by Sarah Lahey
Planck offers another round of tea but she waves her hand, she’s done. “Okay, we need to sort out our lovesick captain. A few more days isn’t going to kill him. Quinn will understand; war is fucking unpredictable. We have people on the ground. We’ll get a message to her, get her out. Can you skipper this boat?”
Planck nods. Elementary.
“I’ll go talk to him, I can be very persuasive. I’ve a good appetite for risk and nerves of steel. Use to be an art dealer, ran auctions—it’s a very stressful profession. I’m good at getting people to give up precious things.” She pulls a laser from the back of her pants and hands it to Planck. “Do me favor, double-check I’ve set it to stun. Just a precaution, but I will shoot if I have to.”
Forty-Four
He’s sorry, but he’s not sorry enough.
THOUSANDS OF WAR-WOUNDED TAKE refuge in the Temple gardens, with more arriving by the minute—carried in on stretchers, limping, dragging bloody limbs. Others come with bedding and food, everything they need to set up lodgings in the grounds; they’ve also heard the rumor that this is the safest place in the city.
As Geller and Quinn pass through the inner courtyard, two men scan them and exchange a nod, then begin to follow them at a distance. Geller opens her pack and hands Quinn a set of blades.
Soldiers guard the Temple doors. Geller flashes her military credentials and asks for an update.
There’s heavy fighting in the north of the city. The rebels took the residential zones, but New Fed launched a counter attack, so the fighting continues. The city is in lockdown, with limited transport options, but the Hyperloop is running. That’s good news, because it’s the only way out of Accord.
“We keep moving,” says Quinn. “Head straight for the Loop.”
“First, te art,” says Geller.
“The what?”
“Blake, te paintings, te ones you saw at te Salon. Just a quick look, while we’re ’ere.”
Geller has slipped inside the Temple before Quinn has even noticed that she’s moving again. She hastily follows and finds Geller inside the vestibule, gazing at a picture of a multiheaded dragon attacking a golden woman.
“Te cosmic battle between good an’ evil. ’Tis what ’appens if you shun religion. But look, god will save ’er, ’e’s given ’er wings ta fly away. Just like you.” She moves to the next image and grins at a ridiculously small picture of a scaly creature holding a cup. ‘“Te ghost av a flea,” she says, leaning in close, the tip of her nose centimeters from the canvas. “Te souls av men are bloodtirsty; you see te cup?”
Quinn sees the cup and has a good idea how bloodthirsty the souls of men and women are, but they need to leave. She’s nervous as hell. She doesn’t want to be here, looking at these creepy paintings of fleas and dragons and golden-haired women; she wants to be on the Hyperloop, heading for Unus. Safety, she wants to be looking at that. “Okay, you’ve seen the scary pictures. Now let’s get out of here.”
“Relax,” says Geller, “anoter minute won’t ’urt, an’ I may never get te chance again.”
Just then, past Geller’s shoulder, standing at the far side of the Hall, Quinn spies Dirac, alive and well. She nudges Geller and gestures toward the apparent ghost of their foe.
Geller considers him, then shakes her head. “Can we bring back te dead in 2050?”
“No.”
“I know a dead person when I see one. Sometin’s up.”
“Blake lived in an age of purity. He believed in blind faith and miracles.” Aaroon looms over Geller, smiling.
Quinn retreats into the shadows, but he’s clearly seen her. Fuck, this just keeps getting worse.
“He was an innocent,” Geller agrees.
“Come, let me show you the mad King Nebuchadnezzar, turning from human to animal.” He leads her to a painting that shows a figure who’s half man and half beast.
“Did ’e who made te Lamb make t’ee?” Geller asks.
Aaroon tilts his head and smiles graciously, a glint in his eye. He’s impressed by her education and mesmerized by her dark hair and charcoal eyes.
Quinn’s not impressed with either of them. She scans the Hall, checking for exit points, and through the crowd she spies Niels. Her heart sinks. She was hopping to never cast eyes on that groomed physique again. He hasn’t spotted her yet, though; now is the time for a swift, undetected exit. The quickest route is behind them, the way they entered.
