Generator

Thread 2, Part 5
Generator

Generator

(there) - hundreds of years ago

Sari entered the front room of the town’s Generatrix guild hall. “Hi, Nadja!” she said as she approached the round faced woman standing behind a counter. The woman looked up and when she saw Sari, she straightened even more. 

“Shanti!” Nadja glanced over to where a woman was seated and motioned with her hand. Shanti looked up and quickly scurried out of the room when she saw Sari.

Sari watched the woman hurry out through a door in the back of the room then looked back at Nadja. “I wanted to report to the guild that I have taken on an Arbor.”

“You’re a fucking idiot, Sari. You know that you are going to get in trouble for this.”


A small smile turned Sari’s lips. “I’m not doing anything wrong. My ban ended three years ago.”

“Yes, but you are not a registered Generatrix.” Sari turned towards the back door. Shanti had returned along with a dark skinned woman with raven black wavy hair that fell far below her waist.

“I WOULD be an official Generatrix if the guild mother were to ever return from Loritown. I’ve completed all the course work… several times. It’s my right to be a Generatrix.”

“Come with me,” the dark skinned woman beckoned.

Sari smiled at Nadja who was rolling her eyes and stepped past her and through the door. Bright sunshine poured through an open window providing adequate light to see around the room. A small cage hung next to the window with a yellow bird preening itself. A little further from the window was an identical, though much larger cage. A naked woman with golden hair sat with her knees pulled up to her chest, one hand resting loosely on a cross bar of the cage.

“Interesting decor, Pallavi,” Sari said.

“I want to show you something, Sari. That is, teach you something, if that is possible.”

“You can’t prevent me from being a Generatrix. I’m not doing anything illegal. In fact, I’ve come here today to report my activities in good faith,” Sari said.

“Do you see this bird?” Pallavi asked. She had picked up a long thin wooden rod and tapped it against the cage causing the bird to flap its wings briefly.

Sari frowned and folded her arms across her chest.

“Just think, if I were to stop providing food and water to my bird, Vera, she would die within days. I would throw her lifeless carcass out in the desert and she would return to dirt over time. But, what about my girl?” Pallavi tapped the stick against the larger cage. The woman pulled her hand inside and shuffled towards the other side, pressing against the bars. Her eyes were open wide. Sari thought she was probably quietly panicking.

“I haven’t given the girl food or water for over ten moons now,” Pallavi continued. “She is still perfectly fine, isn’t she?”

“Seems to be a cruel experiment,” Sari muttered. The caged woman’s eyes darted between the two women. Indeed, perhaps she was over-thin and her complexion was particularly pale. Otherwise, she seemed to be normal given her circumstances. But, of course she would.

“She volunteered,” Pallavi said. “Of course, though… Our species is divine. We are immortal. We never die. But have you ever thought about all that immortality implies, Sari?”

Sari ignored Pallavi and walked up to the woman’s cage. The captive shifted her head to ensure that the bars of the cage never blocked her view of either woman. Sari lifted her hand to touch the caged woman’s foot as one would to comfort any feral creature. “It’s OK.”

The woman suddenly scrambled away from Sari’s hand. Sari froze to try and show her that she meant no harm. 

A smooth swishing sound cut through the air. A brief breeze ruffled Sari’s hair. Sari had no time to register the sound, but the crack of Pallavi’s stick across her wrist made Sari fall to her knees in pain.

The pain was so great that for an instant the room seemed to spin. Tears sprung from Sari’s eyes. “Fuck!” she growled. She fell to her side and looked over at Pallavi with her hands raised, preparing for another blow.

Pallavi stood calmly with stick propped against the floor.

Sari looked at the back of her right hand. Already a large red welt was blossoming. 

“What the…?! Why the fuck did you hit me?!” Sari cupped her burning hand near her stomach. The caged woman was scrambling in full panic thumping against the bars of the cage, making quiet mewling sounds.

“You weren’t listening, you arrogant fuck!”

“Arrogant? You’re the fuck who’s spewing whatever bullshit it is… Ow!” Pallavi’s stick bounced off Sari’s right forearm. Sari rolled backwards to get away but was stopped short in her retreat when she rolled up against a pair of legs. Strong fingers slid along her scalp grabbing a handful of hair and pulling Sari, screaming to her feet. A second hand grabbed her left wrist and pulled it behind her back.

