"Um." He held up the covering. "Can you hold this, please?"
The False-Lifer mutely complied, spider arms shuddering as its real hands cupped the metal. Yukiko felt her stomach turn, swallowing hard, mouth tasting of vomit. Her legs were trembling. Eyes watering. Sparrows called in the distance, the sound closer to screaming than singing. Three monkeys gathered in the trees overhead, roaring and shaking the branches. Heat all around her. Hands in fists.
ARE YOU WELL, SISTER?.
I"m fine.
"What"s your name?" Kin said.
"Kin, don"t talk to it," Yukiko growled.
He glanced over his shoulder. "Isn"t that the point of this exercise?"
Yukiko glared, sc.r.a.ped rain-slicked hair from her eyes. Kin turned back to the False-Lifer, unspooled several leads from its mechabacus, began tinkering in the machine"s guts. He offered an apologetic glance as he touched its breast again.
"What"s your name?" he repeated.
"... My mother"s name was Kei. Gifted to me when she died, as custom bids."
He paused, looked into featureless gla.s.s eyes. "But what"s your name?"
A long silence. Yukiko ground her teeth. She could hear the sounds of a thousand gaijin children, sobbing as they were marched to slaughter inside the greasy yellow innards of the chapterhouses. High-pitched screaming amidst the crackling pyres around the Burning Stones. People like her, people with the Kenning, put to the torch for the sake of the Guild"s ridiculous "Way of Purity." The False-Lifer"s reply sounded like a nest of spitting vipers.
"Ayane."
"What chapterhouse are you from?"
"Yama."
"Fox lands are a long walk from here." Kin raised an eyebrow and went to work with a pair of wire snips. "How did you make it all the way? False-Lifers can"t fly."
"I stole aboard a Guild liner in Yama harbor and fired the escape pod." The spider limbs flexed, a ripple of silver in the air around it. "I flew as far as I could. Then I walked."
"How did you know our direction?" Kin looked up from the innards, eyes illuminated by a burst of sparks.
"The Guild has known the general location of the Kage stronghold since they rescued the two of you from the Thunder Child"s ruins. Since then, they have set up triangulation towers around the Iishi. Every time the Kage transmit a radio signal, they zero closer."
"If they know that much, why haven"t they ma.s.sed their fleet to burn this forest down?" Yukiko snapped.
The False-Lifer turned her gaze to the earth, steadfastly refusing to meet Yukiko"s eyes.
"Much of the fleet is still overseeing the retreat in Morcheba. But the Guildsman you spared made it back to Yama with your message, Arashi-no-odoriko. The loss of three heavy ships was enough to give the Upper Blooms pause. The captain you killed was a war hero, you know. Kigen"s Third Bloom. Master of their fleet."
"So?"
"So they are afraid of you." It swallowed. "You and your thunder tiger."
Kin was staring at her, the memory of a hundred dead Guildsmen swimming unspoken in his eyes. Yukiko licked her lips, feeling her skin crawl as the False-Lifer"s limbs shivered. She ran one hand along Buruu"s neck, fingers deep in feathers" warmth.
I don"t trust her.
SENSIBLE.
It"s too good to be true that there would be more like Kin.
IN ALL HONESTY, THAT PART OF HER TALE IS EASY TO BELIEVE.
A rebellion inside the Guild? No, they"re just telling us what we want to hear.
THOSE OF THE GUILD ARE BORN TO IT. NO CHOICE. NO CONTROL. NOT SO HARD TO IMAGINE SOME WOULD RESENT THAT YOKE.
I don"t believe one of them would just tiptoe out of a chapterhouse and come all this way to find Kin. It"s probably just a survivor from the fleet we burned. Lying to save its skin.
WE LEFT ONLY ONE ALIVE, YUKIKO. YOU KNOW THAT.
This doesn"t make any G.o.dsd.a.m.ned sense. It"s lying.
YOU MEAN "SHE" IS LYING.
