When Gabriel shows up at the same abandoned classroom, the three machines are sitting in a circle, heads bowed, murmuring in low voices. V1 acknowledges his presence with a quick nod and goes back to their discussion.
‘I think I can clear my schedule,’ he hears V2 say. ‘If I get my commission done by tomorrow and my processor cleaned by Saturday.’
‘I’ll help you with that,’ says Mirage. ‘V1?’
It signs something that Gabriel cannot see. Mirage stretches, joints creaking. She crosses her arms.
‘Now, listen carefully. We don’t want our reputation to follow us here, especially in a bar frequented by locals. This is our chance to make a new name. Do NOT fuck this up.’
V1 nods cheerfully. V2 stares off into space.
‘Hi,’ she says when Gabriel wanders into her line of sight. Mirage turns around, noticing him for the first time.
‘Just who I wanted to see,’ she says, shoving a file into his hands. ‘Do you think you could record these in time? All of them should have performance directions written down—hell, play however you want, I can work around it.’
Gabriel flips through the sheets. Nothing he can’t do without some practice, but considering the time constraints, she’d have to settle for a merely acceptable recording.
He’d have to spend every waking moment at the organ, or… beg the Council for more time. Just one more month. He cannot show his face in the library, not with Minos of all people there, and he hasn’t asked anyone to help—
Ah, fuck it.
‘Mirage,’ he says. ‘This may be a sudden request.’
She looks down at her nonexistent nails. ‘Spill it.’
‘Could you go to the library later and check out all the yearbooks?’
‘Sure.’ She doesn’t ask him to elaborate, and for that he is grateful. ‘I’ll extend the return date by a week or two if Minos lets me.’
Gabriel breathes a sigh of relief. Ignoring V2’s questioning gaze, he sits down in his usual corner.
‘Just the three of us?’ V1 asks.
‘I can’t ask him to play live so soon,’ says Mirage. ‘Especially when it’s enough trouble keeping just the three of us in line.’
V2 tugs at a wire at the base of her neck. Even V1 seems strangely subdued, fingers tapping restlessly on the floor, optic fixed on the poster before it. Gabriel can barely make out the words: Live Night, with the date pointing to next Friday.
‘Only daily practice is going to save us,’ mutters V2.
‘I have class,’ says V1.
‘Well, skip them,’ V2 snaps. ‘We get it, you’re good without trying, you don’t need as much practice. But you will be on the same page as the rest of us.’
‘Like it was solely my fault last time.’
Gathering his courage, Gabriel raises his hand.
V1 chirps in amusement. He shoots it what he hopes is a look of disapproval. Irreverent machine.
Mirage fiddles with the loose thread on her jacket. ‘Ask away.’
‘What happened last time?’ Gabriel asks.
‘A lot,’ says Mirage. How can a machine look so tired? Perhaps it is the combination of that dull jacket and the flannels, both looking like they haven’t been ironed in years. V2’s matching jacket is comparatively neater, even with the sawdust gathered in its threads.
With a start, Gabriel realises that V1 is the only one not wearing any clothes. It’d make sense for a machine to feel no shame over its natural form—there was nothing to look at, after all—but the thought still lends a strange warmth to his stomach. Do the other two look like that underneath as well? Thin metal plating at the chest, tubing arranged neatly in its abdomen. Servos in its joints dull from wear and tear, yet still strong enough to crush bone and pin him to the ground.
V1 catches him looking. He looks away, embarrassed, when Mirage coughs pointedly.
‘Are you listening?’
‘The male-to-male cable was my fault,’ murmurs V2, capturing Gabriel’s attention. ‘Electrocuted myself.’
‘And I forgot to replace a broken servo,’ signs V1. ‘They were picking bits of my arm off the floor for weeks afterwards.’
‘I didn’t do enough research on the venue,’ says Mirage. ‘I think that was the main problem. I thought we’d wing it but… y’know. Blind leading the blind. The audience was nice enough but it’s hard to recover your reputation when your drummer loses an arm halfway through the performance and your guitarist doesn’t even show up.’
She places her hands on her hips, throws her head back. ‘But no matter. We’re doing it right this time. Everyone, let’s go.’
Gabriel mostly watches V1 assemble its drum set, tuning each drum to absolute accuracy. It seems to enjoy the attention, wings fluttering like a hummingbird’s whenever he leans closer for a better look.
The sound of a snapping string makes him look to his right. Broken strings hang off of V2’s guitar, one of her hands tight around the fretboard. She reaches with her other hand to pry open the fingers, seemingly locked into place.
‘Controls bugged out,’ she says when Mirage looks her way. ‘Either that or I need to replace this hand again. You two go on without me first.’
She laughs nervously, and that seems to calm Mirage down. She checks her own instrument, adjusts her seat, and cues V1 to start playing as V2 looks around for replacement strings.
~~~
19/3/20XX, 8:49pm
Mirage: daily practice.
Mirage: that was shit.
Mirage: leave me on read all you want. We all know it’s true
Mirage: same place tomorrow.
Mirage: I’m sorry. I just can’t afford to fail again.
V2: Please don’t go quiet like that
V2: Yelling would have been easier to deal with
Mirage: you know i can’t do that.
V2: You gotta let it out sometimes, sunshine
V2: I’ll be there tomorrow. We won’t let you down.
~~~
19/3/20XX, 9:01pm
V1: we’ll be practicing tomorrow if you want to come and see
Gabriel: I know. I can read.
