Despite growing around them his entire life, Ignacio Casillas never ceased to marvel at the sight of them.
The Towers!
My god!
They somehow stood taller at night, like unbothered giant crystalline-monoliths, and depending on their Manufacturer, of course, devastatingly complex. Fortunately (and Ignacio had very cynical predictions about this), with the exception of Pullman-Athlons, most flourished with unbounded creativity. A major contrast to the aforementioned Manufacturer, who settled for unilateral-designs. Zero ingenuity or imagination went into the creative process, they appeared more like slabs of monotonic brutalism. His favorite out of all of them was the Orpheum & Heischt agency. They continued to impress with each new Tower, delivering works of structural and weaponry wonder, refusing to settle for the spreading laziness of minimalist design; unlike Pullman-Athlons and their common copycats. The most egregious, pathetic of these “copycats” being Ridestorm Co., who were known for stealing and executing Athlons’ reject blueprint designs, to the point where they were privately referred to as “Riding Pullman’s Storm” among the Master Architectures and their most inner circle. No, Orpheum & Heischt were deserving of all their accolades and success after the completion of what was, in Ignacio Casilla’s humble but well-educated opinion, the greatest Tower ever constructed, Die Majestät.
Standing at precisely 2,240 ft (literal base to tip), designed with a romanticist’s idea of Gothic architecture but equipped with enough armament to prove it had the full backing of the U.S. military complex, the Tower was, as its German moniker literally translates to, a wonder.
It took two years of persistent nagging and a barrage of desperate correspondence, but Ignacio got a hold of an old and extremely rare Tower issue dated November 2066, nearly creeping to three decades ago now) where the MA’s themselves, Albert Orpheum and Til Heischt gave a rare interview (they were notoriously reclusive, a stark contrast to the usual bravado cock-of-the-walk Master Architecture narcissistic attitude that most were known for) where they were uncharacteristically chatty, discussing in plentiful details their inspirations. Orpheum in particular mentioned Romanesque architecture, complete with looming, pointed towers and an affronting westwork that truly gave the feeling that you were attending the holiest of baptisms, to horror literature, with Heischt saying he wanted the building to feel “other-worldly” and give off a “menacing, Lovecraftian aura.” The physical Tower magazine was in fantastic condition, practically new, and with what Ignacio paid, it better have been.
At the moment, the Tower issue, sealed inside a plastic board and sleeve, still rests amongst his most prized possessions.
***
Casillas woke up with an incredible hangover inside a dark and not-so-entirely unpleasant chilly environment.
When he finally stirred, glasses clinked rudely. Transparent, dark green bottles rolled off his body to join bigger, emptier bottles that at one point housed gin, vodka, tequila, anything that the night demanded. His head hurt. Ignacio felt the physical pressure crushing his head from both sides, and the nausea was rapidly becoming more than just a hypothetical.
In drunken stupor, Ignacio managed to instinctively find his way around the bedroom, and eventually stumbled inside a cold, spacious bathroom made entirely of tile and marble. He recognized the washroom, and slowly the night unspooled before him like a dusty film projector playing an old, crummy reel. Before last night’s debauchery paved way to now, the day was a momentous one; he, alongside the rest of his class, ten in total, submitted their final plans + thesis, and were now officially granted permission to fuck off for two weeks before receiving notice that would either set their careers ablaze with dizzying speeds or completely truncate it.
Igancio put that thought aside, somehow managing to pierce through the drunk state of mind and make him anxious, while staggering to the pearly white toilet bowl. His body jerked once, and after a retching sound, threw up what looked to be yellow and brown bile. Whiskey, he thought. Nothing but whiskey. No water, or food. Just double-whiskeys the entire night. That’s the ticket that’ll get you far, alright.
After retching again and following through with more-or-less the same bile from before, except somehow less viscous (should I worry about that?) Ignacio felt more at ease and quickly washed-up by squeezing a little toothpaste onto the tip of his index finger, sticking it inside his mouth before rinsing out one last time and splashed icy cold water all over his face. The cotton towels hanging off the nearby rack felt great over his greasy, alcoholic-stenched face skin.
