The Burning Skies

by David J. Williams

  There are two in particular who are really going to town. Two soldiers who are less interested in sex and more interested in simple violence. They’ve got some girls in a room all to themselves. They’re tossing them all over the place. The screams of the girls can’t be heard over the noise of the party that’s going on in all the adjacent rooms. And even if they could be, it’s not like anybody gives a shit. Not when the madam’s getting gang-raped and at least one girl’s been shot for resisting.

  “Hey asshole,” says Sarmax.

  The naked man turns round, his eyes widening as he sees the pistol and silencer protruding from under the bed—and then he pitches backward as a bullet crashes through his skull. The second Russian turns around casually from where he’s about to bring his fist down against the woman’s face—but even as he starts lunging toward his weapons, Spencer’s emerging from a closet and shooting him through the face. Both men lie there. Both girls start screaming.

  “Shhhh,” says Sarmax, emerging from beneath the bed. The girls ignore him, keep on screaming. Sarmax fires quick shots into each of their heads. Bodies tumble while Spencer rounds on Sarmax.

  “What the fuck is your problem?” he snarls.

  Sarmax looks at him. “What’s yours?”

  “I didn’t sign up for this.”

  “You got signed up for it, asshole. And I’m not leaving any witnesses. Now how about you do what you’re here for?”

  Spencer’s about to protest further, but the look in Sarmax’s eyes stops him. He kneels next to one of the Russians, stabs razorwire into his eye socket. The head wound his victim received was calibrated to avoid key circuitry. And now Spencer’s in that circuitry, dropping in amidst all the software, running the hacks he’s been preparing, siphoning off the codes and uploading them into his own head. His new ID clicks into place: he locks it in, turns to the second Russian, repeats the procedure. Only now he downloads the ID wirelessly to Sarmax—who accepts the codes and starts putting on one of the light armor suits that’s standing in the corner.

  Spencer kneels on the floor and closes his eyes while he lets his mind waft out beyond the two nodes he’s just co-opted, out to where a broader zone awaits. It’s a zone he’s never seen before, save in the training modules through which his brain’s been prowling for almost two days now. Ever since they got their new orders from the Throne. Ever since they got sent to HK to do what Spencer’s doing now: making an incursion into the Eurasian zone.

  And looking around.

  At difference. Different colors, different lettering, different symbols—a whole new universe of net. Grids of light billow out all around him. Spencer sees the way those grids overlay against the prostrate HK zone. That net’s been commandeered at key points by Eurasian razors—and sliced down the middle too, cut off by what looks like an impenetrable wall, behind which the Americans are presumably up to pretty much the same thing the Eurasians are.

  “Hurry it up,” says Sarmax.

  Spencer’s working on it. He’s climbing up the ladder from the two Russians he’s just offed. Ascending a long stairway of codes: to the squad sergeant … the platoon lieutenant … the regimental colonel … the divisional general. Who’s at the level that Spencer wants. He reaches in, hacks into the staff plans that give him access to the troop deployments throughout the city.

  “Time’s up,” says Sarmax.

  Spencer jacks out, opens his eyes. All the bodies are gone, though patches of blood are still visible on the walls.

  “Where did everybody go?”

  “The closet,” says Sarmax.

  “Not gonna help. This place looks like an abattoir.”

  “I’ve also got this,” says Sarmax. He holds up another thermite bomb. Tosses it under the bed, turns back to Spencer: “By the way, question me again and it’ll be the last thing you ever do. Now get that armor on.”

  “Jesus,” says Spencer, “relax.” He starts putting on his new armor. He’s almost finished when a blast shakes the room from somewhere close at hand. He looks back at Sarmax.

  “That what you rigged back along that passage?”

  “No, that was my bike.”

  Another blast shakes the room. It seems to be much larger than the previous one. Much farther, too.

  “That was the passage,” says Sarmax.

  But it’s all the same to the soldiers in the rooms all around theirs. They’re getting the hell out of the brothel. They’re hitting the streets. Someone hammers on the door.

  “I’m on it,” yells Sarmax in Russian. Turns back to Spencer. “Got some assignments for us?”

  “I’m starting by having us ordered away from everybody who might know us.”

  “And then?”

  “I’m working on it.”

  “Works for me,” says Sarmax.

  They lower their visors and exit the room.

  I figured it would be you,” she says. “Naturally,” replies the Operative.

  He pulls himself into the room. He’s not wearing a suit. He closes the door behind him and she hears it lock. He smiles a smile that’s almost shy.

  “I’m sorry about all this,” he says.

  “What the hell’s going on?”

  “It’s for your own protection.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “I wish it were.”

  “I can protect myself just fine.”

  “And therein lies your problem.”

  She stares at him. He gazes back at her in a way that makes her realize he’s running some kind of scan. She feels the prickle of spectra upon her skin. He reaches around to the back of her chair, types in codes. The locks that bind her release. She floats free.

  “Thank you,” she says.

  “Has anybody been here?” he asks.

  “Here being where?”

  “This room.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since you got here.”

  She looks at him incredulously. “You mean to say you don’t know?”

