by Rosiee Thor
Eliza shuddered, blinking away the image of herself standing beside a man, dressed in white with flowers in her hair and contrived bliss in her eyes. She’d never spent overlong hours on the idea, never allowed her mind to wander far from the task at hand, but when she’d imagined it—the future, a marriage, a romance—it had never been a man at her side.
Once, it had been Marla. She’d been a small, wild thing—a girl Eliza couldn’t forget, but could never have, either. She’d made Eliza want to work faster, try harder, be better. She’d made fighting almost as much fun as winning. But in the end, when it had come down to a life with Marla or a life beside the Queen, Eliza had chosen the Queen.
We are made or unmade by our choices, the Queen had taught her. And so Eliza had become her Eyes, dealing in lies instead of love.
It had been years since Eliza last looked into Marla’s mutinous green eyes and made promises she couldn’t keep. She could barely remember the feel of her skin, the touch of her lips. But still, eyes as green as the planet below haunted her, a love lost to ambition, a love lost to the stars.
But that girl was the past. This boy was the future.
With a flick of her finger, Eliza snapped open the envelope and unfolded the letter. Undisciplined penmanship spilled across the page. Eliza set her jaw and resigned herself to read.
Dear Eliza,
It is such a pleasure to hear from you again. Your last letter could not have arrived at a better time. I find myself lost, as of late, immersed in the murky waters of an ocean I don’t understand. My father has so many lines, it’s almost impossible not to cross one accidentally now and again. I want to do the right thing, but every time I try, I find the lines have shifted and I no longer know where I stand. I tell myself it’s all right as long as it’s not on purpose, as long as it’s not malicious, as long as I’m sorry.
Everything here is so twisted and complicated—the exact opposite of your life—and I’m sorry you’ll have to leave one day to be a part of this mess of a world. I am, truly, sorry for that.
I can’t seem to find it in me to be sorry about much else these days.
Wishing you well,
Nathaniel Fremont
Eliza traced his signature with her fingertip. Nathaniel Fremont was not her enemy. He was only a boy with a father he couldn’t understand and feelings he couldn’t process. They had that in common, at least.
Maybe he was just as unsure about their impending nuptials as she. Uncertainty she could work with. She could mold it into anything she wanted—a sword, a sickness, a salve.
Nathaniel was an idealist, and ignorant—not to mention a little awkward—yet he was determined to please his father and certain he never could.
Most of all, he was alone, with one parent in the ground and the other too high up to reach, though it didn’t stop him from trying. Eliza was the only one who saw him—and he had no idea the girl he wrote to wasn’t even real.
Eliza sighed and refolded the letter, setting it aside. The Eliza she’d crafted in her mind for this boy was everything his fiancée ought to be, but if she was to act the part convincingly, she would need to understand the girl he knew. She would need to become her, make her a person, not just a mask.
Nathaniel Fremont was a person, too, and though she would never love him, the least she could do was try not to hate him.
When Nathaniel came to, he didn’t know where he was or how he’d gotten there.
“Nice to have you back among the living.”
A face swam above him. Red hair and freckles moved in and out of focus, and for a moment he couldn’t place the girl peering down at him. Then it all came rushing back: He could remember leaving the Settlement and finding Anna, but he couldn’t remember how he’d ended up on the floor. Had she attacked him? No—that didn’t make sense. He was the intruder here, the one lying to get information.
Nathaniel sat up, blinking his eyes against a dull headache. “What happened?”
Anna offered her arm and he took it, letting her drag him back to his feet.
“I’m not sure.” She held his forearm, as if she was afraid he might fall again.
“That’s reassuring,” he muttered.
Anna pursed her lips. “You haven’t wound your TICCER in a while, I’d assume. If you’ve never done any maintenance, it’s a wonder it still works.”
Nathaniel rubbed his chest, remembering a hot flash of pain but feeling none at all now. He felt the whisper of her tools and fingers against his skin. A blush crept into his cheeks as he realized his shirt was open, his chest exposed.
