Smoke's Fire

by Rich X Curtis

  “Who was going?” She looked ahead, following him. They were entering a large concourse area, which followed the curve of the narrowing circumference of the entire place. A circle, surrounding the Elevator.

  “Techies, mostly. Orbital construction people,” Shah said. “I had a cousin who worked up there, for years. He said it was like a big hollow potato, up there. It was iron, he said. Big hunk of iron. We did video calls with him a few times. It’s like an asteroid they captured. Big place, all tunneled out.” He pointed. “There’s the CP, let’s go.”

  Silver followed his arm to see a knot of figures, and picked out Warren from one group. “Hey can you find a medic for Carter?” she said to Shah. She turned to go.

  He nodded, then held her arm lightly. “People know who he is,” he said. “Word gets around.”

  She looked at him. “Really?” she asked. “None of that shit matters anymore. Get over it.” She brushed his hand off. “You take care of him,” she said. “I’m holding you directly responsible for his health. Anything happens to him, expect the same from me.”

  He frowned, but nodded. “Long time ago,” he said. “I hear you.”

  She turned and stalked off, angling for Warren and her staff. It looked like their meeting was breaking up. Warren looked up at a word from one of her staff, alerting her to Silver’s approach.

  Warren smiled at her. She had a bandage on one hand, and carried a sawed-off shotgun in the crook of her other arm. “Thought we wouldn’t see you again,” she said. “Heard reports you crashed.”

  “We did crash,” Silver said. “They were expecting us.”

  Warren nodded. “Figured that out, did you?”

  “You knew they were still here?” Silver asked. “Would have been nice to know.”

  “Know is a strong word,” Warren said. “We suspected there would be resistance, and there was, but we’re here now. We hold the complex, we hold the Elevator.” She shrugged. “Nobody said this soldiering business would be easy.”

  “Gold and the others?” Silver asked. She would get nowhere with Warren.

  “There,” Warren pointed with her bandaged hand towards the large arch leading outside. “They won’t leave Truck, so…that’s where they are.” She looked at Silver. “So what’s next?”

  Silver blinked at her. It occurred to her that Warren might not have many plans beyond this point. She’d accomplished something she probably hadn’t thought would be possible, getting her troops past the defense. “We find a way up,” Silver said. “Has anybody checked for cars?”

  Warren nodded. “First thing we did,” she said. “No cars. No cargo frame. Nothing.” She shrugged. “We’re at the bottom of a well, and there’s no bucket to stand in.” She walked over to a bank of metal chairs, their cushions long since turned to windblown dust, and sat. She looked at her hand, a spot of blood seeping through the bandage.

  “How’d you catch that?” Silver asked, changing the subject from their predicament.

  “Spider leg,” she said. “When they rushed us. Speared right through it. I got him, though.” She patted the shotgun, then looked up at Silver. “Should heal up eventually,” she said.

  “They let us get in here,” Silver told her, suspicions firming up in her mind. “Somebody wants us in here.”

  Warren pursed her lips, then nodded. “Thought had crossed my mind,” she admitted. “Getting here…we took losses but they weren’t what they should have been.” She looked around. “They held back, and then, towards the end, they just…evaporated.” She shook her head. “So I think you might be right.”

  “They herded me and Carter and Shah here,” Silver told her. “We tangled with them, but they could have easily run us down.” She spread her hands. “Somebody wants us here.”

  Warren looked at her. “Oh, you should know…” She grimaced, the spot was getting bigger. “Our friend Chen defected.”

  Silver blinked, snapped out of her reverie. “Our friend? Your friend you mean,” she said. “And how did that happen, without legs?” Truck had plucked the spider’s legs off, one at a time.

  “Get the story from your friend Goldie over there,” she said. “I need a nap.” She lay back and folded her arm over her eyes. “Sounds like she took her eye off the prize. Got salty with me when I bitched at her about it”

  Silver sighed. “I’ll talk to her,” she said. Just what she needed, she thought to herself, as she left Warren. Chen defecting sounded bad…that spider was treacherous enough already. Maybe Smoke could do something about that, she mused.

