

### Bō Jinn

Smashwords Edition

© Copyright 2014 by Bō Jinn

All rights reserved to the author, in accordance with international, European and domestic law of copyright, for the reproduction, distribution, circulation and alteration of this work in any manner and under any name, including images contained in the work. Any such reproduction or distribution may be allowed if, and only if, the express written consent of the author is forthcoming in that regard, with the exception of minor excerpts for the purposes of review or citation.

Failure to abide by these terms will result in immediate legal action.

The following is a work of fiction. Any resemblance between fictional characters and real individuals either living or dead is (for the most part) entirely coincidental.

Illustration: Jess Hara {SAPRO} – saproartist@gmail.com – connect via

www.saproartist.com

Cover Art: Diogo Lando – mail@diogolando.com – connect via

www.diogolando.com

Typography by Kevin Beese – BZ & Associates Inc.

– First Edition –

ISBN 978-1500922856

Divided Line Publishing ™

Should you have any inquiry feel free to contact the author via email at Bo.Jinn80@gmail.com

Connect with the author at www.facebook.com/Bojinn80

DEDICATION

For my mother and father,

to whose inspiration, faith and unconditional love I am as eternally indebted as my hero was to his young heroine.

### EPIGRAPH

"I demonstrate in the first place, that the condition of man in his most natural state is nothing else but a mere war of all against all."

Thomas Hobbes, The Leviathan

"Love is such a priceless treasure that you can buy the whole world with it, and redeem not only your own but other people's sins."

Fyodor Dostoyevsky, words of the elder Zosima in The Brothers Karamazov

### CONTENTS

DEDICATION

EPIGRAPH

BOOK I: MARTIAL ORDER

I

C5: DAY 347

C.5: DAY 348

C.5: DAY 363

C.5: DAY 364

C.5: DAY 378

BOOK II DELIVERANCE

II

C.5: DAY 462

C.5: DAY 464

C.5: DAY 470

C.5: DAY 491

C.5: DAY 587

C.5: DAY 588

C.5: DAY 600

C.5: DAY 613

BOOK III: FULL CIRCLE

III

C.5: DAY 691

C.5: DAY 692

C.5: DAY 743

DAY 0

DAY 0

DAY 0

IV

C.6: DAY 347

BOOK I

MARTIAL ORDER

### I

The President stepped up to the mirror.

It had been a long time since she had last taken a good look at herself. The silver lining of the clouds haloed the reflection of a vaguely familiar woman, aged well beyond her years – 46 to be precise, which, by the mean of the day, put her on the fringes of youth. The furrows in her blanching skin had begun to deepen around the sapphire eyes and her hair had whitened to platinum. The past year had aged her more than the previous two score and five; effects hidden behind layers of painstakingly applied coats of cosmetics. Politics compels even the most humble to some degree of vanity, and just before public occasions, vanity was quite mercilessly imposed upon her by a personal platoon of cosmetologists, the last of whom were just leaving her room.

She was alone.

By the reckoning of some half-billion citizens across the eight nations of the new Eden Accord, today was the greatest of all days. But the joy she should have been feeling was stifled with a grief which had abided for at least the previous two weeks leading up to that day. She drew nearer to the mirror and dragged her fingertips over the sombre mien of her reflection.

There was a knock at the big double-door. A foot stepped over the brink. A tall, dark and handsome man in quite normal house clothes entered and stopped in the doorway.

"The autocade is here."

"I'll be down soon."

"Nervous?" He entered, gently closing the door behind him.

"No, not really," she replied, her gaze fixed ahead.

He slowly sauntered up behind her, slowing with each inch until his chest gently touched her back. Two strong arms came around her and the long dark hair brushed against her neck as he took breath of her and the warm hazel eyes peered up.

"Madame President..."

She felt a tingle as the warm lips kissed her neck and she smiled a melancholy smile.

"Don't even think about it."

"Just one kiss before my superhero goes out to save the world."

"It will be a long, long time before that."

"I still want my kiss."

"Do you have any idea how many man hours it took to get me to look like this?"

She loosed his arms from around her, turned within his embrace and kissed him gently on the lips, careful not to mar the work of her devoted beauticians. "Where's our little angel?" she asked.

"In her room. Drawing again."

"Animals?"

"Always animals."

"Animals are a good place to start." She looked away and was silent. "There's that piece I've been meaning to finish. I'd like to work on it this evening." The glimmering sapphires wandered, forlorn. Her hands dropped and she turned away with a sigh, massaging her temples. "What a year..."

"Yes. But it's over now."

"No," she sighed. "I'm sure it won't be over before I'm dead and buried."

"It's over _for now_." He arched his head and put his lips to her crown. "Come on," he said, drawing open the door. "It's time to go."

"Not yet."

"Shields has everything set to run like clockwork. Make his job easy for once."

"I'll be down soon," she said. "I'll only be a few minutes. Shields can wait."

"The world too?"

"Yes."

There was a pause of subtle commiseration.

"Alright," he murmured, with a slow nod. "...She's in her room."

The door shut.

The sound of the footsteps fading down the hall prompted in her a sudden, inexplicable urge to weep. She confined her tears with a deep breath and, once she'd gathered herself, stepped out of her boudoir.

She wondered whether she would ever get used to the ostentatious halls of their new home; an aversion to opulence borne through humble beginnings. There was a strange and terrible fear that always accompanied the steady increments of power, and the ascension had been rapid and sudden lately. The first prayer of every day was that the burden be taken from her, and the more she prayed for it the more power seemed to befall her like some providential paradox. She did, however, have one very precious well of courage...

She sidled over the red carpet to the only open door across the corridor and when she neared the door, a whispering noise sounded faintly from the other side.

The door noiselessly opened into a small and untidy room. Loose sheets of crumpled, unfinished sketches littered the floor among the bedding hanging over the mattress. Across from her, seated at a desk the back of a small figure bathed in a golden light, and a long cascade of golden hair fell over the back of the chair and down to the floor, and the little back was arched forward over the little desk as a little figure scribbled away whispering to herself, bringing a vague smile to her face. Stepping into the room, the President trod over one of the loose pieces of paper littering the floor and bent forward to pick it up.

Silence broken, the little blue-eyed, rose-hued face turned around, startled and cried:

"Mom!"

"My little artist. I came to see your latest work."

The President came up by her daughter's side.

"No!" The girl immediately threw her arms over her desk-top.

"What is it?"

"It's... It's not finished."

"That's alright. I can help you."

The little girl blew a disappointed breath and the little blue-eyed face sulked.

The President closely studied the drawing, and when she regarded the dozen or so other sheets of paper, crumpled and strewn across the floor, it became apparent that they were all the same attempt at the same indiscernible image.

"I don't like how it looks." The girl leaned back, reluctantly taking her arms off the table-top. "I wanted it to be a surprise."

She peered over her daughter's shoulder.

"Is this what I think it is?" she asked, picking the unfinished picture up off the desk and indulged her daughter with a long gasp of excitement: "A phoenix!"

The little head beamed and nodded.

"Miss Carmichael talked about them at school yesterday."

"Oh, really? And what did she tell you?"

"She said... that they're made of fire."

"Yes... And, did Miss Carmichael tell you how a phoenix is born?"

The little head shook and the little blue eyes were wide with enthusiasm.

"Well..." The President put the drawing back down on the desk lowered into a seat at her daughter's side. "After a phoenix burns up and dies," she explained, "a new one rises from the ashes."

"Really?"

"Really."

"They don't have a mom and dad?"

The President shook her head.

"Then... how are they born?"

"A phoenix has to die to be born."

"How can you tell if it's a girl or a boy phoenix?"

"...You can't."

"Oh." Her daughter looked up with a pout. "Mom, are phoenixes real?"

"Realer than anything else in the world... One day I want you to be a phoenix too."

" _I_ can be a phoenix?"

"Mhmmm... Anyone can."

A loud rushing noise came from the outside as two aircraft hovered right over the building. The beginning of the long line of vehicles from the motorcade was visible through the bedroom window. The President gazed longingly into her daughter's eyes.

"I have to go," she said.

"OK." The little head bobbled.

"Promise me you'll keep working hard on it, alright? I want this to be your best work yet."

"OK, I'll try. Good luck today. Grandpa says you're going to save the world."

She smiled a smile that would at any moment break into tears and cupped her hands around her daughter's head, kissed the golden crown, then unwillingly stood up and left the room.

Five men in black waited at the foot of the stairs. Front and centre among them was a colossus of a man.

"Shields."

"Madame President," her chief of security saluted automatically as she descended the last stair. Lt. Col. Lucas Shields was a model of austerity, eyes almost always hidden behind a pair of opaque lenses. A smile rarely found its way across his dark, substantial visage. "They're waiting."

"So I'm told."

Without more ado, Lt. Col. Shields turned and proceeded down the hall and she followed – two guards on either flank – through the hall and into the vestibule, where the larger portion of her extensive guard detail waited beyond the main doors, and the mobs from the global media beyond them. All the members of the household stood at attention and she brought the procession to a stop at the threshold just before the reaches of the media's scopes where her beloved stood waiting at the doors.

"I'll see you later," she said, nervously averting his eyes.

"I can still come with you..."

"No. The event will be broadcast to more than half a billion people. There are still a lot of pro-militarists around and I will not make an exhibition of my family."

He was silent and she took his hand.

"I'm fine," she said, softly, "I promise, I..."

"Madame President," Shields broke in with a rumble.

With great unwillingness, she let go of the hand and was led through the main entrance, shadowed down the path to the motorcade until the limo doors were opened. The guards dispersed. She entered and the doors were promptly closed.

She scanned the great, opalescent façade of the manor, finding the window of her daughter's room, and she kept her eyes on the little golden speck right up until the moment the motorcade began to move away in synchrony and the manor disappeared.

Soon they were outside the limits of the presidential residence. The main roads of the inner city were lined with throngs of people and the cheers rung with furious elation:

' _NOVUM MUNDI RESURGENT! NOVUM MUNDI RESURGENT!_ '

The great image of hope on flags and banners soaring high, tapestried all over the city on high billboards and display screens; the flaming phoenix of golden-red, circled with the eight stars of the eight nations of the new Eden Accord – the symbol of the new world. The hollers and ovations were stifled through the ballistic glass windows. The gathered crowds were a blur of racing thought and soon the motorcade left the inner city and came onto the highway _en route_ to the Capitol Building.

She stared drearily through the window, into the undefiled beauty of the autumn day. The clouds congregated over the sun. Straight beams of white light diverged from the crevices onto the rolling hills and the snow-tipped mountains were in the distance. A rain should come, she thought.

"So, what is it?"

"What's what?" she asked, without breaking her stare.

"Come now," said Shields. "Greatest moment in world history, and you're sat there looking like you're on your way to a damn funeral."

She could keep her thoughts hidden from most people, but there were few who knew her better than her chief of security, being one of the few and fortunate who had been spared by the great wave of global war, there were things he understood about her that others could not, even her own family.

"Well? he asked urging her heart to her voice.

She turned away from the window and faced him with downturned eyes.

"Did you ever get that feeling," she started, "when you've spent your life working for something? You finally get to the end. You start to think about the journey."

"Doubts about something that happened along the way?"

The President looked away again.

"Something like that." she replied.

Silence fell again.

"The martial world _will_ fall, eventually," Shields assured. "When it does, the phoenix of Eden will rise from the ashes."

"It will be a long time before then," she said. "A lot of wars left to fight."

"Maybe," said Shields. "But you have more than half a billion people behind you. You're their hope. Whatever price was paid to get us here – it was worth it. Don't forget that."

She regarded him fondly.

"I won't."

### C. 5: Day 347

Every day for the last 11 months and 13 days, he woke with the terrible climax of some nightmare. The incubus never changed his plotline. The screaming always peaked just before waking. And when the screams withered from his mind, the throbbing pain in his head followed soon after.

The morning sun beamed in through the windows in straight and illuminated lines of airborne dirt, inching up to his face. The lids stretched back over his bloodshot eyes, lighting his vision violet. It was the usual morning pattern, with one none-too-uncommon exception.

He lifted himself up by the elbows and, feeling the soft flesh rub against him, looked over to his left. The sleek bare back was turned on its side beside him, thick braids of unfurled hair lay limp over the deep curve of her hip; skin scarred, smooth and ebony. Jasmine suffused the air. He had no memory of this jasmine woman, who she was or how she had found her way into his bed, which was normal enough. But that jasmine smell was familiar. The memory of a woman's smell dies hardest of all.

The jasmine woman's head stirred. She rolled over onto her back with a waking moan and surveyed the squalid confines of the dreg den; kitchenette and lavatory within feet of the depressed mattress on the floor, the old, broken 2-D screen at the back, old paperback books on a solitary countertop and foul smells she could scarcely identify and the scuttle of vermin and the buzz of insects through the stagnant vents.

He could see the slow shock of sobriety in the manner of her waking and rose before she could glimpse his face, lifting himself out from the bed and walking into the thin, horizontal beams of light toward the window. The view of the metropolis was hidden behind the big tube where the maglevs passed. The sun crept through the narrow spaces of the overpasses. A maglev rocketed past, as they did every 10 minutes or so, and the low rumble of the rails syphoned through the tube. When it passed, he heard the jasmine woman rise from the bed.

"Where am I?" came a dazed groan.

"Sixth Echelons. Durkheim."

"Never mix neurals and ambrosia." She rubbed the palm of her hand against her temple with a groan and looked around. "...I slept here?"

He turned a pair of glaring eyes over his shoulder. "One usually wakes where one sleeps."

"You'd be surprised." She looked up and observed the obscure figure in front of her anew, eyes straining through the bright light of the newborn sun. The light cast shadows over his lean flesh and his arms were bound with gauze from the elbow to the wrist.

He turned and she looked away the instant before their eyes met, rose and began to get dressed with her back turned to him. Seeing her – bare-bodied with the long braids cascading over her shoulders and breasts, down as far as her hips – flashes came to him through the residue of the nightmares and the stupor that hung over him still.

"What is your name?" he asked.

The jasmine woman looked up and studied him. Her eyes were globes of dark jade.

"Does it matter?"

"I would like to know."

She looked askance. "Why?"

Silence. When he did not turn or answer, she smirked and looked away.

Her apparel was unusual for a walker. It was equally unusual that she was a particularly beautiful walker. That is by no means to say that walkers are not particularly beautiful. They would not have much to sell otherwise. But the walker business is very competitive, which begged the question as to why she would have wasted a good night's profit on the likes of a dreg, for there was no possible way she could have assumed he was anything more than the lowest dreg in the metropolis.

He reached for his coat, took out a handful of oblong silver coins and counted them: 78 Dimitars and 97 Ducats; all the wealth left to his name. Midway through count, he threw the money on the bed. The jasmine woman looked down at the coins and then back up at him.

"I do not remember how much we agreed on," he said. "You will probably increase the price. That should be enough."

"You think I'm a walker?" she snickered.

The hair drew back from over her neck. He noticed something gleaming under the skin above her breast. Blending into her dark flesh was the seal of the UMC.

"You are a martial," he said, with vague astonishment.

"Second Tier Elite."

He noted the signets marked in her flesh. "Impressive," he muttered diffidently, as he opened a fresh pack of cigarettes.

"Wish I could say the same," she replied, surveying the little cubicle. "Are you a dreg?" she asked, quite point blank.

"Why?" he asked, lighting his cigarette. "Ashamed already?"

"No," she said. "You were a means to an end. Besides, I doubt we'll be seeing each other around anytime soon."

There was nothing more certain. Even if they did, it was likely they would not recognise one another. But that smell of jasmine was uncanny. Probably their paths had crossed once, he thought, before 11 months and 13 days ago.

Having dressed, the jasmine woman straightened up and spared one last benevolent look, which he dismissed with a turned back. She paused, then patted around on her legs and felt around the insides of her coat until she took out a small black canister. The top of the canister opened when she pressed down on the base and three tablets rolled out and into the palm of her hand. Her throat bulged as she swallowed, took a deep breath and tossed the canister onto the bed beside him. "You look as though you're low," she said. "You can still afford to keep a cubicle so maybe you're scraping the bottom of the dreg barrel. The price of neurals is way up these days. These'll get you back on your feet."

He looked over his shoulder and eyed the cylinder with aversion. The cigarette smoke scorched his eyes.

"Go ahead," she insisted. "I've got plenty."

"No thank you," he replied and looked away again.

"Are you mad because I'm not who you thought I was? Don't be a proud dreg. Go on. Take them... Might be your last hope."

A mist of smoke blew from his lips into the thinning beam of light. He raised his eyes to the sun and kept silent.

The jasmine woman shook her head and turned away. "You know; don't look new here," she said. "But, just in case you are, a little word of advice: You won't last long if you don't stick with the program. So, if you're not on one yet, you ought to find yourself a neuralist, and quick." She made for the door, and just before she left she added, "And stop asking walkers for their names, or anyone else, if you can help it. Don't go looking for me, dreg... I'm warning you."

She lingered a while as though waiting for a response. When none came, the door slid open and then closed again. He heard the echoes of her footsteps fade in the barren corridor.

There was a blue glow in the corner of his eye just as the last ray of sunlight blinked away. His cell was ringing. O730 , according to the chronometer on the bedside.

Right on schedule...

He got up off his bed and picked the cell up off the counter. The caller ID flashed over the screen. He laid the cell back on the counter, tapped the display and blue light rippled out from his fingertip and a holographic pillar of white shot out from the display. The photons swirled and the miniature figure of a man appeared in the pillar of light.

"Rise and shine, Martial."

"Malachi."

"Vartanian... you look like hell."

"Then I will fit the job description."

He took out a cigarette and sat.

"The contract closes today," said Malachi. "The meeting with the broker is in less than 30 minutes. Did I mention the meeting was at the Vanguard?"

"I remember..." He lit the cigarette.

"The most exclusive martial syndicate in the first region; you don't even think to get cleaned up? You look like a damn dreg."

"Elegance does not count for much in our trade."

"Well, you sure as hell ain't getting in the Sixth Circle looking like that. SG might just shoot you on sight."

And that would be terrible for business...

"You've lost weight. Think you can still carry your gear?"

"I can fight," he assured.

"Well, wouldn't be good for much in this world if you couldn't, now would you?" said Malachi. 'You remember the name of the broker?"

"Commissioner Donald Clarke Eastman... Do not patronise me."

"You've been out a long damn time. They'll make you take an eval."

"I know." A stream of smoke flowed from his nostrils.

"We had to pull a lot of strings to get here. Don't fuck this one up before it starts. And put that damn smoke out. Who smokes those anymore anyway?"

* * *

Saul Vartanian would have killed himself sooner or later, having long exceeded the average life expectancy of martial defectors. The question as to why he did not loomed over his every thought. A part of him resented the new glimmer of hope that had come quite unexpectedly through the sudden and unexpected acquaintance with Martial Elijah Malachi.

The shutting door sent echoes through the barren corridor and he stood awhile in a silent trance. He pocketed his hands and felt for the blade. You never walked the streets without a blade... His nose twitched as he sniffed in a nauseating brew of smoke, ethanol and bile. The stench reached its peak down the corridor, where he came upon a man lying on the floor with his back up against the corner, still, eyes shut.

He stopped and studied the vagrant; gaunt, unkempt, rotten, decayed, rancid and bound up in a blanket that smelled of excrement. The martial seal on the man's neck was faded under a bubble of scar tissue.

Dreg...

Warzone castoffs. The life of the dreg was wretched and brief; usually terminating in illness, suicide or slaughter in cold blood. Not all dregs were defectors, but all defectors quite inevitably wound up as dregs. As he reached into his coat pockets and leaned forward to lay the coins down by the dreg's side he noticed that his chest was not rising. He pressed two fingers up to the jugular and the dreg's head lolled to one side.

Dead...

No stab wounds. _Probably bit on cyanide._ He tucked the coins into his pockets and stood back up, turned and walked on as a matter of course. Sodom sanitation would find the body sooner or later and strip the corpse down for parts for the living (eyes were especially valued).

A loud wind of juddering maglev rails, sirens and foot traffic blustered through as he passed through the tunnel into Sixth Echelons, the heart of the Dukheim District sky city. Above and below, a hundred stories in each direction, flyovers intersected through the heart of a great hollow pillar. Bridges cut from wall to wall, stocked with a current of martials making the 0900 deployment rush.

He raised the collar of his coat and flowed with the Sodom bloodstream, averting the cold glares from the oncoming traffic. Passing eyes followed until the moment shoulders grazed in passing, his hand tight around the blade. Dregs were non-persons. It was insufferable to the upstanding member of martial order to see a dreg walking the streets of Sodom as though he was anything more than the lowest form of life.

The congesting mobs squeezed up against him and he kept his eyes down and his collar high, approaching the flow of the capsule lines – man-sized bubbles flowing through webs of thick, clear pipelines.

One of the ellipsoid bubbles stopped and hatched open. He flicked the cigarette butt away and stepped in. The capsule closed instantly and off it went, shooting along the nexus of tubes, winding in and out of Durkheim and over the metropolis streets. A panel shone with the capsule routes laid out and he dragged his fingertips over the district schematic, plotting the capsule's course to Milidome Plaza.

At this time of the day, the capsule flow was fast and steady. The dawn skyline over Sodom whizzed past behind loose threads of fog; maglev highways looping around tall spires, in and out of great man-made mountains. The air carriers lumbered high in the sky, shuttling back and forth from the warzones, ferrying fresh armies of Sodomite martials.

He stared into the dark eyes of his own reflection on the inside of the glass bubble and stroked the bulging scar just above his collarbone. The faded remains of the martial seal – the brand of the UMC – were hidden behind the lumps of scar tissue.

He had no memory of how, why or when he had sold his life to martial order. It may or may not have been longer than 11 months and 13days. He did know that he was not born in the martial world. No man or woman ever was. The gates to the martial world were locked on the inside and sterilisation was mandatory on entry. All who come choose it, and the pledge to the global war machine is a pledge unto death.

The Commission cleaned you out as soon you were initiated, all records of any previous life erased forever. Even though no citizen of martial world could remember anything up until the day they crossed over, the reasons were no great secret. Every year, millions of people migrated to the war metropolises seeking fortune in the so-called "Free Martial Economy." War was power. And both war and power were the preserve of the martial world.

The capsule slowed to a halt over Milidome Plaza, in the great shadow of the Milidome; the beating heart of Sodom. Over the top of the mountainous facade hung the gargantuan insignia of the UMC; the three-horned, three-headed beast – a head for each of the Three Regions of the Covenant. The immense hub of the UMC First Region blotted out half of the sky and gobbled up every arterial road, maglev rail, capsule tube, rhumb line and airway in the metropolis. The capsule hung high over the plaza and suddenly began to plummet, slowing to a stop at the end of a long overpass, flowing back into the congestion of foot traffic.

The capsule opened and he emerged onto Vanguard Bridge. The cold autumn wind lashed past and he raised his collar again. SGs – the blue-geared gargoyles from Sodom martial law enforcement – flanked the bridge; visors shut, guns at their chests. To the left, the global media displays were high over the plaza, blaring with the latest martial media updates from the warzones. The towering screens usually reported something tending toward the decline of East Grid power and the converse supremacy of western militaries, some political update from the Senior Commission and the odd report about economic growth interspersed with loops of wartech ads from the PMCs.

The entrance to the Vanguard was in sight. You could tell the increased concentration of high-casters by their signets. Contracting sections in West Wing were ordered according to castes, and the Vanguard section was the zenith of all martialdom. Dozens of monitors showed long lists of assignments ordered according to serial number, army quota, vacancy, assignment description, contracting party and so forth. Martials amassed, hunting for the best assignments tendered to their caste.

He crossed the threshold of the ingress into the Vanguard main atrium. The upper-casters traversing the halls seldom appeared without an entourage at their heels, sporting the marks and crests of their respective guilds. Guild hostilities had worsened in recent months, but his arrival seemed to have instantly united all in a sudden, common hate. This was the one place where no Sodomite would ever expect to see a dreg.

The visors of two SGs rotated as he passed, then quietly shadowed him through the corridors. He dared not stop his march until the moment he spied out one of the larger offices across the atrium floor. Over the front of the office doors a plaque read:

"Comm. 1st Class Donald Clarke Eastman"

He sauntered up to the open doors and silently crossed the threshold.

Immediately across from him, a man was seated behind a large desk, half-hidden behind a translucent screen, not realising that someone had entered his office until his nose started to twitch with the first whiffs of some peculiar stench... with a hint of jasmine.

The commissioner stopped. An ageless face rose almost robotically, and a pair of narrow, beady eyes peered up and surveyed him from head to toe, to head again. After a long, deadpan gaze and a protracted silence, the commissioner spoke.

"May I... help you?" The voice was an effeminate monotone.

He tucked his hand underneath his coat, took out a crumpled piece of paper and placed it on the desk. "I am here to apply for a contract," he said. "This is the serial number."

The commissioner gazed blankly at the piece of paper, then at the martial before him, then the Guards outside the office. He squinted to make out the scribbled 12-digit code on the unfurled piece of paper and his head tilted curiously.

"Nova Crimea," muttered the effeminate drone voice. A glassy surface lit up and the commissioner started fingering away robotically at the keys, eyes darting from left to right over his screen. "...Caste," the affeminite voice pronounced.

"First Tier... Ares," he answered automatically.

The commissioner stopped typing at once and the beady eyes rose and fixed him with a glare.

"PMC..."

"None."

"Guild."

"None."

"Freelance... Martial identification number."

He paused, and then began to recite, slowly: "Zero. Zero. Zero. Seven. One. Seven. One. Six. Six. One. Five. Zero. Eight... Eight... Eight."

The commissioner's expression suddenly became disturbed as he typed in the final number. The deadpan eyes peered up again. "May I see your credentials?"

He reached into the sleeve of his coat and took out a faded black card with the black insignia beast of the UMC on the back.

The commissioner's beady eyes zipped back and forth from the card to the man himself and a glimmer of astonishment found its way across his marble face as he slowly laid the card down on his desk. "Martial Vartanian... We did not think we would see you again." The office doors automatically shut, and the synthetic-faced commissioner remained staring with an uncanny look of acquaintance in the unblinking eyes. "Do you remember me?"

"Eastman," Saul answered, as though uttering the man's name would conceal the fact that he had not the slightest memory of ever meeting him before.

"They cleaned you," the commissioner muttered deductively, with a slow nod. "I was certain you were dead. Your old record was deleted just under a year ago."

"Eleven months and 13 days."

Does he know...?

"Please sit," bid the commissioner.

He obeyed with caution.

The keyboard re-illuminated over the glossy surface of the crystal-top desk. "Now," Commissioner Eastman continued, tapping away at the keys; "The Nova Crimea assignment... You may know the call for tenders was issued by the European Bureau of Defence. Unfortunately, the quota for the assignment has already been met. We should be making the final settlements with the USE's Defence Section later this morning. The only way we can allow your application is if we received authorisation from the contractor; a certain Martial..."

"Elijah Malachi," he interrupted, finishing the commissioner's sentence.

"Correct."

"He told me to come to you."

"I see," Eastman replied with a vague nod. "Perhaps the memo slipped through the cracks. No administration is bulletproof, you understand..." He lifted his hands off the desk. The illuminated touchboard disappeared and the light from the translucent screen dissipated. "What were Martial Malachi's instructions?"

"I will be taking command of the brigade for the assignment."

"Have you reviewed the mission brief?"

"Yes."

Eastman nodded again.

"Very well," he said. "I'm sure all parties involved will welcome the leadership of one of the First Region's finest. I'll send a request for confirmation to Martial Malachi immediately. You will be contacted via Nexus once the War Bureau has approved your application. I presume you still have your cell?"

"I do."

Having no further business to discuss, Saul abruptly rose from his seat without valediction.

"Martial Vartanian," Eastman called out, interrupting his exit. "There is one more thing."

"I know. Neural evaluation."

"According to your record, Dr. Augustus Pope was your assigned neuralist. Is that correct?"

Saul stopped suddenly and turned back. "Yes... Why?"

"He's here."

Saul maintained a silence, eyeing the commissioner with suspicion.

"He must have anticipated you. Neuralists are very good at that sort of thing." The commissioner gave a summoning look to the Guards outside his office. The doors opened and four heavy, blue-geared figures entered a moment later. "Room 7773."

* * *

The elevator stopped on floor 55. Two SGs led the way and the other two brought up the rear. He followed through a dark, narrow passage, passing a series of numbered doors on both walls. Not a word was said nor a sound heard save for thumping of boot heels echoing down the corridor. He felt like he was being led to an execution. The possibility entailed no stretch of the imagination. He counted down the numbers on the pristine doors until the two SGs in front finally stopped outside a black door; the number "7773" etched on a silver plaque on the front.

Silence...

Seconds later, a voice came from the other side:

"Enter."

The door opened and the two Guards in front turned, then stood aside.

He eyed them warily as he walked through and came into the empty, windowless room.

A single source of dim pale light shone from the middle of the ceiling over two chairs set opposite one another. He stopped as soon as he entered. The door shut automatically behind him, causing his eyes to shoot over his shoulder.

In one of the chairs in front of him, there sat one of the only people in Sodom he knew, a man with whom he had been acquainted since the very first day. The man sat with both arms on the rests of his seat. Two cobalt eyes flashed perspicaciously behind the clear, frameless lenses of his pince-nez. After a quiet intermission, the man spoke in a low baritone.

"I cannot tell you what a delight it is to see _you_ again... Saul Vartanian." Dr. Augustus Pope bore the semblance of a man on the brink of old age, which, these days, meant he could have been anywhere between 50 and 150. The ice-blue eyes behind the pince-nez were pupilless so that it was never clear where the neuralist was looking, much less what he was thinking. "Please sit." Pope waved a welcoming hand over the opposite chair.

The vacuous eyes pursued him as he came forward and lowered into his seat. He silently determined not to speak unless Pope spoke first, and to say as little as possible whenever he did.

A small turtle-shell table was set between them; on top of it were set a slim crystal tablet, two glasses and a silver, cubic article which he could not identify as anything in particular. He glanced over each item, before looking back up at the neuralist, who appeared to be anatomising everything from the dilation of his pupils to the intervals between his breaths. "You are thinking," said Pope, "about how long it has been since we last met, correct?" His voice was low and calculated. "I have no doubt you remember precisely how long."

"Eleven months and –"

"... Thirteen days," Pope nodded slowly. The formless smile crept further up his lips. "You have been using the Gregorian calendar. A most peculiar habit. You had started counting the days that way the first time we cleaned you."

"How long ago was that?"

The smile retreated from Pope's face and his air became instantly more daunting. "Never ask questions which are either unanswerable or irrelevant, Saul. It is the definitive stepping stone to defection." He stopped and adjusted the pince-nez over his cold eyes.

A silence followed which he dared not break. One thing was certain about neuralists; they knew more about you than you did about them. Being face to face with Doctor Pope again was only slightly less unnerving than the prospect of a summary execution.

"You require my seal of approval to return to active duty."

"Yes," he replied, after a long delay of contemplation.

"Very well... Then, we may begin." Pope leaned forward, took the slim tablet off the table and leaned back again, crossing one leg over the other. He laid the tablet on his raised lap, took out a long pen-shaped implement from the breast pocket of his waistcoat and started tapping at the screen.

"Apollo; record," he pronounced in a raised voice.

The small box on the table started to glow with a pale light.

"Day: seventy-five, eighty-seven, thirty-one, eight-hundred and forty-seven hours," Pope began to recite. "Subject: Martial Saul Vartanian. Caste – First Tier Ares. Three-hundred and forty-seven days since previous session. Cause of visit: General evaluation." Pope leaned back into his seat and the hollow eyes looked up again. "I shall now proceed to ask you a number of questions, which you shall answer truthfully. I need not tell you that if you lie, I shall know..."

He assented to the neuralist's words with a silent stare.

"I suppose we can start with a more generic question," said Pope: "What have you been up to for the last three-hundred and forty-seven days?"

"Not much," he replied, after another delay.

Pope bowed his head somewhat disappointedly and tapped away at the tablet screen. "You withdrew most of your savings from your martial account about four days after we had last met."

"Yes."

"Five million Dimitars... Quite a fortune. Was there a reason?"

"Bank transactions are traceable," he said.

"Then, you were hiding from us," said the neuralist

He paused to consider his response, but gave none.

"Is that why you have taken such pains to change your appearance?" The neuralist's eyes studiously hovered over him, and another long silence followed.

At this point, he took out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from his coat pockets. He leaned forward, sparked the lighter, puffed and the smoke rose from his lips.

"You are not making this easy, Saul," said Pope. "Are you _trying_ to give the impression that you are on the brink of defection?"

"I am here, am I not?" He flicked the lighter away with a _clink_ and held the cigarette in his lips. "Whist we are on the subject; what is the definition of defection these days?"

"The definition is quite standard."

"Your definitions are constantly changing," he said, blowing a mist of smoke.

"Defection is an advanced state of psychological rebellion against martial order," Pope elucidated sternly. "It occurs in varying degrees, naturally; however, defectors tend to deteriorate over time and they very seldom recover."

When he finished, Saul surveyed him through upturned eyes. He took the cigarette from his lips and blew another cloud of smoke. "We all have problems with society," he rumbled. "You must be more specific."

A clear smile across the ashen visage sent a chill through him. Pope reclined further back into his seat and tapped at his flashing screen again.

"Answer 'yes' or 'no' to the following questions," he instructed. "The truth, as always."

He held an affirming silence and took another draw of his cigarette to hide his unease.

"In the last three-hundred and forty-seven days," Pope began; "have you procured an assignment?"

He removed the cigarette from his lips and exhaled.

"No."

"Have you had regular intercourse?"

"Define regular."

"Once every ten days."

"Yes," he lied.

"Different partners?"

"Yes."

"Good..." Pope hummed and tapped away at his screen. "Have you ever cohabited with anyone for more than thirty to forty days, intermittently or otherwise?"

"No."

"Have you indulged any sort of affection for..."

"No," he answered promptly.

"Have you dabbled in any form of transcendentalism, spiritualism..."

"No."

The light from the tablet screen flashed reflecting off of the round, opaque lenses with each question.

"Have you ever considered or attempted escape from martial order?"

"...No."

He had paused too long with his answer.

The vacuous eyes shot up piercingly over the lenses. Pope cocked his head back and slowly removed the pince-nez over his eyes. "I feel I should remind you, Saul, that the confidentiality between a neuralist and his patient is inviolable as a matter of UMC law. Even in a hearing before a martial court, nothing said here can be used as evidence against you. We _are_ clear on that, are we not?"

He did not believe any of it for a minute.

"Yes."

"Good."

Pope tucked the glasses away and leaned back in his seat.

"Then, I shall repeat the same question... Have you..."

"Yes," he answered promptly.

The same insidious smile crept subtly up the neuralist's lips once again. "It's perfectly natural for the mind to desire what it cannot have," he said, with a hollow tenderness in his voice. "But, then, there are several undesirable things that are perfectly natural. Do you understand, Saul?"

Pope uncrossed his legs and slipped the pen into the breast pocket of his waistcoat. "I think we can skip right to the question upon which hang all the rest..." he said, placing the tablet gently on the table-top. He leaned back into his seat and laced his thin, grey fingers over his abdomen. "The neural program..."

The cigarette hung loose in his lips as he breathed in another lungful of smoke and held his silence.

"Saul, do you know what the neural program is for?"

He had very definite ideas about what the neural program was for, none of which he would dare utter in present company. He chose his words carefully.

"The neurals stop us from... feeling things," he said.

Pope's lip vaguely curled.

"Your phraseology, though clumsy, is accurate enough," he replied. "To be more precise; neurals correct all the useless neurological appendages of your long and blundering past. We are all born sick. That is nature's way. No organism is perfect.

He puffed away at his cigarette with a glower and did not answer.

"Would it not be so immensely conceited, Saul," Pope continued after a brief silence, "to believe that every thought, sensation, emotion; every pathological inclination that enters the skull is worth preserving? Some inclinations of the mind must be tempered. Others... must be eradicated."

Pope stopped when he perceived the contempt growing in him, then bowed his head. "You must know, Saul, that the Commission does nothing for its own sake. We are not tyrants and we are certainly not interested in deceiving you. You are valuable to us. Our world – our order – depends on you. Can you understand that?"

He took the last draw of his cigarette and flicked the butt away.

"I understand," he nodded.

Pope nodded and the formless smile resurfaced. "Splendid," he declared rapidly. "Then, there is nothing more to say." He drew the pince-nez once again and placed them over his eyes. "You will immediately resume with the program and follow all the recommended directives."

The neuralist reached under his suit jacket and took out a small black canister with a white label on the front and held the canister up in the air. "Tailored to your individual neurology," he assured with a cold, cobalt gleam in his eye. He opened the canister and rolled one small, silver tablet onto the turtle shell table-top. "One to three tablets every day. Five days' intermission every thirty-day cycle." He recited the prescription like a mantra. "You would do well to plan your prescription around your time in the war zones. There should be enough there to last you three cycles. I expect to see you in at least one-hundred days to restock, so that we may track your progress. Agreed?"

The question went unanswered.

He leaned forward, took the canister and tucked it under his coat. Meanwhile, Pope also bent over and reached under the table, and when he straightened up, he was holding a glass bottle containing a clear liquid. He took the top off the bottle; poured two measures of the viscous fluid in either glass, and the sweet fume of distilled ambrosia filled the air.

"To your health."

Pope raised his glass and waited for him to take his own, which he did, then popped the tablet into his mouth and gulped down the ambrosia.

When the last bulge in his neck receded, Pope knocked back his own drink and exhaled triumphantly. "Congratulations," he pronounced. "You have passed evaluation." The neuralist rose from his seat and took his coat. "Your record will be updated by tomorrow," he reassured. "All that is left is to wish you the best of luck on your assignment."

Pope took the computer tablet and the small cubic device off the table, tucked both underneath his coat, arranged himself and pressed back on the pince-nez, sparing one last vague smile as he walked past Saul's chair.

"Welcome back, Martial Vartanian."

He heard the door open and close behind him. When the footsteps faded away down the empty corridor, he placed his hands on the side of his chair and rose to his feet, stood and waited.

About a minute later he raised his head, poked around the back of his jaw with his tongue, cocked his head forward and cupped his hand over his face. The tablet rolled out of his lips and into his hand and he tucked it discretely into his pocket.

He emerged from the Vanguard main entrance just under an hour after arriving. The big GMDs in the plaza broadcast a commercial for the latest in Landis Corp.'s wartech line as he made his way across the bridge and back to the capsule terminals.

* * *

The capsule stopped on 3rd Echelons, Nozick Prospect and down the street and to the right was a long, narrow and obscure path linking Nozick Prospect to Dragon Boulevard.

Republic Alley was a known dreg street in Durkheim, and ran through the bottom of a deep urban crevasse in the lower levels of the sky city. The alley was starved of sunlight by day and pitch black on moonless nights like these. It reeked of dried excrement and rotten everything, as did most dreg precincts. In martial metropolises, where dregs were accorded the same fundamental rights as vermin, residing in the most unpleasant corners of the city was the best way to avoid danger, especially at night.

Halfway down the alley, over an arched doorway, a rusty, blazoned sign read "DUKE'S MESS" in lashes of red spray-paint, and a clique of dregs lingered around the middle of the alley as far away from the main streets of Durkheim as possible. When they caught sight of the familiar silhouette approaching, they greeted him with reverent nods and the word "Martial." He lowered his head as he passed under the rusted sign and into a tunnel, down a flight of stairs.

A large room was lit with flickering tubes of dim, pale neon and filled with long aluminum tables and rickety metal benches which looked to have been bent out of scrap. A dozen pairs of tired eyes were upturned to the holoscreen in the upper corner. Others were asleep, sprawled out on benches and on the sheeted floor. Duke Maclean, a.k.a "Dreg Duke", the old mess-keeper, used to let the dregs stay in when he locked up his mess at night. The stocky, thick-bearded, box-skulled and heavily tattooed ex-patriot (which was the term for ex-government soldiers) was behind his counter, getting his mess ready for the following day.

As soon as Saul entered, old Duke turned, put down a big pan full of thick broth which he had been pouring into a mess tray. He straightened up, tall and barrel-chested, wiped his rough paws in a tattered cloth and took the cigar nub from his teeth.

"Guid mornin'," greeted the burly innkeeper, rubbing his thick knuckles into his sore eyes and poking his blackened tongue on the insides of his cheeks. "Yer early," he said, his voice gruff and tired.

"Is it a bad time?"

"... Nae bad time."

"How are things?"

Old Duke puffed on his cigar. "Cannae complain," he moaned, with a jagged-toothed smile and a raspy chuckle. He stretched his neck back, rolled his head from side to side and the thick vertebrae popped in realignment.

"Do you have my package?"

"Aye..."

Duke nodded, then clasped his cigar in his teeth and limped away.

The conversation seldom varied.

The heavy-set old mess-keeper hobbled into the backroom, where his consignments of food and water from the civils were kept. He came back a minute later holding a parcel, untidily packaged in brown paper and bound with duct tape, and laid the parcel on the counter. "All there," he said, taking the cigar from his teeth. "Yer usual, plus that – eh – other thing ye asked fer. Almost got stopped at customs."

"Did the Commission give you trouble?"

"Nae trouble."

"Good," said Saul, examining the parcel. "About the money...."

"Giit teh fuck." Dreg Duke rolled up his sleeves and returned to the work for which he derived no profit, no glory and certainly no assistance.

He tucked the parcel in his coat and thanked him with more sincerity than usual. He would have preferred a more formal farewell with the only man in the martial world he could remotely call a friend.

The cubicle door shut. The chronometer read 2330. He dropped the package on the small counter top and stretched out his neck. His joints throbbed and ached under weeks of accumulated insomnia and malnourishment.

There was a small sliding door over the cluttered counter, and the green light over the door meant that the freight chute was loaded. He pressed the button near the light. The door slid open and he took out the following days' provisions: six small boxes of desiccated protein isolate and some sawdust-textured, barely edible matter which took on the taste and consistency of sludge whenever he mixed in the hot water. The door slid shut and the light went red.

He picked the jasmine-scented sheets up off the floor and laid them in a pile on the mattress, lit a cigarette before taking his knife and carefully cutting across the tape on the folds of the wrapping. Inside, there was a carton of Lucky Strike cigarettes, an unlabeled bottle of earth-brown single malt, and a most curious third item which one would be even more hard-pressed to find in the martial world than scotch or cigarettes: A book. More unusually; a paperback book. The bold title on the front cover, provocatively read:

"UNITED MARTIAL COVENANT AND THE BIRTH OF NEW WORLD ORDER"

Books were not outlawed from the martial world. However, any piece of data that entered Sodom did so digitally. It was not known whether the Commission filtered out any "undesirable" material from cyberspace, but it was almost certain that they did. Emails, phone calls, bank transactions – everything went through the Martial Nexus. Everyone was free, provided it was known exactly what was done with that freedom, and it was likely that political literature ranked high on the Commission's blacklist. That said, if there was anyone in the martial world who could smuggle in illegal contraband, it was Dreg Duke.

He stared at the book cover as he poured a glass of scotch and opened the fresh carton. He drank the scotch, toked the cigarette and turned over the front cover, flipped through the table of contents, cases, laws and treaties, stopping on the first page of the prologue, and then skimmed through the page from a standing distance:

This book was written with the scope that the lay person may understand how the foundations of the new world were laid. Part I examines the historico-political and economic premises behind the formation of the United Martial Covenant of western powers and its institutions. Part II focuses on the foundations of the internal divide between so-called "Martial Order" and "Civil Order" and the relationship between these two worlds. These central themes of UMC politics shall be discussed in light of the later formation of the East Grid Pact, three years subsequent to the establishment of the UMC...

He stopped reading mid-paragraph, removed his coat and laid it over the counter. He then took the book and lowered himself into his bed. The weariness sunk in instantly. He skimmed through the prologue, arriving at page 12:

Chapter I: The Rise of the Global Martial Economy

He held the book up in front of him, with his thumb down the middle. He read:

In the succeeding five decades, after the turn of the millennium, the world bore witness to a radical revolution in the global economy. War became far more than the leading world industry; war became the backbone of all world industries. Professor Robert McGrath of the University of New York presaged this total military dominance of world economics and was the first to coin the term "Global Martial Economy". 1

Even though the premises underlying this shift have been subject to extensive academic dispute, the creation of the "Mercenary Act", the liberation of the martial market and the Gaia Revolution are generally agreed upon as the fundamental economic causes behind the rise of the GME.2 After renewable and nuclear energy sources overtook fossil fuels in the mid-twenties,3 the energy industry underwent an exponential decline with the resolution of the world energy crisis. This, coupled with the outbreak of the first skirmishes between the United States of America and Russia, and, later, the Democratic People's Republic of North Korea and China, set the stage for the complete global economic dominance of the martial industries.

Warzone proliferation saw a sharp increase after the two major alliances: The "North Atlantic Alliance" between the (then) Federation of Western Europe and the United States of America, and the coterminous "Mongolian Line Alliance" between the People's Republic of China and the New Southern Republic of Russian States.4 Within 10 years of the two major alliances, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, India, the UAE and South Africa, among several other, smaller nations were all locked in conflict across a new Iron Curtain which cut straight through the middle of the globe from the peak of Scandinavia down to the tip of the African continent and around and across the Pacific, manifesting the boundary line between East and West, known today as "The Walls of Fire"...

His eyes began to droop.

### C. 5: Day 348

Four zeroes on the chronometer marked midnight when the alarm rung.

Saul stepped under the light over the mirror and regarded himself. The tangled mess of facial hair was shaved down to stubble, exposing the thin scars around the deep lines of his jaw. The blade slipped out and shimmered in the light. He slipped the edge under the line of gauze below the elbow and cut. The bandages slipped off and the signets gleamed blood-red. He held his arm up before him with a glare, then passed the blade from one hand to the other and cut the bandages off the other arm.

Sodom was alive with light as the capsule descended from Sixth Echelons. The face of every tower and every spire, from the streets below to the airborne traffic high above the skyline, was a matrix of technicolor pixels. When night fell, Ares slumbered and Dionysus took the throne. Sodom went from the pumping heart of the First Region War Machine to a mass brothel, a fountain of ambrosia and a great scream of ecstasy audible until the ends of the globe, and Dragon Boulevard was the adrenaline-saturated pulsing jugular of the martial capital.

He nudged open the fire exit and came into a long and dark alley. An old dog, curled up behind piles of trash, whimpered and limped away. He raised his collar and pocketed his hands as he approached the light at the end of the main street, his footsteps fading into the occult blares from the Dragon.

The wide avenue was a spinning kaleidoscope of psychedelia which ran right through the middle of the lower district to Durkheim Plaza, and the great, three-headed beast of the UMC soared high on the Milidome facade in the distance. Blue-geared SGs patrolled every corner and the bedlam continued to build all the way up until up until the Dragon's Head, where the larger martial guilds garrisoned their private nightspots. These were peak hours for walkers too. He passed by the Nymph on the Bordello Strip: a high-rise ziggurat shrine to erotica, flashing scarlet and crimson on the tip of the Dragon's Tail. The Nymph was one of the largest bordellos on the strip, very popular among the lower casters. You got what you paid for and then some. Saul snatched a glance through the crowds at the glass walls as he passed. The carmine light irradiated a display line of nude and limber silhouettes twisting and bending for their potential trade.

One blonde-haired crimson-lipped nymph caught his eye and smiled a counterfeit smile, causing him to bump into a squad of SGs. The Guards turned, guns cocked, and when their illumed visors scanned over him, the signets under his coat sleeves flashed in their digital sights and they dispersed at once. SG squads patrolled every corner of the strip. Gang wars between rival guilds were not uncommon, and even less so on the Dragon at peak times. And since the only guns on the city streets were I.D-locked and borne by Sodom's finest, guild wars were kept in control for the most part, along with any immediate possibility of mass uprisings.

About a quarter-mile down the Dragon's Tail, he spotted one of the smaller buildings on the Bordello Strip. A sign on the side of the tower showed the grimacing head of a crowned daemon holding a royal sceptre in one hand and a flask of ambrosia in the other. The words "SIXTH CIRCLE" flashed red over the top of the daemon's head.

He crossed the road. Eight goliaths constituted the guard detail at the front entrance and glares followed as he passed and turned onto the next side street.

At the end of the alley, a flight of stairs led up to a terrace and a back entrance, just as he had been told. When he ascended the stairs, he was received by a none-too-welcoming committee – three heavy men, scarred, thickly tattooed and outfitted for the sole function of backstreet brawling, with thick, vascular arms crossed over their flack-jacketed chests and the insignia of black sickles curved around their scarred orbitals – the mark of the Scythe Guild.

As soon as he climbed the last step, their heads jerked around like wild beasts roused by sudden and unfamiliar company, and one martial, baring the signets of a Third Tier Elite, uncrossed his arms and stepped forward, closely followed by his two cronies. "Just where the fuck do you think _you're_ going, dreg?"

"I was told there would be someone waiting."

The elite stepped forward and sized him up.

"You've got some stones –"

"I am here to see Elijah Malachi."

"Malachi..." the elite rumbled with a snigger. "Malachi," he repeated, turning to his two comrades, who returned his laughter with interest. He rubbed his palm from the top of his head down to his chin, wiping away the humour from his disfigured expression. "You took your best shot," he scowled. "Now, get the fuck out of..."

His hand shot up when the elite's made to grab him by the neck and his grip latched round the thick wrist like a vice.

The elite froze, loose-jawed, eyes wide and reeled back with a look of fearful awe at the blood-red signets that slipped out from under his sleeve.

"I am here to see Elijah Malachi..." he repeated, sustaining a glower.

His grip loosened from the thick wrist. Before long, the elite turned to his associates.

"Call Celyn."

They hesitated at first, exchanging grave and confused looks. Then, one of the burly martials turned and disappeared. During the half-minute that passed, the incredulous eyes did not defer, searching him from head to toe, stopping on the scarred seal creeping out from the collar of his coat.

In the next moment, a blaring wave of noises from inside the building flooded through the open doors, and a very familiar voice stirred him to attention. "What's going on?" The martials stepped aside, and who should come through the doors but the ebony-skinned, emerald-eyed jasmine woman.

"This guy says he wants to see Malachi."

The jasmine woman stopped with an askew look as soon as their eyes met, then drew slowly closer, her eyes narrowing the nearer she approached until he could smell jasmine on her again, evoking a strange sensation not entirely like lust... but not entirely unlike it either. "Celyn..."

"...You have got to be kidding me."

"I didn't believe him either," said the elite, "but you can't forge signets like that. He's an Ares-caster."

The jasmine woman looked down at his wrists, where the edges of the signets were poking out of his sleeves.

"Should we get Malachi?"

"No," the jasmine woman answered, her air suddenly foreboding. "He's our guy." She started to walk back through the door, leaving silence behind her. "Come on," she called as she walked away. "Elijah's waiting."

The two Scythe soldiers held the doors open and he followed, crossing into a vortex of shrill howls and earth-quaking beats. Beams of scarlet light tore through the blackness from a wide floor below, lighting hundreds of silhouettes, dancing, twisting and stumbling in an ambrosia-induced rapture. Lucre shimmered and rattled on pulpits with nude figures; sweat dripping, glimmering on the naked flesh like blood drops. He slowed his step, mesmerised with near morbid fascination at the striking reminiscence of his nightmares. It shocked him to a halt, looking out from the gallery. The screams became louder and louder.

The shrill broke when a hand seized him by the arm.

"You can ball after we take care of business!" the jasmine woman yelled over the din.

She led the way across the upper floor with a quick stride. The crowd parted and cleared her path and as they passed, a few high-caste guilders followed their trail with scowls – those that weren't engaged with bevies of walkers and copious quantities of ambrosia. They came to a glass elevator at the back of the floor. The jasmine woman stepped in first, pressed the top floor button, crossed her arms and looked forward. The elevator doors shut and brought an abrupt end to the tumult and they slowly began to rise.

"Celyn..." he muttered, breaking the long silence.

"Knight."

"Celyn Knight."

"Martial Knight will do," she amended. "And you must be Vartanian."

Silence fell again.

"Malachi said he had two associates. I did not expect a..."

"Expect a what?" she jerked her head round with a glare. Silence fell again. "Let me guess," she snorted. "All women are walkers and all men are martials."

"Numbers do not lie."

"Female martials have a higher caste average than males," she answered, turning to him with a hostile look. "How's that for a statistic, quicksilver?" The elevator stopped and the doors opened with a single chime and the jasmine woman walked out the second the doors opened, leaving him behind.

