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 wa
rm 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.”