“Miss.” She tugged at her robe. “I wasn’t expecting you until five. I’ve only begun to prepare …”
Celia waved her off. “Do what you must, Ester. Finnegan, I asked you a question.”
“I’m sorry, love,” he said. “I hope my absence didn’t give you a start.” It did. “I was restless. Then I remembered that in the time I’ve been here, I’ve yet to see the dawn. I hear it’s quite beautiful.”
“It’s also an hour away,” Celia said.
“Yes, well, I still struggle with these long days. Ester tells me that some newcomers don’t become acclimated for years.”
“She’s correct. But you won’t be here much longer, so it’s no matter. Once the Guard has restored order, you’ll return to Boston and manage your affairs. Speaking of which, I trust you’ve taken care of the matter we discussed earlier?”
He held his pose without any inkling of unease. Celia was impressed. Maybe he was too impressive.
“Samantha Pynn,” he said. “You were right. She was disturbing the peace. If I’m correct, the matter should be in hand any time now.”
“If I checked with my people in Boston, they would confirm this?”
“By monitoring activity at my estate. Yes.”
He set down his café and came to her. She thought he looked rugged. Black silken shirt, pressed white trousers. He wrapped his arms around her and applied a firm kiss. She placed a hand over his heart and dreamed of being young again.
“What do you say we watch the dawn together?” He whispered.
“Perhaps another time, my love. I appreciate my sleep. Coming?”
“I’m dressed, and I’ve had my café.”
She kissed his hand and retreated. It seemed so innocent. Yet Celia knew better. For the first time, she knew better. When she felt his heart, it beat like a young boy madly in love. Yet there was no love in this man. It beat out of anxiety. The heartbeat of a traitor.
54
Harrisboro Prefecture
M ICHAEL WOKE TO FLAMES AND A JABBING headache. An arm tugged at him. Only as he shook off the disorientation did he realize Carlos was trying to stand, using Michael as leverage. All about him, distorted metal, sparks, and flames presented an unfamiliar kind of hell. Carlos bled down the side of his face but seemed unaware as he rose.
“Dude, help me up,” Michael said between vicious coughs.
“What happened?” Carlos seemed genuinely lost.
“Think we crashed. Don’t you remember?”
Carlos lapped a hand over his bloody cheek and looked at the result, unimpressed.
“Michael?”
“Yeah, dude, it’s me. Give me a lift.”
Carlos tottered, but Xi Lan Pao swooped him up before he fell. As Michael broke from his fog, Maya Fontaine bent beside him.
“We have to go,” she said, soft but urgent. “They’re coming.”
As he pushed up, Michael felt a sharp twang in the nap of his back but rose through it. He concluded he was otherwise intact.
What used to be the uplift’s hold was contorted, with the bow section smashed and twisted upward, as if it had rammed into an impenetrable force. Blood dripped from a gash in the bow. That’s when he saw a body mangled inside. He tried to make sense of the moment and realized who was missing.
“Is that the pilot?” His stomach churned. “Where’s Hans Bricker?”
“You need your rifle,” Maya asked.
He put his horror aside and searched for his blast rifle, which he found under a smashed seat cushion. Both his laser pistols remained in their pouches. Outside, the distinctive whirrs of laser fire and the continuous grunt of blast rifles create a cacophony far removed from the drifting opera at their last “landing.”
A familiar face stepped into the rubble. Hans, who rescued them earlier, wasted no time with inquiries about their health. His blast rifle at his side, Hans offered a terse nod.
“I see you’re up. We need every gun. Now.”
He must have seen Michael’s pall when glancing the body up front.
“Dana didn’t make it,” Hans said, too fast to suggest he cared. “And we won’t either if we don’t hop to it. We’ve got seconds.”
Michael’s first steps were excruciating. The pain in his back intensified. Push through it, Cooper. Carlos stumbled alongside in Xi’s care, like a child just seeing the world for the first time. And what a world it was.
The uplift had smashed into a monument at the center of a city square. Smoke rose and weaved around the tall, narrow tribute that otherwise seemed undamaged. This monument was a tribute to the fallen of SkyTower, the same model erected in dozens of cities across the world. The irony did not escape Michael.