He detected a contrivance about her manner. It seemed... forced. Remembering quite vividly the type of woman she was in her otherwise most intimate of moments, he intuited that her diffidence must have had less to do with the fact that she was a martial woman in a man's world than it did with a secret intent to terminate any trace of lasciviousness between them. Martial policy on intercourse was very clear: at least 60 days between repeat partners, and the Commission had ways of keeping track of intercourse history the same as everything else.

"What kind of Ares-caster walks around all alone looking like that?"

He regarded himself briefly. "Are you not relieved?" he asked.

She snickered. "Why – because I got laid by a high-caster?" she asked, rhetorically. "I'm not a walker. The man behind the prick doesn't matter to me."

"How noble of you."

"By the way, do us both a favour. About last night – don't say anything to Eli."

"Why?"

"Do you really need a reason? Keep business and pleasure separate. Always a good rule of thumb."

The corridor narrowed into a glass-walled passage which passed right over the Dragon. Above, the sky was clear and star-spangled. The passage terminated at a door and the jasmine woman stepped aside. "After you," she said.

Warily, he pushed the door open and crossed the threshold.

He came into a long room. He approached the far end, where a small group of martials were accompanied by twice the number of walkers, sprawled over large satin-upholstered couches and surrounded by about two dozen empty bottles of ambrosia. A naked butane flame danced over the low table-top in the middle of them and the light of the full moon shone from above through the glass ceiling. Toppled piles of dimitars and psychotropics were strewn over the table-top and the white-carpeted floor.

"At last..." a deep voice pronounced. "I was starting to doubt whether you'd show."

At the head of the table, there sat the only man unaccompanied by a walker. The man had a coal complexion and was well-turned-out in every way, with a fine-cut black suit, black shoes, an open white shirt and a platinum ring around his middle finger. His dark face rose from the shadow. When the face came into the light, a long, grisly scar cut from the top of the man's scalp down across his left eye.

"Vartanian." Malachi grinned, wide and pearl-toothed, coming to his feet. "We meet at last."

"Who the hell is this?" spoke an irate voice from among them.

Saul remained quiet, looking from one sneering martial to the other until his arms slipped out of the coat sleeves. When the light found the blood-red signets, silence fell upon the room.

"This, comrades, is your new co-commander," Malachi introduced. "Say hello to Martial Vartanian, First Tier Ares. Now, if you all don't mind, gentlemen; I think it's time you all took this party downstairs where it belongs."

The platoon-inebriated Scythe martials and walkers all rose and half-stumbled past him and out of the room. When the last of them had left, the doors closed.

"These are the men you expect us to lead?"

"Now, now," said Malachi, "don't go getting the wrong idea. These men play hard, but they work hard – _damn_ hard. You have my word."

Celyn lowered herself into a black leather lounger. "Speaking of playing hard," she said. "Where's the Cajun?"

"Cho! Co! Yeaaw! _Merci_ , _mes chers_!" At that moment, a door flung open at the end of an adjacent corridor and a voice cackled loudly. Three high-end, platinum-haired walkers with high heels and mannequin features sauntered in from the adjacent corridor, walking and dressing at the same time, and shuffled right past them and out of the room. Seconds later, the same loud, cackling voice from before approached, singing:

"I's a rambler, I's a gambler, I's a long way from home, and if you all don't like me, just leave me alone. I eat when I'm hungry, I drink when I'm dry. If ambrosia don't kill me, I drink till I die. _Laissez le bon temps rouler, laissez le bon temps rouler..._ "

A long-haired, sharp-faced and bare-chested mestizo-looking martial staggered into the room, holding a half-empty bottle of Liquid Luck ambrosia. He lifted the bottle to his lips took five long swigs, then hung his arms, threw his shoulders back and burped. The mestizo's golden eyes dawdled around the room, finally settling on Saul, whereupon he leered a wide and jagged-toothed leer. "Ah, _baise-moi_ ; Monsieur Ares!" he sputtered, flinging his arms in the air. "Eh, _Celin_ '!" he cried, pointing a wavering finger at Celyn. " _Bon soir, cher_..."

"Duguay," Malachi rumbled. "We've got business. Put down the poison."

" _Bon_." The Cajun shrugged, lifted the bottom of the bottle and emptied the drink into his gullet and bore a striking resemblance to the nightclub mascot outside the building. He exhaled loudly and threw the bottle aside with a _smash_. The Cajun cackled, leapt over the back of a long settee and fell into his seat with a sigh. Then, seeing the bottles on the table – some of them still full – his eyes lit up with sudden desire, and he filled himself another glass, licking his lips. " _Grand_... _Alors_..."

"Saul's here to run us through strategy for Nova Crimea," said Malachi, setting the agenda for the meeting. "After that, we talk future plans. Ain't that right, Saul?"

Saul had had his eyes fixed intently on the boisterous Cajun. "Right," he muttered.

"Right..." said Malachi in a shrewd, drawn-out voice. He stroked the stubble on his chin with the ringed finger and started to pace around, one hand pocketed. "Assuming we're all alive by next week, the future looks pretty damn bright." He took a glass off the table and filled it with ambrosia, then walked out to the edge of the penthouse and gazed out over the Dragon. "Hell," he snickered, "with you in our ranks; there'll be no contract we can't score, no martial we couldn't snatch up for the guild." He drunk and exhaled. "The sky's the limit." Malachi turned to face him again. "Well... we'll get to all that later," Malachi grinned. "Don't want to get ahead of ourselves, now, do we?"

"No, we do not," Saul replied.

The scarred eye narrowed judiciously as Malachi knocked back the rest of his drink and sauntered back over to his seat, taking out a device from under the sleeve of his suit jacket. He pressed down on the control and the holographic flame over the table fizzled away. In its place, there materialised a large three-dimensional schematic of what appeared to be a city. "That's her," Malachi presented. "Nova Crimea." He slipped the control back into his suit, sat down, poured himself another glass and leaned back in his seat. "Floor's yours, Martial..."

Saul laid his coat down on the nearest chair and slowly stepped up to the holographic schematic. He mentally went over the stratagem, which he had only briefly sketched out in his mind over the interceding days, but which had since ripened in his veteran subconscious.

"Expand Sector 5."

The schematic rotated to his instruction and the northeast corner of the holographic rendition of the city expanded. He took out a cigarette, placed the butt at his lips, lit, drew and blew a stream of smoke, coming nearer to the hologram, circled and stopped.

"We will be one of five brigades the EDS is deploying to take Nova Crimea," he began. "Each brigade has been assigned a different sector. Our objective is to take Sector 5. East Grid forces took over the city about a month ago on a Russian mandate, so they are expecting retaliation. This will not be a surprise attack, but we _can_ turn it into one."

He lifted his right index finger and drew a line over the edge of the sector in the hologram.

"Nova Crimea is right on the edge of the New Borderland, outskirts of the former Ukrainian Republic," he explained. "The city's defences were set up to repel attacks from the east. After the beating the place took a month ago, the enemy would not have had enough time to restructure their ramparts. We will be moving in on the city from the west. Our PMC is providing us with 12 Landis GM-1 Leviathan Buldroogs. We move up through sector four with 4th Brigade. Once they have cleared our path, we move on to Sector 5. That is where our real work begins."

He drew another mouthful of smoke, took the cigarette between his middle and index fingers and ran the smoldering tip along two, wide paths that cut right across the schematic.

"These are the two main streets," he continued. "They run straight through the sector. We will call them "North Street" and "South Street" for ease. They are the key to the sector. That is where the enemy will put all of their stock. They will no doubt have all the surrounding buildings garrisoned and we can assume that they will deploy any heavy armour they can spare here and here (he pointed the locations out on the schematic with the smoldering cherry of his cigarette). Their strategy will be to funnel us into these two paths and tear us apart. Even if we had a hundred thousand soldiers, we would not be able to get through in a full frontal firefight..."

"Why don't we just bang dem _salauds_ up from a ways away, _hein_?" the Cajun interjected.

"Nova Crimea is not a martial metropolis," he replied, pausing to decipher the drunken creole burbles. "There are civilians there – thousands of them." The concern in his voice seemed to render present company bemused and he noted their rapid and askance looks at one another. Needless to say, civilian lives never registered high in the list of priorities before an assignment, barring some clause to that effect in the martial contract.

"The ESD wants us to keep collateral damage to a minimum," Malachi intervened. "They want their city back, not a pile of debris and dead bodies."

" _Mo chagren_ ," hummed the Cajun, throwing his head back wearily.

"Go on, Saul..."

"We will need to secure the elevated positions over both roads." He drew lines of smoke through the schematic. "We breach these buildings along the main streets," he indicated. "It will have to be done quickly and silently. We must divide their ranks and find a way to destroy their armour before we advance..."

He suddenly paused, much to the confusion of his three listeners.

"So what's the plan?" asked Celyn.

"That, I have not yet worked out," he said. "We will be outnumbered. We must pick our openings carefully. I will inform you as soon as the strategy is clear in my mind. For now, all I know is that we will need a lot of explosives, and at least four sniper platoons."

"No problem," Malachi assured. "Duguay will take the sharpshooters. Celle can put the demo team together."

Celyn assented with a nod.

"You and I will lead the infiltration teams," said Saul. "We shall split the brigade up in two – one battalion going north and the other going south with three companies moving through the buildings. Assault squads will hold positions in the adjacent streets. It will be a night operation. We can take the buildings quietly and surprise them. Once we have secured both roads, the sector will be ours before sunrise." He blew a stream of smoke from his cigarette and gazed pensively through the holographic schematic and out the glass penthouse walls. "There is no better way to go about it," he concluded. "If everything goes according to plan, you can save a lot of your men's lives, _and_ keep damage to a minimum, which should make your employers happy."

He wandered across the room, past Malachi and Duguay toward his own reflection in the penthouse walls. When he came nearer, he could see the view of the illuminated skyline through the reflections of the three silhouettes seated in the room behind him and a wall of cigarette smoke.

"Then, that's it," said Malachi.

Saul removed the cigarette from his lips and exhaled.

"That is it."

The jasmine woman let out a snort. "Always easier said than done."

Malachi clapped his palms against his thighs. "Alright then," he declared, rising from his seat. "Now that that's out the way..."

" _Les temps des affaires_..." murmured the Cajun, marking the next item on the agenda.

Saul remained with his sights set over the Sodom skyline.

"The contract pays fifty-million dimitars," said Malachi. "Ten million to the guild Underclasses, ten to Overs, twenty to the Lower-Elites. That leaves ten million to divide between us."

He took the last drag from his cigarette.

"Well,' said Malachi; 'what are your demands?"

After a long pause, he exhaled the last draw of smoke and turned. His jaded stare wandered curiously over Celyn, who stared back at him through narrow eyes. "I do not want your money."

Malachi's head tilted back and surveyed him through downturned eyes. "What now?"

He dropped the burnt butt into a half-empty glass of Snake Venom ambrosia. "You can keep the money," he reiterated.

" _Quoi faire?"_ The Cajun's head lolled over with a leery goggle

"I have no need for money."

"Is that right?" There was a sudden air of misgiving in Malachi's voice as he stepped forward. "Doesn't look like it to me –"

"Eli–"

"Not now, Celle."

Celyn sighed and looked away.

"Why do I get the feeling there's a catch here?"

"I will lead your men to battle and you will win," Saul stated, categorically. "It is what I do. You will also keep all the spoils."

" _Mais_..." prodded the Cajun.

There was a long silence among them.

"I have two conditions," he said.

"What conditions?" Malachi demanded rapidly.

"We do this my way."

"Which means?"

"I never fire on civilians."

There was a momentary silence.

"What's condition two?" asked Malachi.

Saul looked back at him.

"After we complete the assignment and take the sector..." He paused. "I leave."

"Leave?"

"Yes."

"Where will you go?" asked Celyn.

"That does not concern any of you," he said, brushing Malachi's shoulder as he walked past. He lifted his coat off the back of the chair and filled the sleeves with his arms. "When you get back to Sodom, you will give the Commission the final assignment report. You will tell them I was killed in action and that my body could not be recovered."

"You're going rogue and you want us to cover for you," said Malachi. "Is that what you're telling us?"

" _Bioque_ ," growled the Cajun.

Malachi glowered. "If the Commission finds out –"

"They will not find out," he interjected.

"They _always_ find out."

When he straightened out his coat, he took out another cigarette and raised it to his lips.

"Why the hell are you doing this?"

"Explaining my reasons to you will make no difference."

"We want you to be one of us. Name your terms."

"There is nothing you can offer me," he said, making his way toward the door. "Those are my terms. This meeting is over."

"No one ever leaves the martial world once they cross over," Malachi stated, categorically. " _No one_. Especially men like you. You're just going to walk out into the middle of a warzone? And what do you think will happen when you cross the Civil Border? You're a martial. Wherever you go, sooner or later they will find you."

"It is a chance I will have to take," he said.

The conversation came to a stop and another protracted silence hung between them. He could already sense the first and most obvious consideration emerge amid their silence: whether or not it might be a better idea at that point to cancel the contract and, having reckoned everything in advance, he knew – as Malachi knew – that that would be bound to irritate their clients at the European Defence Section. He could almost hear the soundless deliberation unfold.

"Obviously, you have a lot to consider," he said. "I will be outside."

He turned away and their eyes followed him as he sauntered out of the room.

He already knew exactly how the deliberation would proceed in his absence, having innumerably replayed every possible way the scenario could unfold to its inevitable conclusion since he had first come upon Elijah Malachi of the Scythe Guild more than a month ago. Within five minutes of their first conversation, he had had Malachi figured out as the type of martial very easily lured by the possibility of attracting an Ares-caster into his circle of associates.

The sting of cognitive dissonance will subside, he thought, as he stepped out onto the edge of the rooftop terrace, overlooking the Dragon. After that, Malachi would do what all men of his kind do: weigh the risks and see that he stood to lose a lot more by rescinding the contract so close the assignment date. If the slightly more drastic measure of his assassination was considered, the penalty for killing a high-caster in cold blood entailed no less than allowing him to flee under the pretension that he was dead, and there was as much risk of the Commission finding out either way.

He puffed away at his cigarette and gazed wistfully down the Dragon and up at the Milidome, resolute that the next time he walked into the jaws of the three-headed beast, it would be for the last time. Malachi's words rung disturbingly in his head. _"They always find out..."_

His thoughts were interrupted by a stir below, which seemed to have been caused by a dreg that had wandered out from the dark backstreets and stumbled into the light of the Dragon. The dreg stumbled weakly to the floor. There were cackles and three martials appeared from the dark and surrounded him. They lashed out with low kicks to his legs, knocking the dreg over on his back, then driving their shins into his gut over and over again.

Just as the anger started to bubble up, a firm hand seized him by the shoulder and nipped his rapidly rising fury at the bud.

"What are you doing?"

Celyn came up quietly by his side, arms crossed, showing no sign of discomfort when the frigid breeze lashed against her sending the long weaves of hair swaying. She looked away and took out the black neural canister. He followed her movements through the corners of his eyes as she popped open the lid and rolled three tablets into her hand. "You know," she said, cocking her head back and gulping the tablet down, "the last time I saw you, I knew you had lost it."

"Then, why are you here?"

"I told them I'd try and talk some sense into you."

"You are wasting your time."

"Fine," she said, tucking the canister back in her coat. "At least tell us the reason."

"What difference does it make whether or not you know my reasons?"

"Maybe I care."

"That is impossible," he said. "Neurals erase empathy."

"And that's the way it has to be," came the rejoinder. "Look, you and I both know the only reason you're putting yourself through this is because you're off the program. Every damn martial in this city is out there killing and dying, trying to get what you have. You're putting yourself through hell. And for what?"

A pause ensued wherein the stumbling dreg on the Dragon had now come to his feet and attracted more laughing and taunting from passersby. He was struck on the face and knocked down again. SGs stood by and watched, making no attempt to intervene. The laughs and hisses of the leering mob surrounding the dreg became bawls of bloodlust. They had kicked and beaten him until he was a twitching mound of raw flesh and bone, blood leaking from his gob and nostrils. Finally, when the dreg could do naught except prop his weight up on his hands and knees, three blades shimmered in the light, brandished in raised fists. The blades came down and stabbed. There were thick spurts of red, then they rose and banged down again, tearing through his back, neck, chest and gut. The pierced and punctured dreg writhed, twisted, choked, drowning on his own blood until the last twitches of life left him. When the thrill of his destruction subsided and his killers and onlookers walked away, the Guards came forward and hauled the torn pile of flesh away.

When it all ended, Saul dropped the smoldering cigarette butt and stamped the cherry out under his heel. When the trail of smoky fog parted his lips, he raised his collar. By then, Celyn's eyes were fixed, unblinking, over the spot where the whole scene had unfolded. And as she gazed at the bloody puddle left in the dreg's wake, Saul turned and walked away.

"Tell Malachi to call me once he has made his decision."

### C. 5: Day 363

The steel walls hummed. Cold air funnelled in through the ventilation ducts. The corners of his book shone yellow under the pale light, where the pages had been stained by tar and nicotine. He had smoked through the whole carton of Lucky Strikes and started his second reading of _United Martial Covenant and the Birth of New World Order_. It did not take him long to realise that he was reading things he had merely forgotten that he already knew. With each line of text, his mind seemed to precede his eyes. It made him wonder whether memories could rekindle through experience the same way. Only time would tell.

He turned the yellowing sheets forward to page 213. The title at the top of the page read:

"Chapter 12: A World Divided"

He read, skimming through the introductory paragraphs, as usual:

The formation of the Martial Covenant ushered in two major global divides – one external and the other internal. The first divide was between the eastern and western spheres, fulfilled by the signing of the East Grid Pact two years after the Martial Covenant. The second, internal division emerged from the promulgation of so-called "Martial Order," giving rise to the soldier societies known today as the "martial metropolises."

The proliferation of the free martial economy and the influx of Private Military Corporations in the wake of the first skirmishes between East and West gave rise to a vast demographic shift, as millions of people all over the world turned to the martial profession (the first converts invariably being soldiers from the national militaries). 1 A few short years after the signing of the "Mercenary Act," the headcount of private militias across the UMC nations surpassed that of national military personnel. 2 Growth continued to surge until, by 2050, more than 10 percent of the adult population in the entire western sphere was employed by the PMCs, comprising more than 150 million soldiers. Sociologists regard this period as the early formation of the "Martial Class." 3

In the early years of the UMC, martials and civilians lived among one another as common citizens of the nations. However, a sharp increase in violent crime coupled with the global media's sensationalisation of events such as the notorious Vincent Caine Incident4, there emerged a sociological division between civilians and soldiers, a divide founded on fear. Long and arduous political disputes at the supranational level finally led to the 45th annual Assembly and the passing of UMC Council Resolution 01-45, bringing into effect the "Martial Autonomy Act" of the same year. This marked the beginning of political separation between martial and civil order. Three years later, the construction of the first martial capitol of the First UMC Region, Sodom Metropolis, was complete. Within the last 20 years, more than 25 martial metropolises have been built within national territories across the Three Regions, with five more cities still under construction.5

To this day, the "Principle of Division" between civilian and martial society remains one of the fundamental doctrines of UMC law and politics. Whereas sovereignty over civil society resides with the governments of member nations, jurisdiction over martial order lies exclusively with the UMC, through the Council of Nations and their several executive Commissions. This, effectively, resulted in the formation of two "internal worlds" within the western sphere itself – one governed by the laws of the nations, and the other by the laws of the UMC. For the purposes of government, citizens of civil and martial society alike were accorded equal right to vote at UMC Council elections, although martial citizens are prohibited from taking office...

He was about to turn the page, when two loud thuds sounded on the door. He closed the book just as the door slid sideways into the walls and daylight spilled into the room, and a dark, silver-lined silhouette appeared at the doorway, leaning at the shoulder against the door frame.

"We'll be landing in an hour," said Celyn. "Better get geared up."

He laid the book aside, shifted his legs over to the side of his bunk and pressed his palms into his sore eyes.

"Did you sleep?"

He groaned deeply, answering the question with a bloodshot glare. He fished around the pockets of his coat for his last pack of cigarettes, which he soon discovered to be empty. He compressed the pack in a fist and threw it bitterly aside.

"Hey," Celyn called. "Nine o'clock."

A fresh carton of Lucky Strikes sat in the corner by his feet.

"I stopped by to give them to you earlier but you were asleep."

He picked up the carton of cigarettes and studied it closely. There was only one place it could have come from.

"You know Duke?"

"Through the grapevine," said Celyn. "Never seen so many damn dregs in one place."

He nodded slowly, eyeing the fresh carton of cigarettes with suspicion. No random act of kindness among martials was to be trusted. He looked down again and noticed a half-pint flask which he had overlooked. He picked up the flask and examined the earth-brown liquid through the sunlight.

"Scotch..."

"Your poison, right?" Celyn wore a sideways smile.

"Did Malachi put you up to this?"

"No," she assured. "It's from me. A parting gift. For the road. Hell, if you live long enough to finish those smokes, you'll have gotten further than any of us thought you would."

"Thanks," he replied, ironically. He closely examined the top of the scotch bottle and saw that the seal had already been broken.

"I took a swig," said Celyn. "I was curious."

He unscrewed the top of the flask, scrutinized the muzzle, sniffed, took a short gulp and exhaled. "Do you know the difference between scotch and ambrosia?" he asked, coming to his feet.

"One of them doesn't taste like stale urine?"

"Alcohol gives you at least one day of hell for every high," he said, answering his own question. He set the scotch down on the counter and started to get undressed.

"You prefer pain to pleasure?"

"This may come as a shock to you," he said, "but people have more need of pain than they do of pleasure."

Celyn watched the clothes pry off his body and ogled his loins as the clothes came off and the sunlight kissed the lean, scarred flesh. "You... like to suffer?" she muttered.

Hearing the distraction in her voice, he stopped at once and turned quick enough to see her eyes quickly shoot up from his bare groin to his sober mien.

"Suffering is not the same thing as pain," he said.

When he finished putting on his undergear, he lowered himself back down on his bed and started tearing the plastic cellophane off the carton of cigarettes.

"Eli wants to talk to you," said Celyn. "He's on the third deck, port side."

Her arms uncrossed and her shoulder left the door frame.

"Wait," he called out as she was about to leave.

"What is it?"

There was a pause.

"Why did you keep it a secret from him?" he asked

The tense silence sustained for a while before Celyn hung her head with a weary sigh, presaging confession...

"A little while ago, Eli and I had tried... something." Celyn looked away as soon as the confession was made. "It didn't last long," she added, quietly, and fell silent again – the sort of silence that suggested there was more to the story.

"Did the Commission find out?"

"No."

"Why did you stop?"

"Do you have to ask?"

He rephrased: "Why did you start?"

She shook her head. "Not a damn clue," she said. "I guess it's like the neuralists say... We're born sick."

"Do you really believe that?"

Another tense pause. This time no answer followed. There was an emerald twinkle in Celyn's eyes and a subtle smirk crept up the side of her face. She stepped forward and reached her hand out over the wall opposite the bed. A panel glowed and the seams of a recess appeared. The wall opened, revealing an assortment of gear laid out like disjointed pieces of exoskeleton. "Get geared up," she said, turning away. "Third deck. Port side."

The doors shut.

Upon closer inspection, he saw the gear in the wall-closet was all pristine, marked with the blood red insignia of his caste. It was the same gear from the wartech commercial he had seen the other day – another "parting gift" from Malachi, no doubt.

His body moved independent of his will, instinctively piecing the gear together layer by layer over his limbs and torso, until the elastic strips of black and grey textile hugged him like new layers of sinew and his front, back and limbs were panelled with a hardened shell. He squeezed his fist and an exhilarating potential of strength filled his limbs like an elixir.

He stepped out of his cabin and was braced by the helter-skelter of a miniature city within a roofed, cavernous space. The low rumble from the cabin amplified tenfold. Moving platforms and automated walkways ferried hundreds of full-geared martials up and across. Stocked armouries were being raided. Overhead, the roof of the place was long and conically curved and the sky above was as immaculate, azure, violet and amber as the heart of an open flame. A fleet of Peryton soared at the carrier's flanks, ushering them through the wild blue yonder. Vague memories of being flown out to the warzones flashed through his mind as the conveyor belt walkway ferried him along the fuselage.

From the descending platform, the earth below was hidden behind a floor of cloud and the airborne leviathan plunged into the mist just as the platform stopped. The glazed walls of the fuselage went snow white and the amber light of sunset was swallowed away, reappeared, then disappeared again in abrupt shifts.

He crossed the passage to the third deck, protruding out of the portside of the airship. A large demi-dome of clear glass proffered a complete panorama of the sunset sky. The deck was empty, all but for one solitary figure, standing at the end, hands crossed at his back, sights set over the Earth.

"Evening commander," greeted Malachi without turning.

He came up silently beside him. The opaque, black glasses glinted with the light of the setting sun. The two men stood in silence for about a minute before Malachi's head slowly rotated toward him. "Sleep well?"

"No," he replied, keeping his eyes forward.

"Nightmares, huh?" Malachi hummed and nodded slowly, then turned his sights back to the sky. "That's how it always starts."

"What does?"

"Coming off the neurals."

He regarded Malachi sideways. "How would you know?"

"Oh I know a lot more than you think I do." A grin twitched across Malachi's face and disappeared instantly. He slowly removed his glasses and stared directly and unblinkingly into the sun. "After a while," he continued, "the nightmares start to spill over and become reality." His voice became profound and redolent. "Before you know it, they start when you're awake and end when you go to sleep. You get to a point where you don't know whether you're asleep or awake anymore. You start to spiral down a hole, a deep, dark hole. And when you get to the bottom of that hole, you find a choice: The way of the coward – suicide. The way of humility – submission. Or..." Malachi's eyes pierced through Saul's temple, into the deepest confines of his thoughts. "The way of pride," he added darkly. "Convince yourself that the whole damn world's insane – everyone except you, of course."

When Malachi said the word "insane", for a moment he heard Pope's voice echoing over his speech. His fists clenched instinctively and a flutter of rage rose in his chest and set his heart pounding, deepening his breaths.

Malachi seemed to note his rising passion with a contented smirk, and then looked away again. "That scar on your seal," he said. "You did that to yourself?"

"I do not remember."

"They cleaned you..." Malachi hummed and his smirk widened into a grin. He looked away again. "How long ago?"

"A year and..." he stopped and restated. "Three hundred and sixty-three days."

"It feels surreal afterwards, doesn't it? Like being born again."

His interest was roused anew. "... You defected?"

"I must have."

He looked away. "And then you submitted."

"So did you." Malachi's head turned to him again and this time the rest of his body followed. "They never force us, you know. They're pretty clear about that. They always give you the choice. You have to submit every time, just like the first time."

"How do you know that for sure if you cannot remember?"

"You know," Malachi answered. "Deep down, everyone knows."

Their gazes remained locked.

"There's one thing that confuses me about you, though," Malachi digressed. "I remember the moment I came to, after they wiped my slate clean. Everything before that point was a blur. The Commission gave me my caste, my neurals, my account with the martial banks, my new address. They briefed me, handed me a fresh contract and sent me on my way. Never looked back. _Couldn't_ look back. I was all alone. The Commission were the only people in the world I could trust and I knew that if I didn't, I would end up... well... like you." He stopped and turned. "But, you didn't... Why not?"

"As you said; certain things you just know," he replied. "Sometimes the mind has reasons that reason itself is blind to."

Malachi chuckled and turned away. He shook his head and the chuckle escalated into a hopeless, raspy laugh.

The airship descended from the clouds and the curved horizon over the war-torn land appeared. They had crossed over the boundary between East and West. Razed earth presaged their entry into the airspace over the Wall of Fire.

"Quite a sight, isn't it?"

"A pitiable one," Saul replied, turning away

Malachi purred contemplatively. "What makes you say that?" he asked.

"The system depends on death to function."

Malachi chuckled.

"Well, based on that little piece of wisdom, I guess the whole natural order's fucked up."

"There is nothing natural about the war economy," he replied darkly.

"An Ares-caster..." Malachi shook his head and snorted. "Ask yourself this: What has peace ever done for the world?" he inquired rhetorically. "War is progress. It's always been that way and it always will be. All the world industries are bound to bloodshed. Without us – without the martial economy – the whole race comes to a grinding halt."

"Do you believe that this world was written in nature too?"

"Do you doubt it? Take a good look." Malachi waved a gesturing hand over the view of the war-torn land. "It's the perfect system: All day every day, ships come and go from the martial cities to the war zones. They only bring back the survivors, refining the race, making the system better one death at a time, keeping power in the hands of the strong. I even hear the Council is drafting laws to allow high-casters to start reproducing. It's all heading in the same direction. I hate to break it to you, but guys like you are just defects that the system shakes off from time to time."

Malachi's dark eyes were bleak and austere and the voice which related the philosophy of pitiless indifference was psychopathically passive. The cold and imminent touch of total oblivion did not seem to perturb him one iota. Like all martials, he was a walking corpse, an automaton, a bodily shell driven only by the will to power, fearless, emotionless, boundless potential for cruelty... All these were the symptoms of the neurals.

The bleak eyes turned to Saul again.

"Did you ever consider the possibility that you were born for this?"

Saul rested to consider, and answered the question with another question.

"Do you believe in freedom?" he asked.

Malachi nodded. "When nature plays you a tune, you dance to her music or you die. That's the only freedom any of us get. If you haven't figured that out yet, you will... sooner or later."

Saul reached into a compartment of his utility belt and took a fresh cigarette pack, tapped the bottom of the pack against his hand and pulled out a king-sized smoke.

"May I?" inquired Malachi, before he could raise the cigarette to his lips.

He stopped and regarded Malachi with an askance frown. Something wasn't right, but he couldn't quite place what it was. He gave the cigarette to Malachi.

"Have you ever asked yourself why it all came to this?" Malachi digressed as he cocked his head forward to light the cigarette.

"The Gaia Revolution, the PMCs, the Covenant..."

"I'm not talking about the history." Malachi interrupted, inhaled deeply and exhaled. "I mean, really; why? The whole race has damn near everything it needs in infinite supply and still we go on fighting. This wasn't how it was supposed to go down."

Saul took out another cigarette and put it in his lips, feigning indifference. "Even if you satisfy every human desire, the desire for power will always remain. That is the only reason there has ever been war."

Malachi nodded slowly and assentingly. "That's right," he said, taking another deep draw of smoke. He exhaled and grinned. "Blood is money. Money is power. _War_ is power. That's why millions of people all over the world are migrating to the war metropolises. They're all looking for a little piece of that power. And they'll sell their lives to the martial world to get it. Whether you like to admit it or not, that's what you did too."

Saul's fist clenched and the anger bubbled up again. He took the cigarette from his mouth and discretely tossed it aside.

"You know it," said Malachi. "And you can't handle it, can you...? That's why you gave it all away."

His hand shot up and latched around Malachi's collar, thrust him up against the wall with a bang and the cigarette fell from his lips. The adrenaline burst from his chest into his limbs, filling him with murderous intent. "You talked to Pope..."

The delay in Malachi's answer was confession enough. The insidious sideways smirk reappeared. "That's it... good," he purred, sinisterly. "Show us what you're really made of."

His fist tightened with restraint, His breaths became constricted and feral. The moment he became conscious of it, the fingers trembled loose. He quelled his passion. The rush of wrath seemed to have shocked him a lot more than it did Malachi, who burst into laughter as soon as he let go:

"Bra-vo," he mocked.

"The Commission know..."

"No," said Malachi, turning away. "I spoke with your neutralist long before you told me anything about going rogue. If you were going to lead _my_ men into a battlefield, I wanted to make sure you were fit for the job. The Commission debars defectors from the warzones for a reason. Martials like you are a threat..."

At that moment, they were interrupted by approaching footsteps. Both heads turned toward the deck entrance, where a figure appeared, ambling with a slow and cavalier gait. The long barrel of a rail rifle rested over the tops of his shoulder blades like a bat.

" _Salut, amis_ ," hailed Duguay with a sly leer.

Their reply was a long and tense silence.

The arrival of the Cajun instantly dissipated the conversation.

Malachi cocked his head and put the glasses back over his eyes. When his head rose again, the bleak, dark eyes gazed through the opaque lenses.

"Remember my conditions," said Saul.

"You remember ours..." There was an air of foreboding in Malachi's reply. He took out a black neural canister, rolled two tablets into his hand and gulped them down at once, followed by a light exhale of relief. "Well, this was... interesting," he said with a flicker of a smile. "I'll see you in the field... _comrade_." He left, brushing past Saul's shoulder, then marched slowly past Duguay without so much as an acknowledging look and went out the exit.

" _Problème_?" the Cajun asked, coming forward.

"No."

"Hmm... _Bon_."

Saul remained on the edge of the deck, looking out over the shipside. The distance between them and the scorched earth had now closed considerably. Far ahead of the ship's bow, the martial settlements of Tyumen emerged over the horizon. The bulbous turbines rotated at the ship's sides shooting heavy blue jets of supersonic air and the ship slowed beneath their feet. The entourage of Preyton aircraft keeled to its sides, broke off from port and starboard and dispersed into the sky. To the east, two more of the leviathan air carriers descended from the clouds, southbound to the Eurasian Region of the Walls.

An alert sounded across the airship, signalling the landing.

When the signal stopped, the mestizo-Cajun swung his rifle around and banged the butt against the floor. He reached behind his back and took out a very familiar-looking bottle of earth-brown fluid, unscrewed the top and raised the bottle bottom-up, with the top shoved deep into his gullet. Three gulps later, he lowered the bottle, twisted his head and grimaced.

"Ech!" he burbled, eyeing the bottle disgustedly. " _Pas mal_..." he leered, then presented Saul with the drool-sodden scotch bottle.

"... Keep it."

Duguay curled his lips. " _Bien_..." He put away the bottle. Then, gesturing toward the exit, bid, " _Allez-allez._ "

The Cajun followed beside him, down the passage to the main fuselage, and spoke (with unusual clarity) as he walked: "De boss man tink too much, _ami_... He gotta quit dat. Won't do 'im no good. Aahh, but he don't know no betta'."

"So... what do _you_ think?" he asked, after a long pause.

" _Chacun à son proper, ami_ ," shrugged the Cajun. "You a _couyon_ – ain't no doubt about dat. If I had what you had – _merde_ – buy me out a bordello an' a warehouse full'a' ambrosia – maybe summa dis stuff right here, too." He took another swig from the scotch bottle. "Lemme tell you sometin' ri' now, _ami_ : Ain' not but one ting in dis world what matter. Not but one law."

"And what is that?"

" _Balance!_ _Plaisir et douleur_. Dem fellas from the East Grid – dey got a word for dat..."

"...Karma."

" _Fameux!"_ broke the Cajun, with a raspy cackle.

Just as the other end of the passage was in sight. There was another profound motion from beneath and the loud rumble in the walls declined as the airship prepared for landing.

They emerged onto a walkway, at the head of a mass assemblage of soldiers, waiting in their assigned squads before the gates at the ship stern. T-minus five hours to assault.

"Well, live or die, som'n' tell me dis de last time I'll be seein' ya, _couyon_ ," Duguay raised his bottle one last time. " _A vous_ " he toasted and then emptied the scotch into his gullet. "Z _eerahb_..." He belched, then threw the bottle aside. " _À bientôt,_ _commandant_. "

The vast settlement came into view as the airship settled on its landing pad. The doorways opened, filling the fuselage with a cold draft of scorched air and the red sun disappeared over the horizon.

### C. 5: Day 364

The war economy flourishes; warzones multiply. The martial world advances; the civil world recedes. Year by year, mile by mile, the battle-filled boundaries between the East and West widen, devouring everything in their path like wildfire. In three decades, the fire had not yet yielded.

The Eurasian warzones between the USE and the NSRRS comprised one of the more volatile sections of the Walls. The warzone belt cut diagonally from the very north of Russia down to the southernmost tip of the former Ukraine – the New Borderland. Territorial shifts of war ploughed through the land, toppling buildings, razing earth. Repeated skirmishes and reprisals reduced whole provinces to piles of rubble. For everything the martial world built, there was a price to be paid in blood and destruction. That is the rule.

As soon as war touched the limits of a civil city, more than a third of the population was gone after the first week. The poorer classes, who did not have the money to move, had no choice but to stay and hope that the fire of war would pass. But, like a cancer, battle recurred again and again, feeding off its host until it was utterly destroyed.

Spooked herds of civilians drove through underground paths, sewer systems and tunnels, screaming, stampeding and trampling one another underfoot. In the background; a choir of explosions, gunshots and tremors, and the whinging of splitting rock and twisting metal as buildings crumbled, fell and crashed to the earth in smoldering piles. The air was tainted with smoke and fire. A sulphurous fume rose from the underground cesspools through the cracked earth, mingling with the scent of exposed wounds, molten tar and decomposition. Meanwhile, ghostly figures floated noiselessly across darkened paths above and below. Silhouettes skimmed the straggling rays of light in dark corners.

Be _dark_ and impenetrable as night... Fall _like a thunderbolt_...

Saul watched them move like spirits. The cigarette cherry glowed through the dense, cold gloom. To his right, the 13 remaining men of Infil Squad 3 hugged the shadow-enclosed walls of the backstreet. The firefights from the abutting streets filtered through wall layers behind them. The passage to Building 4 was just further up the tunnel, and on the opposite end of the street, on the 10th and 15th floors of Building 6. S-Squad Two had their sights lined down the adjoining roads. It had been 10 minutes since D-Squads had given an update and they were starting to fall behind schedule. The tick-tock of the cerebral clock pecked away at his mind.

Finally, a transmission:

" _Boss man_." Duguay's voice came over the airwaves.

"What is it?"

"Six amicals headed your way off alley three."

Seconds later, the echoes of fleet-footed boot heels surfaced through the requiem of shots and explosions and a group of silhouettes materialised at the end of the tunnel.

"Check your fire. Friendlies."

The six silhouettes slipped through the tunnels, keeping their heads low. Every soldier in 5th Brigade was marked with caste signets and squad indices and their markings glowed through the scopes. He identified the six as men from I-Squad 8.

The squad leader approached, the Overclass caste markings flashed through the illuminating scopes over his eyes and a marred and tattooed face passed under the ghostly pale light.

"Building 5 is secure," said the scar-faced overclass. "Last one to go."

He took the cigarette and tossed it aside.

"Are R1 and R2 holding?" he asked.

"Yes, but it won't be much longer before the heavies..."

They were interrupted by the sound of footsteps coming from the other side of the tunnel intersection. He silently gestured toward the doorway. The hand signals translated as "multiple enemies." They immediately assumed firing squad positions around the door. They waited. The footsteps became louder.

The doors slid open.

"Hold fire!" The order was sharp but controlled. All trigger fingers froze.

A group of fleeing civilians staggered back in fright as soon as the doors opened.

" _Molchat_ ," he pronounced, lowering his gun.

The children were instantly pulled back and took cover behind the adults, staring back with quiet condemnation from behind knocking knees. The expressions on their soot-blackened faces were of people expecting to die.

"Let them go," he ordered.

The mock firing squad lowered their guns and reluctantly dispersed.

"If they're interrogated at gun point, our cover will be blown."

"That is a chance we will have to take," he answered with a glower.

Just as the last of the civilians passed through, a child suddenly broke away from his mother's hand. He watched the boy push urgently past the soldiers and stop right before him, eyes up-turned and gaping terribly. The boy's mother scurried back, shout-whispering; " _Shcho ty robysh!"_

He looked back at the young boy's trembling face.

"Chto ty delayesh?" he asked. "What are you doing?"

" _Oni idut_ ," said the boy. "They are coming..."

The mother seized the boy by the shoulder just as the warning was uttered and pulled him away.

"Shadows. Now!"

The order was concise and the response was quick. They evaporated into the dark corners. Saul pressed up against the space right beside the doorway; the elite opposite on the left. Sure enough, more footsteps were heard approaching from the end of the path, light and steady steps, no voices nor the sound of heavy breaths. Martials. He estimated six. Three hand signals communicated the orders:

Two fingers hovering over the eyes – "scouters."

A thumb drawn along the neck, index finger up over the nose – "keep it quiet."

A clenched fist followed by a single raised finger – "one live."

There were nods of agreement from the shadows.

The doors slowly slid sideways. Rifle barrels peered over the threshold and scanned the tunnel path. The first two bodies came slowly through and marched straight forward, keeping their eyes down the tunnel. After the second two passed, Saul gave the signal with a bowed head.

The final two pairs of footsteps crossed the entrance. Blades out.

He sprung up first, latching his left arm around the chest; his right arm slung around the head, wrenching, he felt the sharp crunch and a snap as the skull twisted round, the body went limp and the man was instant dead weight in his arms. Blood showered his face from the open neck where the scar-faced overclass had driven his blade into his own mark and the split jugular sprayed profusely. The ghosts pounced from the shadows, stabbing, ripping rapidly and repeatedly, hands over mouths to muffle the dying screams. Blood frescoed the walls.

Five fresh corpses were laid down quietly. As instructed, one was subdued alive. Two men pinned the last East Grider to the floor. Just as he let out a yell of " _Promo-_ " his shouts were cut short by a blow to the jaw and one to the gut for good measure. Once debilitated, the East Grider was hauled to his feet.

He summoned them with a wave and the East Grider was dragged up, head hung, slivers of blood falling from the broken jaw, wheezing through punctured lungs. He drew a blade, grabbed the martial by a tuft of hair and lifted his head up. When the features of the soldier's broken face entered the light, a surge of distress shot through him like lightning.

It was a woman.

He looked upon the inflamed, sapphire eyes and the otherwise feminine beauty, marred by the hematoma forming over the fractured skull. She coughed and blood issued from her lips and sputtered across his face. " _Prosto ubit menya_." she rasped through a crushed trachea.

He froze, mute, and his hands shook. Visions flashed through his mind in incoherent fragments, flashes of crimson and the screams of his nightmares. The woman's dazed eyes locked on to his and a mad and blood-toothed leer extended across her broken face. The blade shook in his grip.

"Commander..."

He was roused by the voice. The cold sweat sizzled on his brow, chest rising and falling rapidly. He tore his eyes off the woman and blinked away the hallucinations. He shook off his passion, seized the woman by the hair once more and brought the tip of the blade to her neck. He could hear the muffled static Russian voices on her transmission.

"Tell them the area is clear," his voice shook.

The woman martial cackled again. " _Ubey menya_ ," she scowled.

"You do not have to die here."

She coughed. Her head hung. With her head bowed, a single word was muttered:

"...Liar."

The word repeated in his mind, spiralling and escalating into a constant shriek. He lapsed, and for a brief moment the immediate warzone and the whole war-ravaged world beyond it fizzled away. There was only himself and his reflection staring back in the sapphire eyes. Then the woman's head shot up and she yelled, " _ONI V'ZAKOUL-_ ach..."

Her eyelids flared.

The blood poured from her lips and flowed over the hand clutched around the blade. He pulled the blade back and felt the spine crunch and the blood spray, showering his face. The body was released and collapsed, the puddle of blood slowly forming.

The blade fell from his hands and clattered on the floor by the woman's corpse.

" _What happened?"_ The voices echoed in his head. "... _Commander?"_ He staggered away, stopped and stared at his own blood-sodden hands. Visions burst into flame before his eyes, feeding the maelstrom in his mind. A sharp pain simmered in his gut and rose into his chest...

"Saul."

A voice came over the transmission.

"Saul..."

The trembling hand stopped and clenched into a restrained fist.

"Saul, are you there?"

"Yes..." he answered with a gasp.

"Thought you'd bought it for a second there," said Celyn. "We're moving up to intersection two on North Street."

"Where are you?" he asked, rapidly shifting his focus.

"Look down..."

He stopped pacing and tuned in to the clanking of his boot heels against the rain grate, and when he looked down into the sewer culvert, flickers of human forms zipped under the light directly below.

"How much longer?" he asked, rejoining his men in the shadows.

"Not sure. This is one hell of a mining operation. Maybe 10 minutes, tops."

"The whole city is a battlefield. We cannot stay hidden for much longer."

"Well, this wouldn't take as long if we didn't have to keep diverting civy traffic. What's the situation on South Street?"

"Hold on." He quickly adjusted the transmission signal. "Phase 4 update."

The firefights on the adjacent streets were escalating.

"Malachi..."

" _Building 6 is secured,_ " Malachi's low voice came through patches of white noise and a flurry of gunfire in the background. _"Moving to secure Building 7 now._ "

"We're getting pushed back. How are things on R3 and R4?"

"So far so good. Still laying down diversionary fire. They're not on to us yet."

"That is about to change," he warned, glancing over the bleeding corpses at his feet. "Be swift. Report back ASAP. We do not have much time."

" _Roger that. Breaching!"_ There was the loud explosion of the breach, followed by more shots before Malachi's signal disappeared.

"Celyn."

"What's the update?"

"Waiting on you."

"Got it. We're in position, drilling as we speak. We'll work as fast as we can..."

" _Couyon!"_ Duguay's voice suddenly broke the airwaves.

"What now?"

"Goons movin' in off North Street!"

"More company," he murmured to his men.

They pressed up against the outer wall, hugging their guns to their chests, muzzles barely scraping the light beams.

A gentle tremor started beneath their feet. The scar-faced overclass raised his head and looked round. "Tell me that's not what I think it is..."

" _They've got heavies_ ," the reply came not a second later.

"Shhh – ii – t – t!"

"How many?"

"Two."

"...I've got them on radar," said Celyn. "We're ready for them. Let them come."

"What about the civilians?"

"The tunnel's closed off. No civvies down that path."

"Do not engage," he instructed. "Heads down. Wait for my signal."

"What's the signal?"

"You will know when it comes."

Pressing closely against their little grottos of gloom, they waited.

Soon, the walls began to shudder, and instead of dissipating with the shockwaves of the bomb blasts and gunshots, the vibrations were constant and rose into a judder. Dirt and flakes of rock splintered off the tunnel ceiling as the screeching of the gas-guzzling turbines broke through the tumult, splitting stone and smashing concrete.

"Hold," he instructed with an open hand.

"That's it..."

Two hulking tanks ploughed down the road like mammoth armadillos. The first shadows of the East Grid martials appeared, zipping across the inner walls; first two, then dozens. Their lights grazed the fresh corpses. The seams of the tunnel walls started to break.

"Hold."

"Little more..."

The tanks passed over the sills, swallowing up the light from the alley, and for a moment there was utter darkness and din, blotting out everything save for the sulphurous fumes, the smell of the fresh blood rising from the bodies, the deafening banshee-shrieking of the turbines and the sound of steel grating against stone.

"In three... two... one..."

"DOWN!"

An almighty " _BANG!"_ shook the earth like a falling bolide. Three men were thrown off their feet. Then a second " _BANG!"_ and a third and a fourth in quick succession. Concrete, tarmac shrapnel and torn flesh flew in through the apertures and showered from above, hysteria railed through the alley, aimless shots ricocheted off the walls and into the tunnel and the hail of sniper fire started to rain down.

He found his footing and hauled one of the toppled soldiers to his feet. "Building 4, now!" All 20 of them raced through the cloud of dust and debris, bent over, heads below the crossfire. Saul took point. "I-S-4, I-S-3 – moving to phase 5!"

"Roger that! Breaching!"

The explosion of the breach from the other side of the building was drowned out by the outbreak of gunfire in the alley. Blood splashed in through the apertures. As they were speeding up the tunnel, bodies stumbled off the streets and fell in their path, clutching their charred faces and writhing and yelling frantically. Barrels rose and fired, tearing their path clear. One after another, the bodies breasted the hail of bullets and fell; and they pushed on fast, treading over bodies and mounds of fallen rock.

When they came to the end of the tunnel intersection, Saul hauled the shutter door aside and brought up the rear all the way to a dead end.

"Hold."

He whipped his arm up in front of his chest and a section of the gear slid back from over a bright screen. He thumped his fist against an area of the tunnel wall and felt for hollowness.

"This is the section," he said. "Lay out the charges."

Two men came forward and squared up to the wall, drawing out thick black strips from their gear and laid them out like thick sections of duct tape in the shape of a wide frame. "Clear!" They dispersed at once. The masks on the headgear came down. "Breaching!"

The wall section vanished in a blast of smoke, rubble and ash.

They rushed forward, hurdling through fog and leapt down from the fresh opening in the tunnel wall onto the roofs of parked cars, then onto the basement floor. A symphony of blaring alarms wailed as the rest of the squads trailed in formation through rows of parked automobiles.

The stairwell door opened.

"Keep it silent."

They ascended floor by floor, rifles scoping up, down, left and right. Their pace slowed with each storey they ascended. When they came to the 10th, he held out one hand, palm facing the ground, slowly approaching the door to the 11th floor hall. Four men came up on either side, backs up against the walls. He pressed his ear against the door and tried to listen in through the war in the backdrop. The noise was distinct. Voices

"Movement. Engage on my signal..."

Shouts were heard from the other side. Shots fired.

"GO LOUD!"

A bullet whizzed right past his head and salvos of shots started to tear through the walls. Bodies hurled down the stairway and there was a loud thud, a growl and a moan. He turned just in time to see the rounds tear crosswise through two others, and sideways bursts of blood marked the line of fire. They fell and tumbled down the stairwell.

As quickly as the shots had started, they suddenly and inexplicably stopped.

An uneasy calm ensued amid the distant bass of bomb blasts and the intermittent trembling of the walls. The wounded pressed up against the wall, growling terribly as the blood poured from their wounds and dripped over the floor.

Saul turned and gave the nod. They rushed up the stairway and the doors burst open.

"Hold fire!" I-Squad 4 were standing on the other side, gun held high over their heads, along with the bodies of some dozen fresh-killed East Griders, strewn across the corridor floor.

"Clear."

Saul signalled to the rest of his men, bringing an end to the phase. "You were supposed to wait for the signal," he reproached, nudging the second squad leader aside and issuing orders immediately. "Assume positions for final phase. Stay clear of the light."

The wounded suppressed growls of pain interspersed with passionate cursing as they were lugged into the corridor. The rest of them rushed in and the squads merged, forming a firing line all along the length of the hall. The last of the barely surviving East Griders, squirming on the corridor floor, were swiftly put out of their misery. Fallen comrades were checked for signs of life, and the corpses hauled aside.

Saul lit a cigarette, cautiously approaching the nearest window.

"They're starting to break off onto the side streets," said the squad leader, coming up by his side.

"Good."

"How is that good?"

"They do not know we are here."

The whole middle section of North Street came into view. All along the breadth of the wide avenue, batteries of tanks were lined in waiting, infantry squads racing back and forth and in and out of the adjoining streets to reinforce their fronts of the firefights. He counted 16 tanks dispersed in groups of four at two main intersections – R1 to the left, R2 to the right. The whole street was fortified and every adjoining road blocked off. No civilians.

He raised his hand to his temple.

"Phase 4 update."

"Building 7 secured," said Malachi. "We have broadside on South Street. Assault teams are taking heavy fire. We can't delay this much longer..."

"We will not. Phase 3..."

"I hear you," Celyn broke in at once. "D-Squads 1 and 2 are regrouping now. We're making the final drills on North Street. A lot of fireworks down here... There's bound to be some collateral. Better hold on tight."

"Duguay."

"Ya?"

"We are ready."

"D'accord. Sortir! Allez-allez!"

The line cut out.

"Torch," he instructed, and was immediately handed a flashlight. "Phase 5," he called over the transmission. "I-squads show positions." He flashed torch light three times in quick succession. On multiple floors of the opposite building, flashes of light were returned in response, then in the neighbouring buildings, all along the other side of the street. "Watch your fire," he instructed, and tossed the torch back.

With the final pieces in place, there remained only the tension of the countdown. His heart pounded in his chest, pumping a hard blend of fear and elation into his veins. The rush soared as the clock ticked down.

"Phase 3..."

"Done! We're outta here. Linking up with A-squads now."

"Move to final phase on my go." His eyes turned up, over the crimson lining of the city skyline at the still, starlit sky, and the cosmic void seeped into him, stilling his mind. For what seemed an instant there was only the sound of his breath and the surrounding mayhem reduced to whispers in the night before the fateful words came over the airwaves.

"We're clear," said Celyn. "On your mark"

He threw the cigarette aside.

"Do it."

The lights went out and a trice of dead calm punctuated the echoes of his last syllable before the shockwave bellowed up from deep beneath the ground. The earth ruptured. High walls of smoke, fire and ash erupted from the fissures and tall high-rises swayed like tree trunks in a hurricane. The ground split, the street caved in on either side and the tanks were swallowed into the crevasses, bows and sterns in the air, dragging down bodies and big, reeling chunks of rock.

A second wave of explosions came soon afterward. On either side of the main streets, buildings came tumbling down in landslides, dividing the streets into thirds with great heaps of rubble, closing the enemy into neatly divided slaughter boxes. The panicked shouts and roars rang across the district and the enemy ranks broke up, stumbling around in darkness and disarray.

