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Battle of Haibi Chapter 18half

2019-03-20T05:49:44Z

Fhd remix: New half chapter with the enemy's motivational speech by Dylan Thomas; posted in honor and memory of the victims of the Christchurch massacre

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Battle_of_Haibi Back to Battle of Haibi main directory]

Previous: [[Battle of Haibi Chapter 18]]: Feather Conspiracy

== Chapter 18 and a half: The Least Gentle of Nights ==

(First written on 2018 June 28 when the author discovered ''Do Not Go Gentle'' while watching ''Interstellar.'' Published on 2019 March 20 in honor and memory of the casualties of Christchurch, New Zealand violence which happened on 2019 March 15 when the author discovered it at the beginning of ''The Great Replacement'')

A Defender of Haibi stands on the wall, watching the evening sun dim red as it nears the horizon. The wind is like a raging gale, but it is only able to disturb the armored robe slightly. The figure has the mask on, cross shaped slits surrounding a round hole in the middle. Attached to the bottom is its chin, with a smaller round hole and no slits. Behind, the being has a black cloth, or something that looks like it. The figure holds a rifle, standing watch as though to say with no words, "No one gets over this wall."

''The monster holds a monocle to his eye, pinches it between his brow and his orbit; it was from a battleship's rangefinder, as human spectacles are too small for him. Human books as well, he scratches off the word "Oscure" from a magazine copy he knows is 281 years old; it has not fared well. He liked to keep it, but Erebus, the demon of terror, recalled inspiring the poem he seeks. Victory awaits, and while he could inspire merely the thoughts, his host had selected the elegant form of "villanelle" - Erebus had no interest in poetic forms, but he was so impressed that he memorized it. He crushed the last copy on Earth of this poem and discarded it.''

Samurai is listening to this gentle voice tell him a beautiful story about the beginning of the world, lying awake in bed, watching the sun set outside. Tomorrow was Saturday, and he was trying to get some rest.

"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. At this time, the earth was featureless and empty, darkness covered the face of the deep. The Spirit of God soared over the waters. God said, 'Let there be light' and it became so; it was good. God separated the light from the darkness, calling the light 'day', and the darkness 'night'. The ''evening'' and the morning was the first day."

''The military commander of the enemy grasps his talking box gently; its cable stretches from its cradle in the ceiling. Pressing, the switch, he utters, "Tonight we destroy the sudden city, the last bastion of our enemies, I have a few words, I'd like you all to hear:''

''"Do not go gentle into that good night''

''"Old age should burn and rave at close of day''

''"Rage, rage against the dying of the night."''

Samurai was well aware this could be the last time he slept in this bed, for his world was going to change the next day. One last night of peace, yet God continued to disturb his sleep with the elegant story of His creation. The sky out his window was a romantic magenta belying the bitter cold.

"And God said, 'let us lift water from water, a layer above and a layer below.' God called the space between these layers the 'sky'. The ''evening'' and the morning was the second day. God said, 'Let the land produces plants that bear seed, and trees that bear fruit, reproducing according to its kind.' The ''evening'' and the morning was the third day."

''A few last sips of whatever beverage the individuals of the enemy had chosen or been given, rarely the former under the grip of demonic tyranny. Their commander continues to recite the dark poem from memory, not knowing that he just destroyed the last readable copy, as the sudden city didn't have one.''

''"Though wise men at their end know dark is right

''"Because their words had forked no lightning,

''"They do not go gentle into that good night."

[Properly, "they" is on the previous line; the error is Erebus' not mine.]

"And God said, 'let us put lights above the sky to further distinguish day and night, and to mark seasons and years.' These he called 'stars'. He also made the angels. The ''evening'' and the morning was the fourth day. Then God said, 'let us fill the seas with fish and the air with birds,' and so he created them, each reproducing after its own kind. The ''evening'' and the morning was the fifth day. And God said, 'let the land produce creatures each reproducing after its own kind: livestock, ground dwelling animals, and wild beasts. Let us create man in our image and likeness, to rule over all life, and all the earth.' The ''evening'' and the morning was the sixth day."

''"Good men, the last wave by, crying no bright

''"Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,

''"Rage, rage against the dying of the night."

''Weapons are checked one last time, anxious batwings flex and shift their weight waiting for clearance to take off. Guardians scratch the ground like excited bulls and the fingers of the imps and hellknights sparkle with anticipation.''

''"Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight

''"And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,

''"Do not go gentle into that good night."

Why is the voice putting emphasis on the word "evening" all the time? Samurai ponders as the soft voice continues.

"Before the seventh day God had finished all the work he had been doing, and so on the seventh day, he rested. While relaxing, he touched the seventh day to complete the week, making it holy because on it, he rested from all his work. And the ''evening'' and the morning was the seventh day."

''"Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight''

''"Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,"''

''Guardians cheer at that line, and Erebus must pause for them if he wishes to be heard.''

''"Rage, rage against the dying of the light."''

Evening comes before morning. That is one day.

Samurai shoots up in his bed, looking out the window at the stars. He grabs his phone on his dresser and hits the general alert. His voice echos through all the corridors and all the defense towers, Central Tower, and the moat: "All hands to battlestations, all hands to battlestations. This is not a drill. This is not a drill."

''The forces advancing on the ground engage their cloaking devices. Batwings and guardians marching along the ground shimmer like the air above a fire's flames.''

''"And you, my father, there on the sad height,''

''"Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.''

''"Do not go gentle into that good night.''

''"Rage, rage against the dying of the light."''

"All hands to battlestations, all hands to battlestations. This is not a drill. This is not a drill."

A shimmering along the horizon as unto hot engines idling.
With all the forces of evil assembled, it's not too surprising

The Defenders Haibi enter their turrets and raise their rifles just in time to observe the shimmering blobs take off. Batwings are on their way and hot plasma issues from the top of the wall to greet them in anger.

[''FHD Remix'' author Terry Wilson first recognized in ''Interstellar'' about 1930Z on 2018 June 28, the evil side's counterpart to the Genesis story at the beginning of the Battle of Haibi. It was after this that I searched for and identified the poem and its author. ''FHD Remix'' is fiction and has never made a claim that its hermeneutic is realistic, therefore this is not a claim that ''Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night'' was demonically inspired, although it is inherently a claim that it was plausible. I knew nothing of Dylan Thomas before, so I looked up his extensive Wikipedia page; turns out he's a big name secular entertainer. While a complete wreck by 1914-born standards, he's bog standard for both popular entertainers and a sane individual for died-2014 standards, maybe just a tad below the median of what I've observed to date. (And yes, Robin Williams came to mind.) Therefore it is plausible that he wrote the poem from the thoughts of a demon. That said, ''FHD Remix'' is fiction, so there is no claim that a particular demon of the name Erebus inspired it even if it went to paper similarly in real life.]

[Back in June, I was hesitant to publish this half-chapter. But I cracked open ''The Great Replacement'' by Brendon Tarrant and look what I saw! It is not properly attributed, but there on the second page of the so-called "Christchurch Manifesto" is ''Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night'' by Dylan Thomas. That happened at 05:09Z on 2019 March 20, and I was like "That's it, BoH 18-and-a-half is going online tonight." (I'm in Z-6.) So, I offer my little memorial to the casualties of Christchurch, Sutherland Springs, and all the ISIS-vs-Christian massacres that have gone unreported. "But I [The Saviour] say unto you, Love your enemieis, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and prey for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust." - Matthew 5:44-45 Authorized King James Version.]

[Also, apologies for the broken links throughout ''FHD Remix: Three Worlds In One,'' my Youtube channel was terminated under false pretenses on 2019 March 9; there were no strikes, no warnings, no notice, and the appeal was denied. My Gmail account was also suspended, so I highly recommend anyone who relies on Gmail for business purposes, get switched to another email service as quickly as possible as it cannot be considered sufficiently reliable if this can happen.]

Next: [[Battle of Haibi Chapter 19]]: Battlestations!

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Battle_of_Haibi Back to Battle of Haibi main directory]

Rakka

2016-12-24T20:27:45Z

Fhd remix: A big enough start to be worth the wait?

[[Image:Rakka_maksim.png|thumb|right|Rakka as seen in ''Reflections''.]]
{| border="1"
|+ align="top" style="caption-side: top" | '''Vital statistics'''
|-
|Kanji || 落下
|-
|Meaning || Falling
|-
|Cocoon dream || Falling out of the sky, crow in formation
|-
|Haibane age || 6 months (end of series)
|-
|Biological age || ~14
|-
|True name || 絡果
|-
|Meaning || Meddling nut
|}

== Name ==

Rakka as in falling was chosen as her name in the first episode. The Wall's tag system updated her story, probably in the ninth episode, which was revealed in the twelvth episode when the Communicator gave her her new Rakka-as-in-meddling-nut name tag. She noted that in the first episode, her hatching robe smelled of nuts, but it is not clear whether this is the normal smell of the robe or related to her true name.

== Character ==

Rakka is the main character, and it is rare for a camera far from her to reveal anything significant. She's always reluctant to trouble others for her own benefit, except in situations as desperate as when she fell into the well in the eighth episode. Conversely, she is quick to get involved in helping others, from Reki, her major case, to Dai and Sumika. Consistent with her first name, she is capable of hitting the ground at great speeds with little to no injury, but is otherwise in poor athletic shape. Her red hair tends to be unkempt, although much of this seems to result from a pastry-contaminated halo. She tends to get emotional, mourning at length the loss of her friend [[Kuu]] in the sixth episode, the crow (who appears to be a close friend or relative of her precursor) in the eighth episode, and the pending Day of Flight (or otherwise) of her best friend Reki. Strangely, she gets the relatively lonely job of cleaning the tags in the moat space inside the [[Wall]], a job which she gets after touching it in the ninth episode. Speaking of which, touching the Wall is a rare and serious crime, resulting in a catastrophic illness and potentially long-lasting repurcussions for the offender and others in the community. Rakka escaped such via more luck than skill, and because her offense wasn't so deliberate.

== Precursor ==

Many theories abound about Rakka's precursor, but the most memorable is probably that of ''Reflections'', an anime music video done for the 2006 AKROSS Convention's AMV contest in Russia. In it, she is also Haruka Suzumiya of ''Kimi ga Nozomu Eien'' also known as ''Rumbling Hearts''. Haruka is caught in a car crash while waiting to meet her boyfriend, and remains in a coma for three years. Her appearances in the AMV are reskinned as Rakka, as though she is the only character, mourning the loss of her boyfriend to another woman while imprisoned in Glie. (While they have different seiyu in the Japanese mother tongue, Carrie Savage voices both characters in their English dubs.)

== Future in Glie ==

Little is known of fan fiction which explores Rakka's life as a haibane after ''Haibane Renmei'' ends. (Feel free to add yours if you have one.) While not a featured character, Rakka is one of the most memorable haibane in ''[[FHD Remix]]: Three Worlds In One'', where she lives for 48 years, meddling with hundreds of haibane and aging into a sweet old lady. Her last protege was Menmo, who knew her for eight months before Rakka's Day of Flight. She did get to learn of who tried to steal her boat in the eleventh episode of ''Haibane Renmei'', creatures known in ''FHD Remix'' as "brats" or in ''Doom 3'' officially as "cherubs". She also met other enemy types and inflicted several kills and injuries using the boat's punt. She was also Communicator for quite some time, even as a full-fledged haibane (as opposed to "normal" Communicators, which are haibane with their wings lost. This is apparent in ''Haibane Renmei'', but demystified to a much greater extent in the ''FHD Remix'' trilogy.) She was succeeded by a normal Communicator, and, after a vacancy of just over five years, haibane Tatakai became the new tag cleaner. Haibane Menmo succeeded her as "meddler" in haibane emotional problems.

[[Category:Original Characters]]

Current events

2011-12-04T00:00:33Z

Fhd remix:

Most recent activity here has been by User FHD_Remix (and for ''FHD Remix'' trilogy). A couple of chapters were missing from ''[[Rise of Glie]]'' and are being placed in their proper places. That is uber-embarrassing. [[User:Fhd remix|Fhd remix]] 01:00, 4 December 2011 (CET)

Wall sickness

2011-12-02T22:18:23Z

Fhd remix: Writing this article gave me the creeps!

Caution: All canonical information regarding the wall sickness comes from ''Haibane Renmei'' ninth and eleventh episodes. The only fanfiction work known to extensively explore the wall sickness, its origins, causes, and treatments is [[FHD Remix]]. The author has triple-checked that wall sickness as presented in FHD Remix (and all related factors) is consistent with what little is depicted in the anime series. He has also determined after-the-fact that the apparent differences in the two series cases ([[Rakka]] and [[Hyouko]]) are consistent with FHD Remix wall sickness theory.

== Delta Radiation ==

Wall sickness is the effects of poisoning by delta radiation, which is an unusual form of radiation better able to conduct through solid objects (including the [[Wall]] itself) than through liquid, air, or vacuum. It is more able to conduct through high density materials and fluids than low density materials. The most dangerous form of delta radiation poisoning is through contamination with a delta radiation emitter (or "vector"). Like other forms of radiation, emission is measured in Curies, and exposures measured in Sieverts.

The pattern of symptoms is consistent across all dose levels. First, the victim feels warmer and delta radiation effect acts as a painkiller both against the sickness itself and against any concurrent injuries (therapeudic use of delta radiation is a bad idea!) To others, the victim feels unnaturally cold (anti-fever or hypothermia.) The victim never dies during this phase, but depending on the dose, this phase may end sooner (high doses) or later (low doses), and may last from as little as two hours (10Sv) to three days (0.2Sv). After this, the victim experiences a fever which, if applicable, may persist even after death and reach very high levels. The victim may even vaporize ("I'm afraid to close my eyes. It feels as though I'll disappear if I go to sleep." - Rakka, Episode 9). This is a summary of all known cases of delta radiation poisoning after the Wall was made, dates are provided in SCD format (according to the calendar of FHD Remix):

Haibane [[Rakka]] (''Haibane Renmei'') SCD+1205 November, 2.5Sv: Exposure occurred at ground level from about two seconds of direct contact with the wall, Rakka had a minor sprain in her left ankle at this time. Anti-fever ended after about three hours: Treatment with conventional dextromorphan administered by Kana shortly after the fever broke out had no effect ("I gave her some, but the fever won't come down. I was going to take her to the doctor when the sun comes up". - Episode 10) Successfully treated with Bradford herbal remedy from DT4 (Haibane Renmei Temple) administered by Reki approximately 14hr after exposure.

Haibane [[Hyouko]] (''Haibane Renmei'') SCD+1200 September, 2.0Sv: (Caution: most of this has been extrapolated and may not be accurate): Hyouko and Haibane [[Reki]] undertook an unauthorized scaling operation with a ladder that was too short. After reaching the top of the ladder, Hyouko inserted a wedge into a crack to anchor the ladder, resulting in a long, low intensity exposure. Due to the delta radiation effect, the wedge froze, startling him into falling off the ladder. Shortly afterwards, ice in the crack ejected the wedge. The delta vector outside the wall is settled upon the ground, so exposure rates are lower if the wall is touched well above the ground. Reki was not exposed. Hyouko suffered some trauma to his head and extremities, but during the anti-fever phase, Reki was able to help him get to Old Home, and then sought treatment from the Haibane Renmei, which was successful in saving his life. Unfortunately, unauthorized scaling of the wall is a serious crime as it may compromise Glie's defenses. Both haibane were arrested, and the incident divided the Haibane communities of Old Home and [[Abandoned Factory]] for years afterwards.

Haibane [[Kuramori]] (''Haibane Renmei'') SCD+1199 March, possible exposure of 0.25Sv or less: Haibane Kuramori, on the advice of the Haibane Renmei, sought the ingredients for Sin-bound feather bleach in the Western Woods and collapsed while returning to Old Home. It is possible that she had suffered a minor exposure (less than what one would get from actually touching the wall.)

Haibane [[Tatakai]] (''Three Worlds In One'') SCD+1260 May, 8.0Sv: Tatakai touched the wall at ground level for four seconds while she slew a large Hogosho no Shigoku creature and its accompanying invasion force using the Light of War, as well as repairing severe damage to the wall itself. Her anti-fever was over in less than two hours. Haibane Shimoni and Kurai rushed to DT4 (Haibane Renmei Temple), in such a hurry that they rode a scooter all the way to the temple gate. Tatakai herself had remembered the Bradford herbal remedy from her previous life, where she had experienced a lesser dose and wrote it down for Kurai, who was familiar with the garden. Tatakai ran an extremely high fever, the water in her cooling bath rising to near 50degC (120degF) as the housemother (not the same one as in the series) and Haibane Menmo struggled to keep her from literally burning up. The treatment was administered about four hours after exposure, and she survived.

Human Patricia (''Three Worlds In One'') SCD+1257 December, 6.0Sv: A twelve year old girl rebelled against her parents and ran off to touch the wall. She was found and recovered after exposure, but died after about 18 hours. Two days after exposure, her body burst and vaporized.

Human Leroy (''Three Worlds In One'') SCD+1261 September, less than 4.0Sv, 0.1Cu: Leroy was possessed by Lilith to infiltrate Glie, and was therefore exposed to delta vector as well as touching the wall. Lilith, however, stabilized his body until he was arrested about eight hours after exposure. By this point, Light of Healing was available, but treatment with the Bradford herbal remedy was successful. Unfortunately, Leroy was to spend the rest of his life confined to DT4 as Lilith could not be removed until his death, as well as his treason.

Haibane Taka (''[[Battle of Haibi]]'') SCD+76 December 15, 150mCu: The most serious known case of delta radiation poisoning was taken by the de facto mayor of Haibi when she was attacked by an enemy wraith, who stabbed her in the leg. Despite valiant efforts by the Defenders and Western University Hospital (what [[Old Home]] was at the time), she died only 1.5hr after the attack through a combination of the effects of her anti-fever phase and conventional injuries. The Bradford herbal remedy was administered only eight minutes after the attack, and more advanced Katia factor treatment was given later at the hospital. Her wounds were treated with [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chitosan#Biomedical_uses chitosan] powder and bandages.

MediaWiki formatting description

2011-09-07T23:12:44Z

IsidraBloch:

Guide for writing using mediawiki code will uploaded here later

[http://www.mediawiki.com Official Mediawiki Site]

Spoiler Free Area

2011-06-17T16:57:32Z

Fhd remix: Yes, I admit it. It's a sales brochure!! (lol, especially at the particular irony that I can't legally purchase it where I am!)

Uh, sorry, we don't really have a "Spoiler Free Area" at the moment. What I ([[User:Fhd remix|Fhd remix]] 18:57, 17 June 2011 (CEST)) offer instead, is a spoiler free synopsis:

Haibane are creatures that are hatched from fluid filled cocoons with some years in their bodies. A red-haired girl emerges at the physical age of sixteen, and has just beyond the grasp of her mind, a whole lifetime full of memories, including her original name. The only thing she can clearly remember, however, is this vague dream of falling from the sky, and a crow's futile attempt to save her. In the tradition of the Haibane Renmei ("Ashfeather Federation" in Japanese), she is named for her cocoon dream, "Rakka", a Japanese word for "Falling". Her new friends include Reki (Cobble), Kuu (Empty Air), Hikari (Light), Kana (River Fish), and the children Hana (Flower) and Shota (Shortcake). Soon after she hatches, she discovers she's not human, but ''haibane'' (ashfeather), and wings emerge painfully from her back shortly after she is given one of the glowing halos that hover over the heads of the haibane creature.

The haibane live on the outskirts of a small town named Glie, which is in a large area enclosed by a high wall that nobody is allowed to touch (to say nothing of climbing over it and seeing what's outside.) Humans ''also'' live in Glie. Some of the basic questions you might have, and only a handful will be answered by the anime series, are:

- Are the haibane ''angels'', as they bear some resemblance to the Christian image of one, with feathered wings and halos? Are they perhaps angels in training?
- Is Glie ''heaven?'' Is it perhaps Limbo or Purgatory? (Those are Catholic concepts, and the anime series originator, Yoshitoshi ABe, is believed to be Buddhist, which of course means that he probably wants you to ask these questions, and then ''not'' find any typical answers.)
- Where does Rakka, or any of the other haibane for that matter, come from?
- What sort of life issues do the haibane need to deal with? What eats at their minds? What do they need to worry about?
- Are haibane the revered of Glie? Or ... are they the pariahs?
- Who's in charge of Glie? Is it the haibane or the humans, or someone, perhaps some''thing'' else entirely?
- Since the haibane are unable to fly because their wings are too small, and the radiance of their halos doesn't exactly light up the world, what purpose, if any, are they here for? Why do they even have wings and halos? Do they symbolize anything or are they "just there"?
- What is the "basic conflict" of ''Haibane Renmei'' that makes it interesting as a story?

Okay, that last one, I'll answer: nothing conventional. This should have been easy to see from the other questions. If you're looking for a story that'll change your "optics", the way you look at the real world, to perhaps treat some spiritual far-sightedness or near-sightedness, and you are open to having a work of art ask you the questions that you might not understand, or that you might be afraid of, then ''Haibane Renmei'' may be for you. It might be for you if...

- You're sick of big robots and boys running around with swords rescuing teenage girls in sailor uniforms, or girls in sailor uniforms running around trying to save the world. If nothing else, ''Haibane Renmei'' will be a good break from all that.
- You have an addiction or other such problem and you'd like a new way of looking at it. You might be a new member of [AA http://www.aa.org] or a something like that, and the first thing they've asked you to do is submit to God, "as you understand Him" (She, It, whatever.) You have no understanding of God and are afraid of evangelists, perhaps ''Haibane Renmei'' can get you started.
- You feel a need to pull your mind out of your own spiritual or religious dogma, a search for something more, or perhaps even something less. You have an open mind and if you're say, Christian, you might look up Tao, but don't have the time. Or if you're athiest or agnostic, you might be thinking, "What if there is a God." If you're afraid of the dogmas and hypocrisies of religion, but would like to check out spirituality in a totally non-denominational, non-sectarian way, ''Haibane Renmei'' might be something you'd enjoy.
- You're sick of ''Serial Experiments Lain.'' After watching ''Haibane Renmei,'' you might be astonished to learn that they came from the same author, same mind, same studio, same animation team and original Japanese distributor. And, you wouldn't be the first to be so astonished by any stretch of the imagination!!

Spoilers

2011-06-17T16:11:59Z

Fhd remix: Explanation of spoilers

Many people prefer to view or read a story without having any clue as to what happens in it, or at least not much of a clue. Terry ([[User:Fhd remix|Fhd remix]] 18:11, 17 June 2011 (CEST)) had the benefit of watching ''The Matrix'' in this way, and thus had no idea of the context of "The Matrix" until it became apparent in the movie. He did not have this benefit for ''The Terminator,'' and thus failed to recognize for years that an "unspoiled" viewer would probably have made the wrong assumption as to who was the "good" terminator and who was the "bad" terminator, thus the Recita Mall shootout would have been a major twist. This is what we mean by "spoiler".

The "worst" spoilers on this site and elsewhere are actually the fan fiction novels. The reason for this is because the world of ''Haibane Renmei'' is never given a context in the anime series (you're never given a date or how to find it on the map), and it is this lack of context that makes it so appealing to some of the fans. Many, if not most, ''Haibane Renmei'' fan fiction puts the world of this anime series on a map and timeline, (Terry could rattle the one off for ''[[FHD Remix]]'' right off the top of his head!) Wouldn't it be terrible if you couldn't see the original anime series if you "knew" where it was in the world? Its inherent innocence and beautiful naivete could be destroyed for you. That's why we have a spoiler warning.

Rise of Glie Epilogue

2011-01-18T17:39:08Z

Fhd remix: Fixed Kuramori link

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Previous: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 55]]: They Aren't Crows

== FHD Remix: The Rise of Glie ==

Epilogue

The harsh times came again after seventeen generations of Wire Factory haibane. Seeking the humans' help, Aya let them take over Wire Factory's production leadership, and it was well, with both haibane and humans working in the same nest. The haibane would come, be mysterious to the humans, and mysteriously Leave the Nest again after just a few years. The humans became the continuity of Wire Factory, and only four generations of those passed before what was remembered for a long time as "The Siege."

The demands for production increased, and with them came inextricable complaints about the quality of Wire Factory's products, which did not change much at all during this time. Both wings were built up and producing the same final generation, "Series Three" 90nm microchips. As yields increased from 5% to 20% and eventually even as high as 90%, the complaints from the Toga also increased. No one could make sense of it, but everyone got the feeling that the Communicator and other wingless members of the Haibane Renmei knew what was going on.

Suddenly, they vanished. The Toga didn't show up one Tuesday morning. Those inside the wall were just as baffled as the humans and the haibane.

A few days later, in the summer, all mouths fell silent as the wall glowed with the light usually reserved for the Bell Nut Festival. No one knew what it meant.

With no more sales of the microchips through the Toga, Glie's economy collapsed, and the haibane were blamed. They were driven to the Temple, from which they Flew, one by one, until they were all gone.

The Toga were also driven away, but know one knows where they went. The humans never noticed that the crows were to be seen less often inside the wall.

Wire Factory, now useless, was abandoned, raided for anything that was useful, especially the air conditioning units that kept the human houses cool as the summers got hotter and hotter.

Years passed. It always seemed to be the same Communicator, the only one let out of the Temple, to stand at the gate and wait for the Toga every Tuesday while the community watch impatiently waited for him to give it up and go home.

One day, on schedule, to everyone's astonishment, the gate opened. Trade was reestablished.

Eventually, the Communicator revealed that there were new haibane in the Temple of the Haibane Renmei. Always, they would offer sage advice. Never were they trusted, but few noticed, never were they wrong. Those that did, like the clockmaster who occupied the workshop in the middle of Glie's main courtyard, at the lowest point in Glie, and also its tallest building, still far short of being able to see over the mute, unrevealing wall, had their reputations damaged for doing so.

Eventually, haibane who revealed their faces emerged. They were allowed to work. Menial jobs usually, but they did their work well, and often had remarkable ideas for how to do things. Sometimes they were appreciated, sometimes they were fired. They always had their nest to go back to. It never seemed like the haibane ever ''needed'' the humans, after all.

--------

The clock tower in Glie is at the very middle of town, the tallest building, but far shorter than what you'd need to see outside the wall, and the tops of the wind turbines on the Hill of Winds peek above the horizon of the wall if you look really close in that direction from the clock tower's gallery.

Inside, the clockmaster is one of the few humans in Glie who believe in the potential of haibane. He's harsh on the one he hired because, "You have potential." It takes this boy a couple of years to appreciate this.

After five years of marriage, including almost nightly attempts, the clockmaster and his wife satisfy their desire to have children by purchasing the almost forgotten campus in the western suburbs called Old Home, and turning it into an orphanage. Since there were only five orphans in Glie, it was almost ideal for them.

While cleaning it up, the clockmaster's wife, affectionately called the "housemaster" by the children, is sweeping up one of the rooms with them, to teach them a good work ethic. To her surprise, the floor is damaged by a small blue plant, about the size, shape, and hardness of a coconut (although she wouldn't have described it that way since she had never seen a coconut.) After telling her husband about it, they decide to keep this "hard melon" a secret.

It grew, and grew, and grew, and the housemother and children moved the furniture out of the way and pulled up the beautiful green tiles to save them. They guessed what sort of fruit it would bear, if it would ever bear fruit. Would it take over the building? No one knew, but it eventually reached the ceiling, and even put roots into it.

The housemother only checked up on it every few days, since it did grow rather slowly, taking eight months to reach its current size from when she first found it. This day, while sweeping the floor, she heard crying and the dripping of water. Water had flowed into the hallway under the door.

Rushing inside, she finds a girl, lying on the floor, with long reddish-brown hair and trouble seeing. She wears a white robe and seems to be about eight human years old. The cocoon had been broken open, and was plainly the source of the little deluge.

"My God, you're a mess," she gasps, "Were you inside there?"

"I don't know," the girl sobs, "The last thing I remember was being left in a forest by my parents. I was supposed to guard the camp while they checked out some noise in the trees. My little brother was crying, and I hadn't had enough to eat, so I was dizzy." She winces, "And my shoulders, they ''hurt.''"

"That's what you remember?" the clockmaster's wife, or ''housemother,'' as the orphans like to call her, asks.

"My shoulders hurt ''now!''" she bawls, "A tugging, something's trying to get out."

"What's your name?" the housemother asks.

"I don't remember," she sobs, "Please don't leave me, ma'am. It hurts!"

"What's that!" the housemother gasps as blood appears on the back of the robe of the crying girl.

"I don't know!" the girl cries, "What's happening?" She screams, and bloody wings tear through her skin and the robe she's wearing, scattering flecks of blood all over the room.

Old Home has a new haibane, or is she really? All the haibane they'd seen in town had halos. Welcomed as one of the orphans, the housemother cleaned her up, and she was helping out in just a few days, a very productive little girl with grey wings too small to fly with. The Communicator from the Haibane Renmei Temple showed up before her wings were fully recovered and, without uttering a single word, placed a halo on her head. That day, on the basis of the girl's remarkable memories, the housemother names her [[Kuramori]].

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Note: It is rare for me to wish for the destruction of my own writing, but I feel compelled to do so this time. I invite you to replace this epilogue with another installation of ''FHD Remix'' to span the 1030 or so years between ''FHD Remix: The Rise of Glie'' and the beginning of ''Haibane Renmei: The Ashfeather Federation'' events in this world (The earliest event is Reki's emergence, depicted at the beginning of the ninth episode.) Or maybe... ...just some small, or even random part of that enormous period. Another interesting period is the 54 years between Reki's Day of Flight at the end of ''Haibane Renmei: The Ashfeather Federation'' and Tatakai's emergence in ''FHD Remix: Three Worlds In One,'' a period where [[Rakka]] becomes the first Communicator who gets to keep her wings (or does she? Could there be some between ''Rise of Glie'' and ''Haibane Renmei?'') There is also the broadly defined period between ''Kikotsu no Haibi,'' when the Soul Cube builds its city, and ''Tatakai no Haibi'' when it is destroyed. Haibane were very different in this period: a mixture of ex-featherwings who inhabited the Soul Cube, and the cocoon hatched haibane we are used to. Yoshitoshi ABe and Matthew Costello left only the vaguest of hints as to what this society was like (considering that the former wrote ''Haibane Renmei'' and the latter wrote ''Doom 3 (wrote,'' not programmed), it is remarkable how consistent they are.) It was highly structured and aristocratic, according to the rules spoken of in ''Haibane Renmei,'' and according to the findings of Dr. Pierce Rogers in ''Doom 3,'' of the ancient culture that built the Soul Cube on Mars during the First War. Perhaps you have some insight that I don't as to what happened to poor Taka II, and might want to put something between Chapter's 54 and 55 of ''Rise of Glie.'' (I referred to him as "Taka II" because there is a Taka in ''Battle of Haibi'' who was the city's de facto mayor.)

If you choose to do so, feel free to stray from the established outlines. When I wrote [[FHD Remix Chapter 48]]: The Deployment Story on 28 November 2009, I had no clue that one little paragraph in that chapter was going to expand into not one, but ''two'' FHD Remix novels, and that Tatakai's broad outline of those events were so wrong. If you write into the period between Deployment and ''Battle of Haibi'', and do stray from the outlines, you may need to go to Chapter 47-48 of ''Three Worlds In One'' and change Haibi's files.

Rise of Glie Chapter 50

2011-01-18T17:32:43Z

Fhd remix: Added translation note

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Previous: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 49]]: Touchy Topics

== FHD Remix: The Rise of Glie ==

Chapter 50: Over Sushi

She seems very content on her perch, her head on a swivel, as though expecting her prey to be as fearless of the haibane as she herself.

"What is it?" Fushoku whispers.

"I think she's what was called a Great Horned Owl," Taka whispers back, "She's more patient than I am."

"I bet," Fushoku whispers, watching her look around, "Isn't that uncomfortable?"

"She's not as heavy as she looks," Taka quietly groans, "Most of that is feathers. Still, I'm hoping she finds a better perch. My halo isn't always going to be available." Taka's standing there, looking up at the owl's talons only a few inches above his head, at the apparently ''very'' comfortable owl perched on his halo, "Maybe she's warming her feet up after the trip here. It was probably a pretty cold trip for her."

Suddenly, the owl launches into flight, setting Taka's halo wobbling.

"I'm glad the Golden Eagle didn't try that," Taka whines, "Those things are ''huge!''"

"I was going to ask what happened to your mice," Fushoku says.

Taka smiles, "They're going out in a blaze of glory. I raised them for this, after all."

"Sounds like you ''are'' getting used to this," Fushoku smiles, "Come on, supper's getting cold."

Once inside Old Home's little dining hall, and Taka gets to see what it is, he whines at Fushoku, "Supper's getting ''cold?'' Sushi is ''supposed'' to be cold."

That gets a laugh out of Kiniiri, "Maybe you should have come in sooner, bro. That owl'd probably ''love'' sushi."

"I wouldn't count on it," Taka says as he randomly grabs a hand cone. "Who's idea was this?" he remarks with delight after a bite.

"Mine," Hane says, "We take turns cooking for everyone," she explains, "A day at a time. It's Fushoku's turn tomorrow."

"I have chicken in mind," Fushoku says, "I hope you don't mind."

"Not really," Taka says, "I'm almost in a mood for owl."

"Ahhhhh," Fushoku coos, "But what about what's going to go with it? Peas, carrots, sauteed onions, skinny noodles, and string beans."

"Not those big fat ones, I hope," Kiniiri sighs.

"Yup, the big fat string beans," Fushoku smiles, "I'll hide them under the onions, you won't even notice."

"I noticed them last time," Hane says as she sits down with another platter of sushi treats, "I just didn't say anything."

"How long do you think the computers will last?" Taka asks.

"Well, the transistors are lasting three years on the ground," Fushoku says, "None have failed under operational conditions yet. The little one we had come back that Hane's adapting to the oven had a board crack because someone out there dropped it."

"Or ''threw'' it," Hane says, "Those things are not so easy to break, you know."

"What causes them to fail?" Taka asks.

The other haibane seem rather nervous at this question.

"I know already," Taka says, "I just don't know what it's called. It's part of the environment outside the wall."

"You know the Toga actually sell Glie's air?" Kiniiri points out, "They have a compressor at their camp and sell bottles of our clean air to keep that stuff out of the computers. So, what do you call it?"

"Uh," Fushoku says, "The world out there is pretty..."

"Harsh?" Taka says, "I know. Those chickens didn't migrate over three thousand miles of arctic wasteland for ''nothing,'' you know." He leans in close, "Tell you what, you tell me what the poison that doesn't let them build their own computers is called, and I'll draw you something from my dreams."

"Bushi no Shito!" Kiniiri suggests cheerfully. *

"This isn't the sort of thing we normally discuss at supper," Fushoku points out.

"You're right," Kiniiri says, "Bushi no Shito's ''definitely'' not into sushi."

"He'd probably just pluck the fish right out of the stream and swallow it whole," Taka says quietly.

"Wait a minute," Teisei gasps, "Taka, is this thing ''real?''"

"Well," he says slowly, "yes."

Teisei turns to Fushoku and asks, "Could it have been what you saw Washi dealing with that-"

"No," Kiniiri says, "Bushi no Shito's bigger. A ''lot'' bigger."

"So," Taka asks again, "What's that stuff called?"

Fushoku sighs, has one last bite, then whispers, "It's called delta radiation."

"Thanks," Taka says warmly, "Oh. I think you've said that once before," he blushes, "I'll still have a portrait of Bushi no Shito for you next Wednesday. Just one piece of advice though."

"Hmm?" Fushoku prompts over a sip of tea.

"Don't ''ever'' show it to Tiindare," Taka says with deadly seriousness.

"Oh," Kiniiri seems to remember why, "yeah."

"I better not show it to ''anyone,''" Fushoku says.

"Not Janice, that's for sure," Hane says quietly, "She told me about a battle that took place about thirty-five years ago. She's probably seen them in person."

Taka seems somber at the news.

Fushoku notices this and says, "Taka, you ''know'' about that?"

Taka nods, "I've seen a lot in my dreams. God showed me the whole thing. There's a city buried under downtown, most people have forgotten that it even exists."

"You should have seen the look I got from Kenny when I asked about it," Kiniiri says, "I think I scared him half to death."

"Do yourselves a big favor," Fushoku says, "Don't ''ever'' bring that up with the humans. The Haibane Renmei got into a ''lot'' of trouble over those events. We'll be a lot better off if the humans forget about it completely. And trust me, they ''want'' to."

* Author's note: "Bushi no Shito" is my first translation of "Hell Knight" into Japanese ("Bushi no Shigoku" is better.) In ''Doom 3,'' you first encounter them on the nineteenth level: they are about twelve feet tall and do forty points of damage with several different types of attack on the Veteran difficulty level. I've actually killed one with a pistol (on the Veteran difficulty level), although they're brauny enough to warrant a two-point charge from a BFG if you have that. There are about twenty-five in the game. It's hard to tell, but the Kikotsu no Rittae... ...sorry... Soul Cube, only ''barely'' kills it with one hit.

Next: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 51]]: An Old Friend

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Rise of Glie Chapter 55

2011-01-18T17:23:19Z

Fhd remix: Initial upload and check

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Previous: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 54]]: Little Rascals

== FHD Remix: The Rise of Glie ==

Chapter 55: They Aren't Crows

"Sir," the young teenaged haibane with the dark hair squeaks, "Series Three is um..."

Fushoku gently interrupts his task at the new microscope station. He leans back for a moment, brushing his hand through the now grey hair under his halo.

