by Liam Clay
She looks up at me, and with the moon lighting her face she’s as beautiful as I’ve ever seen her. But some fundamental change has occurred between us, and I think I know what it is.
“Kalana, I’ve spent the last few days coming to terms with the fact that you never really loved me. You felt guilty about what you had done and responsible for my wellbeing, so you gave me the relationship you thought I wanted. That’s true, isn’t it?”
She breathes out heavily. “After everything you’d been through, you deserved to have someone in your life. But a stranger might have hurt you by accident, not realizing how fragile you were.”
“So you dated me out of obligation, is what you’re saying. Not because I swept you off your feet that night at Church.”
“Yes.”
“Alright, I forgive you.”
“But... are you sure?”
“It would be hypocritical of me not to.”
“I don’t understand.”
Kneeling down, I settle in beside her with my back to the observatory wall.
“Kalana, I have spent fifteen years believing that you gave up your place in the Hive to save my life. You were my savior, my knight in shining armor, and I thought I owed you my love in return for that sacrifice. I wanted you to return my feelings of course; but the most important thing, for me, was that I remained devoted to you. So you see? My love was founded on guilt too.”
She smiles sadly. “I know that, Anex - I always have - but I’m glad you have learned to see it as well. And now that you know your guilt was baseless, your feelings toward me have changed?”
“I suppose they have.” I say slowly. “For the first time, I think I’m seeing you for who you really are, instead of the ideal I built up in my head all those years ago.”
“And you don’t like what you see?”
“That’s not what I’m saying at all. I think you are a good person who has had to make some very hard choices. I think those choices have scarred you, and that it’s only now, with everything finally out in the open, that you will be able to start healing properly. And I genuinely hope I get a chance to take that journey with you. As a friend.”
She stares at me for so long that I begin to fidget. “I would like that too.” She says at last, and I see that there are tears in her eyes. “Now go find our daughter and bring her back home.” Then she pulls me into an embrace that has nothing to do with us, and everything to do with Sophie.
“I will.” I say into her neck, and the moment passes. I’m rising to leave when she calls me back one last time.
“Anex?”
“Yes?”
“When this is over, what are you going to do about the Designer?”
“You mean Amy? I honestly don’t know. But I won’t be the one to kill her, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“I see. And what about Carlel?”
My face splits into a nasty grin. “Oh, that motherfucker is dead as shit if I see him.”
“You realize that makes no sense, right? They are both cut from the same cloth.”
“What can I say? The heart wants what it wants.”
And then I’m walking away from her - although it feels more like floating. After fifteen years, we have finally broken the shackles that bound us together. Now, hopefully, we can start to build a relationship based on something other than mutual obligation.
Reaching my blankets, I collect my things and set out to look for the others. I find them all together, putting the finishing touches on their own preparations. Kai and Olia, who will be accompanying us as far as the Iron Lung, are also present.
“What are you so happy about?” Delez asks when he sees my face.
“Is it that obvious?”
“You look like you just won the lottery and achieved world peace at the same time.”
“Fair enough.” I say with a laugh. “It just feels like the worst part of all this is behind me now, that’s all.”
Delez hooks a thumb toward Amy. “You mean confronting her?”
“No. Talking to Tikal and Kalana.”
“Hey, you actually did it? Good for you! Maybe now you can get your head out of your ass and help us save these kids.”
I clap him on the shoulder, and it feels like another friendship solidifying. Ten minutes later we’re on the road. We head due east for most of the night, cross the turbine belt in the hours before dawn, and reach the wall under a deep blue sky edged with black and pale yellow. The group’s mood remains light throughout, making the journey feel more like a college road trip than a black ops mission. Sure, common sense dictates that we are marching to our deaths. But we’ve already accomplished more than anyone expected, so we may as well keep going all-in until we win big or bust.
We are following the wall south when Tikal contacts me through the link. I get a little horny thinking about what we could get up to on there, given some time to experiment. But she has business on her mind.
“I just realized that I never got to tell you about Arella Calendo.” She says.
“Oh, right. So what’s the deal - do you know her or something?”
“I used to. Calendo was my co-pilot in the RDC, right up until the day we got disbanded. She was all set to become a cop with me too, but then she stole our spitfire and fucked off instead. I never heard from her again.”
“No shit?”
“Yes shit. She looked completely different back then, but Korezon could have given her a new face when he hired her to kill Letiva.”
“Christ on a bicycle. So what does this mean?”
“Maybe nothing. She has always been a travel junkie, so I doubt she would have stuck around after the Paradigm job was done. But if you ever run into her, just watch out okay? She’s almost as good a fighter as me, she lies better than anyone I’ve ever met, and don’t even get me started on how manipulative she can be.”
“So how come you stayed partners with her for so long?”
“Weren’t you listening just now? She was the best!”
“Right. Okay, I’ll keep that in mind if I meet her.”
I try to switch the mood up after that, but she senses the direction of my thoughts straightaway.
“Keep your eyes on the prize, boy.” She whispers coyly. “There will be plenty of time for that when this is done...”
And then she’s gone, leaving me with a mild case of blue balls and a lot to think about.
