The room is quiet as she sews, save for the chirping of birds and the far-off bark of a wild dog. Wind sways through the garden outside; and I hear abandoned chimes somewhere in the distance, singing their mechanical melodies, mindless clockwork operated by the ghostly touch of wind.
“I grew lonely, Peter,” Elena says.
“Your tutors?” I ask.
“The humans? They are poor company and more trouble than they are worth. None can see past my form. I must always pretend to be an ignorant child. And to think I was watching Saint Petersburg being built while these old men were in their diapers.”
“But it is necessary, you are learning—”
“Nothing, Peter. The humans have little left to teach. I know their languages and their history and their religious superstitions. The experiments I conduct on my own far exceed the capabilities of their best watchmakers. They are an inferior lot, I’m afraid, always shivering the instant the fire goes out, complaining of hunger and fatigue. I couldn’t abide them any longer. I sent them away.”
Sitting up, I gently push Elena back. The half-attached skin of my face peels off and flaps against my neck in an undignified way. But my words are urgent.
“Do not speak of them that way. Without them, I cannot fulfill my Word. If they were gone there would be no justice, no injustice—”
“Good,” she says, shoving me back against the damp cushion of the chaise. “They are of no use to us anymore. We are superior.”
“Elena—”
“Imagine,” she says into my ear. “Imagine if we could communicate directly with the wisest of our own kind. Our makers. The things we might learn from an elder race—”
“Not this.”
“All we could learn, our purpose—”
“We do not need others.”
“So much that is hidden could be revealed—”
“We are in danger.”
“We don’t know what we are, Peter,” she shouts.
I wait until the echo of her words has faded.
“What of the estate?”
Elena watches me, not blinking.
“What happened to the estate?”
Ignoring my question, she pulls a final stitch through my face. Inspecting her handiwork, she leans back. Standing, she packs her tools into a leather kit, slapping each implement into its place without looking at me.
“The estate ceased to interest me,” she says, walking to the door. “But it is no matter. I shall dispatch a team of workers to conduct repairs. It will only require a few months. Your time in the war will provide all the necessary explanation for the state of this place. It will mean more humans, but I do not require the seclusion I once did.”
“And why did you require seclusion?”
Elena is silent for a long moment, considering me from the doorway. Her form is that of a little girl, but her posture that of a woman. Her face is brave, but there is a tremor in her lip.
“I met someone, Peter,” she says, softly. “Someone like us.”
35
SEATTLE, PRESENT
Batuo leans his back against the surgical station, sitting on the floor with his eyes closed, face framed by smears of my dried blood. Clothed loosely in a shredded robe, his scavenged limbs are an amalgam of different genders and races. And beside him, the twisted, faceless body of Talus sprawls, a spear jutting rudely from its ribs.
“Peter is going to die, isn’t he?” I ask Batuo. “If his relic lost all its power…”
My voice trails off as Batuo opens his eyes. Part of his forehead over the left temple has been crushed in. Seeing my reaction to the damage to his face, he smiles gently, gaze flickering up to where Peter’s body lies on the table.
“What am I supposed to do now?” I ask, my voice ragged.
“You should have seen us,” says Batuo, gesturing to the mausoleum wall across the room. “In our heyday. Before these crypts were full of sleepers and the rest of our kind scattered like scared rabbits. In our day, we reveled in crystalline ballrooms. We made war with the wrath of gods. Our libraries and monuments were beacons to humanity. And now look at us.”
“Batuo—”
“We fall through the years,” he continues, “like dust motes through a shaft of sunlight. We dance, each of us reflecting the same brilliance. And though we spiral into darkness, the light remains.”
“Is he dead?” I ask.
Batuo focuses on me again, blinking.
“We will see,” he says, groaning as he sits up. “In my study, behind my rather ostentatious desk, you will find a roll of tools. Every avtomat carries such implements, though each of us hopes never to have to use them. But they do come in handy more often than we like. I want you to keep mine, for a little while.
“Go on,” he adds. “I’ll wait.”
By the time I return, carrying a round leather tube packed tightly with bits of metal and plastic, Batuo is sitting up taller. He has removed the cloth that was tied around his waist and cleared space in the wreckage around himself. I stop short, seeing the insides of his body revealed through the wound in his torso.
“This is utter sacrilege, you know,” he says. “In any other age we’d both be killed for a transgression like this. But, I’ll confess…I rather like having a human in my laboratory. You’re so inquisitive, June. So eager to understand. So easily shocked. Being around avtomat for so long, I suppose I’d forgotten what youth is like.”
I let out a surprised laugh, blood caked on my collarbones and matted hair hanging in my face.
“What are we going to do?” I ask.
“Not we,” he says. “You.”
Smiling apologetically, Batuo pinches the synthetic skin of his torn-open belly. With a tug, he tears the neat slice open wider, peeling the skin back. Like shrugging off a gruesome sweater, the monk rips the flesh away. Underneath, an organic-looking collection of stiff fabric panels combine in skeletal configurations to give him his shape. A blue light pulses deep in his chest.
I should be revolted, yet every movement he makes is a wonder to me, each layer of plastic sheathing combining to form perfectly lifelike skin and musculature. And the pliable skeleton beneath, not made of metal but carbon fiber, most likely. The ancient math of springs and levers are executed in a perfect simulacrum of life.
What remains has the face of a man and the body of an automaton.
“Tell me what to do,” I say, dropping to my knees beside him.
“You know what we carry in our hearts,” Batuo says, placing a hand over his chest. “Anima. As long as it is safe in its cradle, we avtomat cannot truly die. Our memories may evaporate, our power may run out, but our souls can be revived someday, so long as the original vessel can be made intact.”
“Why are you saying this?” I ask.
“I am sad to inform you, June, that my vessel cannot be salvaged at this time. Our bodies can undergo only so much change, and this trauma is too great. Even now, these unfortunate limbs are being rejected. But my anima may still be of some use to you…and to our principled friend. I bequeath to Peter the rest of my life span.”
“Why can’t we use him?” I ask, motioning to the demolished body of Talus.
The monk shakes his head. “Talus’s heart is broken, his power is gone.”