#auditor_

Exactly what tends to trigger each round of Purges eludes me, even now. There is tension, sometimes best only seen in the crystal-clarity of hindsight; a tangle of building suspicion that rises like silent fog until the simplest things, the most innocent actions, are thick with it, and the world begins to tighten. In a way, the first Denouncements are almost a release – a give in the pressure – and sometimes that is all they are. A few rounds of Corrections, a few links bent back against each other, but the momentum isn’t there, and the black hysteria dies back like damped flames.

But sometimes it’s just the start.

I have walked a little quicker between CYFAC and my rooms in these last few weeks, when I’ve even left at all, but it’s hard to miss the dawn-mark pyrelight, or the clustered crowds watching the show. Some faces are downturned, unwilling or unable to watch; some seem more bored than uncertain, turning back and forth distractedly; and some are fixated on the scenes before them, drinking in each twitch of failing muscle, each lick of measured flame, with eyes set bright in terror or satisfaction – or both. You can be sure there are other eyes watching them in turn, inspecting the crowd itself: who is there, who is not, and what secrets may they let slip under the Tree's balefire light.

Cesar frets, poor lad, that I still take this route. But I stand distinct in any crowd, at any time, and in many ways to hide my face would be more marked than to not. My shined eyes give nothing away, I am very sure of that, and I have long learned not to flinch at the sight of Mother’s purgative throes, even such violent ones as these. It has not reached us yet, not properly, although I have felt the tension rising even in the tunnels and chambers of the SFAC complex, and I’m far from foolish enough to think the flames of it will not spark there soon.

We will wait. There’s not much else to do.

But life continues, even in this, and today the peculiar path of my own history takes me to a very different part of the city. The contrast to CYFAC’s utilitarian structures is striking as I pass down the wide central avenues, overlooked by facades of buildings barely touched by old shellfire, or more carefully repaired where they have been hit. Besuited Citizens and risen Wards move around me, sartorially-aligned with such precision to be razor at the edges, flanked by their own guards or trailed by subdued figures more accessory than attendant. Collectors Pieces, polished to broken perfection like geodes, and I can’t prevent my hidden focus from drifting across them as I pass, as the old shards of peculiar discomfort twist their worn paths in my mind.

I walk alone here; singular and fore, with no other footsteps at my side or cowed in my wake. Cesar doesn’t approve, but I think he understands, even if we have never specifically spoken of it.

Some things are important, if only for myself.

Still, even here the sense of tightening unease is threaded through the air, sketched in the movements of those same figures, as they glance around perhaps more frequently than they might have done before. There are city guards at post along the roadways, their featureless faceplates reflecting all around them, while concealing all within. Some turn and watch me as I pass, but I do not hesitate, and soon my destination rises up out of the cityscape.

The Audit Office. A towering building, which is as much an exercise in foreboding geometry as it is an actual, practical structure. Ribs of sharpened concrete run down the iron-seamed walls, dwarfing most other architectural features, aside from the twin-set statues that stand aside of the doors. Mirrored in androgyny and expressionless, each bluntly-stylized figure holds at attention, one wrist pressed into the small of their back, the other hand held up in stone-bound salute across sealed lips. The heavy doors they guard are subtle only in comparison – the actual entrance is a good ten feet high at its apex, and inset across with the branching runework angles of Icarus.

There are even more faceless guards here too, watching as I ascend the shallow steps that lead into the building. Inside, the architecture changes very quickly from grandly-imposing to clerical, and I soon find myself met by a young woman, clad in a uniform so starched that I half wonder if it bends at all. She is thin, with dense black hair cut to excruciating precision at jaw-length, and she has that tinged palor I see so often in Wards – muted, stretched, like seedlings grown without light. Her eyes are brown and deep, and she holds a clipboard in front of her like a reason, as she greets me.

“Dr Vachan. You are expected. I will escort you.”

And so I follow into the spiral maze of corridors, passed periodically by other silent figures. They are clerks, mostly; soft-shoed, thin lipped carriers of the paperwork lifeblood of this place. Reports, records, requisitions; flattened forests of ink and accusation, driven through these angular veins by the endless, interrogating pulse of the dozen or so black-clad figures that are the hearts of it. A network, a web, wrought from the Chain itself – as, file by file, link by link, every bit of information set down or found out by Mother's ever-watchful eyes will make its way here.

