by Jinn, Bo
“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 Sisyphus would reach the top of the mountain, the rock would fall back down to the bottom, and he would have to start all over again, and again, and again…”
“For how long?”
“Forever.”
“Forever 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.
“I think it is time you slept, little one.”
She coughed a hoarse cough and rubbed her drooping eyes. She had fallen slightly ill during the last week.
He lowered her gently to the floor.
“Saul…”
“What is it?” he asked, coming to his feet.
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,” she added with hesitation.
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 replied.
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?”
“Yes,” he muttered. “The flame should give enough light.”
The little head nodded.
There was a long pause. Then, just as he was about to turn away, she 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, his chest rising and falling.
“Do not do that,” his voice shook.
The little face wilted.
“…OK,,” she whispered.
Without a further word, she 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. He staggered out to the middle of the room, under the beams of light from the full moon, running his hands over his soaking brow. When he looked down, the moonlight shone crimson over his open palms.
He stumbled into the en suite, bowed forward, hands on the edge of the basin, lifted his hung head up to the mirror and gazed into the bloodshot eyes. The slider over the drug shelf slid back. The black neural canister sat in the middle. He’d meant to dispose of them, 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, and the tablets spilled all over the basin counter, the floor and down the drain. He grabbed a handful of tablets from the counter and a rigid fist shook with restraint.
No! He flung the tablets aside with a growl.
He pried off his clothes and stepped under the running water. The blood would not wash off.
“Go away … Go away…” he started to mutter.
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 the name before?
“Vincent…”
Nothing.
The water stopped running.
He dried off, the gauze soaked red with blood from his ruined fist. His knuckles crunched.
After crudely bandaging his hand, he laid down on the bed, gauze ends loose and unwinding underneath him. 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.
She is the enemy.
“Enemy,” he mouthed.
He slowly rose from his bed.
He plodded like a sleepwalker across the room to the open door, over the threshold, into the elongated corridor. Dizzy with rage, 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.
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…
He 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.
The girl jolted backward with a start, then whimpered and retreated.
“S-sorry. I heard noises…”
“No,” he pleaded with
an outstretched hand. “Don’t go.”
The hand remained extended, as though summoning her back to life, then slowly lowered into 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.”
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 … forgive me,” he repeated over and over, and felt the lone tear sting, the first he could remember. He held her in his embrace as if his life depended on hers.
“Saul, can I stay with you?”
“Yes,” he answered with a nod. “Yes.”
His arms loosened from around her.
She 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. When they 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’re 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 and 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.”
“Awhile,” the neutralist nodded. “We’ve made progress since then. You’ll 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, and 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 ought to know, yes,” said Eastman.
“Concerning?”
“Strictly speaking, 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.”
In the solemn pause that followed, a Mona Lisa smile materialised on Pope’s face. 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,” the neuralist 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, then took a sip from his own. “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 S
urveillance 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?” inquired Pope.
“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, after which Pope snickered.
“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 … 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 UMC 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.
