The Burning Skies (2 page)

The screen changes slightly. The man watches.

“Ah. Codes I gave you. And footage from within the plane Morat jacked. Taken by your ocular cameras, I presume—is he dead, by the way?”

“Yes,” she says. “He’s dead.”

“Did he die well?”

“Not particularly.”

“Did you kill him?”

“Yes.”

“With news like that, you’re welcome here anytime. With or without those codes establishing that you’re
probably
Claire. But even if you’re not her, you’re still welcome to anything I have to say. I’ve told the Throne everything anyway. I’m finished, as you can see. My life is over.”

“Then why are you still alive?”

“Because Andrew has yet to use that laser—the one through which you’re projecting your face—as a blowtorch against my head.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“That’s too bad.”

“You call the Throne by his first name.”

“And I daresay I earned the privilege. I’ve known him for fifty years. Long before he became president. We used to be midshipmen, you know. Back in the final days of the old navy. Back before we laid the foundations of what was to become NavCom. I remember when—”

“Do I look like I came here to listen to an old man reminiscing?”

“You’d deny me my memories?”

“You denied mine.”

“Only so you could become what you are.”

“And I’ll never forgive you for it.”

“I don’t ask for your forgiveness, Claire. All I require is what’s beyond your power to preclude: my own recollections. The foundations of NavCom—I remember so well the blueprints of those ships, the likes of which the world had never seen. Floating fortresses to replace carriers. Submarines that could ride supercavitation at hundreds of klicks an hour. I tell you, Claire, when I was the nation’s chief spymaster, I often yearned for those simpler times.”

“Why did the Throne make you head of CICom?”

“Because he and I could practically complete each other’s
sentences. And because he wanted at least one source of unwavering support in the Inner Cabinet. He knew I’d never betray him.”

“But you
did
betray him.”

“I was the only one who was true to him.”

“Is that how you rationalize it?”

“He used to have such dreams, Claire. He alone understood what was required. Ironic, isn’t it? The military is acknowledged at long last as the only force that can save the country—and promptly finds itself undone by its own straitjacketed imagination. Only one man was capable of rising above that. Andrew Harrison opened my eyes. He showed me that the problem wasn’t how to win a second cold war. The problem was how to transcend that problem. How to channel human energy into goals worthy of humanity. How to solve Earth’s energy and environmental crisis once and for all. Thus the repurposing of our military machines. Détente was a mere stepping stone along the way. Andrew’s ultimate agenda was to lay the groundwork for a new civilization.”

“That sounds a lot like what the Rain claimed to want.”

“That’s no coincidence. It’s the inevitable goal of any mind able to break free of the cage that passes for conventional thinking. The real question lies in the new world’s contours. And the Rain is precisely where Andrew went wrong.”

“But he created them.”

“No, Claire.
I
created them. He merely signed off on them.”

“And the order for their termination.”

“Indeed. He’d become convinced that the elite commando unit we’d built to hit the East’s leadership in the event of a final war was about to target him.”

“And was he wrong in thinking that?”

“You know, you really
are
Claire.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Because this conversation is proceeding exactly as you would conduct it. The oblique probing about the past. The gradual revealing to me of what’s going on outside this room. The gradual closing in upon the question you’re really dying to ask.”

“After the Throne had the Praetorians eliminate Autumn Rain, did you maintain a link to the surviving members who later downed the Elevator?”

Sinclair’s mouth creases upward in something that’s well short of smile.

“Yes,” he says. “I did.”

“You’ll just come right out and admit it.”

“As I’ve told you, I have nothing to hide. Not anymore.”

“So tell me why you—”

“It’s strange, Claire. We thought that the world was ours. He was president, and I was his right-hand man, and we were only in our forties. We would either defeat the East or reach accommodation with them, and then move on to greater things. But when he ordered Autumn Rain’s destruction I came up against the limitations of his vision. I saw that I had surpassed him, that he would never green-light humanity’s successors. I realized that the sooner I ruled in his place, the quicker I would be able to finish the task he started.”

