Twinmaker (28 page)

“You can’t really think it’d be that easy,” said Gemma.

“No, but that’s not going to stop me,” she said, rising to her feet. She put on her firmest voice. The crowd listened to a young man with a square jaw, so maybe they’d listen to her, too.

“This is a war, and we’re vastly outnumbered, but that never stopped someone from being right. You understand that better than anyone. We can sit here arguing about the means all day—you want to tear the system down and start again, while I want the system to fix itself as it’s supposed to—but the ends we want to achieve are not all that different. We want people to be safe. We don’t want people to be altered in ways they shouldn’t. That’s what everyone wants. Can’t we find a way to do this together? No one ever changed the world acting alone.”

Jesse actually clapped, and in that moment she could’ve kissed him. But he was the only one, and after a few seconds he trailed off.

“Ah, the irony,” said Turner with smile. “I want to say that words are not enough, when all
I
have are words, too. Why don’t you give us a moment to think about what you’ve said? We’ll call you when we’re ready.”

“You’ve already made up your mind,” said Clair with a heavy feeling in her gut.

“Don’t be so sure. You’re asking us to help you, and that’s a big commitment, but you have a lot to offer us in return. We always need information and evidence, and you have provided both. You and Jesse and your friend Q. We don’t have to agree with each other to be useful to each other. . . . Jamila?”

The young woman with the mismatched irises stood and led Clair and Jesse down the spiral staircase, back to the D-shaped deck below. No one said anything as they left, but Clair and Jesse were tracked with every step.

Don’t give up hope
, Clair told herself.
He didn’t actually say no.

“You think Turner’s a good guy?” she asked Jamila before the woman went back to join the others.

“The best,” she said with shy smile.

“Isn’t he a little young to be in charge, though?”

“Age doesn’t come into it. All that matters is getting the job done.”

“The job being to get rid of d-mat, I suppose.”

The woman blinked as though Clair was asking a stupid question. “Of course.”

She vanished through the door and locked it behind her, leaving the prisoners with the cushions, the coffeemaker, the microwave, and the view.

Jesse headed for the miniature kitchen to pour himself some coffee. “Me,” he said, “I’m feeling slightly underwhelmed.”

Clair nodded. She was thinking about Dylan Linwood, whose fame as a transport artist, or whatever he had called himself, had put him in a good position to be a spokesperson for WHOLE, she would have thought. But the one time he had openly used that position to attack Improvement over the Air had seen him duped. The video he had made had been noted at the time, but how many viewers had been convinced by it? Within hours, his home had been destroyed, and he was missing, presumed crazier than ever.

What could unknown Clair Hill do that he hadn’t?

She returned to her cushion against the window and sat down, closing her eyes and accessing her lenses. She didn’t know how long she had before the meeting reconvened. But she resolved to use that time wisely.

“Are you there, Q?”

“I’m right there with you. Hey—that rhymes.”

“
Where
are you, exactly?”

“I appear to be in the Air. That’s where I came to myself, anyway, when we started talking. There’s lots of room for me in here, but it’s hard to describe where ‘here’ is, exactly. I’m surrounded by so much information . . . it’s scary sometimes. . . .”

Clair could accept this, but at the same time she couldn’t. It was difficult to imagine how someone could be alive without a body, let alone live in the Air, but if people could be d-matted anywhere in the world, why not into a virtual environment like the air? That made Q something like a ghost in a virtual library containing all of human history and knowledge. It would be hard to avoid getting lost in there and perhaps just as hard to find one small thing out of everything else.

“I need to know something,” she said. “Dylan Linwood attached some brain scans to the video of Principal Gordon’s office. Can you track down their source?”

“I can certainly try, Clair,” Q said. “Private medical data is difficult to access, but I’m sure I’ll find a way in eventually, if I dig long enough.”

“Thanks.”

“Is there anything else?”

“Too much, probably. What can you tell me about Turner Goldsmith? Young guy, a bit too smooth for his own good. Possibly WHOLE’s leader.”

