Chapter One

The Civility of Murder and Modern Discourse

Old Central, Atlas

Salus

The Confederacy of Colonies

4 months after the fall of Winter

Knuckleton liked the colours of the lights on Melange Avenue. They were a welcome distraction from all those who had designs to kill him or worse. He was a strange man to be sure, though entirely self-aware in the extent of his strangeness. This was his fourth attempt at a new life. The first three ended ignominiously.

Now, neighbours knew of him, without knowing him. He was a background character. The kind one might pass and think on the strangeness of his behaviour, but only for a moment; the distance he kept on the pavement, the angle of his upturned collar that hid a telling cut on his cheek from one of those other lives. Knuckleton didn’t care for the sensibilities of the folk in this place. The social strata of Old Central were a world unto itself, and a world altogether alien to him.

There was a type to this place, thought Knuckleton as he passed the draped awnings of a late-night establishment, the kind married folk went between long hours and dead bedrooms. Melange’s escapes were as virtual as they were physical.

Knuckleton skipped under a red streetlight on the corner of Melange and Eighteenth, where two kids were buying emotes from a third. Their pocket money was worth the five-minute high, and the thirty-minute low that followed. The buildings here were tall and narrow, stacks of wiry flats smeared in the rainbow glare of storefronts opposite. People pressed between people, like battery farms of apathy. The flats’ narrowness betrayed their time, from when the world was more expensive, less instant in its gratifications.

Knuckleton slipped left down a sloping back alley, from the distrusting crowds and toward the dock. He rolled his shoulders under the thrum of a shuttle coming into rest in the bay.

He passed two more kids with stilts. They raised their arms to him, and their mechanical fingers split limply at right angles. A reaching blade extended in their place, and one jabbed the air at Knuckleton. He just smiled back and kept walking.

Knuckleton had thought about getting stilts. They were a safeguard against random encounters much less friendly than that. He raked a hand through his greying hair, then stopped to look at the lines life had worn into his leathered palms. He was proud, he supposed, that his body was his own, his mind was his own.

Everything on Atlas was marked. Tracked. Codified. To be himself was his only defence against the people who wanted to use him. He supposed that was the saddest thing. He was a victim of circumstance. If the Sign or Free Speak had cared about him, he might have been flattered. But he was only a means to their worthless ends. In some circles, he even still had something of a reputation as a computer scientist, or as a government official. But Old Central had its ways of erasing people, little by little, in stature, and everything else. This was Atlas’ lowest hell.

He looked up at the familiar spindler’s clinic on the corner of nineteenth, the front backlit by the yellowish glow of a lone spot lamp inside. The operating chair sat reclined in the shaft of its light, angled its headrest toward the window to tempt the passers-by. He wondered if those kids got their stilts here. It was a pilgrimage almost, that folks would come to their spindler, and trade away a piece of themselves. ‘Upgrade’ their bodies. A statement like tattoos of old.

It was starting to feel like half a home after all, Knuckleton thought then, glancing at the boarded window of the squat flat above. He leaned into the door of the clinic and it fell open under his familiar weight. A bell chimed to welcome him, and he sighed a little.

He looked around: half-blooded tools were awash beside Dek’s counter, on a bed of bandages and sterile wrappings. Behind it, square photos were tacked onto every inch of space the wall could spare, the bodily testimonies of Dek’s clients.

He turned then at the rattling of a chained curtain to the back of the clinic.

‘You’re a slippery kid, Ern Knuckleton.’

‘Always.’ Knuckleton slouched to a seat in the waiting area up against the far wall of the clinic. He turned and looked at Dek Hudson. He was brutishly built with pink titanium arms, and a silvery cut down the midline of his face where it had been opened up for a shader. His smile sank into his jowls as he tugged off a bloodied apron.

‘I was just about to close up,’ he said, pointing to a turned ‘closed’ sign hanging over the inside of the door.

‘S’early.’

