Emily and Eldri play goofily at karaoke and old-style Dance Dance Revolution. They fly an amazing kite. They putter around his laboratory and they talk and they drink svart-drinks and they laugh.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m making a set of tin soldiers,\u201d Eldri says.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou could use moon\u2019s blood,\u201d she says. \u201cLike, when the moonlight bleeds into a pond.\u201d<\/p>\n
He squints at her.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh-oh?\u201d he says. \u201cMy Emily\u2019s getting to be something of a smith.\u201d<\/p>\n
She looks embarrassed.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the hat,\u201d he says. \u201cInnit?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe,\u201d she says. \u201cDo you ever smith better when you wear a yellow hat? Or talk to other smiths in your head?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen it\u2019s probably not the hat,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019m probably just special!\u201d<\/p>\n
Even the pupils of her eyes are flecked with the Keepers\u2019 gold.<\/p>\n
She insists on taking Navvy Jim to the museum. She is very careful when in public to only play rock.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou mustn\u2019t take advantage of this knowledge,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wouldn\u2019t,\u201d he says softly.<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean,\u201d Emily says, \u201cthere are some<\/i> robots, you see, who, knowing that their opponent was only going to play rock, they\u2019d play paper, every time.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause it would be the winning move?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cExactly. It\u2019s taking advantage!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut if I played scissors,\u201d Navvy Jim says, \u201cthen people would become upset.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cExactly,\u201d says Emily. \u201cThere is nothing for it: you shall have to lose to my rock with a smaller rock of your own.\u201d<\/p>\n
Navvy Jim cannot help laughing.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat?\u201d she says. She looks embarrassed. She looks away.<\/p>\n
\u201cEmily,\u201d he says. Emily.<\/i><\/p>\n
She snaps a look at him. That was almost the inside voice.<\/p>\n
He looks perfectly neutral when she looks at him. His robot face is set in an expression of total blandness.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will do my best,\u201d he says, \u201cnot to throw paper every time, but you must forgive me if I slip. I am only an old country robot. I am not one of your hip modern city robots that can play dancing games and wear a hat.\u201d<\/p>\n
Navvy Jim\u2019s ears are too small for a hat to look good on him. That is really the only reason.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhatever,\u201d Emily says.<\/p>\n
She drags him to the museum. Later, they go shopping. She buys him a pair of sunglasses.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019ll keep your enemies from seeing your true intentions,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cHmmm<\/i>m,\u201d he says. He shoots her a cool glare through his shades. He shakes his fist, one, two three \u2014<\/i><\/p>\n
\u201cPaper wraps rock!\u201d Navvy Jim says smugly.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the sunglasses!\u201d Emily explains.<\/p>\n
Later that night, as he is playing rock-paper-scissors against the mirror, she tells him that he has to take them off when it is dark.<\/p>\n
Eldri tells her stories of Hans, and Navvy Jim boasts of how he will save the world, and as summers go, it is the best; and Emily asks softly of Eldri, in one long sweet evening hour on a hill, \u201cMust we really ought to box him up?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen the summer ends,\u201d Eldri says. \u201cWhen the summer ends.\u201d<\/p>\n
He looks at Navvy Jim.<\/p>\n
\u201cI won\u2019t,\u201d he says, \u201cthough, if you say not to. If you can live in a scissor-less world.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe world is the world,\u201d says Navvy Jim, \u201cand I am Navvy Jim.\u201d<\/p>\n
Emily is standing up. It is very sudden. Her face is pale.<\/p>\n
\u201cHm?\u201d Eldri says.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have to go,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
She pushes around the edges of her shapeless yellow cap to make sure it\u2019s actually on. She flits through the door.<\/p>\n
She runs.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s never clear to her how she travels when she\u2019s going all-out. Her mind moves inwards. She walks a maze in her head. She filmed it twice, out of curiosity, but the camera couldn\u2019t catch it, not pointing behind her, not pointing at her. The first tape showed a stuttering blankness. The second, a single still image of a falling leaf.<\/p>\n
She thinks she is on a high tree branch for a moment.<\/p>\n
She thinks she is on the bank of some dark-running stream.<\/p>\n
She is in the air and there is moonlight and she is staggering into one of the dorms at the Lethal Magnet School for Wayward Youth and there is gaslight.<\/p>\n
There is a door. It is closed. It is locked. It is chained.<\/p>\n
Her gold eyes flicker. She looks left. She looks right.<\/p>\n
The door is open.<\/p>\n
She slips her through.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Emily and Eldri play goofily at karaoke and old-style Dance Dance Revolution. They fly an amazing kite. They putter around his laboratory and they talk and they drink svart-drinks and they laugh. \u201cI\u2019m making a set of tin soldiers,\u201d Eldri says. \u201cYou could use moon\u2019s blood,\u201d she says. \u201cLike, when the moonlight bleeds into a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5099,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"series":[47],"class_list":["post-5352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-storm-that-saw-itself-chapter-5","series-the-storm-that-saw-itself"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/Hat_2_noBG.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5352"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5352\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6127,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5352\/revisions\/6127"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5352"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/books.hitherby.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fseries&post=5352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}