The Mirrored Heavens (17 page)

“I mean that there’s no way you could be on the loose with just a piece of localized shit. They would have rolled up your identity by now. There’s no way you should be sitting before me, breathing. There’s no way at all.”

“What are you getting at, asshole?”

“That you’re working for the feds.”

“Already told you I ain’t.”

“So where are the others?”

“What others?”

“If you don’t enjoy federal blessing, then
where’s the razor who configured your identity
? And how come you ended up on my door out of all the doors out there? Listen, Linehan: I can take ordinary rudeness. I can take working on a need-to-know basis. I can even take not knowing if you’re going to try to stab me through the heart. But what I
can’t
take is not even knowing enough to get the job done. So you’d better start giving me a little bit more to go on.”

“Listen,” says Linehan, “what you gotta under—”

But Spencer’s just talking over him: “And you know how you can get some
extra credit
while you’re doing it? By giving me a little bit more of a fucking hint about what I’m going to get at the end of all this. Otherwise, I promise you, this isn’t worth it to me. I’ll jump ship at some point and take my chances on a lightning run.”

“Fine,” says Linehan, “you win. The others are dead.”

“What happened to them?”

“Blown out of an expresser about fifteen klicks up.”

“When?”

“Two days ago.”

“Two days ago? You mean—”

“Right,” says Linehan. “With all that Elevator shit, the fact that a suborbital bound for Paris had bought it in mid-flight and scattered itself all over Greenland several hours earlier got knocked off the headlines and never made it back. They’re saying structural integrity was lost. I don’t exactly know what the reasons for that were, but I can tell you that they weren’t accidental. Awful lot of fuel on those fuckers. They’re fuel-bitches, really. All it takes to send one up’s a little spark. And that was all it took.”

“And what set off that spark?”

“What didn’t? See, you could say that we were expendable. You could say that. But you’d be lying. We were worse than expendable. We were marked for disposal from the start.”

“Why?”

“Because we learned things we weren’t supposed to. That’s all, really. I’d reverse it, you know. I really would. If I could, I’d ditch my memory. I’d ditch it all. I’d go back to them and tell them I was gonna do all that. But they wouldn’t believe me. They wouldn’t listen. And even if they did, you know what this business is like. Dead meat—safer than live. Right, Spencer?”

“Sure,” says Spencer. “Dead meat’s always safer. Who are we talking about?”

“We could be talking about anyone,” says Linehan. “That’s the point.”

“So point me in the right direction.”

“No,” says Linehan. “Gonna give you a little bit now, and you’ll get the rest when we cross the border.”

“The rest of what?”

“The rest of the story, asshole. Way I heard it, you like stories. Right? That’s why you’re in this country in the first place. That’s all that gets the Priam Combine’s rocks off, right? You broker information. You profit from data. You find the juice, your masters sell it to the highest bidder. Well, this one’ll get bid so high it’ll melt the fucking auction. Think your team’s good enough to take that heat, Spencer?”

“Do you?”

“Does it matter?”

“Of course it does. Surely you wouldn’t sell to someone who wasn’t going to be able to handle it.”

“You’re confusing me with someone who gives a fuck, Spencer. As long as
I
pull it off, I don’t really care if
you
do. And it’s not like I had that many options. Couldn’t trust anyone I knew, now, could I?”

Linehan coughs. “So had to think about some possibilities I’d laid out in advance for just such a day. Some of the people I considered weren’t even guilty of espionage. But all of them had something they were trying to hide.”

“And I was one of them.”

“Yeah, Spencer. Just one among many. It’s true. But don’t feel bad. I chose you all the same. Because it wasn’t just a matter of being proximate. It was a matter of connections.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning I put my stash of names together from two different sets of sources. One was keepers of the records within this country. I had the inside track on some of them. Lots of records. Lots of keepers. Lots of data that some know, but not everyone. See, Spencer, the people who rule this country keep a lot of things hidden from one another. Always have, always will. And if you know how to work it, you can make that fact work for you.”

“What was the second set of sources?”

