Radical Part II

They found Rad lounging in a circular pit furbished with couches and a small basin of fire. It was sectioned off from both the machines he'd brought to life and his battalions of failed work by a bare, steel mesh platform that clanked loudly as the girls approached. Marching over it made Cinder feel as though they were advancing on Rad via the lurching hull of a battle ship.

He was ready for them, but was that true vice versa? Yura didn't notice that Rad was reading a pamphlet on revolution. She didn't notice how the mottled kaleidoscope of his features delayed as they slid from brooding to felicitation.

No, she saw only that he was a radical, a pariah, and that she cared about him.

Rad was short, his dark hair poised as though just settling from the lightning strike of one of the sly ideas scuttling boyishly over his lips and between his thin eyes. His kimono was loose, and he rose languidly to grin at Yura. As he stood there was a symphony of rustles, but not from his clothing-- no.

No, the rustling came from a great pair of wings affixed to his back. Wings which, rather than feathers, were covered in a mosaic of parchment, the spidery scrawl glinting maliciously by the light of the brazier at his feet.

Why? Because he was a radical. He was the final irony.

Yura paid this no heed, and ran to greet him as boldly as she did anything in her world of surveillance, the watchful eye of Cosm's clockwork community. She was rewarded when Rad returned her embrace and kissed her cheek, inviting her to sit beside him. They did so, the fire before them lighting their faces capriciously in an intimate caricature, the drunken glow of young lovers. It was as though the young man had trained even the coals and embers to receive guests.

Cinder, having no desire to watch her friends, listened idly as she clamored about the perimeter above and checked the calibrations on Rad's machines, ensuring there was nothing new or unexpected. She paid particular attention to one queer amalgamation of shimmering plastics and steel that happened to be hewing a plate of metal to Rad's specified dimensions.

That was when she heard Yura ask the timeless question, make the routine demand.

"Are you ever going to leave this place, Rad?"

The radical turned his lazy eyes up from where they were aiding his finger in a massage of her neck.

"Perhaps," he allowed with a casual roll of his shoulders, settling his wings on the lip of the couch to give the tendons in his back a rest. Their exchange was predictable-- sometimes tacit, others, like today, not. Mostly it made Cinder pity Yura. Which was odd when Yura brimmed so obviously with what adults called 'potential.' Then, it never occurred to one to pity a candle for the smallness of its flame until it set out to banish the shadows from a room.

"I've told you that if you wanted my father could help you. If you clipped your wings or even just ran a business remotely--."

"I appreciate your kind offer, but it's too risky; I'm a coward," he winked at her easily.

Yura shook her head, strong-willed and seeing the lie for what it was. Drawing away, she fixed her ponytail in a rare sign of agitation.

"Can we stop going through the motions, here?" she demanded. "You have promise and you could have a future too, but you won't reach for it. That's what I'm saying." Yura couldn't fathom a situation in which honesty and willpower weren't enough to get her way.

"If only the whole world was as noble as you," Rad observed in a drawl. "Sometimes I wonder, Yura, if you really understand that a radical is more than an outcast or a minority." His mien had fallen to a patronizing smirk that Cinder recognized as being something else entirely.

Yura didn't. "If I can accept that you're a radical, then--."

"If you can 'accept,'" He agreed, coldly. "Isn't that just at the heart of the matter, dearest? It's all just too noble of you. Your forbidden love in all its textbook glory isn't half the crusade if you can't force your help on me, is it?"

Her mouth opened and shut, and Cinder almost stepped in to tell him to knock it off, but then Yura rose-- no, surged up like a wrathful wave. Rad was too desensitized to flinch as she snapped.

"Well it isn't like you can help yourself worth a fragging damn! What the hell is all this playground machinery for, anyway?! What use will it be to anyone?"

"It's of use to me."

"Yes. A whole life spent on indolence and pleasure."

"I told you from the beginning that was the case."

"How lonely," she spat. "I'd hoped you were lying."

"Yes. I understand community and altruism to be evolutionarily advantageous, but I should think the wings on my back make it obvious I'm a freak of nature."

That softened her. "You'll see," she said. "Finding a cause is the greatest feeling in the universe."

"Those are very large words for a girl," he countered. "I could swear they aren't your own. What makes Yura happy, if not tormenting me with her programmed philosophy?"

"I'm happy whenever I'm useful."

