“Is he awake?”

“He is. Mostly. I always keep things a bit, hmm, contained. Just in case.”

Ay parted his beak. The world around him was cast askew. His head was full of clouds and delirium. Something hurt somewhere, but he hadn’t realised where it was yet.

“Hunter,” said the tall thing, two great stilted legs, and a fluted maw. “I hope you are comfortable.”

Everything was a little off. Ay wasn’t sure he trusted it. He tried to lift a shoulder, but he could not. No, he was cocooned. Of course, he was. The Grafter always encased his customers, Ay remembered, through his disorientation. He had been here again and again as he chased his augs, embedded into a tomb of hardened wax and secreted resin.

“He seems confused,” whistled the tall one.

“He’s had a soup. I’d imagine the new brain matter won’t be helping, either. All those new organs needed a helping hand. Hmhmhm…”

“I need him awake.”

“... I am,” Ay croaked, feeling his head flap between his beaks, vision shifting as he spoke for the first time.

“Get him out of… That. No time to rest.”

It was a powerful thing to be reborn. But, unfortunately, most never got to experience it. However, Ay had been through this many times before, developing his own quiet form of dignity. He didn’t scream, not when the resin was cracked or when the outer shells were torn away from him. He didn’t fall when the support was taken from him, and his body touched the beating flesh of the city once more.

“What were you hoping would come of this?” Asked the tall one. Ay had been led out through the labyrinthian gullets of the Grafter’s halls and onto the surface - a surface, the roof. They stood on a raised polyp, bloating over the sprawl of Acetyn’s forward cavity, the metropolis inside the crawling city. The vast balloon space was supported by spinal column towers and bladders of cement, picked out by gentle bioluminescence that cast haunting silhouettes and the occasional short-lived electric flash.

Ay had followed because it wasn’t every day that The Voice of the Immortal, a Herald with too much Name, came down from the ennobled paradise of the Pate Gardens to speak to freaks like him. What an opportunity. What a threat.

“Wasn’t. It’s a luxury.” The scavenger slurped, getting used to his new mouth within a mouth, lips parting, throat working.

“That must hurt.”

“Not so bad.”

“The Grafters work miracles, you know,” the Herald whistled, stepping around on his long, spindly legs from which his head hung down. “Djey and the other creatures like it.”

Ay intoned his agreement, beak opening to survey the oily city with his own eyes before sucking back saliva and giving the Herald a nod.

“You are still you then.”

“Can still work,” Ay emphasised, testing his new voice further with a growl. “Well?”

“The Immortal demands service.”

“Which is?”

“Out in the margins, there’s been a vat birth. It is property of Her Greatness and desirous to all who aspire to the great restoration.”

Ay nodded, wiping a wet trail from his beak before leaning back on his tail to indicate he was interested.

“It is in Sestchek, the trailing city.”

“Sestchek’s dead, I heard.” Then, after a moment, conquering his sore throat, Ay asked, “Killed?”

“Dying, perhaps. Fallen behind, certainly. That’s why we need someone of your particular skill sets to go out and recover the thing.”

The scavenger grunted his affirmation, hiding disappointment at how little The Herald revealed. However, not even service to those with divine provenance came without a price. “And for me?”

“The same as last time, of course. You will be taken care of.”

Ay gave a languishing shrug.

“No?”

“Voice luxury. Last aug. Going out with style.” The scavenger cackled before tapping the side of his beaked visage.

“That is probably wise,” said the Voice. “You should swallow your pride, Ay, and accept a wage. Coin. You can buy whatever you might want from Her servants.”

Ay nodded again, looking aside. Power cables pierced the roof, strung up towards steel rails. He followed the line with his eyes as it stretched off into the distance, out into the screaming maze of the urban bioscape.

“Of course,” the tall one whistled, capturing Ay’s attention again, “We should not be held ransom by the limitations of the mind.”

“I’m not.”

“You are scared of succumbing to aug madness. It is perfectly understandable.”

The serpentine hunter squared up, eyeing the frail beast with an idle threat.

“You do not have to be afraid,” The Voice said, countering Ay’s hostility by affecting nonchalance. “There are ways - usually reserved for the great ones - to remake yourself entirely. But, on the other hand, you could choose to think of it as a clean slate, an opportunity for a fresh start with an entirely new form. I know how trapped you feel in your body, in your role.”

“That your offer?”

“I am sure we could work something out.”

“Why does she… Her Majesty... Want the vat-born?” Ay asked, posture softening, rubbing another trail of saliva away with his forearm.

“It has something that the Immortal has been trying to single out from the genetic discord for a very, very long time: a face, like the old ones used to possess.”

“So I bring it back.”

“Or just the head, whichever you must.”

Ay bent his body and pushed himself along, slithering over the bulging surface of the Grafter’s den. At its edge, he looked down over the pulsing city and its throng of twisted, mutant inhabitants as they went about their circadian lives.

“I’ll think about it,” he said. “Let you know tomorrow.”

Of course, Ay didn’t have a choice in it. The Voice, irritated by Ay’s little rebellion, turned and strode away, back down towards the depths of the tumorous building. On the way, he called back, “We all choose to serve. Better, I think, than the alternative.”

Ay set his beak grim and stared down into the pits. He let a moment pass, listening to the herald walk away before he turned back and shouted a question.

“How do you know it’s out there?”

A whistling laugh danced from the dark of the passage.

“It told us.”