The Mirrored Heavens (31 page)

At first the Operative thinks it’s more explosions going off on the other side of the dome. But it’s not. Because the fires out there don’t seem to be rising. They seem to be sinking. It’s as though the dirt itself is getting burned away. What’s left of the tangled mass of vegetation is disappearing from view. The Operative feels the shaking beneath his feet intensify. The ground upon which he’s standing is very definitely tilting. He watches as the fungus garden starts to slope away from him. He can see exactly what’s happening. The floor of the place is collapsing. The foundations must have been burned or blasted away. But the blueprints show nothing beneath the dome save rock.

Which is beside the point right now. The Operative starts making for the other side of the island. Water sloshes beneath his feet, runs through channels where his and Sarmax’s boots carved trenches in the ground. There’s water pouring from the ceiling too. Sprinklers are going all out. The Operative stumbles toward the gazebo. It’s leaning to one side. But it’s still standing. The Operative pulls himself past it. Which is when Sarmax strikes once more.

Tracers whip through the air. Rocket-propelled grenades streak in. The Operative hits his jets, shoots upward. Explosions tear at him from every side. He can hear Sarmax broadcasting to him. He’s not hearing anything coherent. He returns fire with everything he’s got.

For about a moment. But then something strikes him on the head. Hard. Concussion sweeps against him. He feels himself being shoved downward. He realizes that what’s left of the dome’s inner roof is collapsing. That the outer roof might be coming with it. He hears Sarmax laughing. The ground’s folding up beneath the Operative. He feels everything above him bearing him down like an avalanche. He’s riding that debris, running downward over it, fighting for consciousness all the while. And now he’s through into more space—charging through underground corridors that undulate as the landslide that contains the garden’s contents piles down into them. Somehow he keeps moving. Somehow he’s not crushed. And at last those vibrations die away behind him. He figures that he’s chosen the right way by virtue of the fact that he’s still breathing. He figures that Sarmax is one step ahead of him—figures, too, that the man has more defenses down here. He reaches a fork. One passage slopes up, the other down. He chooses the latter, starts along it.

As he does so, he hears a rumbling. A large section of rock is descending behind him. What’s driving it is clearly mechanical. He almost hits the jets on reverse to try to beat it. But he doesn’t. Instead he charges forward, racing down the tunnel, using his hands and feet at intervals to push himself off the walls, floors, ceiling. He’s trying to stay unpredictable. He’s scanning every centimeter of those surfaces. When he starts to notice nozzles here and there, he isn’t surprised. They could be sensors. They could be weapons. Either way, he’s starting to feel like he’s getting warm.

And when he hears the voice of Leo Sarmax, he knows it for certain.

“Carson, Carson, Carson,” says the voice. “Did you miss me?”

It’s broadcast from the nozzles. It echoes in the Operative’s head. He doesn’t speak. Just listens. Just keeps rushing forward. Just keeps watching every centimeter of the walls…

“That’s good,” says the voice. “Real good, Carson. Had to ask, you understand. Even though you won’t answer. Let me assume, though, that answer’s the same as it was before: no and yes.”

The Operative just stares. He’s beyond blinking now. He’s gotten to the point where reflex and intuition blur. He reaches another fork. He doesn’t slow. He makes his choice, accelerates.

“Yes and no,” continues Sarmax, “no and yes. Can’t say I blame you. It was bad enough when I got here. It’s much worse now.”

Half fall, half dive: the Operative tumbles down a stairway in one motion. He vaults off the last step, roars down the new corridor like some avenging angel. He pours fire in his wake. He gets ready to pour fire out before him.

“Because the truth,” says Sarmax, “is that this whole game is going up for grabs. This whole scene is getting out of hand. And we, old friend, are right in the middle of it.”

Now the Operative comes shooting out into a wider space. It’s still a corridor but it’s twice as wide and twice as deep as any of its predecessors. It harbors far more choices, too: openings of every size and shape hewn into every one of its surfaces. The Operative feels like he’s been here before, like he’s in a dream.

But he isn’t.

“So we got to change it up,” says Sarmax. “We got to take you off the fucking
board
.”