Your Auditor Knows.

And this is how.

The clerks pay my escort little mind, and me even less. They either know enough not to wonder, or exactly why not to care, and each carefully-downturned gaze gives no suggestion as to which. I follow my guide's steps, staying the half-a-stride behind that decorum, if not actual rule, dictates. I have been here before, of course, and sometimes it feels that I have undue familiarity within these walls, but its customs are to be observed nonetheless. I know what tends to happen to those who put themselves too far forward, where Auditors are concerned, and the gallows have no care for etiquette. So I follow, a careful model of quiet compliance.

The corridors we walk are as uniform as their inhabitants, wide enough for two to walk quite comfortably aside, or for a third to be dragged easily between them. A dark wooden rail runs at shoulder height along the white walls, broken only by door frames, and the floors are polished – although never quite enough to erase the ghostly trails of old struggles, kicked and scuffed into the grain. Decoration does exist, but is very much of a theme, and I spare the stylised images of chain and flame only the barest attention as we pass.

The blind-end corridor we turn into at last is little different, except for the shallow alcove halfway down, set into the otherwise-blank walls in such a way that the eye slides right past, until you are almost on top of it. It is an architectural sleight-of-hand unusually subtle in this edifice of authoritative statement, and there is a narrow bench set back into the inset space. As we get closer I realise that it is occupied.

A man is slouched out along the seat, his head pillowed back against one folded elbow, and I don’t miss the slight wince that dances through my escort's composure at the sight of him. He is staring up at the roof through half-lidded eyes, chewing on a thin ring of metal, and the attached pin bounces arrhythmically against his lips. He doesn't look directly at us as we approach, but does flick the fingers on his free hand loosely towards his face, in the vaguest approximation of a salute.

“Afternoon, Dr V.”

This is D_N, and him at station here tells me more about the current climate even than the tension in the clerks’ movements, or the heightened security along the roads outside. My escort hurries past without an acknowledging glance, and I can almost hear her expression tightening in disapproval. I make sure she is looking firmly ahead before I wink – briefly – down at the recumbent figure.

He’s Interesting too, of course; not that you would ever think it to look at him. I'm not sure I've ever met a Ward so near-pathologically rumpled. He'd be boyish if it wasn't for the brow, and the blunted angles of feature that speak of a nose broken too many times to reset quite right. Those brown-glass eyes are deep, barely blinking, and there's a sullen mania about him; a hair-trigger on uneasy balance. He hunches, and when he moves it's in either a half-attendant slouch, or short-burst snaps of sudden agility that all but score trails in the air.

If he has middle gears, I doubt he's ever used them.

But there are four Exceptional Service medals set out along the breast of his crumpled coat – bright, carefully-maintained in raw contrast to the rest of him – and one of those is only ever intendedto be posthumous.

I pass him by and catch up with my escort, as she halts in front of the tall doors that punctuate this corridor. There is no rank number here, no Ministry badge, just a small cluster of thin black letters running across the woodwork.

A25. M. Stewart. Auditor.

My escort stops, gripping her clipboard tighter to her thin chest, and I pity her a little.

“Shall I knock?" I ask, carefully, but my escort shakes her head, her ruler-sharp hair swinging slightly more than she may have intended.

“I will escort you," she repeats in the same thin, firm voice, and reaches up to tap her knuckles against the wood. She stands silently, counting, then pushes at the door, which swings open on silent hinges to reveal the space within.

This is not the first time that I have entered this office, and I doubt it will be the last, but I am quietly impressed that my guide’s steps do not falter as she enters. The room opens out from the doorway like an angular throat – an impression only boosted by the deep red-brown of the wooden panelling that lines the walls. The floor too is red, a blood-dark tongue of thick carpet that pours into the main room, washing up against the black desk that sits like an altar in its centre. Tall windows are set into the other walls, shrouded, letting nothing but the faintest daylight bleed into this sanctum-space. It is lit only by low artificial lights, which cling like bloated fireflies to the tiers of shelving that reach from floor to ceiling behind the desk.

