The Mirrored Heavens (11 page)

Shouting.

“The militia.”

“The suits are whistling up the dogs.” Marlowe eyes the stairs.

“We’ve got to move.”

“Where?” Marlowe leans into the doorway, hurls frag grenades across the room and down that stairwell. But when the explosions die away, the shouting’s still there. Only louder.

“How long do you think we have?” asks the razor.

“Maybe about another thirty seconds,” replies Marlowe. “How long do we need?”

They hear something else through the shouting. Something’s scraping along the roof, closing on the trapdoor. It’s dropping through.

A tether.

“Grab it,” says Marlowe.

She does. And as he follows suit, he primes the phosphorus charge, tosses it at the foot of the stairs. The tether’s going taut. They’re being hauled at a run up what’s left of the stairway. They lift their feet, loop their legs around the tether. They soar through the trapdoor, leave the roof behind. And rise into the burning heavens.

R
iley and the Operative make their way back through the chamber in which the latter rode out the initial climb. They trail cable out behind them.

“Careful,” says Riley.

But the Operative says nothing. It’s noticeably colder back here. The light from the glowsticks they’ve triggered plays fitfully upon the walls.

“Look familiar?” asks Riley.

“Not anymore,” says the Operative.

Riley shrugs. He moves to the door that leads to the cargo. He works the manual, slides the door open. The two men float like undersea divers into the bay. Which—since it’s nearly full—is really just a narrow passage.

“What’s in here anyway?” asks the Operative.

“Seed,” replies Riley.

“Plant or animal?”

“I think it’s both.”

“I hope it’s shielded.”

“Do you think that radiation’s killed us?”

“It will if we don’t start this fucker soon.”

“I’m not talking about our machines. I’m talking about our bodies.”

“Oh,” says the Operative, “those. Who knows? These ships are hardened against background. But a nuke in close proximity—that’s something else again. My guess, we should be okay. But”—he gestures at the cargo around him—“I hope you weren’t planning on having kids.”

“Never planned on anything,” mutters Riley.

They reach the door at the rear of the compartment. The Operative opens it. The room thus revealed is mere airlock. The Operative climbs in. He opens a locker, starts putting on a spacesuit, slotting equipment onto that suit while Riley slots the cord he’s been trailing through the airlock door’s cable-grooves. He locks them into place, hands the terminus to the Operative. The Operative inspects his helmet. He stares at Riley.

“One rule,” he says. “When I knock on that door, you open it. Got it?”

“Got it,” says Riley tonelessly.

“Then
begin
.”

He lowers his helmet—seals it as Riley seals the door. He turns to the next door: even thicker than the previous one. He unlocks the seals, winches the hatch open.

And stares straight out into planet.

It fills the view, a massive sphere half in shadow. The Operative crawls out toward it: edges through the airlock, deploys magnetic clamps, moves out onto the strait. He feels like an insect scurrying into infinity. He watches infinity spread before him, scattered through with stars. And the occasional explosion: flaring, dying away. They’re the casualties. They’re getting closer. The Operative keeps on crawling. The hull’s curve is sharpening. The planet’s curving away.

Finally the engines are silhouetted before him. The Operative doesn’t break pace. He clambers out into a wilderness of pipes and wires. He’s as careful with the cable he’s trailing as he is with his own suit: ensuring that nothing snags as he makes his way past the main turbines, out onto the side of one of the engine nozzles. He reaches the nozzle’s edge, climbs inside.

Metal closes about him. Space outside gets cut off. He worms his way deeper. It gets narrow fast. He crawls through into the reaction chamber. It’s just big enough for him to fit within. He crouches for a moment in the enclosed space—and then shoves the cable’s end into a vent, fixes it in place. The cable now stretches all the way back to one of the cockpit batteries. The Operative envisions Maschler’s hand hovering over that battery. Waiting for the signal…

But it hasn’t come yet. The Operative retraces his footsteps feetfirst. He wriggles out of the reaction chamber—wriggles back into the engine bell. He reaches that nozzle’s edge, climbs back out upon its exterior side. He begins climbing back up the engine block, retracing the cable’s trail. But he stops when he gets near the turbines. He starts opening the maintenance hatches that lead to the turbine gears. Normally the gears would be powered by the fuel they themselves power through those pipes and into the reaction chamber. But in order to set that fuel in motion they need pressure supplied by the peroxide, whose tanks are arranged in such intricate geometries down near the Operative’s feet. He uses the tools in his suit’s glove to unscrew safety after safety. He sees more flares bursting from the corner of his eye. He feels time closing on him like a vise. He flicks off the last safety, reaches beyond that safety, and releases one last switch.