‘Some kids always rock up this time with barely a Cap in their pocket begging for mods they can’t afford. Ain’t worth the trouble.’

Knuckleton smiled. ‘I hear those kids from the flat, more often than not.’

Dek returned the look sheepishly, as if Knuckleton had heard him having sex instead.

‘Well, if you ever need a hand dealing with them.’

The spindler waved an arm. ‘I deal with it.’

Knuckleton then raised a paper bag, conspicuous in its plainness. ‘You got my Caps?’

Dek snatched the bag and pulled out a fat stack of Capital Dollars. His pinked fingers rifled through the notes. He counted them. Content, he stashed them aside.

‘Still don’t trust me, Dek? Money is more hassle than I need,’ Knuckleton lied.

‘As something of a lazy bastard myself, I respect your lack of ambition, Ern. Here’s your cut, good and proper.’ Dek tossed him a slither of the stack back and Knuckleton stuffed them in his pocket.

‘You pay well enough for me.’

Dek reached a hand to a minifridge below the counter, slapped two bottles of beer in front of them. He flicked a hand open like the kids on the corner, and a bottle opener poked out the end of his ring finger. ‘You get any trouble?’ he asked eventually.

‘Cheers,’ Knuckleton said, downing a swig. ‘No trouble. Coupla Esskin Boys tried to jump me, but I dealt with it. And Tacchia sends her regards. Says you’re her most reliable supplier.’

Dek chuckled. ‘I’m her fourth in six months, so I wouldn’t count on it all the same.’

‘There’ll always be a market with scrappers. Selling parts is easy money. If not her, there will be someone else, Dek. You’ll get there.’ Knuckleton did his best to reassure him. But he wasn’t used to being friendly. Not for a long time.

‘I wish I made enough money on the clinic alone,’ said the spindler.

‘That’s the whole point of finding somewhere new, somewhere nice uptown. Have a bigger space, so you’re not like…’ Knuckleton surveyed the room in its disorderliness. ‘Only be a couple of months.’

‘I got my eye on a place, aye. If I get to it first.’ Dek’s eyes rolled back. He seemed to fall into a daydream. ‘I can have a proper reception, waiting room, more upmarket mods, and a respectable clientele.’

Knuckleton chinked Dek’s bottle, laughed. ‘You mean Old Central isn’t respectable?’

Dek shifted to the bay window and stood steadfast, sipping on the rim of his bottle. Knuckleton’s eyes followed him, staring out over the light-stained fog that hung over nineteenth like a shroud. Silhouettes darted under an awning opposite as the sky opened up to a downpour.

How perfect this place was, Knuckleton thought then, for a man to live low. No one cared here. He passed through the fog of Old Central like those shadows, noticed but unseen.

His analogue life, running deliveries for Dek up and down to scrappers and landfill divers in exchange for pittance did its job. He was blind to Free Speak. He left them no footprint. And the Sign would never expect to look for the respectable man Ernst Knuckleton used to be here.

Director General of the General Archive, now a paper boy. He had been raised in this world. How right that he might return here.

But soon Knuckleton would have enough. Every day he got his cut of Dek’s fee, and every day he took ten percent extra before he got back. One ended up bleached in a deposit box uptown, the other at the dock. There were more than enough places to hide his shame. Old Central had a lot to hide: the tainted memories of a dead man’s shader, the stolen lance of a Colonial Games weightlifter, the forged Extended Life Agreement of some cap-headed CEO.

He wasn’t proud, but it worked. Knuckleton rubbed a hand over the faint wad of Caps in his pocket as Dek stared longingly for some finer life. Six months, then Knuckleton could be out of here, enough for a charter and some shitty apartment on one of the colonies, and Dek could get his clinic. Everybody wins, he told himself. Free Speak and their threats would never find him, and the Sign would never look.

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And his knowledge about the alien Erobo could die with him.

‘I know, by the way,’ Dek intoned then.

‘Know what?’

