Iron Truth

by S. A. Tholin

  The darkness didn't appeal, nor the thought of being trapped between walls that were narrow and spongy with growth, but then Cassimer's hands were around her waist, and Lucklaw reached for her. Up was the only choice; up through scratchy lichen and into a cloud of spores that tasted of salt and iron.

  The ventilation duct continued upwards in a gentle curve. Its metal walls were ribbed and segmented, like a man-made earthworm hole.

  "Up front, Somerset. You know these people best."

  Cassimer set the grille back in place, and she knelt on rustling lichen to peek through the slats. Electricity danced on her skin as Cassimer crouched next to her. His Morrigan was trained on the tracks, as was his focus, but he hooked his other hand into her belt, ready to pull her from the line of fire if need be. Practical, surely, but his gauntlet shooting sparks up her spine made her heart beat that new and strange rhythm again.

  A low rumble preceded the approaching crowd, accompanied by a metallic whine. Spores puffed from the ceiling as vibrations shook the tunnel. The grille shuddered, shedding rust flakes from screw holes as it began to work its way out of the wall. Cassimer holstered his gun and wound his fingers through the grille, holding it firmly in place.

  He'd let go of the gun before he'd let go of me. Perhaps only a matter of convenience, but the thought made her look up at him with a smile that she was certain Primaterre military regulations would deem inappropriate. But if love had no place in a lichen-riddled ventilation shaft in a tunnel filled with armed killers, well, then what good was it? There was no reason to focus on the darkness when she could feel the warmth of starlight.

  constant starlight, her disobedient brain computer typed, but this time, she was quick on the imaginary delete key.

  The convoy's vanguard came into view. Their grey outfits, which had struck Joy as prison uniforms, were overalls suited for manual labour. Too new for Cato's people, too whole and - in spite of numerous stains - too clean. The people were also far too clean. Hair slicked back nice and neat, beards trimmed and faces scrubbed of the usual film of dust. They almost looked civilised.

  But if there was civilisation on Cato, why hide it so deep underground? Why choose Nexus to be their face to the universe if they had somewhere better? For protection? They didn't seem to be lacking in that department. Every member of the convoy - Joy lost count in the mid-fifties - was armed, with nice quality weaponry. Not Primaterre nice, but a definite step up from the usual Cato fare.

  The carts were empty, but dirty, as if the men and women of Nexus had packed them full and made a delivery and were now going to fetch more supplies.

  A familiar figure walked in front of the fifth cart, dangerously close to its churning wheels. Keeva, perhaps the galaxy's only brewer of greetshine, strode down the tracks with purpose. Her dark hair was pulled back into a bun, her rags exchanged for grey overalls, and her smile devoid of strain. Here was Keeva as she might have been, if she'd got to grow up behind a white-picket fence, eating jam sandwiches under a sky as blue as it was artificial. Only the defeated hunch of her shoulders remained as a trace of the harried woman Joy had met.

  It's easier in Nexus, she'd said. Out here, it's too easy to hear your own thoughts, and sometimes the thoughts are really bad and...

  And you just want to die. But this Keeva seemed happy and determined. If that was because Keeva could no longer hear her own thoughts, then was it really Keeva at all? And if not her own thoughts, then whose?

  ◆◆◆

  CASTLE STREET STATION, screamed the bold lettering on the platform wall. The tunnel continued onwards, but its tracks were rubble-strewn and dark. The careful maintenance went as only far as Castle Street.

  Whoever was in charge of that maintenance would be none too pleased to see the state of the platform. It had become a maze of stacked crates, its floor dirty with footprints.

  Hopewell used her rifle to turn one of the crates on its side. Empty, but its wooden insides were damp and red.

  "Blood?" asked Lucklaw, and Joy wanted to hug him for expressing what she was thinking.

  "Nah." Hopewell scraped the muzzle of her rifle against the wood. It came away whiskered with lichen. "Just the same old toxic mind fungus."

  "That's just a theory," Joy said. "I don't want you all assuming I know what I'm talking about."

