Clair’s mind was blank, still reeling from everything that had happened in the previous hours. If that had been war, she wanted no more of it. Time for yet another strategy, but what? Her primary goals hadn’t changed: if it felt like they had receded even further into the distance, it was only because she was tired and nothing she had tried so far had worked. That didn’t mean she was never going to succeed. There had to be a way to ensure that all the death and destruction on the seastead hadn’t been a complete waste.
Her mother liked to say, The only thing separating success from failure is giving up. Allison had lots of sayings like that, some of them helpful, some of them not so much. Some, like this one, were true, but didn’t help solve anything, really. Not in a concrete here’s-how-to-rescue-me kind of way. That, Clair would have to figure out for herself, when she had time and energy to try again.
Then she remembered something Jesse had said earlier, before the fighting had started.
“Russia,” she said in a voice she could barely hear. The audacity of what she was thinking startled even her. “That’s where we should go.”
“Why?” asked Devin. “What’s there?”
Jesse stared at her in surprise; then a cautiously delighted smile spread across his face. “Agnessa Adaksin. The muster.”
“The what?” asked Trevin. “Whose master?”
“Muster,” Clair corrected him. “WHOLE has a new leader and she’s gathering everyone together in one place.”
“So?”
“There’s only one other group that hasn’t underestimated what d-mat can do,” Jesse said. “Who else has as good reason to hate the dupes as much as us?”
“That may be true,” said Devin, “but they’ve got good reason to hate us as well.”
“And us,” said Sargent.
Clair nodded, not unaware of the hurdles ahead of them. But Jesse was beaming, and she felt an instinctive rightness about the idea. Every high-tech attempt to evade the dupes had failed. Maybe it was time for something simple.
And she could be sure of one thing: there would be no Cashiles or Dylan Linwoods in a community guaranteed to have no d-mat booths or fabbers.
“We’ll deal with everyone getting on with everyone else when we get there,” she said. “Where exactly is there, Jesse?”
“New Petersburg,” he said. “On the Neva Straits.”
“Send me the exact location,” said Devin, sounding resigned. “I am painfully aware that we are running again.”
“You’re not the only one,” said Clair. “But let’s just do it, if we’re going to. I bet the dupes aren’t wasting any time working out what to do next.”
“I have no objections,” said Forest.
Sargent nodded. “It’s not as if the other peacekeepers can’t keep looking for the dupes while we’re off doing this.”
“And for Q, too?” said Devin. When neither peacekeeper responded, he shrugged. “Fair enough. RADICAL will be doing the same without us, while working on the next contingency. It looks like we might need it.”
“That’s settled, then,” said Trevin. “Hold on to your hats, people. We’re on our way.”
eeeeeee—
Clair felt rather than heard a rising whine that tickled the backs of her eardrums. When it reached its peak, it threatened to tear her head apart.
—EEEEEEE—
“Is this the way it’s supposed to go?” she bumped Devin.
“Beats me,” he bumped back. “We’ve never actually ridden a powersat beam before.”
“Are you for real?”
“Never been realer.”
Clair clutched her head as the screech blasted her from all sides. It felt as though every cell inside her body had burst and her blood had flashed instantly to steam. Her body exploded into countless tiny fragments—and yet, when she opened her eyes to see what had happened, she found herself standing exactly where she had been.
“Welcome to Russia,” said a shaky-sounding Devin.
Except for that part, she thought.
[43]
* * *
THE SECTION OF the seastead containing them had arrived in a cargo booth the size of a small building. When the crow’s nest doors slid apart, the corridor outside ended in a vertical mirror several yards along. They had to go down a ramp two floors, onto another mirror, this one horizontal, where Devin joined them.
“Well, that was fun.”
“Which part?” asked Jesse.
“None of it, to be honest.” He looked around as though getting his bearings. “I’ll come with you for the next leg and have all this shipped elsewhere. If we step outside, I’ll cycle the booth and get us some transport.”
“What about Trevin?” asked Clair, following Devin to the hangar-sized doors.
“He’s got things to attend to.” Devin tapped his forehead. “We’ll still be in touch.”
“Speaking of which,” said Sargent, “we’re not keeping this a secret, are we?”
“No point,” said Devin. “And probably impossible. Better to be up front about something we can’t hide.”
Clair nodded, agreeing with the sentiment, although nervous about what awaited her in the Air. She was more worried about that than she was about walking practically unarmed into the WHOLE stronghold. Unarmed and completely exhausted. She ached from head to toe.
“We’re about four miles from the muster,” Devin said. “As far as getting there goes, I thought we’d try something a little different.”
The wall of the giant booth cracked open, creating a horizontal aperture through which poured icy-cold air.
Devin guided them outside into a deep, winter night lit only by blue streetlights. The enormous booth was surrounded by tall, thin buildings, the purpose of which Clair couldn’t imagine—old atmosphere processors, maybe, from the Water Wars. Between them in the near distance she saw trees, and the sight of all that green made her want to run and disappear into it, never to return. Her body and mind had endured so many shocks in recent days that they barely seemed to fit together anymore. She needed to rest, but instead she was jumping headlong into the mouth of the whale. The mouth of WHOLE, more literally.
