Black Moon

by L. A. Weatherly

  “Collie?”

  Mac looked sombre. “Yeah. We need to talk to you. The WU doesn’t know I’m here; we snuck in through the tunnels. I couldn’t exactly bring Madame President’s husband into this city in public.”

  Staring at Mac, I sank onto my desk, my thoughts whirling. “What happened the day of the assassination attempt?” I said finally. “Did he explain?”

  “He did. I’ll let him tell it.” When I didn’t respond, he said softly, “It’s okay, Amity. I promise. He’s still with us.”

  I pretended that Mac and I were going to grab a coffee away from base and we left the Grand together, heading towards Monument Park and the hidden tunnel entrance. Mac walked the same way he always had: hands in his trouser pockets, fedora angled down, casting a shadow over his face.

  I knew I wouldn’t get anything out of him until he was ready, and didn’t try. “How did you get into the city, anyway?” I asked as we walked up Concord. I knew the entrance across the river that Ingo and I had found was guarded.

  Mac shrugged. “I’ve got a few contacts in the WU who agree with what Collis and I are trying to do.”

  I took this in uneasily. “So the WU in general wouldn’t agree with it?”

  “I sincerely hope they would. But some of the high-ups sure don’t.” Though Mac seemed troubled, suddenly his gaze narrowed and he glanced at me.

  “Wait…you said Ingo went with you to see your mother in Nova Scotia?”

  I felt my cheeks tinge. “That’s right.”

  “Should I be happy for you too?”

  “Yes,” I admitted, and he grinned broadly, tipping his hat back.

  “Glad to hear it, kiddo. Holy hell, it was painful watching the two of you sometimes.”

  I spotted Harlan then, heading down Concord towards us through the steady flow of pedestrians. Since Vera’s death, he’d kept mostly to himself, though Ingo and I kept trying to reach him.

  As he drew near, I started to introduce Mac to him…and then remembered with a sinking feeling that they’d already met.

  Harlan strode forward, scowling. Before I’d fully registered his intent, he drew back his fist and punched Mac hard across the face.

  The crack of skin against skin rang out. Mac staggered and half-fell against a plate glass window. “Harlan, no!” I cried. I grabbed his arm as he drew back for another punch. “Stop it! Didn’t Vera tell you?” I knew instantly that mentioning her hadn’t helped.

  “What?” spat Harlan. He jerked away. “That he’s supposed to be on the right side? I don’t give a shit! That bastard sentenced thirty-six of our friends to die!”

  Mac slowly straightened, looking shaken but unsurprised. His jaw was already reddening.

  “He risked his life to save as many as he did! I suppose you’d have done better?” I snatched up Mac’s hat from the ground. My voice shook.

  “Yeah, maybe I would have! Like standing up to Gunnison, instead of being his little lackey!”

  Before I could respond, Mac put his hand on my arm, silencing me. “Listen, fella, for what it’s worth, I sure as hell don’t blame you,” he said to Harlan.

  Mac stepped closer to him.

  “Go on,” he said, his voice quiet. “Take another pop at me, if it makes you feel better. I mean it. I wish you would.”

  Harlan’s face was red. “Go to hell,” he snapped. He brushed past me on the sidewalk and kept going.

  Endless pedestrians kept streaming around Mac and me, carrying their shopping or briefcases. I didn’t know what to say.

  Finally Mac blew out a breath and slapped his hat against his palm. He pulled it on and gave me a small, twisted smile. “Just as well I didn’t bring Collis. I have a feeling he’d be even less popular.”

  The tunnels felt the same as always, even with their terrain so changed from all the explosions the year before. Mac had hidden a lantern and knew the way. When he and I finally reached the cavernous chamber of our old rendezvous point, Collie stood in the glow of a flashlight, fidgeting and glancing down at his watch.

  It was like stepping back in time – as if Mac were Dwight, and the assassination attempt had been only hours ago.

  Except that this time when Collie looked up, relief crossed his face.

  He hurried over; we met in the middle of the high, weeping space. “Amity,” he said, putting his hand out.

  We shook. “Collie, what’s going on?” I said slowly.