‘About the money. I’m dumb, ain’t that dumb.’ He turned from the window, leaned back over the counter. His brooding eyes stared at Knuckleton.

‘It’s for a few months,’ Knuckleton said. There was no point denying it. ‘Just enough to get out, to the colonies.’

‘You know if you asked, I would have given you what you needed.’ Dek turned back. His whole presence seemed to sink. ‘I know you, and nothing I know could make Ern Knuckleton run a dozen systems. You being scared, scares me.’

‘You can’t—’ Panic took root inside Knuckleton. ‘I can’t. They want to kill me. If I tell you, you’re as good as dead.’ His head fell into his hands. He took the moment’s pause to arrest his feelings.

His mind turned. What he would give to convince Free Speak, to make them see! He wasn’t the enemy. They had a common cause in the downfall of the Sign. But how to make them see? They were radicals, fundamentalists of thought and action.

‘What I know could stop them. Expose them. They kill thousands, millions.’ The Sign were bottomless in their depravity, in their greed. It was true.

Dek looked haunted, half-broken. That something could scare Knuckleton seemed to truly shake him. ‘Who’s them?’

‘Few months ago, I knew this kid, typical Ol’ Central type. He don’t have a lot in life. Mum’s washed up on a shader. Dad’s binned it to Andvedene. Every day I’d see him on this doorstep and give a coupla Caps for pocket money.’

‘I’m sensing a “but”.’

‘One day he spends it on an emote, which is fine. He’s puffing nostalgia, or melancholy or something on the step, I can’t remember. Minding his own business, like. This other kid passes him, likes the look of the emote, fancies he can take it because the kid is a scrawny kid, right.’

‘They get in a fight, kid gets bloody-nosed?’

Knuckleton huffed. ‘Something like that. The other kid grabs for it but the scrawny kid is used to these types, seen ‘em a thousand times before, so he’s carrying a pistol pack. Pulls it, accidentally discharges it.’

‘Shit.’

‘Other kid’s bleedin’ out on the pavement. Scrawny kid doesn’t know what to do, so he just pulls his knees in, sits there, crying, watching this guy bleed out. Some lady ‘cross the street calls cops on him. I mean, this kid had been in front of a judge before, drug offences, but not like this.’

‘What’s this got to do with—’

‘Kid apologises, crying on the stand, swears he didn’t mean it, but owns it you know. Says he was scared. I mean who doesn’t carry a pack in Ol’ Central. Swears on his life it was an accident. Judge’s made up his mind though, just needs a ‘kid like that’ off the street. Takes the scrawny kid at his swear. Terminates his LA. They burned his body three days later.’

Knuckleton let the silence linger, let Dek think on the injustice, if he saw it yet.

‘I mean, he did kill a kid.’

‘Sure. But the people who wanna hurt me kill thousands every day. Maybe a mining accident on Veldern, or god forbid, they fund the war lobby. The fat, cap-headed folk who get a hard-on for a quarterly profit, or a disaster that gives them a chance at one. These people are behind them. They enable them if it suits.

‘They see everything, Dek. They play the Confederacy like a fucking piano, the stock market, ads on your shader, the goddamn shipping lanes with the Feng-Hal. They want to make the war happen. And what I know could expose them. I’m their… I’m their loose end.’

‘Ern, listen, I’m s—'

‘And all those capheads they enable. And- and what are they gonna get for passive murder?’ Knuckleton laughed. ‘Their company gets a couple mill Cap fine, at worst, a public inquiry that gets buried on a desk eighteen months later. No jail-time. And a scrawny kid, dealt a shit hand, and two-hundred years of life ahead of him, who made a mistake, who said sorry, gets a needle in his fucking arm for an accident.’

Dek said nothing. His jowls sank a little, then, ‘I understand. Not really. But I see how you feel. The world is shit, s’why I try not to think about it. Couldn’t pretend to ever be happy.’ Dek tried a laugh, but it faltered into a cough.

