My turn.
A squeeze of the trigger unleashes the armalite, and it chatters like a broken chain, its rounds spraying the Hellbender to my left. Several find their mark in the body of the copter, and the pilot rolls aft to avoid the rest. I unwedge my foot from the handlebars, and my bike begins to weave in exaggerated curves.
At a couple of seconds before impact, I do a backward dismount and land in time to see the bike plow into the wall of troopers, their horrified faces lit by the bike’s headlamp. The bike careens out of control, then flips onto its side, metal hitting pavement with a cascade of sparks that leaves a spiraling trail of light for twenty meters. Metal grinds as the bike slows to a halt, and I wince at the damage it must be taking.
If Fuse were here, he’d kill me.
Before it stops, I slam another clip into my armalite, flick it to semiauto, and use my good hand to shoot out the Noriker’s headlights. A brave trooper charges straight into my line of fire, but instead of shooting him, I drop him with a front kick, set my gun on his prone belly, and pull two Willy Pete grenades from his belt.
I slam one into the grenade launcher of my armalite and fire it into the gunner’s nest of the second Hellbender. Amid screams from the gunners and pilot as the white phosphorous fills the bay, the velocicopter veers sharply away.
That’s the problem with machines that cost more than any other weapon in the arsenal. They’re too expensive to risk losing, and that limits their effectiveness.
Back to the troopers.
Even in the confusion, several of them have taken position next to the Noriker, and they’re firing on me. As always, the blasts bounce off harmlessly, and I walk toward the hostiles like a man of steel, invulnerable, invincible.
“Insufferable,” Mimi says. “You are not out of the woods yet, cowboy.”
Jamming the second Willy Pete into my armalite, I launch the grenade into the cab of the Noriker. It takes a few seconds for chemicals in the grenade to catalyze, then poof!
“Better run!” I yell.
I don’t have to tell them twice. Grabbing their wounded, the troopers retreat off the road before the fuel tanks of the Noriker ignite.
“Better follow your own advice,” Mimi says.
“Right.” I sprint toward the bike. It’s the worse for wear, and when I push it up, a crumpled exhaust pipe clangs on the pavement. The handlebars are askew, too. But it’s drive-able if the engine will start.
Murmuring a little prayer, I pull out the choke, flip the ignition switch, and pop the clutch.
Hallelujah. It starts. I drive down the highway, wobbling on bent rims.
A few seconds later the Düsseldorf explodes, and behind me I can hear metal landing on the ground. My path is brightly lit, and I can see the road before me. Then everything turns dark, and I have nothing to guide me but the stars.
“And me. You will always have me to guide you,” Mimi says. “Turn left here.”
Chapter 22
Hawera Hydroelectric Complex
Zealand Prefecture
ANNOS MARTIS 238. 7. 27. 06:13
The Hawera Hydroelectric Complex straddles the border between the Tharsis and Zealand Prefectures like a mythological Titan. Using a series of cooling towers and megawatt turbines, it controls the flow of the River Gagarin into the Dead Sea while providing almost the whole prefecture with power. It has been said that whoever controls the Hawera controls the capital.
Who controls the capital, Archibald wonders as he stands at the railing on the observation deck that overlooks both the complex and the town nearby, if the whole complex just happens to disappear? Of course, if all goes according to plan, he’s about to find out.
He looks back on the twisted heaps that make up Dismel and catches his breath. Dismel was a hornet’s nest of Desperta Ferro activity, and now it’s gone, obliterated, and he is responsible. How ironic. For years, Mother has obsessed about how to get rid of the rebels, and it’s her enemy that does it for her.
He puffs his chest out. How do you like me now, Mother? Then he sighs, the air leaving him. The truth is, if she saw him now, he’d be shot on sight, a traitor to the CorpCom. Damn it, Mother, even when I succeed, you make sure I fail.
