Four hours before dawn, things went to pieces. Or, more accurately, I went to pieces. The tracker data I had been monitoring cut out, and suddenly all twenty of me were blind, deaf, immobile. Each segment could see only from a single pair of eyes, hear only through a single pair of ears, move only that single body. It took a few bewildered, panicked moments for my segments to realize that each was cut off from the others, each instance of me alone in a single body. Worst of all, in that same instant all data from Lieutenant Awn ceased.
From that moment I was twenty different people, with twenty different sets of observations and memories, and I can only remember what happened by piecing those separate experiences together.
At the moment the blow fell, all twenty segments immediately, without thought, extended my armor, those segments that were dressed not making even the least attempt to modify it to cover any part of my uniforms. In the house eight sleeping segments woke instantly, and once I had recovered my composure they rushed to where Lieutenant Awn lay trying to sleep. Two of those segments, Seventeen and Four, seeing Lieutenant Awn seemingly well, and several other segments around her, went to the house console to check communications status—the console wasn’t working.
“Communications are out,” my Seventeen segment called, voice distorted by the smooth, silver armor.
“Not possible,” said Four, and Seventeen didn’t answer, because no answer was necessary, given the actuality.
Some of my segments in the upper city actually turned toward the Fore-Temple water before realizing I’d best stay where I was. Every single segment in the plaza and the temple turned toward the house. One of me took off running to be sure of Lieutenant Awn, and two said, at once, “The upper city!” and another two, “The storm siren!” and for two confused seconds the pieces of me tried to decide what to do next. Segment Nine ran into the temple residence and woke the priest sleeping by the storm siren, who tripped it.
Just before the siren blew, Jen Shinnan ran out of her house in the upper city shouting, “Murder! Murder!” Lights came on in the houses around her, but further noise was drowned out by the shrieking of the siren. My nearest segment was four streets away.
All around the lower city, storm shutters rattled down. The priests in the temple ceased their prayers, and the head priest looked at me, but I had no information for her, and gestured my helplessness. “My communications are cut off, Divine,” said that segment. The head priest blinked, uncomprehending. Speech was useless while the siren blew.
The Lord of the Radch hadn’t reacted at the moment I had fragmented, though she was connected to the rest of herself in much the same way I ordinarily was. Her apparent lack of surprise was strange enough for my segment nearest her to notice it. But it might have been no more than self-possession; the siren elicited no more than an upward glance and a raised eyebrow. Then she stood and walked out onto the plaza.
It was the third worst thing that has ever happened to me. I had lost all sense of Justice of Toren overhead, all sense of myself. I had shattered into twenty fragments that could barely communicate with each other.
Just before the siren had blown, Lieutenant Awn had sent a segment to the temple, with orders to sound the alarm. Now that segment came running into the plaza, where it stood, hesitating, looking at the rest of itself, visible but not there as far as my sense of myself was concerned.
The siren stopped. The lower city was silent, the only sound was my footsteps, and my armor-filtered voices, trying to talk to myself, to get organized so I could function at least in some small way.
The Lord of the Radch raised one graying eyebrow. “Where is Lieutenant Awn?”
That was, of course, the question uppermost in the minds of all my segments that didn’t already know, but now the one of me who had arrived with the order from Lieutenant Awn had something it knew it could do. “Lieutenant Awn is on her way, my lord,” it said, and ten seconds later Lieutenant Awn and most of the rest of me that had been in the house arrived, rushing into the plaza.
“I thought you had this area under control.” Anaander Mianaai didn’t look at Lieutenant Awn as she spoke, but the direction of her words was clear.
“So did I.” And then Lieutenant Awn remembered where she was, and to whom she was speaking. “My lord. Begging your pardon.” Each of me had to restrain itself from turning entirely to watch Lieutenant Awn, to be sure she was really there, because I couldn’t sense her otherwise. A few whispers sorted out which of my segments would keep close to her, and the rest would have to trust that.
My Ten segment came around the Fore-Temple water at a dead run. “Trouble in the upper city!” it called, and came to a halt in front of Lieutenant Awn, where I cleared the path for myself. “People are gathering at Jen Shinnan’s house, they’re angry, they’re talking about murder, and getting justice.”
“Murder. Oh, fuck!”
All the segments near Lieutenant Awn said, in unison, “Language, Lieutenant!” Anaander Mianaai turned a disbelieving look on me, but said nothing.
“Oh, fuck!” Lieutenant Awn repeated.