  She found Gold propped atop the cage on Truck, carefully loading rifle magazines from an ammo box. Gold looked down at her and nodded. “Glad you made it,” she said, as Silver climbed up. “Thought we might have seen the last of you.”

  “Not getting rid of me that easy,” Silver said, relating their recent adventures. Gold nodded when she had finished.

  “We had a similar experience,” she said, sliding another shell into a magazine. “They hit us in the flanks, which was the right move, strung out like we were. But then they fell back.” She shook her head. “They wanted us to get in here, and after they took Chen, well, they just retreated.”

  Silver nodded. “What does Smoke say? He knew Chen, didn’t he?”

  “Not much,” Gold nodded towards the back of Truck, where Smoke sat on the rear fender, furthest from the entrance. Truck was parked blocking most of the large arched entrance to the station, and the Unit troopers were busy building barricades to his left and right. Silver saw metal banks of chairs, office partitions, even an old Coke vending machine, paint faded to a dull pink. Gold shrugged. “He’s been pretty spacey lately.”

  The barricades were tissue paper against any kind of barrage, but they would hopefully slow the spiders down if they rushed them here. Presumably the other troopers were locking down any other entrances.

  “I’ll talk with him,” Silver said. “Maybe he can tell us something useful.” She paused. “Your girl alright?”

  Gold nodded, but didn’t look up from her work. Snick, snick, snick. She loaded the shells into the magazine like a machine. She had at least ten magazines loaded already.

  “Think you have enough?” Silver asked.

  Gold kept her eyes on her work. Her hands moved, smooth, sure, and quick. “They come fast, they move fast. There are a lot of them.” She finished the magazine she was loading, and held it out to Silver. “We’ll need a lot of bullets.”

  “You know as well as I do that if they wanted us all dead, we’d be dead,” Silver said. “I saw dozens, maybe hundreds of them.”

  Gold shrugged. “So we’ll need lots of bullets.”

  “They want us here,” Silver said. “They herded us.”

  Gold looked at her. “So? If they want us so bad, where are they? What,” she said, picking up another magazine, “are they waiting for?”

  Silver pursed her lips. Gold was stubborn, but not wrong. If you had time to prepare, you prepared. She nodded and got up to talk with Smoke. Gold didn’t look up from her loading.

  Silver climbed over Truck’s broad back to the rear fender, where Smoke sat. He was in lotus position, lost in thought it seemed to her. His eyes were closed, face placid and peaceful.

  “Napping?” she said gently. He opened his eyes and peered at her.

  “Glad to see you,” he said. “I mean it.” He squinted his eyes at her. “Heard you crashed.”

  “Carter managed to stick the landing,” she said. “We walked back.”

  “Spiders let you pass?” Smoke said. He didn’t sound surprised. “I think they let us get in here.”

  “Yeah, herded,” Silver agreed. “Not sure what their game is.”

  “Chen is with them,” he said. “They snatched him. I think he was communicating with them. They came right for him.”

  “That’s what I wanted to talk with you about,” she said, sitting down on Truck’s broad fender. “What is his mindset? Do you know?”

  Smoke consider
ed this for a moment. “He’s a machine, so I can’t know it. Not really.” He sighed. “Alpha could tap him…we had the keys to his system, but she’s not here right now so…” He spread his hands. “I think he wants to kill everybody. He said so, more or less, the last time we…spoke.”

  Silver looked at him. She could easily forget how odd a creature Smoke was. He had a link, of some kind, to Alpha, the AI that they had…liberated from its original creators. Alpha was the early model of all the AI systems that had proliferated on this world. She was the progenitor of Chen and all his kind. And she lived, as far as Silver could tell, inside Smoke’s head. When she was here, which she currently was not. Bad luck, but couldn’t be helped. Silver wasn’t sure she wanted to put her trust in any AI system, Alpha or the Center. Their motives were…unclear. Just like Chen’s. Kill everybody?

