On my second attempt, my girls were lonely and afraid. They clung to each other, hearth, and home, never cleaving to a husband, no child to suckle at their breasts. Their love grew stunted, incapable of advancing beyond sisterly affections firmly binding Death’s hands. Millia Gnu Aye succeeded the throne.
Morta sat on the lip of the Origin Well, running her hands across a loose tapestry, the fingers of the isomerase lying dormant above her head. She puffed her cheeks, kicking her legs as if she were swinging.
Nona was late.
Morta rolled her eyes, bunching her skirt between her knees, and blowing a stray hair out of her face. The doors creaked open, and she pushed that mortal tapestry aside to see the cathedral doors.
The Gnatu entered by the dozens, machines walking sideways on six legs. They came in all shapes and sizes. Hermit crabs trading their shells for more suitable quarters, brand-name soup cans for galvanized anchors, and an orange county breaker box for an eight-outlet industrial power strip.
Value to the Gnatu was in the beholder's eye.
They were drones—the worker bees of a vaulted hive under Bastion’s supervision. Her adoptive father was a conduit. A sort of telegraph pole that transmitted the will of a dead god from beyond wherever such beings rest.
Where does that leave us? Asked Atropos, beating her head against Morta’s cranium. I don’t like playing second fiddle, sister.
Morta smirked, sliding her butt off the bricks and placing her hands on her hips. “Number twenty-five, nineteen, and four.”
Three Gnatu, the size of a panther, a stunted dog, and a kitchen mouse skittered across the floor, stopping at her feet and raising their front claws in a crude salute. Camera lenses adorned their faces, tiny metal slats flexing, relaxing, and rotating to mimic emotional expression.
Number four quivered, his legs jutting from a Leviton commercial-grade single receptacle outlet, the barrel of a Nagant revolver peeking out from his chassis, his little fingers sheepishly covering the carbon powder burns and lead residue.
“Number four, explain your sorry condition!”
The machine jumped, its legs shaking, making a squealing noise between rusted hinges and poorly oiled joints. “My lady,” it said. “Too busy?”
“Is that a question or a statement?!” Morta chewed on her lips, grasping her hands from behind as she paced back and forth, the folds of her black gown like the pressed pantaloons of a five-star general. “Carbon, copper, lead, and plastic.” She held up her fingers and dropped them as she spoke. “In the history of the mortal race, there hasn’t been an ammunition that won’t foul up your weapon. Residue is corrosive, soldiers. Salt in your primer, copper in your barrel, fuck, dare I say it? Rust in your firing pin!?” She glared at number nineteen who tried to make himself appear smaller, folding his back legs into a 200 amp 30-space 60-circuit indoor main breaker box.
“But, mistress,” they said. “The war is over.”
“That’s no excuse!” Morta snapped. “You never know when the next will start. All three of you will report to my domicile for re-education this afternoon.”
They hung their heads, number four clicking his claws together. “You and your sisters' bedroom?” he asked.
“My domicile!” Morta rubbed her forehead, a nerve popping above her eyebrow.
Gawds, it was embarrassing sharing a bedroom with her sisters. She couldn’t wait for the garden renovations, a new southern wing, the remains of an old prewar battleship, her throne, a Mark 8 16-inch super-shell.
She swooned, clasping her hands in front of her chest and rocking her hips.
That roar of the blasting cap, that feel of silicon carbide rolling between her toes twelve hundred kilograms of high-velocity muzzle fire and a forty-one-pound bursting charge warming her sweet cheeks.
Oh, Gawds what bliss!
Morta blushed, staring into space, her mind strapped to a mercury-tipped otter class warhead with a needle nose tailfin.
Little girl, there’s something seriously wrong with you.
She frowned, giving her head a good smack, jostling Atropos like a beetle in a jar.
The Gnatu looked at each other, shifting their expressions, uncertain, confused, lost in the trappings of an inorganic mind. They shook their heads, returning to work, little hands polishing the pews and clearing the taconite pellets from the kneelers. They reminded her of cats, tiptoeing around the tapestries, a slight bow in reverence, careful not to disturb.
Morta cleared her throat and raised her voice. “Listen up soldiers!”
The Gnatu stopped, camera lenses looking up from galvanized steel rib vaults, metallic weldable conduits, and round flange pipe legs.
“Report to your battle stations and prepare the trebuchet!”
They scattered like ants around a disturbed mound, revealing hooked scythes and loaded barrels, but it ended as quickly as the chaos began. The Gnatu lined up left to right down the cathedral aisle with only a single soldier facing Morta at the front, a flawless herringbone formation.