He shouldn’t have let her know so much. Maybe he shouldn’t have come here at all. But he had and he did, and somehow a weight had been lifted now that someone else had seen his innermost secret, the one thing he was never allowed to share.
“So I’ll need to do maintenance? What does that mean?” He could hear her perfectly but had trouble registering her words. Perhaps he’d hit his head on the way down.
“I— Why don’t you sit?” She guided him by the elbow toward a dusty bench against the wall.
His skin rippled with gooseflesh where her cold fingers touched him, her pulse beating out of time with his own. Was hers faster or slower? He tried to focus, to feel her rhythm, but it unsteadied him. He wished she would let go.
Anna took a deep breath, sucking air through her teeth. “This is more complicated and more curious than I’m comfortable admitting.” She let go of his arm, but her shoulder pressed into his. “I’m not sure where to start.”
Nathaniel searched her face for a clue but found nothing except freckles and a brow knit in concentration. She sat so close, eyes boring into his. He was struck by the sudden impression that he was supposed to enjoy it, that another boy in his position would. Instead, he was filled with the same sense of expectation, the churning of his stomach that came with Eliza’s letters. This was the kind of moment people meant when they said he’d meet someone someday, when they said he’d understand when he was older.
But Nathaniel was older, and age had not brought with it the sweeping desire to fall in love or kiss or sit shoulder to shoulder with someone he’d just met.
Nathaniel scooted away a fraction of an inch. “Why don’t you start with the simplest part and work from there?” A smile crept onto his lips as he parroted her words. “Begin at the beginning.”
“None of this is simple.” Anna chewed her bottom lip. “A TICCER is a complicated bit of machinery, and the type you have isn’t supposed to run on its own. It needs to be wound regularly, and the panels should have been expanded as you got older. Your heart’s quite literally outgrown your TICCER, which is why you don’t make any sort of logical sense.” She ran her hands through her hair, linking her fingers behind her head.
Nathaniel leaned forward, elbows on his knees. Though he’d come with the foulest of intentions, he found his interest genuine. The Technician had failed to show, but this girl knew about machinery. Perhaps she could shed light where his father couldn’t—or wouldn’t.
“None of this makes any sense.” He let his fingers brush the steel resting in his skin. He’d spent so many years avoiding it, pretending it wasn’t real. It was easier that way—better, even. “No one talks about tech in the Settlement.”
“Dandies,” Anna scoffed.
“Pardon?” Nathaniel could tell she’d meant it as an insult by the pink blush spreading across her cheeks at his question.
“I shouldn’t call you that. You aren’t one of them.” She said the last word the same way she’d said dandies. “It’s what we call the Commissioner’s followers, enemies of tech who don’t truly understand what they oppose. They tend to dress, well, like you—elevated. But you’re different, right?”
Nathaniel leaned back. Her accusation stung. He wasn’t different; he was his father’s son. Only she didn’t know that—she couldn’t know that, not if he wanted to meet the fabled Technician. “Some tech is worth opposing, though, isn’t it?” He shivered, know
ing the answer. Without tech, he wouldn’t be alive, but without tech, his mother might not be dead. How could this thing that had brought him such loss also give him life?
Anna laughed, harsh like china breaking. “How can you even ask that? You have metal in your chest keeping you alive, just like me. And you think the Tower and the Commissioner are right to condemn us when they don’t abide by the same laws?”
“Tech Decree Twenty-Six gives the Commissioner the freedom to use tech when necessary,” Nathaniel said. “The law doesn’t apply—and the Tower doesn’t fall under the same set of laws. As long as it doesn’t interfere with Earth Adjacent, they’re free to use tech as they will.”
“And you see nothing wrong with that?” Anna’s eyes grew wide as she scrutinized him.
Nathaniel recoiled at her piercing stare but still managed to say with some level of dignity, “It makes sense. If the Commissioner wants to fight the Tarnished, he must employ the same technologies—level the playing field, as such.”
