Lonely Castles

by S. A. Tholin

  "I know," he said, grimacing. "I made the same mistake once."

  "Considering how worn the book is, it seems to be a popular read – though not what I expected to find in a banneret company's library."

  "The books are donated by people wishing to support the troops. Very generous, but not always well-considered. We get a lot of horror and crime novels. As per regulation, we don't keep those. We get a surprising amount of romances too. Nobody owns up to reading them, but as you said, look at how dog-eared that book is." He opened his nightstand's drawer and showed her the copy of A History of Earth that he was halfway through. "Pristine. It's been in the library a good decade, and I wouldn't mind betting I'm the first to read it."

  "Well, to be fair to the other banneret men," Joy said, sliding close to kiss his clean-shaven cheek, "you don't really need to read the romances."

  He turned his head, his lips meeting hers. Her towel fell away underneath his hands, and if he'd had the time, if he could stay... but he could not, and he draped his uniform jacket over her shoulders and pulled her close, breathing her in.

  "I'd hoped you'd come to Scathach after Achall."

  "So had I." Her fingers traced the outline of his name tag. "I wanted to."

  "I suppose Bastion isn't in the business of giving us what we want."

  "It wasn't Bastion. And I did have a choice, I think, between what's easy and what's hard. Between what I want and what's right. Could that be true, though? Can a decision be right and still be one I regret every second of every day?"

  "Yes," he said. "Without a doubt."

  "You say that, but what about now?"

  A share request from Joy flashed on his HUD; a simple exchange of credentials. He approved it and immediately wished he hadn't.

  "Tower." He couldn't keep the distaste from his voice, and she cringed, hiding her face against his shoulder.

  "Are you angry?"

  "Not with you." With the universe, perhaps. With the Primaterre Protectorate, to which he had entrusted Joy only for it to decide that her place would be among torturers and shadows. With himself, for not applying pressure to have her stationed on Scathach. Rhys had told him not to, insisting that it would be inappropriate and controlling. Damn the medic for meddling, and damn himself for listening. "I may not trust Tower, but I do trust you. If it was your choice, it was the right one."

  "We'll see. In any case, it's only for three years, right?"

  "1056 days. 1055 tomorrow," he said, and was rewarded with a smile so bright that he finished lacing up his boots wondering how the hell he'd manage to leave the room. "Morning shift's about to start. I've got duties. Places I need to be."

  "I'd expect no less, Commander." She shrugged off his jacket and handed it to him. So beautiful, so comfortable, so at ease with her vulnerability. "This lowly lieutenant doesn't have anywhere to be, however. I do have guest quarters – the same room as before, in fact. Meet me there later? Or I could stay here, if you like."

  "Yes," he said, relieved that she had made the suggestion. Here, behind a door that would open only to him. Here, where she would be safe and his alone. "I'll be back as soon as I'm able."

  "I'll be waiting, but, oh, please don't go just yet! I forgot all about it – you are very distracting – but I brought you something. One second!"

  She collected her belongings from the corridor. A duffel bag, and a plant pot complete with a strange flower.

  "I went to the park earlier," she said.

  "They burned it."

  "Yes; they had to, but they collected samples first, to make the replanting quicker. This is an orchid; a Cattleya trianae to be exact. As they had several of these, the head ranger asked if I wanted one. I can't take it back to Tower, but I thought maybe you could keep it, like a little piece of the park."

  A little piece of the park. A little piece of things he'd thought smothered in ash, but here they were, shimmering in honey-brown eyes and pure white petals. He took the plant and placed it on his otherwise bare desk.

  "It won't last, so just enjoy it while it does. This environment isn't right for it. To keep it alive in these conditions, you'd need a mini-greenhouse."

  "That's not a problem." His primer connected with the station network, whispering to him all the things an orchid needed. Humidity control. Scheduled watering. Artificial sunlight. It was an interesting challenge. "I could build something like that."

  "That," she said, practically beaming, "sounds like a wonderful idea."

  30.

  JOY

  "Is it really necessary to waste all this paper?" Elsinore, grumbling, pulled a piece of paper from underneath his shoe. The adhesive tape stayed on his sole, thwapping against the floor as he crossed the room.