“But you’d
already
turned on him, Matthew.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning Harrison was right: Autumn Rain
was
targeting him all those years ago. What he didn’t know was that it was on
your
orders. Right?”

Sinclair says nothing. She laughs.

“Though I bet he’s figured it out since. So, in other words, you tried to assassinate him back then—after which you helped what was left of the Rain go underground, rebuild, and then try to take him out
again?”

“Assassination is such a nihilistic word.”

“Call it what it is.”

“Ah yes,” he says. “Definitely Claire. The anger in you runs so deep. Such a shame it still outpaces the insight. Let’s clarify terms:
assassination
is a word that can only be used if people know the target is
dead
. The Rain destroys their target, assumes that target’s position, gives orders in that target’s name. The perfection of subversion from within. Turning paranoia in upon itself, no? Fear of coups and assassinations drove leaders into seclusion. The Rain capitalize upon that. No one sees the Throne anymore. No one even knows his location.”

“I do,” she says.

“Do the Rain?”

“I don’t know.”

“So you’ve chosen to fight them.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Do you even have to ask?”

“What about Marlowe? Surely he could have persuaded you that—”

“Jason’s dead.”

“Oh dear.”

“You bastard.”

Sinclair raises an eyebrow. “I assure you my distress is no subterfuge. Jason was intended to be your consort when you and the rest of the Rain ruled across the Earth-Moon system. He was the catalyst for your true memories. Don’t let your anger blind your logic, Claire. How could I
not
feel pain at such news? Who killed him?”

“Me,” she says.

“You could kill me too, if you wanted. You broke in here on light. You can break me with light too.”

“All I want to do is talk.”

“Same as Andrew. Figure you may as well keep me around, eh? Never know when you might find something I say useful.”

“I don’t anticipate you being of any use to me ever again. I just know that if I kill you—”

“—the Throne will know somebody penetrated the L5 fortress. Claire, I’m so glad it’s you. Why
didn’t
you join Autumn Rain?”

“Because they would have perpetuated the problem.”

“You need to tell me what you mean by that.”

“They want to rule humanity.”

“And that’s a sin?”

“They turned Hong Kong into a charnel-house.”

“Our world’s a charnel-house. The only question is what to do about it. They at least have a plan.”

“The plan you gave them.”

“The plan I
bred
them for. They weren’t just born to seize power. They were born to wield it.”

“So it
was
to be them that ruled?”

“You as well.”

“But not you?”

He shrugs. “Of course I would have.”

“For a moment there, I thought you were letting me down.”

“They’re still children, Claire. So are you, for that matter. They’d need guidance. But I wouldn’t have stood in their way for very long.”

“Didn’t stop them from trying to hurry up the process.”

Sinclair says nothing.

“Because that’s what happened, right? They sent the Throne the proof of your communications with them, didn’t they? Right at the same time they were jacking my spaceplane to get at me? That’s why the Praetorians arrested you when they did.”

“I can’t say I fault your logic.”

“Did you order the destruction of the Elevator? Or was that them striking out on their own too?”

“Why would I order the senseless destruction of such
valuable hardware? No, that was their idea. And even if it
had
been mine, I would never have let it happen when you were in the middle of that inferno in South America. They clearly didn’t know you were there either.”

“I thought Morat was reporting back to them.”

“I’m assuming they got to Morat pretty much immediately
after
that.”

“Turned him right under your nose.”

“I made mistakes.”

“That’s all you can say?”

“What else would you have from me?”

“How about how the fuck did you let it happen? It really came as a surprise to you that a group that had
already
turned the tables on their executioners would betray their would-be grey eminence?”

“Who said it came as a surprise? Deal with something like the Rain and you never know quite where you stand.”

“That’s for sure.”

“I admit it—I thought I could control them. I thought they saw me as a father figure. I didn’t realize that there was only one thing I had that they wanted.”

