Lonely Castles

by S. A. Tholin

  The second man sat suspended inside a strange exoskeleton. A framework of flexible metal ran along his limbs, medical filaments burrowing under his skin. One of his arms was missing, and the left side of his head looked sunken, his bare scalp damp and mottled blue. A nexus of filaments met there, pulsing at his temple like swollen veins. His eyes gleamed with drug-fuelled intensity, but he regarded her with a smile.

  "She stabbed Lutzen? Embarrassing for him." His laughter was interrupted by wet coughing. "Forced open a door. Didn't follow the light, braving the dark instead. Interesting. But when you reached the core, you stopped running. Why?"

  "I didn't." Joy saw no point in lying about the trivial. "Sometimes running means stopping to get your bearings so you can find a new path."

  "And have you found one?"

  "Still looking."

  The man laughed again, and she averted her gaze from his pulsating half-a-skull. There was a scattering of crumbs on the table. She focused on them, trying to convince herself that only the very human and imperfect would leave crumbs. These men were not wraiths. They were not unbeatable.

  "She's not as useless as we expected, Hammersmith."

  "Lutzen should have been more careful, and Elsinore should've managed his asset better. Their uselessness does not make her useful."

  "We'll see."

  "Indeed." Hammersmith stared at her, and she really rather wished he wouldn't. Whoever had left the crumbs on the table, it certainly wasn't him. "Tell me, Joy Somerset, do you love the Primaterre?"

  And there it was. She bit her lip hard to stop herself from crying. She could do this. They had her and they would do horrible things, and she would just have to accept that this was the way it was going to be. Whatever happened, she couldn't give up the others. She couldn't give up Constant.

  "You know I don't." Though, that wasn't entirely true, and she added: "Parts of it, maybe. Not the whole."

  Hammersmith leaned back, crossing his arms. He looked even more displeased than before, something she wouldn't have thought possible. The man in the exo-skeleton broke into another hacking cough. "Elsinore," Hammersmith said. "You're needed."

  A third man appeared from behind Joy, phantom silent and dressed in black. He was young, a few years older than her, pale and thin, with hair a shade less yellow than Xanthe's. His eyes were fixed on Hammersmith's tapping finger, his posture defensive as he placed a case on the table. Locks clicked as he opened it, and Joy braced herself. When he began to pull blades and pliers from it, she knew that she'd fail the man she loved.

  "Please," she said, glancing over her shoulder. They hadn't done anything to secure her to the chair. She wouldn't get far if she ran, but she might make it to the plasma moat. She remembered what being near the plasma felt like – a pull, as though every molecule of her body wanted to float away to join the flow. If that was the only way to protect Constant, then it was the way she'd have to take. "I've not said a word to anyone, and I never will, I swear. I'll keep the secret until I die."

  Poor choice of words, and when Hammersmith smiled, cold and unpleasant, she regretted saying anything at all.

  He leaned forward, his black bracers scraping the table.

  "We don't mean to keep the secret, Joy Somerset. We mean to end it."

  * * *

  Sand drizzled down steep mesa walls, glittering gold in the light of two suns. Xanthe's soil was yellow, but its rock was striped citrine and amber, ochre and deep terracotta. Where nuclear fire had once rained down to purge the demon home world, melted glass slicked the insides of craters.

  The shadows of leaning tower blocks darkened what remained of an urban settlement. Cracks ran mad zigzag patterns from the ruins, faint mists rising from the ground to drift between fallen cranes and abandoned mining equipment.

  Xanthe's spaceport had survived the nuclear strikes, but the landing pads were blackened with soot and wreckage. A deadfall of sun-bleached bones choked the spaceport's entrance, faded fabrics spattering the tangle with colour. On a bullet-scored wall, the word EARTH was smeared in dark letters.

  It was Xanthe, the quiet terror she had imagined, and it was Xanthe, the loud and chaotic hell of Constant's nightmares, because while it might be silent now, its final hours hadn't been. Joy wondered if the mists hissed as they escaped from the cracks, or if some screaming echo still bounced between the mesas.

