Lonely Castles

by S. A. Tholin

"You need to shut the fuck up before somebody puts you down, Colonel."

  Joy understood the stakes, she really did. But...

  "I don't think I can do it again," she said to Constant.

  "We'll find another way."

  She hoped so. Oh, she really did, because the RebEarth armada was on the move, and not all of its ships were on course to Earth. Some headed towards Mars, home to a hundred million Primaterre citizens – and one citizen in particular.

  71.

  LUCKLAW

  There was nothing more bitter than a Kirkclair winter night. The winds swept in from the red plains, carrying a fine glitter of frost-chilled dust down the capital's boulevards. Phobos and Deimos were pinpricks in the sky, too small to cast light. To make up for the dark and the cold, people made their homes warm and glowing, lanterns and star-shaped decorations illuminating windows and balconies. The streets were washed in the soft green and violet aura of tourmaline towers.

  It was the greatest city on Mars, and it was so much smaller than Lucklaw remembered it.

  When his car came to a stop and the chauffeur opened the door, he stepped out onto terracotta pavement where shadows danced in the light of torches. A distant chime of bells drifted over from a nearby contemplation grove, and music came from beyond the gilded gates of the mayor's estate. Lucklaw had visited before, but as the security guards opened the gates and greeted him, it felt like it was the very first time.

  "Aubrey." His mother snapped her fingers in front of his face. "Look alive."

  "Apologies. I was just thinking..." But not about anything that he could tell her, so he just shrugged.

  She rolled her eyes and straightened the collar of his brand new suit. He'd pre-ordered it over a year ago – you had to, if you were to stand any chance at so much as a single piece from that particular designer's biannual range – and it was exactly as he'd expected it to be. He looked great in it. He felt weird.

  "Nothing like Bastion fatigues or the weight of armour, is it? Coming home is different when you have got used to a new skin. None of the old things, not even the ones you missed, seem to fit quite right anymore. Trust me, I understand. I'd rather wear my uniform or a flight suit than this." His mother touched the mother-of-pearl fabric of her dress, just about visible underneath her camel coat. A scattering of pearls in her blonde hair formed the constellation of Perseus, his mother's home away from home, where she had once flown Rampart gunships and now commanded a system fleet.

  "I've hardly ever seen you in uniform," he said. "Only for photo ops."

  "I decided early on that when I'm home, I'm home. It's all too easy to become rooted in one role and one role alone, especially when the role in question comes with rank and authority. But I wanted to be more. I wanted to be a mother. And speaking of which," she said, smiling slightly, "go on inside, Aubrey, before you catch your death of cold."

  He stopped at the doors for a mandatory security check. The Lucklaw name spared him the frisking that the guards gave the guest before him, but the scanners still had to check him for weapons and other prohibited items.

  His mother had stayed behind at the gates, giving her security detail instructions. After a brief discussion, the men left, seemingly vanishing into the shadows. If Lucklaw asked, he knew his mother would say they'd gone back to the car. He hadn't believed that even as a child. The first bodyguard she'd ever had had been a man with phosphorous scars and the augmented musculature of a cataphract. He'd laughed a lot, Lucklaw remembered that, and he also remembered how frightening that laugh had been.

  Now the security detail numbered four, including the chauffeur who was definitely not just a driver, and though Lucklaw was no longer afraid, he understood quite well what kind of men they were.

  "Your coat, sir?"

  He removed his coat, red dust drizzling off its shoulders onto white carpet. The smiling girl who took the coat didn't seem to mind, even though she'd probably have to clean up the mess. He would never have thought about that before, but after the embarrassing episode with Meeks, he'd come to notice support staff a lot more.

  "Thanks," he said and scuffed the dust with his boot, only managing to grind it deeper into the carpet. "Sorry about that."

  "Nothing to worry about, sir," she said, and her smile seemed a little more genuine.