Morta clicked her tongue, knocking her feet together and straightening her back, her right-hand palm down, positioned just above her eyebrow, her skirt billowing as the massive cathedral doors opened.
In came number thirty-seven, Morta tilting her eyes upward to meet his gaze.
He was a beast standing several stories tall. Number thirty-seven preferred ballast tanks, lead, and iron pigs, his legs erupting from the weakened trim and damaged welding, appropriately shielded from the corrosive vapors of the cargo. A giant glass lens slipped through the breach in the external plating, his skull like a living bulkhead, metal slats shifting along his brow. Chains hung from the gooseneck mounting bracelets along his back, dragging the trebuchet behind him, his claws digging into the floor, his joints protesting, leaded bolts popping out of his knees.
Morta leaped up and down, clapping her hands together, an infectious grin spreading across her lips.
A solid beam balanced on a raised fulcrum, two sections of unequal length, long and short, fitted with a sling and counterweight. Walnut, hickory, and maple, iron fittings, and brass bolts with twisted cotton ropes and polished stone.
Morta’s siege machine was magnificent.
“Thank you, number thirty-seven. You are dismissed.” She saluted, keeping her hand flush against her brow.
The creature bellowed, shaking the floor as the chains lifted free and it dragged itself into the pulpits of the cathedral, pulling its claws and feet inside the ballast tank, antennae like the branches of a metallic tree sticking out of the ruptured seams and damaged plating.
Morta fished through her dress, finding a twenty-four-dial vintage Hamilton with a golden filagree and silver stopper.
“This is a message from your commanding officer!” She raised the pocket watch above her head. “In less than five minutes, the enemy will breach your front lines! Prepare the siege equipment and rain hell upon their heads!”
The Gnatu moved in a quick but orderly fashion, never breaking their ranks, assorting into left and right-handed platoons. They gathered a mound of impure taconite pellets while a team of magnesium-toed enthusiasts bound themselves to the long arm of her trebuchet and vaulted off, their weight pulling the contraption and pivoting the short arm. The smaller Gnatu prepped the sling, loading taconite into the contraption until the little iron pellets rolled from the basket onto the floor.
A whistle sounded, the Gnatu scurrying to cut the ropes. Then, the heavy counterweight plunged downward, the long arm lifting with such force that the tapestries billowed from the rib vaults as if caught in a windstorm. A single machine, unable to free itself from the sling, flew with the contraption, its many legs frantically beating the air as a hail of taconite rained on the pews and metal pipes, making a sharp clanging noise against the forged iron and solid bricks.
Morta pounded her fist into her hand, leaping into the air. “Bullseye!” she shouted. “Well done, men. With only a single casualty this time. I’m impressed.”
The little Gnatu who flew across the cathedral scampered to pick up his missing arms and legs.
“Morta! What are you doing?!” Nona finally came, lifting the skirt of her long-sleeved champaign evening gown and tiptoeing around the metal pellets and uranium-tipped shells. “You shouldn’t be playing with that dated piece of junk around mortal fate!” She touched a tapestry, lovingly running her fingers along the chimeric stitching and playing with the buttonholes.
“You’re so annoying, Nona.” Morta placed her hands on her hips. “They’re fine, and I called for you thirty minutes ago.”
Her little sister yawned, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. “It’s early, Morta. You’re lucky I came at all—” She paused, glimpsing the Gnatu whose knees shook, holding what was left of his arms. “By the tower!”
Nona raced to the creature’s side, lifting it into her arms and holding it tight against her chest. The other Gnatu broke rank as she approached, squealing with delight, rolling around on their backs like newborn children. Those close to Morta maintained their composure, but a few looked on in confusion, a competing string of code between the sisters’ authorities creating a dysfunctional mixture of discipline and childlike behavior.
“Nona, you’re messing up my battalions!”
She ignored Morta, sitting on a pew and rocking the Gnatu in her arms, cooing like a bird. “Mamma’s here. I’ll take care of you.” Nona smiled, but then sneered, looking up at Morta. “How could you? He’s just a child!”
“They are not children, sister!”
“Yes, they are!” Nona stared at number nineteen, who immediately dropped to the floor and crawled on its belly, making dribbling noises. “See!”
“Lord help me!” Morta threw up her hands, glaring at the creature who managed a half-baked salute between its toddler ramblings. “Traitors!”
“What do you want, Morta?” Nona asked. “I wanna go back to bed.”
Gawds, what she wouldn’t give to send her there.
