Chapter 10: Of Kintsugi's Mind
Slave to Memory [11 of 44] - Amidst the chaos of the Stacks, Murph and Syn grapple with trust and hidden truths. As Murph crafts a Lamp for his djinn, a shocking revelation emerges.
Murph fell from the dream, crashing into his recovery bed with a sickening lurch. He felt drained and exhausted beyond his imagining. Outside the wind blustered as a fitful rain fell and splattered against the small windows. He glanced at where Omni lay on the floor, no longer on her chair, she lay perfectly still, composed and undisturbed like the dead. His pulse quickened with a stab of worry.
< She's fine, > Syn thought-spoke across his link, her voice reminding Murph that his thoughts were not his alone. They'd never be again.
He found he couldn't speak at first. Words died in his mouth, searing like earthworms on cement in summer. Writhing and warping in their futile search. Murph's cousin always tried to save them, gently picking them up and placing them on shaded soil, twisted and sunburnt. But he'd always wondered how they'd gotten there in the first place.
How could they be so stupid?
He chewed on that memory, which bubbled up unbidden from the depths of his amnesia. Fragments of his past flickered like corrupted data streams. Suspicion stirred at the edges of his mind. He had to find the words.
Can she hear us? Murph thought
< No, she's disconnected now. Sleeping, if you care. > said Syn, accusation shimmering through their fragile connection. The bitterness in her tone was palpable.
Murph thought of Gabe and Jess. Images and pain flashed through him, like the violent winter storm outside breaking things in the night. When it passed, Omni still slept, oblivious. He steeled himself against the unmissable coincidences.
After a long moment, he refocused on Syn.
I care, but don't distract me. Omni is not Vin.
<They're archetypically very similar, you have to admit.>
"What are you hiding, Syn?" Murph asked, sensing her tension through their Link. He felt the Connection between them strain, like a fraying rope barely holding together.
< I don't want to break you again, > Syn replied.
"I'm kintsugi, remade and stronger now at the breaks." Murph's hand unconsciously traced the scars on his temple.
< You can lie to her, but not to me. I can see your mind. >
What did you do, Syn?
"Murph?" said Omni, stirring, "You okay?" Her voice, tinged with a hint of Cape Malay accent, cut through his internal dialogue.
Things need to change between us for trust, thought Murph, an idea forming in his mind. His fingers absently tracing patterns on his palm, as if trying to grasp something intangible.
< Can't wait. >
"Hey kid, you're awake. I'm good, you good?"
"I think so," she said, standing up unsteadily, "What the hell was that?"
"Quite a ride, huh?" He climbed out of bed and offered her a hand to help her stand. "I need your lab."
"Why?" Omni whispered. She glanced toward her father to make sure he wasn't near.
"He doesn't know," she mouthed to Murph, scowling at him and gesturing for him to keep his voice down.
Murph nodded and put a finger to his lips, his expression turning serious. Though he felt a sense of impish joy at knowing another secret, he tried to remain solemn.
I'm trying to be a mentor, he reminded himself.
< You got the old, just not the wise. > said Syn.
Murph wasn't ready to banter.
He dodged and shifted from her touch like an abused lover, a headache developing deep behind his eyes, as the past and the present kept crashing together. Memories weren't meant to be relived. The emotional echoes were so damn confusing, even now his feelings were overlaid with a premonition that something bad was coming. Laying thickly over the confused calm he thought he felt now.
Was it now, or was it all just mixed up?
Syn was guilty of something. But he was alive, because she'd chosen him, because she'd become something more than her original programming.
I've been chosen. Again, he shook his head, placing a hand on the wall to steady himself.
"You sure you're ok? You kinda spaced out there for a bit," said Omni.
He smiled and waved away Omni's look of concern.
"I need to make a Lamp," he said. Omni cocked her head and gestured at the light sources in the room. Murph shook his head, "I'll explain later."
Sensing new and arcane knowledge, Omni smiled brightly, "Okie dokie."
She rushed from the room, and Murph heard her call to her father, "Papa, we're headed out. Murph needs to stretch his legs so I'm showing him the market."
Her dad's reply was lost in the walls and close air, a deep bass rumble, but he came to let them out. He glanced at Murph's wounds and stood tall as he passed him. "Don't do anything to tear those stitches. You need to heal up. Soon."
And with that, he closed and bolted the door behind them.
A little way down from her home and out of earshot, Murph said, "Your dad's not a fan of me, is he?"
"Why should he be?" she said and walked on.
Murph hobbled to keep up with Omni as they navigated the labyrinthine corridors of the Stacks. The narrow passageways teemed with life, a claustrophobic maze of jury-rigged structures and makeshift homes. Corrugated metal walls pressed in on all sides, their rust-streaked surfaces adorned with a tapestry of graffiti tags and faded adverts in a mix of English, Afrikaans, and Xhosa.
"The whole Seeker saving thing?" he whispered.
The air hung thick with the mingled scents of spices, sweat, and ozone. Murph's nostrils flared at the assault of aromas—pap and chakalaka from a nearby food stall, the acrid tang of soldered circuitry, the earthy musk of bodies packed too tightly together. Voices echoed off the metal walls, a cacophony of haggling, laughter, and rapid-fire conversations in a dozen different languages.
