She watched his legs twitch, kicking the horse into motion. He urged the big mount up to a slow trot, past the laden mules and their drivers. She leaned against the tarp, feeling the sun on her face. Same old sun, she thought. Never changing. She knew that wasn’t strictly true. Folk like Silver would correct her. The Sun changed every day. It set and rose, ignorant of human stupidities like deception and guile. She smiled to herself, listening with eyes closed for the approach of the big horse and rider.
When she judged him close by the sound, she opened her eyes. Looking down on him, she met his gaze levelly. She smiled, her best Fuck You smile. He was big. A really big man, on a really big horse. Handsome enough, she thought. But he was Unit, and that meant he was old enough to see through most of the simpler games she could play. The easy gambits. She saw him nerving himself to speak, and cut him off.
“They call you the Archer,” she said, still showing teeth. “Like with a bow and arrow?”
He licked his lips and nodded, twitching his horse clear of a pothole in the roadbed. “What are you doing?” he asked.
“Enjoying the sunshine,” she said. “This area gets the best sun, and the tarp stays warm all day. I often come up here and sit in the afternoons.”
A lie. She watched him as he noticed it. His lip curled slightly, she saw it, even though he was on horseback a dozen paces from her. She noticed. He nodded to the pile of supplies. “That’s Unit gear. So don’t sit on it. Just don’t fuck with it, OK?”
Ordnance? Had Warren loaded explosives onto Truck? Was that what his clumsy surveillance was all about? She made a show of looking over the tarp-covered pile. “Looks like tents and camp furniture to me, Marine. Why you so interested?”
“Just leave it alone, OK?” He said, growing testy. She heard it in his voice, a slight tremor and change of timbre. “I’m responsible for that stuff.”
“Seems odd,” Gold said, leaning back onto the waist-high pile of gear, feeling the sway and pitch of Truck’s passage over the uneven, eroded roadbed. “Odd that Warren wanted you to keep an eye on her tent.” She leaned towards him, holding onto the ropes binding the tarp. “What else is under here?”
“Unit stuff,” he repeated. “None of your damn business.”
She grinned at him, but didn’t push it. Men were so easy, even big, strapping, thousand-year-old Marines. Maybe especially them. “Fair enough, Archer. Tell you what, when we camp, come on by. We’ll have some of that hooch you guys make, swap some lies by the fire.”
He shook his head and spurred his horse ahead. She watched him go. He was big. She shook her head. Big men made terrible fighters, in her experience. Bigger targets, slow to move, run, and dodge. She didn’t fear him, or any of the Unit that she’d seen so far, in a one-on-one fight. Hand to hand, she didn’t fear them. But they were, as Silver kept telling her, crafty. More so than your average grunt. She wasn’t sure. Warren, for instance, hadn’t struck her as terribly clever.
She worked her way back down to the top of the cage. She peeked inside. Li had settled back down in her pallet to sleep. She avoided the sun as much as she could. Too pale, she had said, through Truck, which made communication almost pointless, since half the camp could hear his blaring voice, and he seemed to have forgotten how to modulate his speaker volume. Everything was on full blast. Maybe he was breaking down, she thought.
She sat down on the top of the cage. Smoke turned to look at her. “What was that about?”
She shook her head. “Lies and lies, my friend.” The words came out unbidden. She smiled at him. “They forget who they’re dealing with.”
He grinned back. The old Smokey grin that she knew from their many years together. Years spent hunting, mostly, for Silver. While she hid out in the jungle of Vietnam or under their noses in California. She glanced ahead, trying to pick out Silver’s slim figure among the assembled horsemen. They were kicking up too much dust for her to see clearly, but she knew Silver was there, somewhere. She glanced down at the prone form of Li, one slim ankle poking out from under her blanket. There would be problems between them, she knew. Li was, not the cause, but maybe a catalyst. She pushed the thought aside, and thought about their next steps.