  We sat on the chilly pipes that had served as benches so many times. Collie and Mac glanced at each other. Collie rubbed his palms on his trousers and then leaned forward, elbows on knees.

  “All right, well…I guess we should just jump right into it,” he said. “I know you must have wondered what the hell was going on back in September, when you saw me after the assassination attempt.”

  “You could say that,” I said dryly. Part of me was still amazed I hadn’t shot him that day.

  Collie seemed to guess my thought. His small smile was rueful. “A few minutes before the attempt, Kay was called out of the meeting,” he said. “I went after her and overheard her talking on the phone with General Keaton. She was telling him about World United’s attacks in the south west and far north, and asking about something called ‘Black Moon’ – whether it could still go ahead against Florence in February.”

  I tensed. Florence – forty miles from Ingo’s home. “What’s Black Moon?”

  Collie’s gaze didn’t falter. “The code name for a planned nuclear strike.”

  Shock lashed through me. I saw the stolen photos again in a mental jumble – the bombs, the smiling scientists.

  “She was actually going to do it?” I whispered.

  Collie rubbed his fist. “Yeah.”

  None of us spoke for a moment. From somewhere water dripped, echoing.

  “See…Kay’s kind of superstitious about astrology,” Collie said into the silence. “I’d been seeing charts with that heading for months. I guessed it meant a lunar eclipse; I just didn’t know what she had planned for it.”

  He gave a short, unhappy laugh. “Anyway, that’s what it meant. When the moon was totally dark here, a nuclear bomb would go off in the EA.”

  A mushroom cloud against a shadowed moon. The image chilled me in its power. I could see its appeal…if you were Kay Pierce.

  “And this was a good reason not to kill her?” I said shakily.

  “Yes,” Collie said simply. “Everything about the plan was in place. She was going to launch the strike, then send ground troops in at strategic points to take over the European Alliance. And from there the world, I guess – she was still trying to make more nukes. I was afraid that getting rid of Kay wouldn’t stop it. That with her and Cain gone, Keaton would just grab power from Weir and go ahead on his own.”

  Collie frowned and glanced down at his hands. The glint of his wedding ring looked surreal in a way that Mac’s hadn’t.

  “I didn’t know the scale of World United then,” he went on in a low voice. “And I don’t have any influence with Keaton. The only way out I could see…was if Kay lived. Then I could stall her and help the right people get rid of the nukes.”

  Suddenly it all came together. I studied his strong-featured face in the lantern light, realizing with dread the position he’d been in. He’d known exactly what tipping Kay off would do to the Resistance.

  “All right,” I said, my throat thick. “I get it.”

  Mac looked grim. “There’s more, Amity.”

  “The day I saw you down here, I mentioned I was leaving the city,” said Collie. “I’ve been making trips out to the far north.”

  “Go on.”

  “We hadn’t known World United even existed until they attacked.” He lifted a shoulder. “Lucky for me, Kay needed someone she could trust. She’s been sending me up there to help fortify the area and liaise with Atomic Harmony Devices.”

  We, I noticed he’d said. He seemed unconscious of it – yet here he was, helping us.

  “So I played alon
g for months,” said Collie. “I managed to persuade her to put the strike off until another eclipse this summer. Meanwhile she kept sending me up north to check on things. I knew all the fortification details. But the whole region’s thick with security, even for me. Finally back in April, I managed to get away on my own and gave myself up to the WU. They got in touch with Mac to verify me.”

  He gave Mac a slight smile. “I thought Mac wasn’t going to do it at first.”

  “Well, hell, buddy; I got shot because of you,” said Mac easily.

  Collie glanced back at me. “Anyway…I told the WU all I knew.”

  “That’s how they were able to seize the nuclear weapons factory and the mine at Harmony Five,” added Mac. “Collis told them exactly where the weaknesses in the defences were.”

  A wondering smile grew across my face as I stared at Collie. Our greatest triumphs in the war had been because of him. I wished fervently that Hal was here, that he could know this immediately.

  “Good for you,” I whispered. “Collie, I mean it.”

