Shadow on the Sun (27 page)

CHAPTER 60

Hell's Cross

Outpost Fisher Four

ANNOS MARTIS
000. 0. 00. 00:00

 

 

This is where it all ends.

“You want the HVT, Father?” I yell. “Come and get it—if you're man enough.”

“Durango! Look out!”

I turn back at the sound of her voice and—

Brppt!

Minigun rounds sting my back.

My spine arches, and I let out a grunt, even as the fabric solidifies.

Just like that old
Drecksau
to shoot me in the back. “That,” I say, turning toward him, “was not nice.”

Bullets still striking me, I trudge to the very lip of the hole. My feet slip, and the paving stones break loose from the mortar. I scramble backward, then look down—

—to see a brick

—falling into

—nothingness.

“Oh,
kuso
.”

I fall on my back, panting, and the shooting stops.

Father's ammo chain is finally empty.

I kip to my feet, then turn to face my father. “I'm not afraid of you.”

“Jacob,” he says. “I know you're bluffing.”

I hold the pigeon over the hole, watching Vienne move into position. “Want it?”

With an anguished cry, Lyme lunges for me. “Mine!”

“Now!” I shout.

Vienne fires the cannon.

Thuk!

The harpoon sinks into the bridge wall. She hits the take-up, and the cable goes taut, stretching behind Lyme, creating a trip wire.

“Push him!” she yells.

I take a running leap and try to knock Lyme backward into the cable. But my foot slips on a loose stone and I trip, sprawling on my belly, the pigeon rolling out of my hand.

I scramble to grab it as Lyme reaches for the cable, closing the claw around it. With a yank, he whips the cable, yanking Vienne off her feet—

And pulling her within reach.

He raises a foot—

Vienne tries to roll away, but the cable wraps around her legs.

And stomps!

Pinning Vienne to the deck.

“Let go of her!” I roar.

Vienne kicks and hammers on the ExoMecha's foot as he looks down on her.

“Give me the device or I crush the life out of her,” he says. “It's your choice, son.”

I leap to the hole in the middle of the bridge and hold the pigeon out, palm up. Then I offer it to my father.

“Don't . . . do it!” Vienne coughs. “Don't give him . . .”

I rub the thin memory of the scar on my temple and look into the abyss, expecting the familiar whirl of vertigo, but it never comes.

“Do not throw our future away for one lowly
dalit
,” Lyme says, his voice cracking. “There is no such thing as
love
.”

Every time with my father, the same conversation. I shake my head slowly, looking into the eyes of that so-called lowly
dalit.
Which will it be? The pigeon or Vienne?

Vienne. Who has fought beside me.

Vienne. Who has saved my life far more than I've saved hers.

Vienne. Who never stopped looking for me.

My father is not my future.

Vienne is.

I look down and away from his gaze, the way I did as a child.

Then I raise my chin.

“I can't beat you, Father,” I say. “But you can't beat me, either.”

“I can do more than beat you!” Lyme flails at me with the claw. “I will destroy you!”

“If this is all you care about,” I say. Below me, the abyss beckons to me. “Then come get it.”

Mechanical arms outreached, the claw snapping at the air, Lyme lifts his foot, freeing Vienne. She rolls to her feet as the 'Mecha surges toward me.

I wait for him on the brink of hell, as the hole seems to expand like a black hole beneath me.

“Cowboy!” Mimi yells. “The decking is giving way!”

I wait . . .

until at the last second and . . .

toss the pigeon into the air.

“No!” Lyme yells. The claw hand shoots out, pinchers wrapping around the pigeon. “Got it!”

I vault over Lyme's outstretched arm.
“Lăo bù sÄ­de!”
I yell, and drive my shoulder into the back of the mechanical knee, knocking the 'Mecha off balance.

With the groaning of hydraulics and a muffled scream, the 'Mecha pitches forward. For a few seconds, my father stands on one foot, struggling to gain balance. His face is gaunt, terrified, and he looks at me, his eyes pleading.