They arrived, finally. She guided Truck in close to Dutchman, and saw Carter sitting on the cargo ramp, black rifle across his lap. She waved to him. He waved back, and called back over his shoulder. After a moment, she saw Silver come down the ramp. She was stripped to the waist, coveralls thrown back, wearing only a thin tank-top stained with grease. She held a wrench in one hand. Gold felt her heart beating in her chest. She waved. Silver raised the wrench in mock salute.
Truck chuffed into his shutdown cycle, suspension settling. She clambered down, Smoke climbing down behind her. They were in a wide courtyard, a row of massive steel gantries rusting along one side of it. The air off the steppe was clean and clear, blowing the dust of the thousand horsemen away to the east. Silver embraced her. Gold smelled sweat, grease, and solvent.
“Dutchman OK?” she asked, nodding at the wrench. “You doing repairs?”
“Breaking down the bag in the morning,” she said. “Going onto one of the railcars.”
“They big enough?” Gold asked, surprised.
“Yeah,” Silver said, nodding to Smoke. “There’s room for Truck, too. Damn thing was built to move a hundred cargo containers at a pop, so we’re good. They claim it’s in good order, all the way to the complex.”
“You believe them?” Smoke asked.
Silver peered at him, squinting in the late afternoon light. “Well, they say so. So I take them at their word. They wouldn’t lie about that.”
“Seems hard to believe,” he said. “Tunnels collapse.”
“Apparently these are too deep for that,” Silver said. “We’ll just have to find out.” She grinned. “Where’s your sense of adventure?”
“I left it on a mountainside in Tahoe,” he said drily. He nodded behind her. “Warren’s coming.”
Warren was marching over to them, flanked by a few of her staff. “Silver,” she said perfunctorily. “How’s the breakdown of the airship coming?”
“Almost there. I’ll finish in the morning,” Silver said.
“Finish it tonight,” Warren said. “I want to load first thing in the morning, and ensure you and two others of my staff know how to inflate and fly the thing.”
Silver blinked at her. “I’ll finish in the morning,” she said. “It will take ten minutes.”
“Then spend ten minutes and get it done,” Warren said. She turned to Gold. “That beast is coming too, we may need him.”
“You could ask,” Gold said. “Nicely.”
“Not necessary,” Warren said quickly. “My turf, my rules. We had the same talk,” she said, indicating Silver. “Take orders, or get the fuck out of here.”
Gold spread her hands. “I’m going up the Elevator. With or without your mob,” she said. “I’d like to know what your plans are, so I can decide if they make sense for me and my people.”
“Your people?” Warren laughed. “Your motley crew is along for the ride, and has been mildly useful so far. But we’ve been planning this for a while now. A long while. You don’t get to waltz in at the last minute and fuck things up.”
“Let’s start with the cargo,” Gold said, eyeing her. “Explain what your plans are with that.” Silver and Smoke both swiveled their heads to look at Warren. “Tell them, Warren. Tell them what you plan to do with the nuke you’ve got hidden on the back of Truck.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
The hyperloop train hurtled through the earth in the dark. Silver and Carter sat in the cockpit of the Dutchman, the curve of the clamshell doors of the cargo bay arching over them. They were in the second-to-last car, and would be arriving soon. The ride had been smooth and uneventful, as Warren had predicted. Even the dog thought so, from his perch in the bunk over the doorframe behind them.
Her people had scouted the entire length of the tunnel system regularl
y, in the long years of their exile in China. Even the glaciers hadn’t disturbed it, while they had buried the railhead in hundreds of feet of ice. When those receded, the Unit’s people had salvaged what they could, through long years of labor. They had repaired and rebuilt the depot, and ensured their one train had power.
To Silver, it seemed insane to attempt this. But Warren was adamant. They would pull into the central station, crack open the great clamshell doors and spill out into the complex. Dutchman was air support, courtesy of four hard-eyed troopers armed with an impressive array of matte black weaponry. The troopers, led by Shah, had been courteous and respectful. But Silver suspected they had orders to take command of the Dutchman if Warren ordered it.
She hoped it didn’t come to that, but her days with the Dutchman were likely coming to an end in any case. They were going up if they could. Up the Elevator to whatever was waiting for them up there. The station awaited. The Dutchman would have to wait here, assuming they met no resistance at the station. If they did, which she expected, all bets were off. She could handle Shah. Carter was half ready to shoot him already.