All the nozzles in the space open up on the Operative. He’s getting it from all sides. Lasers sear against him. Bullets are right behind, albeit a little slower. Too slow: for now he’s charging down a side corridor, smoke churning off his armor, his own weapons flinging countermeasures back into the passage he just exited. But this new passage has its own defenses too. They open up on him. They flail against him at almost point-blank range. They carve deep into his armor, sending screens into static, comps into overload, fail-safes into action—and all the while the man who’s killing him keeps on telling him all about it.

“I think you can see where this is going to go,” says Sarmax. “Assuming your eyes haven’t melted yet. These are the last sounds you’ll ever hear, Carson. These are the final words your brain will ever process. Lynx never bargained on my real base being buried so far beneath the surface. He never counted on my sowing the black markets with false maps. All the inner enclaves of all my major residences, Carson: they’re all red herrings. The real ones are all off the charts. But that’s the way it always is with the truth. It’s always beyond the pale. Though it pales in comparison with the lies that surround it. Wouldn’t you agree, Carson?”

But the Operative’s not listening. He’s just flicking his wrists—letting grenades slot into his hands, flinging explosives in both his path and wake. It’s not an act of suicide. These grenades aren’t ordinary. Wavelengths of every size and hue rush over him. His sensors are being blotted out. He hits the dirt. He crawls on down that corridor while the lasers fire randomly. They’re blinded too. They’re trying to filter out the disrupters. They’re not succeeding.

Which gives the Operative some respite. Even as his mind’s frantically working to extrapolate what he knows against what he doesn’t. He takes a chance, shoots off down one of the adjacent passages, ignoring the guns that blast against him as he blasts downward through a suddenly larger space. Something strikes him in the back. He sees stars. He thinks he sees things below him—catches glimpses here and there: platforms hanging in the dark, vast ramps leaning through the gloom. He figures he’s already dead. He figures this is one demented Hades. He resolves to start the afterlife in style. He wafts in toward one platform in particular, throws his feet forward. He hits. He runs along that platform, then slows to a walk and finally stops.

This chamber is huge. It’s far larger than that dome. The floor’s not visible. The walls glisten with ice. Some of them are pretty much vertical. Others climb inward toward each other, as though the mountain that houses the cave has been turned inside out.

But what those walls contain is a maze of gantries and platforms and ramps. Electric lights hang here and there. Cranes tower overhead. The platform upon which the Operative has landed protrudes out over the edge of abyss. A single ramp connects it to the remainder of the structure. And standing in the shadows atop that ramp is Leo Sarmax.

T
he final stages of the race we call the border run. Take these curves too tight and you’ll fly off the rails and into hell. Take them too loose, and you’ll lose all speed differential. So now inside turns out, all colors are ripped asunder. Stars torpedo at you, lick away, and this ship keeps on shooting through this tunnel.

“We need more
throttle,
” screams Linehan.

“We can’t go any faster,” yells Spencer.

He engages the rear guns. The ship shudders as they discharge. Lasers and shells streak down the tunnel. The gunships giving pursuit absorb the former, dodge the latter—slide along a crossover onto parallel rails, let the rounds shoot past them.

“Can’t shake them,” mutters Linehan.

“Hold on,” says Spencer. He’s lashing out with newfound abandon at the razors a fraction of a second and several klicks behind him. They’re doing their best to get at him. But he’s co-opted the car. He can see it all so clearly—can see the way they configured the craft so that even if the zone
weren’t
being fucked with, it still couldn’t be seen by the rail’s systems. It’s been set up as a zone-bubble: a discrete set of self-contained logic that allows those within to control the rail’s currents, let them move like they weren’t there. Like water striders that ride the surface of a pond without breaking surface tension: it’s a delicate balancing act. It’s getting more so by the second.

But suddenly the cars behind them are slowing down. Suddenly they’re disappearing in the rearview.

“So much for them,” says Spencer.

“What’d you do,” says Linehan.

“What does it look like I did? Maglev speed depends upon control.”

“Which they no longer have.”

“Exactly.”

“Crash them into each other,” says Linehan.

“I’d settle for slowing them down,” says Spencer.

“Don’t.”

“Too late.”

For now he can see that they’ve switched off their engines. They’ve stopped interfacing with the rails. They’ve abandoned the chase. They’re no longer a factor. Spencer grins. And curses.