Anna laughed hollowly. “The field has never been level. It doesn’t matter if we have the same tools when he has all the power, and always will. You make it sound like some kind of war where both sides have an equal chance.”
“Isn’t it?” Nathaniel asked before he could stop himself. He ought to have known better than to encourage her—he’d never take any of her propaganda seriously, anyway.
Anna sighed and crossed her arms. “The Commissioner’s fighting for the utter destruction of our kind. He wants to wipe us off the map, kill us in our homes, tear us from our hearts. If the Commissioner wins, it means total devastation.”
“And if you win?”
“We don’t win, Nathaniel.” Anna shook her head, lowering her voice to barely a whisper. “We survive.”
Nathaniel sat in the wake of Anna’s words, letting them wash up and over him like waves. His father had made it seem so clear. The Tarnished were the enemy; they deserved the full force of the Settlement’s hostility. But Anna didn’t feel like the enemy. She felt like a person, like a teacher, maybe even like a friend. She wasn’t trying to destroy the careful peace his father had given the Settlement. She was only trying to live.
That was the power of the Tarnished, though. Nathaniel’s father had warned him time and again of their dangerous logic. He couldn’t let Anna sway him, he couldn’t let her change him.
“Some of the laws make sense,” Nathaniel said quietly, grasping for the truths he knew.
“That so?” Anna leaned back, her eyes narrowing.
“The Commissioner might be harsh toward tech users, but there’s a reason for that.” Nathaniel sat straighter. “Tech is dangerous! We destroyed Former Earth with technology.”
“And yet we terraformed Earth Adjacent with that same tech.”
Nathaniel swallowed, unable to meet Anna’s eye. “At least now we have a second chance to do it right.”
“You think the Commissioner’s right to ban all tech—even if it’s helping people, regardless of the lives that might be lost.” Anna threw her hands in the air. “What is a planet worth if we aren’t alive to live on it?”
“We didn’t see the value of our planet all those years ago, and look what happened. So no, I don’t think the Commissioner’s entirely wrong. Tech is dangerous—its potential is dangerous.” As the words poured from his lips, Nathaniel wasn’t sure he believed them. He’d heard them all his life; they were his mantra, his truth. But now that he’d seen inside his own heart—literally—the threat didn’t seem so urgent. “Maybe not all tech,” he murmured at last, a whisper he’d never repeat.
“Not all tech?” Anna asked incredulously. “So what tech is acceptable? Should I deny an armless boy a prosthetic arm? What about my client who can’t walk without a metal leg? Or you? Whose request should I deny? The Settlement won’t help you, with or without tech, so where do I draw the line? Or is that privilege reserved only for the wealthy?”
Nathaniel swallowed with difficulty. When she put it like that, he couldn’t contest the failings of their society. Though he’d seldom left the manor, he’d never seen anyone with only one arm or leg. Did he simply not see it because he’d been trained to ignore it, or was it hidden away just like him? In what other ways might his eyes have failed him?
He shoved the thought away. His father would not neglect his people. When it had mattered, his father had used tech to save Nathaniel’s life. A warm bubble formed in his stomach; the Commissioner had cared about his son so much that Nathaniel’s life had been worth going against his own beliefs.
Swallowing his emotions, Nathaniel set his jaw. “Pre-industrial tech is allowed.” The words were ghosts of his father’s.
Anna laughed again, more like a cackle. “It isn’t nearly so simple as that. Do you know what just so happens to be pre-industrial? Clocks.” She flicked her chest, sending a metal ping through the air, her own TICCER adding to the debate. “But the Commissioner isn’t so fond of pre-industrial tech when you use it for post-industrial science. The minute we combine blood and steel, he no longer cares if that metal’s pre-industrial or not. The use of tech on the human body is the highest form of depravity to him. Doesn’t matter if it saves lives, it’s wicked.”
Nathaniel’s eyebrows crashed together. He’d never thought of it that way.