“Jacob,” he says, “help me, please.”

There is no reason I should. No reason I should feel a sudden panic and rending of my heart. No reason I should reach for him in a useful, stupid gesture, as if I could grasp his hand and save a three-ton monster from its fate.

But I do feel it. And I do reach out as—

The bridge disintegrates beneath his feet. The suit's torso slams into the deck, and the stones beneath it crumble away. Lyme grabs the decking with an elbow, trying to haul himself up. The ball rolls toward me, and I scoop it up.

“Got it,” I say.

“Look out!” Mimi yells.

Lyme lunges toward me, and the claw shoots out, locking around my ankle. “To hell with you!”

He yanks me off my feet.

“No!” I yell.

“Cowboy!”

“Durango!” Vienne yells as she sprints toward us. “Don't fall!”

But we
do
fall.

The paving stones that I'm grabbing for purchase give way, and the weight of the 'Mecha pulls me over with it, the claw still locked around my ankle.

“Hold on, cowboy!”

I'm falling.

I look back up at Vienne as she reaches the edge.

I'm falling.

I reach for her.

I'm falling.

I'm a dead man.

She aims the cannon.

Fires.

“I'm sorry, cowboy,” Mimi says.

Before I can complete the thought
sorry for what?
the harpoon buries itself in my outstretched right hand.

The metal barb shoots through my palm, shattering the bones, cleaving the flesh.

“Catch it!” Mimi says.

I scream as my fingers close around the metal shaft, and I feel my symbiarmor harden.

“The other one, too!” she yells.

I grab the hook with my left hand.

“The 'Mecha!” Mimi says.

I kick the 'Mecha's claw twice. Nothing. He has a death grip on my ankle.

“Hang on!” Mimi yells.

“What else am I supposed to do—yow!”

Electricity arcs across my suit, sparking and crackling like lightning striking, and I hear a scream.

Lyme.

My father.

Then I feel the claw release, then a hard jerk in my arm as the cable goes taut, and I stop midair.

“Durango!” Vienne screams into the abyss. The wire is wrapped around her waist, and she's bracing both legs against chunks of rebar and concrete.

“Holy
merda
,” I yell back, “that hurts!”

“Hold on!”

I glance at my bloody hand. “It's not like I can let go!”

Slowly, excruciatingly, Vienne begins to haul me to the bridge, my hand screaming with a megajoule of pain that arcs through my arm into my spine, causing my whole body to shake. My eyes blur, and my vision starts to tunnel.

“Hang on, cowboy!” Mimi yells. “I have signaled the nanobots to clot the wound, then block the neurotransmitters.”

“Is my father dead?”

“Chances of survival are ni—” she says. “Wait! I'm picking up a command signal!”

“Just block the nerve signals,” I groan.

“No! You don't understand,” she yells. “The commands are from the pigeon. It's signaling the Crucible to fire!”

CHAPTER 61

Hell's Cross

Outpost Fisher Four

ANNOS MARTIS
000. 0. 00. 00:00

 

 

“What do you mean, it's about to fire?” I say. “Rosa Lynn said that only an EMP could turn the pigeon on.”

“Rosa Lynn made an erroneous assumption,” Mimi says. “It appears that a large, focused static discharge can also activate the device.”

“
You
turned it on?” I ask.

“Affirmative.”

Her face pouring sweat and grunting, Vienne finally hauls me close enough that I can grasp the bridge with my good arm and pull myself up. She drops to her knees, panting. Then she sees my hand and screams. “I thought you
caught
the hook! It went through your hand!”

“Vienne,” I say, struggling to my feet as the pain subsides. “We have a problem.”

“There's a harpoon stuck in you,” Vienne yells. “That's a problem!”

“Worse than that—the pigeon's about to fire!”

“Okay, that's worse. Hold still!” She shoots the cable in half, then yanks it through the wound.