‘When I saw what happened to him, you realise the world is screaming at you. ‘Cos no one else knows about them. And these people are the reasons places like Old Central exists. But what can I do but run?’ Knuckleton said, twirling his half-drank bottle on the counter. For the first time in years, he was honest. He said his truth aloud at last. ‘I just need cash. I’m really sorry I didn’t say. But I didn’t wanna involve you.’

Dek could not find the words for Knuckleton’s. He just chinked his bottle again. ‘You can have whatever you need. Just tell me next time. You’re an honourable man, Ern.’

‘First I ever heard that.’ He allowed himself a smile. ‘I don’t show it, Dek, but I’m grateful.’ The word was an understatement.

‘It’s nothing.’

The meaning of that brief exchange was lost on neither. Dek was the first and last person Knuckleton would love, he was sure. Their attentions then turned to a boxy TV, suspended in the corner above the counter. It fizzled in lines of half-static as an avatar read out the day’s affairs.

‘—And in light of escalating tensions between the Confederacy and Feng-Hal, Chief Military Advisor to the Prime Minister, Colonel Miranda Eirs, today announced the Confederacy intends to launch an expeditionary mission to the human home world of Earth. If successful, it will be the first time mankind has set foot on the planet since its departure over eight centuries ago. Leader of the Opposition, Margot Eoisin called the plans “shameless” and a “glorified photo op”.’

‘Damn right,’ Dek said, raising his bottle to the announcer.

‘Eoisin?’

‘Aye. Government are shameless bastards. It’s just a feel-good story to distract from everything they screw up.’

‘I seem to remember you refused to vote for her.’

Dek shrugged. ‘I’ve warmed to her. At least she’s de-escalation. Government is as pro-war as the lobby. They just dress it up with a bow and use posh words to pretend they’re not.’

‘Never had you as one for politics.’

‘War ain’t politics, is it, Ern. It’s about life.’

Knuckleton laughed dimly. ‘If only that were so.’

What need did the Confederacy have to go back to Earth? That place was dead and buried centuries ago. And it was best left that way. Humanity moved on. To go back, to try again, was to erase the failures that led it to this point in the first place. Earth was a monument to the sins of humanity.

It should stay that way.

‘Well, I did vote for her,’ Knuckleton said then. He gathered himself from the counter and stood. ‘Dek.’

‘Hm?’

‘I am truly sorry about the money. Thank you… for understanding.’

‘I’m not sure I do understand but don’t worry about it. Done now.’ He strained a smile. ‘Don’t look like that. If I was that pissed, you’d have felt it, not heard it.’

‘True enough.’

‘I’ll take a takeaway though.’

‘What kind?’

Dek leaned back and his naked back rolls folded under his apron as he stretched. ‘I wouldn’t say no to a Bagarian. There’s a couple that run this place up on Thirtieth and North.’

Knuckleton smiled. ‘Sure.’

He trudged under the curtain and out to the back of the clinic. He paused to survey piled crates of supplies, and the heavy-duty equipment Dek used for his more extravagant mods. A printout of a vacant lot was taped to the back wall. Dek had etched marks along a pencil-drawn line as his savings stacked up. Below, an exposed mattress sat under the folds of a narrow blanket. It was much too small, but he managed.

Knuckleton’s guilt returned in sharp pangs. ‘You’ll get there, Dek,’ he whispered.

He slouched up the stairs to change, to the apartment with the boarded window. The way was unlit like always, but the steps were familiar like friends. The way the floorboards sank underfoot was a comfort. He judged the lurch over the top step and reached a hand to ping the light.

Dek had no other tenants and Knuckleton never complained. Their arrangement worked. It wasn’t the homeliest of places, but it was homely in its familiarness. Knuckleton swatted a hand at the bulb as he passed and it swung over him, striking the hall in writhing shadows, smears of dark that circled him, contorted at the angle of the walls.

He caught something in his eye there.

