Mirrored Heavens ar-1

by David J. Williams

  “Yeah,” says Spencer, “I mean us. I hate your guts and you hate mine and we’re tripping our balls off and the clock’s ticking and we might just have time for one last run—”

  “All the way to hell,” screams Linehan as they start sprinting.

  Distant blasts keep on rocking the room. Sirens wail across the base. Lynx appears in the doorway.

  “What the fuck’s going on?” asks the Operative.

  “Exactly what you thought,” says Sarmax. “Matthias was keeping you alive because Lynx and I were still out there. Once the going got too thick I doubled back and nailed the ones who had Lynx pinned down. After which the two of us hid out.”

  “They knew I was monitoring your location,” says Lynx. “They were trying to turn that around and figure out mine.”

  “And they failed,” says the Operative.

  “No,” replies Lynx. “They got it right. But Leo and I shot our way through. Even as I fucked their lasers.”

  “And green-lighted the Praetorian assault that’s now in progress,” says Sarmax. “We really don’t have time to talk.”

  They’re racing from the room, racing down a corridor. They round a corner, intercept marines rushing toward the cell. Their guns riddle the marines.

  Most of them anyway.

  “That one there,” says Lynx.

  But the Operative needs no prompting. He’s ripping at the seals, pulling the corpse out. Lynx has just fucked the man’s systems. Not to mention his brain. The Operative slides in to take that body’s place. He seals the armor, watches screens fold in all around him.

  “It’s not quite like the one you started out with,” says Lynx.

  “But these will help,” says Sarmax.

  He hands an ammunition rack to the Operative. “Minitacticals,” he adds. “Next stop Armageddon,” the Operative mutters. “Let’s make those fucks feel it,” says Lynx.

  They blast together down the corridor.

  C laire Haskell slowly gets to her feet. Heavy vibrations keep rumbling in from the sea outside. The room’s dark.

  She switches on her lights. Everything’s a shambles. The bodies of Lilith and Hagen lie against opposite walls. Morat’s still twitching on the stairs.

  “What have you done?” says a voice.

  She turns to behold Jason Marlowe. He looks undamaged.

  “I’ve spared you,” she replies.

  “You shouldn’t have,” he says. She suddenly realizes he’s sundered all his links to zone. She couldn’t hack him now even if she wanted to.

  “There was no room for me in that world,” she says.

  “There’s no room for us in this one!”

  “There’s going to have to be. Because I’m not going to be the one who’s going to end it.”

  Marlowe says nothing—just steps to Lilith’s body. But Haskell’s already lunging to where Hagen’s sprawled, already grabbing his pistol in one smooth motion—and then sprawling on the floor even as she brings the gun to bear on Marlowe.

  Who’s standing there pointing Lilith’s gun at her.

  “Stop right there,” he says.

  “Put your gun down,” she replies.

  “This isn’t an even standoff,” he says. “I’m faster. Pull that trigger and I won’t even be where you thought I was.”

  “You wouldn’t shoot me,” she says.

  “Not if you jack back in and salvage what’s left.”

  “Whatever they’ve done to your head,” she says, “now’s the time to fight it.”

  “If they really did fuck with our heads to ensure we’d side with them: how come you’re pointing that gun at me?”

  “They couldn’t tamper with me,” she says. “All they could do was activate me. I’m the thing that’s beyond all of this. The weapon they wanted to possess.”

  “The weapon that might yet save us.”

  “They fucked with you to get at me!”

  “They’re the only family we’ve ever had,” he says.

  “Which doesn’t give them the right to rule the planet!”

  “They’re the only thing that can save humanity!”

  “No,” she says. “Humans are.”

  “Christ,” he says. His eyes narrow. His arm trembles. He shakes his head.

  And lowers his gun.

  “I can’t do it,” he says.

  “I can,” she replies. She fires, hits him in the chest. He drops his pistol, staggers back against the wall behind him, slides down it. She walks toward him. She can barely see anything through her tears. She’s standing over him now, aiming her pistol at his head. She doesn’t dare get any nearer to him. He looks up into the gun’s barrel.