  “Not as good as I thought, as it turned out.” He sighed. “Amity…the thing is…” He hesitated, glancing at Mac.

  “All right, kiddo, here’s the deal,” said Mac quietly. “The WU has the nuclear weapons now. There are still two bombs. They plan to use them.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  The world dropped out from under me. “What?”

  Mac’s eyes were sympathetic. “Go on, Collis, tell her.”

  Collie rapped a fist against his thigh. “Okay, well…you’ve heard that the WU destroyed the factory when they took it over. It turns out that’s not true. As the scientists retreated, they blew up a lot of it themselves, so that the WU couldn’t get their hands on it.”

  “But the WU wouldn’t want to…” I started, and then trailed off. “What about the bombs?”

  “The scientists didn’t have time to move them when they retreated. Those things are heavy, and have to be specially handled. So the WU has them now.”

  Thinking back, I realized that the WU never claimed that the bombs themselves had been destroyed…only the means to make them.

  “I managed to meet with the WU one more time, after they got the nukes,” Collie said. “They were asking lots of questions about Kay’s ground troops – whether I couldn’t make her back off. I couldn’t have even if I’d tried. She’s…” He stopped, glancing at his ring. An expression I couldn’t read crossed his face.

  “Very determined,” he said quietly. “But their tone made me suspicious. I sneaked a look at some paperwork I wasn’t supposed to see. They’ve had heavy losses – they want the war over with as soon as possible. And so…there was a proposal to launch nuclear strikes against Calgary and Puget to put an end to it.”

  The darkness pressed against us. I felt clammy as I stared at him. Calgary and Puget were the remaining strongholds for Pierce in the north. “This can’t be true,” I said faintly.

  Mac sighed. “I’ve got some high-up WU buddies. When Collis came to me with this, I was able to check it out. It’s true, all right…and now they’ve decided to go ahead.”

  My voice rose. “They can’t. They can’t. We’re supposed to be on the right side!”

  “They’re calling it a ‘strike for peace’.” Mac gave a short, humourless laugh. “See, the idea is that it’s going to end the war. So it’s for peace.”

  “Calgary’s got over two hundred thousand people!” I cried. “Puget’s got millions.”

  “I know, Amity. I know.”

  Collie rubbed his forehead. “And remember I said I convinced Kay to wait until another eclipse?” he said tonelessly. “The WU’s going ahead then too; the timing works for them. They’re even using the same Black Moon code, as a kind of…statement against Kay.”

  “When?” I said finally.

  “Calgary the day after tomorrow,” said Mac. “Then Puget after that, if Kay doesn’t surrender.”

  “Which she won’t,” Collie put in softly. “I know her.”

  A few days. Ingo and I had spent over a month in Calgary, holed up in a Resistance safe house. It was where we’d first started to fall in love. We knew people in the Resistance there. And Puget was a major city. I recalled its teeming docks, its skyscrapers.

  Mac’s gaze was steady. “I’ve been doing some nosing. I’m afraid it’s even worse than that, kiddo.”

  I stared at him. “How can it be worse?”

  “Pierce was close to producing more bombs when the factory was destroyed. Now the WU’s rebuilding it. They plan to pick up where she left off.”

  “But…that doesn’t even make sense! The WU is the whole world, apart from Can-Amer. If they’re ending the war, who would they use new bombs against?”

  “They think it’ll be a deterrent – that more bombs will ensure peace for ever.” At my expression, Mac gave a weary shrug. “I know. It’s nuts. Listen, this is all classified – most of the WU don’t even know. And not everyone who does agrees; some are reacting just like us. But the high-ups who count have pushed it through.”

  Mac played with his lighter. In a low voice, he said, “To my mind, the scariest thing is that it may be ‘World United’ for now – but the world’s sure as hell never gotten along, has it? Look at how busy you Peacefighters always were.”

  My thoughts had been ticking coldly along the same route. “The WU will probably disband within a year or so after all this ends,” I murmured.

  “Yep,” said Mac. “Then there’ll be some jockeying for position…one or two powers will get hold of the bombs…someone else might grab the mine and the technology…”

  Stricken, I glanced around us at the debris in the tunnel – relics from a lost time.