The shelves are full of jars. Thick, cut-glass jars, filled with a fine powder that glitters faintly in the sobre illumination. Each one has a label in the same neat writing, fixed prominently across the centre of the glass. Names. Numbers. The final verdict, in shorthand code. And finally, a duration.

Each one a warning. Each one a promise. Each one a covenant wrought in ashes.

My guide does not look up at them and stops just inside the threshold, her knuckles whitening. The figure sat behind the desk might be thought a monochrome afterthought to the room itself, except that something about the space seems to amplify the sight, focusing the black emphasis of it all down upon her like a lens.

“Auditor,” my guide begins, although the woman does not look up from her paperwork. “Your vis - ”

“Dr Vachan.” The voice is sudden, and although not quite toneless, there is a clip to it that belies the artificial nature of the sound. “As punctual as ever, I see.”

“Auditor.” I step around my escort, shooting her a small nod. She hovers for a moment, waiting, then salutes stiffly and vanishes back out into the corridor. The door swings shut again behind her, latching, and a moment or so later the lights in the room brighten considerably. Theatre is one thing – but unnecessary eye strain is quite another.

I laugh, quietly.

“I am in eternal admiration that you can manage to be sarcastic with only three actual vocal settings.” I move towards the desk – scattered with papers and files, arranged in bureaucratic strata no more comprehensible under the stronger lighting – and swing my diagnostic kit up to rest in a clear space at the edge. The catches pop, loud in the muted air, and the pale figure finally glances up. One narrow eyebrow arches.

“You should have more confidence in your work, Doctor. I generally find myself to be quite well understood.”

Her attention shifts back downwards as she makes another mark on the current paper; a short, sharp underline that has overtones of a slice, somehow. I don’t look at the document. It is very, very far away from my remit – and besides, it’s not as if I want to know.

There’s curiosity enough prickling at my thoughts as it is, and I’d prefer not to spend my goodwill on trivialities.

Busy silence settles back down as I unfold the trays and equipment from my kit, laying each one out along the table, accompanied by the occasional strike of pen on paper. I glance sideways as I prepare, trying to judge her mood today, but even after all this time, she can be frustratingly difficult to read when she wants to be. It’s not that her face is particularly inexpressive – I’ve seen the smile that can curl those thin lips, albeit not an especially joyous kind of expression, and the lifetime of fine lines that have sketched themselves into her skin speak of features that do indeed move. And I have certainly seen her angry.

But all things are a tool, and a face no less than any other. When she chooses to, her expression can be unsettlingly blank – not so much shut down as uninstalled, as if the twist and twine of emotions are an alien thing to that canvas of flesh.

To be honest, that’s almost more telling than a scowl would have been.

“Have you been experiencing any unusual discomfort or pain?” I set the final piece of equipment down and pause, carefully running through my usual mental checklist.

“I wonder if anything about this particular situation can be considered usual,” she replies, as she makes another note, and I have to bite back on a sigh.

“This is the face you’re speaking to, Morrigan. How likely is it that my definition of ‘unusual’ has lessened?”

She looks up again, sharply, at the use of her name – my Auditor, the Auditor in many ways; this grey-knife epitome who wears her vocation as a cloak, and conceals so much within that – and for a moment my breath tightens in my chest. Then the edges of her lips twitch, just a little, and she leans back.

“Point taken. Very well, Doctor; you may commence with your assessment.”

I pull my gloves on and move around the desk as she leans forward, presenting her scalp to my attention. There are no visible lines anymore between the healing areas and the unscathed, and I run assessing fingers along the fading sutures that I know so well, concealed beneath her white-grey hair. There is a slight raising, beneath the skin, where the artificial skull starts at the lambdoid line and melds – almost seamlessly, if I do say so myself – with the remaining bone. I trace it along, up and behind her ears where the scars are already fading, following the so-familiar line of replacement concealed beneath her brow.

I remember that bizarre moment many months before, as I had stood there – safely cocooned in the sterile steel heart of CYFAC Surgical – looking down into the opened-out skull of my strange patron. The gleaming golden web of the QM3 neural net sat in its sterile bath nearby, reflecting the sharp white lights like threaded gems. My team were poised, tension twisting through the assembled figures as a near-visible thing, tight and shaking and determined; because this was It. The point of no return. We had come so far in these procedures – under various names and iterations – and I had performed enough that the method was certainly familiar, if not yet quite routine.

