The Burning Skies

by David J. Williams

  Though Spencer can sense the Manilishi in his head anyway, echoing through his software. He still has no idea how the fuck she’s doing it. And he’s got other things to think about anyway. Because the curve of the dome wall’s stretching in toward him. They’re close enough to make out lettering painted upon it. Cyrillic and Mandarin, telling the ones who read it absolutely nothing other than where the doors are. There aren’t that many. They’re so airtight they’re almost impossible to spot. Spencer’s praying he is too. Most of the activity he can see is confined to the labyrinth of catwalks that obscure the foundation of this gigantic building. But there are eyes and sensors everywhere. Spencer’s pretty confident about the ones out here. He’s far less certain about whatever lies inside. He’s managed to get a tentative grip on the zone within—managed to pry his fingers through a crack in the defenses. But only barely. He can’t make out what’s going on. He’s figuring he’s going to get busted at any moment. He’s figuring he needs help.

  And suddenly he’s got it. From the Manilishi. She’s showing him what he needs to see—exactly what pressure to apply as he alights on the surface of the structure, right at the point where the dome starts to really slope toward the vertical. He activates his magnetic clamps, starts crawling down the metal like an insect toward the nearest door. Sarmax is right behind him. And the Manilishi’s right beside him, encroaching through the circuitry of the door, toward the comps that crouch within. The door is barely discernible, but it seems real enough. As is the hack he’s now running on the pneumatic equipment on its other side. He’s streaking through endless wires, forestalling fail-safes, fending off countless counter-commands from deeper within the building. He’s ignoring the commands without them even knowing it. He’s sending in his own instructions.

  The door slides open.

  Spencer slides in. Sarmax follows. The door shuts behind them.

  “Weirder by the second,” says Spencer.

  They’re standing in a chamber. Each wall contains another door. One of them is open. Sarmax starts toward it, just as it slides shut and a panel in the wall beside it swivels aside. A wicked-looking barrel protrudes from within. It’s aimed directly at Sarmax’s visor. Sarmax leaps to one side. The gun tracks him.

  “Fuck,” he says.

  “It’s okay,” says Spencer. “I got control.”

  “So tell it to point somewhere else.”

  “Tell me what the fuck’s going on and I just might.”

  Two people in a room that’s no room. The woman’s sitting. The man’s starting to look more than just a little tense. “Don’t you control Spencer?” he asks. “You tell me.”

  “I thought—”

  “You thought wrong. Someone got to him.”

  “You don’t know what I was about to say.”

  “Oh yes I do.”

  “How’s that?”

  “I’m reading minds now, aren’t I?”

  And even as she speaks, the room fades out. To be replaced by the room she started in. She’s back in that chair, strapped in again. Only now she’s encased within a suit, staring at Carson through a sealed visor. He’s dressed in battle harness. The room’s shaking as the engines of the president’s ship fire. The forces of acceleration are pressing against the walls.

  “All you’ve got is all I want you to see,” says Carson.

  “We’re landing,” she says.

  “We’ve started our final approach into Congreve.”

  “And you’re going to kill the president.”

  “And I’d want to do that why?”

  She says nothing. She’s too busy testing the barriers around her. What she’s wearing is no normal suit. It’s more like a cage whose bars are wires that extend into her nerve endings. She can see how it’s been done—can see how this thing has been rigged to give whoever’s running it every advantage. It’s like it’s a well and whoever’s wearing it is at the very bottom …

  “Because you’ve gotten what you came for,” she says.

  “How to hack the Throne himself to forestall the transfer of the executive node. And now you’re going to take him out and take it for yourself.”

  “Actually I had in mind giving it to someone.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “You.”

  She stares at him. “Why would you want to do that?”

  “Because I’m still in love with you.”

  She laughs. “That is so much bullshit.”

  “You say that without even hesitating.”

  “You don’t even know the meaning of the fucking word—”

  “I tried to warn you, Claire.” He shrugs. “Tried to tell you just how beyond the range of ordinary definition you are. Transhuman in a way that the rest of us can barely fathom. Think: your intuition, what does that really mean?”

  “Ability to compute in advance of stimuli,” she says, almost automatically.

  “And how the fuck could that be taking place?”

  “Retrocasuality” she says. “That’s the only way.”

  “Signals from the future.”

  “I’ve felt them.”

  “I’m sure you have.”

  “God help me, Carson.”

  “If you think you can reach Him, let me know.”

  “Only thing I can reach out there is Lynx and Spencer. And Lynx is on the zone only—”

  “And what about the Rain?”

  “I think they’re inside that building beneath Eurasia.”

  “And they’ve turned Spencer?”

  But that’s not true. She suddenly remembers what she’s done, remembers what she’s apparently just communicated by some kind of telepathy to Spencer, telepathy that interfaces with both flesh and zone: she’s told him to keep that gun pointed at Sarmax and stand by for further orders. Because the Rain aren’t in that Eurasian structure after all. And the person who tampered with Spencer was—

  “Me,” she says. “I turned Spencer. Just now.”

  Carson smiles softly. “So now you see.”