I mean "it."
She eyed the False-Lifer up and down, lip curling.
"Is that why your leaders are backing Hiro? Because they"re too spineless to come here themselves now? They"d rather risk men with wives and children in the battle to bring me down, right? Better to see them die than more of their precious Shatei?"
"I am from Yama." All nine of its functional arms rippled, and Yukiko was appalled to recognize the gesture as a shrug. "I do not know the politics of First House, or why the First Bloom bids Shateigashira Kensai to support the Tora boy. But I know seventy percent of our Munitions Sect were requisitioned by Kigen four weeks ago."
Yukiko stared blankly.
"The Munitions Sect build machines that require human control," Kin offered. "Motor-rickshaw, shreddermen, sky-ship engines and so on. Like I used to."
Yukiko narrowed her eyes. "What are they working on?"
"I do not know, Stormdancer." Another grotesque, multi-armed shrug.
"Don"t call her that." Kin plucked three transistors from the mechabacus. "Her name is Yukiko."
The boy snipped a final set of wires, gathered up the contraption"s guts and stuffed them back into its housing. Sealing the device closed with a few hasty screws, he stepped back.
"Done."
The False-Lifer looked at Atsushi"s blade poised against its throat. The boy shifted his grip, one word from a bloodbath. Kin was watching her with pleading eyes. Yukiko stared for a pregnant moment, arms folded, eyes narrowed. The rain was falling harder, fat, clear droplets pounding the leaves around them and soaking everyone to the bones.
Everyone except the False-Lifer, of course.
"I have never seen rain that was not black before." It turned its palms to the sky, droplets pattering upon its body, beading and running like quicksilver. "It is beautiful."
Yukiko"s eyes were on the blade gleaming in Atsushi"s hand. The raindrops glittering on the steel like polished jewels.
We should just get everything we can from her, then bury her.
Buruu growled.
WHAT IF SHE SPEAKS TRUTH? WHAT IF SHE IS WHAT SHE SAYS?.
No one leaves the Guild. Everyone knows that.
EXCEPT YOUR KIN.
Don"t call him that.
I DID NOT TRUST HIM EITHER, REMEMBER? YET WITHOUT HIM, NEITHER OF US WOULD BE HERE.
I know that.
THEN YOU KNOW WE CANNOT END THIS GIRL ON MERE SUSPICION.
Yukiko hissed, rubbed her eyes with balled fists. The Kenning headache was slinking forward on fox-light feet. The noise. The heat. Lurking in the back of her skull with leaden hands and bated breath.
"Take off your skin," she said.
"What?" Kin raised an eyebrow. "What for?"
"If we"re taking it back, we"re not bringing a tracking device with us. It takes its skin and mechabacus off and we bury them here."
"The mechabacus won"t work anym-"
"That"s the bargain, Kin. We bury its skin, or we bury it."
"She"s not an "it."" Kin frowned. "Her name is Ayane."
Isao scowled, shook his head. Yukiko turned to the False-Lifer, eyes and voice cold.
"Your choice. And I don"t mean to sound cruel, but I could sleep either way."
The False-Lifer glanced at Atsushi"s blade, then to Kin. Without a word, it began twisting the wing-nut bolts studding its suit. Reaching back with its humanoid arms, it tinkered with the silver orb on its spine; the melon-sized hub from which the spider limbs sprang. It fumbled around for a moment, hissing softly.
"Can you help please, Kin-san? It is difficult to do this alone."
Hesitantly, Kin stepped behind it, twisting each bolt dotting its spine, working several clasps under the False-Lifer"s direction. Yukiko heard a faint series of popping sounds, all over the grease-slick, gleaming body, followed by the wet sucking of air rushing into vacuum. The skin slackened, as if it were now a size too big. The thing tugged a zip cord running up to the base of its skull, another down to the small of its back. As Atsushi and Isao watched, revolted and fascinated, the False-Lifer bent double, and like a b.u.t.terfly emerging from its coc.o.o.n, chrysalis to imago, sloughed off its outer sh.e.l.l.
