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You know Gil is beetles by the weedy drone of him, long before you flip onto your back and see them against the cloudless sky. The medicine is keeping your headache at bay, but in the cool air your tongue feels pickled. "Do you have a glass of water?"
"What?"
"I'm dehydrated." It must be true in some sense, or Lucky's torch never would've made you feel it. "Um, rainwater, please. If you have a choice."
"I-If I have a...? Um, okay. Shut your eyes?"
You shut them.
"There should be a glass of... rainwater, I-I guess, next to you. By your left hand. Open your eyes."
You open your eyes. There is a glass of rainwater by your left hand. You pick it up, swish some water around your mouth, and swallow. "Thanks. How far apart can you go without the thingy?"
"Uh..." Like you'd tossed a stone into their midst, the beetles scatter. "I-I-I don't know, how much is this?"
You and numbers don't get along. "...Ten feet? Ish? Eight to ten? Is that your maximum?"
"Um, I-I could probably go a little further if I really had to, but this is— this is already a lot. I-It's like lifting weights. Or like if I-I-I had a <span class="mu-i">bunch</span> of rubber bands around my fingers, and I was holding them way open, and—"
"I got the picture. You can stop." (The beetles spring back into their usual shape.) "And the thingy's going to—"
"I-It's going to make the rubber bands bigger. Or stretchier, maybe. I-I'm not completely sure of the theory. Um, you should have it—"
The thingy (was it a 'refractor'?) is in your lap. You pick it up. "Yup."
"—with you. Yeah. I-I-It's supposed to alter the length of strings. Garvin said the strings get fed through the holes, sort of."
"Cool! I can do that." What else is your eye good for? "If you'll hold still, at least."
The beetles churn. "You'd do that? I-I-I was also thinking, um, that I could get me to do it... or Teddy? I-I wasn't sure about Teddy, but I— I don't— can you do that? I-I guess you have the thing with the eye now..."
"Exactly! I have the thing with the eye now." The eye doesn't strictly let you move strings around, but does that matter? "So hold still. I'll take care of it."
Blue sky, green grass; blue strings, blackness. The beetles are a sticky cobweb, same as always. You can't see your hand with your eyes shut, but you can feel the refractor clasped in it, and you take that certainty and apply it outward.
"Shit!" Gil says, the instant you make contact.
"...Does it hurt?"
"Um, no." He is unconvincing. "But please be careful. Um, really careful. Please."
(2/3?)
