by S. A. Tholin
"Over a thousand miners were in the pit that day. Less than twenty returned, drenched in the blood of their colleagues. On their foreheads, drawn in blackest soil, was a single word: Earth. The corruption followed in their wake, leaping and reaching, seizing every mind it could. By nightfall, Xanthe's only city was chaos and carnage."
He paused; the worming fear turning in the ash. It was important to drive home the danger, but what had happened on Xanthe, he had seen onboard the Hecate. Still saw it, and would never stop seeing it, no matter what the psychiatrist said or how many pharmaceuticals he tried.
"After that, everything changed. A truce was struck as the warring factions joined forces to rain nuclear fire on Xanthe's cursed surface. But the corruption had already spread, and an invisible army had joined the war, making it no longer a matter of greed and power, but of survival for the human race. Entire worlds were lost to the demons before it became clear they could not be fought by conventional means. The Primaterre was but a small splinter faction then, but it was the Primaterre who discovered and defined the doctrine of purity; a set of rules to shield a mind from the corruption."
"I see," Joy said. "I'm in chains because you think I'm impure."
"It's not a judgment of character. For purity to be an effective shield, every choice must be made with it in mind. It takes time and practice to construct and maintain. You are untrained, and so you are vulnerable."
"A shield of faith," she said, "like in old Earth religions. The faithful would chant prayers until the prayers became part of their subconscious, running on repeat as a constant reminder of devotion. It created a mental shield, they thought, protecting them from corruption and wickedness."
"Yes," he said, taken aback. "Truth be my sword and clarity my shield. Except that faith is an impure concept. Only fact and reason can protect the mind. Only awareness of the real, and the ability to perceive the world around you with a clear mind. The demons thrive in darkness and confusion, in the jumble of chaotic minds. Belief in unproven divinity would give them a falsehood of thought to cling onto and twist."
"So a spiritual practice, then. A pursuit of enlightenment in order to defend against the dark unknown," she said, with a sigh of relief. "How very reasonable."
Cassimer found himself lost for words. Though he'd never heard it put in quite those terms before, she was essentially correct. It baffled him, this puzzle piece - no matter how he tried, he couldn't seem to make it fit with what else he knew of her. How could she grasp in mere moments what he struggled to understand after a lifetime of strict adherence?
He called Lucklaw back down. Fifteen minutes he'd spent with Joy, and fifteen minutes he'd thought wasted on history, but now he wasn't so sure. His intention had been to ensure she understood the danger, but perhaps she was in less danger than anyone he'd ever met. The light he saw in her, could it not be purity?
"Commander." Lucklaw approached, opening his visor.
Joy turned, with a smile that needled Cassimer's spine with envy. There had been no smiles for him, not this time. "Hi. I'm Joy."
Lucklaw regarded her with a silent sneer.
"This is Corporal Lucklaw, whose errands you've been running. He'll explain what he needs next."
"A beam expander. It's a -"
"You're kidding, right?" Joy interrupted, incredulous. The corporal frowned, but her honey eyes were locked pleadingly on Cassimer. "I don't know if you appreciate how difficult it is for me to get these things. I'll do it, okay, I will - but I'd be a lot happier if you didn't lose stuff I already got you."
"Lucklaw?" Cassimer turned to the corporal for explanation.
"Don't know what you're talking about, local. I never received a beam expander."
"Yes, you did," Joy persisted. "It's a small thing, right, easy to lose. So I wrapped it up in a piece of cloth and put it in the backpack's inside pocket. You took the backpack," she said, a chastising tone creeping into her voice, "so you must have it."
Lucklaw squirmed under Cassimer's gaze, sputtering to defend himself, swearing up and down that he'd checked the backpack very thoroughly.
"It's good news though, right?" Joy said. "Just check it again. Easiest delivery yet!"