  She’d had that thought herself a time or two. Had even brainstormed ways to do it. She remembered huddling in a tunnel with her squad of killers in Thailand, waiting for nightfall. How to do it? Return to the US, infiltrate the military, cause a launch of the US nuclear arsenal. She’d thought it through, she could do it. There was even, she’d later read, a bunker in the Soviet hinterlands with a massive cache of bombs that could kill every living thing on the planet if you just set them off in situ. She knew her capabilities. She or Gold could have managed it. If we’d put our minds to it, we could’ve done it, she mused. Gotten off the wheel, as Gold said. Ended it, and skipped all of this.

  She wondered whatever happened to that bunker. Probably still there, buried under scree from the glaciers, leaking into the groundwater with all the other bombs. The whole planet was probably riddled with hotspots just from all the reactors that got left unattended after the Bloom. She was surprised the Unit had fared so well.

  “So, what’s next then?” she asked Smoke. “You think he’ll attack?”

  Smoke looked at her, holding her eyes with his. He shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “We’re here, but there’s no Elevator car. They tell you that?” He nodded when she did. “So I don’t know what we’re doing. I think Warren wants to blow the whole place with her nuke.” He pointed with one hand towards the interior of the station. “Her big man came and took it, once we got here.”

  She nodded. “Already had that chat with Warren. I don’t think she has much of a plan here either.” She looked at him. “Not beyond getting us up there, anyway.” She motioned upward. “Have you even seen that Elevator?”

  “Can’t see it,” Smoke said. “At least, according to Warren you can’t. It’s like molecules thin, held in some kind of field.” He shrugged. “No way to verify it other than to go and try and touch it. They say you can see it at night, when the cars are moving on it. It lights up blue.”

  She considered this, then shrugged. “Whatever,” she said, rising to her feet. “If you think of anything useful, anything we should know, give a shout.” She looked at him. “You should get yourself a gun.”

  “Terrible with them,” he said. “Never got the knack of it.” He smiled. “I used to be terrified of you, you know?”

  “Why did you stop?” she asked, smiling back.

  “No, I mean it. You tried to kill me a bunch of times. Well, not you, per se, but women who were you, in other threads.” He held out his hand. “I’m glad we’re not trying to kill each other anymore.”

  She nodded to him. “Me too, Smoke, me too.” She looked at him. “You’re a strange man.”

  “That I won’t argue with you about,” he said. “I’ll shout if I think of anything.”

  She went to find Carter, only to find him sacked out in the med station. They’d given him something. She scouted the interior of the complex a bit, noting the exits and layout of the building, or at least the part the Unit had secured with their barricades. There was a long passage that led, or used to lead, out into the central well of the socket. It was blocked with large steel doors. She walked towards it, hoping for a better look.

  A trooper waved her back, shaking his head. She was about to tell him off when another presence loomed up out of the gloom. The Archer. Only he was that big, among the Unit.

  “Silver,” he said, voice like a barrel full of gravel. “Can’t go this way.”

  “Why the hell not?” she asked, not pushing, but definitely with a bit of snap in her voice.

  “Those doors open into the socket,” he said. “See how they’re shielded?” He pointed with a massive arm. “Big thick metal doors like that. Only one reason you’d need heavy metal doors like that. Lots of nasty particles and shit from the Elevator.” He grinned at her, teeth bright in the dim light. “Not healthy.”

  “Haven’t even gotten to see this Elevator yet,” she said. “There’s no observation lounge?”

  He shrugged, a ripple of his massive shoulders. “Used to be, up top in the passenger areas,” he said. “But those need elevators or you could climb twenty, maybe forty flights of stairs.” He shook his massive head side to side. “Not much to see without a car, anyway.”

  “Didn’t they store them here somewhere? Like a spare?” It seemed ludicrous that they had come all this way to be stymied by lack of a Down button on the Elevator.

  “Who knows—” He stopped abruptly. A moment later she felt why. The station was thrumming, a low vibration just barely perceptible, but there. Silver looked at the big man, who had cocked his massive head to one side. A cry went up among the Unit. Orders were shouted, all at once. Troopers scrambled for weapons, and took up positions.

