The Mirrored Heavens (9 page)

“But they were just the first wave.”

“The first wave,” repeats the Operative.

“Yes,” says Riley.

“And the second?”

“Was fired by the neutral satellites,” says Riley.

“Seventeen of them,” adds Maschler.

“All in close proximity to the Elevator.”

“They unleashed space-to-spacers.”

“At point-blank range.”

“But the def-grids rallied.”

“They turned those weapons into powder.”

“They did the same to the satellites.”

“Sure wish you guys had let me catch this live,” says the Operative.

“What else could we do?” says Maschler. “This way, we have no records of it. We never have to admit we saw it.”

“You and a hundred thousand other people,” laughs the Operative. “Earth-to-spacers try to nail the Elevator? Space-to-spacers rigged on neutral satellites try to finish the job? Are you kidding me? It’s not like this is going to be much of a fucking secret.”

But he knows he’s wrong even as he speaks the words. Secrets aren’t a function of who knows them. They’re a function of who doesn’t. The sky’s been classified for fifty years now. Civilians can neither write nor film what it contains. Those who wear uniforms have more leeway. But they know when to be discreet.

Especially when they’re seeing things they’ve never imagined seeing.

“Besides,” says Maschler, “we didn’t know what your role in all this was.”

“My role,” replies the Operative. One eyebrow arches.

“You could be a plant.”

“You could be a sleeper.”

“A sleeper for who,” says the Operative.

“For the Jaguars,” says Maschler.

“This is much bigger than the Jaguars,” objects Riley.

“This is the devil’s night,” says Maschler.

“Because of those missiles,” says the Operative.

“Never mind those missiles.”

“The missiles don’t matter.”

“Then what does?” says the Operative.

“This,” says Riley.

He hits a switch. The lights in the cockpit fade. The stars intensify. Riley gestures at the left-hand window—points toward a strand of luminescence strung among the stars.

“That’s the Elevator,” he says.

“Yeah,” says the Operative.

“Listen to me. She’s got forty main motors. One every hundred klicks. She’s firing them all on full-retro. She’s been doing that for the last five minutes. At the rate she’s going, her lowest point is going to hit atmosphere in five more.”

Maschler’s hands play over the keyboards. One of the display screens lights up. A complicated pattern floats atop it. Green lights drift toward a larger strand of blue.

“That’s the space around this section of the Elevator,” he says. “At least a hundred ships are moving in from all directions. A lot of those ships are ours. But we think some of them belong to the East. It looks to be a coordinated operation.”

“Is this going on at other levels of the Elevator?” asks the Operative.

“Yes,” says Riley.

“And no one’s signaled to you what’s going on,” says the Operative.

“What the hell would they signal?” asks Riley.

“What else is there to say?” asks Maschler.

“The Elevator’s been jacked.”

“We’re forfeit.”

“But at least,” says the Operative, “you had the good sense to tell me all about it.”

T
hey have the good sense to speed up as they climb. They roar out of smoke that’s drifting up from city-cellars. They roar into smoke that’s drifting down from the city’s middle layers. They race through patches of smog even thicker than that smoke.

“How are we doing?” the razor asks.

“I can’t tell.”

“Makes two of us.”

Wind tears against them. It’s all Marlowe can do to keep control. Particularly given how much damage his suit’s sustained. He adjusts his main jets, compensates with steering thrusts from his wrists and ankles, adjusts again.

“You strapped in okay?” he says.

“I’ll let you know as soon as I’m not.”

Buildings tower above them. They rise past more fires. They start to draw fire of their own. Lasers flare past. Bullets hum by. Marlowe starts to take evasive action.

“This is getting tight.”

“Militia hotbeds,” says Marlowe.

“So why are we going through them?”

“Because they’ve got to peter out eventually.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“Because we’ve almost reached the Citadel.”

From whose confines the U.S. props up one part of the fiction that’s called Brazil. Toward whose shelter Marlowe and his passenger are now racing. But now Marlowe’s picking up something on his screens. Something that he’s less than happy to see.

To put it mildly.

“Pursuit,” he says.

“How far back?”

