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He doesn’t hear the end of the last song.
He’d been lost in it, listening to the way V2’s fingers play across the strings, the strange swelling in his chest whenever the guitar screams. He switched his attention halfway through, wanting to enjoy Mirage’s playing next, but something dashes in and out of the corner of his vision.
Something humanoid, mostly white, like a cheap Halloween decoration.
Gabriel tears his gaze away from the band on stage and gives chase. A Swordsmachine swears at him when he walks in front of it, blocking its view. He darts in and out of groups of Husks, even passing by a couple of Virtues (one of them swiftly hides its drink when he passes by). The white figure is all the way at the other side of the room, leaning on a cane for support. It turns to a Drone by the exit, nodding when the little machine opens the door for it.
Gabriel’s yell is lost in the thunderous applause of the audience. He looks back to the stage. Mirage is bowing, catching a thrown napkin with practiced finesse. V1 gives V2 a high-five, the two of them looking awfully pleased until V1 chucks a drumstick at V2, who picks it up and throws it back.
The Ferryman is gone when he looks to the exit again.
~~~
Gabriel balances his audio cassette on the edge of the pipe organ before he begins.
Memorising the music Mirage had handed him was easy. Playing it was slightly more difficult. Playing it perfectly with a recording device active? Very difficult. But he only needs to succeed once.
God, who is he becoming?
He breathes in, relaxes his shoulders, and begins to play.
He used to get hand cramps back home, going from being able to play for hours at a time to having to rest his hands and elevate his wrists every five minutes. His mentor said he wasn’t practicing enough, but he couldn’t see how that was true at all. His skills spiralled and spiralled, and by the time he left he could no longer play. Maybe he was never much of a musician in the first place after all.
But seeing this organ, so far from the rest of the students, he sat down and played again. It’d hurt at first, but the pain of not feeling the keys under his fingers, the thrumming of the instrument, far exceeded the ache in his wrists.
When Gabriel plays, he thinks of home and God.
You play that instrument like you wish it could feel pain.
He plays to praise the glory of God. His own faith in audio form, gentle like a caress. What did it mean now that his faith sounded like pain? He’d thought he’d kept his agony, physical or otherwise, safely locked away. Now that it was bleeding out…
He needed to kill it. Or confront it, in any other way.
He ends, going lighter on the foot pedals than he usually would, the sound slowly fading away in the walls of the church.
From behind him, a slow, metallic clapping rises up. Gabriel turns. In the backmost pew, V1 perches like a freakish blue-and-yellow insect, clapping gently. Gabriel makes a noise of displeasure.
‘Leave. Lest I cut you down.’
V1 doubles over in silent laughter. ‘Relax. I’m just here to listen. You got anything else to record?’
Gabriel hits stop on his cassette recorder and removes the tape, slotting in a new one. ‘I have a final piece to record. Stay quiet or I will make good on my promises.’
V1 tilts its head. He realises his mistake too late; it’d never spoken a single word, nor has it made any noise in all the time he has known it.
‘Just… stay there.’ Gabriel turns back to his instrument, adjusting the stops. ‘Don’t move.’
That is curious. The other machines he’d met had been able to speak, or at least imitate a voice decently well. But while Mirage’s strangeness came from the uncannily human quality of her voice, V1’s silence is almost equally unsettling. Surely it had to be that way by choice? For creatures who could easily attach limbs and cameras and every possible enhancement to themselves, staying mute had to be voluntary.
Gabriel switches on his recorder and begins to play.
He listens. Not up to his usual standards. Like you wish it could feel pain. Is that what it is? The stiffness he can hear in the notes, the way he wants to recoil at the sound. His wrists are hurting, but he grits his teeth and continues. It will sound acceptable in the end, processed through whatever witchcraft Mirage has in her inventory. He just wishes he could enjoy it.
When the music ends the clapping starts again. V1 leaps off its seat and slides down the aisle, sidling up to Gabriel as he pushes the stool back underneath the instrument.
‘What do you want?’ he asks tiredly.
