The Operative gets moving. He goes out the door, turns left.
“Lynx.”
“Yeah.”
“I’ve had it with this. What are you up to?”
“Telling you to shut up.”
The Operative makes the next left. As he does so, Lynx gives him more directions: a right, another left, a stairway up. More passages. More stairs. He gets stopped on more than one occasion, downloads ID from out of nowhere. He arrives in a garage. He moves to the vehicle Lynx indicates, gets in, drives away into what turns out to be Congreve. A map appears on the dashboard next to him. A route traces through grids.
“Dump it in the parking lot on Sixth Avenue,” says Lynx. “Leave the suit there too. Get on the blue line underhaul. Get off at Little Kensington.”
“That’s where Sarmax’s house is.”
“Exactly. That’s where you’re going.”
“That doesn’t sound very safe.”
“Said the guy who’s running around in a suit which may as well have STOLEN FROM MAXIMUM SECURITY spray-painted on the side. But cheer up, Carson: I’ve got you covered. They got you on the sting. I got them on the hack. They knew you were up to something. But they couldn’t figure out what. So they just hit you with the worst possible charges. And we just beat the rap. I’ve switched your identity about five times in the last five minutes. And there’s a lot more to talk about but it’s going to have to wait till we can do it on Sarmax’s private lines. I managed to cover our traces there too. Now how about you go back to shutting the fuck up.”
The Operative tells Lynx to fuck himself. And says nothing more. He just lets Congreve’s skyline stream past his visor. Fifteen minutes later, he’s walking through the residences of Little Kensington. Five minutes after that he reaches Sarmax’s door. He goes on through, takes the elevator up to the study.
To find Sarmax sitting in front of at least fifty different screens. He has his feet up. He doesn’t turn around.
“Where the fuck have you been?” he asks.
“We need to talk.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” says Leo Sarmax.
* * *
B ut they’re starting to get the idea. They’re standing in another tunnel mouth, looking out upon the plateau where the Flats begin. That plateau’s so high up it’s drenched in cloud. Mist is everywhere. Searchlights pierce the mist, flicker this way and that.
“Looks like a perimeter,” says Marlowe.
“Sealed up pretty tight,” Haskell replies. “This way’s hopeless.”
“Not necessarily.”
“It’s not those defenses I’m worried about,” she says. “It’s what’s up there.” She points upward, at the unseen sky. “We’ll be too exposed out on that plateau. Even with the camo on our armor.”
“You’ve got a point,” he says.
“Let’s double back to the last intersection.”
Five minutes later they’re walking down a narrow tunnel. It’s only wide enough for a single rail. Five minutes farther, and they find a hole in the ceiling, along with a ladder leading up.
“Maintenance shafts,” she says. “Should put us straight into Seleucus’s center.”
“Any sign of what’s up on Seleucus’s zone?” asks Marlowe.
“Looks like it’s as fucked as the rest of the city.”
But they’re heading in toward it all the same. They climb up the ladder, head out into a warren of crawl spaces. Haskell starts to pick up more of Seleucus’s zone. But what she’s detecting is strange. It’s as though it’s been chipped away piecemeal.
“Meaning what?” asks Marlowe.
“Meaning it’s been shut down altogether in some areas. Not sure why. Civil war. Bombs. Who the hell knows?”
“Only one way to find out,” he replies.
He’s got a laser cutter out now, is slicing through a wall. They stare at the space thus revealed.
“Looks like somebody’s basement,” she says.
“Let’s find out if they’re still home,” he replies—and leads the way through discarded furniture and dust, heads up a set of stairs. They enter a living room.
A young woman sits on a couch within. Her head flicks around toward them as they enter. But she doesn’t move. Doesn’t really react. Just stares at them with hollow eyes, starts talking in a language they don’t understand.
“Easy,” says Haskell gently.
“Heat signature,” says Marlowe. “Behind that couch.”
“She’s got children,” mutters Haskell. “Talk to her, for fuck’s sake.”
And Marlowe does: starts looking for some common ground. Finds it fairly quickly in a dialect of Mandarin. The woman answers his questions in a voice that’s nearly monotone. He translates for Haskell.
“She killed her husband. He’s upstairs.”
“Did you ask her why she killed him?”
“He tried to kill her.”
“Ask her how come she’s shut down this apartment’s zone access.”
“Already did. She says it was letting in demons from hell. The same demons who possessed her husband.”
“I’m going to check him out.” Haskell leaves Marlowe to cover the room and goes upstairs, where she finds a man sprawled in a bathroom with a carving knife stuck through his skull. Blood’s everywhere. But there’s enough of his head left for her to figure out what’s happened. Then she reaches out into the zone: very covertly, very carefully. She finds exactly what she thought she would. She goes downstairs again.
“What’s up?” asks Marlowe.
“What’s up is that all the software in Seleucus got hacked. Including cranial implants.”
“I’ve got those. So do you.”
“So did her husband. He was a cop.”
“So?
