The Machinery of Light (75 page)

A
nd she can feel it—the emanations of those Rain minds like smoke wafting high above her, shimmering through the endless mist of labyrinth, spreading fear and confusion among the SpaceCom ranks. It’s as she expected. No single one of the players is strong enough to stay alive solo, but combined their minds comprise a factor. As opposed to the minds of those now stumbling into the farside of the labyrinth—the SpaceCom advance forces. She can feel their spirits winking out like lights being extinguished as they make it barely inside the labyrinth before being liquidated, and it’s all she can do to avoid the same fate herself; she twists and turns and pushes herself off walls and prays she won’t hit one of the thousand dead ends or any of the ten thousand traps—prays that she wasn’t seeing the faceless visage of Control looming before her. But God died a long time ago.

P
ursuit,” says Jarvin, and his voice has gone all taut.

Spencer picks it up too. Several kilometers back.

Another maglev car.

“Who the fuck is that?” he mutters:

“Could be Sinclair himself,” says Jarvin. For the first time he’s starting to look less than calm …

“Or guardians of this shaft,” says Spencer. He and Jarvin are doing what they can to get in on the strange zone that constitutes this whole route, running their hacks to commandeer the car they’re in and keep the electricity running as they shoot down rails toward the depths of Moon. But that other car’s making good progress all the same. It’s several klicks back, and there’s something more than a little strange about its zone-signature … to the point where it’s almost like it’s not there …

“Oh
fuck,”
says Jarvin.

L
ynx and Linehan sweep in between the units guarding Szilard’s inner position, heading straight toward it, exchanging fire, then drawing off—a feint that pulls a good chunk of Szilard’s flank with it. Tunnels are folding up around them as the marines give chase. Lynx and Linehan start to double around, back toward Szilard’s command post—

W
hat the fuck are you doing?” yells the Operative.

“Going for it,” says Lynx.

The Operative can see he’s not kidding. The plan was for Lynx and Linehan to make the feint and then let the rest of them get in there. But Lynx has never been one for playing second fiddle. And the Operative figures maybe that’s just as well. If Szilard’s still got anything up his sleeve, then maybe Lynx can be the one to find out first. The Operative signals to Riley and Maschler to get out on the hull as he maneuvers their vehicle in on the heart of the Com defenses …

S
till playing their fucking games,” says Velasquez.

“They can’t stop,” says Sarmax.

Apparently. The final twenty klicks, and it’s total chaos. Lynx and the Operative are veering around Szilard’s mobile strongpoint like wolves around a campfire. Half the Com forces are fighting one another as their minds go. But the inner enclave of Szilard’s handpicked marines are holding steady, defending their president, their ranks still unbroken. They’re continuing to forge their way down toward the labyrinth. Which the advance guard has already penetrated—

“And gotten annihilated,” says Velasquez.

“Takes a special kind of maniac to go in there.”

S
he’s threading through the web of passages and somehow it helps that she doesn’t even know which ones are in her mind and which ones are carved in rock. All she knows is that Control’s looming before her like a disembodied ghost.

“Turn back, Claire.”

“What do you think I’ve already done?”

“I think you’re being very foolish.”

“When I want your opinion, you’ll be the first to know.”

“Matthew
thinks you’re being very foolish.”

“Which is why he’s coming after me.”

“And you’re not moving fast enough.”

“He’s afraid of me, isn’t he.”

“Try to have some perspective, Claire.”

“I’ll show you fucks a thing or two about perspective.”

“Will you really?” Control laughs, and the noise is hideous. “Szilard’s fed a thousand soldiers into this labyrinth already. None of them made it more than five seconds. We’ll see how much better you can do. Give the old man a run for his money—why not? All the better, in fact. We need a fighter. We
bred
a fighter. Someone who’ll resist to the end of existence and beyond.”

“Precisely,” she says—and hits his mind full force.

W
hat’s the problem?” yells Spencer.

“It may be a decoy,” says Jarvin.

“Fuck.”

It’s hard to tell. Which is probably the point. It’s made all the tougher by the fact that they’ve got no option than to stay on these rails. Because it’s all linear. There’s nothing in here but this shaft. They plunge onward while the pursuit closes in above them and they start to face up to the fact that the real pursuers may be elsewhere—

“Keep your eye on what’s below us,” says Jarvin.

“My thoughts exactly,” mutters Spencer.

L
ynx and Linehan impact onto the core of Szilard’s formation, slicing through it, blasting shit aside—bombs flung off to nail huge tractor-tanks trying to maneuver down rift-galleries … Lynx is splintering the zone in the faces of the Com marines as Linehan fires away. Bodies are flying.

“He’s moving,” says the Operative.

“I see it,” says Velasquez.

Szilard’s dwindling forces are still heading forward. The Operative takes a look at the fading zone sensors way overhead, looks at the camera-feeds on all those endless kilometers of upper levels, the lunar cities swarming with the ravaging Eurasian infantry, the slaughter now developing among the civilian populations—they are sparing no one, the Operative notes. He starts detecting wave anomalies radiating out from the Room—

—a
s the vanguard of Szilard’s bodyguards slams straight into Sarmax and Velasquez’s position, shape-charges eviscerating the marines as their second rank comes up. Sarmax can see Szilard’s retinue accelerating even further, abandoning most of the troops and dodging past his position—