The Machinery of Light (21 page)

“Exactly what I planned,” says Sinclair.

“We’re all just your puppets?”

“More like all just part of the pattern.”

M
eet the Martians,” says Lynx, as he starts running jacks into the wires he’s ripped from the walls. Linehan keeps an eye on the corridor while he does so, trying not to think about all those staring eyes …

“What the fuck are you talking about?” he asks.

“That’s where they thought they were going.”

“What was the point of having them here on a warship, then—of lying to them?”

Lynx shrugs. “To make the overall lie that much more convincing?”

S
pencer drops from the duct into the room, takes in the scene. There’s a buzz as Sarmax opens up the one-on-one.

“Who the fuck is
this
?” he demands. But Spencer says nothing—

“You don’t recognize me?” asks the man.

“Should I?” asks Sarmax.

“Here’s a hint: you killed me once already.”

I
t’s very simple,” says the woman.

“I’ll bet,” says the Operative.

“I’m Claire,” she says dreamily.

“You’re on drugs,” says the Operative.

“Are those two things so incompatible?”

“You’re a
clone,”
he says.

“Not quite,” says Riley.

“You really want to discuss this in front of her?”

“Why not?” says the woman. “I’m at peace with it.”

“With what?”

“Being God,” she says.

A
nything but that,” says Haskell.

Sinclair laughs. “You think you’re God?”

She’s starting to wonder. Because all of a sudden her purview is stretching all the way to that shuttle in which Carson and Maschler and Riley are approaching Szilard’s lair. The ship that contains the cargo that’s made in her own image—the woman whose mind she’s now inside. She can’t control what that woman’s saying. All she can do is watch.

Though she really doesn’t want to.

“I think I’m going crazy,” she tells Sinclair.

“Crazy enough to believe you’re the one to judge the living and the dead?” He chuckles, and it’s somehow almost obscene. “You’re so much more than
that
bullshit.”

“I just want to be a normal fucking human being.”

“Your flesh is as close as you get to that.”

“My
flesh
is locked into a tank while a bodyless machine goes to town on it—”

“Control? Let it keep on flailing away.”

“But it’s about to enslave me—”

“Again, you’ve got it backward.”

L
ynx has ripped out a panel of the wall. Wires link him to the electronics behind it. All the bodies around him are breathing except for one.

“So who was he?” asks Linehan.

“Who?”

“That guy you just killed.”

“Luckless.”

I
’m Alek Jarvin,” says the man.

“Fuck,”
says Sarmax.

“Prove it,” says Spencer.

“The same way you could prove you killed me?”

Spencer gets the dilemma. Nothing’s certain these days. Not when faces are malleable. The man they shot to death in the floor of that safehouse back in Hong Kong, who looked exactly like a rogue CICom handler—he could have been a plant. Could have been hired to play the part—could have been
manufactured—
without knowing how the role was going to end. There’s no way to know for sure.

Though it’s possible to narrow down the options.

“You stole something from me,” says the man.

“Which you stole from Matthew Sinclair,” says Sarmax.

“Get your facts straight,” says the man. “I stole files from him, which I then compiled into my
own
. How much progress have you made?”

Spencer coughs. “We’re still working on—”

“We’re asking the questions,” snaps Sarmax. “Listen, asshole, even if you
are
Alek Jarvin, then what the fuck are you doing
here?”

“Staying in the game,” says the man mildly.

H
ate to break it to you,” says the Operative. “You’re not God.”

“But I will be soon,” mumbles the woman.

“You’re not even in your right mind.”

“I’ll be in
your
mind shortly.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” asks the Operative. He feels stupid even getting into this conversation. He feels even dumber with Riley and Maschler watching the whole thing. He feels his emotions getting the better of him. It’s not a feeling he’s used to.

“You’re being too hard on her,” says Maschler.

“You guys need to level with me.”

“We already tried doing that,” says Riley. “You wouldn’t listen.”

“Listen to
what?”
demands the Operative.

“The last words Szilard will ever hear,” says the woman.

S
uch a thing as biting off more than you can chew,” says Sinclair.

Haskell nods. She feels that’s all she’s ever done. She wonders if Sinclair’s some cancer that took her over long ago. She can still feel Control rummaging around inside her—can
sense Montrose somewhere beyond that, eagerly awaiting the results.

“Montrose made her bid too soon,” says Sinclair. “Should have kept Harrison in the picture for just a while longer. Too many players out there still. Too great a chance of getting squeezed.”

Haskell knows the feeling. She’s starting to feel increasing amounts of pressure in her skull. Her awareness is expanding out on all sides. Her head seems to be encompassing so much more. She feels herself gaining in everything.

Save understanding.

“Matthew,” she says.

“Claire,” he replies.

“What do you
want?”

“Nothing I don’t already have.”

A
pparently the dead have their uses. Lynx has thrust wires into various parts of his head, has slotted more wires into the skull of the man he’s killed. His eyes look like they’re far away. He’s smiling the smile of a man who’s found the thing he’s been seeking.