  "Don't think you need to worry about that," Lucklaw said, and she no longer felt like hugging him, instead wondering what regulations had to say about rude gestures.

  The breadcrumb trail of surveillance cameras had come to an end, and so the team eased into a wary formation. Cassimer hadn't given any orders, but the soldiers seemed to instinctively know what to do.

  They ascended from the station onto a street, where a blue shimmer arced across rooftops. It was another force field, in better repair than the one over Nexus, and beyond it lay only darkness. The street had been swallowed by Cato's dust, but the force field had preserved it inside a protective bubble. Over decades, the field's energy had vitrified the dust, creating a wide cavern of black glass.

  The street was the same as in the picture Lucklaw had found, but the ice cream parlour's rainbow awning hung in tatters. Where hydrangea had once blossomed, only withered trunks remained, twisting upwards as if trying to escape the choking lichen. The blue glow of the force field sucked all the colours from the surroundings.

  A fulgurite tree, as large as an oak, sprang from cracked tarmac in an intersection, its reaching branches gnarled and thick. A hanging tree if there'd ever been one, reflected in the polished metal walls of the building behind it. The silver fortress was sharp and angular, its smooth facade interrupted by asymmetric windows.

  Cato's terrors had so far been of an organic nature - dirty, bloody and raw - but the silver fortress was the hollow shell of order; the planet's cold heart.

  Above its main entrance, a crimson triangle glowed, emblazoned with three white grass spikelets.

  43. Cassimer

  Control.

  The word had come to him in the tunnel, and he had considered the concept while allowing his mind to run calculations and predictions. IF this, THEN that. Simple, and the very essence of purity. See the truth with clarity and control it.

  On their journey to Nexus, the truth had been this: nature had been their enemy, and Joy's fate far beyond his reach. No amount of clarity could seize control over distance or weather, and that had been difficult to accept. Chaos had been all around him then, battering his shields.

  But now Joy was beside him, crouching behind cover in the shadow of the silver fortress, her cobbled-together armour kicking up sparks against his. She was with him, his team was with him, and so too was purpose.

  "It can't be a coincidence," Joy whispered.

  "Don't be stupid. Do you know how much an arc ship costs to finance? Why would the same company that built the Ever Onward wreck it?"

  Lucklaw and Joy had been going round in circles arguing this particular point for the past fifteen minutes. The Hierochloe logo on the building had disturbed her a great deal. He could understand why, though he was inclined to agree with Lucklaw.

  So far, they'd seen nothing but locals. The top-right of his HUD displayed - courtesy of Florey's visual augments - a view of fifteen, milling around a loading dock at the back of the Hierochloe facility. Florey and Hopewell were scouting the perimeter while the rest of the team waited in cover.

  "Update, Lucklaw?"

  "The building's hot," Lucklaw said. "Network's lit up like fireworks. Old system, very similar to the Ever Onward's, but security's tight. If someone's in there - and between the surveillance cameras and the amount of activity I'm detecting, I can guarantee you someone's paying attention - it's likely they'll notice any attempts at brute force."

  "But?" Having to ask was nearly as grating as the corporal's eager go-on-ask-me-more face.

  "But there may be another way." Lucklaw paused long enough for Cassimer to think you better not make me ask. "Since the hotel recognised Somerset's h-chip,
there's a good chance this facility will as well. The chip won't grant us access, but if it interacts with the facility's system, I think I'll be able to ride the connection and slip in unnoticed. Stealth, not brute force."

  "I'll take your word for it. You have permission to go ahead."

  "Very good, Commander. Only, h-chips require close proximity."

  "How close?"

  "The closer the better. Close enough for physical contact with the building, ideally."

  Apart from the crowd at the back, the building had remained silent and still. Ruined offices lined both sides of the street, offering copious vantage points and sniper perches. The street itself, cluttered with debris and shadowed by the lightning tree, was rife with opportunity for traps and ambushes. It would take little effort to turn the cavern into a gauntlet of death, and yet he saw no sign that anyone had attempted to.

