Andrea Cort 03: War of the Marionettes

by Castro, Adam-Troy

  she showed no lingering after-effects from the hell we’d been through she might have been one of those people capable of shrugging everything off as soon as she went on to the next thing if so I hope the next things kept coming for a long time to come because that also makes her the kind of person likely to fall apart as soon as the crisis stops as for Fox she had no last words for me as we parted ways for a time but she did give me a single hard look serving as reminder that our business was not yet done I knew and I couldn’t look at her I was not even close to ready

  one key advantage of being housed at the Kison Houghton Embassy instead of let’s say the Qi equivalent aside from not having to deal with any Qi was a certain kink in the Kissin out an organism that requires regular extended dousing Zin hot water for exoskeleton health not for them the pulsed Sonic’s so many of us raised on orbital habitats must use for the majority of our personal hygiene they had showers communal showers but still showers I adjusted the temperature to something that exceeded the threshold of pain and stood below the constellation of spray nozzles for close to an hour wetting the steaming water assault my face for several minutes the floor at my ankles puddled with black water but even after it turned grey and then clear I stood there feeling unclean knowing that I could be flayed to the bone and still feel the foul ‘no Spillane every centimeter of my flesh this like so many of my sins was permanent I might have stayed there forever

  outlasting all the others I heard but did not see entering and leaving in less time if one of the others hadn’t approached from behind slipped arms under mine and wrapped me in a tight embrace I recognized skies touch the soft pressure of her tiny breasts against my back the strength in her arms even the tickle of her stubbled hair against the back of my neck but I didn’t respond the way the Porrinyards would have wanted instead I cried out and went boneless sinking to my knees before turning to bury my tears against her legs she shushed me knelt to join me on the floor and spoke sweet lies about everything being all right about the worst being over about being willing to love me no matter what I’d done I was still shaking when thumping footsteps announced the arrival of Ocean who’d come running from wherever he was at the moment of my collapse to join Skyee in her vain attempt to put me back together for the first time in many days I heard them speak in unison again Valene iya was right you have to let us try I couldn’t it’s too big it’s not too big they said it’s as I’ve always told you no weight is too heavy if we carry it together you won’t want to carry this you don’t know that’s right I don’t know and I’m not leaving the sheer injustice of it made the burning pressure build up behind my eyes this was by far the worst breakdown of the last 24 hours and even as they held me and tried to talk me through it I found myself no longer an adult with them but a child with my friends and family on a minor world called Bo CAI I saw my mother’s sightless corpse staring at the Skye the corpses of my brother and sister being carted away like garbage the corpse of the being I loved as much as my own father cooling in a pool of blood at my knees while I played with the eyes I’d plucked from his skull for years I’d carried that weight and for years after I’d learned the forces behind it I’d been able to comfort myself with the knowledge that the guilt was not our own that we’d all been used by the beings I’d come to call the unseen demons like an idiot I taken comfort in that and now I no longer could it wasn’t until late the next day that I broke down and told them the Porrinyards and I were at the shore of the cussin hauntin Island at the time having left the actual building in search of something that resembled solitude a walk almost as cold as this Arctic one pregnant with the weight of my secret and the magnitude of their growing unease it had been a long day occupied by false starts and attempts of conversation that sometimes trailed into silence and sometimes turn nasty as we argued about everything but the issues driving the wedge between us I expected there aghast reactions but still felt betrayed when that’s what I got the two of them stared at me radiating a dismay too large to have been generated by only one you defected again to the unseen demons this time more like a renegotiation than a defection after everything they did to your family to your life the black spots swirling at the corners of my eyes might have been more than just the region’s ubiquitous gnats hovering but forever refusing to land and all they continue to do but Andrea eyed hardened my heart for this moment but it broke a little from the horror in their eyes the bastards had won had I done nothing Fox and I would have both been mutilated the Villani would have continued their march on Nureyev Kroy would have had all the excuse he needed to escalate a bombing run into a war of extermination against their entire species and the likes of reg would have had their excuse to turn all the other races against us I was offered a diplomatic way out the same way out that the AI source majority wanted all along I had to take it under duress Andrea I shook my head I’ve already had that discussion with them it was duress only if I hated them so much I wanted them to die more than I wanted humanity to live duress only if I valued my grievances more than I valued survival so it was always a choice and I don’t mind telling you it was a near thing in the end before I found the only solution that made sense to me I almost the decision that would have damned both the Villani and the human