“Yow!” I say. “That hurt, but it should've hurt more.”

“It will!” Vienne tears a length of cloth from her tattered robe. Wraps it tight around my hand. Gets us to our feet and steers me toward the turbo bike. “Keep pressure on that wound. You're losing blood.”

I look out at the gap separating the two halves of the bridge. “I'm not sure this is going to work.”

She pushes the bike into the clear and hits the crank. “Don't be such a pessimist!”

The big engine rumbles to life, and I slide onto the seat behind her. She turns us toward Hell's Cross.

“This is the wrong way,” I yell, looking back at the shattered bridge. “We'll never get out through there!”

“I just need to build up speed!”

She jams the accelerator open and shifts her weight so that she flips the bike upright. The engine rumbles like something unholy, the exhaust pipes vibrating like a pipe organ. She pops a wheelie.

“No, you dooooon't!” I yell.

“Oh, yes, I dooooo!”

I feel the heat of the fuel-engorged motor. Hear the tires scream as bike weaves a rubberized thread across the decking and lurches toward the gap. The air fills with the smell of oil and petrol and burned rubber as the front tire hits the ground and Vienne snaps the handlebars back, steering into her momentum.

The breach in the bridge appears before us.

“Lean back!” Vienne yells.

I pull hard on her shoulders and close my eyes. “I believe in you, Vienne,” I say to myself, just as there's a bump, and I hear nothing but the sound of the wind in my ears.

Then
whup
!

The back wheel hits the ground.

Vienne nails the brakes and cuts hard right. The rear wheel whips around 180 degrees so that we're facing the gap again.

“Heewack!” Mimi cries.

“We made it!” Vienne whoops. “I love flying!”

“Knew you could do it,” I say. “Never doubted you for a second.”

“Liar!” Mimi says.

Vienne turns us toward the tunnel. I look back at the bridge and bow my head. Good-bye, Father.

“Since you're chiming in, Mimi,” I say, “find us a route through the tunnels. That Crucible's going to drop in a few minutes.”

“Based on readings from the pigeon,” she says, “you do not have a few minutes.”

I'm afraid to ask. “How long?”

“Two minutes, forty-six seconds.”

“Can we make it?” I say. “Is there enough time?”

“Indeterminate.”

“The hell you say,” I say. “This time, I am the carking determinate!”

When we enter the tunnel, I duck to the side, trying to make out the way ahead.

“Mimi, a little help here!”

“I'm endeavoring, cowboy. We are moving too fast for me to relay the information.”

Boom-buh-duh-boom!

A shock wave shakes the ground, and rubble showers the bike.

Dirt sprays us in the face, and I take too long to drop my visor. “Bunker bomb!” I yell. “The tunnel's collapsing!”

“Right!” Vienne shouts, and guns the engine.

“Two minutes, fourteen seconds.”

One wrong move, one slipup, and we're buried alive. Hell's Cross will be our tomb.

If I were going to die, this is the way to go, I think, on the back of a bike with Vienne outrunning a sub-nuclear blast.

But I'm not going to die; I feel it in my bones.

“Perhaps that is arthritis,” Mimi says. “You do have some premature osteoarthritic lipping in your hip.”

“Mimi, I mean this in the nicest way possible, but shut the
piru vieköön
up!”

“That,” she says, “was not the nicest way possible.”

As the tunnel gives way behind us, the bike banks hard left. The front wheel rides up the wall on the turn.

“How much time, Mimi?”

“One minute, fifty-one seconds.”

“Hurry!” I yell.

“Do I look like I'm dawdling?”

Light fills the end of tunnel.

With a roar that I'm not sure is Vienne or the bike, we are free!

Boom!

I look back and see a cloud of dust rising from the entrance.

The last door is shut.

CHAPTER 62

Hell's Cross

Outpost Fisher Four

ANNOS MARTIS
000. 0. 00. 00:00

 

 

“Holy
merde
!” I yell. “That was close!”

