Chapter Three: Removal
The lexmechanic’s hand was cold.
Cael had expected metal to feel like the walls of the creche—dull, slightly greasy and warmed by the forge beneath them. Instead, the priest’s fingers were polished brass, smooth enough to reflect the overhead lumens. Fine joints shifted beneath Cael’s palm as they closed around his hand.
The grip was gentle.
That frightened him more than force would have.
No attendant had ever held his hand.
Hands directed, restrained, examined, struck and assigned. They lifted infants because infants could not walk. They carried the injured because the injured had temporarily ceased to be useful. They did not join one person to another without immediate purpose.
Cael looked down at their linked hands.
“Where are we going?”
“To the Temple of Ordered Knowing.”
“For how long?”
“Indeterminate.”
“Will I return to the creche?”
“No.”
The answer entered Cael’s mind without resistance.
It remained there for several seconds before its meaning unfolded.
“No?”
“Your allocation has changed.”
“My recess is there.”
“It will be reassigned.”
“My work is there.”
“Another will perform it.”
“Nemi is there.”
The lexmechanic stopped.
The examination chamber hummed around them. The restored compressor continued operating, each stroke steady and correct. Its rhythm made Cael aware of his own heart.
“What is Nemi?” the priest asked.
Cael looked up at him.
“A person.”
“Insufficiently precise.”
“She is Forty-Four.”
“A creche associate?”
“Yes.”
“Biological relation?”
“No.”
“Contractual dependency?”
“No.”
“Assigned collaborative function?”
Cael hesitated.
They sorted components beside each other. They shared ration intervals when permitted. Nemi whispered during silence periods and kicked the wall between their sleeping recesses. She told him about stars. She lied about stealing nutrient biscuits and then divided them with him.
None of this had an official designation.
“No.”
“Then her relevance to your transfer is negligible.”
The lexmechanic began walking again.
Cael remained where he was.
Their joined hands pulled taut.
The priest turned.
Cael had seen children resist attendants before. Resistance ended quickly. He knew the positions in which the human arm ceased to function correctly. He knew how a shock stave sounded when pressed against cloth. He knew rebellion was wasteful.
Still, he did not move.
“I have to tell her.”
“No.”
“She will not know where I went.”
“Correct.”
“She will think I was extinguished.”
“Her conclusion does not alter your allocation.”
Cael stared at the priest’s iron jaw.
“You said error is instructive.”
The lenses above the jaw rotated.
“Correct.”
“If she thinks I am dead, she will be in error.”
“Also correct.”
“Then someone should instruct her.”
The lexmechanic studied him.
Cael could not tell whether he had made a clever argument or a fatal one.
The priest’s brass fingers loosened.
“Three minutes,” he said.
Cael ran.
He left the assessment chambers, crossed the tiled vestibule and passed through a service arch before the attendants could challenge him. He knew the route back to Sortation Chapel Three. Every child knew the paths connecting work, instruction, nutrition and sleep. Knowledge of any other corridor was discouraged.
He ran through the permitted corridors.
Workers moved aside when they saw the red-robed lexmechanic following at a measured pace behind him.
Cael reached the chapel during the final work cycle.
The conveyor belts moved beneath swinging incense burners. Children stood in two lines, separating salvage. Grey hands lifted iron, copper and brass.
Nemi occupied her usual position.
She was examining a burned circuit plate.
“Nemi.”
She looked up.
The brass plate fell from her hands.
Cael stopped on the opposite side of the conveyor.
The other children continued working. A few glanced toward him, then saw the priest and lowered their heads.
Nemi looked at the open doorway behind Cael.
“Did you escape?”
“No.”
“Are you in trouble?”
“No.”
She looked at the lexmechanic.
“Are you being made into a servitor?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
Cael had no answer that would satisfy her.
“I am being instructed.”
“In what?”
“The first mysteries.”
Nemi’s eyes widened.