“Couple klicks.”

And closing. Suited Jaguars: there are several of them. Rising from the depths of city. Spread out in a wide formation. He can see their suits’ jets flaring. He can see rocket-propelled grenades streaking from their arms. He veers off at an angle, starts to weave in amidst the buildings.

“Full-strength strike squad,” he says.

“They must have tracked me,” says the razor.

“They must have tracked
me,
” says Marlowe.

“Sounds like we’ve both given them reasons to hate us.”

“God I hope so.”

“We need more speed.”

Marlowe’s trying. He’s pouring it on. But he has to keep taking evasive action to avoid getting hit by the warring militias. He has to keep dodging. Which means he can’t go hell for leather on the straight. Which means they’re being overhauled.

Quickly too.

“Feed me your data,” says the razor.

“Why?”

“So I can help you help us.”

“Fine.”

If there’s something she can pull, he’s all for it. He sends her his armor’s signals. He senses her somehow reversing those signals. Suddenly she’s tapping into his comps. She’s right inside his head.

“What the fuck!” He almost loses control, finds his gyros steadied by a mind that’s not his own.

“I feel so close to you,” she replies. Her voice is emanating from in between his ears. It sounds amused.

“Who asked you?” he says.

“You,” she replies.

“What are you doing?”

“Using your brains,” she replies. “Or rather, your suit’s.”

And she is. She’s commanding that processing power while Marlowe sends them flying ever farther upward. Her mind is meshed with his. And both minds can see that now the Jaguars are getting out on their flanks. Classic pincer movement. In a few more moments they’re going to close the noose.

“One chance,” says Marlowe.

“Agreed,” she says.

They move together in the moment.

T
hree men in a room that’s no ordinary room. Lights of controls play upon their faces. Lights of space play upon their minds. These three men know they should never have met. They know they shouldn’t be here. They know they should be well past the edifice that lurks outside. But there it is in the window anyway.

“What do you think we should do?” asks Riley.

“Who says we have to do anything?” replies the Operative.

“Because that’s a military operation going on out there,” says Maschler. “Because we’re right in its vicinity.”

“Precisely why we’re doing nothing that’ll call attention to ourselves,” says the Operative.

“But it’s not like they can’t see us,” protests Maschler.

“Exactly. We’re just one more piece of freight.”

“If we wait ten more minutes, we’ll leave the window,” says Riley.

“We’ll have to make our way around the planet again,” adds Maschler.

“I don’t think you understand,” says the Operative. “Break for the Moon now, and those ships will break you into pieces.”

“Are you sure?” says Riley.

“How do you know?” says Maschler.

“It’s what I’d do,” says the Operative simply.

“But we have to do
something,
” says Maschler.

There’s a flash in the window. All three men shift, pivot—do whatever they have to do to turn in the zero-G toward it. They see the problem immediately. Something’s just exploded nearby. The screens show beams of light stabbing forth from the Elevator. Another ship detonates even as they watch. The telescoping cameras take it all in—take in ships maneuvering across space, taking evasive action, doing whatever they have to do to render themselves more difficult to hit. From points elsewhere, directed energy lashes back at the Elevator. The cannonade stops.

The maneuvering continues.

“Yeah,” says the Operative. “I guess staying here’s a little problematic.”

“That’s what we’ve been telling you,” says Riley.

“Current orbit’s not going to get us out of here quick enough,” says the Operative, as though Riley hadn’t spoken.

“Who the
fuck
is on that thing?” says Maschler.

“Shall I hit the gas?” asks Riley.

“You’ll do nothing of the kind,” says the Operative.

“What do you mean?” says Riley.

“What the hell are you on?” asks Maschler.

“All sorts of things,” says the Operative evenly. “But what I said a moment ago still applies. Start this bitch up, and our boys will finish you forever.”

“Then what the fuck are you suggesting we do?”

“
We’re
going to do nothing,” says the Operative. They look at him. Maschler starts to splutter protest. The Operative holds up a hand to silence him.

“But as for me,” he adds, “I’m going to make a call.”

