If we waited until we fully understood everything, we would never do anything.
Arnon D’Bvaym
AFTER A SUFFICIENT shock is applied, the chemical mixture will burn away and the anomaly will begin to form; if ye see fire, the shock wasn’t strong enough. The result looks like an ember coated in electricity, color ranging from an angry red to a deep purple (although why the color variation is beyond my ken). Light distortion and coloration doesn’t . . . doesn’t seem to . . . influence . . . distortion and coloration . . . seems to . . .
64Bit leaned back and massaged the side of his head. He had been hunched over the master’s notes for hours, scouring and re-scouring every crinkled page, and the words had begun to swim before his eye screens. With a thought, he turned his eye screens on and off, then concluded that his mind was malfunctioning, not his vision. He groaned and stretched, then fell backward on his sleeping pad and stared at the cracked ceiling.
“Why must these notes be so unorganized?” 64Bit muttered to himself. “Even a quick application of headings would make it much easier to skim for information. I’d add them myself, but . . .” he glanced down at the pages strewn across his legs. “Well, regardless, that wouldn’t address the handwriting . . .”
64Bit rubbed the bags under his eyes. Not being able to sleep much the past several nights hadn’t helped his ability to parse his master’s thoughts—and waking up in a cold sweat earlier that morning had left him unsettled. He had felt like he was being watched, not for the first time, but hadn’t found any evidence that the master or Cortex had been in his room while he slept. Perhaps he was feeling pressure over making his first particle battery tomorrow.
That couldn’t be right. “Never lost sleep over a project before,” 64Bit muttered. “Diet hasn’t changed—that’s not the issue. Light exercise hasn’t changed—do I need more exercise? Worth thinking about. Same chores, same company. Hmmm.” He turned his head and looked his room over. It was sparse—he had four small crates in two neat stacks against the wall, which served as both his dresser and his desk. There was a tower of worn books on one side of the crates and a sheaf of his own handwritten notes on the other, a thick rug for sitting or kneeling before the crates. Aside from his travel pack, sleeping pad, a half-finished computer that he needed to build a casing for, and spare slippers that he had sewn himself, the rest of his room was empty. Well, except the Therexe Cube.
64Bit narrowed his eyes. In the corner where the door to his room met the wall rested his Therexe Cube. Sized for a child’s hands, black, metal, and covered in screens and lights, currently off, the sight of it made him frown. He had thrown it there shortly after Cortex had taken his lunch plate away.
Red light, on, 64Bit thought. The cube did nothing. 64Bit scowled and sat up, then buried his nose in the master’s notes again.
A properly prepared particle battery casing must be completely structurally sound. Even the smallest crack or weakness in welding may be the difference between a convenient power source and a large explosion—
Two small knocks interrupted his thoughts. 64Bit commanded his eye screens to show him the time and winced. He had promised to eat dinner with Cortex and then studied well past that. “Come in,” he said, half staring at the papers in his lap.
The door slid open, revealing the master’s younger acolyte, Cortex. The boy was ten years old—a little over half 64Bit’s age—with yellow irises and the same glass port in his forehead that 64Bit had, a mark of being a technomancer, but Cortex’s was obscured by his shaggy hair. Cortex smiled brightly and held two bowls of stew before him. “I warmed up some dinner! I figured you shouldn’t wait any longer.” He stepped in and accidentally kicked the Therexe Cube across the uneven wooden floor. “Oh—sorry!”
64Bit set the master’s notes beside his sleeping pad and crawled to grab the cube, then stood and placed it on his desk. “Doesn’t matter.” He looked out into the hallway. “We’re not eating with the master tonight?”
“Naw,” Cortex said. “A woman needed an emergency C-section— probably he was needed for more than just that, I don’t know. He’s been gone all day. Hey, what was your cube doing on the floor?” As he spoke, he offered 64Bit a bowl and then flopped onto 64Bit’s sleeping pad, nearly splashing stew in the process.
64Bit pressed his lips together. He had been looking forward to speaking with the master before bed, and with his mentor gone, 64Bit would have preferred to spend the night studying. He could tell that Cortex was looking for social interaction, however, and the boy was already in the room . . . 64Bit sat near Cortex, taking care not to spill from his own bowl, then glanced at the cube. “It frustrated me.”
