The Burning Skies

by David J. Williams

  “We’ve got a lot in common, don’t we?”

  “How do you figure?” asks Lynx.

  “We both keep getting set up by our bosses.”

  “That’s the truest thing you’ve said so far.”

  “Maybe I should quit while I’m ahead.”

  “But you won’t—”

  “I can’t. Don’t you resent Carson for making you do this?”

  Lynx laughs. “You’ve got it wrong, man. I’m loving it. Chance to make history.”

  “By stopping the head of SpaceCom from starting a war?”

  “Nah. War’s inevitable. Everyone’s got too big a hard-on for it. Whether or not Szilard’s got something up his sleeve, someone’s going to light the fuse. All we can do is hope it doesn’t happen before we can make our mark.”

  “This tin can—”

  “Would be toast. If it kicked off right now, the Eurasian gunnery at L4 would send us tumbling back to Congreve. Assuming we weren’t vaporized right off the bat.”

  “Cheerful, aren’t you?”

  “Just realistic.” Lynx pulls his wall straps tighter. Leans back. Pulls wires from a wall panel. “But if you’ve got a god, you might want to settle up before we get there.”

  “I’ll settle with God once I’ve settled with Szilard.”

  “I’m starting to wonder if you know the difference,” says Lynx.

  Runway falls away as the jet-copter’s engines flare. The craft banks steeply, curves out over the Owen-Stanley Range. New Guinea’s laid out before them.

  “And we’re off,” says Spencer.

  Sightless helmets staring: they’re sitting across from two of the captives. One of whose lips are moving silently as he mouths prayers.

  “Hack this craft and find out everything you can,” says Sarmax.

  “Already did,” says Spencer.

  “What about Jarvin’s files?”

  “I’m still working on it.”

  “So hurry it up.”

  He’s been too busy keeping their identities afloat to worry about the files he and Sarmax ransacked at the handler’s safe house. He’s starting to multitask as best he can. But so far the most valuable thing he’s gotten was in the jet-copter’s computers. And it’s not much. Just a route—and a destination, a hundred klicks southwest of Lhasa, in the Himalayas. Everything else is denied this craft’s pilots.

  But Spencer’s working on the angles. The whole Eurasian zone seems to be turning in his head now. Over the last few minutes it’s been getting ever louder. Now it’s like a siren screaming through his mind. He’s never felt so wired. And yet the Eastern zone isn’t telling him too much about the basements and corridors on the maps he’s now accessing. He can see the blueprints. But he’s missing key data. He’s pretty sure that’s how it’s been designed. He won’t know for certain until they make landfall, which won’t be for several hours.

  So he does what he can in the meantime—continues to make inroads on Jarvin’s files, and while he’s at it, double-checks the cargo the ship’s carrying. He focuses anew on the dossiers. Three of the physicists on board defected from the East awhile ago. Now they’re on their way back, to face some new employment conditions. Spencer scans their files, analyzes those of their colleagues—tries to read the tea leaves contained within, but doesn’t get very far.

  “Can’t base anything on this,” he says.

  “Lot of nuclear expertise,” says Sarmax.

  “Means nothing.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because we’re riding one of Christ knows how many cargoes. All going to the same general area. We just happen to be on the nuke bus.”

  “Go on.”

  “And no way were they gonna leave this kind of talent back in HK. They’ll grab them as a matter of course. Along with anyone with expertise in nanotech, directed energy, stealth—you name it, they’ll have it. Trying to deduce what we’re looking for from what they’re vacuuming out of HK is an exercise in futility.”

  “You’re probably right,” says Sarmax.

  “Of course I’m right. And it looks like most of the really sensitive stuff under those hills is cauterized from wireless, if not cut off altogether. We’re going to have to wait till we get a little closer to find out for sure.”

  “Works for me,” says Sarmax—turns toward the window.

  • • •

  A clean sweep,” says Haskell. “Against enemies within and without.”

  “That’s the idea.”

  “The Throne’s making a mistake in keeping me out of this.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “There’s too much at stake, Carson.”

  “That’s why we can’t risk you being compromised.”

  “You really think the Throne’s enemies might get to me?”

  “Can you guarantee otherwise?”

  “Why the hell would I have destroyed Autumn Rain if I was plotting against the Throne?”

  “It’s a good point.”

  “So the Throne shouldn’t be keeping me stowed away like this.” She’s disturbed to find how angry she’s getting. “He should be bringing me online.”

  “Unless.”

  “Unless what?”

  The Operative just stares at her. She stares back.

  “What are you getting at, Carson?”

  “I’m hoping you can answer that question for me.”

  “You think that someone might still have a back door to my mind.”

  “Can you rule it out?”

  She shakes her head.

  “We know those doors exist, Claire. We used one on the Platform. So did the Rain. We’d thought they were all accounted for. But we have reason to believe that some of the original CICom data on you might have wound up in the hands of Szilard himself. Meaning that as a weapon you’d be worse than useless. You’d be turned against us by SpaceCom.”

  “Not necessarily. It all depends—”

  “On what sort of back doors we’re talking about. Exactly.”

  “Where’s your evidence?

  “Call it a hypothesis.”

