Mirrored Heavens ar-1

by David J. Williams

  “I think you can see where this is going to go,” says Sarmax. “Assuming your eyes haven’t melted yet. These are the last sounds you’ll ever hear, Carson. These are the final words your brain will ever process. Lynx never bargained on my real base being buried so far beneath the surface. He never counted on my sowing the black markets with false maps. All the inner enclaves of all my major residences, Carson: they’re all red herrings. The real ones are all off the charts. But that’s the way it always is with the truth. It’s always beyond the pale. Though it pales in comparison with the lies that surround it. Wouldn’t you agree, Carson?”

  But the Operative’s not listening. He’s just flicking his wrists—letting grenades slot into his hands, flinging explosives in both his path and wake. It’s not an act of suicide. These grenades aren’t ordinary. Wavelengths of every size and hue rush over him. His sensors are being blotted out. He hits the dirt. He crawls on down that corridor while the lasers fire randomly. They’re blinded too. They’re trying to filter out the disrupters. They’re not succeeding.

  Which gives the Operative some respite. Even as his mind’s frantically working to extrapolate what he knows against what he doesn’t. He takes a chance, shoots off down one of the adjacent passages, ignoring the guns that blast against him as he blasts downward through a suddenly larger space. Something strikes him in the back. He sees stars. He thinks he sees things below him—catches glimpses here and there: platforms hanging in the dark, vast ramps leaning through the gloom. He figures he’s already dead. He figures this is one demented Hades. He resolves to start the afterlife in style. He wafts in toward one platform in particular, throws his feet forward. He hits. He runs along that platform, then slows to a walk and finally stops.

  This chamber is huge. It’s far larger than that dome. The floor’s not visible. The walls glisten with ice. Some of them are pretty much vertical. Others climb inward toward each other, as though the mountain that houses the cave has been turned inside out.

  But what those walls contain is a maze of gantries and platforms and ramps. Electric lights hang here and there. Cranes tower overhead. The platform upon which the Operative has landed protrudes out over the edge of abyss. A single ramp connects it to the remainder of the structure.

  And standing in the shadows atop that ramp is Leo Sarmax.

  T he final stages of the race we call the border run. Take these curves too tight and you’ll fly off the rails and into hell. Take them too loose, and you’ll lose all speed differential. So now inside turns out, all colors are ripped asunder. Stars torpedo at you, lick away, and this ship keeps on shooting through this tunnel.

  “We need more throttle,” screams Linehan.

  “We can’t go any faster,” yells Spencer.

  He engages the rear guns. The ship shudders as they discharge. Lasers and shells streak down the tunnel. The gunships giving pursuit absorb the former, dodge the latter—slide along a crossover onto parallel rails, let the rounds shoot past them.

  “Can’t shake them,” mutters Linehan.

  “Hold on,” says Spencer. He’s lashing out with newfound abandon at the razors a fraction of a second and several klicks behind him. They’re doing their best to get at him. But he’s co-opted the car. He can see it all so clearly—can see the way they configured the craft so that even if the zone weren’t being fucked with, it still couldn’t be seen by the rail’s systems. It’s been set up as a zone-bubble: a discrete set of self-contained logic that allows those within to control the rail’s currents, let them move like they weren’t there. Like water striders that ride the surface of a pond without breaking surface tension: it’s a delicate balancing act. It’s getting more so by the second.

  But suddenly the cars behind them are slowing down. Suddenly they’re disappearing in the rearview.

  “So much for them,” says Spencer.

  “What’d you do,” says Linehan.

  “What does it look like I did? Maglev speed depends upon control.”

  “Which they no longer have.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Crash them into each other,” says Linehan.

  “I’d settle for slowing them down,” says Spencer.

  “Don’t.”

  “Too late.”

  For now he can see that they’ve switched off their engines. They’ve stopped interfacing with the rails. They’ve abandoned the chase. They’re no longer a factor. Spencer grins.

  And curses.

  “What’s up?” says Linehan.

  What’s up is that somewhere back down that tunnel something’s glowing. Something that’s getting steadily brighter.

  “What the fuck.”

  “They’re riding rockets,” says Spencer.

  “We got anything similar?”

  “We must.”

  “So fire us up.”

  “So no. We try that and we’ll just be dragging against the magnets.”

  “So turn us off,” says Linehan. “Start us up.”

  “Magnets are faster.”

  “Then what the fuck you waiting for?”

  The answer’s nothing. Spencer’s opening the throttle. He’s jury-rigging the ship far past the limits of its safety margins. It’s nothing but momentum now. The two men let vibration rise through them. They watch their pursuers fade again. Up ahead on the map Spencer can see the place where the tunnel starts blossoming—can see where the real warren kicks in. The tunnel steers just south of the Newfoundland Yards. Somewhere past that’s the place where the continental shelf ends and the real ocean takes over and the warrens drop several thousand meters. For a moment Spencer envisions looking at this route in retrospect and not in anticipation. For a moment, he imagines they’re already running beneath the real trenches of Atlantic. For just a second he sees them almost at the border….

  But then his attention’s captured by yet another flaring in the rearview.