"Go on, Mamoru," Fushoku says.

Mamoru continues, "You're not going to believe this, sir."

"What? They're actually ''working?''" Fushoku scoffs. After a few too many seconds of silence, he opens his eyes and looks at the boy's face.

Rather than the fear of being punished or the disappointment of failure, the boy's eyes are lit with excitement, "Come see." It is easy for Fushoku to see in his mind's eye the rest of the boy's face, hidden by the bunny suit.

Fushoku rises to his feet and strides across the floor to an excited cluster of haibane far younger than he is, all bunnied up, complete with gloves both for their wings and their hands. Mamoru's wings rode higher than usual as he scurried down to the other end of the mostly automated production line.

"That's four!" one of them whispers.

Fushoku gets his first glance at the LCD monitor of the test display. It breathes living color thanks to the production advances made by Wire Factory since he emerged from his cocoon almost forty years earlier. The screen says that the test series has advanced to the twenty-sixth whole die on the wafer that they are working on. It fails, displaying briefly the two DFT circuits and their resulting logic errors, clearly the result of production defects.

The twenty-ninth one passes. "Five!" a quivering voice cheers.

"Aya?" he asks, "There's no reason to get all excited until we get the test report back from the Temple." He wasn't expecting the dreamless haibane back, since she had gone to the Temple eight days earlier, quite desperate to end her sin-bound and dreamless condition. Fushoku has learned to be patient with such problems. He was also expecting it to delay the Haibane Renmei's delta radiation and logic qualification tests, so that the report might not even come back with her.

"Fushoku-san," the big-eyed blonde physically seventeen haibane girl emerges from the crowd. Of course, the hundred-class bunny suit hides everyone's hair and feathers, and so they've learned to recognize each other by speech alone. "They had me help with the logic qualification while I was at the Temple."

"Your dream?" he asks.

"I got that, too," she cheerfully whispers, "and my wings are grey again, nearly white. I can't wait to show you."

"What is it?" he asks.

"No big deal," she says, "At least not anymore."

He smiles, "I'm happy for you, Aya."

"So the logic qualification results," she reports squirmily, "I'll give you the details when we break for lunch."

"In a nutshell?" he asks.

"The Haibane Renmei have released the current design to production," she happily reports, "and the delta radiation tests show that these things will last twenty-seven years in regular service outside the wall."

"For real?" he gasps.

"Really!" she squeals, "The paperwork is in your grubby office, and it's your turn to cook, so you can check it out right now."

Fushoku has his inspection and testing lab, which the other haibane have called his "clean" office because it is maintained to the same fastidious air cleanliness standards of the production floor, lest dust pollute and destroy the microchips that they build for a living. His "grubby" office adjoins the lunch room on the first floor, and while very neat and tidy, it is not a cleanroom.

That day, he discovers that somehow, the troubled Series Three has suddenly snapped into perfection, with a sudden end to all the process problems, all the delta life problems, and all the logic problems in the microprocessor. Suddenly, today, they can start producing the microprocessors, memory modules, chipsets, frequency generators...

And that will be it, he realizes. He'll die of old age before he can finish the next generation, and there isn't enough manpower to support it anyway. By the time the old world had reached this level of semiconductor technology, literally ''thousands'' were employed in its development and manufacture. Over the last thirty-nine years, it has happened with no more than twenty haibane working on it at a time, designing it for the deadly foibles of delta radiation.

On his way to work that morning, as he meandered from Old Home before the sun rose, King came to him to share the news that Hell Knight Forge had abandoned its research into diamond semiconductors, having produced only a handful of working transistors.

At lunch, Aya smiles, and says, "We have thirty-eight operational microprocessors on that first wafer, sir."

Another haibane points out, "And the yields would only be better with all the other chips."

Aya, at that point, sniffles, "I'm going to miss you, sir," and jumps on Fushoku in embrace.

The other haibane are more muted, but with the same expressions. Their wings, all in various shades of gray, and some with patterns that include dark grey and white feathers, droop as many rub his shoulders.

"What's the matter?" Fushoku asks, "I'm not leaving."

"I first noticed it last night," a dark-haired boy says softly, "I've only been in Glie for a month, but they've warned me."

"Noticed what?" Fushoku nearly giggles, thinking that this must be a joke.

"Your halo's flickering, sir," Aya sobs, "You haven't noticed?"

"Oh," Fushoku says. He realized that he was going to go inventory the lightbulbs because they were flickering ... but not ''every'' lightbulb in both Old Home and Wire Factory can start flickering at once. "I'm sorry," he blushes, "I missed it."

"The Communicator wants to talk to you, tonight," Aya says as she pulls back to look at his face, "He said something about going over the numbers? Maybe he means the test results."

"I know what he means," Fushoku assures her, "Those numbers aren't in the test reports, so I'll leave them on my desk for you." A tear appears on his lower eyelash as he says, "I mean ''your'' desk, Aya." He points at the door to his office, "That's your office, now."

"I don't know how to do what you do, sir," she says, "I don't have any idea how to design the next generation."

"You don't have to," he assures her, "Just do your best to produce these ones. It'll be easy for a few years, but tough times lie ahead. You'll be ready."

"Sir," she says.

"I'll miss you, too," he says, "But we'll all be together again. I can't wait to introduce you to Shoukai, Shiden and Aware, the haibane that I grew up with."

He spends the rest of the work day assuring himself that Wire Factory is in good hands, and prays that these youngsters would be ready for when it all falls down. He will soon follow and Teisei and Hane, and Fly.

Once he leaves, he goes to the Temple. He takes a slight detour to the human graveyard at the old camp site. There are still some outlines of the old houses that used to be there. He hopes to meet Stanley, Janice, Keepsie and Jose again in the next world. [BTW, the latter two are named for the IBM facilities at Poughkeepsie in New York State and San Jose in California, which respectively invented transistors and hard drives. While the former didn't invent ''the'' transistor, they did invent various forms of transistors and automated production lines to make them cheaper. San Jose, however did invent ''the'' hard drive.]

Once there, the Communicator doesn't utter a word. Neither does Fushoku, even keeping the bells on his wrists and wings silent. She puts her hand on his shoulder and gently guides him to one of the rooms set into the Temple's remaining wall. Gently, she pulls on the latch handle.

As the door opens, Fushoku can hear the sobbing of an old man. He looks inside to see a white haired man, gripping a dim halo, and a crow is standing on each of his shoulders, as though eating his head.

He stoops beside him, and starts to sign, "You said you only police-"

They aren't crows.

"Oh, no," Fushoku cries. He touches one of the black haibane wings and the man screams in agony, turns his head and Fushoku sees his desperate face.

The man's face turns angry, and spits at him, then he buries it again, crying.

"Taka," Fushoku gasps.

"I hate you," he bawls.

"I've been so worried about you all these years," Fushoku stammers, "I had thought you'd Flown, but it always bothered me that I didn't see a light."

"You never appreciated my dreams," he sobs, "Never really tried to see who I was."

"Taka," Fushoku says softly, "Whatever it is, I'm sorry. Please forgive me. You're a wonderful being. Maybe you let your curiosity get a little too much of you and spied on the crows too much... I was upset about that, but you had a gift, ''different'' than mine yes, and in some ways far more fascinating and incredible. All the birds in Glie seemed so sad when you went away."

"You..." Taka turns to him again, "really thought that way about me?"

"Yes, Taka," he says, "I've missed you, and I'll keep missing you because I'm Flying soon."

"What becomes of me?" Taka asks.

"Hopefully, you'll find it in your heart to forgive me," Fushoku says, "and then you'll become the new Communicator. You don't need to tell me why you hate me, but I'm listening if you'd like to."

"No," he grunts, "what if I don't."

"Tiindare will hold the fort until you're ready in any case," the gentle voice of a grandmother explains.

"Who's that?" Taka asks.

"The former Communicator," Bangou says, stooping, and smiling, "Unlike you, I ''volunteered'' my wings for this job. Taka, you're losing your wings, like it or not. Make the best of a bad situation. Forgive Fushoku, and follow in my stead, and one day, you'll Fly as well."

On his way to the shrine in the northwest, Fushoku passes through town, while Bangou takes another route, so as not to be seen. Crystal looks up from far away and sees him. Turning to her husband, she says, "It's okay." Then she runs into his arms and cries, "You're going away like a haibane, right?"

"Yes," Fushoku answers, "I know Glie is in good hands. For now, at least."

"Good bye," she says, then walks away.

That night, the light splits the sky. Only a few eyes are sharp enough to notice that two beams of light are braided together for this Day of Flight, and upon it, they pin no signficance.

[Author's Note: Mamoru and Aya (Spirit) are named for characters in ''Ayashi no Ceres.'' It's obvious who the latter is named for if you've ever encountered it, but Mamoru shows only for a few pages in Volume 8, ''Maya.'' His name means Protector, and is one of Maya Hirobe's two dogs. It might seem rather belittling to name a haibane after a dog, but if you read the scene where he appears, hopefully, you'll have just as much respect for him as I do.]

Next: [[Rise of Glie Epilogue]]

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Rise of Glie Chapter 54

2011-01-18T17:22:28Z

Fhd remix: Initial upload and check

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Previous: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 53]]: Pretty Brave

== FHD Remix: The Rise of Glie ==

Chapter 54: Little Rascals

"Ma'am," Fushoku almost hits himself as he corrects, "''Sir,'' the spectrometer results on those transistors you gave me are highly erratic."

"How so?" Washi asks.

"Some were damaged far beyond failure, while some actually still work," he explains, "''npn'' transistors that can operate at higher voltages, but with reduced alphas."

"They used emitter coupled logic, where it is the ''beta'' value that counts. Any little change in alpha, of course-" The Communicator realizes that Fushoku doesn't understand a word of this, "Sorry, my point is they're useless in the Mark Two."

"Ma'am," he whispers with a wink, "Should I give you a briefing on our latest gate insulator dielectric constants?"

"Maybe later," Washi says, trying not to burst out laughing.

Fushoku smiles, having managed to decipher the last trace of haibane hiding in the arcane uniform.

"So, your spectrometer results are useless for telling us how long our chips will last," the Communicator sighs.

"Yes," Fushoku then smiles, "but we have a plan."

"Did Wire Factory figure out a way to build a delta radiation test lab or something?" Washi says, then stretches her back, "Taka told me there was one on Mars, did he give you the plan?"

"''We'' isn't Wire Factory," Fushoku clarifies, "My new partners certainly appreciated looking at the micrographs I took of the circuitboard hikarinium patterns and used the damage results and some calculus to figure out how much organic binding and non-binding delta vector is in the deep lake's water."

"What deep lake?" Washi asks.

Fushoku thumbs towards the sunset, "The one a couple hundred kilometres west."

"But how could you-" the Communicator pauses, "Taka isn't holding ''anything'' back from you in his dreams anymore?"

"True," Fushoku says, "but he would be if these guys hadn't showed up."

"Who?" Washi asks, "Oh, never mind. We need a more private spot to discuss this. Follow me."

Fushoku follows the Communicator down the stairs to the suit room.

"They are not telling me everything," Fushoku says, "but they seem even more interested in defeating our diamond competition at Hell Knight Forge than we are." Fushoku sets his shoulder bag down gently and unbuckles the flap.

"Little rascals," Washi gasps as the two crows crawl from Fushoku's bag and start preening, "I heard you thrashed the air conditioner after Taka left it open."

"King wanted to get my attention," Fushoku says, "The transistors you gave me last week were damaged by their attack to destroy the enemy's Mark Four layout data. They also hit a Mark Three at Chita's magnetic logic facility."

"Magnetic logic's a dead end," Bangou says, having raised her Communicator's mask, "King, you'd know that better than I do. What's the point?"

"Wouldn't you get suspicious if misfortune happened on only one of several paths?" Wally signs with his foot from his perch on Fushoku's arm.

"Not to mention the magnetic logic facility was more fun," King signs.

"With Erebus on inspection tour," Wally spits, "He did ''way'' more damage than we ever could."

"You must be ''really'' comfortable with Fushoku, saying stuff like that," Washi whispers.

"He's bunkmates with Ashfeather Hawk, the dreamer boy," Wally signs, "Quite the intelligence source. Both are now essential members of our attack planning staff."

The two crows look at each other and nod.

"''Birdbrain's'' turning into quite the complement these days," Fushoku snickers.

"How long have you been doing these attacks," Bangou signs, nervous about how deep they're getting into these particularly details of their lives outside the wall.

"Our records are spotty. The earliest one that we know of is when we fried the south bunker at the Battle of Deployment," Wally signs, "Between that and Ashfeather Six, we thought it might have been enough to carry the day."

"Saviour wanted to show off, I think," King signs, referring to the spectacular light of the Bell Nut Festival.

"Haibi?" Fushoku whispers, "Never heard of it." [Haibi is the Japanese word for Deployment]

"Bounce the name ''Kikotsu no Haibi'' off Taka," Bangou offers, "''very'' quietly, and be ready in case he soils himself."

"Better not," Fushoku says, "after seeing his reaction to ''Saboath.''"

"He deserved it," King spits, "spying on us like that."

"Now ''that's'' behind us," Fushoku says, "Let's get on with the business at hand. King, tell Washi about your voltage control idea."

The crow has a glint in his eye, and gives Bangou all the details.

"Excellent plan," Bangou whispers, "I think the radiation from the inorganic vector and the organic-binding vector are different, and I'm not sure we've even identified all the types. I think I should still do my planned series inside the wall, which has only the inorganic vector, to see if they're different."

"Different, how?" King asks.

"Red light's different from blue light," Fushoku points out, "You got everything from mile-band radio to hard gamma radiation, all made from the same basic wave-particle."

King nods, "So Washi proposes a little basic research on the delta spectrum, I get it."

Wally chimes in, "During the Final War, there was a doctor, Bradbury Vanessa, who did such research. Monster told me where to find a couple of printouts before he disappeared. I miss him, he was ''good!''"

"Monster?" Fushoku asks.

"The crow that Flew with Kagami," Washi says, "Remember?"

"I never did find out why he called himself ''Monster,''" Wally signs.

"That's between him and the Saviour," Bangou whispers.

"He was so kind," Wally reflects, "I'm looking forward to learning his real name in the next life."

"I wish I had met him," King signs, "He disappeared before I hatched. His reputation is astounding."

"I hope you don't mind my asking," Fushoku signs, "but... Do crows Fly like haibane?"

"Never heard of it happening," Wally signs, "until Number just mentioned it now."

"Most of us are killed in action," King signs slowly, "even though the enemy doesn't know of our sentience."

[Author's note: I had ''High Hopes,'' Track 16 of ''Highest Hopes,'' by Nightwish (Warner Music Group 2005) playing as I wrote the end of this chapter. My head played the Rachel Loy single ''I Can Feel It Loving Me'' right over top of this as I remembered another exception to the crows being killed in action. Rakka's "love I found in the bottom of a well in hell" from the anime series' eighth episode.]

Next: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 55]]: They Aren't Crows

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Rise of Glie Chapter 53

2011-01-18T17:19:53Z

Fhd remix: Initial upload and check

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Previous: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 52]]: Vacation, What's That?

== FHD Remix: The Rise of Glie ==

Chapter 53: Pretty Brave

"So, what's up?" Fushoku says after replacing and reactivating the air conditioning, he snaps the old, intact filters over his knees.

"We sabotaged Hell Knight Forge's computer," the crow explains, "We know they've returned it, and we know they've replaced it with a clamshell. We've been doing our own research on the progression of delta vector outside the wall, and we know a ''lot'' more about it than Number."

"I take it you're interested in my APXS analysis of those transistors," Fushoku signs.

"Not really," the crow says, "Those were damaged in a live operation, not controlled experimental circumstances. We want you to slip us some naked dies so we can do controlled experiments. Test failures will do just fine for what we have in mind."

Fushoku thinks about it for a moment, "Good," he replies, "Because we keep too good a track of the good ones to slip any out in secret."

"We'll need good ones later," the crow explains, "Based on how the machine we busted up behaved in its final moments, we think that we can extend the life of your circuitry using voltage control," he switches feet and knocks on the air conditioner's frame for emphasis, "''but'' we need experimental results to verify it, and so we can come up with modelling equations and a specification for dose sensor transistors to run the circuitry."

"What's he saying?" Taka asks.

"None of your business," Fushoku whispers, "And it's all technical so you wouldn't understand anyway."

"They can go outside the wall," he whispers, "maybe you can get him to test your computer chips out there."

The crow starts pacing back and forth on the frame rail like an irritated parrot.

"He's laughing his tail off," Fushoku explains quietly, "We were discussing the technical details of doing exactly that."

Taka smiles.

Fushoku signs to the crow, "You need to tell Number your plans for the good ones. We had already worked out the details for a ten micrometre Mark Six series of tests inside the wall. Appropriations for those can cover for your experiments. Say, have her get some Mark Fives for you. I'll play along."

"You know who Number is?" the crow asks.

Fushoku extends his right wing, a gesture Taka recognizes as "Yes," but continues in the incomprehensible sign language, "I find myself wondering what you were going to tell me."

"Why?" the crow wonders.

"Because if I were in your position," Fushoku explains, "I'd tell me she was Tiindare, and never to bring it up with the Communicator."

The crow seems rather impressed.

"What's your name?" Fushoku says.

"One you'd recognize," the crow says, "so I can't tell you. I haven't told ''anyone'' my real name. They call me King." The crow momentarily pauses, puffs up his breast feathers, but realizes that it's unlikely that even Wally would recognize his Elvis impersonation. "You know," the crow continues, "historically, the first four bit microprocessor is under the moderation limit in area, and was made at ten micrometres." [That's the Intel 4004 he's referring to.]

Fushoku scoffs, signing, "Four bit. You think the Hell Knights would buy that?"

"They would if it were diamond," the crow says, waiting for Fushoku to ask. After a few seconds, he continues, "You were there when they stoned the traitor. He was leaking your circuit plans from the Toga camp to Hell Knight Forge to use in diamond-based nMOS. But," the crow switches feet, "Now they're trying for that four bit thing in pMOS. Hopefully they don't go VAX, because emitter coupled bipolar junction is the way to go with diamond."

Fushoku's finally overwhelmed by the crow's semiconductor expertise and just shrugs.

"Did you know Hell Knight Forge is trying to make diamond circuits, ''totally'' immune to delta radiation effects?" the crow asks.

"Yes," Fushoku signs, "But you won't believe who told me."

"Oh?" the crow asks.

Fushoku points at the boy next to him.

"Whoa," Taka gasps, "Fushoku, what are you telling him about me?"

Fushoku resorts to Japanese, speaking to King, "Haibane Taka has been getting dreams about life outside the wall. They are ''dead-on-balls accurate,'' as near as I can tell."

Turning to Taka, he says, "He was telling me about a place called Hell Knight Forge. Outside the wall, those creatures, like the one you drew for me, are trying to make computers. You know that, don't you?"

Taka nods.

"Recognize him?" Fushoku pulls the drawing out of his bag and shows the crow.

Astonished, the crow signs, "He's a ''good'' artist. That is Saboath, the manager of Hell Knight Forge."

"Ever heard the name ''Saboath?''" Fushoku asks.

Taka's eyes and pupils widen, and he shrinks from Fushoku, looking almost like he's about to run in terror while soiling his pants, "How do you know that? Saviour told me ''never'' to utter the names."

"He flies outside the wall," Fushoku says, "Remember? The places you dream of outside there, that Saviour explains to you. He's been there in person."

Astonished, the boy squeaks, "Then you're ''very'' brave, little crow."

The crow bows with humble gratitude, "Tell him he's pretty brave too, spying on us like he was," King signs, "A crow pulling a stunt like that would be summarily executed. Don't worry, we crows police only our own kind, except under far more exceptional circumstances than this."

"It's exceptional enough for a haibane to know this much about you guys," Fushoku says, "and I've already seen how you can police others."

Turning to Taka, he translates, "He says you're pretty brave too..."

[Note: The author actually has no clue what the ideal diamond microchip would look like because no one in real-life has ever tried to make one. What I do know is that MOS is made easy because silicon dioxide is solid, and the diamond equivalent, carbon dioxide, is a gas, and have speculated on that basis, that, like it is with germanium, MOSFETs are almost impossible to fashion on diamonds for that reason. If you, my wonderful reader, happen to be a candidate precursor for this crow (I know there is one named Garland, who works for Intel and wrote the book I relied on for almost all of my electronic fabrication knowledge), feel free to sign up on Haibaniki and edit his dialogue so it makes more sense.]

[Saboath inhabits Sargeant Kelly in ''Doom 3,'' and his name is slightly out of canon, since you need to open the cheat/debug console in ''Doom 3'' in order to see it. The other demons Taka has seen in his dreams are named Maledict, Lilith, and Erebus. Maledict is another name from the ''Doom 3'' console, he inhabits Dr. Malcolm Betruger. Lilith and Erebus were the names given by the author of ''FHD Remix,'' and, respectively, inhabit the Guardian and Cyberdemon of ''Doom 3.'' I'm putting this here just in case you are reading ''Rise of Glie'' before ''Three Worlds In One.'']

Next: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 54]]: Little Rascals

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Rise of Glie Chapter 52

2011-01-18T17:18:13Z

Fhd remix: Updated APXS status now that both MERs are dead and MSL has been launched.

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Previous: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 51]]: An Old Friend

== FHD Remix: The Rise of Glie ==

Chapter 52: Vacation, What's That?

"Why in tarnation are you in such a hurry, Fushoku?" Hane asks. To her, the boy seemed to become a man instantly in his early twenties.

Fushoku stews over a microscope, "Subarashii!" he gasps. Turning to Hane, he answers, "I really can't say, but I wonder where you got these motors from ... the registration on this batch is ''perfect!''"

She drops a small object nine centimetres wide and about sixteen centimetres long on his desk. It has a few pins sticking out the back that look like they're some sort of cable header, and a plateau in the lid is round. Taking off the top, he sees inside that it is a disk drive of some sort. "The motors I gave you used to drive these," she sets several small triangles beside the drive, "Ignore that English word ''Seagate,'' the thing has nothing to do with aqueducts. Washi told me this thing was hundreds of years old. Some sort of magnetic storage disk."

"Why aren't they using it?" Fushoku asks.

"Flip it over," she says, "It'll be obvious."

He does, and sees the little black squares on the green plastic. Pre-Glie microchips that got fried by delta radiation. "Yeah," he moans, then sets it back down. Then he smiles, "Thanks for the motors, they're certainly being put to good use. The next big problem is the dust in this place. That'll have to wait for the other wing"

"You've trained Kiniiri quite well on the twenty micrometre equipment," she says, "Teisei is quite impressed with his speed, but Kiniiri ... well... He doesn't understand the process."

"Not yet," Fushoku says, "but he's picking it up fast."

"It's ever since he gave you that drawing, Taka I mean," she wonders, "You've been working yourself sore. What is it about that drawing?"

"I really can't say," he says while carefully setting his latch die into a tester with special die tweezers.

"That test jig is so small," she gasps, "but under the scope it looked so," it dawns on her, "Fushoku, is that ''five'' micrometres?"

"Yes," Fushoku says, "I was hoping not to spoil the surprise."

Hearing the buzz on her oven, Hane departs, but comes back after a few minutes.

Fushoku is beaming that his little memory chip is working perfectly, "''Yes!''" he cheers softly, so as not to be heard throughout Wire Factory.

"That you're working on five micrometres already really is a surprise, Fushoku," Hane says, "Are we skipping the ten micrometre process? We ordered all that stuff from the Toga-"

"Ten micrometres goes into production in two weeks," Fushoku says flatly, "''That's'' the surprise."

"How could you do it so fast?" she asks, sitting down.

He turns to her and explains, "There aren't very many circuit designers around here. Bangou, actually, was our only one. Now, it's this ''Tiindare'' fellow, one of the council members at the temple," indicating the name on the paperwork, which was laminated at Jose's shop to make it compatible with the cleanroom. "It simply wasn't worth doing a complete redesign for ten micrometres, so we got the Toga to shrink the Mark Four's plans down to ten micrometres. Mark Five will run twice as fast and have six times as much memory."

"Why are we in such a hurry to make these things better?" she asks, "From what I can tell, we could still be building grown transistors and the Toga would be happy as ice cream."

"It turns out there ''is'' competition, Hane," Fushoku says quietly, "Someone out there is trying to make computers that are immune to delta radiation. We have to stay in the lead."

"Okay," Hane says, "In that case, I better get back to work, too."

"Hane," he says as she's about to exit his lab, "I'll take vacation with you next week."

"Vacation?" she says, "what's that?"

"Has it really been that long?" Fushoku smiles, "This week's batch of Mark Four dice is our last. We won't be starting Mark Five until the following week. Besides, the Toga are drowning in our chips because our output's been so high."

At lunch, Kiniiri stares at the old junction transistors, "Four ''hundred'' of these are on each chip?" he gasps.

"Yeah," Teisei says.

Kiniiri giggles at that point, "I was just thinking, if these transistors were like coins, you know, order a bowl of soup and the guy says, "That'll be five hundred transistors."

"Inflation would be ''quite'' the problem," Teisei says.

"Quite the problem," Kiniiri realizes, "It's only a matter of time, but the delta poison that wrecked the old computers will eventually wreck ours. Transistors will be totally worthless when that happens."

Fushoku doesn't seem to remember what happened between when Kiniiri said that and the next morning. As the Communicator returned from the Toga at the gate, the gate closing behind them with dozens of computers stacked on the small trucks, carefully wrapped under the blue canvas carts that covered the plywood they brought in, Fushoku noticed that her shoulders drooped.

"Is there something wrong?" Fushoku asks quietly.

"These," Washi drops several circuit boards on the cart's caddy.

Fushoku looks at the unfamiliar devices. In moments he recognizes that they have been damaged, circuit traces cut so that the transistors are isolated. The transistors are the old junction transistors that they made in Stone Mill. The board has white powder on it, and he recognizes that that's what became of the polyethylene seal. As he realizes what's wrong...

"Delta radiation is suspected," Washi says, seems to hesitate for a moment, but as she starts to speak again, to Fushoku it sounds like Bangou with an old man's voice, "The ''npn'' transistors fail open at the seven-crate operating voltages, while the ''pnp'' transistors fail closed, shorted right through. ''Quietly'' take these apart and examine the crystals with your new APXS, find out how much aluminum they've grown."

"It's getting worse out there?" Fushoku asks.

"Yes," Washi whispers, "I have numbers, but I can't show you here. Come to the Temple this evening. I rest up early so I can see you late. Try to keep your excursion secret from the other haibane, but if Taka follows you, ignore him."

"It'll have to be dark," Fushoku says, "I'm working fourteen hours these days."

"I know," she says, "But I will let you know, that my current projections show we will have a market for about 360 years. I need your APXS results to refine it."

"I have some good news, too," Fushoku says, "the size of the junction crystal is in moderation territory."

"I've taken that into account," she says, "but hey, 360 years is a good number. If we own the market for that long, the enemy will forget about their diamond project."

"I can tell there's more on your mind than that, Washi," Fushoku says respectfully, "I knew Bangou better than you think."

"My life is very complicated, now," she says.

The ride the rest of the way back to Wire Factory in silence.

"Hey!" Hane screams, running circles around the factory as they approach. She runs up to the cart and screams, "These crows opened our air conditioning housing and started tearing apart the filters. I had to shut it down and evacuate the factory. We scrambled to wrap everything up, but I don't know how much dust is in there."

"What?" Fushoku gasps.

"Yeah, we haven't gotten any work done today," Teisei says, "and we can't get them to leave. How the heck they got ''into'' the air conditioning, I have no idea! And we can't find Taka ''anywhere!''"

Fushoku and the Washi look at each other. Fushoku holds up one hand, then tucks back his pinky. In the crow's derivation of Toganese, he signs, "Tonight."

Washi gives him the slightest of nods.

Fushoku jumps off the cart and storms around behind Wire Factory's operational wing.

"Start your cleaning pass inside if you can breathe in there," Fushoku instructs in an angry growl, "I'll handle this ... ''alone.''"

The other haibane figure this is a good idea, having never seen Fushoku so ticked off.

He gets to the back, where he sees three crows standing on the opened air conditioning system, "Would you guys knock it off!" he bellows, grabbing a broom and winding up.

The crows are ready to evade, but they seem very shocked at Fushoku's anger.

The broom bounces harmlessly off the heavy metal frame of the air conditioning unit as the three crows fly around to new perches only a few feet away. He takes another swing while looking around. Confirming he's alone, he sets the broom aside, signing with his three fingers and thumb, "An act."

"Get out of here!" he bellows at the top of his lungs.

One crow signs, "Go."

The other two fly away immediately, squawking indignantly.

Fushoku crosses his arms and signs in proper Toganese, "I'm sorry, but I'm the only haibane who's in on you guys."

"Not anymore," the crow signs, nodding to a nearby tree.

"Aw, crud," Fushoku says aloud, panting from his exertions. He walks over to the tree and whispers, "Psst, come down."

No response.

"Taka," he whispers, "Don't make me come after you."

"Sir," he whispers back, "I'm sorry."

"Yeah," Fushoku huffs, "We'll figure that out later."

He comes down, demonstrating incredible dexterity in the trees. In the tree with him are a pair of hummingbirds, apparently unbothered that Taka got so close to their nest.

"You've gotten into a major pickle, this time," Fushoku warns, "the upside is that you're going to be cover for the crow's sentience. The story for everyone else is that ''you'' let them into the air conditioner."

Taka's shoulder's slump.

"Trust me, it beats the alternatives," Fushoku says.

Taka nods.

"Let's go find out what he wants," Fushoku grumbles.

Fushoku starts signing with the crow; Taka obviously does not understand what they are saying.

The crow starts, "I didn't think it was going to be ''that'' hard to get a hold of you, Ashfeather Implant. Sorry about the mess, we brought our own filter debris, though. Yours are still fine."

"I was with Washi, helping with the swamping at the gate, and you dang well ''know'' that I have to change the filters and do a cleaning pass to cover for you guys. You might as well have torn apart the ones in the unit."

The crow signs, "Sorry, at least you won't have to throw out your current batch of chips."

Fushoku reaches into the machine and hits the flow isolation, then pulls out the filter and replaces it with the standby spares in the locker next to the machine. He whispers aloud, "So how much do you know about our air conditioning, anyway?"

"You can talk to it?" Taka blurts.

"Sure," Fushoku says, "I ''always'' talk to the air conditioning, squirt."

[Author's Note: APXS stands for Alpha Particle X-ray Spectrometer, a handy device for telling you what elements reside in a test sample. I know of the existence of five, four on Mars, one on its way. They are instruments of ''Sojourner, Beagle 2, Spirit, Opportunity,'' and ''Curiosity.'' Doubtless there are a few thousand more on Earth, but I don't know anything about them. The "pair" of hummingbirds are not both parents, since the males do not participate in child rearing. A hummingbird mother will raise two chicks if she can, letting the younger die if there isn't enough food. When they are large enough to fledge, the elder will leave the nest and fly to a branch a few feet away, continuing to be fed by his mother, while the younger will stay in the nest even for a while after he is able to fly. Hummingbirds, are, interestingly enough, among the rudest creatures in God's creation, probably much ruder than ''Kamov'' and ''Apache'' attack helicopters would be to each other if the Cold War had ever warmed up.]

Next: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 53]]: Pretty Brave

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Rise of Glie Chapter 51

2011-01-18T17:15:54Z

Fhd remix: Assassinated a typo, lmao at the Dilbert crack, I had forgotten about it.

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Previous: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 50]]: Over Sushi

== FHD Remix: The Rise of Glie ==

Chapter 51: An Old Friend

"Hmm," Washi says, "The knowledge of the past does seem to be filtering through the haibane. I wonder if it'll continue on that way, or if we will have a time that the haibane will not have any memories or dreams that are significant to the whole of Glie."

"Or further," Fushoku says quietly, "I came because, out of everyone in Glie, I figured you'd be the one least likely to freak out if he ever saw this." Slowly, he pulls the rolled drawing out of his bag, unties the string, and shows the Communicator...

...who takes one glance and rolls it back up. "Put it away," the Washi instructs quietly, "If my guards ever find out it exists, they will ''burn'' it." After Fushoku has it put away, Washi remarks, "I didn't know you were having those dreams, too."

Fushoku shakes his head, "No, Taka gave it to me in exchange for the name of delta radiation." He points at the papers on the desk, "What is that?"

"Oh, uh..." Washi seems nervous and shuffles them away.

"Something sensitive?" Fushoku says, "I'm sorry, it's just that they look a lot like Tiindare's circuit plans. The next generation?"

"Yeah," the Communicator says softly.

"You share the desk I take it," Fushoku observes, "I thought he was doing them out at the Toga camp where they have the computers. But er..." something seems to dawn on him. "There would have to be a computer ''here,'' right?" He smiles, "If you ever need help upgrading it, give us a call. Hane and I have gotten pretty good at tweaking things with our electron beam machine, and I muddle through the assembly and wiring, although I don't think I'll ever be as good at it as Aware."

The Communicator seems to be listening intently, but quite nervously.

"Oh, don't worry, we can keep it secret," Fushoku says, "We're insulating the humans from Taka's," he says with a roll of his eyes, "''nonsense,'' after all. We- ... is there something wrong, Washi?"

"Nothing out of the ordinary," the person in the mask says.

"Oh," Fushoku sighs. After a minute, he says, "Is Tiindare working on a five micrometre layout yet? I thought I saw five-mu-m on that plan." Then he puts up his hands, "Oh, don't tell him I asked. He's doing great, and I don't want to put any pressure on him."

"The layout designer has all the pressure she can handle," Washi says, "because ''those'' things outside," Washi points at the bag held by Fushoku, who checks to make sure Taka's drawing is well hidden, "are trying to make computer chips out of ''diamonds.'' We don't want our enemies to gain such technology that is impervious to delta radiation."

Fushoku nods, then after a moment remarks, "''She?''"

"You're my friend," Washi says, "before and since. But I need to hear you say it anyway. You won't tell anyone about what I'm going to show you, right?"

"No," Fushoku shakes his head slowly, "I won't." Slowly he asks, "Tiindare's a woman?"

"I am," Washi says. After this, she slowly lifts her mask.

"Bangou?" Fushoku gasps. He whispers, "It's really ''you?''"

She nods.

"Tiindare isn't actually doing it, is he?" Fushoku gasps, "You just get him to sign ''yours'' to cover the idea that you're the Communicator?"

"Yes," she says.

"You still ''sound'' like an old man," Fushoku observes.

Washi lowers her mask again and explains, "I can't take that part of the uniform off."

Fushoku remembers the fireball that destroyed her last pair of wooden wings, and realizes that the uniform couldn't possibly be able to hide real ones.

As he looks around at the wooden ones, she explains, "Yes, I lost them."

A crow lands on one of her wooden wings and angles the unified pair.

"Wally!" she moans, "Now's not a good time."

The crow tucks one of his feet up and pouts.

Fushoku laughs, "I see you have many friends. Are you in a race with Taka?"

The crow looks at him funny.

"What..." Fushoku looks closely at the crow, "...is ''that?''"

"Is ''what?''" the Communicator asks.

Slowly, Fushoku says, "Just dumb birds?" Then he points at the crow, "Don't tell ''Taka'' that!"

The crow squawks with surprise.

"Great," the Communicator groans, "I dream in Toganese while I'm still a haibane, and I'm the Communicator for a year before I notice you guys can sign it. And ''Wire'' Boy here picks it up instantly."

"Where do ''you'' come from?" Fushoku asks.

"We're hatched from cocoons similar to yours," Wally explains with his feet, "only we remember our lives and names, and can really fly. We can also eat just about anything, and are totally unaffected by delta radiation." He switches to his other foot, "I figured that out when I watched King try to commit suicide by taking a swim in Lake Baikal."

"You remember your old name?" Fushoku remarks, "I wonder what it was."

"Wally of course," the crow answers, then balls up his foot and bangs it against the other. "The downside is," he continues, "We inherit the corvid reputation, and our intelligence is the strictest secret, except for the Toga's origin."

"The Toga's origin," Fushoku wonders.

"Oh, don't tell him, ''everything,''" Washi grumbles.

"You know where the Toga come from?" Fushoku asks.

"Yes," the Communicator says, "The Saviour is probably more powerful than you realize, Fushoku."

"Oh?" he wonders.

"Can you guess why the guards would burn your picture of the Hell Knight if they ever found out it existed?" Washi asks.

He thinks about it for a moment, then shakes his head.

"That's what they used to be," Washi whispers, "The Saviour ''transformed'' them, spirit, soul, ''and'' body. They hate what they were before and are so happy to be welcomed into Saviour's kingdom."

"But that traitor," Fushoku says, "turned away and transformed back into a monster. Was she ever a Toga?"

"Oh, yes," the Communicator explains, "and it ''can'' happen. One of the Saviour's original twelve did that: accepted the Saviour's love and then later rejected and betrayed him. I couldn't believe it when he told me, but he insisted that it was true, and that it was instrumental in the story of how he died for us."

"Died for us?" Fushoku gasps, "He really did? I'm still trying to grok that."

"Yes," she says, "It can be hard to understand, which is why he had me give up my wings: to show the Toga that I feel his love the same way." She sighs, "Anyway, both of you, I better get back to work." She turns to her desk and pulls out her layout drawings as Wally flies away.

"Just a suggestion, old friend," Fushoku says, resting his hand on the Washi's shoulder, a gesture he wouldn't dare try only a few minutes earlier. "If you can make dice that are semi-compatible with the twenty micrometre stuff we're building now, I can get you early silicon. I've already started some test layouts at five micrometres. If you design test versions that we can install in a Mark Four, I can get you some."