  “A pretty specific one. Why do you think Szilard—”

  “Never mind what we think about the Lizard. What matters now is you.”

  “I can find out,” she says.

  “Find out what.”

  “If there’s a back door.”

  “Really?” He moves toward her.

  “Given enough time,” she says. She draws away.

  “We don’t have that time,” he says.

  “What are you proposing?”

  “I’m not proposing anything.”

  She starts to lunge aside. But he’s already driving the needle into her flesh.

  It’s as though she’s falling down some long tunnel where there’s no light and no darkness save what’s already in her head—swirling all around, solidifying into fragments of mirror that reflect everything she’s ever dreamed straight back into her eyes … blinding her, spinning her around to the point where it’s like the universe is nothing but rotation and she’s the only constant. But everywhere she looks it’s the same: the face of Carson and all he’s saying is labyrinth labyrinth labyrinth that’s all you are and all you’ll ever be—

  It all snaps into focus.

  “What are you doing?” she asks.

  “I’m operating,” he replies.

  He’s not kidding. He’s got her strapped back into the chair, her blood filled with painkillers so she can’t feel a thing. She can see through only one eye. The other one’s dangling in the zero-G beside her nose. He’s plucked it out. The optic nerve is hanging there, along with tangles of circuitry that lead back inside her eye socket. He’s got his razorwire extended from one hand into the circuitry. But she sees something else, too: droplets of blood floating in front of her, and she suddenly realizes that—

  “You’ve cut through my skull,” she says.

  “Trepanation,” he replies. “Of a sort.”

  Messing with her
brain. She can’t see what he’s up to there. But she can feel it. Colors surge against her. Landscapes churn past her. Some moon’s hovering somewhere out in front of her. It starts to swell ever larger.

  “Have you found the door?” she mutters.

  “You’re the door,” he says. “You always were.”

  “I never wanted that.”

  “That never mattered.”

  Everything goes black.

  Prowling through corridors of dark. Climbing up stairways filled with light. Watching from behind the screens as the clock keeps on ticking and the ship keeps on moving away from the farside toward the only libration point invisible to Earth. The fleet that’s deployed there is the largest in existence. It’s the ultimate strategic reserve. If the war to end all wars begins it’ll lay waste to the Eurasian bases on the farside even as it duels with the L4 fortresses—even as its squadrons scramble left and right around the Moon to envelop the Eurasian nearside operations.

  Or maybe not. Maybe it’ll just stay put. There are so many battle scenarios flitting through Stefan Lynx’s head, and none of them really matter: they’re just the projections from which he’s reverse-engineering the actual composition of the fleet and mapping out the vectors via which he’s going to penetrate to its heart. That fleet stacks up in Lynx’s mind like some vast web. The only thing that counts now is confronting the spider at its center. Whether or not Szilard is guilty is incidental—there’s a larger game afoot. The ultimate run’s under way. Lynx has never felt so high. Beneath him engines surge as the ship keeps on taking him ever higher.

  She wakes again. She’s in a zeppelin. She’s been here before. She’s looking out a window at a burning city far below.

  “Hello Claire,” says Jason Marlowe.

  She whirls. He’s sitting cross-legged against the far wall. He’s smiling like he did right before she killed him.

  “You’re dead,” she says.

  “And you should know,” he replies.

  “Why are you here?”

  “I was hoping you could tell me that.”

  “I’m being fucked with, Jason.”

  “By who?”

  “By Carson. He’s inside my head.”

  “Was wondering why it’s feeling so crowded in here.”

  “You’ve been here all along?”

  “I wish you’d joined us, Claire.”

  “I wish I had too.”

  “We were Rain.”

  “Maybe we still are.”

  “No,” he says. “You killed us all.”

  “There’s really no one left?”

  He replies. But as he does so his voice is drowned in static. Even as his mouth blurs.

  “What’d you say?” she asks.

  He speaks again. The same thing happens.

  “You’re being blocked,” she says.

  “No,” he says, “you’re being blocked.”

  “Try it again,” she says.

  “I said you’re blocked, Claire.”

  “Am I?”

  “Why is it so hard for you to admit? Is it because you always thought I was the weak one?”

  “You weren’t weak. I was just stupid.”

  “It’s not too late to save the world.”

  “I can’t even save myself.”

  “Carson might do it for you,” he says.

  “I doubt it.”

  “You should have joined us.”

  “You said that already.”

  “Because it bears repeating.”

  “If the Rain had won, it wouldn’t be any better.”

  “Why not?” he asks.

  “They didn’t even have a program, Jason. They had no idea what they were going to do once they’d taken over.”

  “Yes they did. Take humanity to the next level.”

  “What does that mean?” She points through the window at the sky. “Huh? Other than more fucking spaceships—what does that mean? They were divided among themselves. They couldn’t decide whether they should rule humanity as cattle or raise the race to some kind of posthuman status. They would have fought among themselves as soon as they took power.”

  “Christ, Claire. They already were fighting among themselves. That was their genius. They were at war with one another the whole time. They stabbed their leader in the back—”

  “You mean Sinclair?” She feels some kind of pressure building in her head.