  “Don’t you?”

  “No,” she says. “I don’t.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Oh you bastard,” she says. “You fucking bastard.”

  “I’m not sure I follow, Claire.”

  “Then follow this, asshole. I’ve been drugged. Someone got to me. Someone fucked with me. And I’m thinking that someone’s you.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because you’re the one who’s standing there laughing.”

  “Do I look like I’m laughing?”

  “You look like you’re fucking with me.”

  “I was following orders.”

  “Whose orders?”

  “Whose would you think?”

  “I was thinking the Throne. But that was before …” Her voice trails off.

  “Before what, Claire?”

  “Before you started asking me whether anyone had been here before you.”

  “Don’t you think the Throne would want to know that?” he asks.

  “I would think the Throne would be aware of that already.”

  “I figured it couldn’t hurt to ask,” he says.

  “Well, the answer is, I’ve no idea.”

  He looks around. He seems to be scanning the rest of the room now. He turns back toward her, frowns.

  “In any case, you’re right. The Throne ordered you placed here.”

  “Here being where?” she asks again.

  “This ship. We’re eight hours out from moonfall.”

  “We’re going to the Moon?”

  “Why so surprised? You’ve been sent this way before.”

  “But we never made it that time.”

  “This time you will. We’re almost there. We left Earth a day and a half ago.”

  “But why the hell are we going in the first place?”

  “The same reason you’re confined within this room.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You will in a moment.”

  The city center rises to
the very ceiling of the dome. Most of it is off-limits to anyone lacking the proper credentials. Lynx and Linehan are showing what they’ve got to one of the innermost checkpoints. Guards wave them through.

  “That was easy,” says Linehan.

  “That was just the warm-up,” says Lynx.

  He’s nosing the truck up a ramp that’s about ten stories off the ground. Congreve sprawls below. Platforms and elevators are all around. They’re in the outer sectors of the city’s citadel. There’s a lot of construction going on. A nice chunk of dirty fission released right here would blow the whole thing clean to hell, taking them down with it. Something that Linehan’s all too aware of. He can virtually feel the blast ripping him apart already. He wonders if that’s what people mean by premonition.

  “We’re getting into the thick of it,” he says.

  “Don’t think I don’t know it,” replies Lynx.

  They brake, dump the ore onto a conveyor belt, watch as the belt takes their cargo around a corner and out of sight. Ostensibly there’s no further purpose for them here. Another truck gets in behind them, starts honking.

  “Let’s get out of here,” says Linehan.

  “Maybe,” says Lynx.

  He eases the truck along, starts heading down another ramp. Razorwire extrudes from his bionic fingers, slides into the instrument panel. The truck’s engines splutter. They’re still running, but only barely.

  “Oh dear,” says Lynx.

  “Don’t think I didn’t see that.”

  “Doesn’t matter what you saw,” replies Lynx, and eases the truck down a smaller ramp. He stops the engine, gets out. A power-suited SpaceCom soldier on an adjacent platform fires his jets, blasts over to where Lynx is standing.

  “What the hell’s going on?”

  “Breakdown.”

  “What’s wrong with it?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “Hold on,” says the suit—he steps off the platform, drops away. Linehan and Lynx watch him disappear.

  “So we just wait here?” asks Linehan.

  “No,” says Lynx. “We walk.”

  “Sorry?”

  “You heard me. Get out of the cab.”

  Linehan hops out. Looks around.

  “Isn’t he gonna be back any moment?”

  “Probably. But we’ve got orders.”

  “What?”

  “Let’s go, asshole.”

  They proceed to the side of the ramp and hop down to the one immediately below. It leads beneath a ceiling overhang, ends in a door. Linehan glances around.

  “No,” says Lynx. “Just act like we belong here.”

  Because according to the zone they do. Lynx reaches out to the panel adjacent to the door, keys in access codes. The door slides open. He and Linehan enter and the door shuts behind them. They’re standing in an elevator, which starts to rise.

  “What about the truck?” asks Linehan.

  “What about it?”

  “We’re just leaving it there?”

  “Does it look like it’d fit in here?”

  “What’s the suit gonna think when he gets back to find us gone?”

  “He’ll think whatever he’s told.”

  “And what’s he being told?”

  “That we got ordered to get the hell off the premises.”

  “And the cameras at the exit? What are they gonna show?”

  “Nothing. Hate to break it to you, Linehan, but we don’t exist anymore.”

  “You mean we’ve exchanged one false set of pretenses for another.”

  “Linehan, nothing the zone says is ever false.”

  The elevator doors open. They walk out and find themselves in a different part of the base. This section looks pretty complete. They go through another door, find themselves in the midst of a lot of activity. Power-suited soldiers are everywhere. So are workers.

  “Here we are,” says Lynx.

  “We being who?”

  “Workers who enjoy a lot more trust.”

  Who never leave this base. Who have their quarters within its endless corridors. Whose loyalty is beyond question. Who are able to come and go into the most secure areas.

