He coughed and got off the chair with an air of determination. There was nowhere to go so he just paced the length of the kitchen—three steps to the door, three back. “Have you seen the new contraption the mechanics are building?” he asked after a bit of frantic pacing.
“No,” Mattie said.
“They’re building it by the pond, not too far from the park. You really should see it—it is fascinating. They call it the Calculator.”
“Oh,” Mattie said. “Loharri mentioned it before—it’s the machine that is supposed to figure out the answers and find those responsible for the bombings, and help us figure out how to run and defend this city.”
“Yes,” Sebastian said. “My, you know a lot of things before they become public knowledge, don’t you?”
Mattie nodded. “Loharri doesn’t keep secrets from me. And the mechanics always talk freely when I’m about—I don’t think they take me seriously at all.”
“It’s their loss,” Sebastian said. “Trust me on this. Will you go see it?”
“Why do you want me to?”
“I thought you would like to meet another very smart machine,” he said.
Mattie shook her head. “It is not smart. It just analyzes— anyone could do that.”
“Why don’t they?”
“Because they don’t know all of the parameters,” Mattie said. “And the same is true for this machine—it doesn’t know everything, and it is unable to decide what’s important.”
She went to see the Calculator anyway. She saw it from afar—its smokestack rose over the trees of the park, gray and white, occasionally colored with the yellows of sulfurous fumes. The machine itself disappointed her— Mattie never dared to think it in such words but she expected an intelligent automaton that looked like her. Instead, it was a gigantic contraption, clanging with metal pistons and spewing steam from multiple pipes and openings covered with grating. It was like an angry house that was hissing and spitting at Mattie, and she did not know why it was so upset.
There were several engineers tinkering with one of the many square modules at the Calculator’s side. Loharri was among them, and Mattie’s instinct was to turn away and run home before he noticed her. She turned and hurried toward the safety of the street, where she would be hidden from his eyes by the buildings and the brightly colored but still-subdued crowd. The absence of dark faces was noticeable to Mattie, and she moved uneasily through the crowd, so homogeneous that Mattie stood out like a red roof in the gargoyles’ district.
“Mattie!”
She turned with ready moan of exasperation, to see Loharri running after her.
“Wait!” He slowed to a somewhat more dignified walk and weaved through the crowd, long and sinuous like an eel. “You don’t have to run every time you see me and make me chase you through the streets. It doesn’t look proper.”
Mattie shrugged. “I wasn’t running. I just didn’t like your Calculator.”
He grinned, briefly flashing his very white teeth. “Please don’t tell me you’re jealous.”
“Of course I’m not.” Mattie shifted on her feet, uncomfortable, all the while studying his face for any subtle change induced by Niobe’s alchemy. “I just think it is loud and dirty.”
He laughed, and bowed with an exaggerated flourish. “You, of course, are much prettier.”
Mattie huffed. “Has it occurred to you that being pretty might not be the height of my ambition?”
“Yes.” He smiled still. “It worries me quite a bit, actually. You were made to be pleasing to the eye and interesting to converse with, not to run off and take up a trade which frankly isn’t that different from the nonsense the Stone Monks ply.”
“Why do you hate them so much?”
He shrugged. “They are not rational, my dear girl.” That was his standard explanation for any dislike of others he had ever exhibited. “So all right, the gargoyles grew the city. It was awfully nice of them, but I don’t see why we’re supposed to worship them.”
“Not worship,” Mattie said. “Feed them and help them when they need it. And maybe listen to what they have to say.
“Sure. This is why we have the monks in the first place, for feeding and helping. And now, apparently, you’ve joined the ranks of the helpers and listeners. Why would they need the rest of us?”
Neither of them mentioned the trade in children, the horrible deformed creatures, colloquially known as spiders for their short, round bodies and long, thin limbs, the pitiful terrors that emerged from the mine shafts every night. Honestly, Mattie was glad she did not have to see them—the stories were enough.
Mattie watched the traffic, now mostly caterpillars and just a few lizards, flow by with its usual hissing and groaning and metal clanking against stone. This is what this city is about, she thought. The metal against stone, the constant struggle, and the mechanics against the alchemists. Only now there was no doubt as to who had won— the mechanics had the upper hand; it was their city now.
“What are you thinking about?” Loharri asked.
“Nothing,” Mattie said. “Everything. The Soul-Smoker, for once—did you know that he had been in the orphanage?”
“Yes.” Loharri scowled. “I have to go back—the Calculator is malfunctioning.”
“What’s the problem?” Mattie asked.
Loharri shrugged. “We ask it how to increase the coal supply, and it tells us to send everyone in the city to dig for it.”
Mattie laughed. “It’s not just ugly, it’s also dumb.”
“You may be right. But we know what the problem is, we can fix it now.” Loharri turned away.
Mattie waved after his long, narrow back, clad in black wool despite the warmth and the sun. “That’s what you always say,” she whispered when she was certain that he could not hear her.
With Mattie, it was like this—her first weeks of life were spent on the bench in mostly- or half-assembled state. She retained snatches of those memories, even though they scared her with the sight of her own disembodied legs standing on the floor all by themselves, and several porcelain faces staring at her with empty sockets while she cried out, naked and alone. Loharri called it ‘growing pains’, and she agreed at least with the second part. He kept finding new problems and new solutions that in turn caused more problems, until Mattie was quite sure that she would never walk, would never be made whole. And then, as if by a miracle, she worked, complete and functional. In his weaker moments, Loharri called it a celestial intervention. Whatever the cause was, here she was now, Loharri’s voice still ringing in her ears.
She returned home to find Sebastian preoccupied with one of her books—the one about gargoyle history. She watched his profile for a while, his crinkled forehead, his lowered thoughtful eyes. Perhaps Iolanda was correct— perhaps Mattie was in love. Or perhaps it was just desperation to break free of Loharri’s hold.
Sebastian looked up over his shoulder and smiled. “Mattie,” he said. “I’ve been thinking about what I said earlier. I didn’t mean to dismiss you; I didn’t mean to imply that…” His large palm stroked his short hair absent- mindedly. “How do I put this?”
“You can’t love a machine,” she said. “I understand.”
He shook his head. “That’s not what I meant. I just don’t know… how.”
His skin, soft and smooth, beckoned her hand, and she touched his cheek, and felt the pulsing of blood under her fingers and saw the blooming of a dark blush a moment later.
“What are you doing?” Sebastian asked, but did not move away.
She remembered the words, even though she had never uttered them before. “Making love,” she whispered.
Sebastian remained seated, his black eye looking at her askance, as if unsure what to do.
Mattie was rather at a loss for ideas herself, and she bent down and wrapped her arms around him; her fingers touched on his chest, her cheek pressed against the back of his neck.
He grabbed her arm and pulled her in front of him. “Let’s take a look at you,” he murmured. “You know, I have no idea what you look like under this dress.”
Her fingers picked up the fabric of her skirt, lifting it demurely just above her ankles.
He studied the double bones, shining and slender, meeting at the metal joint that held the front and the back