  This was exactly how the ancients had destroyed themselves.

  Collie cleared his throat. “I’d have gotten to Mac sooner with this, but Kay found out I helped the WU and I was arrested. I was able to bribe the guard when it got out whose side I was on – she’s lost a lot of support at ground level. But then it took me…oh, hell. Way too long to steal an auto and get back here. Three thousand miles.”

  I was hardly listening. “No,” I murmured. My fist was tight. “This cannot happen. We have to do something!”

  Collie’s smile was tinged with worry. “Yeah, we were kind of counting on you feeling that way.”

  Mac propped his forearms on his thighs, his brown eyes locking on mine in the lantern light. “Look…we’ve got a plan, Amity. It’s dangerous as hell though. And it all comes down to you. But if we succeed, we destroy those nukes – no one gets bombed. And we do away with the world’s capacity to ever make the damn things again.”

  My heart clenched. “Start talking.”

  Collie explained how, if I agreed, he’d fly with me to the Yukon. Any plane I took would need to stop for refuelling – as “Mr Kay Pierce”, he could help me cross Can-Amer.

  “Kay hasn’t publicly announced my arrest and execution order.” Collie’s smile was slightly bitter. “So to most of Can-Amer, I’m still one of the most important people in the country.”

  Mac picked up the thread then, describing how once I was in the Yukon, I’d go on alone to Atomic Harmony Devices. There, with Mac’s help from New Manhattan, I’d hopefully be able to convince the powers that be that the orders had changed and Wildcat was now scheduled to pilot the bomber.

  “You’re the only pilot in the world who could get away with it, kiddo,” Mac said intently. “It makes sense that they’d want someone who’s got the public behind her to do this. I’m surprised they didn’t ask you for real.”

  I rubbed my arms, chilled. “Okay…let’s say I manage it. What then? I’ve never even flown a bomber.”

  “The ones they plan to use for the nukes are single-crew planes,” put in Collie. “A little larger than a long-distance Merlin – you’d be fine.”

  Mac had lit a cigarette. He gazed down at its red glow in his hands and said slowly, “So you’d fly the bomber with both nukes
up into the mountains. You’d drop one of the bombs somewhere harmless in the wilderness, from a high enough altitude that you’re safe…and then the other one on the mine at Harmony Five.”

  I stiffened.

  “The camp and mine are empty of people now,” Mac added. “But since they’re rebuilding the factory, it’s a sure bet they’ll start mining there again.”

  The dark chamber around us faded into a jumble of memories: marching through the snow into the mine every day. Its indescribable noise and swirling dust. A Gun whipping both Ingo and me as we worked at the rock crusher.

  Hard joy came at the thought of annihilating that place.

  From the look in Collie’s eyes, he knew how I felt.

  “Would that really do it?” I said roughly. “Get rid of those bombs for ever?”

  Mac nodded. “Gunnison did survey after survey – the world’s uranium is almost depleted. Without that mine, that’s it; no one can make any more.”

  I tapped the pipe I was sitting on, thinking. “Okay, this doesn’t sound all that dangerous. Unless you mean I’d probably be arrested afterwards.”

  “It’s dangerous, all right.” Collie rubbed the back of his neck. “Amity…these bombs…” He sighed. “See, when one explodes…say, over a city…first there’s a blast of radiation. Then a massive shock wave, like a huge wind rushing from the blast. The scientists said it’d topple skyscrapers like toys for miles.”

  I sat frozen, picturing the buildings of Calgary and Puget.

  “Then seconds later, a giant fireball erupts in the epicentre,” said Collie. “Over six thousand degrees Celsius. It vaporizes everything in its path.”

  “How ‘giant’?” I got out.

  “Half a mile across, maybe?” Collie looked down, playing with his cuffs. “The blast effectively creates a vacuum. So after a minute, the wind comes rushing back from the opposite direction, destroying whatever’s still standing. It fans the fireball. The scientists reckoned you could get a firestorm two or three miles across in just a few minutes. And that’s not even going into what happens to people who get radiation poisoning…”

  I felt sick. “Stop,” I whispered.