  Which is what these two are doing now. Seems that some of the fuel lines up on one of the flight decks are low on pressure. They’ve been ordered to help out. They climb up a grilled staircase, get in another elevator—emerge from that into hangars within which sit shuttles getting a working over. A soldier steps in front of them.

  “Sir,” says Lynx.

  “Auxiliary hangar D,” says the soldier, gesturing at a doorway. “Get moving.”

  “Sir,” says Lynx.

  “That’s on the roof,” says Linehan on the one-on-one.

  “What’s wrong? You afraid of heights?”

  “No.”

  They step through a door, look down a flight of stairs at a massive platform that extends out across the dome’s summit. Spaceships and smaller hangars are strewn across it. The curve of Moon is easily visible from up here. The L2 fleet hangs like a starfield in the sky above them.

  “Cool,” says Linehan.

  They walk down the staircase, start moving across the platform toward the farthest of the hangars. As they do, a vibration shakes the surface beneath them. Movement from the corner of their visors: one of the ships is ascending, its engines glowing white-hot. They keep going, enter the hangar.

  Within that hangar is a single craft. A transport shuttle. One large enough that it’s being serviced at multiple levels.

  Lynx and Linehan are standing on the highest one. They head over to the fuel lines, get busy. No one pays much attention.

  “Funny” says Linehan, “these fuel lines look pretty good to me.”

  “What do you know,” says Lynx. “You’re right.”

  “So do we keep working?”

  “Sure we keep working. On something else.”

  “Got anything in mind?”

  “I do,” says Lynx. He pats the side of the ship. “We need to get inside and join its crew.”

  “To go where?”

  “Only destination worth the name.”

  They’re getting the hell out of Little Russia. The news that two soldiers have gone MIA reaches them about ten minutes after they split. Which is fine by them. They’ve turned over a whole new leaf by then: switching identities, switching regiments, and transferring from there to special assignments that will keep them as far away as possible from anyone they’re supposed to have served alongside.

  “Nice one,” says Sarmax.

  “There are times I impress myself,” says Spencer.

  Times like now. He’s maneuvering through the Eurasian zone while he and Sarmax sit on the back of a crawler that’s busy running down anything in its way. The other members of the squad they’ve been assigned to are sitting all around them, making small talk, taking in the sights—and hanging on while the crawler roars after two others, climbing up roads toward the height of the Owen-Stanley Range. The city spreads out below them.

  “This is Seleucus sector,” says Spencer.

  “So what if it is?”

  “I heard something really nasty happened here.”

  “Nasty being what?”

  “Some kind of AI demon.”

  But whether it was as bad as what’s going on right now is open to question. Because at least that demon fucked off. Whereas the Eurasians seem unlikely to leave anytime soon. Spencer’s window on the Eastern zone indicates that a full five percent of the city’s population is slated for arrest. And another ten percent is scheduled for reeducation camps that will be so extensive that several districts are going to get bulldozed to build them. The populace is selling one another out as fast as they can. Partly to settle old scores. But mostly just to try to save themselves. Though it doesn’t seem to be working that well.

  “They should rename this place Purge City” says Spencer.

  “They may yet,” replies Sarmax.

  One of the other soldiers chooses
that moment to start up a conversation. He starts asking Spencer where he’s from. Spencer tells him Irkutsk. According to his files, that’s the truth.

  It’s also bad news. Because it turns out this man’s from Irkutsk too. Before he can ask another question, Spencer asks him which neighborhood—thereby buying himself time to manipulate his own answer. One that’s on the other side of town from the one that the soldier’s mentioning.

  But it turns out the soldier knows someone in that neighborhood anyway. He starts playing the name game with Spencer. Starts asking awkward questions.

  “Let me handle this,” says Sarmax on the one-on-one.

  “Sure,” says Spencer.

  Sarmax leans over to give the soldier a little friendly advice. Tells him that the man he’s talking to served a little too long in Africa. That he had a violent disposition even before he was tortured by Ugandan rebels for twelve hours straight a few years back. That it’s impressive how together he is now that he’s been transferred out of there. How it’s a shame that the only thing that still sets him off is talking about the past.

  The soldier takes the hint. He and Sarmax talk about other things. Sarmax has done enough missions behind the walls of the East to hold his end up. He knows what’s expected of him—knows how to stay on the right side of the line that separates casual bitching from treacherous muttering. He knows how to elicit information too; the kind that may not be readily accessible in the databanks. After a while Sarmax leans back and disengages, starts up the one-on-one once more.

  “Apparently there were some pretty severe border riots earlier,” he says.

  “Yeah?” asks Spencer.

  “Yeah. Everyone was trying to get out. Trying to cross to the American sector. Turns out they ran into a crowd trying to get away from the Americans.”

  “And let me guess—there was a massacre?”

  “Of course there was a massacre. During the course of which East and West exchanged some shots.”

  “Fatalities?”

  “The East lost at least fifty”

  “Is that what they’re claiming, or what this soldier’s been told?”

  “This soldier saw it.”

  “But it didn’t escalate.”

  “Seems that cooler heads prevailed.”

  “Meaning more senior.”