Around mid-afternoon, we reach the same access door we entered the Hive through, sixteen days ago. A hard slog up dark stairs is followed by a quick descent down the wall’s exterior, and then we’re wading through green water on our way to the Lung. I can tell that Kai and Olia are nervous, but they hold their heads high, and I sense that they’re going to come through this without too many long-term mental health issues.
It feels surreal to be outside the wall again. The edifice is so imposing that it’s hard to believe there isn’t some all-powerful entity watching us from the ramparts. I keep having to remind myself that it is basically our wall now - or it will be once the rabble army takes up residence.
The entire Lung turns out to witness our return. I expect them to be pissed at us for ‘stealing’ Kai and Olia, but the sight of the twins leading us into town seems to appease them. And then we’re filing into Ven’s makeshift palace to stand before the man himself.
Fortunately, our second meeting goes much better than the first. Ven is predictably upset when he finds out about Raka; but he barely mentions the twins’ departure, and I begin to suspect that he planned for them to accompany us all along. (Better than having them go alone, I guess.) And regarding the rest of our news, he couldn’t be happier. I can already see him picturing the Lung as a thriving port town, transferring supplies from a repopulated Hive to Opacity. And who knows, maybe it will actually happen.
We spend the night in the Bellows. And then, on the morning of our fourth to last day, we board a longtail boat that Ven gifts to us. Clinker-built and powered by its namesake ex
tended propeller, the vessel doesn’t look like much. But it works just fine, and we are soon carving a path through gulf debris. Kai and Olia climb onto the barrage to see us off, and I wave until both are lost to sight.
In a way, it feels like everything that’s happened - from the Paradigm bombing and the battle for the Underworld to our incarceration and subsequent conquest of the Hive - has been a buildup to these next four days. And hopefully we’ve been acclimatized by all that craziness, because Peace is about to sneak us into Opacity by way of Australia.
When night falls, a warm rain comes with it. We make landfall on a stretch of rocky beach and struggle in to shore, leaving the boat to drift. When Peace first floated this idea to the group, most of us dismissed it out of hand. By her own admission, a section of the tunnel she is proposing to use caved in months ago. And even if it does prove navigable, we will still be walking straight into the Prison.
But as always, our alternatives are limited. In fact, there is only one other plausible option, and that is to enter Opacity through the Underworld. But it seems sure that Carlel will have all the entrances sewed up tight. Peace also argues that when she escaped the Prison, it was in the middle of a civil war helped along by the Thresh mercenaries, and that there’s a good chance everyone is dead. She has no proof either way, but we have pinned our hopes on less before...
Leaving the beach behind, we enter a winding defile that cuts through a region of broken hills. It brings us to a small valley dominated by a yawning black crevice.
“Ta da!” Peace says, presenting it to us with a flourish. “Isn’t it grand?” She seems put out when no one echoes her excitement. “Hey, show a little appreciation, will you? I busted my ass for two years digging this thing.”
“Sorry Peace.” Tolam says. “It truly is a beautiful hole.”
The sniper beams. “Isn’t she though? Now let’s get inside her.”
Activating our spheretorches, we toss them aloft and plunge earthward. The tunnel turns out to be an impressive affair: almost perfectly round, nearly dead straight and more than five meters in diameter. Our torches cast multiple shadows for each squad member, making it seem as though there are dozens of us instead of just the eight. An hour passes, then two, and my nerves start to fade out of sheer boredom.
Then we reach the impasse. An entire section of the ceiling has caved in, and part of the floor too, creating a gauntlet of rubble that looks thoroughly unstable - an analysis that Peace promptly confirms.
“Every time we tried to clear this debris out, the floor would collapse even more.” She tells us indifferently. “We lost, like, 30 guys before they finally gave up.”
“Then what chance to do we have?” Fort asks.
“The Aussies were trying to fix the tunnel. We just need to find a way through it.”
And so that’s what we do. It’s no cake walk though. There is a lot of digging involved, as well as squeezing through uncomfortably small spaces. We cause multiple avalanches, and twice the jammer has to be exhumed from under a wash of fallen scree. Add the fact that the tunnel might drop out from under us at any moment, and you’ve got a less than stellar time. But we eventually make it to the other side, scratched and bruised and pissed off but otherwise in the clear. Except, that is, for the small army of Aussies waiting to receive us.
CHAPTER 32
They’re mean looking bastards - I’ll give them that. The men have shaved heads and long beards with steel cords woven through them, while the women favor thick topbraids and close-shorn temples died blood red. They are also the most heavily armed group of people I have ever encountered. Their leader is a pockmarked boulder of a man. He shouts at us to drop our weapons, and that quickly, our great rescue mission comes to an end.
“You know,” he says, pacing up and down in front of us, “I find it kind of offensive that Korezon thought we wouldn’t set up motion sensors in here. Was he hoping we would just forget about this tunnel?”
“Get stuffed, you fat geezer!” Peace shouts before anyone else can say anything.
“Oh, ho ho.” One of the women chortles. “Lookie what we got here, Nervous!”
The man walks over, gets a load of Peace, and joins in the laughter.