  He looked back at her. “You may just get your wish,” he said, pointing one massive finger upwards. “You feel that? That’s what this place used to feel like all the time. You could feel it, like this, under your feet. The power of it.” He grinned. “The Elevator’s online. Something’s coming down.”

  She ran. First, she decided to get Carter back over to Truck. Keep her crew together. If a car was coming down, this was their chance to go up. Maybe their only chance. She found Carter sitting up, head in his hands. She skidded to a stop at the med station. He looked up muzzily at her, beard matted with dried blood and singed from the crash.

  “Carter,” she snapped. “Time to go.”

  “He’s concussed,” a medic said from nearby. She was stuffing a bag full of what looked like bandages. “He needs to rest. He could pass out or die if he exerts himself. Brain damage.”

  “Too late for that,” Carter grunted, standing. “I’m ready, let’s go.” He looked around. “Where’s the dog?”

  “Dog died,” she said, taking his arm. “In the crash, remember.”

  “Right,” he said. “I knew that.” He wiped a hand across his eyes, down his face. He shook his head gingerly. “I’m OK,” he said. “Just a headache. I’ll be fine.”

  “On you,” the medic said, shrugging. “You get a headache, just sit down and drink some water. Try to rest if you can.”

  Silver took his arm and led him away. “A car is coming down. You feel that hum, all around us?”

  He nodded vaguely. “I feel it,” he said, looking at her. “Dog really died?”

  “Yes, Carter,” she said, trying to keep her voice level. “The dog died when we crashed. You saved us, remember? Good flying, that was.” She pulled his arm over her shoulder. “Lean on me, we need to get to Truck, and then you can have a rest.”

  “OK,” he said. “Get to Truck. Good.” He walked with her, towards the archway, outlined with the vast bulk of Truck against the fading daylight. It was almost nightfall.

  They reached Truck. Gold had found combat helmets for her and Li. Smoke was sitting on the rear fender, but alert now. He said something to Gold, who looked around then, and found her. She waved.

  “Carter’s hurt,” she said. “Took a knock on the head in the crash. He’ll be alright but I wanted us together.”

  Gold nodded. “Car’s coming down,” she said. “They tell you?”

  Silver nodded. “They say how long?”

  “Half hour,
” Smoke said. “For the fastest, smallest cars. The passenger ones. Big ones take longer, as they have more mass to slow.”

  She nodded. It made sense. She looked at him, at Gold. “Well,” she said. “It’s what we wanted. At least now we’ll have a way up.”

  “Not going,” Gold said. “You go, tell me all about it.”

  Silver looked at her. “So. Be good to have you,” she said softly. “Like old times.”

  Gold nodded. “We had our moments,” she said. “But I’m here now. New times.” Her gaze travelled to Li, whose helmet looked comically large on her head. “We’re staying with Truck. Cover your back, eh?”

  “Sure,” Silver said. She smiled, feeling the sudden, icy knife in her belly twist like a snake. She let out a long, slow breath. “We’ll see you when we come back then.”

  “Yep,” Gold said, mouth a thin line. “When you get back.” She picked up her gun, motioned to Li to follow her. “Warren’s people have a water station setup. Not much to go around. You should get some, it won’t last long.”

  They were in a precarious situation. She knew it. Supplies they had carried in were only good for a few days at most. Without water that would become a real problem. She nodded at Gold. “See you around then,” she said to Gold’s receding back. Li followed, looking anxiously from her to Gold.

  Smoke stood silently, watching her go. He looked as if he might speak, but didn’t.

  She was grateful. She might have shot him.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Silver had called him soon afterwards, and Smoke snatched up his helmet and the rifle Gold had tossed at him. His ammunition pouch was crosswise over his chest. He felt foolish, like a child playing a game. He had barely fired weapons like this heavy black and metal gun. It was complicated, and he knew that, despite her quick tutorial, he would likely be best using it as a club. Still, he brought it.

  “Hey, wait a second,” Carter called after them. “Where you going?”