Anges - Architects of the Flesh

Jonah Newtow n-Grey sat on the edge of the bed that had been allocated to him and waited to be fetched. His left arm was prickling. There were pinpricks under the skin whenever he flexed his wrist, so he stopped flexing his wrist, and sat with his hand palm-up on his l egs. There were lumps under the skin in his forearm, and they made him feel queasy to look at, so he stopped looking at them, and looked at the wall instead.

He had been looking at the wall a lot recently.

They had stopped taking him out for surgery for a while, and that was better, because the operating theatre with its harsh lights and the smell of carbolic acid and the Orderlies and the rough canvas straps made his legs lock up when he got to the door.

He had been trying to st ep over the threshold rece ntly, because he did not want to disappoint Levi, but every time as soon as he saw the table his legs disobeyed them both and he stopped dead.

If he had been at home a birch rod to the backs of the thighs would have been his rewar d for it, but here in his new home they just pushed him or pinched him or picked him up and carried him. His obedience mattered less than his destination.

The wires sticking out of his first finger and his wrist itched.

They had stopped taking him out for practice for a while too. Levi said it was because there was an investigation going on, and Beatrice was afraid someone might ta ke Jonah away and put him in prison for being in the country illegally.

No one else told Jonah anything at all.

Levi told Jonah about prisons in London.

Jonah didnt understand very much of what he said because he told Jonah about the prisons while he did something very painful to Jonahs wrist. Black and purple lights swam in front of his eyes and he kept holding his breath for t oo long, trying not to cry out, but he understood that prisons were horrible in London, and his father had told him about River County Prison, and London was Levi said bigger than River County and had more people in it.

So the prison was bigger, and fulle r, and nastier.

He had fi nished his breakfast , but no one had taken away the empty bowl yet.

Levi was the only person Jonah saw who told him anything.

Even Stephen only told him not to worry sometimes and smiled. He didnt say anything about what he was doing; he did not come oft en, now, and he was strained , and his forehead crinkled, and he talked over Jonahs head a lot more.

The last time he had come, he told the person accompanying him that, I cant be in two places at once, and rebuilding is taking up a lot of my time. Shes just going to have to be patient a man has to sleep occasionally.

It looks like Sturges-Purvis-Wai n is reduced to tinkering now, though, said the other person, whom Jonah couldnt see, and had never been told the name of . H e j ust had a voice a bit like Stephens and talked about the same kind of things. Until you give this project a little more in th e way of hardware, or we progress onto the Switches, that surgeon is going to keep eking out his time and his pay fiddling with t hings that dont need fidd ling with.

Stephen snorted and looked up and down Jonah for a moment. He said Oh, let him fiddle. H es obviously too much of a coward to do any real harm, and he knows what hes doing. Id rather have a perfectionist interfering with the raw materials th an someone who downs tools because its er what do they call it in the factories?

Why on earth woul d I know, Stephen? Ive never spoken to a factory-man in my life!

Something to do with clocks. Clocking on? Regardless: better that Sturges-Purvis-Wain i s Keen at his work and goes above and beyond the call of salary than quits because the trading bell h as rung. Stephens mouth twitched as if he was about to start laughing.

The other man said, Now if youd begun with the stock m arket

Pfft, said Steph en, backing out of Jonahs room, stock markets, factories, its all one, Herbert. Unimaginative and repetitive as soon as youre out among the People

He closed the door.

Levi was the only person who ever asked Jonah if somethin g hurt. He asked it at lea st once every time he visited. He put two fingers on Jonahs pulse and his thumb on one of the lumps or over some faded wound on Jonahs forearm and pushed and asked if it hurt.

He said it was important.

Sometimes Jonah almost w anted to tell him it did e ven when it didnt, because Levi seemed happier when he said that it did.

He had a very straight fac e that did not curl itself up in disgust or sadness or anger as much as other peoples, so Jonah had taken to watching his eyes, and if Jonah could focus o n them when his answer was yes , Levis eyes got bigger and the very tips of his lips curved up.

But he knew, because his father had said and his mother had said and his brothers and sisters, and Reverend Bartholomew Grace, and Mi ster Chew, that lying was a sin. A bad sin. And sinners would be punished in this world and in the next . Reverend Bartholomew G race said that Jesus sent liars to a special part of Hell where they were forced to eat their own words in the form of dog shit, because of all the foulnes s that had come out of their mouths while they were alive.

He said that they did this forever.

Beca use Jonah did not want to eat dog shit forever in Hell, he did not tell Levi lies about when it did and didnt hurt.

He remember ed, though, what Mister Ch ew had said, sometimes, about Repeating Gossip, and what Coach had said a lot when he was still in co mpetitions, and what Levi had said about the night the man broke in and killed a guard, who might or might not have had a family:

If you dont want to get in trouble, dont say anything .

Not saying anything wasnt the same thing as lying. Reverend Bartholo mew Grace had said that silence brought you closer to God.

One of the small silent people with cracked, scrubbed red hands and fu rtive pointed faces and qu ick, dark little eyes, who were all hunched over and skinny came into the room and took his empty bowl.

Jonah said, Thank you, like he said every time, because it was Polite.

This one was a different one; she was younger, he t hought, and her hands were not so gnarled and her eyes were not so red in the white bits.

She looked startled and backed away from him, her head lowered.

Sorry, Jonah said.

Nnn, nnn, she said, bending down to touch the floor with the bowl once, twice, three times.

Thank you f or taking the bowl away, Jonah said, in case he had been too hasty. The other one had never responded at all; she didnt respond when the loud noises happened outside from time to time, either.

Jonah thought the other one probab ly couldnt hear.

He reme mbered that Mister Chew talked to a Railwayman once, who was Passing Through; the Railwayman said they br ed the Fast Growth Engine Stokers to be deaf because the roar of the trains would send them deaf any way, but there were al ways some Throwbacks.

M ister Chew had said they should use Engine Stokers for some of the meetings he went to because the people did gossip so.

The narrow little person stared at him with her red-rimmed eyes and her scrubbed and cracked face and said, Ooo ah , as she backed slo wly out of the room, holding the bowl in front of her like a shield, shaking her head. Aaag oyg.