Peroxide bubbles through a tube beneath his hand. The turbines start up. The Operative feels them churn. He pictures fuel and oxidizer being drawn into the reaction chamber. He pictures that chamber filling up. He yanks the cable hard.

And holds on.

Light blasts from somewhere behind him. Something slams straight through his suit and brain and just keeps going. Vibration washes over him in waves. He knows the hammer in his skull for concussion. He knows the wetness in his ears for blood. He feels the acceleration full against him. He pulls himself up along the turbine and hauls himself over the fuel tanks. He feels heat—even as he leaves the engine behind and gets out on the hull once again. But the warmth’s quickly vanishing. The temperature’s dropping.

Steadily. His suit’s clearly holed somewhere. Maybe he snagged it. Maybe it’s just burning through. Regardless, he’s starting to get short of breath. He’s starting to see stars for real now. The ship rumbles against him. It’s all he can do to hold on. He knows his time’s down to single seconds. So he cheats. His hand goes to his boot knife. His knife goes to the air tank on his back, stabs in, rips along it. Air shoots out. The Operative positions himself: lets go of the cable, lets himself slide back along the hull. He feels air shoving him. He feels air being sucked from him: he takes one last breath, reaches out to the door, grasps the hatch, holds on while his vision starts flashing. Dissipating air’s momentum tries to haul him onward. He jettisons the tank, pulls himself in, slams the hatch behind him, seals it. Black and red press in upon his vision. He strikes his hand against the inner door. It opens. Riley’s face is staring into his own—now unmediated by visor as the Operative hauls his helmet off and gulps in air. Riley looks at him, says something.

“Save your breath,” says the Operative. “I can’t hear a fucking thing.”

Together, they make their way back toward the cockpit.

T
ogether they rise into the skies. The Citadel drops away beneath them. The tether to which they’re clinging is retracting rapidly. The city starts to spread out beneath them. There’s no electricity left in it now, only flame. Smoke billows from countless fires. The lights in the sky shimmer on those rising clouds.

“Here they come,” says the mech.

The militia are swarming onto the roof. Four suits are flashing past them—rising toward the two who cling to the tether. But as the suits pass the tower, there’s a flash: the top of the structure is blown apart by the charge the mech rigged there. White-hot phosphorus flings itself everywhere. Bodies fly. Two of the suits get taken out.

But two remain. They climb. They’re opening fire. Haskell and the mech do the only thing they can: let go, drop along that tether, grab it again. Shots rip past them. It’s a trick that only works once. There’s nowhere left to go. They fire desperately at the closing suits.

Which suddenly get riddled. Hails of bullets rain down from long range, dissect the suits almost simultaneously. Chunks tumble back into the city below.

“About time,” says the mech.

But Haskell doesn’t answer. She’s just staring at the thing that’s spreading out across the sky. It’s like nothing she’s ever seen.

“The roof’s caving in,” she says.

She’s not kidding. Gigantic streaks of orange and white are sliding across the sky, glowing ever brighter as they drip in toward the horizon. They’re what’s left of the Elevator. They’re what happens when something big meets atmosphere. She can’t tell where this mother of all meteor strikes is going to hit. She only knows that it’s going to change the world forever when it does. It looks like it’s coming right down on her head. She’s guessing the real impact will be somewhere to the east. But that’s almost worse. The tidal waves set in motion will put both sides of the Atlantic beneath the water. It will be the kind of event that only satellites witness. Only the damned will see much more than that. Suddenly the sky above them goes white. It’s like the Earth has been thrust up against a supernova. Final nightfall’s ripped apart by false dawn. The superpowers have combined to destroy their joint creation. The def-grids on both sides have unleashed. Warheads are striking home from stations elsewhere on the planet. Directed energy’s blasting down from space. Crossfire becomes annihilation. There’ll be nothing left to hit the ocean. EMP drenches them anew.