"FULL ASSAULT! GO LOUD!"

The windows along the corridor broke and burst outward in a shower of glass shrapnel and full broadsides of gunfire rained down from above onto the streets. The corridor shuddered with the force of 10,000 discharging rounds a minute; empty bullet cases and magazines clattering on the floor. Bodies collapsed into folded piles of ruin. Shots were returned. The walls splintered. The gun butt beat against his shoulder, crosshairs centring on anything that moved.

The tank guns startled to rotation and as they made to take aim straight lines of light shot from high to low and burst in flashes of white and ripping holes into their hulls. The enemy started to break apart and retreat into the alleys.

"Stairwells!"

"To the streets!"

"Move, move, move!"

Heavy breaths, curses of triumph and thrilled cackles punctuated the last shots before the squads broke into two and rushed down the stairwells. They emerged onto the main street just in time to see the enemy in flight, and tumbling down hills of debris as the volleys of gunshots cut them down. The assault squads rushed in from the adjoining roads, hurdling and bounding over the knolls of broken buildings.

* * *

The bloodbath filled until the brink of dawn.

Just as the sky became two blending masses of steel blue and rose-red, the last bodies fell in the streets of District 5. In the rest of Nova Crimea, the sounds of battle were fading. North Street ("Poretsky Decent" according to the broken signs over block corners) was transformed into the Styx, a meandering red river of dilapidation and mutilation. Most of the buildings still stood. The ground was uprooted and the fog of dust left in the wake of the blitz settled.

Saul stood, gazing out over the scene from beneath the arch of a broken wall. The clouds rolled in and a light snow coated the corpses white. Soon, the corpses would be dragged away, loaded into piles and shipped back to the martial world for strip-down.

In the calm after the storm, scenes from the previous hours repeated in his mind, and he kept coming back to the martial woman with the sapphire eyes. Her blood still caked his hands and face. He could still smell her breath as the blade tore in and feel the snap of her neck through the shaft of the blade. Now that the heat of battle had dissipated, the thoughts flooded in: the image of the blood shooting out, and the writhing eyes. He was certain that he had killed many times before. The blood of the dead coursed through his veins like anemia. So, why did _this_ woman linger? What fresh hell was it he saw as the life left her eyes? "Proximity heightens the empathy" the neuralists always said. But, what he felt at that moment was no amplified sensation of the same small grumble in his soul which naturally follows the kill – at least without the neurals. And he remembered, at that moment, Malachi's warning, something about nightmares spilling over...

The cigarette reached its last draw and he flicked the butt away. A single file of East Grid soldiers were marched out of the wrecked ingress of a nearby building, fingers laced behind their heads, gun muzzles prodding them onward like cattle for the slaughter with the other POWs being herded in streets. A faint stir in the air caused his head to jerk around. He took up his gun and descended, following the noise to the door of a small apartment block.

The locks were shot and the doors hung on a single hinge. He nudged the door gently with the muzzle and, three inches into its swing, the door broke off from its seams and fell.

He sidestepped into the entrance before the sound of the clatter pierced the silence, lining the sights down a long, dark and empty corridor. The strobe light on the end of the rifle flashed over thin walls, shredded by crossfire. Three civilian bodies lay dead amid shards of broken glass, dust and dirt. There were bloody trails left in the wake of the escape. He stepped over the doorsill and into the dark, and glass cracked and splintered underfoot. The floor was covered with bloody footmarks. As he approached the first apartment, something stirred. The rifle jolted in his hands.

A thick trail of smeared blood led from the corridor and stopped at the threshold of the apartment door. The blood still looked fresh. He followed the blood trail with the tip of the rifle barrel, approaching the threshold and nudging the door open. The sound of wheezing, moaning breaths became distinct.

The door opened.

Settled with his back against a bullet-torn wall, lay a man, legs twisted, mangled and spread before him, a round, red stain forming on the carpet. He was an East Grider and he was alive, though barely so. Both of his legs were shot through the knees, bleeding, and the wound below his collarbone was fresh too. The breaths squeezed into his chest and his head lolled to the side. The face was pale behind the streaks of blood. When the drooping eyes saw the vague figure reach out, a quivering hand rose.

"Stay calm," said Saul. "I will help you."

" _Net_..." The East Grider feebly tried to wrestle him away.

" _Ya pomogu_ " he insisted, waving the hand aside. " _Rasslab_..."

" _Net!"_ the East Grider coughed. Blood sputtered from his lips and a crimson drool seeped out the sides of his mouth.

He felt the hand clench tightly around his wrist, shaking with fear. He looked up and saw the eyes shimmer, as though sobered for the very first time by the imminence of death. The hand slowly released and tried to reach for something. The East Grider gasped the syllables of a Russian word which vaguely sounded like "painkillers."

" _Khorosho..."_ he nodded.

He took out two vials of sedative from the utility belt in his gear and plunged the first vial into the neck, above the wound. At once, he felt the man's relief as his body stopped trembling. He threw the vial aside, took the cap off the second vial and pressed down on the same place. The East Girder's head hung, his chest settled and the hands wilted at his sides. He was gone.

A long, almost memorial, silence endured, after which he put his hand over the man's forehead and drew down the eyelids. As he looked upon the departed visage, he wondered why the aspect of sleep should bequeath such strange nobility to the image of death.

Suddenly, to his left; a stir. He jerked round, gun raised, finger pressed on the trigger and the light flashed over the figure standing at the entrance.

"Easy there, commander..."

His trigger finger eased.

A pair of gemstone eyes shone through the gloom.

He lowered his weapon, glaring back at Celyn with the look of someone who had been caught in the middle of some disgraceful act. He came to his feet and stood still and silent, staring at the floor.

For a long time, neither of them spoke. After a while, Celyn sighed and reached behind her back, took out a bottle of clear liquid, unscrewed the top, drank and screwed the top back on again. "Here," she said, and tossed him the bottle. "It's water. I got it from a vending machine."

He studied the contents of the unlabeled bottle nonetheless, returning a sceptical glower. He took off the top, cupped his hand, poured and splashed his face. Celyn, meanwhile, let down the long, frayed braids of her hair and rolled out her neck. "We actually pulled that one off," she groaned and chuckled with relief. "Talk about cutting it close."

The water ran wine-red in his hands as he scooped handful after handful up to his face with increasing vehemence until it ran clear, whereupon he exhaled and dried his face in a dirty, frayed vest lying on the floor. He then held out the garment and examined it briefly for size as a fresh thought occurred to him: He would need civilian clothes.

He came into the only bedroom in the apartment; flicked the switch four times. No light. Apart from the ruffled sheets on the bed, everything else in the apartment was still in place. Celyn waited on the threshold and observed without a word as he propped the rifle against the wall and stepped up to the bureau. A sharp pain shot through his arm as soon as he tried to pull open the top drawer. He winced and clutched his shoulder, feeling the sting of his touch against the exposed pulp of a wound beneath the rip in his gear.

"You're hit?" Celyn came toward him.

Now that the rush of battle had passed, his mind was being awakened to all kinds of sensations. The pain oozed into his flesh.

"Come here," she said, beckoning him onto the edge of the bed. "Can you raise your arm?"

He attempted to do so and managed, subduing a grimace with a clenched jaw, but not the shaking of his outstretched arm.

"Looks like the round tore through the deltoid," said Celyn, with a careful eye on the laceration. She emptied out all the contents of an iatric pack and opened up a vial. "This may sting a little," she said, holding the vial over his shoulder.

He subdued another grimace as the pale fluid poured out and seared his flesh like a brand. The burn lingered until the painkillers kicked in, and the gear was gently peeled back over the wound. He watched her from the corner of his eye. Her touch was tender through the dead flesh. The sounds of the faraway battles had all but disappeared, and an uncanny peace settled upon them, in the solace of that dark room.

"So..." Celyn murmured, "now you'll just...disappear into the night?"

He sensed the hints of longing in her voice. "Not yet," he answered, quietly, "but... soon." He flinched again. The suturing gel filled the gap of the wound and the raw flesh tingled.

"This whole region is one big warzone. Where will you go?"

"South, toward Mamayev. Then east, to the Kazakh border."

"That's East Grid territory."

"There is no choice," he said. "I cannot remain in the West."

He felt the wound contract and the binding gently but firmly layered over the wound.

"That is one hell of a march," said Celyn. "Better stock up on supplies. You may run into a few skirmishes on the way."

"I can take care of myself." He brusquely came to his feet once the last strip of gauze was layered and a loud explosion sounded from nearby.

They rushed out of the building just in time to see the last fragments of a severely battered building tumbling into the street. Celyn came up by his side.

"Be vigilant," he said, lowering his weapon. "There is still conflict in the other districts."

They descended the stairs and begun ambling up the street, surveying goings-on.

"Any updates?" asked Celyn.

"They are doing the final sweeps of the buildings," he said.

"Casualties?"

"Duguay is dead," he said, after a slightly less than solemn pause.

"...He had a good run."

"I suppose it is just you and Malachi from now on," said Saul.

"Well, I don't know what Eli has planned, but I'll probably be taking some time off after this."

"That makes two of us, then."

Another group of POWs was led onto the main street. They stopped and allowed a drove of POWs to pass and he pursued them with a pensive stare.

"Don't worry," said Celyn. "We won't kill them... They're worth more alive anyway."

"What will they do with them?"

"Wipe them clean. Reprogram. Rehabilitate."

"Conversion?"

Celyn nodded. "Today's enemy, tomorrow's ally," she said. "Loyalty doesn't count for much in this war. For all we know, we could have been fighting on their side once – maybe even more than once. No way to know for sure..."

" _Vartanian."_ An unexpected transmission cut the conversation short. " _Vartanian, come in!"_

"Malachi."

"Where are you?"

"East end of North Street," said Saul.

"Get to an elevated position with a full view of the bridges on the city limits. Bring all the heavy firepower we have."

"What is wrong?" asked Saul.

"No time to explain. You'll see when you get there. Move!"

The line cut.

"What the hell was that about?" said Celyn.

"It did not sound good."

"AS-13, IS-12," Celyn called out over the transmission, "rendezvous at the high-rise on North Street, east side, side entrance, double-time. Bring the big guns."

"Roger that."

The new wave of adrenaline quelled the pains once more as they made swift way to the high-rise at the end of the road. When they arrived, two squads were already there.

"Fifth-floor corridor, east side," Saul instructed.

The glass walls were shot open and boots trampled over the shattered glass. The platoon divided and rushed up the stairwells. When they came to the fifth floor, more than a third of the corridor had been blown out. The outer wall of the high-rise and whole sections of the floor and roof were blown out so that the fifth floor merged with the fourth, sixth and seventh. He came out on the edge of the jagged outcrops of floor and the snowflakes flayed in the cold draft. Daybreak was nearer now, but it was still dark.

Despite the poor visibility, Poretsky Bridge was within view, a long bowshot toward the northeast. The dense crowds of fleeing civilians were making their way across the north bridge, over the wide, sheer gorge bordering the city. Farther off to the south was the second bridge, and more civilians in flight.

"Malachi."

"Talk to me."

"I have the bridges in sight... All I see are civilians."

"Look dead east," said Malachi, "across the gorge."

He did as instructed, turning his sights eastward. A small, neighbouring borough of ruined buildings came into view. There did not seem to be anything of significance, until he raised his sights toward the distance beyond the ruined borough. Strange shifts in the land just below the horizon caught his attention. He increased the zoom on the scopes and when the image focused, he saw with harrowing clarity what he had previously mistaken for a trick of the fog and wind:

Tanks. A platoon of the metal behemoths rolled toward the city, with a battalion of foot soldiers bringing up the rear. When the zoom scopes decreased, the platoon became a company and the battalion became an entire division, and the wave of war steadily trundled toward them on the turn of the tide. His hands slowly lowered and the dread broke through the austerity in his eyes.

"Oh hell," cursed Celyn

"Do you see them?"

"Eli, where the hell are you?"

"The office block on the corner of South Street. The one with the red sign.

They spied out the tower block to the south.

"Listen to me," said Malachi. "We have to take them out together. If they access the district there will be nothing we can do to stop them."

"There are too many," said Saul. "The ATGs will not be enough..."

"I'm not telling you to fire on the tanks..."

He paused a moment on Malachi's words and turned his sights back toward Poretsky Bridge, and the mass of civilians, crossing over the steep canyon.

The bridges...

"If we fire on the pylons at the same time, the bridges will fall."

"No!"

"There's no other way"

He focused in on the families marching across the bridge, battling against the swelling snowfall, men and women shielding their children from the frigid wind. The images of the dying woman and the resounding echoes of his nightmares recurred.

"There are over a thousand civilians on those bridges."

"If we don't do this now, we will lose everything we just fought for."

"An army that size could plough its way through the whole damn city," said Celyn.

He set his sights out to the east once again. The oncoming division reached the ruined borough and divided into two – one brigade going north and the other south. He lowered the scopes and raised his hand to his temple. "AS-5, AS-6, come in," he called.

"Commander."

"Get to the city limits. Stop people from crossing the bridges. I repeat: Stop people from crossing those bridges, now." The line cut before the reply could come. "Ready the ATGs."

At once, the heavy arms came out and were quickly assembled for firing. Two martials propped up each of the big launchers on either shoulder and a third loaded the projectiles. In less than a minute, five ATGs were set in place, locks set on to the large pylons supporting the bridges.

"We will wait until the last civilians have passed."

"We can't wait that long."

"There is too much congestion on the bridge. The tanks will not be able to cross until the traffic clears."

"Have you lost your mind? They're not going to stop!"

The army was closing in fast, now less than half a kilometer away. When they came within sight of the civilians crossing Poretsky Bridge, a panic erupted. Some of the fleeing civilians raced forward, others turned around and started to retreat. Scenes on the south bridge had taken a similar turn.

"Take the shot"

"Wait for my mark."

"We have to take the shot now," said Celyn.

"Hold."

A flash from the south blazed in the corner of his eyes. Light and smoke streaked through the air to the south and he looked on in horror as the missiles shot across the dawn sky and slammed into the pylons of the south bridge, exploding in white bursts.

"No!"

The thick cables snapped and lashed out like titan bullwhips and the tall columns of steel and stone toppled and crashed. The bridge split, and the howls and screeches carried in the wind as he watched them fall into the gorge.

He had just enough presence of mind to hear the three sharp, distinct bleeps in his right ear.

He turned. "No..."

The ATGs were engaged.

"NO!"

He hurled himself forward and a short, sharp blast sounded before everything went white and the blast became a long, high-pitched ringing.

When he came to, he was on his side clean across the corridor. Dismembered pieces of corpses hung from the wreckage all around him. Fresh portions of debris fell from the floors above, where an even larger hole was blown into the side of the building. He tried to rise but his right arm gave way under him and he howled in agony. Through the blurred vision, he saw Celyn rising from the ashes, covered in blood, coughing and hauling herself out from under the debris.

"Eli... El—i... Eli!"

He turned agonisingly onto his side just in time to see the long canons of the prodigious firing line rotate and incline. The wide muzzles of the tank-guns flared. A split second later, the tower block to the south exploded in a succession of loud, pulverising explosions.

"ELIII!" Celyn's voice bayed through the wind.

The tower crumbled and fell in the distance. His wavering head lolled over just in time for him to glimpse, through fading vision, the tanks ploughing their way across Poretsky Bridge, trampling and crushing everything and everyone in their path.

### C. 5: Day 378

A pure light roused him gently to life.

For the first time he could remember, he was woken only by the warm kiss of sunlight and the cool breeze. In a sudden shock of recollection, he breathed a fast, full lung of air, and as his senses slowly returned, the strange sensation of waking in mysterious surroundings stole upon his consciousness.

"Awake?"

A quiet voice startled him.

With great effort, Saul lifted his head off the bedding, shielding his eyes from the light. When his eyes adjusted, the speaker appeared, sitting on the side of the bed upon which he laid. "You..." he murmured, half-dazed and incredulous. "What... what..."

He tried to lift himself up, but a sharp stab in his abdomen stopped him mid-rise with a growl.

Celyn rested her hand on his shoulder and gently laid him back down. "Take it easy," she hushed. "You've been out for a while. The drugs are still wearing off."

He looked down. His upper body was bare, and the minor abrasions and bruises on his arms and chest made very little of his agony. Through an open window, he could see rows of tree branches rising up, and the noon sun soared high, peeping through the cracks of the trees, and the branches stirred only with the fluttering of the birds and the walls and roof over their heads was a purlin of lumber logs oozing the scent of fresh pine.

"Welcome to Russian woodland." Celyn's eyes were fixed on the view beyond the window. She was wearing civilian clothes, close-fitting around the curves of her breasts and shoulders, and the rough scars in the dark, ebony flesh shone in the light.

"This place must have been abandoned after the wars broke out in this region," she said. "We're lucky we found it. We're not out of the war zones yet, but should be safe here for now."

He gazed intensely into the shimmering emeralds of her eyes. Her face appeared transfigured, all of the desperately suppressed sensuality presently revealed in the subtle contours of a vague smile. He was still trying to make sense of his surroundings. Everything came back in flashes.

Nova Crimea...

What had happened in between? How had they come to this place?

"Malachi..."

Celyn looked away with the aspect of mourning, and then looked back up at the wood through the open window. "It's alright," she said. "He chose his path. He knew where it would end." The twinkling of grief faded. There was only the sound of swaying branches and the melodies of the blackbirds and yellowhammers. Unadulterated peace seeped into the fractures of his soul like an apothecary.

He turned to face Celyn just as she reached into her pocket and took out the black neural canister, and he watched her closely as she held it out in front of her with a wistful sigh. "I had stopped the program a long time ago," she said, and fell silent. "I couldn't risk telling you." She grasped the canister tightly and threw it out the window. "Eli always said I was weak," she said, clenching her fist.

He painfully sat up and brought his gaze level with hers.

"He was the weak one," he said with a groan.

Celyn looked up and nodded with the flicker of a smile that disappeared instantly. "Everyone was massacred..."

Silence.

"That means that we are among the dead," he said

"Never thought death would be such a relief."

"We cannot stay dead forever."

"I know."

"We have to move on."

"Soon... but not yet."

He set his gaze beyond the treetops, toward the cerulean sky, and soared with the flight of the eagles. He could feel the rack of the world loosening, the cool wind soothing the aching of his soul. The pine air filled his nostrils and the soldered pelt of his face bathed in sunlight. For the first time, the nightmares seemed a distant memory. If he could preserve that moment for all eternity, he would have gladly died there and then.

He pushed his weight up and flinched when the pain shot through his right shoulder. When Celyn reached out to the origin of the pain in a reflex of compassion, he, in an impulse of combat, intercepted and seized her tightly by the wrist.

He froze. Their eyes locked.

His breaths quickened with his beating heart, and he slowly, almost contritely, loosened his grip. She leaned in and kissed him, gently – first his forehead, then the temple, the side of his face, then the lips, tenderly at first and then with a steady-rising passion. He could hardly twitch through the sudden shock of it. Then, slowly easing into her touch, he leaned back with her, suddenly oblivious to the aches and pains. His left hand glided up the curve of her back, along the velvet skin, the other laced in the thick locks of her hair. His heart hastened past his breath.

The deep, hard lovemaking seemed to last only seconds, but could have gone on for hours or days. In the end, her lips stopped moving and her head reposed between his neck and shoulder. He held her close to him, stroking through the roots of her hair and caressing her nakedness against his.

"I always thought that when I would leave, that I would have to leave alone," he murmured. "There was a part of me that wanted you to come, but I was sure that you would not."

She was silent. Her body had gone completely loose, her whole weight pressing down on his chest. He looked curiously at the back of her head and noticed that her hair was not woven into the thin, cascading ropes that he remembered, and the feel of her body against his was different than the last time. She had lost weight since then.

Her hand drooped and hung loose over the side of the bed.

_Asleep_ , he thought.

There was a peculiar heat against his neck, a moist heat, like spittle. Not wanting to wake her, he gently reached over to lay her on her back and felt the moistness cover his chest.

He stopped.

A smell like rusted iron rose up to his nose. He held his hand before his eyes.

Blood.

Stale blood.

He pulled back on the tuft of hair and lifted a face as white as marble; gaunt, wide-mouthed, eyes writhing up to the back of the skull in bulging sockets. The viscous blood poured over him, colouring his vision red, and his soul fell like lightning from the heights of ecstasy into the depths of the dead, writhing eyes. And when his falling soul struck his lifeless corpse...

His eyes opened.

He drew a sudden and rapid breath. His throat was locked with terror. He panted, wheezed, convulsed and wanted to yell something – anything – but was no more able to bring words to his mouth than he was to wince. His eyes darted in all directions, but for long seconds all he could see was the image of his own reflection in the dead eyes, through shades of crimson blood. When the image faded, the light that had been the warm noon sun became a pale and sickly orb shining feet above him. A voice echoed in his head:

"He's awake..."

Two alien figures appeared standing over him, and when his vision focused he saw that the figures were dressed in white.

The mask was removed from his face. The two ghostly heads disappeared and he heard a door open and close a minute later. He mustered enough sense to realise that he was lying on his back, immobile and half-mummified in a viscid caste like liquid glass, encasing half his face from the right temple to the left collarbone and all the way down the left side of his body in a tight-fitting cocoon. Through the viscous exoskeleton, his flesh was charred and mutilated to black and red rawness. The slightest movement gave the sense of excoriation. The throbbing pain from the dream-turned-nightmare now engulfed every inch of his flesh, seeping into the marrow of his bones.

"Good morning, Saul," spoke a voice of stone.

Slowly, excruciatingly, he turned his head over to his left, his enflamed eyeballs stretching to their corners.

"Nightmares?"

The neuralist was sitting beside the bed. The solid blue orbs appeared through the glare in the lenses of his pince-nez and a marble smile carved into the sides of his face. He no longer knew whether he was asleep, waking, dreaming, hallucinating or tumbling ever deeper into some new and abysmal nightmare. But, even as the thought occurred to him and Pope was still there, staring back with those bleak, cold, blue eyes, he knew that it was no dream.

"W... Wha..." He attempted to speak, and his voice was a dead whisper. "Where... am – aaarrgh!" He barely shifted his weight before the swift sensation of flesh tearing off from his bones broke through the receding anesthetic.

"Seragon Medical Complex," Pope replied with a low drone. "Noble District."

"Sodom," he gasped.

"Yes."

The answer cut deeper than the deepest wound. The one-sighted eyeballs swivelled in their cracked sockets as he regarded his own mutilated body once again.

"What... happened?"

Pope leaned forward, took a small clipboard-shaped device from the narrow slot on the side of the bed. "According to this medical report," he answered in a narrating voice; "pulmonary lacerations, cerebral lacerations, second- and third-degree burns, two cranial hairline fractures, radial compound fractures, rib fractures (he dragged his finger over the screen as he listed), all manner of abdominal trauma, multiple hematomas, puncture wounds, abrasions..."

He stopped, looked up and laid the medical report aside.

"You have been in an induced coma for the last two weeks," said Pope. "Truly, were it not for your exceptional resilience, you would almost certainly be dead. No shortage of donors for high-casters, fortunately for you... As you can probably tell, your reconstruction is not quite finished yet. If the matter which I have come to discuss had not demanded you immediate attention, we would not have woken you."

On a table-top to Pope's right, the same cubic device from the evaluation activated on order with a glow and started to record. Next to the device, there were two files – one brown and the other black. Pope took his slim, crystal tablet and laid it on his lap and the luminous screen reflected in the lenses of his pince-nez. "You owe your life to a certain Martial Celyn Knight, Third Tier Elite," the neuralist narrated, scrolling down the tablet screen. "According to the mission record, she carried you to safety from a building moments before it collapsed, at great personal risk – for the life of me I cannot understand why. UMC law _does_ accord half the earnings of a recovered martial to his rescuers, among certain other caste distinctions, but, of course, that only applies in the event of a successful assignment..."

Pope's lifted his head, put aside the computer tablet and removed the pince-nez.

"As you might imagine, a great deal has happened since. None of it good." The placid voice heightened the foreboding. "Because of your actions in your previous assignment, Martial Court has deemed you responsible for the deaths of more than five thousand of its martials _and_ the loss of the city of Nova Crimea to the Eastern Sphere. To say your employers are not amused would be putting it quite mildly."

Pope's slim, sanitised fingers laced over his hips and he leaned back in his seat. "Predictably, the biological signature of the neuromedicines we had given you thirty days ago are absent from your system..."

"There were... families..." he forced the words through clenched teeth. "Children..."

Memories of Nova Crimea started to return to him: the collapse of the bridge, the screams of the people falling into the gorge and the blinding flash of the explosion.

"I see..." the neuralist slowly nodded. "And did your enemies share your same special concern for their lives?"

More synapses sparked in his waking memory: visions of the tanks trundling over the bridge, crushing living bodies under their tracks like insects.

"All of the people you tried to rescue died nevertheless," said Pope, starkly, "along with countless others. Nova Crimea now lies in ruins and the eastern powers have expanded their territories into the USE boarder..."

Pope pushed the eyeglasses back over his eyes, leaned forward and spoke softly.

"You see, Saul; this is yet another of the many, many problems with the unbridled _defective_ mind. This twisted sense of deontology..." The hollow smile reappeared. "Everything and everyone is expendable, so long as it is expedient to martial order."

A long, tense pause followed. He gradually began to make sense of the import of Pope's presence. He was not afraid. He had had his chance at freedom. Now it was lost. He had failed. Presently, he did not regret but rather, welcomed the reprieve of death which pride had never permitted him to inflict upon himself.

"They will... execute me," he muttered, almost hopefully.

Pope leaned back with a vague snicker. "Considering the expense of your recovery, I doubt your insurers would take kindly to that."

He was vexed. "Internment..."

"Prison?" said Pope. "What would be the point of that?"

His indignation escalated. "What... will they do... to me?" he rasped.

Pope sighed deeply. "Saul, Saul, Saul," he repeated, shaking his head. "We are not going to _punish_ you," he said, as though the very thought were absurd. "There are no crimes in martial society, only malfunctions... anomalies, which, for the most part, can be corrected, sparing both life and liberty. Penal systems are so primitive, and, incidentally, repugnant to everything we stand for." A gleam of uncanny ire reared itself in Pope's eyes. "You are a martial of the highest caste, as precious to me as you are, indeed, to the very stability of our world. And we are trusted with the single purpose of keeping you fit for that vocation. You are our responsibility – in every way. Hence your failures are not your failures, but ours. I, Saul, must carry the burden of all of _your_ iniquities... Can you understand, now, why it is I take such especial interest in you?"

The twisted notions and barefaced mendacities manifest in Pope's words, boiled in him like vitriolic bile.

Again, Pope shook his head.

"Hmmm... perhaps not."

He reached over to the tabletop and took the brown file. The seal of the UMC was on the front and, beneath that, the mark of the UMC Court. He opened the file and removed its contents. "This is your full debriefing and a transcript of proceedings before the Ares Circuit Court, courtesy of your martial solicitor, Commissioner Donald Clarke Eastman, who you may recall," Pope explained, as he perused the documents. "Commissioner Eastman has managed to negotiate a deal on your behalf. Due to the absence of evidence, they have agreed to suspend your hearing and, contingent upon success in your next assignment, drop the indictment."

Saul's attention was suddenly roused.

"What assignment?" he asked.

Pope immediately stopped flicking through the pages and laid the contents of the brown file aside. He took the second, thinner black file, with the same UMC insignia, and the mark of the Vanguard. "For you to peruse at your earliest convenience," he said with an ironic smile, and slipped the file into the slot at the side of the bed. "Your flight leaves in sixty-three days at precisely sixteen hundred hours. You are expected to make a full recovery by then."

Pope came to his feet and put on his coat.

"I trust you will make the right decision..." The computer tablet and the silver cube were slipped into the inside pockets of his suit. When the hands came back out, they were holding a fresh black canister of neural tablets, which he laid down on the bedside table-top, just within his field of vision.

"One more thing," said Pope, as he was about to leave. "Your term of tenancy at Dragon Towers expired five days ago. Commissioner Eastman took the liberty of finding you another place to abode in the meantime. The address has been sent to your Nexus account... I am sure you will like your new home."

The doors slid open.

Pope left the room and the two figures in white coats re-entered. As the mask came back down over his face and the lights faded to black, the last anxious thought that lingered in his mind was of where the nightmare would take him next.

BOOK II

DELIVERANCE

### II

"Madame President."

She was woken from her trance when the limo doors opened.

A gale of hollers and cheers blasted through the open doors. The motorcade had stopped. The high façade of the Capitol Building lay directly across, down a long, wide path bordered with armed guards, parting a fiery sea of red and gold where the masses had gathered.

"Madame," Shields called a second time. "It's time to go."

The President suddenly forgot where her mind had taken her and looked away, confused.

"Are you alright?"

"Yes," she answered, "I'm fine," but remained in her seat nevertheless.

Security men peered in through the doors.

Shields leaned over and counselled her in a low voice. "The city has been on maximum security for the last week," he said. "There are sentries all around the perimeter. No pro-militarists to worry about. You have my word."

"I know that," she replied. "I'm not afraid. Just... overwhelmed." By what, exactly, she was unsure, whether it was premonition or memory... or both.

"Well," said Shields, "you're not alone." He gestured out of the open door, where the masses roared, waving spangled flags and banners of red and gold. The fiery phoenix of the Eden Accord was speckled all over the plaza. He extended his hand to her, and the hand of help hung in the air for a while before she held onto it.

No sooner than the President emerged from the vehicle, a million voices bellowed in unison and a million pairs of hands undulated at her feet across Capitol Plaza, under the great red and gold banner of the eight-star-phoenix swaying high on the face of the Capitol Building.

She cleared her mind and braced herself for the mechanical route ahead.

The deafening euphoria heightened once the procession began, down the long path, over and across the crowds. Aircraft soared overhead from either flank and blew thick vaporous ribbons of yellow and crimson across the blue sky. She watched her own face projected back at her on two giant screens the height and breadth of tower blocks, standing at the heads of either half of the plaza, and she smiled and waved at her people from the high displays, and the mass veneration assailed her with chants of:

"Novum mundi resurgent!"

"Novum mundi resurgent!"

She soothed her troubled mind with thoughts of her beloved. Her daughter. The day could not pass soon enough. She wanted to be home.

The clamour continued up to the point that they passed under the lofty front arches of the Capitol Building. A red carpet marked their path to the grand vestibule. Members of the global media herded toward them from the aisles of the foyer and the battery of flashing lights and camera lenses followed them all the way through the immense doors of the Assembly Hall. And as a thousand Assemblors rose to ovation at once, all she could feel was the unshakable dread of something vast and fearful looming on the horizon.

### C. 5: Day 462

" _Are you certain about this?"_

...

" _Yes_."

...

" _You understand, then; once you make this choice there will be no going back._ "

...

" _I understand."_

...

" _You will remember nothing."_

...

" _I do not want to remember_."

...

" _Good... Well, your military record speaks for itself. I am certain we can expect great things from you. Rest assured. In our world, there are no limits to the rewards of merit. You will be denied nothing – wealth, women, all the other additions of power and prestige."_

...

" _Freedom."_

...

"Freedom is a corollary of power. However, since your freedom has already been taken away, I suppose you will have little to lose...

Is there anything else?"

...

" _Just one more thing."_

...

" _What is it?"_

...

" _What happens to Vincent?"_

...

" _Vincent... Vincent does not exist. "_

A surge erupted from his heart to his limbs.

Two unknown voices spoke through the awaking haze:

"He's coming to."

"Give it to him. Now!"

A cold and viscous fluid seeped into his throat, causing him to swallow on impulse. His whole body lurched. Some of the fluid went down the wrong pipe. He rolled over, coughing and gagging and knocked into something as he staggered, sending a tray full of utensils clattering on the linoleum floor.

When he came to, two men in white coats were standing in the middle of a small sanitised room gazing back with some distress.

"Take it easy," said the older of the two white-coats.

It quickly dawned on him that he was moving and in no special pain, yet his last memory was the image of his own ravaged and mutilated body half-encased in a shell and wired to machines. He remembered, vividly, the mask coming down over his face and the cold gas filling his lungs. It was only when he regarded himself that he realised he was in full gear.

"What happened?" he murmured in confusion.

"You passed out," said the younger of the white-coats.

"Is this Seragon?" he asked abruptly.

".... Seragon?"

"He's confused," said the older white-coat. "Better step back."

"What did you give him?"

"Ipecac."

He straightened up and pulled himself to his feet.

"Where..."

Before the next word could come out, he suddenly bowed over and heaved, spewing vomit all over the floor.

After a half-minute's retching, he held himself up with both hands against the wall, spitting wads of acidic phlegm, his gut contracting painfully. When the retching stopped, he looked down at the brown puddle of bile beneath his face and saw the cluster of small, round pellets scattered in the stomach contents.

"What... happened?" he panted.

"You passed out." The older white-coat held out a water bottle.

"Where am I?"

The two white-coats exchanged perplexed looks.

"Is he serious?"

He knocked the water bottle away and stumbled forward. Seizing the younger white-coat in a fit and pinning him against the wall, he growled, "Where!"

There was a stunned pause as the young white-coat's feet dangled, barely touching the floor, and his gaping eyes shifted back and forth in their sockets. "F-f-fort Gen, K-kamchatka region," he stuttered

"This is the infirmary," said the older white-coat.

Saul turned to him. His frenzied breaths quelled.

"Kamchatcka..."

He slowly yielded, lowering the young medic to his feet, then staggered back with a blank stare. The first thing he supposed is that this was yet another dream. That he did not wake up a moment after the thought entered his head intimated that he was very much awake. "...Russia." he mumbled in disbelief.

"Well, this hasn't been Russia for at least a year," said the old doctor. "As of yesterday, this is the fifty-first American state..."

"How long have I been here?" he interrupted rapidly.

A tense silence followed each of his questions

"You arrived twenty-two days ago," said the old medic. "You're here on assignment."

He tried to recover some memory that would confirm this.

"Why am I here?"

The young doctor shook his head in disbelief. "He doesn't remember _anything_."

"We had that one figured out."

"What is the mission?" he demanded with a growl and a daunting step forward.

"The mission is over," said the older medic, calmly. "You arrived back from Dolinovka an hour ago. Then, you came here."

"What happened?" he asked a third time

"You overdosed on neurals." The young doctor nervously stepped forward, holding up a black, empty neural canister.

"You ingested over half a damn canister," said the senior medic. "Don't you remember?"

His breaths were suddenly cut short. He studied the tablets in the puddle of bile at his side, then gazed back with intense dread at the canister suspended in the air before him, supposing that if he remained staring for long enough, he might recall something – anything. "Why... did I..."

"We don't know," said the senior medic. "We came in and found you passed out on the floor. When we found the cylinder, we shot you with a vial of epinephrine."

He looked through the open doors opposite. The air was temperate and the setting sun shone dimly over the green and black mountains far in the distance. This was no Russian winter. A whole season had passed since his last recollection. Perhaps the Commission had cleaned him. Yet, everything before his last memories was still clear in his mind. Everything between was a void. This, however, was not what disturbed him most at that particular moment.

That dream...

That ephemeral dream. It was different from the other dreams.

"...Martial."

He was roused from his reverie.

The older medic stepped forward. "Do you remember bringing anything back with you?" he asked. "From Dolinovka?" There was a disturbing solemnity in his eyes.

Again the two medicd exchanged sceptical looks. The younger medic shook his head and took his leave. When the automated doors slid shut, the older turned back with a sigh, disquiet written all over his face.

The old doctor silently turned away. "Come with me," he said, exiting the ward.

Saul lingered a moment, then followed into the outer corridor, stopping as soon as he crossed the brink. The old medic was waiting four doors down and he cautiously walked over and stopped outside a closed door with a ward number marked on the front. After a long, wary silence, the doors parted. The old medic remained where he stood.

"I think it's better if you go first," he said.

The guardedness about the doctor's demeanour heightened his caution. He peered inside the ward. It was lightless and appeared quite empty, aside from the examination table at the back. A feeble light shone through the doorway, casting his shadow on the opposite wall. Imparting one last sideways glower at the old medic, he took his first reluctant step over the brink. His flitting eyes surveyed the room from corner to corner as, step by slow step, he entered, keeping a close look on the doctor's shadow.

Not three steps in, a noise from behind caused him to twist round. His vision was still blurred and the back of the ward was hidden in darkness. The peculiar noise continued in terse, unsteady breaks, and he followed the unseen source to the floor in front of him. He slowly raised his hand and pressed the switch by the door. The lights flickered on.

At the foot of the corner, there appeared a tiny figure clothed in rags, arms wrapped around legs, head buried between knocking knees, shaking and whimpering, and the frayed, grimy strawberry-blond hair fell down to the ankles, hiding the little face, and a small, steady stream of tears flowed. His hand slowly lowered from the switch and hung dead at his side.

The small head rose and the curtain of frayed hair parted, baring the small, pale-lipped, olive skin face of a little girl, besmirched with marks, bruises and dirt. Her wide eyes were a pair of moonstones, shimmering, enflamed and tear-filled.

As soon as her little eyes opened, the girl stopped crying with a gasp and, without warning, she rushed to her feet and scampered forward.

"Kto... kto ty?"

He staggered back just as the little arms wrapped around his legs. He could feel the little body tremble like a quake, and her touch roused his blood to a sudden firestorm leaving him mute. When the shock finally subsided, he stuttered again.

"Kto ty?"

"It's no use," said the old medic, entering the room. "She hasn't said a word for the last hour."

"Who is she?"

"You tell me... You're the one who brought her here."

He gazed down at the top of the little girl's head. Her clothes were begrimed and ragged and her earth-brown skin was scuffed, abraded and soiled all over. She looked as though she had been dragged straight from the jaws of war.

"You said you'd found her wandering alone," said the old medic, "on the way back from Dolinovka."

"Where is her family?" he asked.

"I told you. We don't know."

The little girl's arms closed even more desperately around him.

"She has a few cuts and burns," said the doctor. "You brought her in for treatment. But, as soon as you left the room she wouldn't sit still. She fell off the bench, threw herself in the corner and started crying. We came to get you back. That's when we found you."

Decontextualized, the facts made very little sense.

He tried to separate himself from the child, but she held him tighter still, desperate with fear, soaking his legs with her tears. He stopped, powerless to break himself away.

"You're the only one she seems to trust. Maybe she'll calm down if I leave you two alone for a minute," said the old medic, turning away.

"Wait..."

"I will. Outside."

The doors shut and they were alone.

He looked down at the girl for a long minute and tried to break away again, and again the girl held tighter. He then laid a reluctant hand on her head, seeming to intuit that it might calm her. Moments later, the little arms slowly loosened and the girl's quiet sobs sniffled to a stop. She stepped back and regarded him as she wiped the tears from her cheeks.

" _Pozalhuysta... pogovorit so mnoy..._ " he softened his voice, more out of anxiety than compassion.

The girl fought for her breath, rubbing her eyes in torn sleeves, staring at her shuffling feet first, and then looking back up with despair. She did not answer.

He whispered again, " _Ne boysya..._ "

" _I_..." the little mouth quivered. "I... I-I don't understand you."

There was a long silence.

"Is it... is it alright to talk now?" the girl whispered.

He nodded slowly, ne'er batting an eyelid.

"Yes," he said finally. "You can talk."

The voice did not reveal much about the girl, other than she was not an Easterner. She sounded somewhat older than she looked. So small.

"You told me not to say anything in front of them," she said.

The girl's eyes dawdled uncertainly. Her every gesture roused in him a fascination more fearful than anything he'd ever come upon before. His eyes stopped blinking, the muscles of his jaw bulged. A simmer of discomfort arose in his core.

"What is your name?" he asked.

The girl faltered: "N-Naomi..."

"Naomi..." he repeated with a whisper. "Naomi..."

He stared at the floor, repeating the name over and over, his voice diminishing with recitation. _Nothing._ He looked up, suddenly.

"Do you know me?" he asked her.

The girl's head bobbled up and down.

"You're... you're Saul."

He watched his own reflection in her large, shimmering eyes, appearing more lost with each slow bow of his head. He rose to his feet.

"N-no!" she cried at once. "Don't go, please!"

He stopped just as he was about to open the door and turned back slowly. He leaned forward and rather awkwardly put his hands under the girl's arms, averting his eyes from hers as he held her up and set her down on the exam table as though he were laying a brick.

"Wait right here," he said. "I will come back."

"P – promise," her hand reached out and held him.

"I promise," he replied, weakly.

The girl slowly let go.

"Any luck?" said the old medic as soon as he entered the corridor.

"No," he said. "She won't talk."

"Post-traumatic stress. Not much we can do about it."

He prodded around his utility packs and chanced to find a pack of Lucky Strikes with two cigarettes left. He took one, put the filter between his lips and lit.

"What will they do with her?" he asked.

"The same thing they do with all refugees." The medic gestured out toward the mountains. "The Storozh D.P camp is about twenty miles east. They'll take her there."

"And then?"

The old medic curled his lip and shook his head. "Some get transferred," he replied. "Most of them don't. A lot of war exiles these days, especially around this region. She'll be lucky if they have space for her."

Saul took the cigarette from his lips and exhaled.

"She has no family," he murmured with a pensive gaze cast eastward.

"Doesn't seem like it, no," the medic sighed with a kind of contrived lethargy. "Well," he groaned and straightened up. "We'd better get her cleaned up. She won't be getting much medical care at Storozh. You'd best stick around..." The old doctor turned, stopped and snatched the cigarette from his lips. "This is an infirmary," he said, stamping the cigarette out underfoot and walking past him.

The little girl sat still, visibly struggling to conceal her pain, which bore itself in the flickers of winces and beads of sweat, as the medic dabbed at the deep cut over her right arm.

He watched from behind and every now and again, she would look over her shoulder to make sure he was still in the room.

His thoughts floundered in a void, not an inkling of a memory with which to begin making sense of things. He had yet to fully convince himself that he had ever woken since the point of his last memory. But one rather troubling point did militate against the theory that he was still lying in an induced coma in Seragon.

_Those voices..._ Vague, yet bizarrely familiar, voices.

What _was_ that flash that had passed through the blind corners of his mind moments before he had woken? A dream? A dream within a dream? Or was it something else? The dream had had no visual texture in memory. The voices had seemed to hover in some kind of cerebral vacuum. And even though it had not stirred any particularly redolent sensation in him, it unsettled him more than the worst nightmare for precisely that reason.

Vincent...

The name was one he was sure he had come upon before. _Where?_

"Done," announced the old medic at last. As soon as he turned away, the girl climbed down off her bench and scuttled immediately toward Saul.

"A supply convoy should be leaving for Storozh soon."

"I will take her," said Saul.

"I think you'll have to."

The little girl hung on to his hand to stop herself from stumbling.

"You might have to carry her," said the old medic. "She's still weak."

He reached down to pick the girl up, this time cradling her in his arms and she immediately buried her head in his chest as soon as he did. Her little body was half-bare.

"Do you have anything she could wear?"

After procuring an oversized white shirt, which fit over the girl like a shroud, he descended from the upper floors, attracting more than a few enquiring glances from passersby. From the descending platform, the HGVs could be seen commuting in mechanical lines all over Fort Gen – from storehouses to hangars to rows of airships, loading up and alighting supply containers, vehicles and personnel.

At the end of the road, he sighted a large convoy being loaded, just before the main gates. When the platform settled, he began the long, uneasy march. The strong, cold wind was stinging and the girl tucked her hands in and shivered.

"Where are we going?" she murmured in his ear.

He had hoped the question would never come.

"They will take you somewhere safe," he replied vaguely.

"Are you coming too?"

He made the mistake of looking down, catching a brief glimpse of the torturous eyes. "I cannot come with you," he answered

"But, you said you won't leave," the girl pleaded with a whimper. "Mama and papa said..."

He came to a sudden halt.

"Your... parents?"

The girl nodded and started to cry again.

He hushed her and turned on the corner of the munitions storehouse, sheltered from the cold wind and unwanted attention. He lowered his voice, "Are they..." He was going to ask if they were dead. "... Where are they?" he asked.

"I don't know." The girl's voice broke and the little face screwed up with grief. "They... said goodbye. Th-then, they put me in the dark place. They t-told me that s-someone would come for me. I waited..." She seemed to recall painfully. "I h-heard the noises... loud noises... screaming."

A vision reminiscent of his nightmares formed in his imagination.

"What happened then?" he asked.

"You came."

The disjointed phrase was hard to decipher. From what he could gather, the girl's parents had hidden her, perhaps in the hope that she might escape whatever fate must have befallen them thereafter.

"P-please don't go. Don't leave me." The little head sunk back into his chest and the girl started to shake again. Her distress paralyzed him with some strange passion. The carrier to Sodom would leave in a few hours, leaving precious little time to decide her fate. If he did not return, the Commission would find out. And what would staying with her solve in the long run? The Kamchatka Wall was a 1,000-kilometer strip of warzone, hundreds of war-torn miles between Fort Gen and the nearest civil cities. Even if she could somehow survive long enough to make it across the threshold between the warzones and the civil world, there was no guarantee she would find refuge. And yet, all pragmatism was shaken away by the fearful quiver of that grimy little head.

"Don't leave me," she repeated, whispers punctuated by sobs.

### C. 5: Day 464

Airship SM-37 from Fort Gen, Kamchatka landed at exactly 0325. A frigid draft blew in through the maglev tunnels of Milidome 3rd.

A day come and gone and many fruitless hours of contemplation spent, gazing out from the ship deck to the horizon, waiting for the aimless synapses to ignite a thought that might ignite a memory, and not a single memory roused. It was indisputable. Ninety days of the world's subsistence had been lifted clean from his mind. On rare occasions, dreams could kindle thoughts once lost to the mind, and he thought to brave his nightmares in the hope that he might unearth some lost memory in the hermeneutic of a dream. To no avail. Sleep was impossible; all the more still when all one had for comfort was the aching thought of having left a wounded and defenceless child all by herself in the midst of a warzone. By the time he had landed in Durkheim, he was ready to collapse from exhaustion.

The cold waft of air swelled as the maglev rolled up to the platform and rumbled to a stop. He raised his coat collar, pocketed his hands and settled his grip on the blade. The doors hissed open. A mass of low-caste martials boarded the empty cars, and he jammed in among them.

The automated voice announced the next stop:

"Outer-Durkheim 4th."

The doors shut, and the maglev took off with seamless velocity.

The maglev passed right past Sixth Echelons and his eyes zipped from left to right as the maglev flew past. According to the earliest messages on his Nexus account, his new abode was somewhere on the other side of the city, in an area called "Haven," one of the more obscure districts in the metropolis. He did not know the address. His legs were about to give way under him from exhaustion.

He got off the maglev at Outer Durkheim 4th and took the capsule line down to first stratum above the lower city. On a dark side street off the main avenue, he stopped outside a narrow, terraced building, and the sign over the doors flashed: "Motley Marionettes" – a low-caste bordello. When he walked through the doors, two low-end, auburn-haired, gum-chewing walkers sitting in the dim-lit lobby turned their heads to the entrance with interest.

He paid the full price of eight ducats for a walker and room, and when the mute, wrinkled and dour old inkeeper behind the desk proffered one of her women, he quickly refused and asked for cigarettes, to which her response was a curled lip, and she tossed the key on the desk without a word.

" _Dregs..._ " he heard one of the walkers murmur as he walked away.

Room 5 smelled like concentrate of rose with a hint of peroxide and venereal body odour. He locked the door. A GMD blared across the street below. The lower strata were always louder and the air was more polluted. The chronometer on the bedside showed 0430 hours. The mattress was worn and concave. When he lay down, he felt his weight press against the swellings in his flesh.

His eyes shut instantly.

He found himself plunged into the Storozh Camp in Kamchatka: myriads of undead skeletal creatures ambling around – diseased, emaciated and murderous with hunger, crawling in a vast cesspool of the dead and dying – and the sky was blotted out behind the high surrounding walls and his mind's eye settled on the girl and followed like a spirit as she wandered alone, scampering to and fro, recoiling from the reaches of a swarm of bony, bloody members until she curled up into a dark corner and cried her eyes out, and the cries rose to shrieks to wake the dead.

Saul woke with the cries.

A streetlight flickered in through the window. It was still dark. The media screen was still blaring. He thought the noise had woken him prematurely, until he turned over and looked up at the chronometer. 0007... of the following day.

He blinked and twitched to life, turned his legs agonisingly over to his bedside and ground his eyes. The pain in his sinews was acidic. He fished his cell out of the coat pocket, squinted and waited for the blur in his vision to pass.

No messages. No missed calls.

For a long time, he sat in a daze, staring at the vacant screen before coming to his feet, slipping his arms into his coat sleeves and raising the collar. Just as he was about to slip the cell back into the inner pocket, the screen flashed.

The cell started to ring.

He gazed at the Caller ID flashing on the display and slowly lifted the receiver to his lips.

"Haven District: The Grove; 4th Street off Orion Avenue."

The line cut.

The dour old woman at the counter had since changed to a heavy, steely-eyed low-caster. His head was thrown back and a mess of auburn-red hair was nestled in his groin when Saul passed and dropped the money for the extra night on the counter on his way out.

The night was cold, the streets were quiet and lined with thick snow and the cold oozed painfully into the bones. His breath was a dense vapor marking his way under the alley lights.

He stopped at a nearby teller machine. A troop of SGs passed across the street and he peered surreptitiously over his shoulder. When his balance flashed across the screen, he saw that his account had been credited – spoils from the last assignment. He keyed in a figure and the machine regurgitated the cash in two thin stacks of bound, blue dimitar notes.

He was the first to alight when the maglev stopped in Haven Main Station and a capsule ride later, he was standing at the crossroads of Orion Avenue and Victory Lane, the mechanised foot traffic nudging past. He looked up. The snow began to drizzle like stardust through the multi-coloured lights from street-signs and billboards. A row of autocabs were parked, waiting for fares. He boarded one of the driverless cabs and fed 30 ducats through the slot.

"The Grove, 4th Street."

The doors closed with a pneumatic hiss and the autocab took off along the mechanised lane.

The autocab stopped at the far end of the street, before the high, dark façade of a building set right on the very outskirts of the metropolis, where the city's lights faded into the regions of Outer-Sodom. The panel on the side of the tower entrance read: "The Grove".

He stood at the mouth of a dark alley and waited, checking the time on his Nexus. Every 30 seconds or so, he would poke half his face out of the shadows. The street was empty. The darkness thickened, the light drizzle increased to a heavy snow and the cold spasms wound around his limbs like boa constrictors. He ached for a warm smoke. Two walkers appeared from around the corner and passed right in front of him. A minute later, a group of mid-caste martials walked by from the opposite direction, setting him more on edge.

He checked the time again.

Where is he...?

At that moment, there came a rumble from the end of the street, followed by an approaching light extending over the dark street. He stepped out of the alley into the lights of an oncoming vehicle.

A small truck, dented and browning with wear, tear and corrosion, stopped immediately with a squeak and a grind. The side windows were cracked and frosted up and steam poured out from every seam, and streamed from the exhaust in a thick smog. Some faded company logo on the side was spray-painted out, and the old hydro-motor coughed and gurgled as the reverse lights came on.

He retreated back into the dark alley as the truck reversed with a steady beeping. When the front of the truck was securely hidden in the alley, it stopped. The headlamps switched off. The engine burbled to a long and constant hiss.

He came up by the truck's side just as the door on the driver's side inched open. Three firm kicks marked with the words "Git – teh – fuck!" forced open the door on the driver's side. The truck shook as the heavy figure clumsily dismounted and hobbled wearily toward him.

"Top a' th' mornin'..."

Duke's voice was dry and dreary and his eyes narrowed with exhaustion. He coughed an old, hoarse smoker's cough.

"Ahhh, sh-sh-sh-sshhittte."

He removed the cigar from his teeth, shivered and blew a stream of smoke and vapor through pursed lips.

"I am grateful for this," said Saul.

"Aye, well, dinna fash yerself n' all..." Duke yawned his words.

Saul glanced up the narrow space between the side of the truck and the adjoining street and down the other side of the alley, where the path stopped at a dead end. They were alone, but he took no chances, keeping his voice low.

"Any trouble with customs?"

Duke puffed at the cigar, threw the nub into the snow, eyeing him sideways. "Aye," he murmured with a trembling nod, "wee mae bi usual." The old ex-patriot cupped his thick hands over his mouth, the steam seeped through his fingers and he rubbed his hands together. He hobbled up to the truck's rear, pulled back on a slider on the side and hammered his fist against a switch.

The shutter over the truck's rear rose in jerks.