“We need these to survive, and we’re not the only ones. There are more just like you and me, but you won’t find any of them sitting on the Commissioner’s council. Those at the top will always get what they need, legal or no, and the rest of us will be left to suffer.”
“Those at the top,” Nathaniel parroted, barely aware he’d spoken at all. She meant him, though of course she couldn’t possibly know his identity. She’d no idea how wrong she was. And how right. For wasn’t it exactly as she’d said? He’d been given a TICCER, despite the law, and he’d never see the inside of a jail cell. He’d gotten exactly what he needed with no consequences.
Anna pressed her hand against her heart. “When your life is on the line, it’s hard to care what a self-important man like the Commissioner thinks of your methods. He calls us Tarnished, as if we’re somehow less than—as if it’s an insult, not an illness.” She prodded Nathaniel’s chest, finger colliding with metal. “You shouldn’t be alive right now. You shouldn’t even exist.”
Nathaniel stopped moving. Was it a threat or a warning? “What do you mean by that?”
Anna let her hands fall, turning to look at him. Her eyes, a blue so faint they were almost gray, pinned him with an impervious stare. “You’re a medical miracle, and I don’t believe in those. You should be dead—you could be dead any second.”
Nathaniel bit his lip. Never in all his fantasies of how the day might go had this possibility crossed his mind. He’d hoped it would be a simple matter of capturing the Technician—no talk of tech and his own mortality. “What should I do, then?”
Anna said something into her hands that Nathaniel didn’t quite catch, but then she looked up and said, “Meet me again in a week.”
“Same time, same place?”
Anna shook her head violently. “No, no. Wouldn’t want anyone to catch us if you were followed.” She held out her palm. “Give it here.”
“Wh-what?” Nathaniel’s hand flew to his chest, unsure what of his she wanted but entirely certain he didn’t want to give it.
“The locket.”
Nathaniel fished the locket out from his pants pocket. It wasn’t much of a keepsake, but something about the way it spun as he held the chain sent both cold and warmth through his veins.
With fingers that flashed in precise movements, Anna opened the locket. She handed the crumpled note with her instructions back to him before removing a fresh slip of paper from her pocket. She scribbled a few words with a pen and stuffed it inside before returning the locket.
“Another riddle?” Nathaniel asked, twisting the gear with his thumb.
Anna grabbed his hand, prying his fingers away from the locket. “No, no. D
on’t open it yet.”
“I don’t suppose you could just tell me what it all means?”
Anna retrieved a wrench from her pack and replaced the metal panel over the clock in his chest. “Not a chance,” she said with the smallest of smiles.
Nathaniel’s breath hitched. He’d come so far, yet accomplished so little. “And the Technician—will I actually be receiving his services next time?” He tried to sound nonchalant, like it hardly mattered.
Anna only smiled. “The Technician’s interest is not easily caught.”
The return trip to the Settlement proved an easier walk. His lungs didn’t burn with each cresting hill, and he found he’d fatigued only a little when he reached the gates.
No Orbitals milled about now amid whom he could travel back inside, and the officers at the gate stared out at the field, as if anticipating an intruder.
With a sigh, Nathaniel hid behind one the boulders sprawled out between himself and the gate. Perhaps if he waited long enough, he could slip past unnoticed during a guard change. The cover of night would be upon them soon and he could use the darkness to sneak inside.
Fishing the locket out, Nathaniel’s mind chased itself in circles. He unfolded the paper inside, fingers shaking.
The Technician thanks you for your patience.
Patient didn’t seem the right word to describe his manner during their meeting, but perhaps from her perspective it made sense. She’d been rather confusing. He had more questions now than ever. He flipped the paper over.
For further maintenance, see a consultant when the moon smiles to the east and the porridge cools at the heart of the Settlement.
Of course she’d changed the pattern. Nathaniel grinned. Anna was many things, but predictable was not one of them.
A commotion near the gate drew Nathaniel’s attention, and he stepped out from behind the boulder to get a better look.