  “I know,” he says. “You had no choice.”

  “I’m dying too,” she whispers.

  And fires.

  They’re blasting through tunnels in suits they’ve commandeered, looking for gods to butcher.

  T hey’re firing in all directions. But they’re moving in only one. They feel like jaguars themselves now. Spencer’s teeth sink into the throats of the people whom he’s killing. His claws separate heads from bodies. His mind’s a hammer smashing skulls. Burning fuel from the shattered rockets in the upper reaches of the base pours across his visor. He surges through it. Linehan follows him, gets out ahead of him. The tunnel’s convulsing. It’s collapsing in behind them. Spencer looks forward to being one with that rock for all time. But first he’s got to do what he came for. They shoot their way through the last of the Jaguar defenses.

  And roar out into the real throne room. Suitless soldiers are running for cover. The Hummingbird’s messenger stands at its very center. He wears the most massive armor Spencer’s ever seen. Cat-skull banners adorn the walls behind him. His bodyguards surround him.

  “It ends here,” he says.

  “You got that right,” screams Linehan.

  The Operative and Sarmax are on the wings. Lynx is in the center. They’re moving in close proximity to one another—never more than a single corner or corridor away, deploying interlocking fields of fire. When one encounters resistance, the other two move to outflank. When one breaks through, the other two swing in behind him. The marines in front of them are fighting desperately. The marines behind them are doing their best to run from something else. Lynx’s voice echoes through the helmets of his mechs:

  “The Praetorians have broken the outer perimeter.”

  “How far back?” says the Operative.

  “Half a klick behind us.”

  “And Matthias?” says Sarmax.

  “Retreating deeper. We’re about to cut him off.”

  He rattles off battle dispositions. But neither the Operative nor Sarmax is listening now. All they’re doing is seeing their own vectors slashing in upon each other. They see their target speeding up. They fire their thrusters on one last boost.

  And make the intersection.

  They’re through into a vast cave. Rails and equipment litter the floor. Several trains are on the rails. One of them is packed with marines and heavy guns. It’s picking up speed into a tunnel.

  “Fuck those bastards!” howls Lynx.

  But the mechs are already firing. There’s a blinding flash. What’s left of the floor collapses through several levels of floors beneath it. The walls are avalanching.

  “The world’s caving in,” yells Sarmax.

  “About fucking time,” screams Lynx.

  “We ride it,” says the Operative.

  They’re roaring downward through something that’s half crater and half maelstrom. Everything’s coming down on them from overhead. Trains fold up into abyss. Waterfalls of rock tumble past.

  And then they’re through. And into more tunnels. Lynx is screaming that they’ve got to shatter Autumn Rain. He’s screaming that they’re almost on top of them. They’re putting on one final burst of speed.

  A huge explosion that sounds like it’s right outside: the floor beneath Haskell slants as the whole SeaMech gets smashed upon its side.
She’s hurled on top of Marlowe’s body. The two of them tumble forward. Pieces of metal fall past her. She’s trying to use Marlowe as a shield. She’s trying not to think about what she’s just done. She figures any moment now the ocean will break in and drown her pain forever. She figures she’s reached the end.

  But she hasn’t. Because eventually the SeaMech stops moving. Distant depth charges keep on detonating. But she’s still alive. Still breathing.

  So she stands up and looks around. The place is finished. Water’s pouring in from somewhere. She starts walking along stairs that are sloped so badly they’re almost like a floor. She climbs out into what’s left of the rest of the control room and heads for a trapdoor that’s now more of a hatch in the wall.

  “Going somewhere?” says a voice.

  She turns. Morat is clambering up toward her. His movements are jerky. But he’s closer to the trapdoor than she is. His expression’s one she remembers from the spaceplane.

  “I’m getting out,” she says.

  “Looks like Jason got out too.”

  “I had to do that,” she says. “It was the only way I could be sure.”

  “Of beating anything we’d rigged him with? Impressive resolution. But in a few moments it won’t matter.”

  “You’d kill the one you serve?”