When the shutter-motor spurted to a stop, old Duke took out a small torch and flashed the light over the inside of the carriage. The light passed over what appeared to be stacks of supplies for his dreg mess: vacuum-sealed food parcels, crates of ambrosia, medicines and cleaning supplies, all piled on top of each other. Three large crates were buried somewhere behind the wall of supplies, occupying most of the space in the small carriage. The deck was covered with loose packages, bottles, empty cigar packs and other refuse.

The old ex-patriot mounted the deck with a grunt and another string of mumbled curses. He swept all the loose clutter aside and genuflected, poking the torchlight between two stacks pressed against the inner walls of the freight carriage. He reached his hand in deep and pulled out one small, brown-packaged bundle, and then a second. Keeping his head low, he passed each of the brown packages to Saul, finally handing him the torch. "Ah'll need both hands fer this," he croaked.

He flashed the light over the back of the truck and watched Duke clear the heap of supplies blocking the large crates at the front crates, growling with each heave and ho.

After much effort, the bottom-most crate at the back of the truck was finally exposed. Duke stretched his old back out, took a deep, wheezing, foggy breath and leaned over by the side of the crate. His heavy fists clamped down hard on a lever and jerked; once, twice, thrice. On the third jerk, the lever gave way with a bang which echoed down the alley.

There was a long, tense silence.

Saul peered down the side of the truck into the side street. The torch light went out. The crate doors swung open. Next moment, something hurled from the darkness and landed straight in his arms with a whimper.

Duke picked up the soiled blanket the girl had cast off in her flurry.

Saul wrapped the mantle around her and the little fingers were icicles against the back of his neck. Her skin had paled with the freeze and the bindings on her reddened wounds were fraying and loose.

Duke descended from the truck and was drawn in at once by the little figure.

"Sure hope yeh know wha' yer doin' lad," he sighed.

Saul had been hoping the same thing from the moment he had shut the doors on the body box in Fort Gen and the truck carried her away, a hostage to fortune. She coughed wildly and he pressed her face gently against his shoulder to muffle the noise. She was cold as death, and shook terribly as the warmth settled in. Any longer and she would have succumbed to hypothermia.

Duke sighed again and shook his head. "Yeh cannae be comin' round th' mess nae more," he said. "No ava lad."

"I know."

"Ah don' know yeh n'more," said the ex-patriot severely. "Not after this."

"I understand."

Duke fell silent. His eyes were wide and his breath was heavy. "Aye... aye," he said, nodding his head. He then turned his attention back to the girl, who meanwhile appeared to have fallen into a slumber. He came closer and gawped as one would at some incomparably precious object. "Where the 'ell d'yeh find 'er?" he gasped.

"I do not remember."

Duke looked back into the truck. The open crate was about the size of a small refrigerator, with very little discernible cracks or seams for light or air to seep through. "Ne'r seen a crate li' tha' before."

"It is a body box. They use them to transport corpses and body parts from the warzones for strip-down. It was the only way to get her through the scans in customs."

"How lang she bin in tha' thing?"

"Two days."

"Shiite..."

The girl coughed and shivered, holding the blanket close to her chin. Her eyelids were heavy, but the cold denied her sleep.

"Puir lass must be sair hungert... Hold a minute, I mightae 'ave summat."

Duke hobbled to the front of the truck and disappeared for about a minute. In the meantime, Saul crammed one of the brown bundles into his only vacant pocket. When old Duke returned, he was holding half a large bar of dark chocolate. He held the chocolate bar out in the air and when the little head rose, the big, pearlescent eyes widened ravenously.

"Take it."

As soon as he gave the word, the girl snatched the bar, tore off the wrapping and assailed the contents, gasping and munching intermittently. He stretched his right hand to reach into his left pocket and drew a small pile of banknotes and held the money out to old Duke. "You have done more than I deserve," he said. "I may not see you again."

"Yeh got a mouth teh feed yerself now, lad," said Duke. "Dinnae ye worry 'bout us n' more."

The old x-patriot was set in his ways. He tucked the money into his pockets.

The two men stood staring at one another. When Saul slowly raised an open hand, old Duke caught it immediately and held tight.

"I never told you my name," said Saul.

Old Duke chuckled.

"Dinnae ask, dinnae tell," he replied, slowly letting go. "Fare thee well, Martial... Guid luck." He turned, punched the switch on the side of the truck and limped away as the shutter came down.

The driver's door screeched shut, the engine griped to a start and gurgled. He pulled out of the alley and trundled on into the hoary night. The girl fell asleep in his arms.

"Wake up."

Little Naomi's eyelids prized open as he lowered her gently to the floor. They stood before a large double-door at the tower's peak and he brought the right side of his face up to the circular recess on the door's side. There was a bright flash and the door unlocked and opened.

Confronted with a wall of darkness, he instinctively held the girl back and edged through the doorway. The moment he crossed the threshold, lights occurred from the deep, one after the other. The light illuminated a palatial foyer ending at a towering wall of crystal-clear glass, and the space between was decked with mosaics of parquetry, walled with stone as radiant as alabaster and furnished with velvet, and a spiral staircase joined two floors. At the far end of the foyer, a big screen switched on by itself and began broadcasting the latest news from the global media. A blue flame swayed and danced in a crystal firebox. The clouds passed and the rim of a waxing crescent moon glimpsed through the skylight.

Daunted by the opulence of the place, he momentarily stood back from the threshold. Meanwhile, little Naomi, beckoned by the warmth, drifted in and leaned her forehead sleepily against his leg. She could barely stand.

"Can I sleep now?" she yawned.

"Not yet."

She was covered in filth from the journey. Her wounds were discoloured and the bindings were loose.

"I have to clean you," he said.

"Clean... you," the girl parroted him with a yawn.

He lifted her up and cradled her.

As he walked about the house, he noticed a full ashtray on the table-top in front of the big holoscreen and a crystal glass with a dribble of scotch at the bottom. The satin of the drapery and upholstery radiated the smell of tobacco and the carpet was ruffled and folded over. Similar signs of habitation were scattered all around. And whilst he had no memory of the place, his legs seemed to know where to take him: The adjoining corridor, second door on the left.

He opened the bathroom door and turned on the light, swept away a piece of walker's lingerie and a bloody towel and sat the girl down gently on the basin counter. The cold surface sent a waking shiver through her.

He unravelled the gauze from the pauper-like hands and assessed her wounds with a single glance. The deep cut on her upper arm would surely leave a scar. The abrasion on her face had browned, as did the scalding on her hands. The rest was mild bruising. He laid one of Duke's brown packages on the counter, opened it, and inside, he found a box of saline, cotton swabs, wound-sealer, gauze, antiseptic, dermal repair and antibiotics. After looking over each item, he took the antiseptic and regarded her with some diffidence.

"This may hurt a little," he said, excusing himself in advance.

The girl was quiet with submission and looked away with a cringe, braced for pain.

Her tiny fingers juddered as he swabbed away at the deep cut with saline, dabbing off the dried blood and dirt. He shook with her every wince and sudden breath, her pain seeming to amplify in vicariousness.

"You must wash before I can treat them," he said, then paused, as though waiting for her approval.

When she remained silent, he looked away uneasily and lifted her off the counter.

The bathtub was a deep depression in an altar of white stone large enough for two adults, and he laid her down in the middle. He took the shower nozzle from the wall and when she tried to handle it, her burned hands recoiled in pain and the nozzle fell and rattled in the tub.

"S-sorry," she stuttered

He picked the nozzle up from the tub with a sigh.

"I will do it..."

With strange discomfort he removed the soiled, baggy shirt from the little frame, and he could see the large, moonstone eyes seeming to judge him the whole time and as he did his utmost to avert his own eyes. He noticed, for the first time, the silver necklace and the large gold pendant hanging by her neck over the little concave dent in her chest.

As soon as he raised his hand the girl, seeming to detect his intention, snatched the pendant in both hands.

He stopped and gazed at her silently.

"It is alright," he assured. "I will give it back."

The little hands shook around the pendant as she looked, for a moment, as though she were about to cry again. She slowly and reluctantly let go.

He undid the clasp and the necklace dropped into his hands with the pendant. He set the water temperature to 70 degrees and lowered the pressure, and when he looked up at the girl again, he froze.

An odd hesitancy came over him as to what he was about to do, and he felt suddenly... unfit – overcome by a deep, distraught sense of contemptibility unlike anything he had ever felt before.

"Saul."

He was finally drawn in to her eyes. The dread arrested him and his pulse escalated. He shook off his trance.

"Saul..."

"Hold out your arms." His voice rose to a sudden pitch of hostility and the girl raised her arms out in the air at once.

He waited for the strange rush of passion to pass then, slowly, poured the water over her head.

The grime slipped off her in streams of brown. He lathered up the sponge to apply the soap carefully around the wounds: daubing, rinsing, daubing.

"Turn."

And she turned, puffin-like, still holding her little arms in the air.

After she was cleaned, her wounds covered and her hand bound with fresh gauze, he put a cotton sweater over her head, the only suitable item of clothing he could find. The oversized sweater hung over her left shoulder and draped down to her ankles. He carried a bundled blanket in one hand and led her by the other. The big screen switched off just as the latest announcements from the First Region Senior Commission began.

"You can sleep here," he said.

The girl looked down at the sofa, then all around the towering space surrounding her, settling on the blue flame dancing in the glass box beside them, the long sleeves swaying at her sides. Finally, her large and troubled eyes turned toward him.

"Where will _you_ sleep?" she asked.

"In the room at the end."

She turned to look at where he indicated, and then turned back again.

"OK," she said, quietly.

She looked to be concealing a kernel of angst behind the shell of innocence.

"Is something wrong?" he asked.

The little head shook.

"... OK," he nodded.

The girl remained with her head tilted all the way back, gazing up at him, seeming to deliberate something. Then, next moment, she zipped forward and put her arms around him.

"Thank you," she whispered, and let go of her embrace a moment later, leaving him fixed to the spot as though shot through the core.

She tried to hop over the edge of the long settee with little snorts of struggle: one hop, two hop, three. When she botched her third attempt, he gave her a little nudge and she rolled deep into the couch, curling up like a woodlouse and shivering relief. He laid the blanket over her and, almost instantly, she fell asleep.

The little snuffles got lower and lower as he he receded to the other end of the foyer, keeping his eyes fixed on her until she was out of sight, whereupon his knees gave way under him. He collapsed into a chair at the kitchen table, breathing deep breaths. His sinews were sandpaper, grating his bones. His heartbeats were little bombs exploding in his head. In the twilight of that brief reprieve, all the quandaries he had suppressed up until that point began to surface. What now?

A civilian – in martial boarders. A civilian _child_ – possibly the only child in the martial world.

He took out all the contents of his coat pockets – first, the second brown bundle Duke had given him, then the second stack of notes and then his cell. He laid them all on the table. Finally, he took one last item out of his inner pockets and removed his coat and held it between his thumb and index finger. He set the empty, black neural canister down on the table directly in front of him and fixed it with an interrogator's glower as he unwrapped the brown package and opened a fresh pack of cigarettes.

He lit a cigarette, puffed, pulled the ash tray toward him and leaned back in his seat. He tipped the canister over and the little silver tablets rolled out over the table. An eel of anxiety squirmed in his gut.

He was disturbed momentarily by the girl, coughing from across the room: croaky, hoarse coughs. She would need medicine. She was bound to need many things unprocurable in a martial city. He stood up and checked all of the kitchen cupboards and the pantry. After probing every nook and cranny and disposing of what was rotten, he had come upon enough food for maybe four days at the most. She would need clothes too. And that raised the fresh question as to where he was going to find clothes for a child.

He took the last draw of his cigarette and sat back down, picked up his cell.

I wonder...

He scrolled through the short list of IDs in his contacts until he reached the desired name. Rather un-optimistically, he typed the message:

" _I need something. You are the only one who can help. I will pay any price. "The Grove", 4th Street, Orion Avenue, Haven. Penthouse floor. I will wait for you._ "

### C. 5: Day 470

He gazed through the glazed roof into the red sky as he lay in his bed, cadaver-like. Six hours and not a wink of sleep, the sheets were barely ruffled. The room was enlarged by bareness and the sunlight was dim through the photochromic walls.

He sat up with a low growl. The pain in his limbs had migrated to his core and he stroked away the ache in his abdomen, brought his legs over the side of the bed and rose with a stretch, and his sinews pried from his bones like Velcro. He had eaten very little in the last week, and found himself slowly working his way back to insomnia. It did not take long for the suspicion to form that the Commission may have been keeping his home under surveillance, and there were a good many more causes over which to lose sleep, not least among which were the nightmares, which had gotten even worse than before.

The _en suite_ was as large and lavish as every other room in the house with walls of chalcedony and jasper. Every first 20 minutes after waking from what little sleep his body could muster he would stand stone still under running water. The water poured over his hung head and neck, dripping off the tangled locks. He lifted his head up; eyes shut, and let the warm stream wash over his face.

The water stopped. He dried off, stepped out of the bath, and came up to the wash basin, looking up at the mirror.

It was the first time since Nova Crimea that he could remember looking at himself. He scarcely recognised the man in the reflection. The corporal reconstruction had erased about two decades, but the marks of trauma were still prominent. He ran his fingers from his crown to his chin, down the thin scars that ran around the dents of his orbitals and all along the left side of his body, across the deep sinews of his chest. His left pupil glowed red in the light from above the mirror. Then his fingers strayed over the collarbone, where the martial seal of the UMC had been restored.

He scowled at the seal in the reflection, took a blade up off the counter and pressed the edge against the seal...

Silence was broken.

He flinched when the noise echoed down the corridors through the open doors and a trickle of blood began from his collarbone. He stopped. He listened.

It was a voice, too indistinct for the words to be made out.

He gently pushed the door of his room open and sidled, barefoot, over the threshold, into the corridor. His right hand glided over the open door, blade clutched and ready in his left. The voice became more distinct:

"I really like green... the hills are so green here... not like back home..."

His hand tightened around the blade, and as he approached the end of the corridor and peered over the corner, he clutched the blade by the edge and concealed it.

The girl was on her knees, looking out through the glazed wall, talking, as it were, to someone and no one.

"Saul doesn't talk a lot," she said, quietly. "Daddy was the same..."

He approached her from behind, across the soundless carpet.

"...No, I don't mind," she continued, casually. A gay smile unfurled on the corners of her sun-kissed cheeks. "Maybe he's just shy. Mummy used to say that boys are shy with girls sometimes and..." When she saw his reflection in the glass wall, she spun around with a gasp and a muddle of strawberry blond hair over her eyes.

"Hi, Saul."

He peered warily about.

"Good morning..." he said.

Naomi giggled, bright-eyed. "It's not morning," she said. "It's sunset. See?" She turned around and pointed at the westward view: to the hills and ridges of green and heather violet, and evergreen trees poking out like pikestaffs from the land. The sun set over the faraway valley.

"So it is," he said, gazing out.

The setting sun lit his eyes like flames. Night was falling. He looked down at the girl and the great moonstones looked back up.

"Who were you talking to?" he asked.

"A – oh..." The girl's eyes were suddenly timid. "Umm... just... someone," she hesitated.

"Who?"

She hummed pensively. "I d'know," she said, turning her head from side to side. "But, I think he knows Mummy and Daddy."

"... He?"

"Umm..."

A loud squelching rumble suddenly sounded from her and she gasped and threw her hands over her belly. "Saul," she murmured. "I'm hungry..."

He walked over to the other side of the room and turned on the big screen. He had managed to find a nature channel the previous night, after an hour of filtering through all the global media networks, political broadcasts, war zone bulletins, pornography and everything else he deemed unsuitable for a child. The display came alive with a high-definition holographic rendering of the African Savannah.

The girl turned and her gaping orbs brightened.

"Lions!" She scurried to her feet and sprung off the floor twice and onto the settee.

"You... like animals," he noted.

The little head bobbled. "I like to draw animals."

The girl's eyes filled with delight when it seemed, for a moment, like he would sit with her, but the smile wilted when he walked on past and over to the freight chute.

The green light over the conveyor doors signalled that freight was loaded. Inside was a fresh supply of vacuum-sealed and dehydrated food. He poured a portion of rolled oats in a bowl and mixed in some lukewarm water and sugar.

"Here," he said, placing the bowl before her.

She came down off the couch and briefly studied the contents of the bowl before looking up. "Thanks," she said, and started to poke at the contents with her spoon. The girl was a model of obedience, always seeming content with what she was given.

He picked up the pack of cigarettes lying on the kitchen counter, shook it, opened and stared into the empty pack, certain he had had a few left in it the night before. He compressed the cigarette pack in a fist and glanced over his shoulder just in time to see the little head quickly jolt away.

Just as he opened his mouth to speak, a bell chimed three times in quick succession and echoed through the house and his head jerked toward the front door.

Not a sound or a movement as the echoes dwindled.

Naomi's eyes zipped about, anxious and confused, her mouth full of porridge.

He sauntered up to the door just as the bell chimed a second time. On the wall beside the door, there was a small display and when the screen lit up, he breathed a half-relieved, half-nervous sigh.

The door opened.

"...I did not think that you would come."

"That makes two of us."

Celyn stood on the other side of the threshold. Her were arms crossed and there were daggers in her eyes. It had not occurred to him until that moment that it had been close to four months since they had last seen each other, yet he remembered the dream as though it were yesterday...

"I am thankful."

"Don't be thanking me so soon," she said. "I don't know why I'm here yet." Celyn made to step forward and he, discretely, narrowed the space between the double-doors to keep the other side hidden from view. She stopped and regarded him with an askance look.

"What's going on?" she asked.

"I am sorry," he said. "I could not risk the Commission..."

He faltered when he felt a nudge at the back of his knee.

Celyn's eyes narrowed and her arms uncrossed. "The Commission?" She lifted her head back and to the side and regarded him sideways again. "What are... you..." Her speech wavered as one of the doors gently swung open and her eyes journeyed down from his eyes to his legs, stopping on the little blond head peeping out from behind him, and the great, grey eyes gazing back up at her.

"Hello," chirruped the little figure standing below his knees.

There was pin-drop silence.

"Saul... who's the lady?"

Celyn's gaping eyes did not allay for several minutes, even as she drifted in through the door in a trance and lowered into a seat at the kitchen table, her eyes fixed on the little girl across the hall. Not a word was uttered.

Having got dressed, Saul sat across from her and quietly opened a fresh pack of cigarettes, took one out, and lit, peering up from time to time as he did so. Even as his own stare deepened, gliding up and down the side of her face, the strong, dark curves of her features, the smooth tendons of her neck down to the deep cleft line of her breasts, _her_ eyes did not yield. He recalled the dream again...

"Who is she?" Celyn broke suddenly with the long-delayed question.

He broke his stare and shifted his attention away nervously.

"Her name is Naomi," he replied. "By civil calendar she is six years old..."

"How is she here?" Celyn broke in again.

"I brought her here."

She slowly turned a severe look upon him.

"You found her in a warzone."

"Yes."

"And you brought her back?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

Silence.

"I do not know." Hints of ire began to simmer in his voice. "I... do not remember."

"How the _hell_ can you not remember?"

When he did not answer, she leaned back and regarded him with fresh suspicion.

"Did they clean you?" she asked.

"No," he rapidly answered.

"Then what happened?"

He hesitated at first, then, after another long silence, reached into his pocket and took out the neural canister. He placed it on the table in front of her.

"Neurals?"

"Overdose," he said simply.

There was a tense pause.

"You OD'd on neurals?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"I don't remember!" His fist beat down on the table-top and the sudden rise in his voice resounded through the house. When his shaking fist allayed, he noticed something in the angle of his vision.

Little Naomi was standing just across from them, rigid with fright.

"Wait in the upstairs room," he said, averting the look in her eyes.

After a long pause, the little Naomi quietly turned away without a word.

"Close the door," he added sternly, stopping her in her tracks.

"... OK."

The little legs scuttled away.

The girl scaled to the top of the spiral staircase two feet to each step at a time and his eyes stretched to their corners, following her until the sound of the closing door shut.

"Naomi..." Celyn repeated with a snort. "A civy name if ever I heard one."

There was a long silence.

"I do not remember anything after Nova Crimea," he said, finally.

Celyn glowered and looked away.

"I am sorry,' he said, '... about Malachi-"

"He's dead," she snapped. "He doesn't exist. He never existed. That's how it works."

"Martial order."

"The world," she corrected. "The universe doesn't know, doesn't care, about anyone or any damn thing. We're martials; we live, we die, we pass through the system and when we're gone, nobody knows; nobody ever knew or gave a damn. The ones who do are the ones who die first."

He did not miss that same shimmer in her eyes as before, the flash of irresolution.

"I know that you are not like the rest of them."

"You don't know shit about me."

"Why did you save my life?" he asked.

Celyn fell silent. She looked away and glared ahead and into the depths of herself.

"You had every reason to leave me to die" he said. "You did not. Why?"

Still she remained quiet.

"The Commission will not..."

"Who – gives – a – _fuck_ – about the Commission?"

The irresolution instantly changed to wrath. He was silenced.

"You know," her voice took a sullen dip, "you keep talking about the Commission as though they're the enemy, when the only thing you really ought to be afraid of right now is about three feet tall and hiding in your attic."

"I could not leave her to die."

"Why not?" She asked.

A pause followed the question.

"You've killed plenty of times before..."

"In battles. In warzones."

"This war means no more to you than it does to me or anyone else in this world. Every life has its price. Everyone has its reasons for fighting. Maybe yours was to get the hell out of Dodge. Whatever the reason, we both know that that's what another life is worth to you. So, what makes _her_ life different?"

He looked away with a frown, put the cigarette out and rose to his feet. "Maybe you do not understand," he said.

"No, I think you're the one who doesn't understand."

They remained locked in a war of gazes.

"Help me out here," she said, probing him with her eyes, "because as I recall, you hated this world so much you wanted to get out even if it killed you – _which_ it damn near did. So, I'm curious. What exactly did you think you were saving this kid from by bringing her here?"

"They were going to send her to a D.P. camp. She was alone."

"And now what? You'll both live happily ever after?"

He did not answer. The small issue of the distant future had, of course, occurred to him, and until that moment, he had succeeded in concealing from himself; the resolution that the problem would eventually resolve itself. Now that he was posed the question directly, however, he had no answer.

Celyn leaned back in her chair, tapping the table-top with her fingers. "You can lie to yourself, but you're not fooling me," she said. "You didn't bring this girl here to save her; you brought her here for you. Whether you want to admit it or not; she's just a temp – a stand-in..."

"For what?"

"...For those." Her eyes motioned toward the neural canister on the table.

Both of their heads turned around and up when they heard the door open at the top of the spiral staircase. The little golden head poked out from behind the corner.

"Saul," called a small and dry voice. "...Can I have some water?"

After a brief silence, he replied with a slow nod.

The girl descended the spiral staircase, judiciously watching her every step, holding on to the railing with both hands. She tottered across the foyer and into the kitchen.

He stood up, took a glass and filled it at the tap. Celyn kept her head forward, but he could see that her eyes were closely following the girl's every movement, even as she scuttled up to him and stretched out on her tiptoes to take the glass, raised the cup to her mouth like a water jug and drank, and drank. Having emptied half the glass, she paused for breath.

"What's your name?"

Celyn's head revolved in line with her mesmerised gaze.

"... What's your name?" the girl asked a second time with the same melody.

A long quiet followed. Celyn's eyes flitted from Saul to the girl, who stepped forward beckoning her answer with a patient silence.

"... Celyn," she replied weakly, her voice softened to honey.

The smile on the girl's face brightened and she started to giggle.

"Your eyes are pretty," she said

The woman-martial's head tilted curiously to one side as the girl suddenly toddled toward her and started running her fingers through the long locks of her hair. She flinched and immobilised with fright. Her lips loosed, the lines on her brow receded and the emerald eyes shimmered. Her breaths started to shake.

"I like your hair..."

The girl's touch worked like a subtle hypnosis which dispelled the instant she stopped to lift the glass back up to her lips. She drank the rest of the water, wiped her lips, then raised the glass over her head and set it on the table-top.

"Thank you, Saul."

Naomi tottered off again, back up the staircase. The door at the top of the staircase shut and Celyn was left staring at the same spot where she stood seconds before.

After a long pause, Saul spoke:

"Will you help us or not?"

Celyn blinked awake at the sound of his voice and faced forward. Her brow furrowed again. "What do you want from me?" she asked

"Clothes, medicine, and a few other things."

"Where am I going to find clothes for –"

"Duke will have everything ready for you," he said. "You know where to find him. You need only pick up what we need and bring them here."

"There are amenities for that."

"No one whom I trust."

"Why don't you do it yourself?"

"Duke is on the other side of the city," he replied. "I cannot leave her."

"Why don't you tell _him_ to come?"

"I promised we would keep our distance," he said. "He has done enough for me already."

"So have I."

"I know that," he said. "But you are the only other person I trust."

She snorted. "I'm the only one you know."

He was out of answers.

He pulled open a drawer, took out the two stacks of notes amounting to 10,000 dimitars and laid the notes on the table-top in front of her. "It is one delivery every four days," he said. "If you want more money I can give it to you."

Celyn looked from the short stack of notes up to him. Her frown deepened. "It won't work," she said.

He resignedly nodded, having nothing left with which to beseech her. "I understand," he said, taking the money back. "I will find another way."

"Not that," she said. "I mean this... _All_ this. You and this kid. Whatever it is you're trying to do; it won't work. You'll be begging them to clean you before the end."

That same contrivance from before was now noticeably absent from her voice. It unnerved him. "That will never happen," he determined.

"It already happened."

"I would rather take my own life."

Celyn snorted and shook her head. "And there it is..."

She pushed her seat back, rose from her chair, stopped, turned and walked out the door.

### C. 5: Day 491

Little Naomi quickly developed a fascination for the beautiful, emerald-eyed martial woman who came by every fourth day of the three weeks following. When the bell would chime at the front door, she would rush over to snatch a glimpse of the tall, dark pillar of female splendour standing at the brink. Her eyes would burst with wonder and then droop with a disappointed sigh again when the door would close and Celyn was gone.

Saul resisted the girl's company for the most part. Something about her scorched like vitriol. At first he had thought it might have been the lasting effects of the neurals, but the bizarre aversion only seemed to get worse as time passed and a horrid doubt began to loom over him... She, meanwhile, seeming to feel that she should keep her distance, did everything in her power to please him. Although, the fact that she had quickly overcome her inhibition to converse openly with her unnamed, unseen friend, he supposed, must have been a symptom of her sudden isolation from everything she ever knew. He could noted her from the corner of his eye, sitting at the kitchen table, twirling around the leftovers on her plate and peering up at him from time to time.

The holoscreen showed a broadcast from the UMC First Region headquarters in New York. The blazoned words "RUSSIAN WINTER SUMMIT" floated past the bottom of the three-dimensional image. The speech had something to do with warzone proliferation, containment and some other new and wonderful legislative measures to render war a more efficient enterprise. But he was not as much concerned with the subject of the latest UMC Council Summit as he was with the woman with the sapphire eyes and chestnut hair standing at the address pulpit.

After a while, the speech faded into the background. He gazed intensely at the woman, at the chestnut hair swaying over the sapphire eyes, with almost voyeur fascination. His eyes stopped blinking and focused in on the rose lips moving. For a moment he thought he saw the lips pronounce: " _Ubey menya_... _Ubey menya..._ "

"... Saul."

He roused back with a jolt.

The girl suddenly appeared. When she saw that she had startled him, her face drooped and she bashfully stepped back.

"Ah – s-sorry."

He sighed a half-relieved sigh.

"Are you tired?"

"Oh. Hmm..." the little face started up. "N-no," she stuttered, "not yet."

She lingered, looking down at the floor.

He'd noted that she had a peculiar habit of shuffling one foot over the other whenever she wanted to ask for something. He shifted his weight in his seat.

As soon as he made the slightest move, the girl seemed to take it as permission to scuttle forward without warning, then hop onto the sofa and huddle up beside him before he could say a word.

He recoiled in panic and looked down at the little head on his lap as one would after spilling a hot beverage over oneself.

There was a long and anxious silence.

Once the initial shock subsided, he assessed his passions and, much his surprise, found that they were tempered. His hand slowly lowered and settled over her.

As soon as his fingers made the slightest contact, the girl reached back over her shoulder and blanketed herself with his arm, and the warm little hands gripped tightly, imbibing the affection out of him and her little breaths shivered with a reprieve of affection.

After a very cautious while, he tried to turn his attention back to the broadcast. Every so often the girl would cuddle up just a little closer and eased into the interaction until her fingers gently laced with his. About a minute later, the silvery voice called his name:

"Saul..."

He peered down.

"Saul, who's that?"

He looked back up at the screen. The media report had since shifted to a zoomed-out view of the Council Assembly House: the crest of the UMC hanging over the image of more than a thousand councillors seated amphitheatrically.

"Who?" he asked.

The girl let go of his hand and pointed an indicating finger.

"Him," she said.

He followed the line of the girl's finger, not to the image on the holoscreen, but a book, sitting on the table in front of them. The open pages were yellow with age and they showed a picture of a brawny man rolling a boulder up a steep hill.

"Him?" he asked, leaning forward and taking the book.

The girl sat up and peered over his arm at the open page.

"Who is he?" she asked

"His name is Sisyphus."

The bright, curious eyes looked up.

"Who's Siphisusus?"

A vague smile fissured on the sides of his mouth.

" _Sisyphus_... was a king."

"Why is he pushing the ball?"

He paused to consider how to explain the story.

"Sisyphus did many bad things," he said. "He... killed, betrayed and deceived many people. So, the gods punished him."

"What did they do to him?" the girl asked, her voice timid.

"The gods ordered Sisyphus to raise a large rock to the top of a mountain. But, every day, just before he would reach the top of the mountain, the rock would fall back down to the bottom, and Sisyphus would have to start all over again, and again, and again..."

"For how long?"

"Forever."

"For _ever_ ever?"

"Yes."

The girl looked back at the man in the picture, eyes wide and wistful. After a brief silence, she opened her mouth to speak, but only barely managed to squeeze out the first syllable before she broke into a wide-mouthed yawn. She coughed a hoarse cough and rubbed her drooping eyes. She had fallen slightly ill during the last week.

"I think it is time you slept, little one."

"OK..."

He stood up lowered her gently to the floor.

"Saul..." The girl looked down at her shuffling feet. "I... I don't like to stay alone at night," she said, her voice brittle, eyes forlorn.

He gazed at her silently.

"I... used to sleep with Mummy and Daddy." The celestial orbs shot up with an intense stare and he flinched and looked away. "Where do you think they are?"

"I... do not know," he said.

The wave of unfathomable dread rushed over him again. When he tried to look back up at her, he recoiled as though her eyes were suns. "Is it OK to leave the light on?" she asked. "...Saul?"

"The flame should give enough light," he muttered.

Then, just as he was about to turn away, the girl stepped forward and put her arms around him.

His eyes flared and his limbs went rigid as rigor mortis. His breaths became a quivering hyperventilation. He withdrew from her embrace and gently held her an arm's length away, his hand shaking over her as he receded from her stare.

"Do not... do that," his voice shook.

The little face wilted.

"OK," she whispered.

Without a word further, the girl climbed onto the sofa and curled up, burying her head into the bedding. He heard the sniffles peppering her quiet sobs as he walked away.

He staggered into his room, stopping himself on the brink against the door frame. His brow leaked sweat and the heat poured from him, congealing him from the inside out. He besought the morass of disembodied voices swirling and railing in his mind to stop, exhaling agitated nothings between breaths, stumbling out to the middle of the room under the beams of light from the full moon. he ran his hands over his soaking brow and when he looked down, the moonlight shone crimson over his open palms.

He bowed forward, hands on the edge of the wash-basin and lifted his hung head up to the mirror, gazing into the bloodshot eyes. The slider over the drug shelf slid back and the black neural canister sat in the middle, their procurement having been a mere formality to avert suspicion from the Commission. Now, his desperately shuddering hand reached out for the canister. His fingers fumbled when the lid came off. The silver tablets spilled all over the basin counter, the floor and down the drain and he grabbed a handful from the counter and a rigid fist shook with restraint.

_No!_ He flung them aside with a growl, pried off his clothes and stepped under the running water.

The blood would not wash off.

"Go away..." he started to mutter over and over, staring at his own quaking, curled fingers. An ache rose from deep inside his chest and locked painfully onto his throat. Visions started to flit through his mind's eye: Nova Crimea, the writhing eyes of the dying woman – the sapphire eyes. The screams of the nightmares assailed him in unison, and all of it seemed to come full circle... back to the girl.

He formed a tight, drenched fist and beat it against the wall. Again. And again. With each bang of his fist, the tares on his knuckles opened, until his hand settled against the wall with a final bang, and his fingers quivered loose.

A stream of blood seeped from the bashed knuckles and streaked the shower wall, mingling with the water, and when he regarded his trembling hands again, the blood was washing off. The pain gave him relief sweeter than any pleasure and his mind was momentarily clearer.

A name surfaced in his thoughts:

"Vincent," he mouthed.

That name...

"Vincent."

Where had he heard it before?

"Vincent..."

Nothing.

The water stopped running.

The gauze soaked red with blood from his ruined fist. His knuckles crunched. He laid down on the bed, gauze ends loose and unwinding underneath him and his eyes narrowed with each blink until they shut...

Just as he felt sleep about take him, his eyes opened again.

The rush of dread now transitioned to vexation, and then, incomparable fury. The longer he obsessed, the deeper the lines in his scowl furrowed: insomniac eyes bulging like squids. And all the furious obsession converged on the girl.

The girl...

Unyielding torment _;_ the only reward for a spared life.

Nova Crimea...

The screams of the falling dead railed at him. Was perdition the only recompense of righteousness? Malachi was right. Pope was right. There is _only_ martial order. Sanity is the foundation of order. Anything that threatened either was the enemy. The girl was the enemy.

"Enemy," he mouthed.

He slowly rose from his bed and plodded like a sleepwalker across the room to the open door, over the threshold, into the elongated corridor. Delirious with fury, he crutched his way along the corridor walls, his withered hand hanging at his side. The space around him swirled in a tunneling vortex which narrowed right until he reached the end of the corridor and turned the corner.

There she was, sleeping. Presently, all the rawness of heart hardened away. All feeling muted. Even the pain of the shattered hand dissolved into the narrow horizons of a sole, lethal scope. The edge of the blade was cold against his back as it drew and shook in his grip. He lurked, step by slow step, looming over the little frame, lying on its side.

The blanket slipped off. The serenity of her countenance scorned him.

Gently brushing the hair from over the slim neck, careful not to wake her, he put his still and open hand over her eyes. The eyes always flare open at the verge, he thought, like a last attempt to torment the soul from the beyond. Not this time.

He felt the warm breath against the palm of his hand just before he pressed down. She was in a deep, deep sleep.

Never wake again.

The blade rose over his head, glinting in the light of the moon, and fell like a lightning bolt. He felt the head jerk and a short, sharp shriek just as the tip of the blade tore through, broke through bone, and as the blood sprayed from the fissure and blotted the dream red...

Saul woke.

He shot up, erect, gasping for air, running his palms over his face in a waking fit to wipe the blood away, then stopped, gawking at the fading visions. His face sustained the trembling gape for about a minute before he brought his legs over the side of the bed and leaned forward, convulsing with terror. The sweat dripped off his forehead.

"... Saul."

His head lurched.

A small moonlit silhouette stood at the open door, swathed in a mantle.

Naomi jolted backward with a start, then whimpered and retreated.

"S-sorry. I heard noises..."

"No," he pleaded with an outstretched hand. "Do not go." The hand remained extended, as though summoning her back to life, then slowly lowered and palmed his head. She was alive. _Alive..._ The word repeated in his mind like a mantra, quelling him. He hid his eyes from her.

"I can't sleep," she said

His head rose again and his eyes pierced her with their gaze

"Come," he said, silently. "Come here, now."

The girl slowly wobbled toward him, dragging the long mantle on the floor behind her. As soon as she came within his reach, he reached out and pulled her toward him.

He held her in a shuddering embrace, and the whispers shuddered from him: "Forgive me ," he said. The lone tear stung; the first he could remember, and he held her in his arms as if his life depended on her touch.

"Can I stay with you?"

"Yes," he answered with a rapid nod. "Yes."

His arms loosened from around her.

Naomi climbed into the bed, crawled up and huddled up beside him.

He put his arm over her and the little fingers grasped his hand and squeezed. She coughed three times.

"Are you alright?"

"Yeah," she sniffled. "I'm fine."

She shifted around in the little alcove between him and the mattress. He waited until she fell asleep before he shut his eyes as well. Fear of being plunged into the same place from whence he had woken kept him awake long into the night. And right up until the moment sleep took him, a single thought – a single name – recurred:

Vincent...

Vincent...

### C. 5: Day 587

It was, purportedly, a late spring evening in the martial capital of the UMC First Region, and the transitional bloom over the timbered valleys and steep hills far beyond the limits of Sodom was far more discernible from the upper-echelons of the Milidome. The maroon twilight of late sunset settled over the crescent horizon. Day by day, the metropolis inched its way into the wild land, presaging the expansion of martial order.

Doctor Pope spent much of his time between engagements gazing out toward the city limits, conjecturing with concealed fervour. The sun now sunk deep beneath the skyline, and the view of the world was sifted through his own spectral reflection in the glazed wall, and the photochromic hue of the round-lensed pince-nez. The office behind him was a backdrop of white from wall to wall and the bleached light ignited the flame of turquoise in the unblinking eyes.

An AI voice sounded:

"Doctor."

The neutralist lifted his gaze.

"Miss Robinson..."

"Visitor13 is at the door."

"Of course." The neuralist pushed the pince-nez back over his eyes. "Show him in, please."

The office doors opened like a black hole. Someone noiselessly stepped in. When the doors closed again, the white backdrop revealed a figure dressed in black.

"Thank you for seeing me on short notice," greeted Commissioner Eastman.

Pope turned. There was the usual deliberate silence which preceded his words.

"The day's been quiet," he said. "They are becoming progressively more so."

"That's good," said Eastman.

"Indeed... Have a seat."

Eastman came forward and set his black briefcase on the floor by the desk before taking his seat. The neuralist sat across from him. He took out a black neural canister from the inner breast pocket of his suit and set it on the desk. "A little more anxiety than usual," he said. "The intercourse is not quite what it used to be either. I think it may be time for an adjustment."

Pope held the canister up and examined the label on the front. "How long has it been since your last?" he asked.

"Exactly one kiloday and two hundred and forty to the day."

"A while then," the neutralist nodded. "We've made progress since then. You will find yourself pleasantly surprised."

"I look forward to it." The contrived simper cracked across Eastman's dead visage.

"We'll schedule an appointment for a full synaptic evaluation, along with a few other tests. Your prescription will be altered accordingly. Four days from today?"

"Good."

"Good," droned the neutralist. "Miss Robinson, kindly take note."

"Yes, Doctor."

With those words, the appointment was finalised. Eastman, however, remained seated. For a while the two men were the silent effigies of austerity.

"There is... something else," Pope surmised, after the long silence.

"Something I feel you should know."

"Concerning?"

"Well, as you well know, I am not supposed to say. However, since the martial in question is your patient as well as my client, I suppose we might say that one vow of silence abrogates the other, might we not?"

In the solemn pause that followed, a _Mona Lisa_ smile materialised on Pope's face and the cobalt eyes glinted.

"Saul Vartanian..."

Eastman slowly nodded and the silence continued.

Pope's arms glided off the top of his desk. He took out two glasses and set them on the table. Out came a crystal bottle. Two measures of ambrosia trickled into each glass. Pope waited for Eastman to lean forward and raise his glass before he raised his own and drank.

"How long has it been since you've seen him?" asked Eastman.

"The Nova Crimea incident," Pope replied. "He almost lost his life. Ashamed as I am to say it, there is a part of me that's disappointed he did not. His case has begun to weigh on me – I'm sure you feel it too."

"Yes."

"He is a martial of the highest caste. The longer his... condition... persists, the worse it reflects on us. And our predicament is not helped by the fact that the man simply refuses to die."

Eastman smiled and sipped his drink. The Adam's apple undulated under the creaseless membrane of his skin. "It's been more than two hundred days since Nova Crimea," he said. "You haven't heard from him since?"

"He did send someone to pick up a prescription some time ago," said Pope. "He had left a message. But, other than that, I have not, no."

Eastman finished off his drink and slowly set the glass on the table.

"Who did he send for his prescription?" he inclined toward Pope as he asked the question, causing a flicker of intrigue to surface in the ice-blue orbs.

"... Miss Robinson."

"Yes, Doctor?"

"Please retrieve our most recent correspondence from subject Saul Vartanian, Ares; First Tier."

"Certainly, Doctor."

There was a pause as the request was carried out.

"Was there anyone else mentioned in the memo?" asked Pope.

Seconds later, the AI responded:

"There was one other person, Doctor."

"The name?"

"...Martial Celyn Knight. Caste – Elite; Second Tier."

Eastman inclined his head and leaned back in his seat.

"I thought as much."

"The name rings familiar."

"She was the one who saved his life," said Eastman, sipping the ambrosia from his glass.

"Ah," Pope whirred. "I remember now." The enigmatic smile became more pronounced. "Yes... of course." He took the crystal bottle of ambrosia and topped off Eastman's glass as soon as it touched the table. "Cohabitation?"

Eastman shook his head. "Not exactly," he said. "It is all very strange."

"How so?"

"For one, he has not set foot outside his home since he returned from his last assignment."

Pope considered the point.

"Peculiar," he said. "Not extraordinary."

"It gets more peculiar," said Eastman. "I personally searched the Surveillance Database, with the supervision of the Guard. We traced Martial Knight's movements around the metropolis over the last sixty days. Every tenth day, without fail, she leaves her home on the north end of Durkheim, between 0800 and 0900. She makes a pickup on Republic Alley off Nozick Prospect in Durkheim Sky City, then proceeds to deliver whatever it is she's carrying to Vartanian's home in Haven District. She never remains there for more than a few minutes. As far as we can tell, she does not even enter the house. The delivery is never planned in advance. The only relevant correspondence we found on the Nexus was one rather indeterminate message sent from him to her precisely one hundred and seventeen days ago."

Pope looked to be absorbing every detail of the account, computing a hypothesis.

Eastman continued: "She makes her pickup from a dreg mess run by a non-martial ex-patriot by the name of Duke Maclean."

"Dreg mess?"

"Yes," Eastman replied with a vague nod. "They are food aid dispensaries, unsanctioned by us. They generally receive funding from the civil world."

The advent of a sneer surfaced on Pope's stony countenance.

"Altruism..." he muttered contemptuously.

"I also checked Maclean's record with martial customs and came across a number of highly unusual items consigned to him within the last one hundred days."

"Such as?"

"Five fully clothed mannequins for children's wear."

There was a brief pause.

"Perhaps Mister Maclean has some peculiar sexual interests..."

"Did you hear anything about Vartanian's last assignment," asked Eastman, "in Dolinovka?"

"I understand it was quite a ruthless success."

"It was... But, did you hear anything else?"

Silence.

"What happened?" asked Pope. The cobalt eyes narrowed ever so slightly.

Moments later, Eastman leaned over the side of his chair and took out a black file from his briefcase. The insignia of the Vanguard Branch was on the front.

"He brought something back with him."

He handed the file to Pope, who opened it and removed the bound contents. The front page of the document was marked in bold: "DEBRIEFING", and below it were all the other details of the assignment in Dolinovka, Kamchatka.

"Third page before the last," Eastman instructed.

The neuralist skimmed through the early and middle pages of the file nonetheless. A number of minutes passed before he reached the third page from the last, an annexed report from the infirmary in Fort Gen, Kamchatka. His reading became more meticulous as the eyes flitted from side to side, then up and down the first page of the infirmary report, then the second. After a while, the pages dropped from Pope's hands and the solemn visage rose.

"A child."

Eastman slowly nodded again. "He overdosed on neurals shortly after he brought her in. He remembers nothing of the mission. It is not clear he remembers anything of the preceding days either."

"Overdose combined with post-traumatic denial," Pope diagnosed rapidly. "Common among defectors... What did they do with the civilian?"

"I don't know. I imagine she was transferred to the D.P camp in same area."

"Curious..." Pope muttered, nodding. " _Very_ curious."

"There's more."

Pope laid the debriefing document down and refilled the two glasses again.

"Go on."

"We checked his web history on the Nexus," Eastman continued. "Vartanian has accessed the network a number of times in the last one hundred and twenty-seven days – every time with the same entry. He was searching the martial database," The effeminate took a sombre dip. "He is looking for someone."

Pope sipped his drink and hummed contemplatively.

"Who?" he asked.

Eastman did not answer, and, in the silence of his omission, the answer was implied. Just as Pope was about to raise the glass to his lips, he froze. His gaze became as bleak as fog and the glass slowly lowered again.

"Vincent Caine..." he murmured in awe.

The two men remained staring at one another. A minute later, Pope rose from his chair and gave Eastman his back, setting his sights out, over the astronomical vista beyond the glazed walls of his office. The dusk had since ripened to a thick blackness.

"Has this ever happened before?"

"No," said Pope, the verve in his eyes renewed.

"How could he know?"

"I don't know." Pope crossed his arms at his back, took a deep breath and an elusive grin surfaced with the exhale. A moment later, he turned back.

"What do we do?" Eastman asked.

Pope remained silent.

"I don't know if you are aware," the commissioner added, "but you should be receiving a mandatory visit from him sometime soon. A minimum of one appointment every one hundred days – those were the terms of settlement agreed with the court after Nova Crimea."

"I remember."

Pope took the crystal bottle once again, keeping one arm crossed at his back as he did so. He topped both glasses, drank and examined his empty glass thoughtfully as he spoke: "Whatever he does will make no difference. One way or the other, this will be Vartanian's last cycle. That much is almost certain. We must allow it to run its course."

"And until then?"

Pope set the glass back down on the table. "We do what we always do," he said: "As little as possible... and, above all; remain silent."

Eastman took up the glass and downed the drink.

"Understood," he said.

He then took his black case and stood up, leaving the debriefing file on the desk.

"I'll see you in four days, Doctor."

The doors parted and the commissioner was gone.

Pope gazed back at the view over the city. His sights found the faraway district of Haven.

### C. 5: Day 588

The water stopped flowing.

Saul opened his eyes. The last drops trickled from his fingers and loins. The calluses on his hands had eroded over the last four months and his palms were like wet and dry sandpaper against the orbitals. A smog rose from his shoulders as he stepped up to the basin. He set the razor to a short trim and brought his face up to the mirror.

His complexion had shed some of its former roughness and gloom, and the scars faded into the paling flesh. His hair had lengthened and snarled into an unruly mane which fell past his shoulders. The yellow stains on his fingertips, the dark circles under his eyes and the thin blood-swollen lines in the whites of the eyes had ebbed. He put the razor down, stroked his chin, took a deep breath and fogged the mirror with the exhale.

A tray full of cigarette butts sat on the desktop by the computer monitor, a steady line of smoke rising. The main page of Nexus Database flashed over the screen: a complete record of every single martial in the UMC – anybody who was still alive, at least. Without successors or dependents, there was little reason to keep records of the dead. Access to the database was accorded to high-caste martials for the purpose of sourcing viable recruits for war guilds. He had become obsessed with the pursuit of a shadow, the name of the man who "no longer exists" (The words gnawed at his thoughts). But, that name...

He picked up the pack of cigarettes lying on the desk and opened it. Empty. Again. He compressed the cigarette pack in a fist and threw it aside.

The sound of the big screen obscured his footsteps down the dark corridor. When he turned the corner, a shortened curtain of strawberry blond hair parted over a pair of bright, smiling eyes.

Naomi was kneeling over the low table, more than a dozen sheets of unfinished sketches littering the floors about her, loose crayons and acrylics strewn all over the table-top. A pair of oversized dungarees hung over her little frame so that one of the straps kept slipping off her shoulder. Her hair had been cut to just under neck length. When she drew, she leaned all the way forward so that her little head rested on her drawing arm and the large, bright eyes rose vertically when he came beside her.

"Look," she said, and leaned back, removing her hands from the table. "You like it...? Lions are my favourite." The little head tilted back again, surveying the mess of hair around his head with a wide grin and she twittered, pawing the tangled locks.

He put his large hand over the little crown and the wide grin suddenly became an impish giggle. He stared silently into the wide, elated eyes until her laughter quelled.

He sighed, and looked away. "Hungry?"

The little head bobbled up and down.

Naomi scampered over to the kitchen and climbed up onto her chair.

He opened the door of the freight chute and took out the day's provisions and the light went red when the door closed. There was a pan full of rice on the stove which had been over-boiled to a pile of stodge mixed with fava beans and chicken stock. He thought to add a new dimension to her diet aside from the usual pre-packaged and dehydrated meals.

He scooped up a measure and swilled it onto a plate in a runny gelatinous lump and, rather awkwardly, set the plate down on the table. Naomi stood upon her seat to surmount the table-top, holding a spoon in her small fist. She scooped the stodge into her mouth, and smiled at him as she chewed open-mouthed.

"Is it...?"

"Good." The little head nodded.

It could just as well have been inedible.

There was a pack of cigarettes on the table. He saw her eyes follow his hand nervously as he reached out and opened the pack.

Empty.

When he peered up, Naomi quickly looked away.

"I know you have been taking them," he said, as he peeled the cellophane off a fresh pack.

The girl swallowed her food with a nervous gulp, pursed her lips and started to poke away ashamedly at her plate.

"I hope you have not been trying to..."

The little head rose, startled. "N-no!" she swore.

He put a cigarette between his lips, took the lighter off the table. A jet of blue flame lit the cherry and the smoke seeped out the sides of his mouth.

Naomi quietly looked down and poked the spoon around in her plate.

"...Daddy used to do it too," she said, suddenly

He stopped when he saw the little expression droop to dejection. He gazed at her, the cigarette smouldering between his fingers.

"He used to do it a lot," she continued, quietly. "But, one day, he didn't do it anymore. Mommy says it's bad for me... says it makes me sick."

The small voice and look of dejection that accompanied her words bled his heart. He was about to speak when a pulsing blue glow caught his attention from the corner of his eye. His cell started to ring. A quick look at the chronometer on the wall, and the four-digit number was 2030.

He pulled the tray up between himself and the girl, put the cigarette out and pushed the tray aside again. He then rose from his chair and laid a gentle hand on her head as he sauntered over to the kitchen counter and picked up the cell.

The words "New Mail" flashed along the middle of the cell display. It was a commission memo. His finger swiped the "Open" key on the screen.

The memo read:

Martial Saul Vartanian

ID: 000-717-166-45-45-11-150888

Case Reference: 15-675-46

UMC Martial Court Notice

Neural Program – Mandatory Appointment

Dr. Augustus Pope: Room 245-01, Milidome, West Wing, Durkheim.

D-7 H-0930

Failure to report to your neutralist for evaluation at the appointed time and place will result in full screening, possible caste reduction and a fine of up to Di.100,000, as per terms of settlement (please refer to case reference above).

His heart sank.

He re-read the memo twice more to see if he had understood correctly. A court-ordered appointment with Pope... The string of letters and numbers in the middle of the memo – "D7 H0930" – intimated that the court-ordered meeting was seven days from the day, at 0930.

Naomi coughed, diverting his attention.

He lowered his cell.

She coughed again, then again with increase.

"You are sick," he said. "Again?"

She finished coughing and wiped the rice and spittle off her mouth.

"No," she sniffed, "I'm OK."

Her skin was not the same sun-kissed hue it once was.

He tucked the cell away, removed the smoking tray from the counter and doused the smoldering tobacco with water from the tap. Resolving to deal with the memo later, he scooped a portion of the quasi-edible glop and sat.

Naomi stared at the front door as she twirled around the contents of her plate.

"She will be here soon," he assured.

Naomi tore her eyes away from the door and scooped up another spoonful and ate.

"Saul," she spoke, after a brief silence. "Celyn never comes in."

He sighed.

"I know."

"Why not?"

"It is... difficult, little one."

She looked away with a sad frown.

"Is it because of me?"

"Something like that," he said.

"I don't think she likes me."

"No... I think she does."

The conversation briefly ended.

A minute later, Naomi called again:

"Saul... Do _you_ like Celyn?"

He was about to raise the fork to his mouth, but stopped with his mouth open. The question ran with his thoughts. He looked up at her.

The impish grin had returned to her face.

"You are asking many questions today, little one," he said, with an ironic smile.

Naomi inclined and took another spoonful of her food.

"You know what Mommy says you should do when you like someone?" she asked, and, in the wake of his silence, proceeded to answer her own question. "She says you should give them something. She says you should give them something special – something that they'll like. You should give Celyn something that _she'll_ like."