  She does. All those nights with Carson all that time ago, energy going through her body and across her mind and out into the universe beyond her. She suddenly gets where Carson’s been coming from all these years. He looks like a man. He’s really something more. The leader of the last Rain triad looks at her and she meets his gaze and doesn’t turn away.

  • • •

  At the heart of L2 is a ship around which all rotates. Somewhere in that ship there’s a room set apart from all else. Somewhere in that room’s the truth.

  If only you can find it.

  “Don’t fucking move,” says Lynx.

  The man he’s got his pistols pointed at stiffens, raises his hands in the air. Which makes him even taller—he turns around, looks at Lynx.

  “How the fuck did you get in here?”

  “By being unstoppable.”

  “Whatever you’re getting, I’ll double it.”

  “This isn’t about cash,” says Lynx.

  Though it looks like plenty has been blown on this room. It’s not small. The Moon floats in the window that comprises most of the ceiling. A massive map of the lunar surface covers the center of the floor. The walls are lined with console banks and the occasional door, one of which now slides open. Linehan enters the room. His armor’s been scorched in several places. Smoke’s still drifting from his guns.

  “Did I miss anything?” he asks.

  “We were just getting started.”

  The door slides shut.

  You got the short end of the stick,” says Spencer. Sarmax doesn’t turn around. Spencer’s viewing him through several crosshairs. Getting the drop on a man in powered armor isn’t easy. It helps to know your target’s suit inside out. It helps to have the Manilishi as a guardian angel upon your shoulder. Spencer monitors the voiceprint as Sarmax speaks.

  “How do you mean?”

  “I mean did you guys draw straws or something? Lynx hits the SpaceCom fleet and you get inside the Eurasians and
meanwhile Carson gets his hands on the Throne?”

  “Something like that. So—”

  “So your luck’s run out, Leo. Carson’s going to rule and you’re going to die.”

  “I’m not going to die,” says Sarmax. “And neither will you if you manage to grow some brains in time.”

  “Thank fuck I wised up when I did.”

  “You didn’t. I’ll bet it was the Manilishi telling you what was what.”

  “She thinks you and Lynx and Carson got created in the same moment.”

  “She’s right.”

  “But that’s bullshit. You’re all different ages. You were born separately.”

  “And reborn together.”

  You no longer control Spencer,” says Haskell. “That’d be all you,” says Carson. “You’re doing great.”

  “He’s got a hold of the trigger in that room.”

  “Let him keep it.”

  “And if he tries to kill Leo?”

  “Let him.”

  “You haven’t changed a bit.”

  “Sarmax hid Jarvin’s file from me, Claire. It wasn’t Spencer he didn’t want to share it with, it was—”

  “You.”

  “Us,” says Carson. “You mean that?”

  “You’re lucky,” he says. “You flew from the start. I had to adapt. Had to deal with it. I was only twenty-eight—”

  “That’s how old I am now.”

  “Except you’re not. Accelerated growth in the vat—”

  “I know that, Carson. You don’t need to tell me. Let me out of this suit.”

  “I can’t. Until it’s done.”

  “The missions?”

  “Everything. The battle for the world and moon goes down tonight. And then you’ll be at my side.”

  “I need you to let me out of this.”

  “And I will. But right now I have to let you steer yourself as you activate your powers. You have to ride the raw wave of moment, Claire. Your memory—tell me what you remember.”

  “Everything.”

  “Go on.”

  “I know it all now. Where the implants start. Where they stop. What lies beyond them. I remember my sixth birthday for real and the counterfeit birthdays before that. Six days after being decanted and here I am thinking I’m a normal fucking kid.”

  “And you weren’t even a normal member of the Rain. Just the capstone on the whole project—”

  “You need to tell me exactly what you mean by that.”

  “I’d rather have you show me everything instead.”

  The head of U.S. Space Command has the look of an animal that’s been brought to bay. He’s staring down the barrel of the minigun mounted atop Linehan’s suit. But he’s maintaining his composure.

  “The chickens have come home to roost,” he says slowly.

  “That’s for sure,” says Lynx. His voice wafts out from behind the consoles he’s busy working on. Everything aboard the Montana has gone haywire. None of Szilard’s marines can get anywhere near this room. Half of them are dead due to suit malfunctions anyway. The lights of the L2 fleet flicker in the window.

  “You bastard,” says Linehan. “Do you recognize me?”

  “Should I?” asks Szilard.

  “I was a member of the team you sent to help the Rain take down the Elevator.”

  “An interesting theory.”

  “I was there, asshole. In the heart of HK, meeting with those fucks. They fucked me good. So did you. And now I’m going to rip your fucking heart out—”

  “So what are you waiting for?”

  “Me,” says Lynx. “I might need to ask you a question or two about how you’ve wired this ship’s inner enclave.”

  Szilard’s expression doesn’t change. “So you can control it.”

  “I already control it, as swipe. I’m talking about the rest of your fucking fleet. To deliver to the president.”

  “You mean Matthew Sinclair,” says Szilard.

  Because that’s who we’re really talking about, isn’t it?”