“What’s up?” says Linehan.

What’s up is that somewhere back down that tunnel something’s glowing. Something that’s getting steadily brighter.

“What the fuck.”

“They’re riding rockets,” says Spencer.

“We got anything similar?”

“We must.”

“So fire us up.”

“So no. We try that and we’ll just be dragging against the magnets.”

“So turn us off,” says Linehan. “Start us up.”

“Magnets are faster.”

“Then what the fuck you waiting for?”

The answer’s nothing. Spencer’s opening the throttle. He’s jury-rigging the ship far past the limits of its safety margins. It’s nothing but momentum now. The two men let vibration rise through them. They watch their pursuers fade again. Up ahead on the map Spencer can see the place where the tunnel starts blossoming—can see where the real warren kicks in. The tunnel steers just south of the Newfoundland Yards. Somewhere past that’s the place where the continental shelf ends and the real ocean takes over and the warrens drop several thousand meters. For a moment Spencer envisions looking at this route in retrospect and not in anticipation. For a moment, he imagines they’re already running beneath the real trenches of Atlantic. For just a second he sees them almost at the border…. But then his attention’s captured by yet another flaring in the rearview.

“What the fuck,” he says.

“That’s a missile,” says Linehan.

“I can see that.”

“Then you can also see it’s closing.”

“Eight klicks back,” says Spencer.

“Countermeasures.”

“I’m trying.”

And he is. He lets the rear guns engage. He lets lasers fly at the warhead. But it’s got countermeasures of its own. It’s taking evasive action. It’s eating light like no one’s ever fed it. It’s flinging out light of its own. The back of their ship is taking damage.

“It’s smart,” says Linehan. “It’s speeding up.”

“They’re falling back.”

The ships: they’re fading. They’re drawing off. They’re gone.

“We need more speed,” says Linehan.

“We go any faster and we lose control.”

“It’s either that or take a warhead up your ass. Take a look at that thing. Take a good look. Do you see what I’m seeing?”

There’s no way Spencer couldn’t. Linehan is projecting his extrapolation of the schematics of the missile straight into his head. He’s disaggregating all its parts. He’s highlighting all its components. He’s focusing on one in particular.

“It’s nuclear,” breathes Spencer.

“Tactical,” says Linehan. “But still overkill.”

“They’ll collapse this fucking tunnel.”

“I don’t think they care, Spencer. I think they just want to be sure.”

“Why doesn’t it detonate right now?”

“Like I just said, Spencer:
they want to be sure.
They want it closer. And they’re going to ride it straight up to our fucking bumper unless you floor this bitch like she’s never been floored before.”

Spencer does. They roar forward. All the while taking stock of what’s behind them.

“Four point six klicks back.”

“And closing.”

Not quite as quickly as before. But still just as inexorably. Their rear guns may as well not even be there for all the effect they’re having. There may as well be nothing in the universe save hunter and target. Only there is. Because the gap between the walls on either side is getting wider. The rails are sprouting more rails. The tunnel’s starting to fork into still more tunnels.

“The warrens,” says Linehan.

“We might make it yet,” says Spencer.

“What’s our route?”

“Follow the main line straight on through.”

“That won’t work.”

“Why?”

“We need to shake this fucker off. And we’re not going to do it in the straight.”

“Get anywhere else but the straight and it’ll catch us.”

“Give me the fucking map.”

“I already did, asshole. It’s in your head. You want a different itinerary, you better name it fast.”

“Let’s hit the Yards,” says Linehan.

“That’s insane.”

“So is doing nothing while a missile overhauls you.”

“You don’t get it,” says Spencer. “Whatever hack Control’s got in place extends only to the main tunnel and its auxiliary lines. The Newfoundland Yards are neither. We venture in there and we’re going to set off every single alarm and then some.”

“I don’t think you’re grasping our situation,” replies Linehan.

Another train takes that moment to charge on by. It roars westward on an adjacent track. It’s at least a hundred cars long, another transatlantic haul. It’s impossible to tell if those who steer it are aware of the chaos all around them. The missile darts sideways to avoid it, loses a fraction of a second in so doing. Its afterburners fire. It draws in upon its target like it’s being pulled in upon a string.