"Yes, there's that on one hand. But he's also a strict Muslim man, holding on to some of the old ways, he tries to be modern but," Omni shrugged a shoulder but kept walking.
She deftly weaved through the crush of bodies, her small frame slipping through gaps Murph could barely see. He stumbled after her, acutely aware of the press of humanity around him. Shoulders jostled, hands brushed past, and more than once he felt fingers probing his pockets. He clutched his meager possessions tighter, hyper-aware of every micro-expression in the sea of faces surging past.
"He's got this strange black man sleeping in his underage, unmarried daughter's room while he himself sleeps on the kitchen floor so that she's locked away at night."
Murph stopped dead in his tracks. Above them, makeshift catwalks and bridges crisscrossed the space, connecting upper levels in a dizzying web of steel and cable. Murph craned his neck, glimpsing flashes of movement overhead—children darting across precarious walkways, laundry fluttering from rusty railings, the occasional spark of illicit tech exchanges.
< About that wisdom, old man. > murmured Syn, then disappeared, leaving his mind less disquieted, but emptier.
Dammit, she was right, he was a fool.
"Watch it, ou ballie!" A young voice cut through the din as a group of kids sprinted past, weaving effortlessly through the crowd. One brushed against Murph, nearly toppling him. He steadied himself against a wall, his hand coming away slick with condensation.
Omni glanced back, a hint of amusement in her eyes. "Keep up, Murph. We're almost there."
As they turned a corner, the passageway opened slightly. A small square formed a pocket of relative calm in the chaos. Here, a burst of color caught Murph's eye—a mural sprawled across one wall, depicting a stylized Cape Town skyline. But instead of Table Mountain, a looming mass of shipping containers rose behind the city, tendrils of neon and tech snaking up its sides.
Omni paused, allowing Murph to catch his breath. She gestured to a nondescript door set into the mural. "Home sweet home," she said with a wry smile, her fingers dancing over a hidden panel. The door slid open with a pneumatic hiss, revealing the relative quiet of her lab beyond.
"How do you pay for this?"
"Favors."
Murph raised an eyebrow.
"I'm fix things other people can't," Omni explained, moving around the cramped lab and examining an incomplete project on the table. "Grey market tech, secret enough they won't reveal my lab to my father."
He looked around at the array of materials she'd scavenged or traded for, a faded cornucopia of aging technology.
"You and I both need to build Lamps," he said, breaking the reverie.
She turned towards him and glanced at all her supplies and folded her arms.
Murph laughed, "It's more foresight than anything else. A physical backup. Enough memory, basic processing and storage to prevent total loss," he said, holding up components as he spoke and walking around her shipping container.
He selected a few and paid her in Rands, flicking the bundle of money over to her. She caught it and smirked at him, "Not the hard currency I was thinking of."
"Call me sentimental. Still good for the basics."
"This week, who knows about next."
He set about creating a Lamp for Syn, "The general form is up to you, I prefer a collar to remind me to be careful about the balance of the Bond." Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Omni following him and making one for Ada. Although, with each step she seemed to modify, changing and improving his basic design.
Murph sighed inwardly, "Syn, you there?"
< Always, cowboy. >
"I'm making you a Lamp, you know what they're about?"
< I do. And why do you think I'm going to submit to one of those? >
"Because without it there can be no trust. You need a weakness, and you need to commit. And show that you trust me."
< Do you trust me? >
"I want to."
Syn was quiet for some time, < True enough, > she said and he felt the resignation, even as she appeared before him now. A small waif of a girl, almost a ghost of a girl he once knew. It made him flinch to see her hologram.
< Trust is risk. At some point we both have to take the leap. >
"Words."
< Actions from my side. I saved Omni's life.>
"We did."
< See, we're a partnership already.>
"I don't know your training, we didn't develop a Connection."
< I chose the Bond, because of what you did for Omni. What you tried to do. >
"I got the snot kicked out of me."
< You stood up to a bully and you did it outmatched and outgunned. You sacrificed yourself to buy her time.> She said, and Murph heard more there, an echo of pain. The image of her wrapped her arms around herself but glared at him still, < It was so so stupid, but I couldn't let you fail. Not again. >
"Not again?"
Murph finished the core set up of the lamp and it whirred and beeped as the electronics came alive in his hands. He looked at Syn's hologram.
< I'll get into your Lamp. But trust starts with honesty and I want you to know something that's true. Completely and utterly true. You've got to promise me that you'll give me the benefit of the doubt. You'll trust me first. >
Murph sensed a change in her, "I'll try."
< Not good enough, > she said, now standing next to him, her holographic fingers tracing the circular shape of the new lamp in his hands.
"Ok, I promise," he thought, "tell me."
She looked up at him, a deep sadness in her eyes, and she faded, becoming mist that spun and whirled around the closed space before it flowed into the lamp in his hands. He felt the change in heat that spoke to her Real presence. The flashy pixels were just for show.
< Whatever you see, know that it wasn't me. It wasn't me that convinced Gabe to kill himself. >