  "It's easier to see the big picture this way. Primers and mindspaces are amazing, but the data is too intangible – like a ghost world. To see the pattern, I need ink and paper. I need to feel my hand make the marks," Joy said, demonstratively highlighting a document with a marker pen.

  It was getting hard to find space. Her office walls were already a quilt of printed pages and chalk-drawn lines, and she had started to move out onto the connecting gantry. The plasma moat glowed below, the silver eyes of the analysts twinkling in the dark core chamber, but with every passing day Room 36B seemed a little more like hers. It helped that since returning from Scathach, she'd seen nobody but Elsinore and Lutzen, who was currently sitting on the gantry railing, eating a sandwich and watching her work. Keeping an eye on her, more than likely. Well, whatever. She wasn't scared of him anymore.

  "Printer just spat these out." Elsinore handed her a pile of documents. Historical data, mostly, some of it ripped straight from her Cryo-CatchUp files. Room 36B's dark walls were slowly beginning to paint a picture of Primaterre history. "And could you maybe try to work in silence? Your humming is driving me insane."

  "Oh, sorry," she said, blushing. The song stuck in her head was from a Neave Crescent Creek album released after she'd left Mars. Old to everyone else, but brand new to her.

  "Don't mind him." Lutzen shifted, the railing creaking worryingly under his weight. The strike team captain wore light armour, as always, and as always, it struck her as rather unnecessary. Who was going to attack a Cascade that shouldn't exist? "You sing your songs, girl. Helps distract from all this."

  He gestured towards the monitors in Elsinore's adjoining office, busy with live updates of the nascent war. The news streams were overwhelmingly positive, the direct feeds from ships and troop body cams less so. One monitor had gone dark, and Joy tried to remember what had been there before. A stream from a ship's bridge, she thought, a ship on approach to Hereward.

  The RebEarth stronghold was the focus of the Primaterre campaign, but it was far from the only front. RebEarth activity across the Protectorate had increased, and distant worlds needed protection.

  "It's frightening," she admitted. "The Primaterre troops... our troops seem stretched so thin. You must know a thing or two, Lutzen. How worried should we be?"

  "Fucking terrified, twenty-four-seven, but that's just life in general. The war? Barely a blip on the radar. What gets me is sitting on the sidelines. I read the reports, I see ways of helping our troops, ways of hamstringing the enemy. Sometimes, the people on the ground do what I would have, and sometimes they don't. Then they die, or some other poor Primaterre bastards take the hit." He shrugged. "Shadows are wasted in the dark. My team and I should be out there."

  "You have more important work," Elsinore said, impatient. Apparently conversation was just as much a distraction as humming.

  "Ah, yes. Babysitting tech support. Making sure no nasty Black Niners turn up to abduct Somerset. Such meritorious duties."

  "Black Niners?" Joy peered nervously at the Cascade's viewports. The stars looked slightly blurry, the light irritating to her eyes. A slight headache nagged at her temple, even though she'd barely used her primer at all. "I thought this system was empty."

  "The blackest system of them all
," Lutzen confirmed. "I doubt we're about to have company, but Hammersmith imagines it a possibility, and whatever he imagines, I must treat as real. Besides, people do have a tendency to turn up in the strangest places, and there's nothing worse than people."

  "I can think of one thing worse than people."

  "The one thing Hammersmith never imagined – an actual demon." Lutzen laughed and plucked a cigarette from his trouser pocket. He lit it, the acrid smell of Rhys's favoured brand oddly comforting. "A real mindfuck, that. We fight so long to end a lie, only to be faced with an enemy who makes the lie true. Hard to make contingencies for that. Hard to imagine scenarios involving an enemy we have next to no intel on. You know it better than anyone, Somerset – do you think it could be coming here?"

  "With Skald, anything's possible. He could feel us folding from this Cascade, for all I know. His roots reach far."

  "Enough to give an old soldier nightmares. I hear your previous commander's got it running scared, though."

  "He does what he can."