“I’m blind,” Haskell says.

“Me too.”

But not permanently. And eventually their sight fades back in. To reveal a city that’s now a distant fire and a sky that’s still a long way from black.

And this tether hanging in between.

“Where are we going?” says Haskell.

“The only kind of craft that’s guaranteed to still be up here after all that EMP.”

“A zeppelin.”

“Exactly. I passed several on the way down.”

“Then you kicked off in style.”

“And you?”

“I think they briefed me off the coast and shipped me in.”

“What do you remember before that?”

“You.”

And the mech starts to say something, stops. Opens his mouth again.

“What do you mean?” he asks.

“I just mean you’re familiar.”

“How would you know?”

Because she saw his moves under pressure. Because she was inside his head. Because the whole time she’s been fighting for her life she’s been fighting the realization that the man she’s with is more than a stranger. She wants to tell him all this. She wants to tell him that he’s the living ghost of memory. But she’s not sure.

And she needs to be.

“Because I’ve seen you before.”

“This has been tough,” says the mech. “You need some rest.”

“But first I need your name.”

“My real one?”

“No,” she sneers, “just one of the ones you’ve discarded.”

“You’re asking me to break regulations.”

“Is that so bad?”

“It is if I comply.”

“Did regulations stop the sky from tumbling? Did regulations save that city from dying?”

“They might yet see us through this mess.”

“They’re what
caused
this mess,” she says. “They’re the root of the fucking problem.”

“Heads up,” he says.

A shape is looming out of the night above them. It’s hundreds of meters in length. It blots out the stars. It blots out afterglow. It’s hauling in the remainder of the tether.

“We’re here,” he says.

Rough hands grab them, haul them inside a room on one level of a much larger gondola. Haskell and the mech watch while the soldiers who’ve just pulled them in pull in the remainder of the tether. They stare at each other while a burning city floats through the dark several klicks below.

“You’re Jason Marlowe,” says Haskell.

“And you are?”

“Who do you think?”

She removes her mask with one hand, brushes brown hair back with the other. He stares at freckles and sweat—pulls off his own mask to reveal black hair and a bloody nose.

“Hello,” says Haskell.

“Fuck’s sake,” he says—and steps forward to embrace her. But she just steps away, leans back against the window.

“I
knew
it was you,” she says.

“They didn’t tell me.”

“Didn’t tell me either.”

“Guess they’ve got other things on their mind right now.”

There’s a pause. Soldiers continue to move around them, closing the trapdoor through which they’ve just come, storing away the tether. One of them turns to Marlowe and Haskell.

“You’re both wanted in the medbay,” he says.

“In a minute,” says Marlowe.

“Now,” the man replies. “We need you out of this room so we can lock it down.”

“You’ve got it wrong,” says Marlowe. “It’s the reverse.”

The man stares at him.

“We need
you
out,” adds Marlowe.

“Don’t take it personally,” says Haskell.

The man stares for another moment, comes to a quick decision. He snaps orders to the rest of the soldiers. They stop what they’re doing, exit the room in haste. Haskell and Marlowe hear them muttering among themselves. The words
razor
and
mech
feature prominently in the conversation. The door shuts behind them.

“As direct as ever,” says Haskell.

“Some things never change,” replies Marlowe.

“We’ve got maybe five minutes before they send someone down.”

“They can send away,” says Marlowe. “I doubt anyone on this ship outranks us. And I’m willing to bet none of the handlers are anywhere near
this
.”

He gestures at the window. She gazes at the colors rippling across the heavens, at the fires burning down below. Powered craft are starting to move through the skies once more, their lights flickering here and there amidst the dark. She takes it all in, glances back at him.

“So what is it you wanted to say?” she asks.

“I’m still trying to figure that out.”

She looks at him. There’s a long pause.