  "They didn't all die in the purge." Hammersmith waved his hand at the viewscreen. The drone-captured footage zoomed in on a concrete bunker surrounded by chain-link fencing. In the windswept courtyard, scrap metal had been laid out in giant letters forming the word HELP. "When Room 36B was originally set up, there were still survivors on Xanthe. One of them spotted our drones and wrote this message for us. Nearly eighty years on a planet with no flora or fauna – imagine that. Imagine what they must have done to survive. There were ships in Cascade range, waiting for fold requests that would never be processed. We've scavenged them over the years. What we found inside... the crews might have had their primers triggered, but I don't think so. I think that we saw the final acts of the desperate and the hopeless."

  Joy touched her fingertips to the screen, tracing the metallic letters. She understood what it was to be stranded and dying alone. "Did you rescue them?"

  "It was long before my time, but no. How could we? The survivors would've been a security risk onboard the Cascade, and a greater risk still if we'd let them fold back to civilisation. The first towermen to come here had to watch the last of Xanthe's people die. It's a good reminder of why we are here and of the ruthlessness of our enemy. I'm showing you this, Somerset, so that you may understand what is at stake."

  "You could've brought the survivors supplies. You could've kept them alive."

  "Supplies? The mercy of a quick death, perhaps." Hammersmith nodded thoughtfully. "I go down there, sometimes, to think. To witness. To remember. Nobody died well on Xanthe. We could have assisted with that, but things were different under Elsinore's command. He had his ways and we did not question."

  "Elsinore?" Joy glanced at the pale man named Elsinore. He was tending to the wounded man's exo-skeleton, his black case a toolkit meant for mending, not hurting.

  "Colonel Elsinore," Hammersmith said. "Operative Elsinore's late father, and founder of Room 36B. We have been here a long time, waging our silent war. Our work is delicate; slow, by necessity. Or at least it was, until your escapades on Cato forced our hand."

  "Time is running out." The man in the exo-skeleton wheezed with effort as he turned to face them. "We must succeed soon, or all hope of ever liberating the Primaterre will die."

  "What do you mean, time is running out?"

  "Cato wasn't completely destroyed," Hammersmith said. "Other Tower operatives are there still, trawling the ruins. Oriel too, and Bastion's own sniffer dogs. If you saw the truth on Cato, they will too. It's only a matter of time before they discover some file or old database referencing Project Harmony. They won't be able to understand it at first, but the priming has its limits. Too much time in exo-space, or too much overwhelming evidence, and they will see the truth."

  "I thought you wanted people to know."

  "The truth? No, never." Hammersmith shook his head. "You weren't present when the banneret team found out, correct?"

  Her heart froze. He knew. She should lie, deny, but what was the point? He knew, and nothing she said would change that. "How do you know that?"

  "We're Tower," said the man in the exo-skeleton, smiling softly. "Tower knows."

  "You weren't there," Hammersmith said, "so you didn't see the commander on his knees in an alley, gun pressed to his temple. You didn't hear the lieutenant challenge his authority. You didn't see them balancing on a knife's edge, seconds away from tearing each other apart. But that is what happened, and that is what would happen across the Primaterre Protectorate. Brother turning on brother, preferring to kill or die rather than accepting that they've lived a lie. And the designers of that lie, they destroyed worlds in orde
r to seize control. How many do you think they'd sacrifice to keep that control?"

  A gun pressed to his temple. The black-muzzled Morrigan, biting into tanned skin. Constant had told her many things, but never this, and she thought he never would have – because he would have been close. He would have been a millimetre and a single breath away from being gone.

  She turned from the viewscreens, wrapping her arms about herself. The plasma moat glowed, so alien and so strange. In its light reality seemed fragile, malleable, as though the smallest nudge might alter it. She could see a divergent path, understanding that a muddy Cato alley had been a junction of destiny – or a nexus, perhaps, and she wanted to laugh at that, or cry, or both.

  There had been a choice, a fork in the road, and a twitch of a finger would have made real a future where she was still in the sea cave, where Constant was dead, and the artificial sun in Scathach's park would never have shone on the two of them. In the blue shimmer of the moat, she could almost see that reality taking shape.

