NODUS // 0005 // P0
The Consecration
In the forty days after the sky opened, the uptown of Nodus turned to white stone.
NOTESSEAM RECOVERY ON NODUS // 0005
The fifth file to reach the mount dates itself P0, at twelve minutes past three in the morning of the fortieth night after the sky opened, and it runs for twenty-three and a half seconds. Both of its sources are one camera, CAM 13, which the Cainites set on a roof in the East Wards at the end of one of the Great Avenues. The first is the timelapse it took of the uptown by night through those forty days. The second is the same camera live on the fortieth, turned onto a wall at the White’s edge. The first half is the Consecration. The second is what it did to someone who was in its way.
BOOTThe recovery
The boot reads RECOVERED: NODUS // 0005 // P0, the year of the Parousia, and INTEGRITY: 58%. I could rebuild a little more than half of the file.
SOURCE ONECAM 13 // TIMELAPSE
CAM 13 is the thirteenth of the Cainites’ cameras. The other twelve stand on the roofs of Old Nod, pointed at the sky. This one stands on a roof in the East Wards and looks down one of the Great Avenues into the uptown through a long lens, with the avenue running away down the middle of the frame to Babel’s broken spire, the towers of the new money on either side of it, and the Wheel over Babel in its opening in the cloud. The Cainites put it up on the evening after the sky opened, too late for the flash, and it takes its frames by night, from dusk to dawn. By day the Wheel’s eyes are open in the top of its frame, and a sensor that looks straight into an eye of the Host burns out as it would looking into the sun. At Compline the Wheel shuts most of its eyes to save its light. The file label in the corner is mine; beneath it the HUD is the camera’s, with CAM 13 // TIMELAPSE, a record light in ICHOR, the hour each frame was taken, the day, and the battery. Of the forty nights I recovered thirty-five, a few frames from most of them and more from the last. The fourth, the ninth, the twelfth, the eighteenth and the twenty-third are lost.
| Timecode | On screen | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| The first night after the sky opened. The towers of the new money stand dark on both sides of the avenue, their faces lit magenta, a few of their windows burning. At the far end Babel’s broken spire stands against the Wheel, which holds station over it in its opening in the cloud. On the left an old church keeps its one tall window lit, and in the Wards along the foot of the frame a few windows are lit too. DAY 01 // BATT 97%. | The power died at 03:12:46 on the night of the Parousia. Every window still lit uptown is lit on a generator or a battery, and the magenta on their faces is the cloud, lit from below by Old Nod, which burned on. The church’s bell rings through the first nights. | |
| Far down the avenue, a few towers on either side have gone white from foot to roof. | The stone reached the far end first, on the third night. From there it comes down the avenue toward the camera, a few towers a night. | |
| On the left the stone is caught halfway up a tower. It climbs from the foot with a bright line at its front and goes soft over the hard edges, and behind it the tower’s windows are sealed with light. | The stone takes a tower when everyone who lives in it has knelt, and comes up it from its foot to its roof in a few hours. Consecrated stone carries no current, so every light it passes goes out. | |
| The stone climbs the church. Its window is still lit, and the cross on its spire stands dark against the white tower behind it. | Its bell is not heard again. | |
| The church is white. Its window is sealed with light behind a cross of the same stone, and the stone has left the cross on the spire bare. | Every window in the White is sealed the same way, the pane lit behind a cross of the stone. | |
| A ring has grown round the cross on the spire, a little each night, and closed. | By the nineteenth night the cross has gone into the ring, and the ring stands over the spire as a halo stands over the head of anyone who takes the Seal. | |
| Everything in the frame is white but one tower on the right. It is dark, with one window lit on its top floor. | The last tower of the new money on the avenue. Its residents say that by the thirtieth day every one of them had knelt but Rosa Adeyemi, a nurse from the East Wards who lived in with the old man she cared for on the top floor. | |
| Her window is dark. | The residents say she left of her own accord. Her sister says she was put out onto the avenue with her bags on the thirty-eighth day. | |
| The last tower is white. The avenue is left open and dark, and its edges are the only straight lines in the frame. The Choir’s chord, louder every night of the file, turns sour and settles. | The stone closed over the tower the morning after she went. A street goes white only when every home along it has, and the Great Avenues run past Babel, Charter House’s plaza and blocks that never knelt, so the stone has left them open. | |
| The fortieth night, white under the Wheel. The run stops a little before three, and the file tears. | About twenty-five minutes are lost between the sources. |
SOURCE TWOCAM 13 // LIVE
At 03:12:41 on the fortieth night someone took CAM 13 off its timer and turned it down, off the avenue, onto a wall at the foot of a tower at the White’s edge, half a kilometer from the mast. The HUD is the camera’s own, as before, and its clock runs now. It carries CAM 13 // LIVE, the timecode, the day and the battery, and under them the zoom, which the timelapse never showed.