T
he mech changes course while Haskell starts raising hell with the suits of the strike squad. She slots herself in along now-familiar code-routes. She starts running interference on the pursuers’ comlinks. And while she does, she and the mech are veering toward a building that’s been subjected to heavy shelling. They streak through a hole in the building’s side and into shattered halls. They burn through corridors, take down doors. They brake, turn, charge on up into elevator shafts, climbing as fast as his motors will let them. Haskell clings tight. She feels minds out there writhing, feels walls surging past her. They brake to a halt in front of more doors, smash them down, break out of the shaft—hurtle down more corridors, find another opening, race back out into the city.

Catching the flank of the strike squad unprepared. Two suits, both within a quarter-klick: the mech’s firing out along a broad front. He blasts one with armor-piercing rounds from his wrist-guns. He shreds the other’s helmet with his minigun. He flies on past the tumbling bodies, pours on the speed. And while he does so, Haskell’s putting pressure on the rest.

“How’s it looking?”

“Fucked two more of their suits,” she says. “The rest have disabled their links.”

“But they’re still intact.”

“That would be a safe assumption.”

Or at least the working one. They keep on burning upward. They figure they’ve bought themselves a few more seconds. And they’re pretty much within the Citadel’s outer perimeter now, moving in between the lesser hedgehogs. They should be safe.

Only they clearly aren’t. There are still militia all around. And disconcertingly little combat. In fact, most of the militia don’t even really seem to be fighting. They just seem to be moving. In the exact same direction that Haskell and the mech are going. They’re driving their vehicles along the ramped skyways. They’re flying their ’copters at full tilt. Haskell and the mech are weaving in and out of the really dense areas, using the smoke to provide all the cover it’s worth.

But now the space around them is beginning to broaden and the smoke up ahead’s clearing. The sky itself is coming into view.

So is the Citadel.

“Oh Jesus,” says Haskell.

“Doesn’t matter,” replies the mech. “We’re not stopping.”

They streak in toward it.

T
he Elevator’s center is more than two thousand klicks above the Earth. Which means it orbits at a slower rate than do ships at the level of the Antares. Now that it’s got all its brakes on maximum, that delta’s increased even further. It’s moving out of the cockpit window, falling behind. But as far as the Operative is concerned, it’s still way too close for comfort.

“Don’t bother calling,” says Maschler. “Communications are fucked.”

“When did you lose them?” asks the Operative.

“We never did,” says Riley.

“Stop talking riddles,” snaps the Operative.

Maschler shrugs. “All we’ve got is mission control on automatic feed. It’s not like we’re in touch with anything that’s up for conversation. All we’ve got is just updates every minute confirming our position.”

“And the order to stand by for translunar injection,” says Riley.

“But no order to initiate the burn,” says Maschler.

“We’ve tried to raise the emergency channels,” adds Riley. “They’re not responding. No one is. We’ve asked for clarification of the situation. We’ve received nothing.”

“Let me try,” says the Operative. “Key in whatever codes you need to give me access.”

He couldn’t pick up shit earlier. But that was when he was back in the bowels of the ship. Now he can pipe directly into the ship’s own lines. He can commandeer the main comlinks. He can raise Earth directly.

So he does. Wireless signals dart out from within his skull, words wrapped within codes that vector through the ship’s mainframe before streaking out into vacuum. The Operative plays with the frequencies, fine-tunes the direction of the dishes on the hull.

Somewhere on the planet something hears him.

“Get off this line,” says a voice. It echoes in the Operative’s head: a growl shot through with static. The weight of atmosphere hangs heavy on the words.

“I’m using the channel I’ve been instructed to use in case of contingency,” replies the Operative. He chooses his words carefully. His lips aren’t moving. Neural implants are doing all the work. “I’m following my orders. You can see my position.”

“I can,” says the voice. “What do you want?”

“I want confirmation of this ship’s original flight plan to be relayed to its pilots.”

“We can’t do that,” says the voice.

“Why not?” says the Operative.

“Because it’s out of our hands. You’ve got a real knack for timing, Carson. The place is in lockdown up there. You’re smack-dab in the middle of the largest joint U.S.-Eurasian operation ever conducted.”