The next moment pushed out to infinity. The sled passed in front of him, moving so quickly that even the jet-wash didn't reach him. The trailing edge of the magnetic field dragged him along. It sucked him forward, and at a slight angle due to his run. Laing let it take him, abandoning himself to the magnetic whirlwind.
The timing had to be perfect. One misstep and it was done. The field's force launched Laing through the second runway before releasing him. He got to his feet and stumbled forward, making it across the third runway even as he heard the slicing acceleration of the sled flashing behind him.
He reached the tarmac's far edge. Under him—the barrio and Sarah. He was so close. Just a little farther. Stretched out before him, a rigid carbon-fiber net jutted into the night, protecting the barrio from tarmac clutter. He pushed out to the net's edge. Peeking down, he saw that it overhung the barrio by at least ten meters.
Behind Laing, the final sled maxed power. It approached with a piercing screech. Then there was only the buzz of electricity. Laing had no time for fear.
He took a couple of steps back, jacking the drones within him. This needed balls-on timing. The sled approached too quickly to track. Instead, Laing closed his eyes and worked the flow.
In the data rush, locking on the sled wasn't easy. Finally, he found the signature and latched on to the approaching field. As it hit, Laing coiled and launched, arcing out into the night. He extended, arms wide in a full swan dive. The power of the passing magnet arrested his outward velocity, drawing him back in a whip roll. He flipped under the carbon net, now falling toward the top spires of the barrio in a thrashing tumble.
Impact.
.....
The flash of speed stopped short as Laing slammed into the barrio. The dull crack of his sternum breaking was all that welcomed him. Ryan felt bone grinding on bone. Pain lanced him, a shock-ache that would not subside. Then, it all vanished. He felt only a moist drip below his hips. The speared tip of a plastic rebar beam had impaled him.
Through the haze, Laing's head flopped down and he got a look at the barrio extending below him. Each level had grown over the last in haphazard spurts of need. The topmost section, which Laing had crashed into, remained a mishmash of plastic scaffolding and cannibalized building supplies. Those who would live so close to the mag-drives were the worst off. It showed.
In slow, soupy time, his sternum stitched together. Still, he couldn't move his legs. The urge to lean back, to sleep, washed over him.
No, he thought.
The pain in him, the need to find Sarah, Frank's betrayal, all of it distilled into a binary choice—black or white. Move or die.
Laing wrapped his arms around the rebar jutting from his side. He pulled. With each centimeter of freedom, he felt the beam tug on shards of his flesh.
Move!
He snagged an overhanging cross joint and pulled. The rebar came free with a sickening pop. He dropped to the walkway, gritting through the searing bite of his pain. Eyes rolled back. Gray seeped over him, belched from his wounds, then receded.
It didn't take long for his foot to begin twitching.
Sarah knew she had to die.
With each breath she exhaled, others fell to the virus. She staggered through the barrio, Typhoid Mary reborn. She knew what had to be done—but every part of her being drove her to live. The dilemma ripped at her, rending her capacity for rational thought. Sarah tried to stay isolated. She sank into shadows, curled back as people passed. It didn't matter. Everyone would fall to the agony.
Knees locked to her chest, she tried to right herself—to find some shred of self under her shame and horror. She pulled the hawkeye from her side. It came free, inflated and whirred to life. Surprised that any-thing—even mechanical—could live within her, she held it for an instant, savoring its tug before letting it rise from her hand. The hawkeye buzzed up to the ceiling. It turned on its axis, gazing down at her.
She saw herself through its eye. Revulsion rose up through her. She couldn't turn away. Her hair lay matted to a face she could no longer abide. Her body rank and disgusting. She pigment-shifted, blacking her skin to match the shadow. Better. Still horrible. She wanted to disappear completely—to mesh out and fade into the night.
Some far-off rational kernel of her mind knew that the virus she carried had been placed in her. Yet—it seemed so perfectly suited to her being. She was the prime vector, a shell filled with black death.
Self-hate gripped her. It spiraled from the blackness, wrapped around her, and extended out to swallow the whole damn world. She groped for a point of reference, something to rein in the loathing.