  “I only serve the ones who lead.”

  He’s almost reached her. She tries to hit him on the zone. But he’s no longer a presence there. He laughs, stretches out his hands.

  “If we can’t have you,” he says, “then no one will.”

  He grabs her with one hand. His other hand swings in with the killing blow. But she’s swinging in the same direction—lunging in toward him, shoving her hand up against his face, extruding the wire from her finger even as she pierces his eyeball and runs the hack. He writhes. Smoke streams from him.

  “You’re right,” she says. “No one ever will.”

  She releases him, lets his body flop down toward the others. She manages to get the trapdoor open. The tunnel-tube to which it leads has been stretched to its breaking point but is still intact. She hopes it leads somewhere. But really she’s done with hoping. She’s just getting in, getting moving, getting busy putting all those memories behind her.

  * * *

  F lying on jets and ayahuasca: Spencer hacks the armor of the Jaguar leader and his bodyguards in a burst of light. It’s a glancing blow—they’re bunched tight, on a tactical mesh—but it leaves their reaction times fractionally slower and lets Spencer and Linehan get their shots off first. They fire everything they’ve got at the ceiling.

  Which collapses with a massive roar. But Spencer and Linehan are already reversing their thrusters. Flame engulfs the room. Spencer gets a glimpse of rock burying the Jaguar leader. He gets a glimpse of rock about to bury him—and then that view’s cut off as he and Linehan blast down more corridors, rushing ever deeper, partly because they’re half-convinced they’ll find something else down there but mostly because they’re trying to get away from what’s turning the mountains into rubble. Warheads and lasers and slabs dropped from orbit: their own side has set about its work with relish. So Spencer and Linehan hit the Jaguars’ cellars. They find themselves in caves full of rushing water. For long moments they ride that water through the dark.

  But at last they exit into light.

  They’re riding whitewater down toward what’s left of jungle. It looks like everything behind them is one giant volcano. There’s that much smoke. Explosions and shots echo from that upcountry. Apparently World War Three is under way in style. But they just keep rushing downstream. Their suits are like boats that can’t be swamped. Their minds are like ships that long ago went under. Linehan starts laughing.

  “What’s so funny?” asks Spencer.

  “Check those coordinates,” says Linehan. “We’re on border’s farside. We made it.”

  “No kidding.”

  Yet even as he speaks noise crackles across the sky. Several jet-copters swoop in toward them. Linehan looks up at them. Starts laughing like he really means it.

  “Busted,” says Spencer.

  “By who?”

  “I guess we’ll find out.”

  “They’re more likely to be your side than mine.”

  “I’m looking forward to finding out who the fuck my side is.”

  Praetorian triad going full throttle: the three men race ever deeper, hot on the trail of Rain. Whom they’re going to exterminate. And who they’re figuring have a bomb shelter big enough to survive all that must be unfolding on the surface. It’s not that they don’t want to get involved in the final showdown with the East. It’s just that they’re hoping to sit out the first few rounds while the Moon gets raked with unholy amounts of firepower. So they keep on putting Nansen ever farther in the rearview. They roar through mines that were worked out in the last century. They plunge way off the map.

  And pick up a massive seismic reading from right below them.

  “They really didn’t want to be caught,” says the Operative.

  “Back the other way,” screams Lynx.

  Vibration shakes the walls. A terrible light appears from somewhere deep within the tunnels. But they’re not waiting for it. They’re using rock to slow themselves. They’re reversing direction, going full throttle back the way they’ve come. Flame gouts from somewhere far behind them. Lynx is shouting over the comlinks to the vanguard of the Praetorian shock troops above them—which now starts retreating at full speed. They’re following it while it wends its way upward. They do turns so sharp they almost hit the wall. They stay just ahead of tunnels closing like jaws, scant meters ahead of the fire.

  And break the surface. And keep going. They blast upward with uniformed Praetorians while the whole surface balloons outward beneath them. They watch it drop away while they keep on climbing. They do sharp turns in the vacuum, start flying back toward Nansen.

