Spare and Found Parts (13 page)

“Don't mind them. Oliver's only coming around to some of our newer advancements; they can be quite surprising. I'm Nic Fern,” said the last person, flannel clad, a bobble hat on their head, short tufts of mousy hair sticking out from under the wool, both feminine and boyish at once. Their voice was tender and gentle, almost a whisper. They extended a hand; both of theirs were porcelain coated and painted with thin green vines—newer models. Nell shook their hand, and it was warm—definitely newer. Some of the latest releases had thermodynamic fibers installed nearer the surface so they matched the owner's body temperature.

Nic petted Kodak on the head. “Hello there, fella.”

“He's very tame,” Nell assured them. Kodak nuzzled closer to Nic, happy for the attention.

“I know Ruby well. A lot of my day work takes me to the parklands. I work in the horticultural studies center in the Old Central Bank. There's not many of us there, but we're getting things done.”

“Oh.”

Ruby seemed to have connections to absolutely everybody. Yet she had never introduced Nell to Nic or anyone else, really. Nell knew the least of all the people in this room, and it was beginning to feel worse than walking down that flight of stairs.

“And . . . what . . . do you do here?” The words were painful on Nell's tongue, thick with ignorance. Oliver and Tim still spoke, hushed, with their backs to the group. How she hated this feeling clueless.

“I'm in charge of images. Some of these machines are full of pictures. You should
see
them.” Nic's voice was flush with excitement, and they took a steaming fresh cup of tea from the counter and passed it to Nell. “Now that we have the projector set up—took forever, man, to clean it and rebuild it; finding a bulb for it that wasn't smashed was the
worst
—but it was worth it; now we can see them in much greater detail. So many photographs of people's faces. Renderings of paintings. Animals that are long gone. We can learn so much,
you know. Some of the smaller computers have digital cameras that still work, too.”

Nell took the cup and nodded mutely. The boys reemerged from their chat just then, and Oliver noticed Nell's bewilderment and laughed. “Poor Nell has been a bit out of the loop, lads.”

“Well, that's the point, isn't it? If everybody knew, something would leak, wouldn't it?” Rua leaned back on the counter. “We'll tell everyone when the time's right. When we have something more than tunes to show for ourselves. All undercover, underground for now. We're no use to anyone working in a rotten old building anyway, could do with a cleaner space, someplace we'd be proud to show people around. Until we shine ourselves up a little, we can't get found out.”

“But we won't get found out,” snapped Sheena Blake, “because if we do, we'll know who the leak is.” She looked straight at Nell, intense and accusatory.

“Look, I've no interest in uprooting this, this, whatever this is,” Nell stammered. “I'm here to get something that will help with what I'm working on myself. That's all.”

She wished they were dancing again instead of talking, though this was not at all an appropriate moment to ask them to play the song again.

“And what is it?” asked Tim. “Go on.”

Nell drew breath. “I—I actually can't say just yet. It's—it's extremely confidential.”

The four computer restorers collectively made an
oooooh
noise before descending into scattered laughter, part mockery, part curiosity.

“Really, lads,” Oliver said. “She hasn't even told me yet.”

“And I won't,” Nell said, firmly. “Not until—not until it's finished.”

But oh, she would eventually have to tell people, wouldn't she?

“I can respect that,” said Tim. “I mean, from what Sheena says about how Ruby reacted, it seems pretty unconventional, right? I'm assuming it's something to do with your father's work, yeah?”

“Yes,” Nell said, face straight. “Yes. Totally unconventional. Really can't talk about it.”

“I'm not sure how I feel about selling one of our restorations for a project I know nothing about.” Sheena's words were steely.

“Ah, come on now,” Nic said. “How many times have you talked somebody out of their relics and computer scraps when they brought them to your family's garage, without telling them why? How many times has Ruby lifted odds and ends from her father's repair shop? You're not all that transparent yourself.”

Sheena scowled and drank deeply from her mug, knitted brows peeking over the top of it. When she surfaced, she whistled low. “Rua, what do you think?”

“It depends on what she wants,” he replied. “I mean, Oliver wouldn't have brought her to us if he didn't believe it was for a good cause.”

Oliver shrugged coolly. “It's up to you.”

Nell was practically invisible. This was the opposite of music, the opposite of dancing with strangers, that unspoken safety. The strange bond she'd formed with them, gone. They all knew one another so well, and she was a stranger, an interloper, a novelty. She hated it.

“I mean, if she can pay, I don't see the problem,” Tim offered. “Look, what are you in the market for exactly?”

Nell could pay. She had tokens. She hoped it would be as simple as a financial exchange.