  “—and then they fell to bickering. They fell apart even as they had it all within their grasp.”

  She feels like her skull’s about to explode.

  “And I could say the same of you,” he adds.

  The pain goes nova.

  • • •

  Clouds whip by. The islands of Indonesia flit past. Sarmax watches the world reel below, and it’s a ld that’s dead to him. His mind feels the same way. There’s no light left in it. His Indigo’s gone. He knows she must have died long ago. And even if she didn’t, she’s dead now that the Throne’s destroyed what’s left of the Rain. Yet somehow Sarmax feels like he killed her twice. He wishes he’d made sure of her the first time.

  But nothing’s ever sure. And the dead have a way of refusing to stay that way. She’s still burning in his head.

  It’s all he has. It’s fine by him. Asia creeps closer as he readies for one last run.

  She’s in some room making love to Jason and it’s so long ago. She’s fifteen and so is he. She’s riding him for the first time and she’s wishing she could stay this way forever. He’s telling her he loves her. Telling her this really happened. She’s telling him she believes him—telling him that she wants to live with him forever in that long-gone country of the past. She feels as though she’s never getting out of here, that her mind’s a cage and she’s never even going to see the bars. And now she’s on top of Jason and her hair’s dangling across his face and he’s gasping and she’s crying and begging him not to grow any older and he’s moaning the future’s already here and then he shimmers and fades and vanishes and she’s weeping and telling him she’ll find him but all there is to find is the note under the pillow that says you know I know you lie.

  • • •

  Hatchet man with too much downtime. Man of action who’s unaccustomed to the undertow of his own mind: it’s hauling against him in ayahuasca rhythms as he watches the Moon dwindle and stares at the lights flickering off Lynx’s spaced-out face. Linehan knows he was never supposed to get this far. He should have been nailed once he’d helped bring down the Elevator. He was a loose end that should have been snipped. In a way he was. It’s almost like everything that’s happened since has been part of some fucked-up afterlife. As though the tunnel beneath the Atlantic was really the journey to the underworld.

  And back. Because four days ago he made it through the temple of the Jaguars and out into a whole new world. And yet it’s ended up being a lot like the life from which he’d been spat. New bosses, old bosses—makes no difference in the end. The higher you get, the more dangerous you are to those you serve and the more lethal your missions become. Living on the edge—and Linehan has been there so long he wonders if he was ever anywhere else. It’s all he has, this crazy game where the rules change as fast as you can make them up. He’s had his mind blown these last few days. He never knew how good he was until he went rogue from SpaceCom—never dreamed he’d be capable of pulling it off with no cards to show and even fewer to play.

  And now he has to go and do it one more time. He remembers the Throne’s briefing. The president said the Rain were gone, but that they’d so shaken up the world it was about to go over the cliff anyway. He looked at Linehan and said soldier, you’re a hero. He said, I need you on the moon. Linehan remembers saying sir, yes, sir. Remembers asking where was Spencer.

  Which is when the Throne told him he’d be working with Lynx this time, that Spencer’s one hell of a razor, but that Lynx is even better. Linehan just shrugged. He liked Spencer. Loved him, even—loved to hate him, really—and he worries that with
the guy gone maybe his luck’s run out at last.

  Which would be a shame. Because coming back to L2 is coming back to where it all began. He trained there, came up through the ranks there. And it was the machinations of L2 that left him on Earth running for his life. Now he’s back to take the life of the man who once controlled his. The Throne said he can retire once that’s happened. Linehan has some vague notion of what such a life would be like: a life without someone to pursue, a life without someone to run from. He has some idea of just heading out to Mars—just rigging a hab halfway up some mountain and spending his days watching red sprawl below and universe cruise by overhead. He knows that’ll never happen. He knows what happens to those who live by the sword. He wants it no other way.

  No way out: she’s running through the burning streets of Belem-Macapa and the burning Elevator’s plunging from the sky toward her. She can’t remember how she got here. She can’t remember what happens next. She thought it involved Jason. But Jason’s dead. And she’s about to join him. Because there’s no way out of this. The mob’s in full cry after her, screaming for her blood, screaming that they’ve found themselves a Yankee razor. It’s true. She’s American. She can’t help that. She can’t help what her people have done. She can’t give these people what they never had. She’s got only one thing left to give. She turns a corner.

  And finds she’s reached the river. The Amazon stretches away on both sides, winding through the city. There’s so much smoke now that she can barely see the pier that stretches out into the midst of the river. She runs along the pier, reaches its end.

  A boat’s sitting there. It’s small—pretty much a gondola. Carson stands in its rear. He’s leaning on an oar, gazing up at her.

  “Which way?” he asks.

  She leaps in, tells him any way will do. But he tells her she has to choose. Between upriver and downriver. Between jungle and sea. She stares at him. She can’t speak. The mob’s storming onto the pier behind her. Carson glances at them, smiles. Looks back at her.

  “Choose quickly,” he says.

  But she can’t. She can’t choose at all. Even as the mob closes upon her. Even as she realizes her mind’s not her own. It’s as though someone’s pulling her strings. As though someone’s about to cut her loose.

  “Take her apart,” says Carson.