  "Any idea of what that might entail, exactly? It'd be good to know if this entity's going to be an enemy for the long haul, or if the battle's about to be over."

  "Banneretcy business is not my business," she said, shrugging. Constant kept firm barriers between her and his work. Considering the secrets she was keeping from him, it only seemed fair. That said, not everybody was so tight-lipped, and thanks to Hopewell-overheard-by-Rhys, she had a bit of information. "A friend of mine said he heard talk that Skald has stolen something important. Whatever it is, Commander Cassimer means to take it back."

  "Well, best of luck to him."

  Yes, the best of luck and all of her hopes and prayers. She–

  –a jolt of pain shot through her head, settling there to gnaw at her temples.

  "Elsinore, are you doing something with my primer? I've got a bad headache getting worse."

  "I'm adjusting some connection settings," he said. "There are painkillers in my desk drawer. Help yourself to one and don't worry about it."

  "After what happened on Scathach, maybe she should worry." The voice was Wideawake's, but the man who stood at the top of the gantry stairs looked nothing like the interrogator. He wore the sleek black of a high-ranking Tower officer, a gun on his hip and a smile on his face. His chestnut hair was kept short at the sides, quite to regulation, the sports jersey underneath his cuirass the only hint that this was in fact Tower Operative Wideawake.

  "Welcome back, sir." Lutzen hopped down from the railing, saluting. "The doctors did a fine job putting you back together again."

  "About time, too. Hammersmith didn't like the idea of sparing me for a whole month, but with Somerset out of action, we were stalled anyway. Speaking of Somerset, it would appear that a near-death experience is not enough to keep her mind from working away." He smiled at her, warmly, and how nice his face looked when it wasn't rotting.

  "You look so much younger than I expected," she said. "Oh – no offense, sir."

  "None taken. It's hard to make a good first impression while slowly dying. Besides, Lutzen's right. The doctors back home did do a good job, shaving off ten years at least. Young again on the surface; old on the inside. But I needn't tell you about appearances and how they deceive. It would appear you see quite clearly." He stepped up to her wall of notes, running his hand across the paper, tracing highlighted passages. "I read your reports. Very interesting."

  "It's all nonsense." Elsinore stood at the door to his office, arms crossed. "I've been through every scrap of information there is on the demonic outbreak on the bio-medical research station, and there is no indication that they were working on anything to do with primers. Their two top secret projects had to do with recon strips and what looks like a crude forerunner to medical filaments. Commercial products – hardly a threat to anyone."

  "Room 36B has taught you to see danger in every corner, Elsinore. An excellent trait for an operative, but it blinds you to other perspectives. Somerset... I understand that you are looking at Project Harmony as a cause, its progenitors true believers?"

  "Hierochloe's company culture wasn't corporate at all. They fostered an attitude of belonging, of inclusiveness. Every employee, from the lowest to the highest, got great benefits. They had company housing, company outings, and it was never forced, not like at my job, where the lab director would make us go to these hideous 'team building exercises'. My brother Finn was never much of a joiner. He always did his own thing, his own way – but working for Hierochloe changed him. Matured him, a great deal, and he really did come to believe in the company's ideals. Back then, I chalked it up to his fiancée's influence, but now... I don't know. I'm thinking that Project Harmony really was created with good intentions."

  "Doesn't make it any better," muttered Lutzen.

  "No," she agreed. "It makes it worse. But it's the only way any of this makes sense. You've been looking at the higher ups at Hierochloe, trying to figure out who's been running Harmony, and you've never found anything. That's because they weren't trying to gain power or profit – they simply wanted to be part of humanity's fresh start. And Harmony itself... I think it's probably very simple to run. All they'd need on Earth is a skeleton crew of techs and someone capable of analysing data to determine what nudges are required to the programming. A behavioural psychologist could do it. Anyone curious and zealous enough to spend centuries cultivating a new world."

  "Conjecture," Elsinore scoffed.

  "Yes, but I like it," Wideawake said. "So does Hammersmith. If purity is an earnest creed and not just a tool of control, that lends weight to our colonel's personal beliefs. Yes, he likes it a great deal. He has faith. Elsinore has reason. Somerset has imagination. Yet none of you possess the cynicism required to complete the puzzle. Elsinore; the medical filaments we use today – who manufactures them?"