‘Just wanted to hear you play,’ it signs. ‘You sound better.’
‘It’s awful.’ He removes the final cassette tape and puts it in his sling bag, stepping off the raised dais.
‘Whatever you say. A warning about Mirage, though.’ It walks backwards so that it can continue speaking to him. ‘She’s gone insane. Her album was half done and she decided to axe the whole thing and start over. She says she’s realised something about herself. That she needs to make her music—’ It looks over its shoulder, its next movements so much smaller, ‘ —weirder.’
Gabriel blinks. Mirage’s music is not something he particularly understands, only knowing that it makes him feel… things. Things he does not have the words for. To make it weirder…
‘And she’s finally going to start naming her tracks. Thank God.’
‘Do not use the Lord’s name in vain,’ says Gabriel.
‘I’m damned either way,’ says V1. ‘I’m tired of sifting through Unnamed Tracks #1 through #64. And I wanted to say… thank you.’
Gabriel stops in his tracks, hand resting on the church’s door. V1 leans casually against the doorframe, one leg crossed over the other.
‘V2 has this weird inferiority complex. Funny considering she’s the only one with a job. Hearing that she’s good from someone other than the two of us did wonders for her.’ It plays with a loose coin, tossing it in the air and catching it. ‘You’ll continue hanging out at practice, will you? Mirage really values your feedback.’
Slowly, Gabriel nods. V1 throws its coin back into its wings.
‘Also,’ it signs. ‘I wanted to invite you to a movie.’
Gabriel jumps backwards. ‘What?’
‘Just the two of us. The mall through the forest. I’ve picked out seven hours of film. Ready to go when you are.’
Its stance is careless, relaxed, at complete odds with the way Gabriel’s heart is hammering against his ribs. His mind is an awful mess of static, sharp and intangible.
He reaches through the fog and retrieves one coherent thought.
‘I will be ready in ten.’
‘Ten? Isn’t your dorm—’
V1’s wings flare out in alarm when he vanishes in a flash of golden light.
~~~
V1 rolls up to his dorm with a motorcycle, sliding smoothly to a stop when he exits to check out the racket. It puts its hands on its hips, wings fluttering with pride.
Gabriel locks the door behind him. V1 freezes in place, optic snapping to him, scanning him up and down.
‘What?’ he snaps, not bothering to keep the irritation out of his voice.
‘You’re wearing a…’ It dismisses the rest of the sentence with a clumsy wave of its hands. ‘You look great.’
He smooths down the folds of his pleated skirt. ‘Thank you.’
The shirt he could have chosen better; plain white, buttoned up, with a soft collar that he has to straighten every now and then. He is proud of the skirt, perfectly ironed, still in good condition after all these years.
V1 beckons him, swinging a leg over its motorbike. ‘Borrowed this from V2’s boss. Come on.’
‘Do I just sit behind…’
‘Yeah.’
The seat looks too small for him, but he manages to balance himself there, sitting with V1’s much smaller form nested against his chest. It retracts its wings and grabs onto the handlebars, forcing Gabriel to wrap his hands around its waist to keep his balance.
V1 looks over its shoulder at him. ‘I’m going to listen to music in my head when I start going. Whatever you want to say, say it now.’
‘I…’ His thoughts trail off into nothingness. The tubing on its waist is warm against his palms, a single layer of rubber between his hands and the running blood that fuels this machine.
It revs the engine and he barely has time to put his legs up before the bike sets off.
He can rest his head on its shoulder but he refrains from doing so. It nods along to whatever music it is playing inside of its head and he tightens his grip, making sure it remembers he is there. The wind feels good on his bare skin, even as V1’s attempts at tricks over uneven roads send him into near cardiac arrest.
‘Could you not?’ he tries to say after it fails to dodge the third pothole. It ignores him, taking a sharp left turn onto a smaller dirt road. The trees overhead cast slowly shifting shadows onto their path, temporary reprieves from the slowly rising sun.