She eyes Niels again and freezes. Standing next to him is Mori. Her Mori, not the AI meerkat, the human, the ex-fiancé, the greedy shit Mori. He’s in conversation with Niels, listening to whatever waffle his brother is advocating for. He’s wearing his climate pants too high, and he still looks like an otter—a slick, smooth, carnivorous weasel. Then his eyes fall on hers. She lingered too long; it was bound to happen. They’re both caught in each other’s gaze. She can’t pull away. It’s a shock to see him real and alive, in the flesh like this, but he’s not surprised to see her. He smiles and it’s a kind, gentle smile, like he’s happy she’s here, like nothing ever happened, like it’s last year and no time has passed and 1,962 people never died.
He shrugs and says, “I’m so sorry.”
She can’t actually hear him say this because he’s too far away, and she’s not even sure he spoke the words aloud, but she read his lips and it is very clear, he’s sorry. She believes him, he’s sorry, but he’s not sorry enough. He’s not sorry for being a total fuckwit and a defective human. He’s not sorry for setting a ghost on the G12 and murdering 1,962 people. This isn’t that sort of apology. It’s indifference, the sort of apology you give when you’re running late because you’ve missed the Hyperloop, or when you’ve used all the 3D print material and forgotten to reorder. The sorry you give to placate when it’s not really your fault. He’s just not sorry enough. That’s going to make it easier for her to kill him.
Niels frowns at his brother and turns toward the source of his distraction. His eyes fall on Quinn, and he sighs. Despair. Holding Mori back with one hand, he glances around the Hall, then discreetly points to a side door. He wants to meet her outside.
She shakes her head. It’s not going to happen.
Like a parent, he nods and points again; he’s adamant, he wants to talk to her.
She shouldn’t go, she knows she shouldn’t. She should grab Geller, and they should head for the Loop. But Aaroon is still entertaining her, and now everyone knows they’re here; their chance of escaping without an incident is slim.
She has an idea. Reluctantly, she nods and makes for the exit.
She finds Niels waiting in the shadows by the Temple wall.
“I wanted to say—”
“Not interested,” she says. “Couldn’t give a fuck. Now, you let us leave, and I’ll give you the stone.”
He nods. “Okay.”
She pulls out a knife, deftly flicks it up in the air and catches it with her left hand. “Probably should make a show of it, like I put up a fight. Don’t you think?”
He frowns.
Her hand darts out and the knife grazes his neck, slices a thin line from chin to ear. He touches the wound and then considers his bloody fingers. Geller suddenly appears beside him and they look at each other, then stare at the blood on his hand. Aaroon steps into the clique, holding a laser, and a gathering of tall people with multicolored eyes closes in around them.
“Hand it over,” says Aaroon.
“Under control,” says Niels, wiping blood from his chin.
“Doesn’t look like it,” says Aaroon.
“Leave it to me.”
“I want the stone.”
“And you’ll get it.”
Quinn fetches the stone from her pocket and tosses it to Aaroon. He fumbles, misses the catch. Oh for fuck’s sake, he’s a twenty-five-year-old male with bear paws for hands. How did he miss that.
Niels sighs, collects it from the ground. “Go.”
“No, they come with us,” says Aaroon
“Get the
fuck out of here,” says Niels.
“Not going to happen,” says Aaroon.
The males face off, Aaroon indignantly looming over Niels, Niels smiling affably up at him, dabbing at his bleeding chin.
“Fuck off,” Niels barks.
Quinn’s not sure if he means her or Aaroon, but Geller grabs her arm and tows her into the crowd.
“This way.” A man beckons them toward him. Quinn recalls him; he’s one of the men that followed them into the courtyard. Who knows if they can trust him, but hell, what have they got to lose now? She and Geller exchange a quick glance, shrug, and follow him.
Soon they’re submerged in a sea of moving people. The stranger guides them to the edge of the park and into an underpass. In the shadows of the tunnel, Quinn pins her mysterious savior to the wall with a blade.
“Thank you, thank you so much,” she pants. “But who the hell are you?”
Calm eyes smile down at her. “I have a message,” he says, “Your friends are delayed. Go to the Maldives. You’ll be safe. They will look after you.”
She drops her knife.
“What is your exit plan?” he asks.
“The Hyperloop?” she asks.