“Neutral data. I’m a little bit of a traveler, Spencer. Bit of a globetrotter. And if you want to get neutral dirt, best place to do it is beyond the Atlantic and Pacific firewalls. Right? So that became another asset that I had at my disposal. Things I dug up via the first set might have sufficed, but the second was my top choice. Especially now that a lot of shit that’s been buried deep is getting stirred up. So when the rubber met the road, I thought of you, on my second list and not on the first so far. Not too far away, either—and undoubtedly more than capable of helping me out. If you felt like it. If you could be made to see reason.”

“And your colleagues? When did you ditch them?”

“When they split for Kennedy. I figured that they’d be able to stay below the radar screen until they reached passport control. But I figured that after that they were gonna get busted. I didn’t place as much confidence in our razor as the rest did. Fucking optimists. They must have thought they had it made when they put the ground behind them.” He shakes his head. “Me, I cut loose. I turned to my portfolio of options. I turned to you, Spencer.”

“I’m touched.”

“You wanted more. I’m giving you more.”

“So tell me how you’re moving around.”

“Standard procedure. Our razor locked each of us into our new identities and threw away the key.”

“I’m surprised he didn’t hold on to your reins himself. Given how frisky you seem to be.”

“I had an understanding with her,” says Linehan. His lip curls upward in a half smile. “She helped me get away without alerting the rest of the team. I pointed out that my enhancements were going to make it tough for me to get through an ever-tightening border security.”

“Combat enhancements?”

“Look at me, Spencer. Take a good look. Even without weapons, I’m built for one thing. That’s going to be obvious to any halfwit customs software.”

“And now your razor’s dead.”

“She is,” says Linehan. “Turns out she couldn’t configure an identity strong enough to get out of the country. So she bought it. Along with the rest of them.” He shakes his head.

“Someone was willing to do a lot to make sure they never made it to Europe.”

“Someone was. Someone still is. So how do you propose we get there?”

“I propose we do what we’re doing, Linehan. Straight run to the Mountain.”

“Yeah. And then what?”

“Why should I tell you?”

“I’ve been giving. It’s time for some quid pro quo.”

“Oh really? So it’s quid pro quo day, is it? Tit for tat, huh? You haven’t even
begun
to level with me, Linehan, and now you’re saying I’m the one who owes
you
?”

“We’re on the same team, Spencer.”

“We’re not on the same team at all. This fugitive life has warped your fucking brain.”

“Then I’m gonna spell it out for you. We’re both professionals. Those who aren’t can never understand what that’s like. What those places are like. The one we’re in now. The one I’m coming from. But we can both come out of this winning.”

“Define winning,” says Spencer.

“Us both living,” says Linehan. “Tell me your plan.”

“You already know my plan.”

“I do?”

“If you know about Priam, then you know why we’re going to the Mountain.”

“To ask for help.”

“Exactly,” says Spencer.

“And how is the one you’re asking likely to take it?”

“Very badly, I suspect,” says Spencer.

T
he jet-copter slides down the runway in horizontal landing mode, slowing all the while. It slants off the straight, taxis along ramps that thread it through the heart of the spaceport’s tangled maze. It proceeds past other craft waiting. It waits while other craft proceed. Sometimes the runway upon which it rolls bridges other routes. Sometimes it’s the reverse.

“Complicated,” says Marlowe.

“It’s Houston,” says Haskell.

The craft rolls into a less-trafficked area. Lights rise and fall through the haze at the far reaches of the runways. Hangar clusters draw closer.

“Looks like that one’s ours,” says Marlowe.

“Take my advice,” says Haskell, “drop the possessives.”

“Why?”

Because: they’re lazy. They constitute labels. They represent assumptions. They hide the truth. Beyond the periphery of your vision: that’s where it all goes down. Behind your own eyeballs: that’s where it all hangs out. Secret names in the dark that you’re hiding even from yourself: shadowed orbits that might just be revealed when the mood strikes them.

Or you.

“All I’m saying is that we need to revert to first principles,” says Haskell.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” says Marlowe.

“Makes two of us,” replies Haskell.

Makes for one dynamic partnership, that’s for sure. She figures that must be the point. Volatility’s been known to strengthen the mix sometimes. Let agents bitch and moan and wonder all they want. But give them something to sink their teeth into and a reason to care…

“Tell me then,” says Marlowe, “how you think this’ll play out.”

