Iron Truth

by S. A. Tholin

  You big baby.

  "Shut up you," she muttered to Imaginary Finn and hoped that the soldiers weren't watching through hidden cameras, or else she'd look the mad one. "I slept for such a long time. Who's to say they didn't find something deep in the mines of Xanthe? The universe is far too large for it to be empty."

  Still sounds like bullshit to me.

  "Sorry, Finn. Your motto may be 'be prepared', but mine is 'keep an open mind'."

  About the demons - and the soldiers.

  The minutes ticked by, and with nothing else to glean from the clinical habitat, she tried the computer the corporal had left on the desk. A sleek and shiny thing, its screen thin and flexible, but no matter where she tapped it, it remained blank. Like the systems onboard the Ever Onward, it was possible the computer only responded to authorized personnel - the soldiers probably had some form of identity chip. Chances were the airlock and the manacle about her wrist were similarly locked.

  No chance of escape. She tugged at the manacle though she knew the effort to be wasted, and tried to work out her feelings about the situation. Being trapped wasn't good, but was it worse than being out on the plains or down in the tunnels? At least the habitat was clean, bright and warm (she'd forgotten what that was like) and in spite of Hopewell's remarks, the ration bar had actually tasted okay. Had brought to mind childhood Yuletide celebrations, after their parents had passed - but before Finn had learned to cook - when their festive meal had come wobbling out of tins to settle on their plates in jellied puddles. Unappetising, but nostalgic.

  And then there was Cassimer. She'd all but convinced herself she liked him, but what had there been to like? The glare of his dark visor? The lies he told to string her along? The implied threats? She'd made herself like him because she'd needed to believe that one decent person still existed in the universe, but deep down she'd known Likable Cassimer to be as illusory as Imaginary Finn.

  But then he'd removed his helmet and his armour and sat before her a man. His words might've made little sense, but in his silences, she'd felt an indefinable something. An unexpected heartbeat - a nudge to alter the rhythm of her pulse. Not enough to make him likeable, but enough to make her believe that he was right. For her, the safest place on Cato was with the Primaterre soldiers.

  The lights in the ceiling blinked once; twice. A section near the bathroom went dark.

  The demons thrive in darkness.

  God, she wished he hadn't said that. It was just shadow, just an absence of light.

  Just shadow - and then the building rumbled. A long silence followed, and then came scratching, like long claws on concrete.

  In the darkest corner, the shadows moved.

  No. Joy closed her eyes - held her breath - and when she looked again, the shadows were still.

  Her imagination had got the better of her, was all. Maybe she'd tell Cassimer when he returned. Maybe he'd be amused by how his ghost story had taken root in her imagination; for all she knew, maybe this was all a big joke at the civilian's expense. She could play along with that. She'd had worse at the botany lab; a scary story was nothing compared to having the contents of her lunchbox swapped for fertiliser, or being locked in the walk-in freezer. If she'd been able to laugh about those things afterwards (eventually), she could certainly take the soldiers' joke gracefully.

  The floor vibrated under her feet. The manacle chain link jangled against the desk, and now the claws scratched again. A hard noise, a sharp noise, a noise that found her spine and raked it.

  And then all the lights died at once.

  The habitat's black walls slowly turned transparent. Beyond them lay a brick-walled room, large and cavernous, where drifts of grey dust collected underneath gaping windows.

  The vibrations turned into a rumbling quake. Mortar and brick-dust pattered the habitat's flat roof.

  "Hello?" She pulled at the manacle. "What's going on? Is anyone out there?"

  The building rumbled again and sections of ceiling collapsed, showering the habitat with heavy debris. A crack zigzagged across the roof, cutting from corner to corner.

  Joy crawled under the desk, as far as the manacle would allow. It wouldn't afford her much protection if the habitat failed, but maybe just enough to make a difference. The soldiers would be back soon - even if they didn't care about her, they surely cared about their own base.

  A sliver of light appeared outside the habitat. It cut down the length of a set of elevator doors, thin at first, but widening rapidly.

  Just my imagination, oh god, just a trick of the light.

