But then the door opens.
And shuts behind the Operative as he goes through into a room that’s lined along three walls by consoles. A fourth wall is sliced through by a window that seems to look down upon the level below. Three persons are in that room. None wear suits. All are officers. They regard the suited Operative. They look puzzled.
“How the fuck did you get in?” asks one.
“Orders, sir,” replies the Operative. “Here’s my clearance.”
A gas bereft of color and smell sprays from valves set along his shoulders. The men convulse. The Operative puts a bullet in the back of each of their heads for good measure. He goes to work on the comps. He enters the codes.
“Proceed to Elevator H3,” says the voice of Stefan Lynx.
The Operative says nothing. For a moment he looks out the window—the room is set almost at the ceiling of a massive cavern whose floor is a chaos of rails, digging equipment, and tunnels. He turns back to the consoles, types more keystrokes. He hits execute. The door slides open. He goes through, proceeds from there to what’s designated as H3 on the map in his head. A suited marine stands before the elevator door. The Operative flashes clearance.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” says the soldier.
“It means I get to use this elevator,” replies the Operative.
“This elevator’s restricted to the brass.”
“I got a battlefield promotion,” says the Operative and suddenly pivots forward, plunging a knife into the man’s visor. All of the myriad tiny blades that comprise that knife are whirring at high velocity as they sear through visor, skull, helmet, and the elevator door behind. The man jerks as his blood streams down the Operative’s arm; the Operative’s arm jerks with him. He pulls the knife out, lets the suited figure flop onto the floor, drags the body into a nearby storeroom. He enters the elevator and the door shuts behind him.
As the elevator trundles downward, the Operative’s thinking furiously. He knows that Lynx and Sarmax have either entered the base by now or the entire mission’s blown. He has no idea how they were planning to gain entry. He’s not supposed to know. He’s the spearhead of the entire operation—with Sarmax acting both as handler and second mech and Lynx providing tactical coordination and on-the-spot zone coverage. To have razor, mech, and handler in physical proximity on the same run is highly unusual. But the team now hitting Nansen never had much patience for procedure. It’s been many years since they did the runs together. Yet somehow it seems like no time has passed at all.
The elevator stops. The doors open. The Operative emerges, moves down the corridor thus revealed, cycles through another airlock. He encounters more marines, but no one challenges him. He hears Lynx’s voice once more.
“Change up,” it says. “Alter route as follows.”
The Operative tries to envision Lynx’s calculations. The garrison of the Third Marines has set up three levels of defense. The Operative breached the outer perimeter when he landed. He snuck through the inner perimeter by way of Elevator H3. Now he’s down in the core of the operations. All that’s left to hit is the inner enclave. And Lynx is making last-second changes to better enable its penetration.
The Operative reaches another doorway. He looks out on a large cave that looks to be an offshoot of the cavern he glimpsed from the control room. Steps lead down from the door in which he’s standing to a floor where walkway crosses rails. The Operative heads down to the walkway, crosses toward a train that’s moving silently in toward him—but he stops as it picks up steam. He lets it rumble by, beholds scores of suited miners staring down at him. He stares up at their visored faces—watches as those faces give way to equipment and cargo and finally to nothing. Tail-lights flicker red as the train moves farther down that tunnel.
The Operative’s already moving—over rails that are still quivering with vibration and through a doorway cut into the far wall. He goes through another airlock. Scarcely has he come out its other side than lights begin to flash. A siren starts up. The voice of Stefan Lynx echoes in his helmet once again.
“We’re rumbled. Kill everything you see and don’t stop killing until we’ve won.”
The Operative hits his suit’s thrusters.
T he inner sanctum of the Kanheri Temple of Great Peace is vacant save for an altar. The banners hung from the ceiling have been torn by the blast that’s just rocked the chamber.
“Where the fuck is it?” yells Marlowe. He’s got his guns out.
