The Burning Light

by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  They’re coming, she called to a fanboat captain.

  They’re coming, she called to another.

  They’re coming, 23rd and Lex.

  Jacirai’s people, his soldiers, Zola’s guardian angels—for however long they lasted. She steered them to the fight, even as the Light swelled through her. Before they could converge, another halo dimmed, then another.

  Time became a slipstream, ebbing and flowing in twisted increments as Zola tried to shore up the latticework of collected minds. The Light fought. It surged and flailed, as it always had before when it had tried to rise. Through the minds of Zola’s junkies, it thrashed.

  Zola held it, at moments like a babe, at others like a snake coiled to strike—calming it even as she reached out again and again to update her boats on Chu’s movements.

  They had underestimated Chu. They’d thought she would come at the halos one at a time. Jacirai’s strategy had been attrition: there was no way Chu could find thirty-eight halos, much less tear them down before Zola brought forth the Light. But found them she had. She had summoned her thug cops, too, and now every halo was under attack. Most of them had held, but Chu herself was mowing through halos in minutes, her Gov-trained soldiers and their ceramic-tipped bullets unstoppable. With the thug cops pressing the other halos, there were no reinforcements to spare.

  Zola watched Chu’s progress. With the power of all the minds linked to her, coalesced and burning with the Light’s intelligence, she calculated. It reminded her of piloting a fleet of catties through bad weather.

  She pulled Jacirai’s bangers off five halos, the ones nearest Chu, and routed them to a position that would allow them a few precious minutes to dig in, to lay a trap as Chu made her way around the edge of their great circle.

  Five halos, undefended. One hundred and ninety-five souls, plus the bangers they’d stationed at each. There was nothing else Zola could do.

  She felt them die, every one of them—a rolling pain, an accumulating darkness as Chu extinguished another halo. And another, and another.

  The Light grew desperate. It spasmed. It threatened to burn straight through Zola’s mind, into the minds of the halos. It wanted to explode outward, spread itself, the way it had so many times before, too quick and too hot, scorching the minds through which it moved, leaving corpses.

  Stay, Zola called to her media, her points of light. Stay calm. Give me time.

  She coaxed, she cajoled, she soothed. She reined the Light in.

  But then another halo darkened, and another, these exterminated by Chu’s hired cops.

  THERE IS NOT ENOUGH.

  Whether it was her own thought or the Light’s, Zola couldn’t tell. It didn’t matter: it was true. The grand halo was collapsing. Too few minds remained to sustain the Light. There was no fear now, just resignation, the burning union with other minds, full of love even in failure, even in death.

  SHE IS NECESSARY.

  Her?

  A point of light brightened like a pulsar, then dimmed. A single mind. It was outside the lattice, independent, solitary—and somehow familiar. The Light spoke to her:

  I REMEMBER YOU . . .

  And through the Light, Zola remembered too. The girl in the Toronto school. A gifted soul, who had unwittingly opened to the Light two decades ago. The Light had thrashed her, and slipped once more beneath the surface.

  And here she was again, a mind every bit as bright as Zola’s. She was hiding, or was being hidden, her scent masked, but Zola knew her now, because the Light knew her:

  Agent Chu’s own sister.

  There beneath the broken concrete horse, Zola smiled. Her mind reached out to Bao, who sat now in a boat with several of Jacirai’s bangers.

  As Bao’s consciousness bloomed within hers, she said, Guess who I just found?

  * * *

  The Light came to Joy in a cascade of stars. The tips of needles, hot as phosphorous, burning white and coalescing into a whole, the source, the infinite womb.

  She sought to enter. She reached and she yearned and every time she did, the Light pulled away—

  Her solitude crashed down around her. Her teeth gnashed. Her body arched against the table. The straps burned against her wrists and ankles. She hollered, a wordless and primal curse, until her throat rasped.

  It was the drugs. She didn’t know what, but it kept her bound, lashed to the table like a sailor to a mast while all around her spun the burning siren stars she could not touch. Far away, she sensed others, grounded like she was. Dimmer stars, chained and weighed down, tortured by their knowledge of the Light but, like her, unable to reach out: Grandma’s test subjects.