"Why don't you just go back to Anthropeden, then?" he asked, baring his teeth in a grin. "I hear that kind of devotion's in vogue these days."

It was a test, like everything he did, like his existence. And she failed by flushing a deep, furious red and storming out. Her boots clattered thunderously over the steel platform, and it rattled on its loose bolts and hinges.

The door slammed, sending a rattling cough through the tin siding of the warehouse.

"That," Cinder remarked with a frown, her back yet turned, and pointedly, to the young man, "Was more than a little uncalled for."

The radical shrugged.

"You know the state of Anthropeden is unnerving to these people-- well, to everyone but the Earthlings themselves." Earth, or, rather, Anthropeden, had been a collectivist conscience for a little under a century. It was a perfectly tuned machine whose constituent parts chimed in harmony or were dumped into the refuse that populated the sprawling metropolitan Mars. And Anthropeden (the name of a being, not the planet) knew who the dissenters were; everyone there had their minds linked via the world wide web, after all.

"Oh," Rad scoffed in the face of Cinder's concern, "I don't see why they complain when they're practically the same. The white-coats running things here are just as dictatorial. Hell, at least on Earth you have to know and consent to what you're a part of to be properly assimilated. Here it's just good old-fashioned complacence and ignorance."

Cinder translated with an eye-roll as she ran her finger over some dust on the machines and clicked her tongue. "Order isn't a sin, Rad. In fact, it's rather necessary."

"At what price does it become a burden? Do you know what Sojourner's call this place? They call it Somorra. You know, like Sodom and Gomorrah together?" Sojourn was the body of territories that filled Europa's southern hemisphere, and it was mostly comprised of Middle Easterners whom hadn't assented to the notion of, well, Anthropeden. It was remarkable how they managed to live roughly the same as they had for the past thousand years. But then, seeing as they had a strict isolation policy, Cinder didn't think she'd ever get to meet them. Rad only knew tidbits about them because he was, well, Rad.

She sighed. "Don't be so bitter that Yura likes where she lives. Particularly not when you won't so much as tell her the truth."

"If I told her the government would lock me away for testing and fixing she'd either laugh or call them personally so I could be turned in for the sake of Kolkander's beloved progress," he chuckled mirthlessly.

"You don't know that," Cinder said. "Yes, the white-coats would do anything to advance the human race, but I don't think Yura mindlessly prescribes to that."

"You just say that because you like her," Rad countered; she'd stricken a nerve, made him taste the unfamiliar edge of guilt.

"And shouldn't you?" Cinder blurted before she could restrain herself. When Rad smirked and raised a brow she blushed, and it gave him a sort of heartless pleasure to see those normally unshakeable features scowl.

The girl took a deep breath, but could not help a rebuttal. "If you're going to be like that I'll just go after her," she threatened. She felt lazy that day, and she was worried about her friend besides. All that kept her was a sense of duty, the same sense that compelled her to this disheartening shack, that tore her day by day from the warm confines of the data kiosks she normally clung to. For that, she would have done anything. For that...

"...fine," Rad muttered brusquely after a moment of consideration. His eyes lighted meaningfully on her bag, the one with the data sticks full of research for the latest part of their undertaking. The thought of it brightened his dour mood as he rose in a stretch, bones popping and parchment wings rustling as he reached for the home-crafted sodium lamps overhead.

"You know..." he added slyly, "I made some real progress yesterday."

Cinder recoiled. "But I didn't see anything on the--."

"It's around back."

"Sneaky bastard, keeping it in the supercomputer," Cinder grumped, but she had pushed her goggles back into her bristled hair, betraying her excitement.

"Oh trust me, we don't want to lose this baby," Rad assured her smugly, crossing his arms over his chest so it seemed, even from the pit, that he was looking down on her. His wings stretched a little and framed his short figure in a tapestry that was equal parts impressive and flamboyant. As always, it occurred to the girl that there was something off about those appendages, aside from what he was. Unfortunately, she didn't have time to examine her disquiet. Rad was waiting.

And Cinder hated to indulge his ego, but it seemed she had no choice.

"Well, let's go already, bastard," she grumbled. Hard as she tried she couldn't bring her voice to sound entirely hateful.

She could, however, punch Rad hard in the shoulder as he swaggered past and watch him swear as he tumbled off the platform squawking like a bird.

Like Rad always said, vengeance was sweet.