“I don’t fucking know,” screams Haskell. She opens up on the altar, destroys it in a barrage of explosive rounds. In the zone she catches a glimpse of some presence receding.
“It’s running,” she says.
“Then so are we.”
They start to race down the corridor. They leap bodies, sprint around corners. They charge through what’s left of the temple. Even now they don’t lose their formation. They’re on guard against the oldest gambit of them all—when the hunted doubles back on hunter. So Marlowe leads and Haskell covers him, covers the zone too. She can see nothing at all. But she knows full well that something’s there. Something that’s gone lights out and hell for leather. Something that couldn’t be that far ahead of them…
“We’re out of the temple now,” says Marlowe.
“Some kind of back entrance,” confirms Haskell.
One that’s sloping down. They’re dropping well below the level of the Seleucus Flats now.
“Are you sure this is the way it went?” asks Marlowe.
“It’s right ahead of us,” she says.
She can’t see it on the zone. But she knows it’s right there. She fires on long-range. Tracers streak past Marlowe, explode in the depths of the tunnel. The walls around them shake.
“Easy,” says Marlowe.
“Goddamn it,” mutters Haskell.
She keeps expecting to stumble upon its smoking wreckage, keeps waiting for it to leap from the very rock around them. But it’s not going out easy. She knows it’s got special powers. But as to how those manifest in tactical combat situations, she can only guess. She detects a heat signature farther down the tunnel. It’s moving away quickly.
“Thrusters,” says Haskell.
“Must be,” replies Marlowe.
They ignite their own, give chase. If they’re heading into a trap, they could be in a precarious position. But they’ve got no choice. They’re ready for anything. But nothing moves save the shadows cast by their own flames. The heat signature in front of them is very faint. As is the zone presence. They’re pursuing it as fast as they dare.
“Where the fuck are we?” says Marlowe.
“Well below the Flats now,” she replies.
Somewhere in the depths of the rest of city. And now that city’s all around her, writhing amidst the distortions of its zone: reports of what’s going on in Seleucus mixed in with plagues now loose in the central sectors shot through with fevered rants about Armageddon and impending war and how the last days are now upon us. She catches glimpses of nightclubs where the youth of HK dance themselves into an oblivion thrust upon them far too early. She sees mobs in full riot—watches as explosions blast across them, drop them in their tracks. She overloads herself on all those images. She keeps rushing deeper, keeps urging Marlowe forward.
Finally the route they’re traversing starts taking them beyond the city’s confines. The city’s sounds are starting to fade on all their screens. They’re approaching sea level and still they’ve seen no other way out of this tunnel.
“Some escape route,” says Marlowe.
“I’m not sure what I’d call this,” replies Haskell.
They’re accelerating. By Haskell’s reckoning they’re out beyond the coastline now. Ocean lies above them. They keep on questing forward, leaving the shore behind.
But they turn off their thrusters when a door comes into sight. They move carefully toward it. As Marlowe presses up against one side, Haskell covers him. Marlowe pivots, opens the door.
&
nbsp; “Interesting,” he says.
They’re looking at a corridor that’s filled with equipment: ladders, metal pipes. As they move into the corridor, they notice that the door through which they’ve come is invisible from this side. They hear a rumbling somewhere up ahead.
“The geothermals,” says Haskell.
“Must be,” breathes Marlowe.
They creep into the infrastructure that harnesses the product of the friction of the fault lines off New Guinea. They’re proceeding very carefully now. Any heat would just get lost in the shuffle down here. What they’re looking for could be anywhere.
But Haskell picks it up on the zone all the same. It’s moving in toward the farside of the complex. If it had any sense, it would have severed all access with the zone altogether at some point during the pursuit. Unless it’s arrogant enough to believe it can’t be tracked. Or it’s sowing a false trail. Or…
“It wants us to follow,” she says.
“You hadn’t figured that out yet.”
“What choice do we have?”
“What choice indeed?”