“I have a peacekeeper warrant outstanding for one Turner Archibald Goldsmith, but he’s not young. He’s listed as eighty-two years old.”

“Well, that can’t be right. Maybe he’s the original’s grandson, using a family name.”

“His records show no offspring.”

“He stole the old guy’s identity?”

“That would explain the discrepancy. . . .”

Or someone was outright lying, Clair thought. The layers of deceit and misinformation seemed to get thicker every time she tried to roll them back.

“Finally, I need a way to get to New York without being spotted,” she said. “Do you think you can help me with that?”

“Of course, Clair. D-mat is out of the question . . .”

Q’s voice faded briefly into static, then returned.

“. . . alternate routes, depending on . . .”

“What was that, Q? I missed something.”

“. . . natural interference at your end. I’ll try . . .”

“You’re fading again. What?”

“. . . unusual readings . . .”

A vibration ran through the Skylifter, making the mugs and cups rattle.

Clair opened her eyes and saw Jesse with his hand against one wall, staring at her.

“Did you feel that?” he asked.

Sudden bright white light flared. The floor tipped beneath them, and Clair slid directly toward one of the windows.

SHE SKIDDED ACROSS the carpet, flailing ineffectually for anything solid to hang on to, but all her clutching hands found were cushions. The floor dropped again, and suddenly there wasn’t even carpet to slow her down. She was tumbling through empty air. Ahead of her was nothing but blue sky and an infinite cloudscape far, far below.

She hit the hardened plastic with a bone-jarring thud. There she stopped dead. An avalanche of cushions pummeled her from behind, followed by Jesse himself. She was glad for the cushions as his extra weight pressed her hard against the transparent boundary that was the only thing separating her from a very long fall straight down.

Light flared again. This time it was the sun sweeping across the sky. The Skylifter was spinning.

“What’s going on?”

Jesse said something but was muffled by the cushions. Q was silent. There was only static through her lenses.

The weight eased. A hand thrust down to her, and she gripped it tightly. She burst out of the cushions and stood next to Jesse with one foot on the window beneath her and the other on a wildly canted floor. She braced herself in case the Skylifter lurched again.

Another white flash. This time there was a bang. The air misted. Her ears popped. Suddenly, it was hard to breathe. She felt light in her stomach, as though they were losing altitude.

Her heart thumped loud and fast in her chest.

“We’re under attack,” Jesse said over a rising whistling noise.

“I thought we were safe here!”

“Apparently not.” He peered out the windows. “But I can’t see anyone out there. They must be firing at us from a distance.”

They tried the doors, climbing awkwardly up the sloping floor. Only the one leading to the bathroom was unlocked, and that Clair already knew was a dead end.

“Q?” Clair called. “I need you!”

No answer penetrated the static.

The floor lurched again. This time the white light didn’t fade. It blazed like a new sun in the sky, flickering occasionally but never entirely going out.

Clair shielded her dazzled eyes. Not being able to see the ground as it approached was a cold comfort. There had to be a way down to the airships docked below that she had seen earlier. Through a ventilation duct, perhaps . . . ?

Barely had she begun looking for air vents when the door to the upper deck suddenly opened, letting in a howling gale.

“Q!” she cried in relief.

But it was Jesse she saw flinching from sparks showering out of an open panel.

“How did you do that?”

“Killer with a screwdriver, remember?” He held up a bent metal knife. The door had only opened an inch, but that was enough for them to get their fingers through and slide it wider. The air was frigid on the other side. Light blazed down the spiral stairwell. There was no sign of anyone.

“The dome must have been breached,” Clair said, imagining people sucked out and falling and . . . She shook her head.
Don’t think of that.
“We have to go the other way.”

He nodded grimly and hurried to the other side of the room while Clair struggled to slide the door closed behind her. She rapidly lost all feeling in her fingertips to the cold.

“Come on!”

Jesse had the other door open. Together, they made enough space for them to slip through. The air was relatively warm and still on the other side, but the shaft leading to the lowest level of the Skylifter was swaying sickeningly from side to side. She hoped the three smaller airships were still attached.

