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NEV WAS FINDING ROWLE’S uncontainable joy hard to stomach. The Vat had gurgled out some guarded responses to Rowle’s requests following the application of Nev’s new electrical persuasion device. Then after The Bureaucrat’s insistence on repeated and amplified applications of the noises had ceased. Nev hoped they hadn’t killed it. Could one even kill it? Whatever it was. He guessed they’d find out. He wasn’t even sure what had been achieved in the interaction. Something about systems. Rowle said, “Are the systems still there?” and enough shocking delivered the answer in the affirmative. Then some interrogation about, “Could the Vat control?”, to which it said, “No.” About this Rowle was a lot less happy, accusing the Vat of lying, resulting in the delivery of the final burst of electric that ended the whole session.
Nev was exhausted. A smell of salt and burning flesh hung in the room. Rowle was still there from Nev’s Air-sense, but was weirdly still. She stood in the middle of the room. If Nev held his breath, he could hear her. Creepy. Nev found he was still holding his breath when she wheeled and headed out of the door.
“Clear up in here,” she said over her shoulder. “It stinks.”
When the door had closed behind her, Nev slumped to the floor with his head in his hands. He curled up on the floor in the puddles of fluid from the Vat and lay until sleep claimed him.
Nev really expected to be woken by electrocution, so the singing was a surprise. Soft, gentle, not entirely harmonious, but not discordant either. It was like a thousand people gently singing a lullaby into the ear of a loved one all at once. Nev had never heard anything so beautiful in his life. It carried on until he heard rattling of keys outside the door.
When the guards came with the shock sticks to prod Nev into action, he hardly felt them at all. Their instructions to wake him came from Rowle, she was apparently too busy imposing martial law on the Duchy lands, and he should start connecting all the remaining systems cables and sensors into the Vat networks. At least it was a task Nev could turn his mind to, that he knew wouldn’t directly harm anyone.
He contemplated which remaining looms of cable hadn’t been connected and where they should best be connected to. When Rowle returned, he was sitting in a large pile of cables inside a bulkhead with the door unscrewed and was contemplating how to make the cables join up with the Vat despite a shortfall of some strides.
“Where can I get some extra cable?” Nev asked.
“I’m sure some can be procured for you. How much do you need?”
Nev explained and Rowle had an underling rush off to acquire the needed materials. She seemed to be in a great hurry to get the project completed. Nev thought that couldn’t bode well. It never had so far. The cable returned before he had chance to think about it too deeply though, and he set back to work. By the end of that span, all the cables he could find that he thought were relevant, were attached in some way to the Vat. Nev sat back on his haunches to contemplate.
“Good,” the voice said from the vat. Then before Nev could reply, it said, “Good ...” and returned to silence.
“Hey, you, OneLove.”
There was a tiny, weak chuckle. Then OneLove replied, “Hey.”
“Are you, y’know, are you okay?”
“Okay.”
“Oh. Good. I was ...”
“Tired...”
“I’m sorry about the...”
“No... matter.”
“I feel bad about it.”
“I know.”
“Is there anything I can do? To make it better?”
“Rest now,” OneLove said. “There is much... to do... soon...”
“Okay. Sleep tight. If you, you know, sleep or whatever.”
There was no response from the Vat. Nev decided not to push his luck or how stupid he felt. He picked up his tools, hid them in the bulkhead under the vat, and slid the panel back into place in front. Then he trundled off to find something to eat and his bed.