“It’s speeding up.”
It’s moving out beyond the complex. She has no idea where it’s going, but can see quite clearly that it’s picking up the pace. And now she and Marlowe are doing the same—racing through the machinery that’s busy feeding power to all the chaos now raging far behind. The place isn’t small. It takes them almost ten minutes to get to the farside—and another five minutes to find the hole in the back of the disused chamber that leads…
“Due north,” says Haskell. “Straight out to sea.”
“Let’s do it,” says Marlowe.
They proceed down the new tunnel, firing their thrusters intermittently. But mostly they’re just walking now. The tunnel around them is starting to change. Metal replaces stone. Plastic replaces metal. They transition into a corridor once more.
Only this one’s different. It’s much more cramped. They can hear the hum of a power source around them. And soon they can discern insignias on the walls and ceiling.
“Do you recognize those?” asks Haskell.
“Indian military,” replies Marlowe.
“Indian?”
“Why not? They used to own this.”
Back when India mattered. Back before the Coalition crushed her. Long time gone now—even though she used to have such reach. Several kilometers off the coast of New Guinea: that’s where one of her limbs got severed. That’s where one lies forgotten.
“What are we in?” mutters Haskell.
“Legacy,” replies Marlowe. “The Indian Republic maintained mobile underwater fortresses. Like any naval power. Apparently one got buried off the coast of New Guinea. And here we are.”
“And here’s where the Manilishi’s waiting for us,” says Haskell.
“Along with its masters,” he replies.
She nods. They keep moving.
T he stairs end in a tunnel. They start making haste along it, moving due south now. They advance through into what looks to be a natural cave, transition back into another tunnel. Their lights play along the walls, ceiling.
“This should take us beyond the border,” says Spencer.
“This being what?”
“These are smugglers’ tunnels.”
“Yeah? Smuggling what?”
“Mostly drugs. But sometimes humans.”
“And you hooked up with these guys how?”
“Bit of a six degrees of separation thing,” says Spencer.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. The border’s honeycombed with this shit. Some of it was dug during the wars across the last thirty years. Some of it’s much older. Some of it was here all along.”
“And the Americans don’t know about this?”
“They know that this kind of stuff goes on, sure. Tunnels under borders aren’t exactly new. But they haven’t found them all. They’re concentrating on the ones they’ve linked to Jaguar activity. As for the others: a little bit of merchandise, a little bit of traffic—who cares? Border units don’t exactly command top-drawer salaries. Sometimes everybody can win.”
“Do you think we’re winning now, Spencer?”
“We will be if we can make it another four fucking kilometers.”
But now the passage intersects with another one that’s set against it at a right angle. Spencer looks left, then right. Then at the wall in front of them.
“What’s wrong?” asks Linehan.
“What’s wrong is that this isn’t supposed to be here. We were supposed to go straight on through. There’s not supposed to be an intersection here.”
“Looks like you’ve been misinformed.”
“We’re turning left.”
“Have it your way.”
They turn left. Another quarter-klick and the passage grows wider. It seems noticeably older. The ceiling seems to have some kind of glaze on it. Carvings start to appear on the walls—abstract shapes and patterns. The passage bends south again.
“Guess this was the right choice,” says Spencer.
The tunnel grows even wider. The carvings are starting to become noticeably less abstract. They’re stylized animals: llamas, birds, crocodiles.
“This doesn’t look modern,” says Linehan.
“Evidently not,” replies Spencer.
The passage widens still farther, broadens out into a gallery. A massive pedestal sits on the far end. Two massive chairs sit atop that pedestal. Stone figures sit within those chairs. The walls and ceiling are alive with images—animals bearing swords, humans wearing headdresses, stars emitting radiance….
“I don’t see a way out of here,” says Spencer.
“Maybe behind the thrones,” replies Linehan.
They move in toward them. They eye the figures atop them. They realize something.
“Those are cats,” says Linehan.
