“Brave words,” says Paynal. “But ours will be merely one blow among many.”
You lie,” says the Operative.
“You wish,” says Matthias. “They sold you out. But I’m offering you the same bargain.”
“Fuck you. Why did you down the Elevator?”
“We didn’t,” says Matthias. “The Rain did.”
“Don’t hand me that shit,” says the Operative. “You gave them the fucking keys. Why?”
“Since you’re so clever: you tell me.”
“In order to drive East-West relations off a cliff.”
“No,” says Matthias. “In order to drive them toward a cliff. Tonight they go over altogether. When we open up at point-blank range upon the L2 fleet.”
“You’re really crazy enough to do that.”
“We’re sane enough to stop at nothing, Carson. Our assault will serve as the necessary provocation that will allow all U.S. forces to evade the fail-safes that keep their weapons from firing without the Throne’s consent. And believe me, what I do to that fleet is going to be nothing compared to what that fleet and all its brethren are going to do to the Eurasian Coalition.”
“You sure about that?”
“Your Praetorian defeatism is well-noted. This president thinks our nation weak. He couldn’t be more wrong. We’ll crush the East completely. Our net-incursions will demolish their zone-integrity. Our speed-of-light weaponry will ensure our country’s cities are left untouched even as their defenses are laid waste. And while we’re obliterating the Coalition, we’ll run the show: we’ll topple the Throne in the first sixty seconds of the war.”
“It’s not like you’re going to make it even that long,” mutters the Operative. “Even if you do fool everybody into thinking that the Eurasians have gotten their tentacles into this place, you and everybody else in Nansen are going to get completely fucking flattened by our own side.”
“You’re boring me, Carson. We’ve dug through these hills. We’ve linked up our tunnels with the caves that honeycomb these mountains. We haven’t deployed a single laser within ten klicks of here. But we have put more than half of them within Eurasian lunar territory. We’ll get off scot-free.”
“Yeah? Or is that just because you’re carrying out the orders of the L2 fleet’s commanders?”
Matthias says nothing.
“You are, aren’t you? I mean, for fuck’s sake tell me it goes higher than you. You’re not the lever that moves the universe, Matthias. I can see it on your face. You’re a small man. You’re a weak man. You’re just carrying out your orders. But your whole gang’s been played like a fiddle by the Rain and now they’re about to shove that fiddle up your ass.”
“Spare me.”
“Spare yourself,” says the Operative, and now he’s almost pleading. “Christ, man, you’re being played for patsy. What else was in those tunnels? Have you explored them all? They’re probably down there even now. They’re using you. Autumn Rain is fucking using you. They want you to pull those fucking triggers.”
“If that’s the case,” says Matthias, “they’re about to get a lot more than they’ve bargained for.”
“I’d say everybody is,” replies the Operative.
C ue the Earth-Moon system on fifty different screens. Some of those screens depict the deployment of the massed weaponry of the superpowers. Some focus on what are expected to be the major battlefronts. Others show the Jaguar citadel in the Andes and the SpaceCom base at Nansen, as well as the strongest of the American and Eurasian fortresses.
“All too many ground zeroes,” says the woman whom Haskell knew as Lilith. “Our teams are even now penetrating the innermost enclaves of both sides. For the Eurasian Coalition: a bunker beneath the Siberian tundra and a second in western China. For the United States: the fortress beneath the Canadian Rockies where the Throne itself is ensconced as well as the bridge of the SpaceCom flagship Montana. Within the hour, whatever’s left of the superpowers will be ours.”
Haskell looks scornful. “And what if it’s not?”
“It will be,” says the man she knew as Hagen. “We can’t fail. Our plan proceeds in upon its objective from every direction. The war that’s about to break out will only speed our triumph. Once hostilities are under way, no one will dare question the orders emanating from the center. No one will know who’s in charge. Even if the decision-making nexi of the nations elude our hit teams, war will make what remains to be done that much easier.”