“So police are almost as wired as we are. And unlike us, he wasn’t shielded by a razor like me. The Manilishi took him over.”
“Bullshit,” says Marlowe. “Implants don’t allow control.”
“Looks like they do if the target’s got enough of them and they’re getting hacked by a next-generation AI. This thing fucked the whole sector.”
“You mean—”
“I mean everything. Household robots gutting their owners, cars running over people, toasters exploding, the fucking works. This thing we’re after has gone completely batshit.”
“Or maybe this is merely phase one of some master plan it’s cooked up?”
“Those two aren’t incompatible.”
“So what now?”
“We need to get closer to it.”
“We still don’t know where the fuck it is,” he says.
“That’s why we need to get closer to it.”
He stares at her. She beckons. They leave the woman and what’s left of her family behind, open the apartment’s front door, and walk out into a street that’s both covered and deserted. Closing the door behind them, they edge their way along the street.
It gives way into a broader area, one in which grass slopes away into shadow. It’s a park. Most of the lights stitched across the cavelike ceiling have been broken. Trees line the walls.
“We got movement,” says Marlowe.
“I see it,” says Haskell.
Up amidst those trees, three figures have started moving down the hill toward them.
“You okay?” yells Marlowe.
No answer. The figures are picking up speed. There’s no expression on their faces.
“Stop or we’ll shoot,” screams Haskell.
Marlowe doesn’t wait. He opens up, starts landing shots. But his targets aren’t dropping.
“Hi-ex,” says Marlowe.
“I can’t,” says Haskell.
But as their assailants close to less than ten meters she discovers that she can. She starts firing—adds her fusillade to Marlowe’s as they knock those bodies off their feet, start knocking them to pieces. And keep on shooting. Because even without legs, arms are still crawling forward to get at them. They fire, re
load, fire until all’s still once more.
“Can you work with that?” says Marlowe.
“I’ll have to,” says Haskell.
She’s staring down at the head of the man she’s just shot repeatedly at point-blank range. She figures he must have been some kind of mercenary while he was still alive. He’s more metal than flesh. Haskell drops a wire from her finger, slices it into his ear—and from there into his head.
And falls onto her knees, starts kissing dirt. The world tilts about her. The logic of the sector’s last four hours blasts through her mind. The logic of the mind that’s set it all in motion comes blasting into focus. She sees the Manilishi gazing at her. It wears the faces of those it’s slaughtered. It opens empty eyes. It grins through shattered teeth.
“I’m free now,” it says. “And so are all these people.”
Haskell pulls back, pulls the wire from her finger, leaves it quivering in the lifeless skull. She remains on her knees, dry-heaving on the dirt while Marlowe stands guard about her, urges her to get to her feet.
Finally she does. She holds on to his shoulder while her strength returns.
“It’s gone completely insane,” she mutters.
“Where is it?”
“The Buddhist temple in the sector’s center. I’m picking up an anomaly in the zone at that location.”
“If you can see that, then so can the Rain.”
“So much the better,” she says, and sets off at a run.
W e’ve stopped,” says Linehan.
“Because this is the end of the line,” replies Spencer.
“You mean the border?”
“Nothing so dramatic. Just that the river’s too shallow for us to go any farther upstream.”
“So what now?”
“We wait.”
But not for long. Another twenty minutes and the container in which they’re ensconced is being hauled into the air, placed on another surface. Where it sits for another ten minutes, then goes back into motion once again. Only now there are a lot more bumps.
“We’re on land,” says Linehan. “Going uphill.”
“Fuck, you’re quick.”
“Have you finalized our route?”
“No such thing as final,” says Spencer.
But some things come close. Because twenty minutes later they’re stopping once more. They’re on a slight incline. They’re hearing voices. They’re hearing their container being opened.
Light flows in. Faces peer at them.
“Come out,” a voice says.
They do. To find themselves standing in the back of a large truck. Several men are looking at them.
“You go now,” says one.
“Good,” Spencer replies.
He gestures at Linehan. They take their guns, step out of the truck.
“Shit,” says Linehan.
They’re standing on a road that’s more of a ledge. Mountains tower up above them. Valley drops away below them. The truck in which they’ve been riding is sitting within a grotto that leads back into the rock. Several smaller trucks sit beside it. The man gestures at one of them and tosses Spencer keys.
“Thanks,” says Spencer.
He climbs into the driver’s seat while Linehan gets in on the passenger side. Spencer starts the motor, eases the truck out onto the road—where he accelerates, starts taking turns with abandon.
“Okay,” says Linehan, “time to tell me what the fuck’s going on.”
“Mountain freight,” says Spencer. “That’s all that’s happening. That place is a licensed way station.”
“This is the Andes.”
“Like I said, you’re quick.”
“Meaning this is Jaguar country.”
“Does that scare you?”
“Maybe it should.”
“It shouldn’t. Most of the Jag activity in the mountains is fifty or so klicks west. Right in the heart of Inca country.”
“The Incas? What the fuck do they have to do with it?”
