Mamertine’s wonder was a dusty town, dark and just barely out of the reach of shadows. Maybe, at one point in time, the lights burned brighter and more vividly, but now the lanterns only glowed dimly and cast a red tinted light across the town.

Though he hadn’t really explored much of Pluto, Mamertine was familiar enough with his Wonder to know that something was odd as soon as he arrived. He was used to a stillness, like being in a room where everyone was holding their breath.

And yet, no one was ever here.

He’d heard of some Wonders that hosted life, but he’d seen none. It was just him, and the occasional tumble weed that came from nowhere and returned the same.

A strange smell lingered in the air, something bitter but not quite rotten. Mamertine couldn’t place it but he found it unpleasant and unwelcoming.

The town was not particularly large, but nearly every building was noteworthy in some way. There was no single way to describe it, but if Mamertine had been pressed he’d have described it as an anachronistic fusion of an old west frontier town and ancient Rome. Many of the buildings appeared to have battered and worn over the years but they still stood strong despite being predominantly wooden frames and bricks or stone.

He wasn’t an architect and he hadn’t visited all of them so he didn’t know if there was some secret strength to their bones. It wasn’t like you saw many Stick Style houses in Destiny City, and you certainly didn’t see someone’s creative endeavor to combine ancient Roman columns, domes, and arches with the low sloping roofs, simple gables and overhanging eaves, and strategically placed windows he came to recognize as staples of frontier design.

Only one building in town was more than two stories high, and Mamertine found himself naturally gravitating to the massive building.

The front looked like a perfect courthouse, with a timeless look. It had a simple yet stately entrance, and the great doors were framed by pilasters that towered above Mamertine as he climbed the steps. The pediment once depicted some ancient scene, but the carving that had once been fixed there had crumbled and decayed over the years. Mamertine did not even care to look at it; he was filled with disgust at the mere thought.

He didn’t know why. He always felt uneasy here, like there was work yet to be done. It felt dirty.

It felt criminal.

He passed through the Courthouse with purpose. He hadn’t been here often, but his feet knew the way.

He was looking for the Code, and he followed his starseed.

This was the most fortified building in town, and it stood to reason that if he was looking for its most priceless artifact, he might as well start here.

Or, rather, the prison just behind the building.

Unlike the other buildings in the area, the prison was almost entirely underground. There was a very small room in the back of the Courthouse that looked like it had doubled as some office or reception room, but he passed through the poorly lit establishment and pulled the lever he’d found on one of his earlier trips. A great stone slab clicked below and the ground trembled as it shifted to reveal a hidden staircase.

Where this room was dark, the staircase was black. Looking down the stairs was like looking into a pit of nothingness, and the longer he stared into it, the more unnerving it became. The town was silent but if he looked for long enough, he could hear the screams.

He’d only been down here once, just to the first floor. He’d walked without thinking, as if in a trance, and when he realized where he’d been he almost immediately returned to Earth.

He was not so lucky this time. With full awareness, Mamertine had to dismiss his weapon to fit down the narrow staircase, and he replaced the great mallet with a small flashlight so he could at least see.

The stones were old. If he looked closely, he thought he could see scratches so deep they penetrated the stone. The steps were well worn–they’d been walked many times.

This was only his second time, but he felt like he knew each groove and crack, anyway.

The descent was maddening. He could feel the pressure change. Without the luxury of whatever thoughtless state he’d been in upon his first trip, it was an incredibly slow descent. He didn’t stop at the first floor, or the second, or third. He kept going, despite the sickening feeling in the pit of his stomach.

He walked until there were no more stairs, and when he reached the very bottom floor there was only a narrow hallway. Unlike the other floors, which had an open space and rows of cells, this was the first markedly different thing.

So, he thought he was on the right path.

The air was thicker than it had been before, like he was deep underwater.

There was only one door at the end of the hallway, and as Mamertine approached it he could make out the only decorative detail–the symbol of Pluto, nearly a foot and a half tall and bolted to the upper part of the door.

There was no handle, no knob. It might as well have been a wall.

He knew better than that, though he didn’t know how.

Mamertine placed his hand on the metal symbol and before he’d even really thought about it, it began to glow.

Something behind the door clicked. He could hear gears moving, and then the door retreated into the wall on a track he hadn’t seen.

Light erupted from within.

The Code.

It pulsed erratically and swirled haphazardly. There was nothing in this room to destroy but it looked like all of the dust had been blasted to the corners of the room. The walls were stone, but in the circular room there was nothing else of note.

Just an open space, a pedestal, and the sickly Code.

Wind felt wrong down here, where everything else had been so still. Mamertine did not know how to resonate with a thing he did not understand, but instinct kicked in where thoughts did not. He placed a hand on either side of it as if he could physically slow it, and–

His mind was white.

Wind whipped in every direction. The smell of rot and death were heavy in the air. He could hear coughing. Screaming. Begging. He felt sick, and waves of fever and fatigue rolled through him. Still, he held the Code.

He saw corpses, bloated from disease. There were too many. There were more. He couldn’t keep up with them, no one could.

‘I did what I could. You wouldn’t understand.’

His voice, but not. His chest hurt.

‘It was an impossible decision. There was nothing else to be done. It would have spread.’

He felt heat, and fire danced around his boots before it climbed the rest of him. Smoke blurred his vision and filled his lungs. He couldn’t move.

The crying weakened. The screaming stopped. Fire crackled.

He wasn’t looking at an image, he hadn’t seen anything. At least, not that he could process. Snapshots that disappeared so quickly his mind couldn’t even remember what he’d seen.

Maybe it was a minute, maybe it was an hour. Time had no meaning on Pluto, he didn’t know if he’d ever understand it. He felt a thousand years in the past and a thousand years in the future. Himself, but not.

He could have gotten lost in all the things that were, that are, that could have been. It was like a rapidly moving stream, ready to carry him away from everything he knew. It would have been so easy to drift away, and yet–

He had too much to do here.

He resisted the pull of the river, but breaking out of it left him feeling exhausted.

When he opened his eyes, the Code was still. It had settled into a steady, peaceful routine. It did not breathe, or swirl. It simply was.

Peaceful, and whole.

Mamertine wasn’t sure he felt the same.