Day Twenty

—We shouldn't have chosen so many rivets—
—We shouldn't have designed such complicated jointing—
—We shouldn't have added so many embellishments—
—Complain, complain. It will look good, right? Very unique. Very adult—
—I suppose—
—Something simpler might have done just as well—
—I thought we wanted to make a statement?—
—We do—
—We will—
—I still think we could have added more gold—

Silver. Gold. Diamond.
Traditional names. The actual materials, of course, are nowhere near so fragile.

—Now you rest within familiar chambers, closed and small. What lay beyond is open and vast. It, in time, will become familiar, as chambered as the confines that once bound you. It, in time, will offer wonders. As children you reside in the house of children. As adults you will reside in the house of adults. A house infinite, and beautiful, and yours—

I lay on my side. We all lay on our sides.
A shadow looms overhead, replacing outside illumination with its own brightness. Mouth, eyes, chest panels, joints. All glow. Its arms move with sure swiftness, flicking brushes across my head and limbs. Thin lines, hooks, dots, languid curves. Not symbols, for symbols we have none— but decoration, elaborations upon the joining of seams and the sweep of form. Paint in black and white and cobalt blue. Sometimes red or a beyond-red, names for which your language has no equal.
The color of iridium alloy, newly-cooled. The color of oceans, struck by sunlight.
The color of a smile-trace, the wonder after a well-told joke, the warmth after a well-told story.
The brushes sweep around my eyes, trail cold as rivers. Each finger boasts its own flourish.

No symbols, you say?
I will explain: when I first entered Victory's service, they told me her emblem expressed a wish for her namesake. That this half-circle and three-pointed star embodied a principle. That wearing it was meant to bring her thralls achievement and strength and inspiration.
Symbols are hopes. Symbols are placed to exert control over their surroundings. Symbols assume that their makers are powerless.
What use have Silence Hunters for such things?

—Now you are created. Now you are ready. Now you are two-thirds to the beginning, and once you have consummated your shaping you will have a name—

