Shall Machines Divide the Earth by Benjanun Sriduangkaew (list of e readers txt) 📕

hunches over the bar, continuing to disclose to no one in particular that his life is in danger, that coming here was a grave mistake, and he would get out on the first available ship. Yes, not long now, it can’t be far off, he’s not going to hold on for much longer—the state of his heart, his dwindling funds . . .

In a way it eases her conscience that he is advanced in age, banal in concerns. His motives are opaque to her but it is difficult to imagine a person like this with true interiority, with grand ideas and ambitions. Of course saving Ayothaya is loftier than anything a man like this could desire. Perhaps his cause is as ordinary as escaping debt or he already has plenty and is greedy for more, fantasizing about endless wealth. She does not imagine for him a set of loved ones. Simpler to reduce people to their surfaces—killing becomes, then, almost guiltless. You shoot an empty box, not a being of flesh and sapience.

Recadat has made that compartmentalization many times in public security. The pursuit of justice meant accepting collateral damage as part of the equation.

The man exits. She follows. In the corner of her vision the Divide’s tallies slowly blink. One aspirant remains, and she is almost absolute it is this man. Aspirants are not worth the hunt, not really. But she must make sure. There should be as few variables as possible; hers is not a prize that she can give up.

He moves unsteadily: one drink too many in him. No real awareness that he’s being followed as he makes his way to one of the anonymous tenements. There is no art or finesse necessary to cornering him. She simply strides up behind him and puts her gun to the back of his skull.

She thinks of kicking his legs out, of shattering the bridges that the human body has carefully constructed within itself. A dislocated patella, a fractured tibia. Disabling a person is so simple. She considers interrogating him, but then he would deny that he’s a participant in the Court of Divide, there’s no gain for him in telling the truth. And she does not have time to torture an old man. She pulls the trigger, waits, and this time the Divide module does oblige. Aspirant count down to zero.

Sweat trickles down the back of her knees, down her sternum. Libretto is like the inside of pyrexia even as night approaches, and when Recadat comes to a fountain she climbs into it without thinking. She stands there and lets it drench her, discovering that the water is much cleaner than she thought, potable even. As if the Mandate has decided on planetary deprivation but doesn’t quite know what that looks like. Those residents bedecked in finery, the impeccable tuxedo and qipao.

After a time she feels cleansed. She gets out, dripping, and thinks of what to do next. When she returns to her suite, her lover will congratulate her and reward her lushly in bed. The only space they will not invade is anywhere with Thannarat.

She doesn’t go to her own floor when she returns to the Vimana. Thannarat has given her access and the lift takes her to her old partner’s corridor. For a moment she stands there, damp and cold, not even sure that Thannarat might be in.

The door opens. Her old partner stands on the other side, warmly backlit. For several seconds Recadat can only stare at her, the solidity of this woman, the color of salvation. She realizes she has been silent for too long when Thannarat says, “Come in. You look terrible.”

The private lounge is illuminated in gold—she doesn’t remember seeing that when she last visited. Vases full of roses, basins full of lotuses. Fruits dangle from the ceiling, pomegranates and crimson grapes—particulate projection, but especially well-made. Thannarat herself is lightly dressed, unbelted trousers and loose shirt. Recadat thinks of the images her lover spun, the broad strength of Thannarat’s long, muscled back—she’s struck by the thought of what that would look like glistening with sweat, and quickly throttles the idea back.

“What happened?” Thannarat is steering her to the lounge bathroom.

“Fountain,” Recadat says. Black marble walls, exquisite symmetry. An expansive mirror. The reflections tantalize her, the verge of what could be in this close and intimate space. “It’s a hot night.”

“Every night in this forsaken city is hot.” Thannarat studies her, searching her expression. “Do you need help?”

Delayed response, coming in drenched when normally her habit is to look immaculate. It dawns on Recadat that to Thannarat she must look stricken, shell-shocked. The thought almost wrings a laugh out of her. “Yes. Please.”

Thannarat pulls off her jacket, blunt fingers skimming over the sodden material of her shirt. She stands as still as possible, hardly breathing as the shirt too is taken off. Her bare skin is cold. Her cheeks are hot. “Thannarat,” she says. “What would you do if you found out I did something terrible?”

Her old partner pauses. “Depends. Did you drown an infant? Torch an orphanage? Blow up an entire station?”

“No. Nothing like that.”

“Then we’ll continue to get along. I’m not exactly a saint so I’m not going to judge. Your moral compass is better-made than mine, in any case.” Thannarat drapes a towel over her. “My clothes will sit on you like a sack, but the bathrobe should do you right. There’s plenty of space. Do you want to stay the night?”

Recadat tries to track the direction of Thannarat’s gaze, to divine whether it ever lingered on her. The towel is loose and she wants. For more than a decade she has wanted. In Thannarat’s absence it was a daydream, fondly thought of but safely inert. In her presence it is a tide and now it overflows. “Did you ever . . . ” She grabs Thannarat’s shirt, clenching tight, imagining the hard flesh underneath, the scaffolding of augments. Imagining this pillar of potency rising and falling above her. “Did you ever love anyone but Eurydice? Even a