Hammerjack (46 page)

Avalon looked past his shoulder, toward Lea and the air lock.

“You know what the
Inru
are about,” she told him. “That thing back there must be destroyed. We may never get another chance.”

“I can’t let you do that.”

“Use that, you destroy Lyssa as well,” Avalon pointed out. “What’s the difference?”

“Phao Yin loses his prize,” Cray said.

She was baffled.

“You would do all this,” she asked, “for a
machine
?”

Lea leaned in to hear his answer, shocked that Cray was giving Avalon the choice. At first she thought he was crazy, and for a fleeting moment she considered attacking him. If she could get the MFI out of his hands, she could do what she should have done in the first place. But something had happened back in that Tank—something that Cray needed to protect.

Lea eased off, letting him play it out.

“This is my thing, Avalon,” Cray told the free agent. “And you need to decide. CSS is probably on their way up right now.”

Avalon hesitated. She stepped back to check the corridor, then turned back toward them when it was obvious she detected nothing. It was also obvious that she believed at least part of what Cray said. She put her glasses back on and examined him coldly, sizing up his intentions.

“You would come, willingly?” she asked.

Cray gestured back toward Lea. “To keep the girl alive,” he said, “yes.”

Avalon could barely disguise her contempt.

“Your word that she lives,” Cray demanded, “and we’ll both come with you. Or we can all die here, Avalon. It’s your choice.”

For a moment, Lea believed that the free agent would choose death, a spectacular end to a warrior’s life—but that would not satisfy her utmost need. If she were to watch Cray die, it would have to be at her own hand. Nothing else would do.

But to take him to Phao Yin—
that
held much more promise of suffering.

“I won’t kill her,” Avalon promised. “Not until she gives me a reason.”

Lea started to protest—but then she stifled herself, because she understood what Cray was doing. He just was buying her time—time enough to stay alive, time enough to figure a way out. It was far better than what CSS would offer—but it still filled Lea with horror to hear Cray speak the word out loud.

“Deal,” he said.

The hovercraft lifted off amidst a battery of ground flak, scattershot beams that rocketed up from the plaza and exploded around the small ship. Avalon eased herself into the fireworks, taking a few glancing blows before punching it through the overflight grid and into the free-departure routes. Lea glanced back and saw the Works spin away beneath her, then sink back into Manhattan and the obscurity of a million other lights.

The ship was buffeted a few more times as it encountered some turbulence, turning to the south and a path that took it out over the open ocean. Avalon climbed up to ten thousand meters, then assumed a parallel course some fifty kilometers from the coast. Through her window in the back seat, Lea could make out only a thin line on the horizon, far away from the Port Authority tracking stations. She then looked down into the black void of the Atlantic, where her thoughts cleared and drifted.

“I lost contact with Funky,” she said quietly.

Cray stirred next to her, uneasy at the mention of it.

“What?” she asked.

Cray drew breath to speak, but couldn’t meet her eyes when he did.

“Funky’s dead.”

“How—?” she began, realizing she had known on some instinctive level. Funky would never have abandoned her like that, not as long as he was still alive. But to hear Cray say it, and with such finality, made it all the more real. And all the more painful.

She swallowed hard, then asked: “How did you know?”

“I picked up on some Directorate transmissions while I was in the Tank,” Cray explained, his tone distant. “Emergency traffic. They lost contact with the whole fusion cluster—some kind of catastrophic failure.”

“That doesn’t mean anything.”

“A satellite pass confirmed it.” He rubbed his eyes tiredly. “The main station was completely destroyed.”

Lea’s jaw set firmly.

“How could you know what the Directorate was saying?” she asked. “When did you have time to jack their communications?”

“I didn’t.”

“Then where is this coming from?”

“I hear everything now,” Cray muttered. “Every goddamned thing.”

He passed the MFI over to her, immersing his face in the shadows so she couldn’t see him. He stayed that way, huddled and alone, not speaking but hopelessly connected. Lea observed him for a time, breathing but not breathing, heart beating solely out of reflex—going through all the motions of life, pretending. It was clear that he wanted out, yet still he hung on. Lea wished she could understand why.

She ran her fingers along the contours of the MFI, engaging the screen and watching the keys light up. It would have been an easy matter to end it right there. Perhaps that was the option Cray was giving her. But she was curious, and there were things she had to know. Otherwise, it would all be useless—and her death, however noble, would have no meaning.

“We’ll be on the ground in five minutes,” Avalon said from the cockpit. She turned back toward her passengers, raising an eyebrow at Cray’s condition. She also noticed that Lea was holding the bomb, and addressed her directly. “I have an SOT standing by to take us to Phao Yin. It’s time for you to give up your little toy.”

Lea’s eyes narrowed.

“You didn’t think I would do it,” she said.

“I saw the way you handled those agents,” Avalon replied. “You know what you’re doing with that quicksilver. You might even have the guts to push that button.” She gestured toward Cray. “But not as long as
he’s
around.” She seemed to pity Lea—almost. “Didn’t take long for Alden to get under your skin, did it?”

“About as long as it took with you.”

Avalon held out her hand.

“Give it to me,” she ordered.

Lea turned the MFI off and handed it over. As the free agent tucked the device away, Lea wondered if Avalon would kill her right away, while Cray was watching. For a moment it seemed possible—but then Avalon returned her attention to the controls, making a sharp turn to the west and heading inland. A minute later they were down on the deck, a frothy mist of ocean spray forming on the windows as they approached the coast.

