Crashland (15 page)

Are you sure it's not just random drift?

Definitely interference
.

Well, do something about it, T. Don't just sit there fishing!

Clair was about to ask the others if they could hear the whispers too when the rise and fall of the humming suddenly changed.

mMmMm

The pulses came faster, and the numbers in the mirror ticked over so quickly they seemed to blur. Or was that her eyes again?
276, 474, 317, 655
. Clair put a hand to her forehead, disoriented.

One of her own reflections turned to look at her.

mMmMm

Devin and Sargent were flickering in and out of her vision again.
427, 517, 118, 853
. She was moving through the Maze too quickly to tell where she was in the real world. The Air was draggy, with patches frozen and metadata skewing wildly.

Still the reflection was looking at her, even when Clair deliberately glanced away.

mMmMm

The reflection's lips moved, but Clair wasn't speaking. It wasn't her. It had to be—

A dupe
.

Clair reached out to take Devin's arm. She had to warn him. She opened her mouth to speak, but no voice came out. Her lips moved as soundlessly as those of her reflection.

The Maze had been hacked.

This is bad
, said the whisper, as though it could read her mind.
This is very, very bad
.

MMMMM

The hum was deafening The numbers said
658, 274, 857, 658, 658, 481, 658, 658, 658, 658, 658, 658
. Clair put her hands over her ears, but nothing could keep the noise out. Her eyelids had no substance. Her hands were light as air, as though if she pressed too hard they might pass through each other and she would dissolve into nothing.

MMmmm—

Suddenly it all stopped. Silence fell and the reflections steadied and went back to normal. Clair's hand felt solid again. The number said
432
. Clair's lenses told her that she was on a tiny island called Ons, near Spain. Sargent leaned against one wall, the fingers of her right hand touching her temple. The reflection of Clair's dupe was gone, if dupe it had been. She started to mention it to Devin, but he was already talking.

“That was close,” said Devin. He looked a little too relieved for Clair's liking, as though “close” might be a massive understatement. “They caught us in a loop of some kind, but we managed to—”

Watch out!

The whispered shout came a split second before an enormous bang sent Clair reeling. With tremendous force, one side of the miniature tank tore right off, shredding the mirrored surface into a million tiny shards that stung Clair in a dozen places. Bright light streamed into the shattered tank, temporarily blinding her.

Someone fell heavily against her, collapsing to the ground at her feet. It was Sargent, blood pouring out of her in a crimson flood. Clair dropped down beside her and tried to find the source, but there were too many of them, penetrating deeply into every weak point in the PK body armor.

Sargent's jade-green eyes stared up at Clair as she tried helplessly to stem the flow, pressing at random spots in the hope of doing something positive. Words gulped from the PK's throat, none of them audible. One hand reached up to Clair's face, but it fell away before touching her.

“No,” Clair hissed. This couldn't be happening. “Don't . . . you can't—!”

“She's finished,” said Devin in a higher pitch than usual. “For the record, I do care about that . . . but we need to move. Now.”

He was peering anxiously at the hole in the side of the ruined tank. There was no sound apart from the ringing in Clair's ears and the glassy fragments crunching under her knees.

“We can't just leave her,” Clair said, hating him a little for suggesting it.

“You know we have to. And we can't carry her. The booth was sabotaged. There could be dozens, hundreds, thousands of dupes converging on our location right now.”

He was right, but that didn't make her feel better about it at all. Besides, he had his own problems. He was bleeding from wounds to his face and right arm, and maybe more she couldn't see under his armor. For the first time since she had known him, he looked young and scared.

Shaped charge
, said a whisper.
Only one was meant to survive
.

No one's perfect, T. There's still time
.

Whatever the whispers were, they were telling the truth. Sargent had been standing between Clair and the epicenter of the blast and taken the larger force of it. If she hadn't been so big, Devin might have caught even more than he had. The dupes couldn't get one of their own into the Maze, but they could do the next best thing: sabotage the booth and kill the people with her, leaving Clair unharmed, but isolated and immobile. This time, at least, they wanted her alive.

“We need a plan,” she told Devin even as she still tried futilely to help Sargent. “We can't just run away at random. Is there another booth on this island?”

He nodded. “The nearest is in the lighthouse on the other side. It's about six hundred yards northwest. It's currently . . . not in our hands.”

“Which means?”

“The dupes are hacking into the system, just like we did in Crystal City. It there aren't already some here now, there will be very soon.”

Two on their way
, said the whisper.

“Just two of them, though,” said Devin with forced cheerfulness. “We can handle two, right?”

“Wait—that voice is talking to you?” she said, staring at him in surprise. The revelation put all thought of dupes taking over d-mat from her mind. “I've been assuming it was the dupes.”

“It's not the dupes.” He shook his head. “Later.”

“Promise?”

“Yes.”

Clair still had the pistol Devin had given her in its holster. His hands were empty.

“Take this,” she said, offering it to him.

He waved it away. “Never use them. Too dangerous.”

“Isn't that the idea?”

“Well, you should feel free. Just don't shoot me in the process.”

“Don't give me a reason to,” she said, wishing he didn't have to be so patronizing, “and I'll try to resist.”

“Let's just get moving,” Devin said. “Please.”

She nodded, but he didn't go anywhere.

Impulsively, she bent down to hug Sargent, not caring about blood, worried only that she didn't hurt the injured peacekeeper in the process.

“Sarge,” she said. “Can you hear me? Sarge, I'll stay if you want me to.”

The peacekeeper shook her head. She was very pale, and her eyes seemed to be sinking back into their sockets. Her hand twitched in a gesture that might have been
Get the hell out of here
. Or equally
Take my pistol before you go
.

Clair had to assume it was probably both, even if the thought of shooting someone still made her squeamish. But the thought of dying made her feel worse.