"Thank you," she says, "but I'm still getting logic bugs in the simulator program."

"Simulator?" he wonders.

"Yes," she says, "I have three computers, actually, all hidden away. I get them to run input simulations on the logic behaviour. You can tell this is a totally new architecture. Our transistor counts will go up by fifteen with the five micrometre model. I'll ''certainly'' take up your offer though, when I'm ready."

"Well if the simulator-" he starts.

She actually laughs, "Fushoku-san, the real thing will run at least ten thousand times as fast. The simulator is a ''program'' running on a machine that's two generations behind. It needs to run about five hundred instructions on a twenty micrometre logic to simulate just ''one'' for this new design. Now, as for the earliest silicon, here's my idea: If I get you to build it at ''ten'' micrometres-"

"The die would be four times as big," he says frankly, "Wouldn't that put it into moderation territory?"

"Yes, obviously," she says, "But we don't need to worry about the effects of delta radiation ''in Glie.'' We'd only make a dozen sets or so. From those, I can do tests on the design. They'd never go outside." She opens a drawer in the desk and pulls out a few flat plastic things, "I'll get you the drive that reads these disks as soon as I can, but the Toga are still fiddling around with the prototypes, so it'll probably be at least three or four weeks. These are mask programs for some five micrometre latch memory chips." She hands him another small container, "These are some actual latch memory masks that they've scaled down to five micrometres. You can use them to master your technique. Hopefully, you can get down to five micrometres before you have to move to the other wing, but I'll settle for six. Any more than that, and we'll be stuck with a scaling of the Mark Four chips," she pulls out another, much larger stack of disks, "which are right here in ten micrometres."

"Already?" he gasps, "We'll do our best, as always."

"This is important," she says as she turns to him, "We have to beat those Hell Knights and their diamonds to five micrometres, or we're out of business."

"And I'd guess they're throwing a lot more manpower at it," Fushoku says.

"They're ''not'' men, you know," Washi sighs, "But yeah, there are more of them out there than there are haibane in here. Lucky for us, they aren't very bright. See you on Tuesday."

Author's note: On the fourth revision pass, I finally realized that the crow's precursor could be a character from the comic strip ''Dilbert.''

Next: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 52]]: Vacation, What's That?

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Rise of Glie Chapter 49

2011-01-18T17:14:03Z

Fhd remix: Re-upload, incorrectly uploaded Chapter 50 (sigh)

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Previous: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 48]]: A New Rule

== FHD Remix: The Rise of Glie==

Chapter 49: Touchy Topics

"Is there anything wrong, sir?" Taka asks the apparently preoccupied Washi seated at the desk.

She's ''really'' embarrassed at the notion that the crows have been trying to sign in Toganese with their feet for her for months and she hasn't even noticed. She finds herself glad of the mask. The crows are probably laughing their estriges off.

"No," she says at last, "Anyway, I'm not usually the talkative one in conversations-"

"Neither am I," the boy smiles. After a moment, he asks, "Are you in on the war, sir?"

"What war?" the Washi asks.

"''The'' war," Taka says.

After a moment, the Washi nods. Jabez cut nice new wooden wings, but he doesn't have the ability to make them alive like those of a haibane.

"Kiniiri got pretty excited when he started seeing the stuff of my dreams at the gate this morning," Taka says. "We live on a planet," he explains, "The second one around the sun; it follows a circle every year. I've noticed how the stars move every night because of it. Ours used to be the third planet, but the original second planet disappeared a hundred, eleven years ago. Not long before that, the oceans were blue and the land was green. The war has been on ever since the first beings on two green planets sinned. On this one, humans ate from the tree that they were told not to: the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. On the other, haibane with wings, I mean ''huge'' wings, took from its stand, the baton of responsibility, which they were told not to touch. These acts introduced sin and death, and the two great enemies could start The War: Shaitan on this world, Maledict on the other. Both are now here on this planet, trying to wipe us out. Now both planets are red. Thirty-five years ago, a great battle happened here, where the wall was broken down and at the end of the battle, rebuilt, and the sky was sealed. The enemy has always despised that we are made in God's image, because they despise God. After the sky was sealed, they began to hate the birds who could fly where they themselves no longer could. God is bringing all the surviving birds here."

After a minute, Washi says, "Is that all?"

"No," Taka says, "I could go on for days, and I keep learning more every night."

"Anything about where the wall came from?" Washi asks.

"No," Taka says, "But perhaps the song of the wall might give you a clue."

"Song?" Washi wonders.

Taka clears his throat and starts singing:

''[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2OGvOYI6BQ Never once] have you failed to say to us, "Oh, we thank you."
<br>''No, never once, we thank you.
<br>''We're sorry to leave you, it has been a pleasure.
<br>''We hope that you make it. Try to find us later.''

And that's all he has to offer about the wall.

"Anything about something called <<Campbell?>>" Washi asks.

Taka slowly shakes his head. After a few moments, he adds, "The universe is very big. There could be many things in it."

Washi remembers that she should probably test the boy's dreams, "Anything about a man with holes in his hands?"

"Oh!" Taka seems almost surprised, "Well, yes, that was the first thing I dreamed about after the birds. The Saviour. His death gave us the power to win this war. He gave his life for us, and we lose when we don't respond in kind for his gift."

"Hmm?" Washi prompts.

"We give our lives for him," Taka finishes.

"Well," Washi says, "That's about the only thing that jibes with what I know, but hey. The universe is very big, like you said."

"What sort of things do you know?" Taka asks.

"I can't tell you much," Washi says, "and most people can't handle these sorts of things, anyway. God brings us the haibane from past lives, and of those I have a few details. I know about some of the local details of the area outside the wall, and what's attacking us."

"Where the Toga come from?" Taka asks.

"Hmm?" Washi is pretty nervous.

"Well, you asked about the ''Saviour,''" Taka smiles, "I didn't think I'd have to tell you about where the Toga come from."

"You don't," Washi says, "and you shouldn't either. It is about as touchy a subject as any you can imagine."

"The crows," Taka giggles, "I have quite the imagination."

"You do," Washi says cautiously.

"I'm going to miss my mice," Taka says out of the blue, "I'm starting to like them."

"Mice?" Washi asks, then realizes, "Oh, those smelly little fuzzy things that like to get into everything? What the heck are you raising hundreds of those little pests for, anyway? And don't let Stanley find out, either."

"More birds are coming," Taka says, "And they eat mice. Best be prepared."

--------

"I miss Aware," Fushoku grumbles as he struggles to reassemble the prototype computer. He's just upclocked it based on Hane's stability improvements.

"So do I," Hane sighs as she nurses a used fruitbox computer to life to run the diffusion oven, "I miss you too, though, since now you're like ''vanishing'' into his paperwork."

"Yeah," he answers, "but he was really good at putting these beasts together too." He sets his screwdriver aside and then reaches for the soldering iron. He makes his connection, and then sets the soldering iron in its stand, turns on the computer, seeing a series of messages showing that he has ''finally'' gotten the replacement module installed properly.

Teisei quietly slips into the room and asks, "Hi, fellas, how are you guys doing?"

"Seventeen down, three steps to go on getting this thing up to Mod 14," Fushoku grumbles, having opened the computer up again to complete step eighteen.

Teisei sighs, "Aware would have been done over an hour ago."

"I know," Fushoku sighs, then reaches for a volt probe. After reaching into the computer and making something snap, he touches the voltmeter probe against something at the edge of the main circuit board and says, "Eighteen."

"You'll get used to it," Teisei says, "I hope we get someone as nice and as skillful as Aware again soon." He turns to Hane and says, "You're getting good at this, you probably wouldn't believe the yields we're getting. I think we can tackle five microns before we need to move to the other wing."

"Whatever we settle on will be the production model for quite a while, since it'll take Stanley's crew a whole year to finish it," Hane says, "and I wonder how long this'll last."

"How long ''what'' will last?" Teisei asks.

"Well," Hane answers, "We're fighting a radiation that damages these computers, and I have a feeling that it is building up and will eventually defeat all of our efforts to fight it. When that happens, we're out of business. Could be a few centuries, but maybe it'll be only a few years."

"Done," Fushoku announces as he closes the computer. It runs for the first time since the day before, now some 20% faster.

"Yay!" Hane cheers as it comes back up. After this, they return to their production jobs until lunch.

"I think Aware probably would have gotten it done yesterday," Fushoku sighs as he crawls out of his cleanroom bunny suit.

"I didn't want to say anything," Hane smiles as she plates up lunch at the stove, it being her turn to cook today.

"Um, hi?" Kiniiri pops his head in around the corner from outside.

"Oh," Teisei notices, "Hi, Kiniiri, come sit down."

As they do, Hane brings the food, "What brings you here?"

"Oh," he blushes, "I hadn't seen Aware in a while, and remembered that he works here. Then I remembered when I had walked more than half the distance from Old Home. I decided maybe I should try to find a job here, now that all the chickens have been adopted."

"It'll take a while to learn anything," Fushoku says, "Since it's pretty skilled work, but er..."

"Aware did all the things that didn't require a whole ''lot'' of skill," Teisei explains, "Well, except for leadership and materials ordering."

"And assembly," Fushoku grumbles, stuffing a pile of rice in his mouth with his chopsticks.

"So, yeah," Hane says, "We'll get you started on moving stuff around, today. We have a pretty ambitious production goal. Do that for a few days, and we'll start training you on something next week."

Kiniiri smiles, "Thanks."

Next: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 50]]: Over Sushi

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Rise of Glie Chapter 48

2011-01-18T17:11:28Z

Fhd remix: Initial upload and check

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Previous: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 47]]: A Number of Stones

== FHD Remix: The Rise of Glie ==

Chapter 48: A New Rule

Bread crumbs and millet seeds are the favorite of the smallest birds. Little sparrows, finches, budgies, canaries, all getting along. The biggest among the birds surrounding Kiniiri are pigeons. There are all sorts of colors and varieties. The pigeons alone come in patterns that make them look like turtle doves, rock doves, urbanites, turkeys, and magpies. [The author has observed this variety himself in Calgary, and named these patterns; the magpie pattern pigeon can't be confused with a real magpie, a corvid with some white feathers on its wingtips, the pigeon's voice, habits, diet, and shape are totally different.]

"Oh," Fushoku says with amazement as he approaches. The birds are so tame that they have no qualms about alighting on Kiniiri himself. "Where's Taka?" Fushoku asks.

The dark haired boy answers, "Over by the barbecue," with a slight nod of his head. The nod is enough to scare the little birds and many fly up to the branches of the nearby trees until the movements of the great (to them) haibane slow to harmlessness once again.

"What are ''they'' doing here?" Fushoku points at two crows perched on the mid branches of a twelve foot tall tree.

"Talking to each other with their feet," Kiniiri says, "I think its something like what the Toga do with their hands. It's a ''very'' lively conversation from what I can tell."

"What are they saying?" Fushoku asks. The crows have stopped and seem rather nervous.

"I have no idea," Kiniiri laughs, "I don't know the language, nor that of the Toga."

It is very quiet, on the ground at least, where the cheerful sounding little birds overpower the somber breathing of the haibane boys.

"Good thing he likes us," signs King.

"He would make a very good spy," Wally signs back with a cock of his head.

"Did you know the real James Bond was a bird watcher?" King asks rhetorically. [It's true, Ian Fleming named his famous fictional agent after a real-life ornithologist whose book I found at the Calgary Public Library!]

Prime real estate for the budgies seems to be Kiniiri's halo. Two hang onto the unsteady ring to preen their wings and sharpen their bills.

"I hope they don't drop any guano in my hair," Kiniiri whispers.

"I think they're happy to have a friend who won't throw fireballs at them," Fushoku says.

"Fireballs?" Kiniiri whispers.

"You saw this morning, didn't you?" Fushoku asks.

"They hate birds, haibane, anything with feathers," Taka whispers, startling Fushoku, who in turn, startles all the little birds. "Oh, dessert," he offers Fushoku and Kiniiri small squares from the barbecue stand.

"They?" Fushoku asks.

"Those outside," Taka clarifies, "What happened this morning?"

"One of them snuck in," Kiniiri says, "but Washi killed it, so it's okay now."

Taka smiles, "Good."

"They really do throw fireballs, just like you said," Kiniiri whispers, "It hit Washi, that's why his wings were broken."

The birds slowly return to the trio, who hold still to welcome them.

"Michael was there too," Kiniiri whispers even more softly.

"Michael?" Fushoku asks.

Taka is even more shocked. After a pause, he says, "Well, if the four hate us, it shouldn't be a surprise that Michael would get involved personally. Glie is all that's left, after all."

"Who's Michael?" Fushoku asks.

"The archangel; the Saviour's general. He held down the monster by her shoulders until Washi killed her," Kiniiri explains.

"I didn't see anything like that," Fushoku says.

"Lucky you," Taka whines at Kiniiri, "You get to see him in person."

"Only fair!" Kiniiri retorts, "You get all the dreams."

"Okay, okay, you two," Fushoku moderates the two adolescents, "''I'm'' the jealous one here."

"Right," Taka humphs, crossing his arms and sticking out his lip.

The birds seem to think that's an invitation, and about fifty sparrows fly up and land on him.

"See," Fushoku whispers, "I told you you'd get used to it." He then starts eating his dessert, "Hmm... ''Crystal!''" he exclaims, "No ''wonder'' they want her to run the west end bakery!" Fushoku runs off to see if he can get a couple more squares.

"Hey kid," King signs at Kiniiri with his feet, "Would you mind telling Washi all that?"

"What's up with them?" Taka asks, nodding at the pair of crows.

"Beats me," Kiniiri says, "They were diving on the monster before Washi noticed her. I wish I could understand them."

"Me too," Taka says, "It looks like they're trying to tell you something with their feet."

"Dang," Wally signs to King, somewhat dejected, "Oh well."

"I think it's funny as hell," Wally signs, then flies off.

"Hell?" King signs, even though no one who can understand him is watching, "There's nothing funny about hell." He too, then flies off.

After a minute, Kiniiri says to Taka, "I think you should tell the Communicator about the dreams you've been having. He won't think you're crazy, I'm sure."

"How can you be so sure?" Taka asks; the birds perched on him don't seem to detect the obvious annoyance in his tone of voice. "I'm just a kid, and they're just dreams."

"Tell ''them'' that," he gestures to the tree full of budgies and pigeons before walking away, dropping the uneaten half of his dessert square. "This ''is'' good, I'll see if I can find you guys another one."

A sparrow picks up the comparatively huge piece of caramel cake and carries over to the trunk of the tree, followed by over a dozen other sparrows interested in getting a taste of Crystal's dessert.

"He's right," Taka whispers, "isn't he?" He drops a few unrolled oats from his hand.

Finches and budgies so adept at shelling such things come and thresh this tiny portion of Glie's harvest with their own great skill and character.

"I'm just trying to hide from this job God has given me," he says.

Before he moves, the birds seem to sense that their haibane master is done with them for the day and fly off.

Taka marches all the way to the Temple, braving the new "catwalk" path, now wide enough to use without a harness.

Tiindare won't let him into the Temple, so he sits in front of the door and waits. As the sun nears the top of the wall to the west, and he's contemplates returning to Old Home and trying again tomorrow, a crow alights on the grass beside his feet.

"No more food for today," he snorts.

The crow lifts a foot and forms several gestures with it.

"I wish I could understand," he whispers quietly.

"Understand what?" the old man's voice startles Taka.

Taka turns, jumps to his feet, noticing now that the Communicator is returning from his errands. Taka must have beat him to the Temple by several hours. "What he says with his feet," the blonde boy says boldly, "Sir, we need to talk. I've been getting these dreams, and I think they're about Glie's future."

"Glie's ''future,'' you say?" Washi inquires, "I was wondering how many flocks of birds would arrive before you decided to come here. I've told Old Home you'll be late."

"First," he says, "There needs to be a new rule right away."

"Really?" the Communicator asks.

"No one may touch the wall any more," Taka sobs, "It's poisonous."

Behind the mask, Bangou is shocked out of her senses. Only that morning, she had detected an inorganic form of delta vector the control systems are unable to convert into hikarinium. It'll still be several years before it rises to the interior grade level of the wall and becomes dangerous to anyone touching it from inside Glie, but she already knows the time is coming when anyone touching or entering the wall without the Defender uniform will receive a lethal dose of delta radiation in mere seconds.

Next: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 49]]: Touchy Topics

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Rise of Glie Chapter 47

2011-01-18T17:10:41Z

Fhd remix: Initial upload and check

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Previous: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 46]]: Flight of Sadness

== FHD Remix: The Rise of Glie ==

Chapter 47: A Number of Stones

Washi can hear the whistle of his feathers as he swoops low over the cart handler. King and Wally climb again and continuously swoop low over the heads of the Toga. [Real crows will do this when you get close enough to their nests; the author has experience.]

She interrupts Two-long Two-short with a terse, "Wait" gesture and marches to the cart handlers. "The grounding line should still be connected," she signs angrily.

The Toga are perplexed. Three look. The grounding line obviously ''is'' connected, and so is the cart's wheel grounding strip and slip ring. She must be off her rocker!

The one the crows were bothering plainly did not understand her rediculous statement. The Saviour has taken the secret language away from her.

Realizing her cover had been blown, the traitor raises both her hands, and in front of red glowing eyes, a powerful fireball forms. The beast throws it with an overhand swing.

The Communicator turns aside and lets the fireball hit her back. The Communicator's uniform is unharmed, except that the wooden wings are blasted to slivers. "Why?" she asks aloud as she turns to face the traitor again.

"Cam-?" the Toga rasps in a high pitched voice. "Campbell, how can it be you?"

"Get out!" the voice of an angry old man bellows from behind the Communicator's mask.

The Toga screams and collapses to her knees. A green plasma rises from her and dissipates into the sky.

The Communicator stoops in front of the traitor and grabs her shoulders. "You knew the love of God, why would you give it up?"

"Power!" the Toga rasps, "Give it back, now!"

"As if," Washi snorts, "I haven't eaten in four days to make sure it left you. And surely you must know that the power of God is greater than the power of those He ''created!''"

The traitor laughs, "''What'' power? Fools. Love is weak. Love is nothing! Did it hurt when you gave your wings? It means ''nothing,'' ex-haibane. Only one who hates you would ask such a thing."

"And somehow, you came to believe that after you came to know love," Washi weeps.

"Fools," she scoffs, "Fools, you all are."

"Love is foolish to those who are not saved," Washi whispers, "but is the power of God to those who are. Love does not boast or demand, make bargains and cheat; love can't lie or steal," she explains.

"Power is all that matters," the monster grunts.

"Does it?" Washi asks, "Or, why did you give up yours in the ''first'' place?"

The monster struggles, but can't move. Even after the Communicator lets go of her shoulders and stands, she is stuck on her knees.

"This is not our power," Washi says softly, "and what we shall do is not vengeance, but for the love of those you betrayed. I love the Toga and Sudden City enough to do this ... enough to throw the first stone."

The Communicator turns her back and walks away from the immobilized hellspawn. Little splinters pour from the holes in her uniform as she slowly paces away.

"Fools!" the monster screams as each Toga picks up a small stone, "We rule the world! This is all that's left of you on the whole planet! We have all the power!"

The Communicator stoops to pick up a stone, turns to face the traitor, and lifts up her mask. "It does not matter," she whispers in her "old man's voice".

The monster is shocked at her face. Is it the revelation of the old man's true gender, or the tears pouring down her cheeks?

"We have all the love," she pulls her mask back down over her face, "That's what we really need."

Washi pitches the stone with all her might. In seconds, the monster is smashed from all sides as the entire company of Toga release their cobbles. She screams in pain, falls over bleeding. The Washi, and the Toga all continue to throw stones at her until she is not moving or making any sound.

Fushoku, sitting on the cart, is absolutely horrified. The blood oozing out of the victim's tattered robe is unusually dark.

"Do not approach," Washi signs as he watches.

The monster's body begins to glow red, and bursts into orange sparks. The Toga robe bursts into flames.

Washi picks up her walking stick again and tucks a small leaf from some unseen pocket in her uniform into a knot on her staff. She holds it out in front of her as she approaches, waving it about the smouldering, empty robe. Fushoku initially gets the impression that the Communicator is casting some sort of spell or blessing on the traitor's remains, but suddenly remembers the threat of the radiation his computers are so carefully designed to tolerate. Washi is merely checking for its presence.

The leaf is still green, although wilted by the heat. All that's left of the traitor that matters to anyone are the small flakes of glowing halo metal Washi takes from the ashes with tongs and sets into a glass jar. After finding all she can see, she shakes the jar to get an impression of how much of the metal is in it.

The rest of the exchange takes twice as long as normal, and then seems twice as long again to Fushoku, who quietly helps load the cart with the sand and grain for Wire Factory and Old Home.

"As far as I know, that's never happened before," Washi says as she sits down beside Fushoku on the cart when all has been loaded.

"For a second," Fushoku says quietly, "You reminded me of Bangou. But she would never throw a stone like that."

The Communicator looks at him. Fushoku tries to imagine a face that he's never seen. Is the old man in the mask angry? Sad? Patient, like Bangou? "You'd probably find it easy to see Bangou with children of her own," the voice utters, "so you might be able to see what Bangou would do if they were ever attacked or threatened."

Fushoku nods, "I see." He bows his head, "I hope I never have to do something like that."

"I do too," Washi says. After rolling a few hundred metres further along the road, and nearing Wire Factory, she finally says, "Can you stop by Jabez's wood shop for me tomorrow or Thursday?"

"Huh?" Fushoku says, jarred from his contemplation. "Oh, your wings, I see," he realizes, "You're not hurt, are you?"

"No," the Communicator answers, "That light we see the wall glow with every winter, you know."

"The Bell Nut Festival?" Fushoku asks.

"Yes," Washi confirms, "That light is with us, always..."

Fushoku glances up at his halo.

"...even if you don't always see it."

Fushoku smiles with gratitude, "I'm so glad. Aware's light must still be with us."

"Yes," the Communicator confirms, but adds, "Light does not come ''from'' Aware. Like us, he was merely a vessel, a conduit of that light. Like a bulb doesn't have a power of its own, Fushoku, we are the light unto the world."

"I understand," Fushoku says, "Somehow I've always known that."

"Good," Washi whispers.

Hane rushes up to the cart, "Was it ''really'' that boring, Fushoku?"

He nods.

"Well, hey, ''lunch'' won't be, as long as you like eggs," Hane says, "Kiniiri and Crystal are over helping Teisei cook it up."

"Wasn't that two hours ago?" Fushoku asks.

"It would have been if the generator weren't low on fuel," Hane says as she grabs a fuel can from the cart, "Haoto's newest wind turbine tripped its clutch overnight, so he's out there checking it out. We didn't have enough electricity to run the stove and wafer oven at the same time. Crystal rushed out here to warn us this morning. Something kept you too, so I guess it worked out," she giggles.

"It's a great day!" someone cries from the barbecue.

"Check this out," the Communicator nudges Fushoku, pointing at a dark cloud just across the bridge.

The numerous little birds settle to the ground, revealing Taka, smiling and feeding them.

Next: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 48]]: A New Rule

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Rise of Glie Chapter 46

2011-01-18T17:08:10Z

Fhd remix: Assassinated a typo

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Previous: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 45]]: You'll Get Used to It

== FHD Remix: The Rise of Glie ==

Chapter 46: Flight of Sadness

"Where were you on Tuesday?" Washi asks as she hears Wally land in the high branches in the tree.

<How'd you know it was me?> thinks he. Wally knows the question is rhetorical, since he has no way of answering, and it's none of her business anyway. The truth was, and Washi probably knows this, that the traitor wasn't with the Toga that day. Also, Imps like chicken, so he had to find her a diversion.

Washi claps at him to show the smile hidden by her mask, then beckons him to come to the gazebo, where she has fashioned a much smaller shelf for her work writing the Haibane Renmei's official records on their own handmade paper. The laser printer and its associated fanciness are locked away in a store room so as not to mar the temple's quaint beauty; a beauty that hides so well its original purpose as Defense Tower Four.

As she sits down, she says, "How a hellspawn can pass as a Toga, I have no idea. Their form would revert if they betrayed us ... or they would simply die outright."

<Makes her easy to spot.> The crow squawks.

A second crow lands on the gazebo's railing, flitting its tail like a finch a couple of times after it lands.

"Oh, you again," Washi laughs, "Are you in on this little caper?"

It reaches over its left wing and awkwardly balances on its right foot for a couple of seconds. Its bill emerges with a small piece of paper.

Washi takes it and quietly reads, "I know where. He showed me." in Toganese, followed by a non-standard set of four scratches. Two long ones and two short ones.

The Communicator lets out a sigh of relief. "I'm glad it's not him," she says as she burns the tiny message in the flame of her candle.

Wally spreads his wings wide and bows for Washi. The other crow follows suit. Wally then utters a three tone overture. Washi has come to understand that this means, "We present you our play."

"Go ahead," she whispers.

The crows turn to face one another, awkwardly straddling the railing with both feet. The second crow tilts back its head and puffs up its chest while Wally bows to it like a knight swearing an oath.

"He's the king?" Washi guesses.

Wally points his beak at her and extends his right wing a little bit. It means, "Close."

Wally then flies to the same empty storage room with the pots on the window sill as before and lands on the handle. It is not locked, and he weighs enough to turn the lever. He wipes out into the snow in front of the now ajar door. After a bit of thrashing, he rights himself and takes flight, showing he's alright.

Washi lets them in, and they fly to the hanging lamp.

Wally hangs on as the take-off of the other crow sets the lamp swinging wildly. It dives upon the same empty pot and knocks it down.

"Oh," the Communicator realizes as she sets the pot back, "You're in charge of the operation to catch the traitor, is that it?"

Both birds fully extend their right wings.

"You know, this would be a lot easier if she'd ever notice we can sign with our feet," says the other crow to Wally in ravenfoot Toganese.

--------

The gentle light flickers.

"I guess we got this done just in the nick of time," Fushoku says as he turns on the lab's main light.

"You have the optical masks for the current batch finished, I'm assuming?" Aware says from the prototype assembly bench.

Fushoku nods. Hane, beside him, looks almost stricken, but forces a smile anyway. The group's usual enthusiasm seems to have evaporated.

"Let's try it out!" Aware says as he opens the monitor lid of the new computer. While conceptually similar to the "notebook" computers of a lost golden age, this one is not meant to be mobile, being nearly the same size as the the previous Mark Three, but stuffed with more memory to drive the new screen. This is new microchip memory from Wire Factory itself, as opposed to the ancient core memory the Toga can make. The battery is sized to last it five minutes, tucked away in a corner near the back of the case, since all the interface jacks are at the front of this particular computer.

The computer starts up for the first time, showing a set of diagnostic parameters in Toganese. "Yes!" Teisei cheers with a deep, but quiet breath as the messages of perfect health scroll away.

It startles Aware into turning towards him momentarily, but the bittersweet look on his face makes him turn back to the machine.

"I can't wait to show the Communicator," Fushoku sighs.

Fushoku's words fade as though a wall has formed between them, and Aware's eyes widen as the machine is set in a red glow. Suddenly he sees to his right a large, star-shaped pad. On the screen is a different language, not Toganese. It startles him; more ancient than English even. He hears a rattling, malicious hiss, almost like a snake. A gnarled hand, not his own, reaches for the star-shaped pad and glows red.

Startled, he jumps up, realizing he was superimposed as a ghost over the computer's "real" operator. He hears the distant crash of a chair, as though in another room, but the operator is still seated in its chair.

A strange monster with nine eyes and no clothes responds to a high pitched beep, which Aware knows is the battery low warning. It presses its hand against the pad and the fire in its hand courses through the coils behind the pad. A bar graph he hadn't noticed before advances suddenly. His glance follows the cord between the power jack of the computer, but instead of leading to the wall at Old Home, it leads to the pad. He realizes that this monster just recharged the battery with fire from its hand. He looks around at the earthen walls of a cave lined with human bones.

"Oh, God!" he blurts, slamming his eyes shut and quivering.

"Aware, what's wrong?" Fushoku's voice, along with his hands around Aware's shoulders.

"The memory test is running perfectly so far," Teisei notes.

"It's not that," Hane says as she sets right Aware's chair, which he had sent flying when he jumped up. "Sir," she says slowly, "We're here for you. What's the matter?"

Aware opens his eyes and breathes a sigh of relief that he's back in the "normal" Wire Factory, and the strange pad and language are not really on the computer he just assembled.

"You ''are'' going to Fly, right?" Fushoku asks.

"Maybe we should get him out of the suit to check his feathers," Hane hastily suggests.

"I'm fine," Aware says, "Saviour finally answered a question I've been pestering him about since before you hatched."

All three of the younger haibane surround the elder, now physically in his forties, looking into his troubled eyes.

"''Who'' is outside the wall?" Aware quivers, "Who are these computers for?" He takes his seat again, "I got a glimpse of one of them, must be who the Toga sell them to."

"Well?" Teisei asks.

"Terrible," he shakes his head, "I didn't hear its name. But I'm so glad of the wall now, knowing what it protects us from. And who."

"When is your Flight, Aware-san?" Fushoku asks, "If you may tell us."

"Oh?" Aware asks, as if he has no idea what Fushoku's asking about.

"Your halo is flickering," Hane explains, "you're Leaving the Nest, soon, aren't you?"

"Oh, darn, what time is it?" Aware asks, glancing at the clock. Nearly in a panic he leaps from his chair, not knocking it over this time, and rushes out, "Oh, guys. I'm so sorry, please forgive me."

Following him, they notice that his bento, but not his book bag, is missing from the lunch room. They see him running into the setting sun, still in his bunny suit. No one blinks until he is out of sight.

Fushoku starts to cry.

"I guess it's like that sometimes," Hane whispers, trying to comfort her stricken boss.

The three haibane are joined by the others who work at Wire Factory, standing there until the stars come out as the blue sky fades to black. While the glow of the sun still wanders over the distant wall, the light beam from the northwest shoots into the clear sky, impaling the one tiny cloud in it. Several minutes later, it fades, and the gathered haibane slowly disperse in twos and threes, comforting each other at the sudden loss of their leader: Aware, the first Haibane of Old Home.

Next: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 47]]: A Number of Stones

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Rise of Glie Chapter 45

2011-01-18T17:06:48Z

Fhd remix: Initial upload and check

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Previous: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 44]]: Potatoes and Chickens

== FHD Remix: The Rise of Glie ==

Chapter 45: You'll Get Used to It

The chickens are all gathered up in a big, semi-quiet tortue next to the western end of the North Wing of Old Home. They seem quite happy to be in Glie, and don't mind the occassional disappearances from their flock.

Fushoku, at the end of his long day, wrings his hands and sits down on the bench beside Taka, who's nearby, watching raptly as the chickens pick at the straw he laid at their feet a few minutes before.

"Sukoi!" Fushoku barely says through his deep breath, "I wonder who's next?"

Taka shrugs.

"I'm glad they like you," Fushoku smiles.

Taka looks up at him. The boy is physically twelve or so, and seems very bewildered.

"You'll-" Fushoku begins, catching his breath, wondering what's really on his mind. He's literally twelve years old, now in his early twenties in physical terms. "...get used to it," he finally finishes.

"Get used to ''what?''" Taka gasps.

"The sorts of responsibilities that seem to come to haibane these days," Fushoku says softly.

"How the hell do ''you'' know?" he sobs, "I didn't draw these birds ... didn't see them in my dreams. I don't know anything about them, but they follow me everywhere. It's so weird, they wait so patiently when I'm inside. How many more?" he desperately cries, "How am I supposed to handle this?"

"You're doing a great job, and so is Kiniiri," Fushoku answers, "He's tag-teaming for you, you know. You feed, he cleans, and he's telling everyone how to look after them. Stanley figures that the farmers will probably look after a few dozen each, eventually."

"How do ''you'' know what it's like?" Taka whispers, "The future of Glie is in my hands, and I don't like it one bit."

Fushoku smiles, "Between flocks, you'll have to stop by Wire Factory." He seems to notice the wrapped cloth in his hands for the first time, "Oh, I guess I did bring this for a reason."

"What does the Factory have to do with anything?" Taka grunts.

"Everything," Fushoku says calmly, "This is for you by the way," handing him the cloth.

"What is it?" Taka says after he unwraps it, a scary looking lump of metal with burn marks and three wires sticking out at odd angles.

"I made it when I was your age," Fushoku says, "I had no idea Glie's future was riding on it. Wire Factory now makes twenty myriad* of those a day. They're a lot smaller of course, but they're basically the same idea."

"Doesn't ''look'' like a computer chip," he scoffs.

"A computer chip has a couple hundred of those on it," Fushoku explains, "You do of course know that is what we sell the Toga to bring in almost everything this city needs to survive."

"But you're ''used'' to it," Taka says.

"I wasn't when I made ''that,''" he whispers, "that's how I know how you feel."

Taka looks at him curiously.

With a warm and gentle grip on the boy's far shoulder, Fushoku whispers, "You'll get used to it. Either that, or struggle with the guilt of having let Glie down in such a big way. Your choice."

"Will the humans look after the ones who aren't good for eating?" Taka asks.

"I-" Fushoku pauses, "er, see your point. But why else would the Saviour bring them here for, their own sakes as well as ours. Let's take the hawk and falcon. What do they do? How do they live?"

"They eat mice and other little critters, almost like flying cats," he smiles.

"The farmers are always complaining that we don't have enough of those around," Fushoku says.

"The shrikes'll be really neat," he giggles, "They're so small that they can't kill a mouse with their claws or beaks so they find some spot to strangle or stab them. Their wings are strong enough that they can fly with their own weight." He holds up Fushoku's angry looking gift and says, "They'd love it."

"It sounds like most of the birds you see in your dreams can look after themselves," Fushoku looks over at the chickens, "Also, these chickens are the most well behaved chickens I've ever seen. The ones we already had in Glie are always arguing and very hard to catch. If they get away, they're nearly impossible to find." He waves towards them, several perk up to see if anything left his hand, "These ones don't even need a coop."

He sees a large one shove a smaller one aside from a bunch of straw. For a moment, it looks like typical chicken "pecking order" behaviour. As the big rooster shoving her aside does so, he pushes a blob of straw out of the main pile the flock is crowded around, then returns to the pile. The little hen starts eating the straw he shoved out, and other chickens join her. It seems they were just spreading the straw so that all of them could eat at once.

Fushoku stares in disbelief as the small hen, guards her tiny sheaf of straw, obviously far too much for her to eat alone in one day. The others walk away from her, around to the far side of the bunch the rooster had shoved out of the big pile with her, leaving her to her feast. "Chickens who know how to share?" he gasps.

"That one doesn't," Taka points, "it's the smallest, and doesn't want to give up its little pile, even though it's way too big for it." He squints, "It wasn't there yesterday. There's more grey in its feathers than all the rest, and its tail is too small, even for a hen. Where did it come from?"

"That ... must be one of ours," Fushoku says softly, "One of Jose's perhaps. He tries his best to manage the few that survived the disaster thirty-five years ago. There were so few that he had to breed close relatives. It is not good, since there is strength in the diversity of one's family: human, animal, or plant. It has taken its toll, and none are ever as strong and tasty as the ones from this bunch yesterday."

"Disaster?" Taka asks.

"They don't like to talk about it, but it was some sort of battle from what I hear," Fushoku says, "It's best to pretend I never said such a thing. They want so badly to forget all about it."

"It is not a good thing to forget one's history," Taka sobs, "I feel like when I came here, I traded my memories for these useless wings, and it was a lousy deal. But he keeps thanking me for it. I know I did it to look after these birds, but I can't remember why."

"You must have cared about them in your past life," Fushoku offers, "Birds I mean. Maybe you were a ... what was that word Shoukai-?"

"Ornithologist," Taka says, then shrugs. Apparently he doesn't know what it means.

"There she is!" Kiniiri cheers from behind and off to the left. Jose, who was with him, starts chasing after his little hen, the only chicken in the flock who's scared of him. He soon finds himself surrounded by the friendlier birds, who calmly part as he walks around in the area, unable to approach his own, nor move very fast in any direction without injuring the newcomers.

"This was the bird sanctuary before," the middle-aged man pauses with a bit of nostalgia, "Can you fellas tell? What was his name? Bird!"

"I've found some documents that refer to a <<Haibane Tori>>," Fushoku explains to Taka quietly, "Probably like you, looking after birds before the disaster."

"Come here, you silly goose!" he calls after his little grey hen.

Kiniiri laughs from the edge of the flock.

Fushoku already knew it was Jose's habit to call his livestock "silly geese" whenever they misbehaved, whether they were birds or not.

Taka rises from the bench, walks towards Jose, and then crouches, holding out his hands in welcome. Jose only turns from his predicament, surrounded by friendly chickens, and scared of stomping on them as he pursues his own, when Taka goes, "Psst."

Almost instantly, all of the chickens except for Jose's hen perk up and rush over to Taka, as though they hung on his every word.

Finally, Jose, full of concern for his little bird, catches her and is stunned to find her well fed and uninjured. He turns to Taka and gasps, "Whatever they are, they're not chickens!"

Taka shrugs.

"Thanks for looking after her," Jose nods gracefully, "Do I owe you anything?"

Taka shakes his head.

"He got his for free," Fushoku giggles from the bench.

Jose then turns to his uncomprehending little hen and frets, "Don't run off like that, Lucy. It's hard to make noodles without you."