  “Melody!” The drugs pumped through the needle in her neck and she groaned. She had been bad, she knew. Bringing the Light into her family, into her school, that had been very bad. So bad it had burned the innocence from Melody, turning her into a weapon so keen that she wanted to keep anyone from touching the Light again, ever. But that wasn’t fair. Not when the Light was right there. So close . . . and Joy wanted so badly to touch it.

  “Melody!”

  The boat changed course, the room shifting slightly around Joy. All night it had been running, darting this way and that, and every so often came the ratchet sound of the deck guns. Joy saw the constellations, appearing all at once in her mind’s sky and, one by one, winking out.

  Her sister was fighting the Light.

  “Melody!”

  The boat changed course once more, a hard turn this time. Through the polycarbon hull plating came the roar of the deck guns, the sound of soldiers yelling. Then, the pocking thunk of bullets fired from outside. Now soldiers screamed.

  “Melody!” Deep habit shaped the name in Joy’s mouth. Someone close, a name full of love and regret and fear.

  She’d cried that name the first time the Light had come to her. She’d reached out to her parents, and they had come. To her friends, and they had come, and her friends’ parents, her whole collective. She’d cried the name when she’d awoken, and Melody had stood there, and around her lay all the bodies. Yes, that had been very bad. The memory burned.

  “Melody!” Her sister. Her captor. Joy bowed against the restraints and she screamed her throat raw.

  Gunfire thundered from above decks, heavy caliber now. A brief silence followed.

  Then the world shattered. There was fire, and a roar so loud it physically pressed Joy’s body into the table. The boat rocked violently to one side. Just as quickly it righted itself, then slowly began to list. In the little cell, Joy heard the trickle of water. More gunfire came from overhead, sporadic now, and scattered voices, urgent, issuing commands. Across the deck above came the footsteps of many.

  The door whispered open.

  “Melody?” No response. “Melody, please. Let me go.”

  “I’ll let you go.”

  A man’s voice.

  A face came into view. Smiling, wrinkled eyes, enormous gray eyebrows. Others in the room now, fingers undoing straps, knives slicing through restraints. Joy’s limbs came free.

  “My name is Bao.” The old man wrapped an arm around her. “Can you stand? You need to come with us. We need your help.” He seemed to remember something, and said, “Ya.”

  “Zola . . .” Joy laughed. The vector. The one Melody so desperately wanted and who shone so bright. Zola was with the Light. “Zola needs my help.”

  They were ragtag soldiers, not even full adults, but they were gentle. They helped Joy out and onto the deck—her legs wouldn’t work. They brought her across a gunwale to the ungainly deck of a prop-powered fishing boat lashed alongside Melody’s sleek black Gov boat. The ragtag boys undid lines while behind them the man—Bao—pulled a metal sphere from a canvas bag. He pressed something and a light blinked. A high-pitched beeping filled the night.

  “Time to go, ya!” Bao smiled and dropped the sphere down a hatch into the confines of Melody’s boat, then leapt with little-boy glee onto the fishing boat as the young soldiers called, “Ya! Ya!
Ya!” They sped away up the canal.

  Behind them, the night lit like the day, lit like the Light. Water plumed into the air as high as the broken towers of Old New York. The soldier boys and the old man all cheered. At their feet, a little dog wagged. Joy smiled. They seemed very happy. No one seemed to mind what she did, so she crawled to the bow. She put her face to the cool night wind, and into it spoke her own name.

  “Joy.”

  * * *

  A flare shot up suddenly through the night, setting nearby scrapers aglow in red. Chu had no idea what it meant. She and her troops were in a well-preserved tower with hundreds living inside, a sad collective of scav families. And yet Captain had found too much resistance here.

  Need help bad, Colonel Mama, she’d pleaded. Fighting getting fierce. Nothing like you said.

  Hold your position.

  Chu had come, relieving Captain and sending her ahead to the next halo to buoy a firefight that was rapidly tilting in the wrong direction.

  Chu and her troops had swept through the tower, moving at the low-ready through room after room of cowering, malnourished squatters, arms wrapped around their children. Eventually they neutralized the halo, including the vector.

