Horace Thoma had been a saw operator for years before the Directors recruited him. His hand was steady and his vision was perfect, so he was just the man to operate one of the Menders his Precinct had built for Director Haas.
It was hot, loud work. Horace leaned back in his hard plastic seat as the Mender climbed; it had latched onto a line, the clatter of its bug-like legs rattling his hand at the joystick. In front of him, a wireframe readout showed a straight, smooth path ahead. It’d detected an imperfection about 450 meters up, so Horace threw the throttle forward, keeping steady on the line. He wanted to catch it before it got bad. A stitch in time saves nine.
He’d climbed a hundred meters when the readout started to shift—the Mender was tilting. Grunting, he wiped his forehead and grasped the joystick tightly, adjusting to the changing contours. If his line was shifting, his job was getting complicated.
“Control, this is Mender-1 on Thread 284-LL, 1,483 meters up,” he said into his radio headset. “Looking to fix a tear before things get hairy. What’s happening? Over.”
A scratchy voice responded moments later—Charlie. Naturally. “Mender-1, this is Control. Director Haas is making positional adjustments. Hang tight, over.”
The brown-nosing shit—anybody but Charlie would’ve at least tried to solve the problem. The Mender swayed back—Horace was used to its rhythm now. The readout suggested a bend was coming, and he bit his lip. “Control, I know you’re in no position to give orders,” he said,” but please ask Haas to gimme twenty seconds. Over.”
A pause. The readout swung the other way, the Mender tilted, and Horace pressed tight on the foot-clamps to stay on the line.
“Mender-1,” Charlie finally answered, “you are advised to refer to Director Haas by her designated title, over.”
“I don’t give a damn about protocol right now, Charlie,” he growled. “Twenty seconds, that’s—”
A bump—the Mender shook with a thunderous crash. He jolted up, then bounced back into the seat as the Mender tilted to the side. It was still holding the line, but the coming adjustments would be tricky. He reached for the radio before he heard a crackle.
“Your breach of COMSEC has been noted, Mender-1. Control out.”
“Dammit!” He slammed his fist against the console. The metal rattled, waggling the joystick a bit.
Snap.
Red lights flared overhead, and the Mender began to rock unsteadily—the clamp had severed the line. The readout displayed the location—just beneath the right central leg, leaving the Mender swaying with no way to climb. Sighing, Horace slammed the clamping brakes and powered down the engine. He’d have to go outside.
Still on his back, Horace slid out of the seat and grabbed his tool belt. He strapped on the harness and tested the cord; not a force alive could sever it. He stared at the metal hatch.
“Kilometer and a half up,” he whispered. The Mender swayed again, and he threw the hatch open.
The wind almost immediately blew him back, but he held tight to the handle, pushing outside. He made the mistake of looking down at the gossamer clouds under him—and the brown, rocky hills under that. They were moving. Along the Mender’s line, a vast carpet of threaded fabric stretched for a full kilometer before ending at a shin-high leather boot.
She was walking. The bitch was walking while he was trying to stitch a tear. Anyone else at Control would’ve told her, but Charlie was gunning for a promotion. Horace would make that little shit taste his knuckles if he made it back alive.
With a deep breath, he lowered himself under the Mender. Sure enough, his line—a thread of black cotton fabric nearly as thick as his body—had snapped, severed by the claw-like foot of the Mender. The frayed edges hung an arm’s length apart; it’d need an emergency patch to secure the Mender until he could get back for a full repair. He reached on his belt for the patching tube—a hollow plastic tube that he’d shove on and fill with foam—and uncorked it.
“Bug-1. This is Director Haas. What are you doing? Respond.”
His jaw clinched. She wasn’t on the headset; she was speaking down to him, loud as an avalanche. He pushed the tubing onto one end of the thread. “M-morning, Director,” he stammered. “This is… Bug-1. If you’d please give me a second here, I’ll get inside. Over.”
He clamped the tube down and began securing the other side just as her leg began to tilt, twisting him sideways. He grabbed onto the thread with one arm and the Mender’s leg with the other. “Director, m-may I ask what you’re doing? Over.”
“Squatting down, bug,” she nonchalantly boomed. “I’ve never seen you tiny things at work. You’ve earned my attention.” He glanced up into the sky; passing through the highest clouds was a pale face the size of a small mountain with a shock of buzz-cut yellow hair. Through her tar-black lipstick, she smiled, narrow orange eyes fixed on his position.
“Isn’t that lovely, bug?” Director Haas said. “You have your Director’s attention. Respond now.”
He gritted his teeth. The readout hid the giantess’s form from view; it allowed him to distance himself from the fact that he was riding a four-mile tall woman. He’d never been this close to her face before, never had her attention like this. “It-it’s great, Director,” he said, staring. She smiled at him, cocked her head curiously, and blew.
It was a short puff of air—no longer than half a second—but it was enough to knock his arm from the leg of the Mender. He snatched it quickly in his hand, grimacing. “I’m—ma’am, could you please—”
“Bah,” she interrupted. Her upper leg—just above the knee where the Mender was perched—was still descending. “I know my bugs are too intelligent to become distracted by my attention.” She was leaning to the right; the shadow of her head was blocking the sun, causing the Mender’s emergency lighting to kick in and bathe Horace in yellow. “You’re barely visible, bug, but you appear to be dangling. Why?”