To escape the pain, she pushed out of herself, rising up into that ethereal plane where there was only pattern. Here she was free. Everything ran clean—cause and effect. The quantum flux of her life fell away.
She analyzed the web that her past days had generated. The assassination, the CIA, the Australian biological. All linked to her. Was it random? Hard to believe. And why use her as a scapegoat? She wasn't field rated. Sooner or later, she'd be caught. There were others who could stay alive much longer than she. People like Laing.
The thought of Ryan sent a jolt through her system. She hated that she remained so tied to him. She hated . . .
Oh, God.
In that moment, the pattern emerged. Clarity settled over the past weeks. Under the force of her realization, Sarah staggered to her feet. She needed to get away—far away.
She wasn't the scapegoat. She was the bait.
19
MANUFACTURING DISTRICT, TRENTON, NEW JERSEY
Sarah emerged from seclusion. She moved down a passageway cantilevered out over open air. The stink of fuel and flesh rot floated through the barrio's persistent humidity. The fluorescent glare washing the area contrasted her out, moved past, then came back to hold on her—a fact she realized too late.
From the shadows, dull eyes took her in. Her strong step set her apart. All around her, men and women propped themselves up, fighting death. She moved through them, trying not to disturb the scene.
“You!” The croaking hack of a sweat-drenched woman caught up to Sarah.
The woman grabbed her with blistered hands. Peters retched, ripping at the woman to get away, but she would not release.
“You're killing us,” the woman cried.
“It's—it's not me.” Even to Sarah, the words sounded ridiculous. The woman broke into a wet laugh that elevated to a hack. Still, she would not yield.
“She's here!” The shriek crashed through the night.
Around them, above and below, eyes poked from shanty hovels. Even in the crush of the woman's embrace, Sarah felt their presence. Snapshots from the hawkeye filled out the scene.
Sarah struggled, but could not break from the woman's death grip.
Then her back lit up in pain. The hawkeye homed in on a blood-slicked man, knife held high, prepping for another strike. He slashed down, the blade parting flesh at the nape of her neck. Then it hit her sub-derm carbon matrix and kicked out. The blade drew a slim line of blood down her back, but could not cut deeper.
Sarah hardened. These people were already dead. Nothing she could do about that. And she had to get away—fast. The man raised his knife for a third strike, shifting for a downward stab. Sarah waited for the blade to fall. When it came, she twisted hard, flipping the woman on the axis of her left leg. The knife plunged into the space between her shoulder and neck. A geyser of blood erupted from the wound, showering all three. The woman wailed with carnal ferocity as she dropped to the ground.
The knife lodged in the woman's neck, pulling the man over. As he bent, Sarah shouldered him, sending him flailing over the railing's edge. He spun out, flipping over and over in silent shock on the long fall down.
Sarah watched him all the way to the ground.
She pushed it away. No time. The commotion had drawn attention from below. A spot hit her dead on, lighting her up. She turned and it was like staring into the eye of the sun.
In confusion, she lost her footing and tumbled down a makeshift ladder. The fall saved her life.
The space where she had been evaporated in an explosive haze. Metal Storm projectiles ripped through the barrio, upsetting its delicate structural balance. The levels over Sarah began to buckle.
She crabbed backward, getting to her feet and racing clear just as a great mass of the structure teetered and broke away. She ran hard, pushing deeper into the barrio—away from that light and the Metal Storm cannon tracking it. Doing so backed her into those whose only escape lay in her death. The hawkeye couldn't find access through the barrio's maze. She was on her own.
Sarah darted through interlocked gangways, but a posse formed up behind her. Each one sick, near dead, had nothing to lose. And each one knew it.
From the darkness, a man lunged down at her, hurling himself off a ladder and out over open space. Sarah shrieked involuntarily as the man smashed into her. The force of the blow sent them sprawling. Sarah scrambled to her feet and moved, even as the man rose to follow, his blistered skin making him look like a molting snake.