Taka picks up one of the big roosters, maybe the same one who shoved her earlier, stands, and holds it out for Jose to receive.

"For me?" Jose asks.

Taka nods.

"Oh, thank you!" Jose says, carefully cradling the rooster in his other arm, "He's the biggest chicken I've ever seen this close!" He turns to his little hen and says, "Lucy, I hope you don't wind up binding with this fella." *

Taka sits back down on the bench beside Fushoku, who, after Jose has left with his prize pair and the flock returns to its meager straw feast, asks, "You were looking for that one specifically?" Fushoku had observed how he selected exactly that rooster to give to Jose, out of all the roosters that had surrounded him.

Taka blushes, "They were um ... mating earlier."

[* A myriad is ten thousand, a word from Middle English hundreds of years ago and still used by Tynndale for his famous translation of the Bible for King James. (i.e.: "two myriads of myriads" for two hundred million in Revelation 9:16.) Its equivalent in Japanese is much more widely used today, as I see it even in airport phrase books. * "Binding" - Jose refers to egg binding, when a hen produces too large an egg, it can wind up getting stuck in her oviduct when she tries to lay it. It is actually every bit as serious as its human equivalent, the ectopic pregnancy.]

Next: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 46]]: Flight of Sadness

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Rise of Glie Chapter 44

2011-01-17T19:00:04Z

Fhd remix: Initial upload and check

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Previous: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 43]]: Quieter Than the Toga

== FHD Remix: The Rise of Glie ==

Chapter 44: Potatoes and Chickens

The crow sits on the top of the hutch, its feet buried under its fluffed feathers, every few moments it shakes off the fallen flakes of snow.

"I wish this thing fit in the gazebo," the Communicator grumbles.

The crow extends his right wing slightly, spilling some of the snow beside it onto the desk the Communicator sits at. She looks up at the black bird and says, "Let's go to my room, so this doesn't get all wet."

She turns about, offering her right wing as a perch for the crow, which it takes gingerly, gripping the wood softly as though it might hurt like a real haibane wing if he squeezed it too hard. Once in the room, she holds the spent bullet case until the note frozen into it has thawed, and she can pull it out without it getting any wetter than it already is.

"Oh my," she rasps.

The crow doesn't seem even slightly amused at her reaction. It is perched on the lamp stand hanging from the unfurnished room's ceiling. It reaches over its right wing and starts preening its dorsal coverts.

"What do we need to do?" she asks softly.

The crow lifts its right wing and starts preening through the underside of the wing. Not preening, Washi realizes, looking for something. The crow leans over onto its left foot and starts scratching at his wing with the claws of its right. Suddenly a tiny scrap of paper flies loose. The crow caws.

It floats about every which way while Washi calmly tracks it. Finally it rests on the tatami matting at the Communicator's feet. She lifts her round mask to pick it up and read the single English word apparently torn out of a novel.

"Arrest."

"You want me to arrest a Toga?" she gasps.

The bird extends his right wing.

"How?"

The crow bows its head and extends his left wing. He doesn't know how.

"I can't tell one Toga from another," she groans as she sits on the floor, "First how am I going to know which one?"

The crow crouches, flies off the lamp and dives on one of the plant pots sitting on the window sill, knocking it over before returning to the lamp.

"Now what'd you do that for?" she asks as she rights the empty pot, the only one on the window that didn't have a bulb in it patiently waiting for spring.

After she sets it back, he dives on it again, cawing up a fuss. The same pot.

As she puts it back the second time, she turns to the crow and asks. "This traitor," she whispers, "You know who he is and how to pick him out from the other Toga?"

The crow extends his right wing.

"How are you-"

The crow takes off and dives on the pot again.

"Alright, I get it, I get it," Washi says while hastily grabbing the pot to save it from another fall. "Is he coming on Tuesday?" she asks after he returns to the lamp.

The crow bows its head, then extends its right wing a little bit. A "probably".

"Okay," Washi nods, "but only dive on him if he's actually there. If you don't point somebody out, I'll make like I don't know a thing about this. Okay?"

The crow extends its right wing.

"Now, I might not be able to tell Toga apart, but I ''can'' sort you guys out," she explains, "It has to be ''you,'' not some other crow. Got it?"

Wally's a little frustrated at that remark, but extends his right wing anyway.

"Anyway, I'm starved, let's get something to eat," she hops up to her feet and starts digging through a bag in the corner.

"Do you like potatoes?" she asks.

The crow extends his left wing and spits.

"You'll like the ones I found in the suit room," she smiles, "I left them down there about two months ago, forgot all about them. Right where its warm and moist, and I couldn't figure out where that smell was coming from."

Wally perks up. The smell she's referring to is the sort of smell that makes crows curious. He's wondered where it was coming from too.

"Maggots," she snorts, "I didn't know flies could nest in potatoes. Next time I go down, they're all yours." [I didn't know either, until I had it happen!]

--------

On Tuesday, the outbound, mostly empty cart, carries two crates of microchip dice and four bins of plastic chips to the Toga camp in the Market Square. Washi patiently waits for the gate to open. She was discussing the production with a Toga in the camp when the inner gate cracks.

The first thing out of the gate is a chicken. Then more chickens. Hundreds of panicky chickens scramble through the gate and gather around her, squawking and flapping and smelling like chickens.

"Nani?" she blurts aloud.

The Toga she was just talking with (in the sign language) seems just as perplexed.

There must be at least five hundred chickens, all braving the winter to forage around in the snow around her feet.

"They're good for eating," the Toga who emerges from the wall signs.

"Oh?" she signs, "How much?"

"Free of charge," the Toga hustles to sign in a flustered manner that could be interpreted as nearly screaming. "They suddenly showed up just as we opened the outer gate and charged in after us. There was nothing we could do about it."

The newcomers to Glie seem happy to be there, clucking and strutting around, gathering around patches of grass poking through the snow. Behaving much as chickens. They don't stray very far from the Market Square, though.

After the discussions regarding the sale of forty computers worth of case plastic and the chips themselves (double what the Toga had expected this week, even though this batch was a week late), Washi concluded, "I think you deserve ''something'' for spending an hour in the gatehouse with hundreds of chickens."

"An exclusive contract on the straw perhaps?" the Toga signs.

It is a joke, obviously, since the Toga have an exclusive contract on ''everything,'' being the only intermediaries between Glie and the outside world. Washi claps warmly.

The chickens faithfully follow the little puffing cart convoy all the way back to the western town (after a stop at Wire Factory and the new South District), and it doesn't seem that any of them went missing during the trip.

Stanley and most of the humans are utterly ecstatic, and even kill a few for a celebration supper. There is no shortage, after all. The next morning, Taka, uncharacteristically, wanders up onto the Hill of Winds, and they all follow him out. And they all follow him back to Old Home at lunch after grazing on the winter stubble.

Crystal chewed him out for missing his morning classes. He just shrugs.

It is then, from the step of her tower, that the Communicator realized that the one bird she most wanted to see during her visit with the Toga never showed. Where was Wally?

Next: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 45]]: You'll Get Used to It

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Rise of Glie Chapter 43

2011-01-17T18:59:25Z

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Previous: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 42]]: Happy Enough to Cry

== FHD Remix: The Rise of Glie ==

Chapter 43: Quieter Than the Toga

"Whoever this <<Tiindare>> is, he's better at doing layouts than Bangou!" Fushoku gasps as he slips the new mask into the optical system he's just built.

"Bahitsu's glad to have the wafer furnace running in the dead of winter," Hane calls, carefully wiping down the optical machine, "and so am I."

"Yeah," Fushoku says through his bunny suit's mask, "It's not like we can just throw on a sweater in this place."

Fushoku turns the indexing knobs on his machine while looking at the mask and wafer using a microscope. He must do so quickly to keep from overexposing the photoresist on the wafer. He can't wait to get a computer to do it, but he needs to build that computer first. Worse, he needs to build its ''replacement'' since the humans have first dibs on everything, and the haibane can own nothing new.

"Whoa!" she gasps, "Look at the time."

"Oh, you didn't know?" Fushoku giggles, "I guess you mean you're having ''too'' much fun."

"Not only that," Teisei gripes, "I'm behind shedule, I've got another two wafers to inspect."

"Uh," Fushoku says, "They're both Third-level Charlies, right?"

"Yeah," he groans, returning with haste to his microscope.

"The second can wait if the first doesn't have too many failures," Fushoku explains, "We need twenty good ones. If you find them all on the first wafer, head to the Fourth-level dice."

"Why?" he asks.

"Because we need to deliver twenty of each die to the Toga camp on Tuesday," Fushoku patiently elaborates, "If they have forty good Third-levels and ''zero'' good Fourth-levels, they can't assemble the processors."

"I've got forty-seven good ones on the first wafer, already," he says, "that's why I'm behind."

Fushoku does a double-take, "Say ''what?''"

"Forty-seven good ones on the first wafer," Teisei repeats.

"How?" Fushoku gasps, "I'm not ''that'' good at this."

"Congratulations," Hane smiles with a glance away from her wafer cart, "I think you can take tomorrow off and let him catch up. Maybe get that blonder than he ... what's his name? ... to say something."

"Taka," Fushoku says, then scoffs, "quieter than the Toga, if that's possible."

"Shoukai must've," somebody says, "or how else did he get his name?"

"I'll see what I can do," Fushoku says, turning back to his machine, "Anyway, cut the chatter, I want forty-seven good ones on ''this'' wafer if I can help it."

Fushoku is satisfied with his mask placement and gingerly hits the switch for exposure lamp, whose green light soon dominates the dim lab. He then wraps his fingers around each other as he waits for the timer to ding, careful not to rub any dust from his hands into the sensitive air.

"Anything wrong?" Hane asks.

"Just cold, is all," Fushoku says quietly.

"All?" Hane persists.

"I miss Shoukai," he sighs, "I never told you about the early days just before you hatched, so you probably don't know unless someone I have told spilled it. Shoukai was very skeptical about my semiconductor experiments before the Toga returned. He tried very hard to get me working on things that were more practical for Glie ... the things we now trade computers for to get from the Toga. Back then, I didn't like him much."

"Really?" Hane gasps.

"Really," Teisei whispers, "And you should have seen all the questions he was asking about this ''Saviour'' character when Bangou started having those dreams."

"Ever wonder if they're chatting it up with the Saviour in the next life?" Hane wonders quietly as she warms up the diffusion oven.

"Just a moment," Fushoku says as his timer dings, turning off the lamp, and he starts hastily adjusting his exposure system.

"Makes you wonder if there's some cosmic, eternal purpose to what we're doing here," Teisei says, "tedious as it may be at times."

"That's not what I wonder," Fushoku says, "There is ''definitely'' a cosmic purpose to this tedious fiddling."

"Like what?" Hane asks, turning from her furnace for a moment.

Fushoku, still staring into his adjustment microscope, sighs, "Your guess is as good as mine. I'm doing this because I trust this Saviour, not just because it puts food on the table."

"It'd be nice if we knew his name," she says as she turns back to compare the oven's six thermometers. The more even the heat in it is, the higher the yields. "Almost there," she whispers, "be a good little oven."

"I bake my cookies at eight hundred," Fushoku snickers.

"Good thing Crystal still bakes hers at one-ninety," Teisei snickers. All three chuckle. [Note: They are talking in Centigrade: Fushoku's is 1475F, while Crystals is at 375F.]

That evening, Fushoku sees Taka quietly holding Shoukai's notepad, the one he used to research all his experiments. None were as exotic as Fushoku's, but they were much more varied. On it, Taka has doodled several different kinds of birds, labeled with colors, dimensions and masses.

"You miss Shoukai?" Fushoku asks, carefully presenting a generous dinner of rice, vegetables, and fried fish.

The blonde boy nods and hums.

"Oh, I think that's the first time I've heard your voice, Taka-san," Fushoku smiles, "What is that about?"

"They're coming," he whispers, "I know it. Not just hawks, but all kinds of birds."

"How do you know?"

"''He'' tells me," Taka says, "Please don't think I'm crazy."

Fushoku takes the boy's hands in his own and asks, as quietly as Taka's whispers, "What's his name?"

"I don't know," Taka says, even more quietly.

"Does he have holes in his hands?" Fushoku asks.

The boy is momentarily stunned, then quickly nods.

Fushoku smiles, "I don't know his name either."

"He's ''really'' in charge, you know," Taka whispers, "Don't tell anyone. Unless he asks you to."

"Did he ask you to tell me?" Fushoku asks.

Taka shakes his head, but then looks up at Fushoku and says, "He said you knew already."

"Why are the birds coming here?" Fushoku asks.

"They ''have'' to," the boy urgently whispers, "I don't know what's out there ... what they're fleeing from. He won't tell me."

"I don't get to see him," Fushoku says, "so if you see him again, can you ask him if it is delta poison?"

Taka realizes that Fushoku has shared a very deep secret with him. He slowly nods.

"Thanks," Fushoku pulls back, "I'm hungry. Let's eat."

Taka bows his head before eating, much as Bangou and Shoukai did. Fushoku follows suit, realizing that this mysterious Saviour is why the universe still exists at all, let alone in the safe, quaint form he sees around him.

Next: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 44]]: Potatoes and Chickens

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Rise of Glie Chapter 42

2011-01-17T18:58:29Z

Fhd remix: Initial upload and check

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Previous: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 41]]: Boys!!

== FHD Remix: The Rise of Glie ==

Chapter 42: Happy Enough to Cry

"I want to try it!" Hane giggles excitedly in the airlock, loudly enough that Teisei covers his ears.

"Patience," Fushoku says, "We won't have the first batch ready for testing until Thursday. And ... we still have to unwrap the silly thing. Who knows where it's been?"

The optical machine in the freight airlock wait's more patiently than Hane as they gently vacuum away the tiny specks of hikarinium, the only apparent contaminant.

"The Toga obviously wrapped it up pretty good," Teisei remarks.

They spend the rest of the day installing it, and a few early tests show that they should have no problem using it down to ten micrometres. That they haven't had a chance to test it with a production mask and real silicon does nothing to attenuate Hane's excitement as they leave almost an hour after the closing bell.

--------

"Welcome back, Communicator," the Toga signs as the main gate swings the rest of the way open.

"It's good to be back," Washi signals in return. "We have the first production dice for the fruitbox computers here," with a gesture to the cart, "Enough for six units. We will probably peak at around twenty units per week. The fruitbox circuits are currently being adapted to the photographic methods. Our next generation will probably use those monitors you recommended in a folding configuration. We can call it clamshell."

The Toga momentarily seems troubled, turns about and signs at nothing in particular out of sight of the Washi.

A crow Aware couldn't see caws twice slowly, and then twice more quickly.

Another Toga emerges from the group and comes up.

Washi repeats the previous part of the conversation.

"Ordinarily," the second Toga signs, "we use the term Mark Three for fruitbox, and your clamshell concept must be for the Mark Four."

"Mark Three and Mark Four, sorry," she signs.

The second Toga waves the first away, and at once signs, "Number, your wings? Your halo?"

Her hands tremble, "For you, my friends." She reaches for the cart and takes a stack of paper; not her homemade paper, but many sheets sold to Glie by the Toga, "The programs for all the masks fruitbox uses. I haven't been able to test them."

"Do you remember me?" the Toga signs.

"Not specifically," she replies, "but the crow called you two-long two-short. I really can't tell you apart. Keep up the good work."

The Toga bows.

"Sir," she signs, "would it trouble you terribly to keep the second generation layouts with your camp in Glie? Never let your other partners see them?"

"No trouble," he signs instantly, "but why?"

"Military intelligence tells me an enemy is trying to use the first generation layouts in experiments with diamond-based semiconductors," she signs, "We must stay well ahead of them with our silicon product line. More for your sakes than ours; our wall protects us."

After a long moment, the Toga replies, "I understand. Your predecessor never went into such detail as to why he didn't want it to, but be assured, the first generation layout did not get to them by us."

"They might have figured it out," she replies.

"We haven't sold any yet," the Toga signs, "so we can't see how. I'll see what we find out. Do you know where these experiments are?"

"Yes," she replies, "but I can't say. My sources have their connections, and with you as well. I think you know who to ask, two-long two-short. Someone who knows your name."

"Toga do not have-" he pauses, "I understand, Communicator. Thank you."

The crow flies to the top of the wall, and waits until the gate closes behind the departing Toga before disappearing entirely.

Once inside the wall, standing on the bridge over the moat between the gates, he signals to his fellow Toga, "They have changed Communicators We'll probably have to simply adjust."

"Incredible," he responds, "that a ''second'' haibane would give up his wings for us."

"We need to do an audit of the cutting facility using the Mark One," the first one signs slowly, "Glie's enemy has somehow gotten the Mark Three layout."

After a moment, the other responds, "Crud." He considers as the other two crank open the outer gate, "We should perhaps talk to the-"

The first Toga wonders for a moment why he suddenly stopped. He turns to see two crows standing between the gates as they open. He turns back to the second one and signals, "Get a map, ''now!''"

"I take it you fellas have found a more effective way to communicate with the Communicator," he signs to his little friends.

The crows look at each other, then extend their right wings and nod.

He looks about to make sure no one observes, then signs, "That's okay. She is the Communicator after all."

The crows look at each other again. They seem to be cool with this particular Toga knowing the Communicator's gender. One of them flies off and lands on the cart, taps the other Toga's map, and then both fly away.

"Hell Knight Forge," the second Toga signs to the first before Two-long Two-short even gets to the map.

He confirms the location. Predictable. It is the only location the Toga know of that is able to forge diamonds.

--------

"Kiniiri-san," the Communicator says warmly, "This is your Haibane Notebook. It guarantees your daily life in Glie. Keep it with you at all times."

"Sir," he squeaks, "I wish I could have met Bangou-san."

"I'm sure you will, Kiniiri-san," Washi answers.

The other new haibane approaches with his head bowed, blonde hair hiding his eyes.

"You must be Taka-san," Washi says.

The boy twitches his right wing.

Washi crouches, tries to see the boy's eyes, whispers, "They tell me you haven't said a word since you emerged. You can say something now, I've given you permission."

He smiles at the masked being, then flaps both his wings, blowing fallen feathers and leaves about.

"Glad to see you're happy at least," the Washi responds. The short notebook ceremony is repeated for him.

"Fushoku-san," the Washi intones several minutes later as the group is about to leave, "This will only take a minute."

Fushoku walks up to the Washi, who gives him a small box. "Thank you, sir," he says, then hurries to catch up with the rest.

Fushoku finds that he is too late, and so decides to attempt his shortcut again. This time a proper rope bridge spans the waterfall, but the catwalks are still very narrow and require harnesses. He beats Aware and the boys to the end of the road.

"I see you've gotten your sense of adventure back," Aware says, "and without getting as wet this time."

"Still pretty gnarly," Fushoku says, "I think there will always be a wild feel to this place."

"He just wanted to try out those new glasses," Bahitsu giggles, "The ones that let him see like Crystal all the way across Glie."

Fushoku pushes the bridge of the spectacles his friend refers to up on the bridge of his nose, and says, "Maybe."

Once back at Old Home, he opens up the little box and unfolds a rather large piece of paper. It is recognizable as a schematic diagram, and he soon recognizes it as a variation on the fifty-micrometre logic core. He looks in the corner, where the identification information is, and gasps. It is Bangou's promised first twenty-micron drawing, right on schedule, but with a name he doesn't recognize: "Tiindare". Whatever. He's happy to have it. So happy he cries.

Next: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 43]]: Quieter Than the Toga

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Rise of Glie Chapter 41

2011-01-17T18:57:13Z

Fhd remix: Initial upload and check

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Previous: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 40]]: New Wings

== FHD Remix: The Rise of Glie ==

Chapter 41: Boys!!

[Spot the homage to Thomas Andrews of James Cameron's Titanic.]

Aware finds him at Bangou's programming station, on his face, the little keyboard pushed aside. "Are you okay, Fushoku?" he asks gently.

His shoulders bob as he cries, but he eventually pulls up his head and looks at Aware, "How are we going to do this without her? I never thought she'd Fly before me. I followed your example and planned for the Factory's operation without me, because I'd Fly." He falls back onto the bench, "Now ''she's'' gone, and I never expected..." he trails off into sobbing.

"Programming is mostly arithmetic and Toganese, right?" Aware says, "That doesn't have to be done inside the wall. We'll get by fine, I'm sure."

"She did the logic and circuit layouts," Fushoku sobs. He lifts himself again from the bench and shows him the layout drawing for the processor, a confusing city-like schematic drawing on a ledger size sheet, "She drew this all by herself. The Saviour taught her in her dreams. I don't know where to begin."

Aware's warm hand grips his shoulder, "Stick with what you're good at. Can you compact these designs to the new twenty micrometre photographic stuff you were talking to her about last week?"

This bursts another rising bubble of grief in the troubled technologist, "Oh, she was so excited about that," he bawls, "All the new things she was going to do. She was planning to use those liquid crystal monitors the Toga showed us, and make a portable calculator."

"Let's see what those two on the second floor of the east wing have in store for us," Aware says, "They went grey this morning, I have Bahitsu watching."

Suddenly, there's a ruckus in the stairwell behind them. The door bursts open and Bahitsu screams, "''Boys!''" He starts dragging Fushoku towards the exit, "Come see!"

"Who's looking after them?" Aware asks.

"Shoukai," Bahitsu says instantly, "He says I can run faster than Teisei and Kinzoku."

"You're probably the fastest runner in the world," Aware says to no one in particular as the two young men have already vanished into the stairwell.

Once in the guest room, where the two hatchlings sit patiently, quietly enjoying their first meals as haibane.

"Kiniiri, for pet (気に入り)," Shoukai indicates the one with dark brown hair, "and Taka, for hawk (鷹)" indicating the blonde one. The only thing that seems to be different about them is the color of their hair, at least physically. They're about twelve apparent years old. Kiniiri looks curiously about at everyone and everything with his grey eyes, while Taka stares at his bowl of rice as though his little sister vanished into it. Neither has had their wings emerge yet. "Who's going to get their halos?" Shoukai asks.

"Bangou should probably-" Aware starts, then catches himself.

"Who's Bangou?" Kiniiri asks innocently.

"She's gone," Aware says, "she left the nest a couple weeks ago."

"Aware," Shoukai waves a finger. They retreat into the hall as Fushoku and Bahitsu start explaining the basics about Glie, the wall, and the haibane. Once alone, Shoukai asks, "Why do you keep forgetting? It's hard on the boys, and you don't seem to be crying about it. In fact, Mister Sorrow, your reactions to Days of Flight have been incredibly inconsistent. How are you going to handle mine?"

The light flickers. Aware looks up and realizes, Old Home is still without electricity; the lights aren't even on, and the sun does not flicker. Realizing what it must have been, he looks into Shoukai's eyes peering with concern back at him from under the salt-and-pepper eyebrows of a professor in his prime. "When?" he asks.

"Night after tomorrow," Shoukai says, "Keepsie and Kenny will be taking over the care of Old Home. Well, Keepsie mostly, since Kenny's busy at his plastics shop. I've already made the arrangements."

"It's like you," Aware smiles, "to be so quiet about it. I guess my secrets are safe with you. Come on," he inclines his head to the stairwell, "I got a bit left in my bento."

They sit at the bottom of the stairs and share what's left of Aware's random dumplings, as he explains, "Do you remember Shiden's Day of Flight?"

Shoukai scoffs, "How could I forget? You were messed up for weeks, even disappeared into the Temple for two days while everyone was asking ''me'' why there was no light. And believe it or not," he points, "they'd ''rather'' ask me!"

"Sorry," Aware blushes, "Believe it or not, Shiden's Day of Flight was two weeks ago."

Shoukai drops only one chopstick. After almost a minute he gasps, "What?"

"Shiden ''Flew'' two weeks ago," Aware whispers, "Bangou's succeeding him as Communicator. That's why I keep forgetting."

Shoukai's halo flickers as his head and eyes slowly turn to the fallen chopstick past the bottom stair.

"Thought you knew everything, didn't you?" Aware quietly teases.

"Well," the old teacher stammers, "How he could hide from ''me'' in that outfit all these years, I suppose. Suppose," he turns to Aware, "It'll probably obvious that there's a woman in that uniform."

"Ever seen a ''Toga'' woman?" Aware asks.

"No," Shoukai says, then chuckles, "but then again, I probably couldn't tell if I did."

"I don't know anything about that, actually," Aware chuckles, "I had enough trouble keeping Shiden's secrets; I don't ''want'' to know any more about the Toga."

"I think Bangou already knew more than you about the Toga. A lot more," Shoukai says, "before she er ... <<Flew>>."

Taka and Kiniiri are led into separate rooms for their wings' emergence about an hour apart that evening.

In the meantime, Shoukai journeys to the temple.

"It wasn't always so," Bangou explains from her prone position in the grass, "but these days, you need to lose your wings to become an official Communicator."

"Why?" Shoukai asks as she inspects pieces of firewood brought to him by Tiindare.

"It is a sign to the hellspawn outside the wall that the Saviour is real," she says, "When they accept his gift and repent of their sins, he erases their lives and they become Toga." Bangou selects two pieces of firewood that are exactly eighteen inches long and with no knots, sapwood, checks, splits or pitch pockets.

"You're going to ''burn'' those?" Shoukai asks with surprise as Tiindare presents them, "The finest pieces of wood I have ever seen?"

"They are for the halos," Bangou explains, "It's probably not a big deal, but I spare no expense when it comes to halos."

Following her instructions, Shoukai inserts the first of the two halo molds, partly open and filled with light leaves, into the furnace's forge tray, then the first perfect piece of wood into the firebox, closing the damper and opening the intake and vent. "How long before it's ready?" he asks.

"An hour," she sighs, "Two at most."

When it is ready, Shoukai places the mold with the glowing flakes inside it under the drop hammer, and releases the latter from the black mark on its post. With one clank, the mold is slammed closed, and one of the halos is forged inside it. He then starts on the second one.

"You're doing great. Thanks for your help," she says. After a sigh, she adds, "The timing of new arrivals couldn't have been much worse."

"It beats when, every now and then," Shoukai says, "The new arrival goes unnoticed."

"Aware will probably be the last haibane to be found after his wings emerge," she says, "well unless..." her voice trails off.

"Unless what?" Shoukai asks.

"There are a lot of tags in the wall," she says, "They change when haibane come and go. They say nothing of the humans or Toga. I can see not getting around to one soon enough. I've really got my work cut out for me," she smiles, "I still got that twenty micron layout project, which I'll have the Toga quietly pop masks for. Then-" she starts coughing.

"What's wrong?" Shoukai rushes to her side as she coughs uncontrollably.

Soon she stops, controls her breathing, and utters, "Dang, that hurt."

Shoukai jumps back a step. Bangou's voice has changed to that of an old man, not too far from what Shiden's changed to as he lost his wings for this job.

"Oh," she says, "so ''that's'' how that works." Then she chuckles, "This'll take some getting used to."

Next: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 42]]: Happy Enough to Cry

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Rise of Glie Chapter 40

2011-01-17T18:55:22Z

Fhd remix: Initial upload and check

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Previous: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 39]]: Old Wings

== FHD Remix: The Rise of Glie ==

Chapter 40: New Wings

Once the pulp has bound itself together, she can hang the sheets to dry the rest of the way. Bangou has found that making paper helps build her patience, and is relatively easy on her sore back and dying wings.

Today is the day that Aware warned of: that horrible day when the numbness would be replaced by agony, and after two days, by nothing at all. She had settled onto the warm grass, and now she can't move. Wincing, trying not to make too much noise, she must simply endure the loss of her wings.

It felt like someone played with her hair using a single finger. She looks up and sees a crow. She already knew they let themselves in through the roof, but they've never gotten this close before. The crow bows and nudges a leaf towards her. It picks up another like it and chews on the stem.

"For me?" she asks.

The crow holds out its right wing for a moment and nods.

Bangou takes a bite of the bitter leaf and spits it out, unable to swallow.

The crow flaps its left wing twice and takes the leaf, again chewing on the stem. After this he flies away, but soon returns with another just like it.

"Oh, like this?" she starts sucking on the stem, which doesn't taste much better, but is quite a bit juicier.

The crow extends his right wing and then extends both to fly off again.

"Where are you-AH!" she yelps as she tries to turn to follow the crow. She lies flat again and cries until she feels its beak play in her hair again.

This time he presents a cluster of her favorite berries, and suddenly, she realizes that she's hungry. "Oh, thank you!" she cries, and then starts eating, the searing pain in her wings subsides just a little.

She hears the steps of the two approaching men, "Aware," she rasps before spitting out a pit, "thanks for coming so early."

She watches as the crow curiously lifts its right foot, and while precariously balanced on the tips of the feathers of its left wing and fully extending his left leg, balls his right foot into a fist and waves it twice through the air.

Tiindare kneels in front of Bangou and signs, "This is Wally," giving the crow a little wave, "That is his identifying gesture. Only three of the crows have such a gesture."

"Do you need anything from me, ma'am?" Aware asks.

"A bowl of rice would be very nice," she says cheerfully, although the pain is still obvious in her voice, "I'm ravenous right now, and I think it's the raven's fault."

"Sure," Aware says, "I remember where the stove is, but-" he turns from the room's door for a moment, "Shiden fasted through the loss of his wings. I don't think he had any appetite."

"I haven't eaten in four days," Bangou says, "praying that this would be easier for me." After munching on another of the crow's berries, "until this little fella came along."

Aware returns with a steaming bowl of rice after half an hour. Bangou slowly consumes it with a spoon, her fingers too unstable for chopsticks. "Thanks for your help, Aware," she says, "You better be heading back. They'll miss you, and if you're gone again like after Shiden, it might blow my cover."

"You'll be okay without me?" Aware asks.

"Don't be offended," she says, starting to sound like a real Communicator, "Shiden really was all alone, and with a common dream, you two were very close, I'd imagine." She winces through a little spasm in her right wing, then finishes, "Tiindare is here all the time, and Wally doesn't look like he has any other obligations at the moment."

Aware leaves remembering that the guard and the crow really are sentient spirits.

"So, how smart are you really?" Bangou asks the crow, "I always figured there was more to you; that you're not the old scavenger birds God made to keep gardens clean and play by the side of the road. You guys named Two-long Two-short, after all."

"''These'' crows," Tiindare signs, "Are brought back like haibane, outside the wall. They were once human, too. Unlike me."

"Unlike you?" she asks aloud, unable to sign, not just because of the pain, but because Wally seems to be very content with her gently scratching his neck with two fingers.

"I was a monster from outside the wall," Tiindare explains, "I learned of the Saviour when I found a First Book in some smashed town. Hard to read when you're a seven hundred kilogram Hell Knight." He sits down, then explains that the volume he found was exactly like the one in hell itself, where the only plants in the intermediate dimension ever grow. [mentioned in [[FHD Remix Chapter 25]] (Spoiler warning if you haven't read ''Three Worlds In One'')] In it he learned of an utterly alien concept called "love", and with it things like hope, faith, and forgiveness. He had no idea what he was getting into, and had expected to be executed when, eventually, he would be asked to host a demon spirit, a rich reward for any hellspawn, and a more likely one given his size. He woke up inside the wall, a tiny Toga, but host to the Holy Spirit.

"Pleased to meet you," she says when he is done, "I wish I could have signed that properly." She pays dearly in stinging agony for attempting to stand up again, but once it subsides, she is grateful that she could forget the pain enough to make the attempt. She lies down again and cries.

Tiindare asks her why.

"I can still feel them," she bawls, "but when I wake up in the morning, they might be gone forever."

It takes several minutes of gentle prodding before the crying ex-haibane opens her eyes to see his hands answer, "Not forever, Washi. I'm sure he will give you new wings."

Next: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 41]]:Boys!!

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Rise of Glie Chapter 39

2011-01-17T18:54:03Z

Fhd remix: Initial upload and check

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Previous: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 38]]: Eternity

== FHD Remix: The Rise of Glie ==

Chapter 39: Old Wings

Bangou cautiously steps through the Garden. She suddenly sees it so much differently, takes an extra moment to admire the trees and smell the flowers. She kneels and brushes her wings softly through the grass. Too much sunshine is coming down through the open roof for her to notice the flickering of her halo, which has bothered her every night since that strange dream almost two weeks before.

Aware follows behind her, at several more paces than usual when they visit Washi.

"Ah, Feather Bangou, I see your Day of Flight is finally near," Washi intones as she approaches.

Bangou pauses for a tear, and wraps her arms around herself, gripping her shoulders as though cold.

"What's wrong, little sister," he asks.

"It is not my Day of Flight, Master, but yours," she explains slowly, "Master Shiden, Glie's first Communicator."

"How did you learn my name?" he gasps.

"The Saviour told me he had chosen me to succeed Shiden," she explains, "I found out who this Shiden was from Aware. Please, let me see your face this once."

Shiden reluctantly removes his mask and pulls back his hood, revealing the old Defender's ancient face and features.

Bangou kneels, "You have made yourself the least of all in Glie, and for that we are forever in your debt."

"That's not why the Saviour does this, Bangou, are you sure about this?" Shiden asks.

She looks up at him, but does not rise, "The Saviour showed me a battle. Two angels* with wings like ours, but large enough to fly, slew volunteers who emerged from hell through a portal they had to close. In their blood was the fuel that allowed a small cube filled with ancient souls to attack their unrepentant master, who wore the portal's power source on his back." She bows her head again. Her halo goes dark and slips from its place and falls into the grass, where it stands on edge, held up by the green blades just in front of her knees. "Even the darkest creatures of hell can be saved if they repent and give their lives to the Saviour for his purposes," she sobs, now looking at her dim halo.

Shiden collapses to his knees, hearing an account of the First Battle of Mars for the first time in thirty-three years. He lifts Bangou's head by her chin and looks into her eyes, "Then there is no doubt. You do know that the Saviour is not ''making'' you do this. You may still Fly, he will find another successor."

"I ''want'' to," she insists, "Master Shiden, I want to be a part of his plan to save those who are lost, to bring all to himself of those who might be willing to follow his way. I feel honored that he chose me for such a task. And this way," she smiles, "It'll be easier to train the twins in computer programming. Please," she grips his shoulder, "Make your way to the shrine before the work day ends. Fly tonight, and leave them thinking it was me."

"Okay," Shiden rises, "You're in for a bitch of a fortnight though. Aware will help you through it. God Bless. Oh-" suddenly he rises and runs back to his desk, rummaging through a particular drawer, "I'll be danged if I never remember this."

"What?" she gasps, still on her knees.

"This," he says, handing her a small wooden box with her name, "番号" on the lid, "not that it's much good to you now."

"What is it?" she asks.

"Open it and see," he says, "Each living haibane has a tag inside the wall that describes his precursor's life well enough that his name can be predicted. It isn't always the case, but a tag may change to reflect a different name with the same pronounciation. Yours changed two weeks ago, to Bangou meaning <<Forever>>."

万劫

"Thank you, Master Shiden," she says, rising again to her feet, leaving her halo in the grass, clutching her new nametag.

"Pray the Saviour guides you to tags that change, sister," Shiden says as he takes his Communicator mask off for the last time, "they can be tough to find."

She extends her right wing fully, then turns to look at it, reaching back with her hand to preen a couple feathers, "I'm going to miss them," she squeaks.

Shiden embraces her, "I'm going to miss you. All of you. See you in eternity."

"I will too," she sighs, returning the embrace, "but, not only do I hate long goodbyes, Stone Mill lets out in an hour. You'd better hurry on your way."

He does, leaving the rest of his uniform behind and donning a plain Toga garb.

She stoops to pick up the wooden wings. A tear drops on them, is absorbed instantly, leaving a spot slightly darker than the rest of the material, "So ''these'' are my new wings," she sobs.

[Author's note: * While featherwing beings and haibane are often called angels, but they are not the same as biblical angels, which are pure spirit beings that normally do not have a physical presence at all. Please don't get them confused. Also, these events are featured in [[FHD Remix Chapter 35]] (Spoiler warning: please don't follow the link unless you've read ''Three Worlds In One'' before.)]

Next: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 40]]: New Wings

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Rise of Glie Chapter 38

2011-01-17T18:52:43Z

Fhd remix: My Little Phoenix linked

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Previous: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 37]]: One Box

== FHD Remix: The Rise of Glie ==

Chapter 38: Eternity

[Author's note: There is an homage to Tarja Turunen's [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4udPWOZqjig ''My Little Phoenix''], seventh track of her first solo album, ''My Winter Storm.'']

The Toga stares at the Communicator for a few moments after the strangely uniformed individual has disembarked from the motorized cart. Tender hands sign slowly, "Greetings, sir. Pending your approval of Wire Factory's production plans for the Mark Three computer, we trust that this will be the last shipment of single transistors. Wire Factory has also developed two new types for power control: the <<flat>> junction and the <<argon shunt>> type. They call it <<argon shunt>> even though it has no argon in it." [She is referring to what are known in real history as the Hoerni planar transistor introduced by Fairchild and the "thyratron" transistor introduced by IBM, the original thyratron being the gas-filled electronic tube it replaced. Things at Wire Factory are being invented in a different order than they were in real history.]

The Toga claps the back one hand into the palm of the other. In Toganese, this is laughter. [In ''Star Trek: Deep Space Nine,'' the Bajorans applaud in this way.]

The Communicator's feathered wings droop slightly, conveying a lack of understanding. "<<Argon shunt transistor>> couldn't have been ''that'' funny," the hands explain.

"Ashfeather Number," the Toga signs at last, "The halo and wings are a dead giveaway, but we still appreciate the gesture. It's two-long, two-short, if you didn't recognize me."

