Infinity arc

The colossal Trade Building is the first thing any visitor to Peng City notices. It is easy, at any of the off-world or local traffic terminals, to spot newcomers. Locals subtly avert their eyes, or even, in an unconscious gesture, cover them with a hand, as if warding off evil. New arrivals find their gaze drawn to it, eyes widening momentarily as they take in the crouching behemoth, perched at the highest point of the metropolis. It looms over the city as a dark beacon, absorbing rather than giving light. Rooted in a wide, grey-paved plaza it rises four kilometres high, stretching six long and two across.

It's featureless walls, topped with rounded cornices like frowning brows, face the city on all sides. Seen from below, the smooth upper edges seem to disappear into the yellowish perma-smog that licks at them night and day, leaving streaks of grime the rain washes down over its indifferent bulk.

Denizens call it 'the blink', as anyone settled in Peng feels challenged to a continual staring contest with this brutish symbol of Demos's ruling conglomerates. There are few places in the city it can't be seen from, nowhere citizens can hide from its pervasive presence. The dark walls, the trade council's red emblem emblazoned across the façade - ostensibly a shower of sparks from blazing forge, but looking like nothing more than a sword slash - dwarf the individual company skyscrapers further down into the shallow valley it presides over. The Blink is the largest building on any of the colonised worlds.

From this high point the rest of the city sprawls across the valley, divided by a wide, dark and sluggish river. The most heavily industrialised area blights the valley mouth, from where the river splits into three branches and runs out into the sea. The endless rows of worker accommodation blocks that make up the bulk of the city, and the higher buildings of the financial and business districts hold appeal only for the most functional of minds. The church of The Conscious God has a presence here in several incongruously elegant spires, making even the far more popular sports stadia seem blocky and crude.

On this night, hidden among the clustered grey office blocks of the business district, two men stood in the drizzling rain that was as much a feature of the city as The Blink. The door they had used to exit one of the nondescript buildings by stood open, spilling yellow light across the grimy open space at the rear of the building, a place frequented by no-one but garbage collectors and the occasional starving rat.

Kasimir, the larger of the two men, stood like the building itself - tall, angular, solid and indifferent to the drifting rain. His head, on top of a neck that disappeared into thick shoulders and a bulging trapezius muscle, was roughly hewn and fronted by a blunt nose, large mouth and broad, flat cheekbones and forehead. A sprawling pattern of white scars marked Kasimir's pale skin in front of his right ear, circling out across his cheek like a crudely drawn spiral galaxy. Two light blue, almost turquoise, eyes looked out from this stony face with an expression of deep concern.

Dimitri, the second man, reached up to touch Kasimir's scarred cheek. A head shorter than Kasimir, Dimitri had a naturally athletic build, olive skin and thick wiry hair that grew upwards above features that were just short of movie-star handsome. At his touch, Kasimir didn't quite manage to cover a flinch. Dimitri, understanding, laughed.

'You worry too much' he said.

In a tight voice, Kasimir replied 'This is serious, Dimi. If I thought...'

Dimitri put a finger to his lips, and moved in for an embrace. He spoke into Kasimir's chest

'We've been over and over it, I know what I'm doing. Please, don't worry' He looked up into Kasimir's troubled eyes 'Ok? I've got this. You couldn't have prepared me any better'

The two men kissed, Kasimir closed the door and flicked up a virtual terminal to reactivate the building's security systems. He moved slowly, deliberately, as if moving through a viscous liquid. He felt as though molten lead had been poured into his chest, the pain and the weight of it seeping down into every part of his body.

Dimitri had trusted his judgement implicitly in this, had not balked at taking such a huge risk. Because he, Kasimir, believed it could be done.