  "You may have less time than you think," she said, making her own choice, hoping to forge a better path. "They might find the truth on Cato, or Skald might whisper it in their ears."

  "It knows?" Hammersmith had claimed to want answers, but this one struck him like a fist. A metal screwdriver clattered to the floor, lost from Elsinore's grasp.

  "I doubt he'll say anything. He likes his secrets. He likes to share, too, but only if he stands to gain."

  "Ah," sighed the man in the exo-skeleton. "So now our fates rest in the hands of a demon. Marvellous."

  "It's not a damn demon, Wideawake." Hammersmith scowled. "I've had enough of your impure superstition, and you know it."

  "Apologies." Wideawake gestured weakly, his exo-skeleton's joints hissing. "It's the painkillers talking."

  "Is it now?" Hammersmith's mood had steadily deteriorated, and neither of his colleagues seemed to be calming influences. In fact, every twitch of Elsinore's made Hammersmith's scowl more hostile. Something new, then, perhaps. Someone new.

  "Impurity?" Joy asked, her heart fluttering against her ribcage as Hammersmith's metallic eyes turned on her. "But you know purity is a lie."

  "It is not a lie. It is truth and it is humanity's path. Clarity and reason must guide us, not superstition or faith, nor childish chatter about demons. But purity must come from within. It must be a choice, or it isn't pure at all. You came here from Kirkclair. What did you see there?"

  "A great city, its people prospering, but..." She hesitated, unsure of how to put it. "But afraid and suspicious of each other."

  "Two things hold the Primaterre back. Fear is the first, and it must be removed. The second is the people who do not belong. They too must be removed."

  "What people?"

  "The irrational and the antisocial. The cruel and the inconsiderate. Those who value profit over community. Those who would deny truth. Worse, those who would twist truth to support their own false goals. Did you see them in Kirkclair?"

  She shook her head and he smiled, but there was no warmth in his smile.

  "No. You wouldn't have, because the priming keeps them on the path of purity. That is a falsehood. That is a lie. They are corruption, and the priming must be stopped so that the false may be separated from the true."

  Well, that didn't sound good. Joy remembered the cenotaphs and the tinkling of chimes in Kirkclair's contemplation groves, and she didn't want to ask, because the answer was already in Hammersmith's smile and most certainly in his eyes, screaming at her in all caps that this man meant to do good so that he might do harm – but she asked anyway.

  "You want to purge Primaterre citizens?"

  Wideawake answered in his place: "What he wants and what Room 36B want aren't necessarily the same things. Our only goal is to end the priming, and Hammersmith is nothing if not goal-oriented. Aren't you, Colonel?"

  Hammersmith didn't respond, instead circling the conversation back to Skald. "How can you be sure that the entity knows?"

  "He told us as much. His base on Cato was an old Hierochloe facility, and some of his first vessels worked there before he possessed them. He has access to all their memories – but he knew nothing of what happened off Cato. He wasn't there to see Hierochloe execute their plan, or to see Earth fall."

  "So it knows that you know." Hammersmith swore. "If it tells the wrong person, she will lead them straight to us."

  "To some of us," Wideawake agreed. "But what can we do? The papers have been filed. The recruitment is complete. Room 36B is connected to her now, and that connection cannot be undone. We can only move forward with our plans."

  "The recruitment?" Joy asked, nervous. Surely they couldn't mean–

  "Check your primer's personal details," Hammersmith said.

  Name, age, date of birth, place of birth, and the still-blank box for next of kin. All correct, except for her rank and speciality. She was a corporal, not a lieutenant, and she was most certainly not a Tower operative.

  "You've got the wrong person. I'm not... I'm only a couple of days out of Basic. I'm not qualified. You should be talking to the others, to Rhys, to Hopewell – to Cassimer."

  "Cassimer." Hammersmith spoke the name with scorn. "The hero of the Hecate. He more than anyone should grasp the evils of the priming. But what did he do? He went straight back to kneel at his masters' feet. He questions nothing. He does nothing. He takes orders and does the bidding of those who used him. He seeks neither vengeance nor justice. Tell me, what kind of creature would act in such a manner?"