“Eight minutes out!” she called through the passage door. “Sound off!”
“Portside ready!” A burly trooper, all red hair and tattoos, called out.
“Starboard all set!” A small dark woman called, voice high but clear. Anika, Silver remembered. She toted a heavy sniper rifle almost as tall as her. The thing looked old but well cared for, like all their gear.
“Backside ready!” Shah yelled from the back. They had the cargo ramp cranked down to a three-foot gap, and had screwed their mini-gun to the deck. Anything behind them that they wanted to shoot at was in for a surprise. They also had several crates of handheld bombs, from Warren’s stash. Silver had winced at those. They looked homemade, but the Unit troopers seemed comfortable with them. She had declined a walk-through, taking one of the M-16s from her own locker. She gave the other to Carter, and a handgun. She hated guns, but…when in Rome.
She grinned at Carter in the gloom. His beard hid everything but his eyes, which twinkled palely. “Scared?” she asked him.
“Fuck yes,” he breathed. “Never been in a real fight before.”
“You shot up that guy’s boat,” she said. “That was a fight.”
“They barely got a shot off,” he said. “If there are more of those spider things…”
He didn’t finish. She knew what he meant. Chen’s spider avatar was built for law enforcement, and part of law enforcement in the late People’s Republic of China had been crowd control. Riot control. Rebellion crushing. They would be dangerous, lethal, and fast. She didn’t like the others staying on the ground, but had been overruled, by Warren and the rest of them.
Gold wasn’t going to leave Li. Li wouldn’t leave Truck. Smoke wanted to stay near Chen, in case they needed him for any reason. Truck was a huge, lumbering target, but he would offer some protection for Li and by extension those with Li. Silver had demanded that Li extract that promise from him, and she had.
“TRUCK PROTECT LI. TRUCK PROTECT LI’S FRIENDS,” the great earthmover had bleated, voice shatteringly loud in the confines of the final train car. He had backed into the cargo bay carefully, after helping carry the Dutchman to her perch in the next to last car. She’d patted his hood then, and thanked him.
Gold, she’d looked in the eye. Gold had smirked at her. “Go on,” she said, before Silver could speak. “Goodbye sucks. I’ll see you when we go up.”
“When we go up,” Silver had echoed, turning to Li. “Take care of her,” she said in Mandarin. “She is special to me.”
“To me also, Lady,” the girl had said, meeting her gaze evenly. “Good luck.”
Smoke had nodded to her. “Sorry I got you into this,” he said.
“About time I got an apology out of you,” she said, grinning. She shook hands with him. “You OK?”
“Fine,” he said, lips pressed together. He had no weapon.
“Any word?” she asked, in a whisper. Alpha, she meant. He had shaken his head minutely.
She clapped him on the shoulder. Alpha was out of the picture then. Silver had hoped, but time had run out, in the way that time would, she told herself. Things fall apart. Maybe this was a chance for her to put some of those things back together. Or make amends.
“See you up there,” she said to Smoke, and to all of them. They would be with Truck, and she intended, whatever Warren wanted, to keep a close eye on the big yellow vehicle from the air. Wouldn’t be hard, she thought.
Suddenly she felt drag. Deceleration. “We’re slowing,” she said to Carter, though she was sure he felt it. “Head’s up.”
They sat through about a minute of the deceleration. Her radio crackled, static mixed with speech. She couldn’t make it out.
“Dutchman, Dutchman, say again,” she sent. “Over.”
The radio crackled again. “Command, Command, coming up on the valve. Stand by.” Much clearer this time.
The plasma valve. It was what protected the vacuum seal on the tunnel. How they had managed to keep that operable all this time was a mystery to her, but Warren had jerked a thumb at Chen. “His kind,” she said, and stalked off, conferring with her officers. So Chen had been involved. She hadn’t felt like talking to the spider. She didn’t care how they’d done it.
They slowed to a crawl, then, amazingly, to a stop. There was a tremendous whoof of air, as the valve cycled and they were in atmosphere again. The entire train shuddered. Engines whirred into life, and she could hear the great clamshell doors cranking open.
