Hello friends, welcome back to the atlas.
I believe there is a rhythm to everything if you listen hard enough, even industrial sabotage.
Writing this chapter felt a bit less like typing and a bit more like conducting an orchestra. I wanted to capture that feeling of being in a flow state, where the chaos of the world suddenly organises itself into a perfect beat. You’ll see our character here moving through the belly of a machine, treating a break-in like a ballet.
There is a Japanese concept mentioned below called Kintsugi, the art of repairing broken pottery with gold, making the scars the most beautiful part. I think stories work the same way; it’s the cracks in the characters that let the light in.
So, pop your headphones on (I was listening - of all things - to the sugarplum fairy by Tchaikovsky), and let’s descend into the dark.
Step. Step. And. Glide.
P.s. This is a direct continuation of Chapter 003 which you can read here, or go all the way to the start to refresh yourself:
The Fairy Queen
Step. Step. And. Glide.
Her boots made no sound on the grid. She was a ghost in the machine, a whisper in the steam. On her wrist, the jewel glowed, blue, pink, and gold, casting a tiny, fractured spotlight into the dark.
She raised her arm. The hologram bloomed.
There was the Doctor. Preen. Primp. And. Preach.
“Per-fect. De-sign,” he said to the crowd.
She mimicked his mouth with her hand. Lies. Lies. And. Lies.
She dipped under a pipe, duck, spin, and slide, moving through the belly of the reclamation plant like water finding a crack. The air down here was thick, smelling of oil and industry, a scent too honest for the shiny world above. She loved it.
She flicked her wrist. The hologram of Hedghe shrank to the size of a doll. She projected him onto the ceiling grating, letting the steel diamonds slice his face into a hundred tiny, pompous shards.
“Oh, Mis-ter. Hedge. You are,” she hummed, finding the melody in the hiss of the steam, “So. Ve-ry. Wrong.”
Reaching artfully behind her, an elven archer, she drew the torch.
Destination reached. The Pipe. The Seam. Just below the hive of worker bees.
“Draw. Light up. Glow.”
Her welder flared. Snap. A supernova in the dark.
It danced with the Doctor’s finale. Red. Green. And Go. The AI took the helm.
The pipes shifted key. A new timbre. Grumbling. Rumbling. Water stumbling. The plant bowed to its new conductor. She was being usurped.
“Not to-day. No. No. Not if I have my way.”
Her hands moved. Ice on ocean. The weld was hot, violent, honest. She smoothed the burr. Punch. Press. Prove. Perfection.
On her wrist, the Doctor preached on loop. “Safe-ty.”
The welder spat sparks. “Flaw-less.”
A noise above. Then silence. All is well. Letters.
A. Arrogance. G. God-complex. I. Idiot.
Hiss. Crack. Pop. Nearly there.
And there it was. A masterpiece. The valve fused shut.
The pipe was already beginning to thrum with a deeper note as ‘miss A.G.I’ tried to compensate. Welder off. Visor up. She admired her work. An ugly-beautiful scar in the perfection. Kintsugi. A dash of chaos and fun. Her art was singing. But it was lacking.
“What am I missing? What. Could. It be…” She hummed along to the melody in her head. “Ah! It’s me!” She reached deep into her pocket and pulled out a small diamond tipped needle. Lying down, on the ground, she scratched her sign. A dot, a line.
A voice reverberates through the complex. ‘Tour begins in ten minutes’.
“A vibration in the floor. The Monorail. The audience is taking their seats. The overture is over.”
Welder away, and time to drop the song. A new character was needed, and this was going to be a performance she would be proud of. The next stage of the plan was in motion, and her target was that new security officer.
She flowed her way through the underworld of the water plant, her dancer’s feet finding shadows in the small spaces, and her body sliding between them like a black cat, unseen and unheard.
When she found the small access port she had come through initially, she took off her welders pack and her overalls, sliding them into the dark square in the side of the rock. Her clothes underneath the overalls were the engineer’s uniform. Stolen? Liberated? Irrelevant.
They were too clean though. She looked about and saw what she needed. Grabbing a globule of grease from a wheel, she began to finger-paint on her costume. Not enough to be messy, just enough to be real. Chaos and order in perfect harmony.
“There, much more in character”.
Sneaking back through the dungeons of this pipe filled world, she found her opening, a patch of light, no one around. Step, step, glide. Into the day. Data pad at the ready. Time to join the tour.
The group were found milling about the entrance, it wasn’t hard to slip in. The mad Mr Hedghe was looking smug as ever, drawing everyone’s attention, but that was not her co-star today. No, she was here to create art with another. Passing close to Lysander, close enough to smell the starch on his crisp uniform. An exciting new canvas, waiting for her. Her first performance was over. It was time for act two to begin.
Author’s Note: Did you catch the shift in tempo? I wrote this scene while listening to The Sugar Plum Fairy on loop, (I am certain at this point I can hum the entire piece from start to finish), to get that staccato rhythm of her movement just right. It’s funny how music bleeds into the ink.
A Question for You: This Fairy Queen dancer sees her sabotage as art, a masterpiece. If you could break one mundane rule or stricture of society just to make the world a bit more interesting, beautiful, chaotic, what would it be?
Let me know in the comments. I’m curious to see what sort of beautiful chaos we can cook up.
Happy Christmas fun times 🎄🎅
Graeme
Oh I just know your pairing for her is going to be delightful. I listened to sugarplum while reading and my internal voice read the story to the rhythm, and I have to say it landed perfectly.
To answer your question, I would just generally change the strange notion that we should be embarrassed by being interested in things. Pretending to be aloof and uncaring to be “cool” is the stupidest thing humans do