  * * *

  Behind the gilded gates and the forbidding stone exterior, the mayor's estate was a warm and open place where high-heeled shoes clacked against Earth-oak floorboards and reminders of purity were oil paintings, not digital displays. It was out of place in modern Kirkclair, a fact that the interior designers had taken full advantage of, playing it up instead of trying to obscure it. It was old enough that it would've been the mayor's estate even back when Somerset had lived in Kirkclair. She might have visited it, walked these very halls, her hand on the same railing that Lucklaw's now touched.

  But she wouldn't have seen the banquet hall, which only ever opened for diplomatic events and affairs of state. He had, several times before, but the view never ceased to impress. The western half of the hall was glass, built on crystalline supports overhanging Corryvreckan Falls, the largest of Kirkclair's many waterfalls. Spotlights highlighted the drop, and drones lit the cascading water all the way down to its terminus, a whirlpool in an impact glass crater. It was a frothing black and white display.

  The eastern side of the hall was less dramatic, but it had been virtually enhanced for the occasion, subtle shadows and colours giving the impression of a night time forest. Invisible leaves rustled about Lucklaw's feet and, every now and then, a breeze seemed to pass through his hair. The designers had done an excellent job, entirely wasted on the primer-less foreign guests.

  The gala was being held to mark the end of a week of peace talks between the Primaterre Protectorate, the Kalevala, the Gustavians and the Europa Heptarchy. Lucklaw's mother had hinted that they'd gone less than great – the Primaterre demands being quite reasonable, but the foreign factions unwilling to cooperate with each other. But no matter how the negotiations had fared, none of the representatives had declined the invitation to the mayor's party.

  The foreigners were easy to spot. Their outfits were either too gaudy, too dull or too strange. It was like nobody outside the Protectorate had the first idea about fashion – and when the orchestra announced that they were going to play a popular Heptarchy piece in honour of the guests, it became clear they knew even less about music.

  But at least the Heptarchy diplomats seemed to be enjoying themselves. Not like the Kalevalan representatives who huddled in the corners, studying the locals with a mix of jealousy and contempt that irritated Lucklaw. The only reason their pathetic collection of colonies even existed anymore was thanks to the Primaterre. Actually, thanks to his team.

  "I think I saw some of your friends go out on the balcony." His mother had caught up, and caught the eye of more than one Kalevalan, which Lucklaw liked even less than their contempt. "But beware," she said, taking an offered glass of sparkling water from a waiter with impressive knowledge of his guests' preferred drink, "old friends frequently fit even worse than old clothes."

  "Ah, Victorie." Iain Rescobie, Mayor of Kirkclair, came pushing through the crowd, raising his arms to give Lucklaw's mother a welcoming hug. She extended a hand instead, as sharp as a knife. With obvious disappointment, Rescobie shook it. "What a pleasant surprise to have Lady Luck herself here tonight. You usually take off as soon as the talks are over."

  "I would have, but my son unexpectedly came home for a visit."

  Rescobie peered at Lucklaw. "Aubrey? Mercy, I hardly recognised you there. For starters, you're not over at the bar." He laughed too long and too hard at that, and Lucklaw could feel his cheeks burning, which just made it all the worse. It wasn't fair. People had laughed at him before, and he'd tried to change, but they'd laughed at him anyway. Now that he really had changed, they still laughed. Rescobie, who sat in his Kirkclair mayor's office all day long while Lucklaw was on Cato, Velloa, Herewar
d – he thought he could make jokes?

  And then he saw his mother's smile. Bright, wide, infectious – and the kind of smile she only ever used when she was about to verbally disembowel someone. As much as he appreciated it (even if it was a little embarrassing to have his mother leap to his defence), he couldn't have that happen. Not right now. He needed Rescobie, and laughing was good. Drunk was good.

  "Not at the bar yet," Lucklaw said. "Can I get you a drink, Mr Mayor?"

  * * *

  With the help of hundred-year-old Torthorwald whisky, he managed to keep Rescobie's attention for nearly half an hour, but as the evening continued, more luminaries arrived. He could've kept Rescobie talking, easy, but the mayor's increasingly flustered assistant dragged the man away for a quick shot of sobering chems.

  No matter. The conversation had been enlightening enough.

  He pushed his glass towards the bartender.

  "Mercy, Aubrey, is that sparkling water?"

