Arrakhia Mountain was a hard place to get into even in peacetime, and Terrus was a long way from peacetime.
They were stopped three times, and had to provide their names and identification at each junction. At the third stop, they also needed to provide skin samples for a DNA database. Katz had to swallow his embarassment when his broken wrist made this last one impossible, and Kazmer had to operate the sonic exfoliator for him.
The train then coasted a few hundred meters further, and entered the face of the mountain.
They got one last glimpse out of the front of the carriage as the huge mountain loomed in front of them, consuming the sky and the earth, leaving a gaping black hole for them to enter, girded with maglev tracks.
Katz was awed. The hole was a mouth, the bore of a gun, something that could accommodate them and their entire lives and leave no trace. The train accelerated faster and faster inside the ink-thick blackness, and soon they were many kilometers within the mountain.
Kazmer just closed his eyes and tried to sleep some more. He was growing frustrated.
“I just want to get this over with,” he said. “I hate owing. I hate having taken more from this world than I can give back. I know that I can never make amends and I don't expect anyone to forgive me, but I need this for my own sake.”
“Could just off yourself,” Katz said, by way of suggestion.
“No. That would be vigilante justice, and I've decided I'm against that,” Kazmer said. “Morality needs to live by rules, otherwise it has no basis and will just erode to whatever the perpetuator considers convenient. Sarkoth was a 'make this up as I go along' moralist, and he ended up creating me. I want a formal moral code to be carried out over my fate, something that's fair and proportionate and regulated.”
Katz looked outside. There was nothing to see in the dark, but the train seemed to be slowing down again. They both felt the pull. “I have no idea what you're talking about, and don't even try to explain.”
“Request denied. If the state decides I should be killed, then I accept their punishment gladly. But I will not kill myself.”
The train drifted to a stop. There was a clunk as it descended to touch the demagnetized rails.
“So, this is a prison?” Katz said.
“Nope. It's a hospital.”
Kazmer scratched his head. “Why am I going to a hospital? I'm not hurt.”
“No, but I am. As for why you've been sent here...that ain't for me to know. I hope they test medical products on you, scumbag.”
The doors slid open. For better or worse, their trip had reached its end.
“Come on,” Yatz hooked a finger at the doors as they slid open. “Rohilian gave me authority to commit you. Let's get this over with.”
Kazmer stood up, and they debarked.
The platform was empty. There was no sign of human life anywhere, and only the electronic glow of machinery gave away the fact that mankind had ever existed at all down here.
“So this is the hospital,” Kazmer said. “Pretty quiet, considering there's a war on.”
Katz laughed. “Two things, freshcut. Very few people are injured in a space war. You either live or you die. Probably the only legit injuries you ever see are people whiplashed by making thousand-G turns in space too suddenly. Second, this is no normal hospital. It's a covert facility, paid for by the highest brass in the Solar Arm. They’re not here to help you, you're here to help them. Get used to it.”
They walked up the steps, and the main doors slid open on their pneumatic pistons. Inside was a gleaming metal maw.
Kazmer couldn't quantify his emotions at this point. Not unease, or worry. He was such an evil man that he deserved nothing less than what came next, no matter what form it took.
Just a great feeling that the inevitability which powered the universe had finally been revealed to him.
On Caitanya-9, he'd been a god. Immortal, and almost unkillable. A diety that commanded every atom on the planet, from winds to volcanos to moons to the pathetic humans that had been stranded with him. There, it had been easy to lose perspective, and forget how tiny he still was.
Now, slain by an antimatter warhead and reborn in his frail human body, he felt tiny.
He would walk through here, and anything could happen to him. Anything at all.
That saddened him.
He lived in an arbitrary universe where anything could happen for any reason at all, including the end of the human race. Just snuffed out by a wind blown by gusts of fate.
He took one step inside the building, and then a second.
He had always been a prisoner.
Just sometimes it was hard to see the bars.