“Easier?” asks Haskell. “Easier? You’re talking about total fucking war. There’ll be nothing left to rule.”
“Not necessarily,” says Marlowe. “This is likely to be a contest of high-precision weaponry targeted against counter-force capabilities. Not cities. Victory will go to whoever can disrupt the other’s defensive grids. In fact—”
“You have got to be fucking shitting me.” Haskell steps in front of Marlowe. She grabs him by the arms. “You sound like you think we should be going along with them.”
“We should be going along with them,” he says. He pushes her arms down, takes her hands. “Claire: Sinclair lied to us. He tried to use us. You said it yourself: he’s a bastard.”
“Now rotting in the Throne’s own jail,” says Lilith. “He’s finished.”
“They’re all bastards,” says Marlowe. “All of them. Every last one. It’s time we turned the tables.”
Haskell pulls her hands away from Marlowe. Steps backward. “Jason,” she whispers. She turns to Lilith. “You bitch,” she says. “You’ve brainwashed him.”
“Jason,” says Lilith. “Do you feel brainwashed?”
“I feel like I’m finally free,” replies Marlowe.
“Well, you would!” cries Haskell.
“Don’t be stupid,” says Hagen. “We’ve left you both to make a free choice. Otherwise why the hell would you still be arguing?”
“Because what you propose is so fucked up, that’s why! I’m not the one who needs to explain why your attempt to fuck my head’s failed. I’m not the one who should be begging you not to start this fucking war. But I am: for the love of God, don’t fucking do it.”
“But we already have,” says Lilith. A countdown starts up on every screen. “These are the final moments of the peace. In less than two minutes, SpaceCom black-ops units on the lunar farside will hit their own fleet at L2. The Jaguars will obliterate everything within a hundred klicks of the Andes. And we ourselves will unleash thousands of Eurasian replica-missiles from the Pacific Ocean floor on the fleet that’s blockading HK. The United States will stagger. It will hit back on all fronts against the Coalition. Even if the Throne can stay its hand—its automated defenses won’t. A general strike on the East will be the only option. Before the Coalition reaches a similar conclusion.”
“You can’t stop the thing that everybody wants,” says Hagen. “Everyone thinks they’re going to gain from the start of all-out shooting. Like pieces tearing themselves from the chessboard: all they’re doing is paving the way for us.”
“Claire,” says Morat. “Don’t you see it? We were blind to think we could ever stop them. They figured it all out. Easier to subvert one superpower than two. So, ignite war and let one prevail: but in that igniting sow additional seeds—easier to steal in between the superpowers, easier to take the inner enclaves when they’re locked down. When no one even sees what they’re guarding.”
“Just because it’s brilliant doesn’t make it right,” snarls Haskell.
“Doesn’t matter what you think,” says Lilith. “It’s what’s going to happen.”
“Over my dead body,” says Haskell.
“I’ve been told to do that if it’s necessary,” says Morat.
“Claire,” says Marlowe. “Don’t do this.”
Haskell walks up to Lilith. “I mean it,” she says. “Kill me now, before you start this fucking war!”
Lilith reaches out toward Haskell as though to implore her. “The last war ever,” she says.
�
��I’ve heard that one before,” replies Haskell.
“Seventy-five seconds,” says Morat.
“Raise your thinking.” Lilith gestures at the screens. “We’re no ordinary conquerors. Our rule will take humanity to the next level. We’ll do what nations never could. End injustice. End war. Harness the resources of the solar system. We’ll colonize Sol’s farthest planets inside a generation. We’ll start in upon the universe in no time at all. We’re capable of anything. Especially now we have the Manilishi.”
“I thought you said there was no Manilishi,” says Haskell.
“Actually,” says Hagen, “there is.”
She looks at him.
“It’s you,” says Morat.
Her head jerks up to meet his eyes. He’s still sitting at the top of the stairs. His face is still expressionless. She looks away, stares at the three who stand about her in the center of the room. There’s just under a minute remaining on the counter.