“Well,” she began slowly, cautiously, “I know—I know we aren't really meant to go looking for these things, but the way some of the computers used to work was like the way we think. The way people think. Like, they have memories and respond to interaction. Verbally maybe. One that can speak. I want one that does that. With memories. That can respond to interaction.”

“Like a human brain,” added Oliver. Nell could have hit him. There was no way they wouldn't guess.

The
oooh
rippled around the group again, with a little more awe this time.

“Trying to study thought processing?” said Rua.

“Language?”

“Recollection?”

They were interested. They understood.

“Maybe, maybe.” Nell raised her hands in defense. “It's important that I get one that can respond to interaction.”

This time there was a
mmm
of what sounded like . . . Acceptance?

“Grand, so that's no bother,” Rua said, striding out of their cluster into the workshop. “Easy-peasy. Most of the later handheld ones can do that. Now it's getting them to wake up that's the problem. We got one of them to talk once before it sparked out. That was the worst; think of what it could have told us! I reckon once we get one talking, then,
then
we can really make a go of taking this public.”

“Talk or no talk, it nearly burned the place down,” warned Tim.

“But it had a
really
cool voice,” Nic said. “Not like a person's voice, though. A little bit like the singing”—they pointed at the wall—“in the video.”

Nell almost leaped out of her skin. “Really? That sound?”

Nic nodded. “Beautiful, wasn't it?”

“The most beautiful,” Nell agreed.

Oliver tutted. “That wouldn't be my choice of words,” and Tim gave him a firm elbow in the ribs.

“Would you stop?”

“We didn't get to ask it many questions before it, well, exploded.” Nic shrugged, ignoring the boys. “We have a few similar models, though, that we've been moving a little more slowly with. It's all electricity and wire if you can get a generator and the right adapters; it's just a matter of finding one that's not corrupted. Some will switch on and say nothing; others will just scroll code for screens and screens—impossible.”

Rua stood up on a stool and leaned into a cabinet mounted on the wall. He riffled through it for a moment, then carefully removed something from the back. The second Nell laid eyes on it, she knew she didn't need their help anymore.

A silver box, almost all screen, almost flat, dwarfed in the size of Rua's palm but around the same size as Nell's hand. Identical to the box that her father had handed to her in the kitchen.
Just run a few volts through it
.

“Oh,” Nell said, “I have one of those.”

Every head in the room turned to her, all eyes on her, a murmuration of “What?”

“Yes. I didn't think I'd be able to get it to light up. Wires, you said?” Her ticking wasn't doing so great under all this pressure. Her voice stayed calm, but she was all roulette in her chest.

“Yes,” said Nic. “Special ones. We have lots of them. We could give one to you.” They shot a meaningful look at their teammates. “I mean, we have plenty to spare. Wires aren't hard to come by. It could be a gift?”

Tim scampered across the room to a work desk. He opened a drawer, then another, then another, and grabbed a shallow box from it. He carried it back over and placed it in Nell's arms.

“One of these should work. Some of them are dead, but a few of them can still carry a charge. Wear rubber gloves. You could hurt yourself otherwise. There's more than one reason civilians aren't allowed have computers anymore,” he said. “We weren't raised harnessing them or electricity like this. It's an uncontrollable force.”

“Look,” began Sheena sternly, placing her mug on the counter, “if you find any more of those computers, bring them here, yeah? Don't be squirreling them away. You know where we are now. We're happy to have you on board. When we find a way to present
all this, it might blow up, divide people. You're either with us, or you're not.”

“I'm—I'm with you,” said Nell, a flicker of uncertainty flashing through her: Would they be with
her
? These people danced underneath historical projections of a future that never came; they unraveled dead machines without fear. They didn't tolerate Oliver's reservations for even a second. She felt like maybe she'd be able to trust them.

She looked for a second into the box of cables and wires and steel plugs. They were gray and white and blue and red, knotted and frayed, filaments sticking out here and there. Electricity would run through them into the little computer in her house and wake it up. And that, in turn, would wake up her creation, wouldn't it?

Oliver yawned theatrically, stretched, and cracked the bones in his shoulders, back, then fingers. “Well, I don't know about you lads, but I'm wiped out. Is this what you need, Nell?”

Nell nodded, opening her satchel and delicately placing the box inside. She wasn't wiped out. She wanted to stay.

“Grand. We'll be on our way. I'll see you in the Bayou tonight, I'd imagine?” he said, beginning to walk out. Nell turned to follow him. This strange ordeal seemed
too huge to be over so soon. She wanted to talk to Nic more, to say, “Hey, next time you're in the parklands, stop by my house.” She wanted to ask Rua some questions. She—she wanted to—to get to know these people more. Not just as mechanics or bakers or researchers of plants. There was a tiny revolution beginning in this room.

“I'll lead you out,” said Rua.