In addition to the woman holding her, two more had entered the room, arms folded, faces grim. Sari’s captor shook her a few times demonstrating how well she had Sari restrained.

“Quit crying, arrogant child!” Pallavi screamed. “Are you listening now?”

“Yes,” Sari sobbed ashamed of the way that her voice broke. She croaked out a curse to show some modicum of defiance, even if it were only for her own comfort.

“Show her to the lab,” Pallavi ordered, and Sari was half dragged through another door into a darkened room where she was pushed roughly to the floor.

Sari climbed up onto her knees raising her wounded hand up to her eyes, but stopping short of wiping the tears from them. Instead she used her left hand and tried to focus on the structure in front of her.

It was another cage, but much larger, a cylinder perhaps three meters in diameter reaching almost as high. On the top, a strange yellow light was burning. Another wipe of her eyes, and Sari realized that there was no lantern. This light was not caused by a flame. The source was unnaturally bright and when she looked away an after image was temporarily burned into her field of vision.

Electricity, Sari thought. She had heard of it, but this was the first time that she had seen it controlled, contained.

There was movement in the cage, a shuffling sound and the clinking sounds of chains. Sari looked into the darkness and saw a woman walking around the outer edge of the cage slowly turning towards her.

“Vanya!?” Sari coughed out, shocked.

The woman’s eyes looked up and focused on Sari for a second, her blank gaze fleeing for a moment as recognition settled in. Vanya grunted and shook her head up and down, a rumble of muffled speech caught deep in her throat. Sari realized that something was stuck in her mouth, some sort of tube looping out between her lips terminating on a crossbar directly in front of the woman. Vanya’s wrists were chained to the bar and as she moved forward the crossbar spun a vertical axle in the center of the cage.

“No!” Sari cried and struggled to climb to her feet. “No! Let her out! Vanya!”

Vanya shook her head from side to side, but otherwise continued pushing the crossbar and walking around the outer edge of the cage.

“She’s a volunteer,” Pallavi said smugly.

“No! Not for you!” Sari said. She looked at Pallavi and the three other women. She had to do something.

“My suggestion for you, my arrogant child, is to shut the fuck up and listen to my lesson,” Pallavi said. She had picked up the rod and began to swing it back and forth like a pendulum. Sari let out a huff and wrapped her arms close to her chest, taking care with her wounded hand. “Now, as I was trying to say, our species are divine, immortal. We do not die. How can that be? If we are not fed, if we do not have anything to drink, we still live. We still have the energy to move. Where does that energy come from?”

Pallavi turned from Sari and paced around the room looking at Vanya who continued her laps around the small cage at a steady pace. Sari remembered a time when she was forced to go for five days without drink or food. She thought of how weak she felt. She remembered how painful every movement was.

“Do you know anything about electricity, Sari?” Pallavi asked.

Sari shook her head. 

“Electricity is an energy that can be used to brighten the night with light. But that’s not all it can do. It’s an energy that can be used to do things. Just think. Anything that you and I or anyone can do, we can use electricity to do for us instead. All the hateful repetitive tasks that we spend so much time working on day after day… we could use electricity to do those tasks for us. Washing dishes and laundry. Walking to the winery and back.”

Sari shook her head as though she were listening, glancing at Vanya every once in a while.

“Unfortunately,” Pallavi continued, “work must be done to create electricity. There is no well. Now Loritown has started to use electricity. They generate it by using their proximity to the Great River Tabriz. They place machines called ‘generators’ into the water and the flow of the current spins turbines, creating electricity. Our river, is not so dependable, however. It floods in the Spring and dries to a trickle in the fall. We would never be able to harness its flow in a dependable manner. We need another resource to spin our generators.”

At this point Pallavi raised her stick and tapped the bars of Vanya’s cage. Vanya was just turning back towards Sari and quickly glanced towards her. Vanya’s eyes were blackened with exhaustion and when Sari looked into them she saw a distinct fear.

“We don’t need a river,” Pallavi said smiling. “We already have an endless, divine resource.”