As soon as the bike slows down, Gabriel leaps off, rolling to catch his momentum. When he gets to his feet again the machine has brought the bike to a skid, sliding perpendicular to the wheels. It seems to stick the landing until the bike tilts over, crashing to a heap at its feet.
V1 shrugs. ‘Worth a try.’
‘You will get yourself killed one of these days.’
‘I know what kills me. This isn’t one of them. We’re here.’
It seizes him by the arm, ignoring what the gesture does to his already weak heart, and drags him through the trees, hunching over to avoid low-hanging branches. Gabriel, being taller, gets caught in the face by a bunch of twigs once, and as he swears and tries to get it off him, V1 has already reached the edge of the trees.
‘Need a lift,’ it signs at him when he stumbles up to it.
They are standing at the edge of an enormous lake, stretching as far as the eye can see. Herons tread in the reed-filled shallows, snapping up fish in their thin beaks. But what draws his attention is the structure in the middle of the lake, crumbling and slightly tilted, yet still intact. A shopping mall, most of its windows damaged, half its roof missing.
V1 lifts its arms, head tilted.
Gabriel sighs and summons his wings, allowing the machine to throw its arms around his neck like a heavy, pokey neck pillow. He supports its weight in his arms when he flies, relishing in the heat emanating from its thin metal shell.
The smooth lake waters, unfashionably deep, he stays a good distance away from. V1 points out a landing pad, amateurishly drawn with neon pink paint, and Gabriel lands in the middle of the circle.
V1 leaps out of his arms and immediately dashes for the hole in the roof.
‘Machine!’ Gabriel shouts after it, bundling up his skirt so he can move faster. ‘Wait!’
It turns around and signs, ‘Race you to the theatre.’
He curses its name as it leaps into the hole.
The theatre is easy to find. The topmost floor, smelling of mildew and overgrown with moss, is dominated by a massive trellis, the morning glories growing on it nourished by the little sun that falls through the hole in the roof. And in the middle, wreathed by purple flowers, a tunnel with an arrow labelled ‘MOVIES’ pointing to it, written in garish pink paint.
Gabriel looks around. No sign of V1, and unless it’s suddenly decided to take a dive down to the completely flooded ground floor of the mall over broken, twisted railings, there is only one place it could have gone.
The tunnel, a canopy of leaves supported by a rack of bamboo, is strangely cool and very damp. He finds himself smoothing down his clothes, hoping condensation spares him this time around.
He steps into a spacious room. V1’s wings, glowing in the dark, are the first things he sees. He summons his halo—it hasn’t stopped flickering to gold and back since that day—and someone gasps.
Sitting cross-legged in front of V1, one of them adorned with a crown of flowers, two Streetcleaners play a game of chess. The one without the flowers makes a huffing mechanical noise, one that Gabriel almost instantly recognises as laughter.
He crosses his arms. ‘And what, pray tell, do you find so funny about this?’
It stops laughing immediately, only for the one with the flower crown to pick up the slack. V1 turns to face Gabriel, shrugging tiredly.
‘An archangel,’ says the one without flowers.
‘Here, in our theatre!’ The other one manages to wheeze out in between laughs. ‘V1, you’ve got an inordinate amount of charisma.’
V1 waves a hand dismissively. The gesture awakens something in Gabriel, something dreadful and warm and awfully fond. He finds enough words to speak again. ‘We are not… together.’
‘No one said anything about a date,’ says the Streetcleaner with flowers, moving a pawn across its board. ‘Anything you wish to tell us?’
He restrains himself from swearing at it. He’s already used up his quota for a year… for his whole life, actually. Damn these machines. ‘What kind of movie did you wish to show me?’ he asks V1, changing the subject.
‘Nothing too sinful,’ signs V1, handing a disk to the Streetcleaner without flowers. ‘But hopefully interesting. I hope you have seven hours of time.’
Gabriel thinks. He hadn’t planned anything for today, had he? Unless he counted moping in his room and debating over whether he was hallucinating last night at the bar… no. He didn’t have anything better to do.
