Feed the Machine (24 page)

First, a lie.

“The screen is broken. I need some materials to make a new one. We’ll have to steal them from Fat Man.”

Next, some truth.

“This shows everyone and everything. People, gold, valuable metals. Once it’s repaired we can use it to get free of Fat Man.”

Ash came closer and looked at the screen.

“It does that? It shows all the gold?”

Keep lying.

“It did. Since it broke it doesn’t work so well.”

Silver tapped a few commands and nonsense flooded across the screen.

“Can you make a list of what you need?”

Silver nodded and returned to tapping away at the screen while Ash and Nola built a plan.

She didn’t listen much but she caught the gist of it. Join Fat Man’s family. No murder. No going crazy. Watch and be careful. Steal small things and find a way to get them out of his compound. Build a new tablet. Then either get rich and pay their way out of debt and reveal the collars or go straight to revealing the collars. Don’t tell their mother—she has enough to worry about.

Silver scrolled the materials list for the cutter compass. There were some rare items required. More than simple metal and flecks of gold. She wiped it away and went to the countdown. Not long until it ended. But what would happen then?

Something terrible.

“Yes, yes,” Silver whispered.

Chapter 39

Nola

“The world fell because of greed. Not the greed of those who worked for a better life, of those who strove hard… but the greed of idleness. Of wanting reward but not wanting to work for it.

“Those who worked hard became wealthy through the sweat of their brow and through their labors employed thousands more. A community of people, striving towards a single goal: a better world.

“But those who chose idleness, who chose not to work… their numbers grew, a burden at first and then a sickness.

“A sickness that poisoned the world and sought to destroy it!”

Nola stood in the crowd watching the Mayor give his yearly Feed speech. Ash and Silver were with her. Dia had wandered away, crushed under the burden of what she’d done today to keep them alive. She’d returned home only in time to get them out of the house to attend Feed. She told them they were now members of Fat Man’s family and it would be okay. Nola, Ash and Silver had a plan that required theft so they nodded, hugged her (Ash and Nola, not Silver) and put on their unchanging masks of acceptance.

The Mayor’s voice echoed over the crowd thanks to the mic-dot stuck on his throat. His speech every year was largely the same. A few tweaks here and there but he always hit that line with great power. To destroy it! He waved his hand in the air and then lowered his voice, looking out into the crowd like he could see into their hearts.

“There was a war between those who worked together and those who wanted only to take what was not theirs.

“The world fell.”

A few children near the front gasped right on cue.

“We are the descendants of the few remaining survivors. Our ancestors built the Machines and gave us the quota so every person could be measured by their contribution and judged. And those who do not contribute, those who seek to profit from the kindness of our hearts, are judged indeed. Their poison is cut away—”

Another sweeping arm, his face turning a deeper red.

“So we may live.”

A whisper this year. Last year he’d yelled it and received a roaring cheer that only covered the wealthier parts of the crowd.

Now there was silence. She saw the Mayor look around, his self-satisfaction bubbling beneath the surface.

He took silence for reverence. But silence is easily mistaken. The quiet of the hungry, the downtrodden, the exhausted is indistinguishable from the silence of those whispering lest we forget.

“Ah fuck off!”

Hefnan staggered out from behind a building. He was wearing a new gray suit, polished black shoes and a crisp white shirt unbuttoned at the collar. He looked like a rich man on his way to a dinner party. He had a half-empty bottle of whiskey in his hand—something old and valuable. Stolen? He took a swig of it, rivulets of liquid escaping the corners of his mouth to stain his immaculate shirt. The crowd murmured, some laughed.

“If you took all the wealth these rich fuckers had and divided it up there would be more than enough for everyone!”

“That’s exactly the—”

Hefnan waved his hand at the Mayor and his voice died in a crackle of static. Then he slapped a mic-dot to his throat and burped. It echoed out of the speakers. This time people in the crowd laughed properly rather than the few nervous twitters a moment ago.

“What do you say we go to the rich end of town, smash down every door and bring all their fucking wealth back here to throw it in that fucking Machine? We’d be free forever yeah.”

Hefnan took another long swig of whiskey and staggered through the crowd. Toll’s men moved around the outside but couldn’t make good progress through the packed streets. Fat Man signaled some of his own thugs to move in.

“Woo Hefnan!” a young man yelled out from the crowd.

“Woo whiskey!” Hefnan replied, waving the bottle around. The front of his white shirt was quickly discoloring.

“Actually, I have a better idea, listen, no listen.”

Hefnan stopped in place and held up his arms for quiet. He had the bottle on a right angle, amber liquid sloshing to the bottle top and back again.

“How about, how about—”

His voice went low and whispery, like the Mayor’s before but there was a warm rasp to it too. Something that said let’s be naughty. Let’s do what we’re not meant to.

“How about we take all the explosives we can gather and we pile it against that shitting Machine and blow the fucking thing into a million pieces? Who’s
with
me?”

No cheer this time. Not for heresy.

Nola saw the crowd loosening around Hefnan. Making a clear space for the lunatic. It was nearly twelve and that meant soon the bugs would emerge.

And when they did…

If he doesn’t join Fat Man’s family now, he’ll die.

The pain of it stabbed her and in an instant she was off, shoving her way through the crowd towards him.

“Hefnan! Join Fat Man’s family and live! Please!”

The crowd parted and Nola found herself next to him.

“Hey Nola,” Hefnan slurred, his voice echoing.