Chaos descended in all directions. Smoke billowed from the lower levels of high-rises along the broad avenue approaching the monument. Panicked citizens scurried, alarm systems blared, and the spotlights of emergency vessels approached. Yet they were not the immediate threat, as Michael soon realized.
Laser fire erupted to his far left, from the avenue running perpendicular. Figures in black raced toward them, weapons open. Beyond them, a Scramjet laid across the avenue, flames erupting from its nacelles. It had to have been their pursuer since the mountain escape. But brought down as well? How?
The answer came quickly. The other uplift that rescued them outside the concert hovered directly above. Laser fire erupted through the open portal, targeting the assassins, who in turn bobbed and weaved while returning fire. The city square lit up in deadly streaks of red, blue, and yellow.
“Take cover,” Hans said, directing them behind the wreckage of his uplift.
Michael turned to Xi. “Get Carlos out of here.” Then to Maya and Hans. “We have to help. Follow me.”
Michael raced toward a landscaped island with a high embankment, Maya at his side.
“No,” Hans shouted. “There are too many.”
Dropping into position, Michael ignored his rescuer and glanced over the embankment. He positioned his blast rifle, zeroed in on his first target, and pressed the trigger button. Maya followed suit.
“This won’t work,” Hans said when he caught up with them. “They’re wearing Guard armor. All we can do is slow them down.”
Michael didn’t relent. Between blasts – and a sharp, rising pain in his back – Michael snarled.
“We brought down their Scramjet. We can take them out, too.”
“We missed our chance, Michael. Lee hit one of their nacelles with a rocket, and he was about to blow the wad when it crashed. But they came out firing. They got a bead on him.”
Hans pointed over the embankment to the center of the avenue, where a body laid face-down. Beside it, a rocket launcher. The assassins were nearly there.
Hans pointed to the hovering uplift. “They’ve been providing cover fire. If we don’t move now, we’re dead.”
Every instinct told Michael to stand his ground. No more goddamn running. But the pragmatic angel on his shoulder whispered the obvious: They couldn’t win. Not here.
Michael nodded, and Hans tapped his amp.
“Oliver, we’re coming. Get ready for another fast evac.”
They took off as a threesome, ducking and firing as they passed around the wreckage of the uplift, a young pilot crushed within. Hope prevailed. The second uplift dropped into the square, and both Carlos and Xi leaped onboard.
Yet just as Michael pushed off his feet for a final, desperate sprint, a fireball threw him to the ground. He lost sight of Hans and Maya. Contorted sheets of shrapnel lay about him. He no longer recognized the crashed uplift, which was a pyre.
The rocket launcher.
Laser fire intensified. As he pushed off the hard ground, Michael reached for his rifle. Maya was doing the same.
Amid ringing in his ears, he heard Hans shouting.
“Go, go, go. We’ll make it. Retreat and regroup.”
Now to his feet, confirming Maya was also OK, Michael saw Hans beckon. “Move, before we’re dead, p
lease!”
Which he did. Hans led them down a long flight of stairs dropping beneath the avenue. They entered a multiplex of alleys where closed shops and low-level blue lighting created a haunting feel.
“This way.” Hans took lead through a maze of service connectors without slowing down. Clearly, he knew the layout.
Four turns later, they stopped at a lift, where Hans pressed his open palm against a GenScan. The door slid away. Inside, they caught their breaths, although Michael’s cough worsened.
“Welcome to the Harrisboro Regional Sanctum,” Hans said. “Where Chancellors deliver justice fair and swift. Or so they say.”
“You work for the government?” Maya asked.
“Sanitation. I manage this sector. Few people have more access. Although after tonight, I doubt my palm will work again.”
“What’s the plan, Hans?” Michael said.
“Stall until help returns. I ordered my pilot to retreat. If he’d waited for us, even a few seconds more ….”
The lift opened. “Fourth level,” he said. “Oversight Sanctums. Only meet twice a month. Worse than bureaucrats. No one will look for us here. At least, I hope not.”