◆◆◆
Easy delivery for Joy, but not so much for Hopewell. The lieutenant, suited up, stood at the edge of the elevator shaft they'd designated their waste disposal chute. A flare burned at the bottom, tangled in a nest of curled-up spider husks and cobwebbed lichen.
"I can't see the backpack," she said optimistically, as though Cassimer would just throw his hands up and say oh well.
"Just do it," Florey said. He was in charge of the line securing Hopewell's climb. "Serves you right for littering. Impure deeds bring impure rewards."
"Oh shove off with your Earth Provides nonsense."
"I'll shove you right off that edge if you don't get on with it."
The two gunners sniped at one another much like Albany had sniped at Cassimer, but instead of frost, their insults had a wry warmth. He couldn't imagine what it would be like to know someone so well, or how to even get to that point in a relationship. How was it that some people could bare themselves to another with such ease?
Joy, like Hopewell, made it look easy. Smiles for strangers, her name given freely and without hesitation. Every time they spoke she gave him another piece of herself, placing them like petals in his hands.
She was afraid of him, but not afraid to share of herself with him. It was as though she thought sharing made her safer, that the more he knew the less he could hurt her. The mindset seemed alien, the complete opposite of how he lived his life. It made no sense to him - but when he looked at her, he wanted to try.
If only he had something to give.
"All right, Hopewell. I want that array up and running before sunset."
"Yes, Commander." The lieutenant stepped backwards over the edge and began the descent into crimson shadow.
A banneret team didn't leave much behind - part of their purpose was to be unobtrusive. Their habitat processed most of their waste, turning as much as possible into reusable materials, but the things which couldn't be recycled (far less than one might think; too little according to many soldiers) were neatly vac-packed for disposal.
"See anything, Commander?"
"Negative." He swept his flashlight across the midden. Plastic vac-packs gleamed amongst jutting rebar. The cobwebs were thick and stringy, snapping like old elastic bands around Hopewell, but there were no signs of live spiders. Tombs, he'd thought when he'd first seen the ruins, and tombs they were, homes to nothing but the withering and the dead.
"Oh!" Hopewell yelped, just stopping short of swearing.
"You all right, Hopey?" Florey, securing his grip on her line, looked anxiously towards the hole in the ground.
"Vac-packs got split open on rebar, and guess who's covered in their delightful contents?"
Florey laughed, shaking his head, and laughed again when Hopewell eventually pulled herself out of the shaft. Her armour was smeared an indescribable brown, spatters streaking her visor.
"Backpack." She dropped the sorry-looking bag on the floor. "Requesting permission to go scrub my suit until the paint flakes off."
"Granted," he said, and couldn't help but smile as Florey, armed with a thousand little jokes at Hopewell's expense, followed her up the stairs.
The beam expander was exactly where Joy had said it would be. Good, although Lucklaw really should have -
"Commander."
Speak of the devil.
"Expander secured. Bringing it to the array now."
"Inadvisable, Commander. We've got incoming."
◆◆◆
The locals came creeping out of the glass forest. Low and wary, faces caked with mud, hair interwoven with lichen. Scrap metal plates had been sown into their ragged jackets and coats. Their weapons were long knives and corroding relics. The Epona's sensors counted twenty-three men and women in total, but their numbers changed nothing. I
f Cassimer ordered his men to open fire, what ensued next wouldn't be combat, but a massacre.
He ordered Lucklaw, still at the array, to remotely disable the mines. Let the locals come closer before closing the funnel. Let them get a taste of what they were up against. Diplomacy worked better when backed by a show of force.
"What's your status, Rhys?"
The medical officer had the unenviable task of covering the rear of the base. The locals were unlikely to attempt an approach over the mountains, but there was a sizable stretch of open ground to the south-east, and no amount of mines and automated defences could replace the human eye.
"All clear, Commander."
The ragged army stopped at the edge of the minefield, as though they could sense the lurking death - or maybe they were losing their nerve. All it would take was one moment of clarity, of realising what they were about to get themselves into. In Cassimer's experience, that sort of common sense was remarkably rare.