Sargent didn't move after that. She looked peaceful, but that didn't make Clair feel any better. Leaving her was a betrayal of their brief camaraderie, whether Devin's suspicions were warranted or not.
I'm sorry
, Clair thought, promising to come back when she could.
If
she could.

CLAIR GOT TO
her feet, wiping her hands on her armor so her grip on the gun wouldn't slip. Her breath shuddered in and out of her, sounding almost like weeping, but there were no tears. Not yet. There wasn't time.

They eased through the hole in the tank, shards of mirror turning to white dust with every step. The machine was situated in the center of an ancient deconsecrated chapel. All the religious trappings had been removed, along with the pews and the carpets. Someone had taken a stab at turning it into a home but given up midway, leaving dark-stained wooden beams to gather cobwebs and dust. The tank—a blocky, angular thing on the outside, now featuring a substantial hole in its side, with thick cables snaking to a nearby drain—looked no more out of place there than it would have anywhere else. A closed wooden door with a modern lock led to the exterior world on the other side of what would once have been the nave.

They crossed to the door, where Devin fiddled with the lock. It clunked and swung open, revealing a hilly, green landscape with gray sea visible nearby. The air smelled of salt and fish. A path led north, inland. Clair couldn't see the lighthouse, but the Air showed her where it was. She had full access now that she was outside the chapel. A flurry of patches and bumps clamored for her attention, including several from Jesse, sent hours before, while they were still in the Maze. She swept them all aside to concentrate on the landscape and what threats it might contain.

“See anyone?” Devin asked her.

“No. No drones, either.” She wished Q was around to tell her if anyone was nearby. “Not much in the way of cover.”

“Don't sound so disgruntled. It's better than the alternative: six five eight—the number that kept repeating in the Maze?—that was Beijing. We'd be up to our ears in dupes if we'd gone there, like they wanted us to.”

She wasn't listening to him. Their best bet, she figured, was to follow the path. “How long do we have?”

“A minute or so before those two dupes arrive. If we hurry, we might get to the lighthouse before them.”

“I can tell you've never run six hundred yards before.”

“Not wounded,” he said in a hurt tone, then corrected himself. “No, you're right. Never.”

She pulled up her hood and broke cover, pulling Devin after her. Clair set a steady pace, trying to watch every direction at once. The hills were gentle; in theory it would be easy to spot anyone coming toward them. The memory of dupes in active camouflage in Crystal City was still strong, however. She wasn't going to take anything for granted.

Halfway there, Devin panted, “Okay, they're here. The two dupes. We've got to be careful now.”

She agreed, and she didn't like the way his breathing was coming. He was pale and he clutched his right arm tightly to his chest. Blood dripped from the elbow, leaving a thin trail along the path. He seemed to be getting heavier to pull along with every step.

“We need to split up,” she said. The map showed a low valley nearby. She could follow it almost all the way to the lighthouse, and maybe she wouldn't be seen along the way. “I'm going in that direction,” she said, pointing. “You . . .”

“Keep going along the path to draw their fire? You must think I'm— Wait, yeah, they'll be looking for you. So there's a chance they'll let me walk on by. Or they'll kill me just to get me out of the picture. How do you figure my odds?”

“Zero if you stick with me,” she said.

All you have to do is survive
, she told herself.
Get to the booth and get away, live to fight another day
. Jesse would be waiting for her at the other end.

And there, she promised herself, she would stop running and start retaliating for real. Somehow.

Devin shrugged. “Okay. You take the high road, I'll take the low. Wish me luck, will you?”

“Good luck,” she said, sincerely hoping he wouldn't need it. “See you at the other end.”

“If I don't see you first.”

“Put up your hood!” she hissed, darting to her right off the path and heading for the valley, pausing only to make sure that he had obeyed her instruction, which he did with a shrug.

She checked the map one more time then clicked off the Air entirely, to reduce the chances of her being tracked. Her green-tinged lenses went dark. She was on her own.

Clair stayed low, hoping a tangle of thorny bushes that hugged a narrow creek at the bottom of the valley might provide some cover. The space between her shoulder blades burned, even though she knew the dupes were ahead of her, not behind. Sargent's pistol felt unnatural, clutched tightly in her hand. She hoped it would act as a deterrent and she wouldn't need to use it. That would depend, she supposed, on whether these particular dupes were coming to capture her or kill her.

Two small birds shot out of a nearby bush, and Clair's heart almost stopped. Her eyes tracked the birds as they skated away from the interloper, seeking shelter over the nearest hill. When she looked forward again, Cashile was standing five yards in front of her.

Her heart was already pounding from the last fright. The only move she made was to raise the pistol, held tightly in both hands.

“Get out of my way,” she said.

He shook his head, a small boy of maybe ten with cornrows and skin the same color as hers, staring at her with adult eyes. She had last seen him dead in Crystal City, but that hadn't really been him either. Clair's final memory of the real Cashile was of him waving as he roared off with his mother on an electrobike. She wished she had an electrobike now, even though she didn't know how to drive it. Anything to put some distance between her and the doppelgänger standing patiently in front of her.

“You're done,” dupe-Cashile said in an adult voice. “Give it up.”

“Not a chance,” she said. “Get out of my way.”

“If I don't? Are you going to shoot me?”

“I don't want to.”

“I know you don't. You're not a killer. You're just a kid who's out of her depth, like Cashile was. If you're not careful, you'll drown too.”

The mismatch between the boyish face and the all-too-knowing voice was stripping Clair of her resolve. She had to get past the dupe, but she couldn't shoot him, even if he only
looked
like a child.

“Who are you really?” she asked.

“We don't have names anymore,” he said. “We're the hollow men.”

“Like the poem.”

“I don't know anything about a poem. That's just what we call ourselves.”