The Hungry Garden

Chapter Four: Who Makes the Monsters?

The next day, Maise dropped me off at work just as Chris arrived in his car. He stepped out wearing a purple knee length skirt with black tights and ankle boots and a close fitting black top, accessorised with silver bangles and necklace. He'd sprayed his hair, put on a little makeup and looked completely comfortable, as if he was showing us his true self for the first time. Maise ran up and hugged him.

"Finally!" she said. "You look great, hun!"

As we headed up to Wilco's workshop, I asked Chris about preferred pronouns.

"I like being treated as a girl," he replied, "but I don't want it to be a big deal. I'm still the same Chris you've always known and I've always admired how you carried yourself as a masculine woman."

A lot of people might have been insulted by that, but Chris knew me well. I have always been proudly butch and often imagined myself as a man, but fully transitioning into an actual bloke? Nah, not me. I wasn't prepared to do that just because society says I don't woman properly.

The jury was still out on Chris. He had a feminine side you could see from space and might well be a girl trapped in a boy's body, but he cared so much about accommodating the people around him that he kept that girl locked away. We agreed to carry on pretty much as before, but I wouldn't have been surprised if our kid sister became an actual sister before too long.

When we got to the workshop, it turned out Chris had been a busy girl since yesterday and was eager to show us his homework.

"I was thinking about Sadie Coils and how we're going to make her come to life just like you managed with that frog," he said. "So I did some googling on snake robots, found a video on how to make a simple one, realised I had the parts in my junk box and knocked this together."

He took out a chain of little flat trucks about forty centimetres long and set it on the table. The head was powered with two small motors attached to wires leading to a simple control box Chris held in his hand. The little snakebot trundled happily around the table as he sent power to the wheels.

"If I'd had more time, I'd have motorised each section and got them working in series," said Chris. "That would require a lot more power, but I'm getting to understand the principles."

Wilco was impressed.

"Very good," he said. "Let me show you mine".

It turned out that Wilco had two prototypes on the go. One was a train-style snakebot like Chris's, but larger and with each section powered by motorised wheels. The other looked like a long green rubber tube.

"Wheels are still the easiest way to move a snakebot," said Wilco, "but you're limited to ground travel. Another method is to use the way the sections move in relation to each other, but that requires a bit more engineering."

He handed me the green tube.

"This is a simple constrictor," he said. "I can't make it move like a snake yet, but I am thinking of making these into plant vines. This would work great as part of the Madagascar tree."

I inspected the end of the tube and found a discrete button. As I pushed it, the tube began to move, sensing and wrapping around my arms. The flailing end made contact with my thigh and immediately began wrapping itself around me in tight coils. Soon I was held fast, wrapped from thigh to shoulder in writhing, tightening loops. They weren't strong enough to crush or hurt me, but they were constricting my breath and holding me firmly.

"The algorithm for that is actually quite simple," chatted Wilco. "Each section has a set of sensors all around, when it makes contact with something it moves in that direction. Follow that rule along the line and you have a constrictor."