Leaving the deck, he takes one of the lifts to the ground. Every few meters, he passes a civilian going to tour the dam. Ordinary people going about their ordinary lives with no clue about the extraordinary thing that is about to happen to them. He takes the stairs methodically, careful not to jostle himself, until he reaches the parking lot. As he signals Duke to bring the Noriker over, a woman and her young son bump into him.
“Watch where you’re going!” he snaps at them. His hand goes to his side.
“Watch your—” the woman starts to say, then recoils as the color drains from her face. She pushes the boy behind her for protection.
“Mommy,” the boy says as they reach the staircase. “That man stinks.”
She hushes him and drags him up the stairs.
Yes, little mother, Archie thinks, fear me. That’s all that I ever wanted.
Duke picks him up in the Noriker, and they speed over to the next village, which is too small to earn a name, but big enough to fuel a good fire. There, he gives the order, and the Sturmnacht spread out through the streets carrying lit torches and leaving fire in their wake.
From the distance, the sound of a battle catches Archibald’s attention.
“Right on time,” he says. “Duke, find that gunfire, please.”
In the Noriker, he and Duke zip through the narrow streets, outpacing the Sturmnacht. The truck crests a hill, and the battle appears in a dry creek bed below, where a squad of Sturmnacht is pinned down by platoon of Zealand Corp Rangers.
The Sturmnacht are outmanned and over gunned.
“A perfect scenario to test my new weapon,” Archie says. “Tell the handlers to deliver the package.”
After what seems to Archie to be an interminable wait, the Noriker pulling the animal brig trailer arrives.
“Finally,” Archibald says, and grabs a remote device from the Noriker’s storage compartment.
He hits the button that opens the door, then stands on tiptoes in anticipation of the great event. All of his work comes down to this moment.
But nothing happens—“Stubborn little hussy. Get out of the trailer.”—until Archibald hits another button on the remote.
Vienne leaps from the trailer, hair wild and matted, carrying a spear. She vaults down into the creek bed and roars straight for the Sturmnacht. When the thugs see her, they begin waving their arms frantically.
“No, love, not them,” Archibald says and presses a button. “The other them.”
The choker on her neck glows. One hand clawing at her neck, Vienne turns toward the Rangers’ line. Without fear and without hesitation, she uses the spear to lay the line to waste. She stands panting for a few seconds. Then a flash of movement from the Sturmnacht catches her eye.
“No, your work is done. Very well done,” Archibald says.
He sighs at having to end the fun so soon and hits another button. An electric shock lights the choker, and she falls to the ground.
“Duke, help the handlers get her back to the brig before she wakes up again.”
Duke and the handlers latch on to Vienne, intending to haul her away. But Vienne’s head flies up, and she yanks her limbs free. She moves so fast that Duke’s jaw drops, and in the few seconds that it takes for the handlers to realize that Vienne is loose, she goes berserk on them.
A kick, a few punches, and an elbow to the nose takes out all three of them. Snarling, her hair hiding her eyes but not her bared teeth, she lunges for Duke.
“Stop!” Archibald shouts, zapping the choker at the same time.
Vienne manages to knock Duke down, but the choker has her attention. She pulls at it, howling, putting up an intense fight that surprises Archibald. Maybe she isn’t as ready as he thought.
He zaps the choker again, and this time, she succumbs to the
voltage. Archibald stands over her, panting to catch his breath. He nudges Duke with his heel.
“Find me soldiers who can last more than a few seconds with the dalit.”
“In the Sturmnacht? Don’t count on it.” Duke knocks the mud off his armor. “It’ll take a Regulator to fight the likes of her.”
“Then find me one.”
“What? A Regulator?”
Archibald turns on him. “Yes! A Regulator. There are hundreds of them in Christchurch looking for work. Find one. Pay whatever it takes.”
“Did you run this by Mr. Lyme?” Duke asks.
“Do not mention the name Lyme in front of me again!” Archie screams.
A moment passes between them. Archibald realizes that he’s gone too far this time. Duke will report this to Lyme, and Lyme will have another stern talk with Archibald about the master plan and how important it is that everyone play his part. It’s obvious now what Lyme has decided his part is—to be a pawn.