He humoured her.

"Like what?"

The handle of the spoon chinked against the side of her plate and the little face pouted thoughtfully.

"Hmm... Oh! I know!"

The little blonde head suddenly disappeared behind the edge of the table. Naomi climbed down off her seat and tottered over to his side with both her hands behind her neck, and there was a jingling noise as she came forward with her hands behind her neck, drawing the necklace from under her collar.

"Here," she said, holding up her small fist.

He watched the large gold pendant swing by the silver chain.

"Take it." She tugged on his arm until he gave in to her small force. "I want you to have it." Her little hands pried open his fingers and put the necklace in his open palm.

"This is precious to you," he said.

"I know," she said. "But _I_ like _you_...see?"

There was a tingle of warmth when the little hands closed his fingers around the pendant.

"... I see," he said.

"It opens up. Look." She took the necklace again and the pendant was a big lump in her hands, then she turned the pendant over and started to fiddle with it. "You just push this, here..." she murmured, "aaannd... there!"

There was a short, sharp click. The pendant divided and opened.

He took the open locket. Inside, there was a picture of a man and woman.

"Are these..."

The smiling little head nodded.

"Mom and Dad."

He wiped the dirt off the glass glazing and studied the picture closely. The man in the picture was dark with a ruggedness softened by a gentle smile. He bore the aspect of one who had seen war, and might well have been a soldier... but not a martial. He could not have been a martial. At his right stood a beautiful woman, with platinum white hair and eyes like blue gems. He saw in both of their eyes that same spirit borne by their daughter: as plain and as blinding as suns. And he felt peculiarly acquainted with them, though he did not know them.

"I miss Mom and Dad..."

He regarded the girl, and the teary shimmer in her eyes. He closed the locket in a gentle fist.

"I cannot take this from you," he said.

At that moment, the bell at the front door chimed.

Naomi straightened with excitement and made for the door at once.

He took one last look at the locket, sighed and tucked it in his pocket.

"Ask her to come inside!" begged Naomi as he approached the front door.

He hushed her and stood in front of her as he pulled the door open.

"D _éjà_ vu."

Celyn stood outside the door, a full haversack hanging by her hand, over the back of her shoulder. She flung the bag at his chest before he could greet her, half-winding him.

"Hi Celyn!"

"Quiet," he hushed as soon as the little blonde head peeped out from behind the door. "Someone will hear you."

"Saul, give it to her!"

The stifled voice kept insisting from behind as he held her back.

"Your man ran out of smokes," said Celyn. "He says he'll have more next week."

He opened the bag and checked the contents.

"It is alright," he replied.

He remained in the entrance, gazing back at her – at the long, thin ropes of hair, bound up and falling over her breasts, which swelled over the crossed arms, and the emerald glow of her eyes, and the caramel lips, and the thin battle-scars peeping out through the bare skin. The jasmine smell loosened him like an opiate.

" _Is_ everything alright?" said Celyn with a dubious air.

He opened his mouth to answer, but before he could, the door opened and the little blonde head popped out again.

"We're having dinner wan'a come in?"

The abrupt question was rapid, catching both of them unaware. Naomi tottered over the threshold before he could stop her and stepped up to Celyn, who looked back down, subdued by two large, pleading, upturned eyes.

"Saul, can Celyn stay?"

He looked from the girl to Celyn and back. "Ah..." he hummed and dug his fingers nervously into the hair on the back of his neck. "Only if she wants..."

"No," Celyn blurted immediately, eyes flashing.

"Celyn?" Naomi came nearer to her and tilted her head all the way back. The pleading eyes looked up again. "Please..."

Like a rapt bird, Celyn's head tipped to one side. He saw a curious smile tremble on the corners of her mouth. The girl grabbed hold of her fingertips and the next moment, Celyn sauntered right past him and over the brink

He shut the door and came near them, silently observing.

Naomi scampered back into the kitchen, climbed back up onto her seat and stuffed another spoonful of starchy rice in her mouth. Meanwhile, Celyn stood in the middle of the room, quiet as a misplaced soul, and her eyes would not yield from the girl. She appeared diminished, seized by some paralysing force roused by her touch.

As soon as he sat down, Naomi dropped her spoon into her plate and climbed off her seat. "I'm full," she announced suddenly, then scuttled off to the living area before either of them could say a word.

He watched Celyn follow her with mesmerised eyes, and then, seeming to feel his stare, she looked away and nervously cleared her throat.

"You can sit," he said, after a long pause.

It was awhile before she did.

He scooped a portion of rice onto a plate and set it before her before it could occur to him that he might have been better off not giving her anything. She studied the contents of the plate dubiously before taking a fork and putting four grains of rice in her mouth, chewing through a suppressed grimace.

"So," he began, slightly discomfited, "any news from the outside?"

She was slow with her answer. "Not much," she said, and ate, and paused. "I heard the Scythe disbanded a few days ago"

"How come?"

"Not sure. I heard, through the grapevine, that they bit off more than they could chew with their last contract – some peacekeeping operation in Niger... _Peacekeeping_ ," she snorted.

"You were not with them?" he asked.

"No."

He peered up at her as he continued to feign eating.

"When was your last assignment..."

"How about we change the subject?" Celyn replied sharply.

He bit his tongue, but her evasiveness revealed much. It was strange to hear of goings-on in the war world again after what seemed like so long.

"Well, I would ask what's new with _you_. Considering you haven't stepped out of the house in a long damn time, I'm guessing there's not much to tell."

He stopped suddenly and was momentarily silent. "Actually, there is something," he said.

Celyn raised a pair glowering eyes.

"It better not be another favour..."

"Ah – no," he replied quickly.

Celyn looked up, the fork grazed her teeth as she inclined her head with a frown.

He settled the fork on the table and delayed, debating with himself the best way to say what he wanted to say.

"Do you remember what I had told you," he began slowly, "about what happened in Kamchatka?"

Celyn nodded slowly.

"Something else happened," he said. "Something I did not tell you, probably because it had not weighed on me so much at the time. But now..."

"What is it?"

Silence.

"I had this... dream," he begun awkwardly. "At least, I thought it was a dream."

"What do you mean?" she asked.

Another long silence.

"I am sure it was a memory."

Celyn looked back at him, poking the bits of food on the insides of her cheeks, apparently unmoved.

"I do not know of what or where or when," he continued, "but I am sure that it was before they cleaned me."

"That's impossible."

"That is what I thought. But, I know it was not a dream."

Celyn sighed and picked up her fork again. "You had half a cylinder of neurals in your system," she said. "It was probably a hallucination."

"I know I have heard the name before," he muttered.

"What name?" Celyn looked back up with renewed interest.

Confronted with someone else's questions, and thus compelled to relate things out loud, the whole thing suddenly seemed absurd.

"Vincent," he answered.

"...Vincent," Celyn repeated with a slow, perplexed nod.

"Look," he started, "when the Commission clean you, they..."

"What are you doing?" she interrupted, shaking her head at him with a squint.

There was silence between them again. He did not know what she meant by the question.

After a while, Celyn straightened up with a sigh. "Alright," she said, starting anew. "Suppose it really was a memory – which it probably wasn't; why do you care? Ask yourself; what difference does it make?"

"I need to know."

"No you don't," she said, her eyes suddenly severe.

"I have to know the truth."

"The truth..." Celyn shook her head at the tabletop and started to snicker. "Alright, I'll tell you something you already know," she stated, categorically. "I don't know what you saw and I don't care. But if you keep going down this road and you're not long for this world. That's as true as anything you'll ever know."

He sensed a darker experience between the lines of her words.

"What am I supposed to do?" he said.

"Never underestimate the survival value of smoke and mirrors. You don't know what any of it means. Make that your excuse if you have to, but let it go. If you can't do it for yourself, do it for _her_."

Naomi was a short distance behind, in the living area, pretending to draw but really observing what was going on between them. Celyn was right, of course. She was more important than anything else. But, still, that fingernail grinding at his soul would not allay.

He nodded vaguely, not so much to concede as to terminate the discussion.

Silence befell them again.

"She adores you, you know," he said.

Celyn looked up again. "What?"

"Naomi... she is very fond of you."

Celyn peered over her shoulder and Naomi quickly turned away.

"You don't say..."

"She asked me to make her hair like yours."

Celyn raised her eyebrows at him and took a second look at the girl, noting her recent haircut.

"Please tell me you didn't try."

"It did not go well... I had to cut it off."

She snorted a suppressed laugh, then gave in and started to chuckle. It was the first time he heard her laugh. It was the first time they laughed together. He eased into the strangeness of the interaction. After a while, the laughter died down and there was quiet again. This time, Celyn was the one who broke the silence:

"So, what does she do all day, anyway?"

"Art mostly," he said. "She loves to draw."

"What does she draw?"

"Animals."

"Animals, huh?"

"Always animals."

"Good place to start."

He paused and looked up.

"You draw?" he asked

"I _can_ ," she replied, matter-of-factly. "Is that a problem?"

"Not exactly essential for martial proficiency."

"Neither is cooking, but it wouldn't hurt if you worked on it a little"

The conversation rested once again.

"You can't keep her locked in here forever," said Celyn.

He didn't answer. This time the silence went uninterrupted.

After a while he looked up as Naomi caught his attention over Celyn' shoulder. She appeared to be mouthing something – something that he could not quite discern from the small, vague lips. But from the way she was drawing her fingers around her neck and down to her chest, he construed her message.

He reached into his pocket with a diffident sigh.

"I... have something for you," he said, hesitantly.

Celyn looked up and saw the golden locket hanging by the silver chain in his fist. Her eyes refocused from the locket to his eyes.

"She gave it to me," he said. "I want to give it to you."

Her eyes narrowed.

"...Why?"

"To thank you," he replied. "For taking care of us."

The gold locket swayed from side to side, and after what seemed an age, Celyn's hand slowly extended forward, as though she were reaching for a flame. She held the locket and examined it, running her fingers along the chain.

"How do you..."

"Ah... here," he said, rising from his seat.

He gently took the necklace, let the chain hang in his fingers and felt for the clasp. He unhooked it and the chain separated.

She tensely drew the hair from over the back of her neck and leaned forward.

He brought his arms around her. A quiver of warmth rippled through him when his hands brushed against the arch of her shoulder like. For an instant, he lapsed back into that Russian wilderness conjured in his dreams, and that same yearning seized him right until the moment the clasp clicked and his hands glided over her collar.

The gold pendant hung right over the cleft of her breasts. He followed the line of her chest up to the two glowing eyes, and the black holes in the gemstone eyes dilated when their gazes met, sparking a vigour which started to blaze, but was doused instantly...

"Celyn."

A twittering voice stole upon them. Naomi was standing at Celyn's side, her large eyes turned up in the same pleading manner as before.

"Will you draw with me?"

She held up a lion drawing in one hand and a handful of crayons in the other.

Celyn seemed to look to him for approval – or disapproval. Whatever it was her vaguely despairing eyes sought from him, he tendered it with a silent nod.

She stood up from her seat and he watched her led her by the fingertips in a kind of hypnosis. There was a strange wisdom about the girl's way, something implacable about her beyond their understanding, but the glimmers of which he could now plainly perceive, as he watched her wiles operate like a subtle magic, engrossing Celyn, ironing out the hard lines in her countenance, mellowing the callousness of her voice to honey.

For the succeeding hour or so, Saul kept to his seat at the kitchen table and occupied himself with a book and a glass of blended malt, which he intermittently topped up. The text was old and in Russian. A single line caught his eye on the bottom of the middle page, one which he kept coming back to over and over:

"One can fall in love and still hate." He mouthed the line to himself over and over, shooting glances over the book.

Before long, the darkness was layered thick upon the night sky.

A UMC report muttered something about "new uprisings in the twilight of Russian Winter."

Russian Winter...

He recalled the phrase from a while ago and glanced over the pages to the big screen, but his attention almost immediately shifted to Naomi, who was closely imitating every stroke of Celyn's pastel against the drawing paper, turning up a bright smile whenever her mildest approval was forthcoming. Not a word was said between them.

After a while, he looked up at the wall. The chronometer showed 2340. He drank the last dribble of whisky and stared once more at the ominous line at the bottom of the page before he dog-eared the leaf, closed the book and stood up from his seat.

The big screen turned off. Celyn stood up on the floor.

"Just a little longer, please," Naomi croaked with fatigue.

"You should sleep now," he said. "You do not sound well."

Naomi rubbed her tired eyes and yawned, coming to her feet, wobbly with fatigue.

"Thanks for staying with us." she said, eyes turned upward.

Celyn looked down at her and smiled vaguely. Then, quite suddenly, as was her way, the girl came toward her, and as soon as the little arms wrapped around her, she hardened up, then melted away again when the embrace was released. The smile instantly vanished from her.

The a flash in the jade-colored eyes which did not escape Saul' s attention. It happened in the inkling of an eye. "I will come soon," said, his eyes fixed sideways on Celyn.

Naomi made her way down the corridor.

He waited a few moments after he heard the bedroom door open... and then close.

She remained still and speechless and her chest was rising and falling.

"I suppose I should thank you too," he said, turning toward her.

She did not answer.

"Are you... alright?" he asked

"Wha-?" she voiced with a start.

"Are you alright?"

"Yes," she nodded. "Yeah – yeah, I'm fine."

The moist film on her crown gleamed in the light. There was a tremble in her breath.

He approached her with caution.

"You know you can stay if you..."

"No," she answered sharply. "No. I should go." She put her coat around her and made straightaway for the front door, taking the empty haversack on her way out.

"Good night," he said.

But the door had already shut.

* * *

Naomi was in a deep sleep, his arm draped over her and the small hands held on to him. He lay awake. The gentle rise and fall of her breath usually moved him to sleep, so that he never slept until she did and always slept when she did. But it had been hours since she had fallen asleep and his mind was still racing.

Vincent...

His lips moved to the name, but no sound issued.

Vincent...

The night sky was star-filled and the great, nocturnal orb was a sparkle blazing white in the blanks of his eyes, sparking something deep within the folds of thought.

His pupils dilated.

... Caine!

The thought sent a surge through him.

"Vincent Caine," he contained the sudden flame whisper.

At once, he slipped his arm loose from Naomi's grip, careful not to wake her, rising from the bed and pulling the cover back over her. He stepped out of the room and his pace quickened down the corridor. "Vincent..." he mumbled obsessively.

The light came on over the shelf behind the glass-enclosed flame where the books he'd accumulated were set in jagged stacks and rows. He looked down the spines of each book and ran his finger down the row until he found it:

"UNITED MARTIAL COVENANT: THE BIRTH OF NEW WORLD ORDER."

The book slipped out of its row and the other books toppled into the space. He opened it and began feverishly flipping through the pages. After page 50, he started skimming through the text.

I know you are here...

Every so often, he would stop on a page, when flashes of familiar words caught his eye, then he'd turn the leaf over again. Finally, he stopped on page 213, where the top of the page read:

" _Chapter 12: A World Divided"_

He ran two fingers over the front of the page as he read, mumbling:

"...Internal division... early years... UMC..."

His finger stopped in the middle of a sentence.

"...Vincent Caine Incident..."

That was it. That was the name.

He carried on reading but nothing of any immediate relevance followed.

His eyes narrowed over the small number '4' right beside the reference and flicked through to the end of the chapter and the found the number on the endnotes. The note at the foot of the page read:

"4. _02/03/53_ – V _incent Caine – Multiple Homicides – Assassination – Sen. John Clarke Jones..."_

All that followed were a series of cross-references to books and cases he had never heard of, and strings of letters he could not begin to decipher.

"Triple homicide... Senator John Clarke Jones..."

Nothing.

Could his obsession have been so misguided? All that because of a meaningless half-inch of small print? Then, the natural assumption followed: It really had been a dream – a conjuring trick of the subconscious. The name must have somehow transposed from memory and the rest was pure imagination. The more he read the name over and over, the more logical it all seemed. And yet the more logical it seemed, the more his intuition rejected it. There was something more – something he was missing...

The doorbell rang.

He jerked round like a startled lion and he stood still until the echoes faded through the hall, at which point he thought he must have imagined it. He looked across toward the kitchen, where he could just make out the numbers "0345" on the chronometer.

About a minute later, the bell chimed again.

The book closed without a sound.

The gleaming edge of a blade, lying on the shelf, caught his eye. He put down the book, taking one last look up the corridor to the bedroom, where Naomi was lying asleep. He turned off the lights, took the blade off the shelf and began a slow, soundless creep down the long path, through the hall toward the front door.

The bell rang again.

It was unlikely a drunken straggler would wander to the top floor of a residential tower on the edges of the inner city. His fist was firm around the blade grip...

When he stopped at the door, the bell rang a third time. The small display on the side of the door lit up at the touch of a button. His sinews unwound. The blade slipped into his sleeve, hidden.

The door opened.

The city lights spilled in through the windows of the outer corridor lighting a silhouette.

"Why are you here?" he asked

There was a long and guarded silence.

"I... don't know," said Celyn, standing in the doorway. Her response was slow and trembling. There was disquiet written all over her: her hands caressed her sides, almost neurotically, and her eyes darted in any direction except his. "I've been... just... walking around the city."

"Since you left?"

Her nod was as a shiver.

"What happened?" he asked, warily. His blood was still simmering, hand still on the blade.

"I don't know," she answered. "I got... lost."

He took a slow, hard look. She did not appear as though she was high on ambrosia or anything else. Then a realisation steadily dawned on him through the silence of the dark. She was lost and she had come. She had come to _him_.

He stepped back and held open the door.

After a long delay, Celyn stepped over the verge. The door noiselessly swung shut.

He filled a glass with scotch, and then took a seat across from her, with the blue flame swaying beside them. He drank and the warm fluid seared his throat. He looked up. Celyn sat rigidly, hands on her knees as though she were prepared to spring up at any moment. Her eyes were gaping and sullen, still anxiously flitting about without direction. The frail light shone sallow over her and the sweat broke over her crown. Her fingers trembled.

"Why have you come?" he asked a third time.

For a while, Celyn did not seem able to speak or move.

Then, suddenly, she raised a lone hand and he followed the lone hand cautiously as it slipped into her coat. When her hand emerged, it wielded the ubiquitous black canister.

She set the neural cylinder down between them.

Saul looked from her to the canister and back twice before picking it up. By the weight, he could tell immediately that it was full and slowly tuned his eyes back up at her again.

"I can't do it," Celyn broke with a barely audible murmur ,"I can't..." and then immediately, she went quiet again. She lowered her head and started to laugh a low, unsteady, possessed laugh that half-sounded like sobbing. When her head rose again, the bright centres of her inflamed eyes whirled in the shallow film of suppressed tears. She clenched her teeth and her mien became suddenly indignant.

He set the canister back on the table and the silence of his glower made it clear that he would not ask her the same question again. Why had she come? If there were even a reason, she appeared to have presently lost all sense of it. She was on the edge. He could sense it. The leap was all there was left.

"We're martials," she whispered. "We kill. We die. We disappear. That's all there is."

"That is all you know."

"That's all we are."

"And as long as you believe that, you will remain their slave."

"We're all born slaves."

"No... I am through being the pawn of the PMCs."

"You don't know..."

"Do not tell me what I know!" His fist rattled the table and sent the glass toppling with a clink and a smash.

The blood built up within him.

"Fear loves power," After a long silence, his voice settled again. "The PMCs profit off fear. Fear is what drives nations to war. Fear is what created the martial world. Martials are the agents of fear," he added, darkly. "As long as the Commission keep us believing that we are flawed machines, the real machine will not stop growing. The real machine is the war economy. And unless the parts defect, there will be no stopping it."

"You _can't_ stop it..." Celyn shook her head resignedly. "No one can stop it."

There was silence again.

"No," he said, sullenly, "perhaps not." He could feel her within his grasp. He would not allow her to slip through his fingers. Not now. "The martial world grows every day, consuming everything in a fire. Soon, that fire will be all that there is. There will be nowhere to run from it."

"It already has us."

"True," he nodded. "I thought that I could escape and I was wrong."

"Then why?" she whispered. "Why are you doing this?"

He gazed at her mutely.

"You would not be here if you did not already know the answer."

Their eyes remained locked; the silence disturbed only by the ripple of the blue flame swaying in the glass vessel. He saw the crazed passion allay in her.

"The girl..."

She looked away.

"I cannot let it take her too," he said. "I will not."

Silence fell again.

He waited for Celyn to speak, but by the frown lines forming above her eyes he could see that she was slipping away from him. It was too much. Too soon.

Celyn quietly stood up.

"Where are you going?"

She didn't answer, but simply took the canister off the table, tucked it back in her coat and turned away.

"Do you even know?" he asked.

Just as she began to walk away, he shot to his feet and seized her by the arm, causing her to stop and turn back with a scowl.

"Do not do this."

"Get – off – me," she snarled and shrugged off his grip.

Seeing her walk for the door, the fire beat up in him again. He could not let her go. He would not. He lunged toward her and made to grab her again, and as soon as his hand made contact, he saw her body turn sharply and that was the last image he glimpsed before the blow struck.

What followed during the succeeding second happened in an unconscious flash of white. When he came to a split-second later, blood was issuing from an opening on his temple and streaming down the side of his face, and onto the hand, clutched around the blade, with the tip of the blade's edge was pressed over Celyn's neck.

His breaths rabid and juddering and their faces were so close, his own feral eyes scowled back through the reflections in hers. The instant before the blade would have torn through the jugular, a thought that flashed through his mind that percolated into him like a chill: He would have sooner killed her than let her go.

He clenched his jaw, stilling the sudden rise in fury. The blade shook in his lowering fist, dropped from his hand and clattered to the floor.

He stood before her, never breaking his gaze. The wave of pain settled. He looked away, disconcerted, as though waking from a trance, palmed the point of the throbbing over his temple and regarded the blood on his hand, then looked up at her again, wanting to say something, nothing left to say.

He clenched a blooded fist and turned away.

The instant he turned, he felt a hand latch around the back of his neck. There was another flash of white and next thing he knew, Celyn's mouth was pressed against his and the rest of her body followed. Their teeth ground under the force of new passion. The visceral mind took hold once again.

He flowed with her rhythm, equalled her force, brought his arm around her, one hand clawed the flesh on the small of her taut back and the other dug into the roots of her hair. He bent her to his will. The blood smeared his face, neck and chest, wherever her hands strayed, and he tasted the blood on his mouth and hers, and tussled with her until the clothes pried off.

They fell together – him upon her – under the firelight, his groin thrust into hers, his body hard for her. When he felt her nails dig into the lines of his back, the sting of it roused him back to consciousness.

He stopped, inclined and stared at the shining eyes, wide with ravenousness, through the dark of his own heaving shadow. The flame danced over them.

A last drop of blood fell from his brow onto hers, blending with his breaking sweat. And when he sobered and noticed that she had stopped too, he saw that he had her exactly where he did not want her – in his power.

Her breasts heaved furiously and he waited for her breath to yield before he yielded with her. Her hands glided softly over the lines of brawn from the base of the abdomen up to his chest, around the bulge of muscle over his neck. She drew him in and he lowered and kissed the blood away.

### C. 5: Day 600

The azure mantle was drawn from the firmament. From the saddle of two great mountains, a sparkle of amber began with the looming sun, and the sparkle ripened to flame, diffusing in rising hues from east to west, from saffron to cerulean. Saul sat on the edge of the bed and watched the early light swell from twilight to dawn until the darkness was cast out of the sky.

There was a gentle shift in the bedding.

He looked over his shoulder just as Celyn turned onto her side with a slumbering groan. The white sheet slipped off the bare, scarred back down to the deep curve of her hip.

Were it not for the rise and fall of the sun, time would have lapsed from existence along with the rest of reality, his soul unchained from earth and flesh, soaring ever higher into new and untold bliss. As he gave himself to her – and she to him –with each rise, fall, thrust and pull, he could feel himself immersing ever deeper from the body to the isolated essence of her, where he found that sensuality ascended to something far removed from what he had previously thought of as mere "intercourse."

Intercourse...

Such a clean, mechanical word: A Commission word.

The red sun breached the line of earth and sky and the morning light beamed in warmly through the glazing. When he felt the bedding shift again, he gently turned, lowered and brought his arm over her. His hand glided up the strong core to the soft breasts and he put his lips lightly against the arch of her neck. A sleeping smile came over her, and the texture of the skin against his lips changed when his kisses strayed to the edge of a scar.

He lifted his head and regarded her back, ran his fingers down the thick lines of scar tissue. Her skin twitched. "What are you doing?" she moaned wearily.

The sides of the scars were dotted with puncture marks. The wounds had been stitched. It was an old form of suturing, and badly done at that.

"These do not look like battle wounds," he said

"No..."

"What happened?"

"I don't know. They've been there as long as I can remember... and longer."

His finger stopped on the base of her back. He lowered again, bringing his lips to her shoulder, then settling his head gently against hers.

"It is different than the first time," he said. "Do you feel it?"

"Yes," she smiled.

"Was it the same... with Malachi?"

"No," she said, turning away. "Eli was... complicated." her smile softened with a sudden forsakenness.

"I did not mean to –"

"It's alright. Really."

She turned over on her back and drew him gently into a kiss, ran her fingers down the dents of muscle to his loins and regarded him. "This has been going on for a while, now," she said. "The Commission will find out sooner or later. It's only a matter of time. When that time comes..."

"It does not matter," he said, shaking his head. "The war is over for us. Let them judge us defected. It makes no difference."

"We're still part of the system. That'll never change."

"We do not need them or their blood money."

"We're dregs," she stated, categorically. "Money runs out. Signets fade. We'll lose everything, including our castes. You already know where that road ends."

"Things are different this time."

"...What about Naomi?"

At this, he went silent...

They were interrupted by a high-pitched hum.

He looked over his shoulder. The cell was ringing on the bedside.

He reached over and sat up, opened his inbox. It was a reminder about the court-ordered appointment. The meeting was in less than two hours in Milidome East Wing. He re-read the address and put the cell down.

"I need another favour," he said.

Celyn rolled over with a tired sigh, rubbed her eyes and squinted through daylight.

"What is it?" she asked

"I have to be in Durkheim in less than two hours."

"How come?"

"It... is a long story." After the brief and uneasy altercation about Malachi, he thought it best not to bring up the subject of Nova Crimea.

"I'll take care of her."

He rose from the bed and got dressed. Celyn was asleep again by the time he left the room.

Naomi's head was bright in the light of the morning as he approached, quietly, and leaned over her, drew the golden hair back over her eyes. She turned over, sniffled, her eyes parted ever so slightly and she murmured, drearily.

"Saul..."

"I must go, little one," he whispered.

"Go... where?"

"I will come back soon,' he said. "I promise."

"Celyn..."

"She is here."

The little head nodded in a daze and she fell asleep again. He drew the cover back, stood and left, keeping his eyes fixed on her until the front door shut behind him.

When he emerged back onto the streets of Sodom, he was overwhelmed by estrangement from the mechanical flow of the metropolis. A whole era had come and gone since he had last walked these streets.

The capsule stopped at Haven Main and the flyovers were teeming with martials making their morning rush for the latest contract. New day, new wars: fresh lives for the harvest. The maglev filled and the chronometer over the platform showed 0833 as the maglev pulled out of Haven Main, northbound to Milidome station: Durkheim. He pressed up against the glazing, looking over the skyline, along the bloodstream of maglev rails and highways, down to the dark streets of the lower city.

Though he had been forced back into the flow of the war economy, he felt light-years away from their world, and the anxiety of it gnawed at him all the way through the voyage, _and_ the 30 minutes he'd spent waiting in the lobby on floor 235 of Milidome, West Wing. When the white-suited receiver at the desk admitted him and lobby doors closed, everything outside was closed off.

The lobby room was windowless, white-walled, and red-carpeted and a sallow light shone from the low ceiling. All the other seats in the lobby were empty and the holoscreen in the middle of the room showed a recurring infomercial from the Commission Neural Section about the wonderful psychosomatic advantages of neural reprogramming; the latest in the Commission's bid to perfect the martial race. His will to perjure himself through the next hour was rendered that much stronger for it.

The volume of the infomercial declined

" _Patient number1_." An AI voice sounded through the lobby. "... _Martial Vartanian_."

He looked up. The doors opposite opened.

"Please proceed."

He lingered a while before he stood up and walked over the final threshold. The ominous grey figure stood at the back of the white-walled office across from the heavy desk, arms crossed at the lower back.

"Thank you, Miss Robinson."

Pope turned as soon as the doors closed. Behind him was a wall of clear blue sky, and the light's glare was filtered through the photochromic glazing so that the morning sun was a smooth red dish over the crescent horizon. "Good morning, Saul," greeted the augur voice in a heavy bass.

He let thoughts of battle deaden him till his blood cooled, then held on to that feeling and reciprocated the cold, blue stare. "Good morning."

"Please, have a seat." A quiet smile appeared on the neuralist's face.

He stepped toward the black desk and the automated chair drew itself back.

"So, how are we these days?" asked Pope, taking his seat across.

"Well," he answered, surely.

"Good to hear." Pope nodded slowly, then reached under his desk and took out a bottle and two glasses appeared on the desk-top. "It is early, but might I tempt you?" The neuralist kept his eyes fixed on him through the opaque lenses as the glasses filled.

He waited a moment before he reached out and took the glass. The ambrosia was warm, smooth and sweet and burst with warm sweetness in the gut.

"Incident?" said the neuralist as his lowering glass clinked against the table.

The hollow eyes gazed at the blackening blemish over his left temple.

"...Intercourse," he replied

The neuralist slowly nodded again and breathed in through his nose. "Jasmine?" he murmured. The dissecting eyes veered down to his hand, around the glass. "I see you have cut down on tobacco."

There was a stalemate silence as Pope took another sip of his drink. Saul sensed a darker purpose looming somewhere behind the hollow eyes. He'd assumed that he had been summoned for evaluation, but the neuralist just sat there staring at him.

"I am here for evaluation?"

The question appeared to intrigue Pope. His head declined and his lip curled.

"A mere formality," the neuralist replied. "I do not doubt you, Saul."

"Then why do I sense that something is wrong?"

The bold question sparked a glint of anatomy in the cobalt eyes, and the harrowing smirk flashed across the ashen visage. "Quite. It appears my purpose was ill-concealed," said the neuralist. "As it happens, there _is_ a matter of some importance I would like to discuss – something brought to my attention not long ago." Pope paused and was as still as stone with his hands flat on the table op. "I understand you have not left your home in quite some time – before _today_ , that is."

"Yes..." That meant he was being surveyed. He made a mental note of it. "I have not had much reason to leave."

"Assignments?"

"The last one paid well enough. I am in no hurry to return to the warzones. A man can only fight so long before his luck runs out."

"It is a free world," Pope replied with a nod. "War is a free market."

The neuralist drank again. Saul did not.

The silence continued awhile before Pope put his glass down and leaned back in his seat, fingers laced under his chin. "Martial Knight," he pronounced, abruptly.

Saul took up his glass, thoroughly suppressing the jolt that suddenly rose in him at the mention of Celyn's name. He feigned apathy as he drank.

"I am sure you recall the name," said Pope.

"Yes," said Saul. "We intercourse on occasion."

"Every tenth day without fail."

"I enjoy her."

"She _is_ a remarkable beauty, particularly for a martial." The neuralist's eyes flashed when he inclined his head. "But, then, therein lay the problem."

He sensed the "darker purpose" breaching the surface.

Pope took up the bottle, refilled both glasses and leaned back again. "Mutuality tends to be a more fertile seedbed for... very dangerous complications. _Especially_ given the woman in question."

Pope drank and was silent.

The neuralist exhaled deeply. "Martial Knight," he said, putting down his glass with a clink, eyes raised to the ceiling. "She is..."

The silence was agonising.

"She is... what?" asked Saul.

The insidious smirk reappeared.

"She is... unstable."

* * *

Naomi lifted her head up from the table and her lips curled into a pout.

"I don't like it."

"You're too hard on yourself. If you keep starting over, you'll never stop."

"But it doesn't look right."

"You won't know until it's done. Now, stop moving already. This is hard enough as it is." The tip of the pastel scraped against the thin paper as she lightly dabbed the fine powder onto the girl's rose-crested cheeks. Celyn's eyes moved rapidly up, taking snapshots of the girl whenever she found herself in the right position. The feel of slowly bringing something to life was a queer and alien joy she never thought she could experience again. "Almost finished..." She made three more strokes of yellow and brown down the locks of hair and added four more dots of turquoise to the bowed eyes, then sat back and smiled at her work. "There," she said, beckoning the girl toward her. "Come. Tell me what you think."

Naomi dropped her pastilles down at once and came beside her. The little weight pressed against her leg as the girl gazed down.

"Wow... it looks just like me." The girl looked up, eyes large and genial.

"Then, it's perfect," smiled Celyn. She took the fixative and sprayed it over the piece from a distance. "For you," she said, presenting the girl with her own portrait.

The little face beamed. A second later, however, the wide smile disappeared and the little expression became suddenly sullen.

"What's wrong?"

"Ah, nothing," the girl hesitated. "It's just..."

"What?"

The girl's eyes strayed up over the top of the page, focusing directly on her chest.

"...My locket."

Celyn looked down at the gold pendant hanging from her neck and settled it on the palm of her lone hand. "You can have it back..."

"No!" Naomi exclaimed suddenly. "I-I want you to keep it. I do. I really do."

The girl hung her head and started to shuffle one foot over the other. "It's just..."

"What is it?"

"... The picture," she garbled.

"Picture?"

"Mom and Dad..."

She stared back down at the pendant in the palm of her hand. Turning it over, she noticed the round seam in the back, pressed it, and the locket clicked open.

"I forgot to take it out before I gave it to Saul," said Naomi.

"These are your... parents." She stared at the two unknown figures in the picture and a ripple of sorrow went through her. She ran her thumb over the dirty glazing and pressed. The small sheet of glass slid out, along with the picture. "Here."

The girl took the picture from her hand and quickly tucked it away in the pocket of her dungarees.

"So, you're supposed to keep a picture of someone special inside... Is that how it works?"

The girl's large, innocent eyes looked up with a shimmer.

She gave a slow, deliberate nod and cleared the loose papers from the table. Something gleamed in the light from beneath. It was the edge of a blade. She took the blade by the grip and folded over the edges of the girl's portrait, then proceeded to carefully run the blade edge through the bends of the fold, cropping out the excess edges, and the girl observed her, silent and perplexed.

Once the picture was carefully trimmed, Celyn put the blade back down and took one last look at the image, then at the girl herself. She folded the picture five ways and closed it inside the locket. "There," she said, finally, and let the locket drop over her chest.

Naomi grinned happily. "That means that _I'm_ special, right?"

"How about that?" Celyn smiled and stood up. "Breakfast?"

"Is it gon'a be like Saul's breakfast?"

"No," she chuckled.

"OK."

The holoscreen switched on and the low bawls of a pod singing whales basking in the blue ocean light filled the living area.

She started the cooker and the big induction cooktop smoked as she opened the fridge and took out the only raw ingredients nestled among the dried and processed food packages: four eggs, a pint of milk and a bell pepper.

The knife cracked through the crust and rose and fell with slow thuds against the chopping board. The sunlight was warm against her face, and shone over the scar tissue on the back of her hands around the hilt of the knife. She drew a deep breath into her belly and the residual bliss of the previous night simmered in the base of her abdomen on the exhale. In the middle of her delighted musing, a shimmer shone through the corner of her eye. She looked up and stopped as the blade she had left on the table had found itself in the girl's hands.

"Naomi, don't touch that-"

Startled by her voice, the girl flinched and the blade fell on the floor. A stream of bright red started to pour from her hand.

She dropped the knife with a gasp, grabbed a piece of cloth and immediately rushed over to the girl's side.

Naomi held her own hand just above the wound. Her breaths were short and rapid with shock and she started to whimper. "I'm – I'm s-s-sorry." The wound was deep and the blood was gushing out. The under-flesh was exposed and pink and tender. "I- it – it – l-looks b-bad."

"It's alright sweetie, just calm down. It looks worse than it is." She kept her voice calm as she bound the cloth around the deep cut. The blood soaked through the cloth in red blotches. She looked up and when saw the tears spilling down the little red cheeks, she was shot through with dread.

She froze. Her eyes widened.

"Don't cry," she whispered.

Naomi fought back the whimpers to no avail. The little face reddened and warped. The tears streamed from the large, enflamed eyes.

"Stop crying," her voice broke again. A wave of heat swept over her and she recoiled, staring back at the girl. "Stop crying," she repeated.

The weeping and moaning rose to shrieks.

"Stop," she repeated between unsteady breaths. "... Stop." She picked the bloody blade up off the floor. Her hands started to shake. "The crying..."

A scowl furrowed into her brow.

* * *

"Saul."

Roused from his trance, Saul looked up. Pope's eyes were broad and dark with premonition and he lifted the glass of ambrosia to his lips.

"What do you know about Martial Knight?"

There was a long pause.

"Is there something I should know?"

The hollow eyes veered deviously up and surfaced through the glare of the round lenses.

"Are you aware that she had attempted to cohabit with another martial?"

"Yes," he replied. "He died in Nova Crimea."

He elucidated the fact as though there was no disputing it.

"Are you also aware," Pope asked, "that she tried to kill him?"

There was long, uninterrupted silence.

"She took a knife to him," the neuralist elaborated, "cut right across his face."

His immediate thought was that Pope was lying. Then, flashes of Malachi came back to him, and he thought of Celyn's reticence, her silence about their past...

"You did not know?" asked Pope, stifling his racing thoughts. "Professional secrecy should preclude me from telling you all this. They had shared a long history of defection."

Saul looked up, tried desperately to spy out the shadows of a lie in the cold, blue eyes. There was no way this could be true. "They were allies," he murmured in rejoinder.

Pope hummed. "I suppose Martial Malachi's business interests were of more concern to him. The neural program would have eliminated any traces of residual animosity they may have had toward one another."

He felt as though he were falling from the heights of all the hopes he had conjured.

"Yes," whirred the neuralist. "You might say Martial Knight is a... victim of her former life." He delicately removed the pince-nez from his eyes and slipped them into his coat, once more lacing his fingers together beneath his chin. "Suffice to say, not everyone who comes to our world does so for the reasons we would prefer. Sometimes misfortunes drive us to paths not entirely of our own choosing. Martial Knight is one such person. Unpredictable... Volatile. She is not safe, Saul. I feel you should know that."

He recalled the feel of thick scars on his fingertips.

What did they do to you?

Memories flashed through his mind uncontrollably until his thoughts stopped on one shocking realisation. His heart stopped.

Naomi.

Pope put down the rest of his drink and lowered his glass. "Well," he said. "I suppose there is little need to pursue this formality any further unless, of course, there is something else you would like to discuss."

"No," Saul answered hastily.

"Very well," Pope nodded. "I will forward the report of your attendance to the martial court registry... Miss Robinson, please take note."

"Yes, Doctor."

"Thank you."

The office doors opened.

"Until next time, Martial Vartanian..." Pope bore a portentous simper. "Good day."

Saul rose from his seat at once. As soon as the doors shut behind him his saunter became a panicked stride and he marched straight out, his heart drumming in his chest.

He entered the capsule, the bubble doors shut. The whole metropolis slowed with his haste. Something had happened – something bad.

The chronometer showed four 1s as he boarded the maglev on Platform 7. Flashbacks of everything Celyn had said and done kept coming back to him throughout the maglev trip and the anger bubbled up inside him. Dark and bloody thoughts ripened in his imagination right until the maglev stopped at Haven Main.

He ran, pushing through the crowded footpaths of the sky city to the next capsule terminal and when the capsule stopped in the second stratum of East Sector at the intersection, he entered the first autocab he could find.

"Fourth Street, Orion Avenue."

The autocab stopped outside The Grove five minutes later.

He raced up the stairwell bounding two steps at a time.

_Please be alright,_ he hoped frantically.

He mounted the last stair and headed straight for the front door and stopped, suddenly, about three meters away, gasping for air.

The door was open. Strange noises were coming from inside. His sights veered down, at the trail fading over the brink of the doorway, ending right at his feet.

They were footsteps: Blood-red footsteps.

He waited to catch his breath, then, quietly, approached the threshold.

The door closed soundlessly behind.

"Naomi."

His call echoed through the hall. The holoscreen was still on. The only other sound in the house was the steady whistle of the stove alarm. A kitchen knife and half a sliced bell pepper lay on the kitchen counter. The faint line of bloody footsteps diminished right at his feet.

He followed the trail to the living area and his pulse raced again when the thick bloodstains on the floor came in sight. He picked up the blooded blade from the floor. A thick trail of blood drops led across the floor of the living area to the adjacent corridor smeared all over the parquetry.

He turned the corner of the corridor and charged forward along the blood-smeared trail. The door to his room burst open.

"Naomi!"

She was lying up against the bedside. Her hand was bound with a bloody cloth, her clothes stained red, her head wilted, her eyes closed and her face very pale. He rushed over to her and lifted her head gently by the chin, brushing the hair away. He could see her small chest slowly rise and fall.

She was breathing. She sniffled and her eyelids twitched apart and closed again.

"Dad..."

Her voice was semi-conscious.

He could feel the tears still wet on her cheeks. Her skin was pale from blood loss. The furrows in his frown deepened. "Where is she?"

The little mouth stirred but no answer came.

"Where is she?" he demanded again.

Naomi's eyes shut. The little head hung. She was gone.

### C. 5: Day 613

After Naomi had retold the same brief and bizarre testimony in almost precisely the same way upwards of half a dozen times, he was no nearer to understanding why Celyn had disappeared the way she did. On the first of innumerable attempts to contact her over the intervening days, the cell would ring out. On the second and every other day following, the same automated voice message would respond without fail.

"The number you are trying to reach is unavailable..."

Three high-pitched beeps repeated over the receiver. He pressed the "end call" button, tucked the cell away and lit the cigarette in his lips.

Looking up at his reflection in the overhead mirror, the dark circles around the orbitals and the thin red lines in the whites of his eyes were re-emerging. The light of a new dawn shone in through the windshield over the cracked dash as they approached the limits of the inner-metropolis on Highway Route 7. The low, striving trundle of the old hydro-engine flowed with his brood and the cockpit refrigerated with the early morning chill.

As he looked out through the dew-drizzled passenger window, the loud rumble of a passing big-rig grew and declined, a "Bronson Wartech" ad blazoned along the vast starboard. When the truck passed, a long stretch of vales, woodland and high ridges came into view, ending in the remote and awaking mountains beyond.

"Oi... lad."

A gruff voice from the driver seat called his attention.

"Git thee waukin," said old Duke, "we're comin' up to the checkpoint."

The lanes on the broad motorway branched out into the mouths of separate tunnels. The next moment, the sky and the land disappeared behind a wall of black and the light of the sun became feeble, sallow twinkles, flashing intermittently through the windshield. The tunnel traffic steadied and became a single long line, approaching the checkpoints. Further up, curtains of intense light beamed down over the lines of vehicles.

"Here we go," sighed Duke.

Three bright flashes of green signaled that they were passing through the scanning section. An uneasy wait followed.

Half a minute later:

"Attention: Please proceed to security deviation lane for inspection."

The automated pronouncement came through an intercom speaker on the dash.

"Nae fence 'gainst ill fortune," said Duke, with a disgruntled growl.

The tunnel split off to the right where an arrowed sign was alight with the bold words "SECURITY DEVIATION" and the insignia of Sodom Guard. They broke off from the main line of traffic, and down the narrow, empty, sloping tunnel.

When they came to the end, the tunnel opened into a vast space. The whole width was barred off by an endless line of security gates: lights swapping from red to green, and rows of deviated vehicles on either side were lined up for searching; SGs in full gear, barring off checkpoints. Two lights winked thrice just ahead, guiding them to a vacant checkpoint gate. The truck slowed and Duke turned the wheel sharply to the right, then to the left and the truck straightened out. The wasted brakes let off a high-pitched squeal as they came to a gradual halt, then a spurt of decompression and the engine shook until a dead stop and a hiss like a burst valve.

Duke took a deep breath. His heavy pale hands slipped off the wheel and tugged on the parking brake. The window on the driver's side lowered, and the sounds of a thousand idling engines, sirens signaling clearance, the roll of the big-rigs passing through the gates and hydraulics pumping motion into the un/loaders spilled into the cockpit.

A red light shone over the closed gate ahead and torchlights blinked from below as two heavily armed figures in blue approached from either side of the truck.

"Top a th' mornin'," called Duke.

"Exit the vehicle," was the sharp response from outside.

The old, disgruntled ex-patriot looked away; his heavy, tattooed arm swung over to unbuckle the seatbelt. "Keep the heid, lad," he whispered as the buckle came loose.

Two strong jolts forced both doors open, and both men descended.

He stamped the cigarette out on the oil-stained floor, leaving a trail of smoke in his path. Humidity choked the air and there was clamour all about as the vehicles lined up, thorough searches ongoing. The rumble of the traffic in the overhead and underfoot roads added to the chorale.

A squad of SGs were waiting at the truck's rear and the one bearing the mark of higher rank stepped forward with a gait, gun pressed against his chest. The dark visor retracted from the narrow slit over his eyes.

"Any extra cargo we should know about?" His voice robotic through the amp of his mask.

Saul came up by Duke's side.

"You may talk to me."

The SG sergeant squared up, coming near enough to see the martial seal peeping out from under his collar.

"Let's see your signets."

His arms slipped out of the coat sleeves. When the blood-red signets flashed, the SG sergeant studied them closely and peered back up with a stern glare, turned and ambled up to the shutter over the truck's rear. "The scanners picked up some suspicious cargo," he said. "Is there anything we should know about what you've got here, Martial?"

His reply was a bow of the head and a reciprocal glare.

The SG sergeant turned to his subordinate with a frown.

"Open her up."

Duke hobbled up to the truck's side, his inward-curled hands swinging ape-like with his gait. He banged a heavy fist on the switch. The shutter started to rise. Beams of light passed over the stacks of food supplies as the SGs flashed their torches and climbed up onto the deck of the dark carriage and squeezed past a column of packaged rations, tearing a hole into one of the packs.

Saul's gut squirmed wherever the searching lights drifted. The loud jangle and growl of a starting big rig in the next gate caused his head to jerk around with a start and he looked back just in time to see their lights stray right, then quickly jerk back... and stop... and fix on a single point.

"What's this?"

The circle of white torchlight settled on a small form, pressed up against the inner wall. The light veered up, over the head of the little figure and the mess of blonde hair on its head. The circle of light narrowed. A cold hand reached out and grabbed firmly on a tuft of hair. The torchlight switched off.

"What the hell are these for?"

The SG returned to the rear of the truck holding up a dressed-up, 3-foot, blonde-haired mannequin – one of many inside the truck's carriage.

"Sale," replied old Duke.

"Sale..." The sergeant tossed the mannequin aside.

"I's a niche merket."

"They are customs-approved," Saul interjected.

The sergeant paused skeptically, then looked over his shoulder as his subordinate came from behind. "... It's clean."

Duke thumped down on the switch just as the SGs dismounted and the shutter fell shut with a loud rattle. The sergeant ran a scanner over the registration plates, pressed down on a switch in his gear and the red light over the security gate turned green.

The gates opened.

"Guid thing ah dinnae throw the wee things ou'," murmured Duke as the doors of the truck slammed shut and the engine gurgled to a restart. "...Haste ye back yeh basterts."

The green light turned red as the truck rolled through the gate and up the tunnel to rejoin the outflow of traffic.

Economic necessity was the only cause for crossovers between the two worlds. Leaving the inner city any other way other than by the security checkpoints would invariably lead to capture long before some would-be fugitive could reach the limits of martial jurisdiction. Thus it was deemed – in every practical sense – impossible for citizens of either world to cross over to the other... All but for one little girl who lay noiseless, huddled deep inside the carriage, concealed among a host of fiberglass mannequins and draped over by a lattice of old bedding.

He exhaled a sigh of relief and nodded off just as the daylight burst in through the windshield again. A few kilometres on, they broke off the arterial road and were soon on the serrated paths meandering through the rural regions of outer Sodom.

Saul awoke as the sun broke over the saddle of the two mountains at the end of the valley. They rose higher into the woodland, leaving a brown fog in their path. Gravel and dirt crackled under the wheels and the light pierced through in thin white lances through the meshes of surrounding trees, broken from time to time by the fluttering of a startled bird. The winding dirt paths continued deep and long until the roads eventually levelled out.

They turned into a narrow path. Tree branches scraped the sides of the truck, rustled and shattered with loud, tearing snaps. A short distance onward and they emerged from the carnage of trees into a small clearing. The engine droned as they squealed to a stop at the edge of a high plateau, overlooking the whole length of the great valley, and to the north, was the prodigious skyline of South Sodom.

The engine switched off. Old Duke let out a long, groaning fog of breath, scratched the thick beard around his heavy, neckless jaw, and the varicose veins in his neck bulged as he yawned, wide-mouthed.

"Here we are... Fair sight isna it?"

The silent intermission was brief.

"Right. Lits git her out."

Duke unbuckled the seatbelt. Four firm thumps and the doors whinged open.

Saul climbed up into the carriage as the shutter rose. The stacks of cargo boxes and vacuum-sealed food had toppled in the rough ride and he cleared a path through the deck. At the very back of the carriage, a sheet was draped over a stack of the prostrate mannequins. He pulled the sheet away and one of the pale little mannequin faces opened its eyes.

"Are you alright?" he asked.

"Yeah," said Naomi. "I kept quiet like you said."

"Come," he said carrying her to her feet. "You must see this."

Naomi stopped on the lip of the carriage with her arms outstretched for him to take her.

He came to the edge of a cliff facing the valley cradling her in his arms. The sunlight shone upon the pale crests of her face and set the moonstone eyes alight with the view of a deep, wide and iridescent sea of green and russet. The shoals of birds circled the bottomless crevasse below.

"Wow," she whispered. "It's... beautiful." A breeze swept up from below sending her radiant hairs fluttering like gossamers.

He lowered her to the ground, and her bright eyes enlarged with sudden, wild excitement when just across the small clearing, she caught sight two small trees flanked with green and red-speckled hobblebushes bowed into each other, forming an arched gateway into the nearby wood. A swarm of fireflies floated like animated stardust over the ingress of hanging vines.

"Naomi..."

She toddled forward, mute with fascination.

A lone butterfly with rainbow wings emerged from between the branches, fluttered down like a falling leaf, settled and then came toward her and her gaping eyes followed the its trail as it circled and then returned through the hanging vines over the gateway. Summoned by the mystical dance, she took one step forward, stopped and, next moment, rushed forward with a gasp.

"Naomi!"

She disappeared into the wood, the vines swinging about in her wake.

"Ah, let the lass go. No harm'll come to her here." Old Duke clipped off the end of a petit corona and hobbled out to the edge of the plateau, casting his sights east along the valley. He straightened out his old back with a series of sharp cracks and a painful groan. Thick clouds of smoke streamed from his dry lips and followed the wind to the sun. His heavy head rose with the hull of his great chest and his breaths were weighty, wheezing and wearied. "Megstie me," he sighed, "long syne since ah bin i' these parts."

Saul came up by old Duke's side and took out a roll of notes from his inner pockets.

Duke eyed the roll of dimitars and, somewhat grudgingly, took the money.

"I thank you for this."

"Aye, well," old Duke sighed, "wadnae dane it if ah warn' deesp'ret."

"Desperate?"

The old ex-patriot drew from his cigar and his brow knotted gravely. "Dinnae think the mess isnae ginnae last much longer. Nae mo' money comin' in from the civils... They'll jist leave any puir bastards teh die out n' clean up 'fore the rats come."

"That is the way of this world."

"Aye... Nae mercy f' th' weak."

Duke's voice declined into an incomprehensible grumble. He huffed and puffed. He looked a broken man, a defeated man. One could see the last vestiges of the old world dying its slow death with the old ex-patriot, the last of a bygone era in which life, like war, had been a struggle for forlorn self-superseding causes. Never had the image of the lost struggle appeared plainer.

"Well," said Duke, holding up the roll of dimitars and tucking them away, "this should give us a wee bi' more time a'least." He hummed wistfully and blew another cloud of smoke, rubbed his grizzled beard and stared into the sun. "Ah'll be waitin' when yer ready teh leave, lad," he murmured, somberly. "Nae hurry burry."

Saul waited silently. Then, when the moment of commiseration passed, seeing, he turned and walked away.

He passed swept away the hanging vines like the strings of a beaded curtain. The chaff of fireflies dispersed from his path. When the last curtain of vines swept away, he stopped at the brink of a natural temple, received by the solitary warble of a waking wren. The wind stilled and the air enriched with lily of the valley. Morning dew drizzled from the green branches and sparkled in sunbeams spilling through a dome of interlocking trees, and the lofty trees roofed a serene pool surrounded by knolls and ridges, ascending higher and higher like the walls of a pantheon. Above the enclosure, the clear blue sky shone through an oculus of golden red and green and mirrored in the glass-water.