A dark-haired woman, hair wound into tight black-and-red braids, pushed one of the locals forward. He stumbled in the dust, kicking up grey clouds, but when the ground proved safe and no bullets came whizzing through the air, the waiting crowd surged forward.
Hopewell, in the driver's seat of the Epona, shifted uncomfortably. "Almost like they knew the mines were there."
"Doesn't matter," Florey said. "Won't change their fates."
When they were a hundred metres inside the perimeter, Cassimer ordered the funnel closed. One by one, mines switched from lethal to crowd-control, blinking to life on his HUD. The locals were surrounded and didn't even know it.
A man veered to the left, stepping onto a buried sensor. A plume of dust spurted from the ground, and the man was thrown backwards into the crowd, sending three others sprawling.
Another mine went off to the right, and a shudder went through the herd. The dark-haired woman shouted, trying to keep order, but the panic could not be halted.
Geysers of dust spewed from the plains in quick succession, low booms echoing far and wide. Locals ran, and locals fell, and Hopewell - at the wheel of the Epona - failed to suppress her laughter.
When the dust settled, the majority of the locals lay stunned and scattered. The remainder huddled around the woman, weapons drawn.
"Activate the acoustics."
As the long-range acoustic defences began to blare, Cassimer's suit automatically engaged its noise cancellation filter. In the silence, and through the scope of his Hyrrokkin, he saw the world with clarity. The calm of control was better than any mantra.
◆◆◆
In the Eponas, Florey and Hopewell circled the locals, herding the conscious together.
Cassimer approached on foot. The dark-haired woman stood defiantly, and he recognised her as the one Natham had offered up. Rivka had been a cowering and fearful creature then, but she'd cast off that mask. Now she held her head high and true, and in her eye was the madness of a trapped animal.
She trained her weapon on him, and he recognised the gun too, remembered seeing it in far lovelier hands.
Yellow bruises. Here was their cause, feral and unkempt.
On his command, the Eponas came to a stop and deployed their crowd control munitions. A series of low-hazard detonations exploded from the sides of the vehicles. The resulting shockwaves and blinding flashes were designed to overwhelm and pacify.
Cassimer's visor automatically filtered out the light, his suit absorbing the shock. The locals had no chance, and even Rivka's madness was not enough to keep her standing. She fell to her knees, surrounded by her defeated, groaning army. Some of them were digging deep, burying their heads in dust.
Hopewell and Florey left their vehicles and began to confiscate the locals' weapons.
"Rivka, is it? From Natham's farm."
Dark grey swirls painted a frenzied pattern on her face. Her pale eyes, still blinking from the blast, twitched and rolled. One trembling and sharp-nailed hand went for the gun, but Cassimer was faster.
This does not belong to you, he wanted to say as he collected Joy's stolen gun, wanted the thief to feel his disapproval.
"I hope this has made it clear that you have nothing to gain from further hostilities."
No response.
"What did you hope to achieve, Rivka?"
"You don't belong here," she snarled and spat at his boots.
Spit, threats and insults. Once, he'd been unable to understand why this was so often the response of locals. Without the Primaterre, there would be no civilisation and there would be no peace. Why could people like Rivka not see that it was in their best interest to comply and cooperate?
At some point, he had stopped even trying to understand. Rivka's snarl only made him tired.
"Agreed," he said, "and the sooner you stop interfering, the sooner we will leave."
"You will never leave." She smiled then, a wide predator's smile. Her lips were stained red by something she'd been chewing, thick wiry strands stuck between her crooked teeth.
"We're confiscating your weapons. Go home and accept defeat."
"Home?" Rivka scooped up a handful of dust and let it run between her fingers. "We are home. You don't see it because your mind is tainted, but Cato is eternity and we are its wicked children. The dust whispers to us of deep-down paths, and the storms sing of the beacon with which you would call down the stars."
Her words were as mad as her eyes - and yet, perhaps not.
"Rhys, report."