—We are finished?—
—We are finished—
—As much as we may be finished—

Still prone, I curl an arm across the floor. It moves as though nothing covers its segments, as though it were still yellowish shell rather than armor-clad, but I can feel the weight. Slight— hardly noticeable— but there. Each segment now covered with a micro-thin layer of gold. Articulation traced in red. Glittering gemstones, specks like stars, arranged in three lines from base to tip.
My arm, and yet... something else.
Something older.
The diamond-lines were my idea; they've turned out better than I expected.
"It's not so heavy as I thought," says Squeaky, clambering to his feet and turning in circles. His plates flash. Every motion is accentuated; every bend and curve urged to greater purpose. The embossed designs upon his shoulders both advance and recede, configurations shifting at each angle. The articulation is whisper-quiet.
He tosses his head and a fluted whistle sings through his crests. "Just as you said, Blue. Wind-catchers were a fine plan."
Blue gathers himself, joint by joint, standing slow as continents. "It worked. I knew it would work (but I had doubts)." He turns gold-rimmed eyes upon our guardians, waiting at the chamber perimeter. —I apologize for not trusting—
Heat-Traces inclines his head. His armored head, as we ourselves are now armored. —No apologies. You were afraid, and yet you submitted. This, child, is trust—
"And it is fine work, isn't it?" adds Broad-Leaves with a smile. "Your design is striking (and very complicated; we were almost worried ourselves)."
I place one foot upon the floor, and then another. No clatter. Again that sense of weight, a heaviness beyond its actual mass. Another foot. Another.
Broad-Leaves peers at me. "It is different, at first. Take your time."
"How is it that something so fine," I ask, casting about for some remnant of the molding-heat that bound the metal to my flesh and finding no difference, "can serve no purpose?"
Squeaky pauses in his prancing. "What?"
"It's... it's wonderful, but it's only ornament," I explain, stretching in test. Alloys strong as the hull of a vault, and yet close as skin, close as the Link. "A shame that it does nothing. It seems like it should."
Swift-Runs blinks. First one eye and then the other. "It does do something (everything does something). You designed it, did you not? You conceived it, and it is yours. You are yours. It has changed you for the better." He snaps his mandibles. "That's quite functional, for 'ornament.'"
"Yes, it is," murmurs Blue. He's almost upright, tail swinging with slow deliberation. "Quite functional."
"And pretty," says Squeaky. "We meant it to be pretty, and now we are pretty also (and prettier, I think, than any others of the Second Cycle). If this were a simulation, I say we succeeded."
I click my jaws together. No taste of metal. "No simulation. I am finished with simulations. Now we succeed for real."
"That is the idea," says Broad-Leaves.
Blue reaches for one of the walls, for a bowl tucked within. "I think we're forgetting something." A clunk, a shudder; the bowl scrapes along the niche rim, and drifts towards him. He wraps a tendril around its middle. A moment of consideration— so that is how it is done— and then he swivels an eye to regard us. "Something important."
I stare at the bowl. Only adults can do that.
Only adults.
Blue grins. —I thought I was going to drop it—
Our guardians remain inscrutable.
—Is it hard?— I ask.
—No—
—How did you know how?— asks Squeaky.
—I practiced—
—What? When?—
—What did you think I was doing, so slow?—
Heat-Traces stomps a foot on the floor and we quickly end the conversation.
"You're ready," he says.
I stop trying to coax a vase out of another niche. "Ready?"
He does not reply. Neither do the others. As we watch, searching the Link for information that isn't there, they step away. Heat-Traces to the left of the exit. Swift-Runs to the right. Broad-Leaves positioned before it, crouched low.
Squeaky hooks his arms together in confusion. —Are we supposed to jump?—
—No— says Blue.
—No? What, then, are we...— He hesitates. —Oh—
—Yes—
The voice comes, then. The same voice that greeted us within the Chamber of the Array, among the false stars. The same voice that accompanied us during our trial of blade and fire.
Voices. A voices.
The Array. Our people, living and dead.
—RISE—
What else to do? It is obvious, an answer that comes unbidden in a universe without.
We walk, single-file, to the exit. Stop before Broad-Leaves. Exchange clicks of encouragement.
And then Blue leaps. Squeaky leaps. I leap.
We fly from the chamber, and together we rise.
The city sphere scintillates: the reflected light of ten thousand.

—Never seen the center from this angle before—
—What do you think?—
—Different—
—That's all you have to say?—
—The center is fine. The view is fine. The wind-rush is better than fine. But—
—But angles don't matter—
—Yes—
—Are you—
—Yes—
—I knew it—
—And why not? The center is the center. We know it already—
—We do—
—Very well—
—Every nook and corridor—
—The whole vault, in fact—
—Do you think it's time?—
—I think it's time—
—We all think it's time—
Legs folded, heads bent low, tails streaming turbulence, we change course.
—Stars?—
—Stars—
—Someone call ahead and tell them that we're coming to visit—

Our guardians make no move to stop us. We arc through the air, scattering mists in our wake, searching for the exit that we know is there. A portal to the outside, secret of secrets now divulged to all our generation. All these long years it was hidden; now it is found.
A gate deep within the city center.
We are not the only ones. Other sibling-bonds soar past as we angle for the nearest archway, all of them much more awkward and ungainly than we. We are buoyant; we are perfect; we are going to see the stars. Even the vacuum of space holds no horror for us: we are Second Cycle, born to Echoes-Die. We have known the deep. We have known true emptiness.
We are also naturally vacuum-proof.
—Hurry— calls Squeaky, —they're catching up. We have to be first—
—Or among the first— I amend, mindful of the probabilities.
Blue chuckles, buzzing laughter torn away by the wind. —Remember who you're following—
—Oh, yes— I reply, —I forget myself. I forget you. My apologies, Crusher-of-Continents-and-Carver-of-Cores—
—That's decent. I might use that—
We skim the archway floor, rolling onto our backs for the sheer simple pleasure of being able to do so. Cut stone whistles past our crests. Our wind-catchers drone a deep, whirring bellow. Clamor as replacement for the lost engines. New sounds for a new age.
The Path of Sustenance. Racks tucked to the sides, food trapped inside closed boxes and collapsed cabinets. Elder Silence Hunters interlace their arms as we pass. The ceiling blurs, rib by braced rib, above our heads, flowing patterns stretched by speed. Stretched and changed— and not so repetitive as we had thought.
—It's splitting—
—How did we not notice this before?—
—Not fast enough—
—True. Follow the branch, the speckled branch, like the shadows of stars—
—To the stars, then—
—To the stars. We'll have to give our guardians credit for this trick—
—And copy it—
—Of course—

