Page 5 of Tidal Creatures

Footsteps approach her station. She glances up, just for an instant, and then looks quickly back down, cheeks burning. Margaret is walking over. She’s not alone.

The man beside her—because it’s always a man when the Congress sends someone to inspect the lab; all these years, all these decades since the Asphodel incident, and they still continue to insist that only men can truly grasp the complexities of the alchemical world, as if rejecting Asphodel Baker wasn’t the greatest mistake the American Alchemical Congress ever made—is thin enough that “bony” might be a better descriptor. His skin is pulled tight over his skeleton, until it looks as if it might rip in several spots, his cheekbones on the verge of wearing their way through, his collarbones a pair of commas visible even through the perfectly tailored fit of his suit. He’s not as pale as many of the elder alchemists; this is someone who still leaves his lab on occasion, which is just shy of a miracle in the more powerful ones. His hair is the color of melted iron, dull silver and strangely unsettling, like it’s something not meant to be looked at directly.

Margaret walks by his side, clearly anxious, a clipboard under one arm and her free hand fluttering beside her, nerves keeping it from stilling. Her hair is perfect, as always, a long, inky fall of black brushed to a mirror sheen—the one scrap of vanity the lab allows. Kelpie’s seen her preparing to go out after work is finished, seen her dressed in lace and leather, kohl around her eyes and carmine on her lips, darling of the goth scene, perfect club princess. That’s not the Margaret they have here. This Margaret wears sensible shoes and button-down blouses, perfectly pressed khaki pants and pristine lab coats. This Margaret is as much a creature of the lab environment as the white mice in their cages or the frogs in their purified water, as the constructs who work two levels down, or as Kelpie herself. And this Margaret is afraid.

Kelpie isn’t at a particularly delicate point in the process, so she sets her flask aside, puts down her pipette, and straightens, trying to look eager to be helpful without looking like she expects the honor of an address from a visiting member of the Congress. It’s a fine line to walk, and her balance isn’t the best, but she tries, and sometimes trying is enough.

“And this is one of our assistants, Kelpie,” says Margaret to the visiting alchemist. She shoots Kelpie a quick, quelling look, silently cautioning her not to speak unless spoken to. Kelpie’s right ear flicks involuntarily back, but she gives no other acknowledgment that she’s noticed, only stands in sentinel silence, watching the pair.

The man looks at her, frowns, and looks back to Margaret. “I was told this level of your operation was all naturals,” he says. “No constructs or cuckoos.”

“Kelpie’s not a cuckoo,” says Margaret, promptly. “She was in a lab accident last year, and there have been some … lasting effects.”

Kelpie says nothing, doesn’t acknowledge the fact that she’s being talked about like she’s not here. It’s safer to be treated like a piece of lab equipment, especially when they have visitors. She’s an interesting case, and there are plenty of people associated with the Congress who would be happy to take her apart and see how her organs are able to function, how the seemingly disparate aspects of her physical body can coexist without causing some sort of massive medical crisis. Better to seem serene and expensive than charismatic and expendable.

“Fascinating,” says the alchemist. He looks more closely at Kelpie, who tries to hold as still as she can. “You’re sure she’s natural?”

“Absolutely,” says Margaret, with just a flicker of discomfort in her eyes. That makes Kelpie blink, which seems to startle the man; even as close to her as he is, he had apparently done what so many do when confronted with her biological reality, and shunted it into a back corner of his mind where he could treat her like some sort of doll or sculpture, interesting, not alive.

“All right.” The man turns to face Margaret, and Kelpie blinks again. He looks like he’s about to start giving instructions, but they’re in the middle of the lab, not in one of the closed offices. Instructions aren’t given in the open, unless they’re drastic ones.

“Master Davis is very impressed with the progress you’ve managed to make toward forcing the sub-incarnations into physical form, but disappointed that you haven’t been able to intercept any of the more powerful Lunes. Your assignment was clear: the priority is the City.”

“Many of the Lunars were historically known to travel in the company of their sub-incarnations,” says Margaret. “You rarely saw Chang’e without the Rabbit, or Artemis without her Hind, or the Old Man without his Dog. If we can create their companions in a controlled setting, we can use those companions to attract them. They’ll want to recover what they see as their property. We’re close to a breakthrough—I think several of our prepared vessels have begun to accumulate the sympathy we’re looking for.”