Well, Archibald thinks, I’m nobody’s pawn, and I’ll prove it, starting now.
“Whatever you say,” Duke says, then walks toward his Noriker.
As Duke drives away, he passes a Noriker coming from the opposite direction. He trades an obscene gesture with the driver, and they both break out laughing.
“This,” Archibald says, trying to regain his composure, “doesn’t look like good news.”
Richards and Franks get out of the Noriker and approach as if they haven’t a care in the world. Imagine being that stupid, Archibald thinks. It must be nice to be completely ignorant of the greater forces at work on your life.
“You’ve come back empty handed,” Archibald says as he declines to shake their hands in greeting. “Is that what I told you to do?”
“Not exactly,” Franks says.
Richards adds, “But we did find him, your Mistership. In a roadhouse on the Bishop’s Highway. He just managed to sneak away after he threw hairs in my face.”
Archibald raises a skeptical eyebrow. “Durango escaped by tossing hair at you? What is he now, a malicious barber?”
“He wasn’t exactly normal. Right, Franks?” Richards shows his injured face. “The things came out of his hands.”
Franks nods. “The things were barbed, too. They stuck in Richards’s skin, and I had the dickens pulling them out with my pliers.”
Richards turns his jaw so that Archibald can see the marks left. “Hurt something fierce.”
“You poor thing,” Archibald says. How could Lyme have ever tolerated such imbeciles? “Since you’re having so much trouble capturing him, then maybe we should try a new strategy.”
The Sturmnacht trade a skeptical look. “How d’you know we can find the poxer?”
“Because you’re not going to find him. He’s going to come to you. Right here in scenic Dismel.” Archibald claps them both on the back. “I’ve left a trail as wide and black as Lyme’s heart to follow. That Regulator fancies himself a hero, and heroes never, ever give up.”
Franks scratches his head. “But what’s that got to do with us?”
“It has everything to do with you,” Archie says. “I have a very special treat in mind. For both of you.”
Chapter 23
Dismel, near Hawera Hydroelectric Complex
Zealand Prefecture
ANNOS MARTIS 238. 7. 27. 15:53
Hours after we separated, I find Riki-Tiki and Stain near the town of Dismel, standing on the banks of the River Gagarin, watching something on the water.
“Let’s go!” I pull up beside them, my bike’s engine rumbling. “We’ve got work to do.”
“Shh!” Riki-Tiki says. “Turn that off. You’re being disrespectful.”
“Mimi?”
“Do it, cowboy,” she says, so I kill the motor. “Look out at Hawera Lake. What do you see?”
Flipping up my visor, I stare out over the water.
“Wow.”
The banks of the river are crammed with thousands of plain, brown paper lanterns lit by wax candles floating on the water. They drift together, then apart, as the current sweeps them downriver and out of sight.
“Candles?” I ask.
“They’re called Tōrō Nagashi,” Riki-Tiki explains, “symbolizing the return of the dead. Tonight is the Night of Joy, the end of the Spirit Festival.”
“A candle for every lost soul,” I say. A candle for every Vienne in the world.
“Ironic, no?” Stain says. “Since Dismel is a ghost town now. Never let it be said that the Sturmnacht have no sense of the poetic.”
“Carking-A,” I reply, and flip my visor down, because I’ve seen all the candles I care to. “Never let it be said. Let’s ride.”
At night, Dismel looks like a roadkill skeleton that’s been picked clean. After our rendezvous, Riki-Tiki, Stain, and I roll past the charred remnants of a few of the Quonset hut frames lining the streets. It reminds me of the mines of Fisher Four. The tunnels were perpetually dark, and my circadian rhythms went haywire. None of us Regulators could tell if it was night or day, so we stumbled around in a sleep-deprived haze, protecting miners there—who didn’t want us—from the Draeu, bogeymen who could see in the dark and wanted nothing more than to dine on our flesh. It’s a wonder we didn’t accidently shoot someone.
“May I remind you that your telemetry functions let you know the location of everyone at any time,” Mimi says.