Ignacio exited the bathroom and bedroom it was adjoined to, joining what remained of the motley crew lounging around Paul Levy’s studio living room. The predominantly beige-and-vanilla furnished space was dimly lit (thanks to soft glowing lamp orbs strategically placed about), much like the dining area past it. Large wraparound glass windows permitted one of the most spectacular views of the City and some of its resident Towers. Up in the forty-second floor of Paul’s admittedly stylish apartment building, one could make out the Maximillian Path facing the northern shores like a petulant god refusing to turn around and grace you with its sweeping look. But Towers weren’t petulant gods, as much as a case could be made for it from a philosophical or ethical standpoint, just impenetrable fortresses made alive by the finest of metal and stone work, screaming with fires that rage at its bases where the oven furnaces glow infernal and evil.
In the still, early morning, the Maximillian Path’s blinking lights scattered up and down its entire length felt lethargic. The only other Tower in the line of sight was unfortunately a Pullman-Athlos original, one of their recently churned out, factory-assembled slabs appropriately named PA-111-A (they officially stopped giving their Towers monikers two years ago, opting for a perfunctory sequence of variables that included an acronym for Pullman-Athlos and a numeric-alpha designation, cementing their unilateral militaristic brand once and for all). Still, from where they all lounged, drunk and syrupy, none of the two Towers’ peaks was visible; each structure easily surpassed the low clouds that appeared more like dark outlines than the kinds you see during a bright sunny afternoon. Sometimes, from underneath the dark clouds’ lining, tiny, ghostly echoes of red and green and blue lights can be seen alternating. Ignacio has also beared witness to the harsh yellow and orange glow of a powering Tower battlestation that surpassed those altitude levels. The sounds were loud and proclaiming, an infernal monster awakening from their slumber and alerting its people that real destruction was approaching; an apocalyptic chorus of Jericho trumpets and metal bees announcing to their enemies that they were beyond hope or redemption.
Drunk still, and hypnotized by Maximillian Path’s lights peacefully blinking against the midnight-blue morning skies, Ignacio failed to notice Paul and two others he recognized (both from his graduating class, whom he also partied with last night) intently watching the news. They congregated around the flat-screen television mounted against the north wall in Paul’s living room, they being Greta Kim, a Korean-American mathematical prodigy heralding from Washington D.C., and Abe Ifuko, a stoic and handsome African young man that could’ve been an international supermodel if his brain wasn’t cursed with the obsessive need to engineer and build.
Greta was the last one to join their class six years ago, and immediately excelled to the Top Five, joining the likes of Clancy, Paul, Abe and a fourth pupil named Lilly Knotts (who disappeared sometime before midnight to go clubbing). Greta’s eyeliner, already minimal and applied with an effortlessness that gave it the enviable “no make-up” look, was smeared around her eyes. Her skin radiated bright despite the dim, moody lighting, a blend of natural beauty and the aftermath of partying with alcohol and drugs all night. Her slender body was stretched out on Paul’s custom-made beige sofa he bought from an Italian furniture maker who handcrafts only three pieces all year, watching the news and blinking lethargically. Perched behind the sofa Greta laid on, chewing on a nail that was reaching bone, was Paul. He still remained watching the news with an intensity Greta and Abe were seemingly over. His other hand held a bottle of beer, one he was nervously swiveling around at his side. Just the mere idea of consuming another drop of alcohol would have driven Ignacio right back into the bathroom.
Abe was sitting normally on the sofa across Greta, scrolling through a chaotic social media feed updating live. It matched the energy with what was concurrently broadcasting on television.
“What’s going on?”
“Osaka called a Tower to action,” Paul said, spitting out a hang-nail. “They don’t have Sight yet, but they’re calling an Opal alert.” As if signaling the end of his thought, Paul finished what remained of his beer. Ignacio didn’t even want to guess what number the drink was.