“Loop station’s in chaos, big queues, three-day wait.”
“We ’av wings. We can fly,” says Geller.
Quinn nods and scans the skies outside the tunnel. “There.” She points. “The PurePins. Can you get us up there?”
The Pollution Purging Pinnacles circling the city are two kilometers tall.
Stroking his face with his palm, he cast his eyes up at the PurePin. “Maybe,” he says, “You sure?”
They’re sure; they have wingsuits. If they can get up, they’ll leap off and glide into Unus. Their savior points toward the PurePin. “Take a skylift.”
Simple. Quinn breathes a sigh of relief and turns to thank the man again, but he has already vanished.
***
Quinn and Geller slump on the floor of the skylift, their backs against the wall. The lift is designed for sightseeing, and the ride takes three minutes. They’re done in, both exhausted, and Quinn closes her eyes for a micronap.
Five days. Tig said five days. He’d deliver the cargo, then he’d come get her. And now he’s delayed. Again. How long this time? Punctuality is a virtue. And Mori—what an absolute idiot he turned out to be, whispering sorry. What an idiot. He can’t just say, “Oops, sorry, killed a few hundred people.” How could she be with such a complete asshole? What was she thinking? She’s an idiot. Yes, maybe she’s the biggest idiot of them all.
She turns to Geller. “I’m so angry with you. Art? Honestly? You had to go look at it now, in the middle of a civil war, while we’re trying to escape, with Aaroon and military coming after us? What were you thinking?”
“Seems ta me we’re fine, and we got a grand solushun for gettin’ out of te city from it. Maybe ’tis not me you’re angry wit. ’Ave you tought about tat?”
“No. It’s you.”
Forty-Five
Kapow, Kapow!
AT THE EMPOWER OFFICE, two technicians in white suits work inside an enclosed lab to place the pink diamond into a state of superposition. Mori, Niels, and Aaroon wait in the adjacent room, separated from the lab by a transparent partition. The waiting room is grey and lifeless and fitted out in sterile, hard surfaces with a few scattered tables and chairs.
They were told forty minutes. Aaroon pulls a noisy chair up to a table. From his pocket, he pulls out two wooden tops—one orange and one green—and he spins them across the rigid tabletop. He nibbles his raw fingernails as he watches them glide, the tops dancing and bouncing off each other like squabbling siblings. “Kapow!” he calls out each time the tops collide.
Mori leans against the partition, arms crossed, and rolls his eyes, dismissing his brother’s concerns. “She’ll come around. It was an honest mistake.”
“You killed her mother. She never wants to see you again.” Niels holds a blood-soaked bandage to his neck wound. He checks the bleeding, then places more pressure on the wound.
“The way she looked at me, I can tell it’s not over.”
“Really? You killed her mother. That’s fucking bad,” says Aaroon.
“Kapow, kapow!” The tops battle in the background.
“Not directly; it was a mistake, an honest mistake.”
“You’re delusional,” says Niels.
Aaroon’s tops clutter onto the floor in a double knockout. He collects them and sends them spinning across the table again, “Kapow! If you killed my mom, I’d never forgive you. In fact, I’d probably hunt you down, cut off your limbs, and reattach them to the opposite sides of your body. Then I’d chop your dick off and stick it onto your head. Then I’d bore holes into your head and turn you into a sex zombie. Kapow!”
The brothers glare at Aaroon.
“What? I love my mom.”
The two technicians emerge from the lab. Aaroon puts the spinning tops back into his pocket and joins the brothers. Mori is the closest, so the technician hands him the module. Niels immediately plucks it out of his hand and studies the formula on the screen. Then Aaroon plucks it from Niels and begins processing the information.
Niels waits, watching Aaroon, but he’s disturbed by the enormous amount of earwax in Aaroon’s ears. Aaroon steps away, removing himself from scrutiny, so he can concentrate. “(He) 2s2 2p1. Boron, it’s the formula for boron.” He turns to the closest technician. “What else? Her formula for M-theory?”
The technician shakes his head. “Nothing else; that’s it. But the message is compromised. Might have been changed.”
“Fuck, she’s looked at it. She’s changed it. It was an M. It was definitely an M, and they’ve fucking changed it,” says Aaroon. “If you’d listened to me, we wouldn’t have this problem. Next time, you listen to me.”