“One minute, twenty-one seconds.”

The frigid winds bite my face. The sky is dark, almost black from all the guanite in the air. “Punch it, Vienne!”

“Lean!” Vienne yells.

“Where are you going?” I ask. “There's no road!”

Vienne cuts hard to the left and jumps a gully, landing on the bottom level of the strip mine. The tires squeal as we cut the corner and come face-to-face with a Manchester.

The mining machine is a twenty-two-story-tall leviathan of steel and carbon fiber that weighs over ten thousand metric tons. Its clamshell shovel is big enough to hold five Norikers, and it can move itself using either tractor treads or walker feet that lift it two meters off the ground.

Which is a half meter shorter than we are.

“Duck!” Vienne yells.

I drop my head as she hits the rear brakes and swings the bike on its side, exhaust pipes throwing sparks on the icy pavement.

We slide under the Manchester's oily belly, our shoulders grinding against the rusty metal.

“You're
völlig bekloppt
!”

“I know!”

We clear the machine, and she jams a knee into the pavement, popping the bike onto its wheels. She yanks the handlebars, forcing the front tire to do her bidding.

“Where to?” Vienne calls.

I point to the strip mine ahead. It's the fastest way to cover and has the fewest obstacles.

“There! Take the dirt ramp!”

“Thirty-seven seconds.”

The bike's studded tires chew through road, and we crest the rise with the engine at full bore.

We reach the top, ready to put some road between us and the mine.

“Twenty-four seconds.”

We're not going to make it.

I squeeze tighter. If I'm going to die, she's the last thing I want to feel.

The air crackles with energy, and I smell ozone on the wind. There's a storm above us. Lightning dances through the clouds. Chains of yellow sparks snap the air as a shock wave slams into the ground. The sound is so deep that I feel it more than hear it, and it feels like my heart stops.

“What the
vitun
was that?” I ask.

“I surmise that it is a preshock caused by enormous fluctuations of heating in the air above it,” Mimi says.

“How much time?”

“Sixteen seconds.”

“The Crucible is coming!” I shout at Vienne. “Go faster!”

“Roger! But it might cause instant death!”

“Why instant death?” I yell.

“Eleven seconds!”

Vienne taps on the handlebars. Secured to the bar with heavy twisted wire is a valve handle. Written on the valve are the words

DANGER!

and

NITROUS!

If Fuse thinks something is dangerous, it's definitely instant death. But so is a Crucible.

“Ten seconds!”

“Go for it!” I yell.

“Nine seconds!”

“Hang on!”

I squeeze her stomach tighter.

“No! Really hang on! With both hands!”

“Eight!”

I lock my hands together, set my chin on her shoulder, and squeeze like I'm trying to unstuff her.

“Seven!”

She smacks the nitrous lever.

The front wheel kicks up, and she leans forward to steady the bike. For a second, it's like we're not moving at all, and then—

“Six!”

RAWR-UNCH!

We're a carking rocket!

“Four!”

The slipstream yanks on my helmet, my hands, my feet, and my knees. I flinch wrong, we're both going to die.

“Three!”

Almost as if the highway instead of the bike is moving, the canyons rip past us. The air hammers us as we wind over the ribbon of road and blow out of Fisher Four.

“Two!”

All hues wash into one, and the permafrost tundra melts into a liquid of color and sound, and only the distant peak of Olympus Mons remains solid.

“One!”

When I dare to look back, the horizon is gone—not melted, just gone—into a blinding swirl.

“I love you,” I whisper, and the sound is sucked right out of me.

“She knows, cowboy,” Mimi says. “She has always known.”

Like the mythical thunderbolt of Jupiter, the clouds part, the air above us explodes. With a baleful wind that sends a wall of dirt to the heavens, the titanium spike of the Crucible liquefies the permafrost and obliterates the ground beneath it.

Hell's Cross is no more.