  “Have it your way,” says Sarmax. “But he—”

  “Did it all through Carson? I know. Carson came to you and dragged you out of retirement and explained Sinclair’s whole scheme. Poured honey in your ears and—”

  “You’ve got it all wrong.”

  “Yeah?

  “We almost killed each other first.”

  “And I’m supposed to be surprised? When the whole MO of the Rain was to devour each other? Dysfunction junction from the word go and—”

  “Fuck, Spencer, I know. Jesus Christ, that’s why I got the fuck out of all that.”

  “I heard there was a different reason.”

  “Don’t even go there.”

  “The conditioning may have backfired on you. But the rest of it didn’t matter. You and Lynx and Carson were the originals: three Praetorians who’d kicked ass together for so long you could practically complete each other’s sentences. What better subject matter for the initial experiment? What better prototypes for the world’s most dangerous hit team?”

  “The Manilishi’s telling you this?” asks Sarmax.

  “Yeah. And I’m pretty sure the third part of the handler’s book says the same damn thing. Along with all the specifics.”

  “The crown jewels, huh?”

  “The exact nature of the Autumn Rain experiments, Leo.”

  “The compiling of which drove the handler mad.”

  “That may be its basic condition.”

  “We were flatlined,” says Sarmax. All those years ago. That’s all I know. They took out our lights together: meshed us on the zone, crashed our systems, and then woke us at the same fucking time and after that we were fucking linked in some way. I don’t think it worked out quite as well as they wanted, though. I think they were thinking they were going to get some kind of group-mind effect, and it wasn’t anywhere near that precise. But our reflexes were off the charts. And we could sense when the others were near. I know that Lynx and Carson are heading toward each other behind the Moon right now. I know they know I’m back here. I know that—”

  “It has to do with consciousness.”

  “Yes. Obviously.”

  “It was a specific process.”

  “Or more than one.”

  “Was it used on me?”

  But Sarmax only smiles.

  “Or am I Rain myself?” asks Spencer. “Goddamn it, Leo—”

  “You’re just a guy who ended up running with the big dogs. Far as I know, anyway. Carson managed to hook you up to the Manilishi, but that was only thanks to software the Throne gave him to implant in you.”

  “Rain software.”

  “Presumably.”

  “From the original tests?”

  “Who knows? I’m just telling you what I was told. But the master process—whatever it was—was refined with the second team. They weren’t like us. They weren’t modified. They were—”

  “—created. For that purpose.”

  “They were hell on bloody wheels, Spencer. They put us in the fucking shade.”

  “And now they’re in the shade forever.”

  “She told you that?”

  “And more besides.”

  The final descent is under way. The last of the engines are firing.

  “You shouldn’t have trusted Sinclair,” she says. But Carson just grins. “Who said I trust him?”

  “Then why the fuck are you carrying out his orders?”

  “Sinclair came to me two days before the Elevator went down. He restored what the Praetorians had stripped from me. My memory of those times. The training I’d received. The training I’d given. Said he was worried that his protégés were getting out of hand. Said he might need me to run some interference. Sarmax had left the service with his memories intact. His little secret. Arranged by Sinclair without the Throne’s knowledge. After the Elevator blew, I went to Leo. We struck a deal. We dealt Lynx in on the way back to Earth.”

  “And after the na
ughty little children were defeated, why didn’t you just seize everything on that ship on the way back?”

  “Because we needed you to find and destroy the rest of those fucks. Seizing control of everything with them still out there would have made us the target.”

  “If Sinclair’s in prison, then how are you in touch with him?”

  “I don’t need to be.”

  “What?”

  “You still don’t get it, Claire, do you? Sinclair’s sitting in his fucking cell watching the universe spin around him.”

  “He’s reading minds too?”

  “Have you sensed him? On any level?”

  She shakes her head. “Not as far as I know. All I’ve got is Spencer’s and a shade or two of yours. Have you?”

  “I don’t think it works that way,” says Carson. “It works like this: when he restored my memory, Sinclair explained to me exactly what would happen. Exactly what levers I would need to pull—and when. He laid the whole thing out—said how it would go down if I gave it the right set of shoves. Said it all led up to something that’s coming up, something past which he can’t see. He’s on a whole different level, maybe even your level, and I don’t even pretend to understand—”

  “That’s why you’re so crazy to be dealing with him.”

  “That’s why I need your help.”

  “He went through the Rain process himself. He must have.”

  “I’m convinced he saw it as the best way to get the drop on Harrison,” says Carson.

  “Is he really on this ship?”

  “Harrison? Absolutely. And by the way, he’s going to remain president, no matter what the head of SpaceCom thinks.”

  “As a figurehead.”

  “As an expedient.”

  “A temporary one?”

  “Everything is, Claire.”

  They look at each other.

  “Because that’s the core of it,” says Carson. “Harrison and Sinclair. Lifelong partners, lifelong rivals, and the guy you thought of as the old man always had to play second fiddle. He and the president cooked up the Autumn Rain scheme together, back when they were both admirals.”

  “Before they ruled the country.”