V1 leads him to a plush seat as the two Streetcleaners get to work, diving behind a screen located at the very end of the room, fiddling with something that is making an awful lot of noise. Mainly whirring, and a single crash followed by ‘God damnit, Yuria!’
V1 pulls up a plastic chair to sit next to Gabriel, crossing an ankle over a knee. ‘You ever watch movies at home?’
‘Not often, no.’ The screen lights up, and two shadows dash quickly out of view. ‘In fact… I don’t think I’ve watched anything in years.’
‘A shame,’ says V1. ‘We’ll make up for it.’
The screen comes to life, and neither of them speak for the next couple hours.
~~~
‘WHY would you make me watch that?’
V1 walks—no, struts down the tunnel, still waving goodbye to those two Streetcleaners. It inclines its head towards Gabriel, practically radiating smugness.
‘Why would anyone in their right mind make that? A whole lot of nothing for the first three hours, then… what was all that?’ He rubs the front of his helmet. ‘I need time to think.’
‘You’re taking it relatively well,’ says V1. ‘V2 threw a chair at me when I made her watch this.’
‘Well-deserved,’ huffs Gabriel, earning a silent shake of the shoulders from V1. ‘Do you actually enjoy this movie, or do you enjoy getting a rise out of the people you make watch it?’
‘Could be both.’
They are out of the tunnel, the fading sun still spilling through the hole in the roof, giving the dirty tiles and myriad leaves an orange tint. V1 strides over to the railings, resting its arms on them and looking down at the flooded lower floors. The entire lower half of the building is practically a whole second lake at this point, and not one that he wishes to dip a single toe into.
Gabriel keeps his distance from it, standing next to a crumbling pillar, adjusting his shirt collar. V1’s wings are almost red in the dying light, and the sight stirs something within him.
‘ … I think I will watch it again sometime.’
V1’s wings flutter in surprise. ‘That’s a first.’
‘There was a lot that I did not understand. I want to. Understand the whole thing, that is.’
V1 looks at him, head tilted, tapping a foot against the floor. Then, without warning, it leaps backwards, balancing precariously on the railing. Gabriel darts forward, warning ready on his tongue, but it is already falling backwards, arms outstretched like a snow angel.
He definitely yells out loud, leaning over the railing, watching ripples spread from the point of impact in that smooth mirror of water.
‘What the—‘
With a second splash, it re-emerges, kicking its feet in a smooth backstroke. Completely wet, pond weed wrapped around its head and neck, but it is giving him what is unmistakably a thumbs-up.
Relief rushes through him, then immediate rage. ‘WHAT do you think you are doing?’ he shouts down at it as it kicks off a nearby pillar, crossing half the pool with a speedy breaststroke.
It floats on its back again, then signs, ‘Come on in. Water’s nice.’
‘I am NOT getting my clothes wet, thank you.’
‘Fine, leave me alone like this.’ It dunks its head beneath the water before re-emerging, this time with a full head of pond weed draping over it like hair. A strange metal siren. ‘Poor little killing machine, all by itself again.’
It speaks in jest, but Gabriel sighs deeply, acknowledging defeat.
He removes the skirt first, tucking it in between a cluster of morning glories. His shirt joins it when he manages to deal with all the buttons. Soon he is staring out over the pool, wings wrapped around himself to keep out the breeze, mentally preparing himself for the cold that surely awaits him down there.
V1 stares back up at him, completely motionless, optic lens bright.
Gabriel takes a deep breath, climbs over the railing, and lets go.
The cold of the water reaches all the way to his bones. The only way to stay warm here is to move and so he does, making his way towards V1, who is treading water right in the middle of the pool. It watches him flail about in the water, his wings hindering him more than they help, their feathers becoming heavier by the minute.
He is still shivering by the time he reaches V1. It takes one look at him, and Gabriel has the strangest sense that whatever it is expressing resembles reverence. For what reason would a godless machine like itself hold any respect for an angel?
It seems to snap itself out of its reverie.