The phrase meant little to either of them, but they knew who spoke of mysteries. Red robes. Metal voices. Priests whose names contained numbers and titles. Beings who crossed factory floors while ordinary workers pressed themselves against the walls.
“You’re going to be one of them?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re wearing grey.”
“I know.”
“You don’t have any metal parts.”
“I know.”
“You ask too many questions.”
“I know.”
Nemi looked at the lexmechanic again.
“Did you fix something?”
“A compressor.”
“What was wrong?”
“The valve was backward.”
“That’s stupid.”
“Yes.”
She considered this.
“Who put it backward?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did they get punished?”
“I don’t know.”
“You should ask.”
“I will.”
Her mouth twitched.
For a moment, Cael thought she might laugh.
Instead, she stepped around the end of the conveyor.
The attendant raised a hand.
The lexmechanic answered with a burst of machine code.
The attendant froze.
Nemi approached Cael.
“What happens now?” she asked.
“I go with him.”
“Then what?”
“I don’t know.”
“Will you come back?”
“No.”
She struck him.
Her open hand caught the side of his face. It was not a strong blow, but Cael staggered.
The attendant moved forward.
Again, the lexmechanic stopped her.
Cael touched his cheek.
“Why did you do that?”
“You said it like you don’t care.”
“I was answering.”
“You always answer.”
“You asked.”
Nemi’s face tightened.
Her eyes became wet.
Cael had seen tears caused by pain, fever and chemical irritation. This was none of those.
“I don’t want an answer,” she said.
“Then why did you ask?”
“Because I want you to say you’ll come back.”
“But I won’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
“He said I won’t.”
“The red ones lie too.”
Cael looked back at the lexmechanic.
The priest did not react.
Nemi wiped her face with her sleeve.
“Say you’ll come back.”
Cael tried.
The words would not form.
A machine’s promise mattered because it repeated. It did what it had done before and what it would do again. A false promise was only noise.
“I’ll remember you,” he said.
Nemi’s expression twisted.
“That isn’t the same.”
“No.”
“Will they cut pieces off you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Will you forget things?”
“I don’t know.”
“Will you still be Cael?”
The work chapel seemed quieter.
Even the conveyors diminished beneath the question.
Cael looked toward the cargo servitor that had once been Mara Venn. It stood beside the smelting line, waiting for another bin. Its left clamp hung partially open.
He could no longer see a mother in it.
He wondered whether that meant she was gone or that he had failed to keep her.
“I don’t know,” he said.
Nemi took something from her pocket.
It was a tiny disc of transparent material, no wider than her thumbnail. One edge had melted. A faint blue tint remained in its centre.
Cael recognized it.
“You took that from the sorting line.”
“Yes.”
“It should have gone into the glass tray.”
“I know.”
“Keeping salvage is theft.”
“I know.”
“What is it?”
“A window.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“It is now.”
She held the disc up to one eye and looked through it.
“It makes the lumen blue.”
Cael took it from her.
The chapel changed through the glass. Grey robes darkened. Brass became green at the edges. The white industrial light softened into a pale, impossible colour.
“Like the sky,” Nemi said.
“You have never seen the sky.”
“Neither have you.”
Cael lowered the fragment.
“You said you believed it was blue.”
“I still do.”
The lexmechanic’s voice came from behind them.
“Time elapsed.”
Nemi folded Cael’s fingers around the glass.
“You’ll need it more than me.”
“Why?”
“Because red robes don’t have windows.”
Cael placed the fragment inside his tunic.
The sharp edge rested against his chest.
“I will remember you.”
Nemi looked down.
“You already said that.”
“I mean it.”
“That still isn’t the same.”
“No.”
The attendant ordered her back to work.
This time, she obeyed.
Cael watched her return to the conveyor. She did not look at him again.
The lexmechanic extended his hand.
Cael did not take it.
He walked beside the priest without assistance.
Behind him, the chapel continued.
Iron went left.
Copper went right.
Useful components entered green trays.
The damaged entered black.
The conveyor carried everything onward.
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