The Mirrored Heavens (32 page)

“What else we got for speed?” says Linehan.

“We got nothing.”

“Than we got nothing to lose. And even if we
do
survive what’s about to happen, every alarm down here is about to go off at full fucking volume anyway. Least we can do is hope we’re around to hear it.”

He double-clicks onto the map. It lights up both their minds. The Yards are winding in toward them. They’re sprawling out on all sides. They’re as messy as any boomtown. Their topography’s complex.

“We turn off onto the local line
there,
” says Linehan. He forwards coordinates to Spencer. “We fire the decoys down the main when we do so. Hopefully it’ll follow them and not us.”

“And if there’s something on that local line?”

“We’ll never know it.”

“And if that thing behind us follows us and not our decoys?”

“We go straight through the main districts and back into the tunnels.”

“The main districts?”

“There’s nothing to stop us. Most of the local lines intersect with them. They’re basically one big cave.”

“Filled with a
lot
of shit.”

“But this thing we’re in’s not bound to the rails, Spencer.”

“It’s not a question of propulsion. It’s a question of maneuvering. Anything that’s more than about two degrees off the straight is going to be too much for us right now. We can’t afford to put on the brakes any further.”

“Good. Because we’re not going to. Ten seconds, Spencer. You ready?”

And Spencer is. He’s ready to live out the last seconds of his life. He’s got himself immersed just enough in the zone to see the myriad threads that constitute the Yards. He wonders for a moment if they’re being herded into it by what’s behind them. He wonders what else is out there still. He wonders just what the man he’s with is worth.

Besides a nuke.

“If that thing detonates in the Yards, it’ll kill tens of thousands.”

“Maybe,” says Linehan. “But at least I’m not asking
you
to kill them this time. I’m not even asking you to watch.”

He gestures at the screens upon which the missile’s closing. But Spencer’s not even looking. He’s just tweaking the magnets, letting the craft press up against the left-hand rails, forcing it away from the right-hand ones. It eases off the straight onto a crossover rail. It bends along that rail toward the wall. Except suddenly there’s no wall.

Or rather: there is. But now it’s shifted five meters to the left. And in that space, another rail is sprouting away from the leftward main track. The craft curves along it. Spencer fires balls of flame and countermeasures from the forward guns. They roar down the leftward line. Which encloses their craft within a much smaller tunnel. But only for a moment, and then they charge out of the branch line and into a wider tunnel. Spencer slots the ship in along the rails. He slings them at lightning speed along this new straight. He sees no obstructions whatsoever.

“We made it,” breathes Linehan.

“Eye of the needle.”

“Ah
fuck
.”

The missile’s emerged through the tunnel they’ve just come through. It’s less than a klick back now. It’s roaring in toward them far more quickly than before.

“Fuck’s sake,” says Linehan.

They’re well within the confines of the Yards now. Rows of doors that lead to airlocked stations are streaking by. The tunnel’s now a translucent tube. Beyond it they can see a far wider space. They shift along more rails. They streak through more tubes. They can see the intimations of architecture all around. They can see the flame of the missile behind them. It’s only half a klick back now. Spencer’s realizing that Linehan’s plan is for shit. They can’t destroy the thing that’s chasing them. They can’t outrun it. They can’t outmaneuver it. They can’t shake it. They streak out of translucence and back into solid. Which is when something finally clicks in Spencer’s mind. It’s something that’s been getting in his way. And now it drops away. He doesn’t want to see it go. It’s the last of his moral scruples. And now it’s gone. Leaving him in search of something else. Something that’s buried in this town’s systems. He runs his mind parallel to the route of his body. He brushes up against a lever that triggers a door. It’s one of thousands throughout this complex. It’s intended to forestall emergency flooding should the seabed overhead rupture. Now it slides shut behind them. They have a fraction of a second to secure additional distance from the door.

Before the missile hits it.

That nuke’s got next to nothing in the way of EMP. It harbors only modest force. But it’s all relative. Because the seabed’s being shaken to pieces. Half the Yards just got caved in. The ocean’s been left to do the rest.

“Holy
fuck,
” says Spencer.

