Vesi Vanhin Voitehista 12

The next morning came with rain.  Taivuttaa sat up and looked at it for a while, then cried out and yanked the blanket up over his head when the water formed a friendly waving hand.  At some point, he promised himself, he would have to learn how to control things like that.  They were unsettling enough when he did them on purpose.  He wondered if the water was using him without his knowledge, then immediately cut off that line of thought before it could do him an injury.  Better to take the whole thing slowly and overthink the stuff that didn't make his stomach flip.

"Are you up or having a nightmare?"  Before he could answer, he heard Novi add, "Oh dear, more of this…"

Taivuttaa slid his head guiltily out into the open air.  "I'm sorry," he mumbled.  He did not need to see the water hand to know it was still there.  "I don't know how I'm doing that."

The bed creaked as Novi sat on the edge of it.  His mouth was drawn down in a concerned expression that bespoke a long night.  "Never mind, then.  It isn't hurting anyone, so we can leave it to greet you as long as it likes.  Besides, you look like you could do with a good breakfast."

"Have you got one?"  Shocked at his departure from politeness, Taivuttaa looked down at his knees and bit his lip.  He was used to being there, with Novi.  Even if Shoe or Salugi had shown up, that probably wouldn't have thrown him very far off his stride.  The thought made him smile with half of his mouth.  Either of them was fully capable of putting him off-balance, but being where he was seemed a solid support.

A hand on his arm drew him up out of bed and introduced his feet to the cold floor.  He gasped and pulled away to flop back onto the bed.  "It's freezing!  W-why's the floor freezing?" he demanded.

Novi shrugged apologetically, then bent down to retrieve a pair of gently-used socks.  He waited for Taivuttaa to stop staring at them, and then simply laid them beside the boy's knee.  "It isn't often a carpet goes cold," he said, modulating his tone somewhere between mildly worried and beset with certain doom.  "Must be something wrong with the heater.  I can check—"

"It's probably nothing."  The socks, having spent the night on the floor, were just as cold as the carpet, but Taivuttaa put them on without further complaint.  Thus equipped, he stood up and lead the way to the kitchen, determined to prepare breakfast himself if no one else had.

There were pancakes on the table.  They looked the sort that had been fashioned from classic rations, but there was real butter, and the pancakes were steaming warm.  He turned around and looked up at Novi in amazement.  The man went a bit pink and brushed past him.  "Not the original recipe, of course," he said, already pulling chairs out.  "Some of the ingredients that went into the real thing were not fit for human consumption."

Although Taivuttaa felt inclined to disagree, he recognized the indignant ruffle of proud reasoning covering an explanation like a doily.  He sat down and suppressed an urge to swing his legs.  "This is really nice," he said softly, trying not to look too hard at the meal's accoutrements.  Care had obviously been taken, beyond the food.

Novi passed him a plate, not quite meeting his eye.  "Have you stopped worrying about charity?"

The casual rebuke stung, but Taivuttaa decided he deserved it and just ate quietly while shaking his head.  He thought about Shoe's reaction the previous night, then said, "It isn't charity from you.  Or from Shoe."

"Oh?  And why not?"  There was a peculiar gruff edge to Novi's voice that Taivuttaa hadn't expected.  It was unpleasant, and a little frightening.

He tapped the plate with the tines of his fork, taking comfort in the dull clink of metal on porcelain.  He'd never had 'real' pancakes, but, like the substitute invented for many foods, the so-called 'new recipes' tended to vary.  The variety of pancake that sat half-eaten in front of him was convincing evidence that the real thing was probably overrated.  "It's a question of intent," he said, tentatively reaching for a glass that seemed to be made of actual glass and filled with milk.  He let out a sigh of relief when the milk did not move.  "Am I staying here now?"

"Seems rather a daft question to ask when you've already got your own room."  The gruffness remained, but the coldness had left Novi's tone.  Taivuttaa looked up and saw that he was smiling, albeit grudgingly.  "I take it Shoe told you about the Aunts."

Silence fell over them, so heavily that it seemed to darken the room.  Taivuttaa set the fork down.  "The who?"