But this was a special case, and I felt as if the world was held there – here – poised on the finest edge of possibility. As if it were my own life I held in my gloved hands then; my work, my legacy lain out, impossibly vulnerable on the mirror-bright steel surface. Each shallow, chemically-sedated breath was like a judgement, each monitored heartbeat a tick on some otherworld countdown, and just then it was as if no one else existed. Not my assistants, not the team, not even the walls and clustered corridors above.

Just her, and me, and the gilden-progeny of a lifetime’s work awaiting us both, as history fanned out its thousand chances like waiting, grasping wings. And I…

“Doctor.” The word is sudden and breaks the shell of memory that had settled down around me. I don’t flinch, but I do blink, focusing anew on the grey-haired head still held carefully between my hands.

“...apologies,” I mutter, letting go, and step back. Morrigan straightens up, rubbing idly along the paths my fingers have traced. Her expression is unreadable, again.

“Prognosis?”

“Healing of the bones and soft tissues is progressing appropriately. No external signs of post-surgical trauma or rejection.” I pull my own sheaf of paper from the kit folder, flicking through the pages until I find four blank ones, and place them down in front of her. This time a faint flicker of distaste does make it onto her features, as I tap the first sheet.

“Please replicate the calibration documents. Precisely.”

“I am surprised you do not tire of seeing these repeated.” Morrigan picks up her pen again and looks down at the page. “I certainly do.”

“Boredom doesn’t really come under my remit,” I reply, not looking up, and turn to my sheet of questions. I wait in the moment of recall, until the first scratches of penmanship start, and then begin.

“Please answer all questions, fully, to the best of your ability.” I do look up now, and note the slightly-distant look in those pale eyes as Morrigan’s hand sketches back and forth rapidly across the page in front of her. It is not quite writing, I have noticed – there is an odd uniformity of enscribing, all elements of the page given the same effort – but in a way that is reassuring.

It is a reproduction, not a revision. That is important.

“Who are you?”

“Auditor Morrigan Stewart. Alpha two-five; Citizen. As you are quite aware.” The reply is curt, but does not interfere with the sound of writing. I shrug, and continue.

“How do you feel, Auditor?”

“Somewhat akin to a photocopier.”

Sarcasm again. Three vocal setting or not, sarcasm was good. The first sheet of paper is pushed aside and I glance over at it. My own memory may not be eidetic, in nature or design, but I have become very familiar with the four documents that I chose for calibration of the QM3 net. Each is quite different. One a heavily-annotated prosthetic schematic; one a particularly rambling, half-censored copy of the minutes from last year’s internal CYFAC contingency planning meeting; one a detailed map and then-current harvest schedule for a large AGRI-FAC unit nearby; and the final a reproduction of the opening from a popular Approved opera, complete with hand-written notation and additional information from a composer long since dead.

Each one is replicated in various inks, perfectly, a dozen times in the stack of paper kept in the base of my bag. Each time, every element exactly as it was before – including the original mistakes, the outdated theories, incorrect predictions of last summer’s invertebrate pest load, insults to the third violinist’s parentage – poorly erased – and the blacked-out censor bars. All things that might so easily be changed, with the smallest update to their source, and I am relieved every time when they are not.

It is possible to create such a net that allows for edit as well as recall; that uses the brain itself as a processing component, drawing together links and connections between the most disparate of information. In truth it is more than possible – it is proven, prototyped and wildly successful – and I have promised the shadow-whispers of my own lingering guilt, my Facilitator, and several deadly-serious Review Boards that I will never install such a System again.

We continue like this for a while, until my list of questions runs low and she reaches the bottom of the final copy sheet, placing it neatly atop its fellows. It looks fine, and I will assess it in more detail later to be completely sure, but I try not to look too hard at the pages just yet. My questions are all answered, and the little deviations from pure fact, the occasional snide comments at the dull mundanity of the actual wording, are as they should be.

There is one last question at the bottom of the sheet, in a printed hand not my own. It is a requirement, a reminding shackle from an authority above even that sat before me. My eyes narrow as I stare down at those words, and remember so, so well why they are there.