A question suddenly intruded inside Ignacio’s head, and he asked it out loud to no one in particular: “What Tower?”
“Does it matter?” Greta spoke from the sofa. Her cat-like body still strung out across the thousand-dollar cushions, she craned her neck upwards at an awkward angle to see Paul and Ignacio behind the sofa. “It’s fucking Osaka. I don’t even think they’re going to have to use their Tower at all. Let’s be real.”
It’s true. Ignacio heard that Japan, and by extension the Koreas, were trying to move away from Towers as their ultimate line of defense, and instead invest heavily in robotics, developing everything from advanced military weapons (artificial-intelligence driven exo-tanks codenamed リキャスト which translates to “Recast”) to what many were theorizing was a series of five-hundred foot mechas under the project name “Urasawa,” designated after the scientist’s surname who was supposedly head-honcho of the entire highly-classified operation.
Ignacio knew this kind of talk excited Paul, who secretly desired an extreme change like that to develop here, and angered Greta, who thought it was cowardly and a tell-tale sign of the country’s declining economic and military power. You’re either equipped with Towers or you leave a very exposed wound open. Simple as that. Unlike Greta however, Paul didn’t dare be too outspoken about it. Any talk that skewered negative about the Towers was borderline treacherous, seeing how they were the sole reason humanity survived irrevocable extinction. “Think of the human labor we wouldn’t have to deal with,” Paul would say between lectures to Ignacio, with a kind of earnest resolve that to Ignacio made Paul an excellent friend and better man. “The exploitative human power we use to keep those bloody Towers operational can be redirected to the mass production of defense units. Smaller, sure, but think of who’s our enemy today, right? They aren’t giant-sized armageddons, you understand? That shit’s over. I mean, have you seen the statistics? The last time we dealt with the kind of forces the Towers were meant to fight was, what? When the whole goddamn thing started? Four-goddamn-decades ago, give or take?”
To be exact, it was roughly three-hundred and sixty-six years ago when the cataclysmic event that sent the whole world spiraling down a mad, bloody hole transpired: the nine-hundred foot tall abominations that slumbered out of oceans across the world one unsuspecting rainy, spring day April 2000 and paved their destructive arrival through the City, killing more than four hundred million human beings during the course of twenty hours as they continued uninterrupted across the country until they took a turn South and vanished somewhere deep within the Gulf of Mexico. Their arrival remained the bloodiest in human history till this date, but also the mere beginning, an overture. Despite their leaving, the ancient creatures left behind a residue of organic slime that drew in foul creatures of every goddamn, horrific ilk that we all collectively assumed existed only in the macabre.
By some cosmic-timed intervention, Greta perked up and said, “Oh, shit, it’s those fuckers.” She no longer appeared lethargic, but wide awake. Any hint of drowsiness minutes ago was gone. Before Ignacio registered it, he saw she somehow appeared sandwiched between him and Paul. She leaned into Ignacio’s right shoulder-arm and whispered, “I love those ugly bastards, God help me.” On screen was a HD but stark live feed of a briny Osaka ocean shore, evacuated and lonely. Suddenly, the feed started to zoom in closer toward the ocean-line. At first appearing like ripples caused by the erratic tide across the water, scaly bodies started to wander out of the ocean surface and wobble towards the shores, their backs hunched and arms dangling lifelessly. The camera feed abruptly cut to another angle, more at ground-level to the gray-skinned abominations and giving the viewers a much clearer way to inspect the grotesque details: almost human in bodily shape, minus some odd irregularities protruding out here and there; rotten skin that had more the texture of an amphibian than human, although a perfect match for their vacant, milky eyes. Differentiating between sexes, if there was gender to differentiate, was impossible, they were all decomposing the same. Salt water poured out of any orifice, or out of their slack-jawed mouths, revealing sets of crooked, sharp teeth that jutted out of their mouths. This seemingly proved self-harmful, since the majority of their faces were covered with deep, painful-looking lacerations.