“Me.”

“The Manilishi herself.” He pauses. “How’s that working for you these days?”

“I’m still trying to figure out just what the fuck I am.”

“The culmination of the Autumn Rain experiment.”

“I know that. But what does that—”

“Mean?” He waves a hand languidly. “Autumn Rain was to be backed on its combat runs by a unique type of razor capable of running zone in a whole new way.”

“I’ll say.”

“Intuition lets you fly, child.”

“But how the hell did you engineer—”

“A great question.”

“You don’t
know?”

“We designed something in which every cell computes—molecular computing taken to a new level. We foresaw there’d be synergies we didn’t plan for. We eventually realized we were dealing with a violation of locality that allows the subject—”

“Don’t
subject
me. I broke beyond those labels.”

“—to evade the penalties that a razor pays when hacking a remote target. You don’t have the split-second disadvantage that any normal razor has during off-planet hacking. Your reaction times outpace the stimuli your brain receives and nobody knows why. No wonder you’re running rings around L5’s razors.”

“I’ll do the same to the Rain.”

“Claire, you’re not invincible.”

“Without me, neither are the Rain.”

“They’ll have the advantage.”

“Once it became clear they’d had turned against you, why did you send me to the Moon?”

“I wanted to get you someplace safe.”

“Safe?”

“Relatively speaking.”

“The Moon wasn’t even
vaguely
safe. The Rain were up there. To say nothing of the SpaceCom cabal that the Rain was using to try to ignite war.”

“Once you were on the scene and activated as Manilishi, none of that would have meant much. The Rain’s primary force was on Earth, preparing to hit the superpowers’ leadership. They had one team on the Moon beneath Nansen Station pulling the strings of the SpaceCom conspiracy, and another preparing to hit Szilard on L2. You would have cleaned up the Moon pretty quick.”

“Maybe.”

“Besides, you have to be awake to all contingencies. If war with the Eurasians breaks out, the Moon is going to look all the better. It’s the high ground of the Earth-Moon system.”

“Except the libration points. Except this fortress.”

“Technically that’s true. But I’m willing to bet that the Moon can sustain a damn sight more damage than this place.”

“But why didn’t you activate me as Manilishi
before
I left for the Moon? Why wait till I got there?”

“Because activating you meant restoring your true memories.”

“My true memories?” Her voice is taut.

“Once they were restored, your loyalty would have been a wild card without the proper precautions. As the Rain found out the hard way. What’s wrong?”

Tears are running down her face. “You
know
what’s wrong, you sick fuck. How can I tell what my real memories are?”

“Because that’s what we linked your activation to.”

“Fuck you and your sophistry!
How do I know they’re real?”

“How do you know anything’s real? Claire, you need to get past the past. You’re beyond the range of ordinary definition now. What happened to you back then doesn’t matter. All that matters is what happens now.”

She takes a deep breath. “What happens now is you keep talking.”

“About what?”

“About how I can beat them.”

“You’ll have to find your own way through on that.”

“You don’t care who wins?”

“All I care about is perfecting my role as voyeur.”

“But you’re blind in here.”

“I see the crisis of the age in you, Claire. I can see what’s going on out there all too well. I know the capabilities of the respective players better than anyone else. All the scenarios that might have gone down after that spaceplane, after the
Praetorian agents arrested me at Cheyenne and began the purge of CICom, all the ways in which the game might have played out across these last four days—it
has
been four days, hasn’t it?”

She nods.

“I should imagine that things happened very quickly once they downed your plane, didn’t they?”

She nods.

“So … the Rain is clearly still a factor, or you wouldn’t be so desperate to talk about them. But they haven’t won. Otherwise they’d be opening that door, laughing at me.”

She nods.

“This base has yet to see major combat—I think I would be aware of that much at least. So the third world war that the Rain were trying to bring about didn’t happen. They
did
try to bring it about, didn’t they?”