“Really?” Cortex looked at the Therexe Cube and, a moment later, all of its lights were blinking. He grinned ear-to-ear. “I think yours is much more responsive than mine. I have to think a lot harder to get mine to do anything.”
Spoon halfway to his mouth, 64Bit paused. A Therexe Cube was a tool for technomancers in training. By commanding it to light up or run images across its screen, a young technomancer could practice mentally connecting with, and commanding, technology. It was supposed to quickly become little more than a toy as the technomancer moved on to more important things. It also represented the one thing, as far as 64Bit was concerned, that defined a true technomancer. Anyone could become a surgeon, write code, build computers, or engineer machines—or even become proficient in all of them, as was expected of a technomancer. But only technomancers could command technology mentally. 64Bit concentrated as hard as he could on the Therexe Cube and thought, Lights, off.
The cube kept blinking, following Cortex’s previous command.
Cortex waved his hands in front of 64Bit’s eye screens. “Hello? You in there? Studying must have really done a number on you— your stare is just as vacant as the wall rozie.” Cortex laughed lightly.
64Bit blinked, then looked away from Cortex’s smile. He wished the boy weren’t here. Instead of asking Cortex to leave, he stuck his spoon back in his stew and said, “We forgot to pray.” They both placed their hands over their hearts and bowed their heads and whispered separate prayers before eating. The savory stew was filled with perfectly tender roots and vegetables, and a surprising amount of flavor. If there was one thing 64Bit could never complain about with Cortex, it was his cooking.
“You shouldn’t speak so lightly of the wall rozie,” 64Bit said between bites. “It’s a symbol of the danger that surrounds us, but also of how lucky we are to have avoided the worst of it.”
“I know,” Cortex said. “But it’s just . . . it’s just there, every day. I got used to it.” He then leaned over with his bowl balanced precariously on his knee and scooted forward. He shoved a spoon in his mouth and, before swallowing, said, “Hey, what were you studying anyway? Even more battery stuff?”
“Cortex!” 64Bit exclaimed as the boy’s bowl tipped dangerously near the old papers. 64Bit snatched up the master’s notes and began smoothing them out, making sure that no stew had fallen on them. “These are very valuable. Please be more careful.”
“Sorry,” Cortex said, then scooted away from the notes, looking down. “Don’t we have electronic copies of those stored somewhere?”
“You know I prefer reading physical copies,” 64Bit said. “And besides, that doesn’t excuse not being careful.” He noticed that the words on the master’s notes were blurry; he worried for a moment that the faded ink had gotten wet, but then realized that his eye screens were fogged from the steam rising off the hot stew. He took a corner of his blanket and wiped his eye screens clean, then held the bowl a little farther from himself as he continued eating.
“You read too much. You could have tried to make two particle batteries this week if you’d spent your study time just doing it. Even if you got it wrong, you would have learned more.”
64Bit knew he didn’t need to defend the master’s notes or his study time, but he still bristled. “I want to be maximally prepared. I would like my first attempt to be a successful one. Just like the master. An acolyte needs to strive to live up to the example set before him.”
Cortex wrinkled his nose. “Nobody gets it right the first time. The master’s master didn’t get it right the first time.”
“But the master did, and that’s all that matters,” 64Bit muttered.
“Huh?” Cortex said.
64Bit shook his head. “It—nothing. Don’t worry about it.”
“Okay.” Cortex continued to chatter, not needing 64Bit’s full attention to carry on a conversation. He complained about his maintenance duty on the settlement walls and how difficult it was to focus when reading anything the master had assigned. He talked about accidentally denting the chemical catalyzer machine that morning and about being punished with scrubbing floors for an hour, then spoke about looking outside and enjoying watching people walk by. After a pause to shovel some food in his mouth, he continued with a story about a three-legged rat he saw evading a cat in the streets, making an image of the two creatures appear in the Therexe Cube’s small screen. 64Bit shook his head—how did he make it look so natural? So easy? Cortex was a child, and he didn’t care about any other aspect of being a technomancer.
“Has everything been put away in the kitchen?” 64Bit interrupted.
“Naw,” Cortex said. “Not yet, anyway. I didn’t feel like climbing all over.”
Cortex climbing around in the kitchen was the primary reason why some of the cupboards didn’t have doors. Sensing an opportunity for some solitude, 64Bit said, “I’ll take care of it. You get some rest.”