A shadow that cut deeper that it should. A twang of discomfort in his periphery that told him something was out of place. Nothing should be out of place. No one came here.

His eyes darted in search of something only half-seen. But what? He traced the familiar bulges under the wallpaper by his fingertips.

Then, he caught it!

Knuckleton stooped to where his fingernails were caught in a ridge in the brickwork. He stooped.

Deep cuts lacerated the wall- the work of a swift hand. They didn’t twitch or deviate. Knuckleton scanned for signs of a struggle, but the floorboards weren’t scuffed.

This was a threat; meant to intimidate. If the Sign or Free Speak had found him, it was over, just like that.

But even that didn’t make sense. If the Sign had wanted him dead, he was sure he would be dead. That was the point of escaping, so that they wouldn’t have the luxury. And for Free Speak, physical intimidation was out of character. They operated through underhand methods: blackmail and anonymous threats. They lacked the muscle to bully Knuckleton.

No. This was something else.

Under a lazy hand, the door to his flat swung open. Light rifled in from the hallway in vague shafts, broken by motes of dust twirling in random motions.

At first, the room looked undisturbed. But Knuckleton saw through that.

Like the rest of Old Central, his room was unkempt. No one other than him would know where to find anything here. And yet, everything was neat and aligned. Books sat straight on their shelves. Plates on the side stacked by size rather than dirtiness. The curtain tucked behind the boarded window was now pegged back in its fastening.

He saw how easily his habits could betray him. Knuckleton staggered through the scant pieces of his life that had been pulled apart and reassembled. In search of what? He had nothing to hide. Nothing material. The information he held on the Sign was too prized to store, on paper or a shader.

Perhaps the search was a matter of procedure, rather than a hunt.

Knuckleton turned on his heel and his eyes scoured the darkness for a clue. A mark like the one in the hall. How dare these invaders enter Dek’s home. He supposed Dek hadn’t the courage to tell him about the encounter. He seemed wounded enough earlier.

Knuckleton backed two paces, passed a searching look across his studio. Of all those other lives lived, Knuckleton had hoped this would be his last. Alas, at the corner of the door, between the angle of the hinges, he saw a slip of grey in the light peaking under the door- an envelope. He tore it open thoughtlessly.

It was a letter, hand-delivered. They knew him well. Only the most analogue methods reached Knuckleton. He was not on any public network, a fact he was extremely proud of.

The letter head bore the seal of the Confederacy.

Of course. No one else’s reach matched the Sign’s, or perhaps exceeded. Though, for the few scholars who had chronicled the scale of the Sign, even they lacked a full appreciation of its size and influence. They were entirely opaque, and it made hiding from them as elusive as the thing itself.

But the Confederacy was scarce an improvement. They made him vulnerable.

Mr Ernst Knuckleton,

I hope this letter finds you well. As a matter of great national and Confederate security, your expertise is demanded in service of the Confederacy of Colonies Fourth Expeditionary Battalion. You will serve as a Scientific Expert under the jurisdiction of the Fourth Battalion to the planet ‘Earth’, also known as ‘Colony Two’, aboard the Type-R-400 class ‘Merlin’. As such, you are required to present yourself at the Military Installation Forward Base Juniper. Please find enclosed appropriate credentials and travel arrangements from Old Central.

Kindest Regards,

Commander Vitor Tovey

The letter crumpled under the weight of his fingers. For all his belief that he could make it, he had failed. At least he could return the money to Dek. It was enough to probably cut a couple months off his wait for the new clinic, if not all of it. At that, he smiled.

Of course, there was every chance it was Dek who had ratted Knuckleton out in the first place. But then, there was every chance it wasn’t. He didn’t have to know. He could just give the money back and go.

‘Scientific Expert’, he thought. Scientific Expert. At least now he knew humanity’s conquest of Earth was more than a glorified photo-op.

But there was only one thing his expertise and Earth had in common.

The alien, Erobo.