“Maybe,” Michael said. “These assholes are relentless.”
“Until they do, we need to see to your wounds.”
“What?”
Maya grabbed his hand. “You’re hurt, Michael. You’re bleeding.”
So that’s what he felt. Suddenly, the pain in his lower back throbbed. His jacket was lined with armor, the same variety that saved his life at Entilles Club. Yet something penetrated it. She took him inside a bodyroom, where Maya insisted Michael remove his jacket. Right sleeve off, no problem. Left sleeve, blinding pain. He grunted as he grinded his teeth. Maya pulled up his shirt and fingered the wound, looking for anything buried inside.
“You were punctured through the armor,” she said with the calm of a battlefield nurse. “You’re fortunate. I don’t feel any foreign objects, and the wound appears superficial. But I should wrap you, to slow the bleeding if nothing else. Until you see a proper doctor, this will more than sting. The body doesn’t like being sliced open.”
He laughed, hurting himself more. “You think?”
Maya worked with precision, fashioning a tight wrap from supplies she found in the sanitation supply cubby. Afterward, Hans led them to a nearby conference room with more comfortable seating. The overhead lights turned on automatically, but Hans reassured them of their safety. This was a windowless room.
After a few awkward, quiet minutes – the first respite any of them had in hours – Michael broke the silence.
“Hans, I’m sorry about your pilot.”
“Me too,” he said. “Dana was sweet, and a great flier, but in over her head. Bringing her into the movement, I was doing a favor for a friend. Then she goes and falls in love with me. Cud.”
Michael squirmed at a new wave of pain. “Ah, fuck.”
Hans opened his jacket. “Here. Might take a little edge off.” He handed Michael a pipe.
Michael looked at it lovingly. “Poltash? Sweet. You wouldn’t happen to have a flask of jubriska, too?”
“Sorry. I’d rather drink my own vomit.”
Michael ignited the pipe and inhaled. “Thanks for that, Hans. I’ll try not to remember that the next time I throw one back.”
Maya indulged in a sly laugh. “Hans, you’ll have to pardon Michael. He hasn’t had a drink in more than a week. Separate a man from his liquor, and he becomes testy. Yes?”
“My noggin is perfectly clear. At least, I thought it was. Hans, what the hell happened tonight? All that shit at the park. The concert. I mean, a concert with everything else that’s going on?”
“Until tonight, Michael, nothing was happening. At least not officially. The local DayWatch kept the assassinations under wraps. They thought they had the city locked down. The concert is a big deal around here. A tradition. The Chancellors weren’t going to allow a few Solomon bodies to slow the proceedings.”
Michael took a second puff. “And now they’ve got a war zone. What about the trap I flew us into? How did it happen?”
Hans looked away. He clearly didn’t want to broach the topic.
“You were in hiding with Rikard and Matthias. Yes? Did they tell you about the Solomon splinter groups?”
Michael glanced at Maya, who was also clueless.
“Splinter groups?”
“A few days ago, the hardliners started making offers to anyone in the movement. Full amnesty, transfer to another continent, assume another identity, or take free off-world passage with a healthy stipend. In return, provide a simple show of loyalty.”
His heart beat faster. “Let me guess. Turn in other members of the movement.”
Hans nodded. “Dead or alive.”
The picture cleared. “So, I’m guessing Nell Kusugak’s contact in Harrisboro flipped, but he didn’t know it. Soon as he stepped out of the Scram, they shot him.”
“Actually, and I’m hesitant to bring this up,” Hans said, “Nell was in on it. They both were. I think she was concerned about being exposed too soon if the plan went haywire, so she had him killed right off. That’s all I know. But it’s happening everywhere, I’m afraid. If they can’t kill us themselves, they’ll turn us against each other.”
“But we’re Solomons,” Maya said. “Not Chancellors. We don’t do these things to each other.”