R ising in the heart of mountain is a man-made peak. It looks out onto a simulation of a sky whose stars cluster into constellations that hung above the Earth more than a thousand years ago. Back before those interlopers arrived from across the sea. Back before they set all that followed into motion.
“But tonight we reverse that tide at last,” says Paynal.
Spencer tries to focus on him. It’s not easy. Jeweled birds and jade-eyed cats keep on crowding out his vision. He feels himself dragged onto the altar slab. He hears Linehan cursing. He hears a voice drowning out those curses.
“Spare us your oaths,” says the Jaguar leader. “Nothing you say can stop us now. In moments we burn the liquid fuel that sits within our missiles. But first we rip out your living hearts. And let your spirits race our weapons out into eternity.”
Spencer tries to focus on those words. But they’re drowned out by the wreckage of his own thoughts. Was he really an American agent all along? Was he a Priam operative who got co-opted? He knows that both those lives are closing on the same death. He knows he’s about to run the only border that ever mattered. He hears the leader of the Jaguars speaking in the tones of ritual. He sees the knife being raised above him.
Destiny approaches,” says Matthias.
His face has vanished from the screen. It’s been replaced by video of men running away from one of the heavy lasers. Makeshift power plants tremble. Rising from the floor is a barrel five times the length of a man. It’s pointed at a hole in the ceiling. It looks like it’s ready to fire any moment.
“Light to run the gauntlet of the mirrors in that laser,” says Matthias. “Straight onto a Eurasian mirror-sat that’s overhead. And from there into the midst of the L2 fleet. That mirror-sat may just end up being the most expensive single item in the Coalition’s budget. Given what it’s about to visit upon them. To say nothing of the nine other cannons I’m watching on the screens you don’t see.”
“Those aren’t soldiers,” says the Operative.
“No,” replies Matthias. “They’re convicts. And all the more expendable for it.”
“Sure,” says the Operative. “And what about the ‘convicts’ that Autumn Rain snuck onto that fucking Elevator? Had you considered that?”
Matthias doesn’t reply.
“And what about those fucking tunnels beneath us? Have you searched every fucking meter of them?”
“Enough,” says Matthias. “Watch.”
* * *
T he last of Haskell’s memories pour across her. She feels her whole being caught up in that rush. She feels latent powers within her activating. She’s trembling uncontrollably. She’s backing up against the wall.
“Is this real,” she whispers. “Is this fucking real?”
“It’s real,” says Lilith. “We’re real.”
“Tell me what I am,” begs Haskell.
“We’ve never ceased to love you,” says Lilith. “Now you know how much we need you too. And why Sinclair kept you for himself. You’re the biocomputer Manilishi that was commissioned as the capstone on the Autumn Rain experiment. The combination of surgery and genetics that nobody has ever replicated. Invincible by virtue of the intuition that allows you to compensate for the time that data takes to travel within the Earth-Moon system. You’re the ultimate razor, Claire. And you’ve only just started to tap your powers.”
“I need to sit down,” mutters Haskell.
They lead her to a chair. The world spins about her. Her past comes rushing up to claim her. She feels a need for zone unlike any she’s ever known. She feels a kinship with those around her that’s stronger than anything she’s ever felt.
Or remembered.
“I am Rain,” she says. “I’m this thing.”
“Yes, Claire,” says Marlowe. He strokes her cheek.
“I’m scared.”
“You’re a god,” replies Lilith.
“That’s why I’m scared.”
“Break past it,” says Hagen. “Break in there and run zone coverage on our hit teams.”
“Augment the power of the U.S. first strike,” says Lilith.
“Fifteen seconds,” says Morat.
“It’ll be a better world,” says Marlowe. “It’ll be our world. It’ll be Eden. And I’ll be waiting for you in it if you’ll still have me.”
“I will,” she whispers. What’s left of her resistance drops away. “God help me, I will.”