“Well, since you asked, princess.” Morta looked towards the rib vaults, where hundreds of tapestries were suspended from a partially undone knot. “I was doing some trimming, weed whacking as it were, and I noticed a certain fate was missing from the Isomerase’s grasp.” She looked over her shoulder at Nona. “You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you, sister?”
Nona looked down at her feet, playing with the ribbon in her hair. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.
“Don’t play dumb with me, half-blood. What have you done with your mother’s fate?!”
Nona jumped to her feet, the Gnatu scampering down her legs and hiding under the pew. “I know nothing about that!” She curled her hands into fists.
The surrounding tapestries waved, a strange wind coming from the depthless well. There was a missing space where a piece of fabric was once tied tightly with millions—a mortal life, free of the central dogma of fate.
“Where did you hide her?!” Morta said, shaking Nona’s shoulders.
Nona tore herself away, running behind Decima’s loom, but not before Morta ripped the ribbon out of her hair. She screamed, knees shaking, hands over her head.
“Where is she?!”
“Go away, Morta!” Nona ran from the Origin Well but tripped over her feet, the wind licking her hair as she crashed against the floor, carpet puckering underneath her, a velvety debris field.
“I gotcha!” Morta leaped on top of her, pinning her arms against the floor, Nona’s legs locked between her knees. “Don’t move, sis!”
Morta’s knife dangled from her nape, a devil’s tongue, circuit breakers, and folded steel caressing Nona’s cheek.
“Please,” Nona sobbed, tears erupting from her eyes. “You’re hurting me.”
“Am not you baby!” Morta’s knife retracted back to her neck. “Tell me where she is and I’ll let you go!”
“Morta, please don’t kill my mom.” Nona choked up. “Please don’t kill her.”
She sobbed, her hands going limp, a trickle of blood coming from a paper-thin cut on her cheek.
“Oh, sister…” Morta let go of her hands, sitting on Nona’s waist. “I’ll make it quick, okay? I’ve gotten good at making my cuts. It’ll be painless, gentle even.”
“Liar! Bastion said you don’t get to choose how someone dies!” Nona swung her fist, but Morta caught her arm.
“By the tower! You’re such a pain in my ass!” Her breath was hot against Nona’s face. “I have a schedule to keep, little girl. Do you know what that means? Father sets it and Bastion demands it. I’m sorry, Nona. I’m sorry she’s mortal, but she needs to die like everyone else.”
“And what about me?!” Nona shouted. “Are you going to kill me too?!”
Morta hesitated, her lower lip quivering as she dabbed the cut on Nona’s cheek with the edge of her dress. “I would never—” The words stuck in her throat, noticing for the first time that her sister was vulnerable, fragile, like the porcelain fingers of a beautiful doll.
Morta’s eyes widened, and her hands trembled.
Could her baby sister actually die?
Nona twisted out from under her legs. “I hate you,” she said with tears in her eyes. “I hate you, Morta.” She ran down the aisle, vanishing out of the cathedral doors.
Morta sat with her back to the Origin Well, hugging her knees to her chest and sobbing quietly into her skirt. The Gnatu gathered around her, returning to their formations with awkward salutes and trembling rifle mountings.
“What?!” she said, her voice trembling. “Do you think this is a show?! Go away!”
They left, single file in an orderly platoon, until the sounds of their stamping feet couldn’t be heard, the doors of the cathedral closing shut behind them.
Morta sniffed, rubbing her shoulders, tears trickling down her cheeks as she buried her face in her knees. Then she felt a tug at her skirts.
She looked up, wiping her nose with her elbow.
A Gnatu, no larger than a house cat, poked at her knees, joints swinging on naked brass gears and poorly soldered hinges, his lens glowing a deep blue color, the same as her diode.
“What’s your denomination, soldier?” she asked, hiding her smile and dropping her legs so it could crawl into her lap.
It spun around, kneading at her thighs, its knees above its body like an overgrown mechanical spider. “Igor,” it said, settling in her lap and raising its iron fingers to brush the tears from under her eyes.
This one was different. He hadn’t any rust beneath his bolts, claws, rifle pits, or wall mountings and wore no electrical outlets, utility boxes, or ballast tanks. Brass, aluminum, and copper wires snapped as tiny counterweights and pendulums waved in a perpetual motion machine, grinding gears and pressed springs charging the blue light of his lens and the red-hot plate in his abdomen, warming her legs.
Morta sighed, leaning back and resting her head against the bricks. “What are you?” she asked.
The little machine met her eyes. “I am whatever you need me to be.”
— ✦ —
“But what does that mean?” Nona asked, her voice a hushed whisper.
She sat with her knees crossed, grease stains covering her nightgown and across her nose, an 8 mm chrome combination wrench spinning in her hands. She switched to a ball-end hex driver, licking her lips as she worked on the broken joints of her new companion.