"Aunts.  Damn.  Apparently he didn't tell you, so I'm probably not supposed to."  Novi held his face in a flat fist then released it and pressed both palms on the table.  "As a group, we call ourselves an organization, but that is something of a misnomer."  He curled the fingers of one hand back into a fist, then went on, breakfast forgotten.  "The Aunts—officially they operate on people's histories.  They find things out, but they can also… edit your past."

A chill shot up Taivuttaa's back and lodged itself between his shoulder blades.  It made sense to him, in a purely analytical way, but looking at it any other way made him think it sounded like a form of psychological torture.  "Have I been edited?"  His voice shook.

Novi's chair scraped against the floor, announcing his departure from it.  He stood at the corner of the table and crouched a bit, then rested his elbows on the table.  "No, and you shouldn't be.  We just need to move you so you can be safe and healthier."  He reached under Taivuttaa's chin and lifted his head, then pulled his hand back.  "I understand why you didn't want to talk about your family life.  And I would be sorry I didn't wait to let you tell me, but it didn't feel right to pull you out of your home without a damn good reason."

Taivuttaa shook his head and let it hang down again.  "Everything was fine.  I take care of myself when I have to.  I'm an adult, almost."

"You shouldn't have to take care of yourself to that kind of extreme, I don't care if your birthday is tomorrow."

"Not quite that close," he whispered, clinging desperately to the shadow of a new subject.

Novi pulled a chair over and sat down.  "How close, then?"

Taivuttaa went over his mental calendar, then said, "A week, I think.  The twenty-first."

The chair rattled from its sudden and unexpected vacancy, and a second later, Novi was across the room, muttering excitedly in Spanish.  All Taivuttaa could catch were words like "pastel" and "belas".  He sat up straight and went back to breakfast.  It was a fairly consistent topic that held no surprises and little chance of getting up.  However, once he was finished, he realized that Novi had used the phone.  And he was grinning.

"Cake isn't easy when you're us, but I think I annoyed Eszme enough," he said, flopping back into the first chair he'd sat in.  "Other than that, I'm afraid it's very mixed news."

He sounded as though they were merely two old ladies discussing a bake sale over tea and biscuits.  Taivuttaa clutched his head to stop it spinning and held up a weak hand in surrender.  Out of the corner of his open eye, he saw the milk rise up out of the glass by Novi's elbow, and then pretended he hadn't.  "Hold on.  Cake?  Mixed news?  I think I missed the train."

Fortunately, Novi didn't push the metaphor.  "Right, right, sorry.  I let my logic drive.  Your birthday demands cake.  It's tradition.  So you'll get one.  It's the other stuff I had trouble taking care of.  Although I am authorized to tell you about the Aunts."  He wrinkled his nose as the words 'authorized' made it past his mouth.  "More than I already have, which is pretty rare, when you're this new."

Taivuttaa smiled through an otherwise wan expression, letting his hand fall on his leg.  The milk splashed back into the cup.  "Wow.  I feel so blessed."

The hug took him by surprise.  He returned it, rather dazed, and then looked into the open concern mapping Novi's face.  "I'm not much for those," he confessed.  "They've always been… more Shoe's thing.  But—you looked like you needed it."

"I think I always do."  Taivuttaa left his statement unexplained and asked, "What else can you tell me about the Aunts?"

"Well despite the tag, they're not just women.  It's a—a convenient title.  They used to be part of what we call the Switchboard, but then they developed new talents and left the Switchboard in new hands."

"Are they in charge?"

"Not in so many words, no."

He pushed his plate closer to the middle of the table.  "You said you need to move me.  Have you done that?"  His hand was shaking, so he hid it in his other hand.  This would have worked better if his other hand had not been shaking as well.

"Officially, yes.  However, you can technically choose to stay with Mr. Fieldguide if you wish."  Novi made a face.  "Although, if you did that, I would be forced to kidnap you and keep you here.  That's no place for you."

There was a strength of feeling emanating from him that seemed to put waves in the air.  Taivuttaa swallowed a nervous laugh.  "It really isn't that bad."

"God bless you for a saint's patience," muttered Novi.  He stood up and stuck out a hand.  "You will stay, though… won't you?  I'd rest better knowing you're… around."