“Enter this room, Mr Kazmer.”
He obeyed this instruction.
It had been a long afternoon of obeying instructions.
He’d passed through the hospital, not stopping his walk from one side of the building to the other. Katz had gladly ditched him, and he was now in the charge of the hospital orderlies, who had taken him into another tunnel of granite, this one behind the hospital, escorting him on foot to a building complex even deeper into the mountain.
Inside, he was admitted.
He didn’t know where he was admitted, and not through lack of observance.
There was no sign over the door, no WELCOME message, no comforting artificial ferns. It had every appearance of a place meant to disguise its own existence.
His every movement was controlled by people in white suits now. They recorded simple biometric data. Heart rate. Lung function. Neuron count. Eyeblinks per minute. He was not required to talk.
The room was a white one, with a metallic table and some hard chairs.
A scientist came in, attached still more electrodes to him, and took readings.
“You seem physically healthy,” he said.
“Pleased to hear it,” Kazmer said.
“Psychologically, you might be a mess, but that's something we need to dig further into. What's your story again?”
“I am a former police officer in the Solar Arm constabulary. At the behest of ex-Prime Minister Sarkoth Amnon, I had my memories erased and was sent out to a remote planet. I discovered that the planet was actually an ancient alien relic, and through the vicissitudes of chance I was able to inherit its power. I became a god with the name of Wake, returned to the solar system, and was killed by an antimatter weapon. It seems that this restored Andrei Kazmer’s human body.”
He spoke these words with a deep sense of ludicrousness, despite having lived them. He saw the scientist's face crinkle in a we've got a nutbar on our hands look, and felt irritation.
And pre-emptive weariness at all the explaining his tongue would have to do.
“Listen,” Kazmer said. “I can see you don't believe me.”
“I confess I find your story…improbable. But we can cover it in more detail, if this will bring you peace.”
“I don’t actually want peace. I don’t know what this place is, but I don’t think it’s where I asked to go.”
“And what do you think this place is?”
He looked to the four quadrants around him, as if making sure. “A laboratory. You’re studying me.”
The man nodded, but only weakly. “Mr Kazmer, please understand that I am acting under orders to investigate all possible leads relating to Caitanya-9. It is a matter of national interest. You are here because the…uh…current situation means your story is considered credible. That might not be true tomorrow, or the day after. Thus far, unless we have proof, we can only entertain your stories as keys to the lock of your mental state.”
Kazmer nodded. They’re trying to figure out what exactly is wrong with me, so they know what loony bin to throw me in. “OK. Very well. You need proof. I was a police officer. If you work for the government, go pull some files on me.”
The man didn’t seem impressed. “We already have. You were a police officer once, court martialed in circumstances that were unclear. Your curren
t whereabouts is listed as ‘unknown’.”
“Your earstwhile boss sucked my memories out of my head and sent me out on a suicide mission. That’s what the ‘unknown’ variable is.”
“So you claim. Why did he do that?”
“Because,” Kazmer shrugged, “he saw me exactly the way you see me now. A lab rat.”
“From what I understand of this case, he thought you were a bad man, and was curious as to whether you could be redeemed.”
“Correction, I am a bad man,” Kazmer said. “I don’t feel any violent impulses at the moment. But they come and go. Sometimes I feel like there’s two people in my head. Whether I’ve always been this way or whether I was changed by Black Shift, I have no way of knowing. Right now, I just feel cold and dead and sad inside, but since when did that turn back the clock? I’ve committed crimes for which there can be no redemption. I just want there to be some punishment, some justice. I can’t get it for Sarkoth Amnon, or Emil Gokla. But at least I can get it for myself.”
The scientist didn’t know what to make of the strange man in front of him. Kazmer felt irritation building. He remembered the time when he could snap his fingers and make people obey.
“Well, here’s no place to repent your sins, and I’m certainly not your confessor,” he said. “That’s a bridge you have to build yourself, in your heart.”