  "Several different companies. The patent is owned by... oh." He frowned. "Semele Solutions."

  "Indeed; the patent filed nearly a year after the outbreak on the research station. It would seem that they were direct competitors of Semele Solutions, and that Semele were about to see themselves beaten to the punch. Trillions of merits, if not more, lost."

  "I thought the working idea was that Project Harmony's not about profit."

  "Cooper Keiss is the third generation of his family to run Semele. His predecessors may well have been true believers, but perhaps time has diluted the zealousness – or Cooper might be the stereotypical rebel, denouncing his father's values. To him, Project Harmony is not about ideals, but about controlling markets and amassing personal wealth."

  "Oh, Wideawake." Joy clasped a hand to her mouth, scanning the wall for her documents on Semele's history. "You're right; I see it now. The outbreaks that don't fit the seven year cycle – they all occurred after Cooper took control of the company. That... that makes him directly responsible for all of them – for the Hecate."

  Cooper's picture was pinned to the wall, the man beaming a politician's faux-earnest smile at the camera. No, not a man, not anymore. A target.

  "Yeah, the Hecate. How exactly does a Bastion troop transport fit into this theory, Wideawake?" Elsinore asked, still unconvinced.

  "You're too young to remember that outbreak, and far too young to remember the repercussions. Over three hundred young recruits were slaughtered or possessed. A Bastion ship, attacked from within. A great deal of fear followed, along with a great deal of crackdowns on impurity and a purge on criminals – even petty ones. Terrible times, dark times – and very profitable times, for some. Semele Solutions had just launched the auto-chaplain program to little fanfare. They'd pitched it to Bastion, who saw no need when they could use real chaplains, and Sanctum actively obstructed the roll-out. After the Hecate, however, no safety measure was too much. And now, anyone who's been through Basic Training has an auto-chaplain stored in their primer, a friendly mantra-chanter to hold their hand. Perhaps this was why the Hecate was targeted. Perhaps there were other reasons."


  "Perhaps perhaps perhaps. What difference does it make, anyway? Knowing our enemy's motives doesn't get us anywhere."

  "Yes, it does." Joy's heart beat fast, and thank the stars Wideawake was smiling at her, or she might've been too nervous to speak up. "We set up a dummy company. We find some secret Semele is working on, and we leak information that our company is about to release something similar. If it's enough of a threat, maybe Keiss will contact Project Harmony on Earth. We're watching the Luna drones, right, and all the signal traffic? If he contacts Harmony, we can trace their location. We'll know exactly where on Earth the source is."

  "Interesting." Wideawake leaned against the gantry railing, arms folded across his chest. "I could set something like that up. Elsinore, can you get me intel on Semele?"

  "It'd be easier if my asset wasn't in the field." He shrugged. "I'll try."

  "Your asset. Aubrey Lucklaw?" Joy asked.

  "Above your clearance."

  "Oh, come now." Wideawake laughed. "She obviously already knows. No need to keep secrets that aren't secrets. Yes, Aubrey Lucklaw. Too high-profile for Hammersmith to want to recruit – couldn't possibly take both you and Admiral Lucklaw's boy, now could we? – but it's a shame. He should be here with us. A mind like his is far too rare to risk on the frontlines."

  "He's not on the frontlines, though," Joy said. "Cassimer's team are on special assignment, hunting Skald."

  Lutzen raised an eyebrow. "Your clearance really must be shit. Cassimer's on Hereward last I heard. Right about... here."

  He pointed to a monitor showing satellite footage. Dark green forest surrounded what had once been urban sprawl but now resembled a smouldering volcano. Hereward burned, and somewhere in the midst of those fires was Constant.

  Suddenly she understood what Lutzen had meant. Their work in 36B, Project Harmony, even Cooper Keiss – none of it seemed important anymore. They should be where the fires burned. She should breathe ozone and stare down the barrel of her Morrigan. She should bleed and fight like the other soldiers fresh from Basic.