“Don’t remind me,” I tell her. What I wouldn’t give for my old suit—and my old body—back. I’ve gotten so used to its functions, I’m never sure where I am anymore. Thinking about that makes me miss Vienne even more.
Thoom! In the distance, a bloom of smoke. Three more explosions, and I see petals of flame erupting through the smoke.
“A poet would use this place as a metaphor for the failed Mars Utopia,” I tell Mimi.
“Only if he wanted to put his audience in a catatonic state, cowboy. Let’s stick to the Romantics, shall we?”
As we slowly ride through on our bikes, picking our way around the debris lit by our headlamps, tendrils of smoke dust still rise here and there. If you were patient and could stand the cacophonic smell, you might be able to tell that a large slab of wood resembling alligator skin was once somebody’s prized sideboard. Over in the far corner of the mess that had once been someone’s life, you might see the bedsprings of a bed that had occupied the room before the ceiling gave way. Or you might just turn away and decide to pay attention to the road instead. Because there’s only so much rage you can take until, like a balloon filled with too much hot air, you pop.
But you might also miss a woman running toward a burning house, her face streaked with soot, sweat, and panic. “My baby!” she screams. “My baby’s still in there!”
There’s no time to ask logical questions like, How did the baby get there? Why are you alone? Why did you leave the child behind? Is this a trap?
There’s just time for one question as Riki-Tiki grabs the woman before she can run through the back door, which is engulfed in flames.
“Where’s the baby?” I yell so she can hear me over her screams and the roar of the fires.
“She’s in the bathroom!” Riki-Tiki calls, because the woman can’t make a sound now.
“Mimi,” I say as I slap the visor down over my helmet and switch on the LED lamp, “watch my back.”
“You got it, cowboy.”
The hallway is shrouded in thick soot that clings to the ceiling like a curtain. Below that, the smoke is lighter, thinner, a roiling cloud that I duck under as I crunch over the debris on the floor, stomping with my thick-soled boots to make sure the footing is solid.
At the first doorway, I turn right and enter a small room. The windows are so heavily smoked, no light could reach inside. The air stinks of charcoal, and my head swims with the sound of a discordant pipe organ. Turning in a tight circle, I scan the area, noting the burned-out skeleton of a box mattress in the corner, an open closet, and a narrow door leading to another room.
<
br /> Keep moving. Look. Listen.
The room is hot. But there is no obvious fire. I listen hard, listening for the source of the crying sound. It came from this direction, I’m sure of it. There! Behind the narrow door. I reach for the brass knob without thinking. The metal, now blackened, is hot as a gas pipe, and when I touch it, the heat burns straight through my symbiarmor gloves.
“Mistuck!” I yell through the visor. “That’s carking hot!”
Nothing to do about that now. Raising my boot, I give the door a front kick. It blows off its frame, swings wide on melted hinges, and collapses to the floor.
That’s more like it.
As I enter the bathroom, hot air blows past my head. A blackened toilet sits to the left, and to the right, a tub. A cast-iron tub with high sides that could survive a nuclear blast. Which is good, because in the bottom, covered in ash, is something so rare and unusual, I haven’t seen one since becoming a Regulator.
A baby.
She’s quiet and still. In the thick smoke, I can’t tell if she’s breathing. I lift the infant out of the tub and nestle her head in the crook of my broken arm, then cover her face with a towel I snatch from the floor. With a silent prayer still on my lips, I take three running steps and throw my back against the window. The plexi shatters, and I fall like a counterweight to the ground. Above me, a jet of hot air roars from the latrine and flames pour out, tasting the fresh oxygen. Safe now, I yank the towel from the baby’s face. She’s quiet, eyes closed, then the rush of cold air hits her face, and the crying ignites.
The mother comes screaming toward me, and without a word, she pulls the bundle from my arm, clutches the baby to her breast, and flees, terrified, into the darkness. That is what this war has created—people who are terrified of the very same soldier who can help them.
Invisible Sun Page 19