“Take my advice,” she says. “Don’t think.”

The jet-copter trundles across an apron. It rumbles into a small hangar and rolls to a stop. The doors open. Marlowe and Haskell get up, get out, get hustled by waiting soldiers across the concrete and into an elevator set within one wall. Seconds later, they’re rising through the ceiling—and then through many more. It’s almost enough to make them think that this is the way into space after all. But eventually the elevator slows and stops. Their escorts lead them down another corridor and into a room.

With a view. Windows occupy the entirety of one wall. Gantries and runways sprawl all the way to ocean. The sky’s filled with craft receding and craft approaching. Exhaust hangs heavy overhead. Concrete shimmers in the heat.

“Welcome to Houston,” says a voice.

The voice’s owner sits within a chair set in the corner. He regards Marlowe and Haskell without expression.

It’s Morat.

Y
ou say that Earth’s south pole is dark six months a year? The Moon’s nets all twelve with ease. Picture Malapert Mountain gleaming overhead, a black and furnaced pearl. Picture a plateau anchored halfway down into the void beneath it—and you’ve got your fix on Shackleton. But to really understand that place, you have to move beyond it. So picture the trails that lead down to nowhere. Picture the prospectors gone missing for more than five decades now. The bulldozers that hauled away and never came back. The valleys that lead to cul-de-sacs of killing angles, the caves that become catacombs, the craters within craters within craters. So tangled, that land: even worse than man’s mind—and now the Operative wanders through the streets that make up an outpost suspended above the polar maw itself. He figures no one will give a shit about the Elevator down here. He’s right. These guys are rugged individualists. They think they’re so tough they don’t need a dome. Most of Shackleton is underground anyway. Including the main rail station. The Operative’s in that station’s lockers now. He keys the door to one locker in particular, picks up several packages. He whistles up a conveyor, places the packages on its platform, lets its gyro-stabilized bulk trail him as he walks out into corridors and passageways that are a lot wider than those within Agrippa Station.

Lot brighter, too. Turns out these guys are light hogs—they crank the illumination in compensation for their lack of sun. Technicians everywhere. Some suited. Some not. There are a fair number of soldiers. Ladders carve upward along the walls, lead to rows of shopfronts and businesses. Main drag, they call it—one lane for people walking and another for flitcars. Yet another for bona fide crawlers. And still another for thrusters.

But the Operative’s just walking. He leaves the central grid behind, leads his conveyor down a side street. The walls and ceiling close in. The passage zigzags through the rock. The lights grow more sporadic. Graffiti covers at least half the doors. What’s left of the overhead lighting stutters fitfully. The low-rent sector: and hopefully someone’s been paying the rent on one room in particular…

Someone has. The Operative triggers the lock, goes on in. It’s not much. Even less than what he had in Agrippa, in fact: just a cot and a wall-screen on one wall and a toilet on the other. Plus an incandescent coil overhead. The Operative flicks on the light. He unloads the conveyor and scrambles its memory before sending it on its way. He shuts the door, goes to work, starts opening containers. Five minutes later he’s standing in the suit. Its material clasps in around his legs, arms, torso. He hears his breath echoing hollowly. This suit looks like a typical miner’s outfit, though in truth it’s anything but. The Operative lets his weapons range upon his screens. He checks over all his systems. Suddenly he hears a voice between his ears.

Not his either.

T
he twenty-first century wasn’t long in the coming before New York started to grow again. Refugees from the strife down south, immigrants fleeing the chaos abroad, fugitives from the rural as the combines took over, escapees from the shutdown of towns—and all such infusions intensified by a proliferation of birthrates across all demographics as the world grew more desperate and the mass of population grew poorer and the peasant mentality took over on the streets. Wasn’t just New York by that point, either. It was Newark and Boston and Philly all rolled into one thing that encompassed them all and piled on upward toward the heavens. Same story for so many other megacities. The Mountain isn’t even the biggest of them. But at the dawn of the twenty-second century, it’s the largest in the States by far. For five hundred klicks, it’s the Eastern Seaboard. For two hundred klicks inland, it’s the land itself.