‘Race you to the bottom.’
It dives, wings folding closer to its body for a more streamlined shape. Gabriel takes a deep breath and follows, retracting his wings to speed his descent. He keeps his halo on for light, casting a pale blue light over the depths of the pool.
Broken escalators connect the sunken floors, the shattered glass of their banisters catching the blue of his light when he passes by. The debris of collapsed floors collect at the very bottom, now a new habitat for little silver fish that dart between swaying fronds of plants. V1 is floating near a billboard, broken clean in two, advertising a cleaning product of some sort. As he watches it seizes a passing fish, turning it over in its hands before releasing it again.
It turns to him and swims in his direction, staying out of reach of his hands and dancing in circles around him. Gabriel reaches for it, managing to clip one of its wings with a hand once, but it is much faster, darting to the bottom and staying there, knowing he is almost out of air.
He swims to the surface, takes another breath, and dives again. This time he makes a beeline for the machine, peering out from behind a particularly large plant, who makes a half-hearted attempt to escape before allowing him to seize it by the wrist.
The warmth of the metal surprises him still.
Logically he knows machines produce heat, vented out by whirring fans, fuel warmed by its journey through metres of tubing to all parts of their bodies. To feel it himself is different: this strange, beautiful creature that is allowing him to touch it is alive in a way that he isn’t.
What is he doing?
His wings reappear, still stained bright gold. They form a glowing cocoon around the two of them, as if their presence alone could preserve this transient moment. Of course it cannot; but V1 is reaching for him, its hand trailing down his neck and grazing over his breasts.
His lungs feel too tight yet he still has enough air.
He lets it draw itself closer to him, head resting on his shoulder, and wishes that they could stay that way forever.
~~~
They dry off and fly back across the lake, V1’s presence in Gabriel’s arms now almost unbearable. When they reach shore it goes to start up the bike immediately, not looking back at him.
Wordlessly, he hops on the seat behind it, secures his arms around its waist, and they set off.
V1 is nodding its head again to the tune of music he cannot hear, playing it inside its head. He leans forward and rests his chin on its shoulder, feeling it tense up, then relax beneath him.
‘I should not be doing this.’
The words shock him. It is as if a dam has been opened within him, everything he never had the words for spilling out in an ugly, raw river.
‘I should not be here,’ he says, and he cannot stop himself, because if he does he will have to break something or kill something or hide in a hole and die. ‘Letting you see me… without my clothes on. Letting you touch me. I should feel angry that something like you has turned me away from the path of the righteous.’
‘Yet, I have never felt such relief.’
He grips its waist tighter. Its steering is much steadier than it had been in the morning.
Night covers him, smothering blanket, keeping away watching eyes, and he keeps talking.
‘There is something wrong with me. God’s will used to feel like fire.’ Righteous. Moral. ‘Even if it was sometimes a sword, not to bring peace. Such is the price of His order. But now… if this can feel like fire, then what else can? Everything I’ve done… was it ever right?’
‘I don’t know what’s right or wrong anymore. Everything burns and I don’t know why.’
His chest feels tight. V1 doesn’t respond, and for that he is grateful.
V1 makes the final turn, sliding to a stop right before his dormitory building. Gabriel gets off the bike, his skirt whipping in the breeze.
He wants to run and never look back, but he forces himself to turn around and face V1. It leans casually on its bike, playing with another coin.
‘Goodnight,’ he says to it.
It nods at him, signing back, ‘See you.’
There is something strange in the way it moves. Oddly stiff, its gaze never leaving him even as he heads for the stairs to his place. Had it heard him then, those whispered confessions? He wants to ask, then realises he would rather not know.
Gabriel nods at V1 one last time before darting into the stairwell, as if he could outrun the blooming fire in his ribcage.
do you think v1 ever tried to hit the akira slide
suffering from fatigue rn but i'm determined to finish this thing. also gabriel with boobs supremacy
and i have a bluesky now: come find me at hubris-betelgeuse.bsky.social. might repost some nsfw sometimes so be warned