Her lenses were bugging her with messages from the real world. Oz, Tash, and Ronnie were prominent, but Clair didn’t want to read any more accusations or interrogations or reminders of her failure. Oz had sent her several messages conveying his love and hope that she was looking after herself. Clair doubted this plan would qualify.
She reduced everything except for notifications from the people around her to a single icon and let it sit in her infield, not daring to believe that this simplified anything but knowing that, for the moment, it was as much as she could cope with. One problem at a time. The rest could wait.
The booth boomed shut behind them, then a moment later opened again, revealing a squat vehicle with a fat black skirt and two elegant fans positioned vertically at the rear.
“A hovercraft?” said Jesse. “Can I drive?”
“Be my guest,” said Devin.
“Do you have a license?” asked Forest.
“Are you going to arrest me if I don’t?” Jesse said. “’Cause that’d make a great impression.”
The peacekeeper inclined his head.
They climbed aboard. There were seats for four passengers, plus one for the pilot. Clair sat behind Jesse, feeling like she was making the exact opposite of progress. Here they were, the five of them at a disadvantage again. And here she and Jesse were, fleeing dupes in some weird vehicle created from an archaic pattern dredged out of the dark corners of the Air. Somewhere out there, she bet, Nobody was laughing Dylan Linwood’s head off.
Engines whirred into life. Fans roared. The hovercraft rocked beneath them, then settled. Accelerating smoothly, they drove—sailed? flew?—into the ruins of New Petersburg.
Everyone knew the story. Coastal cities had faced difficult decisions during the Water Wars. Some stayed and worked with the rising seas, like New York, with its flo
oded streets and canal culture. Others, like Washington and London, built massive barrages to keep the oceans at bay.
The third strategy was to abandon the city and rebuild nearby, which is what Saint Petersburg had attempted. The original city was re-created in stages on the southern isthmus of the strait that ultimately connected the former Lake Ladoga to the Baltic Sea. But the development took longer than planned, and the seas rose faster than expected, so the population of the original city, some million people facing complete inundation, fled farther north. New Petersburg ended up a ghost town of skeletal skyscrapers and empty freeways.
Through this urban wasteland Jesse drove with a steady hand, the hovercraft smoothly gliding over pitted roads that hadn’t seen a car for decades. The sun hung low on the horizon, a bloated red ball casting very little heat. Clair wished she hadn’t ditched her armor so soon, bloody though it was, and hugged herself for warmth. The cold air kept her in a state of desperate alertness. When she closed her eyes, all she saw was Nobody’s stolen face, over and over, pressing in on every side.
She shuddered. Sargent put an arm around her.
“We should have fabbed you a jacket,” she said, which only reminded Clair of her mother.
Fortunately, their destination was already in sight. Ahead hung several lighter-than-air craft of various sizes and shapes, some fat like plums, others long and thin like cigars; one had the likeness of a celebrity whose fame had peaked ten years ago. Small airplanes and gyrocopters circled them like gnats, flashing navigation and warning lights. Several plumes of white smoke trailed up from the area below, which Clair couldn’t see thanks to the intervening buildings.
“There are barricades ahead,” said Trevin. “I suggest we take to the water.”
Jesse angled the hovercraft to the left, following the next road downhill. The straits were gray and uninviting. Clair braced herself as they swept over an embankment, but there was no perceptible difference to their forward motion when they hit the water. Spray whipped up around them, making her face feel colder than ever.
The coastline receded until it was some fifty yards away, then Jesse began following it around to the east, the shadowy bulk of the abandoned city on their right, forested slopes to their distant left. There were birds flying overhead, perhaps ordinary seagulls, but Clair couldn’t hear their cries over the fans and the chattering of her teeth.
More lights appeared as the muster itself hove into view. It looked like a small town, with piers and roads and lots of low buildings, lit by yellow electric lights.
“We’re being hailed,” Jesse shouted over his shoulder.
Two other craft were speeding toward them, spotlights getting brighter by the second.
“Decelerate,” Forest bumped back rather than yelling over the fans. “Do not provoke them.”
“Surely they know who we are,” said Devin.
“It will not hurt to allow them the appearance of superiority.”
“I didn’t come here to be taken prisoner.”
Clair couldn’t stand their bickering.
“Stop the boat,” she shouted to Jesse, “or hovercraft, whatever you call it. Kill the engines. We’ll wait here and let them come to us. Be ready to run if I tell you to.”
The pitch of the fans took on a deeper, descending note and the hovercraft began to sway on the choppy water as its forward motion eased. Over the ebbing of the engines, Clair heard a twin nasal whine that had to be the two boats approaching. She stood up and, ignoring the cold, went to stand next to Jesse, where she would be most visible.
Jesse looked up at her.
“They’re trying to call you,” he said.
She opened her hide-the-world icon long enough to find a patch marked AA. She accepted the chat request.
“So you’ve come crawling back to us,” said a woman in a challenging voice, high-pitched and accented. Agnessa Adaksin, Clair thought. It had to be.
“I should have come sooner,” Clair admitted, “but I’m not crawling. If you don’t want me here, I’ll go.”