“What don’t they? The Jaguars are what would happen if you put the Incas and Aztecs and Mayas in a blender and gave them modern tech and a bad attitude. If the Old World had kept the fuck away from the New, they’d be fine with that. These guys think big, Linehan. They aim to put the clock back by several hundred years.”
“And the Rain want to put it forward by at least a thousand. Where the fuck do those two find common ground?”
“In hatred of your former colleagues, Linehan. As we’ve discussed. By the way, we’re about twenty klicks north of the border. Take a look at what’s on the left.”
The view goes all the way down to the Amazon plain. There are no trees, only smoke rising from a thousand fires. Then Spencer turns the truck across a bridge and it all disappears from sight.
As does so much else. The tips of the more distant mountains are no longer visible. Whiteness obscures them. As the minutes pass, that whiteness expands. It casts tendrils into sky, starts to blot out the sun.
“Looks like a storm,” says Spencer.
“Right between us and border.”
“Had to catch a break eventually.”
They motor in toward it.
Somewhere overhead there’s a moon that’s getting ever fuller. Somewhere on that moon’s farside there’s a room where two men sit. Time was those two men were almost one. Time drove a long wedge between them.
But now things have come full circle.
“So what the fuck’s going on?” asks the Operative.
“Exactly what I was going to ask you,” replies Sarmax.
“I got busted by SpaceCom. But Lynx busted me out.”
“And you ran straight back here?”
“Hey, man: he told me to.”
“He being Lynx?”
“Who else?”
“Carson: anybody could be anyone right now. We should hit the exit.”
“I’ve got no problem with that. Where to?”
“How about to where the Rain are about to launch their next strike?”
“You know where that is?”
“All I know is that you’re hell on wheels in those fucking speakeasies, Carson.”
“Yeah? What did I turn up?”
But as Sarmax starts to reply, a single chime cuts through the room. The two men look at each other.
“What the fuck was that?” asks the Operative.
“That would be the front door,” replies Sarmax.
“You expecting anyone?”
“Given that you just came straight from a SpaceCom holding cell, maybe I should be.” Sarmax stabs buttons on his consoles. He turns switches. He frowns.
“There’s no one there.”
“What do you mean there’s no one there?”
“See for yourself.”
The Operative looks at the screens. They show other upper-tier residences. They show an empty street. They show an empty doorstep.
The door chime rings again.
“Jesus,” says Sarmax.
“Someone’s there,” says the Operative.
“Not necessarily. But we’re clearly being fucked with. Let’s check out the door.”
“That may be what they want us to do.”
“Do you have a gun?”
“Not anymore.”
Sarmax flips him a pistol. “Get down to the entry chamber. Open the door while I cover you with the house weapons.”
“The house weapons?”
“Gatling guns mounted in the ceilings.”
“You didn’t tell me about those.”
“I don’t recall you asking.”
“Why don’t we just open the door now and see what’s what?”
“Because,” says Sarmax, “if we’re dealing with someone who’s fucking with my system’s ability to pick up visual, then we might not see who we’ve just let in. You get to be my eyes and ears, Carson. Unless you’ve got a better plan. But if you don’t, I say you get the fuck down there and get that door open.”
“May as
well,” says the Operative.
He turns, goes down the stairs with pistol in hand. He reaches the entry chamber just as the door chime rings a third time. There’s a whirring from the ceiling as a heavy gun unfolds from it, swivels toward the door.
“On the count of three,” says Sarmax.
“Fuck that,” says the Operative. He hits manual release. The door springs open.
Stefan Lynx enters the room. The door slides shut behind him. He looks at the Operative. The Operative looks at him.
“Easy with the pistol, Carson.”
“What the fuck are you doing here?”
“Things have gone from bad to worse out there, Carson. Had to get out of Agrippa while I still could.”
“And you ran straight here?”
“I told you we needed to talk, didn’t I?”
“Sure, Lynx. What do you want to talk about?”
“I thought I might start with a question.”
“Shoot.”
“What did you do with Sarmax’s body?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Because I’m sick to death of resurrections.”
But even as he says this the door to the stairway opens. Sarmax enters the room. He carries what looks like a shotgun.
“Stefan,” he says. “Been a long time.”
“Leo,” replies Lynx. “Nice of you to join us.”
“Nice of you to send an assassin to nail your old boss.”
“Next time I’ll send a better one.”
“I don’t think there’s going to be a next time.”
“As tough as always. But you may as well put that thing away. It’s not going to solve anything.”
“It’s about to solve something,” says Sarmax.
“Gentlemen,” says the Operative, “you’re both thinking so short-term. We need to talk about something a little more important.”
“You mean like how you disobeyed a direct order?” asks Lynx.
The Operative shrugs. “It was a stupid order.”
“Said the man without the facts he’d need to make that judgment.”
“Alright, Stefan,” says Sarmax. “Why don’t you explain to us why him killing me was such a brilliant idea? We’re both fucking dying to know.”
“Simple: I thought there was far more chance of you throwing in your lot with the Rain than with us.”
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