Entry Six

This is Rewel. There are days stolen from me.

I walked with Speaker Matduke this morning to the infirmary, yet I do not recall how I got here. The garden that is in the middle of the tower would be lovely if the plants were real. White roses of soft silk sway and pitch in the breeze. The sound that would be rustling leaves of trees is only a brush of light fabric attached to the imitation bark of a birch. The garden is circular with several pathways leading in and out, but it is all surrounded by the tower. However, this is not the tower in which I reside.

I meander in and out of the paths, through the fabric garden. The only lights are those above the entrances and the steady glow of the moon. The silk petals catch the moonlight only to let it simmer and die. I am alone out here.

“Thief Rewel,” an offensively familiar neuron wave makes my blood run cold. “Speaker Matduke lied when he said he was unaware of your whereabouts in the tower.”

In the dim lighting I could see the silhouette of another several feet ahead. “Thief Varien.” The words scratch against my throat.

He steps into the pale moonlight; there have been numerous alterations since I last saw him. The skin on his face is pulled tight from the webbing wires underneath. He smiles and the moonlight catches the augmentation in his mouth, several teeth replaced with sharpened metal studs that no doubt held sensors and chips. The biggest change though, was that of his physicality.

“Shall I refer to you as ma’am now, Thief Varien?”

There was an audible snarl that accompanied the speech wave. “No, I am still sir. However much Speaker Arion prefers the female form, he has yet to emasculate me.”  Implications are not lost without sound.

He steps forward, the wires in his arms seeming to pulsate as the moonlight catches them. He stops only a few feet from me and I wonder, not for the first time, if he is more machine than human: a perfect example of a Thief’s role for the simple fact of a forced gender change. “Matduke’s been stealing your days from you.”

I say nothing. It does not surprise me in the least, but the accusation is odd to come from Varien. There is no love lost between us.

He takes my silence as an invitation to continue. “He withholds augmentation from you. You are allowed every augmentation he is. He suppresses you, Rewel.” He pauses but I still say nothing. “If you assist Arion you will be treated as you should be.”

“Assist?” I notice Varien flinch at my speech.

“Arion would like Matduke removed.”

I hesitate for a moment. “I will think on it.”

“Be sure you do, Thief Rewel.” Varien turns on his heal and leaves.

Again I am alone with the rustling fake petals and leaves. It is almost beautiful. Isolation is fleeting though, there are footsteps in the garden that do not belong to me. Too quickly is there a hand on my shoulder and a voice in my head, “Let us be gone, Rewel.” Speaker Matduke steers me out of the garden and into the streets.

Soon our own tower comes into immediate view and Speaker Matduke stops. He turns and looks at me, ghostly in the moonlight. I lower my eyes as it pains me to look on him for long. “What did Varien say, Rewel?”

I blanch. The words are not directly input into my brain as neuron waves but fill my ears and taste like fresh rain water. I have never heard Speaker Matduke speak before. “Arion would like to remove you, sir.”

“I figured as much.” He places a hand on my shoulder again, forcing me to look at him. “You should not carry that paper around any longer. Leave it in your room. It will be safe.” His prosthetic eye is dark indicating he turned off his primary augments. He nods once and is off at swift pace again, the Speaker who steals my days and gives me paper.