A faint voice stole upon the peace.

"I had a dream last night."

He looked to his right.

Naomi was crouched over the pool. A gentle ripple pulsed across the still water from the tip of her gently twirling finger.

"I dreamt about Dad and Mom... "

He approached her, quietly. The detritus crunched underfoot and the twirling finger rose from the glass water. Naomi turned and flashed her radiant smile, looked away, lifted her closed eyes up to the oculus, whispering; "I have to go now. Saul is here... Thanks again for taking care of us... Tell Mommy and Daddy that I love them. I'll be with them soon." She opened her eyes again and stood and came toward him.

"I can leave you alone..."

"No, it's OK." Naomi set her sights high up, following the sunbeams to their source. "Saul..." She lifted a pointing finger. "Can we go up there?"

He followed the aim of the finger up a sloping ridge. A natural stairway appeared to have been carved into the moss-covered rock. The stairway was gilded with light and the top of the ridge was concealed behind the treetops, but it looked surmountable.

He carried her and her arms instinctively latched round his neck. He lifted her up to the edge of each crest of rock before climbing himself and repeated the process until they were past the trees and stopped on the very peak of the ridge, high above the valley.

"Wow... it's am-a-zing."

"Do not stand too close to the edge."

Behind them, the woodland was spread out like an ocean of green speckled with the red and gold of the imminent season. Ahead, the great valley stretched out to the Sodom skyline and an airship sailed overhead and became a solitary fly among a swarm, hovering about the great Milidome in the centre.

They sat upon a large throne of rock on the edge of the ridge with the girl settled on his lap. "So," he said, after a long, almost mystical, silence, "has your friend told you his name yet?"

"No." Her answer was as a shamed confession.

The sidelong glance of shame on the pale little face made his intent seem conceited and he hated himself immediately.

"I don't think he _has_ a name," she said, suddenly.

He regarded her with genuine inquiry.

"Oh... How is that?" he asked.

"Well, Mommy and Daddy gave me _my_ name," the girl said. "But, I don't think _he_ has a mommy and daddy."

"Really?"

"Yeah. I guess he's like... the phoenix."

"The phoenix?"

"Yeah," she said. "You know... the _phoenix_? Mom told me about them once: Mom said that a phoenix has no mommy or daddy. She said that for a phoenix to be born, it has to die. So, I guess, maybe he's like that, because phoenixes don't have names either."

He smiled at her vaguely. "Maybe."

There was a solemn silence.

"You... talk to him," he said.

"Mhmmm." The little head bobbled.

"What do you talk about?"

"Lots of things."

"Does he talk to you too?"

"Yeah," She paused, thoughtfully. "But it's not the same like when we talk. It's different"

She spoke with such extraordinary frankness about the mysterious friendship that for an absurd moment it actually seemed as though she were talking about someone real.

"How is it different?" he asked.

"Hmm... Well," she pondered, "...it's not with _words_."

The thoughtful silence was longer this time. Then, the girl looked up at him and spoke. The words rolled off her tongue:

"You know how sometimes you want to say something to somebody, but you can't because you can't think of the words, and you wish that they could feel what you wanted to say, so that they could understand without the words?"

He paused, and after long consideration, was shocked to find that he understood her perfectly.

"Yes," he said, with mild disbelief.

"Well... I guess I can do that." Naomi looked wistfully away once again.

"Where is he – your friend?"

"I think... I think he's everywhere."

"How can he be everywhere?"

"I don't know."

"Could you show him to me?"

"I don't think so."

He was oddly riled by her answer. "How can I know your friend if I cannot see him the same way I see you?"

There was another long and thoughtful silence. She hummed.

"Well... it's like..." She slowly raised her sunlit hands in front of her face and stared at them. "He's like... light," she said, finally.

"Light?"

"Yeah... Light can be everywhere too, right? And... you can't really _see_ light. It has to shine on something else right?" She held her sunlit hands up in the air. "See. I – am – light,"

"... I see."

A shudder of reverence rocked him to the soul and they fell silent again.

"I didn't know the city was so big," said Naomi, looking out beyond the valley. "Saul, where's home?"

He lifted his head and set his sights toward the view of South Sodom, seeking out the edges of Haven District. He raised a finger pointed the northeast.

"Over there."

Naomi rose to her knees and put her hand over her forehead, straining to see.

"It is far away..."

"I think I see it... Hey! I have an idea! This could be... our _place_."

"Our... _place_?" he repeated.

The gay smile disappeared from her face and the little head hung.

"It's silly," she pouted.

He lifted the little golden head up gently by the chin.

"Tell me."

Naomi looked away bashfully and started swinging her dangling feet back and forth. "Well... close to the other city – where I was before – there was a place just like this. It was high up in the woods over the city. Dad used to take me there. You could see the whole city from there, too, just like this." Her shimmering eyes widened with her melancholy smile. "One day," she continued, "we were up there and, well... dad and me made a promise..."

"What promise?"

"We promised that if something ever happened to us – if we ever got lost – that we would always come back to the 'place.' And that we would wait at the place until we found each other again." She stopped, looked up with a smile and then looked away again. "I know... It's silly."

"Alright," he nodded.

He palmed the top of her golden little head and looked into her eyes.

"This will be our _place_."

"Really?"

"If you are ever lost, you will come here," he said. "I will wait for you."

"And _I'll_ wait for _you_."

"Yes... I promise."

"I promise too." She safely nestled her head in his chest.

They remained on the peak of the ridge until the sun climbed above the mountain top and the silence went uninterrupted for a long time before he looked down again. The crown of the child's head appeared so much more ashen than he remembered. She appeared to have fallen asleep. She coughed suddenly; two quick successive coughs, then three long ones, then four.

"You are sick again?" he asked.

Naomi stopped coughing and sniffled. "No. I'm alright, really."

But a second later, she once again burst into fierce coughing.

He held her little head close to him. When the coughing stopped, he lifted her head up. The moonstone eyes were drooping and pale and her little cheeks were sallow.

"You are not alright."

"I _am_ a little tired," she croaked.

He cradled her in his arms and stood up.

"Back a'ready?" said Duke, when Saul emerged from under the arching trees, cradling Naomi in his arms.

"We should go."

The rear shutter rose again. He laid her back down on the padded bedding among the pile of mannequins and stacked up the cargo to make sure she was securely hidden before drawing back the bed sheet. She appeared to have fallen asleep. The doors shut and the truck started up again and they started slowly down the rough dirt roads.

"Wit's wrong with her?" asked old Duke.

"Fatigue... She is prone to illness. She needs her medicine."

He had been trying to wean her off over the last month, but it appeared she was more vulnerable than he had first thought. He was anxious to get her home.

They descended from the highlands and were soon back on the main route to the inner metropolis and re-entering the checkpoint tunnels. Three green flashes and the automatic voice came over the intercom:

"Attention: Please proceed to..."

"Ah, bugger off!" Duke slammed his fist on the speaker. "Here we go again."

The truck veered left down into the security deviation and they were back at the security gates. The guard lights flashed again and they stopped before the red-light gates. Duke was about to unbuckle his seat belt...

"Wait here," said Saul. "I will go." He thrust the door open.

"This vehicle checked out less than two hours ago," said one of the awaiting SGs.

"Short commute," he said, striking the switch on the side of the truck.

The SGs climbed onto the carriage as the shutter was still rising, torchlights on.

He crossed his arms and leaned his shoulder against the edge of the truck rear, making his best efforts to seem casual. His eyes dawdled from corner to corner. Rush hour was in full swing and the traffic was mounting at the checkpoints.

Two juggernaut transporters ferrying a fresh consignment in from some neighbouring metropolis rolled into the gates on either side. SG teams got to work straightway scanning martial IDs. He lit a cigarette.

Five minutes passed.

He inched his line of sight over the corner of the open rear, peering over his shoulder. When the torch lights passed over the mannequins, it elicited the same interest as before. Then, one of the SGs suddenly stopped. The circle of torchlight was over the heavy crates at the far back.

"Is that a body-box?" he heard one voice speak. "The hell is this doing here?"

"Get it open."

He could just about see them, deep inside the hold, inches away from where the prostate mannequins were stacked on top of each other, partially concealed by bedding. The SGs were conversing, but the interfering noise made it impossible to hear. Then his pulse soared when a trailing step brushed against the bedding draped over the mannequin torsos. The container shutter clanked open and kicked up a smog. Their lights flashed over the inside of the boxes.

"Looks clean..."

The torch lights went out and his racing heart yielded when the SGs turned to make their way back out. Then, just as he was about to breathe a final sigh of relief...

"Wait." One of the SGs halted just before the lip of the deck.

"What is it?"

"You hear that?"

"Hear what?"

That's what he wanted to know. He shut his eyes and listened closely, and a few seconds later, he heard it. The fateful sound was just loud enough to creep through the clamour. His eyes flared wide.

Coughs – constant and irrepressible coughs.

"Get back here."

Hearing the order, he turned at once. The lights flashed about the back of the cargo hold.

"Wait right there." The SG who gave the order immediately started shifting through the cargo whilst the other hung back with his back turned, gun ready.

It was all happening fast. Too fast. One mannequin hurled across the carriage and then another and another, leaving no time to deliberate. His judgments swirled in a maelstrom of panic. Instinct took over.

He noted the line of sight of the surveillance cameras and glanced down both sides of the truck. A current pumped into his limbs and all the emotion allayed to a deathly calm. He quietly lifted himself onto the deck. The blade slipped out of his coat and he snaked forward, body low.

Roused by a presence, the SG turned and looked up just in time to see the blade shimmer. A short, sharp convulsing noise came out from the amp the instant before he felt the shaft break through and watched the blood pour from the vents in the mask, blade hilt-deep in the throat.

He pulled the Guard toward him in a death embrace, wrapped his other arm around the back of the head and pulled back with such force that the whole body followed the skull in a snapping twist and the body fell, dead and silent just as second Guard pulled the bed sheet off the stack of mannequins, and saw of the little pale figures lying on its back, staring back up at him – alive.

"A girl," the SG gasped and turned. "It's a..." But before he could reach for his gun, he was flattened against the walls of the cargo hold. His lungs locked. The shaft of the blade was clean through his spine, and out the back of the neck. The desperate hands clung on as tight as they could until the life slowly departed the body. His grip loosed and the hands dropped, and what little light there was a second ago disappeared forever.

Saul looked down, and Naomi's eyes gaped back at him in the light of the fallen torch.

"Look away!" he growled.

She buried her head in the bedding just as the blade pulled out and the blood sprayed all over the carriage floor, seeping through the bedding in thick blotches. The corpse fell almost automatically in his arms and he dragged the body behind the stacks of cargo at once and laid it down.

He stood, panting in shock as the rush after the kill came back in a flood. When the brief aftermath passed, his attention shifted immediately to the shaking hump beneath the bedding. He could her Naomi's breaths and when the blood dripped from his fingertips onto the sheets, he withdrew.

He regarded his bloody hands and his blood-drenched coat. The stream of thought that followed came in a sequence of chilling intuition. He removed the coat and wiped his hands off, opened a jug of spirit and splashed his face and doused his hands until the jug was emptied. He checked one of the corpses, finding the activator for the security gate above the SG's left chest plate.

There were two rapid beeps and the lights over the gate outside went green.

He climbed down from the carriage deck, punched the shutter switch, and as the shutter was still lowering, he ran the scanner over the registration plates, then gripped the edge of the plate and pried it off discretely with a sharp tug and crack, always looking around to make sure no one was looking. He held the plate close and concealed, and hugged the side of the truck until he reached the passenger door. He pulled the door open, climbed up and slammed it shut.

"Drive," he ordered immediately.

Duke lurched, then he stopped before he was about to speak, glaring from at the residues of the blood stains. "... Whaur the 'ell..."

"Drive – NOW."

Duke slammed the truck in gear and the light over the gate flashed red in the side mirrors as the truck rolled forward and back onto the motorway to inner Sodom.

Nothing was said for a long while, and Duke would intermittently tear his eyes away from the road to regard him, the shadows of severity forming over his eyes. "Ye mind tellin' me whaur' the fuck just happen back there?" he rumbled.

"There are two bodies in the back of the truck."

Duke's eyes flared up.

"They were going to find her... I had no choice."

"Deid!"

"No one saw anything..."

"There's two bleedin' SGs – in the back of _my_ truck!?"

"They did not scan the vehicle registration," he continued to explain as Duke mumbled to himself, "The plates have been removed so city surveillance cannot trace you. Hundreds of trucks like this come and go every day."

Duke's chest began to heave and fall and the muscles of his boxed jaw bulged above his gritted teeth. For a moment he slowed the truck down, as if the thought of stopping had crossed his mind, but there was nothing he could do except keep driving on. "SHITE!" The heavy hands beat at the wheel with each curse. "Shite, shite, shite, shite!"

"Leave the truck in a low surveillance area for now," he instructed. "We will figure out what to do with the bodies later."

"...This isna happenin'." An angry brood swelled in the old Duke's grey eyes each passing minute as he kept his scowl fixed forward.

They broke off from the traffic on Orion Avenue and onto 4th Street. The truck came to a grinding stop in front of Grove Towers and reversed roughly into the narrow side alley.

The truck stopped. The engine switched off.

"Git out"

"Call me when it is done..."

"Git the gir'l, and _git_ – _out_ ," Duke rumbled.

After a long silence, Saul complied with a contrite bow of the head.

He will call, he thought, he has to.

He nudged the passenger door open and exited the truck, shut the door, hit the shutter switch and climbed up into the carriage. Naomi was still buried under the bedding, shaking. He laid his hand on her shoulder and removed the sheet. "Come," he said, as soon as the frightened little face appeared from under the covers. "Put your head against me. Close your eyes."

"Saul..."

"Do not look," he said, pressing her head against his chest.

The corpses had slumped and were lying prostrate in puddles of blood across the deck between the stacks of cargo. He stepped over the bodies and gore, picked up the bloodied, bundled coat and put the dry side over her as he descended from the deck. The shutter clanked shut, the engine started up and the truck, and Duke, were gone.

"Keep quiet," he whispered.

Footsteps echoed down the stairwells from below just as they passed the seventh floor; – three walkers leaving the building after a night's work. When they reached the top, he put Naomi down, bundled up the coat and pressed his face up to the iris scanner. The flash of blue in his right eye was followed by the click of the unlocking door; he pushed the door open and froze as soon as they crossed the brink.

"Martial Vartanian."

Standing in the middle of the hall was the silhouette of a figure in black, obscured by the bright morning shine against the backdrop. The tall, heavy shapes of four SGs were on either side of him.

He reeled back at once. The obscure figure stepped forward, and the beady gaze and vinyl face emerged from the shadows.

"You..." He drew the bloody blade.

The SGs raised their guns in rapid response and a long and silent standoff lasted until the moment Eastman held up his hand, and the SGs cautiously lowered their guns. The commissioner took one deliberate step forward, then stopped and considered him – silent, motionless, dispassionate, as one would a wild and cornered animal, his stare drifting calculatingly over the bloodstains.

"S – Saul..." Naomi hugged onto the backs of his legs, peeking out at the five dark figures. "Who are they?" she trembled.

The blade gleamed chrome and crimson in the light. After a long, guarded silence, the cold, calm, effeminate voice spoke. "Before you make any rash decisions," said Eastman, "you should listen to what I have to say."

He looked from the commissioner to each of the SGs trying to fathom why they had come. There was no way they could know about what had just happened. It was too soon. That left only one explanation. They had not come for _him_.

He stepped back and shielded the girl on instinct.

Eastman stepped forward again. "I am here to help you," he assured.

"I will not let you take her."

"I am a martial servant, not an enforcer." Eastman motioned toward the Guards. " _They_ will take the girl away. I am here, in my capacity as your counsel, to tell you not to get in their way."

"Get BACK!"

"Do as he says," Eastman commanded as two of the SGs stepped forward.

"Sir, we have orders..."

"Your only charge, sergeant, is to serve and protect martial order, and may I remind you that my client is a martial of the highest caste," Eastman rejoined rapidly. "You are aware of the consequences should any harm come upon him through your own fault."

The SGs exchanged guarded looks, stepped back and lowered their weapons.

"You must trust me, Martial Vartanian," said Eastman, braving another step forward. "I am not the one who betrayed you..."

The shaking blade stilled and Saul's eyes centred warily on the commissioner.

"Betrayed..."

Eastman stopped six feet in front of him, raised his head, and the vacant look in his eyes alone imparted his purpose.

"Celyn."

The commissioner bowed his head. "She revealed everything before they cleaned her," he said.

There was silence. It was a lie. It had to be a lie.

"I would tell you to ask her yourself," said the commissioner, seeming to read his thoughts. "Unfortunately, Martial Knight no longer exists."

Eastman's words would not sink in. It could not be true. It could not.

"They have their orders, Martial," Eastman continued. "They will not leave this place without the child."

Naomi pressed tightly against him. Her fear increased his wrath. He wanted to kill them – every last one of them. But he couldn't. He could not put her life at risk.

"Bloodshed will solve nothing," said the commissioner. "It is no use fighting this. You know that. The hearing dates have already been set."

"I will not let you take her away," he reasserted.

"We will not," Eastman averred, shaking his head. "The girl's fate will be resolved by the Ares Circuit Court. Until then, she will remain in Sodom."

He fell quiet again – a passive, submissive quiet.

"She will be safe," Eastman reiterated. "You have my word."

His promise was worth nothing. But he had no choice. There was no escape.

He fought against every riling impulse to lower his fist. The hopeless blade slipped from his limp grip and he hung his head. As soon as the blade fell, two SGs came forward.

"S-Saul..." Naomi shrunk away.

"I am sorry, little one."

One of the Guards took the girl roughly by the arm and a short, sharp squeal of fright sparked his blood like acetone. Powerless, he shut his eyes and compressed his fists as they carried her away. The girl's tear-filled eyes sought him and he heard her weep his name right up until the moment the door opened and closed, and she was gone.

He raised his head again..

"You have blood on you," Eastman remained where he was, his vague and beady stare probing him from head to toe. "Martial Vartanian... If there is something else I should know, now is the time to say it."

The silence continued. A moment later, it was broken.

His cell started to ring.

BOOK III

FULL CIRCLE

### III

The pandemonium in Capitol Plaza was audible until the bounds of the city, even in the most secluded boroughs and alcoves. All along the dusk-concealed street of one such borough, the eight-star phoenix of the Eden Accord swayed, sparkled and shimmered – on hologram billboards and bright banners hanging from corner to corner and window to window of jagged, terraced, corrugated old buildings.

Though it was only just past noon, a mist had dulled the sky to ash-grey and the flyover which ran directly overhead cast its shadow over the borough, impeding what little light was left. The rain came in rising rhythm, thin at first and then growing from patters to drumbeats.

On the edge of a footway on that narrow, dusky street, stood an ancient figure in archaic wears – a long black coat with a high collar over his face. A marbled fist tightened over the grip of the cane on which his weight was precariously perched. And he stood, gazing around, receiving his surroundings like a new arrival to the world. His sights stopped high and afore, in the direction of the distant blares from Capitol Plaza.

The rumble of a fast-approaching train rose and smog kicked up in a cold draft. The old man lowered his eyes and fixed his stare on the small door across the street. The long, platinum hairs on his old head flustered as he took his first step off the footway, following his line of sight. A solid tap of his cane separated each measured step on the sodden road.

A stray dog, huddled up for warmth, raised its head and followed the old figure with a deferential stare.

The young barkeep at the sink behind the counter turned up a steely eye when the door to his vacant nook opened and the ancient figure followed a cold draft in. The door closed. A young boy of dark complexion stopped immediately in the course of buffing a table and nervously peered from the old man to the barkeep. The media broadcast on the small screen showed the same live feed on every TV in every home and on every street across the region.

When the door closed, the newscast became audible again.

The old man hobbled in and, with stifled pain, lowered himself into the seat nearest the door, his shaking hand clutching hard onto his cane as he did so. When he lowered, his head hung, his eyelids drooped and he breathed slow, heavy and tired breaths.

A long silence followed.

With a single look and a nod, the young barkeep instructed the young boy to go on buffing the tables. He took up a wet glass from the sink, poked a hand and cloth inside and turned, firmly in his grip and peered over the counter at the old man. "Weren't expecting no visitors today," he said, in a raised voice. "Can I get you anything there, old timer?"

The old man raised his head and, looking forward, answered slowly, wearily and in a dry voice: "Water... please."

The barkeep turned the glass in his hands and set it down on the counter with a clink.

"Ezra."

The young boy started at the call of his name.

"Go on and get the man some water."

The young boy hesitated, snatching glances at the old figure.

"...Go on now," insisted the barkeep.

With dumb obedience, the boy dropped his cloth, and the old man followed with his eyes as he scurried over to the bar counter, took the clean glass the barkeep had set down, then disappeared through a back door.

The barkeep dried off another glass and set it down on top of a stack behind the counter, snatching another quick and wary glance at the elderly newcomer.

A subsequent rise in the volume from the small screen drew the old man's attention to the broadcast from the Assembly House and the inauguration of the Eden Accord. The citywide ovation shook the ground with chants of " _Novum mundi resurgent!"_ as a speaker took the podium. The leaders of the Accord appeared, seated at the fore and the president-elect was front and center among them – the crown jewel of New Eden.

A vague smile curled up the sides of the old man's mouth.

The back door opened again and the boy named Ezra returned with the full glass of water, eyes fixed on the brim for spillage. He stopped and held the glass out to the old man.

"So... you from outside the Capital?" asked the barkeep.

The old man took three long gulps and set the glass down with a sigh of relief. "You might say that," he replied.

"A lot of people from out of town today."

"It is a great day," said the old man. "A day of freedom."

" _Freedom_..." the young barkeep scoffed under his breath.

When he looked up, there was an unnerving severity in the old man's gaze. "I'm sorry. I just have a thing about that word."

"How so?" The old man took calculated pauses before his answers.

The barkeep set another glass down on top of the stack. "Everybody throwing words around lately," he sighed: " _Freedom_... _liberation_. Or my favourite: _Novum mundi resurgent_!" He snorted and shook his head. "I tell you. Sometimes you get to thinking these people don't know what the hell they're talking about. Hell, I _know_ most of 'em don't. This one guy came in here a few days ago..."

The young barkeep went on at length, and at the end of it the old man smiled an ironic smile. "I see you are not so optimistic for the new world," he said.

The barkeep let out a short chuckle. "I tell you what – every old world was a new world at one time," he said. "You look like you've been around long enough to know that. You don't want to get _me_ started, old man..." the barkeep paused and then continued. "Na, see, me, I don't think it's even real. This 'freedom' thing. It's all a dream – damn dangerous dream too if you ask me. Hell, it's why these damn wars start in the first place – people going around thinking there's this 'freedom' they need to fight for. Then, soon as they get it, they already get to figurin' it's something else, then they start fighting all over again." The barkeep stopped mid-sermon and finished drying off another glass. "Then they call themselves 'freedom fighters,'" he laughed. "Ah, hell with it. You probably think I'm crazy."

"No... I think I understand."

The decibel level of the broadcast rose again with a new climax.

"... _And_ they all think this'll end the wars," the barkeep continued after the brief silence.

"You do not?"

"Hell no," the barkeep exclaimed, setting another glass on the stack. "The _old_ damn world is the _whole_ damn world, and the whole damn world runs on war. This – all this – it's like screaming for all hell to come our way. And it will, too. You better believe it..."

They were interrupted by another, greater climax.

The old man looked up at the broadcast. The barkeep and the young boy stopped what they were doing too when the pronouncement from the speaker sounded:

"Ladies, gentlemen, brothers and sisters: The president of New Eden!"

* * *

The President stood.

A thousand attendees rose from their seats with her and the cheers and ovations reverberated through the Eight Nations. The media's lights flashed from aisle to aisle and gallery to gallery. She made her way across the stage and ascended the first step to the podium with a deep breath.

Chants rung out from Capital Plaza in titan drum beats:

" _NOV –UM – MUN – DI – RE – SUR – GENT!_ "

She smiled meekly, bowed her head and raised a regal hand to the world, rousing them to a storm that shook the Earth. Her heart drummed in her breast. There was angst in adoration – a galvanising of duty from which she would have gladly been unburdened.

S _mile_ , she thought, _smile_ , through the sustained hurricane of worship.

When the silence finally fell, she cleared her throat:

"Brothers... and sisters."

Her voice resounded through the Capitol and the cheers exploded with new vigour.

"It brings me great joy and even greater honor to share this day with you all. And a great day it is. A day of providence. For history has never known a nobler cause. And the world could not have hoped for a braver, more faithful people, to rise to it."

Another eruption of cheers and upwards of a minute's ovation ensued. Their joy moved her to lamentation and, for a moment, the thunder of ovations faded into memory, When the storm allayed, she continued:

"To see you all gathered here today, in that spirit from which the bonds of our accord were forged, leaves no doubt in my mind that the new world is on the horizon. The end of martial order. The end of perpetual war. Though it may be many long years before we gather here again in the same spirit as this day: what a glorious day it will be! On that day, and for centuries thereafter, the world, and all the generations that are to come, _will_ – know – us, for our time is at hand. Our light will set the whole world aflame... never to fade again."

Then she lifted her head and pronounced:

" _Novum mundi resurgent!_ "

* * *

A heaving seism followed the proclamation of the motto, and the euphoria that erupted throughout the Capitol drowned out the volume of the broadcast for a good 10 seconds. The lights in the little tavern flickered with the tremor.

The barkeep set another glass on the counter with a sigh as the President's speech went on.

"Ah, the President..."

"She is a good woman," said the old man, looking up.

"The people sure as hell believe in her... for now," said the barkeep. "But when the shit hits the fan – and when those martials come knocking – they won't be cheering her name anymore. No, sir... Hell's a-comin' our way. A whole lot of it, too."

The old man drank the last inch of water in his glass.

"What will _you_ do?" he asked.

"I d'know..." The barkeep shook his head. "Might just move out of the region at this rate."

"I hear many people already have."

"Can you blame them?"

The old man paused and sighed. "They are fearful," he said.

"Well, they've got a lot to be afraid of – Ezra, get the man a refill..."

The young boy rushed over to the old man's table again and took the empty glass.

"You are afraid too?" the old man asked.

The barkeep paused with his answer. "Maybe more than I should be," he replied, and as he said this, he looked over his shoulder just as the young boy disappeared into the back room.

The old man watched the door swing back and forth before looking back at the barkeep.

"He is... your son?"

"Yeah, something like that." The barkeep stacked the last glass and started buffing the dishes. "Ezra's an exile – got transferred here from a DP camp three years ago."

"His parents?"

The barkeep shook his head.

"I see," the old man nodded slowly.

The barkeep's eyes peered up from under a knotted brow. "He's had enough hell for one life," he said, his tone sullen.

The boy returned from the back room with a full glass of water and set the glass down on the table with a faint smile. The boy stopped nervously with the old man's intense eyes. He raised a weary, veined hand and laid a tender palm on the boy's head, as though imparting something with his touch. The barkeep watched suspiciously.

The old man lifted his hand again and the boy walked off. "I understand you," he spoke quietly, after a brief hiatus. "I have a child too... a daughter."

"You don't say." The barkeep stacked up the last glass and drained the sink.

"To be sure, she is a child no longer." The old man hummed. "You are a good man... A good father," he said. "But, you must know the days are gone when it was enough for a father to protect his child's life. Far more important it is today to teach. And the most important lesson is the hardest precisely _because_ we are driven to protect."

"And what lesson is that, old man?" inquired the barkeep.

The old man lifted the glass to his lips, drank, paused and answered: "There are things in life more important even than life itself."

The young barkeep dried off his hands and chuckled.

Sounds like our president's got inside your head too."

"I suppose you might say that," the old man smiled. "Tell me, friend, have you the time to spare?"

The barkeep regarded the old man with intrigue.

"What for?" he asked.

"A story," the old man replied, setting his cane aside.

The barkeep seemed to squint, as though something vaguely fascinating about the olden figure that had wandered into his little borough was only just dawning upon him. He nodded, took out two short glasses and set them down on the counter.

"Name your poison."

### C. 5: Day 691

The anteroom of House 7, Ares Caste Court: the small, windowless space, the single desk, the two chairs under a bright pale LED light, the empty chair, the door to the right, another to the left, the two holoscreen frames on the opposite wall which were never on, but if they were it would have unquestionably been some UMC propaganda.

It was the 13h time he had been there.

At least one season had come and gone. During that time, he had taken in a kind of passive insight into the mechanisms of martial justice, not least among which was the fact that the martial courts were partitioned according to caste, and justice was dispensed more equally among some castes than others. For the law, like everything else in the martial world, was a commodity earned with blood.

He waited: a skin-deep silence, only partially sentient to the world. The blank screen opposite reflected back a shadowy silhouette, and when he raised his head, the overhead light lifted the shadow from his features. His face had thinned. The skin had paled. The sharp lines of bone and muscle around the jaw and orbitals bulged and the veins swelled.

He heard the door open and then close from the right, echoless in the small room. Some vague figure walked into his line of sight, pulled up the empty chair opposite and sat.

"Martial Vartanian... we meet again."

Eastman set his briefcase down on the desk and the locks clicked open with his touch.

"There is good news, bad news, and... unresolved news," said the commissioner, drawing a black file marked with the insignia of the UMC and the brand of the martial court. "The good news is that we have managed to escape a defection decree," he continued. "The bad news is that you have been held liable for the illicit smuggling of a civilian into martial jurisdiction." Eastman laid the black file down pushed it forward along the desk-top. "The verdict notice was issued yesterday," he said, after a brief silence. "It will be announced today, along with the sentence..."

"Where is Duke?"

Eastman slowly closed his briefcase and did not answer.

Saul raised his sunken eyes and fixed on the commissioner with a vexed gaze.

"What did they do with him?"

"Does it matter?"

" _I_ killed them."

"No,' Eastman slowly shook his head. "The two corpses found in the back of Mr. McLean's truck were the only viable evidence brought forward and his testimony against a martial of your caste is inadmissible."

Eastman seemed to sigh, although the blank, impervious expression made it hard to tell whether it was a sigh or just an unusually long breath. He set the briefcase on the floor and looked back into the sunken, tormented eyes. "Martial Vartanian, the fate of the child is the only matter that has yet to be resolved. Is she or is she not the only thing that matters to you?"

His silence affirmed Eastman's words.

"They would not do to me what they will do to him."

"That is true," said Eastman with a slow, impassive nod. "However, in light of what you yourself have professed to be of the utmost importance, that information will do you absolutely no favours. We both know it will not change your decision."

He wanted desperately to say something, he knew not what, and when nothing came he lowered his eyes again. Eastman was right. Nothing could come between them. _Nothing_. The fate of the only man he had ever known to be worthy of respect was a crime for which he would never forgive himself – a needless burden.

After a long silence, Eastman looked up at the chronometer.

"It is time."

Two Guards waited at the entrance to usher them into the hall. The dock was set directly before the Justice Bench.

Eastman took his seat at the table for the defence, among a group of similarly dressed men and women. Across from them was the table for the opposition and, behind the bar, the galleries above and the benches below were full.

He looked around with a kind of perfunctory mien, flowing with the usual choreography. When the chronometer on the back wall, over the bench showed 1500, a knell sounded. Everyone before the bar stood and the big double-doors behind the bench opened.

In walked the justice: a tall, thin, feeble old creature, the long silken black and gold robe swathed about his frail stature like loose bindings on an embalmed corpse. He leisurely settled in his throne. The harsh, cadaverous face loomed over the bench and his dark eyes quickly surveyed the courtroom over his thin spectacles.

"Case Reference: 16-345-26: UMC versus Martial Saul Vartanian." The courtroom clerk pronounced over a speaker: "Court is now in session."

"You may be seated," the old justice's voice was a deep, deep bass. The usual long and magisterial silence followed as his narrow eyes assessed whatever was on the top of his desk. A moment later, the majestic voice resonated through the hall again: "We begin with the pronouncement of this court's final determination."

The cadaverous head rose and the justice cast his gaze toward the table for the defence, then down again, into the dark, dour eyes of the martial in the dock before him.

"This case has been problematic to say the least." The justice's voice slowed as his diction became more prolix, more godlike. "This has been, to our knowledge, the first time in our brief history that a martial citizen has managed to traffic and conceal a civilian child within our dominion. We suppose that, to some degree, we should be thankful to Martial Vartanian for exposing the weaknesses of our border controls with the war zones."

The justice paused briefly.

"Martial Vartanian, you are certainly a warrior of great prowess, evidenced by the caste which you bear, and are thereby due all the additions which that caste merits. Nevertheless, even martials of the highest value are not unfettered from martial law. You have been the agent of grave misconduct that threatens the stability of our order and, as such, due reparation must be accorded... in the amount of three-hundred and fifty thousand dimitars to be paid as soon as the funds become available to you, if they are not at this present time."

The justice raised his eyes again and the stark, sunken visage followed after. "Now..." His voice took another abysmal dip. "We come to the matter of what is to be done with the child – as yet nameless for all intent and purposes of martial administration." He removed his spectacles and the eyes behind them darkened to obsidian. "Before we proceed, we should point out that the only reason we are allowing this point the privilege of contention before this court is the lack of precedent pertaining to the question. The case for the opposition has already been put forward; they have called for the child's transfer back to the civil world to do with her howsoever they deem fit. That _does_ seem to us to be in the best interests of all involved unless, of course, the counsel for the defence may provide us with good reason to think otherwise."

The justice's head rotated like a demigod's toward the desk for the defence.

"Your Justice," Eastman stood and came before the bench, pacing across the dock, "no matter what becomes of the child, she will always be considered a former martial citizen."

"The defence's point conceded," said the justice replied, "conjectures as to what becomes of anyone once they have left martial jurisdiction does not an argument make before this court. So long as the child does not conform to the standards incumbent upon all martial citizens in terms of our rigorous neural programs, her continued presence in Sodom constitutes a threat both to our martials – a point made amply clear by the opposition in their reference to the incident concerning (The justice referred to his notes) a certain former Martial Celyn Knight."

"Martial Knight possessed all the hallmarks of a defector long before..."

"Similar allegations have been made of your own client, Mr. Eastman." The Justice cast his dark gaze toward the dock. "We must also consider that Martial Vartanian's protection – even if that means protection from himself – is the primary scope of martial order, and allowing free access to this child does not seem to us to accord with that purpose. Of course, we would be inclined to take your request more seriously if it had come with the additional proposition to have the girl cleaned, which..."

"NO!"

Saul's voice boomed through the courtroom. A stunned silence was left in the wake of the echoes.

_Her... cleaned_... by _them_. The fire beat up in his blood at the thought. He gripped tight on his seat. The veins on his hands protruded with vicious restraint.

In the midst of the silence, all the attention in the courtroom shifted back upon the ominously mute justice, awaiting the reaction which never came.

"Your Justice..." Eastman spoke, finally, breaking the tension. "Your Justice, now might be an opportune moment to call our expert witness."

There was a pause, after which the justice bowed his head, put the spectacles back over his eyes and surveyed the top of the bench. Next moment, the orotund voice called out a name which roused Saul to sudden being.

"Dr. Augustus Pope..."

He could feel the figure in pale gray stand up behind the bar. The ominously slow, calculated tapping of the heels sounded down the aisle and the figure of Doctor Pope himself passed right by the dock and up to the witness pulpit.

"Your Justice," Pope saluted as he took the stand.

Eastman took his seat.

If there was one thing that never portended any good; it was Pope.

"Doctor Pope, you are Martial Vartanian's appointed neutralist; is that correct?"

"Yes, Your Justice."

"Within the limits of what the vow of discretion toward your patient permits, we would like to hear your professional opinion on the risks implied, should the appeal of the defence be acceded – and do keep it brief."

"Certainly, Your Justice." The insidious smile skulked up the lines of the neuralist's jaw.

A due sense of dread swelled in the interceding silence before Pope spoke: "My most recent contact with Martial Vartanian was just under one hundred days before today... I can assure the court that I had not been aware nor did my evaluation give me any reason to suspect that he was cohabiting with anyone at that particular time."

Saul's eyes widened.

"Do you mean to say that your evaluation concluded that he was sound?" asked the justice.

"So long as we are agreed on the definition, Your Justice," Pope replied, "then; yes."

It was a lie. Pope knew it was a lie. But why?

Why is he lying?

"Am I to understand, then, that our fears are without warrant?"

"Oh, I would go further than that, Your Justice," the neuralist replied. "On the contrary, I believe that – provided the appropriate controls are put in place – this little experiment can be of great benefit to us."

The justice reclined his seat and gauged the neuralist with interest.

"How so?"

"Well, as you might imagine, my interest in all this is purely scientific. I am sure Your Justice is aware there are bills currently being drafted by the Senior Commission which would allow for martial breeding through surrogacy using the reproductive cells of higher-casters."

"...Go on."

"Assuming the laws come receive the approval of the Senior Council, this would be a significant milestone in our history: The self-sustainability of martial populations! I should think the rearing of our future generations is a task for which we should all prepare ourselves. At present, for obvious reasons, we have no data on the integration of children into martial society. This child could make for extremely valuable research in which Martial Vartanian might also prove useful."

Pope looked from the justice to the dock, eyes murky as frost on ice. Saul gazed back at him, subdued by the sense that it was all too good to trust. What possible cause could there be lingering behind those cold, dead eyes?

The justice slowly nodded.

"Witness dismissed."

Pope stepped down from the platform. He walked past the dock, down the aisle and straight out of the courtroom. As suddenly as he arrived, he was gone like a spectre.

The justice pushed the spectacles back over his eyes and bowed his head in deliberation, and an agonisingly long hiatus preceded his next words, which he pronounced in the same resonating bass, without looking up.

"The court accedes to the request for the child to be maintained within martial jurisdiction. Request for controlled access also granted, subject to terms and conditions to be elucidated within the next three days."

The gavel struck the sounding block.

"Court is adjourned."

The justice rose and proceeded back through the double doors. The galleries started to empty. The SGs on either side of the dock marched down the centre aisle and through a separate exit while Saul lingered in the dock.

The releasing sound of the gavel rung in his head and held him in a stupor. It was over – and so unceremoniously. He stood just as Eastman came beside him.

"Where is she?"

"Her whereabouts will be disclosed before the day is through," the commissioner replied. "You will be free to see her then."

There was a solemn pause.

"I trust we shall see one another soon, Martial Vartanian." A clear smile appeared on the vinyl face. "Good day."

Eastman marched through the main exit and the courtroom emptied shortly afterwards.

By the time the maglev reached Haven District, the sense of disconcertion of it all had not passed, even as he lay down in the empty bed and rolled into the small space where that missing piece of him should have been. He felt the urge to respite, but could not move to it. Not until he had her would the fire in his soul allay.

* * *

It was precisely 20 digits to midnight when his cell rang.

He sat up immediately, having been lying awake, and reached over to the bedside table. His eyes strained when the screen lit up the blanks of his eyes with the promised dispatch from the martial court (he recognised the format). He skimmed through the message until he reached the very end:

No. 1,

8 Block,

45th Street,

Nozick District

He read and reread the address. The suspicion bubbled up again when he recalled that last malignant smile on Eastman's face. Something was not right. He knew it.

The cell screen went blank in his hands. He got up, tucked the blade into the beltline, put on his coat, raised the collar and walked out the door.

The maglev stopped at Nozick 5th Station. The cold front and the smell of rainfall blustered through the tunnel path as he entered the streets of the lower city. The rain showered cold and bitter with the brink of winter, dripping off the overpass, layering the path with a thick mist of shattered raindrops under the streetlights. Above was a moonless, starless sky.

His solitary footsteps echoed through the empty street amidst the pounding rain as he walked: head down, cold, drenched locks of hair hanging over eyes shot with blood, coattails side-swept in the drafts blowing down the side alleys. For an instant, he perceived the flanking buildings as war-torn ruins in the flashes of lightning, and he was a lone ghost drifting among the dead.

After a long, straight walk, he stopped at a crossroads. A gleam through the falling rain caught his eye. The sign on the corner of the crossroad read "5th Street."

He turned at the sign and continued to walk down the adjoining street, narrowed by the tall, dark fronts of decrepit blocks on either flank. The water began to gush back up from the gutters through the grates in sewage streams fouling the air. About a hundred yards on, he stopped again, and remained standing in the middle of the street.

He lifted his head over his right shoulder and across the road where – slotted between two high blocks like a doorstop – stood a terraced low-rise about 10 stories lightless windows and a façade streaked with the black murk of aerial pollution.

A bolt of lightning split the dark sky from east to west and the white flash lit up the stained tablet by the black doors of the front entrance.

Thunder cracked an instant after the lightning. For a long while, he was rooted to the ground, glowering at the ill-omened façade and when the rain began to drum down with fresh vigor, he sauntered across the street and up to the doors. The heavy, malfunctioning doors were separated by a small gap, into which he slipped both hands. He pried the doors with all his force until they gave and opened into a pitch black corridor. Another bolt of lightning flashed just as the doors parted and, in the break of light, a door appeared at the end.

His first step into the dark was marked by thunder and he sidled through leaving a trail of water in his path. The septic air was supplanted with the smell of neglect which became stronger and stronger as he came up to the door, whereupon another flash of lightning bore a number.

1

He stood before the door a solemn minute before raising a closed, two-knuckled hand. He knocked three times and each knock sent a churn through the swelling cauldron of dread in his gut.

He waited for the sounds of footsteps on the other side. Nothing came.

Then, without warning, the locks clicked. The door opened, and a jolt like the instant before death shot through him when a phantom figure appeared through the frail light in the doorway.

A head, level with his, stood upon a form draped in shadows and eyes like the blanks of quasars swallowed him into their gaze. The figure was an aged man, with an old, deathly grey visage, fraught with the lines of eons, though his features were strong. His hair was thick, fraying tresses of silver, and a black garb shrouded his frame from neck to toe.

The grey figure stood, silent and austere.

He had no idea who this strange figure was, but there was an uncanny sense that he should have known. He waited, expecting him to speak first, which he didn't. The man simply stood in the doorway, not a shadow of surprise or fear expressed in him, nor a word spoken.

"I am sorry," he said. "I have come to the wrong place."

Just as he made to turn, the figure in black spoke.

"You are in the right place." A roll of thunder followed his words.

He pulled open the door, turned and walked away.

Saul lingered alone before the threshold awhile before reasoning away his caution. With a due sense of impending oblivion, he crossed over the brink of the entrance, coming into a narrow passage only slightly less dark than the outside.

The air suddenly warmed and was pervaded with a strange scent vaguely like the smell of a low-caste bordello. A staircase ascended to an upper floor, occupying most of the space in the passage. He noticed his shadow swaying against the barren walls, and when he looked down the passage he saw the place was lit entirely by little flaming wicks sticking out of homespun waxen blocks of varying size and shape.

A draft drew the door shut, snuffing out the two candles nearest the entrance. The cassocked figure stood just within the reaches of the light. His head was bowed and the shadows shimmered over the strong lines of his feature. His hands hung idle at his sides, concealed behind the sleeves of his robe.

"You may leave your coat at the door."

"Where is she?" Saul demanded, as though suddenly woken from a trance.

The figure in black was slow in his response.

"The child is in her room... It is late. She is sleeping. It's best not to wake her."

"I want to see her."

The greying man raised his head, and the dark, dark eyes came into the light. "You will," he assured with a bow. "First, we must talk."

Saul glowered back. Even though it was yet too early to tell whether this stranger was to be trusted, he felt a peculiar reluctance to refuse. A puddle of water had formed beneath his feet and he removed the soaking coat and left it at the foot of the stairs in a bundle.

"This way." The figure in black turned and drifted down the dark corridor. A pale, vascular hand reached out from the sleeve, seizing upon one of the candles.

He watched the spectral being disappear through an open doorway before following down the candlelit passage, through an open door and into small room. A solitary flame hovered over a low table set in the middle. The candlelight gilded two chairs set on either side. Strange ornaments the likes of which he had never seen hung upon decayed walls. As soon as he walked in, the door behind him slid shut with a sharp click.

"Sit," bid the figure in black, walking past him from behind and settling into the seat on the right.

Saul delayed momentarily before coming forward and lowering into the chair opposite.

For a long time the dead silence was disturbed only by the faint and intermittent resonances of thunder from the outside. He looked up at the figure in black. Two flames danced in the blacks of his eyes, and the austere silence endured a long while before he finally spoke.

"Naomi has said a lot about you." His tenor was something between a murmur and a whisper and his lips barely moved when he spoke. "It was a while before she could bring herself to speak. She was lost and terrified in the beginning. She would not eat. She would not sleep. She would not leave her room. I would hear her cry through day and night..."

"Who are you?" Saul interrupted suddenly.

The unknown man fell silent and his eyes shut. The wasted head tilted all the way back with a deep breath and the veins and sinews of his neck swelled. "A name would not answer your question, even if I had one."

"If the Commission knows you, you must have a name."

"Names are repositories of the past; they mean nothing in this place."

There was a disturbing sapience about the man's demeanour.

" _What_ are you, then?"

"A more answerable question." The figure in black nodded and lifted his eyes to the ceiling. 'I suppose it would depend on whom you asked and, since you are asking me... 'hermit' is probably as good a description as any."

" _Hermit_ ," Saul repeated. "What does that mean?"

"A voice," the hermit answered succinctly. "A lone voice, weeping in the wilderness. Not too different from you."

"Me?"

"Yes... You.

"What do you know about me?"

"Oh, I know all about _you_ , Saul Vartanian."

The flames in the hermit's eyes flashed. His pale hand rose, and when the sleeve drew back from over his arm, the candlelight shone over the distinct lines of the faded signets. Their colour was a stonewashed blood-red.

"You might say I've known you your whole life."

He watched the raised hand grip the collar of the cassock and pull it down to reveal the faded three-horned, three-headed beast of the martial seal, just over the collarbone. On closer look, he saw the seal was not faded by age, but by a single scar.

### C. 5: Day 692

That moment the scarred seal appeared, he was overcome by that most familiar sense that he should wake up any second, for this _must_ have been a dream more real and more vexing than any other. But the hermit remained before him, still and silent. It was no dream.

Every chronometer across the martial world blinked back to 0000.

When the pale hand drew the collar back over the seal, he looked back up at the flashing blanks of the hermit's eyes.

He was never disposed to fear, but he was, at that moment, overcome by something far more profound than mere terror, such that of his former interest as to who this mas was died away instantly, and in its place came a new, more fearful question:

"Why are we here?"

In keeping with his habit, a period of silence preceded his answer, which was another question:

"Do you know what Providence is?"

"... No."

"It is not entirely unlike what you would call 'fate.'"

"I do not believe in fate," said Saul

"Why not?"

"Because it vindicates everything that people do."

The hermit bowed his head.

"That's right... Good."

"What is good?"

"Ah... Now, that is the finest question of all."

A sharp blow and rumble of thunder perturbed the still-burning flame ever so slightly.

"Providence," the hermit continued, "is also a vindicator. With one crucial difference."

"And what is that?"

"Fate preserves the strong. Providence preserves the good. Of course, that does not necessitate a bloodless path. No... To preserve one thing is to destroy another. That is the rule. You must know that by now." The hermit leaned forward until his face was just over the flame and laid his hands flat on the table. "I believe that Providence is what brought Naomi to you. I believe it is the reason you and I are sitting here right now."

"What reason?" he asked.

"That cannot be known until it has come to pass. It is the way of things."

He found himself having to pause to decrypt the hermit's words with each answer.

"What good is there believing in reasons you cannot know?"

"All the good in the world, of course," the hermit answered with a transitory smile. "But I don't expect you to understand that. No. Not yet..."

A number of theories flashed through Saul's mind with regard to the hermit – not least among them; the theory that he was nothing more than a very lucid madman. However, the strongest possibility presently nurturing his misgiving was that he was, for some as yet unknown purpose, in collusion with the Commission. He grew restless. Who was this man and what did he want?

"You wanted to know why we are here."

He affirmed the hermit's statement with his silence.

"You are here because you see the truth," said the hermit. "The truth is that the world is lost and does not know it. But _you_ know it. How you know it, you cannot justify. It is like a sense to which the consciousness of the world has been dulled: That voice... that only you can hear. And, so, you are forced to watch them stumble in a blind stupor, chasing illusions, abolishing themselves from the inside out by gradual degrees until one day there will be nothing left in the world but the final culmination of the soul: an endless cycle of fire and ash, and that lone, wailing voice in the wilderness." The hermit's voice became lower and graver with each word. "You see it... don't you? You see it every day."

As the hermit spoke, he could hear the voices of his nightmares screaming.

"Yes," he gasped.

"I see it too," the hermit answered, drawing away from the candlelight. "You are here because you have felt that fire scorch for a long, long time. Even now, it burns you. I can see it in your eyes. You are here because _she_ is the only thing that can take the pain away."

"And why are you here?" Saul rumbled.

At this question, the hermit bowed his head and the shadows extended over his eyes.

"I am here to tell you that it is time... for you to let her go."

All the suspicion that had been mounting flared up inside him at once, and the flash of sudden wrath bore itself in a fierce frown.

He got up from his seat, nearly sending the chair tumbling, and stepped up to the door while the hermit remained calmly seated. He pulled sideways on the handle but the door wouldn't give. He pulled again, sharply, and again.

"Open this door."

"Not until we are finished."

He turned and drew the blade. The blade edge shook an inch from the hermit's face.

"If you must kill me, then, so be it," the hermit sighed, wearily. "But you should know that there is a very particular way to open that door, and it would be far more expedient for you to spare my life – at least, until we are done... The alternative, of course, is that we both die in this room."

His fury had risen to the point where he would have certainly slashed the hermit's throat. The shaking blade yielded to reason, and the terse, feral breaths stifled with his rage. He slowly put away the blade and lowered back into the seat, averting the hermit's eyes for fear of having his indignation roused beyond control. "It does not matter who you are," he said, after a long silence. "I will not let you take her."

The hermit maintained his piercing gaze as he leaned forward into the candlelight.

"Do you love her?"

Saul looked up and was sucked back into the black holes of the hermit's eyes.

"What?"

"Naomi... Do you love her?"

The question was abrupt and unexpected. It was a question he had only vaguely considered. And the more he'd considered it, the more he was convinced that he must have. Now that the question was being put to him in this way, and by _this_ man, for some unknown reason he found himself unable to answer.

"I would die for her."

"Of course, you would," said the hermit. "Your life would be worth nothing without her. That is not what I asked."

"Then I do not know how to answer your question."

"Very well... then I shall ask you another question." The hermit reclined again. "Suppose _she_ was the one who wanted to leave you – to leave this place," he said. "What would you do?"

The question brought him to the edge of the abyss. He dared not answer. He _knew_ the answer. And that is exactly why he would not say it. He didn't have to. The hermit knew. He could tell by that convicting look in his eyes that he knew that he would not allow it to happen.

"You _need_ her," the hermit murmured, lowering his eyes, "but you do not love her. As soon as she causes you pain, you will hate her more than anything else in the world. It is in your nature."

"You do not know me."

"I don't have to," the hermit replied, slowly shaking his head. "Do you realise where you are?"

His eyes wandered uncertainly about the surrounding darkness while the hermit's gaze was straight, true and unwavering.

"I know that you have asked yourself the question before: What kind of man could possibly choose a place like this? But, we did. _You_ did. And every day you wonder why. The answer which you do not know haunts you even now."

"It does not matter," he replied sharply.

"The past does not matter?"

"The past is dead," he averred.

"To your mind, perhaps," said the hermit, shaking his head once more. "The soul never forgets. _Never_. And until your mind remembers, your soul will never find respite. The nightmare will not stop. It is the same for everyone who chooses this place."

"You chose this place," he rejoined.

The hermit nodded. "I have been here since the beginning."

"So what makes _you_ any different than me?"

"I know where your path with her ends."

The hermit lifted his sullen gaze again and the candle flames dilated to sparkles.

"Naomi loves you, Saul... She loves you in a way that neither you nor I can truly understand – in a way that _only_ someone like her is capable of loving. But because of who she is, a world like ours can only destroy her. And because of what _you_ are, her love will cause you pain unlike anything you have ever felt before, leaving only two possibilities: Either she will destroy you... or you will destroy her."

The warning was one he had heard before – though not in quite the same words. He had not believed it then, but now the horrid doubt started to creep in, through the omniscient eyes of this strange old hermit.

"Why are you telling me this?" he murmured.

The hermit held a sombre silence which went uninterrupted.