  He wasn't quite sure what to make of that. Carelessness? Incompetence? The galaxy was in no shortage of either, and he'd seen enough to know that the cleverest people could make the most basic of mistakes - but more often than not, if something looked too good to be true, it was likely about to go in for the kill.

  Less than forty metres between their position and the facility. Forty metres of easily navigable space and plenty of cover.

  "Do you need to be close as well?"

  "I suppose not, Commander." Lucklaw's disappointment bordered on endearing. Clearly, the corporal had put some thought into this plan - had perhaps envisioned himself courageously sprinting for the building to execute his hack.

  Foolish, but the kind of foolishness that should occasionally be encouraged. If it were only about Lucklaw, Cassimer might've been inclined to let him have his moment. Roll the dice, try his luck, let him grow another inch or two.

  "Stay here. Somerset; with me."

  He instructed her to stay low. Debris provided cover, but the abandoned office buildings provided perfect lines of sight. One man with a rifle would be more than enough to cause trouble, more than enough to kill Joy, but his gut told him that the buildings were as empty as they looked. Just another one of Cato's many cemeteries.

  The Hierochloe facility's corners cut like knives through the surrounding traditional brick architecture. The intended effect, he imagined; a fifteen-storey cold farewell to an era. No more softly glowing cupolas, no more earthen brickwork or rambling ivy. Here was the future, its metal facade stated, so refined and polished it had long since forgotten the deep earth from which it had been mined.

  In the shadow of such a monstrosity, it was easy to understand why the Epoch War had come to pass. When the ugly was deemed art; when the cruel was deemed kind, and when progress meant profit, the spirit of humanity turned impure.

  A more immediate problem was that the sleek facade offered little cover. The west side, where the force field ran close to the building, was their best bet.

  "Take my hand, Somerset." A pragmatic decision; something he would've ordered any soldier lacking proper protection. Absolutely. Definitely.

  Then her hand slipped into his and warmth burst from his chest, radiated down his body and called him a liar.

  Their reflections on the silver walls were long and dark. One step at a time, one thought at a time. Keep a steady pace and move from chaos to order. The alley between the building and the force field was narrow, and he positioned himself as a barrier to shield Joy. Sparks leapt from her armour to his, sizzling arcs of brilliant white. A swarm of fireflies in the dark, or shooting stars.

  Joy placed her hands on the building's smooth surface, and though he found the sight of her touching it repulsive, that particular emotion was clearly labelled superstition. In other words, impure mind garbage to be acknowledged, ridiculed and discarded.

  "Got it, Commander. Already have partial access - enough to open the main entrance."

  Cassimer had breached plenty of main entrances, but he'd never considered using one as a point of entry on a covert mission. Still, it was true that the locals were gathered round the back, and Hopewell and Florey had reported no side doors. Not unexpected. An architect with such disregard for beauty was unlikely to value function. Whoever had dreamed up the Hierochloe building hadn't wanted a single blemish to mar his vision. Another impurity: the denial of the inherent flaw in all things; the belief that a glossy surface could mask foulness within.

  That left windows, the roof and potential underground access points such as sewer pipes. He put the question to the team, complete with his own reservations, and Hopewell wasted no time in responding.

  "Oh no, not sewers again. My suit still reeks of the last one. I vote main entrance."

  "Looks nice and clear." Florey had moved to get a better look at the entrance. Cassimer's HUD indicated his position in a fifth-floor window of an office building, but the gunner was as good as invisible. Unlike his partner, Florey wasn't all about kicking in doors and making things explode. "Lights on in the lobby. Dusty floor, no tracks. No heat signals, nothing on the audio."

  "Sounds good, right?" Joy glanced at Cassimer, with so much hope that it pained him to have to shake his head. No, it wasn't good. It was -

  "Too damn good," Florey said.

  "Too damn good is why I like it. I'm not carrying half a ton of armour and weaponry just because it makes me look awesome, so if someone's in there looking for a fight, I say we give it to them."