  “What the fuck,” he says.

  “That’s a missile,” says Linehan.

  “I can see that.”

  “Then you can also see it’s closing.”

  “Eight klicks back,” says Spencer.

  “Countermeasures.”

  “I’m trying.”

  And he is. He lets the rear guns engage. He lets lasers fly at the warhead. But it’s got countermeasures of its own. It’s taking evasive action. It’s eating light like no one’s ever fed it. It’s flinging out light of its own. The back of their ship is taking damage.

  “It’s smart,” says Linehan. “It’s speeding up.”

  “They’re falling back.”

  The ships: they’re fading. They’re drawing off. They’re gone.

  “We need more speed,” says Linehan.

  “We go any faster and we lose control.”

  “It’s either that or take a warhead up your ass. Take a look at that thing. Take a good look. Do you see what I’m seeing?”

  There’s no way Spencer couldn’t. Linehan is projecting his extrapolation of the schematics of the missile straight into his head. He’s disaggregating all its parts. He’s highlighting all its components. He’s focusing on one in particular.

  “It’s nuclear,” breathes Spencer.

  “Tactical,” says Linehan. “But still overkill.”

  “They’ll collapse this fucking tunnel.”

  “I don’t think they care, Spencer. I think they just want to be sure.”

  “Why doesn’t it detonate right now?”

  “Like I just said, Spencer: they want to be sure. They want it closer. And they’re going to ride it straight up to our fucking bumper unless you floor this bitch like she’s never been floored before.”

  Spencer does. They roar forward. All the while taking stock of what’s behind them.

  “Four point six klicks back.”

  “And closing.”

  Not quite as quickly as before. But still just as inexorably. Their rear guns may as well not even be there for all the effect they’re having. There may as w
ell be nothing in the universe save hunter and target.

  Only there is. Because the gap between the walls on either side is getting wider. The rails are sprouting more rails. The tunnel’s starting to fork into still more tunnels.

  “The warrens,” says Linehan.

  “We might make it yet,” says Spencer.

  “What’s our route?”

  “Follow the main line straight on through.”

  “That won’t work.”

  “Why?”

  “We need to shake this fucker off. And we’re not going to do it in the straight.”

  “Get anywhere else but the straight and it’ll catch us.”

  “Give me the fucking map.”

  “I already did, asshole. It’s in your head. You want a different itinerary, you better name it fast.”

  “Let’s hit the Yards,” says Linehan.

  “That’s insane.”

  “So is doing nothing while a missile overhauls you.”

  “You don’t get it,” says Spencer. “Whatever hack Control’s got in place extends only to the main tunnel and its auxiliary lines. The Newfoundland Yards are neither. We venture in there and we’re going to set off every single alarm and then some.”

  “I don’t think you’re grasping our situation,” replies Linehan.

  Another train takes that moment to charge on by. It roars westward on an adjacent track. It’s at least a hundred cars long, another transatlantic haul. It’s impossible to tell if those who steer it are aware of the chaos all around them. The missile darts sideways to avoid it, loses a fraction of a second in so doing. Its afterburners fire. It draws in upon its target like it’s being pulled in upon a string.

  “What else we got for speed?” says Linehan.

  “We got nothing.”

  “Than we got nothing to lose. And even if we do survive what’s about to happen, every alarm down here is about to go off at full fucking volume anyway. Least we can do is hope we’re around to hear it.”

  He double-clicks onto the map. It lights up both their minds. The Yards are winding in toward them. They’re sprawling out on all sides. They’re as messy as any boomtown. Their topography’s complex.

  “We turn off onto the local line there,” says Linehan. He forwards coordinates to Spencer. “We fire the decoys down the main when we do so. Hopefully it’ll follow them and not us.”

  “And if there’s something on that local line?”

  “We’ll never know it.”

  “And if that thing behind us follows us and not our decoys?”

  “We go straight through the main districts and back into the tunnels.”

  “The main districts?”

  “There’s nothing to stop us. Most of the local lines intersect with them. They’re basically one big cave.”

  “Filled with a lot of shit.”

  “But this thing we’re in’s not bound to the rails, Spencer.”

  “It’s not a question of propulsion. It’s a question of maneuvering. Anything that’s more than about two degrees off the straight is going to be too much for us right now. We can’t afford to put on the brakes any further.”

  “Good. Because we’re not going to. Ten seconds, Spencer. You ready?”

  And Spencer is. He’s ready to live out the last seconds of his life. He’s got himself immersed just enough in the zone to see the myriad threads that constitute the Yards. He wonders for a moment if they’re being herded into it by what’s behind them. He wonders what else is out there still. He wonders just what the man he’s with is worth.

  Besides a nuke.

  “If that thing detonates in the Yards, it’ll kill tens of thousands.”

  “Maybe,” says Linehan. “But at least I’m not asking you to kill them this time. I’m not even asking you to watch.”

  He gestures at the screens upon which the missile’s closing. But Spencer’s not even looking. He’s just tweaking the magnets, letting the craft press up against the left-hand rails, forcing it away from the right-hand ones. It eases off the straight onto a crossover rail. It bends along that rail toward the wall.