  But long fingers crept through the opening, and they were real; oh god, so real. Rusted crowbars and grimy hands pried the elevator doors open, and a shadow climbed from the dark shaft, and then another, and another, and -

  Demons thrive in darkness.

  The thought screamed across her mind, but it was silly, it was stupid, because these weren't demons. These were men and women, fungus-pale and bony-limbed. Tattered clothes hung from sagging skin. Matted hair fell long and shaggy to frame faces smeared red and grey and black and brown.

  Not demons. Worse - drifters.

  She tried to make herself as small as possible. Duncan's voice played in her mind, joking but not really: reckoned the drifters would've made blankets of your skin by now.

  One drifter slapped his palms against the habitat's wall, pressing his face to the glossy surface. He carried a sidearm, as well as a rifle slung over one red-stained shoulder, but it was his blade that caught Joy's attention. A curved blade, cut from sheet metal. Its jagged edge would cut her skin badly, tear it open, and she didn't want to think about that, but she thought it and she imagined it and she couldn't stop.

  She'd seen drifters before. Distant, skulking figures. She'd kept her distance and they had kept theirs, but she'd heard stories. The people at Natham's farm revelled in the horrifying details. The people at Nexus told stories too, but only in hushed tones. The drifters frightened them; frightened even the people of the undercity.

  Maybe the stories were exaggerated - oh please oh please - but the bones in the tunnels said otherwise.

  A dozen shadows crept around the habitat now, probing its walls, testing for weakness, scraping blades against it. They hadn't seen her and maybe if she kept perfectly still - did she really need to breathe? - it would stay that way.

  Then heavy footsteps approached at a rapid pace. The drifters withdrew into the gloom, melting away silently.

  A soldier came climbing in through one of the windows, pale light dappling his pauldrons and catching on a golden cross set inside the stylised sun emblazoned on his chest.

  His armour could withstand a drifter's blade, Joy was sure of it, but could it withstand a dozen? Two dozen wiry arms could hold him down, could pluck him from his carapace, and then the knives would set about their merciless business. The soldier would die screaming, and Joy would hear it.

  No. She couldn't do that.

  Don't be stupid, warned Imaginary Finn, and she loved him for it, this echo of her brother -

  - but she couldn't take his advice, not this time.

  "Hey, stop," she shouted, crawling out from under the desk. Kneeling, she waved her arms at the soldier. "It's an ambush!"

  The soldier's suit lights switched on, bathing the room a cool white. A shot rang out, and then more, a hail of bullets pelting the soldier. Joy cried out, certain he would fall - but then he returned fire, standing tall against the onslaught. Two drifters died instantly, misting the habitat with fan-shaped bursts of blood. A third lunged, his blade screeching across sparking armour. The soldier countered with a blow to the drifter's temple, followed by a bullet.

  Joy's heart beat wildly. The violence was terrifying, beyond anything she'd ever seen, but the soldier was winning; he'd be all right, and then he'd come and set her free, and...

  And more shadows poured from the elevator shaft. Six, seven... Joy lost count as her throat constricted, the pain blurring her vision.

  T
he soldier dispatched a few more, but he was backing up towards the stairs, away from the habitat. Away from her.

  "Come back!" Her voice cracked with panic. "You have to take me with you!"

  He couldn't leave her here. She'd risked her life to save him. That favour had to be repaid; he wouldn't just go.

  But he did. His visor turned towards her one last time, yellow blooms of muzzle flashes reflected in its dark surface, and then he retreated up the stairwell. A stream of drifters followed him, silent but for the gunfire.

  She'd saved a man's life and he'd left her. That wasn't right, that wasn't fair, and not every drifter had followed the soldier up the stairs.

  She kicked the leg of the desk, but it was as unyielding as the manacle. It made sense - little point in chaining her to something that could be easily destroyed - but when so very few things on Cato made sense, why did this have to be one of them?

  No weapon and no escape. Nothing at all within reach but for the computer.

  Two drifters circled the habitat as a third climbed to its roof. From his deep-pocketed coat, he produced an explosive charge. He set it down, pressed a button and leapt to the floor.