Ignacio grimaced. This proved Paul’s point, and validated what Japan and Korea wanted to accomplish. Tower weaponry for this kind of threat level was ridiculous, like using an RPG to clean out an ant hill, and although Ignacio understood his side of things, Paul’s argument that the Towers served no purpose now that The Great Threats never returned wasn’t sound, either. It’s the very promise of another attack which will forever prompt the Towers’ continual existence. Human labor be damned. Ignacio caught that last thought. It was fast, but not fast enough to avoid his sharp guilt. That wasn’t him thinking; those were his father’s words. And he meant them. But was he wrong? Is Paul?
The sharp, mind-warping sound of a Tower laser-cannon going off boomed through the surround sound system Paul had installed when he moved in. Consequently, the ground-level camera captured a group of these dark ocean dwellers suddenly engulfed in an explosion of sand and fire and slime. Once the debris settled, so did the different rotting body parts laying strewn around the beach shores. Unphased, the surviving ones persisted forward, snarling, backs arched forward, limbs hanging at their side, useless and perfunctory. Another round of Tower fire, another explosion that resulted in mutilated bodies.
“Holy shit!” Greta said. Her spirit was animated, exuding a kind of excitement reserved for when your favorite sports team scored the deciding game-point.
“So much for not using the Towers,” Paul grumbled, turning away and towards the kitchen where he started making himself a martini. Paul. Jesus Christ. Greta yawned quickly, and followed Paul to the kitchen where she took out another martini glass and placed it beside Paul’s.
“They got fucking obliterated,” Greta said. She shook her head, as if already nostalgic. “Damn! Did you see that shit?”
“Yeah,” Paul said. He twisted off the chrome shaker’s shiny metal cap after giving it sturdy shakes and poured out Greta’s drink carefully inside the martini glass. The liquid trinkled, glowing crystalline as it filled the glass’ empty bowl.
Ignacio still felt drunk and exhausted, his whole body overwhelmed by gravity’s sudden tug. Seeing this Osaka report so early fueled the hangover pain into something fussy and annoying. When he realized that Abe hadn’t spoken in a while, Ignacio looked for him and saw him passed out, his social media feed still blowing up with exclamations and conspiracy theories.
“I’m headed out,” Ignacio told Greta and Paul, who were both talking over the mile-long breakfast nook, the kitchen’s pièce de résistance.
“You sure?” Paul lifted the shaker towards him, threatening Ignacio with the promise of another drink and, admittedly, lively conversation. Greta winked at him, raising the filled-to-the-brim Martini glass Paul poured moments ago – her way of tempting him to stay. Ignacio smiled, told them no, thank you, and that he loved them, and that anyway they’d meet up today after the Gold Ceremony was finished, most likely to continue the celebratory libations. They returned his affections (Paul said, “Love you too, man”; Greta ran over to kiss him in the cheek before slapping him; Abe remained very much asleep) and Ignacio picked up what little belongings he had: his dirty black suit, wallet, phone, keys (which he cannot believe he kept on him all night last night, a rare occurrence whenever he drank heavily) and exited through the massive sliding glass doors that gave access to the studio apartment’s wrap around porch.
The wind carries healing properties, Ignacio thought. The sharp chilling pierce he felt in Paul’s room when he woke up was amplified tenfold here, injecting some much needed juice to jump-start the syrupy and surreal morning.
Standing out here, facing the city with no barrier other than the railing which reached his waist, the Maximillian Path and even that boring PA-111-whatever felt majestic, personal. Ignacio was dizzy with vertigo at the mere thought of the space separating them. A space that spanned an entire universe.
Despite growing around them his entire life, Ignacio Casillas never ceased to marvel at the sight of them.
The Towers!
My god!
— Steven Herrera is known for his love of giant monsters, hand drawn animation, sleazy Italian horror movies, kung fu pictures, black cats & towering stacks of unread books.