Taivuttaa conjured up a mental image of the doctor sitting slumped at his desk, snoring gently with an envelope stuck to his face, then nodded.  "I think you really will.  As long as Shoe doesn't keep sneaking me out."  He grinned sheepishly.

The relief in Novi's expression soured.  "If I know that man at all, he'll do exactly that as often as he can think of a barely reasonable excuse."

"Reasonable to him, you mean."

"You do learn so very quickly."

They made their way to the office in a mutual amble, leaving the dishes on the table.  In the hallway, Taivuttaa held back a moment, then scurried forward.  "What about the washing up?"

"It'll keep.  I'm going to take advantage of your current good mood and constant good nature, and take you over to that—cousin of yours.  To say goodbye and retrieve your things."

This seemed very final, and almost disturbingly businesslike to him, but he couldn't find the wherewithal to kick up a fuss.  After all, he had already agreed to stay.  He wanted to stay, even more as time passed.  He allowed himself to be gently bullied onto the bench and held out his arm.  "How is it healing?"

"Could be better, but frankly, the way you run around, I'm surprised it hasn't fallen off."

After patching his various remaining hurts, which had lessened in the past two days, they trickled down the stairs and out onto the street, keeping close to one another and saying very little.  It was still raining, a shower of a million suicidal water droplets perfecting the ways of lemmings.  They walked in the direction that would take them past Salugi Eszme's apartment building, and eventually to Algorithm's house.  Novi turned up the collar of his coat and glanced over at Taivuttaa.  "Have you got a coat at Mr. Fieldguide's house?"

"Yes."  Taivuttaa yawned and looked back over his should, wondering if the hand had stopped waving and crashed to the ground with the rest of the rain.  "It's quite a good one," he added, almost defensively.

"Better than that blasted hoodie you've got on?"

"Much."

"Excellent."  Novi hunched his shoulders.  "After you've got it back, you should probably let the raindrops touch you.  People will eventually wonder why you're not getting wet."

Mouth falling open, Taivuttaa lurched to a stop and looked about himself.  Water droplets bent away from him as he moved his head.  "I'm not doing it on purpose."

"May be a good idea to discover how to.  Anything you can do deliberately, you can refrain from doing when you need to."  It sounded like a careful reprimand, but there was an apologetic grimace on Novi's gaunt face.

They spent the rest of the walk in silence, while Taivuttaa examined each of his movements in a quest to determine which of them instructed the rain to stay off.  Unfortunately for his curiosity, it was not stronger than his desire to stay dry, if not particularly warm, which impeded his efforts.

When they'd reached the house, he was shocked to see the cheap car in the driveway.  "He's always at work this time of day."

"Then he would be able to accuse you of stealing.  We do these things in the daylight, under the eyes of the suspicious."

Taivuttaa frowned, vaguely aware that the rain was giving him a wider berth.  "Algorithm isn't like that."  Of course, it was a lie.  A bad one.  But it seemed to him that maligning one's relatives was something that one simply did not do.  Defending came easier to him, in any case.

Novi hesitated, one hand raised and poised to rap on the door.  "I don't know whether to commend you for being such a forgiving person or to smack you in the back of the head."

"For what?"

"For being such a damn forgiving person."  He knocked, and they waited for the door to open.

As soon as it did, Taivuttaa shrunk back a step or two, and felt his shoulders seek the ground with all available speed.  Algorithm's hair, never terribly neat even at the best of times, looked like a raccoon had attempted to mate with it.  His eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot behind the wire-framed glasses.  "Taivuttaa," he murmured, failed efficiency edging his voice.  "I thought you'd run away."

Words stuck in his throat.  For a moment, he nearly caved, but then he thought of the locked door and not having a key.  He would have never gotten a key, and then he would have just left, no tears at all.  This was about being in trouble with some form of authority, a deep-seated fear that Algorithm had never managed to hide.  "I found someone else to live."

"With this… man?"  Algorithm jerked his head at Novi, watery blue eyes hard and angry.  Condemnation glowed dully, lining his face.  "Who is he?"

The urge to say that it was none of his business was overruled by Taivuttaa's need to stay calm and keep his bearings.  "He's my friend."

