The Burning Skies (7 page)

“I’m not sure I can.”

“Let’s hope Lynx is getting this.”

“We need to coordinate with him,” says the Operative.

“By breaking radio silence?”

“There’s another dedicated landline just ahead. If he’s got the same signal we’ve got he’ll be waiting for us.”

“Another
landline?”

“For sure.”

“How do you know this?”

“Because the coordinates are sitting in my fucking head.”

“They were put there?”

“No, I was born with them,” says the Operative. “And so was Lynx. And we knew a priori from the fucking
cradle
that we had to pursue a certain target along certain trajectories and if that target deviated suddenly we’d need to coordinate in a way that couldn’t be detected by anyone on the zone.” The Operative is pretty much ranting now.
“Obviously
they were put there, asshole!”

“I get that,” snaps Sarmax. “And get this:
this
is why I fucking left. Because these runs always end up with us like rats stuck in some custom-built maze.”

“Though usually not this intricate,” says the Operative.

“Too right,” replies Sarmax. “This whole terrain has been
prepared
. Like some ancient battlefield where they dug the goddamn elephant traps in advance. I mean, that’s what, the tenth camera we’ve seen that’s been ripped out at the wires? God only knows how we fit in. All we’re doing is running against some fucking
program.”

“Speaking of,” says the Operative—he brakes to a halt, turns and pivots onto the wall, and rips a panel aside. The phone that’s revealed is more modern than the last one. It’s already flashing. The Operative pictures the wires that lead away from that phone, wending through walls to wherever Lynx is crouching, completely shorn from all the others in here. Or so he hopes. He picks up the phone.

“Carson,” says Lynx.

“Yeah,” says the Operative—and once again feels something light up within his skull. It’s a sensation he’s almost starting to get used to. This one’s some kind of response to the data he’s been accumulating about their target. Something he needs to tell Lynx.

Right now.

“This just got a lot more difficult,” he says.

“I’ll say,” replies Lynx.

“You just got a newsflash in your head too?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Simple,” says the Operative. “We need to take this thing alive.”

“Like fuck we do,” says Lynx.

L
ights upon a grid, converging on an area about ten klicks south of New London. Tension mounts on the bridge and not a word’s being spoken among the crew. Everything that needs to be said is going down within their heads.

Which can have its drawbacks.

“This is getting tight,” mutters Linehan.

“Tell me about it,” says Spencer.

“Can you see the Platform from up there?”

“I’m on the goddamn bridge, Linehan. Of course I can fucking see it. Where the hell are you now?”

“Sitting in a drop-ship.”

“Doing what?”

“Getting ready to drop, you moron.”

“To the Platform?”

“They’re briefing us on its layout right now.”

“Have they set a countdown?” asks Spencer.

“Not that they’ve told us. Are you seeing one up there?”

“Not a goddamn thing. This whole thing’s compartmentalized pretty tight.”

“They may still be deciding whether to deploy us. Send me downloads of the view from the bridge, will ya? And the camera footage of how that view’s changed since we started orbiting.”

“Done,” says Spencer. “What are you thinking?”

“A lot. What are you seeing up there?”

“There’s some kind of shit going down on the Platform. We’ve got at least two units down there, with multiple signals closing on them.”

“Way too late to tell me
that,”
says Linehan. “Get me the coordinates.”

“Done.”

“Any more data about this thing we’re in?”

“We’re tarted up as a Harappa-class freighter. Registered to a firm in Paris, left the Zurich Stacks in low-orbit two days ago and came straight here.”

“And before that?”

“There was no before. This is our maiden voyage.”

“How convenient.”

“Especially because we’ve been built with a few modifications.”

“Like what?”

“Like the one you’re sitting in. Fast dropship deployment capacity. Looks like there’s four more down there in addition to yours, each full of marines.”

“Packed in like sardines,” says Linehan. “What about the ship’s weaponry?”

“Four heavy directed-energy batteries and two kinetic-energy gatlings. All of it locked away and out of sight.”

“But once they extend those barrels it’s going to be pretty fucking obvious that we’re not a bunch of Swiss carrying second-rate tungsten.”

“It may already be pretty fucking obvious. We’re tracking the Rain and the Rain may be tracking
us.”

“Don’t I know it, Spencer. The officers down here are going on about how we’re going to stop the Rain for good. But the rank-and-file’s saying something else.”