“You’re torturing her. It’s cruel,” Sari said. A rising spike of anger was helping her forget the pain in her hand, renewing her rebellious resolve.

“Let’s say that you were a criminal, Sari. And imagine that you were given a sentence for your crime, with an option to reduce your sentence if you spend the time in a generator. No. I don’t think that it is torture, at all. It’s a noble way to repay your debt to society.”

“But, you aren’t feeding her?”

“Oh, yes! I see your point, Sari. She would probably be able to maintain a faster pace if she were fed.”

“I wasn’t trying to make a point,” Sari said. “It’s just cruel…”

“No, Sari!” Pallavi said grasping her stick firmly and taking a step towards Sari. “Collecting food takes a lot of energy. Meanwhile, there is no lack of criminal behavior, or captives, or slaves. You should know. Don’t you think that your dear mother would have gladly traded a hundred years as a generator rather than being sent to the Hollow Well? We would have no problem lighting the city.”

Sari flinched at the mention of her mother. She stared in disbelief as Vanya slowly walked another circle feeling anger tingle through her.

“Ah! I know what you are thinking. How can we keep an unfed criminal walking? Observe.” Pallavi walked over to a metal lever attached to the side of the cage. Vanya saw Pallavi grab the lever and began to struggle frantically, her obscured voice rollicking within her chest. Pallavi pulled on the lever and Sari heard a sound of scraping metal. Vanya’s progress began to slow even though she was frantically trying to lean more heavily into her task. Suddenly, a bright crooked line, like a bolt of lightning arced from a metal crossbar positioned behind Vanya, dancing across the flesh of Vanya’s naked bottom. Vanya’s torso bucked and a muffled scream replaced the crackling sound of the spark.

Sari started towards the cage wishing to do anything to help alleviate Vanya’s pain, but she was caught by her hair and pulled back, two of Pallavi’s women were moving closer to her.

“You demonstrate, my emotional little child, the failing of this type of generator,” Pallavi said, calmly raising the stick and tapping the end lightly against Sari’s chin. “Empathy.”

Pallavi had released the braking lever and now Vanya was stumbling to regain a faster pace around the cylinder. Her entire body was still convulsing and Sari could hear her breath whistling, labored through the tube in her mouth.

“The stakes are too high. If Loritown can create a better quality of life than we, our city will become just another abandoned collection of buildings haunted by empty minded Lost Repeaters. You wouldn’t want that, would you? No! We are constructing a collection of generators like this, but enclosed and we will be filling them with law breakers and vagrants and discarded slaves.”

“You can’t do this.” Sari’s words hissed out between gritted teeth. “There hasn’t even been a consensus as to whether we want electricity here. Haven’t most stated that they prefer the spiritual purity of a night unobscured by this harsh electricity light?”

Pallavi spread her hands, smiling. “They will change their minds!” The two women holding Sari tightened their grasps on her arms as Pallavi walked up to her, staring into her eyes.

“I am telling you this, Sari, because you are an arrogant child. Miko was a fool to allow you to be her Generatrix, but, oh well. She has staked her own destiny. You will hurt her, though, Sari. It’s in your blood to do so. And when you do, I will be ready to install you in my generator.”

“Yeah? I don’t think so,” Sari said clenching her jaw, struggling slightly against her captors.

“Oh! I know!” Pallavi smiled. “You are arrogant, just like your mother was.”

“Don’t even think about…” Sari started.

“You are arrogant just like your stupid sister was,” Pallavi’s smile vanished quickly and her jaw began to tremble.

“This is all still about her, isn’t it?” Sari asked. “After all these years.”

“You are just like your stupid, arrogant sister. And where is she? In the Hollow Well too? Some adventurer’s slave? You don’t even know, do you?”

Sari’s face went cold and she began to struggle harder against her captors.

“She should be in the Hollow Well. I know that she opened a Gate. I know that she went through the Gate. That’s a Hollow Well offense. But where is she now? Did she run off and hide? Did she abandon you?”

“You don’t know shit.”

“I know that you have been digging out in the desert for over ten years trying to find her.”

“And you fucking know why I dig out there!” Sari screamed, saliva flying from her mouth.