  Joy dived under the desk, clutching the computer to her chest. It would be all right; this was the future after all. The habitat's walls might look as thin as the computer, but that didn't mean they weren't strong. Her cage would hold, would keep her safe, would -

  The explosion rocked the room. A cascade of brick and timber tumbled onto the habitat, glossy walls singing with tension. The zigzag cracks turned into spider webs of fine fractures. Reaching, growing, widening - and with a glassy sound the roof shattered. The entire left-side wall collapsed in a flood of bricks and dust.

  A timber beam slammed into the desk, pushing it across the floor, dragging Joy along. The manacle clamped tight around her wrist and her arm flared with pain. Wedged between the beam and the cubicle wall, the desk began to bend and warp. Screws snapped and shot from joints, and suddenly the desk leg broke off and she was free, but now came the sound of soft and damp feet approaching from behind.

  She grabbed the desk leg and turned, stabbing blindly.

  The leg found flesh through threadbare denim, scraping a red ribbon across dirt-blackened skin. She lashed out again, but the drifter stepped back, ducking down so that she could see his painted face. Crimson smears circled his eyes, runnels of colour streaking his ash-caked cheeks.

  He smiled as he wrenched the desk leg from her. Another drifter's hands closed around her shoulders. She twisted away, sharp fingernails raking her skin, but the first drifter had her ankles in a tight grip.

  She picked up the computer and threw it towards his smiling face. It missed, screen smashing on the floor.

  More hands reached under the desk now, crawling over her, pulling and grabbing and twisting. An arm locked around her throat and crushed down hard.

  One drifter had drawn his blade. Its edge traced a crescent on her stomach, pinpricks of blood welling up through grey cotton.

  She should be brave. She should fight. She should bite the hands pawing at her face or kick the blade from the drifter's hands.

  But all she could think of was how much this death would hurt, and her throat constricted as a more familiar - but no less dangerous - assailant attacked. Six doses left, but maybe she'd be better off running out of breath before the drifters (made a blanket out of your skin) did whatever they were going to do.

  "Rivka says kill her." The voice rasped across her cheek, acrid and gravelly.

  "Rivka is afraid of her," added a second voice.

  "Rivka is queen of the plains." The smiling drifter spoke now. "But Cato is more than plains. Cato is the mountains, Cato is the deep. Cato is the burned cities and the silver fortress. Rivka does not know these places."

  He shoved Joy's knees apart and leaned in over her. "This one could know them." He lifted her shirt, exposing the thin wound his blade had cut. A grimy finger traced it, gathering up droplets of her blood. "Fresh. The red likes fresh." He licked her blood from his finger, tasting it. "Yes. We take her."

  She screamed then, and kicked and writhed and did all those things she should, but the smiling drifter's body pressed down on hers. Her lungs found no air; her blood glistened on his lips.

  Her scream was cut short as a wad of lichen was stuffed into her mouth. Brittle and scratchy like spider's legs, filling her mouth with a salty tang. She coughed, turning her head, but greasy hands clamped down on her mouth. Her chest ached, her vision blurred. Not long now, not long at all.

  And then the smiling drifter spat in her face.

  The shock made everything very clear, washed the fear away, replacing it with something sharp and jagged, and in the dust, her hand found something sharp and jagged too. She wrenched her arm free, stabbing at the smiling face.

  A wide gash cut across the drifter's face, deep enough to make him reel. The sharp thing - a piece of the shattered computer - bit into her hand, but she squeezed it tighter, slashing at the arm around her neck.

  She twisted loose, scrambled to her feet and -

  - instinct told her to run, but there was nowhere to run to. The exit lay past the drifters, and behind her was the dead end of the bathroom. She backed up against the wall, inching towards the bathroom door. Her fingers found the button on her med-bracelet and six doses became five, but she could breathe, and she wanted to keep breathing.

  She spat lichen, retching at the taste and the sensation. Nothing could be worse than spider legs, she'd thought, and she'd been wrong.

  "What is wrong with you people?" Her voice was shrill, cracking as she scrubbed her face raw with her sleeve.