| Timecode | On screen | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| A white figure stands at the wall beside a sealed window, facing the wall, its right arm raised and its hand flat on the stone at the height of its head. The hand is the only thing in the frame that is not white. ZOOM 12.0X, BATT 03%. | The tower is the Company’s, home to its staff, and the stone closed over it on the fortieth day, when its last households knelt with the board. Someone was leaning on the wall when it closed, and the stone grew over them where they stood. | |
| A lens motor whirs, and the frame closes on the hand. The stone round it is still settling. It ticks, and now and then it sings, as ice sings on a lake. | Someone at the Cainite house is working the zoom by hand, over the Mesh. | |
| The back of a right hand, with a ring on the ring finger, a scar across the knuckles, and at the wrist the cuff of a red sleeve with its button. The stone is coming up over the cuff. BATT 02%. | Three families in the Wards say the hand is theirs, one by the ring, one by the scar, and one by the cuff of the sleeve. | |
| ZOOM 49.5X, as far as the lens goes. BATT 01%, blinking. The sound thins away. | The camera’s microphone fails with its battery. | |
| The fingers twitch. | On the fortieth night, forty days to the second after the sky tore, whoever is in the stone still moves. | |
| The file tears. | The battery gave out after 03:12:45:23. The next frame would have been 03:12:46, the second the city’s power died on the night of the Parousia. |
END CARDWHATSOEVER TOUCHETH THE ALTAR SHALL BE HOLY.
The end card is the verse the stone is named for. Heaven calls the stone Consecration, after the twenty-ninth chapter of Exodus, where the priests and the altar are consecrated over seven days, and this verse is the last of that chapter’s instructions for it. It was text long before the archive had it, so I type it at my own speed and hold before SHALL BE HOLY. It is set in GRACE, as Heaven speaks, with its chapter and verse under it. The stone makes holy whatever touches it, and the hand touched the wall. The Septuagint and the Vulgate read the clause of persons, and the Douay, from the Latin, gives it “Every one, that shall touch it, shall be holy.”
END OF RECOVERED DATA is where I close the file. NODUS // 0005 // P0 // 42% UNRECOVERABLE is the rest of the forty days, made up of the five lost nights, the hours between the frames, and the twenty-five minutes between the sources.
THE CONSECRATIONWhat the file shows
Heaven’s account of the stone is that it takes a building when everyone who lives in it has knelt, and by that account the timelapse is a count. Each tower goes white on the night its count comes out even, and the camera keeps the order, with the far end first, then the church, then the rest down the avenue toward the camera, and last a tower on the right that held out on one window.
The stone never takes the avenue. A street goes white only when every home along it has, and the avenue runs past Babel, Charter House’s plaza and blocks that never knelt. In the Wards along the foot of the frame the lamps stay lit all forty nights.
The live source keeps what the account leaves out. Someone was leaning on a wall at the White’s edge when the stone closed over the tower, and the stone took the hand with the wall. Nothing in either source shows its owner kneeling.
The live half is the stone near enough to see, on the fortieth night, at twelve minutes past three, still coming up over the sleeve when the battery gives out.
PROVENANCEHow the file survived
No line of the Tares crossed the uptown, so CAM 13 sent every frame out over the horns of the Mesh to the Cainite house in Old Nod as it took it, and the house kept them. Nobody climbed to the camera in the forty nights to change its battery, and the Cainites let it run down. The live recording came over the Mesh the same way until the battery gave out. I joined the two at the tear.
DETAILSDetails to catch
- The HUD’s clock is the hour each frame was taken, and its DAY counts the nights it shot, from the first night after the Parousia.
- The battery falls from BATT 97% on the first night to BATT 01% at the end of the file.
- The white comes down the avenue from Babel’s end toward the camera.
- The church’s window burns through the first nights and is sealed with light from the eleventh.
- The cross on the spire is the one thing the stone leaves bare, and a ring grows round it until the ring is all that stands over the spire.
- The Wards along the foot of the frame keep their lamps all forty nights.
- The avenue is never taken, and its edges are the only straight lines left in the frame.
- The last tower’s windows go out one at a time until hers is the only one lit.
- The Wheel turns its rings a little from night to night and never leaves its station.
- The Choir’s chord grows louder every night, stops just before the thirty-ninth, and comes back sour.
- The live source has a zoom line the timelapse never had.
- The file shows the ring, the scar and the cuff, one for each family.
- The fingers move at 03:12:45. The next frame would have been 03:12:46.
QUESTIONSQuestions from inside the file
Why does the camera take its frames only at night?
By day the Wheel stands in the top of its frame with its eyes open, and a sensor looking straight into an eye of the Host burns out, as one looking into the sun does. Daylight alone burns nothing. By night the Wheel shuts most of its eyes.
Why does the stone leave the avenue open?
A street goes white only when every home along it has, and the Great Avenues run past Babel, Charter House’s plaza and blocks that never knelt.
Why does the cross grow a ring?
The file does not say.
Where did Rosa Adeyemi go?
Nobody has said. Her bags stood on the empty avenue for a week, and no one touched them.
Who turned the camera onto the wall?
Someone at the Cainite house. The file does not say who.
Whose hand is it?
Three families in the Wards say it is theirs, one by the ring, one by the scar, and one by the cuff. The file shows all three.
Were they alive?
The fingers moved at 03:12:45.
Is the hand still there?
It is still in the wall.
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