Righty tighty. Lefty loosy. Clotho said, Nona, spinning out the old screws and stripped bolts. They fell into her lap and the creature’s leg came loose.
“I am whatever you need me to be,” the Gnatu repeated, his lens bright green, the same as her diode. He seemed unfazed by his missing arm, loose legs, and pitted lugnuts.
“You said your name was Charon?” Nona licked her lips as she threaded a tiny spring through the eye of a galvanized strut.
She nodded to herself, refitting the cast aluminum pivot hinges, plane, condyloid, and saddle joints. Nona bent his knee, now as smooth as butter, and moved to the next, fishing through her skirts and finding her 5-degree arc swing, 72-tooth, chrome ratchet with a 10 mm socket.
You know, sissy, bras aren’t tool belts.
Shut up, Clotho.
Nona hummed, twisting out the old rusty washers and corroded screws. One fell from her lap and clanged against the floor. She stopped, her eyes wide, her shoulders hunched. She carefully looked behind her, Decima lying sound asleep in their bed, scratching her belly. A pleasing smile spread across her lips, the barest hint of drool staining her cheeks.
I want a piece of whatever that girl’s dreaming of, Clotho said.
It’s food. It’s almost always food.
“Creamy meringue,” Decima mumbled, confirming Nona’s suspicion.
She shrugged, returning to her work, twisting an old U-bolt and breaking it in half. She frowned, fishing through her gown for a proper replacement. Hex, anchor, square, socket, plow, stud, ah, there it was, U-bolt.
How much do you have hiding in there?
Nona fit the unusual piece into the kneecap of Charon’s ball joint, squinting in the dark, her diode like a flashlight.
My children can be clumsy sometimes. She thought, letting Clotho peruse her memories like a catalog. I’m always prepared for accidents.
Of course, the truth was Nona’s older sister was a bully, always treating the Gnatu like soldiers in a war. How many missing arms did she replace? How many cracked lenses and split toes?
Her face grew red, and she balled her hands, grabbing fistfuls of her silky gown.
Morta launched them from canons and pelted them with taconite picking wings off flies. The Duchess of Death, a callous bull in a tea shop.
“You’re not getting my mom,” she said, staring off into space.
Charon’s green lens glowed in the dark, focusing on her eyes.
She coughed, turning the ball hinge until she heard a click. “How does that feel, Charon?”
“I am what you need me to be,” he said.
“Yeah, I got that. Right now, I need you to be a cooperative patient.” She frowned. “Let’s start over. How does that feel, Charon?”
He moved his legs and tapped his claws together, twisting around in her lap. “Better,” he said.
“Great, now, how about you tell me more about yourself? You’re clearly different from the others. I thought my adoptive father was the last conduit.”
The metal slats along his lens pulled back in confusion or surprise. “New conduit,” he said, poking his chest. “New duchess.” He touched her hand. “Drones must obey. Conduit adapts, commands, an extension of mistress’s voice.”
“So, you’re like my retainer?” she asked.
An aluminum shutter closed around his lens, the metal slats pulling outward into a furrowed brow and squinted eye. “Yes, retainer, good word. Charon is Lady Nona’s retainer.”
Pfft, sissy, a lady?
Quiet you.
Nona yawned, covering her mouth with her free hand.
“My lady is tired.” He poked her cheek with the tips of his metallic fingers. “Sleep. Charon will watch over you.”
Nona smiled, picking him up in her arms and squeezing, his legs frantically waving. “That’s so sweet of you,” she said, kissing his lens.
She stood from her bench and laid Charon at the foot of their bed before crawling in next to Decima. Her sister mumbled, hugging Nona as if she were a pillow. Her eyes fluttered open, revealing the scarlet hue of her irises.
“Shhh,” Nona whispered, patting her head. “It’s just me. Go back to sleep.”
“Love you, sis,” Decima muttered, her eyes rolling shut, softly snoring as her serpentine calves thumped against the bed like a dolphin’s tail.
Gawds. Nona’s heart swelled. Her sister could be such an odd combination of cute and creepy.
Nona pulled her hair to the side, revealing the opening along her nape where a type A female plug dangled like a doll string. The sheets moved, a bed of serpents, extension chords stitched together, crawling along her legs and waist, a three-poll twenty amp yellow straight blade maneuvering against her back and towards her nape. Nona yipped, a stark connection, her hair standing on end, but then she softened, warmth flooding her body, her eyes growing heavy.
Cradled in the warmth of a steady amp, she fell asleep.