"And legal guardian."  Novir reached into a cavernous coat pocket and extracted a packet of papers, all of them apparently smattered with official seals.  "Come now, Mr. Fieldguide, you had to expect that someone would notice and have the boy better placed.  We are a civilized society."  His eyes narrowed into dagger's-edge slits.  "No one is forgotten."

Algorithm huffed and stepped aside.  "Don't take anything you didn't bring with you."  He didn't comment on the old political slogan.

There were a few moments in which it seemed certain that Novi would stomp on the other man's foot, but the time eased past, and they entered the house without incident.  It was difficult for Taivuttaa to see the house again, which he hadn't quite expected.   There were no photographs on the walls.  Whichever of his parents had provided the link to Algorithm Fieldguide, there could not have been much love lost between them.  He didn't remember whatever aunt or uncle had been Algorithm's parent, but he suspected they were responsible for the lack of memorabilia, as well as a few other things.  He made his way to the bedroom that he had carefully kept his thins in.

The door creaked open, and he stepped inside.  There were two empty boxes in the middle of the floor, with his name written on them in a meticulous copperplate hand.  It wouldn't have surprised him if he'd learned they were the same boxes he'd brought with him when he'd first arrived.  "I'm sorry," he said, avoiding Novi's eyes as he began clearing out drawers, pretending he needed more time than it would actually take.

Novi just shook his head and looked away.  He sat on the bed and traced the stitching on the blanket, then pointed upwards.  "Is that yours?"

"The model?  Yes."

He stood up and stretched towards the ceiling to free the small plastic ship.  "You ought to get some new clothes anyway.  It doesn't look like you've got enough in your current size to suffice."

Taivuttaa winked as he folded his last shirt, a wire hanger jangling despondently beside him.  "How close have you been looking?  I didn't know you could tell a person's clothing size without taking measurements or looking at the tags on their other clothes."

It was strangely satisfying to see Novi's cheeks take on a reluctant pink.  It didn't suit him, the flush and slightly puffy effect, but that was satisfying too.  "Methinks you have spent too much time with Shoe."

"Probably."  There were a few trousers and other basic garments taking up very little space in the bureau.  Taivuttaa dropped them into the first box, then set about emptying the bookcase.  This filled the second box, leaving just enough space to set a framed family photo on top, after he'd wrapped it carefully in a filmy scarf.  The remaining photographs were frameless, and were kept in an envelope that had to be placed in the first box.

"It must be nice to have those," Novi said, very softly.  "The photos, I mean."

Taivuttaa nodded, a bit wistfully.  "They're important.  So are the books—they're my dad's books.  Some of them were banned after the last election, but he hid them."  He knelt down and picked up the stacked boxes.  He was not surprised when Novi took the top one, and did not comment.  "Have you got photographs of your family?"

As silence returned to the room, he felt an odd sensation of being alone.  He set the box on the bed, next to the model, trying to decide if he really wanted to take it along.  The silence was far from comfortable, but when he was about to change the subject, Novi spoke.  "I had to leave them all behind.  My parents live in Citadel Main, and… there was a situation I had to withdraw from, with less grace than I would have liked."  He looked up, a greenish tinge to his skin.  It was worse than the earlier pink.  "What happens in Tervetuloa tends to stay close to home, but journalists and government officials pay very close attention in Citadel and all of its branches."

Taivuttaa picked up the model and set it on top of the box.  He'd kept it for a reason, and as far as he knew, that reason hadn't changed.  Best to take it with him.  "Will you tell me all of it?"

"Eventually."  The door opened, revealing a somewhat far-off view of Algorithm, standing at the top of the stairs.  Novi stepped out into the hallway.  "For now, we need to arrange your new life.  You will attend university when the time is right, and that means studying for your entrance exams.  And Shoe will have a fit if you don't let him take you on a successful shopping trip."

"…Do I have to?"

"I promise I'll step in if he tries to buy you a bunny suit."

Taivuttaa hugged the box to himself, one hand holding the model to keep it from sliding off.  It wasn't even afternoon yet, but he could see the sun setting and rising every time he shut his eyes.