"Men have called me mad; but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence—whether much that is glorious—whether all that is profound—does not spring from disease of thought—from moods of mind exalted at the expense of the general intellect."

  —Edgar Allan Poe, Eleonora

  1. ASHTON

  Year 2225

  December

  Not that anyone asked, but he‘d much rather be in his lab than wait in one of those neat offices. They were like countless little cubic traps. Administrative hellholes. You have to abhor yourself profoundly to want to work here, he imagined. The stuffy, bureaucratic smell always permeated his clothes and skin. He couldn’t stand it. No perfumes or fragrances saved him: his only salvation was fire. Burning his clothes after any chance Citadel visit solved the problem. Relatively speaking. As for the smell sticking to his skin, taking a bath brim-full of detergent helped get rid of it.

  “We’re not bankrupt yet,” his father said. Lucid light from outside the window contoured his clear-cut profile. His crinkled eyes were a pleasant, metallic blue; deep-set, with a constant dreamy look in them. The suit and the well-kept short hair reduced a lot of his years.

  Ashton channeled his new spur of anger into a possible constructive suggestion: “There is still the conference.”

  “So?”

  Ashton stirred the dark liquid in his glass. The media glorified Archibald Devaux. Everyone loved him. And every time he turned up live, billions of people tuned in to watch. “So... I can put some thallium in his water when he’s not looking.”

  His father laughed. “Not cool.”

  “He’s bribed the entire law court.” After he traced the rim of the glass with his finger, Ashton left it on the table with a sharp clink. “Stop playing fair if you want to keep the damn company.”

  “You know we abide by quality over quantity. It always pays off, always will,” Aeron said. “Even though we’re one prefecture short now.”

  Ashton stood up and crossed the room to join his father. Oval hovers, bikes, and personal vehicles of custom types glided across the smooth freeways in all eight directions and multiple levels. All of them were soundless and fast, moving between bleak, patterned structures and boring forms. Within predetermined order. It was so irritating.

  He looked at his father again.

  “Here’s a quality solution for you. I’ll murder the bastard and use his body for the greater good. Body donation is never out of date. The probability of us taking over the medical market without him is spiking up to ninety-five percent. Devaux has distinct monarchist views, and it’s his weakness. If we take him out, his empire will fall.”

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  Aeron glanced up and down at his son with an uncomfortable smile. “I promise you, if we lose another prefecture, I’ll start taking your ideas seriously.”

  “If you lose another prefecture, you’ll have to put me in charge.”

  Flowing sounds reached them from afar and Ashton turned to the elevator two rooms across theirs, the transparent double doors making it easy to notice all newcomers. The conference hour was drawing near, but he didn’t think they’d be done with the digital seals so quickly. All hospitals and medical facilities in Prefecture 8 fell under Devaux’s influence from today on. The guy deserved a jaw-breaking punch right in front of all the cameras. Maybe he could manage...

  Aeron nudged him in the ribs, and both of them straightened up. A woman entered through the glass door. She wore a tight dress with the beltmark of Stellnoir’s officials. “Doctor Axolem?”

  “The smart or the good-looking one?” Aeron winked, putting the secretary in immediate confusion as she took another breath, checking the transmitter she wore on her wrist.

  “Doctor Aeron Axolem. We need your imprint on some more documents. Twenty-second floor.”

  Aeron smiled at her. “I’ll be there in a moment.”

  The secretary nodded and left.

  His father made his way to the built-in bar table with stacked glass shelves over it, where he hesitated to choose a drink. It was a standard shape—Ashton had seen the design across all of Stellnoir, including spaceship interiors—like a magnified, six-chambered revolver cylinder filled with fine-cased alcohol from all the best the base offered. Depending on the alcohol, the shelves shifted with a fitting set of glasses when you spun it. In the end, Aeron gave up and grabbed the glass Ashton left on the nearby table, drinking its full contents. Judging by his expression, he remained pleased with his son’s choice of hard liquor.

  Ashton averted his gaze to the window and followed a hover trail all the way to the far end of the Citadel’s outer ring and into the Industrial Zone. It was so mundane that he moved on to something better.

  With a tilt of his head, he refocused on a different plane of reality: the unlimited area of nothingness in his mind where he could construct probable solutions, fearing no restrictions or a collapse. It always started with a single supposition. Supposedly, Z is a density operator on an n-level quantum mechanical system—

  Aeron coughed to get his attention, and Ashton’s mental sphere evaporated.

  “I heard Sentinel is setting off again. You should go away for a while. When you return, I might think about it.” His father walked back to him with another smile.

  Ashton looked him dead in the eye. His tie was loose and the black stud on the collar was unbuttoned. He was more concerned than he appeared to be, despite the faultless business smiles. “You’ll give me the company?”

  “I’ll think about it,” his father corrected, reaching out to shake hands with him. “Good work on the trial.”

  “We lost,” Ashton returned the gesture.

  “Doesn’t matter. As long as I’m alive, Devaux won’t take over.” Aeron put his other hand over Ashton’s. “I promise you that.”

  Ashton furrowed after his father’s retreating form and the bland wave he gave on his way out. With a scoff, he returned to his previous contemplative state. Aeron could bet all his money away is where he was going. This place was becoming duller and duller each year. Anyway. Time to call... Harvey? The circles around his transmitter clicked when he shifted them, and it took a second to reach him. The signal arrived at the micro-receiver implanted on the inner side of his ear’s tragus.

  “Hello. Good morning, Harvey. You’re fired.”

  Harvey announced his name was Professor Antonio Nieri and was this a joke? You can’t do that. I am the best in the branch. If you get rid of me, it’s all over for you.

  Ashton waited for the whining to be over, and when it finally was, he continued: “Before you leave, I’ll need the ship laboratories clean and ready to use by the end of the week. You’ll clean them all by yourself because I don’t like you.”

  Harvey was speechless. Then he cursed him and closed the connection. Ashton raised a brow. Well, that was rude.