“You don’t have to do this,” I say, desperation in my voice. “There has to be another way.”
“This is not your decision,” he says. “We each act according to our Word and I am serving mine, as I have since the first days.”
Batuo’s body is wracked with a shiver. Squeezing his eyes closed, he grits his teeth and shakes his head as if to clear it.
“You’ll need to open Peter,” he says.
“Open Peter?” I repeat, idiotically, struggling to make sense of his words.
Batuo lies down on his back, parallel to Peter on the operating table. I watch his translucent lungs inflate under carbon fiber ribs. When he speaks again, his voice is a whisper.
“There is a seam on his chest,” he says.
I can smell something burning, hear the static discharge of electricity. I drop the leather bundle on the table beside Peter. As I unroll it, strange tools appear, some modern and familiar, some others carved out of stone.
Oh my god, I’m thinking. What am I doing?
Leaning over, I unbutton Peter’s shirt and spread it open. I tentatively put my palms flat against his bare chest. The flesh is warm and muscular under my fingers. He has a light smattering of freckles over his upper chest, a little hair. I trace my fingertips across his shoulders, over his collarbones, and along his sternum.
A small ridge reveals itself to my fingers.
I pinch two handfuls of flesh over the pectoral muscles. Elbows pointed to the walls, I lean in and pull. Some part of me is wincing at the pain this would cause a person. I’m not pulling as hard as I can, empathizing with this manlike object.
He’s a machine, June. Not a man.
I lean over farther, pulling harder, my hair cascading over Peter’s face. Grunting, elbows akimbo, I tug until the flesh of his chest suddenly gives, parting smoothly, a straight seam opening wide from his navel to his throat.
“Oh, wow,” I breathe.
The synthetic skin gapes open, revealing a light golden spiderweb of hard fiber ribs. Roughly in the shape of a rib cage and sternum, the protective webbing encloses an armored metal sphere. A blue light pulses inside the metal cage.
Letting my eyes travel up his chest to his face, I see Peter’s head is pushed to the side, eyes closed, still unconscious. Arcs of electricity crackle over the surface of his skin, causing random muscle twitches.
“Among my tools, you will see a bi disk,” says Batuo. “Align it correctly and power will transfer from one anima to another. Use caution—”
Eyes squeezing shut, Batuo’s body is wracked with another spasm. Kneeling, I take his hand in mine without thinking, squeezing it, trying to comfort him. Feeling the pressure, he opens his eyes. Lips shaking, he manages to speak:
“Wake me, June. When you and the man-eater succeed. The old one you carry around your neck…he knows. Be wary of him, but learn his secrets—even if he refuses to teach.”
Head falling back, Batuo’s face goes slack. After a few seconds, his eyes aren’t seeing anymore. His chest is exposed, light streaming from between the alien slats of his rib cage.
“Wait,” I say. “I don’t know how. I’m not ready.”
But the monk doesn’t respond. He is gone.
My soul.
Batuo’s sternum is similar to Peter’s, but made of a slightly different material. Not as much effort has gone into making a cage to protect the relic inside. Every avtomat must be custom built. Each of them has been upgrading him or herself for centuries, using whatever technology is on hand. Batuo has been using parts from this cathedral lab, and he has rebuilt himself more subtly than Peter.
“Sorry, Batuo,” I murmur.
With a solid couple of punches I’m able to crack the brittle carbon fiber ribs covering his chest. Reaching in, I snap them off and peel them out, tossing them on the ground. Finally, nestled deep inside his chest, I see what I’m looking for.
A relic, shaped like an arc, sitting in a cradle that seems to be made of translucent ceramic, faded Chinese markings on it.
This is the anima that lies at the heart of every avtomat. It’s the mind and the memory and the power. Batuo’s is inscribed with a word in the old language, different from the symbol imprinted on the one I carry. Using both hands, I lift the relic from his ruined chest, the weight of it oddly familiar to me.
Laying Batuo’s relic on the table, I glance at the tool roll.
The bi that he spoke of is a thin disk, carved out of jade and etched with intricate symbols. It is exactly the size of two crescent relics. Turning it in my fingers, I see bumps tracing the outer edge that align with indentations on Batuo’s relic.
I’m starting to get an idea of how to proceed.
I run my fingers inside Peter’s chest, feeling for a release button. Nothing. Eyes closed, breathing steady, I push and prod until my fingers settle into a couple indentations. Squeezing with all my might, I clench my fingers.
Snap.
Peter’s armored sternum opens, revealing a bare, blue-glowing relic cradled deep in his chest cavity. The symbol staring up at me is the Word that Peter follows. Studying it, I wonder what it means—what single word could possibly guide his entire life?
“Here we go, Peter,” I mutter.
I place the bi disk into his chest, over his relic, rotating it until I feel it align. Then I pick up Batuo’s relic and turn it over in my fingers. Lowering it inside, I stop when I feel a click. A long moment passes, and nothing happens.
I exhale in a burst.
“Damn—”
Turning my wrist back and forth, I search for some kind of lock or symmetry. I’m alone in this baroque laboratory, surrounded by broken machines. Someone or something is out there, hunting me. And unless this works, I’m on my own.
My job is to make these artifacts work. It’s what I do.
“Come on,” I say. “Come on!”
Elbows on Peter’s chest, I collapse and let my face land in the warm place between his neck and shoulder.
“Listen to me, Peter,” I say into his ear. “It’s time to wake up.”
36
LONDON, 1758
I have met someone, Elena said. Someone like us.
The meaning of her words unfolds in my mind. A darkness sweeps over my vision and fear tightens like a knot between my shoulder blades.
Met someone.
I stride after her, but Elena has already disappeared into this mansion she haunts, scurrying off into abandoned corridors. The rooms are square and tall, lined with gaudy wallpaper, the elaborately painted ceilings encircled with gold-leafed molding. Somewhere, Elena’s shoes tap over hardwoods.
“Elena!” I shout, reaching the limits of the mechanism in my chest, vibrating the walls. My boots hit the floor like steam engine pistons as I methodically search each room. The sun is low now, its reddish light sending long shadows over moldering rugs. I rake my fingers across a wall, tearing away rain-soaked wallpaper like a layer of blistered skin.
Stop this, some part of me is saying. She has done no harm.