She was clad in a membrane of pale webbing beneath. Skin so pallid it was almost translucent. Her head utterly hairless; no eyelashes, eyebrows, nothing. Long slender limbs and tapered fingers, smooth curves studded with bayonet fixtures of black, gleaming metal. Seventeen, perhaps eighteen years old at most. Her lips were full and pouting, as if she"d been stung by something venomous, her features fragile and perfect; a porcelain doll on its first day in the sun. She narrowed her eyes, held one hand up against the light.
Inexplicably, Yukiko felt her heart sink.
She"s beautiful.
Kin scowled at the gawping boys and removed his uwagi, slipped it around the pale girl"s shoulders. Yukiko could see the same bayonet fixtures in his flesh, ruining smooth lines of lean muscle, fixed in the exact same location: wrists, shoulders, chest, collarbone, spine. The silver orb sat affixed to the girl"s back, spider limbs rippling, still making that horrid, inhuman noise. Yukiko pointed.
"Take those off too."
"I cannot." The girl"s voice sounded soft and sweet now that she was outside her skin, underscored with a thin, trembling fear. "They are part of me. Rooted in my spinal column."
"Don"t lie to me."
"Please, I am not lying." The girl wrung her hands, still squinting. Her eyes were a rich, earthen brown, pupils contracting to pinp.r.i.c.ks. "I could just as easily take off my legs."
ONE WITH THE MACHINE. SUCH MADNESS.
Yukiko scowled at the rippling silver fingers, needle-sharp, swollen-knuckled and gleaming with rain. She looked down at the False-Lifer"s toes, pressed into dark, wet earth, sick to her stomach. The headache slipped toward her temples, tightening at the base of her skull. A whisper. A promise.
"Bind her arms." She glanced at Atsushi. "All of them."
Kin looked vaguely hurt by the suggestion. "Yukiko, you don"t need to do that."
"Please don"t tell me what I need, Kin."
The girl folded her metallic arms at her back; functional limbs curling up like the legs of a dying spider, the broken one hanging near her shin, limp as a dead fish. Atsushi bound her with rope, wrapping it around her torso and pinning all her arms. Drawing a deep breath, steeling herself, the girl raised her eyes and looked at Yukiko for the first time. Her voice was almost lost beneath the whispering rain.
"Thank you for trusting me," she said.
"I don"t trust you."
"Then ... thank you for not killing me."
"Let"s get her back." Yukiko motioned to the boys. "Isao, bury the skin deep as you can. Atsushi, come with us. I need to speak to Daichi."
Isao nodded, started clearing a s.p.a.ce of dead leaves. Atsushi poked the girl in the back with his nagamaki, hard enough for her to stumble. Kin reached out, caught her before she fell.
"Move," Atsushi growled.
Yukiko moved off into the undergrowth with Buruu, skin p.r.i.c.kling, head throbbing. Looking back, she saw Kin had placed a steadying hand on the knots at Ayane"s back, helping her navigate the uneven ground. Atsushi tromped along behind, a dark scowl on his face.
Ayane kept her eyes downcast, voice low. But she was speaking. Furtive and clearly afraid. Stretching out into the minds of the forest around them, inundating herself in a cascading pain, Yukiko could hear every word the False-Lifer spoke. See her through a hundred pairs of eyes, feel the pulse of a hundred heartbeats.
Blood began dripping from her nose.
"Thank you, Kin-san," Ayane was whispering.
"You have nothing to thank me for." The boy shook his head. "We do what"s right up here. Yukiko"s a good person. She"s just suspicious of the Guild. She lost a lot because of them and the government. Most people here have."
"Her father."
"Friends too."
"Are they going to hate me? The Kage, I mean?"
"Probably." Kin glanced back at Atsushi and his nagamaki. "They don"t trust our kind ... I mean, the kind we used to be."