  The three drifters looked at one another, as if seriously considering her question. Then they smiled and lunged at her in unison. She ran, but they caught her, slammed her against the wall and the computer shard fell from her hand. Glass needled her soles as she struggled, but they had her and they were three against one, and this world, this future, was so unfair.

  They pulled her from the habitat, dragged her across the debris-strewn floor. The sun shone through the ruined windows, reflecting off bullet casings and pools of blood.

  At the open elevator shaft, they stopped. Stale air wafted from the dark maw, motes of fragmented lichen dancing languidly.

  If I go down there I am never coming back up.

  The smiling drifter, his smile red with blood, shoved her forwards. She stumbled to her knees at the edge of the shaft.

  Dozens of faces stared up from the gloom. Drifters, climbing up from the deep, through a lattice of lichen and webs. Dirty, pale, grinning - and reaching for her with hands eager to pull her down, to take her.

  The smiling drifter pushed her. She held onto the elevator door, but her fingers were weak and bloodied where the shard had cut her. One by one they slipped, and from below, thin fingers scratched at her shins.

  She looked up at the drifter, pleading, seeking a trace of humanity in his eyes - but there was nothing there. Nothing at all.

  Orange lightning crackled through the air, etching bright lines on her retina. She blinked, and the drifter's smile had gone, along with the rest of his face. Dark spatter covered the wall, an irregular patch of liquid that she'd never have guessed had once been a man's face.

  The drifter below tugged hard, and she lost her grip, her hip and waist scraping across the rusted threshold. Gunfire roared above and behind, and she couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't stop her descent. She clutched at the threshold, numb fingers failing to catch hold, failing to work like fingers should -

  - and then a hand closed around her wrist. Not cold and tunnel-damp, but hot, sparks of electricity arcing on her skin. It held firm and hoisted her up and away from the shaft. A drifter heaved himself up after her, but a heavy boot crunched down on his hand. He screamed as he fell.

  "Cassimer." Joy breathed her rescuer's name with relief and horror. Half his visor was gone, shattered and molten, smouldering shards embedd
ed in his face. The blood oozing from the cuts sizzled and steamed. There was a hard glint in his eyes, bright enough to pierce the blankness.

  He didn't respond, didn't even look at her, instead readying a grenade. Behind him, she could see two other soldiers clearing the floor of remaining drifters.

  Then Cassimer pulled her close, turning his back to the elevator shaft. Electricity prickled her skin, and his suit was so hot it almost burnt. A soft whoosh came from the elevator, followed by the sounds of screams cut short. The field of electricity flared, and though flames licked the air around her, she felt only a slight heat.

  "Here." He pressed a gun of familiar heft and shape into her hand. Rivka had not got to keep her new toy for long. "Stay behind me."

  ◆◆◆

  That proved a very simple instruction to follow. Even on her best day, Joy couldn't have kept up with the Primaterre soldiers' pace. Up the stairs they went, and before she'd even turned the first corner, the echo of Cassimer's footsteps was fading.

  The stairwell was littered with bullet casings and slick with blood from still-twitching drifters. Small stained glass windows lit each landing with a dim and nauseating kaleidoscope of colour. Quivers went through the building, sending a steady drizzle of dust and mortar from the ceiling.

  Then brighter light poured in from an open door. She stumbled through, onto a windswept roof. The comms array sat inside a shimmering dome, guarded by two soldiers who hunkered behind blocks of concrete. Steam rose from the force field as it burnt off blood, the flat roof pockmarked with scorched craters in between dead drifters.

  It was cold - so cold that the wind took her breath away. She barely had time to adjust, still blinking against the sun when Cassimer grabbed her arm and pulled her with him through the flickering force field and into cover.

  "They're attempting to bring down the building." He let go of her arm as he spoke to the other soldiers. "Closed off one entry point, but there may be others." His words were slurred, and blood pooled inside his broken helmet, overflowing in thick runnels. Joy's clothes were matted with blood, some of it hers, some of it the drifters', but much of it was Cassimer's.