"All clear."
"Lucklaw, report." No reply. "Lucklaw."
"Apologies, Commander - the force field's having issues with its power supply. I was just patching into the habitat to reroute power. Should be good now."
"Any activity to report?"
"Negative." A beat of silence, before Lucklaw nonchalantly added: "Sensors are reporting a lot of noise down below. Probably the habitat's generators shutting down. I'll go down to check -"
"Negative. Expect hostiles. Defend the array at all cost. Rhys, fall back to the roof."
"Commander?" Hopewell paced nervously around their captives. "Something wrong?"
He looked at Rivka's red-stained smile. There was madness in her eyes, but amusement, too - and a challenge. Not a desperate animal caught in a trap, but a huntress, eager to see her trap sprung. Yes. Something was very wrong; control slipping from his hands to hers.
"Last chance, Rivka. Go back to your farm." His Morrigan sat heavy and hungry in his hand. Perhaps it was the better choice. Kill the would-be leader and crush what little morale her dust-crawling followers had managed to scrape together.
"Black," she said, gaze fixed on the Morrigan. "Black like the corruption in your veins. How can you hear the whispering wind when a storm already rages; when the thoughts that scream the loudest are not your own. You don't hear the red, but we do, and we were told of the death in the dust and the black cube in the ruins."
Movement to his left, where one of the locals who had buried his head in the sand suddenly stood.
Hopewell opened fire. The local's ribcage exploded, and from his dead hands fell the smooth rectangular box of a Primaterre mine. A pair of rusty scissors had pried it open, spliced wires splaying from a crack in its side.
Cassimer's HUD reported the activation of a mine in close proximity, and his suit's automatic defences surged as more activation reports flashed. All around him, digging hands pulled metal from the ground. All around him, excavated mines switched back to lethal as they activated one last time.
Rivka ran. Florey's Epona was pulling away even as Hopewell continued to fire on the locals. Cassimer braced, suit defences engaging, and then came the roaring shockwave.
16. Joy
Beyond hoping to make next month's rent, Joy hadn't ever concerned herself much with the future and hadn't much planned for it either. She had mainly expected things to just keep going the way they were. Oh, sure, the city would expand and new worlds would join the Cascade network; computers would get better and faster
and smaller, and her favourite shows would change with the seasons, and maybe one day the Atwood Avengers might actually win the System Championship - but she had never expected people to change.
Yet here she sat, chained to a desk inside a black room, struggling to process this vigilant and fearful new breed of humanity.
Cassimer hadn't been gone long. The faint scent of citrus and chemicals lingered on the air - not unpleasant, but not a scent that seemed to fit the man. But then, neither did the things he'd said.
He had sincerely believed every word. At certain points, he'd even struggled - strained, unwilling to speak on the topic, but pressing on nonetheless - and that scared her the most.
It was a good story. Interesting and terrifying in equal measure - the kind of story that she would've loved to pore over the details of, and theorise about with like-minded people on the net. The kind of story that she'd have driven Finn crazy with.
And therein lay the problem. Finn would've rolled his eyes at Cassimer's story, maybe even laughed out loud when he got to the part about the word Earth drawn on the possessed miners' foreheads. To Joy, that was the sort of detail that intrigued, but Finn would've laughed, would've called it stupid. Hell, even if a fork-tailed and red-horned demon popped up in front of him in a cloud of smoke and sulphur, Finn would probably need to see its ID and infernal birth certificate before he'd believe.
People like Finn did not believe in demons, and Cassimer was very much a person like Finn. He might not share her brother's easy smile and extroverted charm, but like Finn, there was something serious and deliberate about his every move. He was strong, pragmatic, reliable. Intimidating.
But while Finn would've laughed at the notion of demons, Cassimer did not. Cassimer was afraid.
Joy shook her head and said to no one in particular: "But it sounds so ridiculous!"
Still, just in case, she was glad for the lights that left not a corner of the room in shadow.