“Let me check,” the woman said.
She pushed back a sleeve, exposing the voice transmitter strapped to her wrist. Mokoya blinked. It was an open secret that the city guard sheltered the Machinist rebellion in Bataanar, but parading Machinist technology under the raja’s nose was a fresh, trenchant show of boldness.
The woman tapped the transmitter. Metallic noise screeched from it before Akeha’s voice surged through, thick with irritation: “What is it now?”
“It’s Lao. Your sister’s h—”
“Is your head rotting? Send her up. Stop wasting my time.”
The signal dropped like a man with his throat cut. Lao smiled thinly at Mokoya. “Well. You heard the boss.”
He hadn’t let her finish a third word. That was impressive, even for Akeha. The meeting with the raja must not have gone well.
In the gloom at the top of the stairs stood the guardroom door, metal-boned and solid in its frame. Mokoya pushed it open.
Light and chaos swallowed her.
If the transmitter had been a brazen display of Machinist affiliation, Mokoya was stepping into the beating, brawling heart of that daring. The guardroom boiled with enclosed sweat and steam, heated by glass balls of light that hung from an overhead forest of wires. Machine schematics papered the walls. Fifty-odd faces turned to stare at her, distracted from their tasks: Stacking boxes. Opening boxes. Screen-printing circulars. At one long table, about ten people sat, halfway through assembling and polishing guns.
Over this manifold scene of arrested productivity towered the biggest generator Mokoya had ever seen, a gourd-shaped bronze furnace on a triplet of clawed legs, attended to by a forest of thick pipes. The air in the room surged tidally as it thrummed and purred, a breath cycle to rival a naga’s.
Mokoya looked at the burnt patina of lilac bruises on the generator’s skin, imagined pressing the flesh of her wrists against it, and shuddered through a memory of the Grand Monastery in the seconds before the explosion.
“Nao! You’re alive.”
The present day called. Around a table overflowing with scrolls and journals stood Thennjay and Akeha, their calculated distance and folded arms calcified around an argument she had missed.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, I am.”
Behind the table’s accrued detritus sat Yongcheow, one foot propped up on his stool, flipping through a journal with determined nonchalance.
“What did Tan Khimyan want from you?” Akeha asked.
“Nothing important. She tried to blame Rider for the naga attack. She thought I might believe her.”
He squinted. “Who’s Rider?”
“My friend. In the tent.”
She could tell that Akeha had forgotten who they were, and she took vindictive pleasure at his internal struggle. Serves him right for not paying attention. She pressed forward, sidestepping his discomfort: “What’s happening now?”
Akeha shook his head as he resurfaced. “What does it look like?” During their conversation, the guardroom had returned to swarming industriousness. Somebody hammered at something, a sound of wood against metal. In the background, the generator hummed and clicked. It was very loud.
“He’s preparing for war,” Thennjay said.
He. Not we. “You’d prefer to do something else,” she said.
Akeha, talking over Thennjay, gibed: “He’d prefer we bang our foreheads against a wall until they bleed.”
“Bengang Baru only happened because its mayor helped,” Thennjay insisted. Mokoya recognized his tone; it was the one he used in quarrels he’d already lost a dozen times. “We could still turn things around here.”
In between them, fixated on pages of his journal, Yongcheow muttered, “I still think we should be prepared in case the naga comes back.”
“It won’t come back,” Akeha snapped. “Tan Khimyan has gotten what she wants. The troops are already on their way. Why would she need another attack?”
Yongcheow shrugged. “It would be better if we fixed that shield. Surely you can spare an engineer or two.”
“Who would then be wasting time repairing it, instead of making sure everybody has weapons that work.”
Yongcheow shrugged again. He flipped a page.
Was it her imagination, or had the generator’s clicking grown louder? She turned her head to listen. She swore its mechanical aspiration had sped up.
Thennjay said, “Akeha, preparing for a street battle is a mistake. It’s going to be a bloodbath.”
“What choice do I have? The Protectorate comes in two days. And Choonghey won’t change his mind. Don’t be a fool.” One of his guards stood shiftily by the side, clutching a scroll in her hands. Akeha waved her over.
“I told you we’ve focused on the wrong person,” Thennjay said, as Akeha inspected the list the girl presented him. “He’s an old man. Old men are like donkeys: they’re stubborn, and they’ll kick you every chance they get. We need to talk to his daughter. Use her to influence him.”
“The oasis gate needs more medics,” Akeha told his underling. “Ask Anh to see if there might be more volunteers from the clans.” As she hurried off, he turned on Thennjay. “You want to use an eighteen-year-old girl?”
“She’s old enough.”
“Old enough for what?”
The clicking was definitely louder. The surge, recede, surge, recede of the thrumming accelerated in pace with her heartbeat. It was going to blow. She couldn’t save them all. She wouldn’t move fast enough to fling herself in between. Maybe she could make a barrier, throw it around Akeha and Thennjay. Maybe she should make that barrier, right now. Now, before—
“Nao? What is it?”
Her heart stopped in her chest, then started again. They were looking at her, all three of them, and she realized they were waiting for her answer. What had they been discussing? Something about Wanbeng. Something like, if she failed and there was war and hundreds died, how would she feel? Something.
Numbness sparked through her hands, paralyzed her tongue. She found movement from somewhere and said, “Wanbeng is no wilting flower. We should talk to her.” Her voice wobbled, but at least the words that came out of her were human.
Akeha looked at her longer than necessary. Then he allowed himself a long, angry sigh. “Fine. Go chase your water mirages. Leave me alone to do the real work.”
She said, to his petulant outburst, “What’s the harm in talking to her?”
Akeha’s only response was to storm away. He gestured to another of his guards and began speaking to him, his back turned to them, his words too low to make out.
There was no point arguing with Akeha when he got in a mood. Mokoya touched Thennjay’s arm lightly. “Let’s go.”
Thennjay turned to follow her, but when she’d pushed the guardroom door open, Akeha’s voice rang out over the clamor. “If it were your daughter, would you say what’s the harm?”
Mokoya’s lips curled as the question hit like a punch, but it was Thennjay who growled, “You dare?”
Akeha’s face flickered with unreadable emotion. Mokoya tugged at Thennjay. “Come.” There was no use in lingering further.
Chapter Twelve