“What I know is that you are an arrogant child and when I pin a crime on you, you will become a dependable source of power lighting the future of our city far into the future.”

“Yeah? Fuck you!” Sari shouted. The two woman began to drag Sari towards an external door. “Don’t worry, Vanya! I’ll get you out of there! And you, Pallavi! I’m going to fucking bury you!”

Sari was thrown out the door and into the dirt of the street, the door of the guild slamming behind her.

Sari slowly stood up brushing the dirt from her robes with her uninjured hand, cursing.

     <>--+-

In the afternoon, Sari returned to the library to retrieve Miko. Naught was waiting in the shadows when Sari walked through the door. “Here is a compress for your hand,” she said hold up a cool, wet cloth.

Sari suddenly remembered Naught’s promise to have one ready for her. “How did you know?”

“I can see the wound on your hand,” Naught said. “It should heal quickly.”

“But…” Already, Naught was pulling Sari through the labyrinth of the library. Sari tried to recognize rooms and passageways along the route, but after another strange and unexpected twist in a corridor, they entered the small room where Miko had been working. 

As soon as Miko saw Sari enter the room, she threw down her quill and reached for Sari’s wounded hand, pulling her chain leash until is was taut against its anchorage on the bottom of the hanging gibbet, causing the gibbet and its occupant, Schapelle, to swing - metal grinding against metal.

As Miko kissed the fingers of her wounded hand, Sari ran her good hand through Miko’s hair. “It’s OK, Miko. I’ll be fine,” she said softly as she looked up into the serene face of the unconscious steel wrapped woman rocking gently, shadows playing across her face in the flickering light of the lanterns.

     <>--+-

That night in the flickering light of candles, Sari dabbed the welt on her hand with salve. It barely hurt anymore. I would probably be completely healed by the time she awoke in the morning.

Sari had placed Miko on the bed, kneeling with her hands chained behind her and shortened. She meant for her to simply sit and be content in her display. This was not time for her to work or sleep. Sari, on the other hand, washed dishes from their evening meal and swept the dust and sand from the floor. Every once in a while she would glance over at Miko. Miko did not move much. She seemed comfortable. She would turn her head from time to time and watch as Sari moved by.

Finally, Sari put away the last of her cleaning supplies and pulled her robe from her shoulders. It drooped down around her waist where it remained tied with a long silk. She looked up at Miko and smiled. She raised a brush for Miko to see and then climbed on the bed, sliding around behind her.

“I love your hair,” Sari said as she began using the brush. “It’s so smooth and silky. And black! Black as night. But it shines too.”

Miko remained quiet staring calmly across the room.

“My sister used to brush my hair like this when I was younger,” Sari said. “In fact, she pretty much raised me. My mother was always busy with various technologies, she didn’t have much time for me. But my sister would feed me, bathe me, brush my hair. She never complained. She used to sing a song while she combed my hair. How did it go?”

Sari began to hum a tune as she stroked her fingers across Miko’s scalp. “I can’t remember the words exactly… I think my sister made them up new every time she sang it, but the tune was always the same. And the story too. It was about a girl who refused to let anyone brush their hair because it hurt too much with all the knots and tangles. She hated having her hair brushed so much that she decided to create a technology that would allow her to have beautiful, hassle free hair. Unfortunately, she was very young and didn’t have the appropriate skills and accidentally turned her hair to metal. That is, each separate hair was a thin strand of metal. Sharp metal. And any time anyone touched her metal hair their flesh would be cut to shreds.

“Maybe she made the story up to keep me from complaining too much.”

Sari stopped brushing. She rested her arm across Miko’s shoulder holding the brush loosely in her hand. She thought of the girl in the story and her metal hair. She thought of the girl’s lack of experience and where her arrogance led her. 

“I hope that I don’t fuck this up with Miko,” Sari thought to herself.


Miko began to twist around, pulling Sari from her reverie. “I miss my sister,” Sari whispered as she pulled Miko tightly in her arms, pressing their bodies close together, feeling the comfortable warmth of Miko’s body, smelling the scent of her clean hair. Miko tilted her head to the side pressing her cheek closely against Sari’s, warming a line where a tear had  dripped down Sari’s face.