  Inaction suited Hopewell even less than it did Cassimer. Pure energy flowed in her veins, making even the act of sitting down one that she couldn't perform without multitasking: tapping her feet, tugging her hair, tinkering with her suit. Assign her a duty and she put her all into it, but with nothing to do but wait and observe, she became restless. Inactivity made her skin crawl, he thought, and her muscles ache. Did it also give her thoughts claws like it did his? Did she also feel the scratching and scraping?

  He had never considered that possibility before and realised he knew nothing about Hopewell's thoughts or feelings, or any of the team's, for that matter. What was Florey thinking of as he slipped stealthily across the street? The mission? His family? Who knew?

  Certainly not his commander, who was all too wrapped up in his own thoughts. One look at the ruined street, and his imagination had conjured illusions of a golden past. Flower beds overflowing with spring green and palatinate purple; gilded cornices glinting in the afternoon sun. The scent of fresh bread from a bakery; water droplets glistening in the air as a store front window received a diligent cleaning.

  I could've lived here, he'd thought, not quite believing it. If I'd been born a century and a bit earlier, I could've walked down this street without looking for snipers, without searching every shadow for corruption, without scouring myself pure. My skin would be my only armour; my body and mind a sovereign state.

  The further they'd walked, the more absurd it had begun to feel. As though not only could he have had those things, but that he should have - that they had been stolen from him. That the world he lived in was not how it was meant to be, but a deliberate redesign.

  In a sense, that was true. As a reaction to the demons, the world had changed. A necessary change, yes, to stop the spread of the corruption - but in allowing that change, had humanity not lost something? Was the war against the corruption itself a corruption; a darkness feeding darkness?

  No. Couldn't be, because such a war could never be won. All he'd done would be worse than meaningless; a contribution to their own defeat. That particular thought, merciless and fresh, had raked its claws against his skull. It wouldn't be smothered or drowned, and so instead, he'd tried to summon more colour and sensation from the surroundings.

  I could've lived here, he'd thought, ignoring the persistent voice that believed 'should' was the word. I could've lived here with Joy.

  But those were his thoughts. What did she feel? What of Rhys and Florey and Lucklaw? He didn't know, nor did he know how to find out. He knew only the probing of doctors and demons, but there had to be another way.

&nb
sp; Then Joy turned around, and she was so close that he could see the flecks of gold in her eyes. All around them was darkness and decay, but she was smiling, smiling at him like nobody ever had before. So strange, so foreign, and yet the meaning seemed so clear and so sweet that surely even he couldn't be misinterpreting it.

  "Anyway, that's my recommendation, Commander."

  Rhys's voice cut between him and Joy with scalpel precision. The medic's recommendation? The part of Cassimer's mind that had been paying attention whispered some nonsense about rabbits and tortoises. Which animal was more likely to use the main entrance he couldn't recall; only that one ended up shot to bits while the other got a medal, and even as he tried to recall the story it annoyed him. Did nobody know how to keep it brief anymore?

  No matter. Though she couldn't see it, he smiled back at Joy. His HUD glowed with the saved chain of texts that started with a peculiar combination of punctuation marks that resembled a happy face.

  "We take the main entrance," he said, willing to believe that too damn good could be true.

  ◆◆◆

  "Bloody typical." Hopewell returned from her sweep of the ground floor with a sour attitude and an itchy trigger finger. All clear was the good news; all clear and quiet as the grave. The occasional muffled shout and rumble of metal were the only reminders that they weren't alone, but the locals were so focused on their work at the loading bay that there was little risk of discovery.

  The team had moved through the lobby to an interior room. Cramped, empty and cold (minus eleven degrees according to his HUD; so cold my face has gone numb according to Joy). Two stainless steel desks were accompanied by chairs of a similarly soulless design. A vase filled with straight-stemmed white flowers succeeded only in adding to the dour atmosphere. A funeral bouquet, for the dead city on the dying world.

  "Calla lilies." Joy pinched a petal between her fingers. "Technically neither calla nor lily, and in this case, not even organic. Plastic - and very dusty."