“Don’t put too much stock in rumors, man.”

“You ignore them at your peril, Spencer.”

“So what are they saying?”

“That we’re out to bag ourselves a
witch.”

H
askell’s now off the train and onto another one that’s drawn up alongside—a railcar that’s as off the zone as she can make it, even as the train she’s stepping from hurtles on with one of her decoys enscribed hastily upon it. She’s just over twenty klicks north of the South Pole. She feels like she’s falling in toward it, towed in by the weight of the future. She’s about to break through another defensive screen, but her decoys are going to drop behind her, hang back a little, lead the defenders on a merry little chase that goes exactly nowhere.

Problem is that those defenders are exhibiting some strange behavior. They were starting to respond at first—they looked like they were scrambling. But now they’ve stopped altogether. Have they lost track of the decoys? Are they awaiting orders? Or is there something else that’s going on? Maybe she’s missing something. Because she’s perfectly aware that these aren’t normal defenses. Not down here. The disabled cameras and sensors testify to that. The only working cameras she’s seeing look like they’re newly installed. She’s got her camouflage cranked—she’s hoping that all anyone who’s watching is going to see is just a redeploying railcar. And maybe not even that. Because now her mind’s leaping in to hack those cameras.

And failing. Turns out they’re totally bereft of wireless interface. Haskell wonders where their wires lead. She’s got no
access to them—meaning they’re not connected to the Euro zone. And their feeds aren’t viewable by the Euro police forces, most of which seem to be back at the city anyway. She’s seen the occasional robot sentinel in these tunnels. But she knows that most of the Euro forces that aren’t in New London are stationed at the South Pole mountains, to stop intruders from getting through to the cylinder’s Aerie—in theory. But in practice, she’s got a feeling that the forces controlling the approaches to the asteroid have been
co-opted
. She wonders if the defenders she’s running rings around know that. She accelerates her railcar, skirts past the defenders halted in their tracks, and streaks into the sections of underground that lie beyond.

L
ook,” says the Operative, “it’s really quite simple.”

“This I’m just dying to hear,” says Lynx.

“You already heard it. My orders say targets with this signature get taken alive.”

“That’s not true, Carson.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“I mean my orders say all targets get wasted.”

“Your orders come from me!”

“And
the handlers, Carson, who told me this thing dies.”

“They told me to spare it.”

“When?” asks Lynx.

“It’s on memory trigger. How the fuck should I know?”

“Well, my orders say otherwise.”

“Or so you remember.”

“So? That’s the way this whole thing’s been working.”

“Yeah,” says the Operative, “but now it’s
not
working, is it?”

“While we talk, this thing’s getting away from us!”

“At least it doesn’t seem to be hunting us now.”

“Because it’s probably after something else. Shit man, they
really
told you to spare the target?”

“They really did,” says the Operative.

“Jesus, this isn’t good.”

“You’ve been fucked with.”

“I think it’s the other way around, Carson.”

“Are you really Lynx?”

“Are you really Carson?”

“Of course I’m Carson!”

“Of course you are. The same Carson who pulled my strings so adroitly back on the goddamn Moon. The same Carson who’s had the opportunity for endless off-the-record bullshit. The same Carson who’s got all the higher-ups eating out of his goddamn hand.”

“If they really were, you think I’d have to put up with
this
shit?”

“You think I can’t see what’s going on here, Carson? You think I haven’t figured out your little secret?”

“My
little secret?

“About which I have a theory.”

“What’s your theory?”

“That I’m going to reach this target
first.”

The voice cuts out. The Operative disconnects.

“Sounds like that didn’t go so well,” says Sarmax.

“Why are you pointing that pulse-rifle at me?”

“Like you can’t guess,” says Sarmax. He keeps the weapon trained on the Operative—primes it. There’s a low humming noise.

“This just gets better and better,” says the Operative.

“Shut up,” says Sarmax. “Here’s what’s going to happen.”

• • •

W
hat do you mean,
witch?”

“Knew you were gonna ask me that. I’ve got no fucking idea. And neither does anyone else down here.”

“Well, what else are they fucking saying?”

“Nothing coherent. Just that it’s not just the Rain we’re after. That we’re also gunning for some kind of Rain witch or something. They’ve also used the word
queen
. And some of them are saying it’s not Rain at all, that there’s something else on the loose.”