Sarah slid down a ladder, ripping it free behind her to slow her pursuers. She pushed on, dodging the dead-weight flop of a man hitting the floor by mere centimeters. As she ran, Sarah ripped at her white top, tearing it away. No time for the jeans—but their grubbiness offered solid camo. As she ran, her bare chest morphed and merged with the colors of the background. She faded into it.
With her tat spot matching the scene behind her, Sarah raced toward the outer gangway. Better to risk a shot from below than get cornered. She ran hard, gunning for a direct staircase that led to street level and the sewer entrance Black had showed on first entering the barrio. Her bolt-hole.
Behind her the pounding stampede of her pursuers. The tat worked well enough from a distance, but up close it wouldn't accomplish much. The posse gained on her, pushing at her heels.
Sarah didn't make the stairs.
At first, Laing saw only confusion. He gazed down, through the mesh of girders, corrugated metal, and detritus to a crush of people. Then a flashing blur before them caught his eye. Well, not quite his eye, but that other sense that Laing had no name for. Radiation waved off the apparition. Ryan focused on it through the chaos. It was some kind of epidermal camouflage that blended with the environment. Hacking the code source, Ryan was able to draw the figure from the background.
Sarah Peters resolved before him. He choked down a laugh. She was alive!
“Sarah!” Laing shouted, giddy excitement cracking his shell.
The rhythmic din above ebbed momentarily, allowing his voice to carry. Sarah Peters turned up to face him. For a moment, their eyes locked. Peters eyed him with animal indifference. The look made Ryan shiver. He fell headlong into her fight-or-flight drive. The moment broke.
Sarah tripped.
That single moment of distraction was all it took. Sarah fell, her chin smacking into a protruding rebar beam. While the carbon tat blocked puncture, it did little to deaden the force of impact. She shook the webs from her vision and scrambled to her feet. Too late. The mob fell on her.
They ripped into her, gouging at her belly and legs, shouting down at the feds below.
“We've got her!”
“It's over!” another wailed in ecstatic relief.
“You can let us go!”
“Get us help!”
A hand grabbed Sarah's hair and slammed her head back into the gangway. She managed to stay conscious through the beating.
Light exploded through the flail of arms and legs over her. Like a weapon, it blasted out her vision. She pushed through her pain and fear, rezzing into the hawkeye. Through it, she saw a man, deranged and frothing, rear back to bite her leg. She kicked out and heard the snap-crunch of his jaws clicking together as her heel impacted his chin.
Sarah scrambled, desperate. She knew what was coming.
“No!” she shouted. “They'll kill you all!”
“Shut up, bitch,” a man grunted, lips hovering over her own as his fist pounded into her ribs.
The hawkeye zoomed wide. Below, in the mass of feds, she saw the Metal Storm cannon bear down. Barrel on barrel stacked together. She saw the operator hesitate. Then, an order was barked and his eyes glassed into those of a man whose actions were no longer his to decide. His finger twitched, then curled into the trigger.
Rounds shredded the gangway. The sheer number of projectiles ripped the posse from her in a pulpy mist. Sarah rolled away from the gun's line of fire, the gangway slick with blood. No screams—everyone was too busy dying. Then the storm found her.
Rounds smashed into her side, flipping her into the air like a leaf in a tornado. The splatter-pop of projectiles smacking flesh. Consciousness fled under the bone-crushing power. Her carbon tat held, but the bones underneath cracked under the force of the onslaught.
She faded into the searing crush, unable to scream.
“Hold fire!” Frank shouted into his com-link. “I repeat, hold your fire!”
Two levels below the carnage, Frank watched the cannon's projectiles decimate the rickety structure, chewing through flesh, bone, and barrio to ping off the siding of the port itself.
After a sickening beat, the firing stopped. “Stupid, motherfucking gun jockeys!” Frank hissed into the link. “One of your own is up here. Wouldn't care so much if it wasn't me!”
A grinding pause, then Flip clicked on. “Sorry, Frank. It's dicey down here. We're getting pushed by massing civs.” Flip's cool pulled Frank from his rage.