“Get those lines off!” she yelled down the passageway to Shah’s crew. She felt Dutchman sway as they leaped down from the port and starboard doors to unleash the little airship. Dutchman had just fit inside the cargo container car with the bag inflated, which was a lucky break. She knew they couldn’t count on too many more of those.
“Dutchman ready,” she said into the radio, craning her neck to see up and out as the doors cranked open. They were in the main cradle, which Warren had said was clear of the gantries that they’d seen wrecked at the railhead. “Roll on, roll off type stuff,” Warren had said. “They moved into another part for the cargo. “You should be clear to take off as soon as the doors open all the way.”
The plan was for Dutchman to scout the area, be a lookout, and provide close air support, if needed. Silver predicted they would last about a minute. She just hoped she could bring it in for a landing before the bag completely deflated once they started getting shot at.
Warren and her troops were going to advance towards the Elevator complex and secure a lifting frame. This was, according to Warren, one of the cars that had climbed the Elevator, leeching power from the cable itself. They had upper and lower grappling arms, and could pass each other, she said, on the cable by some insectile grapple release and regrabbing. Silver took her word for it. If they got that far, she would figure out how it worked.
Truck would bring up the rearguard, with a contingent of infantry providing protection from any attack from the rear. Silver had probed again about the nuke, and Warren had relented. “Insurance,” she said. “In case we need it.”
“Give me a heads up about that, please,” Silver had said. She’d grabbed Warren’s wrist and held it. Warren looked down at her hand, then up to meet her eyes. “Seriously, if it comes to that.”
“If it comes to that,” Warren had said, removing her fingers from her wrist, “none of us will have warning.”
Silver knew she was right. The nuke was, Warren had said, about a megaton. Enough to level the complex and snap the tether. That might, she said, de-orbit the station unless they were on top of things up there. That was their original objective with this plan. Now, though, they meant to take the complex and hold it. Hold it long enough for some of them to make it up.
It was madness, Silver knew. But Smoke had said they were running out of time, and madness had inertia all its own. She doubted their tenuous coalition wo
uld hold much longer without action to keep them focused and moving in the same direction. She bit her lip and watched the clamshell doors of the train car open with agonizing slowness. Daylight slowly filled the cargo car as the doors split down the middle and opened out.
“Clear,” Carter said, from his side. “We’re clear. Hit it!” His hands were white on the grab-rail of the dashboard as he leaned over. He looked at her, eyes wide, whites showing.
“Not yet,” she said. “Don’t want to shred the bag.” She waited for another ten, twelve seconds, then keyed her mic. “Dutchman, going up.” She hauled on the yoke. The little airship lifted straight up into the flooding daylight.
Into— No, above a city. Buildings stood nearby. Twenty-first, twenty-second century office towers, still vertical. Navigation hazards, she registered them, and checked her mirrors. She saw a broad avenue for road traffic. It bent in a wide arc away to her left, and behind to her left as well. A circle.
A circle around…the Elevator. She saw the main station, abutting the socket, as Warren had named it. A massive concrete structure anchoring the Elevator to the bedrock far below. She had sketched it for them in the dirt, a ball-joint affair that extended deep into the bedrock. She throttled up the fans and aimed Dutchman for the clear air over the circular avenue.
It was a road, she saw, angling Dutchman up for altitude. She fought her instincts, which said to climb over the city and scope things out from a distance that didn’t risk her colliding with a thousand-year old skyscraper. She keyed her mic. “Dutchman, Dutchman, we’re up, doing a circuit around the Elevator complex.” She paused. “You didn’t tell me there was a damned city here.” She keyed again. “Over,” she said, belatedly.
“Command, Command,” came the reply. “We’re moving out. Truck is rolling off now. Over.”
That was it. No further chatter from Warren’s group. She twitched the yoke, following the avenue, which was, she saw, a series of roads, overpasses, and what looked like elevated parks, overgrown and choked with trees. The city was empty, like all cities on the planet, but she could see it. It must have been glorious once.
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