"Not a clue," she confesses.

"We ''really'' want this new computer of yours to work properly for our customers," he explains, "so we have been doing comparative runs with our seven-crate, as we call the Mark Two. If you're curious, the two-truck, our name for the Mark One, which fit in nineteen crates, was the vacuum tube operated beast we designed for our partners outside. Believe it or not, a hundred and twenty of them exist, at least. There may be more vacuum tube computing systems of which we are not aware."

The Toga finds a thick sheaf of finely printed reports for her, "Other than the register bug you told us of last week, the biggest problem with the Mark Three is that a certain driving wire in the core unit doesn't get enough power. After reading your developer's report, we decided to part it to a controlled power supply, along with select other driving wires in the plane, and we have localized the flaw to..."

Bangou is astonished to hear that this bug, along with several others, the Toga have put in the effort to narrow them to individual dice. Of another twenty bugs, they supply voluminous information that will help Wire Factory fix the problems in a matter of hours instead of weeks.

"The division bug you mentioned," the Toga goes on, "only affects a few instructions, and so we went to the developer's manual you gave us last week. If we've read this right, there is a bug in the microcode, rather than the logic itself. We are very impressed with how you redesigned the logic. Your logic package runs its simple set over five times as fast as seven-crate, and even with the encoding, decoding, and microcoding stuff, little fruitbox is still a bit faster."

Bangou lets loose an amused squeal with her Toganese laughing gesture. "Fruitbox," she signs, "I like it. Very fitting description."

"We brought in a second transistor wiring machine and have seven-crate running this one," he points, "and fruitbox running this one."

"Seems to be working fine," she notes.

"Workarounds," the Toga notes, "See how the fruitbox machine's armature makes this little nonsense jig sideways that seven-crate doesn't. That avoids triggering the division bug."

"How many more seven-crates do you plan to build?" Bangou asks.

"As few as possible," Two-long Two-short answers, "Number Five is undergoing assembly in an outside camp, the modules are finished and she is going through acceptance tests. We are about thirty-five percent through transistor wiring of Number Six, this shipment, if it's more than four thousand four hundred..."

Bangou checks the manifest to see that it is not; they need about two thousand more transistors.

"...we'll have all the transistors, assuming fruitbox doesn't wreck too many more," the Toga explains. He looks at the cart's second trailer and asks, "What's that?"

"A mask cutting machine," Bangou explains, "We can only unveil it in a cleanroom, but we have written a program for fruitbox that I'm pretty sure will run on seven-crate if you try it. So far, it will only cut the masks for the latch registers, but when we go into mass production, we will need lots of them. A mask will only last through about five to ten batches."

"Oh," the Toga signs, "Why? The optical printing processes of integration shouldn't be that hard on masks."

Bangou turns to him, and signs slowly, "Optical what?"

The Toga signs, "Don't you transfer the mask pattern to the integration wafer using an optical process and photographic chemicals?"

"No," Bangou responds, "The mask is applied directly to the wafer, and only allows the process to affect the transistor areas selected for a particular process step. Removing it in good enough shape to use for the next one is quite difficult, and each mask must be inspected before its next use. We're getting better at it. I've never heard of <<photographic>> before."

"Oh, dear," he signs, "Let us sell you the books we based that assumption on, and for next week, we can prepare an estimate for what you will need in terms of photographic chemicals and equipment to allow you to experiment with these processes. Before the Final War, these processes developed for almost two hundred years. You will need the older ones first as a foundation."

"How fancy did it get, if you don't mind my asking?" Bangou says, "Please reveal nothing about the Final War itself. We trust our wall."

"Multiple component layers with features measured down to about five hundred picometres. A picometre is a millionth of a micrometre, your features are currently fifty of those, so about..." the Toga pauses to figure, "about a hundred thousand times as large in one dimension, so about ten billion times as large in two. We have confidence in you, since the first fifty years of semiconductor development saw features down to ninety nanometres in a single component layer, with integrated capacitors and resistors. Oxide insulation was allowing seven layers of printed wiring above the component layer. There is one called Implant among you that seems to understand all this intuitively. We pray for him always, that he may, even in the tiny community inside this wall, use that understanding to outpace history." The Toga taps through the tarp onto the mask machine, "No disappointments in that regard so far."

''Implant?'' Bangou scrounges her head to try to sound out what that would be in Japanese. She realizes that it's on Fushoku's tag at Wire Factory. "Corrode" that she always saw was on his Old Home name tag.

The Toga makes a quick gesture to the crow standing in the tree, who perks up, caws twice long, twice short, then after a pause, caws three short calls, followed by a long one.

Bangou finds herself glad of the mask, that the Toga can't see the look on her face.

Another Toga emerges from the "translator" tent with an outrigger pallet lift and in a couple of minutes, the cart's two trailers and small bed are unloaded. A few minutes later, it is stacked with lumber, drywall, books, and filled fuel cans, along with a bag of delta-resistant wild rice as a free sample. One of the Toga hands her a small glass jar wrapped in a cloth and bows deeply, then apparently waits for her to return the gesture.

Bangou has no idea, so she carefully unwraps the jar. Based on the trembling of the Toga's hands, this is obviously not something that the elder Communicator normally does.

Hikarinium flakes.

She carefully rewraps it, hands it back and signs, "So sorry, let me try that again."

The ceremony is repeated, with Washi giving the proper reception to the special flakes of halo metal recovered from the shipment while it waited between the inner and outer gates.

--------

"''Always'' remember your hairnet, Teisei," Fushoku says, "with hair like that, I might not catch it if you miss."

"I was just testing you," he says with a grin as he tightens his head garmet, "I ''almost'' missed it day before yesterday, and you didn't notice. I felt the breeze in the airlock and realized it couldn't possibly be there."

"Good thing you're not an astronaut," Fushoku says with a pat on his shoulder.

"Good thing I'm working for you and not Stanley," he says, "He'd have sacked me by now, I"m sure."

"I doubt it," Fushoku says, "I can tell you have an uncompromising attitude about your work. Actually, Stanley keeps those who compromise their work too, but they just move bricks and lumber between those who don't, so that the only things they can hurt are their toes."

The walls in the dressing room and the well-ventilated airlock designed to keep the dust from getting from the dressing room to the cleanroom, as well as the production floor itself, are all painted semi-gloss white so that it is very easy to tell when they're dirty. There are some black checkerboard sections so that light-colored crud is also easy to spot.

"Oh," Hane says, catching up, "Can I get through on this bunch?" She is rapidly buttoning up so that she can join them on this trip through the airlock into the cleanroom.

"Where's Bangou?" Fushoku asks.

"It's ''Tuesday,'' remember?" Hane giggles, "You know, the Toga, Washi's day off?"

"So, today," Fushoku says loud enough to be heard over the ventilation, "We're hoping to break a new total record by topping thirty percent yield on the two register batches we started yesterday. Where are we at with yours?"

"Fifty-five percent," she answers, "I lost a whole wafer because the p-mask busted in half during removal. It's tricky to remove the right amount of material to get the mask off without polishing the doped areas right off the wafer."

"No, it's my fault," Fushoku says, "The rouge is too hard. It's wearing the masks out faster than I expected. I-"

"What's wrong?" Teisei asks. Fushoku sort of looked away, lost in thought for a moment.

"We need to get that ''light'' stuff soon," he says, "In my dreams, I used light to transfer the mask pattern to the wafers. It was way more complicated than my glasses." Normally, he leaves those in his lunch room locker since he doesn't need to see long distances and can't do inspections while wearing them. They are just a collector of the organic crud his face normally produces, but which wreaks havoc with the product. "But," he goes on, "there was something to put on the wafer that reads the light. I just haven't figured out what it is yet."

As the day comes to a close, the haibane have met their production goals, although they're clocking out forty-five minutes late.

Hane emerges into the lunch hall first, popping her hair loose from the confining bun, leaving the strawberry strands with irregular waves. As she combs it out, she notices a book on the table with a note that says, "Can't stay, making other deliveries. - Bangou"

The book is a tattered hardcover text entitled "History of Integrated Circuit Fabrication". She opens it and flips through. "My God," she gasps, "We know ''nothing!''"

"What's wrong?" Fushoku asks as he emerges from the dressing room.

"Nothing," Hane says, nearly in tears, "That stuff about the light you were babbling about this morning..."

"What about it?" Fushoku asks.

Showing him the page, Hane sobs, "It's called <<photoresist>>."

Fushoku looks breathlessly at a couple of pages, then closes it to see the title, "Where did this come from?"

"Ask Bangou," Hane suggests, "She left this note."

--------

That night, she has the strangest of dreams. She is in a different city, one far older than Glie, with far smaller and simpler walls. She wears a shawl to hide her hair and follows a noisy procession with a trail of blood. Three men are being led to their executions. One stubbornly presses on, carrying a large piece of wood on his back while the other two are whipped to get them to move. He is in the worst shape of the three by far, so beat up you can hardly tell he was human. The guards with strange brush hats and steel spears called triari take another man from the crowd of onlookers and force him to carry the wood for the death row prisoner.

Bangou finds a woman bawling louder than the rest and comes to her to ask.

"My son," she responds sadly, "My eldest son."

"What was he convicted of?" Bangou asks.

"Nothing," the woman responds, "Nothing at all. He has never done anything wrong in his whole life. He's the only person who was ''ever'' like that, and he's being executed for being that person. The Saviour of the world."

"Saviour?" Bangou gasps. He never looked like this in her other dreams.

< I gave up my wings for all,> she hears his voice in his head, <and laid down my life for all.>

She becomes aware it is a dream, and suddenly feels her wings again.

Bangou asks, "Ma'am, what is your name, if you don't mind my asking?"

"Miriam," she answers.

<Would you give up your wings for me? Help me win those souls outside, like Shiden before you. Love them as I love you?> he asks.

"Love who?" she asks.

Miriam does not hear her. The Saviour answers, <The monsters outside the wall. Love your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you. Do good to those who hate you. Isn't it normal for one to love those who love him, and hate those who hate him? It is special to do this, Bangou. You may serve me in this special way.>

Two characters form in her vision, "万劫".

--------

She bolts awake. Oh, it's my turn to cook breakfast. Quickly, she gets dressed and heads to the east wing kitchen.

As breakfast begins, she sits down with Fushoku, Haoto, and Aware and casually asks Aware, "Since you're the eldest haibane, I was wondering if you ever knew someone named Shiden?"

Aware responds uncomfortably, "Shiden ... uh ... Flew ten years ago, shortly before we fused the dyke."

Bangou can tell he's lying, and decides not to press. The curiosity about this "Shiden" that the Saviour mentioned festers in her, and she can hardly wait to get Aware alone to press him for the truth. She soon finds a dictionary to look up the characters she saw in her vision.

"Are you okay, Bangou?" Aware asks, noticing her discomfort.

"Oh, fine," she says, biting her lower lip as she returns the book to the desk.

Eternity is set in her eyes, and it is probably obvious to Aware. The two characters that ended her dream mean "Eternity" and are pronounced "Bangou".

Next: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 39]]: Old Wings

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Rise of Glie Chapter 37

2011-01-17T18:50:40Z

Fhd remix: Initial upload and check

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Previous: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 36]]: Kagami's choice

== FHD Remix: The Rise of Glie ==

Chapter 37: One Box

"So where's the rest of it?" the Toga signs.

"This is the complete unit," Washi responds, "It's probably a little larger than it will be once in production, but it should operate according to your specifications. Please try it out and see if has any bugs, bring it back next week with your report."

The Toga lifts up the metre-square box that's about thirty centimetres deep to feel its weight. It is quite bulky, and Washi can't read his expression. Neither can Bangou, sitting quietly on the cart, watching the exchange. Finally, he sets it back down and looks at it sitting on the cart, "Are you sure you brought the whole thing?"

"Absolutely," Washi answers, "I think the battery has enough charge for a quick demonstration," he pops the lid.

His fingers come to rest on a ten key keyboard, a key for each finger and thumb. He presses several keys at once, following the instructions Bangou gave him to ask the machine for the first four powers of the first twenty prime numbers. The output shows on a series of lights in the Toganese glyph system.

The Toga stares at it.

"This is the cable jack for your printing translation unit," Washi taps on a large round port on the side of the box with a twenty hole socket.

"The printing translation unit is..." the Toga signs with trembling fingers. Finally, he says, "Let me show you the one that's running our wiring machine, come. Ashfeather Number can come too."

She turns off the computer and waits for the Communicator to wave before dismounting the cart and pacing over.

The Toga beckons them into the tent, which wrapped around is a rather well constructed hut made of scaffolding frames and bundled in plastic and drywall, a material almost alien within the wall of Glie.

Pointing to each as he explains his machine, "This of course, is the wiring machine itself. This is the computer's logic core," he gestures to two freestanding crates, each about a metre square and a metre and a half tall, "the memory unit ... drive unit here ... power filter to the generator outside, and this snake ... leads to the two units making up the translator unit in the other tent. The printer sits on top of one of them."

"Seven of those?" Bangou waves breathlessly.

Washi grasps her hand, then turns to the Toga and asks, "Are they all this big?"

"Oh," the Toga signs casually, "You knew that already. Would I be able to look inside?"

Back at the cart, Bangou and Washi open the computer, showing the innards of the machine.

"Integration already," the Toga answers instantly, "''Most'' impressive. Congratulations, young haibane, explain it, please."

Bangou is hesitant.

"You may speak to him," Washi explains with the sign language, "he's given you permission."

"Okay," she signs, then points, "The logic has been reduced to this module here, with nine dice inside it, a total of five hundred transistors, roughly. This is the register memory, made from semiconductor latches, sixty-four bytes. This is the core module you provided us, two thousand forty eight bytes of main memory," it utterly dominates the machine's case. "The battery provided by Ashfeather Buzz, and finally, the input-output translator module here, with eight dice. We're using the metal gate transistor, up to sixty-four integrated on a die, with a minimum channel length of fifty microns. The entire unit uses about seven thousand transistors on a hundred twenty dice."

The Toga claps. A crow caws three times. Suddenly another Toga, which of the four quietly working inside the tent, she can't tell, emerges.

"Kill it," the Toga briskly signs.

The generator soon stops, and the Toga asks Bangou directly, "How much current?"

"Uh," Bangou communicates at first by picking at a cuticle, "Ten amps. Oh, at one hundred ten volts alternating sine. We didn't bother with the two-oh-eight."

"That's it?" the Toga signs.

Bangou extends her right wing.

Apparently, it takes the Toga a moment to remember that her wings really do move, unlike Washi's, "Let's go try it."

Bangou carries her computer inside, where the Toga taps on his mainframe's memory unit, plugs in another module, lifts the lid, plugs in the much smaller generator just outside the back of the tent, and starts it up. He codes in several instructions, the wiring machine comes back to life, automatically soldering leads onto the now-obsolete junction transistors.

Suddenly it stops, launching one of the tiny crystals at Washi in the process. It bounces off his mask right next to the central hole. He doesn't seem the slightest bit annoyed, but his expression is completely unreadable, as usual.

"We haven't quite got all the bugs worked out yet," Bangou confesses, "This is the first prototype ... Well, fourth if you count all the modules we didn't put into a box like this."

"No big deal," the Toga responds, "The machine did that all the time while we were perfecting the program for the big one, and maybe I screwed it up."

"I doubt it," Bangou says, "My memory chip still suffers from a bit fade bug in the position ... Oh, it doesn't matter. It only affects two registers, so if you avoid putting instructions in the memory addresses," she rattles off several numbers, "it'll work well enough that you can tell us about any bugs that we don't know about."

"How many bugs do you know about?" the Toga asks.

"A hundred seventeen," Bangou says, "We've fixed all but two in this unit. The other is something in the division instruction we only found this morning. Because other instructions use the same bunch of transistors in the logic unit, there might be more caused by the same defect. We should have it fixed with the next prototype. Tell us what you find out over the course of the week."

"Will do," the Toga answers, "See you next week, Ashfeather Number. If I had a name, I'd tell you."

He offers his hand for her to shake. She's so timid that it takes almost two minutes to complete the old human gesture.

"I'm two-long, two-short," he says, "as the crows call me."

"How'd it go?" Fushoku asks excitedly as Bangou returns to the table at Old Home, a warm supper of goat and yakisoba waiting for her.

Bangou slumps into her seat at the table, "How big do you think that computer would be if we built it out of your old junction transistors?"

"Oh?" Fushoku shakes his head, "That's ''impossible.'' Seven thousand transistors would be a ''nightmare'' to wire, and it would be at least the size of that fridge. Why?"

"Because they actually built it," Bangou almost cries, "Complete with their old cruddy logic. Just over thirty five thousand each. Four machines, each the size of ''seven'' fridges."

"You're kidding," Fushoku gasps.

"No," she says, "They showed me the one that runs their machine for attaching leads to those transistors. It works just like ours. I couldn't believe it, either."

"Oh, crud," Fushoku groans, leaning back in his chair, "That means they'll easily see every little glitch in ours and nitpick it to smithereens."

"And what's so bad about ''that?''" Bangou laughs, "It means that we'll get our machine to perfection much faster than we ever hoped. Just think. Their computer needs a whole generator like the one that runs Jabez' shop and seven carts to get around. Instead, they get something they can lift with two hands complete with its own ''battery!''"

"They actually ''want'' it?" Fushoku asks.

"Washi told me," Aware chimes in, "that they are willing to pay the price of forty thousand transistors for each of those machines, and they were ''expecting'' that we were going to make the first ones out of single transistors, much as theirs, only easier on power. What we showed them this morning was quite a surprise," he laughs, "Washi had to explain to them what you meant by <<dice>>, Bangou. Fushoku, this is a miracle to them. They thought it would be over twenty years before we'd have our first microchips ready. It even surprises me what half a dozen haibane can do in just six ... even ''before'' you came along," he gets quiet with gratitude at his own second life, "even though I'm one of them."

"Does their version ''really'' work?" Fushoku asks, "putting wires on our old transistors?"

"Oh, of ''course,''" Bangou snaps, "They were already experiencing our bugs before I even left. Why do you ask?"

"Oh, it's a pet project of mine," Fushoku says just before stuffing his mouth with noodles.

"Hmm?" Bangou prompts as he swallows.

"You remember how I've been bellyaching about how much of a pain it was to cut masks?" Fushoku asks.

"Yeah, and I think you screwed up one of my register latches," she quietly says as she sips her tea.

"How I wanted a ''computer'' to do it for me?" he goes on, "So I've been kinda puttering around with their contract, which is like ''freakin' huge'' and now that I know they have one of those things ''working'' out at the camp, I was thinking..." he trails off.

"They could make masks for us?" Bangou prompts. Both wordlessly turn to the elder haibane.

"Oh," Aware almost laughs, "I'm sure they'd rather help you make more of your magic boxes than the mighty monsters of their own design. You have to remember, they're in this for the money."

"Oh, they care about ''more'' than that," Bangou says, "I can tell."

"But I'll need your help with the programming," Fushoku humbly intones.

Bangou sighs deeply, then says, "The Toga know how to run these things better than I do. Aware, can we have Janice deck me out in a Washi uniform? Maybe I can take some lessons."

"We can't hide the wings," Aware groans.

"Please?" she prompts with widened eyes.

Aware says quietly, "No promises, but I'll see what I can do."

Next: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 38]]: Eternity

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Rise of Glie Chapter 36

2011-01-17T18:49:57Z

Fhd remix: Initial upload and check

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Previous: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 35]]: Kagami's Terror

== FHD Remix: The Rise of Glie ==

Chapter 36: Kagami's Choice

"Oh, no," Kagami sobs as Bangou lets her down, "How come ''he'' can fly and I can't?"

"The Saviour gave him a chance to redeem himself," Washi says, "and so he has. Fushoku, your delta radiation report; he brought it over the wall, mostly by himself, a couple strips at a time. All the engines we have in town, he told the Toga where to find them. By warning of enemy attacks, he's saved hundreds of Toga lives. This is all top secret, by the way. Not a breath of it may leave this garden. You are forbidden to discuss it, even amongst yourselves."

"Sir, did he really do all that?" Kagami asks.

"Yes, little sister, he did," the Communicator says softly, "and now he seeks your forgiveness, not for his own sake but for yours. You can't heal, and you can't Fly ... until you forgive him for what he has done to you."

Kagami slowly walks up to the desk. The crow waits patiently. She extends her hand and holds it next to the crow. He presses into it, facing away. Soon both her trembling hands surround him. He cocks his head curiously.

"I could ... kill him," Kagami squeaks.

"You may," the Communicator says, "and he won't mind. Glie will not punish you, and neither will I, but ... If you do, your Day of Flight will never come, and your wings will fall off by the end of the month. That's only for starters."

A finger touches the top of the crow's head, and Kagami's eyes fill with tears.

"Oh," she sobs, "I-" she struggles. "Daddy, I forgive you," she utters at last.

She hears a metalic clank and ringing, and turns to see. The light of her halo was restored so quickly that Aware was startled and dropped it.

Stopping Aware, Washi stoops and picks it up with the tongs. As the black recedes from her feathers, Washi holds it over her head. She bows slightly, and in moments it is reattached. Then it flickers.

"Washi, what's wrong?" Aware asks with alarm.

"Nothing," the Communicator replies happily. He stoops and looks into Kagami's eyes, "Little sister, you will lose it again, but you will not die. You only die once, thanks to the blood of the Saviour."

"You mean I get to Fly?" she squeaks.

"Yes," Washi says, "You know from where, don't you?"

"The man in my dreams whispers," she says, "the one who won't let me Fly. He's telling me to go to a place..."

"That used to be called Defense Tower Five," Washi says softly, "I know. I had my chance. Now go, your place is no longer in Glie."

She slowly walks away from the desk towards Bangou, who's confused at the look on her face. Suddenly Kagami jumps on her, "I'll miss you!" she bawls.

"I'm sure we'll meet again, little sister," Bangou replies, struggling for breath. Grasping the younger's head softly, she whispers, "I'll miss you too, Kagami-san," and kisses her on the cheek.

Kagami releases her and walks up to Aware and Fushoku and says, "Hi, sorry for being all chicken, you guys."

"Oh, my ''pleasure,''" Bahitsu says, "I never want to hear the word ''panties'' again."

Kagami tucks her head down and blushes, "Oh, ''sure,''" she teases.

"I guess her sense of humor's grown up with the rest of her," Aware says at a purple Bahitsu, "I'd be careful."

"Give this to Crystal, for me," she says, pulling a white bell nut from her pocket. He hands it to Bangou, "Now I must be going."

"We'll go with you to the road," Aware says, "from there, I don't know where you're going, but I know there's only one way out of here."

"Two if you don't mind getting ''really'' wet," Fushoku giggles.

Kagami gathers the crow up and puts him on her shoulder, then climbs the path under her own power. As predicted, they part at the end of the road, with the haibane taking Stanley's truck along it west, while Kagami walks north into the grass.

That night, a brilliant beam of light splits the sky. Tears of happiness, as well as loss, flow from Glie-jin eyes.

The next morning, Fushoku and Haoto yack at each other about things that matter less than things that don't. They're discussing the third wind turbine...

"Where's Bangou?" Bahitsu suddenly blurts out, "It's not like her to sleep in on one of ''your'' breakfasts," he nods to Fushoku.

They hear her attenuated voice screaming, "Tahei, Tahei!!" along with the sounds of her possibly falling down the stairs from the second floor. She bursts into the kitchen panting.

"What's up?" Haoto asks, as though what's on her mind can't be any larger than a dandilion seed.

"''Two'' of them!" she squeals, "in Room 203. Come see, come see!" she grabs his hands and starts dragging him and his chair towards the door.

"Whoa, wait a minute," Fushoku tries to moderate, "Two ''what?''"

"''Cocoons!''" she bellows like it should be as obvious as the nose on her face, "They're tiny, like walnuts, must have just landed. Come see, come see!"

"We'll have to tell Washi," Aware says as he gets up to follow.

Bahitsu, taking up the rear as unscrews something from his right ear, grumbles, "I bet he knows already, I can hear <<Tahei>> bouncing off the wall."

The other haibane take the morning off to come celebrate, but then it's back to work.

A couple of adobe houses begin to rise next to the Wire Factory, while inside, Fushoku and Bangou bunny up with their two apprentices, Hane (羽, Feather) and Teisei (低声, Whisper)

"This is what?, Batch Three?" Fushoku asks.

"Four," Hane says, gathering up her ruddy blonde hair into a less attractive bun to hide under her bunny hood, "I guess you're getting used to these yields."

"Hardly," Fushoku laughs, "but still, twenty-five percent is better than none at all.

"I'm glad we're going to get some more help," Teisei says, "if those new feathers come out big enough. I miss Kagami, I think she was just starting to get used to me." Teisei is a short, relatively mature teenaged boy with short and ''really'' blonde hair as bright as adobe bricks.

"We don't know they're here for that," Aware cautions, "Are you sure they're ready for final assembly?"

"Not quite," Bangou says, "What I am sure of is that we have enough we can start on the box."

"How many?" Aware asks as he ties up his mask.

"Oh, probably about twenty thousand before we move up to the next generation," Fushoku says, "We'll be making improvements along the way obviously ... cheaper ... longer-lasting-"

"No, I mean, how many boxes per computer?" Aware clarifies.

"Just one," Bangou notes casually, "but it's entirely too large for just thirty-seven instructions at a single megahertz and a single pipe that needs twelve cycles to add," she almost grumbles. "I can't wait until Fushoku gets his end down to ten microns, then we can actually ''do'' something with these chips."

"Just the one?" Aware asks, almost breathlessly.

"Yeah," Fushoku says as they head into the working area, "and Haoto's best battery lasts only two hours. I hope the Toga actually buy enough that we can make it to the next generation."

"Battery?" Aware asks curiously.

"Uh, yeah," Bangou says, "The Toga specified a rather loose power tolerance, so we need quite a bit of filtration in the supply to get the power the chips can use. They also specified a run through a three second outage, along with a generator start command. We might as well put enough in for an hour or two, eh?"

"It's meeting their specification, right?" Aware asks.

"Oh, yes," Fushoku says, "I mean, Bangou's brilliant-"

"Not exactly..." she blushfully whispers, nearly unnoticed in Fushoku's ongoing lesson.

"...she's found ways to reduce the transistor count to one-fifth of what their logic design wants, and the logic design isn't binding-"

"So, it'll be one fifth the size of their design?" Aware asks.

"Oh, no," Bangou shakes her head, "It's still going to be bigger, 'cus the power management is more complex. I'd say about a third."

"They did say that if we can choose between faster and smaller, that we should go smaller," Fushoku says, "I hope this is small enough," he guides Aware to his workbench.

"Oh," Aware sits down with wide eyes.

Bangou guides him through the module layout and schedule, shows him the schematics and harness diagrams, and the battery.

"Do you think they'll like it?" she asks at last.

"Come on Tuesday," Aware quietly suggests, then puts up a finger, "but stay on the cart and keep your hands shut."

"Okay," she says gratefully.

Next: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 37]]: One Box

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Rise of Glie Chapter 35

2011-01-17T18:49:16Z

Fhd remix: Initial upload and check

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Previous: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 34]]: Kagami's Bird

== FHD Remix: The Rise of Glie ==

Chapter 35: Kagami's Terror

"Can that really happen?" Aware asks, "I- ... I mean, I thought that only happened in stories. Can one actually-"

"Yes," Shiden says, "There are even a couple cases within this wall from before the battle. It was a capital crime."

"That happened to Kagami?" Aware gasps.

"Yes," Shiden sobs, "It wasn't just a ''part'' of her old life, it ''was'' her old life. The Saviour brought her here to show her what her life was supposed to be like, and so that she could forgive..."

"Forgive?" Aware asks.

"...her father."

"Three years ago," Aware says, "Crystal and Kagami came to me wondering about a crow that had fallen off Old Home's stone's fence. Was that when you found out your little girl was in Glie?"

The crow nods, his right wing already extended.

"Why are you here as a crow?" Aware asks grimly, "You deserve to burn in hell."

"The Saviour died for people such as him, too," Shiden says, "The monster that hurt Kagami is dead. This crow is a new person, born again because of the Saviour's blood. Confess your sins one to another, so that you may be healed. Thank you for revealing yourself to us, little one. And once again, thanks for all the other wonderful things you have done for us."

This does little to comfort the crow, but he manages to lift his bill from the desk and nod.

"Are you willing to let Kagami confront you?" Aware asks, "It might make it easier for her to make her forgiveness."

The crow lifts his already extended right wing.

"Summon her," Shiden orders..

After Aware leaves, Shiden's almost-never-seen pet cat jumps up onto the desk with a fresh kill, a small rat. She drops it on his desk and purrs at Shiden. Shiden swats the black spot on her rump, "Hey, I told you not to bring me those."

The crow thinks back. The cat is six years, four months, and thirteen days old. He raised her after her mother died on the sixth day, the only one of her litter to survive. He is amazed to see her here. She nudges the dead rat towards him with a paw.

"Oh, it's for him?" Shiden says, "How do you know that's what crows like."

The cat smiles at him like, "Oh, ''please!'' All we cats know," and then lounges on the desk like she's queen of the Temple. [Yes, cats smile, you just need to know what to look for.]

The crow appears grateful and starts eating. He realizes that this cat is probably just as dumb as any other cat, and almost certainly does not recognize her surrogate father. Having imprinted on a crow as a kitten, she must believe them to be of her own kind, and probably babies all.

"The Toga think she was raised by crows," Shiden explains, "They said they brought her here because they were scared she might hurt them by trying to play, and that her hunting instincts weren't very good."

She was raised by just one crow, and her hunting instincts suck because she can't fly, and crows can't run. It was the best I could do, thinks the crow.

"It's really funny to watch her try to give you guys hunting lessons," Shiden laughs.

--------

At Wire Factory that day, Bangou stares intently at a set of tiny lights. They light up in a certain sequence, she frowns, then looks at her chart, and frowns again.

"Still pretty good, considering its from our first batch, no?" Fushoku says.

"Yes, it is," answers Bangou gratefully, "but still, we make nothing from the effort until these things are actually working."

"That's what you think," Fushoku teases, "Don't you feel happy at the progress made? I'd say that's more than nothing."

"You know what I mean," she grumbles.

Bahitsu arrives, all bunnied up, but not very well, as though he did so in a flat rush.

"Bahitsu," Fushoku almost laughs, straightening out his filter mask for him, "Your work day's over, and you don't work here anyway."

"It's Kagami," Bahitsu explains, "Washi's summoned her to the Temple and she's scared out of her wits. She refuses to leave her room until Bangou's there," he turns to her with a nod and says politely, "Ma'am" with one eye half closed.

Bangou and Fushoku make haste to wrap up and go home, since no one has ever heard of Bahitsu saying "ma'am" unless it was a mortal situation.

Less than twenty minutes later, Bangou arrives at the door of Kagami's room.

No sound comes from inside.

"Kagami, it's Bangou," she says, "Bahitsu came to get me. I'm coming in."

"Aware says he's waiting for me," Kagami sobs, "He's waiting for me at the Temple. Oh, God!" She's petrified.

"You've seen him before," Bangou assures her, "Washi's not ''that'' scary."

"The ''monster,''" she hisses, "The monster in my dreams that does such horrible things to me. From behind he looks at me in the mirror," she sobs, "He's waiting for me at the Temple!"

"All I said was, <<It's time to forgive your monster.>>" Aware explains from the door.

"He's ''there,'' isn't he!?" Kagami screams at the top of her lungs. Far from the childish squeal she hatched with, Kagami is now physically about thirteen, having grown a bit faster than expected in her five years in Glie.

Aware produces no answer to her question.

"We're going with you," Bangou says, "I won't let anyone hurt you, not even the Communicator, understand?"

Kagami shakes her head hard, her halo flies about, goes dark and bounces off the wall. Loose from her head, it rolls to Aware's feet. He stoops, picks it up, and shakes it. It doesn't have any light in it at all.

Bangou is alarmed at the progression of the blackness in her feathers, "Kagami, we have to go ''now!''"

"It may already be too late," Aware says grimly.

"I don't care!" Bangou screams, "We're ''going!''" She picks the bawling adolescent from her futon mattress on the floor and carries her out.

"Stanley, we need your truck," Bahitsu says to the mayor, and drops the tailgate before Stanley has a chance to speak.

"What's wrong?" he asks almost breathlessly.

"Please, sir," Aware presents the grey halo, "Kagami's halo has fallen off, it's an emergency."

Stanley nods his approval, "Drive safely, and don't even ''think'' about taking it past the grassline."

Bahitsu brakes a moment late and the front wheels stop a few inches into the grass. Fushoku jumps out first and lowers the tailgate.

Bangou drops Kagami on Fushoku's back, "Just for the climb," she says before jumping out.

"I don't wanna go, I don't wanna go," Kagami bawls.

"You are going to lose your wings if we don't hurry," Aware explains, "Your halo sustains them, and it will hurt ''much'' worse than when they came out."

Bangou shoots him a "How they heck do you know ''that?''" look. Turning back to Kagami, she says, "No one's going to hurt you, I promise."

They proceed quickly with only Kagami uttering any sound, her cries advertising their position at all moments as they climb and descend the path to the Temple's front door. She is again in Bangou's arms as they rush through the gates, not even pausing for their bells.

The Communicator waves off the temple guards following the hasty procession as it approaches his desk, the crow still standing there next to him.

"I don't want to see him," Kagami sobs.

"You've seen him once already, sister," The Communicator intones, "and he was just as scared of you then as you are now. You don't remember, do you?"

Kagami's eyes open. Bangou lets her down and she looks around, "He's ''not'' here?" she asks cautiously.

"Yes, he is here," Washi says softly, "but I must have you all know that it is ''top'' secret that the crows are sentient beings, resurrected into our world just like us haibane, but with their memories completely intact." He gestures to the crow on his desk, "Kagami, this is the father from your old life. The one who raped you."

Next: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 36]]: Kagami's Choice

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Rise of Glie Chapter 33

2011-01-17T18:48:28Z

Fhd remix: Initial upload and check

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Previous: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 32]]: Sixty Thousand Transistors

== FHD Remix: The Rise of Glie ==

Chapter 33: Take Your Best Guess

Jabez pushes the blade carriage on the saw, keeping a careful eye on the disk he slices. As he pulls back the blade, it moves almost imperceptably for the next slice. The white coveralls he is wearing has the gloves for the wings tucked inside the back of the suit, since he doesn't have wings.

"Thanks for your help," Fushoku says, "The rest of us have decided to combine lunch and afternoon break to save a cleaning cycle. It'll start an hour later. Is that alright with you?"

"Well," Jabez carefully takes another slice of the transistor crystal, then says, "I'm getting kinda hungry, but considering what these things bring in and how many we need to make, yeah, I'm fine with it."

"Jabez," Fushoku whispers, "Our yield jumped from 25% to 60% since you started working the saw. Do you have any idea why?"

"I guess I'm just good at it," Jabez whispers back playfully.

Fushoku follows the tilt of his head and sees another saw blade resting against the hutch of the bench. He then looks at the blade on the saw and realizes that Jabez has installed his own, brand-new diamond saw blade, absent of the microscopic wood dust they usually come with. "Thank you," he says, "Remember your pen at lunch; I want to keep it."

Stone Mill has been retrofitted with a clean room, and the other workers, both human and haibane, have interrupted their work on the third windmill generator, cleaned out Kenny's entire inventory of plastic sheeting, and wrapped up everything to make this half of Stone Mill cleaner than it has ever been. The sheeting separating the transistor half of Stone Mill from the idle generator half (and the little lunch room) billows with a filtered blower blowing clean air into it. It is Jose's blower, with Haoto's electrostatic filters on both the intake and exhaust.

Fushoku stayed up late the night before to run a batch of metal gate transistors, 435 of which fit on a wafer. Instead of just one, ninety-three worked, and he cheered ... but the thought that so many more of the tiny devices must function to make a microchip out of them was sobering. Also, he can't sell them to the Toga like this, since they don't meet the junction transistor specification.

That morning, Bangou rides with Washi as they drive the cart along the southern path. Kenny leads his "paving crew" somewhat to the north, tiling a shorter route over the mud flats, which will also become Glie's new Main Street once the city moves back towards the geographic centre of the walled area.

As they approach, a crow sitting in a potted tree next to the tent flying the small grey triangular flag from its centerpost caws four times as though to announce the cart's approach. As though answering it, a Toga emerges from the tent a few seconds later.

When they get there, Washi sells the four batches that they are carrying to the camp, along with four blocks of red colored high density polyethylene plastic. The Toga have their own metal cans and lead wires. Bangou is surprised to realize that, from her dreams alone, she is fluent in the sign language that they use.

"We have a gift for your Ashfeather Number, if you have one," the Toga signs. He presents a small wooden box.

"We do," the Communicator signs, "I'm not sure how you find out, but I'll make sure she-"

He suddenly feels a bump on his shoulder. The crow shifts its weight nervously on its branch in the little tree.

"I am Ashfeather Number," she signs from the Communicator's side, having silently disembarked from the cart when the conversation turned to her. She bows graciously, then signs, "Thank you very much."

The Toga seems rather taken aback, perhaps even alarmed. The Communicator is quite stiff. Bangou can hear his wings creaking.

Washi rushes Bangou back to the cart. "Bangou, you have to realize there are ''reasons'' we have rules," he growls.

"I'm sorry," she squeaks.

"Only official Communicators are allowed to speak to the Toga," he clarifies, "You know that. But I guess, since you've learned their language ''somehow,'' I should explain why."