“Baltimore free flight,” Avalon signaled. “This is SAM 61. Request priority clearance.”

The SOT was a charter, parked in a private hangar and flanked by armed CSS. That was how it appeared from the tarmac, and the impression was a good one. It wasn’t until she got close that Lea noticed the swagger and loose discipline, and she realized the troops were a contingent of Zone agents wearing corporate uniforms. Whatever Phao Yin was paying the Authority, he must have been into them for a damned fortune.

All their weapons were trained on Cray the moment he stepped off the hovercraft. Lea was amazed at how they stood back to let him pass, as if their guns offered them little protection. They
knew
this man, the way they knew a ghost story—and they regarded him with a reverence that ran the line between hatred and terror. Avalon was the only one who would get near him—and from their reaction to her, Lea guessed the agents feared her almost as much. They kept their distance the entire time, footsteps falling into spontaneous unison as they shadowed their prisoners into the hangar.

The engines of the SOT were already running at idle, fully prepared for liftoff. Avalon went ahead of Cray and Lea, stopping briefly to speak with one of the pilots, who was waiting for them at the bottom of the boarding stairway. Avalon then motioned for them to come forward.

Cray walked right past her, not saying a word. Lea started to follow him into the aircraft, but paused after a couple of steps. She turned and looked down at Avalon, if only to let the free agent know she had not surrendered completely.

“Where are you taking us?” she asked.

Avalon’s features were pale and enigmatic beneath long wisps of perfectly black hair. A cold breeze made them quiver against her cheek.

“Ask your friend Zoe.”

She then clamped down on Lea’s arm, and dragged her up the stairs. It was an impersonal act of violence, meant only to reassert Avalon’s dominance. Lea put up a brief struggle, but only out of pride. Avalon was much stronger, and tossed her into the cabin with hardly a backward glance. Lea barely managed to stay on her feet and had to steady herself by holding on to one of the passenger seats. By then the aircraft was already rolling, backing its way out of the hangar.

“Come on,” Cray said, appearing at her side. “You better sit down.”

Lea was passive, allowing him to guide her to the back of the aircraft. Cray lowered her into one of the seats and buckled her in. The SOT moved past the taxiway, and accelerated fast toward liftoff. After a few moments, Lea felt the ground retreat beneath her. Then the anger began to set in, displacing every other sensation.

Cray took a seat across the aisle from Lea. The space he put between them was not lost on her. Nor his cautious posture.

“You okay?”

“I will be.” Lea sighed, drawn into the black mirror of her window. “As soon as I give Miss Congeniality there a taste of her own juice.” Her head lolled back toward him. “How about you?”

“I’ll live.”

“You don’t sound too happy.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“If I’m going to die,” she pointed out, “at least you could be good company.”

Cray downshifted into guilt. Lea smiled, reaching across the aisle to squeeze his hand.

“Relax,” she said. “I’m not dead yet.”

“Hell of a lot of good it did.” Cray fell into his chair, isolating himself further. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“You talking about the part where you and Lyssa get blown to kingdom come?” Lea waved him off. “Too Butch and Sundance for my taste. I like how you handled it—smooth, but mysterious.”

“It was the only way I could think of to get you out of there.”

She raised an eyebrow.

“Simple as that?”

“There are other reasons,” Cray said. “But that was prime. If I thought Phao Yin would kill you outright, I wouldn’t have done it.”

“Yin is insane. There’s no telling what he’ll do.”

“He’ll do what he always does. As long as he thinks you’re useful, you’ll stay alive.”

“And he’s bound to find me useful because of my past experiences with the
Inru,
” Lea finished for him, not hiding her disgust. “What a choice. I get to be Phao Yin’s bitch, or I get to be dead.”

“If that’s what it takes,” Cray told her. “All that matters is finding a way out. If that means giving your loyalty to Yin, so be it.” After a hard pause, he added: “It’s a better deal than Funky got.”

“That wasn’t your fault, Cray,” Lea said. “If anybody’s responsible, it’s me. I punched his ticket the minute I sent Zoe out. He wouldn’t have been there if I hadn’t taken him in.”

“I could have gone to see Lyssa alone.”

“Then it would be me back on that station, along with Funky. One way or the other, it comes up the same.” Lea reached over and turned his face toward hers, forcing him to see her. “And you’re forgetting—
I’m
the one who got
you
involved. Anybody else, we’d probably all be dead by now. If you ask me . . . it’s fate.”

Cray took her hand in his. She responded to him in kind, brushing her fingers against his skin. That same electricity was there, but somehow different. The intensity had not diminished; it was now just a matter of control. At the start of Cray’s Ascension, Lea was uncertain whether the machine or the man would emerge dominant. It wasn’t a question anymore.

“You really believe there’s such a thing?”

“Yeah.” She smiled. “I do.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Because everything in my life has been chaos,” Lea said. “Now, everything seems so clear. I don’t think that happens by accident.”

“Then tell me what you see.”

She shook her head.

“Not what I see,” she said. “Just what I missed.”

“What’s that?”

“The chance to get to know you. We could’ve been pretty good together.”

“We
are
good together,” he said. “The rest of it just didn’t work out.”

“We still have now.”

Lea drew closer. The way he looked reminded her of the first time she had seen him in Vienna. She had been playing with him then, and he played her right back. But now, this thing was
real
. It was the only thing that felt real to her.

“It’s not much,” he said.

“It never is,” Lea replied, and kissed him.