Her face dropped in, pale yellow in the emergency light, smiling.
“Why have you left your Mender?”
Her smile dropped.
“Respond. Now.”
Horace stared—she was so close now, probably an inch away on her scale. The wireframe mountain on his readout had come to life.
“I—the thread is…”
She was so massive, eyes dead on him. It’d been impossible to escape seeing a Director since the hour they’d arrived and seized control, but this close… with her attention on only him…
“You’re stalling, bug.”
Horace could smell her now, a blast of mint and orange. It was an easy answer. The Mender can’t repair a thread it’s attached to. Just spit it out. God, she was huge. God, she was beautiful. God, she—
She blew again.
Horace fell backward, the cord unwinding as he plummeted. The Director watched stoically as he fell, as the cord went taut at his chest, bouncing him in midair.
“Thank God,” he whispered.
Then the snap. With a sick groan, the Mender tilted towards him, dragging the threads of Haas’s pants. It was almost at a 45-degree angle before Horace got the sense to scream.
“Oh, no!” Director Haas shouted. Through his sweat-clouded vision, she was a blur; only her omnipresent voice remained, surrounding him. “What a clumsy thing for a stupid little bug to do! And after Charlie told me about your COMSEC violation—I thought you knew better, Bug-1.”
Horace was grasping for her pants—for anything other than the cable overhead. The Mender was sliding, tearing threads apart, and they snapped and wobbled as they followed the Mender down.
“And now you’re doing even more damage? I hired you to stitch my pants, Bug-1, not render them a shambles.”
“You could… help me…” Horace groaned into his headset. He lunged for the thread but swayed back empty-handed.
“Help you?” the Director boomed. She laughed, her leg quivering, sending the Mender falling faster. “Oh, Bug-1, was that an order?”
“I’m sorry!” he screamed. “Please—help me! Catch it or—”
Through blurry eyes, he could see her hand lowering, as long as a skyscraper, the yellow lights casting a horrific glow on her black-painted nails. Two fingers hung above the Mender.
“Help?” she cooed. “Like this?”
She flicked the Mender with her nail.
The machine collapsed into a flattened heap with a bang. The air rushed around the plummeting Horace, the Mender dragging the thread above him and tearing her pants further. He was nearly out of breath when he crashed into a soft surface. With a crash of shattering aluminum, the Mender landed as well.
The surface was lifting. He struggled to untie himself from his bungee cord, desperate to separate himself from the wreckage. He was in her hand, in a crease in the center of her palm.
“Control,” she said. “This is Director Haas. Bug-1 has ripped a finger-sized tear in my pant leg due to incorrect Mender operation. Which Precinct is his? Respond.”
“Lovely to hear from you, Director,” Charlie said in his headset—he wanted to scream at the son of a bitch, but his voice was hoarse. “Horace Thoma lives in Precinct 9-CA. Over.”
She held him up to her face, just far enough away—half an arm’s length—that he could see every last inch of her disdain. He must have been eight kilos up; his lungs were heavy as iron, and he hacked and spat blood.
She licked her lips. “Perfect,” she said. “I happen to be nearby.”
He tried to stand but fell—the fall had broken his leg. Her spell on him was over; he crawled, desperate to reach the edge of her palm and throw himself down.
Then he was rising, the cord on his chest holding tight. Over his head, she was tying the torn pants thread to the cord. A moment later, he was plummeting back down—crying, screaming, cursing her, hacking with razorblade pain.
“Well, Bug-1,” she said. He was in darkness again, then suddenly jerked upward against a hard surface. Her sole. She was tying him to the bottom of her boot, dangling hundreds of meters in the air.
“You have truly disgraced your home precinct.”
Through the wispy clouds, he could see buildings. Skyscrapers. Neighborhoods. No matter what these fucking Directors called it, it wasn’t some number. It was San Diego. Home.
“So I think it only fitting that, as your service is terminated, I return you to them.”
He stared at the ground. He could see his apartment from here.
“We let you bugs live so long as you serve us, and this… this shoddy work is our thanks?”
He pulled. Screamed. His home was rushing towards him.
“Your services are no longer required.”
He crashed through the roof of a skyscraper, three billion tons of woman on top of him, and his headset burst to static just as his body shattered as well.
Director Nikia Haas glared down at her boot on Precinct 9-CA with a sigh. One stomp was enough to warn them; another would be… well, cruel. Bending down, she delicately untied the thread that bound the bug to her shoe, then scraped it off against the ground. They would never send her another like Bug-1 again.
“A shame,” she said to no one. She examined her leg—the carefully pressed black pants, accompanied by a dark suit and tie. A fierce, androgynous look—her boyfriend would love it.
Or he would have. She tugged at the leg, scowling at the little tear, before putting her hand back to her ear. “Control, Director Haas. I look a mess, Charlie, an absolute disgrace. Send another Mender to stitch this up before the other Directors see this travesty.”