kaolin fire presents :: writing :: fiction

"ClaraBelle.0"

words

Clara, chest flat against the earth, peered over the rise and sniggered. Sotto voce, then, "Those eyes are crap, it's right scrap, it is."

Belle, behind her--two years newer, and always behind her--scrunched up just a little, trying to see.

"Careful," Clara rasped.

She didn't reply, but moved more slowly; still, she wanted to see.

Clara passed her back the perinocs, and she put them to her off eye. The sentrybot came into quick focus and she had to blink a couple of times to keep the constant movement of the perinocs' tracking from twitching her circuits. "So?" she asked, keeping her voice low. "Why the whisper if it's dead bot walking?"

Her sister burned a glare at her that she resolutely ignored; Clara turned back to watch the sentry unenhanced. "I didn't say it was deaf, now. But it sure is junk. Tee minus?"

"Ten minutes."

Clara pushed back from the edge to where she'd be safely out of LOS, and sat up. "A game of cards, then?"

Belle scooted back to match her, shaking her head. "How can you play?"

"Life's harsh. You've gotta make what you can. When you can."

Belle looked away, biting her lip. She worried about Clara.



Twelve minutes later, Clara was a green glow in the perinocs; the world was pitch in eclipse and the factory hadn't bothered turning its externs on. Clara had five minutes to tag the bot; then Belle had to learn it, enough, just enough--then they had to book. Belle and the rest could finish up back at the park.

She scratched at her neck, then reached down to her hip to squeeze the luckstone, trying to warm it, wanting it to warm her. She hated that it was off, that she couldn't feel them in it, but letting off a broadcast signal, no matter how encrypted, that close to the factory, would have given away the game from the start. Fear of consequences troubled her, but they had to do it. Right? Right was right, and this was Ma. And Ma was right, so they had to do it. That's what Clara said, and Ma probably would have said it to. But taking over an entity, even one as stupid as this sentry bot--that wasn't right.

Clara's every movement was a dance, knowing that the bot's eyes wouldn't function in this lowlight, but still wary; but still exhilirated, Belle knew. "Come on, come on," she whispered to herself. "Don't play."

Clara danced more boldly as if daring the sentry to notice, then stopped--frozen like a setnerve gun. No, her arms were shaking, just a little. What was that warmth slipping away? Belle bit her trembling lip to make it stop, breathed deep and slow. In, out, in, out.

There, Clara was moving again. The tag was placed, Belle could feel the data hitting her, so much resonance. Metal? No, that wasn't right; so easy? Wait, was Clara limping? Belle shoved the perinocs in her pocket with the luckstone and pushed back away from the edge. Breaking LOS the tag signal dropped to silence and Belle could focus on running.

She met Clara at the bottom of the hill by the factory gate. Clara was cursing a storm and it was all Belle could do to make her form coherent words: a snake. Belle pulled Clara's trouserleg up and saw the puncture; Clara's leg was swelling something fierce already.

Bell supported Clara, pulling one arm around her neck, and helped her hobble home.



Clara smiled up at her through the dream they'd fed her with. "It's okay," she said. "What we need with two good legs anyway? Doc can make me something good if we ever get the bread. And if we don't, well."

Belle saw a tear in her eye, but that could just have been the sun, returned, and Clara's eyes not shutting right for the dream. Or the pain of snakevirus, even through the dream. It was a sadistic ten, that's why they dropped her leg. Less sadistic and it would have just spread through the circulatory, the respiratory. Lower power and they could have written it out. "I'm sorry, Clara."

"What I just say? Calm, sis. You'll get it next time."



Belle sighed, staring through the perinocs. If they'd known from the go that it was metal Clara'd be fine. That bot was metal enough to fix Ma on its own; there wasn't any learning necessary, could have been a smash and grab. But still, they had the tag, and she'd learned it enough. The bot did its rounds, nearly mindless. Round and round, and then it turned and walked away. All she had to do was own it. It was wrong, but that was life--life feeds on life. And this was Ma and Clara, too, now.

Belle pushed the tagcoupler to the edge, and waited for the data to stream back. Round and round. Round and round.

And then it streamed, sweet data, resonances bouncing, adding and subtracting; the caverns of the sentry overlayed with their own reckoning, dead on. She'd got enough from the first probe. She fed it data back, then, what they'd planned--a stream of data, tagcoupler to tag, tag to bot. Tag to bot was poisoned data, bursts of control that made the bot stumble and turn. Circuits twitched: some shorted, some opened, and some were put completely under her control.

She turned it toward the gate, walked it; she watched it and walked it and hoped the snake wouldn't turn on its turning. This was for Ma and Clara. The eyes were crap, maybe, but they'd be theirs soon enough; parted out, for growth.