When the silence endured to a point that it became clear that the conversation was over, the hermit took the candle, stood from his chair and stepped up to the door. He drew a finger over the door seam and stopped just before the middle, then dragged the finger two inches to the right and pulled his hand back in a fist. With one sharp thump, the lock clicked and the door slid open.

"Come," he beckoned, floating through the door.

After a moment's hesitation, he stood up and followed back through the narrow, candlelit corridor and up the stairs.

The hermit stopped outside the closed door at the top, opened it and stepped aside, candle in hand. Inside, the pale street lights shone in through the window onto a bed with a small bulge in the middle. He held out the candle, and Saul regarded him skeptically as he took it.

He edged across the threshold into the room.

As he came nearer to the bed, tassels of blonde locks came within the reaches of the candlelight.

"Naomi..."

"You should not wake her."

Ignoring the hermit's warning, he inaudibly approached the head of the bed.

The little head appeared over the line of the quilt and he knelt down and brought the candlelight closer. It _was_ her. The first sight of her kindled the long lost warmth in his soul.

"Naomi."

Her eyes were closed. Her breaths were long and wheezing and more strained than usual and her skin became sallower and sallower under the candlelight. He brushed the hair from over her eyes and cupped his palm over the side of her face. Her skin was cold, her eyes strained to see, and for a while she was silent; breathing long, heavy breaths.

"I am here, little one." he said.

A narrow slit appeared between the dreary little eyelids, and the little moonstones peered through. A whisper effervesced off the small, pale lips.

"S... Sa..."

Naomi's voice suddenly broke and her eyes widened. She began to cough, loud rasping, guttering coughs, turning her face to the side and burying her face into the sheets. He almost dropped the candle as he moved to cradle her jerking little head.

She coughed more harshly than ever before. After a while, the coughs tempered to a strained, lung-shot wheeze and when the little head leaned back onto the pillow, he saw the rust-coloured stain on her lips, and the same stain was on his fingers. He lifted back the sheet to reveal a wide patch of crimson.

Naomi's eyes shut again. She reclined and passed out.

"What have you done to her?" he snarled, turning menacingly toward the hermit.

"I have not done anything."

He rushed forward and seizing the hermit by the collar of his robe and thrusting him up with a bang against the door, snarled: "WHAT HAPPENED TO HER!" His shaking fists pressed against the hermit's chest and his eyes bulged madly from their sockets.

The hermit stared back into the mad, persecuted eyes, and with an air of sincerest sorrow, muttered:

"It's cancer."

Saul's chest stopped heaving mid-breath.

He searched the depths of the hermit's gaze for any glimmer of a lie. It had to be a lie.

"... Cancer?"

The hermit lowered his eyes. "It is in her lungs."

Then, the memories summoned up; nights when he would wake with her coughs and shivers, the chronic illness, her loss of colour. His fists allayed.

"No..."

He staggered back to the bedside and fell to his knees.

"She took a turn for the worse a few days ago," said the hermit

"Treatment," he mumbled. "She can get treatment..."

"Treatment costs money. Money I don't have."

He fell silent again and looked away.

"Do you...?"

"No," he muttered. "They took everything."

The hail beat against the windows and the thunder broke the heavens again. The defenceless little head trembled in his arms. "She is... _dying_."

"Yes."

"No," his voice trembled. He touched his forehead against hers.

"She doesn't have much time."

He felt her skin cold in the palms of his hands as he cupped them around her pale face, trying to imbibe his own life into her. "... Not like this."

He would give his own life. He would give anything – _do_ anything. Any pain but this. It could not end like this.

* * *

Several days of unrest in the South Bolivian Republic finally led to a Council resolution the previous day declaring the former Plurinational State an enemy of the UMC. The sharp rise in martial demand sent a plethora of fresh calls for tenders through West Wing, and contract brokers in the Vanguard were on full alert, vying to secure the best deals with the PMCs. Commissioner Eastman had been drawing up the final clauses on one of the many bulk contracts that had gone through his office that day, when the door suddenly opened.

By the time he looked up, the entrant was already seated across from him.

"Martial Vartanian," the commissioner greeted with a nod. "Welcome back."

His reply to the greeting was a glare as grim a death.

"I need money."

The commissioner's eyes dilated. His hands slowly withdrew and the illuminated touchboard dissipated from the crystal surface of his desk.

"How much?"

He reached into his inner pockets, took out a folded piece of paper and laid it on the desk. The seal of the Commission Medical Branch was on the back.

The commissioner eyed the piece of paper with interest before leaning forward. He unfolded the paper, took a long look and gently laid it back down on the desk.

"That is a lot," he said, frankly.

"I need it."

"Very well... You know what you have to do." Eastman straightened up in his seat. His hand disappeared beneath the desktop and when it reappeared, it was holding a thin, red file with the seal of the Vanguard on the front. "The contract just opened up," he said, laying the file on the desk. "The assignment is in thirty days."

"I need the money _now_ ," he rumbled.

"We'll request an advance from your PMC."

Eastman's eyes gazed over his laced fingers.

Saul turned his glare from the commissioner to the bright red file sitting on the desk. He knew that hard copies of martial contracts were kept in a separate room, which meant that he must have selected the assignment in advance.

He slowly picked up the file and opened it.

"The mission location," said Eastman, "is one I believe you are familiar with..."

His eyes centred on a single word, in bold lettering, on the top of the page:

" _KAMCHATKA_ "

### C. 5: Day 743

The alarm went off at 0900. Four short bleeps and a brief pause recurred.

He sat up and brought his legs over the side of his bed, scouring his eyes with the back of his wrist. For a while he stared blankly at the clouded sky with the ringing alarm in the background. In the corner of the room, the computer display still showed the threads of correspondence from the previous days. When he recalled what day it was, he heaved a sigh, rose from the bed and breasted the sunbeams with due ambivalence.

The alarm switched off. He picked up his cell and the display lit up. A flashing notice intimated that the email he had been expecting from the Commission had arrived. The heading read:

" _Tenancy Expiration – Notice of Eviction"_

He pressed the "Delete" button, dropped the cell on the table and entered the _en suite_.

As the water poured over his face, he mulled over his own soul and discovered a new and unprecedented fear. For death, it seems, only perturbs the soul insofar as life is worth living. It was not that he did not want to die so much as he felt obligated to live. For her sake, and her sake alone, he was committed to life.

The water stopped running. He dried off and got dressed.

He picked up a small stack of papers on the lounge table on his way out and, after a fleeting glance, folded the papers and tucked them into his coat, stood in the middle of the hall, looking around the house, each corner rousing a different memory which replayed before his eyes. And as he walked out the front door, his last thought – his last hope – was that some impalpable thing had imparted itself to those walls.

The door shut.

Hands pocketed and head low, Saul Vartanian walked amid the foot traffic down the sidewalk. Dawn had not yet broken. A low-passing airship cast its light over the whole street and a row of passing autocabs sent the tail of his coat swaying in a dusty breeze. He passed a dreg in one of the narrow alleys off 5th Street, huddled up by a trash container, likely dead, but he did not stop to check. Sodom Sanitation would pass soon.

He stepped up to the door, knocked three times, paused, and then two more knocks, as the hermit had instructed (for reasons Saul did not ask him to specify, being no stranger to caution himself).

The door opened.

"Good morning," the hermit greeted from the gloom of the doorway.

He entered and the door closed.

The hermit's countenance was as solemn and his eyes just as grave as that first night they had met. Since then, they had seen one another more than a few times, but seldom spoken.

"How is she?" he asked.

"See for yourself... She is in her room."

There was a brief silence, after which the hermit sauntered past him.

"Wait."

The hermit stopped in his tracks and turned again, with his usual air of omniscience.

"You have done... a lot for her," he faltered, "... cared for her."

The hermit assented with a bow of his head.

"The last time I trusted someone –"

"I know," the hermit nodded.

He was unable to heave his heart into his mouth, but the hermit seemed to feel his thoughts.

"I may not come back," he murmured, darkly.

"You will."

"But, if I do not... Promise me that..."

"I will."

There was silence. He looked up at the hermit, wanting to say something more.

"It does not change anything I had told you," the hermit spoke. There was foreboding in his voice. "You should know that."

A solemn moment lapsed before the hermit turned and walked away.

Saul ascended the stairs and stopped outside the door to the first room. The memory of the last time he walked through the door brought a swift rush of dread which held him in suspension a good three minutes before he gently nudged the door open.

A dust-speckled daylight shone in through the window across a floor littered with crumpled balls of paper. In the middle of the room, under the sunbeams, the little figure was lying semi-prostrate, legs swinging back and forth. When the door clicked shut, the little golden head rose.

"Saul!" Naomi rose from the floor with a start and threw into an embrace.

When the little arms yielded, he knelt down and cupped the little face in his hands, studying her. Her skin, though still pallid, had recovered some of its lustre, and her golden hair was streaked with thin, short threads of white.

"Hello, little one. You look well."

"I missed you," she whispered, trembling with relief.

"I told you I would come back."

Her large eyes glowed and her little cheeks were full to bursting with her smile. "I asked Grandpa to come with us today," she said. "To the place."

He picked up one of the crumpled balls of paper on the floor and stood up.

"Who?"

"The old man," she answered. "He doesn't have a name."

"So I am told," he replied, unfolding the little ball of paper.

"But he's good," she said. " _I_ think he's good."

He drew out the crumpled ball of paper, and saw inside what looked like the beginnings of a portrait. It was far from a finished piece, but the likeness was one he easily recognised. Then he caught sight of a lone sheet in the middle of the room where she had been lying just before he came in.

"Your latest work," he said, picking up the more complete rendition of the same image. "Is that who I think it is?"

"It's... not finished. I... I want this one to be perfect. It has to be."

He was reminded of something as he handed the picture back to her.

"I thought you might want these." He reached into his coat, drew the small collection of papers.

Naomi took them with a beam of delight, but her smile quickly faded when she looked through the drawings and came upon her unfinished blood-blotched rendition of Celyn.

The forsakenness came upon her in the form of a gentle sigh which suddenly reminded him why he had come.

"There is something I must tell you."

He lifted her up off the floor and sat with her on the edge of the bed with her on his lap. Averting her eyes, he said: "I must go away for a while."

The great, gleaming eyes looked up.

"Where?"

"Somewhere far away."

"I can come with you –"

"No," he avowed sharply. "Where I must go, you cannot come."

"But, you'll come back."

He was silent.

"Saul, you'll come back," she said again.

"Yes... I will come back. I will always come back."

"You promise?"

"I promise."

I promise...

"You think too much."

The memory dissolved.

He tore his eyes away from the view beyond the small aperture and turned toward the voice that woke him from his reverie; the hawk-eyed brigadier with the snakish features.

"I said, you think too much." The brigadier took out a flask and unscrewed the top and raised the flask to his lips and drank. "You've been staring out that window since we left."

The giant metal belly of the buldroog grumbled with its heavy, bawling haul over the rugged terrain. Most of the other martials had dozed off in their seats. The stiff exoskeletons of their gear held them upright: tired heads dipping with the jounces of the trundling droog. The grips around their guns did not loosen with sleep.

He looked out of the small aperture of ballistic glass. The front of the sidelong truck had been with them since the convoy departed, advancing and retreating over the view of the land, the high and solitary, snow-tipped mountain with the swirl of cloud over the peak and the orange blast-furnace sky. Flashbacks returned: of bodies tearing to pieces, vaporising in a blood-cloud, and of the sounds – the salvos, the explosions, and the hailing rounds.

The long, hulking droog struck a fissure in their path and the sections of the vehicle lifted one after another. All of a sudden their path was encrusted with broken tarmac.

"Looks like we're coming into the city," rasped the hawk-eyed brigadier.

In the approaching distance there appeared the shadowy outlines of the buildings against the backdrop of the setting sun. The canyon to the northwest ebbed away and in its place surfaced a long and high protuberance of black dunes. The shape was strange.

He narrowed his eyes. The sun gleamed over the black ridge, lighting up an eerie mist.

"Got me a new prescription," the brigadier spoke again, drawing Saul's attention. In his hand, the he held an open neural canister. He rolled some of the tablets straight into his mouth and a swell went down his snake-like throat. He exhaled pleasurably. "You wouldn't think that you could be out in the middle of a combat zone, hell all around, and feel nothing but this constant _orgasm_ all up here (he held a finger to his temple) just going, and going, and going, and going."

The brigadier lifted his head, closed his eyes and exhaled with almost sexual relish. "It's all I can feel right now," he said with a raspy snicker.

Saul looked away and did not speak. They were now moving through the heart of the city.

"Not much of a talker, eh comrade?" sneered the brigadier.

"How far are we from Fort Gen?"

The brigadier shot a cold glare

"... About another hour," he said.

Saul turned the instant the answer came. Something caught his attention: something brief and barely visible, through the aperture just beside the brigadier's head. A tiny burst of light appeared at the top of the middle tower of three red tower blocks, which one might have easily mistaken for the glare of a window, except it was too bright.

Then there appeared another flash in the next block, and a third in quick succession.

Time stood still.

"GET DOWN!"

A split second later came a thunderous _BASH!_

He was hurled out of his seat. Everything went white. Through the barely conscious blur he felt the ground quake again and again with successive explosions until there was nothing but a high-pitched squealing in his ear. When he came to, he realised that he was lying on the vehicle's ceiling with blood dripping from his split scalp.

The droog had been flipped over and the three rear sections of the vehicle were gone; a gaping hole of twisted metal cinders and a wall of smoke in their place. Bodies and members were hurled like rag dolls and lay about numb and twitching.

"Get up!" he hollered, lifting the nearest martial to his feet. "Move, now!" He beat at the panels on the accesses and the pneumatic doors opened with a sharp hiss.

The moment they hurdled through the access there was another bright flash and the shockwave followed and another nearby vehicle detonated and keeled over. Passing trucks and droogs ground to a halt, skidded and toppled to evade the fleers and explosions, grinding up the tarmac. Hollers railed through the chaos:

"AMBUSH!"

"ATGs!"

"TAKE COVER!"

Bang!

Orders shot across the airwaves in a frenzy. They rushed across the street, taking cover behind the fragmented walls of a ruined building. More martials fleeing from the streets took their positions, crouched and pressed up against the wall on either side.

"WHERE THE HELL ARE THEY FIRING FROM?" yelled the brigadier.

"Three red tower blocks to the north. The upper floors."

"Fire on those fucking towers NOW!"

The brigadier howled the order over the airwaves just as another succession of explosions shook the ground and shards of debris rocketed past, splintering the edges of the walls. Storms of gunfire unleashed northward.

He peered over the edge of the wall just in time to see the great cannons on the tank heads revolve. Blasts of fire and smoke spouted out the thick muzzles one after the other like a battleship broadside all along the thoroughfare.

The sequence of shockwaves ruptured loose sections of the surrounding ruins and a shower of splintered debris fell from above.

The three tower blocks burst, ruptured and split like figures before a firing squad. Then a second sequential barrage followed and ruptured the bases.

The towers toppled into one another; a slow and ponderous fall like felled lumber crumbling, riven and disintegrated, vanishing in a thick, white fog.

The resonance of the volleys from the tanks and the declining rumble of the falling towers endured for a whole minute.

The ash fog rose high into the air and followed the wind to the west. They waited for some kind of follow-up – another explosion, more gunshots.

Silence.

"Hold positions."

The wait carried on for about three more minutes.

The trailing mist of powdered debris swept over the thoroughfare like a sandstorm. Soon, martials started emerging onto the street one by one, and the scene was one of fire, smoke and butchery.

Masks came down to filter out the toxic mist. All along the half-kilometer stretch of road, the convoy had come to a halt, divided by segments of carnage.

"All teams branch out into the streets. Search the buildings." The brigadier removed his mask and stood up, erect, cursing.

"First Brigade, damage report?"

"Multiple KIAs. Five HGVs down. It's a mess. We're not going anywhere without replacements."

"Someone call Fort Gen. We're going to need another convoy... I knew this place was a fucking danger zone."

"We are nowhere near enemy lines," said Saul. "Who were they?"

"Freedom fighters left over from the last assault."

"... Freedom fighters?"

"Civil soldiers – anti-militarists," The brigadier prodded a broken corpse with his boot. "Call themselves the 'Phoenix Brigades.' Nobody's friend and everyone's enemy. Their fight is against the PMCs... Talk about a waste of blood."

Martials dispersed among the wreckage, inspecting the fallen for signs of life. Meanwhile, Saul peered through the mist at the silhouettes of the ruined city, the jagged edges of the broken buildings and the walls peppered with bullets. He narrowed his eyes, lowered the mask and breathed in the smog of dust, scorched air and charred flesh. He knew this place.

" _This_... is Dolinovka." He gazed about in disbelief at the broken carcass of Naomi's home.

"Didn't check the itinerary?"

"What happened here?"

The brigadier eyed him with a sideways glower.

"Have you been living under a rock? The Kamchatka uprisings...? 'Russian Winter?'"

Russian winter...

"This was a rebel city," snorted the brigadier. "Hell, this was a rebel region."

"What happened?"

A troop of martials marched past and into the adjacent side streets. The brigadier sauntered casually after them and continued to explain:

"There was a mass revolt – _coups_ all over the damn place. Most of them were spearheaded by the Phoenix Brigades. This city right here was their capitol. NSRRS forces pulled out of the region a short while after the uprising and the U.S. moved us in a few months later – took over the whole region. We laid this place to waste a long while ago, but stragglers always get left behind. This is what happens when no one sends a clean-up crew. Rebels..." he spat. "They're like rats."

He broke off from the brigadier's company and walked off into a side alley.

"Hey," the brigadier called. "Where are you going?"

"To search the area."

"Alone?"

"Alone. Do not follow me."

The brigadier disappeared down the misted path.

Before long, he had broken off from the main contingent and was walking solitarily down the narrower streets west of the main thoroughfare. He shielded his eyes from the billowing clouds of red dust. Further on, the air became tainted with a pungency like decomposition, yet there was not a corpse to be seen anywhere. Swarms of large insects wafted through the narrow paths and gusts of wind moaned in his ears. Rolling tumbleweed caused him to stop, search around, gun raised, finger fastened around the trigger, then ease a moment later and continue.

The scene was ripe for ambush.

He slowed with each step, overcome by the surreal sense of hovering over the brim of recollection, like an enduring _déjà vu_ , struggling to breach the boundary of memory.

Suddenly, he stopped. He turned his head to the left, following the gleam in the corner of his eye.

Something barely discernible on the holed and splintered face of a door caught his attention: a golden symbol in the form of a winged beast. In each corner of the street were the flickers of lost memories returning in broken, undecipherable pieces: the lines of blood-stained bullet holes in the walls, fallen masses of rubble and mud-caked seams, mounds of dirt, a few scatters of discharged round cases, and deserted homes, upturned and shattered, still containing most of the dust-laden possessions of the former city dwellers.

The city looked virtually untouched. One might never have guessed that a battle had been fought there at all, yet there was not a soul to be seen. And all of it came together in a single, ominous question:

Where did they all go?

The next alleyway looked to have eluded the brunt of battle. As he passed a half-open door, the ground suddenly supple against the soles of his boots.

He stopped and looked down. The ground was coated thick with dust swaying in the breeze, but through the thinner deposits he saw, quite clearly, an under-layer of bright red that stopped at the foot of the door. He holstered his weapon, got down on one knee and wiped away the dirt and gravel to reveal a fine red fabric. He grabbed the fabric in a fist, pulled it out from under the door, and when the dust showered off and blew away in the draft, he saw that he was holding what appeared to be a banner.

He looked up at the door under which the banner had been wedged and noted that it was distinguished from most of other doors by the same golden winged creature etched into the red banner: A golden phoenix.

Placing his hand flat over the crest, he pushed on the stiff door three times until it gave. A small horde of frightened rats scurried out, screeching.

When he crossed the threshold, the wind yielded. The light switch didn't work.

The circle of torchlight lit up a small, single-room abode, cobwebs hanging from the ceiling corners like wall tapestries. All the cupboards and drawers in the room were drawn open, their contents strewn over the floor and covered in dirt, dismantled weapon parts and gear falling out of open munitions crates. The place looked to have been ransacked like everywhere else. The torchlight passed over the carpeted floor and stopped on a small desk to the left.

He lowered the torch and lifted the fallen cabinets off the desk-top with a loud moan and bang that sent one last rat scuttling out the door. When he swept the dust and fragments off of the desk-top, something caught his eye, lodged in a narrow space between the desk and the wall. The gap was closed with what appeared to be the outer edge of a block of wood. He pocked his finger into the small gap and fiddled around until the thin block slipped out of the compartment.

A book.

He shone the light over the cover: no title on the front, nothing on the back or on the spine. He opened it, and in the middle of the very first page was written the following:

Since I am certain that any record of us and our cause shall be erased from the pages of history should we fail at what we have here set out to achieve, in that event my only hope is that this record finds its way to the world, that people may know our struggle and the cause to which we have commended our fate.

Our memory is in your hands.

– _NOVUM MUNDI RESURGENT_ –

Captain Maxwell Wallace of the Phoenix Brigades,

_Dolinovka, Kamchatka, (soon to be former) New Eastern Republic of Russian States_.

He flicked through the pages and found that the little book contained a series of dated entries in the same handwriting. Gathering that the insignia on the doors must have marked the lodgings of the faction leaders, he propped his gun up against the desk, pulled the chair up off the floor, sat down and turned the page to the first entry:

Russian Winter – Day 1

It has begun.

Our cells have infiltrated the cities of Petropavlovsk, Yelisovo, Sedanka and Tigil. We have already spread our seed throughout Dolinovka. These boroughs were built recently to house exiles from the Mongolian warzones in the southwest. Our seedbed is small, but ripe.

_We lurk in the shadows for now, until we have garnered enough support from the people. Our comrades will make us known among our countrymen when our mission is fulfilled and. Our reputation will spread throughout Russia soon enough. Before long, the whole world will know. The Phoenix will rise from the ashes of all of the world's loss. Martial order must fall. At any cost, it must fall_...

He stopped reading and turned the pages, stopping from time to time to skim through the entries. Every step leading up to the _coup_ of the city was catalogued in detail, interspersed with increasingly vitriolic references to the "martial devils," "peons of the PMCs." "pigs of the martial economy". About one-third through the journal, he stopped flipping the pages when three words at the top of an entry caught his attention:

Russian Winter – Day 52

We strike tomorrow.

I may not live through the assault, but I am not as fearful of my own death as I am for Aaliyah's. As much as I want to, I cannot stop her from fighting. She came here to fight...

He skimmed through the entry.

... _Whilst I can't say whether I would feel the same way about our cause if it were to cost her life, I know this is the way of the world: To gain all one must lose all. I suppose we shall know what we will have gained and lost after tomorrow_ ...

The entry carried on in a long monologue. He could read the fear in his very pen-strokes, the sort of fear that was the first thing eradicated when one crossed over to the martial world, unadulterated by neural programs and martial conditioning. A pure fear – a human fear, the fear of a man torn between something to die for and some _one_ to live for.

He turned the page. As he began to read again, the first thing he noticed is that the handwriting of the entry had altered. It was more irregular, more twisted. The second thing he noticed was that a long period between the next entry and the last went unrecorded:

Russian Winter – Day 76

It has been two weeks since the uprising.

The whole region has been taken over by the Phoenix. Our sun has risen, but inside I feel only darkness and the cold breath of empty space.

Aaliyah is dead.

Others have lost their whole families, many of whom were not even for our cause. I wonder, now, as I had thought I would, whether it was all worth it – to know that we have caused so many the sort of pain that I feel now. I do not know.

At any rate, we are the enemies of the world. I doubt that I will live to see the end of our blood and efforts but as long as I am able to fight, I must. The cause must come before our pain. Always. It is what separates us from the martial dogs...

A none-too-far-flung spurt of gunshots broke his concentration, and the echoes faded into the dying wind with no follow-up. There was no time to waste. He had to know what happened to the people of the city. He would not be able to live with knowledge that there had been a chance that Naomi's family was still alive. He had to know. He flicked through to the later entries in the journal and continued to read:

Russian Winter – Day 221

UMC forces have landed on our shores.

They have already begun setting up outposts to the southwest. As we understand it, they are here on a mandate from the United States government. We could not even win the support of our own people...

_It is official. Our blood. Aaliyah's blood. It was all for nothing. This world runs on war, and war will wear it out to naught. We were fools to think that we could change humanity's course. I see clearly now what I did not see before. The problem lies far deeper than any bullet can pierce. Fear, pride, greed, power, progress. No amount of fighting – no amount of pleading to man's conscience can ever destroy these forces. They will go on until they consume the world. The meme has taken over_...

He turned over the page:

... _The PMCs... devils... they keep the fear alive... the wars continue... the martial dogs are their slaves_...

He turned the page again:

... _I regret for the people of this city. Most of them have no idea what fate awaits them. Many of them have taken measures to hide their children. Others have fled. Where they will go, I have no idea. There is no escape now. We led them to believe in our cause. Now they must watch everything we promised crumble to ashes along with their homes and their futures._

_The Phoenix Brigades will fight to the end, even if the blood we shed will make no difference in the long run. Perhaps something new will rise from our ashes. Though I have not the slightest faith in Providence, I have no hope apart from it. I have lost too much to possibly see death as anything less than a reprieve_...

He dropped the journal, drew a sidearm and turned when he heard the sound of footsteps from behind. With the abruptness of the turn, the chair was thrown across the floor with a clatter.

Through the window, a motionless figure cast its long shadow on the outside walls.

"Who goes there?" he called.

When no answer came, he soundlessly approached the door. The shadow zipped away.

"Wait!"

He rushed out of the door just just in time to see the edge of a shadow stop at the top of a stairway under a small incline of little favela-like blocks. He heard the sound of beating against a door and a voice shouting something undecipherable through the wind.

Just before he reached the top of the stairs, he heard a door open and shut.

He lurked past each of the little huts, listening intently and stopping when he heard hushed and panicked voices, bringing his ear close to the door. He waited. When the voices stopped and distinct, rapid movements like the fretting for a weapon sounded soon after, he stood back at once and drove the sole of his boot into the door and burst over the threshold.

"Stoy!"

Strobe lights flashed, and between him and the wall a man stood, frozen.

The man slowly turned a grimace of anger into the light, showing the raised palms of his hands. His head rose and a brutally scored and sun-beaten face surfaced: scars curling all around his features, and his dark, vexing eyes.

"Are you one of them?" he demanded. "The Phoenix Brigades...? Answer me!"

The muscles in the rebel's jaw beat and his teeth trembled rabidly. "Martial dog..." he snarled through clenched teeth and spat. "You will all burn in hell."

Saul's sights darted around the small room. There were large closets and cabinets all around, presumably filled with munitions and supplies. The place looked like a storehouse. "Where is the other one?" he demanded. "I heard voices. There is someone else."

"Just kill me and go," growled the rebel. "GO!"

He stared directly into the rebel's eyes.

The strobe lights stopped. He lowered the gun by a slight angle, sufficient to show that he meant no harm.

"What happened to this place?" he asked, his voice low.

The rebel maintained his glower and a steady flow of breath, deep, quick and furious.

"Hear me," he said, lowering the gun farther. "I saved a little girl from this place. She has a mother and father who may still be alive. I need to know where the people of this city fled to."

At these words, the rebel's rabid breaths stopped.

"Alive..."

A silence followed.

Then, short, terse exhales like something between a laugh and a sob proceeded from him and he started to shake his head in hopelessness.

"Please... I must know what happened."

The rebel turned up a look of woeful resignation and his hands slowly begun to lower.

"Do not do it."

But the rebel reached behind his back and when the hand came out it bore a pistol.

"I am sorry."

"Don't –"

"I cannot die on my knees –"

"NO!"

The rebel's gun rose not three inches before three shots rang out. Four in rapid succession tore across his chest, each shot knocked him back to the wall and he collapsed in a slew of his own blood.

The rebel's dying eyes fixed their stare on him until the instant life left them. And for his last dying seconds, he looked as though he was trying to mouth something of dire importance. The words were choked off by blood. His head hung.

He stood staring into the rebel's eyes, trying to decrypt the words from the last movements of his lips, but the rapid sound of movement caused him to twist around again.

The noise came from inside one of the cabinets. He pinpointed the exact one and lined his sights.

"Come out," he commanded, "slowly."

He approached the cabinet from the side. He waited.

Another sound of movement came from the same cabinet, but no answer.

" _Vykhodi!"_ he shouted.

He expected, at any moment, for shots to come from inside, or for the cabinet doors to break open. He heard movement again and, convinced it was the drawing of a gun, nerves still brimming with the last kill, he aimed the pistol low and fired two quick shots at where the legs would have been.

Silence.

He expected to hear some kind of groan or yelp, but no sound came except for a short slump like a dropping sack.

He waited.

A second later, he heard something. Something very, very distinct.

He opened the cabinet doors, looked down and the gun slipped from his grip.

"No..."

A young boy cowered at the bottom of the cabinet clutching the middle of his abdomen, and a steady-growing stain of red began beneath the small hands where one of the rounds has passed through him. The boy looked up, his face contorted, his tear-filled hazel eyes gaping. The small breaths started to shudder.

"No, no, no," he repeated with dreadful whispers.

He bent down at once and lifted the boy out of the cabinet, cradled the small figure in his arms and held the back of his small head and looked into the wide, perplexed eyes.

Small squeaks of panic shot from the boy's lips like arrows. The young boy shook and wretched. Blood issued from his lips. The little face went blank and the little head drooped in his hands, blood pouring out the side of his mouth.

He went on mouthing frenzied nothings, gaping at the small, dead face in horror. His hands shook loose and the boy slipped from his arms and fell lifeless on his side.

He stood up and recoiled.

The blood had poured from the exit wound and drenched his hands, and he looked down at the bloodied hands, washed over by a most familiar terror. Images started to blaze past his mind's eye, images he had never seen in his vilest nightmares – shrieks and wails rising unrelentingly like banshees. He gripped his own skull and the child's blood smeared him. It would not stop.

Stop... stop...

At that moment, the door swung open again and slammed back against the wall.

"In here!" a voice yelled from behind.

The hawk-eyed brigadier burst through the door, followed by a three-man squad. The shadows danced about the wall in front of him. He slowly came off his knees and onto his feet, staring down at the child's corpse.

"We heard the gunshots," said the brigadier coming up beside him. "You have blood on you. Were you hit?"

The words "you have blood on you" repeated in his head.

"What's wrong...?"

He remained with his head hung, eyes gaping at the floor.

Finally, the brigadier turned to his subordinates. "Get the bodies out. Keep searching the area. There's probably more of them around. Move."

The rebel's corpse was hauled out of the room first and the child was dragged away from his sight afterward, slung over the shoulder like a gunny sack and carried away.

"Let's go," said the brigadier, turning to the door. "The convoy will be here any minute."

"These people had families." Saul spoke, finally.

The brigadier stopped and turned back with a guarded glower as Saul slowly turned and raised his head, eyes bulging and aflame.

"You were here?" he said.

"What?"

"Were you here – when this happened?"

The brigadier stopped and approached him, as though he were squaring up. His jutting brow knotted and his grin was baleful.

"I was here."

"Where are the people of this city?"

The brigadier snorted and started to snigger.

"Where are they!?"

"You didn't see it? It was pretty hard to miss."

"... See what?"

The brigadier looked momentarily out the door, as though he were considering something. Then he looked back. "It _is_ close by," he said. "We'll get a better vantage point up top." He marched out of the room, treading over the trails of blood from the corpses.

He followed the brigadier up the flights of stairs until the very top from whence they attained a full view of the ruined city.

They stopped outside a large, warehouse double-door and the brigadier slipped the butt of his gun in the narrow gap and levered on the frame like a crowbar to pry the door wider.

"This way," said the brigadier, slipping through the gap.

He followed the brigadier's light through a long, dark tunnel, at the end of which the red, red sky blazed through the black like the mouth of an incinerator.

He emerged. The thick dust whipped against his face in the wind.

The brigadier stood waiting at the edge of a precipice, overlooking the city limits.

"Worth a thousand words."

As he drew nearer to the edge of the precipice, his pace slowed and his eyes flared again with a vision of fresh hell.

He was standing at the head of the same black dune he had seen as they'd entered the city. Now, in proximity, he beheld what he had previously thought a long stretch of jagged ridges and saw that it was formed not of sand or stone... but a hundred thousand mortared, blackened, burned and decomposed corpses.

The cycles of the sun had scorched the bodies black. A mist of ash blew off the crest of carcasses like snow off a mountain peak and the spray ignited red as Saharan sands, carrying the smell of purification into the city.

"The orders were to purge eighty percent of the populace," said the brigadier. "Send a clear message out to all the other cities in the region supporting the uprising. No mercy for revolutionaries."

"Dead," he muttered, breathless. "They are – all – dead."

The cries of the past began to swirl in his mind again as the memories came flooding back. His heart beat the fire through his body.

"All the other cities surrendered a few days later," said the brigadier. "Saved a lot of blood in the long run. Pity... All that good blood gone to waste." The brigadier began to snigger.

Brief though it was, the snigger resounded and rose into a laugh through the tumult in his mind. The laugh became a demonic screech and cackle getting louder and louder, flaring up his blood until every muscle in his body juddered. He had taken everything from Naomi before he ever knew her. He was the one who killed her parents.

That fire-filled sky rising off the dead was all he could see as he turned with a howl and hurled himself forward, driving the edge of blade straight into the brigadier's neck, pulled out and stabbed again, and again, and again, and again. With each gore of the blade through flesh and bone he bawled and hollered and sobbed and gnashed his teeth, even as he tasted the slimes of blood dash against his face, even as the body was dead and limp beneath him; he slashed, yelled, hacked, wept, dashed, until the corpse was split down the middle and the blood drenched him from the face down so that his shouts blew blood drops into the flaming sky and echoed across the land and to the ends of the earth.

He stood up and came to the edge of the precipice.

* * *

The candle on the bedside snuffed out. Naomi started and fell against the bedstead with a gasp, her large eyes brimming with tears.

At that moment, the door opened. The hermit stopped on the threshold.

"What's wrong, child?"

"S-s-something h-happened to him," Naomi stuttered, sobbing in spams. "S-something bad." She buried her eyes in her hands and wept.

The hermit slowly lowered onto the bed beside her.

"You are thinking too much," he said. "You should rest now."

"No. No, I can feel it. I can feel it."

"What do you feel?"

"I don't know." She shook away the horrid vision. "I don't know... It hurts," she cried. "It hurts."

The hermit kept his gaze on her and waited for her cries to quell before he wiped away the tears with his sleeve.

"He's not coming back."

"He promised you."

The little head sniffled, gulped and nodded.

"You must believe," said the hermit. "Even when we are utterly powerless, we will always have the power to believe."

"But..." she sobbed. "It... doesn't..."

"You're wrong," the hermit rumbled. "If you feel his pain, it means he is still fighting. His faith in you keeps him alive, but _your_ faith – that is the only thing that will bring him back."

She sniffled and wiped away her tears.

"You must have faith, for his sake and ours," the hermit whispered. "Without it, we..."

They were interrupted by a knocking at the door at the bottom of the stairs. The hermit turned to face the source and Naomi raised her head at once.

A pause.

"Is it..."

"No," the hermit interrupted immediately.

The knocks came in a straight sequence of four.

"You wait here," he said to the girl.

The hermit descended the candlelit stairs. As he slowly approached the door and the knocks came.

The door opened.

In the dark doorway, there stood a black-suited, synthetic-faced man – a man whom the hermit knew well.

"Martial..."

"Never say that name."

The dark coat over Eastman's suit was drizzled with fresh snow as he stood before the threshold.

The hermit's omniscient eyes lowered to the floor and rose again. He drew the door open and led the way down the narrow corridor without a word and not a word was uttered until the two dark figures were seated across from one another and, the candlelight illumined their interlocking gazes.

In the midst of the long and austere silence, a soundless dialogue seemed to be going on between them.

"Where is Vartanian?" The hermit's voice was something between a rumble and a whisper.

The elusive flickers of conceit shone Eastman's dark eyes.

Next moment, with almost mechanical deliberation, the commissioner's hands rose off the armrests, and when his eight fingertips settled on the top of the thin briefcase, the locks clicked open.

He took out a large, black envelope. On the front, the martial insignia – the three-horned, three-headed beast – was marked in platinum. The briefcase closed and Eastman placed the black envelope lightly beside the candle on the table-top.

The hermit's gaze roamed from the commissioner to the thin file lying on the table between them.

"A decree from the Martial High Court," Eastman answered. "Approved by the First Region Senior Commissioner of the Martial Bureau himself."

After a momentary delay, a white hand emerged from under the sleeve of the hermit's cassock, slipped the fold out of the throat and removed two secured sheets of paper. True to the commissioner's words, the platinum seal of the Senior Commission of the regions was at the bottom, along with a series of other marks and autographs.

"It is the first of its kind," said Eastman, as the hermit scanned the first page. "Given your exceptional circumstances I imagine it will also be the last."

A brief reading of the first page yielded its purpose, summed up in the three bold words at the end of the first line:

"DECREE OF EMANCIPATION"

The hermit's eyes rose and peered over the top of the page at the commissioner.

"The arrangements for your retransfer to civil jurisdiction have already been made. After twenty-five long years, your wish has finally come true..."

"You did not answer my question," the hermit interrupted with a stern glare.

The commissioner tilted his gaze slightly to one side.

"I assumed it was no longer relevant."

"The fact that you're here attests that it is." The hermit laid the decree on the table and sat back, laying down his arms and fastening his grip on the rests. "You don't expect me to believe you went through the trouble of lobbying for all this just to gratify the lost hope of an old dreg?" He paused and hummed. "Why are you here?"

The beginnings of a synthetic smile flashed upon the commissioner's face.

"You know the answer to your own irrelevant question."

"The girl..." The flaming wick stirred with the hermit's breath.

"Our reasons stem only from our purpose," said Eastman.

"Vartanian," the hermit nodded. "You are trying to break him."

"NO." Eastman's voice suddenly deepened to a frightening baritone.

After a long silence, he spoke again, and his voice softened back to its former pitch.

"We are trying to _cure_ him."

"Of course," hummed the hermit. "A matter of perspective... But I wonder why is he so valuable to you."

"Martial Vartanian's value extends as far as his caste, no different than anyone else," the commissioner replied, frankly. "We take as much trouble with our martials as their value merits. No more. No less. We all have our purpose. We are all elements in the pattern."

"You see nothing wrong with the pattern?"

"Wrong...?" At this Eastman paused. "I am not sure I understand your question."

Silence fell again.

The hermit bided his time. His dark eyes were intense and burning with the flaming wick, unravelling the hidden schemes out of those quasi-imperceptible tells in the commissioner's blank stare. The unassailable, dead logicality that permeated his every word and gesture mirrored the very system that gave him and everyone else their purpose; a being without cause above his function, a figure of dead neutrality, a machine. And the mechanicalness of his scope was clear enough, but the method raised a few questions – one in particular. Seeing as how they had already had the opportunity to expel the girl...

"Why _now_?"

Eastman was slow with his answer.

"Everything happens when, and as, it is supposed to."

"Indeed."

And that could only mean one thing. Vartanian was alive, and very probably on the brink of being broken. Every measured step had been designed to the point of choreography, specifically to bring him to this moment.

"Why not simply take her away?" he asked.

"There are rules to what we do. We are here to serve and abet the will, not defy it."

"But _I_ can."

Eastman bowed his head.

"Freedom demands it," he said.

"So, you are leaving his fate to me."

"All we are offering you is a choice. His fate, like yours, is determined either way. It is written in nature. No one can change it."

"I see..." hummed the hermit. A subtle smile emerged across the rucked and ashen feature.

"Then we understand each another."

"I think we do. There _is_ , however just one problem.

Eastman's beady eyes inclined with an air of curiosity.

"The choice is not mine to make." The hermit's smile faded from him and there was another long silence, after which he spoke again, in a raised voice, keeping his eyes fixed on the commissioner with consistent intensity.

"I hear you there, child."

There was a brief pause.

Eastman turned toward the open doorway.

A few tentative seconds after the hermit spoke, Naomi peeped out from behind the door, where she had been standing, listening. She came forward with an anxious sigh and the hermit rotated his greying old head over his shoulder.

"Come here," he said.

Naomi obeyed without a word, and the commissioner's eyes followed her closely as she came toward them. The old hermit lifted her up and settled her upon his lap and the gleaming eyes turned up searchingly at the grizzled old head.

"Do you know this man?" he asked, looking down at her.

She turned and set her wide-eyed stare upon the commissioner, and something in him seemed to writhe with unease the instant their eyes met.

"Why is he here?" she asked.

"He says he wants to set you free," said the hermit.

"... Free?" The girl looked back up at the old hermit with a searching gaze. "What about Saul?"

The hermit looked away and was silent.

The girl lowered her eyes as though she would break into tears again at any moment.

"Faith," she whispered, simply.

There was silence again, and in the midst of the silence, Naomi turned her eyes back toward Eastman.

"Saul promised he'll back," she said. "I promised I'd wait for him."

She lingered a little while before turning her bidding eyes back up to the old hermit, who lowered her back to the floor, and the moment her feet touched the ground she toddled out of the room and the silence between the two dark figures continued until the sound of the little footsteps climbing the stairs ended with the shutting of a door.

"It appears you have your answer," spoke the hermit.

Eastman bowed his head with seeming approval, checked the time on his watch and, apparently seeing that he had expended about as much time as the reason for his visit warranted, rose from his seat and took up his coat.

"I needn't tell you," said the commissioner, "that this is highly irrational,"

"Reason is sordidly overrated."

"You know this will change nothing."

"Yes... and no." The hermit slowly rose from his chair and regarded the commissioner with a look of premonition. "Perhaps not soon, Mr. Eastman," he said, his voice ominous, "but, in time, I think you will find it will change... just about everything."

### Day 0

Faint murmurs through the dark brought him back to being.

For what seemed like hours he was a dead vessel of sensation rousing, not knowing where he was, whence he'd come or wither he was going, and the resonances of steady footfalls and a steady monotone in the background were all that were until the light came in shallow pulses of white. The pulses brightened, then dimmed and then brightened more still. When his sense of equilibrium came and his vision cleared, he realised that he was on his back.

The lights winked from the passing ceiling and the faint murmurs grew into blaring echoes. It may have been another nightmare, but there was no way to tell the difference between one hell and another anymore. Thoughts flitted through his mind in an incomprehensible flux, like pieces of a shattered pattern.

When the ceiling lights passed, he could see the shadows of the marching figures on either side of him, stretching and receding on the walls. He wanted to rise, but his body would not start to impulse.

The shadows stopped when the lights went out. The footsteps departed and he was alone in the dark. There sounded an electromechanical hum and he suddenly felt another shift in equilibrium.

Though he knew his body was being moved, he felt nothing. It was a strange, ghostly feeling, as though his mind occupied a space that was not his own. And since he had, at present, no memory of being alive, he supposed he must be dead.

The long intermission of soundless gloom could have gone on forever.

Suddenly, a broad beam of pale light beamed down from the ceiling, lighting up a five-yard circle of bare floor. It was only after the light shone down on him that he realised he was upright, and that the bed on which he had been lying had someway morphed into a seat which hugged the whole of his body mould-like from head to toe.

Dead from the skull down, unable to move his neck, his eyes flitted about in their sockets. His flesh was bare and flayed to the point that the blood-red insignia on his arms blended into raw skin and his chest rose with involuntary breaths, squalling with each inhale as a mask fed the air into his lungs with intermittent wafts.

He willed to move again. Not even a twitch of a finger.

Through the shadows beyond the column of light, he saw what appeared to be a host of vague silhouetted figures sitting above, behind and around him. The outlines of their grim and overlapping heads were all directed at the centre of the chamber. Directly ahead of him was a wall of pitch black.

A frame of light appeared through the wall of black as a door opened. A dark silhouette momentarily appeared against the backdrop of light before the doors closed again. The sound of evenly tapping heels approached and terminated when the ominous figure stopped directly before him. The figure lifted its head. The shadow over his feature receded and the round lenses of his pince-nez were opaque through the glare of the overhead light.

"Welcome back, Saul."

A sudden murderous impulse engulfed his thoughts at first sight of Pope, who silently removed his glasses revealing a very different, more explicit air. The smile on his face was clear and his azure eyes flashed with purpose.

Low, feral growls rolled with his steady breaths. He was powerless.

"Neural blockers," said the neuralist, shortly. "Drugless sedatives. They work by shutting off neural signals directly at the brain." He stepped forward and began to pace around the circle of light. "Don't worry," he continued, "your lucidity will not be affected in any way. You should know, however, that it is within our control to shut off your brain at any time and that we shall do so as soon as we feel you are no longer able to continue with these sessions, however long they may last – hours, days, months... years. There will be no way for you to tell. You will have no comprehension of the world beyond this space until our time is at an end." Pope stopped pacing as soon as he came full circle. "Now, before we begin," he concluded. "You may ask your questions."

There was a seeming deliberation in the neuralist's every gesture, down to the inflection of his speech, as though it were a re-enactment.

The air rushed into Saul's throat and a wraithlike voice proceeded from his mask.

"How am I here?" His throat rasped and burned as though he were breathing fire.

"You came here," said Pope.

He paused for air to refill his lungs.

"What happened to me?"

"You were found wandering the desert some seventy miles west of Dolinovka. You must have followed the sun for three days..."

Pope's voice faded into the visions, which returned to him in flashes: The mountain of smouldering corpses, the blood spraying his face and the howls that shredded the walls of his throat until he was mute. A flash later and he was alone in the wilderness and the sun rose and beat down on bare flesh by day and the cold ravaged the rawhide by night. He remembered the grinding aches in his joints and the dehydration and the cracks and tears forming in the exposed skin. By all the laws of blood and soil, he should have been dead by the third day, but still he marched on, following his shadow by morning and the setting sun by noon, the moon and stars by night; never stopping.

Why had he begun? Where had he been going?

"Do you remember, Saul?"

The visions disappeared and Pope was standing over him again, hands crossed at his back, the bleak, frigid blue orbs shining through shadow. His eyes peered around the room again. His vision sharpened and he could just about make out the obscure faces of the onlookers around him. He was sure he could see Eastman across the floor, lying back in his seat with his head rested on his fingertips.

"Where am I?" he asked

Pope took a deep breath and exhaled.

"The final resting place of all defectors," said the neuralist.

Up to that point he had only had a sense of what was going on.

Just kill me and be done with it, he thought.

The smirk curled in the neuralist's lips.

"You should have killed yourself when you had the chance, Saul. But you didn't. Why?"

The question blindsided him. And then – just then – he remembered. He remembered why he began the long march in the desert, why he did not take his own life in spite of his every impulse to do so. The promise.

"Naomi..."

Pope hummed and shook his head and began to pace around again.

"She has... obliged you to live." It was the first time he heard the neuralist snicker. "The irony of you never ceases to fascinate me, Saul."

"Where is she?"

"You ache for the release of death," the neuralist continued as though he had not heard the question, "but as long as she lives, you cannot die. All this time and blood wasted chasing an illusion of freedom. Now you would beg us to take it all away from you."

"You lied to me."

"No," Pope exclaimed, his voice deepening severely. "All we did was foster your own defective will. The rest you achieved all by yourself. Fate brought you to us. You will come to understand all of this soon, and more – _much_ more. We tried to warn you this would happen, but you refused to listen. You would not trust us. Even now, reduced to the point of embracing your own demise, you still perceive us as your enemies."

"What do you want with me?"

"I am trying to _save_ you."

"Why?"

"A reasonable question." Pope began to pace around again as he explained: "The UMC derives no benefit from your death, Saul. Every life lost anywhere, except the warzones, is a life wasted. Economic efficiency demands that we extract as much use from you as we possibly can by the means available to us. Not to mention the fact that rare oddities such as you provide us with valuable data for future research. Even if we fail with you, we continue to perfect our methods. _We_ learn from _your_ mistakes. That is progress."

"Progress..." he repeated with revulsion.

"Yes, progress." Pope had stopped pacing with his back turned. "Efficiency – quantifiable improvement – the continual refinement and unfettered expression of free man. Progress. It is, fundamentally, the only thing that matters. It is our purpose. Or, rather, I should say, it is our fate.

Pope turned on his heels to face him again and drew the long pen from his inner pocket. He raised his hand in the air and pressed on the end of the small device.

Suddenly, something began to rise from the floor between them: A small cylindrical pedestal. And as it rose, the light from above shone over a hollow set exactly in the middle of the top.

"Survival," Pope pronounced, stepping forward, "the final adjudicator of truth." He tucked his hand into his inner pockets and continued to speak. "We are, by definition, machines for the propagation of D – N – A. That sole purpose finds its root in our primordial beginnings down to the very last cell. From that premise we infer the only viable definition of insanity." At this point, Pope drew the silver, cubic device from all their previous meetings, and set it in the hollow on top of the pedestal and little veins of light instantly shone along the outer shell. Something glimmered like gloss through the gloom, something broad and high – the same distinct gleaming shimmer that followed the moment after a holoscreen was switched on.

Pope crossed his arms at his back and sauntered away, enunciating:

"A firm and righteous determination toward feelings or beliefs consistently proven to lead to self-destruction, all the while expecting a different result: _That..._ is insanity." He stopped on the last word and, with his back turned, continued. "You are here because you have failed the test of reason set by your very genes." He began to pace around again. "Oh I know what you are thinking. Why go through all the trouble of trying to change what is already inscribed in fate? Well, the simple truth is: we do _not_ expect to change you. We never have. Like progress, change can be abetted. However, we realise that no one can truly change what they are – not ever..."

"You are wrong."

An impregnable silence settled on the theatron with those three words.

A rush of air filled his lungs.

"We can change," he said. "The world can change."

Pope's head rose.

"How?"

Saul fell silent again.

"I see," purred the neuralist. "... Love." He began pacing around again. "That is what you believe will change the world, is it not? You believe that love is something more than mere natural impulse, a force for some greater good, perhaps?"

"It has to be."

Pope stopped.

"And why is that, Saul?" he asked.

"It changes people."

"You believe that it has changed _you_?"

Pope came full circle again and stopped before him with new deliberation.

His eyes wandered around the room and then fixed back on the neuralist, whose visage grew more ill-omened by the minute.

"Do you recognise this place, Saul?"

A strange foreboding bubbled up inside him.

"What if I told you that it is the sixth time you have been here?" Pope stepped forward and the shadows extended over his features.

His heart stirred and the air flow through the mask quickened.

A long silence later, Pope raised his head, turned away and pronounced loudly: "Apollo. File; zero – zero – zero – seven – one – seven – one – six – six – one – five – zero – triple-eight."

The string of numbers was followed by a pulse of blue light rippling across the holoscreen. When the wave of light diminished, the photons rearranged into line after unfurling line of text across the 3-D display, and a number of rotating images. It was a bio file from the UMC Nexus.

Pope drew the pen-shaped implement and pointed it at the screen, amplifying one of the holographic images so that it extended across the whole display.

"Do you recognise this woman?" asked the neuralist.

New visions – glimpses of forgotten nightmares – instantly flashed through his mind again through a haze of red, when the image of a dark-haired, red-lipped sapphire-eyed woman appeared before him and the words " _ubit menya_ " repeated in his mind like a litany.

"Who..." he faltered between breaths. "Who is she?"

"The last person you... loved," Pope replied. "She was a walker. The rest of her identity has since been lost. No record remains of anyone deceased in Sodom, as you know. You had begun cohabiting with her exactly one hundred and thirty-four days before your previous cleaning."

His thoughts stopped on the words "previous cleaning."

"What happened?" he asked.

"You killed her."

Pope's expression assumed its usual severity, as he looked from the cold blue eyes to the nameless woman, and the same unsourced dread which marked the beginning and end of all his nightmares flared up inside him again.

"You are lying."

Pope, seeming to anticipate his words, bowed his head and gave his back.

"Apollo. Subject; Jason Solomon. Day seventy-three – sixty-two – three hundred and fifty hours."

Pope's instruction was followed by another ripple of light across the holoscreen. The image of the sapphire-eyed woman disappeared and another took its place. A low and steady monotone filled the chamber. And then, voices:

"Jason... Jason..."

"Where am I?"

Pope appeared as a figure of light pacing around in a holographic reproduction of the same chamber they were in at that very moment. Since the second speaker appeared a few seconds later, seated in the same chair and in the same position that he was now, it took a moment for him to realise the second voice was his own.

