Brave New Worlds

Make.

    I was in the white of Making when I heard the shouts coming down the stairs. "Tin men coming! Tin men!" they cried.
    "There's a brainiac with them!" Zinger shouted.
    Everyone scattered like moss-dust on the breeze, no direction to go, just bumping around in the station. Only one way out, up, and the tin men had it blocked. I took the silver disk I was using and one of the factories and pushed them into the flooded part of the station, then tried to run for the door.
    The tin men galomp-ed down the steps carefully, using their long arms to steady themselves on the uneven steps. They had three brainiacs with them. Each held their big heads in their hands and moaned from all the effort of walking. Brainiacs didn't like to do that if they could help it.
    The tin man corralled us arties up into a tight bunch and others stole away with the disks and factories. One sheriff tin man, gold-coated and round, prodded the brainiacs, and they pointed at Niles, all three at the same time. Then the tin men took Niles too. We arties tried to fight then, and Boo did too. But we're not made for fighting, and we all hurt ourselves on the cold sleek shells of the tin men. When Niles was gone, they let us a-go, and left following the sheriff.
    We wailed and cried. "Doomed," Topps moaned. "Doomed. "
    The ache wasn't over us yet, but it would be now.
    "Every time we find something new to Make, they take it away," Tess said, dabbing tears from her eyes.
    "The tin men don't care," Zinger said.
    "Of course they don't," I said. "They only do what the Elderfolk tell them to do. And the Elderfolk don't care. they don't care about anything but themselves. "
    "We have to get Niles back," Topps said, starting to cry again. "Arties are too dumb on their own. Too dumb!"
    I snapped up at that. "No!" I said. "Arties aren't dumb! Niles said!"
    "Doesn't matter anymore," Zinger said. "Niles is gone to the pokey-pokey. They'll never let him out. "
    "Then we get him out," said a tiny voice I had never heard before. It half-sung the words, just like a melodie did whenever it talked, but the sound was wrong, harsh around the edges. It was a bad Make.
    Boo didn't look scared. She was younger than all of us, but she wasn't scared. Everyone tried to wipe up tears then, just so they didn't look like little babies when the real baby didn't even cry.
    "Boo can talk!" Zinger said after a long silence.
    "Of course she can talk," I snapped. "But she didn't want to before now. This is important. "
    Boo nodded. "Hurts. My—" she touched her throat, "not made right. " She winced from the effort of talking. I grabbed her and held her close.
    "Boo is right," I said. "We arties have to get Niles back. "
    "But how?" asked Tess.
    I didn't know. I looked at Boo. Boo didn't know.
    "We'll ask the brainiacs," I said then. It was what Niles had done, and they owed us after turning Niles in.

    The brainiacs spent most of their times at the libraries, and there was one on P-Street that I had remembered because it had pretty statues on each side of its big doors. Boo and I marched inside, past the tin men that watched the door, and inside, before they could get a good sniff of us. The first brainiac we saw, we cornered against a shelf. She was locked into her little wheelchair and couldn't move very fast.
    "Tell us how to rescue Niles," I demanded. Boo made menacing gestures with her hands that she must have learned from watching thicknecks.
    "Who?" said the brainiac. "Oh, that arty kid with the stolen gengineering kits? He's gone up-tower to see Council. The Elderfolk are real pissed about that little scheme of his. Not even a platoon of thicknecks could get in there. The Tower is crawling with tin men. "
    I shuddered. The Council were the Elderfolk to the Elderfolk. They told everyone what to do. If they had Niles, then there really was no hope. The aching bent me over in two like a folded piece of paper.
    Boo shook her head and pointed at the brainiac. I guessed at what she was trying to say, and fought through my pains.
    "You're smarter than arties and the just-plains. The Council is just a bunch of just-plains all grown up. You can help us rescue him," I said, not really believing but hoping.
    The brainiac sighed and nodded. "I can think of dozens, thousands of ways to free your friend, but logistically, you arties can't manage it. "
    "What's logistically?" I said.
    "Tools, resources," she said, rolling her eyes. "You're just a bunch of stupid beatniks. Maybe if you