race to destruction given what I got instead I almost wish I had but to embrace the creatures who killed your family that’s only part of the reason I’m in hell I owe them for my parents for my family for all these years as a pariah I hate the unseen demons so much that the thought of working for them helping them survive beyond the mass suicide that the rest of the AI source wants will make my skin crawl for as long as I live it will always feel like I’ve betrayed my family my home myself and you and I’ll never stop hating myself for that my voice broke I’ve lived through a lot this may be more than I can live with if it’s also more than you can live with I understand the two of them still wore their shattered expressions but now they were stricken for other reasons I’m still listening I took a deep breath but the thing is as much as I despise them for what they’ve done as much as I have to despise myself for joining them under any circumstances they also happen to have a legitimate point there was never any good reason why they should have expected to just lie down and join the rest of the AI source collective in self-destruction not if they do still want to live and it was unreasonable for anybody even me to expect them to so once I realized that the unseen demons weren’t just fucking with me that they shared the majority’s opinion of my importance and were actually willing to pull the plug on the attack provided that I just changed sides that I actually had power here for reasons that still escapes me I had to rethink what I’ve been fighting for even then I couldn’t just turn my back on the bodies of my family or on everything I’d ever believed I couldn’t even betray the AI source majority after the promises I’ve made so I did what I do best i renegotiated i told them that i wasn’t willing to defect that was off the table i would go on looking for an exit the AI source majority could use but that i’d also make damn sure that they weren’t forced to die at the same time from now on i said my mission to arrange an end for the AI source would no longer be in effect unless i could also find a way to spare them they found this an acceptable compromise and that’s when they introduced the new paradigm the one that raced from lani mind to Fulani mind destroying every vestige of the blasphemous infection the feigns had helped them set loose and that’s when the tide started to change that’s when the first ones to process the new meme started to come to their senses and fight for us all over the world our survival was still a near thing because the Cure worked like any other antiviral and affected them at differing rates depending on how badly infected they were but that’s still what I bought by compromising everything I’ve believed in these past few years that’s still how it happened I didn’t know how to read the Porrinyard stare at me was it love horror disbelief loathing or pity after a moment both looked away they’re beautiful profiles in perfect opposition as they faced opposite horizons matching tears shown in their ey
es Oh Andrea tell me what you’re thinking you never knew I didn’t call them the unseen demons until I met you that was always your special phrase but long before then I had my own reasons for hating them they hurt me hurt the singlets I used to be in ways I never told you it’s part of the reason my two halves joined to become what I am I’m not surprised but where does that leave us do you hate me now the Porrinyard s had never gotten distraught easily their dual nature centered them in ways that made baring sorrow second nature but now they dabbed at their eyes with identical flicks of their fingertips and sniffed in unison you put down your personal vendetta for the good of all humanity I can’t hate you for that everything else paled beside a single overriding question one that threatened to tear a new wound and my frequently scarred heart but can you still love me they turned to me as one their expressions unreadable you still have more to tell me part of me died yes I do I’m sorry but I haven’t even mentioned the worst part yet even after making a deal with the devil this still hasn’t ended clean they nodded showing no surprise at all that’s part of the deal they’d made when sublimating themselves to the agenda of Andrea Court the unspoken promises that whatever horrors they witnessed whatever hells they endured whatever terrible truths they learned and whatever compromises they had to make their path alongside mine would always take them to darker places and more uncertain futures up until now they’d always been satisfied with fleeting glimpses of compensatory light the promises of happiness snatched in passing but now they had to decide whether that would ever be enough and their answer seemed clear in the grim set of their jaws as they asked me what’s left my eyes burned I turned toward the swamp wondering how many forms of life it hid how many strange creatures considered at home how many dramas of life and death played out daily while I tinkered with the fate of civilization the bottom line we’re still fucked remember what the AI source said what they’ve been saying for more than a year that whatever happened whatever I decided to sentient species would still be brought to the point of extinction one would die off no matter what I did the most I could ever accomplish by making the right choice was arrange for the survival of a handful from the other well that’s what happened and the unseen demons were polite enough to lay out all the consequences for me I may have prevented the Villani from being bombed to oblivion but nothing could have saved them from the damage this ordeal has done to their sense of purpose as a species they’ll be gone within the century the only difference as far as they’re