" _Jason... do you know why you are here?"_

" _The nightmares –"_

" _Focus, Jason. Why are you here? Do you remember?"_

" _She is dead. She is dead."_

" _Who is dead, Jason?"_

" _I could not stop myself."_

" _No. No you couldn't."_

" _What is wrong with me?"_

" _There is nothing wrong with you. This is what you are"_

" _I loved her."_

" _Don't worry. As long as you are alive, you can always start again. We will clean you."_

"I loved her... I loved her."

Pope raised the thin pen-shaped device in the air and the recording stopped.

"Jason Solomon," he pronounced. "One of your five predecessors. Each one of them came to us the same way as Saul Vartanian."

Saul's eyes shot to and fro behind tightly closed eyelids. The visions returned like a chain of explosions: visions of things he could not link with either dream or memory. And he kept coming back to the same default assumption.

Pope is a liar. All of them are liars.

"Is it really so hard to believe?"

He opened his eyes again His thoughts began to fall into place, slowly making sense of things.

"This is... my past."

"No," Pope replied, swiftly. "Like Martial Solomon, each of your predecessors all perished along with their pasts."

"We are the same person!"

"No." Pope slowly shook his head. "People are the collections and collocations of memories. Nothing more, nothing less. No memory remains of the individuals who preceded you, either in your mind or anyone else's. And just as they have been eradicated from existence, soon, so will Saul Vartanian." He stopped, as usual, when he came full circle, as though the act of forming circles with his paces was meant to convey his purpose. It was all rehearsed. It was all a scheme.

"Why am I here?"

Pope came forward, a second between each step.

"You are here because we are about to clean you," he stated, categorical gaps separating his syllables. "You are at the edge of the abyss, where living or dying makes no difference, where the only thing keeping you alive is the resilience which defines you as a martial of your caste. However, as is the case with all virtue, the same thing that makes you strong also makes you stubborn. You desire to be cleaned, but your commitment to this illusion you call 'love' will not allow it – that is why you could not kill yourself. That is why you want _us_ to do it for you. But that will change. It _must_ change. That is why you and I are here, Saul. It is vital that, before we clean you, you submit to us as you have done before. And we know that you will not do so until you know the truth. Under no circumstances may we violate your freedom."

"What difference does it make!"

"All the difference in the world," the neuralist replied, quietly. "Freedom is the sole condition of true progress. Nothing can flourish if it is restrained. Your unreserved cooperation, procured utterly without force, is what we want."

"What you want will never happen."

"Ah but it will. The will to die is already there. The final illusion is always the last to fall... Love... The girl..." he whispered and raised his eyes up high. "She has brought you to this point of limbo – neither willing to live nor willing to die. The paradox is less unusual than you might imagine. And there is only one way it may be resolved – only one way to dispel the illusion."

"The truth..."

Pope started to pace around again.

"The truth," he echoed. "Tell me, Saul. What is truth?"

He detected in the tenor of the question that Pope already knew what his answer would be.

"Everything that is and was, in all places, everywhere."

"That would include the past."

"Yes," he said.

"And yet you fear it now more than ever, don't you?" Pope stopped again and fixed on him with a piercing stare. "Yes... There it is. That fear. Again. I can see it now as vividly as that first day. It is the thing that turned you against us: The fact that we know the answer to your darkest question." He paused that the question would be marked: "What – brought you – to – our – world?" Pope bowed his head and the shadows formed over his eyes again.

His pulse soared. The air pumped into his throbbing chest. He swirled and scrambled alone in his skull, a whirlwind of consciousness, and the room began to spin with him. He blinked rapidly, squeezing his eyes shut. Then, suddenly, it all stopped. His eyes flared open. And all reality sunk back into the two points of Pope's hollow eyes, flashing through the shadows.

"Do you remember... Vincent?"

"Vincent."

Whispers shot through his thoughts:

Vincent

I do not want to remember

For how long have they sentenced you

Life

Freedom is all that matters

Freedom

Will not change what I am

What I have done

We can, Vincent

We can

We can

We can

...

"Saul."

He opened his eyes and looked up.

Pope's harrowing gaze still fixed upon him from behind the glare of the round lenses.

"Do you remember," he asked, taking one step forward, "why you are here?"

His breaths had now become so rapid that his body started to lurch from the mould of his seat and the sweat broke over his brow in a thin film. All of the fear and dread climaxed to a point beyond even the imminence of death. It was the imminence of truth.

Pope turned his back again and pronounced:

"Apollo. Subject: Vincent Caine. Day one."

The light from the holoscreen stirred, the images ran with his thoughts and the jumble of chaotic visions fell into place, seeming to focus along a line of coherence in memory so that, for the first time, something quite vivid and quite real played out before his mind's eye.

* * *

He was in a small, grey room. A smell of rigorous sanitation was in the air. Building surveillance watched him from all four corners. A black and everlasting sky was beyond the glazed wall and not a light below it for miles.

It had been a three-hour trip and there had been no windows in the back of the security vehicle that brought him there. He had no idea where he was, but by the palpable change in the atmosphere he knew that he must have been somewhere on the border with the martial world. He rubbed the marks in his wrists from the shackles that had been removed from him by the escort of armed men in blue gear.

He looked up from his sore wrists at the steel-eyed figure sitting across from him, who he had met only once before. It had been more than a year ago, but he was wearing the same suit, and the same hollow gaze anatomised him from behind the glare in the round lenses of his pince-nez. There were many Commissioners with whom he had become acquainted since, but this man was the only one he remembered.

There was an almost ascetic silence. No formalities had been exchanged and after a few seconds of the gravest silence, the commissioner took out a file marked with the insignia of the UMC and an air of content surfaced in his grave feature as the file gently slid across the table-top, past the unusual cubic device in the middle.

He looked from the commissioner to the file and eyed it a moment before reaching out with peculiar hesitation.

"What is this?"

"This is you," said the commissioner. "The _new_ you."

He picked up the file, opened it and the silence quickly fell again as he browsed through the contents. The pages contained a long list of personal data: a martial identification number, addresses, bank accounts, PMC sponsorships, martial insurance details and a list of names which he presumed to be commissioners.

"Do you like your new name?" asked Pope.

"I never cared much for Vincent."

"Vincent no longer exists."

"Good," The file closed and was laid back down on the desk. "Then, this is it."

"Yes," Pope nodded. "You have officially been released from civil jurisdiction. Once you are cleaned, you will be reborn, a child of martial order."

"The highest caste?"

"But of course," smiled Pope. "You will be denied nothing. As long as you live, we are your committed servants. It will be our pleasure and privilege to fulfil the debt our world owes you – and a great debt it is. It is a shame your celebrity must be lost forever. Are you at all lethargic?"

"No... I think I have had enough fame for one decade."

"They have made you a villain... _We_ will make you a hero."

"It is all relative."

"Quite," Pope hummed and the smile enlarged eerily. "As long as we are agreed that you are here because you belong with us, that is all that matters."

"What do you mean?"

The commissioner was silent and his smile softened. "Let us say, simply, that we insist upon freedom," he said. "We do not want you to feel as though you have been driven to us against your will."

"War is all I have ever known."

"And now, all you will ever need to know."

Silence fell again.

From outside the door came the sound of heavy, marching footfalls.

He expected the doors to open at any moment, and for the blue-geared men to enter and escort him away. But his anticipation faded with the sound of the footfalls as they carried on down the outer corridor. And then he was left wondering why he was still there.

"Is there something else?" he asked, his suspicion roused anew.

"A small formality," Pope answered with a dismissive air. "You must understand that after you walk through those doors, you will remember nothing. Nothing at all."

"That is what I want."

"I know. The problem is that you will not even remember why you did not want to remember. And there may come a point where we will have to remind you."

He paused for deliberation.

"What do you need from me?"

"Simple," said Pope. "Just answer the questions as I ask them."

He studied the commissioner fixedly through narrowed eyes. Somehow, he had the sense that it would not be as simple as he made it out to be. He put his hands over the armrests and straightened up in his seat.

Pope delayed before he spoke.

"First question," he said: "What caused you come to us? I'll rephrase that." A smile twitched in the corners of his mouth. "What is it that you want more than anything?"

The answer to both questions was the same.

"Freedom," he replied without hesitation.

"Freedom from what?" asked Pope. "Imprisonment? Monotony? Mediocrity?"

"The past."

"The past..."

"Yes."

"What past, Vincent?"

The question roused a spark of ire.

"You know what past."

"You have to be the one to say it."

"Why do you ask questions to which you already know the answers?"

"I could waste your time explaining my reasons. Or you can just trust that I am not the sort of man who would waste his time on something if it were not of the utmost importance."

He lowered his head and gazed into the bleak, bespectacled eyes over a knotted brow.

"What past, Vincent?" Pope asked a second time.

He paused and took a deep breath. His hands released their tight grip on the rests. He lifted his head and exhaled.

"I killed my family."

"More specific."

The flash of ire went through him again.

"My wife," he strained. "And... my daughter."

"How long ago?"

"Eight years, four months and seventeen days."

"The reason?"

"My wife had a lover."

The wrath began to shoot through his arms in jolts.

"Who was her lover?" asked Pope.

"Senator John Clarke Jones."

Pope bowed his head with approval at each answered question.

"How did you kill them?"

"Why is that important?" The blood suddenly beat up hot inside him.

Pope waited for his temper to allay.

"It's alright," he replied, calmly. "You may be brief."

Without realising, his hand had tightened into a fist and his appearance transfigured, becoming instantly feral.

"They feared me," he began in a low, pleading voice. "By then, everyone feared us." He stilled his breaths and lowered his eyes, and proceeded to recount point by point: "It was after an assignment in Angola. I came home and found my wife gone... I went to the senator's residence... I killed the guards... I broke into the house... I found them together." He started to tremble. "I killed them... together."

"And your daughter?"

"No!" His voice changed extraordinarily. Long, juddering lungfuls of air rushed in and out of his nostrils.

"You have to," said Pope, with consistent equanimity. "I promise you: a few hours from now, none of this will matter anymore."

A long and nervous silence proceeded during which his mien shifted swiftly from raw anger to a kind of fearful sorrow, and the fever of fury tempered breath by slowing breath. His fist loosened and his fingers started to tremble. He lowered his eyes and his jaw hung loose and quivered.

"I..."he faltered. "I... did not know that she was there."

He stopped.

"There is nothing more to tell," he replied. "All I remember was the look in her eyes when she saw her mother's blood on my hands. Everything after is a blur."

"Why did you kill her?"

"I do not know."

"Yes, you do," Pope persisted daringly. "You have already told me."

"I was not thinking." He grappled with his memory as though his mind were reaching for fire. "She... she tried to run away," he said.

"And you did not let her."

"No," he said. "No, I could not."

"Why not?"

He paused on the question, mustering the pride he needed to look up and give the same answer he had given every time the same question had been asked of him before:

"Because I knew I could not live in the same world with her."

"You wanted to... _erase_ her," Pope surmised with a murmur, "like the past?"

"Yes."

"Yes." There was a disturbing note of exultation in Pope's whisper and the tiny black points in the middle of the bright blue orbs enlarged.

"I cannot change what I am."

"No," Pope nodded and the eerie simper returned. "But we can, Vincent. We can."

* * *

The recording stopped and the light of the holoscreen evaporated with his memory.

A dead calm ensued across the chamber; there was only the sound of the air pumping hurriedly through his locked throat. He could not speak. His eyes bulged from their sockets. The sweat covered his face and streamed down his heaving chest.

"Do you remember now... Saul?" Pope's voice spoke from the dark as step by measured step he re-entered the circle of light, then stopped, waited, drew a deep breath and exhaled, lifting his eyes up to the light. "The nightmares... they all begin and end the same way, don't they? Then, one day, the nightmare finally comes true. What if they were always true?"

He paused and his eyes lowered again.

"What if the mind had a way of always bringing us back to the same place we started? You wake up. And the cycle begins again. And again. And again"

He gasped the only word he could heave to his mouth:

"No..."

"It is a paradox, I know," Pope continued, pacing around. "To think that the illusion you have been chasing all this time is the same thing from which you have been trying to escape."

"No..."

"The cycle ends precisely where it begins: The truth. The answer to the question: why are you here? The first people you ever loved, you destroyed. To chase down that paradise lost, only to find it and destroy it over and over and over again – it has been the predicate of your every action since the moment you were conceived. It is your meme. It is your fate."

"NO!"

"Saul, try and think. Why did you want to escape from us? You had to know that you would never find the freedom you were really looking for. The martial world became the manifestation of everything you despised about yourself – your past self. You merely lacked the memory with which to see it clearly. It is for this reason you did not trust us. We knew the truth that you did not want to know."

"No." The word became a platitude of denial. "No."

"Think back to any moment that might have roused some shadow of the past," Pope persisted. "I know that you always felt, deep down, what you now see clearly – that you belong with us, Saul. You have always belonged with us. You _chose_ us. You were not trying to escape from our world. You were trying to escape the truth. You were trying to escape from Vincent."

The universe imploded upon him. He fought back with all of his denial, but there was no escape from the monster which now confronted him, having lurked in the backdrop since the very beginning, eluding him, leading his every step up to that precise moment. His throat locked to suffocation, his sweat turned to blood before his eyes and the screams deafened his soul until his eyes turned into his skull in an attempt to flee from the nightmares. But there was no waking this time.

### Day 0

A scalding heat pressed against him and an arid wind whistled in his ear. The knots of hair swayed before his eyes. Small puffs of dirt blew from his lips and the loose hairs backlashed with the wind.

His eyes blinked open.

He was prostrate with his face in the dirt. He felt his limbs stir. He could move. Bringing his palms flat on the floor, he pushed himself up. The dust sifted through his fingers and poured off his back through the seams in his gear.

He lifted his sights to an endless, scorched plane, extending out unto the horizon where the dry, fawn earth met with the blood-red sky behind a cloud of acrid dust. He staggered to his feet and gazed about, turned and turned on the spot. Not a soul in sight.

Kamchatka.

He had been in this wasteland before. Had he ever left?

"Vincent..." he muttered in a daze. His thoughts were all awry: no sense of being asleep, awake, alive or dead. "Naomi." His throat was so dry he could barely breathe her name. "Naomi–"

He stumbled, fell in the dust, lifted himself up, then stumbled and fell on his knees again. Had it all been true? Which was the nightmare and which was the memory? A dual reality did not seem even implausible anymore. The thoughts tore him to pieces. He palmed his head, grimacing, teeth grinding. The tears stung like acid.

He threw his head back, baying at the red, red sun, came to his feet and almost stumbled a third time.

"Saul..."

A small voice whispered in the wind.

He gasped and his eyes gaped.

"Naomi...?"

The whispers came again and he spun around trying to find the voice.

"Where are you?" he muttered incessantly. "Where are you?"

Silence fell across the desert again.

"NAOMI!"

"Saul."

The voice altered and became suddenly deeper, more orotund.

He stopped, breathless, and stared into the bright red disc over the horizon.

"Saul."

The godlike voice resounded across the land.

He suddenly felt as though he was being drawn into the flaming disc, as the light became brighter and the air hotter and hotter, searing him. Throwing his arms back, all of the torture unbridled in one great howl.

He re-awoke.

His eyelids recoiled from the same blinding light that had ushered him from one nightmare to the other. He tried to start but could not. His body had gone dead again. The mask was removed from over his face and the dark outline of a head emerged between him and the white light shining from above.

"Saul."

The same orotund voice from before spoke, resonant through the haze of his waking.

"The girl, Saul."

"Naomi..."

"Had the thought of killing her ever crossed your mind? A dream perhaps?"

He wanted so badly to reach out and strangle the looming head.

"Yes..." The silhouette withdrew from the light.

He felt himself rising again, cocooned in his familiar seat, in the middle of the circle of light, surrounded by the same congregation of obscure figures. He could still feel the heat of the blaze from the wasteland. He had lost count of how many times he had woken from one realm to the other, though he could remember each world vividly after each crossover. His body may have rested, but his mind had had no respite. As soon as one nightmare ended another began, no point of reference for time. His skin had healed but it may or may not have been reconstructed, and with age-suppressant medicine these days even the aging of the flesh was nothing to go by.

"Things are different this time, Saul." Pope began pacing, forming circles with his paces once again. "You have never been one to choose death over life, always led back into the cycle in the vain hope that you might somehow be able to break it so long as you kept trying. But, this girl...' his voice took a dip of loathing. "She has latched onto you in a way unprecedented in any previous case. I fear we may lose you forever."

"What does it matter to you?"

"You think too little of yourself."

"I could die in a warzone tomorrow –"

"The duration of your life is irrelevant." Pope's answers were quick, sharp and calculated. He went on circling, disappearing and reappearing from his peripheral vision, the sound of the deliberate footfalls ringing through the dark. "A note of irony, in passing," he digressed: "At the time of his untimely death at your hands, Senator Clarke Jones had been a leading anti-militarist prospect for the U.S. presidency. His assassination at your hands inspired the fear and hatred that would forever separate our worlds." he added with subtle delight: "That's right. The world which you so despise – without you it might never have existed. We might never have existed. You, Saul, are perhaps our greatest living hero. And you should know it pains me to see you this way."

"Then kill me," he groaned weakly.

Pope stopped momentarily, turned to him and lifted his head with a sigh.

"You despise us, Saul, because you do not understand us. Because you despise us, you resist us. That is only logical. Therefore, in this session, I shall try to help you understand our vision. And let there be no mistake about it: It is the _only_ vision."

Pope pushed the pince-nez back over his eyes, reached into his suit jacket and there followed a familiar rattling noise before his hand emerged, wielding a black canister. He opened it, rolled a single neural tablet into his hand and cupped his palm over his mouth, raised his head, swallowed and inhaled deeply.

"I suppose you must have realised by now how the neural program works."

The neuralist looked to him for the answer.

"Memory," he answered weakly.

"Very good." Pope tucked the canister back into his pocket, and began to pace around again. "All thought – all _reality_ – is locked in memory. All is memory and everything is past – the future and the present included. That is difficult, I know." He paused, as though to allow the thought to permeate. "The future exists only as a set of vague predictions. We are bound to assume that the future must follow the same pattern as the past. Though the law of induction affords us no real guarantee of this, still, it is ingrained into the mind. The future is an illusion as is all temporality. Yet in that illusion – in that construct – lies the key to all humanity's hope and despair. Alter one's perception of time and you alter his entire disposition to the world: fear, anxiety, guilt, remorse. Blur one's sense of the future and all fear – even fear of death – dissipates, leaving only the ever-contracting point of the present. All of that begins with the past... Memory... In the world we envisage, Saul, the very notions of past and future will collapse. There will _only_ be the present – the euphoria of being in the moment – which we will continually augment. The balance is a delicate one, which we are continually perfecting. It is one of our principal projects –"

"You drug the mind," he muttered spitefully.

Pope stopped and faced him.

He started to gather his thoughts, and the ire bubbled up again.

"If people regret and fear nothing, they will accept anything," he said. "Your world is blind. You keep it that way. That is the only way it survives."

"It is how _you_ survived," said Pope. "I have already told you, Saul: truth is as arbitrary as the wind – the product of random atomic collisions without meaning or purpose beyond our own propagation, no more existent than the past or the future. Living a lie was the only thing that allowed you to assume some semblance of sanity."

He wanted desperately to counter – to howl at the top of his lungs that they were the ones slowly crafting a world of lies and war. It would have made no difference. He already knew what Pope's response would have been, and it would have been correct. He, like the rest of the Commission, was nothing more than a catalyst. As much as he would have liked to believe they were the tyrants, they were not.

The problem lies far deeper than any bullet can pierce.

He recalled the words, but not where he had heard them.

How?

How could the race have freely come to this? To think that one day the pages of history would be wiped out and that this would be the default world, accepted for what it is as a matter of course. The vision flashed before him in a curl of flame. A world at war would be the only world.

No!

Martial order had to fall.

It has to –

"Saul."

His eyes opened and he was once more lifted from his thoughts, drawn back into the cold, blue eyes.

"Do you really believe," asked Pope, with his usual telepathic air, "that the world would find its peace if martial order were to crumble – if our world were to fall?"

He had become accustomed to the trick questions. No doubt the neuralist was laying some new trap designed to mire him in his own presuppositions.

"Martial order _is_ war," he growled. "If the war economy falls, there can only be peace. You keep it alive. You keep the cycle going."

A silence of anticipation across the theatre preceded Pope's reply.

"No, Saul," His voice deepened to an abysmal bass. " _We_ keep the cycle in control. Do not fool yourself into thinking that war is the disease, Saul – war is the cure of the disease!" Pope started to pace again, his voice exalting. "The world has always known war. The cycle existed long before us, it will exist long after. For centuries our predecessors made the mistake of believing that the cycle could and should be averted. Your mistake was the same. Every one of your previous cycles followed precisely the same pattern ultimately culminating in a conflict which could not and cannot be resolved any other way other than the destruction of the cause. The cycle always ends where it begins. You might think, as those who came before us, that war is some blunder in reason, a symptom of man's failure as a thinking animal. In one sense, that is correct. All conflict is the resolution of paradox – blown-up struggle in an essentially flawed mind – synapses fighting to maintain their rhythm. And the struggle cannot be reasoned away. It is built into the very fabric of our thoughts. We are doomed to failure. There is no escaping the vicious circle..."

Pope's voice faded into the violent flow of his thoughts. He spoke as one would expect of a man who had never seen a battlefield, who had never seen bodies broken apart, entire cities razed to ruins – incinerated, obliterated. Before long, he stopped with his back turned to him and his head raised.

"... As long as we live, the fire of war will continue to burn, steadily purging the race."

"No!" he broke again, breathless with vexation. "It will stop. It is inevitable."

Pope lowered his head again and turned

"With a history replete of mankind's incessant failure, why on earth would you imagine that?"

"The race will not sustain itself on war forever! It _has_ to end!"

"Ah, but that is where you are wrong." Pope bowed his head. "For you see, the race has not only sustained itself on war but thrived on it. We are the living proof. War is, was and always will be one thing and one thing only: the pursuit of power – the will of humanity to unremittingly supersede herself without restraint. Can you not see that _we_ are the manifestation of that will, Saul? What has always driven man to new heights if not the will to power?" Pope's eyes flashed, his voice escalated and his expression became suddenly indignant, fanatical, relentless. "Do you honestly believe that a society built upon your fatuous notions of peace, love and altruism would ever stand up to _us_!? We would annihilate them – wipe them clean out of existence! You do not need me to tell you this. You already know that it is true. You saw that dung heap of dead renegades. You took part in their destruction. Remember that image, Saul. _That_ is what becomes of anyone who defies the new order."

"You cannot build a world on unending death!"

At this, the neuralist's voice suddenly softened.

"Death has always been the hero of our story," he murmured. "It is something all men have done and every man must do if the race is to endure. Progress demands the elimination of the weak. The value of a dimitar is measured in blood. Death is the final expression of power. Without it, power would not exist."

"What about life?"

"Life," Pope echoed definitively. "A mere commodity. Do you really suppose that the individual will ever regard his own ephemeral existence as anything more than an incidence of causation? If so, tell me what it could be. Tell me what difference it makes whether life, in all its ephemeralness, is claimed by war rather than disease, famine or age. Perhaps you imagine that the wars will escalate out of control to the point of mass destruction?"

"It will happen sooner or later."

"No,' Pope avowed. "It will not. The war economy ensures that that we will never cross the point of no return. The world could have obliterated itself long ago, yet here we are. The conflict endures now as it always has and forever shall. The reason is simple. The very thrill of power that drives the wars demands that the race endures. It will never destroy itself. Our order will continue to grow until it is the only order."

At this point, Pope was at full momentum, lifting one hand aloft as though a globe were suspended on his fingertips, invoking the heavens as witness to his words, galvanised by the silent reverence of his congregation of acolytes. There was no objection for which he was not prepared, no flaw in the insane vision that had not been meticulously resolved.

"People cannot live with war forever," Saul re-averred with dogged denial. "They cannot suffer it. They _will_ not."

Pope lowered the raised hand and crossed both arms at his back again.

"What is there to suffer?" he resumed, quietly. "You think that we lack something essential that mankind requires? Love? Do not be nonsensical, Saul. Do you really suppose that human affection offers something we cannot? Do you believe that love has any less of a propensity toward war than the will to power?"

"Love is the opposite of war."

Pope stopped at once on his words.

"Is that so?" he purred, deviously.

It was almost as if he had detected the flash of insecurity in his words. Knowing what he knew now, the dejected and contemptible thing that he was, the unforgivable past, who was _he_ to speak of... _love_? (The word had become so suddenly insipid). But, the fact he himself might have been neither capable nor worthy of it did not mean that it was not real. It had to be real! If there were one – just one – axiom that could be appealed to against the perversion of martial order, it... _she_... had to be the only thing left.

Naomi...

She was his last vestige of hope. His last preserve.

"Naomi."

Saul opened his eyes again when the frozen voice uttered her name. Pope was now standing feet in front of him, the ashen visage closer and more substantial than ever before. The ice-blue eyes flaunted some fresh and sinister purpose, as he leaned forward and whispered, chillingly:

"We have her, Saul."

His breath jolted to a stop. All his thoughts foundered.

"Suppose I told you," the neuralist continued, with maniacal relish in his voice, "that we are going to torture her. Defile her in ways even _you_ could not imagine. Torment which we shall inflict in steady increments over several days, beginning with her body, easing into her mind until the plea for us to kill her is all she can think to cry through the pain."

He visualised the torture unfold before his eyes with Pope's every word, heard the sounds of the helpless cries and squeals of agony.

A blaze went through his blood and the thin red lines split and forked over his bloated eyes. The swelling fury made his fingers twitch through the deadness. He would destroy Pope. He would tear him limb from limb! He would slaughter everyone in that room!

His respires came out in savage growls through borne teeth.

Pope rose, smirked and snorted. "Look at you," he said with scorn; "primed to kill at the mere suggestion of any harm coming upon her. Why, you would kill me right now if you could! You would destroy everyone and everything in the world – and for what...? For love!"

He turned and strolled away, raising his voice to a new oration.

"Soon, love will become an archaism – a relic of the past just like you. Subsistence. Pleasure. Pain. Purpose. These are the four fundamental forces that have driven every human since the inception of the race. Our purpose is grounded in the martial economy and the purpose of the martial economy is power. Pure propagation of the will – it is the quintessential purpose."

"You are insane."

Pope stopped. He seemed to snicker. "You have nothing, nothing with which to defend all your notions of love, truth, higher principle, peace, paradise, utopia – nothing but the high-pitched squeals of your own intuitions and the very defects that have reduced you to your present state. You endure only in the hope that we will put you out of your misery."

"Then do it!"

"No," Pope glowered. "What you want is an execution. You cannot hide your will from me, Saul. If you want to die so badly... ask for it."

He was silent. He could feel the words about to break from him. _Kill me_. _Kill me now_. _Wipe away this flaw in the pattern._ Anything to bring the torment to an end. Annihilation had to be better than 10 more minutes in this world.

He could not. The cruel promise still bound him to life.

When his eyes dropped, defeated, Pope took out the pince-nez, pressed them over his eyes, then lifted his head up and sighed with exasperation.

"Until she is utterly eradicated from your mind, you will be forced to live."

### Day 0

Swirls of arid dust blew up in a squall and flogged him as he trod wearily onward, dragging his feet in the dust, gaping at the undulating line joining earth and sky under the crimson sun. An eon had come and gone and that red sun remained precisely the same distance from the horizon. The prophecy of absolute martial order – the inexorable state of war – may have long come true. And Naomi...

"Naomi..." His last step planted deep in the dust. He stopped.

His leg buckled. He fell to his knee and the pain shot up through his body with the blow. He groaned and wheezed. The air grated his throat like fire.

As he looked up he remembered, now, why he had begun to march toward the sun. It was an end he could never quite reach, always bringing him to where he started. It almost seemed to be waiting to set before it could rise again and begin the fresh rotation, like an augur, scorning him with the portent of a new cycle.

The bright red orb flashed in his eyes with a scowl.

"What..." he rasped, "do you want from me?"

He fell silent, as though waiting for an answer.

"Tell me –"

He fell upon a fist when another gust of red dust blew and toppled him.

His head hung. The wind ceded. His scourged back shuddered with the spasms of his sobs and red drops fell from his eyes and melded with the red sand.

He wondered how many tears of blood must have been shed to stain the sand so red. Perhaps this place was more than the figment of his racked mind. A vision of the future. A day when the earth would cease to spin and the blood-soaked ashes of the dead continued endlessly, covering the face of the globe over the deep gulfs of drained oceans. The image the mind turned in on itself.

He lifted his head. The red lines streaked from the bottoms of his eyes down to his lips. His own blood quenched him, denying him death, keeping him alive for no other purpose than ongoing torment. He must have bayed at the sun a thousand times, pleading for his own obliteration. The agony was worst when he tried to remember what had brought him there. The more time (or the impression of it) elapsed, the more the past faded into oblivion, leaving only the residual essence of regret ever-rising, eternally grinding at the soul until even the hope of death was gone. The notion it could end with something as swift and as comfortable as death seemed ludicrous. There was no way out. Nothing but the enduring knowledge of the truth – that this is where he belonged.

"Saul..."

The winds whispered his name again.

He gazed up at the brightening sun.

"Saul..."

The light swelled and consumed the sky.

"Saul."

He opened his eyes.

He was back in the Sanatorium.

Pope assumed his usual bearing before him, under the circle of light, the host of silhouettes above and around them in the theatre, waiting. His genuflected head bore the aspect of conquest, deepened by the contrast with his own inner defeat.

"You see clearly, now, Saul."

"... Yes."

"You are ready to accept what you are."

"Yes." His voice spoke autonomous of his will.

There was the sense that his every action and word was an impulse flowing with a continuum, outside his control.

"I knew you would not disappoint us." Pope smiled and stepped forward. "You know what comes next."

The educing stares all around, beckoned him over the final brink.

"Your choice, Saul," stirred Pope.

His jaw locked tight in a last effort to fight back the last words of capitulation. He had to be the one to say it. Fate was inevitable; there was no denying that now. He understood everything he had been told. And because of that, he also understood that there was one thing left for him to do – one thing standing at the brink of the new cycle.

A spark of will came back to him. He lifted his eyes.

"Take me to her."

Pope observed him silently and adjusted the pince-nez with an index finger.

"The cycle is not over..."

Their stares remained interlocked.

The neuralist's eyes glinted and the crooked, satisfied simper returned. He nodded to his left and then to his right.

Next moment, footsteps approached from behind and then stopped a few paces later. Two quick beeps and a sharp, disengaging twinge like a bullet leaving the brain, shot through the back of his skull. A sudden intake of breath, his eyes flared open and the feeling came back to his limbs in a wave of tingling, like stickpins beneath his skin. The sound of much heavier footfalls approached from ahead as four heavily geared SGs marched forward, the opaque visors over their eyes, guns at their chests.

He lifted an open hand; his fingers swayed up and down and then closed into a fist. The cocoon pried off his body. He rose from his seat and stood still and unclothed before the theatre of onlookers. The tingling pains moved through his body in pulses.

One of the Guards stepped forward, wielding a pair of manacles.

"It's alright," said Pope, bringing them to a halt. "He will not resist."

Pope came forward again, stopping inches away, gazing directly into his blank eyes.

"We will make the arrangements for full expurgation to be effected upon your return," he explained in a low voice. "After that, Saul Vartanian will not exist. He will never have existed... _She_ will never have existed."

She will never have existed..

Pope inhaled deeply and exhaled and removed his glasses. Their stares remained interlocked for a good minute before the neuralist turned and disappeared through the doors at the back of the theatre.

Another figure came forward and stood in his place.

"Take him away," said Eastman.

About an hour later, the Guard vehicle was on the fast lane of Highway Route 6 southbound for Nozick District. As they flowed back into the bloodstream of Sodom, the sky above was dark and starless and the metropolis lights were blurred through a mist which settled just below the highest peaks of the skyline.

His insentient eyes were on the oncoming traffic and the touring maglevs zipping past in lines of light against the tinted window. A frightening, skeletal face and two haunted eyes stared back from his reflection.

Eastman sat across, breaking his fixed stare to glance at his watch every time the traffic slowed. Not a word was uttered until the vehicle decelerated to a stop right outside the familiar entrance to a terraced low-rise, lightless windows, façade streaked black. The engines switched off and the long silence that followed brought him back to consciousness. There was the sound of pneumatic hisses, the clicks, rolls and thuds of opening and closing doors and the heavy tramp of boots. Two Guards marched up beside the car and came to a halt face to face on either side of the open door.

"Do you what you have to do." Said Eastman. "We will be waiting for you."

The snow began to fall the moment he stepped outside the car and drifted in a kind of spectral trance, through the mist, down the final path through the portal, down the darkened corridor, stopping outside the innermost door. The number "1" shone on the veneer.

He raised a slow fist and knocked.

One. Two. Three.

Pause.

One. Two.

He waited...

And waited...

The door opened..

"How long has it been?" he asked.

"Long enough."

The hermit opened the door wide and stepped aside.

As soon as he stepped into the candlelit passage, he seemed to wake precisely where he stood, as though his mind had come full circle in time and everything came crashing back in a tide of emotion, disassociated from the past – everything that happened since the first day of the cycle, the people who had come and vanished in time, names and events he could no longer remember, never to be remembered again.

He looked up at the door at top of the stairs. A warm light seeped out through the seams. He could feel her presence like an aura. She was there. She was still there.

"She waited for you."

The words went through his core like a bullet. He lowered his eyes. His breaths started to shake. And for a long time, he stood frozen before the first stair. His head turned slowly toward the hermit and they gazed at one another silently. The ravaged look in his eyes imparted what must come next.

The hermit bowed his head, turned and walked down the narrow passage into the small room with the two chairs set across from one another, where the foretelling of this moment had been made.

With stark clarity and a dead, frontward stare into flashback, he proceeded to recount to the hermit everything that had happened and everything that had been made known to him: about the massacre at Dolinovka, about Naomi's family, the destruction of her life at his own hands, about his past, what he was and was forever doomed to be – the destroyer of all destroyers – a true son of martial order. And he concluded with the three final words of submission.

"You were right."

The hermit remained silent, his immovable, vaguely commiserative stare summoning the confession from him.

"Take her," he struggled to get the words out, "as far away from this place as you can."

"I will."

"Protect her," he gasped. "At any cost, protect her."

The hermit nodded.

"She will not understand why it has to be this way," he said, staring blankly ahead. "She may grow to hate me."

"She won't," the hermit reassured. "I will make sure she knows the truth."

A longer silence followed.

Soon, he began to shudder again and his hands trembled furiously, clenching into tight, shaking fists. He felt, at any moment, as though the bloody tears would break from him again as he dwelt on his deepest agony.

"They will clean me," he shook, choking on his words. "She will never have existed. She will be... a lost memory. A faded dream. It will all be forgotten."

"The soul never forgets," said the hermit. "You carry her light now."

"I want to die," he said. "I should have died long ago."

The hermit did not answer.

When the silence continued long enough, the hermit rose from his seat.

"She is waiting for you."

It was a while before he stood and when he did, the hermit moved from his path.

With slow, soundless steps, he ascended the stairs and stood outside the barely open door. He stopped at the threshold and rested the palm of his hand against the door. Not a sound came from the other side except the intermittent wails of the swelling blizzard.

He nudged the door open and looked immediately to his right, where a slightly taller figure than the one he remembered cradling in his arms so long ago, stood staring out of the bedroom window. He stopped and stared at the reflection in the glazing.

When the door clicked shut behind, their eyes met in their reflections.

Naomi gasped and twisted around and froze, her broad eyes shimmering and her mouth wide. For a long time, it seemed both denied the reality of the other.

Her first step toward him was gradual and hesitant. After the second step, the third followed almost immediately. She rushed straight toward him, throwing her arms around his back and bursting into immediate, quiet tears.

"Hello, little one."

Her little breaths shuddered. "I knew you'd come back," she cried. "I knew you would."

He laid his hand gently on her head.

"He said you'd come back," she whispered. "He said you would."

In spite of his pain, he waited for her to exhaust her tears and when her arms loosened from around him, he lowered himself to her, wiped the tears away and gazed into the moonstone eyes. She had grown since that first day and the blurred passage of time revealed itself to him in her.

"It is late. You should not be awake, little one."

"Stay with me."

She buried her head into his chest again and an ache went from the very point where she rested her head and seized onto his heart so that his breath broke again. When he gathered himself, he gently held her back.

"There is something I must tell you."

Unable to look into her eyes, he hung his head, lifted her in his arms and carried her to the bed, feeling so weak, old and ruined as he lowered her down. Her inquiring eyes seared into his heart. He would die at any moment.

"I promised I would come back," he muttered achingly. "I did not promise to stay."

Her large eyes shimmered.

"What?" broke the small voice with a tremble.

He looked away.

The silence was long and excruciating.

"But..." she faltered. "But, you came back. You came back –"

"I know. I kept my promise," he nodded woefully. "This time it is you who must leave."

Her little hands seized onto him, on her face was a look of utter confusion.

"But, why?" she begged helplessly. "Why?"

"One day I hope that you will understand," he strained. "When you do, you must decide whether you can forgive me. But, now. Now is not that time."

"No," the little head began to shake.

"You have to."

"No!" She plunged her head into his heart and began to weep again.

The little trembles of her sobs shook him like a quake and he could do nothing but stare into the void.

"I am sorry, little one."

"Don't go, Saul," she begged and repeated. "Please don't go, please don't –"

"You are not for this world," he said. "I belong in this place."

"Saul..."

"Know that you are special," he continued. "There is no one in this world like you – no, not one. I know that you will do many great things, little one." He paused to muster the very last of his fading spirit. "Never forget me. You must remember for both of us now."

The last words barely wrung from him.

Naomi lifted her head and pressed the side of her face against him. She would rather lay there forever than leave. Her tears had soaked into him, percolating to his heart.

"I love you, Saul."

The knife twisted. His eyes shut. A sole tear fell from his gaping eyes.

"I love you too."

### IV

Night had long fallen by the time the old man ended his story. A diffuse light over the bar counter took the place of the light of day. The masses, brimming with festiveness, dispersed from the city centre and were by now making their merry ways into the promised future... beginning with their preferred watering holes.

The young barkeep gaped into his glass, wordless. His son had fallen asleep on a bench at the back of the tavern. The low burble from the media broadcast which had transitioned from the live coverage of Capitol Plaza to a group of conversers joined in one of the eager dialogs which typically follow major political events.

"Quite a story," murmured the barkeep, still staring into his empty glass.

"I am afraid our time is up, friend." The old man smiled, finished off his fourth glass of scotch and took up his cane.

"You're leaving?"

"We all have somewhere to be. There's a long way yet to walk." The old man lifted himself out of his seat with a groan. "My story ends where yours begins."

"You'll be alright?"

The old man grimaced as he straightened up, huffed, puffed and nodded. With one last look of valediction, the old man turned and hobbled to the door.

"Is it true?" asked the barkeep just as the door opened. The old man stopped on the threshold. "Your story. Is it really true or is it all just some yarn spun up over the years?"

The old man was quiet awhile. Then, he turned a bold eye upon the young barkeep.

"What is truth?"

The young barkeep seemed as though he was about to answer, then, appearing to smile, went silent again.

"Until such time as you are able to answer _my_ question," the old man said, "you may decide your own for yourself." The old man smiled, raised his collar. "Farewell... young friend." He stepped over the threshold and onto the night streets, where the traffic started to circulate on the overpasses and two trains shot past one another on the bridge. He set his sights northward and made his slow way.

The barkeep remained staring at the closed door, lamenting the fact that it might well be the last time he and the old man would ever cross ways. He finished off his own drink, set the glass down and lingered in his seat, dazed, deferential and slightly disconcerted. He looked over to his son, asleep in the corner. Then, anticipating the bands of happy celebrators who would soon fill his small tavern, he stood and walked over to the boy, lifted him up and carried him to bed.

* * *

Fireworks leapt up into the faraway sky and burst and glittered against the dark. The flickering lights shone in little fingers through the window and withdrew, picking up the crumpled sheets of paper and strewn pastilles over the floor, and the desk on which the sleeping little head of the girl rested.

Her face was buried into her little arms crossed for a pillow and draped with a coverlet of golden hair. The cracks, pops and whistles from the distant fireworks did not wake her, but the tender hand which settled on her did. The girl woke softly.

"Dad?"

"Come on princess. It's time for bed."

"I... finished it," she yawned and sat back blearily in her seat, balled her little fists and rubbed her eyes.

"Yes you did." Her father looked down at the desktop and the image of the phoenix the girl had so devotedly toiled over. "Mommy's going to love it." He gently put his arms around her and lifted her up to his chest.

"Mom," the girl seemed to wake from her trance. "Where _is_ she?"

"She's not home –"

"I want to show it to her."

"You can show it to her tomorrow."

"No!" she insisted with a tired croak. "Tonight... It has to be tonight. Please." She looked up at him with her dreamy eyes.

"Alright." He lowered her slowly to the floor and brushed the hair from over her drooping eyes. "Tell you what. You go leave it in the art room. She'll find it when she comes home."

The girl rubbed her eyes again and the drowsy little head bobbled. Eyes half-shut, she toddled over to her desk and patted down the top as though blind, took the picture and sleepwalked out of the open door and down the hall.

Just as he was about to follow, the twinkling of lights in the bedroom window stole through the corner of his eye. They were not fireworks. The flashing lights of the motorcade proceeded down the final road.

* * *

The newly inaugurated President of the Eden Accord gazed pensively out of the car window.

The end to a long day of pageantries seemed to have only heightened her lethargy, much to the concern of her chief of security who sat across, observing her earnestly and with some distress. Attempts to call her attention had gone unanswered twice since they had left the Capitol Building. He sighed quietly and looked away.

The motorcade rolled up to the main entrance and slowed as the gates opened. Another wave of fireworks lit up the dark sky as the line of vehicles slowed to a stop outside the front doors of the presidential residence. The porters waited at the open doors. The low whirring of the engines wound down to a stop.

There was silence.

"No calls tonight," said the President in a barely audible voice. "There's something I have to do. Something important."

"It's been a long day. Why don't you give yourself a rest? Spend some time with your family."

"I have to finish it tonight."

There was the thump of closing doors. The chauffeur approached the rear and stopped at the side of the door. The doors opened.

"Good night Lucas."

"I'll see you in the morning," said Shields.

She closed her eyes and nodded vaguely before rising out of the car, led by the hand of her chauffeur. Two security men shadowed her ritually to the front entrance and her chief of security maintained his earnest gaze right until the doors closed and the motorcade drove away. The porters held open the doors to the entrance and bid her "good evening" as she crossed the threshold into the foyer. The members of the presidential household were nowhere around. The doors shut. She stopped. Her heart thawed and her worry eased when she caught sight of the dark figure descending the stairs to meet her.

"Welcome back."

Her beloved stopped at the foot of the stairs, under the dim light.

She went to him and fell into his embrace. His arms swathed round her, satin to her spirit. She closed her eyes. Her breaths shuddered.

"You were great today," he whispered

"The day's not over yet."

He laid his hand upon her head and gently caressed the soft, snow-white hair.

She appeased her soul in his embrace for as long as she could, then raised her head and put her crown to his lips.

"Where is she?"

"Upstairs."

She looked away and smiled briefly.

"Tonight..." she said. "I have to..."

"I know," he nodded. "I will leave you alone."

Their gazes joined in affection and the gleaming sapphires of her eyes sparkled in the dark depths of his. She put her hands on his face and kissed his lips.

"Thanks for being patient with me,' she said. "I know I'm not an easy wife. I _am_ nothing without you, you know."

"That makes two of us."

He laughed softly, kissed her brow one last time and walked away.

She ascended the stairs to the upper hall. Sidling over the carpet without a sound, she approached the open door of her daughter's bedroom and peered over the sill. Her silhouette came in the path of the light, and the light stretched down the middle of the room up to the desk, just touching the bedside and a few trailing locks of golden blonde hair hanging out of the little knoll in the bedding.

"Sweetie..."

No answer.

A few seconds late the knoll in the bedding shifted, ruffled and sniffled and she withdrew from the threshold and drew the door shut, narrowing the shaft of light from the hall until it disappeared with the _click_ of the shutting door.

Her hand dropped off the door handle and she fixed her anxious sights on the illumined door at the end of the hall. The little thuds of her heels ran with her pulse as she proceeded through the hall. The shoes slipped off her feet outside the door of a large, oval room, decked and walled with mahogany.

All around the oval room were dozens upon dozens of art pieces: different shapes, sizes, media and moulds, from frescoes to sculptures, and all of them her own. The whole city, lit up in celebration, was partitioned from that solemn space by a long glazed wall running along the curve at the back of the room. And right in the middle of the otherwise empty floor was about nine square meters of cloth stained with paint drops and smears.

Suspended over the cloth was the largest canvas in the room, set upon an easel.

She approached the canvas, shedding her coat and other adornments and letting them fall to the floor in her trail. She stepped up to the easel, let down her hair, lightly rolled up the sleeves of her white blouse, let her hands fall gracefully and looked up at the canvas. The canvas bore an image sufficiently complete to be discernible. The image was of a little-known man. The sharp lines of his worn and tormented features were prominent in the brush and knife-strokes of the paint, and his eyes were bottomlessly dark and tears of blood spilled from their corners. And at the man's breast, clutched in an embrace as though she were bound to his soul: a little girl.

She stopped and took a deep breath before taking the palette in one hand and a palette knife and a fine brush in the other. She took the knife and cut into the globules of paint, mixed in the turpentine and linseed oil in small doses and, with a still and timid hand, began to apply the dark crimson in fine lacerations.

She wielded her brush like an apothecary of the soul, tending to her own wounds. Cathartic twinges shot through with each aching stroke. Her heart numbed as the tip of the brush parched, then she would lower her hand, take another deep, shaking breath, dab the brush onto the palette and again, eliciting from the man's feature all the anguish of a soul wrung dry, stroke by slow stroke, each streak of crimson more painful than the last, until her mouth began to quiver.

A lone tear broke in the corner of her eye and streamed down as she took the knife again and cut the paint in short slashes under the deep, vexed orbitals of his hung head. Her pain seemed to increase with his beauty, and his beauty increased with her pain. She would shed all the blood of her soul to do him justice.

Hours passed into the night. The tears streamed constantly and fell on the cloth beneath her, but she never wiped them lest she break her focus. She painted through the beautiful commiseration with her subject. The brush trembled painfully as she raised her hand from the palette and brought the tip to the canvas for the final touches.

When the last stroke broke from the canvas, the brush slipped from her fingertips.

There was a knock and the door opened.

"Naomi."

A low voice from behind startled her. Her beloved was standing in the doorway. She saw his reflection in the glazing.

"Naomi?"

"Yes." She quietly wiped away her tears and did not turn. "What is it?"

"There is someone here to see you."

He stepped aside, drawing the door wide open.

Step – tap – step – step – tap.

"Hello, child."

She lifted her head with a start and turned.

A figure in black stood in the doorway.

They stared silently at one another.

The door slowly shut and her beloved's footsteps faded down the hall.

The silence went on a solemn minute.

"It has been too long I know," said the old hermit.

She smiled, and her smile winced to an immediate contortion of sorrow.

The old hermit took a painful step forward, looking as though he were about to stumble. He had walked so far. He stopped and panted and seemed to laugh.

"Yes... too long," he repeated.

She came forward and put her arms around her third father just as the tears broke, and he laid a frail hand upon her back and held her.

"You have done so well," he whispered fondly. "I know that he would have been proud of you."

It took a while for her tears to stop.

When they did, he loosed his embrace and regarded her solemnly.

"You're the keeper of his legacy, now."

"I know," she sighed, wiping away her tears.

"His story must live on lest we all forget." The old hermit's eyes dilated as they looked fascinatedly past her. He brought the cane forward and walked up to the canvas. "That is him."

"Yes," she replied, coming up beside him.

"Thirty years..." The old hermit gaped. "Your memory is superb."

Silence.

"I wish he could have been here to see it. To see everything: My family. My daughter. The new world."

"Oh, I think he saw it all long ago," the old hermit nodded. "He would not have let you go for anything less. I think he had greater faith in you than either of us will ever know."

"What do you suppose happened to him?"

"Whatever Providence willed," the hermit replied. "That, alas, we will never know. Every trace of him was erased long ago."

"Do you think that he remembered in the end?"

"He fulfilled what he had to. He had no need to remember. But..." A reminiscent smile curled up the old hermit's mouth. "Somehow, I think destiny had done him justice before the end."

### C. 6 Day 347

The chronometer read 0300.

He had not slept. It had become progressively more difficult to sleep over the last 11 months and 13 days. In the background a broadcast muttered something about the very first " _Martial Assimilation_ " hailed all over the pro-militarist media as a " _milestone in martial history_." As the pixie-faced anchor on the holoscreen nattered on, his focus shifted from the naked reflection in the glazing to the full view of the inner sky city from the top of the high-rise. The full moon was high and large and shone like a spotlight through the translucent wall. He stared directly into the light savoring the scent which rose from his body breath by slow breath.

Jasmine.

A ruffling noise came from behind. He looked over his shoulder. The jasmine woman with the ebony skin and emerald eyes and the long woven locks of hair like bullwhips, and the thick scars on her back that looked like they had been torn by blade-ended flails sat bare-breasted on the bedside, her back turned.

As she got dressed, he recalled the flows and motions of the previous three hours with curious reflection. There was something very different about this martial woman he could not quite place. Each climax had heightened his fascination with her, and increased her aversion to him. But that smell...

"What is your name?" he asked.

The emerald eyes looked up and studied him.

"Does it matter?" she laughed softly.

"I would like to know."

She looked askance.

"Why?"

He didn't answer.

He watched her get dressed, trying to fathom what it was about her that had so roused his fascination.

"My name is Cassius," he blurted as she stood.

"Sure it is."

The jasmine woman took out a black canister, rolled the tablet into her hand and knocked it back and swallowed and exhaled. "That was good," she said. "Maybe too good." She screwed the cap on the canister and tucking it into her coat. She ogled him sternly. "Don't look for me if you know what's good for you."

She fastened her coat around her and left without more ado.

He followed her with his stare right until the moment the door closed and waited for the sound of the footfalls to fade down the corridor. When she was gone, the holoscreen turned off. He put on some clothes, lifted the bedding off the floor and laid it on the mattress in a bundle. He looked back up at the moon with a tired groan and examined the fraying gauze around his arms.

The light over the dispenser shaft was green. He took out the day's provisions and set them in the refrigerator, sat down, took out a cigarette, lit, inhaled, bowed his head into his hand and rubbed his black-rimmed eyes, blowing out the smoke in slow-flowing wisps that thickened in the fingers of light. When he looked up, a twinkle of something caught his eye on the floor at the foot of the bed, something small and iridescent, just under the lip of the loose bedding.

He squinted through blurred vision, took another drag of his cigarette and waited with queer hesitation. Eventually, he laid the cigarette down on the ashtray and rose from his seat, his eyes fixed with intensity on the twinkle in the bedding. Leaving a trail of smoke in the shafts of moonlight, he sauntered over to the bed and looked down at the floor. He cleared the bedding away with the tip of his foot and picked up a small luminescent trinket.

A pendant hung by a thin silver chain in his fist and swung hypnotically before his eyes. He turned to the door on reflex, but the jasmine was long gone, and the golden pendant settled in the palm of his hand, still lukewarm with the heat of her flesh, and the feel of it ignited a frightening clairvoyance.

His fingers glided almost on instinct over the depression on the back of the pendant.

The locket clicked open.

A small, folded piece of paper was pressed in the small space.

Gently, he took it out.

Carefully, he unfolded it.

Slowly, he brought it up to the light.

His fingers went limp and the pendant slipped and fell. The image of the little girl revealed in moonlight reached through his gaping eyes and seized his mind with a single purpose. He lapsed into a trance which held him frozen for a long while before he turned his mesmerised eyes up at the moon.

He put a coat over his bare chest and ambled robotically up to the door.

As the capsule descended to the streets, he fixed his gaze northward to the valley hidden in the gloom of night. He marched till dawn broke, and then through morning and noon and dusk until night fell again, over the teeming streets of the inner metropolis, brushing past thick crowds of machine men and over long, mirage-layered, traffic-ridden roads, through rugged brush and woodland his legs bore.

When he stopped a full day later, he was at the edge of the valley, looking back at the point where he had started, never to return. The moons became suns and the suns became moons again as he waited and waited, at _their place_ , eyes turned up to the heavens, never once allaying. Until his flesh fused with bone, he waited. And with each inch he crawled toward death the prophecy became clearer – visions of the future disclosed in the past – a vision of Sodom and the martial world itself crumbling in a hail of purging fire. And he remembered. He remembered the promise. He remembered who he was waiting for. He remembered who he was – a name that would be remembered forevermore in annals of the new world.

– END –