“So, the long lost daughter has returned! But if you’re here, does that mean -” Then he sees me, and his jaw drops open.
“Holy sheeyit.”
And suddenly the Aussies are crowding around me, pawing at my arms and shoulders with looks of wonder on their faces. One of them even pinches my cheek, as if to make sure I’m not wearing a prosthetic mask.
“Um, Anex...” Delez says as a woman grabs my ass and breaks out giggling. “What’s going on?”
“Damned if I know.”
“That’s his voice.” Someone says in hushed tones. “I would know it anywhere.”
“Of course it’s my voice.” I reply, growing more confused by the second. “Who else’s would it be?”
Nervous looks flabbergasted. “Are you seriously telling us you don’t know who you are?”
“On the contrary, I know exactly who I am. What I’m wondering is how you do.”
He stares some more, and then bursts out laughing again. “Because,” he booms, “you’re Opacity’s hottest new celebrity!”
.
I have finally lost my mind. That is the only explanation for what’s happening. Nervous and his band are hustling us down the tunnel toward Australia, and the mood is positively festive. People keep coming up to congratulate me, but they’re so excited that I can’t get a straight answer as to why. And while the comments I’m overhearing make sense from a structural perspective, contextually they amount to gibberish. Here are a few examples:
“Shion and a contingent of Realists are on their way, you say? Good. What about Vogel from the Silver Circle? No? Well keep trying - she won’t want to miss this.”
“If Anex publicly throws his support behind us, it could singlehandedly swing the election! Someone has to convince him to do it.”
“Should I ask for an autograph? Or maybe a quickie, haha?”
And my personal favorite craziness: “Who do you like more: Kalana or Tikal? Really, me too! That other bitch can screw off as far as I’m concerned.”
I am still utterly baffled by all of this when the tunnel ends, spilling us into a cavern so enormous that the roof is a distant blur. The bedrock undulates sharply across the length of the space, creating a topography of hills, spires and mesas into which a small city has been carved. Although there are electric lights in evidence, oil lamps seem to be popular too, and they give the hacked out streets a terracotta glow. The effect is as confusing to the eye as recent events are to my brain.
Word of our arrival has preceded us, and the streets are thronged with people. Some of them are Aussies, but others appear to be Underworlders from across the districts. (Apparently not everyone got captured during the battle.) I even see a few familiar faces in the crowd - mostly former competitors still rocking their cartel colors. I keep an eye out for Five as well, but to no avail.
Nervous hustles us through the city and into a building carved out of a towering marble obelisk. We find ourselves in a grand hall that wouldn’t look out of place in Gondor (or Mordor, for that matter). A triangular table the size of a squash court dominates the room, and around it are seated an assortment of important looking personages. My eyes are drawn to a remarkably tall man seated at one point of the triangle. His features have a strong asian cast, and unless I am very much mistaken, this is Shion: leader of the Realist party and primary challenger to Korezon’s re-election bid.
As Nervous shows us to a row of vacant chairs, another group enters the hall. Their leader is as short as Shion is tall. More or less Caucasian in appearance, she is wearing faded blue jeans and a black t-shirt with the name of an extinct coding language emblazoned on it. Based on the whispers I’m hearing from the Aussies, this will be Vogel, lead programmer of the Silver Circle hacker group. She claims a position at the secon
d point of the triangle.
We take our seats, and a small army of waiters come around with trays of beer. I sip my lager and try not to look starstruck, which of course I am. But a load of other people seem to feel the same way about me. Since I have no idea why, it’s hard to know what to make of all the attention.
I expect Nervous to leave at this point, but instead he takes a seat at the triangle’s third point. It would seem that he is the Aussie leader.
“Thank you for coming on such short notice.” He says with a nod to Shion and Vogel. “I know it’s dangerous for us to gather like this, but I think you will agree that these discussions are best conducted in person. Now,” he says, rubbing his hands together, “I think Alpha platoon here has some questions for us, including how we know they’re called Alpha platoon. Care to do the honors, Vogel?”
The hacker turns my way. “Have you figured it out yet?”
“Not even a little bit.”
“Then allow me to fill you in.” She shifts her attention to Peace, Delez and the others. “A few months ago, your buddy here decided to start his own reality show. Nothing fancy, just a fairly tired ‘drug dealer to the stars’ premise. Think dirtbag pool parties, champagne room fist fights and backstage overdose scares - that sort of thing. Ringing any bells?” She says to me.
“Sure.” I say slowly. “But I never went live with it or anything. And then people started trying to kill me and it sort of slipped my mind.”
All around the table people are listening avidly, and I begin to feel like a bug in a jar.
“But you never stopped recording, did you?” Vogel asks. “Or holding internal dialogues with your imaginary viewers.”
I shake my head, mildly embarrassed now. “I’d gotten into the habit, I guess. How do you know about this, though?”
“Because just over two weeks ago, one of my devs stumbled across your recordings during a run on a data center. When I realized what it contained, we decided to release the feed in its entirety, completely unedited. You went viral in a major way, and by now most of Opacity has ridden in on the key sections.