“No, I’ll do it!” Cortex jumped to his feet, grabbed 64Bit’s bowl, and ran to the door before 64Bit could say anything; the door opened itself as Cortex approached it. “You’re finishing your first battery tomorrow, right? I want to watch the whole thing, and when you mess up, I don’t want you complaining that it’s because I made you clean up dinner and you were tired.” Cortex cackled and slipped into the hallway, neglecting to close the door behind him. With Cortex gone, the lights on the Therexe Cube stopped flashing.
“Cortex, the door!” 64Bit said. He stared for a moment, then heard the sounds of dishes being washed in the kitchen. He looked at the door and thought, Close.
The door stayed open.
“Door, close,” 64Bit said. Nothing.
64Bit grunted and walked to the door, then touched its frame. The door slid halfway closed, stopped. 64Bit groaned aloud. “Now? Now is the time you break down?” Then he saw Cortex step into view, looking down and holding his hands behind his back. Spots of water were on his gray robes.
“No, that was me, sorry,” Cortex said. He looked up. “I just wanted to say, thanks for talking to me tonight. You two have been so busy all week. It’s been pretty lonely for me.” He scuffed the floor with a slippered foot.
64Bit blinked. He preferred solitude. But he nodded and said, “I enjoyed talking to you, too, Cortex. Have a nice night.” 64Bit tapped his doorframe again and the door slid closed. He knelt on the rug in front of his crate desk, set the master’s notes on top, and read for a few minutes. He planned on studying until the master returned home, but his full stomach and previous late nights conspired to pull his eyes closed. After an hour, 64Bit sighed, tapped a sensor on the wall, and his room’s light flickered off. He knelt beside his sleeping pad, prayed, and rolled into it, asleep almost before he stopped moving.
#
64BIT SAT UP in his bed, breathing heavily, body cold and covered in gooseflesh. He took a long, slow breath, then rubbed some spots off his eye screens. “Tired—stressed. No dreams. Hmmm,” he whispered. If this lasted another day, he would speak to the master about it. Groaning, he dragged himself out of bed, placed a hand over his heart, and began his morning meditation, biting his lip to maintain wakefulness. By the time he opened his eyes, a gentle light pierced through his high, narrow bedroom window. He took another slow breath and said to himself, “Do this right—the first time.”
Breakfast wouldn’t be ready for another hour, based on 64Bit’s internal clock and Cortex’s morning habits. That didn’t stop 64Bit from moving swiftly as he brushed his teeth, shaved his head, and changed into a new robe. He knelt before his crate desk, placed his and the master’s notes next to each other, and then began studying and writing once again.
“Yer in much the same position I left ye yesterday.” 64Bit whipped his head around to see the master standing in the doorway to his room. The old man was bent, covered in wrinkles and liver spots, and had wispy hair on the top of his head but a clean-shaven face. The glass port in his forehead reflected sunlight as he smiled. “Ye studied all the night through then?”
64Bit placed a hand on his right breast and dipped his shoulders toward the master, then responded. “Um . . . I slept fine.”
The master cocked his head. “Oh, is that so? I didn’t know fine left purple bruise-likes under one’s eyes.”
64Bit rubbed under his eye screens. “Not as well as I would have liked. But I feel ready for today. I’ve studied, I’ve practiced . . .” 64Bit pantomimed putting together a particle battery. He would use a machine to assist him when he actually built the battery, but miming going through the process helped him feel more prepared—and, he hoped, showed his competence. “I’m going to make you proud.”
The master nodded, face plain. “Well, I thank ye for caring for my feelings. Don’t do it for me alone, though.” He turned as if to leave, then looked back. “Most fail on their first try, lad. A finicky, tricky process, it be. Don’t hold yerself to an unrealistic standard. The Creator expects us to fail and try again, not be perfect all at once. Aye?”
“Yes, sir,” 64Bit said. The master nodded slowly, then turned his head sideways and stared distantly, massaging the scars on the back of his head as he did so. He blinked, then looked back at 64Bit.
“Lots to do today. Best be starting on it quick. Don’t be late.” The master walked off.
“But you did it perfect the first time,” 64Bit muttered. He organized his and the master’s notes and found his Therexe Cube hidden under some papers. 64Bit pressed his lips together, then left his room, tapping the door frame behind him to slide the door shut.
Copyright © 2023 by David Ludlow
Boo Ludlow 