Gerrard Cowan - The Machinery

The boy did not answer. He looked hopefully at the door, but no one was coming for him. Was his grandmother outside, sitting in her old chair?

There was a pattering of rain on the windows.

‘That is not what the Machinery told you,’ the Operator sighed. ‘It cannot be. Something is wrong with it, and it has told you, and you will not tell me.’

‘I have already told you the truth.’

The Operator shook his head. ‘No. No, that is not what it told you. But I will find the truth.’ He glided over to Alexander’s side and wrapped a long arm around the boy’s shoulder.

‘We will go to the Underland. You will be happier there. Yes, oh yes. We will be able to study your broken brain.’ Alexander snatched a quick look at a jagged smile; he willed himself to resist, but something had encircled and taken power over him, and he could do nothing but follow the strange creature to the window.

The Operator gathered him in his arms, smiled, and leapt into the rain of the night. They seemed to fall slowly, like feathers in the breeze. The authority that had been exerted over the boy allowed no room for fear. There was no need to scream, it assured him, no need to cry out or fight back. We are floating, not falling.

As he fell, he looked up and saw a face at the window: a girl gazing down at him; a girl with round black eyes and long black hair; a girl with marbles in her hands.

But then Alexander Paprissi was gone forever: gone below the earth.

‘Could I take part today, Tactician? I believe I am ready.’

‘Why do you think you are ready?’

‘I have served my time. I have trained now for almost fifteen years.’

‘Almost fifteen years, indeed. And you think you are ready. Ready for what?’

‘For whatever you need me to do, Tactician. I could go in there now, if you like, and—’

‘You are always overreaching, Katrina. You must develop caution.’

Katrina Paprissi nodded. She had heard this a thousand times before. As ever, she smiled at the Tactician, before brushing some sand from her feet.

They were alone on the shore. Behind them loomed the great edifice of Northern Blown, the once dominant fortress that had stood apart from the Overland for longer than any other power. It had managed this through a mix of skilful diplomacy, deference, solid defences and the fact that its desolate lands were the least attractive in the entire Plateau. But now, its day was coming to a close. The castle seemed downcast in the bleached light of the dawn, as if aware that soon, perhaps this very day, its time would end. Even its curtain wall seemed to sag, as if willing itself to collapse before the onslaught of modernity.

‘Are you even listening to me, Paprissi? No, I imagine you are off in your world. What’s it like there?’

Katrina forced herself to meet Tactician Brightling’s gaze. She still found it difficult to look directly at those grey eyes. Brightling was the Watching Tactician of the Overland, her authority reflected in her golden gown and the silver half-moon crown that sat so easily upon her head. She was in her middle years, but her thin frame was hard with muscle. White hair flowed around her like a mane, unruffled even by the wind that whistled in from the sea.

Brightling was a woman of the new era, the progress of which she was hastening through her work. A pair of semicircular spectacles sat on her nose, the frame wrought from ivory. From the Tactician’s mouth hung a pipe, an elegant, curling affair of cedar wood. She wore a handcannon on her side, the hilt a twisted swirl of stars, the barrel inlaid with diamonds.

‘Katrina, by the Machinery, will you take your turn!’

The wind picked up, then: it tore through Katrina’s long black hair and laughed at her white rags, wearing her legs raw.

‘Now,’ the Tactician said, a new hardness in her voice.

Katrina looked at the board with bleary eyes. She hated Progress. This game was designed for people just like Tactician Brightling: cold souls with no stirring of action. Indeed, Brightling had actually designed its latest iteration. The woman had sat on the Progress Council for longer than she had been a Tactician.

They said the Operator himself had invented the First Iteration of Progress. Katrina wondered if that game had borne any resemblance to this version, the Nine Hundredth and Seventy-Fourth Iteration, which had been active for two years. She was just getting used to this one, which usually meant a new Iteration was imminent.

‘Tactician, do we really have to play this? Does it not seem strange to you? We’re about to conquer the Plateau, and we’re sitting here playing a stupid board of Progress.’

Brightling did not respond, but fixed Katrina with a stare. The young woman turned her attention to the board, her courage evaporating into the wind.

Katrina had the East and the South of the board, Brightling the North and the West. Her tiles were white, the Tactician’s black. She could see that she was in an impossible position. Over half of Brightling’s forces were poised to take the South, and Katrina had just one Watching tile remaining. How does this thing work again? A Watching tile destroys an Expansion tile, but only if there are no Operator cards left in the opponent’s hand. Does Brightling have a card?

‘You should take care what you do with that. I can see a move that would open your options and expose one of my flanks. Remember, I have only two Watching tiles left, while you retain two cards. You are still in this game. Do not overreach. ’

Katrina studied the board again.

‘This game is impossible.’

‘This game always evolves, but it is not impossible. Everything evolves, everything changes. We must adapt to that.’

‘Except the Machinery.’

‘Except the Machinery.’

Katrina looked up to see that Brightling was smiling at her, white hair now blowing in the wind. The last of the Paprissis lifted her Watching tile, and prepared to put it in place.

‘Madam.’

Aranfal had appeared from nowhere, as he always did. He had the appearance of some creature of this icy habitat, with his aquamarine cloak and dirty blond hair: a beast that had crawled onto the beach. Amusement played across his thin face, his blue eyes alight with a joke that no one else was ever told.

‘Aranfal, welcome. What news?’

‘Good news, Madam Tactician.’ Aranfal’s voice was smooth and deep, his accent hinting at the far North, where they now sat. ‘King Seablast has agreed to grant you an audience.’

‘Good!’ Tactician Brightling clapped her hands. ‘How did he seem?’

‘Oh, obstreperous, my lady. Most incorrigible. But that could be a good sign. It might be a show.’

‘Yes, Aranfal. It might be. How many Watchers in the building?’

‘Two, madam, apart from me.’

‘And you will join them now?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where?’

‘In the ceiling, madam.’

‘Good.’

Aranfal smiled at his superior and bowed. He cast an uneasy glance in Katrina’s direction. They had never got on. She suspected he envied her closeness to the Tactician. He seemed on the verge of speaking to her, before something on the ground distracted him.

‘What’s this?’ He lifted a yellow and black object, around a foot in length.

‘I think it’s a bone,’ Katrina whispered.

‘Be quiet, Katrina.’

‘It is, Tactician. It is an arm bone. There are more, further along the shore.’

‘Ridiculous. It is a rock, perhaps. A formation of some kind.’

Aranfal chuckled. ‘The northerners call this the Bony Shore, madam. Perhaps it is aptly named?’

‘Nonsense. Where would they come from?’