“We’re gone,” says Linehan.

There’s no way he could be wrong. What’s surging down the tunnel behind them is water that’s far worse than any weapon. It won’t be outrun. It can’t be outgunned. It can’t be outmaneuvered. It surges in toward them. It turns maglev into mere metal—snuffing out the electricity in one fell swoop. Yet even as the magnetism dies, Spencer’s switching to rocket. Wheels protrude, hold them steady as velocity kicks in once again. To no avail. That surge is overhauling them all the same. It’s almost got them. It’s starting to churn in amidst their rocket’s fires.

“Do you believe in God?” says Linehan.

“I’ll believe in anything that’ll get us out of this.”

“Me neither,” snarls Linehan.

Their rockets switch off, seal as the tide washes across them. The water roars in around the ship. The two men within feel themselves shaken like rats by dogs. They feel their craft lurch into the walls, ceiling, floor with ever-greater force.

“Tell me what this was all about,” says Spencer.

“Tell me what it wasn’t,” says Linehan.

And yet somehow they’re still alive. And all they’re doing is finding out what it’s like to die. Which is pretty much what they would have suspected. It’s time that’s run clean out. It’s dark at the end of endless tunnel. It’s the shock of realizing that somehow you’re still breathing. When you really shouldn’t be.

“We’re still intact,” says Spencer.

“We’re still running,” says Linehan.

“Like I said.”

“I mean we’re still
running
.”

He’s right. There’s a new vibration that’s even nearer than the waters swirling around the ship. It’s the rumble of engines close at hand. The instrument panels are lighting up in a new configuration. Understanding suddenly dawns: this ship’s a true interceptor. Even though it prowled the tunnels on rails and wheels, it was configured to operate in one more medium.

The one they’re in right now.

“Hold
on,
” says Spencer.

“We ride it out,” says Linehan.

“All the way through.”

And all the while they’re thinking about how things have surely just come full circle. Of how this ship’s immersion represents nothing save a return to a condition it’s plainly familiar with—which might have even been the point. And the answer to this question: if at least some feds knew what was what, why weren’t the two sought by all simply seized at Kennedy? Someone didn’t want others to know that the prize had been bagged. Someone intended to remove them in the middle of the tunnel. Someone intended to get out of that tunnel without going out of either end. Someone wanted to escape detection altogether. So: smooth moves in the dark. From ocean to shaft and back again. Nice and neat. Though it doesn’t look like either now.

“We’re still living,” says Spencer.

“Running with the current,” says Linehan.

“Jesus.”

All manner of debris is churning up against the windows. And so much of it he doesn’t want to see. Bodies, torn by the blast and by the water—they dash themselves against the ship. They press their faces up against the plastic. They churn off into the mother of all undertows.

“Oh Christ,” says Spencer. “Oh Jesus Christ.”

“What’s your point?” asks Linehan.

“We killed them.”

“We? You’re the one who took our ship through the Yards.”

“You’re the one who told me to!”

“And I’m the one who’s telling you to shove everything out there out of your fucking mind. And replace it with nothing but thinking about how you’re going to stay in here with the oxygen.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning
take control
.”

And he’s right. Because now they’re rushing downward. Now the tunnel’s sloping as the Atlantic drops down from continental shelf. Spencer fights to master the current as the ship picks up speed.

“Just keep us away from the
walls,
” says Linehan.

“Like it matters,” mutters Spencer.

Though he’s trying. And somehow succeeding even as that speed increases. The controls are like a live animal in his hands. He compensates, adjusts, guesses. He sees nothing now save water. He feels himself pressed down to depths he’s never dreamed of.

