perspective, all the hidden patterns. And he had especially never witnessed how rigs interacted with the world, or—God Almighty, he thought—conversed with them. And yet Sancia and Berenice had thousands of such memories, memories of observing rigs casually speaking to one another, signaling information, chattering on in the dark…
There has been a whole world out there, under the one I have built, he thought, thunderstruck, and I have been missing it.
whispered Sancia’s voice in his mind.
Orso felt himself whispering: “Ohh, holy shit…”
But he heard himself saying it, too—from four different sets of ears.
The hands—hands he felt with, hands he could feel, one of them aching from a terrible wound—withdrew from his shoulders.
Orso Ignacio opened his eyes, and watched himself standing there, awestruck and overcome with the knowledge pouring into his mind.
“We…We should have done this shit years ago!” he said faintly.
said Berenice.
he said, frenzied.
said Gregor blearily.
he said.
said Sancia. She sounded exhausted.
he said.
There was an awkward silence.
said Orso.
said Sancia reluctantly.
said Orso, outraged.
said Berenice.
But the instant she framed it not as a tactical problem, but as a scriving problem—a question of loopholes and privileges and access—Orso’s mind kicked into gear.
And as it did, it pulled everyone else’s mind with it.
“Oh shit,” whispered Orso.
The moment was beatific, transcendent, sublime: all four of them, thinking, pondering, solving together, each sensing the others’ strengths and weaknesses and feeding into them, building layers of approach and possibility and probabilities…
Orso began talking.
he said,
said Sancia, excited,
said Orso.
said Gregor.
said Sancia.
said Berenice,
said Orso,
said Sancia faintly,
said Orso.
They stared at one another, somewhat awed at how quickly it had all come together in one epiphanic moment.
said Sancia.
They started off.
* * *
—
Orso and Berenice walked the perimeter of the room, applying the construction scriving plates to the stone walls one after another. Orso struggled not to panic as he shuffled through the room, convinced