“Master Davis received a report last year that implied you were close to the successful manifestation of Artemis’s hind,” says the stranger, not commenting on Margaret’s use of the outdated term for the lunar incarnates. “Lunars” is seen as romanticizing a natural function of the universe, an inconveniently common and uncontrollable tendency of the moon to manifest human avatars who refuse to listen to the alchemists making perfectly reasonable requests.

Like requests for access to the Impossible City. It’s not fair that a group of seemingly random nobodies should be empowered to enter that hallowed municipality nightly, while men of knowledge and education are barred. “Lune” is accurate, descriptive, and blunt. These people don’t deserve to be romanticized. And they certainly don’t deserve to have their pets returned.

“We were,” says Margaret, voice carefully modulated, not looking at Kelpie. “But there were complications with the formulas we were using, and the project had to be restarted from scratch. We’re currently much closer on the Rabbit and the Dog. I can take you to see them, if you’d like?”

“That won’t be necessary.” The man smiles. Given the tightness of his skin, he resembles nothing so much as a grinning cadaver, something that’s been dead long enough to begin to dry and desiccate. “As I said before, Master Davis is very impressed by your progress. Your proposal was ambitious to begin with, and success was never a guarantee. He is, however, even more disappointed by your failure to produce concrete results, and by your refusal to disclose all projects to the Congress. Or did you think we wouldn’t know about your little locked room?”

Margaret stiffens but otherwise gives no indication that his words have managed to strike home. Kelpie is less equipped to be subtle. She wraps her tail around her leg, squeezing tightly, and hopes he won’t notice. Margaret has been working on a personal project for as long as Kelpie can remember, a human body growing in a vat, perfectly shaped, perfectly functional, and perfectly empty. It’s a tailored suit made of meat, and on the days when she despairs of ever looking like a real person again, Kelpie dreams of slipping it on and doing up the buttons, of hiding her abnormalities under a veil of perfection.

She’s always known Margaret was using Congressional resources for her work, but assumed she had received approval before starting. From the way the man is looking at her now, she guesses that was wrong.

She guesses Margaret’s in real trouble.

The man nods as if Margaret’s silence has confirmed everything he suspected. “Under the circumstances, you can’t be surprised that Master Davis has elected to focus on a group with a more … practical approach to the situation.”

Margaret stares at him. “You can’t do that! We have Congressional approval through to the end of the year! It’s four days to the eclipse!”

“As you say, but another research team has produced dramatic results in the past week, and may have achieved what you’ve been failing to do.” The stranger stops smiling, now looking gravely at Margaret. The resemblance to something already dead doesn’t fade. “Have faith in those who seek the City, and the light will guide you home.”

“You sound like one of Reed’s acolytes,” says Margaret, tone sour. She doesn’t seem to see the flicker of disappointment cross the man’s face, or the way he turns to look at the equipment around him. He seems to be assessing it, charting its value, as if it were something he had the authority to liquidate.

“And you sound like an untrained amateur,” he says, returning his attention to her. “One of those scruffy hedge witches who picked up a book in her school library and decided it made her powerful. They’re like you, you know. Eager, ambitious, foolhardy. Unaccustomed to listening to authority. Master Davis made you and your little project. He has the authority to unmake you.”

He gives Kelpie one last, dismissive look, says, “Lab accident,” and walks away, shaking his head.

Margaret stays where she is, shoulders drooping as she clutches her clipboard to her chest and watches him go. Kelpie waits until he reaches the stairs, until he’s well and truly gone, before she moves around her desk and puts a hand on Margaret’s shoulder, offering what comfort she can.

“It’ll be all right,” she says.

“No, it won’t,” says Margaret. She reaches into the pocket of her lab coat, pulling out something small, which she slips into her mouth and beneath her tongue. “We’re being shut down, Kelpie. That means they close the lab, liquidate its assets, and reassign our researchers. I worked for years to get this project approved, and it’s working—it’s working. We’ve been calling the incarnates more and more concretely into their vessels since last year’s breakthrough, and we were going to have a usable one soon, I know we were.”

“Why do we want a Lunar, anyway?”