket and produced a gold coin, the sort no one in Mechan would have any use for, let alone change. Before Anna could protest, he looped his fingers through the chain of the silver locket she’d prepared for her last customer. “I’ll take this one.”
“No!” Anna grabbed wildly for the locket, but it swung out of reach. “It isn’t finished.” The lie felt hollow, like lukewarm tea—a mistake the moment it hit her tongue.
He held the locket just out of her reach, coughing a little as he surveyed it. “I like it. There’s beauty in something incomplete.” He bowed, tucking the locket into his pocket and pressing his palm against his chest. “You have a good day, miss.”
“Don’t bow. You look ridiculous,” Anna scoffed, speaking without thinking. The dandy’s brow furrowed at the insult, but she plowed on. “At the market, we shake hands.”
He took her hand in his and she flinched, neither intending nor expecting him to take her at her word.
“Nathaniel.” He pointed to himself.
A sharp rhythm beat against Anna’s palm.
“Anna.”
In the wake of their introduction, the stillness pulsed with the impossible tick, tick, tick of a heart that wasn’t hers.
Nathaniel’s chest pounded with the effort of every step. The uphill trek through the market district, crowded with vendors and canopied carts, taxed his weak lungs more than it had on the way to the Celestial Market. Though the crowds thinned as he entered the residential district, homes squeezed together like the bellows of an architectural accordion, the cobblestone streets turned upward. The closer he got to his home, the steeper the incline. As he crested a hill, a fit of coughing erupted, burning his throat with each convulsion.
But the market had been worth all the pain and the risk he took disobeying his father. The Celestial Market wasn’t just a gaudy display; it was history—his own history. Nathaniel told himself he went only to keep an eye out for illegal tech, but more than the possibility of busting a tech-trading ring, the market gave him an odd sense of belonging.
Nathaniel never thought he’d see the market’s silver skyline, glittering vessels dotted against the horizon like stars. But the moment he set foot among the ancient tech, he knew he wasn’t alone. Even if they belonged to a faraway past, out of reach and out of time, for a single day, the market positively sparkled with forbidden steel and the assurance that somewhere, at some point, the device living in Nathaniel’s flesh wasn’t wrong. Though the market had brought him no answers, he hoped if he just looked closer, asked the right person the right question, they could explain to him what his father would not.
But that would mean telling. And Nathaniel was not allowed to tell. Of the many rules governing Nathaniel’s life, it was the oldest and most important.
Earth Adjacent saw tech only when it was brought down by visitors from the Tower; none was permitted to develop organically within the bounds of the Settlement. Earth Adjacent would flourish, free of the tech that brought about Former Earth’s demise—or at least that was the hypothesis of the Queen’s experiment. With no planetary home to return to, she had terraformed Earth Adjacent and sent a contingent of her people to the planet’s surface to rule themselves without tech. If it worked, Earth Adjacent could become humanity’s new home. Nearly forty years had passed, however, and Nathaniel, who’d spent all eighteen years of his life planet-bound, had no idea if the Queen considered her test successful.
Even in the privacy of the Commissioner’s manor, tech was to be spoken about only in the past tense, but Nathaniel heard its whispers every day, intensely present in his ears, in his mind, and in his heart. Cold metal tattooed shame across his chest—a silver remi
nder that he would never be his father’s perfect heir, kept alive by the very tech his father strove to eradicate.
When he arrived at home, Nathaniel mounted the marble stairs as quickly and quietly as he could. Though his father’s council was scheduled to be in session all afternoon, it would not do for the Commissioner to find him as he was, dressed for the market and with contraband lining his pockets.
Nathaniel reached the top just in time, peering over the banister to see the council flooding into the foyer, gathered in a cluster at the foot of the staircase. The Commissioner led the party, dressed in full uniform, complete with gold epaulets. In his hand was a small holocom projecting a miniature blue hologram of a woman draped in veils. He could not see her face, but Nathaniel knew her immediately: Queen Elizabeth, their sky-bound monarch. Though Nathaniel’s father presided over Earth Adjacent, her presence sent ripples of cold down Nathaniel’s spine.
Nathaniel inched away from the banister, intending to make himself scarce. Politics were better left in the hands of the experts below, but the rickety voice of Councilor Ming pulled Nathaniel from his hiding place and into the fray.