Forty-Six
Gravity is heartless.
TWO KILOMETERS IN THE sky, Quinn and Geller exit the skylift and gaze over a maze of landscaped gardens, orchards, and reflection pools, all lit up like a festival, as if a thousand revelers were about to arrive but now the party is canceled, so they’re the only ones here, just the two of them. At the center of the garden is a shimmering glass and silicon structure shaped like a giant lotus flower. It covers a whirlpool; the swirling vortex washes the atmosphere, funneling the clean air back into Accord.
Geller parks herself on the first bench she sees and closes her eyes. Quinn sits beside her, drops her head back, and yawns. The rhythmic swish of the whirlpool is soporific; they should never have sat down, not even for five minutes in the skylift. Now they’ve lost momentum. It’s close to midnight, and the temptation to grab a few hours’ sleep on an uncomfortable bench in a beautiful garden is hard to resist.
“We could ’ave a wee rest—fly tomorrow,” says Geller.
Quinn silently agrees. They could stay here, hide somewhere, under a bush or a bench, and sleep for a few hours on the soft grass. Surely no one will find them. But she forces herself to rally. Jumping in the cover of darkness is safer, and she knows they’ll come. Aaroon and the others, they’ll open the stone and realize it’s . . . What is it? A joke, a decoy, a distraction. She chuckles to herself: the danger she put herself through keeping the diamond safe, the effort they went to getting it open, and the absurdity of the message.
“What?” Geller opens an eye.
“My mother, the comedian.” Quinn opens the pack containing the wingsuits, pulls one out, and examines the design. It’s military issue and excellent quality—lightweight, ripstop, pressurized, inflatable with auto correct and stabilizers. She tosses it to Geller and pulls out the other one for herself. Slowly, they dress, pulling the suits over their clothes.
“Never used one’a tese before,” Geller says.
“Your body’s the fuselage, your head the rudder,” Quinn instructs. “Gravity wants you, and she’s a bitch. She’ll pull you down if she can, but the suit’s airfoil gives you lift. Surface area crea
tes lift. To go up, open your arms and legs, raise your head, look forward. To turn, twist, but just slightly, you want small movements.”
Quinn sets the trajectory on her suit for the Maldives and transfers the coordinates to Geller’s Band.
Geller rummages through her backpack. She’s looking for something, a particular weapon. She pulls out an array of small arms, lasers, guns, and bullets, handing each item to Quinn as she searches. Quinn is stunned by the selection; the pack is limitless, like a bottomless Mary Poppins carpet bag.
Geller eventually finds what she’s searching for: a slim black device she calls a Silos. She hands it to Quinn and explains that it’s a tactical jammer; the weapon breaks connections between a drone missile and its launcher and can even turn the missile around and send it back to its point of origin.
Quinn stows the Silos in her belt. “Okay, your flight speed should be around 120kph, the fall rate about 90. Don’t forget to breath, and—”
“Relax, I’m a quick learner. You worry about yourself. Keep tat baby safe.”
Laser fire hits the railing next to them, and a rotor rises over the rim of the PurePin garden. The gunner on board has a weapon trained straight at them. Geller pulls Quinn to the ground and shoots at the rotor blades. The rotor teeters, clips the side of the railing, and spirals downwards.
“Go,” says Quinn. “No Comms, but if we separate I’ll meet you . . .”
Geller peels her fingers off the railing. “Don’t forget ta breathe,” she admonishes before tumbling over the edge, unfurling, and soaring southward, towards Unus. Laser fire scorches the railing beside Quinn as soldiers exit the skylift. She leaps over the edge and drops straight into flight mode. She has one eye on Geller and the other on the skyline behind her, scanning for projectiles. The soldiers on the roof continue firing and a round of missiles heads towards her. She presses a button on the Silos and the projectiles self-implode. Impressive. She checks over her shoulder as a second round of ammunition is fired. She launches the Silos again, a different setting this time, and the missiles perform a U-turn, travel back to where they came from, and the PurePin explodes, shattering into flames. Shit, didn’t mean to do that. Ruefully she puts her head down, increases her speed, and flies away.