Talos Tower is nine stories of foamcrete, quartz glass and titanium. Viewed from the side, it resembles a giant screw twisted into Venus Gardens Plaza. Viewed from above, it’s a tapered spike that splits the Gardens in two. A lift travels along rails outside the structure, moving not just up and down but also along the gentle curves that wraps around the building. The Architexters built the tower. A man called Carnivale designed it after a fever dream kept him awake, sweating and freezing in his bed. Within a month and a half, it was real.

An array of heliostats reflects sunbeams from the Big Mirror through louvered windows to light up the station’s interior. Nobody born on Earth would ever confuse it with natural light, but it had a serene beauty to it. Like everything else, it was piped in from somewhere else to bring life to this lifeless place. Carnivale thinks of this and nothing else. Fostering life where there is no life. He says that there is a spirit in each building, one meant to inhabit each building. He says we must wait until the spirit finds its place, settles in and makes itself at home. We roll our eyes and tell him to do what he must, that we’ll wait while the spirit moves in. Once he gives his blessing, we open the building to the public. The residents move in, the building comes to life. No apparition can make this happen. It is a place for human beings. For life.

He’s an old man now. And he’s waiting inside his building, waiting for it to be possessed by the spirits. His body is wracked by age and the mishaps that come with it. His arm is a mass of wire and cable and artificial muscle. Pressoreceptors register sensation but pain, heat and cold are vague notions. These are not things; these are the memory of things, the ghosts of things half-remembered by the flesh. Carnivale’s hair is long and white, his eyes are pale and clear. The right one is scarred by two transplant operations. His left was lost to some extinct disease many years ago. A polished plastic ball spins in its socket, not quite as realistic as the latest mobs but good enough to pass casual inspection. Carnivale does not care for the aesthetics of his own form. He works more and more, he sleeps less and less. And when not working or sleeping or eating (which he does only when he must), he walks these empty halls, communing with unseen forces.

When I ping him he does not answer so I must make the long journey to the upper observation deck, some thirty meters from the lobby. It’s then that I see him, his long hair blowing in the recirculated air.

“Sir?” He does not turn around, his gaze fixed on some distant landmark.

“Sir?” And now he holds up his hand to me.

“Yes?”

I approach at a deliberate pace, unnerved by the gentle sway of the building’s structure.

“Sir, the building is ready to be occupied. Have you – are you done with your preparations?”

I see Carnivale’s shoulders slump in resignation. He nods and turns to face me. For whatever reason, he let himself get old. Someone hinted that he is a Singularist, preferring repair and replacement over renewal. I understand only that he comes from a different time. For me, the decision would be simple. But then, I am a much more simple man than Carnivale.

“Alberto. Do you know why I come to this place?” His voice is very quiet.

I tell him that I do not. I do not wish to ridicule his beliefs. He pats me on the shoulder and we walk back to lift. “A benediction,” he says, “to bless this place and make it whole.” I remain silent as he unlocks the lift’s controls and we descend to the ground level.

“Now that the flesh is whole, its requires blood.”

We exit the lobby into Venus Gardens. A crowd gathers to watch the opening of Talos Tower. An educational group waits for a tour, children running around while some teachers try to corral them back into lines.

He gestures to the crowd. “Here. The life force.”

I look up at the tower and I see it for what it is. Not a cruel spike or a lifeless mechanical thing. The starlight reflects off its polished mirror surface, distorted by the curved glass. The light streaks across it and as we turn, the windows sparkle as if holding back the whole of the galaxy. This building twists up from the ground, not down into it. It sends its roots down into the station and shoots up into the sky, seeking light and heat and warmth and life. Bringing life to a lifeless place.

When I find myself shaking he places a gnarled hand on my shoulder. There’s wetness on my cheek and the world is full of laughing children.