“Junior!”
Nathaniel froze. He wasn’t dressed properly to receive company—a slight his father, if not the councilors, was sure to notice. Composing his expression into a well-mannered smile, Nathaniel descended the stairs. He would be charming and gracious, the perfect son his father could be proud of. “Councilors. Commissioner.” Nathaniel nodded to the assembly and bowed to his father, who promptly clicked off the holocom. The Queen’s projection vanished in an instant.
A middle-aged councilor reached out to shake his hand. “So good to see you, Nathaniel. A pity you couldn’t join us.”
“Yes, you really ought to start sitting in,” a long-haired woman added. “As your father’s successor, you should get all the exposure you can.”
Nathaniel doubted very much that any of them had noticed his absence until that moment, but he was grateful just the same. Perhaps his father would see merit in their suggestion and finally invite him to join their meetings.
“Nathaniel has been quite busy with his studies—without a basic understanding of our government and objectives, he will glean very little from our sessions, I’m afraid,” the Commissioner said, giving Nathaniel the slightest of unreadable glances before continuing on. “Perhaps once he has shown a more thorough understanding of the Settlement and its laws, he might join us.”
The councilors chorused their approval, but Nathaniel didn’t dare speak.
Once the yes yeses, good goods, and quite rights had died down, the councilors said their goodbyes. As soon as the door closed behind them, the Commissioner turned on Nathaniel, his words as cold as his eyes. “You’re home.”
Nathaniel withered under his father’s gaze.
His father knew—of course he knew. All Nathaniel’s efforts to conceal his trip to the Celestial Market had been wasted. His father always knew.
“You were to remain in the manor, Nathaniel. That was our agreement.” The Commissioner’s tone was firm as iron. “How can I trust my only heir to uphold our family’s legacy if he disobeys me?” The Commissioner paced around Nathaniel in a circle, the crisp tap of each step echoing through the halls. It was an interrogation, not a welcome.
Nathaniel stared at the floor. “Would you prefer me dead like Mother?” The words slipped out before he could swallow them.
Nathaniel shrank back against the banister, but the damage was already done. They did not discuss Nathaniel’s mother—not for years. Other than the solitary headstone hidden in the corner of the garden, the manor bore no sign that Isla Fremont had ever lived there. Nathaniel should not have spoken of such things. He should not have spoken at all.
Instantly, the Commissioner spun Nathaniel around with practiced force and grabbed him by the shoulders, forcing eye contact. “What did you say?”
Nathaniel’s lungs constricted, panic building in his breath. “I … I’m sorry.” The words were barely coherent through his asthmatic breathing.
“How dare you,” the Commissioner growled, a strand of hair falling out of place in his fury. “I built this colony up from nothing—for you. My predecessor would have let the Tarnished run wild, spreading their tech—their ruinous lifestyle—throughout the Settlement. I cleaned up the mess—all for you—so you might inherit at an easier time than I!”
“I know,” Nathaniel murmured, and he wilted, staring down at their evenly squared shoes. But even toe-to-toe, Nathaniel would never truly be a match for his father. It did not matter how tall he grew, how bold he turned. He would never reach his father on his lofty plinth.
The Commissioner loosened his grip on Nathaniel’s shoulders. “You’ll be Commissioner one day, and I won’t have anyone but the very best carry my title.” He took an even breath and smoothed his hair, letting his tone drop. “Are you ready to take on that responsibility?”
Nathaniel nodded, not trusting himself to speak, or even breathe.
“Should I abandon any notion of our dynasty?”
“No.” Nathaniel had meant to speak with the conviction and confidence befitting his father’s heir, but the word came out as a squeak.
“Should I give up on our legacy?”
Nathaniel squared his shoulders and stared at the Commissioner’s chin, unable to bring his gaze to meet his father’s cold glare. “No.”
“Actions speak louder than words, Nathaniel Fremont.” He took a harsh step forward. “Don’t ever lie to me again.”
Nathaniel’s gut twisted. Lies formed the soft blanket keeping the warmth around him, lies made up the golden shield keeping danger at bay, and lies upheld the very framework of his existence. But they protected him, kept his metal heart secret from the rest of the world. They were not duplicitous or disobedient, not like the lies he’d spun to go to the Celestial Market.