“Turn off the light when you leave,” said Tim. “One more time, you know?”

The small collective of revolutionaries and restorers chorused a good-bye and waved them out. Nell's feet were heavy. Almost before she was at the door, the music struck up again, a thousand violins immediately major, immediately in a key of delight. The light switched off behind them, the door closed, and they were in the dark and dank again.

The wild spectrum of sound faded as she drew further into the darkness, one hand in Rua's, one hand in Oliver's. It didn't feel so bad now. Not at all.

O
liver had thought, when you stopped at the steps after saying good-bye, that you were going to invite him in. You could tell by the way his hands knotted in hope, his eyes eager, his mouth slightly open. He thought he had finally proven himself valiant enough for your courtship and partnership. He had let you place the hook in his mouth, and he had let you pull. He is ready to walk up those steps into your home, into your life. He is aching to.

When you tell him your plan, your reasons, it is a waterfall of agonizing honesty. Oliver cannot swim in it, not at all. Your excitement from the dancing and the pictures on the screen and finally peeking into the silent revolution of your peers had overwhelmed you to a bursting point. You need an assistant, you tell him. You've decided you'd like it to be him. He is the
one with all the spare parts. He's helped you so much, could he help a little more?

You wait for him to ask if he would be paid, if you could exchange anything for his assistance, if this meant you could go into business together. You are ready to let him down easy, to thank him for his friendship, to explain to him that he might make a fine replacement for Ruby, as long as he stops trying to touch you.

And he'll tell you that you are a genius, that though his love for you is bursting and red, he would quell his stupid lust in order to be in the cool shadow of your genius, in order to help you rise above your peers and create the most magnificent, intelligent machine the planet has known since the Turn, since the day the taps ran a new, terrible black water and poison took the people of your land. He'll help you compose the form for the conduit. A man of metal and wire awakened by dead digital magic. A man who can speak in code. You would be at the forefront of the revolution, and Oliver would aid you, wouldn't he?

You hardly recognize yourself, the pulse of the beats from the Lighthouse still in your body. Your ticking is a joyous thing; you are utterly changed, and Oliver will help you, won't he?

Oliver's face splits in horror at your question.
Funny, how “Will you help me?” can rupture a blooming friendship, a camaraderie, if it costs too much of a person. The undertaker's son is hardy; he has seen death in progress and long after the fact. He has quietly looted the houses of the dead for mechanical treasures, all the while muttering rosaries of apology and grief under his breath, saying how sorry he is, how he is doing this to help those who still live, how he is trying to help.

But this, this bringing electric life out of the remains of the dead twists something inside him. With his blossoming hangover and face that can never disguise what he is feeling, he is disgusted and something else that looks an awful lot like fear.

His face says no before his mouth does: his thin, sallow face. He takes a single step backward,
no
spilling from his lips like waves of black water, like waves of poison, thrashing, cold rejection. You only hear panic. You feel wetness on your cheeks. You are crying. He calls you sick. He says he's tried to help you and this is what you've been up to all along: this horrific, grotesque, pointless idea, this
impossible
plan.

Impossible. There. It has been said. Finally. The word rises in the garden like a sick flower, you have tears on your face, and there is nothing you can do but turn your back. You walk up the steps to your home, to
your impossible plan, to your dead end.

He is still talking, but you aren't listening now, the volume of your thoughts blaring stereo.
Tick, tick, tick
.

Will he tell Rua? Nic? Sheena and Tim? They'd never let you in their beautiful white room again; you'd never catch up to their pace. Between Oliver and Ruby the secret will leak, and you'll be a pariah, even more of a misfit than you already are:
sick
. You'll be
sick
for even thinking such a thing, a stupid, impossible thing.

Oliver shouts your name from his broken heart, from his ragged throat, and you turn to him at the top of the steps.

“I'm sorry!” he pleads. “I know this means a lot for you, but we
need
you. We need your talents and resources to help get our other apprentices, our peers, back on the ground. We're trying to fix this city, Nell! We need you, your skill; certainly we need what you can do with a computer.”

“What's the difference, Oliver, between what I'm building and what they're doing in the Lighthouse?” you ask, looking down from the steps.

Oliver gapes up at you. “Nell, they're archaeologists; they're not cobbling together electric men to show off their discoveries. That's what you should be doing, not just holed up here on your own!'”

“You saw the figures on the screen, Oliver. They
aren't building electric men; they're resurrecting them. I want to
make
a real one, not just a picture on the screen. Something we can hold and touch!”

“Those were monsters on the screen. A monster, Nell, that's what you want.”

You will not be told what to do any longer. This belongs to you and you alone. Your voice shakes, not with fear but with defiance,

“Oliver, I am the monster.”