Something snapped in Andrei. “I fucking can’t. I’m broken, I’m damaged. I can’t build shit. What the hell are you talking about, anyway? ‘A bridge you have to build yourself, in your heart?’ I don’t want to study my soul. I don’t seem to have one. I want to be punished!”
Andrei’s voice grew louder and louder, and the scientist cast a furtive glance at the tinted glass door. Outside was a man with a syringe full of liquid sleep, and he prayed he would not need to use it.
“Do you realise what I almost did?” said Andrei. “I was in control of a force that could have ended the human race…and I wanted to use it. I thought I’d cruelly torture Sarkoth Amnon with the knowledge, for he’d wandered to the same brink I was at and found it not to his liking. But eventually I no longer wanted to destroy everything. I started to think there might be something more. Some element to this assembly of mankind that was worth more than immediate destruction. Some good, even if it was only a little? Was I wrong, professor? Was I in error? Should I have just blazed away and ended the human experiment?”
“You are quite delusional, Mr Kazmer,” the scientist said. “Some elements of your story are interesting – the fact that you disappeared around the time of the original Caitanya-9 mission, and the fact that you returned at the same time the planet was destroyed. But all these wild confabulations about being a god, and having immense power…these are fantasies. I’ve dealt with hundreds like you, and will deal with hundreds more. You’re a grandiose narcissist, making it up for attention. Today, you’ll get it. Tomorrow, you’ll be forgotten.”
The metal chair screeched as Kazmer suddenly stood up, rising to his full one hundred and ninety four centimeter height. The scientist recoiled, and gently raised a hand.
“You might have dealt with hundreds of people, but I’m not a person. I’m an animal.”
“Please sit down.”
“And I could kill you, if I wanted to.”
“Sit down.”
“Did the soldiers tell you about how I first got sent here? I commanded them to arrest me, and when they refused, I assaulted one. Talk to Private Omen Yatz – he’s in the hospital with a broken wrist. Should I do the same to you? Would you take me seriously, then?”
“This meeting is at an end,” the scientist said, snapping shut his briefcase.
“I’m serious. If you won’t punish me, would attacking you change that? Just take a fist and drive it through your face? Would that get me what I want?”
The scientist started issuing verbal records to the recording device clipped on his lapel, trying not to seem perturbed or frightened. His composure was like water right at phase transition point – still, with the occasional jitter. “This is Research Fellow Vadim Gokla, at 1630 hours on June 6, 2043. This is case number two-three-five-two, named Kazmer, A. Patient is histrionic, delusional, has a poor grasp of reality, and appears to be a compulsive liar.”
“Call me whatever you want, scumbag.”
“I am suggesting there’s nothing further to investigate, despite promising leads. He is not a Caitanya-9 survivor.”
Suddenly Andrei put pieces together in his head. “Wait a second, you said your name is Vadim Gokla?”
Vadim barely glanced up from his note-taking. “Yes.”
“Are you by any chance related to…”
“Emil Gokla is my great-grandfather.”
There was silence as Andrei chewed on that morsel of fact. “Well...isn’t that interesting. I don’t suppose your great-grandfather is here, is he?”
“He is dead. He passed away just two months ago.”
“All of my enemies are out of reach,” Andrei said. “Frustrating. Is there a way I can simultaneously express regret for your loss, and also wish that Emil Gokla had died about fifty years earlier?”
Vadim switched off the device, and stood up. Now he was all business. The brisk and unconvincing layer of pleasantness he had faked at the start was all gone, replaced by an urge to get away from Kazmer and flush him like a turd.
“I will leave now. It was not a pleasure meeting you.”
“What happens now?”
“That is not for me to decide. I expect you’ll be released as soon as soon as we’ve determined that you pose no threat to yourself or to others – might I mention that your little tantrum was very ill-advised?”
“I don’t want to be set free, shithead. Don’t you get it by now?”
