Some Fine Day (33 page)

“I trade in secrets now. It’s the only thing I’m fit for, I suppose. My network of informants is extensive, including one at the station.”

Things start to click into place. His story about owing my mother a debt was nice, but he wants something more.

“What are you offering?” I ask.

“There’s data in the hard drives. Unhackable remotely, but someone inside could get to it with the right passcodes. You promise to send it back, I give you the precise coordinates and everything you want to know about Tisiphone.”

“Why can’t your informant do it?”

“Too risky. The price is exorbitant, and most of my savings was exhausted discovering what I’ve just told you.”

I think of the shabby state of his house, the gaping holes in the shelves, like missing teeth, where he must have sold off his most valuable books, one by one.

“There’s a classified report in the archives–” I begin, but Rafiq interrupts, voice tinged with impatience.

“Not enough. I need it all. Irrefutable documentation. A single report is too easily dismissed. Or deleted.”

I consider the offer and see no harm in it. In fact, it serves our purposes as well.

“What would you do with this information?” I ask.

“Given to the right people in Raven Rock, it would shut Nix down. There’s factions within factions over there. Many are dissatisfied with the current state of affairs. The prefecture is rotting from the inside out. They've known it for years, and the draconian handling of the Greenbrier situation is bringing matters to a head. I know the right people. But there’s nothing they can do without proof.”

“You’ll go down, too,” I say. “There’s no way around it.”

“I know,” he says quietly. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”

I turn to Will. “This might be the only way to help Fatima and the others,” I say.

He hates to do anything Rafiq wants, I can see that, but after a moment he nods.

“They’re holding human subjects at a military facility. You have to make sure they’re found, released,” I tell Rafiq. “And not just released. Returned to the surface, if that’s what they want.”

“You have my word,” he says.

“OK then. Let’s talk about Tisiphone. First, is it true that there’s a plane capable of penetrating the eyewall?”

“Yes. It’s a holdover from the days when 99 was a real weather station. It’s still there, but I don’t know much more than that. Any data it may have gathered is under lock and key.”

I take a deep breath. Sharing my half-baked theory is harder than I expected. What if I’m wrong? What if Rafiq laughs, and explains why it’s impossible? Where will we go then?

“I’ll show you,” Rafiq says. He touches a hidden button on his armrest. “Queue maps, sixty-four degrees north, sixteen degrees west.”

The blank wall comes to life in a richly detailed 3D rendering of Tisiphone, slowly rotating counter-clockwise. There’s a glowing red dot off her lower right quadrant.

“That’s 99,” Rafiq says. “About fifty miles from the edge of the storm.”

“Do you have any old maps? Say, from a hundred years ago?”

He looks at me curiously. “Sure. Image same coordinates circa 1990,” he says.

The storm dissolves. I see a large land mass to the northwest, with thick glacier cover.

“Greenland before the icecap melted,” Rafiq says.

Where Tisiphone sits today, there’s nothing but open ocean.

It can’t be right. It can’t be.

“What’s the source of that image?” I ask.

“Official Geophysics archive.”

“Could they have altered it?”

“Of course. It’s digital.”

Geography classes at the Academy focused on the prefectures, the new world. We rarely discussed the surface, especially how it used to look. The past was dead and buried and best left that way.

“Wait,” Rafiq says. “I may have a book. . .” He wanders over to a far bookshelf, runs his fingers across the spines. “A rare edition of one of Jules Verne’s classics. I couldn’t bear to part with it. Aha!”

He pulls a large volume from the shelf. “There’s a lovely color plate at the back. Yes, here it is.”

He hands me the book. I can’t help but smile a little.
Journey to the Center of the Earth
.

Rafiq’s eyes twinkle. “You’re a clever girl, Jansin,” he says.

Because right there is a map, a map of nearly the exact same coordinates as Tisiphone. Except it doesn’t show ocean. It shows an island.

A place called Iceland.

I’m tingling all over as I ask, “Can we figure out the elevation?”

If it was anywhere near sea level, it would be submerged now.

“As I recall from Verne’s quite precise descriptions, Iceland was a mountainous country, with active volcanoes. I suppose you intend to go there?” He says this as carelessly as if he was asking about a trip to the market.

I glance at Will. “
We’re
going there. Come see.” I hold out the book. “Volcanic is good news. It means they can’t send in moles. Too unstable.”

“It’s not moles I’m worried about,” he says in a tight voice. “That’s toad territory, Jansin. When you said you’d found a safe place, I didn’t realize you meant so far north. You’ve never been there, but I have. And I swore I never would again. It could be infested.”

I hadn’t thought of that.

“Or there could be people,” I say optimistically. “Survivors.”

“Most known toad activity is centered in the Faroe Islands,” Rafiq adds. “That’s to the southeast. There’s no evidence they can swim through seven hundred miles of superstorm. In fact, it’s highly unlikely.”

“You also thought they were sterile,” Will retorts. “In fact, you know little or nothing about what they’re capable of.” He paces over, looks at the map. “This is in the eye?”

“It looks that way,” I say.

“And your government is concealing this because. . .?”

“Because it might change everything. It might make people think they had a choice. It might make them question. And they won’t tolerate that. Especially not with war on the horizon. From the bureaucratic perspective, the truth about Tisiphone is more trouble than it’s worth. That’s why they shut down 99. That’s why they run the HYPERCANE NETWORK! twenty-four hours a day. To keep us afraid.”

Will surprises me by turning to Samer, who’s sat in silence at his post by the window for the last half hour, listening but not taking part.

“Do you think she’s right?” Will asks.

Samer’s lips quirk. “I’m a cop. Nothing surprises me anymore,” he says.

I decide to plow ahead before Will has a chance to raise any more objections.

“How do we get there?” I ask Rafiq.