He starts up the cart as he begins, "The Toga have ingrained in their culture privacy and anonymity. They are more comfortable ''not'' knowing the individual identities of the people they are dealing with."

"Sounds like they have trouble trusting their trading partners," she observes.

"Yeah, well I can't blame them," the Communicator huffs.

Bangou thinks that might be referring to her, but that thought immediately becomes uncomfortable. "Who do you mean?" she begins to ask, and then quickly retreats, "Never mind."

"I think you understand more than you let on," Washi says, "Do you know what the wall is for?"

"Not exactly," she says.

"Take your best guess," Washi instructs.

"Protection?" she asks.

"Good answer," the Communicator intones, "Don't you think the Toga would like to protect their best friends from that enemy?"

"We are their best friends?" Bangou asks.

"Absolutely," Washi affirms, "Don't you also think, that living outside the wall..."

"Mostly," she fills in.

"Mostly," Washi confirms, "that they too would need protection from whatever we need protection from?"

"Oh, that's silly," she says, "If they can't trust whoever's outside, how do they conduct..." her speech slows to an eerie crawl, "...trade?"

"I think that settles the reason about official Communicators," he says, "So what did they give you?"

"Oh?" she realizes she's still holding the wooden box. Inside, wrapped in a silvered plastic, are dozens of tiny metal cans, each with three wires sticking out of them at one end, through a red plastic plug. Two hundred. She closes the box.

"How did you learn their language?" Washi asks.

"The Saviour teaches me in my dreams," she says softly, near tears, "as a ''computer'' language."

"Interesting," Washi says, "Anyway, keep up the good work, and give my regards to Stone Mill."

She smiles, and waves goodbye in Toganese.

"You're keeping them really busy," Washi signs in Toganese as she departs the cart at the camp.

"So, what's it like over there?" Fushoku asks.

"I don't know," Bangou says, "I spoke out of turn and blew it."

"Oh, you know the Toga don't speak," Fushoku says, "Why bother trying?"

"It's a bit worse than that," she says, then signs in Toganese.

"Ashfeather Number," he tries to work out, "very much?"

"I am Ashfeather Number," she says with a blush, "Thank you very much."

"For what?" he asks.

She opens the box and wrapper and shows him.

"Wow," he gasps.

"That's quite a cry from the campfire kiln four years ago," Aware says.

Next: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 34]]: Kagami's Bird

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Rise of Glie Chapter 34

2011-01-17T18:46:41Z

Fhd remix: Initial upload and check

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Previous: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 33]]: Take Your Best Guess

== FHD Remix: The Rise of Glie ==

Chapter 34: Kagami's Bird

"Crystal," she says to the human lady, who has just married Tony, "Bangou told me to be ready for this, but I only have enough for today."

"Enough for what?" Crystal asks as she washes another dish in Old Home's kitchen. Crystal, Tony, Bangou and Kagami occupy a section of the west wing, away from the boys quartered in the east wing. They are still partied out from Kagami's fourth birthday.

Kagami tugs on Crystal's sleeve. Their height difference has narrowed, but Crystal is still quite a bit taller. Kagami stands on her tiptoes to whisper in Crystal's ear.

"Oh, gosh," Crystal answers, blushing, "Of course, I can find some. She rushes to the closet and starts rummaging, "That explains yesterday's cramps."

"There's something else," she says.

"What is it?" Crystal asks.

"That thing that you and Tony do at night," she starts, "I know it's something haibane can't do, but the dreams still bother. I was wondering," she asks quietly, "does it hurt?"

"That ''thing'' most haibane don't even know of, you mean?" Crystal says. She reflects softly, "There is no way to get closer to somebody, and nothing that will ever get you as close. It doesn't hurt at all, and every time, Tony and I get even closer."

Tony approaches from the other room, having just folded the laundry, "What's she asking about, sweetie?"

"Sex," Crystal breathes bluntly before brushing his cheek with her fingers.

"Letting her in on our little secret?" he asks curiously.

"Nothing specific," she responds, "Haibane are born from cocoons with a past they can't remember. It's probably a part of that past." She turns to Kagami and asks, "That haibane can't ever do it brings you comfort, right?"

Kagami nods, nervous of Tony because of the way he touches his wife, who seems entirely comfortable with it.

Crystal turns to Tony and says, "I think she wants to talk about girl stuff."

"''Sure,''" he sighs playfully, "Anyway, I'll go let your mom wax me at chess again while we wait for Jose's go to bring in the corn. I'll let you know with that sharp whistle, then we can go do some ''real'' work." He gives her a smart whack on the shoulder as he departs, "Oh, Kagami, you got something on your feathers."

As the door closes, Kagami lets out a sigh of relief.

"What ''is'' that," Crystal asks as she notes the black spots near the tips of her distals.

"I don't know," Kagami says, "but in my dreams, the Saviour says I need to forgive him, or he won't let me Fly," she starts bawling, "I don't know what to do."

As Kagami collapses into Crystal's arms, the latter notes that, strangely, the black seems to spread along the barbs of her feathers. Odd, since feathers are not living tissue. "Has Tony done something to you, Kagami?"

"No," she cries, "I'm talking about the monster in my dreams. The Saviour says I need to forgive him, but I don't know what that means."

"What has he done to you?" Crystal asks.

"What Tony does to you," Kagami sobs, "Only I don't want it, and it hurts. He's so much bigger than I am, and he..." She can't explain any more.

After several minutes of letting her cry, Crystal asks, "Have you talked to the Communicator about this?"

"No," Kagami sobs, "he's a man. You know men are different from us, not just their private parts but how they think and feel. He wouldn't understand..."

--------

"Shiden," Aware addresses the Communicator personally, and at very close range, "You said Kagami was a <<tough case>> way back when she emerged, right? Do you know what's happening to her?"

"What do you know?" Washi responds.

"She says that her Day of Flight is near and that the Saviour will not let her Fly," Aware says desperately, "Her feathers are turning black just like yours did, her halo's flickering, these are things I can see. She won't talk to me about it, refuses to come to the Temple, but I've gotten the same story from both Crystal and Bangou."

The crow standing on the desk caws twice.

"What is happening to her?" Aware asks.

"The condition is called <<Sin-Bound>>," Washi explains, "In this case, to be forgiven, she must forgive others. Given the horrible things that happened to her in her old life, I can see why it is so hard for her."

"What happened to her, Shiden? Do you know?"

The crow caws twice again.

"Please, don't use my name," Washi begs, "There are things here that understand more than you think."

"Like him?" Aware indicates the crow on the desk.

The crow seems to shrink shamefully as Washi and Aware approach.

"What's the matter?" Aware asks, stooping to see the crow crouched on the desk.

"Don't bother," Washi says, "They're even more skittish than the Toga."

"Not this one for some reason," Aware says. "Do you want me to know you?"

The crow extends his right wing.

"Hi, I'm Aware," he says softly, "Do you have a name?"

The crow reaches over his wing into his feathers and pulls out a small piece of paper. He lets it down from his beak and taps it, then takes a step back.

"I ... don't understand the language," Aware says.

"That's because it's in English," Washi says, setting a loupe over it. "My God," he gasps, "That's you?"

The crow extends his right wing.

"You are the monster in little Kagami's dreams, the father of her old life?" Washi asks.

The crow extends his right wing, resting on the desk with his carina, leaning his head on his beak and closing his eyes. He looks almost like he's dying..

"What did you do?" Aware asks.

"The paper," Shiden says, having lifted his mask to wipe his tears, "is from an English dictionary. It is the definition of the word <<rape>>."

Next: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 35]]: Kagami's Terror

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Rise of Glie Chapter 32

2011-01-17T18:46:03Z

Fhd remix: Did I seriously post the wrong chapter and no one noticed for six years???

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Previous: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 31]]: They Don't Fall

== FHD Remix: The Rise of Glie ==

Chapter 32: Sixty Thousand Transistors

"Well," Bangou says as she pours over the thick pile of paper. She finds an early page in the ream sized stack and shoves most of it away, keeping a small sheaf, "The top page says the logic section is not binding on us. I know I can do better than that."

"How?" Fushoku asks.

"We design a logic section that can do the few basic operations we need very well," she explains, "and then we translate our more complex operations into sequences of the basic operations. Here's an example," she points in the first section that she has decided to keep. Flipping over one of the logic pages to a blank side, she copies the instruction, "Add the value at this address to the value at this address and store it in this address, all memory addresses." She continues, writing the steps under the old instruction, "We write a fast register onto the chip, and load the first value into it directly. Next, we take the second value and write it through the add logic into the register, so the register now holds the sum. Finally, we write the sum in the register to the third memory location."

"I just make the things," Fushoku groans.

"Yeah, and what did you call that stuff again?" she asks pointing at a plastic jar on the workbench.

"Hydrochloric acid," he answers, "does it matter?"

"That's the whole point, isn't it?" she says, "The Saviour brought us all to this world because no one person can do it all. Each of us has our part."

"Yes," Bahitsu says over their shoulders, "and I just learned mine was called thermodamnamics." he giggles.

"That's thermo''dy''namics, boy!" Teacher Shoukai bellows from across Stone Mill's machine hall.

Fushoku and Bangou glance at each other and say almost in unison, "Must be an English word."

They return to their work. Bangou is grinding away at the circuit layout for a memory chip, stooped over a ledger-sized paper with her drafting tools. "How wide are these things again?" she asks.

"Fifty micrometres," Fushoku answers.

"That's too big," she groans, "I can only get sixteen latches on a chip. We'll have to make them smaller as soon as we can."

"That ain't in the next hour," Fushoku grumbles, "They're giving me enough trouble as it is." He cranks a handle on his gangly looking machine, and an almost needle like scalpel blade cuts a tiny slit through an inticrately lined brass plate just twenty five millimetres in diameter, "I wish we had a computer to run this tedious thing ... Between the boredom and the cramps, it's a wonder I get any of them right."

"The problem is, that we won't know if any of them are right until we actually build them," she says, "I find glitches every time I go through a desk run."

"Will the one I'm making right now have any glitches you haven't noticed?" he asks.

"Probably," she says ruefully, "Sorry."

"Ah," Stanley says from behind them, "They said I could always find you here."

Fushoku turns, noticing Aware right behind the human mayor, "What's up?"

Stanley sits down, "The boys are telling me that some of the stuff you've asked for can't be done until," he takes a breath, "you actually start making these things so they can use them."

"Great," Fushoku grunts, "How are we going to build them?"

Stanley hands him a couple of pages, "This is the electrostatic, air cleanliness, and zone temperature we are building right now. It won't get any better than that. But..."

Fushoku looks at the pages in disappointment.

"Here's the idea," Stanley begins, "Of course, once you make a few early models that we can use to control equipment, we'll need to upgrade the equipment with them, and then you can make better chips."

"There's no way we can do that without a massive hit in downtime," Fushoku concludes, "I mean unless we built another-" he catches Stanley smiling.

"Another Wire Factory," Stanley concludes, "next to the one we're building right now. That way one will be running, and one will be upgrading. The steel structure won't go obsolete, of course, but your specification here," he points, "that screws with the brick and mortar, insulations, wiring, and even that funky stuff the Toga offered us called ''drywall.'' I don't see any other way."

Fushoku looks back at him in surprise, "You're willing to build us haibane ''another'' nest?"

Stanley nods.

"The Toga are scrambling for your polyethylene cased junction transistors," Aware says, "''far'' more than I've told you before. You could run that oven twenty-four-seven, have every single one work and they ''still'' wouldn't be sated. We're asking you to make enough so that we can buy the steel for the second-" he pauses, "''wing'' of Wire Factory."

Fushoku takes the purchase order from Aware's hand, glances at it, then hands it back. "Six weeks," he says flatly, "Bahitsu'll tell you the rest." He gets up from his bench, glancing at Bangou, he says, "It's more exciting than this, anyway."

"And maybe I'll find some of those glitches I haven't noticed," she says, "especially if you can save me a few leftovers," she nods to Aware's paperwork.

"Um ... make that ''seven'' weeks," Fushoku says to Aware and Stanley as they start to turn, "That'll include the replacement of every radio in Glie," he announces.

"Why?" Bangou asks.

"We can't have anything new," Fushoku says, "including transistors." Nodding to Stanley, he says, "Haoto and I will get started right away."

"Thanks," Stanley answers.

"Fushoku," Aware says, "That computer isn't ''yours,'' you can use new transistors in it. Besides, there are only about two hundred transistors in Glie, the Toga said that computer will need at least fifty thousand."

"We're not making it out of transistors," Fushoku explains, "We're going to be making it out of Wire Factory's microchips. We need the transistors to test circuit designs."

Aware glances at his purchase order as though it might have an error, then asks Fushoku, "Only seven weeks? Are you sure you read this thing right?"

"Sixty thousand transistors," Fushoku nods, "And I'd love it if you'd sign us for the overtime."

--------

"We've approved the order for sixty thousand transistors," the Communicator signs to the Toga visiting from outside the Wall. "Your shop here in Market Square, will it be doing assembly?"

"How long until the first batch of crystals for that order?" the Toga asks.

The Communicator pats the cart next to him, "The first two batches are right here. Our plant is trying for delivery in 360 batches, at an average of nine per working day."

"''Really?''" he signs with trembling hands, "What about the computer?"

"Nothing on that, yet," the Communicator replies, "They are working on a design we will build in our new factory, which is expected to go into operation in the spring."

"That is well," the Toga replies, "We can do the assembly of computers ourselves once we have the transistors, especially if you can really make nine thousand a week. If it's alright with you, I'll be the only one leaving this week, while the rest of us stay here to attach the leads to these batches and the rest as they come. You'll be needing more fuel, I assume."

The Communicator doesn't respond.

"The plastic we use to encase the transistors uses fuel, does it not?"

"Oops," the Communicator signs.

He turns about and calls, "Feather Aware, did you remember to tell Kenny about the transistors?"

"Yes," he runs up to Washi's side, "His estimate was slow in coming, and we barely-"

"We don't have time to translate it," the Communicator intones as he takes it, then signs to the Toga, "Can you read this at all?"

The Toga tucks it into his robe and replies, "Perfectly, I guess that will be all for today." He turns towards the gate to brief the other Toga.

The Communicator seems quite perplexed as the Toga animatedly discuss the paperwork they've just received.

"Bangou translated it for us," Aware explains, "Don't ask me where she picked it up; I haven't the faintest idea."

Next: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 33]]: Take Your Best Guess

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Rise of Glie Chapter 31

2011-01-17T18:44:09Z

Fhd remix: Initial upload and check

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Previous: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 30]]: The Toga's Computer Language

== FHD Remix: The Rise of Glie ==

Chapter 31: They Don't Fall

"It seems like a rather crude way to control an engine," the Toga remarks as he watches the idling beast inside the imported yellow crane.

"We gotta make 'em work somehow," the Communicator signs back, "Come, it's dangerous to be this close if you're not an expert at these things."

From further away, they watch as Stanley and his crew slink around the naked steel structure like cats. Only one of the nine humans wears a fall harness as the crane roars while it lifts the heavy steel beam imported by the Toga into the structure of the rising Wire Factory.

"Why the rope?" the Toga signs after pointing out the one human to the Communicator.

"He's the apprentice," the Communicator explains, "Most construction accidents happen in a new guy's first season, so Stanley tells me. If he were to fall, he'd be losing his career instead of his life."

"What about everyone else?" the Toga asks.

"They don't fall," the Communicator signs, "Much of the work will be done from railed scaffolding. There are only a few in Glie who are comfortable at such heights without it, and they are very good at it."

"Well," the Toga signs, "If you ever get an ashfeather named [[Rakka]], don't let him up there," he finishes with a playful shove.

It takes the Communicator a moment to translate the Toga's now fluent phonetic gestures into Japanese. "Funny," he answers. Under the mask, Shiden is glad that people who never use their voices or show their faces can find ways to laugh and smile. "How are Kenny's new packages working out?"

"Nicely," the Toga answers, "we can predict a transistor's failure by the color changes in the can's base. They're lasting over a year. Oh, and that's on the ground."

By using the wallblessing leaves most sensitive to delta radiation, along with the boat's mast, Shiden was able to determine that the delta radiation seeping through the wall only did so less than four metres from the ground outside, and by this method also mapped out a rough topography. Last fall, he found a twenty metre high mound outside the wall up in the north, prayed desperately, thinking it was probably the beginning of a siege ramp the enemy was going to use to get over the wall. After the Bell Nut Festival and the wall's spectacular bloom of light the first Saturday after the longest night of the year, the ground in that area was level again. Although the radiation levels were far higher than usual, he was glad they were coming from the proper ground level.

"We've made our first computer," the Toga announces, "It's as big as the crane, but it does work."

"What do you use it for?" the Communicator asks.

"Chita's payroll," the Toga answers, "That's all I can tell you."

"I know," the Communicator says, "that the Toga don't pay taxes."

"Correct," the Toga responds.

"What's hell about?" the Communicator asks, "Death and taxes?"

"Funny," the Toga finishes with a clap. "What's that about?" the Toga asks before pointing.

Past the western side of the construction site, the haibane are gathered, and a dark brown haired young lady gives a blonde haired boy a hard shove, and he trips over his feet and falls into the river. She was smiling, but now is concerned as the other haibane move to rescue him.

"Bahitsu!" she cries after him.

"Sumai!" he screams back, scrambling back onto the shore several metres downstream, "It snows outside already! And all I said was <<Happy Birthday>>" In moments he is running laps around his barbecue to warm up.

"Let's have a toast," Fushoku holds up his plate of pancakes, "to Bangou's first year in Glie."

"Oh, so ''that's'' how you teetotalers do it," Keepsie remarks, clinking the edge of her half-eaten plate against Aware's.

Aware looks upstream, along his own dyke. After a few moments of staring at the tranquil, if swift flowing waters as they hurry towards their exit to the east, not far south of the Great Gate, a smallish hand grips his left shoulder. He turns to see who it is.

"Thank you," Crystal says, "We couldn't have come this far without you, and without this," she nods to the river's edge.

Soon Aware is surrounded by adoring aqueduct fans.

"Thanks," Bangou says with a blush.

"You ... can't be remembering," Aware notes, "but I appreciate it."

"I don't like being the center of attention," Bangou clarifies.

"''Really?''" Bahitsu, now somewhat dried off, whacks the edge of her halo with a stick, setting it ringing and spinning. She starts chasing him all over the little picnic area.

Crystal suddenly realizes how, without romance, haibane are such easy friends.

"Come," Fushoku tugs on Crystal's sleeve, "let's eat together over here."

She plunks down on the picnic blanket beside him and suddenly announces, "I don't think I'll ever marry."

"Oh, now, please reconsider: unlike haibane," he smiles, "humans don't grow on trees."

"I don't see human couples getting along like this," she points at Bahitsu and Bangou who stand near the barbecue with fresh plates of pancakes. Bangou has apparently stumped Bahitsu in some argument about nothing, and they laugh at each other. "They get into ''real'' fights, and every little thing seems to matter so much more. The cooking, the dishes, the diapers, you name it."

"Diapers?" Fushoku asks in confusion.

"Uh, forget ''that'' part," Crystal giggles. She returns to her reflection, "It's like marriage makes things all serious."

"Oh, you know," Fushoku says quietly, "this is our day off. What we're doing at Stone Mill is ''quite'' serious," he points at the second wind turbine almost out of sight against the background of the even-more-distant grey wall, "All of Glie depends on us," he says soberly, "and yes, we do have our arguments."

"Then how do you do it?" the brown-haired teenager asks, "How can nine haibane shoulder the responsibility over eight hundred people while two parents can't weather the travails of two children, and often can't get along even when there are no children at all?"

"We make the promise," Fushoku starts, then adds, "and really you should see those vows they make in the white dress and the black tux like this." He turns to her and takes one of her shoulders in each of her hands, "No matter what issues we have before us, at the end of the day, we're still friends. Problems are problems, but friends are friends. It only gets serious when you start mixing the two."

Crystal tries to understand as Fushoku turns and looks up at the circling crows. "So if you don't do the dishes-" she starts.

"Oops, I gotta quit forgetting," he play acts, "thanks so much for covering for me."

"But I haven't-"

"Oh?" he jumps to his feet, "then I'll get right on 'em."

"Fushoku, I'm not being ''serious!''" she squeals as he stoops to pick up her empty plate.

"I know," he says, "Want some more pancakes?"

"Okay," she smiles, "we're still friends, right?"

As he returns to the barbecue stand, Bahitsu and Bangou end their playful bickering. Aware has started helping old George cut the coneys for lunch, the potatoes already simmering in the morning broth. Bahitsu somehow finds enough real estate on the griddle to pour six more pancakes.

"They've started on lunch for the boys," Fushoku explains the undersized pancakes as he returns.

"I see," she says.

"Where did you learn that stuff about friends and problems?" Crystal asks.

"Aware," he answers with ease, "He thinks you did too. He thinks that's what your toast was about earlier."

"Oh," she says, "That was about the river," she clarifies, "You know he designed this thing," she pats the ground.

"Yes," Fushoku says, "I know. But that isn't so important."

"Oh?" she prompts as Fushoku looks for some way of saying it.

"He taught us what leadership is really about," Fushoku answers at last, "By his example. That's how Stanley learned," he points up at Wire Factory's heavy gauge skeleton with the men crawling on it.

"How old is Aware?" Crystal asks.

"Ten years," Fushoku says.

"I mean ''before'' that," she says, "and I'm not talking ''physical'' years, like you're my age," she scoffs. "You come out of your cocoons with skills and histories, dreams of different contexts. Even little Kagami, I see in her eyes the pain of years, a hard life where she has ''suffered'' like Janice and Keepsie. Where do you haibane come from?"

"I don't know," Fushoku says, "Really. I don't even know where ''I'' come from. I could have been Noyce or Kilby, I just ''don't know.''"

"Who's that?" Crystal wonders quietly.

Fushoku tries very hard to remember the names that just came out of his mouth, but he can't. With a tear, he sobs, "I don't know."

[Author's note: The full names of the people Fushoku referred to are Robert Noyce and Jack Kilby. Google will tell you who they are. Also, I don't have any real people in mind for Fushoku's precursor, any resemblance is coincidence (not saying it can't happen; Scott Pagano depicted the construction of Haibi in a music video three years before I even began ''FHD Remix!'')]

Next: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 32]]: Sixty Thousand Transistors

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Rise of Glie Chapter 30

2011-01-17T18:42:49Z

Fhd remix: Wire Factory is in the East District...

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Previous: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 29]]: The Last Place on Earth, Period.

== FHD Remix: The Rise of Glie ==

Chapter 30: The Toga's Computer Language

She feels pretty goofy standing there in the middle of the garden with the sparrows staring at her like she's some sort of strange apparition. A lone crow stands atop the Temple wall like the dark sentinel in charge of the place. She got the little bells at the entrance and stands there with her hands clasped.

"You are Bangou, the new haibane who hatched four days ago in Old Home," the old voice flows softly from an unseen place in the bushes up ahead, "Is this correct?"

It takes some concentration for Bangou to ring only the bells on her right wing, but she succeeds.

"Please," Washi encourages as he emerges from a well concealed path without even touching a leaf, "exercise your wings now that you have recovered from their emergence. They should be as natural to use as your hands and feet."

Bangou stands there, not able to respond. She slowly swings back both wings over her back, too slowly to ring the bells, as he approaches.

"This," he offers the notebook he is holding, "is your haibane notebook. It guarantees your daily life."

She gracefully takes it with both hands and bows.

"You look as though you have an itching question," Washi observes, "You may speak."

"What is outside the wall, sir?" she asks politely.

"I cannot say," he sadly intones, "their secrets are theirs to keep."

"I don't mean who," Bangou adds hastily, "I mean ''what?'' Fushoku said that inside the wall is the only place that microchips can be made. I'd like to know why."

"Why would you like to know?" Washi asks.

"A man is teaching me things in my dreams," she says, "like how to design the patterns of Fushoku's metal gate transistors so that they can add numbers. He's taught me the binary numbers of computers. How's this?" She crosses her arms and signs the ten digits in Toganese, which uses four fingers in a binary mode to represent them. After a moment, she repeats her original question, "So, what's outside the wall that they can't do any of this?"

"Why don't you ask him?" the Communicator wonders.

"I can't," she says, "Whenever I try, my mind goes blank and my lips don't move. Strange thing about dreams, really."

"I don't want to say," Washi says, "but there is someone in town who knows. May I borrow your notebook for a moment?"

As she offers it back, she says, "I know. I asked him already."

Washi opens Bangou's notebook to the first page, and, it seems from out of nowhere, produces a black feather quill pen and carefully scratches the Haibane Renmei logo and a triangle. "Show Fushoku that, and he'll tell you."

--------

"This is neat," Fushoku says, "The Toganese language does seem specifically designed to be used in computers."

"What?" Bangou gasps, "What the heck is Toganese?"

"''That'' language," he points at her hands.

She tucks them timidly behind her back, "I ... I'm just using them to explain the instruction set the Saviour showed me."

"Which happens to be Toganese," he laughs. "You've been here what? Four weeks?"

"Five on Friday," she says.

"Almost five weeks," Fushoku says, "And you've ''never-''" he realizes something.

"What is it?" Bangou asks nervously.

"You've never gone to Market Square on a Tuesday, have you?" Fushoku asks.

"No," she answers, "I've never been to the Market Square at all."

"So you've probably never seen an actual Toga," Fushoku says.

"Umm... No," she answers slowly, after considering the Temple guards for a moment.

"Come with us next week," Fushoku suggests happily, "Get up an hour earlier the next few mornings, since we go bright and early before the gate cracks at gozen shiji."

"Seven a.m.?" she gasps.

"Yeah, we leave Old Home around six to get there on time," Fushoku explains, "We'll take the northern path so you can see what the delta radiation is doing to the trees right next to the wall. Tiny doses, not enough to be dangerous ... Not ''yet'' anyway."

After a pause, Bangou says, "Crystal likes you, doesn't she?"

"Oh, not ''these'' ones," he grumbles at his collection of stillborn transistors.

"I mean Janice's daughter," she smiles, "and you ''know'' it. I think she's jealous of me."

"Not too much, I hope," Fushoku says, "There is very little to be jealous of. I hope she remembers that."

"She has someone close to remind her," Bangou says, "She won't forget for long, I'm sure. Let's not worry about it."

"How do you know?" Fushoku says.

"It was her mother who explained it to me, remember?" she smiles, "<<Not in front of the boys.>>"

Fushoku chuckles. After a moment, he says, "Stanley's all excited about something the Toga taught us how to make. I don't know the details, but you cook up this powder, add water, sand and gravel in specific proportions for what you want to make, pour it, and in a few hours, it turns rock solid. They call it <<concrete>>." He smiles, but there is a sadness in his eyes, "It's quaint compared to the <<stoneforge>> Aware told me about, but it's what we have."

"Why did you tell me about that?" Bangou asks.

"Oh," Fushoku takes a moment to recall, "Stanley's using it on our new factory in the East District of the main city. It'll be the first building in Glie ... I mean, the new town they're building in the centre of the wall's area. The river runs right by it, and it's only about a kilometre away from the Market Square."

"Factory?" Bangou asks.

"''Wire'' Factory," Fushoku explains, "In it, we'll be mass producing microchips. They'll be our main export for-" he pauses.

Bangou bends close. Something is wrong, and she wonders if Fushoku pulled a muscle.

"...as long as they'll survive out there," he finishes, "No matter what we do, that delta radiation will destroy them. We'll just have to do them in such a way that makes them last as long as possible."

"I have ideas about that," Bangou says warmly, "Your report describes a crystal size <<moderating>> effect which means that that smaller crystals are less affected by delta radiation." She smiles, "So we make the tiniest chips we can, add surface oxidation, and bury them in a collagen based resin that will stop the lowest energy rays."

"Why collagen?" Fushoku asks.

"Delta radiation affects animals more than plants," Bangou explains, "You know that's why we import grain and export animals. Aware told me after I showed him that triangle the Communicator drew in my notebook."

"The highest energy rays only affect larger crystals," Fushoku realizes, "so if we keep the dice small and stop the low energy rays that affect them the most..." he smiles. "The Saviour sure knows how to pick 'em," and gives her shoulder a rough shake. He thinks for a moment, and then says, "I think we should try finding something that's easier to make, since collagen is rather hard to come by. I'm thinking high density polyethylene. Keepsie's figured that stuff out, and for ''some'' reason, the Toga don't like it."

"Why?" Bangou asks.

"Apparently, it slowly evaporates, becomes brittle, and falls apart," Fushoku explains.

"Well, ''that's'' no good," Bangou complains.

Fushoku turns to her and says, "That's what it sounds like, but it doesn't do that ''in Glie.'' How long do your think your collagen resins would last absorbing delta radiation?"

Bangou smiles, "Good point."

"Best thing is," Fushoku almost cheers as he turns back to his bench and reaches into his glove box to fiddle with his grown transistors, "we can ''test'' it with these."

Next: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 31]]: They Don't Fall

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Rise of Glie Chapter 29

2011-01-17T18:41:35Z

Fhd remix: Initial upload and check

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Previous: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 28]]: Lady Number

== FHD Remix: The Rise of Glie ==

Chapter 29: The Last Place On Earth, Period.

"So what's it like?" Fushoku asks, noting that Bangou prefers to move her head more towards the chopsticks than vice-versa; doubtless due to her sore wings. She sits backwards on the wicker chair as well.

"It's um ... I don't know actually," Bangou says, "I don't have much experience eating yet."

"Hi," a friendly new voice says from the doorway, "I'm Janice. You must be Bangou."

"Uh, yeah," the brown-haired young lady replies.

"I'm Glie's tailor," the human explains, "You're probably looking forward to these," she pats the bundle in her hands.

"Oh? What are they?" she asks.

"Not in front of the boys," Janice says warmly.

Fushoku and Bahitsu blush; Bahitsu more so.

"Once you're done eating, we can find a quiet spot to find your size," she sees the newborn haibane's bare back as she walks past. The roots of her wings are brown with scabs. "That looks painful," she remarks, "Your wings are okay I hope."

"That's normal for a new haibane," Fushoku says.

"Oh, I know," Janice says.

"She's trying to fly too soon," Bahitsu says, "I think she's jealous of Kagami buzzing around her head."

"Something like that, I guess," Bangou says timidly, "I'm still figuring them out."

"Maybe it's just because I'm seeing you a day earlier than I've seen other haibane," Janice explains, "After Kagami, Aware, the senior haibane, decided I better come over instead of having Bahitsu visit."

"Why's that?" Bangou asks innocently.

"Not in front of the boys, please," Bahitsu grunts, stuffing the last blob of rice in his mouth.

Fushoku gives him a playful shove, "Come on, let's go see how Haoto and the others are doing with that engine."

The boys disappear.

Once alone, Bangou asks, "I was wondering if there are other haibane women. All I've seen are the boys and little Kagami."

"No," Janice says, "You're the second haibane girl since the battle, before which the Haibane Renmei was large enough to look after their own. They were in charge of the old city, and our communities had grown apart before I was born, so I don't know very much about haibane, but still more than most other humans."

"So, you wouldn't know if I should be expecting, uh," Bangou tucks her chin in shyly, "...periods?"

"I have no idea," Janice confesses, "I know that haibane don't reproduce. My daughter wanted to marry Fushoku, that's how I found out." Janice seems distant, almost lost for a moment, "I ... miss my own, messy as they are. I know I live the same life as before, but it sure hasn't felt like it for the last six months. Forgive me if I seem a little ... off."

--------

"Alright, here goes!" Bahitsu announces as he turns the key. He presses the start button and the engine reluctantly squirms to life. After the sounds of internal combustion start singing from the heart of the beast, Haoto's big gizmo firmly fastened to the engine's end changes from starter motor to generator and the needles on Fushoku's gauges flip the other way, and the engine begins recharging the batteries that just started it.

Cheers erupt from all in attendance, including the engine's recipient, Jabez.

"Good work," Aware says with a friendly shove on the boy's shoulder.

"We'll give it an hour to charge this bank," Bahitsu explains, "Then we'll shut her down and decouple them for shipment."

Jabez had decided to "go electrical", using Toga-supplied electric tools. And so, he was returning the mechanical gizmos to the haibane. His old engine would become Stone Mill's new "rotator", and through a series of transmissions and clutches handcrafted by Haoto and Bahitsu, mechanically drive the big machines lining the walls of the main hall at the north end. This will, literally, take a load off the puny hydro turbine so it can run the kitchen and thereby save some of Glie's precious wood for construction, and for Fushoku's exotic semiconductor autoclaves.

"Look how far you've come in just two years," Aware gasps, "It's a great feeling to know that Glie is going uphill instead of down ... and so quickly."

"It's all your fault," Fushoku complains, "and for that, I present you-" he offers Aware a tiny little metal box the size of a lima bean, "the first ''working'' metal gate transistor."

"You seem a little disappointed," Aware notes.

"It was the only one in the first batch that worked," Fushoku grumbles, "when I need to get all but a very few to work on each wafer."

"Why is that?" Aware asks.

"Because," Haoto interjects, "when we start printing the wires on them to make a microchip with a hundred of them, if ''one'' of those hundred are messed up, the ''whole chip'' is wasted."

"Uh, what he said," Fushoku smiles.

"What do you think of Stanley's plans for Wire Factory?" Aware asks.

Fushoku gets nervous, "I've tried to think of a gentler way..." he scratches the back of his neck and scrunches his wings.

"Well?" Aware presses.

"They suck," Fushoku squeaks, "I mean, it's not that he's a bad architect at all, it's just that he needs to understand the needs of production better. We need to keep the air clean, and I mean ''fastidiously'' clean. Human bodies are messy enough as it is. Then you add-" he whacks Aware's arm with a wing, "''these'' to the mix."

"The glovebox isn't going to cut it?" Aware groans.

"The glovebox ''already'' isn't cutting it," Haoto joins the chorus, "Stone Mill is ''incapable'' of being clean enough to make these things."

"I heard that!" Bahitsu yells, pretending to be offended.

Everyone laughs, Aware joining in last. They already know that Stone Mill was designed primarily to build generators, transformers, and batteries, ''not'' microchips. Fushoku's little semiconductor lab is way out of place. Heck, with its whitewashed walls and air ducting (not for cleaning air, but for feeding his exotic furnaces with oxygen for burning wood), it even ''looks'' bizarre compared to the rest of rough-and-tumble Stone Mill.

"Still," Aware says ruefully, "it is already better than the very best the Toga can pull off outside."

--------

The following morning, as the haibane are packing the generator set up to ship it the rather difficult seven hundred metres to the Wood Mill, Bangou shows up not quite unannounced with Kagami serving as her jester.

"I want to see it ''go,''" Kagami squeals at the sight of the engine as they crack open Stone Mill's big door.

"You will," Haoto says. Kagami clings to Bangou's side like a static-charged dust bunny. "When it's ready to go at Jabez' shop in a couple of days," Haoto finishes. Noting the far taller haibane lady, he greets, "Oh," wiping his greasy hand on his coveralls before offering it, "You must be Bangou, I'm Haoto."

After a moment's reluctance, she takes it for a brief shake, "Is Fushoku around?"

Haoto points a thumb through the big door into Stone Mill.

Bangou soon finds the odd white lab, where she spies Fushoku at his soldering bench rapidly installing components into a circuit board, one after the other. "I had a strange dream last night," she says softly, "not a part of my past but he gave me a lesson on what you're doing."

"He?" Fushoku asks.

"I don't know his name," Bangou says, then gives a description.

"Must be the Saviour," Fushoku says with a smile, "I don't know his name either. What'd he teach you?"

Bangou notices that Fushoku has a wire clipped onto his sleeve, leading to a clamp on the sink's pipe. She crouches between him and the sink, grabs the pipe with her left hand, and then gently takes the circuit board with her right. "This is a pair of latch circuits," she notes, "probably for a shift register," then hands the board back to him.

"How did you know?" Fushoku asks, "and ... how did you know to ground yourself for static?"

"Static?" she ponders for a moment, then lets go of the sink pipe, "Oh, so that's what this is for. Oh, he ... the uh..."

"Saviour?" he offers.

"Yeah, the Saviour taught me how to design those last night," she says.

"I don't even know what it is," he confesses, "What I do know is that I put four transistors in these places," he points, "and if the transistors work right, the voltages here and here," he points at two pads for his voltmeter, "will stabilize at either five volts or zero, and should be easy to switch by either applying the battery or grounding it. That's what the Toga want my transistors to do."

"Each of those is a binary digit," she says, "The machines I programmed in my dreams had billions of them, and a whole module half as big as that card had nine billion."

"Something like this?" Fushoku offers her a small wrapped package.

She unfolds it to see the circuit board of the little radio, "Whoa!" she gasps. "No, this is much more advanced." She then looks at him in confusion, "If we can make these, why the heck are you puttering around with something that primitive?"

"Because inside our wall is the last place on Earth that they can be made," Fushoku says.

"What wall?" she asks.

Next: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 30]]: The Toga's Computer Language

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Rise of Glie Chapter 28

2011-01-17T18:36:38Z

Fhd remix: Fixed oops in series episode number

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Previous: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 27]]: Quest for the Blue Seed

== FHD Remix: The Rise of Glie ==

Chapter 28: Lady Number

"Hmm..." the young lady moans from the bed, her long, dark hair hidden under the blanket.

"Miss?" a young man's voice asks from the side of the bed.

"I feel like crap," she groans, "Am I in a hospital?"

"Sort of," the man answers, "It's not a hospital anymore, although in a few hours, you'll probably wish it were. What's the last thing you remember?" he asks.