  The voice was familiar, the giggle even more so. Once it would've had him blushing worse than the mayor's jab. Now he waited for the bartender to refill his drink before turning around.

  "Been a long time, Atalanta."

  But not long enough for Atalanta Braeburn to have changed one bit. Oh, her hair was woodland brown instead of ice blonde, and her eyes a deep, rich caramel that would've set her merit account back quite a bit, but she was still every bit the breezy girl he remembered from school. She wore perfume like a warm cinnamon aura and was, as always, flanked by the rest of the Camelon Boulevard set. His 'friends', as far as his mother was concerned, but now he knew that while the kids of Camelon Boulevard were wealthy, their fortunes didn't include true friendship.

  A predatory gleam lit up Atalanta's eyes as she looked him up and down.

  "It's been too long," she said, sliding onto the stool next to his. "Buy me a drink, soldier?"

  "It's an open bar," he said.

  A displeased frown flickered across Atalanta's perfect features. She began to stand, to leave in a huff, no doubt, but the rest of the Camelon set now ringed her and Lucklaw, all of them eager to say hello. Lucklaw indulged them, biting down the urge to remind them that they'd fallen out of touch the second he had left Kirkclair. Journey Danvers, who had three messages from him sitting untouched in her inbox, gushed compliments about his suit. Brandon, who'd once borrowed Lucklaw's Ibis and crashed it three hours later, wanted to talk about his company's new line of ablative weave, perfect for banneret suits and it looks awesome too, say, if you'd give your company chief my details we could get you a great deal, and Lucklaw had to literally bite his tongue to stop himself from explaining that his company chief was dead and even if he hadn't been, Vysoke-Myto would've laughed at the idea of replacing reactive plates with ablative weave.

  Atalanta dominated the conversation, of course, but she only ever had one topic: herself. Lucklaw smiled and pretended to listen while his awareness stretched in a thousand different directions. He had hacked his visual augments earlier so that his eyes remained blue instead of silver. It had been necessary, but as he caught a glance of his own reflection in a bottle, he thought with a sting of guilt of Vysoke-Myto and Commander Cassimer, both of whom would have disapproved. He could only hope that, in the end, the commander would agree that it had been worth it.

  And then Cooper Keiss walked into the banquet hall with a slick smile and a firm handshake for everyone. His two bodyguards made sure no undesirables got too close, but they let Rescobie approach. The mayor's sobering chems had begun to fail under another volley of drinks, but Keiss seemed unbothered by the man's dishevelled state. They shook hands and made conversation and suddenly the room seemed to have become very hot.

  "So, anyway, what's it like being in Bastion?" Atalanta asked, remembering that this was supposed to be a conversation and not a monologue.

  "It's the worst thing I've ever done," he said, earnestly, "and the best."

  "Well, that doesn't make a lot of sense."

  "I suppose that it wouldn't to you, but nothing that truly matters comes without pain. I hope you find something like that too – but chances are it's not waiting for you on Camelon Boulevard. Step away from who you think you are, or you might never find out who you were always meant to be." He transferred a large tip to the bartender's merit account and stood. "Take care of yourself, Atalanta. I doubt we'll speak again."

  * * *

  The west wing of the estate housed a sparsely-decorated office meant to function as both a panic room and a sensitive information facility. Its windowless walls were titanium, laced with anti-surveillance tech, and the only way in or out was through a massive security door. The area was an original feature, but during Mars's time as Primaterre territory, it had been rendered pointless. The security door was left open and, during parties, it was a popular place for guests to fool around. That's how Lucklaw knew about it, but it was still early in the evening, and when he entered the room, it was empty.

  Good. He made his preparations, lit a cigarette, sat down at the desk and tried to breathe.

  He didn't have to wait long.

  Keiss's bodyguards entered first, the man himself right behind them.

  "Hey, kid, get out," the bigger of the two guards said. "We have business in here. Private business."

  "So do I," Lucklaw said, in his best spoilt-rich-boy drawl, and flicked cigarette ash into a bowl-shaped paperweight that easily cost more than Keiss's guards made in a year. The smell was almost enough to make him cough, especially since Rhys insisted on smoking the nastiest brand imaginable. "Room's big enough for all of us."