The Commissioner smacked Nathaniel across his cheek.
Nathaniel was practiced at taking his father’s blows, but his foot caught on the stair behind him. As he stumbled backward, the metal in his chest clicked painfully. He clamped his jaw shut, stifling a groan, and folded in on himself.
“You and your tech are an embarrassment to our family—to my position!”
Nathaniel deserved that. He’d lied, crossed the one man who was supposed to love him. He should never have left the manor. Not even the small feeling of belonging the market had granted him was worth his father’s disappointment, especially not the tech that made him so inadequate, so embarrassing.
Nathaniel crumpled to the floor. The contents of his pockets scattered around him, but the force of his fall—or perhaps simple necessity—brought his heart back to a normal rhythm. Scurrying on his hands and knees to collect his possessions, Nathaniel’s fingers found the locket he’d purchased earlier that day.
He stared a moment at its intricate craftsmanship: Gears and tiny spirals of metal had been painstakingly welded together by an attentive but imperfect hand. Nathaniel spun one of the gears with his thumb, and the locket began to open. He quickly snapped it shut and buried it in his fist.
“You are not permitted to leave this house.” The Commissioner crossed his arms. “I’ve worked too hard, climbed too high. If you were caught, if the wrong people saw you—”
“The wrong people?” Nathaniel asked, too distracted by the gears in his hands to think twice about his words.
“We have enemies, Nathaniel.” The Commissioner heaved a sigh. “Enemies who would use our secrets against us. If the Tarnished discovered you, it would mean chaos—riots and uprisings. We could lose everything …” He trailed off, drumming his fingers against the gold button over his heart. “Remember, no one can know.”
He placed a hand under Nathaniel’s shoulder and helped him to his feet. Nathaniel let him, dragging his eyes up to meet the Commissioner’s icy stare.
“You are capable, my son.” He withdrew a square envelope from his breast pocket and handed it to Nathani
el. “Even your fiancée has no complaints. The girl is completely besotted.”
Nathaniel took an involuntary step back. “E-Eliza?” It had been weeks since he’d heard from the Orbital girl. They’d been formally betrothed for years, exchanging letters as regularly as communication through space permitted. Was his father in contact with her? Or had he simply intercepted the letters? Nathaniel flushed, thinking of his unpracticed flattery and clumsy penmanship. That, too, would surely be an embarrassment to his father. He made a mental note to do better.
The Commissioner frowned at his son’s stutter. “Perhaps her lack of complaint is simply because she has yet to meet you.”
The insult stung worse than the mark on his cheek, but Nathaniel reached up to take the proffered letter, pocketing it before the Commissioner could change his mind.
“Insecurity is an unattractive quality, Nathaniel. If you believed in yourself and paid a little more attention to the things that matter, you could be a passable Commissioner one day.” The Commissioner narrowed his eyes, sizing him up. “Though it’s often hard to tell, we are cut from the same cloth, you and I. Never forget that.”
Nathaniel was not likely to forget. He was not Nathaniel; he was the young Master Fremont. And whatever he did, for better or worse, it would reflect on the Commissioner.
As his father’s steps clicked a farewell against the stairs, Nathaniel stared at his own polished oxfords. When at last he was alone, he unclenched his palm. The locket had left grooves imprinted into his skin, tattooing him with its detailed design. He fiddled with the gears on the locket’s silvery face until it sprang open.
Inside, Nathaniel found a crumpled slip of paper. He smoothed away its wrinkles to reveal words printed in precise purple ink:
The Technician thanks you for your patronage.
Nathaniel’s heart raced impossibly against its metal prison. He knew only too well of the Technician, the worst—and greatest—of the Tarnished, tech users living outside the law.
The Commissioner and his officers did everything in their power to quash the use of tech inside the city. During Oliver Fremont’s tenure as Commissioner, he had shut down the Tech District, originally designed to better regulate tech users—now the Tarnished—within the Settlement; imprisoned dozens of collectors, some of whom were threats to society, and more of whom were not; and dissolved the complex web of underworld black market dealers that rose up in the wake of the District’s demise. The Tech Decrees made it nearly impossible to legally engage in tech-related activities, except during the Celestial Market, when tech was permitted for historic education. The Commissioner’s laws had eradicated all technology, dangerous or not, from the Settlement—until the Technician brought it back.