  Except suddenly there’s no wall.

  Or rather: there is. But now it’s shifted five meters to the left. And in that space, another rail is sprouting away from the leftward main track. The craft curves along it. Spencer fires balls of flame and countermeasures from the forward guns. They roar down the leftward line.

  Which encloses their craft within a much smaller tunnel. But only for a moment, and then they charge out of the branch line and into a wider tunnel. Spencer slots the ship in along the rails. He slings them at lightning speed along this new straight. He sees no obstructions whatsoever.

  “We made it,” breathes Linehan.

  “Eye of the needle.”

  “Ah fuck.”

  The missile’s emerged through the tunnel they’ve just come through. It’s less than a klick back now. It’s roaring in toward them far more quickly than before.

  “Fuck’s sake,” says Linehan.

  They’re well within the confines of the Yards now. Rows of doors that lead to airlocked stations are streaking by. The tunnel’s now a translucent tube. Beyond it they can see a far wider space. They shift along more rails. They streak through more tubes. They can see the intimations of architecture all around. They can see the flame of the missile behind them. It’s only half a klick back now. Spencer’s realizing that Linehan’s plan is for shit. They can’t destroy the thing that’s chasing them. They can’t outrun it. They can’t outmaneuver it. They can’t shake it. They streak out of translucence and back into solid.

  Which is when something finally clicks in Spencer’s mind. It’s something that’s been getting in his way. And now it drops away. He doesn’t want to see it go. It’s the last of his moral scruples. And now it’s gone. Leaving him in search of something else. Something that’s buried in this town’s systems. He runs his mind parallel to the route of his body. He brushes up against a lever that triggers a door. It’s one of thousands throughout this complex. It’s intended to forestall emergency flooding should the seabed overhead rupture. Now it slides shut behind them. They have a fraction of a second to secure additional distance from the door.

  Before the missile hits it.

  That nuke’s got next to nothing in the way of EMP. It harbors only modest force. But it’s all relative. Because the seabed’s being shaken to pieces. Half the Yards just got caved in. The ocean’s been left to do the rest.

  “Holy fuck,” says Spencer.

  “We’re gone,” says Linehan.

  There’s no way he could be wrong. What’s surging down the tunnel behind them is water that’s far worse than any weapon. It won’t be outrun. It can’t be outgunned. It can’t be outmaneuvered. It surges in toward them. It turns maglev into mere metal—snuffing out the electricity in one fell swoop. Yet even as the magnetism dies, Spencer’s switching to rocket. Wheels protrude, hold them steady as velocity kicks in once again. To no avail. That surge is overhauling them all the same. It’s almost got them. It’s starting to churn in amidst their rocket’s fires.

  “Do you believe in God?” says Linehan.

  “I’ll believe in anything that’ll get us out of this.”

  “Me neither,” snarls Linehan.

  Their rockets switch off, seal as the tide washes across them. The water roars in around the ship. The two men within feel themselves shaken like rats by dogs. They feel their craft lurch into the walls, ceiling, floor with ever-greater force.

  “Tell me what this was all about,” says Spencer.

  “Tell me what it wasn’t,” says Linehan.

  And yet somehow they’re still alive. And all they’re doing is finding out what it’s like to die. Which is pretty much what they would have suspected. It’s time that’s run clean out. It’s dark at the end of endless tunnel. It’s the shock of realizing that somehow you’re still breathing.

  When you really shouldn’t be.

  “We’re
still intact,” says Spencer.

  “We’re still running,” says Linehan.

  “Like I said.”

  “I mean we’re still running.”

  He’s right. There’s a new vibration that’s even nearer than the waters swirling around the ship. It’s the rumble of engines close at hand. The instrument panels are lighting up in a new configuration. Understanding suddenly dawns: this ship’s a true interceptor. Even though it prowled the tunnels on rails and wheels, it was configured to operate in one more medium.

  The one they’re in right now.

  “Hold on,” says Spencer.

  “We ride it out,” says Linehan.

  “All the way through.”

  And all the while they’re thinking about how things have surely just come full circle. Of how this ship’s immersion represents nothing save a return to a condition it’s plainly familiar with—which might have even been the point. And the answer to this question: if at least some feds knew what was what, why weren’t the two sought by all simply seized at Kennedy? Someone didn’t want others to know that the prize had been bagged. Someone intended to remove them in the middle of the tunnel. Someone intended to get out of that tunnel without going out of either end. Someone wanted to escape detection altogether. So: smooth moves in the dark. From ocean to shaft and back again. Nice and neat.

  Though it doesn’t look like either now.

  “We’re still living,” says Spencer.

  “Running with the current,” says Linehan.

  “Jesus.”

  All manner of debris is churning up against the windows. And so much of it he doesn’t want to see. Bodies, torn by the blast and by the water—they dash themselves against the ship. They press their faces up against the plastic. They churn off into the mother of all undertows.

  “Oh Christ,” says Spencer. “Oh Jesus Christ.”

  “What’s your point?” asks Linehan.

  “We killed them.”

  “We? You’re the one who took our ship through the Yards.”