"Breathing water," she says, "trying to bust out of the tank. It was almost like I was enclosed in some giant fruit. I can still taste it."

"Oh," he says, "I mean ''before'' that. I'm trying to find a name for you."

"Oh, don't be silly," she laughs, "It's ... uh ... dang."

"I'm sure we can come up with a better one than Shiimata," he laughs.

She smiles.

"It's normal for a new haibane to have this sense of having lived, but not remembering anything about it, not even her own name. Mine's Fushoku, by the way," he explains.

"Pleased to meet you," she sighs, "Did you just call me an ashfeather? Why is that?"

"Take a look. I'm one, too," he says.

The lady opens her brown eyes for the first time and sees a young teenager with little wings peering at her around his shoulders and a glowing halo hovering over his head. "That's nice," she says, "but I don't have wings or a halo, only a sore back and a fever."

"It's a start," he says with a chuckle, "Bahitsu's gone to get your halo, and your wings are growing, that's why your back hurts. If you hear a screaching little girl, that would be Kagami, who found your cocoon."

"Corrode, Horses, and Mirror?" she notes curiously, "Where do you come up with such names?"

"We are named for the dreams we had in the cocoon," he says, "That's why I'm curious about your dream."

"Numbers," she says, "My dream is about numbers ... lots and lots of numbers. I do lots of things with numbers, mostly getting unreliable machines to understand them, but my dream is all about the numbers, and-" She lifts her head and pulls her left hand out from under the pillow, looks at it momentarily, then plonks her head back down and squishes her brown eyes shut and groans. With a tear, she says, "Just call me Bangou." (番号 - Number)

"Hi, miss!" Kagami screams from the doorway, "Are you feeling okay?"

Bangou scrunches up her shoulders and eyes, but gracefully she answers, "You must be Kagami-san ... and no, I'm not feeling okay. Please keep it down."

Crystal, having lost the chase, notices just how much the young lady, apparently no older than Bahitsu, reminds her of her mother when last she had the flu, that she wonders if she's ever had kids. Impossible, she's far too young.

Kagami, in a more sensitive mood, "Ma'am, can you feel your wings yet?" she puts her hand on Bangou's back, "They should be-"

She hisses in pain, "That ''hurts,'' Kagami-san."

The girl pulls her hand back, "Sorry, ma'am," she says, then retreats, to Crystal's side.

"Bahitsu's back," Crystal says from the door.

"He'll have to wait," Fushoku replies while feeling Bangou's forehead, "Her wings are too close to coming out. I'll handle this part."

The door closes.

"Bangou-san," he says, "There's little we can do for the pain," he pulls the covers back, exposing bruised and oversized shoulder blades with the extra bones of the wings wriggling underneath. He gently sets a wet towel across her back over them. "It stings when they break through the skin," he says, "I remember my own."

She opens her eyes to see how he has his wings uncomfortably scrunched up around his shoulders in sympathetic memory.

"It's harder to watch," he says, "I think I'd rather go through it again myself than watch it happen to you. But I'm staying right here," he grunts with determination. "After they come out, you'll probably pass out. I'll wash them for you. The fever will be gone by tomorrow morning."

Crystal and Kagami have left and Bahitsu waits outside the door, listening to his friend urge the crying hatchling through the process, the splattering tear and the scream, and the crying afterwards. Once he's pretty sure that the new haibane has gone back to sleep, he goes back downstairs.

"What's her name, Bahitsu?" Kagami asks softly from the kitchen table as she and Crystal nurse bowls of rice with little bits of goose in them. Three more wait in the hope that her wings wouldn't have been in such a hurry to emerge.

"I don't know," Bahitsu says as he sits down with the halo mould in his lap, "It'll have to wait, I guess." He stares at his rice until steam quits rising from it.

Crystal piles some more on top, "Fushoku doesn't want his, and Bangou is still sleeping. It's quite a mess up there," she says.

"Oh," Bahitsu says, and finally starts eating. That he's hungry is quite a discovery.

Upstairs, as evening approaches, Bangou stirs. After wincing, she groans, "My God ... I feel them, the wings. They're ''real?''"

"Yes, Bangou-san," Fushoku answers, "they are real." He continues to wash them.

"Why do you keep calling me Bangou-san? My name is-" she hits that barrier in her mind again.

"Would you prefer Bangou-kun?" Fushoku asks.

He laughs at her smile. It's obvious she would have laughed if it didn't hurt so much.

"I'm thirsty," she moans.

"Have some water then," Fushoku points out the glass of water on the meal tray beside her.

Her wing strains against Fushoku as she reaches for it, slips through his hands and spreads to its modest span.

"That feels so," she starts, then lifts her wing, winces, and the glass of water slips from her hand and falls to the floor, "It hurts. I'm sorry." She relaxes her wing and looks over the edge of the bed to look for it. Suddenly she notices that the room looks like a bomb had gone off, "What happened here?"

"Oh?" Fushoku replies, looking around, "That was your cocoon, we'll fix it up. You can have any room you like, but we figure you'll probably want this one because of its location ... or maybe the next one," he thumbs, "to get a little further away from Kagami."

"That little hell-raiser you referred to," she smiles, "Typical of that age, they can't always predict when they will hurt somebody, but she means well. I'm sure she's learned."

"You've had kids," Fushoku says.

It wasn't a question, she notes. Why should it be? But as natural as it seems to Bangou to have had children, she can't remember any.

"I can see it in your eyes," Fushoku clarifies, "They look like Janice's."

"Janice," she notes, "sounds like a ''proper'' name."

"Of course," Fushoku chuckles, "She's human. Crystal's mom. Crystal's my age, if you get my meaning. She's fourteen, I'm two."

"I get it," she says, "How old is Kagami?"

"One year," Fushoku answers, "She's growing. She found your cocoon as a seed and didn't tell anybody until yesterday morning. She's been watching it grow for ten months."

"Sure doesn't feel like ten months," Bangou moans, "A previous life I remember in my dreams, but seems just out of my grasp. I'm still thirsty by the way. Could you please refill that. I won't drop it again, I promise."

Fushoku is about to leave the room with the glass when she asks, "Where are you going?"

"To refill the water," he says, "You'll be okay for a minute, right?"

"Oh, it's not that," she tries to point, but decides to nod her head instead, "There's a sink right over there."

"Oh," Fushoku seems to notice it for the first time, "Oh, yeah. We haven't got power for Old Home's water pumps. It's a long story, I can explain when I get back."

"Psst," Bahitsu signals from down the hall, "What's her name?"

"Oh," Fushoku says, "It's Bangou, I'll think you'll like her."

"Oh," he blushes, "Crystal mentioned it earlier. Hungry yet?" he asks.

"Starving," Fushoku replies, "and exhausted, I only got two hours of sleep last night before she busted out."

"Good!" Bahitsu says playfully. This instantly signals to Fushoku that Bahitsu had an ulterior motive in asking if he was hungry, which Bahitsu reveals as Fushoku reaches for the one working faucet over the one working sink in all of Old Home, "That means ''she's'' doing well."

Fushoku shakes his head at Bahitsu's insufferable wit as he heads back to the table to share the good news with Crystal and Kagami.

Heading back upstairs, Fushoku is surprised to discover a hand mirror at the head of Bangou's bed, and she's raptly playing with her grey feathers with its help.

Fushoku quickly sets the water on the meal tray and grabs the cloth to clean the fresh blood from her back, "Go easy on them, Bangou-san, he urges. It takes a few days for them to heal up from breaking out." Checking her forehead, he notes, "Your fever's coming down already, that's good."

"They ... won't stay so stiff, then, right?" she says, "When can I start flying?"

"Oh, uh," Fushoku blushes, "They're not big enough to fly with."

"Chicken," she chuckles.

Fushoku gets it quickly, even though it's not a joke Bahitsu's ever uttered: the chicken is an example of a bird with wings too small and weak to fly with.

"I'm sure one day we'll have a haibane someone'll call <<Hiyoko>>," Fushoku replies. [Note: This is in homage to a scene in ''Haibane Renmei'' Episode 7.]

Next: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 29]]: The Last Place On Earth, Period.

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Rise of Glie Chapter 27

2011-01-17T18:35:15Z

Fhd remix: Assassinated a typo

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Previous: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 26]]: The Engine

== FHD Remix: The Rise of Glie ==

Chapter 27: Quest for the Blue Seed

Fushoku advances timidly through the Temple's garden, noting how fast the trees grow. They have grown tremendously since the last time he was in here, which was when he picked up his notebook last year.

His bells ring a little bit with each pace.

Two of the Toga in the Haibane Renmei, with their square masks and wooden wings, slowly wander through the garden, as though counting the leaves on the trees.

As soon as he catches sight of the Communicator, he starts to use his voice, but catches himself, and rings the bells on his wrists to get his attention.

Washi gets up from his desk with a box and approaches Fushoku without the aid of his cane. "Haibane Fushoku, have you seen the crows?" he asks.

Fushoku flaps his right wing.

"They bring us things that we've lost, or things that we need," he explains, "They can't carry much at once, so usually they bring things that are small. One looking out for you," Fushoku suddenly notes his presence in the tree next to Washi's desk, "brought a large thing in small pieces over many trips." Washi offers Fushoku a box, "It is something you've been asking for from everyone except me, which I find troubling since I'm the most likely person within this wall who would have such a thing, although I did not, until now."

Fushoku takes the box, which has his kanji names carefully engraved on the lid. He unties the string holding the lid, and slides it open. In it, he finds a paper, and pulling it out with his right hand, carefully unfolds the top flap of beautifully handwritten document. He gasps:

--------

Effects of Delta Radiation on Semiconductor Electronics:

1. General Description
2. Atomic Transformations
3. Crystal Lattice Moderation Effect
4. Fab Protection Practices
5. Proposed Logic and Layout Techniques
6. Finished Package Strategies
....

--------

"Certain chapters have been left out," Washi explains, "Since delta radiation never occurs within Glie any more. The wall has done a very good job of protecting us."

"Who wrote this?" Fushoku asks.

"Ssh," Washi says softly, "I have not given you permission to speak. I wrote what you are holding. The author, or authors, of the original material are not known to me. It was brought to me in tiny shreds that I had to reconstruct. I don't even know if they're from one document, or book, or might even be from different parts of the world. Everything you need, is in there," he points.

Fushoku bows, and then makes his exit.

Washi turns to the crow and signs, "Thank you. You should go now. I appreciate you showing yourself to him."

As the crow starts to fly away, the Communicator calls, "Wait. I have one question."

The crow comes back to land on Washi's desk and looks up at him with deep curiosity.

"Why do you want to help our worst enemy get their computing power back?" Washi asks cautiously, "It is safer for all of us if they do not have such capabilities."

The crow taps on a drawer in the desk's hutch. Somehow the crow knew where his original shreds were.

As soon as the drawer is open he jumps into it and starts digging through the chapter on "Atomic Transformations". He pulls up the one shred Washi left out of the document he gave Fushoku because it was the only shred that connected with nothing else to form an idea. On it was typed in English parts of two lines.

--------

...carbon is unaffected ... proposed diamond cry-...

--------

The crow taps the word "diamond" and then vigorously flaps his left wing, blowing shreds of the original documents all over the garden.

"They're planning to use artificial diamonds to create electronics that would be completely unaffected by delta radiation," the Communicator realizes.

The crow extends his right wing.

"Having us build silicon electronics for them can prevent that?" Washi asks.

The crow nods.

"Finally, I know why the Saviour sent us Fushoku," the Communicator sighs.

Fushoku decides to take the adventurous new road home to Stone Mill instead of the safer high road. At this time it is quite adventurous because the anticipated "catwalk" ledge does not yet exist. Stonecutters work on the face of the cliff above, what used to be flood mud securely cured into a single, gargantuan brick they are dicing much as he recalls the process in his dreams, of slicing up the gigantic silicon crystal into tiny chips. He borrows a harness, clips onto the rope wrapped around the "mountain" and crawls across the bare rock face. After that is the rope bridge, which consists of one rope overhead for your harness and hands, and another for your feet ... intermittently in Fushoku's case, with the waterfall in spitting distance and routinely spitting on the bridge and its occupants. On the other side, the soaking wet haibane unclips, crawls out of the harness, and decides not to do that again for at least another year.

Once back at Stone Mill, Crystal is there, tending little Kagami, as usual. Crystal says, "You're late, Master Fushoku," with a smile.

Kagami, who was bouncing around in the dandilion puffs, retreats to Crystal's side on seeing him. A haibane for a year now, her blonde hair has grown out quite beautifully, and she has also grown quite a bit taller. The pair of playful pigtails frames a timid smile.

Stanley and Keepsie come up to him.

"Uh oh," Fushoku says nervously. He and Bahitsu have just overhauled their fourth engine, and figure they have probably come to claim it like they did the first three, one of which runs faithfully in Jabez's woodworking shop, and the other two chug along at the edge of the shrinking lake, pumping it out. "Please let us keep this one," he begs, "At least until we've done the second wind generator."

"Sorry," Stanley says, "but the good news is that Jabez will be trading his old one in, and you get to keep that one."

Fushoku can tell there's more, and jealously clutches his little box with the folded up delta radiaton report.

"Feather Fushoku, on behalf of the community of Glie," Keepsie begins with a tear, "We seek your approval of the plans for a third haibane nest in the pending East District of the town of Glie, near the river, well downstream and not too far from the Great Gate."

"These are the plans for the four storey Wire Factory," Stanley says, "Please go over them and tell us what you think."

"Thank you," Fushoku says as he takes the building plans.

As the wet haibane turns to head to the bath, Stanley asks, "Did you ever get the information you needed about the radiation effects?"

"Oh," Fushoku says, "It's right here," holding up his little wooden box.

"I'm glad," Keepsie says, then they turn back to the human camp.

Kagami is back to stalking her dandilions.

Fushoku sees her behaviour as rather curious. She's apparently taken quite an interest in dandilions recently. He crouches and asks, "Whatcha doin', Kagami-san?"

"I'm trying to find a blue seed," she says. Apparently she's on a serious quest for one among the many thousands of tiny gray dandilion seeds in this single acre of unkempt lawn.

"Why blue?" he asks.

"'Cus they grow ''really'' big," she giggles, "The one in the room next to mine is already ''this'' big!" she holds her arms wide.

Fushoku is so shocked he has trouble keeping his feet, "How long ago did you find it, Kagami-san?"

"Last fall," she says.

It is August, Fushoku realizes. He rises to his full height and nervously squeaks, "Crystal."

"Yes, what's wrong?" she asks.

"Hurry back to Old Home and check the rooms on the floor Kagami sleeps for haibane cocoons," he says.

"Could they just sprout up anywhere?" Crystal asks in an exasperated tone, "How ever do we find them in such a huge place?" She hurries off.

Fushoku crouches again and says to the nervous little girl, "It's alright, you're going to have a new friend. It's real, right, not made-up?" he asks.

"Oh, yes," Kagami says, "In the room next to mine. It grew so big I had to move the bed out of its way."

"Please tell Crystal if you find any more," Fushoku says, "Now go show her this one, I'm sure she'll be amazed."

Kagami easily catches up with her on the way back to Old Home.

Someone touches Fushoku's shoulder and he jumps in startlement. He turns to see Aware standing there, wet. As Fushoku realizes that Aware's wet from his own jump, the elder haibane asks, "Boy or girl?"

"Boy, I hope," Bahitsu snorts from Stone Mill's entrance.

Next: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 28]]: Lady Number

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Rise of Glie Chapter 25

2011-01-17T18:34:09Z

Fhd remix: Initial upload and check

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Previous: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 24]]: Growth

== FHD Remix: The Rise of Glie ==

Chapter 25: A Second Chance

The crow is lost, soaring over the ruins of the Earth. By following other crows, he's learned how to ride in thermals and ridge lift, learned how they form, and the weather that makes them, which isn't as common or safe as he'd like. He can soar all day with only a few flaps of his wings to take off, assuming the weather is right. He struggles to get enough to eat from the dead of a starving population of strange creatures, most of which don't even resemble humans.

The dream haunts him. He threw himself off that building to end the driving evil that directed his steps, and end it he has, but ... when his human body hit the street after the long fall, his spirit lived on, leaving it behind in the shattered heap with the cars screeching and the people screaming in horror, he could not utter a sound. Silently, he rode a current to meet a God who was supremely and predictably pissed off at him for living the life that he had led.

"I chose to end that life because of what it was ... The monster I had become," he cried, "What else could I have done?" It came out as thoughts, not words.

"Nothing," a softer voice said.

He looked up to see a man glowing, with fire in his eyes, a white robe with a golden belt, and white hair, "I have done everything you needed. All you needed to do was accept that."

"Another wasted life," it was a snide growl off to his right. He turned to see a bony monster with bat wings proudly sneer, "He has worked great evil. I kinda like him."

"Silence," God said.

"Accept you?" He remembers saying it, but not hearing himself say it.

The man extended his hands to take his, and as the sleeves of his robe slid back off his wrists, he could see scars, holes where nails had been driven through.

In shock, the spirit fell flat on the glass floor, seeing the holes in the man's glowing bronze feet, "You ... you're ''real!'' The only one who can save me. Could you please?"

"Useless worm, look at him grovel!" the monster accused.

"Saved you are," God announced, "but there is no room in heaven for one like you, my child. You can stay in the courtyard given for those without a room, or..."

"I feel your love and your power to do away with the evil that was my life," the spirit quietly bawled, "Please don't send me away, how may I serve you?"

"You will recognize the place where I send you," said God, "but you may still need to remind yourself that it is not hell."

No kidding. The crow lands on a carcass and quickly downs bite after bite, looking about lest the monsters catch him. They can throw their fireballs quite some distance, and one must be quick to avoid them. A minute later he is back in the air, sated for another day.

It is little trouble to live as a filthy scavenger who is saved, rather than as a human monster compelled by evil thoughts to do such horrible things that he committed suicide to escape a justice system that refused to do the right thing and execute him. That is how he saw himself, and that is why he eeked through judgment into another life.

The crow spent three years picking up the monsters' language. God had given him two languages. The first was spoken, and written with a huge variety of ideographic symbols, some of which he found in his travels and was able to read signs and pages from ruins that were no longer relevant. By this, he learned that more than one language used those ideographic signals, but not the graceful alphabet unique to his. That's how he learned he was sent back to a ruined Earth. The second is a language of the hands, with no spoken sounds, and simpler symbols. It bothers him that he has neither a voice nor hands, and wonders how he is supposed to earn his room in heaven without such capabilities.

He tries to rescue orphaned animals. [Real crows have been known to do this.] If he succeeds, that's great. When he doesn't, there's a little to eat.

That can't be it, obviously. There must be more to this life than rescuing kittens and sparrows. He's looking for the monsters' biggest complaint, a phrase that has become the worst expletive that can be uttered: "Sudden City". He's learned that it is surrounded by a wall that no one can look over, and no one can touch except on the first Saturday of winter, and that it has been that way for twenty-three winters. This means that nineteen winters before he hatched from his little cocoon, ''something'' happened to change things about that city. Something that none of the monsters talk about.

Where is it? Where is the Sudden City?

Soaring for it, he got lost in an enormous forest where the monsters don't like to hang out. At night, he perches on high branches and stares into a cloudless sky, wishing the sparse stars could tell him where he was; wishing that he had come to know the sky better as a human ... wishing he had done many things better as a human.

This morning, he wakes, then goes about the task of finding his day's meal, flying easily before the sun is hot enough to produce thermals simply because he weighs less after the previous day's meal is digested. He follows an interesting smell through the air, going back and forth through it to follow it upwind to find its source. He knows he's close, and finds the body of a domestic cat. Very unusual. He lands close to it, but not quite right at it, looking about, ready to fly, wondering if it is a trap. After satisfying himself that there is no one else claiming the kill, nor any monsters near or downwind, he walks up to the cat and chows down.

The cat and the crow are gathered up together into a net, and the latter emits a frustrated squawk as it dangles from the tree. Counterweights don't have a smell, he realizes. Escape is his only option; he must fulfill whatever purpose God sent him for, and to do that, he must survive. He gets on top of the cat, within the dangling net, and munches a few more bites before making for an opening he's pretty sure he can squeeze out of. He's a mess and must preen and clean at least a little before trying to find a safer perch, lest whoever set the snare should come back for him. It seems specifically designed to catch a crow, after all.

The robed man makes absolutely no effort to sneak up on him. Far from it, he announces his presence from twenty feet away by tapping his walking stick on a tree. By this point the crow is free of the trap, clinging to the outside of the net, and already knew he was there.

The man, whose face is covered by a pale grey scarf, tucks his stick under his arm and signs, "You must be new around here" in the sign language.

The crow looks around for who the man must be talking to, but sees no one else. It suddenly dawns on him that this is the first time he's seen the sign language he's known since he emerged into his life as a crow three years before.

"All the crows familiar with this area know about this trap," the man signs, "since it has caught many of them. Some even trigger it for fun, but I know them. We are the Toga, welcome to our camp."

The crow realizes that the net really wasn't designed to constrain him, but rather, the rotten bait has slimed up his feathers so badly that he can't fly. He starts preening madly.

The man taps his stick on the tree again, and signs, apparently hoping he has the crow's attention, "Wouldn't you like a bath?"

Someone's offering me a ''bath???'' The crow decides to pay some attention.

"I'm not here to hurt you," the man signs, "We're enemies of the hellspawn, so we try to make our camp hard for them to find, but easy for you crows, our friends."

He suddenly realizes that he is surrounded. Crows in the high branches seem to chuckle amongst themselves at his misfortune, and about a dozen robed men have apparently emerged from the ground itself. He realizes that the trap is the town square of an ''extremely'' well concealed encampment.

The man offers the handle of his cane as a perch for the crow. He spreads his soggy wings and takes it, riding it unsteadily back to the man's tent, within which is a pot of warm water. The crow jumps in, splashes around a bit, climbs onto the edge of the pot and starts preening his feathers properly.

The Toga signs, "I know how smart you are, not like animal crows, but smart like us. It is a harsh world, and most crows who are new here recognize the trap. Then they stake it out to see who tends it. We know to look for this."

The crow feels silly for not trusting his instincts, but grateful for finding a friend who knows how to communicate with him, even if he can't offer much of a reply.

"You remember," the man signs, "that the language the Saviour has given you includes some simple gestures for creatures with wings."

With hardly a thought, the crow pauses in his preening to extend and wave his right wing, then continues to straighten out coverts and primaries from its dorsal side.

"You must have been a crow a couple of years," the Toga signs, "practiced at observing the happenings around you while busy preening or eating. Most don't take long to find us."

The crow tucks his wing back to his side and looks up at the man. He's right, obviously, but the crow doesn't know how to say it.

"The Sudden City lies west," the Toga signs, "It is where the clouds come from. Some crows never go there. Most find their purpose with us. Most crows will visit there, since ''our'' purpose is with them." The fluent speaker of Toganese knows how to add emphasis to certain gestures.

The crow continues preening and "listening" to the Toganese gestures.

"My instinct tells me that your purpose is with us, the Toga ... at least for now. In any case, it is about to rain, so I'd wait-"

The crow jumps to the floor, gliding as best he can, scrabbles out of the tent, which is somewhat underground, and climbs along a branch forming part of the roof. He starts preening furiously where he can see the gathering clouds, in a massive hurry to get away. The only "rain" he's ever experienced came down as fifty kilogram balls of ice that smashed what little was left of the abandoned human town he was in at the time into little smithereens. He and his murder shared the flesh of a large bear that was killed by that storm.

"It's okay, it's okay," the Toga frantically signs after following him outside, "The rain is gentle near Sudden City. We can even farm if it's not too far from the wall. Please, come back inside, I have much to tell you."

The crow seems quite wary of the clouds, and still preens furiously.

"At least," the Toga now signs, "I will set the cat's body in a safe place for you to finish it if you like. It is not fresh enough to remain in the trap, you've surely realized."

Another, somewhat smaller crow lands next to him on the broken branch. He was higher up in the tree staking out the trap. It is obvious to the crow frantically preening his feathers, that he is looking into very inexperienced eyes on his fellow bird.

"Yes, my friend, it is my trap," the Toga signs, "It will not harm you if you trip it."

The fledgling looks like he's in a playful mood, so he takes off, glides down the unmarked path, alights on the dead cat and gets caught with his wings outstretched. He squawks indignantly at the Toga, but once the Toga has lifted the counterweight again, lowering the bait and resetting the trigger, he seems none the worse for wear and didn't get anywhere near as dirty.

"It is your life to live," the Toga signs to the elder crow, who is now ready to fly, "You were never my prisoner."

He turns to the younger crow and signs, "You mustn't have seen the hail far from Sudden City. The stones are no smaller than thirty kilograms, nurtured into such proportions by raging high altitude turbulence. Usually the clouds pass over without incident, but when they do, they will drop their entire load in two or three minutes. It is best to avoid them if you're far from here."

It's not too hard. Clouds are extremely rare anywhere other than around Sudden City.

The younger crow seems to trust the Toga. The elder crow watches with him as the Toga removes the half-eaten cat from the trap and sets it under another tree, where he clears away bones picked so clean it would take very trained eyes to tell what wild, or semi-wild creature they may once have belonged to. Within minutes, several members of the local murder are feasting on it, but the two crows to set off the trap have already had their fill.

They lift off as one as the rain begins to fall, and find themselves high branches for refuge. The gentle rain does them no harm. The two "new" crows accompany him inside the tent, where the Toga tell them many things.

"We too, are scavengers as well as traders," the Toga explains well into his lesson, much of which is familiar to the elder crow, since he is three years old in this world. "We serve the needs of Sudden City, and they seem willing to serve the needs of the world. I wish I could live there," he signs. He takes a moment's rest, probably longing after the safe community inside the protective wall. "We are looking for fuel oils and engines, pumps, and other machines. We can also produce fuel oils from grain and rotting ruin; remains too far gone for you crows to be interested in, so we are more interested in the machines. You can point them out on the map when you return-"

The elder crow, who has wandered around the continent for three years, hops onto the Toga's table and wanders over the map, showing the Toga where he hatched, thousands of miles away, and taps on abandoned human settlements some of which are marked on the map already, some of which aren't. The Toga marks these places with yellow chalk.

"Do you know these are abandoned ''human'' settlements?" the Toga asks.

The crow extends his right wing and flaps it once, slowly enough not to blow himself over.

"Hellspawn settlements?" the Toga asks.

The crow extends his left wing, but does not flap it, trying to convey that his knowledge is unreliable. The monsters are moving around a lot, probably because "rain" is so rare and causes massive havoc when it hits. The crow then taps a smaller number of places on the map.

"Any places where the enemy has remained for more than one year?" the Toga signs after marking the new spots with black chalk.

The crow taps just one spot on the map, which was already marked with black chalk when he first saw the map: the nearby ruin of Chita.

"That's what I figured," the Toga signs before he puts away his chalk.

The crow caws at him and points at the map. He knows where they are and taps that place with his bill, then gently drags his bill west along the map. After that move, he looks at the Toga again and caws.

The Toga does not understand what the crow has asked.

The younger crow jumps onto the map and gently pushes his older companion out of the way, then points at a specific spot on the map, northwest of Chita and east of the deep lake.

The Toga suddenly understands, "The Sudden City is not marked on this map," he signs. "The hellspawn don't like us, but they really ''hate'' the Sudden City. They do search us, and for that reason our maps are never marked with Sudden City. We don't want them to know how close we are to our friends within the wall."

The Toga reads the question from the eyes of the corvids.

"Very close," he answers, "That's all I can tell you."

Next: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 26]]: The Engine

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Rise of Glie Chapter 26

2011-01-17T18:33:40Z

Fhd remix: Initial upload and check

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Previous: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 25]]: A Second Chance

== FHD Remix: The Rise of Glie ==

Chapter 26: The Engine

"Are you sure it's safe?" Fushoku asks.

The engine sitting in Stone Mill was freshly overhauled by the Toga, so they say, before it was brought into Glie. Bahitsu was able to confirm this by looking at the machine, which is composed of several different parts, a kitbash of parts from different manufacturers.

Bahitsu scoffs, "I haven't the faintest idea."

"It won't be," the Communicator growls, "Take the oilpan off, you'll see."

Bahitsu isn't an idiot, and so checks the oil before doing so. If you simply remove the oilpan of a typical engine, you will wind up wearing its entire oil supply. This type of engine combines the oil fill and the dipstick. Since it is of twenty-second century manufacture [such as those featured in the final two stages of ''Doom 3''], it uses almost no oil.

"What is that?" Bahitsu gasps at the glowing speck of metal on the tip of the dipstick.

"Take a wild guess," Aware says as he gently whacks Bahitsu's halo with his fingers.

"The engine is going to be full of that crap, you'll see," the Communicator warns.

"How did you know?" Fushoku asks.

"Why, I am the Washi," the Communicator says. Everyone can hear his smile, even if they can't see it for the mask.

After examining it, Bahitsu says, "We'll take off the cylinder head, clean the pistons, and once there, turn it over by hooking Fushoku's new motor to the output shaft. That will pump the oil in the crankcase through the filter, which will gather up all the light leaves for us.

"How could the Toga not have noticed it?" Fushoku asks.

"The wall does something to turn the enemy's poison into the metal our halos are made from," Aware explains.

"How do you know that?" Bahitsu asks.

"It had flooded Old Home during the battle," he says, "Hagane told me."

"A piece of steel?" Bahitsu asks incredulously.

"''Ashfeather'' Steel," Aware scoffs, "I thought you could see that." After sharing in the chuckles, he continues, "I hatched surrounded by this stuff," indicating the hikarinium flake.

"How would poison get into an engine?" Bahitsu asks.

"The same way it gets into their computers," Fushoku says, "It gets into ''everything'' out there. And it does something to semiconductor material. We need to know more about it if we are going to make semiconductor product that will last out there. Washi, does it have a name?"

"Delta radiation," Washi answers, as though reluctant to.

"See if you can figure out what it did to this," Bahitsu smashes a black box at the top of one end with little wires spread all over the engine with his hammer.

"What did you do that for?" Aware asks.

"''Electronic'' fuel injection and ignition control," Bahitsu scoffs. Sure enough, light leaves shine from the interior of the smashed box and its shattered microchip.

"Can it work without it?" Aware cautions.

"No," Bahitsu says, "but I can build it a fuel injection and ignition system that doesn't require electronics. It'll be stuck at idle for the rest of its life, but that's what we want it for anyway."

"I can ensure that it has a ''very'' long life idling for you, Feather Bahitsu," Washi intones, "Come see me once you have it running again."

Once the Communicator has left, Bahitsu asks Aware, "What does he know about engines?"

"It's not engines he knows about," Aware smiles, "It's ''oil.''"

"Where are the Toga getting the engines?" Fushoku asks.

"I'm glad you asked me that instead of the Toga," Aware says, "I'm pretty sure they'd say something to the effect of, don't ... ''ask.''"

"Whatever," Bahitsu responds, "Come on, fellas, let's get started on this beast."

The haibane turn to their tools, all custom made by Bahitsu. Aware taps Fushoku, "How are you doing on, what'd you call them ... ''grown'' transistors?"

"Yeah, not bad. The Toga camp in the Market Square solder leads onto them for us, which is great. The specification that they need is to drive these little suckers," Fushoku grabs a tiny frame with an array of wires, upon which are strung little black rings.

"What is that?" Aware asks, "a patch for ancient armor?"

"Close," Fushoku sets it down, "It's a ferrite core memory array," he explains, "If they've resorted to something ''that'' prehistoric, whatever is wrecking their electronics is ''nasty'' stuff."

"What's after this?" Aware asks.

"The next thing we need to master after making and slicing crystals is something I call alloy diffusion," Fushoku explains, "It was probably called something else way back when. They used it to create smaller individual transistors at first. The first type, they would grow the crystal with impurities to make it one type, wafer it, and ''then'' diffuse the impurities for the other type into each side, making a sandwich similar to the ones I'm currently making, only ''really'' small. After that, they made ones where they oxidized one face of the wafer and removed the oxide for various patches to create a transistor crystal where all the leads faced one side."

"You're planning to make the double-sided ones next, I take it?" Aware asks.

"No," Fushoku says, "I'm going to skip to the ''metal gate'' transistor. I've drawn it here."

Aware can't quite comprehend Fushoku's explanation of what was once called a MOSFET, but gets enough of Fushoku's impromptu lecture to understand that he has a plan.

"I don't think these things have ever been made individually as a development step, but that is what we are going to do first," Fushoku says, "Once we've mastered that, we figure out how to isolate them from each other on the same crystal ''without'' cutting them apart, then we can lay the metal without the gate on these parts," he points, "to connect them together. That done, we have microchips again."

"How long?" Aware asks.

"I don't know," Fushoku confesses, "It depends on many things I don't control, including this delta radiation I know nothing about."

"You know a lot about semiconductors, obviously," Aware observes.

"I know ''nothing'' about how to make them specifically for whatever environment is outside that wall," Fushoku grumbles, "Without any of that knowledge, our new microchips might be toast before the Toga can even sell them."

At Old Home, little Kagami continues to have bad dreams that she can't remember. All Crystal knows is that she tends to cry "Dadii" just before she wakes with a horrible scream.

Crystal emerges from Old Home to the place behind the East Wing where they keep the trash incinerator. The crows, as usual, have opened it up and are picking through the ashes.

"Out!!" she orders. The three crows at the incinerator scatter as Crystal approaches with her broom (none with empty beaks or stomachs.)

One of the two on Old Home's wall, apparently students in this demonstration of how to crack into the incinerator, suddenly loses its footing and slips off the wall to flop into the bushes, thrashing its wings in a useless attempt to right itself in the tumble.

"Oh, no!" Kagami screeches, rushing to the fallen crow's aid.

"You've got to be kidding," Crystal groans, "They can look after themselves fine."

"He may be hurt!" the little girl squeals as she jumps into the bushes in search of the crow, who is desperate to get away from her.

"No, Kagami-san," Crystal rushes to her side, "They're dirty."

"I'll wash up," Kagami says, having caught the petrified crow, who offers no resistance once the little girl has her hands around its wings and body. It is scared stiff.

"Let it go," Crystal urges, "If he's really hurt, he won't fly off. He won't be able to."

"Okay," Kagami says, and as soon as her hands are open enough, the crow jumps from them, and is flying before it even touches the ground.

"I guess it is okay," Crystal says.

"I'm glad," Kagami says as the crow flies past the four standing on the wall, who seem just as flabberghasted as Crystal. "I've always liked birds," the little girl finishes.

"Okay, wash up," Crystal says.

"Crystal, what's wrong?" Kagami asks, seeing the worried look on her face.

"I have ''never'' seen a crow fall like that, hurt or not," Crystal says, "I wonder what happened to him."

"Well," Kagami squeals, "I'm glad he's okay," then smelling her hands, "Crystal, they're not so dirty."

"That's just because that particular one wasn't digging through our trash just now," Crystal says, "Wash up anyway. We have no idea what sort of diseases they might be carrying. They do go outside the wall after all, and Fushoku thinks that whatever is frying the computers out there is also capable of frying ''us.''"

Next: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 27]]: Quest for the Blue Seed

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Rise of Glie Chapter 24

2011-01-17T18:32:02Z

Fhd remix: Re-upload, originally loaded wrong chapter (eeeek!) Lol at "show changes"

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Previous [[Rise of Glie Chapter 23]]: Reestablished

== FHD Remix: The Rise of Glie ==

Chapter 24: Growth

"Try it," Washi asks gently, "try moving one wing at a time."

Kagami moves one of her wings instead of both. The bells on her right wing ring.

"That means yes," Washi says, "Now try the other."

Kagami rings the bells on her left wing.

"That means no," the Communicator says, "Very good, Kagami-kun." He reaches around with his new walking stick, not yet adorned with the little winged ball, and taps his own, wooden left wing, "I wish I could do that."

Kagami squeals gleefully.

As the Communicator approaches, pulling a grey notebook from his robe's pocket, Kagami gets scared, and backs into Aware's legs. Her bells ring muffled as her wings press against the elder haibane.

"It's okay, Kagami," Aware whispers, "He's not going to hurt you."

Washi kneels, bringing his face to her height. It provides her little comfort, since she can't see it through the strange mask. In fact, she seems to get more scared.

"This," he offers the grey notebook in both hands, "makes you the ''first'' member of the new Ashfeather Federation who is actually an ashfeather," he explains, "it guarantees your daily life in exchange for your service to our community."

"Service?" she asks.

"Once you're big enough," Washi says.

"What's your name, sir?" she asks.

"No one is allowed to know," Washi says softly, but dutifully, "So don't tell anyone. Since Aware's my closest friend, and ''you'' are special among the haibane, being the first girl and youngest hatchling since the battle twenty four years ago, I'll make an exception. First, please," he almost touches the notebook against her chest, "this is ''yours.''"

It has the T-handle symbol of the Haibane Renmei, its name in kanji, and her name on the cover. Slowly, she takes it.

The Washi reaches up and lifts his hood and mask, revealing a face wrinkled by smiles, but with a note of deep sadness in his eyes, "My name is Shiden. I lost my wings. Take good care of yours," he chides, "They can never be taken from you."

"Thank you, Shi-"

"Sssssh," he interrupts with a finger over his own lips, "Remember, you're not allowed to know."

Kagami retreats behind her friend Aware as Shiden stands. "Aware, she ''will'' remember more than she has told you, that's the Saviour's promise," he puts a hand on his friend's shoulder, "Get her a human friend. A woman, probably Crystal. When it hits, be there, but be sensitive. You won't understand it."