  "You're Admiral Lucklaw's boy, right?" Keiss approached the desk with a casual, too-friendly smile. "I've got an important message that I need to reply to. An admiral's son – actually, I heard you're a soldier yourself now – you understand the need for comms security. This might be time-sensitive, so I'd appreciate it if you'd let us have the room."

  "All right. Sure." He stood and wasn't quite sure how he'd managed; his legs felt like jelly. As he walked to the door, one of the guards sneered at him.

  "Run along now, and we won't tell your mummy we caught you smoking."

  The other guard laughed, and that was good. That made it so much easier to slam the door shut and seal it.

  "Your message," he said, slowly turning. "Didn't say much. Just two words, in fact: Project Harmony."

  "You sent it?"

  He nodded, and he had imagined this moment so many times: the look of shock on Keiss's face, the fear as he realised he'd been found out, the terror of what might come next.

  But Keiss didn't look afraid at all. He just smirked and sat down on the corner of the desk, and it felt more like being called to the headmaster's office than triumph.

  "All right," he said.

  "All right?" Lucklaw echoed, confused.

  "There's a pretty good party going on upstairs, and I'd like to get back to it before all the hors d'oeuvres are gone. Last I saw, some of the Kalevalans were going at them like they're on the brink of starvation, so let's get down to business. What is it that you want?"

  "What do I want?"

  "My." Keiss laughed. "What were you expecting? Did you think you could throw Project Harmony in my face and I would crumble? That I've been keeping this century-old secret all my life, terrified of one day getting caught? Or did you think that I'd be impressed and astonished that you figured it out?" He picked up the cigarette Lucklaw had discarded, straightened it, and took a long drag. "No, no. You're not the first, kid. Far from it."

  "There have been others?"

  "Oh yes. Some even before my time. You're not even the first Bastion man to figure it out. Most are caught trying to investigate it, others have tried to tell the world, but none of them can keep the secret for too long. It's too big, too maddening to live in a world of lies and liars. Nobody can handle it for very long. They all crack. The smart ones, they realise that, and they've done what you're doing. So, what is it you want?"


  What he had come here wanting was something that Keiss couldn't give him. What he wanted right now was the ability to breathe, because it suddenly seemed very difficult. This wasn't going at all like expected, and the two guards just gave him relaxed grins as though they weren't worried. As though they knew this was going to go their way.

  "It can't be merits; stars know the Lucklaws have enough of that. A boost up the career ladder? Or perhaps something more personal. You want somebody dead? Or maybe there's a girl you want. A girl who won't look at you the way she should; a girl who doesn't appreciate you the way you deserve. Or a man – I don't judge." Keiss smiled. "Don't be shy. I've heard it all before from people who think that Project Harmony can be used as some sort of wish-granting genie. It can't, unfortunately – not yet, at any rate. But my people and I have been working on a solution for that for quite some time, and a man like yourself might prove useful in our impending hostile takeover. Afterwards, you could have anything and anyone you wanted."

  "I want..." Lucklaw clenched his fist and forced a deep breath. "I want justice."

  "Ah. You're one of those." Keiss sighed. "A shame. Henderson? Escort the boy to our car and take him for a nice long ride, would you?"

  "Nobody's going anywhere. I've sealed the door."

  "Call down Andrews, have him open it up."

  "Comms are jammed," Henderson said, and now, finally, he looked a little concerned.

  "I don't know what you think you're doing here." Keiss shook his head at Lucklaw. "The mayor's security will..."

  "No security." The surveillance cameras had been his the moment he'd entered the estate, as had the alarms and locks. "No comms." He hadn't been allowed to keep the jammer from Kivik's fuelling station, but he'd had enough of a look at it to build one himself. Somerset had helped him get some of the components, but most of it had been put together from items scavenged from the banneretcy quarters. Nobody had complained yet, but when Valletta got back from the med-wing, chances were the recon man was going to wonder where the hell his toaster had disappeared to.