“Okay. Just keep 'em in check. I'm getting close. Going to try to retrieve the target. If I can pick her free of the meat-patty up there.”
The sterile gel made movement awkward. He felt vacu-sealed and distanced from reality—like he was watching a vid of some poor fucker plunging into the dead zone, or playing Death Troop. He controlled his movement but couldn't feel the plastic railing under his hand.
He stepped over a dead woman, bone rigid, her back arched in a convulsion held firm by rigor mortis. He reached a set of spiral stairs cannibalized from some far-gone ship. The spiral pushed him out over open space.
He turned his sights up, peering through the dust cloud sent up by the projectiles. At first, he thought it was merely an illusion, some combo of acrophobia and revulsion.
It wasn't. A massive section of the Keep had begun to teeter.
Laing's screams were lost in the firestorm pounding the section below him. When the bombardment ended, he knew Sarah was dead. No way she could have survived that. At the thought, a piece of him gave way. He gazed down into the graying dust, lost in the whirlwind.
Movement. A slow crawl.
Was it an illusion—his mind chewing reality into something he could digest?
He looked harder, cutting through the haze. Cloaked in gore, a delicate hand stretched out. A head rose, eyes vacant and glazed. A swirling flush of color disguised the face. Then it settled into a profile he recognized. She was alive.
Laing jumped to his feet, steadying himself through the wave of relief gushing through him. Despite her departure, her betrayal, their link seemed unbreakable. The knowledge gave him no joy. She had left him, damn it! And yet, he cared for her, needed her. There was love, some-where deep in his abyss, but anger drove him forward. Anger that she had conquered him so completely, that, no matter how he tried to wall himself from the world, her life meant everything.
The structure under him lurched. Ryan lashed out, catching a support girder. The grinding shear of construction grade plastic filled the night. Clinging to the girder, Laing watched the entire section under him sway, then begin to break free of the airport wall. One by one, the adhesive seals locking the barrio's supports to the port wall popped.
The thirty meters of latticework Laing had just climbed down began to sway. The scaffolding pulled from the wall, caught a wind current and sheared clean. Whole sections of the Keep began to fall. Laing dodged to his right as a massive aluminum girder snapped
and fell. The teetering upper zones pulled on the outer stanchions of the section below.
The section he was on. That Sarah was on.
“No,” he whispered. Not quite a prayer. Maybe a wish.
The structure broke loose from its moorings, swaying out, then rebounding in a dance that couldn't last. Ryan craned his neck in time to see Sarah, still groggy and disoriented, begin to roll toward the barrio's edge. She thrashed, unable to abate her momentum.
Laing scanned wildly. He had seconds. Running up from Sarah's level, an ancient piece of scaffolding bent out—a thin vertical pole, ending just meters below him. And about five meters out into the black night.
No time to think—Laing lunged, arcing high. The rush of wind knocked him off-line, twisting him slightly. He was going to miss. Too jacked on adrenaline for fear, he whipped an arm back with all his force. His hand found the support, fingers wrapping it in a death lock.
Acceleration canceled in a jarring instant. Laing just managed to match hands before the stanchion bent away from the structure like a vaulter's pole, sending him out past horizontal. He got his feet around it, praying that it would hold his weight. A seal popped, bowing the stanchion further. Laing held. A suspended instant as his future balanced on the strength of a single piece of cannibalized scaffolding. The bet went his way. The stanchion torqued to full, then pulled back.
Laing came up to vertical, then wrapped his forearm around the pole and slid down it like a fireman. Friction ripped away his shirt sleeve, then the flesh of his forearm. He ignored the pain. Below him, Sarah continued her slow fall as the structure itself pulled away from the port.
A gutting despair ripped through him. He wasn't going to make it in time.
Sarah's vision snapped back to true. She wished it hadn't. She slid on the canted floor, accelerating toward the edge and the death fall beyond. Reaching out, she grasped for anything to cut the momentum. One hand found a raised piece of wooden flooring. She snagged it, finger joints popping with the strain. She had a moment of relief. Then the board gave way. Acceleration reengaged as Sarah stared at the loose board in her hands with dull shock.
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