"Do you?" Aware asks

"No, none of us ever will," Shiden replies, "But I know from my own experience that you will not let her down."

"I will do my best," Aware quietly promises.

Shiden steps backwards two paces, then pulls his mask and his hood back into position, formally becoming the Communicator again, "Send the rest of the haibane for their official notebooks, one per day except Saturday, Haibane Aware ... in any order that you see fit. Farewell."

"Why?" Aware asks.

"Farewell, Haibane Aware," Washi says, almost coldly.

--------

"I started stamping coins for Glie," Bahitsu explains happily, handing him one of the shining examples as they walk along the path to the Temple cliff the next day, "How does it look?"

"The haibane aren't allowed to own money," Aware says.

"It's not mine," Bahitsu says, "I make several before giving them to Stanley. It's slow going, of course, and I'm teaching Haoto and a couple of the human boys how to run the press so they can take over."

The obverse contains a faithful reproduction of the Haibane Renmei T-handle logo, while the reverse has the simple numeral "1" on it.

"So what's the currency unit?" Aware asks.

"I don't know," Bahitsu says like it's no big deal, "They haven't decided what to call it yet."

Tossing it back, Aware says, "Well, that explains the notebooks."

"Notebooks?" Bahitsu asks.

Aware spends the rest of the long trip explaining the new Haibane Renmei, including the new wing bells.

The Washi goes through the relatively simple procedure of welcoming Bahitsu to the Haibane Renmei and giving him his new notebook, and on the way back, they discuss Fushoku's plans for a new crystal furnace, designed to produce a junctioned transistor crystal 15mm in diameter and 5mm long using what they have no idea is called the Czolchalski process.

"I can tell Fushoku is looking forward to having his vacuums drawn by electrical power instead of his arms," Bahitsu goes on, "Pulling that pump all day must be exhausting."

"Why does he want to make them bigger?" Aware asks, "I thought his goal was to make them thousands of times smaller."

"Well," Bahitsu explains, "once he gets the furnace working, that'll be the easy part. The tough part is slicing up the big crystal into many small ones. He'll use a diamond dusted saw blade from the Toga."

"Sounds like something Jabez would be interested in," Aware says, remembering the "nothing new" rule for the haibane.

"Oh, it is, it is," Bahitsu says, "and he buys them for us. He uses them to cut one rafter on the fancy mitre chop saw he got from the Toga, then says <<There, it's used.>>"

They laugh at the arrangement. Bahitsu then goes on, "Fushoku doesn't think it's so funny actually, he insists the residual dust from the wood will ruin the transistors." Aware already knows that Fushoku had made a motor for the saw blades, and I contributed some of the parts to it. The clamp for the crystal and the tongs for removing the cut pieces will be carefully polished."

"The quality of the original saw blades must really matter," Aware observes.

"They were designed for cutting microchips," Bahitsu says, "Fushoku says it's the same kind of thing that he's trying to make. Oh, I'm so glad they're getting along."

Aware follows his eye to Kagami, who's dancing around Crystal, the much larger human. One would guess their ages at five and thirteen years. The latter would be correct, but the former would need to be amended to five ''days.'' Aware notes that her wings are moving comfortably as she plays, and her halo is faithfully following her head.

"She can't stand boys, especially human boys," Bahitsu complains, "She won't even say hi to us. Do you have any idea why?"

"No," Aware says, "but my instinct tells me that it is not her fault."

"Can't she just ''choose'' to like us?" Bahitsu asks, "Like I can choose to like or not like you?"

"I don't know," Aware says, remembering his choice to like Shiden even after his abuse shattered his soul in those early days. He speculates, "Maybe there's a point a soul can be damaged beyond where one can make the choice to like someone." Aware remembers how hard it was to make that choice. Far more vaguely, he remembers that his precursor made that choice to like someone quite easily and that like went on for his entire life. Perhaps he was what the humans call "married". He wonders if there is an opposite.

Kagami instantly cowers behind Crystal when she notices Bahitsu and Aware returning from the Temple.

To make casual conversation and show Kagami that these are her friends, Crystal asks, "Why can't Washi issue all of the notebooks at once?"

"He has to ''make'' them," Aware answers easily, "Bahitsu and I snuck up on him, since we're not allowed to talk in there before he allows us to. We caught him drying the paper for Haoto's notebook."

"Hi, Kagami-san," Bahitsu says.

"Oh," Kagami says, "Hi, angel-boy!" she squeals.

After the two haibane pass on, rejoining the other angel-boys hard at work building the first wind turbine generator, Crystal turns her gaze west and shades her eyes from the setting sun to look at the men hard at work digging the foundation for the first generator tower on the Hill of Winds. How are they going to get that thing up there? She crouches for Kagami, brushes her bangs away from her eyes, then asks, "Why do the boys scare you, Kagami-san?"

"I don't know," Kagami says, "They just do. The angels ... ''haibane'' are okay, but them," she looks nervously over at the men of the camp half a kilometre away, "I don't know."

"It's okay," Crystal assures her, "There's no need to be scared, but if you can't help it, that's okay."

"Washi said my wings can never be taken from me," Kagami says, "yet he lost his own, what is that about?"

After a pause, Crystal answers slowly, "Kagami-san, I haven't the faintest idea."

[Author's Note: Shiden is aware of the rules of the much larger ''featherwings of love'', which would be destroyed by the crimes committed against Kagami's precursor.]

Next: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 25]]: A Second Chance

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Rise of Glie Chapter 23

2011-01-17T18:30:18Z

Fhd remix: Initial upload and check

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Previous: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 22]]: A Troubled Youngster

== FHD Remix: The Rise of Glie ==

Chapter 23: Reestablished

Bahitsu seems incredibly embarrassed at having to explain such things. Aware's already holding a pink dress and a somewhat smaller yellow dress; Janice wasn't sure of her size. "These are called ''panties,''" the rosy-cheeked teenager explains, handing Aware a small bag he seems ashamed of holding, "She was asking me which size would fit. I think she gave us three sizes."

"Thank you," Aware says gratefully, then re-enters the room.

"Oh!" she whimpers, sweating, "What's happening to my back?"

Aware sets the dresses and bag so hastily on the meal cart that one of the forbidden garmets dribbles out of the bag onto the floor. Bahitsu ducks behind the door.

"Bahitsu!" Aware yells desperately, "bag up some snow in a couple of towels. Hurry, please."

As the boy hastily vanishes, Aware turns his attention to the hatchling girl, "Lay on your front please. It's your wings growing, getting ready to come out. It's normal."

"Owee!" she bawls as he helps her back down onto the bed. "Mirror," she winces.

"Bad idea," he warns softly, "I saw my own like that and-"

"I mean my dream," she says, "I saw myself in the mirror in my dream ... I was bigger ... no clothes, longer hair and on my chest, these-"

"It's alright, Kagami-san," Aware says hastily, "Mirror will do."

Bahitsu returns with the snow compresses, refusing to cross the door's threshold. Aware takes them and puts them on her shoulder blades.

"This ''hurts!''" she bawls, then starts stuffing a corner of the pillow case in her mouth.

The snow filled towels turn red with her blood. With a stoic grunt, she pushes her wings through the skin of her back and sprays blood all over Aware and the room, casting about the pink snow with one of them. A final scream, and the first spreading of her wings is done. They droop limply around her shoulders as she loses consciousness in a final moan.

Her wings are unusually large, spanning over two thirds of a metre. She wakes to feel Aware gently wiping the blood from her feathers. She announces her consciousness with an involuntary flap of one of them, followed by an agonized cry.

"Try not to move," Aware cautions, "They hurt at first, that's normal. The fever will pass by morning."

She notes the room is dark, lit only by their halos. "You're washing my wings?" she asks.

"Yes," Aware says, "It is hard to wash them yourself. I know. I did." He puts the cloth away after finishing her left wing, then starts preening the drier feathers of her right.wing.

"I feel it," she says. "These wings are really a part of me?"

"Yes," Aware confirms. "They take some getting used to."

Her right wing moves against the resistance of Aware's hands. "Ah!" she cries, "I was just trying to scratch the itch on my nose," she complains as though Aware had punished her for making the slight movement.

"Don't be in such a hurry," Aware softly cautions, "Your nerves take a few days to sort out your wings from your arms. In any case the worst is behind you."

She turns to look at the cart, "Oh, you brought me some nice clothes. Thank you."

"Maybe," Aware suggests, "try to sleep for a little while."

"That's okay," Kagami replies, "I'm not tired enough. I slept most of a whole day, right?"

"Why not?" Aware asks.

"I get the bad dreams when I'm not tired enough," she says.

Seeking not to overwhelm her, Aware does not press.

--------

Shiden clings to the mast of the boat, his Washi mask hanging over his right shoulder. By the light of his halo, he strikes a match, sticks into the end of his flashlight, and closes the glass cover. The match brilliantly flares in Bahitsu's astounding little mantle, and Shiden blinks because he was caught in the beam. It'll last about five minutes.

The moat inside the wall has melted again, making his rounds easier. Shiden is happy that his wooden Communicator wings are enough to let him use the armor robe, from which he removed the armor plating, knowing that the desired delta radiation protection was in the fabric. The wine flowers that give the best indications of low level delta radiation are clear except for the last few centimetres to the outer surface. That means that the hikarinium conversion systems that shut down for most of the last year are back in operation.

He scans the beam of his flashlight along a line of little hikarinium flakes past where they end a few metres above the catwalk, following the hairline fracture of the stoneforge up into the dark upper space. This is the only one he's found. The light of the Bell Nut Festival fixed the rest, though still marked by trails of glowing flakes.

Patiently, Shiden, for now and secretly, the old Defender, lowers the mast of the boat back into its hull. Once the six nested sections are back in their places, he puts away the glowing red hot lever into its slot under the mast hatch, pulling out its complement and setting it on the deck before closing the hatch and covering it with tatami mats that are comfortable to sit on. After cranking up the drop keel, he plunks his bottom down on the deck, casually lights another match for his flashlight, and scans the tags.

"This is the story of a troubled woman named Kagami," he reads aloud, then continues to read the changed tag in silence. Suddenly he leaps to his feet, extending his flashlight to read the tag again. "Oh, no," he sobs, letting the flashlight slip from his fingers. As it plops into the water, its light goes out, and it bobs softly, its hollow handle filled with small wooden matches instead of the usual batteries.

<One of the reasons I allowed the battle to go so badly,> the Saviour whispers softly in his thoughts, <is because a smaller community is better at handling the really tough cases.>

--------

"Hi, Kagami-san," Haoto says as the little girl in the pink dress arrives with Aware, Atsui, and Keepsie flanking her, "Welcome to Stone Mill."

She blushes, shyly seeming to hide in plain sight rather than try to take cover behind one of her guards, "Kagami-''chan?''"

"Nothing less than Kagami-kun," Aware says smartly, "You have a real name, now, remember?"

While she might seem nervous of Haoto, the sight of Stanley terrifies her. All he does is say, "Hello," as he passes by, on his way back to the human camp, no closer to her than ten metres.

"Not everyone has wings," she whispers once he is what she considers a safe distance.

"What scares you about him, Kagami-san?" Aware asks her calmly.

"I don't know," she squeaks, "But even you scared me before I saw you were an angel."

"Haoto, she's been in Glie four days," Aware says happily, "Washi's called for her, says he has something special for her."

"Stanley knows," Haoto says, and said he was going to announce it when she got here, "I don't know why he didn't."

"I'll tell you later," Aware says.

Haoto knows the eyes of his senior well enough, and aborts his complaint just before he starts to utter it. "Oh, Aware, the new spinner is working great, we're well into winding our first wind turbine generator, come see," he offers.

"Maybe later," Aware says, "We have a long climb ahead of us."

Scared of climbing the path herself, Aware offers to let her ride on his back. She seems nervous at first, but accepts. She's giggling most of the way as her face rests between his wings, and she keeps asking him to flap them. She doesn't move her own much, since she's still getting used to them. At the top, the Communicator is waiting for them, quietly on the cliff above the open roof of the Temple. They've just crossed the rope bridge over the trickling stream that now powers Stone Mill, and far below hammers in human hands chip at the stone, carving a new, much easier and safer path to the Temple.

Kagami's cheer instantly dissipates when she sees the masked man with the wooden wings.

Washi is shocked. Shiden is beside himself with surprise that the person he read about would cheerfully ride a man's back up the hill to the Temple.

The standoff ends when Aware lets Kagami down and says, "Washi, this is Kagami, hatchling of Old Home."

"Ah, yes," the old man says warmly, "I'm the Communicator. I'm here for haibane when they get in trouble. Please, the entrance to the Temple is this way, and there is a beautiful garden inside."

Washi walks carefully down the steep path beside the Temple, and finally to the entrance. There is not much parking left after the terrain around its entrance fell away in a spectacular mudslide near the beginning of the dyke project. This forced the camp's second of four moves so far on its convoluted journey to its permanent site, hopefully in the central and eastern regions within the wall. Some have gotten as good at taking adobe structures apart as putting them back together. Many of these bricks are going to the new community of Stone Mill.

Aware leads Kagami down the path, several metres behind the Communicator, always in a position so he can catch her should the little girl tumble. They arrive at the shelf in front of the Temple without incident, and another is waiting. He has the same robe and wooden wings as the Communicator, but a different, square mask.

"This is my assistant Tiindare," Washi introduces, "from the Toga."

Tiindare bows in greeting.

"Pleased to meet you, Tiindare," Kagami says politely.

The assistant seems uncomfortable.

"Oh," Washi says, signing something to Tiindare with his hands, before turning back to Kagami. "The Toga don't speak, so they don't like being spoken to. Do not say ''anything'' until we get to my desk on the other side of the garden."

Aware taps Washi on the shoulder and whispers, "What's going on?"

"Didn't Stanley make the announcement?" the Communicator asks with a tone of surprise.

Aware shakes his head and gently pats the head of the girl beside him.

Washi announces with a full voice, "The Haibane Renmei has been reestablished."

Next: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 24]]: Growth

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Rise of Glie Chapter 22

2011-01-17T18:29:27Z

Fhd remix: Sniped two typos.

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Previous: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 21]]: Cold Dawn

== FHD Remix: The Rise of Glie ==

Chapter 22: A Troubled Youngster

It is spring. The first warm day of spring. Old Home still looks like the university/hospital it once was. Aware took the relatively risky job of going up onto the roof to push snow. Today he felt like going on a stroll through the halls of the east wing. Just for the heck of it, checking each room for the first time in an entire year. After opening this one he stops dead and drops his flashlight.

After realizing the significance of what he sees, he looks about, and notes that this must be the children's ward. The third floor, he suddenly remembers. How long? How long? He frets, fidgeting nervously. How long has it been here? How long does it have to go?

The five foot tall cocoon gives him the worst possible answer: it starts to turn from the pale blue of growth to the warm grey of hatching time.

"Crap!" he blurts out loud. Realizing that its occupant might have heard him, he says to it, "I'll be right back." He picks up his flashlight and runs out. As he gets to the kitchen downstairs he almost crashes into Bahitsu, "I thought you were working at Stone Mill," he gasps.

"Oh," Bahitsu says, as though that was the last thing he expected Aware to say, "Uh, the generator ... we put it in the stream today-"

"We haven't opened the valve to the river," Aware says quickly.

"The snow melting is providing enough flow," Bahitsu says, "but I'm here because the Communicator sent me."

"I was just on my way to see him," Aware says, "What'd he say?"

"<<Take this to Old Home,>>" Bahitsu pulls from his bag what looks like a frying pan wrapped in grey cloth, "<<''Hurry!''>>"

"The halo mould?" Aware gasps, "looks like you did all the rushing for me."

The two exchanges smiles. Aware starts gathering bedding, "It's still pretty cold up there. And he's going to be wet when he comes out."

"Oh?" Bahitsu asks. He hadn't realized what he was carrying back from the Temple, when he does, he starts squealing excitedly, "A cocoon? A new haibane? A new feather companion?" He jumps up and down, "Oh my!"

Despite the adult's rushed pace, Bahitsu has enough energy to run circles around him all the way to the third floor. Aware has trouble finding it again, checking in three rooms before encountering it.

When they get there, the warm grey cocoon has a crack in it already.

"The cocoons always are larger than this," Aware says, "Why is this one so small?"

"Don't ask ''me!''" Bahitsu whines, "''You're'' the elder." Bahitsu soon finds himself holding everything while Aware kneels in front of the cocoon.

After a couple of minutes, the cocoon's side busts open with several large pieces. A child bursts out with a large splash. Aware picks him up immediately. He can't be older than five years physically, with a few inches of blonde hair and the typical white hatching robe.

He squirts up the cocoon fluid and groggily feels about as Aware wipes his face with the towel Bahitsu just handed him. His cheeks are unusually high and round. The newborn squints and starts bawling, "Mommy! Mommy!" in a startlingly high pitch. His eyes are wet again instantly after Aware wipes them off. He curls up helplessly in Aware's arms and passes out.

"He's odd," Aware says quietly.

Seeing the way the hatching robe has settled between the newborn's legs, Bahitsu has the explanation for this haibane's unusual characteristics, "She's a ''girl!''"

"That can't be," Aware says, then, after a moment, realizes that he must be right.

It is very surprising, since Aware had seen seven haibane hatch before this one, and, adding his own, all had been older teenage boys.

Roku, the would-be hero of the battle, was a girl. Why should he be so surprised? He turns to Bahitsu and asks sheepishly, "Uh, could you go to Janice's please? ... We have nothing for her to wear."

"Um ... yeah," Bahitsu nervously answers, and then takes off. It is unusual for him to utter such a response; he always has some way of spicing it up with sarcasm or, on occasion, another form of humor (when answering Shiden, he'd often say, "Back in a flash!") Bahitsu's energy seems to know some bounds after all.

Aware lays her gently on the room's bed, in a recovery position. Even in her sleep, she still cries softly. Four hours pass with her in this state, Aware guarding her. She pulls her hands up near her face, contorts her eyes into a grimace and leaps into wakefulness with a blood curdling scream.

"It's alright, it's alright," Aware assures the little girl, "You're safe here."

He finally sees her eyes are brown, full of fear and dread. "Da-" she starts to utter, then relief fills her face as she looks around, seeing his wings and halo. She leaps on him in embrace and bawls, "Angels! ''Finally.'' At last, it's over ... it's finally over."

Aware softly comforts by far the most troubled hatchling he's ever heard of, "Haibane," he says, "Ashfeather. You're one of us now."

"Really?" she asks, pulling away out of the hug and looking him over to make sure he's really there, and that the wings and halo are really there.

"Really," he says, "Your wings will grow soon, and I have your halo right here. Are you ready for it?"

Anticipation fills her eyes as she sits squeemishly on the edge of the bed, watching him open the halo mould, revealing the glowing ring inside, reveling in the moment as he picks it up with the tongs.

"Careful, it's hot," he warns, "you mustn't touch it until it has taken its hold."

"Okay," she says softly, gratefully.

Aware extends his hand slowly over his head, holding the halo in the tongs. "Feather - oh," he realizes, "Well, the name can wait. Welcome to the Ashfeather Federation, may this halo be a guide to your journey here." He measures the lift upon the halo before letting it go, assured that it won't drop on her head.

The girl starts giggling, "It tickles!" It rotates about and revolves around the crown of her head in an elegant libration pattern. "Oh, thank you, Mr. Angel," she says with a grateful smile. Her face stretches as she comes to understand what he has said about it, "My ... ''journey'' here? Isn't this heaven?"

"No, sweetie," he says warmly, "We're not sure what it is exactly, but it is ''our'' world, and we are quite happy for it. Welcome to Old Home.

"What was your dream about?" he asks, then indicates her cocoon, "I mean ''before'' you hatched?"

She seems relieved that he amended the question, rather than asking her to share the obviously painful nightmare that she had woken from in the bed.

"I don't remember anything about that dream right now," she says softly, honestly.

"We are named by the dream we had in the cocoon," Aware says, "My dream was of a sad world, upon which the first of a new type of bomb was dropped. I met a friend, a companion in this world who emerged ten years before I did. It took a while, but we found that we were both different people in the same dream. His name was Flash, after the brilliance of the bomb exploding. My name is Sorrow, after the sad world in which we lived."

"Kanashii-san?" she tries tentatively.

"The other way of saying it," Aware clarifies.

"Aware-san," she says softly, "Thank you for bringing me here."

Aware takes her small hands and clarifies, "I didn't bring you here. You were brought here by the One who made the world."

Next: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 23]]: Reestablished

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Rise of Glie Chapter 21

2011-01-17T18:25:46Z

Fhd remix: Initial upload and check

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Previous: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 20]]: Window to the World

== FHD Remix: The Rise of Glie ==

Chapter 21: Cold Dawn

Bahitsu listens to the cold wind blowing outside, and shivers under his blanket. He turns over to his slightly warmer friend and asks, "Fushoku, did you turn up the heat? It's feeling rather warm in here."

"Yeah," he says back through rattling teeth, "The throttle's stuck and I can't turn it back down."

"You wish," Bahitsu laughs.

"You're right," Fushoku shivers, "I do." He ponders the moment and says, "Can you believe this?"

"Believe what?" Bahitsu says.

"We got Stone Mill finished before winter hit," Fushoku says.

"''Almost''" Bahitsu points out, "I'm sure you've noticed that we still need to put in the windows."

"The shutters should be warmer," Fushoku replies, "until we get glass for the panes."

"Since I can't get to sleep," Bahitsu gets up, "I'm going to find something to do."

Fushoku laughs, "It's morning anyway, the coldest hour of a winter day." They don their coveralls over their pyjamas, and add sweaters on top of that.

"Washi asked for a flare gun; I don't know why. But I got really good at getting light out of wood," Bahitsu says, "I remembered that stuff called kerosene long before I knew it had a name. Now I'm better at getting light out of wood than kerosene."

[Author's note: Glie/Haibi never had a domestic supply of hydrocarbon fluids, except ethanol for its obvious "medicinal" purposes.]

Bahitsu builds really good stoves, and the one in Stone Mill gets its heat up in only two minutes from striking the match, despite being a wood stove. After lighting amazing his little wood lantern above the table, he soon has a continental breakfast on the go, not just for himself and Fushoku, but the other four haibane working on the construction of Stone Mill.

Fushoku examines the turbine generator on the work bench.. "This is nuts," he says, "I can't believe we have to build all this from scratch. The Communicator won't say a thing about why the Toga can't bring in whatever generator they use to charge their batteries."

"Come on," Bahitsu says, "I'm bored, let's eat, then get a few more windings on this thing. Crystal can finish up the windows ... er- ''shutters,'' I mean."

They've completed the design of a windmill generator, several copies of which will be emplaced, predictably, on the Hill of Winds. Stanley keeps checking the calculations because he can't believe the wind turbine can be weathervaned, that is, turn into the wind with just a fin, but it's true. The Tower Oil carefully rationed out by the Communicator is up to the task. Not only that, but once in place, the wind turbine generators will only need to be overhauled every hundred years or so.

The automatic winding machine, which spins the rotor so that wire can play off a reel onto it through a specially controlled pulley, requires power, as well as a motor of its own. The first are made by hand, but after, the haibane hope to speed up the process using at least some automation.

"I miss harvest time," Fushoku complains.

"Why?" Bahitsu moans, "I've never worked my back so hard in all my life, probably not the old one either."

"Harvest day is the day that the humans and haibane get along the best," Fushoku says, "That was the day Crystal's mom Janice broke it to her that we could never marry."

"Oh," Bahitsu snaps his fingers, "We ''can't?'' I had just the girl in mind."

Fushoku laughs at Bahitsu's incessant humour as the master chef serves breakfast.

"Does she still like you?" Bahitsu asks as he sits down.

"Oh, yes," Fushoku answers, "We still get along very well. It was her name that answered the riddles about my cocoon dream. From that moment, she wanted to marry me."

"Do you really think that's Glie's future?" Bahitsu asks, "We're going to turn into the biggest computer factory that ever existed?"

"I don't know," Fushoku says, "I'm pretty sure the one I see in my dreams has more people working in it than live in Glie right now. I'm wondering if we can really live up to the task. I mean, how big is the world out there, Bahitsu?" Fushoku asks seriously.

"Big, I imagine," Bahitsu says quietly.

"Can we really ''serve'' that world?" Fushoku asks himself more than his friend, "There could be thousands of times as many people out there as in here ... And Glie is the only place on the planet where semiconductors can be made."

"And what if whatever poison that's killing the computers and withering the trees near the wall gets to them," Bahitsu looks at Fushoku with his serious eye, which is obvious because his left eyelid droops a little more than his right only when he's being serious, "and they all start clamoring to get in here?"

They hear a sudden commotion outside, "Fushoku, Bahitsu, Haoto?" Stanley's distant voice utters, three more names follow. The person at the door must be closer, probably Aware.

"Let's wait 'til he gets closer to the door," one of the other of the six haibane suggest, "Let 'em all in at once."

A key slips into the lock. Shivering fingers open the door. What enters looks momentarily monstrous. Bahitsu is first to laugh at this appearance: a walking sleeping bag, or perhaps someone sleepwalking in it.

Fushoku has never seen the white stuff before, which follows the "monster" in by the gallons. "Oh, it's snowing outside," Haoto notes casually.

"''Answer'' next time," Stanley huffs from inside the winter cloak, "You scared the crap out of me, I thought you'd all frozen to death."

Bahitsu leaps to his feet as Haoto explains the blizzard to Fushoku, who's familiar enough with it to indicate that his precursor had experienced the hated weather phenomenon blowing around the new building. "Stanley, what the heck are you doing out in this weather?" Bahitsu gasps in an unusually serious tone as he shovels the snow out of the doorway so he can get the door closed again.

"He's just hungry, I think," Fushoku almost giggles.

"As I woke up, I realized you weren't here for the first winter after the battle," Stanley gasps, "You were born grown up and all, I didn't know if you could handle it." As he notes the haibane, all sporting sweaters and footwear, are not bundled up as much as he is.

Bahitsu is beating on the man's outer clothes to remove the snow. At the top of his mind are the high latent heat values of water, and what that will do to the room's already scant comfort and his skimpy budget of stove fuel. Less wood than Amon Diin has must last all of Glie for the whole winter, although Bahitsu has no idea where that thought came from.*

"Breakfast?" Haoto offers his untouched plate with its little pile of scrambled eggs, pair of cute little sausages and two big pancakes that seem to be trying to push its greasier companions off the edge. "I can make another for myself," Haoto says.

"It's," Stanley gasps as he pulls off his hood, "actually above the freezing point in here?"

"Not by much since ''you'' got here," Bahitsu says. He lands a hand gruffly on the man's shoulder and says, "Eat up, maybe you'll give us a fart or two."

Bahitsu's backup plan to keep Stone Mill's residents warm was to isolate the little "dining hall", a common area designed to seat no more than eight people. Crammed into it are six teen-sized haibane, a huffing middle-aged human, enough clothes to keep all of them warm at thirty below, and the upended small hydro generator decorated with the outer coats of all the haibane, some of which sport patches and scars telling of adventures with the unfinished thing's loose wires and sharp edges.

Stanley's not-yet-uttered decision to turn down Haoto's breakfast is undone by the sizzling sound of freshly scrambled eggs landing in the pan on the stove. Bahitsu guides the man into Haoto's vacated seat almost like a cop introducing a suspect to the interrogation room. Reluctantly, Stanley accepts the clean chopsticks from Fushoku's pale fingers and starts into it with his winter gloves still on, surprising a couple of the haibane with his practiced dexterity.

"What was that first winter like?" Fushoku asks.

"Awful," Stanley says, "Just awful. Worse than this," he utters ruefully, "not even counting the battle. I was just a kid, with the first Flight Well group during the battle, I went with my parents to the Flight Well, then my parents went out to investigate what was going on. I never saw them again. Then, just two days after the battle, the first blizzard hits. It was horrible, just one after the other, with a rhythm, every three days, but they somehow went around the Saturdays."

The haibane are somber as the story continues.

"I remember seeing the children with the red triangles pushing the snow away from our paths. That was all they did ... push snow. I could sometimes see little sparkles in the path after they had gone by ... little glow-in-the-darks like your halos." He recalls, "Keepsie the wheelmaster was one of them. Janice explained to me after that Kasei and the other humans, including myself ... I had that attitude as well ... would not let them eat if they did not work. They were sick, ill from some sort of enemy poison..." He winces with guilt, "Janice told me that God sent the snow ... blizzard after blizzard after blizzard ... so that these sick people had work to do that wouldn't spread their poison to us."

The haibane are horrified at the story.

Stanley finally pulls off a glove and points a finger at Fushoku, "Harsh justice it was: most of us who ''weren't'' sick found nothing we could do during these blizzards ... and ''we'' went hungry those days we ''could'' not work."

"But," one of the other haibane point out, "We still have that rule. You don't eat if you don't work. It's a good rule."

"Yes," Stanley says, "but not to the exclusion of the sick and the children, and those days like today when working simply isn't possible because of the weather."

"It's okay," Fushoku says, "You are a good leader now."

Haoto, haibane the longest at three years, at least among those at the table, says, barely above a whisper, "No wonder Shiden was so quiet about that time."

"Come," Fushoku says with cheer, "Now that it's warm enough in here, let's put another mile of wire on this thing," indicating the hydro generator. The haibane assume their positions, one to turn the generator like a top, and two to paint bare wire as it leaves the coil with an insulating lacquer that ensures it doesn't short to itself as it is coiled. It takes three haibane just to play the wire onto the stator: two to lift and manipulate the increasingly heavy device, and a third to actually guide the wire. The other three busy themselves preparing it.

Siezing his opportunity, Stanley dons his gloves and takes the generator. Being full grown and stronger, he is able to do the flips and turns of the generator single handedly much faster than the two boys, who bundle up and go outside to push snow with their shovels.

[*''Lord of the Rings:'' Amon Dîn is one of the beacons of Minas Tirith, a bonfire relay telegraph to send a distress signal from Gondor to Rohan in a couple of hours, rather than the normal three days' gallop of a courier. Doubtless this recollection pegs Bahitsu's precursor as otaku no Tolkien!]

Next: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 22]]: A Troubled Youngster

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Rise of Glie Chapter 20

2011-01-17T18:22:23Z

Fhd remix: Initial upload and check

[http://haibaniki.rubychan.de/wiki/Rise_of_Glie Back to Rise of Glie main directory]

Previous: [[Rise of Glie Chapter 19]]: Return of the Crow

== FHD Remix: The Rise of Glie ==

Chapter 20: Window to the World

[I hope Majic doesn't mind the pun.]

"This is the perfect spot right here," Bahitsu says, "and we got just enough small pieces of stoneforge for the foundation."

They are upstream of Old Home, the stream dry, and with beautiful rounded stones in the bottom of it, hinting at the speedy waters that coursed through before the aqueduct was rebuilt.

"We're obviously not done with the river," Stanley notes as he stands on the bottom, picking up the empty shell of an unfortunate snail.

"The inlet lagoon level dropped more than we expected after we blew the rerouting dam," Aware says.

"One well placed charge'll fix that," Jabez says with a smile, "But the bridge wouldn't survive if we did."

"Not only that, but our fords down here would be washed out," Bahitsu suggests, "Let's cut the path to the temple out of the cliffs and we can use the stone blocks from that on another bridge across the stream here, much handier to the camp and the Flight Well."

"Good idea," Aware says, "Eventually all the risk and calories that would go into cutting such a path would be saved by not having to climb that extra thirty slippery metres each way on the existing path." He tosses a flat stone as though trying to skip it off the imaginary surface of the stream's water. Instead it rattles playfully among the dry stream bed stones.

"We'll call it Stone Mill," Bahitsu suggests, "since it'll be made out of both stone and stoneforge."

"Why here?" Stanley asks

"Power!" Fushoku exclaims, "We set this place up with a microhydro turbine, and then it becomes the shop where we can build the big ones. I thought you knew all about it."

"You know, if you build a generator," Stanley warns, "Any human who wants it can claim it because it is new."

"First of all," Aware says, "The hydro generator is for Glie as a community, not us as haibane. We won't be using its power for personal use, but only for Stone Mill itself."

"There's more to your argument, isn't there?" Stanley asks.

"Yeah," Aware says, "It'll be the first electromagnetic generator made within the wall. We'll do our best, but it's probably going to be a piece of junk that'll need daily servicing, and we are ''not'' planning to waste Tower Oil on a prototype as we are learning the basic principles all over again. If anyone actually wants it, we'll hand it over, but he'll be on his own when it comes to maintenance."

[Note: While it obviously draws inspiration and was invited by Majic, this ''Stone Mill'' is not the same as the one in ''Mado of Stone Mill.'' While both worlds are compatible with the relatively simple world of ''Haibane Renmei,'' they are not compatible with each other.]

Back at Old Home, Fushoku carefully removes the screws with the little investment casting Bahitsu made for him, and the tiny mobile radio reveals its first secret as the back comes off. One little fibre embedded plastic card contains a single black chip, which seems to hover above the card itself. It takes him another hour to get the plastic card off, and he finds that it contains the sixteen contact pads for the keys, and a plastic ribbon cable for the screen. By following the traces, it is clear to him that all twenty billion switches are in the black chip, which has an independent circuit to a tiny silver can that Fushoku instinctively knows contains a quartz crystal oscillator.

He closes his mind and digs into his past life, deciding that he has never seen such a device before; it is only an anticipation that must have required advances far beyond what he had learned.

Opening his eyes, he sadly realizes that an entire civilization put it effort into this technology ... that what little he sees around him is all that's left of it and whatever is outside the wall must be something else entirely. Something fundamentally incompatible with human nature. Something evil. He cries.

--------

The Washi anticipates the third visit of the Toga, the second that he has attended. He stands in front of the Gate, having made the long trip around the north path. The Gate opens right on schedule.

"Welcome back," he signs.

"It's good to be back," the first Toga out of the gate signs. The Washi can't tell if he's the same one who was the spokesperson last time. "Even as short as you were last week, you are still the most pleasant of our partners to communicate with."

"Do you have any of those little flip-flop things that actually work?" Washi asks. [The electronic historian in me is laughing at an accidental pun the average reader will probably not get.]

"We can't get ones that work, Communicator," he signs sadly, "I'm sorry. Do you have anything yourselves like it? Surely you must, all we hear from the other partners is complaints about how far ahead you are," he exagerates.

"No," Washi answers, "Everything that we had that was this advanced was fried during a major battle twenty-three years ago winter."

The Toga seem helpless. All nine of them dip their heads sadly.

"Not the same way," Washi signs. He waits for the Toga to get interested again, "You must be patient with us, since it will take a lot of time and effort, but we," he bangs his arms to emphasize, "''can'' build them again within our wall. If my knowledge is correct, the cause of the failures outside will only get worse with time, first affect the production facilities-" Washi pauses, "Silly me, they already have, you said that last week. The way the electronics are built are not protected against the problem. The computers fail first, then the smaller devices. We can learn the problem and find ways to protect the advanced goods that we produce."

"Do you have anything you can show us?" the Toga ask.

"Only this experimental prototype," Washi signs. He takes the first transistor out of his bag and shows the Toga.

The Toga takes it and starts looking at it in fascination.

"It took our best expert three days to make it," Washi signs, "and we have no way of testing it."

The Toga pull a cover back on their one cart and clamp a couple of little clips to it.

The Communicator puts a hand on the Toga's shoulder as he reaches for the power switch. "Sir," he warns, "The glass tube you gave us requires a far higher voltage, which would destroy this device. Its creator warns you not to apply more than four volts."

The Toga makes several adjustments to his device before turning it on. Once on, two pens move, apparently under the influence of a force generated by coiled wires near their bases. They draw similar patterns. One draws boldly with wide strokes, while the other pen seems timid and draws the pattern almost as variations on a straight line.

The Toga stops the test and turns to Washi. "It's not very good, but," the Toga seems a little surprised, "It works with," resorting to the freshly learned phonetic alphabet the Communicator gave him the week before, he signs, "an alpha of 0.34 and responds at a speed of up to 50 kilohertz. Congratulations."

"How much of a breakthrough is that?" the Communicator asks.

"Well, it's not good enough to be useful in anything," the Toga signs, "But, it has been several years at least, since those outside this wall have been able to make an advanced device."

"We're not willing to part with it anyway," Washi signs, "Any case, what else do you need? We would like power generators, engines, batteries, and fuel. This would help us build more useful devices like this."

"Our other trading partners generate their own power," one Toga signs. Another shudders. Another seems sad.

The Communicator remembers this from long ago, how Imps and Hellknights can throw fireballs from their bare hands, the Guardian as the walking furnace, and the gruesome abilities of the Arch-Vile.

"Copper wire then," Washi signs, "Or just plain copper. Or even just plain copper ores. Whatever you can get us."

"We prepared this for you, Glie-jin," one Toga signs while the other takes a small written catalog from the cart and hands it to Washi.

"I guess that's all for today," the Toga signs after a flip through it, "There should be much you would find useful in the debris from the Final War. I'm sure we'll find something."

After the Toga leave, he looks at the little catalog, which is a list of bid/ask type entries, all in Toganese "hand" writing. On the way back the path that he knows so well, he realizes that the most cost effective items they can export are live animals. He does not wish to imagine their fates.

Next:[[Rise of Glie Chapter 21]]: Cold Dawn

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Webcomics

2011-01-17T17:47:51Z

Fhd remix: Took out redundant header

The Very First Haibane (archangel)
http://firsthaibane.rubychan.de/