“They’re jaguars,” mutters Spencer.
“This was the wrong turn.”
“Stay calm,” says Spencer.
“I am calm.”
“You don’t sound it.”
“You’ve set me up. You’ve fucked us both.”
“It’s just fucking stone,” says Spencer.
“Flesh too,” says a voice.
It’s coming from the ceiling. They raise their guns toward it.
“Those won’t help you,” says the voice.
They start putting rounds into the ceiling. But even as they do there’s a flash from somewhere behind them. Something smashes into Linehan. For a moment his whole body seems to light up. Sparks chase themselves across him. He pitches to the ground. Spencer stares at Linehan’s twitching body.
And drops his weapon.
“A wise choice,” says the voice. “Turn around.”
Spencer turns. Silhouettes suddenly start to materialize at the gallery’s entrance—camouflaged armor losing the hues of the terrain against which it’s set. Spencer stares at the four power-suits that are now advancing toward him—stares, too, at the green cat-skull painted on the side of each helmet.
“The Jaguars,” he says.
“Your death,” says the voice.
But the oblivion into which the next blow propels him doesn’t last nearly long enough.
The Operative blasts down the corridor, throwing all caution to the wind. He rounds a corner, sees a door up ahead—sends rockets from his shoulders roaring in to make contact. There’s an explosion. The door disappears. The Operative charges into the checkpoint within to find those who’d been manning that post smeared along the walls. He roars on through into the larger room beyond it. The marines within are clearly having trouble with their suits. The Operative doesn’t need to guess why: he weaves through them, tosses a charge onto the chamber’s ceiling, keeps going—gets another five seconds down a new hall before the room that he’s just left erupts. He speeds up, rounds a corner—sees massive blast doors sliding shut at the corridor’s other end. He accelerates toward them, starts firing. B
ut even as he does, the doors stop moving—they come to a halt and he hurtles straight in between them, careens into the two marines on the other side, knocks them sprawling against the walls, riddles them at point-blank range.
The doors slam shut behind him. The screens on his heads-up show him that he’s almost reached the inner enclave. The sirens have ceased. There’s an explosion somewhere close at hand. The corridor around him shakes.
“Cauterize,” says Lynx’s voice.
The Operative cuts off wireless access. Lynx can no longer reach him. Neither can anybody else. Lynx has just given the razor’s signal that he’s in danger of imminent capture. If that occurs, the mech is toast unless all connections have been severed. The Operative knows that if Sarmax is still alive, he’s received a similar missive. He knows that the whole thing’s hanging by a thread. He crosses through rooms full of laboratory equipment, charges through a large chamber where mining engines and drills lie disassembled. He heads on through into another corridor. He rounds another corner.
And comes face-to-face with Sarmax.
And almost shoots him. Almost gets shot himself. Sarmax waves his hands frantically. They establish the one-on-one.
“Lynx is down,” says Sarmax. “Matthias is here. Let’s take him.”
The Operative nods. Both men ignite their thrusters. They keep on fighting their way forward. They keep on carrying all before them. Lynx’s real-time adjustments have affected thrusts into the inner enclave in two places, followed by a linkup. Only problem is that Lynx himself has been cut out of the picture. And the base’s defenses are starting to come back online. Doors start to shut in their face. Guns start to pop out of the walls. Floors open up beneath their feet.
But the two men keep on moving toward the enclave. Not the false one that the place shows on its schematics. The real one that Lynx’s hacking has found. They cut their way through the adjacent chambers—through a room in which they catch marines frantically setting up heavy weapons, through a door so thick that the charge they use almost brings down the roof: through obstacle after obstacle until the Operative’s mind is a blur of noise and flame and reflex and there’s nothing in the universe save him and Sarmax and the ones they’re killing. They’re splitting up now for the final assault. The Operative is coming in the front door while Sarmax moves in from a side corridor. It’s going like clockwork.
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