“I am actually quite proud that I don’t ‘get it’, Kazmer,” Vadim said. “You’re crazy. I plan to never ‘get’ crazy. In any case, our little talk is concluded. Goodbye.”
“Do you ever think about what your great grandfather built, Vadim?” Kazmer said to Vadim Gokla’s retreating, white-clad back. “He was the engineer of one of the worst things in the world. No joke. Black Shift is up there with weaponized anthrax and Zyklon-B. One of the absolute worst things the human race has ever seen. Does it keep you up at night?”
The door slammed shut, and he was talking to a pane of tinted glass.
He screamed, and flung a chair.
Arrakhia Mountain Hospital – June 9, 2143, 1200 hours
Ubra felt a palpable sense of safeness in the hospital, and she couldn't understand why nobody seemed to share it.
It was carved into rock, a safe bulwark against the unpredictable ground below and the unfriendly sky above. Every now and then there was a dull reverberation through the rock, vibrating coffee cups and chairs, and she realised that a bomb had been thwarted. That could have been me and Yalin. Thanks, mountain.
She’d named her baby girl. This seemed like as good a time and place as any.
The days had structure, and routine. They were not allowed to leave, presumably because of the danger from the bombing raids.
She wondered why she hadn’t been taken to a civilian facility.
Then she remembered who Ubra Zolot had been, and what she'd done, and suddenly remembered.
Caitanya-9. I'm from there. I'm quite fascinating to them, I’m sure.
She’d tried to make inquiries as to the whereabouts of Zelity and the other Defiant, but nobody knew anything. She hoped they were safe, wherever they’d gone.
The hospital had sixteen wards, and nearly a hundred rooms. They branched out through the granite mountain like the path of a worm coring hollow an apple.
But it seemed to have no permanent maternity department. There were only a few patients at the facility, and they all had military backgrounds, often very esoteric military backgrounds.
All of them had one thing in common.
The Solar Arm had damaged them.
War is always terrible, but
for the unfortunate souls at Arrakhia the terror came from an unexpected quadrant.
The ruin to their bodies and minds had been performed by their own government.
The failures. The rejects. The defective experiments.
This was the house of freaks.
There was Lucas Farholt, nearly eighty and completely blind. He had been one of the mercenaries used in the war of Martian succession.
After a few minutes of bewildering conversation, Ubra soon realised he was one of those mercs. One of the ones that Black Shift had mind-blanked, and assigned a false identity of warrior-saviors of the planet.
You often heard about them. Usually accompanied by a warning not to anger them, not to make any sudden movements, and not to challenge them on their fantasies.
“I don’t believe them,” Farholt said. There was a crude proximity sensor rigged over his eyes that allowed him to walk unassisted, but he would never see colors or shapes again. His eyes had been permanently closed by shards from a frag grenade. “They’re telling lies to me. They’re saying that my whole life is made up. That I’m not one of God's ordained warriors of the Third Temple, and that there were never demons on Mars. This was my reality, and I was fighting to go to heaven… and then someone slapped me awake, saying, hey, you aren't fighting for any god in particular, and if you are he doesn't want to know about you, and by the way, those demons on Mars are actually human beings. Imagine hearing about all the pissy lawsuits and constitutional violations and prison sentences, because of what was done to you. Look, I’m a reasonable man. I’m willing to allow there was some deception in my original mission. But I also want to stand on top of Arrakhia Mountain and shout 'fuck you! I'm an avenging angel, and none of you can say otherwise.’”
Ubra laughed, but unfortunately she was laughing alone. The guy was deadly serious.
“For real, how do I know this part isn’t an illusion?” Farholt said. “Something to test my faith. That's the reason I don't fully believe the scientists. Because the moment I do, God's going to laugh, the world’s going to tear apart like a cheap veil, and then I’ll be falling down to the pits of Abaddon. I just know it.”
Skyline Severant (The Consilience War Book 3) Page 6