“Why are you here?”
“I need somewhere safe to think things through without people trying to kill me all the time. You can offer me that.”
“Why would we?”
“Because you owe me,” Clair said, aware that she was taking a huge gamble. “I’m the girl who killed d-mat.”
“If so,” Agnessa said, “you didn’t do a very good job.”
There was a long pause. Clair had nothing else to say.
“You can come in . . . but that’s not why. We’ll talk about what I owe you when you get here.”
The chat closed. Clair glanced up at the approaching boats. They changed course, angling around in two broad circles that would take them back to the landing.
“Follow them in,” said Clair. “We’re okay for now.”
The hovercraft moved beneath her, and she went back to her seat.
“There are mines ahead,” Devin bumped her. “You can see them in satellite views.”
“We’d better follow those boats closely, then,” she bumped back.
“What I mean is: she could have let us sail right into them, but she didn’t. That’s a positive sign.”
She nodded, accepting that this might be true but not letting herself relax. They were surrounded by explosives that could detonate at the slightest wrong move. If that wasn’t a metaphor for her life, she didn’t know what was.
“So that’s why you wanted us to come by sea,” she bumped Devin. “When were you going to tell us?”
“If she had let us keep coming unguided,” he bumped back. “Or if you hadn’t stopped. We’re all in the same boat, Clair.”
“Hovercraft.”
“As long as it keeps us afloat, I don’t care what it is.”
[44]
* * *
THE LANDING WAS crowded with boats and ships as varied as the blimps above. They were led to a pier where a delegation of men and women in plain clothes awaited them, all carrying weapons. None were actually pointed at them, but Clair was conscious of being watched from all sides. There were no drones overhead, just people peering at them from every vantage point.
With a final whirr, the hovercraft skated to a halt next to the pier. Jesse threw out a rope, which one of the burlier men caught and tied around a mushroom-shaped metal protrusion. When it was secure, Clair stood up and let herself be helped to shore by a woman with high cheekbones and short, curly hair. And, Clair noticed, just four fingers on each hand. Clair remembered Dancer and the members of WHOLE she had met before. She told herself to expect more such injuries. People who claimed to be injured by d-mat were a key source of recruits.
When they were all on the pier, the woman said simply, “Follow.” Not Agnessa Adaksin, judging by her voice. She led them uphill, away from the water, and Clair felt exposed every step of the way. None of them belonged in WHOLE territory, except for Jesse.
He stayed by Clair’s side, taking her hand when he was able to and waving her ahead of him when he wasn’t. His deference was calculated, she was sure, to send a message to those watching. If you accept me, then you’ll have to accept her, too.
She hoped that was what it meant. It could equally be read as, Don’t mess with me, or my kick-ass girlfriend will have words. Clair didn’t feel terribly kick-ass. She felt filthy and desperate, pushed so far beyond her comfort zone that she could barely remember what it was like back there, let alone how to return to it. Here she was taking comfort from an Abstainer, after all. Clair 1.0 would never have imagined that.
Clair 1.0 had had no idea, she thought, about so many things.
Their escorts stopped at a locked double door in the side of a low L-shaped building. Still saying nothing, the escorts opened the doors and waved them inside. The doors shut off the frigid world behind them, the Air with it. Their escorts stayed outside.
A long, white corridor stretched ahead of them, up the long arm of the L. The air stank faintly of antiseptic.
&
nbsp; “Up the hallway, door on the right,” called a voice that belonged, unmistakably, to Agnessa Adaksin. “Don’t make me come get you.”
Clair took a deep breath. “What is this place?”
“It’s my prison,” she said.
Clair hesitated. This was too weird. Her courage finally failed her—her knees were literally shaking. Someone else was going to have to guide them the rest of the way.
Fortunately Sargent stepped forward to take the lead. Noises from the room at the end of the corridor reached them as they filed toward it. Some kind of heavy, wheezing breath. A constant mechanical hum. The light spilling out of the room was electric white, almost painfully bright. As Clair stepped into it, she blinked and made out two figures, not one.
The first was a hefty woman with hair in dreadlocks and a long, patterned smock. She was bending over the second figure, a tiny woman curled up like a child on a high-tech hospital bed. All Clair could see of the second woman’s face was a narrow, pointed chin under a plastic hood that fitted almost entirely over her head.
The big woman’s expression was guarded to the point of being hostile.
“Agnessa?” Clair said.
The woman lifted her eyes as though they were idiots.
“That’s Nelly,” said a voice from a speaker set into the side of the hood, the same voice that had spoken to them by the door. “She’s my nurse. This body is my prison. Watching people’s reactions is one of the few pleasures it brings me.”
They were all standing around the bed now, glowered at by the nurse, who didn’t seem to be armed, but Clair bet the leader of WHOLE had defenses she wasn’t revealing.
“Where do I look?” Clair asked, wondering what the expression on her face revealed.
“Anywhere you like. I’m currently viewing you through a camera at the end of the bed, but I could just as easily be in the corner behind you, or the hallway outside. I talk to you through the Air, through speakers like these, or through more secure means if I need to. I am anywhere I choose to be, virtually.”
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