They hurried down the stairs. Each shudder and lurch made her fear that the Skylifter had reached the end of its plummet, and all their efforts had been for nothing. But it was still falling when they reached the docks, and over the whistling of wind they heard the sound of propellers whirring madly. Through circular ports ringing the base of the stairwell, Clair saw that all three smaller airships were active and ready to fly. The hatches hung open.

“Is there anyone here?” she called.

“Clair! I hear you!” Q’s voice came from all the hatches. “I couldn’t reach you through the ionization, but I did patch into the airships’ control systems—”

“Whatever, I’m glad you’re here! Which ship do we take?”

“Any of them.”

Clair picked the nearest. Through the hatch, she could see the docking tube connecting the base of the Skylifter to the smaller airship flexing and twisting. She took a breath and hurried out onto the plastic floor. The walls were shaking, and her stomach was swirling, and she could only imagine what was happening to the Skylifter as it tumbled faster and faster out of the sky. It was far from aerodynamic.

The tube jerked under her feet. Something tore. The way ahead was suddenly rushing wind and bright-blue light, and the clouds loomed horribly close.

“Clair!”

Jesse wrapped his arms around her and pulled her bodily backward before she could fall. They tumbled in a tangle of arms and legs and somehow managed to crawl their way back to safety. Clair was shaking too much to do more than follow as Jesse dragged them both to their feet and hurried to the next hatch in line. That tube held. Clair had never felt so grateful for anything or anyone in her entire life.

The airship thrashed about on the end of its docking tube like an apple in a storm. Clair fell across the threshold and clung to the pilot’s seat with all her strength. The crew compartment was big enough to hold a dozen people or so, with a low ceiling that didn’t quite allow Clair to stand upright. There were cases of what looked like small arms taking up two seats at the front.

Jesse brushed past her and stared at the complicated controls.

“What do we do?” she gasped. “Do you know how to fly this thing?”

“You don’t have to,” said Q. “I will operate the controls remotely.”

The door slid shut behind them. Locking bolts fastened. The pitch of the engines was already changing.

“We can’t leave yet,” said Clair. “We have to check on the others.”

“The dome blew,” said Jesse. “They must be dead.”

“We don’t know for sure. Q, can you take us to the top of this thing so we can check? Is there time?”

“I will make time.”

“Do it. We have to try.”

THE PROPELLERS ROARED, and the airship tore away from the tube connecting it to the Skylifter. Bright white light hit the airship as it came out from under the shadow of the larger craft. Clair clipped herself tightly into the seat next to Jesse.

“That laser or whatever it is—it’s not coming from another airship,” she said, peering through narrowed eyelids out the automatically darkened windshield. “It’s coming from above.”

“It’s a satellite power beam,” said Q.

“Here?” said Jesse, wide-eyed. “We’re miles away from the nearest receiver!”

“The beam’s been deliberately moved.”

“Someone’s trying to make this look like an accident,” said Clair, thinking of Jesse’s mom. “Funny how things like this happen around people in WHOLE.”

“Yeah, real hilarious,” Jesse said.

The airship flew upward past the tapering tip of the Skylifter’s teardrop and out around its fat middle. The dirigible was listing drunkenly and rotating once every ten seconds or so. The window Clair had fallen against came into view. She saw nothing but cushions and spreading frost. No people.

“Higher.” Clair leaned forward as they neared the uppermost deck. The dome had shattered, and the space below lay open to the sky. It was hard to see through the light, and at first she saw no one, but then, around a central spar that had once held the graceful curve of plastic safely over the heads of the Skylifter’s inhabitants . . .

“There!” She pointed at a small huddle of people in the scant shade provided by the spar, waving desperately to attract the airship’s attention. “Take us closer!”

“I see them,” said Q through a new wash of static. The airship rocked on its roaring fan engines through the full effect of the powersat beam—all the power a living city needed, sent down from space in one broad, powerful stream.

Clair stayed by the instruments, the better to see what was going on through the front window. To Jesse, she said, “Get ready with the door. Be careful.”