“Are you a loyal and productive Daughter of the State?” I keep my voice neutral as I look up, and meet the opposite stare. I may claim that my shined gaze gives nothing away, I may claim that I have learned to keep my own features unreadable – but it has never worked on her. At those words, she fixes me with a Look, and her lip curls slightly as she places the pen down with a firm click.

“I have always endeavoured to hold Mother’s ideals in particular regard.”

“Yes or no. Auditor,” I add, my pencil hovering over the page. Morrigan sighs.

“Yes, then. And if the thrust of this inanity is ‘do I feel inclined to permanently submerge my consciousness into a significant piece of military hardware, and abscond with it’ – then no, Doctor. I can assure you, I do not.”

“I hate to think what you’d choose to take, in that situation.” I tick ‘yes’, accompanied by a strange flutter of some emotion not quite relief. “Hypothetically.”

A faint smile ghosts across her face, before she looks back down at the stacks of her own papers that still take up most of the desk surface.

“Your assessment is completed satisfactorily?”

I nod, as I begin to tidy the contents of my kit back into its neat case, dropping the gloves on top before I close the lid. She has already returned to her paperwork, pen cutting a sharpened path through the tight knots of printed word, and I hesitate. I have not yet been dismissed, and…

“If I may ask a question, Auditor?”

“You may.” She does not look up, and I draw my breath carefully. Curiosity will get me killed one day, I am quite sure of it. But there are worse things to die for.

“FAC-19. The vanished one.”

She doesn’t react to the name. Perhaps that is telling, too.

“An unfortunate incident,” I continue, pushing a little. “The wireless, broadcaster C_Y, says demolition, but I don’t –”

“These are difficult times, Doctor.” She still doesn’t look up, but her hand moves suddenly, plucking a folded piece of paper from its fellows, and slides it over next to my own. “As such, I suggest you consider your own interests firsts; and let me handle mine.”

I open the paper and look down, at a list of names. They are familiar, and my stomach tightens at the sight of one or two. I understand. The purge has not reached us yet, but it will – and it will start here. Watch out, or watch over, and sometimes the distinction is terribly thin.

“…thank you,” I say quietly, as I slip the paper into the thin, near-invisible angle between two of the trays – so easily overlooked, even in a close search – and my fingers do not tremble. “Your advice is as… prudent as ever.”

“I should hope so. You are dismissed.”

I nod and pick up my kit. It seems strangely heavy now, and my mind is already turning to the grim requirements of forethought as I head towards the door. As I reach for the handle, she speaks again.

“The good Captain will pay you a visit soon. I’m sure I can count on your usual hospitality.”

“Of course, Auditor.”

The lights dim, abruptly, a second before the door swings back open. I meet my waiting escort’s wide gaze as I step out – unscathed – and nod to her. We head back down the winding corridors, but I pay even less attention now to our returning progress. My mind is full of preparations, already-rehearsing the hushed conversations that I must have quickly, careful and sharp, if necessary; because this is a play I have learned well, and my own embers are beginning to smoulder once more.

I will not be betrayed. I will not be denounced again. I am Asha Vachan, and I am myself a pawn – but in a far greater game than this.

Your Auditor Knows.

And now, so do I.

My name is Dr Asha Vachan. Citizen; life-tenure research lead in Reconstructional Therapies at CYFAC, with five levels of combined Furtherance in Cybernetic Interface and Neuro-manipulation. I have spent my life in this city, the currency of my existence paid again and again on the account of our so-beloved, never-sated State. And it has killed me three times, so far.

She keeps count. I’m hardly the top of that macabre chart – known only to those on it, and its keeper; known but never written, never something so incriminating – but as far as I’m aware, I’m the longest-running. It’s a seniority, of a sorts, I suppose; as if I need more reminders of that, of the grey already laced through my retained hairline, of the slow and creak in my remaining biological joints.

We are Interesting, you see, and Mother does not encourage the arrogance of singularity. Peculiarity is non-compliance. In a way, to raise yourself at all – whether from deliberate ambition, or a quirk of skill or chance – is to draw Her ire. The higher you go, the more successful you become, the riskier it is. Deference is joy. Compliance is humility. To step above the cool shade of the Cradle’s shadow may bring you – blinking – into the sunlight, may bring accolade and accomplishment – but the more you rise, the closer you will come to the waiting branches of the Icarus Tree.