Diverging halls. Walls sheathed in sheet-copper. Bands of gridwork along the roof. One is irregular, spattered with speckles.
—There—
—We see it—
—Left—
We are forced to slow. The way is narrow, the fluted supports obstructing. Ahead lies a door. Blue and silver, veined like the petals of a flower. A panel of complex brass locks sunk into one side.
I recognize it. We all do.
—This place again—
—This place—
—How do we get in?—
We halt. I drop to the floor, an action much like flipping a switch: flight off. One leg slips on the landing, but I reason that this is my first and mistakes are expected.
"Try the locks," Squeaky suggests, running inquisitive tendrils across the door.
I eye the device. How had Heat-Traces done it? A tap here, a pull there, a brush across the far rectangle...
Nothing happens.
Squeaky tugs at one of the door panels. "Maybe you missed a part."
"I could try," offers Blue, "I was standing closer."
I step aside. He takes my place at the locks.
"Maybe they've changed the sequence," says Squeaky when this, too, produces no results.
Whooping from down the corridor: another sibling-bond appears, bobbing through the air like broken chimes.
—Surely we didn't look like that—
—Surely not—
Like us, they return to the deck. Like me, two of them slip. Their armor gleams dark blue and white.
I join Squeaky in futile pulling at the door.
—They might have changed it— Blue concedes, glaring at the mechanism. —I'll try again. If that doesn't work we can test each combination in turn—
—That would take a while— I observe. A long while: I offer a flash-image featuring us stuck at the doorway, arguing with the lock, while other newly-clads find ways around the obstacle.
—Let me try again. Maybe all that metal-pouring burned out my memory—
The other siblings edge closer. Still, no one talks.
—Maybe all that metal-pouring burned out your sense—
—You have a better plan?—
Squeaky inspects the doorframe, checking for the swivels that move the panels themselves. —Maybe if we somehow disable the door motors—
—Then we'd have to dig through the walls— Blue replies. He taps out another sequence and still nothing happens.
—It's a test— says Squeaky. —It has to be a test. They want to know how fast we learn. How smart we are—
Blue snorts. —Well, we can't very well fly through it, now can we?—
The others are huddled, gesturing occasionally at the door or at us. Probably decrying us for our stupidity. Maybe they already know.
I stare hard at the door. Strong. Solid. Immoveable. —Why don't we try knocking it down?—
—Knocking it—
—Down. Yes—
Blue abandons the panel to stand beside us. —That is an idea—
—Like the bowl— says Squeaky, —but bigger—
—A lot bigger—
—Maybe if we all push together, we—
"Apologies."
We glance over our shoulders. The second sibling-bond has shifted closer, one approaching the locks.
—Who should—
—I'll do it—
—We'll start pushing on the door—
"What?" asks Blue.
The leftmost of the trio ducks his head. "We... we were just thinking. Since you weren't getting anywhere."
"Think away."
"Thank you. But we already have." He coils a pair of blue-clad arms together. "Have you tried asking?"
Squeaky and I exchange glances.
—Knock it down?—
—Yes—
—Go—
Legs braced, arms arced back at full extension, jaws clenched, we hammer forwards. Not a physical hammer, exactly— although armor does meet door. More a hammer of the will: we want this door to move, and therefore it will move. It will move, if it knows what's conductive to good health and what isn't, and if it doesn't know... well, it will move regardless.
That, at least, is the idea.
—CHILDREN, CHILDREN—
Our blow connects, a force that should have shattered each and every blue-laced petal.
—NONE OF THAT—