Hans shook his head. “Don’t we? Look, we spent the last few years fighting their war for them. They turned us into a quiet army of assassins. If we’d kill for them, why not for ourselves? We’re not blameless here. And you,” he turned to Michael. “They must have been peeing their pants to bring you in to the Chancellors. Outside of Rikard and Matthias, nobody has your stature.”
Michael put down the pipe. He didn’t understand.
“Wait, what? Is that what you meant earlier? You called me a hero and said everyone knows me. Dude, I am no hero, for damn sure.”
Maya chuckled. “I tried to tell him, Hans. But he’s a stubborn one.”
“What?”
Hans sighed. “Michael, we’ve been a servant class for centuries. People have tried to push equity movements before, but nothing gained traction until the civil war. Two years ago, everything changed. SkyTower didn’t just alter the way Chancellors look at the world, it gave pause to all of us who deserved better.
“You became our lightning rod, even if you didn’t realize it. Do you know what it meant that you chose to become one of us? That you chose to fight for us and give your life for us? How you spoke after the SkyTower inquest, the way you lived a public life with your comedy, the sacrifices you made killing for the movement – even while you were living with a Chancellor.
“Michael, no one in six hundred years has set an example like you. I can’t count how many Solomons have told me they joined the movement because of your inspiration.” Hans choked up. “You had no idea, did you?”
Michael studied him through suddenly teary eyes. He didn’t know what to feel. Grateful? Humble? Prideful? None of it made sense. A terrifying thought broke his heart.
“Tell me something, Hans. All these Solomons I inspired? How many of them have gotten themselves killed on account of me?”
He took the air out of the room, but Michael didn’t care.
“Sweetie,” Maya said, using a term he only expected from Sam. “That’s unfair – to you and to them. Every man and woman must make a choice. You did not command them. They came willingly. This is what happens in war.”
She was right of course, but Michael wasn’t ready to admit it. He wished this conversation never took place. He wished …
“Hold on,” Hans said, lowering his voice. “I heard …”
He raced to the conference room door and opened it gently. Michael recognized a nearby bell. It was familiar to him on first or second Earth. Call it what you will – elevator, lift. All the same.
Hans’s warning came as no surprise.
“They found us.”
55
Moss compound, two hours earlier
T HIS TIME, THE FLASH PEGS AND LASERS were real on both sides of the fight. The estate fell under a vicious assault, the mercenaries outside dashing around the main house on commercial rifters similar to what Sam bought for her own team. Her rifters, however, remained undeployed inside her Scramjet. Sam sent Capt. Doltrice on his way, ordered to defend the house at all costs. She and David took shelter in his office, far away from the initial front line.
“How long would it take reset the defense perimeter,” she asked, “but this time with the deadliest settings?”
“Too long.” David fidgeted inside a security holocube. “Any attempt to set it beyond diversionary strength requires several minutes of opt-out sequences. Mr. Moss never wanted it to be a killing machine. Only a deterrent.”
“Set it anyway. We’ve got to kill these mercs. I don’t care how.”
He entered the program and initiated the sequence.
“When you’re done,” she said, “Warn Finnegan and tell him to get out while he can. Then reach out to the Coronado and Vancouver Presidiums. You must know some of their chiefs of staff. Make the case to light a fire under their people.”
David seemed puzzled. “And what are you doing?”
She raised her rifle. “We need every gun in the fight. Don’t worry, David. My father trained me for this.”
She closed the office door before he objected. Thunder, pops, and shattering glass echoed from every direction. Sam tapped the neck brace, and the helmet slid over her head. She engaged the DR29 grid and opened a link to her team.
“Capt. Doltrice, where do you need me?”
“Ms. Pynn? Negative. Stand down and let us to do our job.”
“You’re spread too thin, Captain. Where do you need me?”
He laid down fire, the blasts amplifying through the stream.
“Northwest quad,” he told her. “Past the observatory, fifty meters to the Solomon quarters. I’m showing a pair outside our net. They’ll slip in before my men can get there. Can’t promise you’ll have cover.”
“I’m there, Captain,” she said in full sprint. “Send your men where they’ll do the most good. Kill everything that moves.”
The Impossible Future: Complete set Page 93