It is said that nothing burns quite so brightly as hubris.

Mother knows best. But She does not know everything.

Even after all these years, there is a certain thrill to thoughts like these. My expression is unfaltering as I move, walking with the precise, measured step of Worthy Intent, and I am quite sure that none of this shows on my surface.

With a surface such as mine, I hardly need more attention.

We are Interesting. Outstanding, in some way. Innovators or skill-smiths of particular capability, or even – in at least one case I know of – exceptional defiers of the shackles of chance. Whatever the reason, and even now I am not completely sure I understand the exact process, we have impressed her.

My thoughts turn again to history, as my feet – rooted firmly in the now – lead me along the grid-iron roads of the residential quarter, towards the East Gate in all its shell-pocked glory. Beyond that, a cluster of low domes rise against a tarmac web of roadways; the upper floors of the whole SFAC complex, burrowed deep into the ground like the sprawling hive of some great insects, entombed and shielded beneath the poisoned earth.

This is home, and I remember how I first came here.

I remember the fear, back then, the cold-iron twist of raw terror in my heart as I was ushered unkindly to stand before that table, heavy with paperwork. Much of it I recognised. Unofficial designs. Private notes. Stupid things I had jotted in the margins, flights of fancy and what had seemed like jokes at the time. None of them were funny now, not when I could see the deadly garden of coloured marks, sprung like malevolent fungi across my own – undeniably my own – handwriting.

Thought Crime: Category Three.

Appropriation of State resources.

Severe violation of primary remit.

I was twenty-six years old, and subject to a full Audit. I remember looking down, as if the weight of my own stare was too much to hold up, as the charges were read out. They were all accurate. Painfully accurate, and I admitted every one. What was the point in pretending otherwise? I had three new, grade-two discoveries under my belt, was well on my way into my second Furtherance, and deception was not my strong point. Why should it be? I had thought myself invaluable. Invincible, in the unconsidered way of the blithely fortunate.

I would not make twenty-seven; that was abundantly clear. By the time the final charge was read, the final poison-point of non-compliance dragged from my careless endeavours, I could barely stand. Would it be quick? I was no Facilitator, no senior researcher with their face in the newsheets. My work was groundbreaking, yes, but outside of my field I was still unknown.

Perhaps they would merely shoot me. It is a strange moment, when that thought is the sudden, shining goal in the blackening ashes of your life. Quick. Clean. I have advanced several fields in this ending span of mine; I have been a valuable resource. Did I deserve even that much?

‘Look at me, Asha Vachan.’

I complied. There was no defiance left, if I had ever really had any at all, amongst the deluded dreams so rigorously catalogued before me. I looked up, and saw her properly for the first time. She could not have been that much older than me, my Auditor; a pale young woman, blandly unremarkable in every feature, with short brown hair and eyes like smudged-newsprint – but unlike me, the thick-air weight of that room, the iron clang and ignition-scream promise of Audit, sat easily on her shoulders. She was smoking, the ruby tip of the cigarette the only point of real colour against the crafted, clerical monotony of her.

The room was empty, I realised. Only we two remained, with the fine curls of tobacco smoke twisting in the air between us.

‘You understand all charges brought against you.’ Her voice was unaccented, stripped clean, so the sound of it is hard to recall exactly. ‘You have accepted every one, denied nothing.’

I nodded. I could not speak. What would be the point? The Auditor looked down, at the dissected remnants of my life, and pursed her thin lips. Then she looked at me.

‘Tell me, Vachan. Do you regret any of this?’

There was silence. I had been silent before, and since, but nothing will ever be quite like that moment. At the end of your world, when there is nothing between you and oblivion, and the silence is so, so loud, and there is no space left for lying.

‘...no.’

I don’t know how I spoke; I don’t know where I even found the breath, but even that was struck from me as the Auditor smiled.

‘Good. But we will have to work on your presentation.’

I did not understand the true meaning of any of what followed, not for some time. I remember collapsing, as fear and confusion and the impact of impossible relief took what remained of my senses. I remember the Corrections, and I have been careful to keep the scars of them to this day – but I am certain that I did not understand what she meant. Not really.

I would learn.

I was twenty-six years old when my life was first taken; and returned to me so very much changed.