“Then jack in,” he replies.
She does. Everything looms before her.
F aces loom above Spencer. Cats and humans and moons and gods and all of it rolled up into one voice:
“The land in which you die is the oldest one of all. That which you call South America and which we know as the world’s own navel. Take comfort in the fact that your blood shall water such blessed green. Even as it frees the people that time itself enslaved.”
“If I don’t kill you in this life, I’ll do it in the next,” says Spencer evenly.
“Take these chains off and fight me like a man!” screams Linehan.
“Commence launch sequence,” says Paynal.
A vast rumbling starts up all around.
The heavy laser vanishes, replaced by a close-up of the L2 fleet. The Operative stares at it. He looks at all those ships and sats and stations arranged in interlocking formations around that libration point. He zeroes in upon the ship that sits within the formation’s center.
The screen goes blank.
The door opens. A SpaceCom marine in full armor enters the room.
“Are you my executioner?” says the Operative.
“Not quite,” says Leo Sarmax, throwing back his visor.
“But we’ve got a lot of people that need dying fast,” says the voice of Stefan Lynx.
A massive explosion shakes the base.
Zone like she’s never seen it. Existence like she’s never imagined. A view she’d never dreamt of attaining. The SeaMech shakes about her as the missiles fire. The nearest launch site is more than three klicks away. But there are hundreds more that aren’t much farther out than that. The room’s rocking like it’s in the throes of earthquake. Haskell watches on the zone as those missiles leap from the seabed, rush up through water. She races in behind them. She’s running countermeasures on the U.S. fleet. She’s running cover on the Rain’s hit teams engaged on their final runs. She realizes there’s no way they can lose. Not with her supporting them. Not with the zone blasting out in all directions: her mind surging outward, everything expanding toward infinity. She’s thrust far beyond herself now—out to where Claire Haskell seems like a dream. Yet through that blur she sees that all her life has led up to this moment—that the lost children of her past are going to rule all futures. She sees with sudden clarity the nature of those futures.
And in that instant she understands.
Cold heat and white light—she burns the Rain’s hit teams with all her strength: and sends that force rushing back in upon itself, smashing the SeaMech and its occupants with a zone-strike that’s far beyond any
thing she’s ever unleashed. She sees the room around her light up in one giant flash.
And then she hears the missiles hit.
* * *
I t sounds like the whole world is detonating. The simulation of sky suddenly gets replaced by a real ceiling that’s caving in. Spencer rolls to one side, knocks the Jaguar who’s standing over him off his feet—grabs his knife and shoves it into its wielder’s chest even as rocks tumble all around them. Something hits his head. He sees stars—he ducks low, starts running for what seems to be open space. He crashes past a metal-fitted doorway, finds himself in a passageway that’s still intact. The floor’s buckling under his feet. Thunder’s crashing in from every side.
“This is it,” screams Linehan.
Spencer turns around to see him emerging from the shattered room. He’s broken most of his chains. The expression on his face is one that’s left sanity far behind. But then that expression’s wiped away as Spencer suddenly finds access to the zone. He’d thought the ayahuasca precluded it. Now he realizes that prisoners in this complex are simply kept within shielded rooms like the one from which he’s just emerged. For he can see the American zone on wireless. It’s bearing down upon him. It’s not what he needs: he yanks a light fixture from the wall, grabs the wires behind it, enters the Jaguar zone, scans it in an instant. He retracts, stares at Linehan’s ever-shifting face.
And starts shouting.
“What do you mean that wasn’t him?” says Linehan.
“That wasn’t him, you asshole! Just because they’re crazy enough to believe in human sacrifice doesn’t mean they’re stupid enough to put their leader right next to live prisoners!”
“So where the fuck is he?”
“His throne room’s five levels down. He’s coordinating defenses from there. The Americans are tearing the lid off this shithole.”
“The Americans? You mean you! You mean us!”
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