T
he B-130 is no longer flying. It’s disintegrating. The back wall of the main cargo chamber is practically staved in. The floor’s crumpling. Morat and the drones are thrown toward the front wall. On the way they pass Marlowe, who’s fired what’s left of his thrusters as Haskell hit the detonator. He’s rocketing toward the shaft above. Shots dance around his feet as he roars upward. Wreckage of drones is everywhere. But past that wreckage he can see the opening airlock doors of the still-intact upper ship. Yet even as he tears toward them, he’s forced to change direction, bouncing off the walls as the vertical tube through which he’s moving slopes toward the horizontal while the stricken ship plunges downward. He’s yelling at Haskell to close the airlock doors. She’s not waiting—the doors are sliding shut as he rushes toward them. The space between him and them is a narrowing window. She’s set them going too fast: Marlowe accelerates as drones sear into the shaft after him; he rushes past the surviving gun installations, through the closing gap into the room beyond. The doors slam shut behind him as he extends his hands, shoves himself off the ceiling. His jets cut out. He drops toward the front of the upper ship’s cargo chamber, yells at Haskell to blast off.

And she does.

The motors ignite. The Janus leaps from the back of the stricken B-130. It hurtles downward, parallel to the other ship. Then it veers away. Marlowe’s shoved toward the room’s rear. He grabs on to the wall, holds on. He can’t see Haskell anywhere.

“Where are you?” “In the cockpit,” she says.

S
he’s strapped in, wired to the instruments. Her eyes are watching through the windows while her mind’s carving through the zone. She started laying into the drones as soon as the bomb went off—took advantage of their momentary confusion to get in amidst them, start slicing them apart. The only drones still extant now are on a rendezvous with ocean. Haskell withdraws her mind from theirs, peels the ship away from the intended destination. It’s scarcely ten klicks off. It’s city-covered mountains looming through the haze. She lets the ship bend back out over the ocean.

But suddenly she’s pulled back wholly into zone. She’s under furious assault from something coming in from out of empty, from the broader zone around. It’s smashed through the firewall she’s configured around her ship and is powering in upon her, fighting her for the controls. Which means nobody’s in control at all.

F
ifteen meters behind her, Marlowe holds on as the ship writhes through the air. He’d been on the point of convincing himself that it was going to be a smooth ride to the nearest U.S. ships. But clearly it’s going to be nothing of the kind. The ship ascends at a sickening rate. It twists off to the side. It spirals back toward the ocean. It uses both jets and rockets. The latter are intended only for space. The former are intended only for landing planetside. But now both are firing almost at random. It’s all Marlowe can do to keep his head from hitting metal. He’s acutely aware that the craft is being subjected to near-lethal strains.

But then it levels out. Marlowe doesn’t waste a moment: he leaps to the floor, grabs more weapons from the wall racks, sprints across the chamber—and through the door and down into the room where he and Haskell rode out the takeoff. He rushes into the cockpit-access corridor, reaches the cockpit. The door is open. He looks inside.

To find Haskell lolling in her straps. He lunges to her side. She’s still breathing. He shakes her. She doesn’t respond. He shakes her harder. She opens her eyes. She smiles weakly.

“You’re back.”

“What happened.”

“They threw me out of the zone,” she replies. “They almost killed me.”

“The drones?”

“Not them.
Them.
” She gestures at the window. Marlowe hadn’t even looked. He sees the towers of transplanted Hong Kong approaching once more. Mist and rocks wrap around their bases. Ocean sprawls beyond.

“That’s where the Rain are,” she says. “That’s where they’re based. They’re hacking us at point-blank range. They’re too close for our own side to jam.”

“Why didn’t they do this earlier?” says Marlowe.

“Don’t you understand? We’re dealing with something that works through proxies.” She’s whispering now. “That set this creature Morat and all his creatures against us. That only gets involved when it has to. They have us, Jason.”

“We’ve still got suit-jets,” he says. “We bail out.”

“We can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Same reason we couldn’t earlier. The hack controls this ship’s weapons.”

“You didn’t disable them?”

“I didn’t have a chance,” she snaps. “We’d be like fish in a barrel. We’ll be shredded long before we get to sea.”

“Then what are you saying we do? Just wait to be taken?”

“No,” she says suddenly. “We cut the ground out from under it.”

“How?”

“We get out on the hull. We take down the comlink. We shear off all means via which it can ram its signal into us.”

“Works for me,” he says.

He crouches down once more upon the cockpit floor, bends once again to the trapdoor. He severs wires to deprive the thing that controls the ship of any chance of forestalling him. He works the manuals, opens the door and crawls in. He looks back up at her.