Jo Anderton - Debris

He watched me, expectant, like a loyal dog.

"Tanyana," I finally said.

He poured more water into the glass and placed it on the table beside the bed, just within reach. "I know who you are." And his eyes were so heavy with concern, with worry and even fear, that his look caught a lump in my throat. I swallowed on it, hard. "And I'm so sorry for you, my lady. So sorry." He knew about Grandeur, then. And the pions. "But I'm here now and, oh, Tanyana, I will try and help you. I will."

Could he bring my pions back? Because that was the only way to help me now.

He began dragging something large and covered with a white sheet through the doorway. Almost too large. It ground horribly against the wooden frame, the sheet caught twice in the wheels and almost tipped the whole trolley over. I caught glimpses of metal, but couldn't begin to guess what it actually was. Devich, red-faced, yanked and dragged until the contraption came through. It left two large dark marks either side of the door frame, and with a nervous laugh and ruffle of his hair, he glanced down the corridor and quickly shut the door.

"What is that?"

He laughed again, self-deprecating. "Ah, in good time. This is first." He rummaged beneath the sheet. "Here." He produced a clear glass tube, apparently empty. "This will help with the pain. I feel almost as bad as those veche men saying this, but you're going to need to be able to concentrate. And pain is never helpful, is it?"

"Concentrate? On what?"

Another nervous laugh, and he didn't answer. "Let me show you how to apply it." Devich walked around to the left side of the bed. He began untucking the blankets that covered me and instantly I tensed. His face fell. "I'm sorry, my lady. I'm sorry to have to do this to you so soon. And I… I don't even want to test you. But they are waiting. And I know it's not fair, and I don't want to push you…" He seemed to flounder, eyes on the floor, tube in his hand.

With a groan, I reached for the water. Again, I filled my mouth, my throat. It washed through me, so fresh and clean. Everything I did not feel. I watched him from the corner of my eye and wondered if I could trust him. I almost wanted to. Because of the smile, perhaps. Definitely because of the water. But perhaps it was the sorrow in his eyes and the hitch of his voice, so real compared to the veche man's statue face and false sympathy.

"What test?" I placed the glass back on the table carefully. My right hand shook. My left side ached.

Eyes to the floor still, Devich mumbled like a shameful child, "For debris."

"Debris?" Something quivered in my stomach and had nothing to do with my injuries. The same terror I felt confronted by a world without its pions.

"The veche need to know if you can see debris, they need to know if you will be a collector. A debris collector. As quickly as possible. You see, the longer we wait the harder it is for the networks to-"

He'd stopped making sense by that point. I could see Devich's mouth moving, but no words came out. All I could hear was Grandeur, as she fell. All I could think of was emptiness. A debris collector? That was impossible. I was an architect, a highly skilled pion-binder. Nothing less.

"That's not possible," I breathed out the words. "I'm not a debris collector."

Devich looked up, he clasped the tube at his chest. "I hope so, my lady. I truly do." Then he tried for a smile, it shook slightly. "Now, let me help you." He unscrewed the tube. "This is for the pain, and to help you heal."

"What is?" The tube still looked empty to me.

"The-" He paused. "Oh. Of course. You can't-" He floundered again.

"I can't see them." I had no way of knowing what the pions in that tube were doing, and what they would do to me.

I allowed him to lift back the covers and expose my left side. The strange gown was tied at the seams, and he undid them with fumbling fingers. His touch was very warm. A layer of cloth bandaged me down the entire left side of my body. Carefully, tip of his tongue caught between his teeth, he lifted my leg, my arm, and undid them.

Someone had embroidered on my skin. Thick, ugly dark lines woven from face to thigh. My left hand seemed to be held together by the stitching alone.

Devich sucked in a sharp breath. "Oh, you poor thing."

I rather agreed. Instead, I asked, "Who did this? Do you know?"

He just shook his head. "They didn't tell me. The veche brought you here, to me, as you are now."

Devich squinted at the glass tube and held it above my left hand. I breathed in sharply as one rounded end rippled, like the glass had just turned to water, and pulled back to create an opening. He lowered it, then, so the newly formed edges rested softly on my stitches. He held it there, for a moment, then repeated the action, moving along the left side of my body. Face, arm, chest, leg. His touch was sure, gentle. He glanced up at my face and whispered apologies, even as he cradled my hand in his.

Whatever those invisible particles of once-were-light did seemed to work. Wherever he touched me a cool, numb sensation slid over my injuries, easing the roaring ache. When he finally finished he bandaged me again and did up my gown. "Here." He discarded the tube, and handed me more water.

"Thank you." I drained the glass again. "Well, are you going to tell me if I'm a collector?"

With a sad nod, Devich pulled the sheet away. It revealed a bizarre-looking station of buttons, flashing lights, flickering dials and quiet screens, all topped with a large dome, something like a birdcage in clear polymer. Its wheels squeaked as Devich pushed it closer to the bed.

Crammed into that ungainly chamber, I saw the truth. Truth twitched and floated aimlessly, truth vibrated and wiggled. I saw debris.

Debris was the waste created by pion manipulation, and Other did it look like it. It looked like little clumps of squirming dirt, the dark and dim-minded younger sibling to the pions' lightness, their energy and colour.

It could not be controlled, it did not have the ability to unbind and rearrange the very structures of the world. In fact, all debris could do was interfere with existing pion systems. Too much debris left uncollected could slow down the working of a system, weaken and ultimately undo its bindings. It was dangerous, if left unchecked.

And I realised I had seen it before, in the moment before Grandeur hit me. Squirming darkness turning my construction site into a dumping ground. But I hadn't known what it was as I fell toward it. I had not understood the implications.

I sat straight, raised a hand. Devich grunted, pushed the station closer. I leaned over the edge of the bed, ignoring the pull of stitches and smothered pain, and brushed warm polymer with my fingers. Inside, the debris scurried haphazardly; it didn't react to my touch. The debris had none of the semi-sentience, the playfulness, that allowed binders to persuade, to coax, or control pions.

"Ah well, that answers the first question. Looks like you can see it."

I glanced up to meet Devich's flushed face, and took my hand away. "You can see it too?" Maybe there was hope for me, if Devich could see debris, and he could still bind pions, then But he shook his head. "No. Would make it easier, but then who'd operate this?" He pressed his hands to a clear glass panel and all the lights that ringed the polymer cage started flickering. "Collectors fill the chamber for us." Something beeped beneath his fingers. "They check it from time to time, so we know it's still full." Odd-looking dials moved and the filament inside half a dozen or so valves began to glow. "Not easy working with something you can't see."

Wasn't that my whole life, now? Living in a world created and run by things I could no longer see.

What was going on inside this bizarre machine? The dials and the valves were a throwback to old, pre-revolutionary technology, before critical circles were discovered. So what was powering this thing? Fire? Steam, gas, water? If so, then there'd be exhaust, surely. And noise. I'd almost believe a pair of poor abused rats turning a wheel. But what was Devich doing, then? Hands on a glass panel, eyes slightly unfocused, whispering under his breath. That was pion manipulation if I'd ever seen it in action.