“Queue maglev system, north quadrant,” he says.

A network of color-coded lines appears.

“Zoom right, up six degrees, zoom. Stop. The rectangle in the center is Nu London station.” Rafiq walks over to the image and points to an inverted yellow L. “The tunnel’s not under the territorial sovereignty of Nu London anymore. We ceded it by treaty to Raven Rock a decade ago in exchange for trade concessions. But a supply train services the station once a week. It ends at a surface vent tube that leads to 99.”

I stare at the tangle of lines until I’m sure I have it memorized. The distance from here to there must be at least eight hundred miles.

“The tube will have defenses. They all do. Can you reach your source and get some specifics? I’d rather not go in blind.”

“I can try, yes. We need to get you on that train.”

“Give me a name.”

Rafiq isn’t used to sharing more than he deems absolutely necessary, but I let the silence hang until he caves in. “It’s Goodlove.”

“Jansin, we haven’t agreed on anything yet,” Will objects. “We need to talk. In private.”

I’m opening my mouth to argue when the phone rings.

Rafiq answers, listens for a moment, and his face goes a little grey. He holds it out. “For you,” he says.

My heart is pounding as I put the receiver to my ear. “Hello?”

“Jansin.”

It’s my father.

“Dad,” I say.

He exhales heavily. “I’ve been worried crazy about you. Are you alright?”

“I’m fine.”

“Your mother. . . They took your mother away, Jan.” His voice cracks a little. “They’ve been interrogating her.”

I feel sick. They’re not only questioning her, they’ve broken her, or my father wouldn’t be calling this number. I don’t know what it would take to get my mother to give up Rafiq. To give up her own daughter. I’m afraid to imagine. “Can’t you stop them? She had nothing to do with it.”

“It’s bigger than that now. The Council cut me out. They said I lack
objectivity
. But I still have friends. One was decent enough to fill me in. They know where you are, and they’re coming for you,” his voice is starting to rise.

“You have to help Mom,” I whisper.

“No,
you
have to help Mom.” He assumes the commanding, no-dissent-tolerated tone I’ve heard a million times. But underneath it is something I have never associated with my father before: bone-deep fear. “You’re going to go outside and turn yourself in. If you do that, no one will harm you, or her. I’ve been given assurances.” He pauses. “Jake is with them. A strategic decision. You know him, trust him. Don’t make this hard, Jan.”

I think how little
he
knows me anymore if he thinks I trust Jake, of all people.

“Dad, I can’t. I just can’t. Do you know they’re doing at the Helix? Do you have any idea?” Nileen’s face, a mask of blood so dark it looks black, flashes before my eyes.

“I’m not sure what Rafiq has been telling you, but he’s mentally unstable,” my father continues, more calmly. He’s comfortable with this part of the story. They’ve obviously drilled it into him. He doesn’t know, I think. And then: thank God. He’s not part of Nix. “The man is a diagnosed paranoid delusional. You need to stop this nonsense and get home, we’ll sort things out. The Academy doctor says you’re suffering from post-traumatic stress. We can mount an insanity defense.”

“You’re the one who’s crazy if you think I’m going out there,” I say. I’ve never defied my father like this and there’s silence on the other end as he tries to fathom this abrupt left turn in our relationship.

“You’re being incredibly selfish,” he says. “I know what happened topside was a terrible thing, but you need to get past that now. Your family needs you. Your
mother
needs you. Exactly what are you trying to prove that’s more important than that? You can’t beat them, honey.”

The sincerity in his voice makes me waver. Maybe he’s right. Maybe there’s no other way. They have
my mother
.

Except.

“And if I go outside, turn myself in. What happens to Will?” I say.

There’s a brief pause. And that’s all the answer I need.

“Goodbye, Dad,” I say, and part of my heart shrivels and dies at that moment.

He’s shouting into the receiver as I end the call.

“They’re here,” I say.

Because I know when my dad said “coming”, he meant the agents were already outside. Maybe even inside. They were probably listening to the entire conversation. Waiting for the outcome.

There’s a moment of silence. Samer walks to the center of the room, his firearm out and pointed toward the ceiling.

“I’m calling for backup,” he says angrily. “They’re out of their jurisdiction. Nu London will detain the whole lot as enemy spies.”

“Your people won’t get here in time.”

We look at each other.

“Now can I have my gun back?” I ask.

He pulls a piece out of his jacket, tosses it over.

That’s when the windows explode.

The first plasma charge was detonated on May 6, 2042. Eight years later, the total mass of subterranean rock displaced equaled sixteen Manhattan islands.

If they hadn’t been trying to take me alive, we wouldn’t have stood a chance. They could have just torched the place with a shoulder-fired missile. That’s what I would have done, if I were them.

The gun is arcing toward me when I hear a very distinctive sound – fast rope unfurling through the pulley of a rappelling harness. Once you hear that sound, the window of opportunity to react is one, maybe two seconds. So I snatch it out of the air and bring the muzzle down toward the window on my side of the room just as a pair of boots comes crashing through.

Samer sees me aim, grasps the situation, and brings his own gun up at the other window. We fire almost simultaneously. There’s a second guy right behind the first and I shoot him too, then run to the shattered window and look outside. It’s dark and rainy. Rope dangles down from the roof but there’s no one else on the way.

All this happens in about the time it takes to sneeze.

Samer’s lead entry is down, but his partner gets off a shot as he comes through and Samer is hit in the chest. I see Rafiq rush toward him out of the corner of my eye, but there’s no time, the agent is inside now, laser weapon up and pointed at Will.

“Get down!” he screams.

I was against the window wall when his feet hit the rug and his Kevlar helmet keeps me just outside his peripheral vision as I slip up next to him, put my gun to his jaw, and fire.