  "A dog," said Wideawake. "A beaten dog."

  "No." Joy clenched her fists, her sudden flash of anger as hot as Hammersmith's was cold. "You're wrong. You don't know him."

  "But we do. Everyone does, and that's part of the problem. But you, Joy Somerset... No one knows you. Better yet, you know no one. What few attachments you have are as manageable as they are exploitable. Allow me to demonstrate." Hammersmith placed a tablet on the table. A transfer request glowed on the screen, authorising her move from Tower back to Bastion, to serve with Scathach's rangers. "Sign it if you wish."

  She wished nothing more, but there was always a catch. In this case, she rather suspected the catch was a bullet to the back of her head.

  "You'll never let me leave."

  "We would," Hammersmith said, "but we know you won't."

  * * *

  Scathach Station's psychiatrist kept very thorough notes of her sessions and did not withhold her judgment. Every flaw and every weakness was jotted down, every bad dream described, every haunting memory repeated. In her files, the banneret team were reduced to diagnoses and neuroses. All confidential, of course, but apparently that word meant nothing to Hammersmith.

  He shared their files to Joy's primer. She'd closed them as soon as she'd realised the extent of the violation, quickly deleting every trace, but deleting the memory of what she'd read was impossible.

  Lieutenant Lucklaw's struggle with anger management... showing signs of post traumatic stress... Hopewell's avoidance issues manifesting in extreme risk-taking... Captain Rhys's previous problem with substance abuse has escalated... showing symptoms of depression.

  And worst of all, so bad that she'd never forget a single syllable:

  Commander Cassimer no longer speaks at all during sessions. Events on Cato may have brought up past trauma, exacerbating the patient's already severe depersonalisation disorder. Unsure if patient can tell difference between past and present. Potential suicide risk.

  "How long do you think the team can go on as they do?" Hammersmith asked. "Every day, their primers whisper to them that what they know to be true is false, and that what is false is true. Every day, they live among people who believe a lie. They must obey rules they know to be pointless, fear creatures they know to be illusion. They must act as citizens, though they know themselves to be slaves. Do you understand what that does to a person?"

  Yes. She had seen it on Cato, in the eyes of those who had been told over and over
again. Skald's endless singing was not so different from the primer conditioning, and those who had fought him the hardest had suffered the worst, reduced to mad husks.

  "Chaplain den Haag's report made clear that you are unmoved by ideals and rhetoric. You care for people, not causes. And here you are, newly awake in a world where you have no connections but for these soldiers. They are what tie you to the Primaterre. They are, to be blunt, all that tie you to life. Alone, you are nothing."

  She wanted to tell him that she had been alone just fine, thanks, for a very long time. But even in Cato's tunnels, she'd had Imaginary Finn, without whose voice she might have gone insane to a far worse degree than talking to imaginary people. Occasionally, she'd woken from fitful sleep, unsure if she was awake or dreaming or even alive. She'd felt empty, lost, a thing without purpose and roots.

  So instead she asked: "Den Haag is Tower?"

  "Just an asset. His judgment is keen and his instincts second to none. He said that you would be a poor fit. I can't say I disagree."

  "Nor I," she said, faintly hoping that Hammersmith would smile and say oh well, in that case, run along to Scathach's park and leave the scary stuff to the professionals.

  "But you are all we have, and at least you understand what must be done. Project Harmony must be destroyed at its source, the priming signal forever interrupted, its propagators exterminated. We must burn it to the ground."

  "You know where the source is?"

  "Of course," Hammersmith said, and now he did smile. "And so do you, if den Haag's assessment is at all correct. What is the one place in the galaxy where the Primaterre's creators can work undisturbed and unchallenged?"

  The answer was as simple as it was ubiquitous. It was on her uniform jacket and on Hammersmith's cuirass, on Wideawake's exo-skeleton and the coasters on the table. It even floated at the edge of her vision when she called up data from her primer.

  The answer was in the Primaterre logo, where the rays of Sol blazed around the circle-enclosed cross that was the astronomical symbol for Earth.