  Not much, was it? Holder asked Chu.

  Not much at all, Chu replied. Captain had made it sound so dire.

  Colonel? It was Solaas with his unit, watching their back on the lowest floor of the tower. You call for backup?

  No. Why?

  Captain’s here, with two dozen of her closest friends.

  Chu reached out to Captain, but the grimy excuse for a cop had closed herself off. She could see through Solaas’s eyes, though—Captain and her goons setting up a tripod on a floating barge.

  Take that bitch out, Chu ordered Solaas, then send the rest of them to the bottom of the canal.

  Roger that. Solaas pulled his rifle tight against his shoulder, sighting the crosshairs between Captain’s eyes. On my mark. The rest of Solaas’s squad followed suit, sighted up targets.

  On some archaic piece of military tech, Captain toggled a switch three times—

  Solaas, get out of there!

  The explosion rolled through the building. Chu felt the impact rumble its way up through her feet. The whole tower trembled. Screams of the inhabitants mingled with the sound of crumbling stone. Chunks of the tower’s lower floors crashed into other nearby buildings, into the canals, sending up geysers. The thunder of the explosives hadn’t even settled when the rattle of automatic fire came from all around.

  Chu ducked, brought her snub-nosed rifle up, spying for the snipers. She saw the flash of gunfire. She rattled off three short bursts in that direction. Someone yelped.

  Motion caught her eye. Below, two stories down, she saw something amazing: squatters flew along a zipline to a building across the street, fleeing the chaos.

  There. She forced her perspective on her team. That’s our retreat. Go, go, go! She ran for the stairs.

  Over the next minute, her troops’ minds came to her in flashes of violence—bodies, running, pain, gunfire, the acid smell of cordite. It was all too chaotic to know if they’d make it.

  They lost Danning and Malon and Solaas for sure. Goggins was weeping, but alive, running. Chu reached the fire escape, found the zipline taut, hooked a carabiner from it to her armor. Then she was flying. Around her the city tilted, vast and monolithic, jeweled by the night fires of its denizens. It was beautiful, and for an instant she forgot she hated it. Then her boots hit steel grating. Without a thought she turned, knelt, prepared to lay out cover fire. Far below, Captain’s people were still besieging the building Chu just left. Holder landed beside her, Goggins a few seconds later. Chu glanced up at the line. It was empty.

  Status, she demanded. Nothing. After a moment she realized: We’re it. The three of them, two crew back on the boat.

  Affirmative, came Holder.

  Jesus fuck, came Goggins. He brought up his rifle.

  Hold your fire, Chu ordered. They don’t know we’ve slipped through the net. Let’s keep it that way.

  She turned on us, Holder said, meaning Captain. Why—

  The priest. Jacirai. He must’ve bought her out. And Captain probably figured she could eliminate us without the Gov ever finding out.

  I wonder if they’d even care. Holder and Chu exchanged a morbid glance.

  What now? Goggins asked. Scared now, his well-honed mask slipping.

  We move, Chu said.

  Sir?

  No end to the junkies we have to kill tonight, soldier.

  Captain would get her due in time. What was important now was Zola. Zola and the halos. Chu’s mind reached out, pulled fifty of the cops still loyal to her off the halos they were currently assaulting so that they could deal with Captain.

  That’s a big hit, Holder said.

  Definitely cramps our style. Chu exaggerated her shrug to show through her armor. No way around it. She summoned the katana to meet them on the side of the building away from the firefight. Work yet to do, another halo, three blocks up. Same drill: they would blast through with the katana’s miniguns, then move through the building, quick and methodical. Three of them would have to be enough.

  When they reached the other side of the building, the katana waited, moored against a makeshift pier. Chu and Holder and Goggins were preparing ropes for the twenty-story rappel when Chu heard it, an electric whine from the canals below.

  Boats.

  Dozens of boats. Quick little battery-powered prop jobs, full of Haitians, Ricans, Moby Jah boys, small-time bangers—all of them toting guns. Jacirai’s people, whoever he’d bent with his word or his coin. They went for the katana.

  They fired their AKs wildly, badly, but often enough. The boats swarmed, three or four at a time, fired, then disappeared. Then they reappeared and swarmed again.