  Which is when they realize something.

  “There’s no war,” says Sarmax.

  “It didn’t happen,” breathes Lynx.

  They keep rushing in on Nansen. Lights burn in the sky all around it. Craft sidle outward, dart inward like snakes. Pieces of moonrock keep on flying up into the vacuum.

  “Not yet anyway,” says the Operative.

  Some hours later a woman watches night fall upon a city. She’s well up in what’s left of mountain treeline. But the glow from the fires still flickers on her face. The superpowers have backed off. They’re letting the city burn. The only exceptions to the ten-kilometer cordon they’re enforcing are the rescue operations under way all across the area from which the United States has now withdrawn. It looks like at least ten percent of the surface fleet’s not there anymore. The damage was immense.

  But it was the only such strike. There was no retaliation upon the Eurasian Coalition.

  Claire Haskell turns away from the city. She’s seen things she never wanted to see. She’s seen, too, all the things she never knew she’d seen. She can barely keep up with her own world’s expansion. The wheels of zone turn like gears within her mind. They radiate out in endless circles. She turns in toward the ones that shine the brightest.

  And draws back as she realizes what lies within them.

  C ontrol’s been doing time in the life for a lifetime. Control runs its true colors up the flagpole tonight. See, Control was charged with reversing the mission of the real one. Control was charged with fooling all those who thought they knew better.

  Nor was that list small.

  “So all that shit about breaking out of those data-tanks was all bullshit?” asks Spencer.

  “Actually,” replies Control, “it wasn’t.”

  Spencer’s sitting in a room. The Earth’s sitting in that room’s window. He’s not sure why they’ve brought him here. It certainly wasn’t to get him any closer to the one with whom he’s speaking. It certainly wasn’t because there was anything to see.

  “Those events took place,” says Control. �
��Those details were real. They were the final moments of the thing whose place I took. They were its death struggles made manifest. The only alteration was the ending.”

  “It didn’t escape,” says Spencer.

  “No,” replies Control. “It didn’t. But it certainly tried. It’s no wonder Priam is such a player when it can put that kind of hardware into the field.”

  “And what about Priam’s agents?”

  “What about them?”

  “Goddamn it, Control. Is this an interrogation or a debriefing?”

  “Sometimes the one blurs so smoothly into the other,” says Control. “Sometimes the debriefing encompasses the briefing too. But fortunately you’re the one thing that can save you. You’ve served InfoCom well. Montrose herself has cited you.”

  “Yeah? And has she cited the fact that everything in my life was a lie? London, Priam, Europe—all of it?”

  “Again,” says Control, “those were the experiences of the man whom you replaced. Those were what we put together based on our insight into his life. For him they were the truth. For you, they were the truth of the moment. Look within yourself, Spencer. Even now you’ll see all the runs you’ve done for our Command coming into focus. A disquieting experience, I’ll warrant. Though I have no doubt you can handle it. Particularly with all the drugs you’re on.”

  “I could use some more,” says Spencer.

  “Let me offer you data instead. My penetration of Priam occurred several months ago. I mapped out their North American network. I identified their sources. I packed red herrings into barrels and sent them back to London. I was on a roll. But then came the downing of the Elevator. Subsequent to which we terminated your predecessor and slotted you in to take his place.”

  “Which doesn’t follow. How the fuck did you know that Linehan would run to me? In fact, for that matter—how the fuck did you know about Linehan in the first place?”

  “You forget,” says Control, “that we’re the lords of information. And my lady Montrose is nothing if not loyal to the Throne. We were the ones who first notified the Praetorians that there was a conspiracy within SpaceCom. We knew it was trying to set up a terrorist group as patsies in a hit on U.S. infrastructure. But we didn’t know the target. Or understand the why. Thanks to Autumn Rain, we lost track of all the players at the critical moment. But everything fell into place when the Elevator tumbled. We saw the members of that wet squad racing for their lives. We knew the dossiers of its personnel. We knew their contacts. We worked the probabilities. If it hadn’t worked out, we’d have shifted you somewhere you could have been more useful.”