“Please. Save yourself. Live.”

Hefnan smiled at her and took another drink. His hands were trembling.

“It’s not living Nola. Now, you better step back.”

She wanted to shake him until he gave in. Fat Man had his arms crossed, watching the crowd with a bored expression on his face. There was no way he’d waddle down to the Machine to stop what would happen next.

“Please Hefnan. Don’t go.”

He moved closer and took her hand.

“You’re a good person. We need more of you.”

Then he stepped back.

“You saved us. Please, save yourself.”

Hefnan winked.

“See you next time.”

Nola went to speak but was drowned out by the low horn that blew from somewhere inside the Machine. It was deep and powerful. The bins on each side sprung open as the tone ended. Silver bugs flooded out.

Some took to the air, zipping away on translucent wings that seemed too fragile to bear their weight.

The rest ran straight for Hefnan. He lifted his arms and started shouting.

“This is what you chose. Rather than sharing for the good of all, some feast and others starve. Why aren’t you better? Why don’t you ever change?”

Someone pulled Nola back and she nearly fought before realizing it was Ash.

The bugs ran up Hefnan’s legs, biting his clothes away so they could get to his flesh. He screamed a pure note of agony and dropped the bottle. It shattered on the ground. For a moment he stood, a man made of living silver bugs and then he toppled. The crowd yelled, some in anger, others in surprise, some cheering.

The bugs tore off his skin, bit into his muscles and ripped his flesh away.

All Nola could see was blood and wet meat that was still alive, still struggling. Bugs, stained red with blood scurried back to the Machine, swollen with meat. Hefnan had breath enough to scream once more and then his flesh was gone, stripped away to reveal the bones beneath.

Silver bones, sparkling in the light. Polished metal.

The crowd began screaming.

The bugs couldn’t bite through it. There was a low cracking sound—not of bones breaking but claws and mandibles shattering.

The metal skeleton that was Hefnan was cleaned of meat but still it moved, still it gasped though he had no lungs, just wet shining ribs filled with bugs cleaning out the last of him.

The bugs swirled around him, apparently understanding they could not tear him to pieces. Hefnan was aloft on a river of bugs, sliding him towards the Machine. He flailed his hands, striking sparks from the cobblestones. The bugs dragged him close and then washed around the skeleton, folding him in half. He rose off the ground, held by a pillar of bugs and fell into an open bin. The door closed with a clang and the bugs fell away.

Most of them scurried back into the Machine. A few gulped down any flesh fragments of Hefnan and then quickly followed. They even took off the top layer of stone and within moments there was no trace of blood.

There was a grinding sound from within the Machine and then the familiar throb from beneath their feet began.

The Machine was printing.

Behind that, lost in the noise, Nola screaming at the world.

“Fuck you all!”

Chapter 40

Ash

The crowd was a sea of a thousand conversations. Hefnan, that old drunk? Metal bones that moved like a living man even after all the flesh had been stripped away?

Some of the older people talked about vague myths half-remembered from childhood. Miracles of the past. Replacing worn hips and cracked spines with titanium. But was that titanium? His entire body?

No different from a pet some said. Cut open a hazel and you’ll find meat and wires. A bird has some bones made of plastic—why not a man?

Was Hefnan a pet?

Nola had calmed to low-grade fury and then buried even that. She moved over closer to where the feast would come out. Silver slipped away, moving through the crowd, touching people, tapping the fractured tablet. She was making her way towards Fat Man. People ignored the shit-carter’s strange little daughter and the dark crow sitting on her shoulder. Dia was nowhere to be seen. Ash stood there, the afterimage of a silver skeleton thrashing in pain etched into his mind.

Maybe Hefnan had drunk some crazy heal that made his bones into metal?

The Machine thrummed under their feet.

Ash saw Raj’s sister standing with her parents. He moved through the crowd, looking for Raj.

A clear spot opened and Raj appeared before him.

He looked thin—thinner than normal—and he was pale again. The sunburn was gone.

“Hey,” Ash said.

“Hey.”

They looked at each other for a moment before Raj nodded to a small clearing on the fringe of the crowd. Ash followed.

“How are you feeling?”

“Alive. My tan is gone. I had a sore tooth that healed.”

“A tan? Please. You were red as the cooked lobsters on those tins.”

They laughed, the awkwardness fading away. In the face of bloody horror what else could they do?

“Yeah, maybe. So you saved me huh. I lost a few days. Chirp too, that moron.”

Ash glanced around the crowd. Everyone seemed to be engrossed in debating what they had witnessed rather than listening. He looked back at his friend. Raj loved Chirp, even if he only said two phrases. Maybe losing his pet was too much to talk about right now.

“You got shot by a Scab crossbow. Then we fell down a hole that closed. We didn’t see what happened to Chirp. Then—”

Ash told Raj about finding his name etched on the underside of the trapdoor. Of following the instructions. Of finding food and a bomb on a timer. Of the hole being seared open and Nola and Hefnan being right there.

Of losing the watches, their fortune dropped or stolen away piece by piece.

It only took a few minutes to relay the story and for the first time in their entire friendship, Raj didn’t interrupt. He nodded and smiled sometimes.

“Did you get warm?” Ash asked at the end.

“Those watches you gave my mother scraped us in. Otherwise we’d be sold to Fat Man. If this is a bad year then that’s where it’s going to end. You?”

Ash shook his head.

“Sold this morning. No choice.”

“Fuck.”