  The katana’s miniguns took several of them, but then they came with rockets. One fierce barrage took out the miniguns. A second barrage cracked the hull. Now the canal around the katana was choked with the little boats. The rough soldiers in them flung themselves onto the Gov boat. From the high cavity in the tower above, Chu watched them—like ants eating a carcass. An intense blaze of gunfire came, grew sporadic, then ceased. There was nothing more.

  Chu recognized the old man: one of Captain’s bounty cops, the one with the little dog. He and Jacirai’s boys entered the katana and emerged from belowdecks a few moments later half carrying, half dragging the source. The source—Chu’s mind suddenly recoiled from the concept. Her sister. Joy.

  The old man and his banger soldiers loaded Joy into one of the quick boats. As the fleet of miniatures dispersed, some distant part of Chu found it all keenly amusing. She was losing, and she knew it. She laughed. This, she recognized, is an intense denial reaction. She was still laughing when a column of fire and water shot up out of the canal.

  Spray cascaded over her and Holder and Goggins where they stood, twenty-odd stories up, staring down as the katana broke in two and slipped, bubbling and hissing, beneath black water, leaving behind a ghostly cloud of smoke.

  Chu’s laughter faded. A numbness began to set in. It’s over, she told Holder. There was nothing more they could do. There were no reinforcements. Grandma had abandoned them here. Some of Chu’s cops still fought, but nowhere near enough . . .

  And Joy . . . Joy was gone.

  Colonel?

  Goggins wanted orders. He stared, his face wide and shocked, the surprise of a soldier groomed to believe he was an ass kicker, that kicking ass was the only possible outcome of any engagement. Having his own ass handed to him—they wouldn’t have prepared him for that in his military collective, and Chu certainly hadn’t after he’d joined her troop. It threatened to break him. Without direction, he’d fall apart before Chu’s eyes. Holder watched her, too, sidelong, assessing.

  Below, the smoke dissipated. It was like the katana had never existed.

  Sir, Goggins insisted. What are your—

  Bul
lets pocked the wall above Chu’s head. The wet crunch of a round punching through armor and the flesh behind it. Goggins grunted, dropped his rifle. He sank to the grated steel, both hands clutching his neck. From his mind came the surge of pain, fear, the quick fade of bleeding out. Chu stood there, frozen.

  “Go!” Holder grabbed her shoulders and shoved her.

  Chu went. They ducked inside the building, crossed an expanse of bare concrete. Up through the stairwells came the howling, the war cries of Jacirai’s hired kid soldiers. Chu’s legs felt heavy—she had no will to run. She’d lost Joy. She’d lost her sister. The Light had taken her.

  From behind, Holder kept pushing.

  Goddamnit, move!

  Outside once more, along fire escapes. Gunfire came from the canals below, hot flares in the night. The sizzle and snap of bullets cut the air all around. Jacirai’s kids, on rafts, in canoes, everywhere, laughing, reveling in victory and the final hunt. Rounds kept mushrooming into the graphene folds of Chu’s armor—her entire body was made of pain. Behind her, Holder cursed.

  He went down.

  Chu stopped. Holder lay there in the cradle of a small steel balcony, writhing. She dragged him through a cratered window, into the building, and dropped to her knees beside him. Her hands searched his body, looking to staunch blood. There was a great deal of it. His thoughts felt like static—shock, the sensory overload of grievous injury. Memories flooded his mind. The years before Chu’s tutelage, the years during, the years after.

  She’d taken Holder and groomed him, the same way Grandma had groomed her—taken his grief and sharpened it, turned him into a weapon against the Light. He peered up, not at Chu or anything else, but through time itself. His face contorted, and Chu saw the child he had been, ruined. It was all there, his whole life, focused through fear. Through his mind, Chu saw it all. A life like her own.

  An entire life spent on revenge. For a moment, Holder focused on her. Your sister was right. You should’ve moved on, built a life for yourself. I should’ve . . . His laughter gurgled with blood and foam. You bitch.

  Chu held his head in her lap. She unlatched his helmet, pulled it off, set it aside. Ran bloody fingers through his hair.