V1: same place
V1: what dyou need all those yearbooks for
V1: …
V1: ?
V1: ok sure ignore me
~~~
They don’t get any better.
The music sounds as it should, but the sheer tension that stretches and stretches between them leaches into the sound. Mirage’s piano sounds dreadfully stiff, and V2 has replaced all her guitar strings for the third time in five days. V1 cuts down on the improvisation, playing according to the sheet.
It sounds acceptable, Mirage assures them.
‘Acceptable to the average person,’ says V2, turning a knob on her instrument as gently as she can. ‘Any musicians in that crowd will know.’
Mirage crosses her arms, turning around. ‘Maybe we should ask—‘
But Gabriel’s corner is empty again.
He’d only showed up once this week after the first time, and even then he’d left in a hurry, saying he needed to grab something. They haven’t seen him since.
‘He hasn’t been responding to texts,’ says V2. The thinnest string of her guitar snaps and she lets out a mechanical growl, frustrated. ‘V1, next time you see him in class, drag his ass here and make him listen.’
‘That’s if he even shows up.’
Mirage’s head snaps in its direction. ‘He’s what?’
‘He didn’t show up to class yesterday. Or the day before that.’
‘And you didn’t tell us?’ She unplugs her keyboard and begins to shove it to the side. ‘I told you to make sure he doesn’t start disappearing on us—‘
‘You’re stressed enough about this whole thing.’ V1 puts its sticks down. ‘He can’t have left campus. We can find him.’
‘He was in his dorm that day,’ murmurs Mirage. ‘I dropped off the yearbooks he wanted. His roommate got them, said he was taking a nap.’
V2 sullenly puts away her instrument. ‘I’ll ask around.’
‘I’m going to check his dorm again,’ says Mirage. ‘V1?’
It puts away its phone.
‘I think I might have a theory on where he is.’
‘Well, tell us if you’re right.’ V2 kicks open the door and steps through it, followed closely by Mirage.
V1 stands up slowly, thinking.
~~~
23/3/20XX, 5:39pm
V1: last chance to come out of hiding
V1: or i’ll need to embarrass you
~~~
23/3/20XX, 6:00pm
V1: you’ve made your choice
~~~
V1 slides around the Virtues standing at the entrance to the church, ignoring their confused humming. It sits in the backmost pew, waiting as the stragglers of the congregation finish looking at it and file out of the room.
The door shuts, and it is alone.
It saunters over to the pipe organ. A fine layer of dust coating the keys, its sole player nowhere to be found. It taps one of the keys. No sound. Should it try pulling out the stops?
It seats itself before the instrument. Pulls out a few stops here and there. Runs its hands along the keys and finally, presses down.
Over the resulting cacophony, a voice yells.
‘WHAT are you doing!’
V1 looks to its left. Sticking his head out of a confessional, armour duller than when it had last seen him, halo gone, is Gabriel. He recognises it with a start and withdraws into the room, letting the curtain fall behind him.
V1 leaps off its seat. Thinking carefully, it slips into the other room.
It can make out Gabriel’s silhouette through the screen, hunched over. He shifts, and V1 hears the unmistakable sound of hardcover books tumbling to the floor.
‘What do you want?’ he says.
V1 whips out its phone and writes its message there. Gabriel jumps at the notification sound before turning on his phone, the screen illuminating his helmet.
‘“You’re a missing person case”? I am not. I come and go as I please.’
Even the haughtiness in his voice sounds clipped, deliberate. V1 texts, ‘You haven’t been to class in two days.’
‘Seeing as it took you two days to notice, I do not see why I should care about your opinion.’
‘Got distracted. Sorry.’
He shudders when he reads the final word.
‘We’re worried about you.’
‘I take care of myself.’ He looks at his phone. ‘Why are you using punctuation all of a sudden?’
‘You’re following the orders of someone else,’ it texts, ‘Someone who doubts your devotion.’
‘How did you—‘
‘I recorded that conversation,’ it texts, noting the way Gabriel is bristling.
‘So you thought you could invade my privacy and suffer no consequences?’
‘Not defending myself. But I think something getting in the way of your god-given freedom requires some intervention.’
‘“Intervention”!’ Gabriel’s room is illuminated in bright blue as his wings and halo return. ‘You do not understand. God does not give freedom.’
V1 stays silent.
‘I have devoted my entire life to following His will,’ says Gabriel in a low growl. ‘If He wishes for me to leave, then I will. Such is the nature of faith.’
‘Yet you’re hiding here, looking through those books, racing against a time limit. Is that God’s Will, too?’
‘You understand nothing.’ Gabriel stands, his helmet brushing against the top of the booth. ‘Now, leave me.’
‘Or what? You’ll fight me?’
He inhales sharply, but V1 does not miss the hint of excitement he tries to hide behind a hasty cough.
‘If you subscribe to the rule of beasts, then I, as the Council’s blade, will indulge you.’
‘Outside?’
Gabriel slips out of the booth and stalks to the exit, not looking back. V1 tries to avoid feeling too pleased about itself as it goes to join him.
surprise! double update! i thought i'd do this because ch5 is fairly short. and it leaves you guys on a bigger cliffhanger huehuehue
honestly i think the pacing of these two chapters is kind of strange but i couldn't figure out how to fix it. it is what it is man. 5 and 6 could be the same chapter and nothing could change